THE WITCH AND THE TEA PARTY (A Rachael Penzra Mystery) (13 page)

“Oh, they’d take good care that someone like me didn’t get a chance,” he smirked. We could hear the smirk. I was starting to be interested in the idea of listening more carefully.

“What is it you do at the moment,” Moondance asked.

“Can’t you figure that out for yourself with your magic ball?”

“No, I’m not getting any reading concerning an occupation.”

The chair squeaked a little as he shifted uncomfortably. His voice confirmed that he wasn’t happy with the subject. “At the moment I’m between actual jobs. I find it impossible to be tied down to the old nine to five routine. I’m a creator, not a plodder.”

“What I do see,”
Moondance’s voice had taken on a stern tone, “is something to do with drugs. Since I assume you’re not a pharmacist by profession, I would have to say they were illegal ones. And I see a lot of danger ahead for you.”

“Nuts, Lady,” he laughed
, but it sounded forced. “I never touch the stuff. Never have, never will. If that’s what you think you’re seeing, you must be snorting a little yourself.” He liked the sound of that comment, and began giving her advice on how to make sure she was getting the good stuff when she was buying off the street. We could tell he was having a great time, alternately denying any interest or knowledge and giving out a massive amount of information about the subject.

When his time was up, he
said, “It’s been fun, Sunbeam, or whatever your name is. If you’re interested in anything, give me a call. I only handle legal stuff, of course.” He laughed again and left in apparent high humor.

Captain J.
H. chuckled as he sat in the chair. His chuckle was a little wheezy, probably either from smoking or being overweight. Possibly both. “So we’re paying for our delicious dinner by listening to fascinating tales of our future, are we?”

Moondance muttered something, probably a denial.

“Well, it’s fine with me. I’ve been a friend of the family since old Nicky and I were kids. Lost track for a while, but we’re back together now. So, what’s the deal? Do you ask me questions or just tell me what’s going to happen?”

“Either way,” Moondance told him. “If you have definite questions you want answers to, I’ll try and help you. Or I can look into the ball and tell you what I see.”

“Tell me if you think this country will ever learn that it needs to cleanse itself?”

“How do you mean?”

“What? Doesn’t the crystal ball know?”

“What I see is blood and chaos,” Moondance sounded tired. “Blood and chaos.”

“Got to break a few eggs to make an omelet. Right? There’ll naturally be a little bloodshed before things straighten out. Tell me honestly, do you really think the stupid and weak should be allowed to continuously breed? Do you enjoy supporting them, paying for their health insurance, paying for them to live without providing anything for the pot?”

“We’ve chosen this form of government,” Moondance said. “The way to change things is through voting and legal protest.”

That didn’t sound at all like the Moondance I knew. Even if we hadn’t talked about it earlier, I would have known something was wrong at that moment. Besides, if she’d recognized it, she would have realized she would most likely be included in the list of those to be sterilized—if they were lucky and that was all that happened to them.

“
I
didn’t choose this mess. You talk about chaos. What do you think we’re living in now? The only thing a man can sensibly do is to set himself up with supplies and prepare for when the system breaks down openly.”

The familiar little ping ended the session before anything was asked or told. Words weren’t really necessary as far as figuring out whether or not the captain was potentially dangerous or not. What that could have to do with threats to Mrs. B-H was beyond me.
He certainly couldn’t be connecting her with the weak in any way, shape, or form. Yet she’d been weak enough to be open to attack. I guess we all are in our daily lives. We count on the odds that we have decent friends and family as a barrier around us.

That left only the captain’s date, if that’s what she was. They might simply be lumped together because of numbers at the dinner table.
Male, female, male, female, all around the table, host and hostess at each end. That’s the old recipe. Everybody supposedly had someone compatible sitting on at least one side to talk to during the meal. The sisters had spoiled that, but they were definitely a couple of some sort.

Rita Jasper, when she entered the small room, spoke in a tiny Marilyn Monroe voice. “Oh, this is so exciting! I’ve heard so much about you, all good, of course. I’m sure your reading will coincide exactly with my horoscope. I follow it faithfully. Last winter we had that terrible storm and they didn’t deliver the paper for two days.
The electricity was off, too, remember? And I couldn’t get my horoscope the entire time. I just huddled under blankets and hardly moved. I didn’t know what to expect, if I should be extra careful about accidents, or what.”

“You might be wise to buy a long-term general listing next winter,” Moondance told her. “That should give you ample warning of anything particularly perilous to avoid.”

“But they’re so vague sometimes,” she complained. “I suppose I could, just for emergencies. But I adore Madame Quail. It’s like she’s sitting across from me. Her readings are so accurate. I depend on her entirely.” She paused to take a breath. “Not that I don’t think your reading won’t be just fine.”

“Do you have any particular questions or would you like me to read the ball?”

“Oh, I always have a lot of questions, but I think dear Frances wants us to listen to you.”

“I see that you’ve been rather upset lately,” Moondance started.
“I imagine that your horoscope has noted that.”

“Yes, oh yes, it’s true. I’ve been warned to be careful who I go around with. That’s partly why I’m staying with my cousin, Frances. You can’t get any safer than
sticking around her and her money. The mansion has every possible warning system and a dog and guards patrol the yard every night. Fortunately, she has the same interest in the other side that I do.”

“You get along well with your cousin?”

“Of course I do. We’re practically sisters. And I’m not in the least envious of everything she has. That’s just the way things worked out in this incarnation. This time she got the perfect husband and all the material goodies. Next time round is certainly my turn.”

Nobody had mentioned anything about potential envy or jealousy. Seemed as though me lady doth protest too much. Moondance seemed to think the same thing. She pried a little deeper than she had with the
others—maybe just because this was the last one, or maybe she’d seen something extra.

“I see some conflict in your family relationships,” Moondance probed. “Do you have someone else in your family that you’re at odds with?”

“No, I really don’t have anything much to do with my family. I don’t have any quarrels, though. I’ve chosen to move on from my roots.”

And ping! End of session, virtual end of tape. We listened for a few moments to the rustling sounds of Rita’s exit and
Moondance’s clearing up. Then there was silence. We faithfully sat through what was left of the ninety minutes it ran, but nothing other than muted voices and the small sounds of an old building settling in for the night.

At the very end we heard some screaming and yelling and general excitement, but all of it was muffled. Almost on cue, the tape ended and clicked off.

“Wow,” said Patsy. “This stuff is great! It’s like being handed days of research and probing on a silver platter. The sheriff will have a field day.”

“I don’t know,” David said, thoughtfully. “There’s a lot of material there, almost too much. I assume there’s only one killer, but the tape sounds as though there are half a dozen motives. And that’s just what we could gather. Who knows who else had reason to kill her.
”

“I know I’d be careful to keep my mouth shut about anything negative if I planned to murder her,” I added. “Wouldn’t you?”

They all agreed. “Only they didn’t know it was being taped, and people don’t always realize how much they’re giving away about their feelings,” David said. “It’s like people who get in front of a camera and microphone and proceed to tell the world the most intimate secrets. Nervousness causes it, I suppose.”

“I’ve seen that,” Mac chuckled. “They can’t seem to talk fast enough.”

“Imagine telling your innermost secrets to a microphone,” Patsy laughed.

“I can understand it,” Aunt Myrtle said, with a surprising insight into human nature. “If something is that secret, it must be bursting to get out and somehow a microphone isn’t the same as telling it to a person.”

We all shuddered. Mental note: keep my aunt away from microphones.

“’What’s said and done can’t be unsung’,” David quoted from somewhere. “Personally, I’ve never understood the concept of confession to a priest, but then I’m not a Catholic. It seems…
risky
to me.”

“Not if you truly believe that it can never be repeated,” Patsy argued. “I’d think it would serve as a catharsis, maybe even preventing other bad things from happening. It can’t be good to keep secrets.”

“Better than sharing them lots of the time,” Mac snapped.

“We
had
to keep secrets when we were children,” Dora explained.

Considering the childhood they’d had, I was on their side. In my philosophy, there’s a time and place for everything, including secrets.

“Our father used to hear confessions off and on,” Mac reminisced. “Silly women used to come and beg him to hear their sins. Boring ones, too.”

“How do you know?” his sister demanded.

“He used to take them into the little parlor off the library. Remember how you could hear everything that went on in there if you climbed into the wood box?”

“It never occurred to me to listen,” Dora sighed, sensing that she’d missed some interesting
confessions.

“It did me,” he said.

“Back to the case,” Patsy ordered. “I wish you had surveillance cameras set up in the store, Dora. You might think about that for the future. It’d be easy to walk out of here with small items.”

“I’d know,” she said. And she probably would, being an expert at slight-of-hand, not to mention outright kleptomania.

“If we could set up a camera in the readings room, we could watch peoples’ reactions, not just listen,” my aunt said. “That would be fun.”

“No, it wouldn’t,” I scolded her. “It’s one thing to tape sessions to protect yourselves. Even that isn’t really very ethical.”

She wisely shut up. I made a mental note to check for hidden cameras in the coming months.

“Well, I’ve got to get home,” David stood and stretched. I do like watching him. He
has a great body and is so graceful without being the least bit effeminate. I envied him. I think of myself as feminine, but nobody’s ever come up to me and told me how graceful I am. I’d most likely do something less than gracious like snorting if they did.

I argued that Dora should come back with us, rat and all, for the night, but Mac said he planned on staying. “Not much of a television set, but it’ll do for a night or two.” He glanced at me slyly. “You might not want to carry all that beer back across with you.”

I took the hint and left him a six-pack.

It was good to be back home, away from the atmosphere of murder and intrigue. I had a nice bath, fixed myself some hot chocolate, and cuddled in bed with a new book. I intended to read for a while and then get a good night’s sleep so I could think clearly the next day.

The bath was great, the hot chocolate soothing, the book fun but not overwhelming mentally or emotionally. All was set for a good night’s sleep. All except my mind. It had no intention of being fed all sorts of fascinating information and then putting it all aside for something as mundane as sleep.

I went over and over what I could recall of the tapes, taking one person at a time. I decided that the husband was guilty: just too good to be true for someone who was married to a tyrant. Then, in sequence as I thought about them, I tried and condemned every one of the guests. I do have to admit to having an imagination that doesn’t allow itself to be discouraged by anything as stupid as
specifics. I hardly need suppositions, much less facts.

Other than the husband (he was so smarmy sounding, although that might be covered in a face-to-face meeting) I opted for either Brandon
Mandrell because he acted so suspiciously, like he must have had something to hide, or one of the two sisters. The latter was based on having read too many mysteries where the least likely person is the murderer, but there had been something amiss in their behaviors. Probably it was something completely unrelated to the killing, but still it was odd that they’d even been included in the party. They threw the male/female ratio off kilter.

I wished I had access to the sheriff’s records. He would have some sort of time table concerning who was doing what and when. I mentally drew a picture of where the tea table had been in relation to the chairs. It looked as though it would have been difficult to fool around with someone’s tea without it being obvious to the others. Of course it wasn’t a guarantee that the victim hadn’t carried her cup around the room with her, putting it down occasionally. That’s what I would have done if I’d poured a full cup before I tasted it. I’d hope to eventually find som
eplace to ‘misplace’ the cup—or dump its contents. Still, she hadn’t struck me as the type of person who would hesitate to complain about its awfulness and then dump it. Yet again (my imagination back in full force) I could see her as the type of woman who couldn’t admit to a mistake, not even one where nobody could have expected something to taste that horrible. So she’d drink it down, if for no other reason than so she could hassle the others to drink some. That scenario satisfied me. I could picture that quite easily.