Witch of a Neighbor (Witch Reborn Book 6)

by Belinda White

  I hesitated, but my heart was going out to the woman. Yes, her daughter had tried to kill me, but that was no fault of hers, was it? It was more the Sight’s fault for driving the poor girl to the looney bins.

  “Would you want to come with me? We could be there and back in fifteen minutes. They’d never even know we were gone.”

  Relief flooded her face. “Oh, that would be lovely.”

  As I thought, going back to that property was the last thing the woman wanted to do. I couldn’t much blame her for that, either. Crime scenes were never a fun place to hang out. But when they happened to be on your own personal property, they were all that much worse.

  Ask me how I know.

  Luckily, we had taken Orville’s SUV to town this morning, so my trusty old Buick was still sitting at the side of the house in its little carport. Patience and I climbed in and I drove to town.

  Picking up Baby Pearl was only a matter of a minute. Gray made sure of that. He was waiting by the front door, with Baby Pearl in one arm and her car seat in the other. He nodded to Patience, still sitting in the front seat, handed the child to me, and then proceeded to buckle the car seat into the back.

  As he stood back up from that chore, he grimaced at me. “I’m sorry about this, Opal. I don’t know what’s gotten into her lately.”

  He glanced back at the shop. Kimberly hadn’t been kidding. They were definitely doing a brisk business today. Their new methods of running the place seemed to be paying off. It wasn’t even a holiday season. Normally, those seasons were the only times my shop had this many customers going through its doors.

  “If you need to, you can bring her back once the kids get off school.”

  Sure, that’s what he said, but I could read the want under the words too. I wasn’t sure what Baby Pearl had been up to this morning, but I was thinking it just might be a good idea to give them the rest of the day free of her. Then again, my day was pretty full as it was.

  “No worries. We can play it by ear.”

  His shoulders sagged, and he grinned at me. “I really, really appreciate this.”

  I nodded back at the shop. “Now, go help your woman.”

  He went, and I started to put Baby Pearl into her car seat. Unfortunately, Baby Pearl had other ideas.

  She stretched her arms out to Patience, still in the front seat, and cried. What the heck was that about? She’d only met the woman once that I knew of.

  Then it hit me. She’d only met her once in this lifetime. That didn’t mean she didn’t know her from before, did it?

  Patience opened the car door and looked at me with a question in her eyes. I handed her Baby Pearl in response.

  Years fell off the woman in an instant. At least, that’s how it looked. And little Baby Pearl went from being a fussy, aggravating baby to a cooing and charming one. It was almost sickeningly sweet, the ensuing love fest.

  Yup. The two of them definitely had some kind of connection between them. In fact, I rather thought that might have been Baby Pearl’s whole issue in a nutshell today.

  Just maybe this was the Goddess’s way of giving comfort to an old woman who needed it. Well, older woman. Patience wasn’t that much older than me. But the years, and the Sight, had been hard on the woman.

  Especially the last couple. It couldn’t be easy seeing your only child go mad, and then be imprisoned for the rest of their natural-born life. Not easy at all. That would age anyone.

  “Do you mind if I ride in the backseat with her?”

  I grunted. “I kind of think that would be wise unless we want to hear a toddler screaming the whole trip back.” Baby Pearl cooed in response. Yeah, I could read the child. I probably knew her better than her own mother. I’d spent more time with the soul inside that little body than she had.

  A lot more time. Almost an entire lifetime when you came right down to it.

  Patience handed Baby Pearl back to me and climbed in the backseat. Once she was settled in, the toddler had no issue with the car seat at all.

  “Don’t get used to getting your way,” I whispered in her ear. “But today, she needs this more than you do.”

  Baby Pearl’s eyes met mine for a fraction of a second before looking away. There was a lot of knowledge in that quick gaze, though. There was definitely a trace of the Goddess’s plan in all this.

  Kind of made me wonder what else Baby Pearl and the Goddess had up their sleeve.

  It didn’t take me long to find out, either.

  “You know,” Patience started as I pulled from the curb. “I could watch the child if there was something you needed to do.” She hesitated. “I could even take care of her for a few days, if her mother needed me to.”

  There was a lot of hope in those words. I glanced at her in the rearview mirror, then back to the road.

  “That would be something to discuss with her mom for sure,” I said slowly. “But I think maybe today you should just get to know the child.” Or re-know her, as the case may very well be. “Our Baby Pearl can be quite a handful.”

  Patience laughed, and Goddess but it made my heart glad to hear that sound. One thing about the Goddess’s plans—they tended to work out well when we didn’t fight them.

  “Oh yes, as I’ve said, I’ve caught glimpses of the child over the past couple of years.” She reached out and tapped Baby Pearl’s arm lightly. “There’s something mighty big in store for this one’s future.”

  I swallowed and bit my tongue. Part of me wanted to know what she’d seen of the child’s future. But a bigger part of me didn’t want to know. The fact that Patience didn’t seem to be all that worried about it did me a world of good, though. She seemed to truly care for the child.

  That connection thing again. In the end, I had to know.

  “Did you know my mother?” I tried to make the question sound as innocent as I could. Hopefully, she wouldn’t put two and two together. I mean, how often did the Goddess reuse witches’ souls? No. Scratch that. I really didn’t think I wanted to know the answer to that one, after all.

  Patience smiled at me through the mirror. “As a matter of fact, I did. Lovely woman, your mum.” She glanced over at Baby Pearl.

  For a minute, my heart beat faster, and I regretted asking the question. Had I started her thoughts going in that direction? But then she spoke again, and I realized her glance to the child was just a way to break eye contact with the mirror.

  “Your mother was ever so much better at potions than I am.” She sighed. “I’m afraid once the Sight chooses you, it doesn’t leave much room for any other kind of magic. It can be... more than difficult.”

  “Mom helped you, didn’t she?”

  Patience nodded, still looking at Baby Pearl. I was kind of wondering if maybe keeping our little secret wasn’t a possibility after all. In fact, thinking about all those glimpses the Sight had shown her of Baby Pearl—well, one of them was bound to have let the cat out of the bag, wasn’t it?

  She reached over and rubbed Baby Pearl’s arm. “More than you’ll ever know. She was a good friend.” Then she grew silent.

  So silent, the world seemed to stop for just a couple of heartbeats. Then her eyes met mine. “You know, don’t you?”

  I swallowed and nodded, then forced my eyes back onto the road.

  Oh yes, that cat was most definitely out of the bag.

  Chapter 7

  The house phone rang around an hour after we got back. It was Patricia. Or should I say, Sheriff Bluespring?

  For once, it wasn’t me she was wanting. It was Patience. Time for the woman to go and give her statement. Plus, they wanted her permission to go through the house, just in case there was anything worth noting inside.

  I couldn’t see how that could be the case, as it didn’t look like Morgan had managed to get in the door. Not with Patience having the brains God gave a goose and changing those locks. Still. It couldn’t hurt, right?

  I looked at Patience as she got ready to leave. “You want me to go with you?”

/>   She smiled at me, then looked down at Baby Pearl who hadn’t left the woman’s side for an instant since we’d picked her up. “I don’t really think a crime scene is the right place for one so young. Do you?”

  Baby Pearl’s eyes met mine. Yeah. I wasn’t going to argue that point for her. Sorry, Pearl. I happened to agree with Patience on this one.

  Orville arrived back home only a few minutes after Patience had left. He didn’t look all that happy.

  His eyes did, however, light up for a minute when he saw Pearl. She could have that effect on people. Especially the ones who loved her as much as we did.

  He picked her up and headed into the living room. I followed. And waited.

  It didn’t take all that long.

  “You went to see Morgan yesterday, didn’t you?”

  I nodded. “I did.”

  He swallowed. “I think maybe I need to know exactly how that visit went down.”

  “Am I a suspect?”

  He just looked at me. “That kind of depends on that visit, now doesn’t it? But yes. I’d say you are a definite suspect in the grander scheme of things. I mean, you had a major beef with Morgan selling that property out from under you. Most of the town knows that too.” Then he clamped his lips shut and gave me the raised eyebrow treatment.

  I took a deep breath. “Well, keep in mind that I didn’t know at the time that the woman would end up murdered a day later.”

  Orville groaned and shook his head. “Oh, Opal. What did you do?”

  There was no way around giving him an answer. A truthful one, too. My man had a right to know. Besides, it wasn’t like there wasn’t a witness to the whole meeting. Freddy Black would be only too willing to share the story, I was sure.

  “I took a hair.”

  He blinked at me. “For a Karma spell?”

  I nodded. Was there any other reason I’d want a hair from the woman?

  His voice was pained, but he asked the question, anyway. “Did you use it?”

  “I did not. I’d only gathered the hair when you called and asked me to put the whole Karma thing on hold. After we spoke, there didn’t appear to be any need for it. I had other ways to ensure that Morgan paid for her disloyalty to me. I kind of liked the idea of sending the woman to jail, actually. Suited me just fine.”

  “So all you did was take the hair? Did you threaten her? In any way?”

  I thought back to the meeting at Morgan’s agency. “Other than taking the hair, no.”

  He stared at me for a minute longer, then finally looked away. “Okay, I think we can deal with that. Taking a hair for a spell you never got around to casting shouldn’t put you too high up on the list of suspects.”

  “But it does put me on it?”

  “Oh, yes. No way around that, I’m afraid. You do realize that having the reputation you do around town isn’t always a good thing, right?”

  “That is becoming patently clear, yes.”

  He grunted. “Good.” Reaching down, he pulled Baby Pearl up onto his lap for a quick snuggle. Quick was all she really did unless it was going on nap time. The girl didn’t much believe in staying in one place for too long.

  This time was no exception. I waited her out. It just didn’t seem right discussing a brutal thing like murder in front of a small child. Even if that child did have a very old soul.

  After a few seconds, she squirmed, and when Orville put her down, she looked at me and then at the television. She’d started talking a little, but my goddaughter wasn’t one to waste words if she didn’t need to.

  Yeah, Mom had been like that, too.

  “Let me guess,” I said to her. “Another round of Masha and the Bear?”

  She smiled at me and nodded.

  “All right then, but I’m moving you over to our place so that Orville and I can talk in peace and quiet. You’ll be good and not get into things, right?”

  She tilted her head and just looked at me. Yeah, I’d be telling Bridget, my Macaw, to keep an eye on her. You’d be amazed at the damage a little body with an old soul could do in a very short time.

  When I came back, it was to find Orville still sitting right where I’d left him.

  “She okay for a bit?”

  I nodded, then sat down beside him. “Any big clues left behind at the property to give you all a lead on who killed Morgan?”

  He barked out a laugh. “Wouldn’t that be nice for a change? Unfortunately, no. That is not the case here.” He paused. “In fact, it was one of the cleanest crime scenes I’d seen in a while. That rain last night didn’t do us in law enforcement any favors, just so you know.”

  “The rain came after she was killed then?” I mean, a rain beforehand might have meant a muddy footprint or something we could match. But a good rain afterward? Yeah, that wasn't good at all. A lot of evidence could be washed away in a downpour.

  “Looks like it. Her clothes were still pretty damp, and the coroner says it looks like she’d been lying there overnight. Right now, he’s estimating the time of death to be from nine to midnight last night.”

  I let out a long breath of air. Well, at least that part was good news. That time of night, Orville and I were both tucked away in our bedroom for the night.

  “So I’ve got an alibi, then.”

  Orville looked at me for a minute, then nodded. “You do.”

  But what he didn’t say was that the alibi really wasn’t all that good of a one. For one, he was my husband and people would expect him to lie for me, even if that would go against everything the man had ever stood for. For the record, that would never happen. That wouldn’t, however, stop people from thinking that it had.

  For two, and this one to my mind was the most important, my man was a very heavy sleeper. That didn’t use to be the case. Back when he’d been the sheriff, the slightest little movement or noise would have wakened him. Being retired changed all that.

  Who knew you could turn something like that on and off? Orville could.

  Put both of those things together, and Orville wasn’t the stalwart alibi you might think he’d be for me. I got that, and so did he.

  “How did she die? Patience said there wasn’t much blood. Did the rain just wash it away?”

  He shook his head. “No. There wasn’t any blood. This was a quick and clean kill. The killer broke her neck.”

  My head whirled around to look at him. “Broke her neck? How?”

  Orville lifted a shoulder and shifted positions. I could tell the subject brought back memories. Not pleasant ones, either. “The neck is a lot more vulnerable than most people think. Breaking a person’s neck isn’t all that hard to do.”

  “You mean it wouldn’t take a strong man to do it?”

  He hesitated. “The person would have to have some arm strength, but no. It wouldn’t have to be a male killer.”

  The unasked question hung there for a minute. Apparently, Orville was going to make me voice the words. Fine.

  “Could I have done it?”

  He took a long breath. “Yeah. Yeah, you could have.”

  Well, crapsnackles. That hadn’t been the answer I’d been hoping for. Looked like my place on that suspect list was well and truly set.

  “Then again...” He paused.

  “Yes?”

  Orville smiled at me. “You aren’t really known as a violent, hands-on kind of witch, now are you? And I’m thinking maybe a broken neck couldn’t really be tied to a Karma spell, now could it?”

  He made an excellent point. “That doesn’t mean I’m off the list, though, does it?”

  “Sorry, but no. The good news is that it moves your name further down it. That’s something, right?”

  It was better than nothing, I supposed. After all, I’d done this to myself by gathering that stupid hair. I couldn’t really blame anyone else for this, now could I?

  Well, other than the killer, of course.

  “So, Morgan was really trying to break into Patience’s new house?”

  Orville w
as silent. Too silent. I turned to him. “What haven’t you told me?”

  “You saw the body, right?”

  “Briefly. But Patience said the woman appeared to have been caught in the middle of searching for a fake rock key safe.”

  He reached up to rub the back of his neck. “Yeah. Well, here’s the thing. That’s what it looked like for sure. But I’m thinking it would be a lot harder to snap someone’s neck with them in that position.” Another shift of his body. “It’s an easier move if the person is standing in front of you.”

  I thought about that for a minute. “Chances are she wouldn’t have landed with her arm stretched out like that.”

  “Exactly. I think maybe our killer staged the scene to incriminate Morgan Truesdell.”

  “Just from the body’s position?”

  He shrugged. “And other little things. You don’t really have to move a flower pot to look for a key under it, you know. At least, not that much. These pots had been moved so forcefully that there were marks on the porch and deck. As if someone wanted us to see them.”

  I swallowed. “Why would they do that?”

  “Couple of reasons come to mind.” He hesitated. “One, they wanted to firmly point the finger at Morgan for the recent spate of robberies. I mean, it wouldn’t take much for people to start putting that together. The insurance company already had.”

  “Okay. And two?”

  His eyes met mine. “Just maybe the killer wanted us to think her being there was her idea alone.”

  I squinted at him. “You mean you think the killer had made an appointment to meet her there? But why? The house had already sold, and they didn’t have the right keys to it anymore.”

  He nodded slowly. “There’s that, all right. But there’s also the fact that the property is a way out of town and Patience hadn’t yet moved in. It would make for a nice, quiet place to meet up for a clandestine meeting, wouldn’t it?”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek. It was a possibility, but there were plenty of other places to meet in private without driving all the way out here. Unless there was something else they wanted there. But what?