“That’s fine. Thank you so much.”
I now had ten minutes to look for the article through the whole paper.
I was cutting it fine. There really wasn’t a rush. I could leave this to another day, but something was driving me on, telling me I was going to find out something important.
I sat down beside the microfiche machine again and scrolled along until I reached the paper printed on 24 April 1824.
I soon found the news article I was looking for and I stared down eagerly through the magnifying viewer.
What I read made me catch my breath.
Fire razes 17 Main Street to the ground.
At 2:00 a.m., fire broke out in the boardinghouse run by Mrs. Loretta Mills, thirty-five, widow of the late John Mills. Loretta Mills and her daughter, Nettie, died in the fire. All other residents managed to escape.
I scanned the rest of the page, expecting more. That couldn’t be it. There had to be more details.
But there was nothing else. No other mention of Loretta and her daughter, Nettie.
I blinked back tears. How sad. Poor Loretta. No wonder she had never wanted to discuss how she’d ended up as a ghost.
I still wasn’t clear on why she remained tethered to the diner, or what had happened to Nettie? Had she moved on without her mother? I’d never seen Nettie around Abbott Cove or the diner, and if she was still around, I would have expected to.
So I guessed she must have moved on, leaving Loretta behind.
But why? Why had Loretta stayed here in Abbot Cove? Was it because the fire had been arson? Was it murder?
Maybe Loretta would never move on until she found out what really happened that night back in April 1824. Until she’d made peace with what happened, she’d never be able to rejoin her daughter, and her husband too.
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“Harper! Quick! Your suspect is here.”
I pushed away from the machine and rubbed a hand over my face, trying to compose myself.
“Did you hear me?” Adele demanded. “We need to go now!”
Chapter Twenty-Three
As we quickly made our way to the Delish coffee shop, where we organized to meet, I felt my mouth go dry.
Maybe this really hadn’t been a good idea. I figured I had to be safe in a coffee shop. There were witnesses.
I took a calming breath when we got to the entrance, and then pushed open the door and stepped inside.
It was quiet. I’d hoped it would be a little busier, to be honest, because I thought there’d be safety in numbers. But even if there weren’t any other patrons, at least the coffee shop had staff, and staff were still witnesses.
There was only one table occupied in the small coffee shop.
A woman sat at the table, hunched over.
“Hello, Leslie,” I said.
She looked up and patted her eyes with her embroidered handkerchief. “Hello,” she sniffed.
“How are you bearing up?” I asked, slipping into the seat opposite her. Adele remained hovering at the side of the table, watching Leslie closely.
“I’m okay,” she said. “I just feel so disappointed and so terribly sad. Poor Stacie. She must be terribly disturbed to do such a thing.” Leslie looked up. “Have you heard whether the sheriff has charged her yet?”
I shook my head, and noticed that although Leslie kept dabbing her eyes, they didn’t look red, as though she hadn’t genuinely been crying.
“I haven’t heard anything from the sheriff’s office yet,” I said, “but I did have a question for you.”
Leslie blinked. “A question? Oh, what’s that?”
“A friend of mine saw you going in through the back door of Adele’s house while the open house was being canceled. My friend also said you were carrying a glove. You weren’t planting evidence, trying to make Stacie look guilty, were you?”
My question was met with stony silence. Although it was unnerving and made me nervous, I held my ground, meeting Leslie’s gaze steadily.
Finally, Leslie replied. “Your friend must be mistaken, Harper. I’ve never been inside Adele’s house.”
There was no friend, of course. I made it up. An elaborate bluff. But unfortunately, Leslie didn’t appear to be falling for it.
But I remembered Leslie’s flushed cheeks and guilty expression when I caught her creeping back round to the front of the house on the morning of the open house.
I was convinced I was right.
Leslie wanted her sister to be convicted of Adele’s murder. Maybe even enough to commit the murder herself and then plant incriminating evidence so the police arrested Stacie.
I held her gaze and she stared back at me and didn’t even blink.
“Why would I want my own sister to be charged with murder?” Leslie let out a laugh that was tinged with hysteria.
I kept my voice calm. “To inherit your parents’ money. There was a codicil in their will declaring Stacie would forfeit the inheritance if ever convicted of a crime. If she was convicted, the money would go to you as the remaining heir.”
Leslie’s features tightened. “That’s a very imaginative idea, but quite wrong.”
“Really?”
“Yes, like I told you before. I’ve never been in Adele’s house.”
Adele leaned forward, her ghostly face only an inch away from Leslie’s. “Come on, Harper. Do something. She is lying! I can tell by her shifty eyes.”
That was all very well, but shifty eyes weren’t evidence. I needed Leslie to confess. Somehow, I needed to trick her into confiding in me.
Maybe I should have made a better plan than hoping she would just simply break down and confess when confronted with my suspicions. But my mind wasn’t working at full capacity right now. Learning about the death of Loretta’s daughter had thrown me a curveball.
“Oh, I see. Perhaps my friend jumped to conclusions.”
Leslie’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t mention this to your boyfriend, did you?”
I flushed. “Joe isn’t my boyfriend. We’re just friends.”
Beside me, Adele gave a snort of laughter. “Now your eyes are looking shifty, too, Harper. You’re lying.”
I tried to ignore her.
“I’m really sorry, Leslie. I just had to check. I hope you understand. The whole town is on edge at the moment.”
Leslie leaned back in her seat. “That’s all right. It’s a difficult time for us all. Mind me asking how you found out about the inheritance?”
“It was all in the papers.”
Leslie glowered. “Oh yes, those awful gossip rags.”
The young girl who appeared to only just notice she had customers in the shop quickly came rushing over to our table.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, can I take your order?”
I smiled at Leslie. “Let’s have some cake. Bury the hatchet. My treat.”
“I’m really not sure I could stomach anything,” Leslie said, pressing her hand to her stomach, but she went ahead and ordered lemon cheesecake and a latte, anyway.
I asked for the same and the server disappeared back behind the counter.
“I didn’t need to plant evidence, sadly,” Leslie said with a sigh. “Stacie is guilty, and just between you and me, I’m pretty sure she poisoned her husband, too.”
“How awful.”
Leslie patted her eyes again. “Yes, it is. I was taken in by her completely. I still love my sister so much.”
We thanked the server as she brought over our cake and coffee, and after I had taken my first mouthful of lemon cheesecake, I said, “It’s so odd that she killed Adele, though. I mean, husbands and wives fall out all the time, they can have terrible relationships, but I didn’t think Stacie knew Adele all that well at all.”
Leslie finished chewing a large mouthful of cheesecake and then replied. “Like I said, Stacie was very competitive and couldn’t stand anyone beating her at anything. I think she just saw Adele as a rival she wanted to get rid of.”
I nodded thoughtfully, and then said, “Perhaps, and I shouldn’t really speak ill of the dead, but Adele could be very annoying.”
“Hey! I am here, you know?” Adele snapped.
“I had tea with her shortly before she died,” I said, leaning forward in a conspiratorial way. “Her house was all decorated in silver and white, a bit odd really. Everything was pristine, and she had a collection of teacups in the cabinets all over the walls in her living room. That was just weird.”
“I’m not going to stand for this,” Adele hissed. “Of all the rude things to say, Harper Grant!”
Leslie smirked. “You mean thimbles.”
I took a sip of my latte. “Sorry?”
“You said Adele had teacups in a cabinet, but they were thimbles. She collected thimbles.”
The smug smile dropped from Leslie’s face when she realized she’d incriminated herself.
“Ha! You called her out, Harper. Well done! Of course, I knew what you were doing all the time, I was just playing along.”
Leslie paled, and then her face screwed up in anger. “So what if I said thimbles? What does that prove?”
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the table. “It means you were inside Adele’s house, planting evidence to frame your sister.”
Leslie shook her head frantically. “No, it doesn’t. Adele just told me about her thimble collection.”
“No, I didn’t. She’s lying, Harper!” Adele insisted, poking Leslie with a long ghostly finger.
Leslie was completely oblivious.
“We both know that isn’t true,” I said softly. “You wanted to incriminate your sister and that’s why you went inside Adele’s house.”
Leslie gritted her teeth. “What do you want from me, you interfering witch!”
I smiled. Leslie had no idea how right she was. Though she’d use the term witch as an insult, I took it as a compliment.
“I want to know the truth. I want to know why you killed Adele.”
If looks could kill, I would have burned up on the spot.
I could hear the server behind the counter, though I didn’t dare look away from Leslie, and I knew there was someone else milling about in the kitchen. Though there were no other customers, I was confident Leslie wouldn’t do anything in the presence of witnesses. Reasonably confident anyway…
“I had to do it. Because law enforcement are incompetent. I set up the perfect crime. Stacie should have been locked up after the death of her husband, but the fools let her go. So I had to set up another crime for Stacie to take the blame.”
“But why?”
“Do you have any idea how awful it is for me? Always living in her shadow, Little Miss Perfect. Mom and Dad left her all the money because I’d had just a small substance abuse problem. One mistake and I was disinherited, cut off.”
She stopped ranting, realizing she had said too much. “I only wanted what was mine to begin with. Now I’ll have nothing, thanks to you.”
Then she looked up, a dark gleam in her eye. “Unless… I could cut you in, perhaps a hundred thousand dollars. If you promise to keep your mouth shut, that is.”
Like cutting a deal with a murderer was ever a good idea. Even if it hadn’t been morally abhorrent, I’d seen enough mystery shows to know that Leslie would kill me next if I took a bribe. Who in their right mind would ever trust a murderer?
I pretended to think it over.
“But why pick Adele as your victim?” I asked.
“Why not? I needed a victim and she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She smiled. “It could just as easily have been your grandmother.”
I clenched my fists under the table and my jaw tightened.
I wanted to throw hot coffee on her lap for that comment.
She held out her hand towards me, waiting for me to shake on it. “So, one hundred thousand dollars and you’ll keep quiet. Let’s shake on it.”
Adele was unusually silent. I guessed she was in shock.
Leslie thrust her hand at me again, impatiently.
“There’s no way I would ever do a deal with someone like you,” I said disdainfully.
Her temper exploded like a lit match and she made a lunge for me.
In an instant, I felt dizzy, as though the world was spinning around me, and in the next moment, I landed on top of the table on the other side of the room.
Uh-oh. I had teleported. The witches’ council would not be happy.
Still, it was an adequate distraction. Leslie gave a shriek of fright and darted out of the coffee shop.
Adele broke out of her daze. “Quick, Harper, she’s getting away!”
The commotion brought the young girl who’d served our coffee and cake out into the coffee shop seating area.
She stared at me, her eyes on stalks. “You’re really not supposed to climb on the tables,” she said.
“Sorry!” I called as I jumped down and set off in pursuit of Leslie.
“She’s heading for her car,” Adele shouted as she hovered beside me and pointed across the street.
I ran as fast as I could and Adele glided along beside me.
Over the pounding of my feet on the sidewalk, I heard Adele say, “It could have been anyone. We were looking for a motive, a reason for someone to kill me, when there was none. Anyone could have fit the bill.”
As we got closer, I realized we weren’t going to catch her in time. She opened the door of her car and jumped in the front driver’s seat.
“She’s going to get away!” I said, frustrated.
“No she isn’t,” a voice said behind me.
I spun around to see Deputy Joe McGrady leaning against the wall in an alleyway. Beside him stood Chief Wickham.
Joe held up an object that looked like it belonged in a car engine. I was no expert but I thought it was probably something essential.
I turned as I heard the choking spluttering sound of an engine that refused to start.
Chief Wickham strode around Leslie’s car and opened her door.
“Leslie Lightfoot, I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder.”
I let out a sigh of relief. As Chief Wickham completed the arrest, I turned back to Joe. “How did you know?”
Joe nodded behind me to where Grandma Grant and Jess were rushing towards us. “We got your message, and Jess called us as well to say it was urgent. It looks like we got here just in time.”
He didn’t look happy.
I lifted my hands. “I know what you’re going to say, but I was careful. I arranged to meet Leslie in a public place. Pretty sensible, I thought.”
“Maybe you should have waited for us?” Joe suggested. “Now that would have been sensible.”
“You’re probably right. Next time I’ll do that,” I promised.
“Next time?” He pressed a hand to his forehead. “Oh, Harper! Please don’t let there be a next time.”
I grinned. “I’ll do my best.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jess and Grandma Grant fussed over me as Leslie Lightfoot shouted abuse while Chief Wickham fastened her handcuffs.
“Thank goodness you’re all right,” Jess said. “Did she tell you why she killed Adele?”
“It was just luck of the draw, well, unlucky for Adele I guess. She just needed a victim to frame her sister, and Adele fit the bill.”
“So she stabbed Adele in cold blood during the spring fair?” Jess said, shaking her head in disbelief.
“I’m surprised she wasn’t covered with blood,” Grandma Grant said. “How did she manage that?”
“It was a sharp knife; one stab wound to the chest was all that was needed to kill Adele Silver. And there was no blood splatter to speak of. It wasn’t that type of wound.” Chief Wickham nodded at Leslie’s gloves. “And there were no fingerprints on the murder weapon.”
Leslie hissed and screeched as Chief Wickham led her away.
Chief Wickham and Joe took Leslie back to the sheriff’s office while I drove Grandma
Grant’s truck back to Abbott Cove.
Jess and Grandma Grant had traveled in Jess’s car, and went back, promising they’d meet us at the diner.
Grandma Grant was eager to give Franklin a call and let him know what had happened.
As we drove back to Abbott Cove, every now and then I glanced at Adele balancing in the passenger seat. I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination but I thought perhaps she appeared a little lighter, a little sparkly. I guessed it wouldn’t be long before she moved on.
“How are you feeling, Adele?” I asked.
I knew this news must have come as a shock.
“I’m feeling a bit numb,” Adele said. “I was so fixated on the fact that it had to be about me… I was sure it was Damien who’d stabbed me and it wasn’t. I was killed as part of a wicked plan by an evil sick woman. It’s quite hard to come to terms with that. It’s almost as bad as being killed in a restroom.” She shook her head.
“Well, I’m glad we got to the bottom of it. I have a feeling you’ll be moving on soon.”
Adele managed a smile. “I think you could be right. I do feel a bit different—Lighter, somehow…”
Adele and I chatted away and she asked me to keep an eye on Mia when she was gone. She was concerned for her daughter, Olivia, too, but I had a feeling, now she’d gotten rid of Damien, Olivia would be okay.
We parked at the back of the diner when I got a text message.
I quickly read it and smiled, showing it to Adele.
“Who is it from? Oh, Mia. How lovely.”
It was. Mia just sent a message telling me she was about to start a part-time job at the veterinary surgery in Cherrytown. It was perfect for her and her love of animals. I hoped that would make Adele feel more comfortable about moving on.
As we walked into the diner, I looked around for Loretta, but she was nowhere to be seen. I waved at Jess and Grandma Grant, who were already in a booth, and said I’d be over in just a minute.
I managed to avoid Archie, who was desperate to hear about everything that had happened, promising him I’d fill him in soon, and quickly ducked into the back room with Adele.
A Witchy Bake-off Page 15