by J L Collins
“Sounds like they were a match made in heaven,” I’d replied as I took down her notes.
“I haven’t really seen him around anywhere lately though, since Beatrice died. He’s probably still planning the cremation.”
I nodded. “Poor guy.” Going over the list we had so far reminded me of something else. Not to mention the growling in my stomach that wasn’t satisfied with just pistachios. “I don’t suppose you could give me an idea of where to go to pick up some supplies, could you? Since I’m going to be stuck here for a while.”
Goldie tapped a talon against the tabletop. “I’d try Ye Olde General Store.”
I blinked. “Um, all right. What’s it called?”
“Ye Olde General Store,” she repeated, this time slower. “You’ll find it easily on the map. In fact… it’s next to Pokey Moe’s.”
“Oh, right. How could I forget Pokey Moe’s? Now tell me, is that the bar next to Sassy Sally’s Hair Salon? Or the one across from Betcha Becky’s BBQ?” I slapped my thigh, I laughed so hard. Nan always said it reminded her of Granddaddy telling the worst jokes but I hardly cared.
Goldie was not impressed. “It happens to be the bar that Victor frequents the most. And I was going to say it might be worth a stop in before you went off the rails and turned into a seal clapping its fins together.”
“Ha-ha. All right, so Ye Olde General Store and then Pokey Moe’s. Got it.”
In the end, we’d come to one big conclusion that was possibly the jumping off point of our investigation. If Beatrice was purposefully murdered, then it must have been a water witch or wizard. They would be the ones with the power to control the avalanche since it was made of snow, and they could have diverted it somehow to suffocate her.
I bit my lip as I traced a circle around the next bullet point. “But we don’t know if she was hit on the head before she got stuck in the snow or after. And that’s a big if. I still say that my crowbar was planted there by someone.” Which left me feeling uneasy. It would be a much easier thing to explain away the hit on the head as an accident due to the avalanche catching her in its wake.
Then there was the fact that even if the avalanche was caused by a water witch, we still didn’t know how. According to what Fatima had told me during our last visit, as a rather nasty component of the big curse, no one could try and get rid of the snow. If anyone did, it would bring on several more days of worse, blizzard-like conditions.
“We found out the hard way the first couple of weeks into the following spring. It took the Special Council almost two months to work it out. No one was allowed to do anything to melt the snow purposefully or try to make it disappear. We could shovel it aside, move it around enough to clear the roads, but that’s it. Any more than that and the curse does its thing,” she’d told me.
Goldie stretched her huge white wings out and squawked. “I could poke around and see if I can get more info out of the folks at the police station. I’m sure that’s all anyone’s talking about anyway. Someone might let loose about her head trauma.”
“Look at you, Dr. Goldie, Medicine Woman. Okay, you do that, and I’ll work on the suspect list. Starting with Mr. Wimberly. The guy with t-rex arms, apparently.”
She nodded. “Works for me. I’ll be out tonight hunting mostly likely, but I’ll catch up with you in the morning.”
She took off and I leaned back in the chair, alone again in the library. Having something to keep my mind busy was the key to this whole thing.
Though I had to admit… it would’ve been nice to have someone other than a talking bird to talk with.
Even a brooding maybe-vampire.
13
Pokey Moe’s
I slipped my feet into the giant boots and took on the weight of them with a frown. I had no way of making money here, especially since all of my funds were in my bank and uh, I wasn’t seeing the credit union branch anywhere on the map. The feeling of being penniless wasn’t the first thing to slither under my skin and leave me feeling uneasy lately. And it probably wouldn’t be the last.
Shoving those useless thoughts aside, I pulled the heavy knitted cap I’d found stuffed into a chest at the foot of the guest bed down over my head and threw open the front door to the library.
The wind was calm, not a flurry in sight. Of course that didn’t count the thick blanket of snow already on the ground, but it wasn’t like that was going anywhere any time soon. I sighed and carefully picked my way across the steps. The tan sludge spread across them had me inwardly thanking Ash for salting the ice.
Without Goldie or Ash as my guides, I had to follow the map. Since she’d mentioned Victor Wimberly’s penchant for day-drinking lately, I scanned the map for this so-called Pokey Moe’s. It sounded less like a lyric in some sad country song, and more like the name of a kid’s arcade that served pizza with a side of creepy singing animatronics.
I managed to find Ye Olde General Store first, with it being on the corner of the main road leading into downtown, which I learned was Memory Way. It was a shame I had to walk a couple of miles in the snow to get there, though.
“Man, it would really pay to be a fire witch right now,” I grumbled. To be honest, I still hadn’t given my newfound earth powers a good try on my own. I didn’t know whether it was the fear of messing them up somehow, or the embarrassment of them being so weak.
There were more people out today than before. People shoveling the sidewalks, people carrying bags of groceries, a fairy floating along and pushing a baby stroller. Judging by the lack of coat or any other outerwear on her, she didn’t seem to be bothered by the cold. Must be a fairy thing.
A curved drive led up to a long brick building with a large matching sign out front that read ‘Charming Springs School of The Magical Arts - school back in session in the autumn! Enjoy your summer!’
I couldn’t help but feel bad for the kids here in town. What a way to spend summer.
From the road I saw the turn-offs into different neighborhoods, some boasting frozen fountains in the entrances, and one looking a little dingier, the remains of long-dead faded balloons still tied to a for sale sign out front. Looking past it, there were a dozen or so double-wides barely discernible under the snow. Apparently even in a town full of magic, you could find the clear cut of the railroad tracks.
I took my chances on the sidewalk, wary of the ice that still laid thick across it. It took me back to the year I broke my tailbone while helping Granddad clear the front porch after a freak snowstorm. A phantom pain ached where the sun don’t shine and I winced just thinking about it.
“Miss?” A small purple car with a blinking red light on the roof pulled to a stop on the road beside me. The man had the passenger window rolled down.
I stopped. “Yes?” This guy didn’t look that dangerous with the little hula dancer on his dash, or the starched white collar around his neck…
He flashed me a smile, revealing slightly pointed teeth. “Do you need a ride somewhere? I’m offering half-off fares this weekend.”
Oh, duh. This was a taxi—was it ridiculous that I half-expected to see an Uber or Lyft sticker in the window? Or both? And not only that, but he looked like he belonged in the church and not the driver’s seat of this little Barney-colored car.
“I would say yes but… I don’t have any cash on me. Sorry, Father.”
He chuckled to himself. “So you caught that, did you? Oh, that’s all right. I figured you might be low on money right now anyway. You’re the new visitor in town the Special Council’s been speaking about.”
I nodded. “Yes. That’s me.”
“Why don’t I give you a ride? Fare’s on me. No one should have no choice but to walk miles into town through all of this.”
I glanced at his collar again. “Can you answer a question for me first?”
“Why is a priest driving a taxi? Sounds like a terrible beginning to a joke, doesn’t it?” He waited for me to crack a smile and when I did, he continued. “The church’s pipes have burs
t and truth be told, the sooner we have a warmed-up nave the sooner our people will return. So I’m doing what I can to help pay for it. Sacred Heart Church’s tithes won’t nearly cover it,” he said matter-of-factly.
Sounded legitimate enough. “Okay,” I said, shrugging before I slid into the back of the car. “Thank you for the ride.”
“Of course. Now, where do you need to go Miss…?”
“Warren. And I’m on my way to Ye Olde General Store.”
“Seatbelt, please. And we should be there in just a few minutes, Miss Warren.”
The drive was quick enough as he said, but I felt bad for the awkward silence during those few minutes. I’d never had much of a chance to speak to a priest, nor did I want to pry. I had a bad tendency to say too much at one time, and the last thing I needed was the town’s holy man wanting to smite me, or however that worked.
We pulled up to the corner of Memory Way and Ravens Road, the general store’s large sign spanning across the building hard to miss.
“Thank you again for the ride, Father,” I said, pulling my coat tighter around myself as I stepped outside. “It was very kind of you.”
“No need to thank me. I’m just doing what I was put here to do,” he said with a wink.
“Drive a taxi?”
“To do God’s work. Have a good day, Miss Warren.” He bowed his head to me and the passenger window rolled up. He took off down the opposite way we’d come, the red light on top blinking again.
“Huh. A shifter priest driving a taxi. You don’t see that every day,” I said out loud, rubbing my gloved hands together.
Behind me loomed the appropriately named Ye Olde General Store, with its long display windows and gold-gilded architecture that would’ve fit right in during the 1920s. Heck, for all I knew, that was when the place opened up.
I made a grab for the front door handle but stopped. No, it made way more sense to start at Pokey Moe’s. Carrying around a bag of groceries and things inside a bar sounded off, and I didn’t want to stand out any more than I already did. Turning around, I walked next door instead.
Pokey Moe’s wasn’t as skeevy as I’d pictured, but it certainly wasn’t an upscale kind of place either. It was a crowded-looking bar—one of the ones with a bunch of signs and colors and way too many things too look at scattered all over the walls. The massive, mirrored bar boasted dozens of different high-end booze, as well as the more common brands. Taps were decent enough, but I saw plenty of little yellow stickers on them with the words ‘out of service’ scrawled across. So really there were only a few beers to choose from.
The bar itself curved around and sat roughly twelve, while there were a handful of other small tables with chairs scattered around the rest of the place with one larger, ripped leather booth hidden away in a dimly lit corner. The door groaned as I opened it but no one paid me any attention, thankfully.
Pulling my hat further down over my head, I made sure to tuck my hair into it completely. I didn’t need any townspeople to recognize my blue locks and start questioning me. Goldie had made it painfully clear that a lot of folks weren’t sure how to feel about my presence here.
I spotted T-rex arms himself, slumped over in front of the bald bartender. The expression on the bartender’s face told me he was regretting pouring Victor Wimberly his last drink.
Victor had his coat tossed over the back of the chair beside him, his dark blonde hair hanging in strings around his reddened face. Even from the front of the bar I could see the glassiness of his eyes.
I took in what he was wearing, all the way down to the fancy leather shoes he wore. The guy was one of those country-club tennis headband-wearing kinds of people, and I could definitely see how Goldie would call him a trophy husband. Not to mention, comment on his strangely short arms.
I slid into a seat at the end of the bar and pulled out my notebook and pen as nonchalantly as possible. Stuck in a conversation with Victor, the bartender didn’t seem to even notice me.
I pretended to sketch something with my absolute lack of drawing ability and angled myself to hear the two of them better. If there was one thing I inherited from my lackluster mother, it was her crazy sense of hearing.
Of course I wasn’t surprised to hear the slur in Victor’s words. I was surprised to hear the bartender, Larry apparently, commiserate with him not over Beatrice’s death, but over something entirely different.
“You d-don’t understand, Lar. Everything is g-gone. Without her I have nuthin’,” Victor moaned. “And now my Constance… she don’t want nuthin’ to do with me.”
Constance? I scribbled the name down in the notebook.
The bartender clapped his hand on Victor’s shoulder. “Vic. We all knew you were in love with her, hell even Constance knew. But you have to know… it doesn’t look good.”
“But I never did anything! I can’t be guilty of anything other than loving her. We never did—”
“Oh, I know man. Constance made that very clear. But Vic… if what she was doing gets out around town…” he sucked in air through his teeth. “It ain’t going to be pretty. There will be a bunch of angry wives out there.”
I blinked. Quickly writing all of this down, I listened in even harder. My mind wanted to go off in a million different directions, but I stayed still and waited.
Larry glanced in my general direction, and out of the corner of my eye I could sense him sizing me up. My heart raced, but he eventually turned back to Victor, dropping his voice lower.
“You gotta get this heat off of her, man. I can vouch for you here since you were here that night.”
Victor looked up, pure misery in his eyes as she pushed away the empty glass. “I wouldn’t have been there if you paid me.”
“Why’s that? I thought you loved watching her?”
Something about that set my teeth on edge. Who was Constance? And what the heck was she doing that would make the wives in Charming Springs get all up in arms? A few things sprang to mine and I couldn’t help but start drawing my own scandalous conclusions. In a small town like this, who knew what kind of secrets people had stashed away?
What I was really concerned with however, was the part where Larry said something about getting the heat off of her—her, I was assuming to be this Constance woman. What did Larry mean Victor was at the bar on ‘that night’? Was that night the night of Beatrice’s death? Or something else?
“I do,” Victor sighed then hiccupped. “But… I don’t want to see her performing in front of everyone else. I asked her to stop but she told me I was crazy. Told me I couldn’t control her. And then she took off.”
Larry scratched at his goatee. “That was before I showed up?”
Victor nodded without holding his head up from the bar top. “That’s when you came in for the night to take over for her. And then… everything else that happened that night. The night Bea was k-killed. I still can’t believe… I was here while she was being butchered!” He burst into tears, his sloppy sobbing getting to me.
I hated the sound of people crying, but this was all the more uncomfortable. A guy totally hammered and grieving his dead wife didn’t exactly leave one feeling warm and cozy. I gathered up my notebook and shoved the pen back inside, keeping a low-profile as I left. I had no idea if Larry watched me as I went, but I wasn’t about to turn around and find out.
So Victor wasn’t the killer after all. I sighed, tucking the notebook under my arm. At least I had a new name to add to the list.
14
Ye Olde Guru
For a ‘Ye Olde General Store,’ the place was pretty big.
The whole place was made up of wood—wood beams, wood stairs that led up to the second floor, wood tables and displays, wood signs, and wood racks.
There were dozens of small aisles full of all sorts of different things. Food and household supplies were off to one side of the store, while practically everything else was off to the other. Upstairs, I could make out even more items through the railing that overlook
ed the rest of the store.
If I didn’t know any better, I would’ve thought I was walking into a large Cracker Barrel—minus the biscuits and cornbread.
As far as I could tell, the place was empty. Huh. At least it was nice and toasty in here.
I slipped off my hat and tucked it into the pocket of my coat, shaking my hair out. To the right of the door was a small stack of plastic baskets just like you’d find at any grocery store. Funny how they looked so out of place here. I grabbed it and began making my way through the aisles.
I was lucky to find most of what I needed, plus a few extra things to help get the creative juices flowing. Exactly what I needed not just for the novel, but for the sleuthing too.
“Oh, yeah,” I whispered to myself, grinning like an idiot while I chucked a box of Oreos into the overflowing basket. With no room for anything else, I took my signal to head to the front counter.
I put the basket down to lean over the counter. Nope, no one was back there, either. I lightly tapped the brass bell to get someone’s attention.
“Just a minute!” a man’s voice called out from behind a heavy black curtain in the back of the shop. Moments later a familiar face appeared, flustered at first until he saw me.
“Whoa, I wasn’t expecting to see our newest witch in town. How are things going?” Prince, the water magic representative on the Special Council, stood with a small bucket in his arms.
“Hi,” I said, slightly bewildered. The Special Council seemed to have it out for me, but I didn’t see any evidence of malice in Prince as he strode up to the front counter and gave my hand a shake.
“Picking these up?” He nodded to the basket while he unloaded a box full of plastic lighters into a wooden bowl by the cash register. “You might want to think twice about some of it.” He nicked the Oreos from the top of the basket. “Most of these things are way past their expiration date.”