Witch of a Neighbor (Witch Reborn Book 6)

by Belinda White

  Orville grunted but kept driving. He knew how much that answer had cost me to give him. Respected that cost with the silence it deserved, too.

  We got to the Sheriff’s Office right at eight o’clock sharp. The deputies just coming on duty were leaving to start their patrols, and Patricia Bluespring, the new Wind’s Crossing sheriff, was sitting in her little office nursing a cup of coffee.

  “How’s it going, Patty?” Orville asked as we walked up to her open office door.

  She glanced up and instantly smiled. “Well, if it isn’t one of my two favorite ex-sheriffs. Come in, you guys, and make yourself at home.”

  I wouldn’t exactly call sitting in the two guest chairs in front of her desk in her small, cramped office with light gray walls making myself at home, but I appreciated the words all the same.

  Patty waited until we were seated. “Something tells me this isn’t just a social call.”

  I left it to Orville to explain the situation. He was better at knowing exactly what she needed to know to give us exactly what we needed. Namely, the files on the burglary cases.

  When he was done, the office was quiet for a minute. “I sure wish your company had come to this conclusion a couple of weeks ago. It would have saved me a lot of time and aggravation.” She ran a hand through her short hair. “For what it’s worth, I agree with their conclusion. I’ve started looking into Morgan’s agency dealings too.”

  I glanced over at Orville. If the sheriff was already involved in this, then did we really need to be? We could just introduce the insurance company handler to Patty and hand it over to her.

  At least that was on the table before she continued. “To be honest, I have so much on my plate right now that handing this off to you two seems a bit like the Goddess’s hand at work. So what do you need from me?”

  A short time later, we were three files heavier and ready to go. Patty stopped us before we stood. She wasn’t quite through.

  “There is something about these cases that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately.”

  Orville met her eyes. “Oh?”

  She nodded to the files in my hand. “I think those are just the tip of the iceberg.”

  I frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

  Patty shrugged. “Think about it. How organized are most people when they move? How many items could have been taken with the owners just assuming that they were lost in the move?”

  Crapsnackles. That was an excellent point.

  “That’s especially true when you start looking at the things that were taken. Some of them weren’t really all that valuable. It almost reminds me of someone going shopping with a list. Or maybe comparison shopping, you know? When they see an upgrade they want, they just take it.”

  I opened the file on top and glanced at the list. She was right. Three items had been stolen. A Gibson Nighthawk acoustic guitar, valued around two thousand, a guitar stand, and the guitar’s case.

  Patty glanced over at the file, then nodded. “That’s an excellent case in point. The burglar took the Nighthawk, but left the Hummingdove Starburst model worth—I don’t know—five times more? It just makes little sense. Unless they wanted it for a private collection or something.” She paused. “For that matter, if they were taking one valuable old guitar, why not take the man’s entire collection? There were three other guitars besides those two in the same room. Already unpacked and on display, too. Kind of hard to miss them.”

  She was right. It didn’t make any sense. Not if the burglar planned to resell them for a profit. So what did that mean? We were looking for someone who was just picking up things they themselves coveted?

  If so, then the case should be pretty easy to crack. All we’d need to do would be get a search warrant for Morgan’s apartment. She wouldn’t go to all the trouble of stealing items for her own personal pleasure and then not keep them around to look at and use, would she?

  I didn’t think so.

  We waited for the space of a few more heartbeats, but that seemed to be the extent of Patty’s ground-breaking assumptions of the cases. Orville stood, and I followed.

  Barely had we turned around until there was a knock on the door frame of her office. Deputy Tad Wallace stood there, his fist still in the air from the knock.

  “Sheriff, we just got a 9-1-1 call. There’s been a body found at the old Wilson estate.”

  Orville and I looked at each other even as Patty stood and put on her gun belt. I kind of figured she was like me with the whole wearing a gun thing. As witches, we weren’t much for depending on firearms. But with her new job, it was a requirement. Sometimes they came in handy.

  Like when other people were shooting at you. That happened to sheriffs on occasion.

  Patty was looking at me. “The old Wilson place. Isn’t that the abandoned property out by you?”

  I nodded. “Not so abandoned anymore. Patience Goodheart just bought it.”

  Oh, Goddess! My heart went into my throat for a second, and I whirled to Deputy Wallace. “Whose body?”

  “According to the caller, it appears to be Morgan Truesdell.”

  I know it isn’t right, but I felt a lot better knowing that Patience hadn’t been the victim.

  However, I also knew that his answer would probably end up being a lot more problematic for me, in a personal sense.

  I was really regretting taking that hair. And having a witness to me doing it, too.

  Chapter 5

  We followed Patty and her deputies out to the crime scene.

  They were well ahead of us, though. That’s the thing with flashing lights and sirens. You didn’t have to obey the speed limit. When you didn’t have them, you did.

  Ex-sheriffs didn’t have them, much is the pity.

  It was only a few miles, mind you, but Patty was good at this sheriff thing. By the time we got there, she had the investigation well underway. Part of that was the marking off of the area the body had been found in.

  Which just so happened to be by the back porch.

  It took me a couple of minutes to find Patience. She was standing off to the side, talking to a deputy. Orville headed straight for Patty, and I headed for Patience. We each had our own priorities on this one.

  Besides, right now, Patience was looking like she could use a shoulder to lean on. And lucky for her, I had too good, strong ones available for the taking.

  She nodded to me as I approached. I nodded back. When you get to be our age, the need for frivolous small talk went out the window. Not that this was the place for small talk.

  The deputy looked at me, then at her. “Well, I think that’s it for now, but we’ll need you to come by the station sometime this afternoon to give a full statement.”

  “I’ll do that,” she said.

  He walked off, and it was just the two of us. Both of us standing there and staring at the bustling activity around the back porch of Patience’s new home.

  “I’d kill for a cup of coffee right now,” she said. “This was just supposed to be a drive-by and drop-off. I was planning on stopping for my caffeine fix on the way back.”

  I thought for a minute. They hadn’t told her she couldn’t leave, had they?

  “Plenty of coffee at my house.”

  She looked at me with a grim smile. “Am I welcome there?”

  “Of course you are. Friends are always welcome at my house. That isn’t saying we don’t have things that need to be discussed between the two of us.” But this wasn’t the time or place to get into that, was it?

  She nodded slowly. “Like me buying this house out from under you?”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. Maybe it was time for it, after all. “Ah, so you did know I wanted it.”

  Patience hesitated. “I hope this doesn’t change the friendship status, but yes, I knew. I approached old man Cecil years ago. Unfortunately, you’d already beaten me to him. For what it’s worth, Opal, I wanted this place every bit as bad as you did. Probably more so.”

  My eyes wer
e still on the activity around the porch. They weren’t going anywhere soon with that. Finally, I glanced at Patience. “Sounds like a discussion that could use a bit of a caffeinated back-up, don’t it?”

  “Oh, Goddess, yes.”

  I took her elbow, and we started toward the front of the house and the driveway. Deputy Wallace was in the front, waiting for the coroner. I stopped beside him.

  “I’m taking Patience over to my farmhouse.” I pointed for clarity. It wasn’t like we were right on top of each other’s properties, but my house was a tall one. You could see the roofline through the trees. “Orville has my number if you need to reach either of us.”

  He glanced back, then nodded. He hadn’t been a deputy long enough to have worked under my Orville, but he had worked under Orville’s son, Trevor, for a bit. And the Taylor sheriff legacy was a well-known one. It meant something.

  That something usually carried over to me, too.

  I could have taken the car, or Patience could have driven us. The funny thing is, neither of us even thought about that. We just set off walking. It wasn’t even a quarter of a mile from her front door to mine, anyway. And the fresh air was doing us both a bit of good, I thought.

  The walk was a quiet one. We were both agreed that whatever it was we ended up talking about, the dead body or the property ownership, it was a discussion that needed coffee. And lots of it.

  The house was empty when we got there. Kimberly and Gray had headed off to the shop long ago, and the kids were at school. Well, except for Baby Pearl. She was at the shop, too.

  Patience looked around as we entered. “This is a mighty fine home you have here, Opal. I’m surprised you’d be interested in trading it out.”

  I stared at her in confusion for a minute. Trading my farmhouse out? Never. Then I realized that she must have been under the impression that it was the house I’d wanted. Nothing could be further from the truth than that. Just maybe we could work this out between us and both come out with what we wanted.

  Of course, with that tiny little glimmer of hope came the realization that this really wasn’t the best time to discuss matters of business. The woman had, in fact, just stumbled onto a dead body. That couldn’t be an easy thing to get past. Most likely she needed to get that off her chest first.

  A friend would do that for her.

  I poured us each a hot cup of coffee, draining the warming pot, and then got another pot going before sitting down at the table across from her. Even then, neither of us spoke right away. It was only fitting to let her get a dose of that much-needed caffeine first.

  When her eyes finally raised to mine, I knew she was ready.

  “So, you were dropping something off at the house when you found her?”

  One arm crossed her body to hold on to the other. The free arm held the mug of coffee. She didn’t appear to be about to let that go anytime soon.

  “Yes. We signed the final papers and all the financial things that went along with that three days ago. They were supposed to have the house cleaned out by then.” She grimaced. “That hasn’t happened. Apparently, Kelly Wilson has made a few trips to the house over the years. Pretty much cleaned anything of value out of that house long ago. Anything she knew about, anyway.”

  I thought I was getting the picture. “She left everything else for you to deal with, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, she did. Acted like she was doing me a favor, too, like leaving me all Cecil’s old furniture to deal with was a good thing.”

  I shook my head. The younger generation sure had a few things to learn. Like we’d get to our age and not have enough stuff of our own to fill a house. It’s not like we were starting out in life.

  Patience took another sip of her coffee and then looked away. “I knew something was up at the house. I could feel it. Not a true vision... just that dreadful feeling.” She gave a half-hearted laugh. “I kept telling myself it was just the thought of having to clean out all that junk.”

  I’d wondered about that. Having the sight, Patience might have seen this coming. Sounds like she didn’t.

  “The sight can be pretty fickle, can’t it?”

  Another mirthless laugh. “You have no idea. It shows what it wants to and hides the things you really want or need to know. And it isn’t ever so simple as a hey, by the way, there’s a dead real estate agent on your new back porch.”

  Now I was doubly glad the seer gene had skipped by my family.

  I tried to think of what Orville would ask someone who had just found a body. I finally went with, “Could you lead me through what happened when you got to the house? Was there any sign that she’d been inside?”

  Her lips stretched out grimly. “Not inside, no. There were signs, however, that someone had been looking for something.” She grunted. “The first thing I did once those papers were signed, and I got the keys, was call in a locksmith to change out all the locks.”

  See? Like I said, smart people do that.

  “You think she was trying to get into the house?” That would go along with the case we’d just been handed, but Patience didn’t know that. I wasn’t about to tell her, either.

  She nodded. “I do. When I saw the notch in the door paint by the lock, I started looking around. Things on the front porch had been moved.” She gave me a knowing look.

  Yeah, I got it. A lot of forgetful people took the time and effort to lock up their homes and then left keys in some pretty obvious places. On top of the door frame, under the welcome mat, behind the mailbox, and a dozen other places every crook in the book knew about and checked.

  “Did you immediately go and check the back?”

  She shivered. “No, not right away. I wanted to check the house first. But nothing inside had appeared to be moved or bothered. It was only then I thought to check the back of the house.” Another shiver.

  I hated making her relive the whole thing again, but I needed to know just what she’d seen. Rather than asking her a string of questions, I just took another swig of my coffee and waited.

  As I’d figured, she needed to process what had happened with a friend. Well, as close to it as we were, anyway.

  “When I first glanced out the kitchen window, I thought I’d caught her in the act. Lying there on the ground, with her arm stretched out like that... I thought maybe she was trying to see if there was a key box hidden under the siding or something.”

  She swallowed a couple of times. “I opened the back door to give her a piece of my mind. That’s when I noticed she wasn’t quite right.”

  “Was there a lot of blood?”

  “No. Surprising that, but thank the Goddess, no. Then again, there was a pretty heavy thunderstorm last night. So, if it had happened before that...”

  Yeah, I was getting the picture. No need to drag her into that more than was absolutely necessary. “So what wasn’t right?”

  Her hand shook as the cup came to her lips for another sip of fortification. When she was done, she set the cup down. Now both arms were crossing her chest.

  “When I walked out, she was staring straight at me. It didn’t take me long to realize she wasn’t moving. Soaked to the skin, too. It wasn’t... natural.” She took a couple of deep breaths. “If the Sight isn’t willing to forewarn me as to these things, then what bloody good is it?”

  I really wished I had something to say to answer that. But I didn’t.

  All I could offer her was another cup of coffee. I knew that wasn’t enough, but it was all I had at the moment.

  When I got back with her fresh cup, she looked me in the eye. “You and Orville are investigators, right? You look into... things... like this?”

  I nodded.

  “Good. I think I want to hire you.”

  She reached out to take the cup, but I put my hand across to grab hers before she got hold of it.

  “Keep your money. This one is on us.”

  And I meant it too.

  Chapter 6

  I was thinking about heading back to the c
rime scene when my phone rang. It was Kimberly from the shop.

  “Opal, are you terribly busy this morning?”

  She sounded stressed. Really stressed. Bracing myself for even more bad news on a bad news kind of day, I asked, “What’s wrong?”

  Kimberly hesitated. “Nothing’s really wrong. It’s just that Pearl is being a bit, well, even more troublesome than usual.”

  Yeah, Baby Pearl had hit the terrible twos with a vengeance. Now that she was going on three, it wasn’t getting any better, either. At least she was still keeping to her promise of holding in that magical power of hers. If that failed, we’d all be in some deep ca-ca.

  For the record, Baby Pearl is still a small child, yes. As such, she shouldn’t have all that much in the way of power. Unfortunately (for us, anyway) the Goddess had seen fit to allow my mother’s soul to be reborn in the child. And my mother wasn’t one to let go of power. Even in the process of being reborn, it would seem.

  “It wouldn’t be a problem,” Kimberly was saying, “But we’re super busy today. And she refuses to stay in her playpen. We’re spending more time trying to corral her than we are helping customers.”

  “That isn’t good.” I thought for a minute. There really wasn’t anything I could do to help things back at that crime scene, anyway. Orville was the master at that side of things. There wasn’t any reason I couldn’t spend the day with my goddaughter. “I’ll be there just as soon as I can.”

  I hung up and looked over at Patience. “I’m afraid I’m needed at the shop.” Then I paused. “Well, that’s not entirely true. I’m needed as a babysitter. Baby Pearl is being a bit of a pain today, I’m afraid.”

  Patience smiled. “Baby Pearl. Is that the lovely baby I gave the broom to?”

  “Ah yes, about that broom...”

  She laughed. It was a welcome sound after the morning’s misadventures. “Yes, I’m sorry about that. I caught a glimpse or two of how she used it. So much power in one so young.”

  I swallowed and nodded. “So true.”

  Her smile faded as she stood and gathered her purse. “Well, I guess I’m back to see what’s up with my new place. I hope this doesn’t stop the movers coming to clean out the house tomorrow.”