“Let’s go in and chat. I’m cold,” said Pep, who was in fact shivering. She was also having a hard time juggling Cookie’s packages and her mom’s worry. My mom took some of the packages I’d been holding and led us inside.
Audrey was waiting in the foyer. She hugged us all as well, even Cookie.
“Don’t bother pretending you’d miss me,” said Cookie, though I could tell that she appreciated the affection. Audrey rolled her eyes and ignored her.
“Come into the library,” she said. “We’ve banked the fire, so it should be plenty warm. I’ll get some refreshments. I can’t believe there was a murder! Do you know what happened?”
When I exchanged looks with Lark and Pep, Audrey said, “I’ll hurry! Don’t start the story without me.”
“A fine mess you created,” said Rose from down near my feet. Now that I could set the packages down on a side table, I picked up the white fluff ball and started to pet her. She purred loudly.
“I didn’t think I really did anything wrong,” I told her.
“Clearly it depends on your definition,” she explained.
“I suppose,” I said, though I didn’t really agree.
Soon we were settled in the library and Audrey had brought in a tray of refreshments. There were cakes, cookies, and scones, all of which looked delicious. I took a mug of tea and a cake gratefully. I needed it after what I’d seen. Despite her sarcasm, Rose knew I was upset and wouldn’t leave my side.
“Did you see who it was who’d been killed?” Mom asked.
We told her what we had seen. Her expression sharpened when I told her that the man had been at the haunted house the night before.
“With a companion. Maybe that’s who did it,” said Audrey.
“Maybe,” I said dubiously. They had struck me as a team, not as enemies, but I had barely gotten more than a glance at them so I knew I shouldn’t jump to conclusions.
“He might have skipped town by now, but we should try to find him if we can,” Pep mused. I agreed with her on that point. Locating the friend was crucial. He might be able to tell us what happened, or at least shed light on the victim’s background.
“I can go look for him,” I said, and started to remove Rose.
“Don’t you dare,” said my mom. “You think I wasn’t terrified enough already? You stay right there! Besides, they probably weren’t even supernaturals! The chief will take care of the investigation.”
I sat back dejectedly. I had known that my mom would react that way, but it was still annoying, especially since I did in fact want to investigate. Badly. Maybe not the most natural reaction when one sees a dead body in place of a scarecrow, but that’s what mine had been.
“Cookie, you should be prepared to be questioned,” said my mom.
“Why should she get questioned? She didn’t even leave the car,” Lark wondered.
“She’s the head of the household. The police are going to discover that those two men were here last night. We might all be questioned. Jane doesn’t remember much, but Chief Gray will still want to hear it. Especially if the second man can’t be found,” said my mom.
Then she took a deep breath and said, “You three can take the rest of the day off. Good thing the haunted house isn’t open tonight. Relax. Maybe help Audrey with dinner.”
In her usual decisive way, she stood up and glanced at Meg, and they both headed off to get back to work. I couldn’t blame them. Mom looked almost embarrassed at the emotion she had just betrayed.
Amidst the awkwardness, even Cookie was quick to head to her room, but Rose stayed with me as I went upstairs to shower and get cleaned up. Helping Audrey out with dinner sounded like exactly what I needed.
I was relieved to head for the shower. I hated to admit it, but part of me was also relieved not to be investigating. The scarecrow had been gruesome. Only someone diabolical would do something like that.
As usual, I had a sneaking suspicion that I knew who it was.
Chapter Eight
Rose had disappeared by the time I came out of the shower, her ways mysterious as usual. I spent an afternoon of quiet reflection, but eventually I was ready to go, more convinced than ever that the Root of All Evil was behind the Scarecrow Murder. It was only a matter of time before the police chief would show up to speak with us about it. Given that we couldn’t very well point him in the direction of a pack of murderous vampires, we’d have to figure out something else to do to help him out.
The idea that this was some normal human murder was impossible. A normal human murder was too convenient, and those strange men from the day before had not been just normal humans. If they had been, I’d eat an enchantment.
Audrey was chopping vegetables when I found her in the kitchen. “Want to join me?” she asked. “How are you holding up?”
“Yes, please, and fine,” I said. I slid onto a stool next to the island, picked up a knife, and started chopping carrots while we chatted.
“Down Below left you a note,” said Audrey. “Lark picked it up out of the mailbox before she went upstairs.” An envelope holding a folded piece of paper sat nearby, the stamp of a skeleton grinning on the outside flap. That was Peter’s signature. I picked up the envelope, examined it, and extracted the paper, which felt rough against my fingertips as if it had sat on soot and coals for a long time.
I read it to Audrey. “Dear Jane,” it said, “sorry to hear about the murder snafu. Better luck next time, I suppose. We here at Down Below want to extend our greatest sympathies on your stressful day. We would like to please add that we had absolutely nothing to do with that stress whatsoever. We also did not know Dean and Devin. We have no idea where Devin is, honest.”
His letter went on to wish me the best, including a spooky evening.
“You look shocked,” Audrey commented dryly.
“Um, yeah,” I said, shaking my head. For criminal masterminds, sometimes those who dwelled Down Below struggled to reach the lows of evil that other people reached easily.
“Let me help you with dinner, then I’ll deal with it,” I muttered.
“You’ll be hard pressed to find anyone around Down Below at this time of night,” said Audrey disapprovingly. “They’re too busy stealing and the like.”
“That’s true. I’ll probably have better luck if I wait till tomorrow,” I muttered, shaking my head again.
So, Peter of Down Below not only knew about the murder, but he also knew the two men. If he knew them, then probably others dwelling below ground did as well. Dean was the one who’d been murdered, and Devin was missing. Peter would be able to tell me who those two gents were, and my investigation would take a leap forward right at the start. My hunch had also been right. The two men hadn’t been just ordinary humans visiting the haunted house from out of state.
The downside of having Peter as a source was that it would make the chief’s visit to Haunted Bluff all the trickier. We would have to walk a fine line between revealing that the two men had been there the night before, and not saying anything else about them whatsoever. The chief was a nice man, but he couldn’t possibly understand witches. I didn’t care how well he knew Cookie.
“Hey,” said Lark, strolling into the kitchen. She too had showered and changed. She was now wearing black leggings and a black sweater with a large scarecrow on the front. “I thought it spoke to the times,” she said proudly of the sweater. I just rolled my eyes. Her red hair hung in wet ringlets as she examined the cooking.
“Make sure you don’t drip any of that water in my food,” Audrey warned her.
Lark got to chopping, while I told her about the letter from Down Below. She was delighted and didn’t hide it.
“How ridiculous,” she cooed. “They’re not very good at keeping secrets! Maybe those two men weren’t even here for the haunted house last night! Maybe they were here to go Down Below,” she added.
“It sure sounds that way,” I agreed. “I need to go Down Below as soon as I can and speak with Peter,” I said.<
br />
I was due for a meeting with them anyway. I could simply come to that meeting a little more concerned with murder than I had meant to.
“Evening,” said Pep, arriving in her turn. Her hair was blow-dried and she had put on a collared shirt.
“Hey,” I said. “Guess what!”
I told her about the letter from Peter, and she too was unimpressed with the tactics of Down Below but excited to have a lead on the crime.
After that, the four of us worked on dinner until there was a commotion at the door.
“Excuse me,” said a voice from behind us. All four of us stopped chopping and turned to look.
Steve was standing in the doorway, his skeleton arm holding the door open. We didn’t see Rose come bursting in until she rounded the corner. She was so hyped up that even Steve looked concerned.
But not Audrey. No cats in the kitchen was her absolute rule, although Rose broke it with regularity. “No, absolutely not!” Audrey yelled, pointing a spoon covered in tomato paste at the white cat and declaring, “Leave or die!”
“I need Jane! I have something to show her!” Rose was panting.
“What is it?” I asked the cat.
“You have five seconds to get that cat out of this kitchen before she becomes a former cat,” yelled Audrey, unmoved. “I’ve never tasted cat in stew before, but it certainly wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to take place around here.”
“I’m very sorry to have caused trouble. I didn’t mean to,” whined Steve. “Rose begged me to open the door and I thought . . . it’s just one door, you know?”
“Right,” I said, scooping Rose up. Her fur felt cold, implying that she’d been outside.
“Where are we going?” I asked her.
“You aren’t going to like it,” she whispered.
“It’s just that kind of day,” I told her.
“I’m showing you this and I hope you’ll feel proper appreciation,” she informed me.
“Yes, I’ll give you cheese later,” I replied. She nodded.
Once we were outside, Rose struggled to be put down, landing silently on her feet as usual. Once, when I knelt down to place her gently on the ground, she yelled at me for ten minutes that she didn’t want to be coddled.
“Some cats should probably be set down carefully, but I am NOT one of them,” she had yammered. Now I let her jump from my arms and show off.
She sped across the grass. For a split second I didn’t realize where she was going. And then I did.
She was making for the scarecrows that were still waiting to be picked up.
Lark and Pep weren’t far behind me, and when she too realized where Rose was going, Pep let out a strangled sound.
“This is bad,” she said.
We could all see the scarecrows as we ran. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what Rose had discovered.
Night had fallen and the air was crisp and cold. I smelled smoke coming from somewhere nearby and figured it was coming from either Cookie’s fire or Clover’s. The thought wasn’t comforting.
Rose never turned around to see if we were following; she knew perfectly well that she had our undivided attention. Nor did she take long to get to within twenty feet from the scarecrows, at which point she stopped and just stared at them.
It was the middle one that looked wrong. In fact, I had noticed it that morning; I had thought it looked bigger than before, but in the press of other concerns I hadn’t really focused on it. In fact, though, I had been right.
“Tell me the scarecrow decoration has been turned into a dead body,” Lark muttered. “At least they left the nutcrackers alone?”
“Pretty sure that’s what happened,” said Pep grimly.
“Think Mom will get her deposit back on the scarecrows if she can’t return all of them?” said Lark.
“No, as a matter of fact I don’t,” I said. “Come on.”
I hurried toward Rose, who was still at a standstill. She glanced back at me and yowled. “What do you think?”
“Is it a dead body?” I asked her.
“Sure is,” she agreed. “I was out here looking for mice and could smell it far and wide. No mice, though. Made it clear to those suckers they aren’t to come around here. They told me they hope I get eaten by an owl. I told them to scram. Now that my work is done, I’m going back inside, where all I have to contend with is a bunch of supernatural creatures and your crazy grandmother. I need the world to make sense again.”
Rose trotted away without further ado, leaving the three of us with the gruesome task of examining the scarecrow.
“You should probably get our mothers,” I told Pep, who was trembling. Of the three of us, she was definitely the one who couldn’t stomach blood and gore. She gave a squeak of agreement and rushed away.
“Here goes nothing. Are you ready?” Lark asked, giving me a pale glance.
“Yeah, let’s see if it’s the Devin character who’s supposedly missing,” I said. The pit in my stomach already told me it would be. We just had to be sure.
Lark and I stepped cautiously around the scarecrow, and to no one’s surprise we were right. It was indeed the second man from the haunted house and the farmers market. Instead of the scarecrow that was supposed to be decorating our lawn, there was a dead man. He was easy enough to recognize, but it wasn’t remotely clear how he had died.
Suddenly we heard raised voices, and the next instant Clover and his nameless apprentice came rushing over. When I didn’t turn my attention to him immediately, Clover started waving his arms and kicking at the ground. The apprentice looked as if he wished to disappear.
“Excuse me! Jane Garbo! Don’t you be ignoring me! What could you possibly have to do that’s so important?” Clover yelled toward me. Lark glared at him. She did not like raised voices unless she was the one doing the yelling. In that, she was much like Cookie, not that I was ever going to tell her so.
“We’re busy at the moment, Clover,” I said firmly. “If you could just wait a bit, I will speak with you as soon as I can.” What I really wanted to do was tell him to get lost, but I knew Mom wouldn’t like that. Clover brought in too much money at this time of year to make it sensible to kick him off the grounds of Haunted Bluff, or out of Shimmerfield.
“What do you mean you don’t have time to speak with me now! I demand you cease whatever stargazing you’re doing and speak with me this instant!” he growled. “This place used to be safe! It used to be my best time of year! Doldrums is what it is now! And you, the next generation, being obnoxious,” he huffed.
“I would appreciate it if you didn’t speak to my granddaughter like that,” came the high-pitched voice of Cookie hobbling toward us across the lawn with her walking stick. She liked wielding it, even if she didn’t actually need it.
Clover turned around to glare at her. “And I thought this night couldn’t get any worse!” he cried.
“What can I help you with while my granddaughter investigates a murder?” said Cookie.
Clover opened his mouth to answer before he realized what exactly she had said.
“What do you mean investigate a murder?” He was still shouting, but doubt had crept in.
“I mean that the scarecrow Jane is looking at is a murder victim,” said Cookie. “She just discovered it, and here you are making all kinds of noise instead of letting her concentrate on the investigation.”
While Clover took several deep breaths, his eyes moved from Cookie to the scarecrow. The apprentice slowly tried to back away. Never taking his eyes off the scarecrow, Clover reached out a hand to stop his employee. “If I have to deal with this nonsense, then you definitely do,” he muttered. Then he turned to me and asked, “Who was murdered?”
“We don’t know yet,” I lied quickly. The fact that Clover asked the question did not mean that he deserved the answer. At least not yet!
“We should call the police,” sighed Lark. “The chief will come right over and we’ll never get any rest. On our day off, no less.”
“Someone is dead,” I pointed out.
Lark sighed. “Yeah, I know. That’s sad, but let’s be honest, this is Shimmerfield. There’s never a long time between murders.”
“Today it was only hours,” said Cookie.
Chapter Nine
I examined the crime scene as thoroughly as I could before the police arrived. Mom came out and looked grimly at the scarecrow before going to talk to Clover.
Cookie stayed by my side the entire time. Instead of running a color commentary as I would have expected, she kept silent. When Mom finally left, Cookie said, “She’s worried about the haunted house business.” That made sense, but there was nothing I could do about it at the moment, or probably ever.
After that we waited in silence for the police chief to arrive. I tried to fix the details of the crime scene in my mind; I knew that Grant would be unhappy to have missed it. The wind picked up, and I felt gusts of cold air against my neck.
I was jolted out of my thoughts by a cry and a snap that made me cast my eyes upward. Pulsing, speeding, FLYING through the air was a dark figure. I gasped. My knees started to buckle, but then they held. The black cape, the black hat, all were familiar.
The next instant Grant, His Majesty of Magic, landed on the grass without the slightest bit of noise. For a moment Cookie, Clover, the assistant, and I all stared at him. For a split second there was utter silence.
“But you’re a warlock. You don’t use a broom,” was what Cookie said at last.
For the first time in my life my grandmother sounded not only surprised, but impressed.
Grant’s full mouth sliced into a smile. “I wouldn’t have the title I do if everyone could do what I can. Or if I revealed all my tricks,” he said.
“Clover Glove,” said Clover, stepping forward and extending his hand. “At your service!”
Grant shook hands with Clover as he looked around and tried to place the man. I had never heard his real last name used before. I was surprised that it wasn’t “Curmudgeon.”
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