by Tonya Kappes
“Yeah, something like that.” I really tried to see the face of the person who was being strangled under the water, but I’d wake up just as the body would turn.
“I will leave a note for Mr. Primrose to tell the new owners to look out for my bracelet.” I put my things back in the boxes, and was ready to leave.
I paused when we made it to the front porch and I glanced over at Mr. McGurtle’s place. I hadn’t seen him since I told him I was leaving. He made it clear he wasn’t happy when he said he had promised Darla he’d watch over me, and my leaving town wasn’t in Darla’s plan.
“Plans change.” I shrugged him off and gave him what few details I had about Whispering Falls. He’d actually heard of it through Darla and seemed a bit taken aback when I told him that Darla had a shop there and I was going to take it over.
Granted, she hadn’t been there for years, but I was ready.
Izzy, as Isadora liked to be called, had gotten me in touch with Bellatrix Van Lou, the owner of Bella’s Baubles, the only jewelry store in Whispering Falls. She had a small house I could rent until I found something to fit my needs.
On the way into the village, I motioned out of the Green Machine’s window for Oscar to go ahead. He was going to start his police duties today, and I was going to give Bella my first month’s rent.
Bella’s Baubles was like all the other stores in Whispering Falls. A quaint cream cottage with a pink wood door that was adorn with different colored jewels. The sun hit each jewel just right, showing its brilliant color.
I got out of the El Camino. Before I could tell Mr. Prince Charming to stay put, he was already doing figure eights around my ankle.
The store hours were painted on the sign that dangled from the stone casing. Morning to night. I was definitely morning.
“Come on,” I told him and walked up to the store. The door was incredibly heavy, I had to push with both hands.
Once inside, there was a small entry way that led to two other doors. One of them had a mailbox on it and the other had Bella’s sign on it.
Ding, ding. The bell above the door swayed back and forth.
“I’ll be right with you.” The voice came from the woman who was bent behind the glass counter. I could see her hand working in the case. She laid out pieces of jewelry by color. “I just got some new charms in and I wanted to get them out before the rush.”
Charms? Faintly I remember the man in the top hat telling me about this place. I had no clue that my landlord was the owner. I hurried over to see her selection, hoping there was a turtle to replace my lost one. Maybe I could get a real charm bracelet that fit.
“Your signs said the hours are morning to night. I assume you are open.” I craned my neck to get a better view of the charms.
She stood up and adjusted her shirt. No turban. Bella’s round cheek’s balled up through her grin, exposing the small gap between her two front teeth. Her long blonde hair framed her face, and cascaded down her small frame. There was no way she was any taller than five foot two.
“Get back here!” I yelled for Mr. Prince Charming who had jumped on the clean glass counter, and over to Bella’s side. I reached over the counter to get him, but he was already out of my grasp. “I’m so sorry.”
“You must be June.” Her smoky eyes twinkled with laughter. “And I’ve heard about you, Mr. Prince Charming.”
Great! I bet the whole town heard about the new girl fighting with Ann. I chalked one up for the new girl. . .me.
Completely embarrassed, I hid my face when I noticed Mr. Prince Charming had crawled into the jewelry case.
“He must like the lights.” There weren’t any other explanation. He loved to sun himself. “I’ll get him.”
Before I got around the counter, he was already out and dropped something out of his mouth on the counter.
“It looks like he wants to give you a charm.” Bella waved the silver charm in the air. “A square, Celtic knot. Good choice, Mr. Prince Charming.”
Mewl, mewl. He tiptoed around in circles, wagging his long white tail from side to side.
“I’m sorry. We have a strange relationship.” I pulled the rent check out of my pocket. I had to get out of there before the darn cat destroyed the place. “Here’s your rent. Thank you so much. I will be looking for a place soon.”
“Don’t worry about it. In fact, the cottage has the most beautiful view. Nothing else in Whispering Falls compares to it.” Her fingers worked on a piece of jewelry. “Here you go. Welcome to Whispering Falls.”
She uncurled her hand. Between her finger and thumb dangled a real charm bracelet with the Celtic knot attached. She shoved it towards me.
“He wants you to have it. Celtic knots protect you from evil spirits.” Her eyes darkened as she moved it closer. “Take it as a welcome gift.”
Evil spirits? What was it with this town and evil spirits?
“I. . .I couldn’t.” I wanted to so bad, and my gut told me to take it. “I can pay for it.”
“No.” She grabbed my wrist and clasped it on before I could object. “It fits you perfect.”
She was right. It wasn’t like the other bracelet that I had to clasp on a different link in order for it to fit. I let it fall, showing how well it really did fit.
I told her about how Mr. Prince Charming had showed up on my tenth birthday with the turtle charm attached to his collar and how I had lost it today.
“Fate.” She smiled.
“That’s something Darla would say.” I laughed, but abruptly stopped when we heard a blood curdling scream coming from outside.
We ran out into the street along with everyone else in Whispering Falls to see what the ruckus was about. Constance and Patience were standing by the lake just beyond A Dose of Darla pointing to something. Patience had her face in a handkerchief, sobbing.
“It’s Ann!” Patience screamed.
Chandra, Gerald, and Izzy ran to see what she was talking about.
The sky darkened like the lid of an eye.
I reached into my black bag and pulled out my cell phone.
I called Oscar’s cell phone. “Something is going on. You better get over to my shop.”
Within seconds, Oscar stood next to Izzy, while the rest of us waited in the distance, wondering what they were looking at.
Slowly, Bella and I made our way toward them, as did the rest of the village. There were feet sticking out of the long brush that grew on the banks of the lake. We watched Oscar pull the body out. It was Ann.
Quietly we all waited to see what was going to happen. Oscar was bent over her. Had she passed out? Was she sleeping? She wasn’t responding to anything Oscar was doing. He stood up, ran his hands through his dark hair. He turned to the crowd that had gathered behind him, me included.
“She’s dead,” he announced, but focused on me. “It appears she has been strangled underwater.”
There was a collective gasp. I looked around at everyone’s faces. Shock and outburst of cries filled the empty air.
“There is a killer among us.” Gerald’s voice echoed over Whispering Falls and it hung there like a thick fog.
He and Izzy whispered a few words between them before he walked over to me.
“That’s terrible.” My nerves tingled, thinking about a murder. I couldn’t recall any murders in Locust Grove, and I remember Oscar telling me that there was zero crime here.
“We need to talk.” He pulled my sleeve toward him. “You need to come to the station.”
Constance and Patience ran up. “Do we need to collect the body?”
“Yes, collect the body?” Patience repeated.
“Please.” Oscar nodded. He pulled his note pad from the pocket of his uniform jacket and wrote some things down. “I will need an autopsy as well.”
The twins didn’t hesitate. They folded their hands in front of them, and rushed back to the Two Sisters and A Funeral Home to retrieve the items they needed to get Ann’s body.
“They are the coroners too?�
�� I asked Oscar. I shudder to think of Patience’s repeating everything Constance said during a coroner’s “Y” cut.
In silence, I followed him down to the street. The station was just a little beyond the shop and in walking distance. I glanced back toward the Green Machine where Mr. Prince Charming was cleaning himself on the roof of the El Camino.
The police station was a little more modern than the other buildings. The concrete building had big, round windows that let in a lot of light. No matter where you stood in the office, you could see all the way down Main Street on both sides. I guess this was good for Oscar to be able to keep an eye out.
“Everything is so new.” I ran my hand along the gold name plate with Oscar’s title engraved on it. The paper sitting on the copier hadn’t even been taken out of the packaging. And each pen still had a perfect cap on it. No teeth marks.
“This is serious, June.” A sudden chill hung on his words, making me stop and look at him. “There is something you need to know about Ann.”
“Well, if you ask me,” I said and plopped down on the chair with wheels and slid across the room with my feet in the air, “she probably has pissed a lot of people off with her snide comments. She was rude. Not that I wanted her dead. Think about it, she treated me terrible and I had just met the woman. I wonder how she treated the people she really knew?”
Oscar cleared his throat. “June.” His stern voice was cold.
I dragged my feet across the floor to stop the chair. I swung around in his direction.
“Why so serious?” I smiled, hoping he’d lighten up, but I was sorely wrong.
The bracelet that I thought I’d lost dangled in the air from Oscar’s fingers.
“Where did you find it?” Excited, I jumped to my feet, and the chair flung behind me, hitting the wall. I grabbed it out of his hands.
“Oh!” Oscar tried to take it back, but I held onto it. “That was in Ann’s grasp. I had to pry her fingers apart to get it. Like she had been struggling with someone and she grabbed it off them. Now you have compromised the finger prints.”
“What?” I tried to sort through his words. Ann’s hands? I dropped the bracelet on the floor. I didn’t want anything to do with it. “How did Ann get it?”
Having touched something that was in a dead person’s hand gave me the heebie-jeebies. Eww. . .I rubbed my hands down my shirt.
“I was hoping you’d answer that for me.” His voice faded, losing its steely edge. It was a tone I knew well. The way he spoke about his other cases and suspects from Locust Grove was the same.
“Are you accusing me of something?” I drew back and looked him square in the face. “Because if you are, you’d better spit it out, Oscar Park.”
“No, but isn’t it evident that something is not right. You had words with her yesterday. She accused you of threatening her and then she shows up dead with your bracelet, that you lost, in her cold, dead hand?” Oscar marched back and forth rubbing his chin, and stared out the window.
“Do you honestly think that I killed Ann?” I nervously laughed. If anyone knew me better than I knew myself, it was Oscar. There was no way he could think that I would harm a flea, much less Ann. Did he?
“Great.” He stood still and leaned to the right to get a better view of the street. “It looks like members of the council are coming this way.”
Yep, my intuition told me this wasn’t going to be good. I would give anything to have a Ding Dong.
Chapter Seven
Izzy, Chandra, and Gerald hurried down the road. Izzy led the way as fast as her pointy-toed, ankle boots could carry her.
“That’s the council?” I asked.
“Mmmhmm.” Oscar nodded.
“I wonder what they are saying.” I peered over Oscar’s shoulder, watching the three of them banter back and forth. It didn’t look like a pleasant conversation. Izzy wrung her hands, Gerald gritted his teeth and Chandra had a nervous smile.
Gerald had his top hat off, and held it close to his chest while his other hand twirled one end of his mustache. Chandra tapped her blue nails together.
“You should have seen this coming.” Izzy grumbled. She held the door to the police station. Gerald and Chandra kept their heads down as they passed her. She shut the door and locked it. “Ann said that the crystal ball went crazy when June looked at it.”
“I don’t read the crystal ball. I read palms. Remember?” Chandra’s eye blinked rapidly.
The three of them huddled without paying a bit of attention to us.
Palm reading? I had come to grips with the Madame Torres globe, but palm reading?
I reached in my black bag for my phone, trying to remember if I had stored Alexelrod Primrose’s number. Surely the new home owners weren’t moved in yet. I could probably tell him that I wanted to move back to Locust Grove. Or better yet, move to the country like Oscar originally suggested.
“No.” Izzy’s head popped up out of the huddle. Her blonde locks swung in Chandra’s direction, catching Chandra in the eye.
“Ouch!” Chandra went down holding her hand to her face. “You have got to let me cut that stuff off.”
Izzy shooed Chandra and continued to focus on me. “No. You will stay here in Whispering Falls. We have an agreement. Besides, Alexelrod is one of us.”
“What?” Oscar looked between the two of us. “June, are you planning on leaving?”
“I. . .I. . .” I held my hands behind me as I backed up to get as far away from Izzy as I could. Truth be told, I was freaking out. How did Izzy know what I was thinking?
Everyone stopped when someone tapped on the door.
“Thank God, Mac is here.” Izzy flung the door open to Mr. McGurtle. “Please get in here. We have an issue.”
“What’s he doing here?” I asked about Mac. Wasn’t it enough that I had to put up with this nosy man in Locust Grove?
“Mr. McGurtle?” Oscar stood very still. His eyes narrowed. “What is going on here? I thought I was the law?”
“You are hired by the village council.” Izzy circled her long, thin finger between Chandra, Mac, and Gerald. “We are the council.”
“I. . .I. . .need a Ding Dong,” was the last thing I remember saying before the lights went out.
“June? June, dear?”
I felt a faint wind on my face that I wasn’t familiar with, but the rough tongue on my nose I knew. Without even trying to open my eyes, I reached out to pat Mr. Prince Charming. For a moment, I thought I was in my bed at the Locust Grove house until my senses rushed back to me and I realized the smell wasn’t different homeopathic ingredients, but the smell of sugary things.
“I think she’s with us.” Someone patted my hand.
Mewl, mewlllll, Mr. Prince Charming seemed to beg me to open my eyes.
Chandra stood over me, fanning me with her long scarf, her turban sitting cock-eyed on her head. Mr. McGurtle sat next to me and patted my hand.
“Mr. McGurtle, what are you doing here?” I tried to figure out where I was. The round, white table-cloth tables in the room were decorated. Each had a three-tiered cup-cake stand and a tea set, as if there was going to be a party. “Where am I?”
“I told Darla I would watch over you.” Mr. McGurtle smiled. He took a cup from Gerald. “Drink this.”
Chandra put her hands on my back and helped lift me to a sitting position. Once sitting, I could see that we were in Gerald’s shop He steeped a few more cups of tea. Izzy stood over him.
“How did I get here?” I was more puzzled than nervous, like I was before. No one wanted to answer me. Oscar was nowhere to be found, which was odd. He’d never have left me in Locust Grove if this happened. “Where’s Oscar?”
“Drink, dear.” Izzy gestured for Mac to give me the cup. “First, swirl it three times.”
Mr. McGurtle got up and let Gerald sit down. Mr. Prince Charming continued to make circle eights around my ankles. As silly as it sounds, it was actually comforting for Mr. McGurtle to be there if Oscar couldn’t. Hopef
ully, Oscar was on the hunt for the real killer.
Pweft, pweft. I spit some of the tea back in the cup. The loose leaves were stuck on the side of the tiny cup.
“Oh, can you flip the cup over on the saucer?” Gerald held a small plate on his hand. Feeling a little leery, I did what I was told. The quicker I did what they asked, the quicker I could get out of here. “Now tap the cup three times.”
Tap, tap, tap. The sound of my fingernail hitting the cup echoed throughout the shop.
Gerald took the cup off the saucer and handed it to Chandra who nervously looked at it. He twirled the plate, and intently stared at it.
“Gerald? What do you see?” Izzy stood over Gerald, casting a shadow over me. It was too dark to make out Izzy’s eyes.
“What is going on?” I asked, looking into the cup that Gerald held. . .the cup I just drank out of. “What is happening?”
“Give me a minute.” Gerald smacked Izzy’s hand away. “I see a wavy line in conjunction with an E.”
“Oh, that’s good.” Chandra chuckled bring her hands to her mouth. I’ve quickly figured out that when Chandra was nervous, she giggled. “An O.”
“Shhh!” Izzy warning was quick and fast. “Keep going.”
“There is an hourglass without a number. There is a lake with hands.” Everyone but me gasped.
“I have nightmares where someone is being strangled by hands, but there is no face and I can’t see who is in the dream.” I leaned over and looked at the plate. There wasn’t anything on it but damp tea leaves. “Um. . .you need to strain your tea better.”
Izzy pulled back, exposing the light. Fear, stark and vivid, glittered in her eye. “He reads tea leaves, dear.”
“Don’t worry. I have a call out to Petunia Shrubwood.” Chandra put Izzy and Gerald at ease, but didn’t make me feel any better. They ignored me like I wasn’t even there.
“Does anyone have a Ding Dong?” If I didn’t get a little comfort from somewhere, I was really going to kill someone. I could see my purse sitting on a different table. “Get my purse. There is one in there.”
Mr. McGurtle scurried to get it and brought it back.