Thistle made a dubious face as she looked the man up and down. After a moment of quiet contemplation, she sucked in a breath. “Holy crap! You’re right!”
“Wait, Madam Rosa is really a dude?” Bay was dumbfounded. “How is that possible?”
“It’s called cross-dressing,” Aunt Tillie supplied. “I saw a show on it when I was watching the Oxygen network the other day.”
“Oh, well that explains everything,” Thistle deadpanned, annoyed.
“Why do you dress like a woman and offer your services as a fortune teller?” I asked. “More importantly, why do you dress in a hoodie and rob people?”
Madam Rosa … er, whoever he was … opened his mouth to answer, but the sound was drowned out by heavy footsteps approaching from the opposite direction. I glanced over my shoulder and my heart lodging in my throat.
“Someone is coming,” I hissed.
“And you’re all in big trouble now,” Madam Rosa howled. “Here comes my payback!”
Ten
Aunt Tillie moved swiftly, pointing the gun at the trees. Two figures exploded through the foliage, pulling up short when they saw the gun and frightened faces leveled at them.
“What’s going on?” Chief Terry barked.
“Put that down,” Landon ordered, pointing a finger at Aunt Tillie. “If you shoot me, I swear I’ll come back and haunt you until the end of your days.”
Aunt Tillie rolled her eyes, but lowered the gun. “We thought you were with The Hooded Marauder. Chill out. I wasn’t going to shoot you.”
“Who is The Hooded Marauder?” Chief Terry asked, giving Aunt Tillie a wide berth as he circled closer to us.
“That’s what Aunt Tillie named The Hoodie Bandit,” Bay supplied, her eyes busy as they bounced between Landon and Chief Terry. “I … um … we caught him, by the way. So … yay!”
Landon shot her a dirty look. “You’re in so much trouble.”
“Hey, this isn’t my fault.” Bay was instantly on the defensive. “You said the robber was out at Dead Man’s Hill. We thought we were safe.”
“Who do you think you’re fooling?” Landon challenged. “You’re all dressed in black and this one has a gun.” He took hold of the stock of the shotgun and gently pulled it from Aunt Tillie’s hands. “Did you shoot someone?”
Aunt Tillie nodded, solemn. “I shot The Hooded Marauder. We’re all good now.”
“You shot someone?” Chief Terry was beside himself as he pushed past me and focused on the figure cowering on the ground. “Who is this?”
“That’s Madam Rosa,” I supplied. “Apparently she’s really a man.”
“Oh, Criminy,” Landon muttered, slapping his hand to his forehead. “Every time I think this family can’t get any weirder you prove me wrong.”
“It’s not as if we’re dressing up like women,” Aunt Tillie pointed out. “Wait … that might’ve come out wrong.”
Landon ignored her and knelt next to Madam Rosa. “Where are you hurt?”
“They shot me! I want them arrested,” Madam Rosa barked.
Landon didn’t appear bothered by the tone. “You’re trespassing. They were within their rights to shoot you … not that I’m condoning it.” Landon sent Aunt Tillie a weighted gaze. “You’re in trouble, too.”
“Oh, yes. I’m quaking in my combat boots,” Aunt Tillie intoned, rolling her eyes. “Focus on the bad guy. Find out what he did with the stolen money. That’s your job, right?”
Landon scowled. “I’m going to have a raging headache before the night is over. I just know it.”
“I’ll make you feel better,” Bay offered, a winning smile on her face. “I promise you’ll feel better once this all sinks in and we’re sitting in front of the fire with hot chocolate.”
“You bet you’re going to make me feel better,” Landon muttered, shaking his head. “So, Madam Rosa, is it? What’s your real name?”
“My name was given to me by the gods,” Madam Rosa gritted out, the veins in his neck straining as he gripped his knee. “This really burns. Is it supposed to burn like this?”
Aunt Tillie shrugged. “It’s birdshot. It’s not supposed to feel like puppies licking you. You’re a bad man. You deserve bad things.”
“What is your name?” Landon repeated. “I’ll find out eventually. I have a feeling that once we run your prints we’ll find a record as long as Aunt Tillie’s tongue when she lies.”
“You’re on my list,” Aunt Tillie warned.
“I was born Ron Gibson. I changed my name five years ago when I found my true calling.”
“As a female fortune teller?” Landon pressed. “How did you fall into that line of work?”
“Is this really necessary?” Gibson’s face contorted. “I’m in serious pain.”
“We’ll get to that in a few minutes,” Chief Terry said. “You’re clearly in no danger of dying.”
“It doesn’t feel that way.”
“That’s probably the karma seeping into your soul,” I suggested. “Only a truly terrible person would pretend to be psychic and rob people.”
“Stuff it,” Gibson snapped. “It’s a legitimate job. You should know. You do the same thing.”
“She doesn’t do remotely the same thing,” Landon shot back. “She runs a store with her cousin. They sell handmade items and other tokens. They do the occasional reading, but they hardly wander up to random people on the street and steal from them.”
“Whatever.” Gibson’s agitation was profound. “What do you want me to say? I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else. I was out walking in the woods when I saw that little old lady working and thought I’d offer my help. I thought she was lost.”
“And you just happened to wear the same hoodie that the person who tried to rob the bank wore?” Landon challenged. “Clove saw you when you ran out the back of the newspaper offices. That building wasn’t empty. What were your plans when you got inside? Were you willing to hurt someone to get what you wanted?”
Gibson swallowed hard when he realized how deathly serious Landon was. “I … that wasn’t me.”
As far as denial goes, it was the weakest I’d heard in quite some time. “It was you,” I argued. “I knew there was something familiar about your eyes. The fact that I knew you as a woman threw me off. I’m guessing that was deliberate. I didn’t realize Madam Rosa and The Hooded Marauder were the same until I saw your entire face.”
“We’re going to find where you’re staying and you’d better hope we can recover that money you stole from Nancy Jarvis,” Landon said. “Then we’re going to have a really long talk about going after my girlfriend.”
“I didn’t go after your girlfriend,” Gibson protested. “I didn’t realize anyone was in the building.”
“And here I thought you said you were innocent,” Thistle mused.
“It doesn’t matter. We’ve got him dead to rights.” Landon cuffed Gibson and then tugged him to a standing position. “Let’s get him back to the inn so we can load him in the cruiser. I want to be done with him.”
“This really hurts,” Gibson whimpered, limping in exaggerated fashion. “I think my leg is falling off. I’m not making it up.”
Landon shifted his eyes to Aunt Tillie, suspicious. “What was in that gun?”
“Just birdshot.” Aunt Tillie said the words and offered her most innocent expression, but something lurked behind her eyes. Landon must’ve seen it, too, because he immediately started shaking his head.
“What else?” he pressed.
“Well, I might’ve cursed it so it burned a little extra something special,” Aunt Tillie hedged. “You know, some lemon rind and hemlock essence.”
“Isn’t hemlock poison?” Landon asked, turning to Bay as panic swept through him.
“Not in these doses,” Aunt Tillie answered. “It’s all good. He won’t die. He’ll just wish he’d died.”
“Well, I’m still going to swing by the hospital and let them look him over,” Landon said, moving awa
y from the field. He hadn’t so much as looked at the pot plants, which made me realize he hadn’t seen them. The cloaking spell was still working. “You ladies are lucky this ended so well. You could’ve been hurt.”
“You’re only angry because we caught the bad guy and you’re left with nothing to do but act as a chauffeur,” Aunt Tillie yelled to his back.
When Landon swiveled, his grin was impish. “You may have a point. Good job, everyone. You caught the bandit and saved the day.”
Aunt Tillie preened under the compliment. “Thank you.”
“You’re still in trouble,” Landon added. “I’d start running now.”
Aunt Tillie snorted. “I could say the same thing about you. You have no idea what kind of curses I can link with birdshot. Trust me. You don’t want to find out.”
I WAS late to breakfast the next morning. Sam was already seated when I arrived. I offered a lame apology to the guests while steadfastly ignoring my mother’s pointed glare.
“Sorry I’m late. I had an errand to run.”
“That’s okay,” Sam said, pulling out my chair so I could sit. “I almost cried because I missed you so much, but I somehow pulled through the terrible ordeal and remained functional.”
I rolled my eyes and dropped a kiss on his cheek. “It took me longer than I expected to return Nancy’s money to her. Thank you for that, by the way, Landon. She was so thankful she started crying. You even found her Christmas gifts. With the stuff she earned from us, her daughter is going to have a marvelous holiday.”
Landon shrugged, noncommittal. “Just doing my job. Once Gibson started talking we could hardly shut him up. We found a lot of items from various communities. We’ll see that all of the stolen items make it back to their owners over the next few weeks.”
“That’s good.”
“So Nancy was excited?” Bay asked. “I’m happy for her. I was worried she was going to have a rotten holiday after what happened, but she seems fairly strong. Now she can go back to enjoying her vacation.”
“She’s so relieved it’s almost cute,” I admitted. “I … um … gave her the coin, too.” I had no idea why I admitted it. I planned to take the secret to my grave – or at least hold onto it for a few days so I could work the situation to my advantage and mess with my cousins.
“You did what?” Aunt Tillie practically exploded at the head of the table. “Are you crazy? That man … er woman … er man … might’ve been crazy and evil, but that coin was a gift. How could you possibly give it away?”
“Because I don’t need it.” I saw no reason to lie. “I’m already lucky. I have a great man.” I squeezed Sam’s hand under the table. “I have a great family.”
“Other than Aunt Tillie,” Thistle interjected.
“Oh, well, that goes without saying,” I teased.
Aunt Tillie glowered in my direction. “You’re on my list.”
I ignored her. “I don’t know what it’s like to really struggle,” I supplied. “We’ve always had it good … even when we’ve had it rough. We’ve never gone hungry or worried about getting Christmas gifts. If you guys were afraid that you couldn’t give us what we needed when we were kids, you never showed it.
“Nancy is a single mom struggling to do her best. It seems as though she can never catch a break,” I continued. “That coin can do nothing for me but serve as a source of entertainment … and I’m sick of letting you guys kick me off ladders.”
Sam’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. “Kick you off ladders? When did that happen?”
I didn’t reply, instead focusing on Aunt Tillie. “That coin can mean the difference between a life of poverty and maybe something better for Nancy and her daughter. That’s why I gave it to her.”
“That’s assuming the coin is really lucky,” Landon pointed out. “How do you know that the coin wasn’t a fraud like Gibson? By the way, we ran his record. He’s been arrested twenty-five times in four different states. He runs the same grift every time.
“He comes to a small town and pretends to be psychic,” he continued. “In some cases he cons people to pay for readings. In others he robs them outright. He’s been doing it for a long time.”
“You got him to confess?” I couldn’t help but be impressed. “How did you manage that?”
“It was pretty simple,” Landon replied. “He was in a lot of pain and we refused to take him to the hospital until he told us everything. We couldn’t shut him up after that.”
“Well, I don’t have a lot of sympathy for robbers, but I’m not sure that sounds appropriate,” Winnie sniffed. “Isn’t that against the rules?”
Landon shrugged. “Do you care?”
“I don’t,” Aunt Tillie replied. “Did the doctor get all the birdshot out?”
“She did,” Landon confirmed. “She commented that someone had great aim.”
“I wasn’t aiming at anything,” Aunt Tillie countered. “I just didn’t want to hit the girls.”
Landon stilled. “Was that a possibility?”
“Of course not.”
Landon didn’t look as if he believed her for a second, but he let it slide. “You ladies got lucky.”
“We were smart and trapped a robber,” Aunt Tillie corrected. “We deserve a reward … especially since Clove gave away our good luck charm.”
“It wasn’t our charm,” I pointed out. “It was my charm. I gave it to a person who needed it.”
“Still, we could’ve used it for a few days before you got rid of it,” Thistle pointed out. “We could’ve bought more lottery tickets.”
“Or a still,” Aunt Tillie added.
“Or you could just be thankful for what you have,” I shot back. “You might not believe it, but you’re lucky, too. You already have a certain level of magic. You don’t need more.”
“Speaking of magic,” one of the women at the table said. She was a middle-aged woman with gray hair, and her eyes sparkled when she focused on Aunt Tillie. “We were kind of hoping you would show us how to cast a few spells today.”
Aunt Tillie’s face turned from mischievous to wan. “I’m sick. I was almost killed last night. I can’t possibly muster the energy.”
The woman’s smile slipped. “You were in a great mood a few minutes ago.”
“You imagined that.”
Sam smirked as he shot a look in my direction, clearly enjoying himself. That’s when I remembered one other piece of unfinished business. Instead of waiting for the right moment, I opted to drop the bomb in the middle of breakfast so I could enjoy watching its shockwaves play out.
“Speaking of imagining things, I heard a rumor while I was in town,” I said, reaching for the syrup. “Apparently Mrs. Little is telling all of the tour groups you’re the only real witch in town and that you can help people become powerful if they spend time with you.”
The look on Aunt Tillie’s face was murderous. “What?”
“You suck,” Thistle muttered, shaking her head. “You’re ruining my game.”
I ignored her. “I also heard that Thistle knew all along, and she told people it was true.” That wasn’t entirely true, but it wasn’t a complete lie either.”
“You!” Aunt Tillie’s voice was evil as she shifted her gaze to Thistle. “Oh, mouth, you have no idea the retribution coming your way.”
“She’s making it up,” Thistle protested. “That’s not true. Would I turn on you? You’re my family.”
That was a stupid question to ask, considering the situation.
“I’d start running now,” Aunt Tillie warned. “Your punishment will be absolute.”
“I vote for the bacon curse,” Landon announced. “Because Bay was bad and didn’t tell me what was going on last night, I think that should be her punishment.”
Bay shot him a dirty look and pinched his side. “No. I don’t enjoy smelling like bacon.”
Landon pressed a finger to her lips. “Shh. I’m talking to Aunt Tillie.”
“Oh, bacon is too good for this be
trayal,” Aunt Tillie said, pressing the palms of her hands to the table as she stood. “I have something better in mind.”
“Just remember that I wasn’t involved,” I said. “This is all on Thistle.”
“Don’t worry, little kvetch. I know who to blame.” Aunt Tillie strode toward the door. “Thistle is going to be sorry she ever met me. I swear it!”
Something told me Thistle already felt that way, but I decided to focus on my breakfast instead of the mayhem in the other room. “So, what is everyone doing today?”
And another normal day in the Winchester household was underway.
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About the Author
I want to thank everyone who takes the time to read my novels. I have a particular brand of humor that isn’t for everyone – and I know that.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Four-Leaf Clover: A Wicked Witches of the Midwest Short Page 9