Witch One Dunnit? (Rachael Penzra mystery) (16 page)

       By morning, I awoke with no recollection of the contents of the dream at all, other than I’d had it, but I felt nervous, dropping the shampoo, banging my toe on a chair.  I had a feeling it was going to be another long day.

CHAPTER NINE

From the Wiccan Rede:

When the moon rides at her peak

Then your heart’s desire seek.

       It
was
another long day.

   I started the morning with a feeling of foreboding.  I kept expecting Sheriff Alberts to stop by and harass me, and when he didn’t, I found
that
upsetting.  The dream had left me with the feeling something was going to happen, and it was like waiting for the other shoe to drop when the man living upstairs only has one leg. 

       Patsy came downstairs and mentioned we were low on milk.

       “Well, I can’t keep track of everything around here.  It’s all I can handle to discover dead bodies and handle ridiculous requests for the use of my psychic powers,” I snapped at her.

       “My!  One of us got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning,” she snapped back.

       I relented.  Generally I’m an easy-going person and find it difficult to hang onto a bad mood for very long, and my bad dreams certainly weren’t Patsy’s fault.  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled.  “I didn’t sleep well last night.”

       “You weren’t worrying about
me
, were you?” The idea seemed to shock her to the core, as though her parents had never shown any sign of caretaking.  Or maybe it was just me.  As an aunt she hadn’t had to put up with throughout childhood, I must seem more like an independent adult to her than a baby-sitter.  Little did she understand about mother instinct.  But no doubt her day would come.  Ah, sweet revenge.

       “No.  Just some bad dreams.  Did you have fun?”

       “Oh, I’m converted,” she sighed.  “I was meant to be a sailor, no doubt about it.  Joe said I caught on faster than anyone he’s ever seen.  I just seemed to
know
what to do and when to do it.”

       “That’s nice.” I had never been meant to be a sailor, or a fisherman.  Sailing seemed like a lot of work to me, the few times I’d tried it at summer camp.  You spent most of your time getting ready and putting things away.  The actual sailing time was fun, but limited.  Fishing I had never mastered because of the fish themselves.  You can’t convince me they don’t suffer.  And then you don’t kill them immediately; you let them suffer some more by hanging them on a stringer.  If I were forced to choose between hunting and fishing, I’d go with hunting because at least you kill your prey immediately.  Or try to.

       I didn’t give her much encouragement, but it seemed occasional grunts were enough to carry us through breakfast and into coffee.  She prattled on about Joe this, the Spinnaker that, and Joe said such and such ...  It went on in that manner long after I’d quit paying much attention.

       We were rescued from our one-sided conversation by the arrival of David Leahy, who knocked tentatively on the back door.  “I wasn’t sure when you wanted me here,” he said, entering and handing me his official application. 

       Patsy handed him a cup of coffee and led him to the table.  “We usually straighten things up a bit after we close,” she told him.  “It’s easier than facing a mess in the morning.”

       “The coffee’s always on,” I assured him.  “Anytime after eight is fine, but work doesn’t officially start until nine.  I refuse to open the doors half a second earlier.  It doesn’t pay.  My enthusiasm for the extra buck wore off early in the game.  Eight hours is enough to handle.”

       He chatted easily, touching on the weather, tourism, and sports, bringing himself into the realm of sailing.  My niece rehashed her evening on the sailboat for his benefit.  It turned out he knew a lot about sailing, raising his status in her eyes.  It was a pleasant half hour.  I forgot my qualms of the day before.  What had I been thinking?  Here was a pleasant, presentable, and hopefully dependable employee and I was worrying about auras —or lack thereof.

       I glanced at the clock.  Nine o’clock was descending.  They followed me into the store, Patsy still chattering, but having changed her subject to filling him in on “the way we do things around here.”  I glanced hurriedly into all the rooms as I went to the door, surreptitiously checking for dead bodies.  Patsy dug out our nightly hoard of money and explained the cash register to him.  No dead bodies were in sight.  Time to open for business.

       The day passed rapidly.  David proved to be a quick study about the products, using all of his slack time to study the stock.  I’d see him reading the information about the various herbs, and half an hour later I’d hear him handing out a spiel about some particular plant as though he’d personally grown it for years.  Maybe he had.  He was less swift to master the bath products, I noticed, but then I’ve never met a man who had a proper grasp concerning the joys of a steaming hot bath.  They don’t know what they’re missing, and we women are in no big hurry to let them in on the secret.  They spend enough time in the bathroom as it is.

   I digress.  Back to David.  The women customers had no complaint about a man helping them.  Several were decidedly determined he complete their sale from start to finish rather than being left with either Patsy or myself at the register.  I should have been amused at their reaction, but truth be told, I found it a little annoying.

       Patsy summed it up best in a whisper to me after one time we’d had to move aside and let David complete a sale.  “They aren’t saying much for the Independence of Woman, are they?”

       I laughed in agreement, relieved that it wasn’t just
my
nose that was out of joint.  “Guess we’ll have to lump it.  As long as they’re spending money ...”

       David apparently sensed our feelings.   When there was a lull at lunch time, he approached me and asked about our schedules for eating.  “I didn’t bring a lunch,” he explained.  “I thought I could get something in town until I understood what the situation is.”

       “Patsy and I just eat in the kitchen.  You can do whatever you want, either dig in the refrigerator and cupboards or bring your own lunch.  Or eat out.  It’s entirely up to you.  You can have either an hour or a half hour.  We’re pretty flexible.  You know there’s a fifteen minute break in the morning, and there’s one in the afternoon.  We work those around how busy we care, usually, but I insist we all take the time out no matter how busy it is.” I said sanctimoniously.  I didn’t find it necessary to mention that at my age, I need regular potty breaks.

       “It seems to be working out all right with the customers,” he said, casually.  “I wondered a bit about a man dealing with women, but the experts say a salesperson of the opposite sex is often a benefit rather than a problem.”

       “If you mean the ladies who made it clear that they preferred to have a man wait on them, the experts are right.” I laughed, honestly this time.  “Patsy mentioned that it was demeaning to Womanhood, but I guess some things never change.”

       “Well, I suppose these poor women can’t help it if they’re attracted to my animal magnetism.” He sighed dramatically, chuckled, gave me a wink, and then wandered off to help an older woman who was sorting through the handmade soap, looking for the biggest bar.

       I sighed.  He’d won me over, too.  If he were half the person he seemed to be, he would be a pleasure to have around.  What
was
it that made me uncomfortable about him?  It certainly wasn’t a sexual thing.  It was, if this is possible, more basic than that.  I felt I couldn’t
read
him. For all the denial of my psychic abilities, I was used to receiving initial impressions from peoples’ minds.  Under normal circumstances it was a weak sensation, defining them minimally.  But it was there.  That was what I had missed with David.  It was like talking to someone with a blank stretch of skin where the face should be.  No eyes, no mouth to read.  Still, nobody else seemed to notice anything odd about him, and he
was
a gift, that was for sure.  I told myself to leave well enough alone, and reminded myself that paranoia is
not
a positive emotion.

       It was probably self-serving, but I followed my own advice.  I needed David’s help.  I had no reason to be anything other than grateful for his sudden appearance.  He was doing an excellent job and hadn’t hurt my business at all.  I might find myself praying that he didn’t set himself up in business as competition for me. 
Just accept him, Rachael,
I told me.
 
I talk to myself a lot.  Fortunately I usually manage to keep my voice down.  That makes me sound like I’m muttering curses, or just plain muttering, but before having the business I spent most of my time alone so it had never seriously affected my life.  Now I would have to watch it.

       Work flew by that day.  We made a lot of money, something that never failed to cheer me.  It had been some weeks now since I realized the store was a
big
moneymaker, even with the weak economy.  With its location, and if I kept up with the new trends, it could hardly fail to continue to prosper.  I was on my way to becoming well-off, if not actually rich.  To me, though, it
was
pure riches.  After paying for the help I was currently employing, and restocking for the following year, I would have plenty of money left over for my own pleasure.  I had no idea what I would use it for, but no doubt I would learn how to enjoy it quickly enough.

       When I noticed Patsy starting into her cleanup routine, I realized I’d hardly noticed the afternoon hours go by, a space of time that sometimes seemed to drag forever.  How much easier it was to work with two
competent, as well as
compatible
, people.  Shelly had, I now realized, put a lot more stress on me than I’d realized.  Her habit of antagonizing customers had kept me in continual suspense, leaving me drained and exhausted by the end of the day.  And the sad part was, I really don’t think she meant to be unlikable. I think she meant to be mysterious, superior, and fascinating.  Instead, she’d come across as aloof, unhelpful, and irritating.  Nobody likes condensation.  Being looked down upon by a young snot, whose job it is to assist you and take your money, is not a pleasant experience.  I wondered how much she had cost me in repeat customers.

       Lucinda slapped those thoughts right out of my mind.  She came into the store just before closing and waited for us to lock up.  There wasn’t any way to avoid her.  A grieving mother has a claim on us all.  A bereaved mother whose only child has died by violence in my house has complete control over me.  I introduced David to her, then turned to lead her into the kitchen for the interview she so clearly wanted.  She surprised me by insisting she wait until we were through straightening up before we talked.  What she had in mind was soon clear enough.  She was pumping David, doing everything except accusing him of murdering her daughter to gain her place at work.  Both Patsy and I tried to run interception, but it was soon clear it wasn’t necessary.

       Fortunately, David had some sort of magical touch with women, even Lucinda-type women.

       By the time things were restocked and ready for the next day, he was being invited…nay,
ordered
…to join us in the kitchen for a conference.  I wasn’t sure I liked the idea, recalling my brief suspicion he was an undercover agent of some sort.  As usual, my opinion didn’t count.  David was seated at the table, supplied with coffee, and told the gruesome story of the crime.

       If I had expected retelling the story would upset Lucinda, I was wrong.  She seemed relieved to say it all again, this time to a stranger.  I could hear in her voice that it was becoming a recital to her, rather than the story of her daughter.  That, I supposed, was good.  But sooner or later it seemed to me she was going to have to stop running and face facts.  Shelly was dead.

       David entered into her story with exactly the right amount of sympathy, but he didn’t treat her as though she would break.  She seemed to appreciate his attitude.  The rest of us, her friends and family, were tending to tiptoe around her emotionally.  I guess we all have our different ways of dealing with things.   I’m not exactly sure how I’d react if one of my children was murdered, but I suspect I’d crawl into bed and hide from the world for as long as I possibly could.  I would also be running through the list of “what-ifs.”  I’m very good at what-ifs.  Unfortunately, it’s a depressing skill. 

       “So Rachael is going to help me find him,” her words broke into my thoughts.

       “Or her,” Patsy added, conscientiously.