THE WITCH AND THE TEA PARTY (A Rachael Penzra Mystery) (31 page)

Patsy shushed me. “I know, but can’t you
see it happening? What I wonder about is whether Dora was there to help her, or if Moondance broke her code of silence in the case of modern communication, and called for backup.”

“Backup,
smackup,” I grumbled. “This has got to stop.”

“I think we can stop it now that we have evidence that we know. It won’t be much fun if it isn’t secret. The problem is more the thought that the killer felt the need to silence one or all of them. It’s all so haphazard. One of them must know something they don’t realize they know.”

I sighed. It seems we’d just solved one problem when another popped up. Patsy was right. We could almost certainly put a stop to their dramatic game easily enough, but we didn’t have a clue concerning what they might or might not know—about the murder. If they had any clue, they’d better share it with the sheriff and share it fast. We couldn’t have them in danger. “Whoever the killer is,” I complained. “He’s certainly clumsy. Except for Frances’ poisoning, everything he’s done has been so unlikely to succeed.”

“The incident with Nicholas had a good chance of success.”

“But it was so crazy!” I said. “Sneaking into the house in the middle of the day. Talk about nerve! And then he had to get out again.”

“It’s better to be lucky than smart,” she laughed, not very happily. “It worked. It must have been worth taking the chance.”

“Or it could have been a plain old burglary gone bad,” I groused. It was really irritating to have my favorite suspect removed. And if it was a burglar, he would be getting away with murder because of a fluke.

She read my mind—or my expression. “He couldn’t have done the other things. He’s still laid up in the hospital.”

That, too, was irritating. “He could have greased the tree before he was hurt,” I insisted. “That would be more than possible. Then the attack on him could have been a burglary gone bad. He spotted the thief and was headed downstairs to get away and call for help when the thief rushed after him and pushed him. He decided to keep mum about seeing his attacker, someone who wouldn’t fit as his wife’s murderer.”

“Too many coincidences,” she argued, but she looked thoughtful.

That put my favorite suspect back in the running. No matter how bizarre it seems, coincidences abound in this world of ours. However, we left it at that when we heard sounds of my aunt moving around upstairs. We could decide how to handle it later, making sure the troublesome threesome were always protected. At the moment I was more interested in the murderer. What on earth was he thinking? Or she? I think if I were that involved in protecting myself, I’d just go get a gun and shoot my victims. Nobody was really falling for the accident theory anymore. Still, if you’re thinking long-term, of the possibility of being caught, you wouldn’t want to have multiple murder raps to attend to. You might beat the major one, that of Frances, but it certainly wouldn’t help your case to have extra attempts blamed on you. So far I couldn’t see that any grand jury could honestly come back with guilty decisions based on the injury incidences alone.

“Good morning,” my aunt greeted us, looking well-rested, which was more than I could say for her niece and great niece. They say the elderly need less sleep, although I’ve always thought that was more a matter of napping and early to bed than age.

“I followed you last night,” Patsy said, bluntly, probably on the premise that Aunt Myrtle would be weaker if she hadn’t eaten or had coffee. “We know what you three have been up to.”

“And what is that, dear?” she asked, quite casually. She continued her path to the cupboard for a cup. But I noticed that her eyes had quickly shifted away from us. When people have a question they really want answered, they tend to
at least glance at the one with the answer. I noticed that she didn’t deny anything. She really was getting pretty good at lying, or more importantly, side-stepping things.

“You went over to
Moondance’s, right in the middle of the night, alone and without telling anybody where you were going. Do you have any idea of how dangerous that is?” Patsy wasn’t letting up. She was really upset.

“Nothing happened,” my aunt retorted. “And why were you following me? I’m not a criminal or a child.”

That was debatable—at least the child part. I wasn’t absolutely sure about the criminal part, but I live on hope and I certainly hoped some of the shenanigans she got up to with her pals weren’t illegal. We never did delve into the legalities of taping their customers for the fortune telling. “We’re really worried about all of you,” I explained. “Whoever killed Frances seems to be set on ridding the world of all potential danger to himself. Think of how safe Nicholas should have been, in his own home in the late afternoon—with the cook still there.”

“That was probably a burglar,” she said nervously, not really believing what she was saying.

“Aunt Myrtle,” I was reduced to pleading. “If you won’t think of yourself, think of Dora and Moondance. Think of Patsy and me, and everybody in the family. We’d be devastated if anything happened to you.”

“Moondance said nothing would,” she assured me smugly. “She read my fortune. I won’t die by violence.”

I am a firm believer in all sorts of paranormal happenings, including believing in people who have the ability to read fortunes. I also believe that there are thousands of charlatans out there, preying on the gullible. Sadly, as with my own abilities, I think many of them have a certain amount of psychic ability, but if their talents are anything like mine, they can’t count on them all the time. It’s a difficult situation, and almost impossible to explain to someone who doesn’t have the gift.

“When did she read it?” Patsy was smart enough to think of that.

“Last week.”

“Uh,” I wondered exactly what and how much
I should tell her. “I wouldn’t accept Moondance’s reading. I don’t think she’s quite as accurate as she was in the shop. I, uh, had a moment of awareness.” I couldn’t be much vaguer than that. The moment of awareness I was talking about wasn’t psychic, of course, but if she happened to think it was… Well, I hadn’t lied. Two can play the word game.

She looked as though she was slightly impressed. That was progress. Usually she
simply didn’t hear things she didn’t want to hear, but she’s always been fascinated by my rare outbreaks of powerful psychic strikes. They’re usually right on when they happen. “She’s been right about a lot of things,” she argued.

“I believe that,” I agreed. “But those
skills can come and go sometimes.”

She
didn’t disagree, instead changing the subject slightly. “Oh, I hope she hasn’t lost the ability to tell fortunes. To be honest, I’m not as good at it as she is. She really is good, Rachael.”

“I know,” I assured her. “But we don’t understand how these things work. Sometimes a need is fulfilled, and then things change. There might have been some cosmic power that was guiding Moondance. We might never know the reason behind it. And maybe it’ll come back.” I added the last thought as comfort, although I wasn’t sure it would be a good thing.

She sighed. “Well, we can’t change the way the universe runs. Besides, she really is good at telling fortunes, even before she got so… so extra good.”

So she had recognized that
Moondance’s fortune telling had become something outside the realm of normality. And she was right. The booth had already been a big hit before the change caused by combining the crystal ball and the ornate stand. “Now that things are more or less settled down,” I carefully didn’t refer to her accident and the discovery of their manner of communication. “Do you think Moondance will come back and work? Will Jimbo let her?”

“He doesn’t own her,” she told me, great disgust in her voice at the mere idea. It would seem that just because they’d been acting exactly as though he did rule the world didn’t mean they actually believed it.

“If she does,” I went on as if she hadn’t said anything. “I really hope you’ll consider having someone there with you at all times.” Her face turned mutinous, so I quickly brought out my most powerful weapon. “Maybe Mac would help out.”

The mutinous look was replaced by one of cunning. “It might not be a bad idea,” she conceded. “Not that I’m afraid for myself, but there’s no sense in being foolish and there’s strength in numbers.”

“He could kind of hang out in the back room with you, monitoring the customers when Moondance is doing a reading.”

“That might work,” she said, quite casually. Yeah, right.
Casual, my sweet patootie. I had hit upon the perfect formula for keeping her compliant.

Patsy, who’d wisely kept quiet, added, “But if he has other things to do sometimes, then you have to let us know. One of us can run across the street at any time.”

“All right.” She continued to fix her breakfast, a strange combination of grasses and grains and nuts and raisins. She was on a new diet kick yet again. I hoped she’d keep her word and let us know when Mac wasn’t available. I’d have to slip a word to him later. Poor man. He might as well move in with his sister, something neither one of them would like. We really had to get things cleared up soon. I hoped the sheriff was working on some clue we knew nothing about, one that would quickly lead to an arrest.

Patsy walked her across to Dora’s, taking a moment to talk to Mac as he headed for the diner for breakfast. He left, but Patsy stayed over there for the next forty-five minutes. Mac returned, allowing Patsy to return to the shop. “He’s going to stick with them, but demands the right to a comfortable chair and time off to
go eat lunch. That takes care of today, but we can’t go on like this for long.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” I groaned at the thought. “But what can we do? Lock them up?”

“Tempting, isn’t it?” she gave me a wicked grin. I returned it.

We left it at that.

David thought it was a great idea, offering his help on his days off.

“We can’t do it forever,” I complained. “It sounds simple, but it will be a real pain if it lasts more than a few days.”

“The sheriff must have some idea,” he frowned, thinking through the consequences if nobody was arrested. “I wish Nicholas hadn’t been attacked. I’m still not sure he couldn’t have worked that out himself, banging himself in the middle of the back with something and then faking a fall down the stairs.”

“Don’t I wish,” I agreed. “But it sounds as though it was a legitimate attack. He was such a good suspect, wasn’t he?”

“I’m not completely convinced,” he grumbled stubbornly. “He could have done it and under-estimated the extent of his damages from the fall.”

“I might have risked it,” I said, thinking it over. “
But I’d probably fall from halfway down the steps, and it would have taken all my nerve to just let go. Still, if I was afraid of being arrested for murder, I think I could do it.”

“We’re both more or less trained for falling from Karate lessons, but it wouldn’t take that much to learn the basics.”

We happily condemned Nicholas, indulging in wishful thinking. Still, I don’t think either one of us was impressed by our own reasoning. I suggested we try to hold our own little mind-reading session. I knew that he had tremendous energy psychically, and maybe being connected to him would kick-start my own lazy ability. It was a little embarrassing, even though no one knew it other than myself, to realize that my psychic side was just like me in nature—lazy when I could get away with it. It was probably a good thing that I’d always had to work for a living. Working had become a habit, for once a good one.

Moondance did show up at the shop, carefully delivered by a watchful
Jimbo. He brought her right into the shop where he was apparently contented with the sight of Mac keeping watch. He came straight over to talk to us afterward.

I brought him into the kitchen so he could talk without being overheard. “I don’t know what happened,” he told me. “But suddenly everything between us seems to be okay again. So I didn’t have the heart to object when she wanted to go back to the shop and do her fortune telling session. Do you think they’ll be okay with just Mac there?”

I reassured him as best I could, explaining that we were just as worried as he was, and one of us intended to be there if Mac left for any reason. “He’s a lot smarter than I used to give him credit for,” I admitted. “If there’s anything off, he’ll spot it quicker than I would. We’ve set down orders that they don’t eat or drink anything that hasn’t been under their eyes constantly. It’s so hard to tell what to do. Everything that’s happened, other than Frances’ death, has been so haphazard.”

“What else has happened?” he asked and I realized he didn’t know about the greased tree—most likely didn’t know about the tree as an escape route at all.

“This is in confidence,” I told him. “I don’t know who all knows, but probably nobody outside the sheriff’s department and us. Frances wanted Moondance to try and figure out who was trying to kill her. It seems that there had been several clumsy attempts earlier.”

“My God!” he gasped. “Nothing was said to me about that.”

“The sheriff really wants it kept quiet,” I said. Apparently his conflict with his wife had actually closed her mouth and she hadn’t told him anything more than necessary. “And now there’s the attempt on Nicholas. They feel it was legitimate, not faked.”