Be Careful What You Witch For (A Family Fortune Mystery) (3 page)

4

We walked to my car, an ancient Jeep Wrangler that had been brought back to life after I rolled it into a ditch last summer. We climbed in, buckled up, and bounced our way down the dirt path out of the woods.

The vehicle was eerily silent. Diana tended to shut down when she was nervous, a trait I appreciated at this moment. There was no need for speculation without substance. I’d had enough of that growing up to last the rest of my life. But I knew she had to be wondering whether Vi was right, crazy as it sounded. Once we hit pavement, I broke the silence.

“Diana, this is probably routine. They just need some more information about Rafe,” I said.

She nodded and stared at the passing wooded terrain.

“Just answer the questions as honestly as you can,” I said. “I’ll stay with you.” I reached over and squeezed her hand.

“What if your mom and Vi are right?” Diana blurted as she turned in her seat to look at me. “Who would kill Rafe? And why do the police think I would know anything about that?”

I was wondering the same thing.

“Let’s just wait and see what’s going on,” I said. “You know Tom loves the dramatic moment. He’s probably just trying to make it look like a bigger deal than it is.”

Diana gave me a small smile. I knew she didn’t believe the reassurances, but she appreciated the attempt.

We parked near the station and sat for a moment before getting out. Diana took a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and nodded at me. I took my own calming breath and opened the door.

Tom met us in the lobby and walked us past Lisa Harkness. She was the receptionist and self-appointed news distributor. Her mouth hung open as she reached for her cell phone. Tom showed us to a small interview room and left. Diana and I exchanged glances. We didn’t wait long.

When the door opened again, Mac stood there. With his six feet and a couple of inches he filled the doorway. He kept his blond hair cropped short, and whether he was in his uniform or jeans, he radiated authority. His size and gruff manner fooled most people, but I knew the lines near his mouth were from an easy smile. And that the sparkle in his eyes was more often from laughter than anger.

I felt a warm flush at the sight of him. Last summer, we’d rekindled a relationship that had ended too soon, but we were keeping it to ourselves for now. In public we were all business. Especially since my family was not known for minding their own, and would likely begin planning the wedding if they knew we were back together. Mac was determined to give us every possible chance of doing things right this time. Between my family duties, his job, and Diana’s festival, we’d had a rocky start to our reignited romance. It seemed the Fates were conspiring against us. I’d been looking forward to an evening alone with him. The look on his face wiped away any thoughts of a romantic interlude in the near future.

After I gained control of my smile and donned a more suitable expression of outrage that Diana had been brought to the police station, my heart sank at the realization that Vi must be right. Rafe had been murdered.

Mac worked in the county sheriff’s office as a homicide detective. He wouldn’t be here in Crystal Haven unless there was suspicion of murder.

“Why am I not surprised?” Mac said. “Of course you two were there when Rafe Godwin died.” Mac dropped a file onto the table and crossed his arms. He had perfected the intimidation stance. And his blue eyes could become a steely gray when he was angry.

Intimidation didn’t work on me. But Diana squeezed my hand again.

“Mac, what’s this about?” I said. “Why did Tom drag Diana in here?”

He sat in one of the chairs and gestured that we should do the same. He dropped the tough-cop ploy and rested his elbows on the table.

“Diana, did you know that Rafe was allergic to peanuts?”

“Of course.” Diana nodded. “Lots of people knew that.”

“Someone has come forward claiming that they tasted peanuts in the”—Mac looked at the file in front of him—“‘bambrack’ bread.”

Diana and I looked at each other.

She shook her head. “No. I made it myself. I knew Rafe was allergic and the recipe doesn’t call for nuts, anyway.”

“What is bambrack bread?” Mac asked.

“It’s a traditional Celtic bread made with fruit soaked in tea,” Diana told him. “I thought it would be a fun thing to do this year for the ceremony. My mother used to make it every Halloween.”

“So, there weren’t any nuts in any of the food you served?” Mac said.

“That’s right. I made everything myself. I don’t know how he would have been exposed to peanuts. Plus, if it was an allergic reaction, the EpiPen should have bought us some time.”

“Yeah, we’re looking into that as well,” Mac said. He rubbed his forehead.

“Mac, it was an accident,” I said. “He must have eaten something elsewhere and then reacted to it. Unfortunately, we were so far out in the woods that we couldn’t get him to a hospital in time.”

“He was severely allergic,” Diana said. “He carried EpiPens everywhere he went, and stashed them all over the place. And he was really careful about what he ate. I don’t know how this could have happened.” She put her head down on her arms.

I put my hand on her back.

“Diana, you knew him pretty well, right?” Mac asked.

Diana sat up and nodded. “He was my father’s best friend. Dylan and I called him Uncle Rafe. After my parents died, he was the one who helped us put the pieces back together.” Her voice broke and she put her hand to her mouth.

Mac slid a box of tissues in her direction. “I’m sorry, Diana,” he said, and waited.

After a loud use of the tissues, she said, “Sorry, I’m just overwhelmed with the festival and I’ve been avoiding thinking about him being dead.”

“You’ve been working too hard.” I put a hand on her arm. “Let Bethany take over the booth today.”

She shook her head. “It’s better if I stay busy.” Diana looked at Mac. “Do you need anything else?”

“Whatever you can think of that would help us find out who might have wanted to hurt him.” Mac held his hands out. “It’s clear he ingested something in the hour or so before he died. Was he with you all that time?”

Diana sat back in her chair and took a deep breath. She nodded and looked at the ceiling, trying to recall the evening.

“He helped me set up the food,” she said. “We had a small meal before the ceremony. That’s where he would have eaten the bambrack. Who said they tasted nuts?”

Mac looked at the table and then at Diana. “I can’t tell you.”

I felt my jaw clench. If we’d been alone, I would have called him on his top secret attitude. There was nothing to indicate foul play as far as I could tell, so unless he was keeping major information from us, he had nothing to go on.

“Mac, Diana is exhausted. I’m sure she’ll call you if she thinks of anything. Can we be done here?”

He nodded. “Before you leave, I’ll need a list of everyone who was in the woods that night, his closest contacts, and any family.”

Diana took the pad of paper he offered and began writing. Mac pulled me out in the hall while she worked.

“Did
you
see anything that might help?”

“Like, did I see someone hand him a jar of Planters?”

“This isn’t funny, Clyde. I have to investigate the claim that his food may have been contaminated. Knowing Diana made it without any nuts means someone must have doctored it later.”

“It’s all hearsay. Some random person claims they tasted nuts and now you’re launching an investigation?”

“We have samples of all the food from the ceremony. The nurse who helped out at the scene took it all to the hospital—he thought it was a food allergy reaction and figured it might be useful to the doctors. He watches too much TV, but in this case it was actually helpful to be able to send it all off to a lab.”

“You know that will never hold up in court. There’s no proof he got that food from the ceremony.”

“Who said anything about court?” Mac’s voice got a little higher and he held his hands up like I was mugging him. “I’m just trying to figure out if this guy died by accident or not.”

“Diana did everything she could to help him.” I crossed my arms and held his gaze.

“No one is accusing Diana of anything.” He put his hand on my arm and slipped it around my back to pull me into a hug then retracted it quickly when he remembered where we were.

I raised an eyebrow, then smiled at him. “Good.” I wasn’t sure why I was worrying. Mac was right, there was no reason to suspect she had anything to do with peanuts in the food, but I was getting a bad feeling anyway.

In general, bad feelings are the only kind I have. Or maybe they’re just the strongest ones. I’ve never quite figured it out, but I was excellent at predicting trouble and doom. It was
my
special talent. Vi talks to animals, Mom reads the tarot, and I have vague inklings of badness, punctuated by dreams predicting death and mayhem. I’d trade it in an instant for a talent like singing or painting.

Diana came out of the room and handed Mac her list.

“Thanks, Diana. I’ll look into this.”

He walked with us back toward the front of the building and said good-bye. Mac could get very wrapped up in a case. It was unlikely I’d see him anytime soon. But, I smiled and nodded—I don’t do clingy.

5

I insisted on taking Diana to lunch instead of returning right away to the festival. I felt we needed a dose of Alex, the third member of our little group and the designated cheerer-upper. I knew he could help me out in the support-a-friend department.

Everyday Grill felt more crowded than usual this time of year. The festival had definitely helped the tourist trade this fall. Shocked once again at the changes Alex had made to the interior of the restaurant, I surveyed the new atmosphere with appreciation. Last summer, he was just an employee and the décor ran toward 1970s dark steak house. After the events of the early summer had resolved, he’d purchased the restaurant at a bargain and was able to put some money into renovations. Now the whole place felt lighter, brighter, and more like Alex.

The menu had been fancied up as well but he left a few old standbys for the regulars.

Diana and I were well-known by the waitstaff so her iced tea and my diet soda arrived almost as soon as we sat down.

Diana sipped her tea and then pushed it away. “I’m not really that hungry.”

“You say that now.” I shoved a menu at her even though we both had it memorized.

I ordered the Cobb salad. Diana, who wasn’t hungry, got the bacon burger with fries. It’s always good to drown stress with grease and fat. I was distracting her with tales of Baxter, my bullmastiff, and his never-ending war with our neighborhood squirrels, when Alex came out of the kitchen. A few inches taller than me, he had the shoulders of a kayaker and the barely contained energy of a toddler. His dark hair was hidden under a white bandanna, but he’d removed his apron. He pulled up a chair and gave Diana a long hug.

“I heard about Rafe. I’m so sorry.”

Diana nodded and attempted a watery smile.

“What have you heard?” I asked, wondering if the whole peanut thing was common knowledge.

“Only that he collapsed and by the time the ambulance guys had hiked through the woods, he was . . .” Alex glanced at Diana and stopped.

She stared at her drink as if she didn’t know what it was. I put my hand over hers, and thought quickly of a way to shift the subject.

“How’s Dylan doing?” I asked her. Dylan Ward was Diana’s brother—Diana had changed her name to Moonward after she opened her store—and until that week, I’d only seen him once in the five years since their parents had died. He’d arrived just in time for the festival and I’d seen him briefly at a couple of the events.

“He seems fine. He and Rafe never got along very well, and he hadn’t seen him in years.” Diana shrugged.

I nodded, but wondered just how well Dylan was doing in other ways. From what Diana had told me over the years, he’d been drifting from place to place, picking up odd jobs along the way. He was an artist and followed the art shows around the country, trekking his wares in a beat-up old Suburban that had been his dad’s. He made leather boxes, clocks, and switch plates. Diana said he did a lot of couch surfing, but it often sounded as though it was more likely he did a lot of squatting in abandoned houses until the neighbors complained. Dylan was seven years younger than Diana and was only eighteen when Elliot and Fiona had died. He had taken it hard and left Crystal Haven the day after the funeral. I’d never fully understood the relationship between Diana and her brother. She was very protective of him. She sent him money whenever he had an address and always had a ready excuse for him when he disappeared for months at a time. I would have thought they’d stick together after the death of their parents, but Diana didn’t seem to mind that he went his own way.

“Dylan was in here earlier talking to Lucan Reed,” Alex said. “It didn’t seem friendly.”

“Lucan? I didn’t know they knew each other,” Diana said. “He’s only been in Rafe’s coven for the past year or so.”

“It didn’t look like a happy reunion. More like a Mexican standoff.”

Diana’s brows drew together. “I wonder what that was about.”

Just as Alex shrugged, the food arrived and he was called back into the kitchen. He headed back to work after promising to stop by the festival for its last day.

*   *   *

That night, after
a trip to the park with Baxter and a reheated casserole from the last time I was at my mom’s, I checked my phone for messages from Mac. He’d texted to say he’d stop by later. I sat on the four inches of couch that Baxter allowed me and picked up the remote. He groaned and fixed me with his droopy stare. After almost losing him over the summer following his superdog heroics, I had spoiled him. Now he demanded the prime space on the couch and persistently tried to take over the bed.

I’d just clicked onto an FBI missing persons show when I heard a knock on the door. It wasn’t Mac’s usual four-beat rhythm, but I hopped up and swung open the door.

“Finally, you escaped!” I said before I saw who was on my porch.

“I guess you could say that.” My nephew, Seth, slouched in my doorway. Tall and gangly, with blond bangs hanging in his eyes, it was clear he was Grace’s son. He’d always had her coloring, and now his cute-kid looks were morphing into handsome charm. Tuffy, his ill-tempered shih tzu, glowered from where he was tucked under Seth’s arm. Baxter became aware of his buddy and leaped off the couch. He almost knocked Seth over in his enthusiastic greeting. After coating as much of the teen as he could in dog slime, he turned his attention to the dog. Tuffy was wagging his tail so hard that Seth had to put him down. Both dogs bounded into the living room to complete their greeting ritual.

“What are you—how did you—”

Seth cocked his eyebrow and gestured toward the living room.

“Come in.” I swung my arm wide and watched him push past the dogs and drop his backpack and duffel bag on the floor.

“What are you doing here?”

My older sister and I didn’t communicate often, but whenever she sent her fourteen-year-old son to visit Michigan, she definitely called to make arrangements.

“It’s nice to see you, too.”

“Don’t get snippy with me. Does your mother know you’re here?” Grace was going to freak when she found out he’d traveled half the country.

He dropped his eyes.

“She thinks I’m at a friend’s cottage for the weekend.”

“Where does she think this cottage is?”

“Upstate New York.”

I crossed my arms and took a few deep breaths. I felt a twitch begin in my right eyelid.

“Since you’re now in Western Michigan, I can only assume you took a wrong turn.”

“Actually, I took a car to Ann Arbor, then a bus to Kalamazoo until they found Tuffy in my duffel bag, then I caught a ride here.”

“You took a car? You can’t even drive yet.”

“I got a ride with a friend’s older brother who goes to U of M, and then I took the bus with one of
his
friends.
That
guy had a girlfriend who was picking him up at the bus station and they drove me here.”

“We have to call your mother.”

Seth held his hand up. “I just texted her to tell her I’m having a great time—can’t we wait until tomorrow?”

“But, why?”

“I can’t go back there, Clyde.” He pulled his mouth into a sad expression that he probably practiced in the mirror. “I want to stay here with you.”

More deep breaths. Some counting. It was late, and I knew Grace worked long hours. She didn’t need to know tonight that Seth was halfway across the country and not simply a few hours away. Plus, now that he was in my house, he was safe.

“You can stay tonight. I’ll wait to call your mom in the morning and then we have to figure out what to do with you.”

“Great!” Seth flashed his grin. “Do you have any food around here?”

He walked toward the kitchen with both dogs trailing behind.

I spent a few moments alone in my living room pacing and trying to calm down.

By the time I joined them, Seth had emptied almost the entire contents of the refrigerator onto the counter.

“Don’t you have any pickles? How about soda?”

“No pickles. I threw them away after you left. You know—to go home and go back to school?”

“Pickles last a long time; you didn’t have to dump them.” He chose to focus on the food, not the lecture.

I snagged a bag of chips out of the pantry and tossed them at Seth. He and the dogs had settled into their usual places at the kitchen table: Tuffy jumped onto the seat to Seth’s right, Baxter rested his head on the table to his left. The dogs patiently waited for Seth to share.

I sat down in
my
usual spot—as far across the table as I could get.

We had fallen into this pattern over the summer. After I’d inherited the house, Seth and I moved our few belongings from the ancient Victorian shared by my aunt and parents to this much smaller home. It worked out in everyone’s best interests. I needed my own place and the dogs were only welcome by my mom as temporary visitors, not permanent residents. Seth came with the deal—the dogs insisted. Early August had been filled with relaxation and recovery from the events of July and by the time we were all back on our feet, Diana had recruited us to help with the festival. I suppose it wasn’t that surprising that Seth had shown up just in time to attend the last day of the festival—he’d been part of the planning from the beginning. I latched on to that thought as the reason for his sudden arrival. The other possibilities were less pleasant.

I worried about Seth ever since he admitted to having some sort of burgeoning pet psychic talent earlier in the summer. I never managed to get him to talk about it after he confided in me, and that concerned me. Having that sort of a secret could wear on a kid. I knew, having been that kid myself. He was a gentle person who seemed more interested in time alone with animals than with teens his own age. I wondered how much he had shared with his parents. My sister, incapable of seeing anything awry in her life, clung to the fantasy that leaving Crystal Haven would solve all of her problems and she had never backed away from that stance.

I sighed without realizing it and three sets of eyes turned to me.

“Want some?” Seth pushed the bag of chips in my direction, and continued to devour his triple-decker sandwich. I would have thought that he had been starved on his cross-country trip but he ate like that all the time. By the time he left at the end of August he had reached his life goal of surpassing me in height. I was sure I’d be craning my neck soon to look him in the eye.

After everyone was done with his snack, I told Seth to dump his things in his old room. He and the dogs padded up the stairs and returned a few minutes later, wanting to go for a walk. We clipped their leashes on and headed out the front door.

Tuffy and Baxter were delighted to be back together again. Tuffy ran next to Baxter to match his gait, his short legs blurring with the speed. Baxter slowed his pace for Tuffy, something he never did for me.

“The last day of the festival is tomorrow, so you didn’t miss it all.”

Seth looked surprised and said, “Right, the festival. Cool.” My shoulders slumped. He hadn’t come for the festival.

“You can go with me to Diana’s booth after you check in with your mom tomorrow.”

“’Kay.”

Seth kept up a running monologue about a new electropop fusion band inspired by video game theme songs. Ever since he had discovered my stash of boy band CDs in a box during the move, he had been on a mission to improve my taste in music. I had no idea what he was talking about and suspected this was his attempt to control the conversation.

When we returned to the house, Seth’s heavy tread on the front steps conveyed his fatigue from the day of travel. We unlocked the door and released the dogs from their leashes.

“I think I better go to bed,” he said.

Tuffy was at his side in an instant. Baxter threw an apologetic glance in my direction and slumped off after his friends.

I sat on the couch alone, wondering what to do with a runaway nephew.