THE WITCH AND THE TEA PARTY (A Rachael Penzra Mystery) (15 page)

“Good,” he smiled happily. “Today is my eat anything day.”

“Eat anything?” I asked innocently, although I had a pretty good idea what he meant.

“On a diet,” he explained, apparently not at all shy about telling the world. “Charts say I’m overweight for my
height. One day a week I get to eat whatever I want. Keeps the cravings under control. Or so they say.”

I decided flattery, along with a huge piece of brownie topped with cookie and cream ice cream, was the wisest route for me to take. “I thought muscle weighed quite a bit more than fat. Did you take that into consideration?”

“Just going by the charts,” he said, seating himself and digging into his feast. “Can’t expect my men to keep in shape if I don’t meet the standards.”

“I suppose that’s a point,” I told him, digging into my own slightly smaller dessert.

“You can guess why I’m here,” he said, finishing his share in less than four bites. “Whenever you and yours are involved in anything illegal, it’s not going to be pretty.”

“That isn’t fair,” I argued. “We don’t do anything illegal.”

“Last I heard, murder is still against the law,” he countered, thinking he was being cleverly sarcastic.

“None of us has ever murdered anybody.”

“True, but you seem to hang around with people who make it a habit.”

I sighed. “Sheriff, I don’t think there’s any way I can convince you that before I moved here, the worst thing I was ever involved in was a car accident, and even then I wasn’t part of the crash. I just filled out an affidavit
describing what I saw.”

“I know. I’ve checked you out,” he admitted. “But now you’re living in my jurisdiction and trouble seems to be seeking you out. If I believed in any of that nonsense, I’d say it’s because you’re a witch.
Or because you’re psychic. I don’t believe in witches or psychics. Witches are just people trying to play with magic. I don’t believe in magic, either.”

“Being a witch has little or nothing to do with changing dogs into pumpkins, or in causing the local milk cows to give sour milk. It used to mean, ‘wise woman’. I think of it as being a search for the person I was put here on earth to be.” I bit my tongue mentally. I wasn’t going to be drawn into a religious debate. It would upset us both and I wanted some information out of him. He seemed to be th
inking the same thing in regards to me.

“Is there any chance you kept an eye on things across the street last night? You know, watched from a window or something?”

“I peeked out a few times, first when the limos arrived and once later, shortly before all the squad car lights caught my attention. I didn’t see anything of interest. The only thing I noticed were the limo drivers. At least one of them. I could see a little movement inside the driver’s door. The window was open. I’d think they were the ones to question. They must know a lot more than I do.”

“They’re just about as helpful as you,” he grumbled, as though it was our fault that we hadn’t caught a glimpse of the killer sneaking around outside.

Remembering that my knowledge was supposed to be extremely limited, I tried asking a few questions of my own. “What did happen? Was she poisoned for sure? There are all sorts of rumors going around town. My customers have it that it was gang related.”

He shook his head in
disgust. “It really makes you wonder, doesn’t it, about the human race? How did a straight forward murder become a gang issue?”

“So it was murder?”

“Oh, definitely,” he told me. “We’re releasing the autopsy report in a few hours. It wasn’t complicated. Someone laced her tea with nicotine.”

I shuddered. “I’ve read about that, but it’s never struck me as anything feasible. First you’d have to soak cigarettes or something like that, wouldn’t you?
And the taste must be awful.”

“It wouldn’t be as difficult as most extractions. You’d have to wear gloves for safety, I suppose, but when I think of how people hold cigarettes all day with only that thin piece of paper protecting them, I don’t suppose you’d do yourself much harm that way. It would be handling the concentrated stuff that might be dangerous. I guess it all depends on how much the end results mean to you.”

“Was there anything anybody could do?” I asked. That always worries me, that someday I won’t respond properly to an emergency and cause someone to die.

“Nothing.” He gave a bitter laugh. “Except maybe keep those naughty old witches from brewing up
any more trouble.” He got away with calling them that ever since they played the parts of MacBeth’s three crones.

I frowned, but it was kind of funny in a sick way. “Who would know about their horrible tea ahead of time?” I asked. “It wasn’t a secret, of course, but I can’t see where one of them would have known.”

“I imagine the poison had been toted around for a while, looking for the main chance,” he said. “Or it could have been set up for as soon as possible and the dinner party sounded like a good bet. Then when no chance arose there, the fortune reading was a nice gift. It wouldn’t have taken much to kill her. Her heart wasn’t any too good, and there’s no reason one or all of them wouldn’t have heard about that. She just needed a good sip.”

“Have you tasted that tea?” I asked him. “A sip would be all a person could handle. It tastes
terrible.
”

“Well the three ladies are lucky that the poison was only found in her cup.
It more or less clears them. You wouldn’t believe what was in that stuff they concocted.”

“Oh yes, I would,” I assured him. “I dutifully asked
about ingredients and tasted every batch. But there was nothing that should have poisoned anybody. They used regular herbal tea material. It’s just that they mixed without matching and were very generous with their worst-tasting choices. From what they figured each thing was good for, it should have cured everything from hang nails to cancer. They added a lot of mint at the end, but somehow that made it taste even worse. I’ve always loved mint tea, but now I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to drink another cup. I’ll keep tasting those underlying flavors.”

“Nobody at the station would take a chance and try the
unpoisoned stuff. I had to do it myself.”

“You have my strongest sympathy,” I assured him and really meant it. Talk about above and beyond the call of duty.
We shared a shudder of remembrance before I asked him, “Have you talked to Moondance yet? My aunt and Dora haven’t been able to get hold of her.”

“If Jim has his way, they never will,” he said. “Poor man was breathing flames last night and this morning. He sounded like a Victorian father, protecting his beloved daughter from the ravages of the l
ocal rake. He’s forbidden her, and that’s the word he used, to have anything to do with the other two women.”

“Oh,” I was sympathetic despite my better sense. “I hope he’ll get over it. They have such a good time together. And going along with your Victorian theme, I can easily picture her pining away if they’re kept apart.”

“I don’t know why,” he answered. “They all got along without each other for most of their lives. They aren’t long lost triplets separated at birth.”

“They do seem to be soul mates,” I sighed. “It’s almost as though their friendship was meant to be.”

“It isn’t a love story,” he grumbled. “Anyway, Moondance is insisting that she never recalls anything about one of her readings, that her spirit guide takes over. The bad part is, that after listening to those tapes, I almost believe her.”

“Were the tapes of any use?” I asked quickly, remembering I was supposed to be ignorant about their contents. “Did they provide a motive for someone?”

“I can’t discuss a case in progress,” he warned me. “But I will say this, wherever there’s that kind of money, there are always motives of one degree or another.”

“She was really rich?” I felt like I was getting some answers, ones I suppose weren’t any secrets, but they were news to me.

“To put it very conservatively, she was stinking rich.”

“Who inherits?” Follow the money trail
is always a good starting point.

“I imagine the husband, but there are apparently a lot of separate legacies that need to be settled before he can get his hands on anything. Not that it matters. He can easily get as much loaned to him as he wants until then. We’ll find out more when we see the lawyer t
omorrow. He’s been out of town.”

“I know you can’t tell me anything specific,” I said. “But can you at least tell me if you have any leads? I really want this cleared up as soon as it can be. I don’t like my aunt being in the midst of things again. Surely you can understand that.”

“You don’t want this cleared up any more than I do,” he assured me. “I’m having Joe grill that niece of yours. He’s trustworthy and he’ll get the most information out of her. She’s a sharp kid. I wish she’d been there.”

We parted on more or less amiable terms. I wondered why he’d even bothered to stop. He certainly hadn’t grilled me. A moment’s reflection, though, made me realize that of all the places in town where he was certain to get a good cup of coffee and plenty of sweets, my home sweet home was a sure bet.
And nobody would be the wiser, either.

At least I now had it on the highest authority that Mrs. B-H had been rich with a capital R. She’d also been a bit of a bitch, if the tapes were anything to go by. She’d been charming to the trio until she was sure she had them committed, but once they’d taken the money, she felt she more or less owned them. And she wasn’t a very nice owner. She’d made it clear to Moondance who was in charge, and the sad thing was that Moondance would have happily responded to her plea for help concerning her safety. The woman must have known that, too, yet she still chose to demean her hireling.

Her husband, I’d noticed, had been acting a little too amused at the accusation of infidelity. And if he’d been completely innocent wouldn’t he have made some comment or joke about it when he left the booth? Dora and Aunt Myrtle both swore he hadn’t. He was apparently used to charming the ladies, but that didn’t mean he carried things beyond that. Money, though, even second hand, would appeal to a lot of women, adding to his value by a hundred percent. It would be difficult for a man to resist the wiles of an admiring woman after he’d endured snubs and attacks from his wife regularly. We all like our egos stroked.

I still liked him as the killer, even though it would be rather
like a case of ‘the butler did it’. I hadn’t liked his tone of voice when speaking to Moondance. It had struck me as extremely condescending, and while he wasn’t above throwing her a bone tasting of his potential charm, he hadn’t gone out of his way to emotionally seduce her. She hadn’t, I felt, been worth it to him.

I went to answer the phone. Then it rang. This is so common with me that I hardly notice I do it. It’s a rather useless skill, but interesting. It was David. “Rachael, have you thought to question Ralph? He had to have been hanging around. He loves excitement.”

“I never thought of him,” I exclaimed. “That’s perfect. He’s sure to have seen what happened, and once we know who the killer is, we should be able to dig up some sort of proof.”

“It would hardly do to tell the sheriff that a ghost told us,” he agreed, half laughing. “Has he asked you any more questions?”

“He stopped by a while ago,” I said. “Other than repeat the questions about what I might have seen, he didn’t seem terribly interested in me. He was apparently after dessert. He’s on some kind of diet that allows him one day a week to eat whatever he wants. What he did say was that Mrs. B-H was filthy rich. He hasn’t talked to the lawyer yet, but everybody seems to think that the husband gets the lion’s share. There are other bequests. That’s all I know.”

“Do you want me to run back over and we can see what Ralph knows?”

I glanced at the clock. It was past ten. “I think we’d better wait until tomorrow. By the time you get here, Aunt Myrtle might be back and Dora settled for the night. She probably didn’t sleep well even with Mac there.”

We settled on that plan. I cleaned up and went to bed. I laid there unt
il I heard Aunt Myrtle and Patsy come in a while later, about half an hour apart. Then I fell asleep and slept soundly.

Morning arrived, as it usually does, a few minutes early. I often feel that if I could just manage a few minutes more rest, I’d feel great. Downstairs, breakfast was well on its way.
I settled for coffee and cold cereal. “Anything new from anybody?” I asked.

“Dora and I set a trap so nobody could sneak up on her upstairs,” my aunt said. “I wanted her to come back here, but she wouldn’t. I didn’t offer to stay because I didn’t want to try and sleep on her couch with Eloise running around all night. I can’t get it out of my mind that she’s not at all like the rats in books and movies. It’s okay during the day, but all night?”

“She ran around here nights before we caught her,” I reminded her.

“Yes, but I didn’t know about it.”

That was indisputable logic. I was going to ask her about Ralph, but decided to keep my mouth shut until we had time to go over to Dora’s and ask questions ourselves. Ralph could be touchy about things, a real prima donna. I think I preferred him as a ghost rather than as a live person. He must have been a trial to put up with sometimes in his human form. When David arrived, I hurriedly met him at the door and whispered a warning not to mention Ralph yet. He nodded.