Three Witches and a Killer: Wicked Western Witches Book 1 (7 page)

Just as I was ready to turn my attention back to the mail I saw a flash of light. Stepping around the kitchen table, I made my way to the little window. In the dusky shadows of early evening, it was near impossible to make out anything other than the vague outline of trees.

But then I saw one of the shadows move, as if someone was trying to hide behind the tree. Whoever that someone was, they seemed to be watching my window.

Had that freaky butcher decided to turn his attention to me?

The thought sent a shiver down my spine. Of course I had no proof that whoever was watching me was the butcher, but who else would it be?

Forgetting the mail, I went to the door and double-checked the lock. Suddenly I was grateful for the patrons downstairs, which would make it a little more difficult for someone to sneak up on me.

Chapter Seven

Under no circumstances can I force myself to be chirpy at 7 o’clock in the morning. Nevertheless, that’s what time I had to get up. It was a condition my dad had insisted on before he’d let me use his car. I had to pick him up and take him to work.

It was a good thing my car was supposed to be ready in the afternoon. That didn’t necessarily mean that it would be, but I could only hope.

After dropping Dad and his Lexus off at the city building, I made my way through Specter Square to my own office.

Unlike dad, I had no sprite receptionist to greet me when I walked through the door, which really kind of sucked. It would have been nice to have someone to make coffee for me in the morning. But nope, I was stuck doing it for myself.

Imagine my surprise when I walked into my office and found Pax on my computer.

“Wow! You’re up bright and early. How did you get in my office?” I asked.

Pax lifted his eyes from the computer monitor. “You gave me a key, remember?”

He was right. I had given him a key and completely spaced it off. My only excuse for forgetting something that important was that I was half brain-dead in the morning. At 7 AM I was lucky to remember my clothes.

Still half asleep, I put the coffee on while I tried to ignore the growling and pounding from the closet.

How long have you been ignoring Mickey D?” I asked.

“All morning. Did you remember to feed him last night?”

I nodded. “I did but he seems to be eating more and more.”

Sighing, Pax sat back in the chair. “Seems to me you better be figuring out how to reverse that spell before we end up with a zombie apocalypse.”

He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. It was time to change the subject.

“What are you looking for?” I asked.

“I was looking for information on Viking witches,” he told me. “I think it’s a good chance that new guy could be a witch. That would be one way to explain how he could appear dead one minute and be gone the next, and you did say he was wearing old Viking clothing,” Pax pointed out.

“You could be onto something but why pretend you are not a witch in a town full of witches? Not only that, he pretended that I hadn’t hit him at all and that he’d never seen me before.”

Pax shrugged. “Could be he’s here undercover. Let’s not forget that he showed up not long after old Canton’s death.”

While waiting for the coffee to finish brewing, I opened the little fridge in my office and pulled out a white bowl full of cow guts.

As soon as I opened the closet door and peeked inside, I was tempted to slam it shut again. Mickey D’s face appeared to be rotting at an accelerated pace. Soon he wouldn’t just look like a walking corpse. but a walking gross corpse.

Pulling the lid off the bowl, I slid it into the closet and quickly slammed the door.

Pax was right. This was a situation I had to take care of and quickly.

“Are you done?” Pax asked.

“Yeah, why? If you were that worried about the noise you would have fed him.”

Pax waved away my words. “No, I’m good at ignoring moaning. I just figured we should walk over to Holly’s store and get a cup of coffee. It would give us a chance to get to know the new guy a little better and maybe figure out what he’s all about.”

“But I just made some coffee,” I protested.

Pax shrugged. “So turn it off and save it for later. You’ll need it when you’re ready to fall asleep on your desk.”

He had a point. Besides, the new guy’s coffee bar might actually offer gourmet coffee and I could use a little of that at the moment.

* * *

As soon as we entered the Catnip Book Boutique I could feel the difference. The atmosphere was darker, heavier than I remember.

But that wasn’t the only difference. Although Holly’s busiest time of the day was early afternoon, it wasn’t unusual to find a customer or two in her shop during the morning hours.

One would think with the new coffee bar added to the Boutique there would be at least a couple people checking it out, but the shop was empty with the exception of the new guy. He’d set up a few Bristo dining sets, along with a bar. Although it was obvious he was still in the process of putting together his little coffee business, he’d made a lot of progress in one day.

“Hello there,” Garrett Bray greeted us from behind the bar. “I wasn’t expecting to see the two of you again so soon, but it is good of you to stop in.”

“Where’s Holly?” I asked immediately, wasting no time with manners.

Garrett shrugged his wide shoulders. “I have no idea. She wasn’t here when I arrived this morning.”

“Hmm ... Well, if you are open for business we would like some coffee,” I told him.

“Of course,” he said with a wide smile. “Would you like anything special in your coffee?”

“Cream.”

“Make that cream and sugar in mine,” Pax added.

While we waited for our coffee, we sat at one of the tables. The little Bristo set was elegant enough but seemed a little out of place in Shadow Crossing.

We barely had a chance to sit down before Garrett brought us our coffee.

“Thank you,” I muttered.

“The two of you are out and about early this morning,” Garrett commented.

Pax glared at him through narrowed eyes. “The early bird gets the worm. Isn’t that what they say?”

“Actually, we are working on a case and was hoping we would find my cousin Holly at work,” I told him.

“Sorry,” he said, putting his hands in the air. “If I see her, I will certainly let her know that you are looking for her.”

“So, what brings you to Shadow Crossing?” Pax asked.

“Business, obviously,” Garrett answered but now there was a hard edge to his voice.

It was apparent he didn’t like people meddling in his business. That didn’t necessarily make him a suspect in anything, but it could.

“Are you telling me you just showed up in town, picked out a business that you could intrude upon with your own business?” Pax raised one brow, questioningly.

“Basically.” Garrett nodded. “Now, if the two of you are set I have a lot of work to do.”

“Of course,” I told him, putting a smile on my face. “We will let you know if we need anything.”

When Garrett was gone, Pax leaned over the table and whispered, “You sure let him off the hook easy enough. Don’t you think we should have asked a few more questions?”

I nodded. “Yes, we need more info out of him but I don’t think were going to get it by strong-arming him. He doesn’t seem much like the type that will be easily intimidated. Haven’t you ever heard that old saying, you’ll catch more flies with honey than vinegar? Besides, as far as we know, he could be telling the truth. Maybe he
did
come to town to start a new business. If he is a witch, a move to this town would make sense.”

My words brought a frown to my cousin’s face. “If you say so.”

At that moment my phone rang. I almost answered it without checking the caller ID, figuring it was my dad. But I did check the caller ID and saw that it was an unknown number.

“Hello,” I answered.

“Is this Sadie?” The person on the other end asked in a rough mechanical voice. Whoever it was, it was obvious they were using a voice changer.

Why use a voice changer unless they feared I would recognize the voice?

“It is. Who’s calling?” I asked, though I figured the question was useless. If they’d wanted me to know who they were they probably wouldn’t be using a voice changer.

I couldn’t even tell if it was a male or female on the other end.

“I’m just a friend trying to help.”

“Okay then, how are you going to help?” I asked.

“If I were you, I would talk to the medical examiner about old Canton’s autopsy results.”

Before I could ask any questions, the line went dead.

Damn! I hated it when someone hung up on me.

“Who was that?” Pax asked.

Before answering, I took several gulps of coffee. Finally, after a good dose of caffeine in my system, I felt like answering.

“I have no idea who it was. They were using a voice changer.”

Leaning closer, I added with a whisper, “They suggested I should check into Canton Petrova’s autopsy report.”

“That actually might be a good idea.” Pax nodded.

I got to my feet. “So, what do you say we take a ride over to the hospital and pay a visit to Jane the nerd?”

I didn’t add the fact that I needed him to go with me because he was the one with a car. But really, I would’ve asked him to go with me anyway.

Pax stood and dropped a five-dollar bill onto the table. “Let’s do it.”

“Have a good day!” Garrett waved as we were leaving.

Smiling, I returned his wave. “Thanks. By the way, the coffee is great.”

Once we were outside, Pax turned on me. “What are you doing being so nice to that guy? I’m beginning to think you have a thing for him or something.”

No doubt he was one hot hunk of a guy, though I wouldn’t go so far as to say I had a thing for him.

“Of course I don’t have a thing for him,” I retorted, adding a roll of my eyes. “But don’t you think we should actually wait until we have a reason to be suspicious of him before we are rude?”

“As far as I am concerned, we already have a reason to be suspicious. After all, he did show up out of nowhere and rise from the dead. If that isn’t reason enough to be suspicious, I don’t know what is.”

I couldn’t really argue with his logic, so I did the next best thing, I ignored it.

Chapter Eight

The basement of Shadow Crossing Memorial Hospital was where they stored all their extra medical supplies, but it also doubled as the town’s morgue so therefore had a separate entrance from the hospital. I figured that probably had something to do with not freaking out the patients whenever a deceased person was rolled by them.

As soon as we stepped up to the double metal doors, a buzzer sounded and a voice came on the intercom. “Can I help you?”

“Is that you, Jane?” I asked.

“This is Jane Paschal. Is that you, Sadie Costello?”

“Yeah, it’s me. I was hoping I could talk to you about something.”

“Okay, but I only have a few minutes. I’m buried with work.”

A moment later there was another buzzing sound and the double doors opened automatically. We stepped into the building and found ourselves in a dimly lit hall, and a creepy one at that. For a split second, I was half tempted to turn around and leave. It never failed; morgues had a way of freaking me out.

Fortunately, we didn’t have to go looking for Jane in one of the autopsy rooms. She came to us.

Jane Paschal was one of the shortest women I knew. If she were 4:10, she was lucky. Although I liked Jane, I still thought of her as Jane the nerd. That’s what everyone had called her in high school, mostly because she was a bookworm, but also because she had fuzzy hair and wore thick glasses. Jane hadn’t changed much since high school.

“I hardly recognized you on the monitor.” Jane offered a smile.

“Really? I don’t think I’ve changed that much since high school, have I?” I asked, hoping she would agree but she said nothing.

Suddenly, I felt self-conscious. All I could do was hope the changes in my appearance were for the better, but judging by the expression on Jane’s face, probably not.

Maybe she was just getting even with me for calling her Jane the nerd in high school.

“So what did you want to talk with me about?” she asked, getting down to business.

“Well, I’m kind of helping out the police on the Canton Petrova case and I was wondering if there was anything you could tell me about the autopsy? Was there anything strange about it?”

A look of uncertainty entered Jane’s green eyes. “I’m not sure that I am supposed to talk about that case.”

“It’s no problem,” I said with a wave of my hand. “I’m working with the police.”

One of Jane’s brows shot up. “If that’s true, why don’t you already know what’s in the autopsy report?”

She had me there. It took a minute to come up with a way around her question. “Buck has been busy so I haven’t had a lot of time to go over the case with him.”

It was an outright lie but there was no helping it. I was quickly discovering that lying seemed to be part of a PI’s job.

Jane shrugged. “Okay then. It’s funny you should ask because Canton Petrova’s cause of death was not drowning. He died of
exsanguination.”

“What does that mean?” Pax turned to me.

“It means he died due to loss of blood,” I explained.

“How could that have been overlooked in the initial examination?” I asked her.

“Easy. The puncture wounds that he was bled from were beneath his upper arm and would have only been visible if you were looking for them.”

“So, you are definitely classifying Canton Petrova’s death as homicide?” I asked.

Jane nodded. “The Petrova family is fighting me on this, which is why the findings haven’t been made public yet. But yes, it will be classified as a homicide.”

Before I could ask more questions, a small radio in Jane’s pocket came alive.

“Unit One to ME One. Do you copy?” Buck’s voice came on the radio.

Jane pulled the small radio from the pocket of her white coat. “This is ME One.”