Bewitched, Bedeviled and Bewildered (Sister Witchcraft Book 1) Read online

  There was some grumbling, but everyone pretty much agreed that we should do the best we could, as long as we didn’t interfere with the officers in any major way. In other words, as long as we didn’t get caught.

  “Okay,” Max said, setting out three blank sheets of paper. “We’re going to list everyone we know of who could have motive to want to get rid of Lenny Brewer. The first page will be mine. The second for Mimi. The third for the rest of you.”

  “Hey, how come Mimi gets a list all her own?” Lucy cried with her usual teenaged attention to things that just weren’t fair.

  “Because Mimi is the one who is in charge of the tea shop,” he said sensibly. “The rest of you are focused on other things besides the shop. You’re not likely to have come in contact with as many people to list.”

  Lucy pouted but he ignored her. I wanted to smile about that, but decided to keep it to myself. No point asking for trouble.

  And he was right. My list had five entries. His list had about ten. The third list had my brother-in-law Martin Tanner, and that was about all.

  “Read yours,” Max said, giving me a wink.

  I had to watch out. A wink like that could curl my toes if I let it.

  “Okay. Here goes. Number one and two, Macy and Stacy Jiggs, the ladies who run the Shady Tree Coffee Shop.”

  “And why do you list them?”

  I went over their history with Grand-Mere and how they’d been skulking around ever since we’d begun fixing up the shop. I repeated what Karl had told me about how they used their position on the city council to keep out competition. And I told them how I’d seen the women peeking in just before Lenny came into the shop.

  “Cut and dried, I’d say,” Sybil said. “Obviously, they put Lenny up to it.”

  “Up to it?” Max repeated questioningly. “You mean they asked him to commit suicide so they could ruin the tea shop for Mimi?”

  Sybil looked uncomfortable. “Well, maybe not that way.”

  “They might have poisoned the sugar packet before he left Shady Tree to go to our shop,” Lucy piped up with. “Maybe they were just using him and he didn’t know it.”

  “Maybe.” Max nodded. “I’d say it bears looking into.”

  I sighed happily. I was sure they were guilty as all get out.

  “Who else have you got?”

  “Okay, I listed myself. Because I really dislike that man and he pretty much insulted me in front of a restaurant full of customers the other day. And then he came in and insulted us in front of our own customers on Grand Opening Day. He was trying to ruin our business, and I don’t even know why. He made me so mad! If looks could kill, he’d probably have been dead before he even touched that tea.”

  Max snorted. “Hey, Lenny didn’t need a reason. He just tried to make everyone feel bad in any way he could make it happen. He was a louse.”

  “Probably had an unhappy childhood,” Sybil said softly.

  “That didn’t give him the right to make everyone else unhappy around him,” Gary noted. “And I guess he paid the price.”

  “Next?” Max said a bit impatiently.

  “Well, I had to add Martin,” I said apologetically.

  Martin made a face but he knew why.

  I glanced at Max. “Did you know Lenny was suing him? Hey, what will happen now?”

  “I’m pretty sure it will all go away,” Martin said. “My lawyer thinks it would have gone away pretty soon anyway. There really was no basis for the suit. But it sure was a nuisance.”

  “An expensive nuisance,” Gary added, and Martin nodded his agreement.

  “Anyone else?” Max said.

  I looked up into his warm brown eyes. “You,” I said.

  He looked surprised. “Me?”

  “Yes. I went to your lawyer’s office this afternoon and ended up talking to his secretary. She told me about how Lenny had sued you for damages when an article you wrote destroyed his mail order business. I guess it was a scam of some sort, huh?”

  Max looked miffed. “She shouldn’t be talking to you about things like that.”

  “It’s public record. And over with a year ago.”

  “Which is why it isn’t a very strong motivation for killing the guy.”

  “True.” I gave him an impish grin. “But where there’s smoke, there’s sometimes fire. So I figure there might be more there than meets the eye. Hmm?”

  He grinned at me. “Forget it. I didn’t do it. Let’s not waste our time on that one.”

  “Okay. Well, I guess I’m done.”

  Lucy threw out her hands. “And our list has Martin and that’s about all.” She frowned. “We need more suspects.”

  “Okay,” Max said. “I’ve got some. My list has a lot of people you probably never heard of. Lenny has had ruinous relationships from one side of this town to the other. But most of these people aren’t currently outraged, that I know of, and they weren’t at the opening anyway, so I’m just going to keep them on this list, but not in the active category. Okay?”

  We agreed, though Lucy was pouting.

  “Other than that, I pretty much have the same as Mimi has, with one exception.”

  He looked around the table.

  Lucy was perking up. “Who?” she said.

  “I’ve got the Secret Angels on my list. Lana, Kari, Tina and Beth Groves. Four adorable ladies who do a lot of good in the community. But as we all know, people who help others in that way can sometimes get a sort of God complex and think that only they know the truth and what ought to happen to bad people. Right?”

  We grumbled a bit, not quite ready to admit the Angels might be of that ilk.

  “Don’t worry, I’m open minded. I won’t pass judgment without due process. But I will look into them, and question what they were doing at the shop and whether they felt an overwhelming antipathy toward Lenny for any reason. I mean, talk about provoking anger, Lenny was at the top of his game as he sat down with them, not even invited. And I know they were firmly in your corner, Mimi. So there’s that.”

  “Oh sure, but they would never…”

  “You can never say never in this business. People do things all the time that you would never believe them capable of. Just remember that.”

  I groaned. “So you think one of them got angry at Lenny and pulled out some poison, dropped it into his tea cup when no one was looking, and watched him writhe in pain like that? You’re crazy.”

  “Maybe so. But crazier things have happened.” He smiled around the table. “I think they’ll be excited to be suspects.”

  I groaned again. “Be gentle with them,” I said, frowning at him. “I’m not sure I approve of this.”

  He shrugged. “Whether you approve or not, I’ll be looking into their recent activities. You, on the other hand, had better find a way to investigate the Jiggs sisters. And since you’re sure they hate you and all your family, that might be a problem.”

  Exactly so. Max went home and so did Martin, while the rest of us sat around and hashed things over for another hour, then sheepishly went to bed. I lay awake, staring at the ceiling. What on earth was I going to do? How was I going to get close enough to those women to gain an insight into what they thought and did? I was pretty sure walking in with a notebook and pen in hand and asking if I could question them wasn’t going to work.

  So what should I do? What?

  I thrashed about for another hour, trying out ideas in my head and rejecting them firmly with hardly any hope.

  And then it came to me. I was going through the usual methods, things that were tried and true, but limited in scope because—regular humans did them. Not witches.

  I was a witch. Why wasn’t I exploring witchy ways? What was the matter with me, anyway? I needed to think like a witch.

  Now, there was one problem with that. The Jiggs sisters were witches, too. I had to be careful or I would tip them off and then it would be near impossible. I ran through my options. An invisibility cloak spell? A spell to change my appeara
nce? Make myself tiny so that I could slip in through cracks in the wall?

  Then I remembered the manual Kashmir had insisted I put in my purse. Rummaging quickly, I pulled it out and began to read. An hour later, I was filled with thoughts I’d never had before, but I still wasn’t clear on how I would get in to the Shady Tree without being seen.

  I was back to thinking of ways to make myself small or invisible. There were plenty of spells that would do both or something close. Still, what would I do once I got inside the place? If I was too tiny, I wouldn’t even be able to go through papers on a desk. And if I was invisible to humans, that didn’t mean I’d be invisible to other witches. I was stumped.

  And then I remembered something. I had Kashmir. Kashmir! And he was mine!

  I rolled out of bed and put on my jeans and sweatshirt, then slipped out of the house. I drove into town and parked near the shop, then got out and walked the rest of the way in the midnight darkness.

  It was spooky. Creepy. Scary. But I was filled with excitement at the thought of getting Kashmir involved in this sleuthing stuff.

  I knew I couldn’t go inside the shop. It was roped off for the time being, waiting for tests to be completed so it could go back into service as a tea shop. Oh if only that would happen quickly!

  I’d offered to bring Kashmir home with me for the night, but he had demurred. He liked his position in town and I knew he could go in and out of the shop no matter what was roped off. So I slipped stealthily into the courtyard and went to the front of my tea shop.

  “Kashmir?” I called. “Are you in here?”

  Nothing. I groaned and sat down at the table. I had no idea where he went when he wandered. And after all, he was a cat. And cats wandered. I contemplated a whole night spent waiting for him here, and that made me shudder. But just as I was about to give up, I heard a rustling in the leaves of the pistachio tree, and there he was.

  “Finally,” he said, leaping down to sit on my lap, landing like a sack of cement and preening for a petting. “I’ve been waiting. I knew we were going to have to strategize at some point. Have you made a plan?”

  “For what?” I asked him, surprised he was already on my wave length.

  “For getting into the Shady Tree and sneaking around, finding things out, of course,” he said. “We both know those two witches are probably behind all this.”

  “But…”

  “But nothing. We need to get in there and see if we can find something or overhear something incriminating. For you to cast a spell of invisibility won’t do. Full sized humans tend to bumble into things and reveal themselves too easily. Cats, on the other hand, can slip in and out with impunity. Just you watch me!”

  He jumped down and dashed around the table a couple of times, moving like a streak of black furry lightning.

  I wasn’t sure. “But Kashmir…

  He was back in my lap.

  “I’ll use the cloak of invisibility on myself,” he told me smugly. “You stay at home with a monitor and you’ll be able to watch everything I do. It will be like looking through my eyes. Believe me, I’ve learned a lot in the last few months. I only wish I’d had these methods available when Grand-Mere was here. We could have foiled these villains!”

  “But wait. You said to use a monitor. Like a computer monitor?”

  “Yes.”

  “But…, how do I see what you’re doing?”

  “You’ll need a password, of course.”

  I blinked at him. “What is it?”

  He gazed at me sideways. “If you want me to make it up, here it is. Meroeowmeroooow!”

  “Oh.” I covered my ears. “There is no way I’ll ever be able to use that one.”

  He smirked at me. “Of course not. That’s why you should make one up yourself. Then use it when you cast your spell. It’s all detailed in the manual.”

  The manual. Yes, I’d probably already read about it in the manual. It just hadn’t sunk in yet.

  “Now go home,” Kashmir said firmly. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow at ten, use the spell and turn on the monitor. Then you’ll see.”

  What a cat. He was the best. I was so glad he was my familiar—even if he did make me feel slightly inferior at times. I mean, I wasn’t experienced enough to keep up. But I was trying.

  I didn’t sleep a whole lot. I had a manual to study up on. I only wished I had Kashmir with me at home so I could ask him to explain some of the more technical elements. But I think I did pretty well on my own. At any rate, by 10 the next morning, I was sitting on the bed in Sybil’s guest room, glued to the monitor of my lap top. Sure enough, just as promised, once I’d used my password and cast a new spell, I was seeing things in the Shady Tree Coffee Shop, just as though I was an invisible cat and slinking around corners, unseen and unnoticed.

  Whoohoo!

  My biggest trouble was, I couldn’t hear anything. That wasn’t going to do me much good. Even if Kashmir could remember what was said later, it wasn’t the same as hearing it myself—and being able to record it. There was no way I could get the message to him. The only hope I had was to fiddle around with the controls on my own. Maybe…just maybe…I could do something from my end.

  I worked on another spell, doing it slow and easy, then pulling out a connecting wire and putting it back in again.

  Sound!

  It came on suddenly and I had to leap off the bed and turn down the knob or the whole neighborhood would have heard everything going on at the Shady Tree. I held my breath, waiting for someone to complain, but no one did, and I went back to full time surveillance.

  Kashmir was all over that place, now in the kitchen, now in the broom closet, then on a trip down through the middle of tables full of patrons munching on a late breakfast. I could hear bits and pieces of conversations as he passed, but nothing that stuck with me. I began to worry about that again, but suddenly, Kashmir seemed to have wandered into the business office, and there were the Jiggs sisters, deep into a whispered conversation.

  I tried hard to hear what they were saying, but it was tough, and then an employee came in to complain about work hours, and it was easy to understand but totally irrelevant.

  Just then my cell buzzed. I looked at the screen. It was Max Ransom. I picked up.

  “Have you been to see the Secret Angels yet?” I asked.

  “Yeah. They’re clean as a whistle.”

  “Told you so.”

  “Well, let’s hope we can get something on the Shady Tree gang.”

  “That’s what I’m doing right now.” I gasped as the complaining employee left and the ladies came back together in whispers. I distinctly heard Lenny’s name mentioned.

  “Oh my gosh! Get over here. You’ve got to see this.”

  “Look outside. I’m here.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’m at your front door. Be up in a minute.”

  And he was. He sat on the bed beside me and we both watched as the two ladies discussed Lenny’s murder.

  “It’s just a shame, as far as I’m concerned,” Stacy was saying. She ruffled her purple hair and looked at herself in the mirror at the end of the office.

  “I don’t know how you can be surprised,” Macy replied. “It was bound to happen sooner or later. He was a completely despicable character. Anyone who knew him secretly wanted him dead.”

  “But that was what made him so useful. We could have sent him over to disrupt business at the Auclair Tea Shop daily. He was our best weapon against that place.”

  “And now he’s gone. Such a shame.”

  “Well, what we have to do now is get some evidence against Mimi percolating in the officers’ minds.”

  I looked over at Max and made a silent scream. He nodded, and covered my hand with his own.

  “Hmm. What if she didn’t do it?”

  “Of course she did it. He died after drinking the tea she was serving to perfectly innocent customers. Who else could have done it?”

  They turned away and their voices were just a l
ow buzz, no words coming through.

  Max and I stared at each other. I was crushed.

  “Does that mean they didn’t do it?” I wailed.

  Max shrugged. “Looks like. Oh well.”

  “But….”

  He glanced at the screen. They were still turned away. Looking at me quickly, he said, “Okay, while we’ve got a minute. Would you explain this to me?” He gestured toward the screen.

  “Oh.”

  Darn. I’d forgotten we hadn’t covered this issue yet. How did you explain that you were using witchcraft to a Typical?

  “I’m…uh…a little different from normal people. You see, when I was a baby….”

  “Yeah, you’re a witch. I know that. Cut to the chase.”

  “Okay.” My head was spinning. “Yes, I am a witch. And my black cat is my familiar. That’s him doing the filming, so to speak. He’s invisible, though. You can’t see him. But we’re seeing the scene and hearing what we can hear through his senses. Got it?”

  I was on guard, knowing that most people would find this whole thing incomprehensible. But Max just nodded, as if he already understood.

  I started to speak again but he put his hand out to stop me. “Wait,” he said, looking at the screen.

  Someone had come into the business office. Looking hard, I realized it was Cindy. It looked like she’d been crying, but I couldn’t really hear what she was saying.

  Max was frowning. “I can’t believe she could still be carrying a torch for that jerk,” he muttered.

  I looked at him. “Who? Cindy? What jerk? You don’t mean Lenny.”

  He glanced at me. “I do mean Lenny. They were a cozy couple for months last year, and then he dumped her.”

  “Cindy?” I couldn’t believe it. “She’s such a nice person.”

  Max was thinking fast. “Yeah, but consider this. She’s the packaging expert at Shady Tree. She’s got a degree in it. She’s the one who developed the fancy gold sugar packets.”

  My mouth fell open. “You’re kidding. That means she would know how to fill it with poison, say, mix a little arsenic into the sugar or something similar, and then seal it right back up. Right?”