5 Beewitched (25 page)

Grams had captured the entire store event.

“I bet you’re looking for a clue,” Grams said to me.

“A clue to what?” Mom asked.

“The murderer’s identity,” Grams told her.

“Rubbish. Al Mason has been arrested for his sister’s murder.”

“If only I were younger,” Grams said with a longing sigh. “I’d be just like our Story, digging for the truth, making sure justice is served.”

Mom snorted.

“Do I sound like that when I snort?” I asked my grandmother.

“Exactly.”

I vowed never to snort again.

“Well, did you find a clue?” Grams wanted to know.

I shook my head. “Not yet, but I will.”

“That’s my granddaughter!”

“Hunter might want to see these,” I mentioned. “Could you let him know you have them?”

“I always enjoy visiting with your boyfriend,” she said. “I’ll let him know.”

“No hurry,” I told her, since I hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary other than proof that the pentacle in Hunter’s possession really belonged to Rosina. He already had my identification and drawing, if that poor example counted for anything.

“I’m spending the day out of the store,” I told them as I walked out the door. “So if anybody needs me, call my cell phone.”

I failed to mention the most important part: that I’d be on the streets of Milwaukee’s east side, looking up a few witches.

Back in the truck with my hands ajitter from too much coffee and a boatload of sugar coursing through my veins, I put in a call to Patti as I made my way toward the highway leading to Milwaukee. Since I had a forty-five-minute drive ahead of me and the expressway didn’t have any aesthetic value, I planned to use the time wisely by making a few hands-free phone calls.

This time, Patti was the one who didn’t answer. I didn’t leave a message, assuming she would contact me when she had information.

Besides, I should be relieved that I’d managed to evade her and get out of town without her carcass in the passenger seat, or behind me as a tail.

For good measure, I did a thorough survey behind me. Nothing.

From the highway, I called Iris Whelan.

After identifying myself, Iris made me trace my family history again to verify my association credentials. “You can never be too careful,” she said, after I passed inspection. “Jehovahs, Mormons, Jews, Muslims, they’re all out to take over the world and destroy our American ways.”

Stanley and Iris were like a match made in heaven. Iris had the right amount of paranoia to feed Stanley’s manly protection instincts. With her fear of religious persecution and his distrust of government, combined with his vast array of weapons, they could live happily ever after in anxious anticipation of the worst.

“Stanley Peck still lives in Moraine,” I couldn’t help mentioning.

“I know. I should call him sometime. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, as I always say.”

I gave her his number, then said, “When you told me Claudene had lost a man, I thought you meant they broke up.” Maybe it had been the way she had said it that made me leap to that conclusion, because until Greg had mentioned an inquest, I thought Rosina had been jilted by the man.

“No, he died on her.”

“Literally, like he actually died on top of her?”

“What is it with you? Try to follow.”

See? It was her weird speech pattern that had thrown me off.

“Claudene and Buddy dated each other . . . when was that? . . . about ten years ago I believe, then he passed away. That’s what I said in the first place. She lost him.”

“How did he die?” I asked, hoping to get a straight answer that I could understand.

Iris went on to tell the sad tale, and I followed along just fine. Buddy had suffered from asthma his entire life. Growing up he couldn’t participate in sports or exercise, and he always had an inhaler with him. Rosina, who only wanted to be helpful, stirred up a brew, encouraged him to drink it, and then he died.

“What was in the drink?” I asked.

“I don’t remember all the ingredients, but there was red wine, some garlic, cinnamon, red pepper, that’s all I remember. She and I talked about the ingredients at the time, trying to figure out which one might have killed him.”

“Then what happened?”

“Claudene was devastated, thinking she was responsible. Nobody made it easy for her, either. Eventually the official ruling was death due to an allergic reaction to an antibiotic he was taking at the same time. But people had it stuck in their brains that she was responsible, so she changed her name to Rosina to make a fresh start.”

That’s why she went to all the trouble to legally change her name. Dy had suggested that Rosina was hiding secrets from her past, but Lucinda had dismissed it out of hand. So the Queen Bee didn’t know everything.

“You sure were a good friend to her,” I said to Iris. “I thought you two didn’t get along so well in the past.”

“Who told you a thing like that?”

Mom had, but I couldn’t tell on her. “I don’t recall exactly. I might have misunderstood you last time we spoke.”

“Helen said that, didn’t she? Your mother was the problem. Once she was out of the picture, Claudene and I became bosom buddies.”

The rule of three! There it was again. Or maybe the real reason was because Mom had always been a troublemaker. I’d never get the real story, because Mom’s version and Iris’s version weren’t going to come close to matching, and the only one who could break the deadlock was no longer able to tell her side of the story.

“Are you still living with that man?” Iris asked.

When I didn’t respond right away, she went on. “Men are a dime a dozen. Don’t sell yourself short.”

I’d forgotten about her opinion of the male species. “I thought you were considering looking up Stanley Peck.”

“They aren’t a dime a dozen at my age. But I’m not getting hooked up. I like an occasional conversation with one of them. They talk about interesting topics, not kids and cooking.”

When we hung up, I spotted the tail.

Twenty-eight

P. P. Patti doesn’t drive much, preferring to walk while
she stalks, or if she has to expand her reach, she’ll bum rides from whomever she corners, which is usually me. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t have her own wheels. She does. A black (of course) Chevy that’s seen better days, probably dating back to the nineteen eighties.

Black cars all look pretty much alike to me. Unless they have other distinguishing features. And Patti’s does.

Her pre-owned Chevy came with lots of added antennas, and she hadn’t bothered to remove them. The previous owner must have been a ham radio fanatic. And a CB radio nut. And even had an antenna for a two-way radio.

That’s how I spotted her behind me.

There isn’t much highway traffic on Sunday morning, so I couldn’t just dodge from lane to lane weaving among other vehicles until I lost her. And I didn’t want to go much over the speed limit, since with my luck I’d be the one stopped, not her. Besides, I doubted that my truck could outpace her Chevy anyway. They both were on the slow side. And Patti is tenacious when she puts her mind to something.

What to do?

I ducked in between two fast-moving vehicles and got an angry horn blast as a reward. Looking in my rearview mirror, I didn’t see Patti’s pursuit car, but I did see a very red-faced driver and the middle finger he held up as a gift of gratitude for my existence.

I ducked back out and refused to look him in the eye as he passed, but I could feel his glare.

Now Patti was right behind me. I could see her sneaky beady little eyes over the steering wheel.

I did an exaggerated wave with my right hand.

She slowed to create distance.

At the last possible second I veered and took an exit. So did she, a sloppy maneuver but effective. I drove up the on-ramp and continued on, thinking and planning.

Now it was obvious. She knew I knew she was back there. We were playing a game of cat and mouse, and didn’t it just figure that I was the mouse.

I called her cell. This time she answered.

“Where are you?” she asked me first thing.

“Don’t play games. I can see you.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Just to be on the safe side, I studied the other driver in the rearview mirror. That was most definitely Patti.

“Where are you going?” she wanted to know next.

“Keep following me and you’ll find out.”

“I’m not following you. What gave you such a silly idea?”

“Patti, I can see you, for cripes’ sake.” Cripes’ sake? That was my mom’s expression, not mine. I was becoming my mother!

When Patti didn’t respond, I hung up. Once Patti discovered that I was going to pay a visit to the witches, she’d disappear into thin air. No point trying to talk sense into her when show, not tell, was about to work much better.

I didn’t have much of a plan for the visit, only a thin outline. Online research revealed a witch/magic-type store on Brady, a busy bohemian street, running nine blocks long, framed on the east by Lake Michigan and on the west by the Milwaukee River.

I’d lived not far from here, when I lived in Milwaukee, and used to frequent Brady Street businesses on a regular basis. From the thrift shops and tattoo parlors to the best ethnic restaurants in the entire city, Brady Street draws as many young urbanites as it does aging hippies. It was sometimes known as Milwaukee’s version of Haight-Ashbury, and you can still see remnants of its counterculture past.

This particular business establishment, called Little Shop of Magic, opened at noon on Sundays and was owned by a Tabitha Moon. Since the witch who discovered Rosina’s body was also named Tabitha (why hadn’t I found out her last name?), I was hoping they were one and the same person. How many Tabithas could there be anyway?

I had to circle the area several times before a parking spot opened up, but when one did it was right in front of the shop. I’d lost Patti on one of the circles, but she wasn’t dumb. She’d figure out what I was up to.

With fifteen minutes to waste before the shop opened, I settled in to wait, studying the storefront. Black fringed awning, with “Little Shop of Magic” in large letters. An image of an eye stretched across the space directly below the name. Signage on every available inch of the window. Words like “Tarot,” “Palmistry,” “Spellcraft,” “Runes,” “Healing Arts,” “Divinations,” “Phone Readings Now Available.” More signs announced sachets, poppets, and mojo bags inside the shop, most of which was totally foreign to me.

A familiar woman moved along the sidewalk and blocked my view, then tried to open the door on the passenger side of my car. Locked. Ha! Anticipation is an important part of dealing with Patti.

I slid down the window, but only a little.

“What do you have to report?” I asked her.

“Let me in and I’ll tell you,” she said through the opening.

“You’re a dangerous woman, Patti. For all I know you have a rag full of chloroform waiting for me. I prefer to do our business by phone. And following me here is creepy, too, in case you don’t realize that.”

“We’re partners.” She tried the door again. “Open up.” And again. See how mulish she is? Other descriptions popped into my head.

• Bullheaded
  
• Hardheaded
  
• Pigheaded
  

Patti is lots of different forms of “headed,” and none of them are compliments.

“Notice where I parked?” I tried to point out.

She turned around and got an eyeful before whipping around and saying, “Please tell me you aren’t going in there.”

“See, this is exactly the problem. You have an unhealthy, uncontrollable fear when it comes to witchcraft. And this whole case is about witchcraft. That’s why you’re supposed to be working the history angle and I’m working the street.”

“Fine!” she said, not fine at all, her lips pressed in a thin, unhappy line.

“So what have you got so far?” I expected her to blather on about the inquest and everything else that I already knew, so I started planning how, after her debriefing, I’d send her on some other wild goose chase to keep her out of my hair. “Let’s hear it,” I demanded.

Patti grinned with glee and surprised me by saying something totally unpredictable. “I found the victim’s apartment,” she informed me. “And I also convinced the next-door neighbor to let us in.”

Us?

“I thought I’d wait for you and we’d go together. I’m supposedly Rosina’s niece. You can be my BFF.”

Oh darn, this was just too good to pass up. And definitely not what I expected from Patti. But I should know better than to try to second-guess her. “What about the police?” Hunter would kill me if I crossed over any crime tape.

“According to the neighbor, the cops finished up days ago. There wasn’t a ‘do not enter’ sign on the door when I chatted with her.”

Geez, Hunter was thorough. Too bad he had to put so much stock in things like hidden evidence and fingerprints instead of flying by the seat of his pants with good old intuition like I was doing. “If the cops already searched,” I said, “we won’t find anything significant to the case.”

Patti shrugged. “We’ll never know unless we check it out.”