Witch One Dunnit? (Rachael Penzra mystery) (30 page)

       I looked at her healthy young face with loathing.  I could vaguely remember the days when I’d felt the same way about myself. 
Your day will come,
I thought at her, but I was too grateful for her insistence on my not working to really condemn her.  All I wanted to do was sleep.  I felt completely overwhelmed by tiredness.  “I’m not really sick,” I promised her, knowing the elusive Joe was finally free for an evening out.  “I’m just exhausted.  If you two don’t mind, I think I’ll take you up on your offer.  I can work later today instead of this morning.”

       “No, not early nor late,” she scolded.  “David and I are perfectly capable of taking care of the store.  You know it’s a form of conceit to think you’re indispensable.  Just go back to bed.  If it gets so wild we can’t cope, I promise to get you up.  If you feel better this afternoon, you can watch a movie or something.  You must have something to do besides run the store and solve mysteries.  Work with your herbs, why don’t you?”

       That sounded like a wonderful idea.  Later.  I managed to stay awake long enough to call the vet and check on George.  He was still critical, but stable, and we weren’t welcome to visit.  “He’s still being sedated,” the assistant told me, sounding just as bossy as her superior.  “He isn’t aware you aren’t around, but he isn’t under deeply enough not to sense if you came near.  And then he’d be upset when you left.”

       I knew it was silly to even think of spending the night with him, curled up at the foot of his cage, as I’d done at the foot of my children’s beds during their illness.  That was simply ridiculous.  He was a dog, not my child.  Besides, there was no sense bringing the idea up.  They’d never allow it.  I did wonder if the strictness in their tone was used because other owners, those less controlled than myself, had tried to remain at the sides of their sick pets.

       Too much sleep isn’t good for a person.  It’s indicative of depression.  Having never in my adult life been allowed
too much
sleep, it’s a theory I can’t attest to.  Too little sleep ... Now there’s something any mother can tell you about.  I didn’t sleep enough to feel depressed, though I certainly made the effort.  It was after two in the afternoon before I woke up.  It was almost three when I dragged myself from the bed and staggered into the shower.  After that, I felt great.

       When I poked my head into the store to volunteer for the last hour of the workday, my two helpers shooed me back out.  I wandered into the yard and applied myself seriously to the problem of weeds.  I’m not good at weeding.  It seems such an unfair thing to do.  I have a strange tendency to think that many of the weeds are quite pretty and simply unappreciated.  Fortunately, most herbs are weeds in disguise.  They’re tough and sturdy plants, quite capable of holding their own against the average weed.  Most of what I did was pull herbs that had wandered into another herb’s territory.  My hands, and even the air around me, was soon filled with their strong scents.  I crushed one of the mints I’d pulled and buried my nose in it.  This is what I loved.  I had to organize my time better.  I was missing smelling the roses.  Or in my case, the herbs.

       And into the midst of that relaxed, happy moment swarmed the furious, hateful mind.  For the first time it really struck me that whoever had killed Shelly wanted to kill me. 
Planned
to kill me.

       Soon.

       And for the first time I also recognized fear.  Not
my
fear.  I knew about that, but this was fear emanating from a hateful mind.  Whoever it was who was so angry and hateful towards me was also
afraid
of me.  That made no sense whatsoever.  Why would anyone be afraid of
me?

       Whatever the reason, it certainly put a damper on sitting in my garden amidst my herbs.  I glanced around furtively, trying to see into the cars parked along the street.  It wasn’t that I necessarily thought the murderer was nearby; it was just instinctive.  Nowadays most of the newer cars have tinted windows. There’re kind of like those mirrored sunglasses.  They close you out. It’s this modern world and perfectly understandable.  And infinitely sad.

       When I stood up I realized it was time to quit, anyway.  My body creaked and gave small whiny twinges of distress.  I really had to get back in shape.  This was getting out of hand.  I hadn’t stepped on a scale in months, pretending (after a test) Aunt Josie’s scale needed to be compared to a doctor’s scale before I began relying on its accuracy.  Considering what the odds are of her scale weighing me more heavily than a doctor’s scale would, I was perhaps being a tad unrealistic.  But until I put it to the test, I couldn’t
prove
it didn’t weigh inaccurately (using the word “inaccurate” when referring to a scale always means the scale weighs on the heavy-side.  Ask any woman).

       And why was I worrying about my weight when I’d just fully realized someone was trying to kill me?  Because worry is what I do, and I’m good at it.  

       I scurried inside, suddenly feeling chilled.  Patsy and David had just come into the kitchen from closing the shop.  “Lots of money today,” Patsy told me, rubbing her thumb and fingers together.  “You should stay upstairs more often.  David’s and my methods might not be pretty, but they work.  I feed them a line of bull, and he charms them.  I grab the men and leave the ladies to him.  What a team!”

       “I can believe that,” I admitted.  Hadn’t I been watching them at work?  Fortunately, I seem to be good at keeping the books in order, I say “fortunately” since I apparently wasn’t necessary on the sales floor.  “I suppose you’ll be demoting me to cleaning and dusting now?”

       “Well, someone’s got to do it, and it isn’t going to be me,” David said with a chuckle.  “Go ahead and call me a chauvinist pig.  I’m not sensitive.  Just don’t expect me to do anything more with a washcloth than to use it to wipe my hands after I work on the engine of my truck.”

       “When I was younger,” Patsy reminisced, as though that stage of her life had happened decades ago, “Mother taught me how to clean the house properly, from floor to ceiling.  I don’t mind the cleaning itself. I mind the fact it doesn’t last.  You have to do it again, and again, and again.  No wonder so many women seek careers.”

       “Careers are usually a matter of doing the same thing over and over and over,” David told her.  “It just
seems
as though you’re making progress.”

       My shrewd niece, of course, had to argue about that.  “Maybe so, but you get a paycheck, praise, and a little respect for doing it.  A housewife gets nothing for her efforts.  Nobody thanks her, nobody pays her and nobody respects her for it.  Did you know that some countries provide a paid vacation for housewives?  Personally, I think it’s a great idea.  Gives a woman a little incentive to stay at home and do all those thankless tasks.”

       “I couldn’t agree with you more,” David said amicably.  “That’s why I don’t do housework.”

       They chatted agreeably while David finished what was becoming his ritual cup of coffee before he headed home.  I let their banter swirl over my head, pretending to be absorbed in mixing a salad.  My worries had clarified today, and now I was feeling guilty about Patsy.  Was she in danger living with me?  Someone had tried to kill me, someone had tried to kill George, someone
had
killed Shelly, and as much as I hated to admit to it, the same someone had more than likely killed Aunt Josie.  What was to stop them from going after Patsy next?  Was I being selfish by keeping her here and enjoying her company?

       The dismal answer to the last question was yes.  I probably
was
being selfish.  In my own defense, though, my niece
wanted
to stay in Balsam Grove.  I wasn’t exactly forcing her.  That thought helped a little.

       Finally David left, and Patsy asked me if I wanted her to stay in for the rest of the evening.  “Heavens, no!” I laughed heartily, sounding false, even to myself.  “Despite a day of rest, I think I’ll probably go to bed early and sleep straight through the night.  Have you heard anything more about George?”

       “I called this afternoon, late.  He’s out of danger, and they’re cutting way back on the medication.  It sounds as if he’s awake too.  The receptionist said they were having a difficult time persuading him he couldn’t have a ten-course dinner.  Poor thing.  They’re starving him!  She said probably two more days, just to be sure he’s out of danger and to get his strength built back up.”  She paused and gulped.  “You know, Aunt Rachael, he really almost
died!”

       She sounded more upset about the dog than she had about Shelly.  And perhaps she was.  We don’t like to admit such things about ourselves, but our true values are placed on things we care about, not just what we’re
supposed
to care about.

       “I was thinking,” I blurted out.  “Perhaps you should run down home for a few days to reassure your parents you’re doing fine up here.  You haven’t had a break since you got here.”

       She burst out laughing.  “My, but you’re subtle!  Don’t be silly.  I wouldn’t leave you at a time like this.  You need the moral support.  And anyway, I’ve been thinking about it.  We’re going to have to start being much more cautious than we have been.  Instead of walking on the trail that’s right here by the house, why don’t we take the car, make sure we aren’t being followed, and find a nice busy stretch of trail to walk.  We’ll shift around like we’ve been doing, only we’ll be sneakier.”

       “And for how long will we do this?” I asked.

       She gave me a stubborn look, a look she could make a fortune on if she could patent it.  “As long as necessary.  You don’t need to think the sheriff’s department isn’t doing anything just because they haven’t been hassling us.  There’s a tremendous amount of background checking to do, and they have to eliminate, eliminate, eliminate.”

       “A direct quote, I assume?”

       She choked on her indignation, realized I was teasing her, and chuckled.  “Right.  A direct quote.  But they really are following up on a lot of different possibilities.  It takes a lot of hard evidence to make a case stick, and they don’t want to make any mistakes.  Joe says they think the thirteen stab wounds, and the ritualistic position her body was in, were a ruse to get the police to look into the coven members as suspects.”

       “That makes sense, I guess.”

       “Sure it does.  A good criminal tries to make sure that there’s someone else to pin the blame on.” 

       “Thinking of a career as a law officer?” I asked her innocently—well, sort of.

       She grinned.  “Something like that.”

       I shuddered, reminding myself that it wasn’t my problem and I wasn’t to blame just because she’d met Joe at my house.  He hadn’t precisely been an invited guest, although I suppose technically I had asked him to come over.  Well, the odds were this romance wouldn’t last.  She was awfully young and her parents had great plans for her in the educational field, although I doubted her mother’s fondest wish, which was her daughter becoming a kindergarten teacher would ever be fulfilled.  Somehow I just couldn’t imagine my psychedelic niece spending day after day wiping noses and tying shoes.  Patsy, I was sure, would want something a little more outwardly challenging out of life, and what could be more challenging than being a cop?  And I was behind her decision one hundred percent, just as long as I didn’t have to be in the same state when she broke the news to her parents.

       Patsy and Joe had just left, around seven, when Percy showed up at my door.  I invited him in, a little surprised at his visit.  We were hardly on close terms, and I hadn’t asked to see him.

       “I thought you’d want to talk to me too,” he told me, accepting my offer of coffee.  “I mean, you’re talking to everybody about the murder, and I thought I’d just come over and get my turn done with.”  He looked at me expectantly.

       “All right,” I agreed, somewhat slowly.  “I’m glad you’re here.  I’m trying to get a good idea of what Shelly was like.  I’ve talked to Ronnie, of course, but he’s her cousin.  And talking to another female, like Karyn, isn’t the same as talking to a man.  Different points of view.  I know you belonged to the same coven, but did you know Shelly very well?”

       “We, um, sort of dated.  Once,” he said shyly.

       Now
that
was a news flash.  Aside from the obvious, I couldn’t imagine Shelly being the least bit attracted to Percy.  He was so blatantly effeminate, so close to her own age ... She seemed to be more attracted to the dangerous type, or at least older men, given her crush on Robert Court.