5 Beewitched (9 page)

“You and me both.”

“I wasn’t supposed to work the stand today, but Al’s summer employees are young and pretty unreliable.”

“Try to take it easy. By the way, I saw Al’s son Greg yesterday. I didn’t even recognize him, that’s how much he’s changed!”

“Al’s grateful that he came out to help with the maze. So am I. It takes some of the pressure off.”

After Joan gave me a gallon of cider, I did everything in my limited range of power to resist the farm’s homemade caramel apples. My mind told me that corn on the cob was better for my waistline, but when the proper, healthy me also advised against all that salt and butter that I couldn’t help adding, it lost its edge to the apples.

They were jumbo apples, bigger than I’d ever seen anyplace else. And they were covered with so many tempting options. You could get your apple:

• coated in either dark or white Belgian chocolate
  
• rolled with nuts (pecans, cashews, peanuts, pistachios, walnuts, macadamias, or a mix)
  
• covered in crushed candy (Butterfingers, Snickers, M&M’s, Oreos, toffee, or Reese’s Pieces)
  
• and drizzled with caramel or more chocolate.
  

I caved to temptation and selected a walnut cherry caramel apple, and walked slowly back toward the store carrying the cider in one hand and eating the enormous apple with the other.

My bliss was short-lived.

I fear I conjured up Johnny Jay. Never again will I think of that man for one second if this is what happens when I do. Now, however, there he was out in front of my store, pacing impatiently with what appeared to be . . . oh no . . . my clothes from last night, tucked in a ball under his arm. He looked tired and rumpled, as if he’d been up all night, but when he spotted me he still managed to smirk.

The smirk disappeared quickly and was replaced with pent-up anger when Hunter pulled up in his SUV and jumped out with Ben at his side.

Thank you, my hunk. Your timing is perfect.

“Wallace,” the chief said to Hunter, “I’m going to tell you one more time since it doesn’t seem to be sinking into your thick skull. This is my town and my case.”

Case? My clothes were a case? Not good.

Hunter ignored him, came over to me, and gave me a kiss on my sticky lips. “You taste sweet,” he said, though I noticed that his usual twinkle was missing. “Did you miss me in bed?”

“Every second,” I fibbed, although if I’d known he wasn’t there, I definitely would have missed him, and been worried sick that something had happened to him.

“Wallace!” Johnny Jay bellowed. “I’m talking to you!”

Hunter turned to give the chief more attention than he deserved.

“What case is Johnny talking about?” I asked Hunter, really, really hoping it didn’t involve me or my clothes or my naked escape last night.

“It’s Chief Jay to you, Fischer,” Johnny pointed out for something like the millionth time. “Have some respect.”

“What did I do now?” I asked anybody who cared to answer.

“That remains to be seen,” Johnny snarled.

“What’s going on?” I asked Hunter specifically.

That’s when Hunter said, “There’s been a death over at Country Delight Farm, very early this morning.”

Seven

It wasn’t an easy matter to discover the specifics of
who was dead and how and why. I put the cider down on the sidewalk—I had a feeling I’d want to watch what happened next between the two men, and the gallon jug was heavy. Hunter gave me a lopsided, here-we-go-again weak grin.

Johnny Jay and Hunter have gone more rounds about Waukesha law enforcement territory than professional boxers. Only without the physical part, up until now at least. The city of Waukesha is Hunter’s turf, no question about it, but Waukesha County encompasses numerous towns and villages, and that’s where things get murky between the local and county cops.

“It’s my case!” Johnny Jay snarled, as menacing as I’d ever seen him, which is saying a lot. The chief can look downright scary.

But so can my man. K-9 star, Ben, wore his high-alert expression, his sharp Belgian Malinois eyes never leaving his partner.

“Country Delight is over the town line,” Hunter told him, moving closer, no trace of a snarl, but the look on his face said more than any caveman growl could. My guess was that the original emergency call came in to Moraine’s police station and the chief took his sweet time notifying Waukesha County.

Hunter went on to add, “And as Moraine’s chief of police you should already know where the town lines begin and end. You had no business taking over the crime scene before my team arrived. And you haven’t fooled anybody. We know you sat on that call.”

“Get out of my face!”

“Can somebody please tell me who’s dead?” I blurted, too loudly since a few customers coming out of the store and several people on the sidewalk nearby heard me and made a beeline for our trio, their original plans taking second fiddle to our lively tune.

At this point I was getting pretty upset, because the dead person could be Al, or his son Greg, or one of the witches. I needed to know. Unfortunately, the two men were more focused on each other.

“Waukesha is handling this, Jay, and there’s nothing you can do about it. I ought to have you brought up on charges for tampering with a crime scene.”

“You couldn’t solve a crime if it bit you in the ass.”

“Getting personal now, are we?”

Nose to nose, the two law enforcement authorities weren’t setting much of an example for our community members when it comes to peaceful communication and orderly conduct.

Thankfully, Ben had had enough and decided to give a menacing snarl that no human could duplicate in terms of serious intimidation. Johnny Jay has always been cautious around Ben, so he reacted first, backing up a few steps and shutting his big mouth. My man took that as concession.

Next, Hunter reached into the back pocket of his jeans, produced several sheets of paper rolled up into a circular tube, and tried to hand them to our chief. Johnny balked, but when Hunter continued to extend his arm, the chief reluctantly took them, giving Hunter a questioning expression.

“Now that lines have been established,” Hunter said to him, “I’m requesting your assistance.”

“What?” I burst out. “You can’t be serious!”

Johnny Jay has never, ever allowed Hunter to assist in any criminal cases within his jurisdiction. In fact, he’d been downright rude to Hunter when he’d offered in the past. Now that the creep didn’t have authority to interfere for a change, Hunter was actually inviting him to get involved? I wish he’d talked this over with me first. I’d have set him back on the straight and narrow. Instead, Hunter was setting himself up for a knife in his back, if you asked me.

What was my guy thinking?

Hunter and I had some information-sharing issues at first (okay, maybe we still do), sometimes forgetting that we were a partnership and that meant discussing topics and resolving any conflict issues. To tell the truth, I’d been worse at communicating than he was. Until now.

We needed to talk in the worst way.

I tossed the rest of my apple in a trash bin near the store door and asked again, “Who’s dead?”

They both eyed the gathering crowd before turning to me as though they were only just now realizing they had attracted an audience. Which probably they just had.

Johnny was the one who answered. “It’s going to come out soon anyway, and the family has been notified. We identified the body as that of Claudene Mason.”

That certainly surprised me.

“Al’s crazy sister?” I’d heard of Claudene but hadn’t actually known her personally. She’d moved away when I was just a kid. In the past, older locals had referred to her as Crazy Claudene, but with the passage of time, we all but forgot about her. I hadn’t heard her name in years.

Hunter was grim. “Al’s sister, yes,” he said. “But she hadn’t gone by Claudene for at least ten years. Apparently she legally changed her name after joining that witch coven that’s in town.”

“Witch coven?” somebody said, and I heard a few echoes. But I wanted to know, which witch?

“I saw them come into town in a van yesterday,” somebody else said. “But I didn’t know they were witches. Jehovah’s Witnesses is what I thought.”

Someone added, “They better keep right on passing through.”

A few nodded in agreement.

“Was it foul play?” someone else wanted to know.

“All we are prepared to say at this time,” Hunter answered, “is that the death is under investigation.”

“Okay,” Johnny Jay said, taking control, “let’s break it up. Go about your business.”

The crowd dispersed, and Johnny Jay and Hunter, with Ben sitting patiently at his side, put their heads together out by the curb like they’d worked cases together all along and hadn’t just had a confrontation. That’s men for you. I couldn’t believe that one of the witches from last night’s ceremony was dead and gone. I wanted more information, so I casually joined them, as though I belonged there.

I had to clear my throat several times before I got their attention.

“Lucinda was murdered, right?” I asked, thinking she was the most obvious as far as murder victims go. Overbearing, controlling, cold, and unyielding. She’d be my first choice if I was going to kill one of the coven members.

“No.” Hunter turned, noticed me, and shook his head. “It wasn’t Lucy Lighthouse.”

“I thought her first name was Lucinda,” I said, scratching an itchy arm through my fleece.

“Each of them has a special name selected during a ceremony of initiation,” Hunter explained, although I already had suspected that. “It supposedly gives them special powers. Lucy’s witch name is Lucinda.”

“Well, whatever her name is, she’s the head of the group.”

The chief perked up his ears. “So you know these people?” he said, all insinuatingly.

“They came into the store,” I told him. Then to Hunter, “Which one of them is dead?”

“Claudene legally changed her name to Rosina years ago.”

The victim’s identification surprised and saddened me. Rosina was dead? We’d barely spoken, but I’d liked the woman. I’d admired her pentacle necklace, and she’d gone on about how it protected her. I hadn’t asked her why she thought she needed protection. Or from what. Not that the necklace’s magic had been able to save her after all.

In a perfect world, only mean and nasty and unsalvageable people should die violent deaths, right? Although, now that I thought about it, in a perfect world everyone would be sweet and kind and good and no one would ever die by unnatural causes anyway.

“What happened exactly?” I asked, since the two cops hadn’t kicked me out of their new club yet.

“That information isn’t being made available yet,” Johnny said.

Hunter stepped in. “Jay, the story is about to break anyway.” Then his eyes met mine. “It appears that she died from multiple stab wounds,” he said. “But the ME still needs to confirm cause of death.”

“Not a pleasant way to go,” Johnny added, keeping his voice low and narrowing his eyes to appear tough now that he was back on the case.

I’ve been around a few murders in the past, and they always hit me hard, even when I didn’t know the victim. Oh my God. I didn’t feel so good. And I was pretty sure I’d seen the murder weapon, that big, sharp knife that had been on their altar, the one that vanished from view during the ceremony.

“That’s horrible!” I said. “Have you arrested anyone?”

“Not yet,” Johnny Jay told me, “but I’ll see that this case is closed quickly.”

I? My man caught it, too, because Hunter gave him a hard stare. “This is a team effort, Johnny Jay.” Then to me, “We’ve been working the crime scene and interviewing everybody out at the farm. The killer’s window of opportunity was very narrow. The victim had been with the entire coven up until about ninety minutes before her body was discovered. The time of death and cause will be announced within an hour or so. If any of your gossipy customers have something useful to report, they can talk privately with me or with the chief.”

Johnny went off to his squad car, carting my clothes with him. They had taken a backseat to the paperwork Hunter had given him. But then he just sat there in his car, not starting his engine and driving off like he should. Not a good sign.

I took the private moment with Hunter to say, “You usually criticize my store for being a—what have you called it?—oh, I remember . . . a hotbed of gossip and innuendos. And I seem to recall a certain tone of distaste in your voice combined with a very negative attitude. Now you want me to talk this up with my customers and report back to you? I know what you’re doing.”

He rewarded me with a tired smile. “You’re too smart for me,” he said. Seeing how exhausted he was, I told him to go home and get some rest. I opened the passenger door for Ben, who hopped up and settled into the shotgun seat.

Hunter hugged me. “I’m gonna get a few hours of downtime. We’ll talk more later. In the meantime, try to stay out of trouble.”

“No problem,” I said, kissing him and sending him off for a nap.

Then the police chief unfolded from his vehicle.

I turned to face Johnny Jay, who still had my clothes under his arm and that stupid smirk back on his face.