The Rhinestone Witches Omnibus: Books 1-3

by Addison Creek

  “I know he will. I only wish we had more to tell him,” said Lowe.

  She was right. We really didn’t have much to go on. “We should look through the living room,” I said. “We should also get in touch with Jackie and Kelly. They’ll have heard exactly what happened by now, and I’m sure they’ll want to help.

  “Jackie’s mom is probably going to be angry that Jackie was even here last night. It’s not a good look for the mayor’s daughter,” Lowe said.

  “You have that right,” I muttered.

  “I’m going to shower. Then maybe we should start cleaning. I don’t know what to do about the living room,” said Lowe.

  “I’m sure Quinn will want us to leave it alone,” I said.

  I was in desperate need of a shower too, but I let Lowe go first while I started cleaning up the kitchen. There seemed to be a lot more cups than there had been guests. Either we were more popular than I had imagined, or each guest had used several cups. I figured it was the latter, but either way, the aftermath of a party was simply shocking.

  I plugged away at the mess until Lowe came and told me it was my turn. She took over the cleaning duties, yelling after me, “I hope you can cast a couple of spells when you get back. There’s this sticky goo on the kitchen counter that I don’t think will come off without magic.”

  After my shower I felt at least a little more alive. I made a point of putting on a nice pair of jeans and a nice sweater, hoping that looking decently put together would counteract how terrible I still felt. I was a new witch, and now there had been a murder in our cottage. To say that a lot was happening was an understatement.

  Lowe and I worked silently alongside each other, cleaning up the place. It had occurred to me that we might find a clue somewhere in the mess, but it soon became clear that there was nothing to be found except party debris. We took down the decorations and threw them away. We got out a broom and swept, while the cats chased the broom as we went from room to room. We had to set them straight about playtime.

  “Go find some mice,” Lowe ordered. Properly chastised, the cats left us alone to clean.

  All the while my mind was working. What had Sammy been doing at our cottage, anyhow? Did her murder have something to do with her interest in unicorns? I kept glancing out at the pasture as if I thought a group of Vixens was coming to try and steal all the unicorns. Was that possible? I had no idea. There were far too many unanswered questions, and all I could do for the moment was to sigh and keep on sweeping.

  It wasn’t long before our work was interrupted again.

  My mind was so focused on ways of snooping into this case that at first I didn’t realize that there was someone was knocking again. “I’ll get it,” said Lowe, when she saw that I was oblivious. She had offered to clean the hallway, but she was actually staring into the living room trying to get answers from the wooden floor.

  Her steps headed toward the front door, then her voice said loudly, “Hi Quinn. Hi Joy.”

  I dropped my broom and went to the door. Sure enough, the sheriff and his deputy had arrived. Quinn was dressed in his usual black uniform, and I could tell that he was putting all his weight on his good leg. That was a sure sign of stress or fatigue.

  “We’re here on official business,” he said. “We have to get your formal statements about last night, and we have to search the premises.”

  I was standing behind Lowe, so I couldn’t see her expression. But I was surprised by the hardness of her voice. “You do not have permission to search the premises. Do you have a search warrant?” she demanded.

  Judging by his reaction, Quinn was also surprised at her tone. “No, I don’t have a search warrant. Do I need one?” he wondered.

  “Of course you need one. The Rhinestones are a founding family. Our grandmother isn’t here to give you permission. We can’t just have people coming onto our property and looking through everything. That’s ridiculous,” said Lowe.

  I had never heard her speak like that before, but now that she was, the sentiment made sense. Bethel had hidden treasures all over the place. They were so well concealed that neither Lowe nor I knew where they were. If the sheriffs searched the premises they would probably find some of them. Then Bethel would be really angry.

  Surprised by the resistance to what he had obviously thought was a reasonable request, Quinn stammered over his response. “Legally we do have to get a search warrant, if we don’t have your permission otherwise. The fact that there was a murder legally allows us access to the living room without a warrant, but not the rest of the house. If you won’t give us permission, we’ll just search the living room today while we wait for a warrant from a judge. I’m sure the judge will grant it,” he added, though his tone wasn’t as certain as his words.

  Lowe crossed her arms over her chest. “Very well,” she said. “You can search the living room. I guess we don’t have a choice about that given the fact of the murder. But you can’t search the rest of the house unless a judge gives permission.”

  “Just so you know, you’re making it far more difficult for us to discover who murdered the young lady,” said Quinn sternly.

  “I don’t see how looking in my grandmother’s basement is going to help you with that,” said Lowe.

  Quinn made a face. “Fine. Joy can look through the living room while I talk to you and Jade. I need to know everything.” He strode toward the kitchen, and I followed. He was trying to downplay the fact that Lowe had refused him entry to the rest of the house, but it was obvious that he wasn’t happy about having to go to a judge for a warrant.

  “Why does the judge need to give permission?” I asked.

  Lowe, who was following along behind me, said, “Because we’re witches. Lots of coven families have delicate experiments and artifacts in their homes. You can’t just go around pawing them willy-nilly. The resulting explosion might create even more danger for everyone involved. You have to take care.”

  Quinn sighed and turned to her. “We would of course exercise the utmost care. Nothing would happen. We just need to know what Sammy was doing here, and we don’t know where the clues would be.”

  “That may be so,” said Lowe firmly. “But it doesn’t change the fact that Bethel isn’t here to give you permission. We know she’s the sort of witch to have a million hidden spell casts, cauldrons, and crystal balls around the cottage. Without knowing where they are, you could disrupt some powerful spell.”

  Quinn rubbed his temples. “Why don’t you two just tell me what happened last night and what you know about Sammy. We can start there and work the rest out later.”

  Lowe gave me a smug look. She felt she had won, but I wasn’t so sure. In the span of a morning, a lawyer had visited and Lowe had turned away some sheriffs because she’d rather take them to court. If the rest of the day continued at this pace, we’d end up in the middle of the lake in a sinking boat surrounded by Vixens.

  I really hoped the rest of the day didn’t continue like this.

  Chapter Twelve

  For the next hour we talked to Quinn about the party and its aftermath. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much information that was likely to be helpful. I hadn’t seen Sammy talk to anyone else, as I had already told Lowe. We didn’t know what she was doing at the party or why she taken an interest in the unicorns. I had been so preoccupied with being a good host that I hadn’t noticed where she had gone after we met. I didn’t want to say out loud that I had also been preoccupied with Quinn.

  “It’s just awful. If Jackie hadn’t accidentally short-fused the electricity, how long do you think we would have gone before we discovered the body?” Lowe whispered.

  “This is going to sound grim,” Quinn said, “but probably not long. There are enough spells on this cottage that something would have alerted you. Besides, you tell me that that chest is your grandmother’s favorite footstool. I’m sure she would have noticed that something was amiss as soon as she got home.”

  I made a face. The very idea sounded
awful. “I’m glad we discovered it instead of Bethel,” I said.

  “What a way for her to find out we had a party,” said Lowe, putting her face in her hands.

  We continued to talk, but there just wasn’t much to say. We didn’t even know who had told Sammy about the party. I couldn’t tell if her interest in unicorns had been beyond the usual; nothing had struck me about it at the time, at least.

  At some point in the conversation Joy came in. “Nothing else in there,” she said. “I don’t think there are any clues. The Vixen vapor from last night is at the lab. I ordered a rush job, so they should have some information for us by this afternoon.”

  “As far as we can discover,” said Quinn, “Sammy didn’t have any family to speak of. If either of you find out what she was doing here, please let us know. We’ll keep you posted on the judge’s order about letting us search the rest of the grounds.” He nodded his head, and he and Joy left the cottage.

  It wasn’t until after they were gone that Lowe said, “I like that by mutual silent agreement we failed to mention the lawyer visiting this morning.”

  I didn’t trust or like the lawyer or his motives, but that didn’t change the fact that my knowing stuff that the sheriff didn’t would assist me in my snooping project. I exchanged looks with Lowe. “We can’t remember to tell him everything. It’s been a long day already, and yesterday was worse. Is that really the law, that they can’t just search the place? I thought in the real world all the police had to do was ask a judge for a search warrant.”

  Lowe looked serious. “This is anything but the real world. We might want to be at the court proceedings about the warrant. The judge really needs to understand exactly what he’s dealing with.”

  “What are you talking about? Won’t he understand exactly what he’s dealing with?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “We just need to make sure he understands that if he lets the police search this cottage, he’ll be angering Bethel Rhinestone. I’m not sure he’ll understand that if someone doesn’t tell him.”

  Well, I didn’t want to anger Bethel, so maybe a judge didn’t either.

  “Maybe we should do a bit more cleaning, then head to the lawyer’s office,” said Lowe.

  I agreed, and we got back to cleaning. We were almost done when Spunk came into the kitchen, meowing his head off. I thought it was just cat noises, because that’s all I could understand, but Lowe knew better. Her eyes widened. “He thinks he’s found something,” she said.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “Outside. This way,” said Lowe, heading for the back door.

  We made our way outside, where the unicorns looked fine and the cats were patrolling as usual. Spunk trotted in front of us with his tail high in the air, leading us to a corner of the cottage where the snow falling off the roof was piled high. In the middle of the pile was a hole, into which Spunk dove. Just as quickly he jumped back out.

  “Let me see,” I said. Lowe picked up Spunk and started to rub his head.

  I stuck my fingers into the middle of the snow pile and felt something cold and metallic. I couldn’t tell what it was by feel, but when I pulled it out I knew.

  “What’s that?” Lowe asked me.

  I sighed and looked at her. “It’s meat tongs that you use when you grill.”

  My cousin swallowed hard. The hole in the snow meant that the tongs hadn’t been there long. The snow had come two days ago, which meant that the tongs had been thrown there sometime after that. Yesterday was unfortunately the most likely explanation.

  “Oh. That’s bad,” said Lowe.

  She was right.

  I took the tongs inside for safekeeping, but the last thing I wanted to do was think about them right now. We could decide what to do with them later.

  I changed from boots to shoes, put on a nicer jacket, and declared myself ready to go to town. The snooping was about to begin!

  “What Borough is Fairview in?” I asked Lowe.

  “I’ll look at the directory,” she said, and ran out of the room. I had no idea that there was a directory of anything in Twinkleford, but Lowe ran back holding the largest black book I had ever seen.

  “There’s that much going on in Twinkleford?” I asked as she dropped the book on the table with a thud.

  “There’s more. This is just the important stuff,” she said, thumbing through the volume.

  “He’s right downtown now. He used to be in Crown Borough.”

  “Oh, good,” I muttered.

  Before we left, Lowe gave Tiger a strict talking to. The other cats listened attentively, but Tiger was in charge. There were strange happenings in our little part of Twinkleford, and we were leaving the farm and the unicorns undefended except for the cats. Tiger was expected to protect the place, and the responsibility made his eyes sharper and his posture straighter. I’d bet on Tiger before I’d bet on a tank. Our home was in good hands.

  As we made our way to the trolley, I noticed that the sky was a strange set of deep blues. I squinted upward, trying to find a single cloud. As we walked through the trailer park, several residents came out to talk to us, all of them concerned about what had happened the night before. Strangely, Lester’s trailer was dark. The curtains were drawn and there was no sign of him.

  “News travels fast,” I said to Goldie, one of the trailer park’s elder stateswomen. She took no nonsense from anyone and was proud of where she was from.

  “Nothing wrong with a trailer park. Your friends are always close by for a laugh,” is what she liked to say. At the moment, she had come out to walk along the road with us, chatting.

  “Anything strange happen here last night?” I asked. We were in view of the trolley platform, but our transportation hadn’t arrived yet.

  Goldie scrunched up her face. “Now that you mention it . . . there’s always something strange happening in a trailer park. Last night, though . . . we were having a party. It was louder than usual and more folks were out and about. I even stayed up late,” she added proudly. “Always a bad idea, but such fun.”

  “Would it be all right if we came and spoke with some of the trailer folk later?” I asked.

  She frowned at me. Like, gave me a very hard look. “We didn’t see anything. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. Probably best if you keep away,” she said, her voice sounding harsh in a way I’d never heard before. She gave me one last glare before she picked up her skirts and stomped away.

  Lowe and I exchanged glances. “That could have gone better. I mean, it could have gone worse. She could have shoved you into the dirt. Other than that, I’m not actually certain it could have gone worse.”

  Goldie was already talking to her friends, gesturing angrily and pointing back at us.

  “Does she think we just accused her of murder?” Lowe wondered.

  “She really might,” I whispered. “Let’s go.”

  We had an uneventful ride downtown on an orange and white trolley, along with several members of a knitting club. They kept to themselves and so did we.

  Once we arrived, Lowe was in charge. As usual, downtown was bustling with all kinds of magical beings getting from one place to the next. Many of the cobbled streets had confusing twists and turns. I did my best not to get separated from my cousin.

  We were walking past a candy store called Twinkle Sweets when Lowe stopped short.

  “This place looks amazing,” she said. “We should go inside sometime.” Through the window I could see that the store was packed with goodies. As usual with candy stores, everything was colorful, from the merchandise to the paint job.

  “Sure thing,” I said. “Maybe next time we’re downtown.”

  Lowe pushed on. It turned out that the candy store wasn’t that far from our destination. The law office was at the end of the street we were on, marked by a gold sign with a black background.

  “Fairview, Breakwater, and Associates, Attorneys at Law,” Lowe read. There was no storefront along the street, just a door with gold lettering on it.


  I glanced around. In this upscale part of downtown, vampires in suits, ghosts bumping along, werewolves with their hair slicked back hurried past us, many of them holding briefcases, all of them looking fancy and official.

  “Shall we?” said Lowe. She sounded in no way certain.

  “We don’t have a choice,” I muttered.

  I pushed through the door and came face to face with a steep staircase. From somewhere above us I could hear the loud clacking of keys being typed upon.

  When we reached the top of the stairs we were confronted with the plushest office I had ever seen. There were dark leather couches, a gleaming wide-board wooden floor, and a receptionist’s desk made of cherry wood. The woman behind the desk had white hair cut short and perfectly curled. She was a very well put together woman, and I wondered how long it took her to do that hair every morning. She was the sort who wouldn’t be ashamed to run into the queen Carlyle witch.

  “Afternoon,” she said, without looking up from her frantic typing. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “No, um, we were told to just come by.” I was about to introduce myself when her head snapped up and her eyes took us in. Lowe was wearing every color of the rainbow, but she tried to offset the effect by standing up straighter.

  “You must be Jade Rhinestone and her . . . cousin. Yes, of course you are. Mr. Fairview said you would be coming by.” The woman smiled perfunctorily. Despite her bright red lipstick, there was no lipstick on her teeth.

  “Yes, thank you,” I said, expecting her to tell us what to do next.

  She simply kept looking at me. When the staring got to be too much, I glanced at Lowe, who was entirely overwhelmed herself and made no response except to raise her eyebrows.

  “I’ll sit, shall I?” I offered.

  Without waiting for the secretary’s permission, I did so. Lowe sat down next to me and started tapping her foot. A few seconds later the secretary looked at her. Lowe swallowed hard and ceased all movement.