The Case of the Sinister Spirit (Jane Gallows Witch Private Investigator Book 1)

by Leighann Dobbs

  Jinx snored on the couch the whole time we were talking, so I just left him there in the middle of the afternoon when I needed to get some fresh air and resupply my chocolate stash.

  The ambiance inside Charming Chocolates was as delicious as usual. Joe’s chocolatey gaze drew me to the counter like a moth to a flame.

  “Jane, so good to see you.” Joe’s eyes twinkled. “What did you think of my special candy?”

  “It was delicious.” It had been delicious, with a unique twang to it. “What did you put in it?”

  Joe smiled, revealing the dimple on his cheek. “That’s my secret. I couldn’t tell you, or I’d have to kill you. Now what can I get for you today?”

  And just like that, he was all business. I ordered an assortment of caramels and left the shop.

  As I was on my way back to my office, something familiar inside the nail salon caught my eye. Aunt Gladys. What was she doing in there? She never got her nails done. Tess, who was seated beside her, looked up and caught my eye. She gestured for me to join them.

  I opened the door, and much to my surprise, Chastity Saunders was on the other side.

  Her brows rose, indicating she was as surprised to see me as I was to see her. This must have been the spa appointment she mentioned.

  “Oh. Hi. Jane, right?” she said.

  “Yes. Nice to see you.”

  Her gaze wavered uncertainly. “Did you come here looking for me?”

  “Oh no. Just coincidence. My aunt is in here.” I pointed to Aunt Gladys.

  She looked back inside. “Oh, well. Nice running into you. Have a great day.”

  “You too.” As she walked off, I wondered if I should call her back. When we had been at Bud’s, Steve had said she paid more attention to Bud than Brent did. Maybe they were close. And she’d mentioned something about Charlie. Maybe Bud had told her something about him or she’d seen something. Given his creepy vignettes and the path between his house and Bud’s that he denied making, I was almost certain Charlie was lying about something.

  I continued inside the shop instead. If I was going to question her, I’d have to think carefully about how to word it.

  I sat down beside Tess. Glad’s hand was on the table. Lucy, the nail girl, was applying acrylic nails to the fingertips of one hand. Her nails on the other hand were all chipped and broken.

  “Check out my nails.” Aunt Gladys wiggled her fingers. “Tess is treating me to new nails. Mine are getting all broken and dirty what with my problems with the brooms and falling down in the dirt all the time.”

  Tess shot me a knowing look behind Glad’s back. Apparently she’d noticed that Aunt Glad was more concerned about her predicament than she let on and had brought her here for a little pick-me-up.

  “I’m surprised I’ve never done this before,” Aunt Glad said. “This place is a hotbed of gossip. I found out that Heda James is having an affair, and murder victim Bud Saunders’s daughter-in-law was sitting right there just a few minutes ago.”

  “Did she say anything about what happened to Bud?” I asked.

  Lucy spoke up. “Nah. She seemed upset about it. We know her pretty well. She comes in almost every day.”

  “Almost every day? Isn’t that a lot for nails?” I looked down at my plain fingernails. I’d never considered getting my nails done before. In my line of work, it seemed impractical. I often found myself scratching around in old drawers, driveways, and even dumpsters for clues.

  “It is, but she deserves to treat herself. Being married to that louse.” Lucy stopped her work, her brown eyes looking up at us above the blue mask over her mouth as she leaned across the table and lowered her voice. “I heard he cheats on her.”

  I glanced out the window to see Brent Saunders’s rusted-out car pulling away from the curb. Sympathy for Chastity bubbled up inside me. If it was all over the nail salon that her husband cheated on her, chances were Chastity probably knew about it. Poor thing, consoling herself with manicures and spa treatments. Why did she stay with him? Maybe she couldn’t afford to leave, but if not, how did she afford spa treatments?

  “Help me pick out a color, Jane.” Aunt Gladys’s voice drew me back to the present, and I looked at the bottles she was holding up. “Do you like the orange, the purple, or the blue?”

  “Blue.”

  “Blue it is! And put some sparkles or something fancy on the tips.” Gladys pushed the blue polish toward Lucy.

  “It’s good to see you so happy and chipper,” I said.

  “Yeah. I was getting a little bit down, but I feel much better today. Tess made a nice potion ... er ... soothing tea for me.” Gladys winked.

  I frowned at Tess. The last time she had made one of her potions, it had affected Aunt Gladys strangely, and she’d gone off the rails.

  “Don’t worry. It’s very mild,” Tess said.

  Aunt Gladys did seem happier, and she wasn’t doing anything wacky. Who was I to question Tess’s witchcraft anyway? I couldn’t even make potions.

  “I see you went to our favorite chocolate store.” Tess looked pointedly at the white bag sitting on the seat beside me and wiggled her perfectly plucked brows.

  I passed around some of the chocolates. “You know I can’t live without my chocolate.”

  “You sure it’s not that hunky chocolate maker you go there for?” Aunt Glad said. “Hey, you want me to whammy him with a sex hex?”

  Lucy stopped working on the nails and glanced up at Gladys, her brows mashed together like battling caterpillars.

  Glad glanced at her then must have realized she’d messed up and talked “witch talk” in front of a human. “I mean, do you want me to talk to him for you, dear? I could fix you up.”

  “No!” I didn’t need any fixing up.

  “It doesn’t have to be anything permanent, you know, dear. Why, when I was younger, I had lots of boyfriends, and some of them only lasted one night.”

  Aunt Gladys talking about her sex life was my cue to leave.

  “Thanks, but I’ve sworn off men for the moment.”

  I didn’t have to be psychic to know it was a smart idea to get out of there before the two of them ganged up on me with this fixing-up business. “Well, I’ve got to get back to work. You guys have a nice time. Will I see you for dinner tonight?”

  “Of course. Zelda’s making lamb, and I wouldn’t want to miss out on that. Besides, where else would we go?”

  Chapter Nine

  “I hope you’re refreshed. You slept all day,” I said to Jinx later that night as we walked up the steps of the mansion for dinner.

  “I’m nocturnal.”

  “Speaking of which, I hope you aren’t going to maim any mice tonight.”

  “Nah. I won’t be hungry. We’re having lamb for dinner, and that’s my favorite.”

  We opened the front door to the mansion to find our housekeeper, Zelda, standing in the hallway. She was wearing an apron dotted with flying pigs and an angry expression on her face. She jabbed her index finger at Jinx.

  “Choo!” she said. Her accent was always heavier when she was angry. She was angry a lot, and when she’d first started working for us, it had taken me a while to realize that “choo” meant “you.”

  “Choo to you too,” Jinx said, except all Zelda heard was “Meow.”

  “Did choo leave a dead mouse outside the kitchen door?”

  “Who, me? Nope. Must have been another cat. What about that pack of thirteen black cats in the barn?”

  The thirteen cats had been known to chew a rodent or two, but I was sure the mouse had been from Jinx.

  “Don’t choo look at me with those fake-innocent eyes.” Zelda scowled at Jinx for a few more seconds before turning her dark, smoldering eyes on me. “Your cat is problematic. Can’t you do something about him?”

  “Me? I have no control over that beast, trust me.”

  Zelda threw her hands up in disgust. “Choo people! Impossible!” She stomped off toward the kitchen, leaving me and Jinx looking at ea
ch other in the foyer.

  “That was weird,” Jinx said.

  Actually it wasn’t. Zelda was prone to irrational outbursts. But we didn’t have much of a choice, as we’d been through dozens of housekeepers in the past several years. Zelda was the only one that had stuck.

  I followed Jinx down the mahogany-paneled hallway, past the parade of dusty gilt-framed paintings of dead relatives, and into the dining room with its ginormous golden crystal chandelier.

  The food was set out on a hunting board, a mammoth piece of furniture with three-dimensional carved deer and fanged boars on it. It looked like something one might’ve seen in King Arthur’s castle, and I had been told it was practically old enough to have been there. Everyone was helping themselves. Aunt Glad was showing off her new nails.

  “Jane! Can you believe I broke one already?” She showed me her pinky finger with part of the nail broken off. “I got overexcited about Tess’s potion. Didn’t help me a bit with the brooms, though. Must be too early for that.” She let out a giant hiccup.

  Tess turned from her spot at the buffet, looking at Aunt Glad with concerned eyes. “Auntie, you didn’t drink too much of that potion, did you? Remember I told you only one thimbleful a day.”

  Aunt Glad looked shocked. “Of course not, my dear. I always do as told.”

  Tess’s eyes met mine. Since when did Glad do as told? Maybe a potion wasn’t a good idea after all.

  “I don’t think that Agnes Newman will be bothering us too much,” Aunt Wanda said as we all took our seats.

  “Who?” Hooter inched forward on his perch, looking at Wanda with giant owlish eyes.

  She turned to him and raised her voice. “Agnes Newman.”

  “Why not?” Liz asked.

  “I put a poison-ivy hex around the perimeter of the fence. Be careful if you go out there. I don’t think Agnes is gonna have time to come spying on us. She’ll be too busy scratching herself.”

  “So how is your case going, Jane? Did you find your ghost?” Uncle Cosmo glanced down the length of the table. “Lucretia, can you pass the salt?”

  The long dining room table had been in the family for centuries and could seat twenty. Although we didn’t have that many now, we often liked to spread out. Lucretia was at the head of the table opposite Uncle Cosmo. She took the crystal salt shaker, drew it back, and then zoomed it forward, letting go like a shuffleboard player going for the end zone. The conversation stopped as we watched it sail past each one of our plates. Uncle Cosmo caught it just before it tipped off his end of the table.

  “Ten points for that one, Lu,” he said. We kept score about how far we could slide things down that table.

  “I didn’t find a ghost,” I said. “I did talk to Minnie Wheeler and Sophie Liberty, though. They said to say hi to Wanda and Glad.”

  “Oh, I should’ve mentioned for you to go talk to them. They keep a keen eye on that neighborhood. Did they see anything at Bud’s?” Wanda asked.

  “Apparently they’ve seen and heard the ghost. They also don’t like Bud’s sons very much.”

  Uncle Cosmo nodded. “Bud and Claire had a hard time with them. He’s been very lonely since Claire passed, and they barely bother with him.”

  I cut a small piece of lamb and smeared mint jelly on it then talked around my food. “There was some mention about him cutting his kids out of the will. Do you think one of them would’ve killed him because of that?”

  “Bud?” Cosmo said. “Nah. He was always saying he was going to cut them out of the will. It doesn’t make any sense. Why would they kill him now? They would have killed him long ago if they thought he was really going to do it.”

  Good question. If Bud always threatened to cut them out of the will, something must have changed for them to act on it now. Maybe that change was the treasure. They’d both said they didn’t think there was any treasure there, but what if one of them was lying? What if they’d heard the rumor or seen the treasure hunters in town and wanted to cash in?

  “I also met his neighbor, Charlie Henderson,” I said.

  “Who? Who?” Hooter demanded from his perch.

  Wanda turned to him and yelled, “Charlie Henderson.” She turned back to the table. “I think that bird is going deaf.”

  “Old Charlie! Isn’t he a hoot?” Gladys asked.

  More like a crackpot. “Yeah, I guess you could say that. Did you know about his weird hobby?”

  “What hobby?” Uncle Harold asked.

  “He makes miniature replicas of famous murders,” I said.

  “Oh my, that is odd.” Aunt Lucretia flipped a small piece of lamb to Jinx, who let it fall to the floor. He inspected it from every angle then gave it a thorough sniffing before finally eating it. I wondered if he was as discriminating with mice.

  “That’s even weirder than Cousin Freddy’s death mask hobby or Sally Overton’s collection of rare spiders,” Tess said.

  “And how about Tommy Bartlett’s casket car hobby?” Liz added.

  “Charlie mentioned he has seen some treasure hunters digging around out at Bud’s,” I said.

  “Did he mention the ghost?” Aunt Wanda asked. “If Minnie and Sophie heard a ghost, then Charlie must have. His house is right behind Bud’s.”

  Charlie hadn’t mentioned any ghost. His house was a little way away, but it hadn’t taken me that long to walk there. Surely if the ghost was as loud as Minnie and Sophie had claimed, Charlie would have heard it. I turned to Liz. “Charlie said the treasure hunter had an old, beat-up brown Dodge. Is that one of the guys you mentioned before?”

  “Yes, it is. There’s only one guy now though. The other one said the place creeped him out, and he left town.”

  “Probably the ghost scared him,” Aunt Glad said.

  “Maybe. I guess the guy still here is harder to spook,” Liz said. “He’s staying out at the Coven Cavern if you want to question him.”

  The Coven Cavern was a one-star motel out on Route 6. Not one of the town’s finer establishments. I added a visit to the motel to my mental to-do list.

  “I don’t know if you should be going out to a motel to talk to some guy that could be a murderer,” Uncle Lou said as if reading my mind.

  My heart warmed at his concern, and he had a point. Maybe I shouldn’t be going out to talk to a murderer. Then again, I could bring my chocolates and hopefully get myself out of any trouble with a slow-motion or invisibility spell. “Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”

  “Do you think the ghost scared the other treasure hunter away and killed Bud?” Aunt Glad asked.

  “The ghost might have scared him away, but I’m not so sure he killed Bud. That Charlie Henderson seems a little unhinged. He almost shot me in the woods, then he conveniently brought up this treasure guy almost as if he was trying to push the blame. Minnie and Sophie never saw any brown car at Bud’s, though, and I don’t know if they just didn’t see it or if Charlie was lying. He could have known treasure hunters were in town.”

  “Well, I don’t know Charlie that well,” Aunt Gladys said. “There was just that one night ... and that was a long time ago. He did have some weird kinks, but he didn’t strike me as the type that would be a liar.” Hiccough!

  Wanda looked at her. “I don’t think we need to know any details, Glad.”

  “Either way, Jane, you better be careful,” Cosmo said.

  “And don’t forget, you want to follow through on all the suspects,” Aunt Lucretia advised. She watched a lot of detective shows on the big-screen television out in the mausoleum, since she was pretty much stuck in there during daylight hours. “You know what they say: the one who did it is often the one you suspect the least.”

  I knew that better than anyone. I’d still check out the treasure hunter and see what he had to say. And I wasn’t crossing Bud’s sons off my list yet, either. But Charlie Henderson had already lied to me about a couple of things, and in my book that made him a very suspicious person of interest.

  Chapter Ten

 
The next morning, I headed over to the Coven Cavern bright and early, thinking to snag the treasure hunter before he went out for the day.

  Jinx was in the El Camino with me as it sputtered across town. Yes, the car was ancient, but I liked it. The cat looked at me cross-eyed when I turned right instead of left toward the office.

  “Where are you going?” he demanded.

  “Coven Cavern Motel. Going to talk to that treasure hunter.”

  Jinx made a face. “That place smells bad.”

  “Yeah, I know. Sometimes you have to do things that aren’t particularly pleasant in the interest of the investigation.”

  “I don’t have to. I’m not going in with you.”

  “Fine. I don’t need you.”

  “Yes, you do.” Jinx sounded indignant.

  “Don’t.”

  “I help sometimes.”

  “Not often.” I pulled into the hotel parking lot, noting that a rusty brown Dodge was parked at the end of the lot. That must be the treasure hunter’s car. Now I just had to figure out which room he was in.

  You’d think I could use magic to figure that out, but I wouldn’t. Didn’t need to. I could employ good old-fashioned detective work instead. It was much more rewarding to do it that way.

  I drove past the brown car, noticing the plates were from Pennsylvania. I parked and went to the office, where I chatted it up with the clerk. He was a not-very-bright high school part-timer, so I was able to distract him easily. While he was out back looking in the lost and found for the glove I claimed to have dropped in the parking lot, I snuck a peek at the sign-in register. There was only one person signed in from Pennsylvania, Dave Brown, and he was in Room 10.

  If Dave Brown had any sense, he wasn’t going to spill his guts to some random redhead that knocked on his door. Luckily, I had another trick up my sleeve.

  He answered my knock dressed in jeans and a dark-gray T-shirt, his hair messy from sleep, a toothbrush hanging out of the side of his mouth. “Help you?”

  I shoved my hand out. “Pamela Wesson. Hallows Crossing Treasure Hunters Local Chapter Number Two Three Five Nine. You Dave Brown?”