Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Questioning the hypocrite (aka my prime suspect)
Declan
While I’d been talking to Gideon, people started filling up the pub. I supposed that made sense. It was lunchtime. Hushed conversations rose up all around us, at least they had been until I’d asked who would want Winston dead.
An eerie quiet settled over those gathered. I might be facing the bar, but I was sure everyone’s eyes were suddenly on me.
“I hadn’t meant to ask that so loudly,” I whispered.
Gideon shook his head. “It wouldn’t have mattered. Most of the people in here would’ve heard you anyway.”
I glanced around. The Den had an English-pub vibe, so there was a lot of dark wood and hard surfaces. Everything gleamed as if it had been polished a thousand times. It made sense that sound would bounce around. “Because of the acoustics?”
“Because most of these people aren’t human,” Gideon corrected.
“What?” I spun around. Man, there were a lot of them! They all seemed human enough. I never would have guessed they were something… um… other.
“Relax,” Gideon said. “They’re people, the same as you.”
I guessed he was right, but it was still a little weird.
I forced myself to turn back to face him.
“We can talk about this later. It looks like things are getting busy. You need to work.” I chugged down the coffee he’d given me.
It was so much better than the slop I’d grabbed from Lily. “How much do I owe you?”
“Don’t worry about that.” Gideon waved off my offer to pay. “You should stick around, though. Try eating something.”
“I’ll be fine. I think I need to think things over.
Elwood didn’t do this, regardless of what Leon says.
I know he didn’t.” I rubbed my chest, where a strange tingling sensation had taken hold and hadn’t let up yet.
I was well past thinking it might be a medical condition and suspected it might be my intuition.
My parents had raised me not to put any stock in intuition or gut feelings or the like, but this sensation was impossible to ignore.
“I can’t explain it, but I feel… something… ”
Gideon eyed me curiously. “So you’re going to Elwood’s to think about things…”
I nodded. It wasn’t a lie. I mean, I’d be going to Elwood’s eventually. I just needed to make a stop somewhere else first.
“Okay.” He eyed me like he suspected I was lying. “But be careful. Someone killed Winston. Until his killer is caught, you need to watch out.”
I snorted. “I haven’t been in Ravenstone for years. No one’s going to be coming after me.”
Gideon leaned forward and held my gaze for a long moment, seemingly unconcerned with helping his other patrons while he was talking to me. It was a strange thing to have someone’s complete attention. “I mean it. Be careful. If you need anything, shout. I’ll hear you and I will come.”
I didn’t know what to make of this protective thing he had going on.
I almost joked and called him my knight in furry armor.
But he’d said he couldn’t shift, so that would’ve been wildly insensitive.
Still, I wondered if his protectiveness and natural bossiness might be connected to his wolf-ish alter-ego.
Elwood must have a book about wolf shifters I could read when I got back to the shop.
“I promise,” I said.
When I left the pub a moment later, I turned toward Elwood’s store, just in case Gideon was watching. The police had yellow tape draped from the dumpster, across the sidewalk, and over to the front of the store. If Leon was upset about the dumpster before, he’d be livid about the police tape.
Curious pedestrians were being rerouted, but not before they strained to see what was happening inside the store.
Emergency vehicles were parked haphazardly in the parking stalls beside the dumpster.
I shuddered at the sight of the lone ambulance with its back door gaping open, like it was waiting to swallow Winston’s body.
As soon as I’d passed the pub’s windows, though, I pivoted toward the street.
I glanced both ways before cutting across the lanes.
It might be illegal to jaywalk, but I figured the police had more important things to think about right now.
Traffic was ridiculously slow as people gawked at the police vehicles clustered outside the Nook, so dodging the oncoming vehicles wasn’t difficult.
I waved at Henry, who was standing in his grocery store window watching what was going on.
The Witch’s Brew was next. The neon light in the window grabbed my attention, and I glanced in.
The place was empty again. Lily was focused on whatever she was doing at the counter.
In front of her was an array of measuring cups, about a dozen bottles of various descriptions, and an assortment of jars of pickled onions, olives, asparagus, and green beans.
Oh boy. Call me a skeptic, but I didn’t have high hopes for a pickled onion and hazelnut flavored coffee. She reminded me of a mad scientist concocting a tincture that no one would want to choke down. Huh… I wondered if she was magical, too. Was her coffee literally a witch’s brew?
I debated stopping in because I felt badly for her and her lack of business when she seemed so determined to succeed. There had to be something on her menu that was drinkable.
But I had something to do first.
The closer I got to the antique store, the faster my heart pounded.
Leon was a nasty piece of work, but that didn’t give him the right to accuse my grandfather of murder. In fact, if someone was taking out unlikeable people in town, I was surprised they hadn’t chosen him as their first victim.
I winced.
Okay, that was harsh. I didn’t want the man to die. But I did want him to stop trying to save himself by pointing fingers at other people.
I adjusted my glasses. I braced my shoulders. Then I shoved open the door to Arcana Antiques and stomped inside.
Antiques weren’t my thing, so I’d never been inside this shop before.
But when I’d envisioned the uptight man’s store, I’d imagined shelves lined with objects arranged in rigid rows and a few walls covered in dreary oil paintings, all hung with laser-level precision.
That wasn’t what greeted me when I walked through the door.
Now I understood why Winston had described Arcana Antiques as a thrift shop.
The place was a chaotic jumble of… well…
everything. How could anyone find anything in this place?
How many things were lost here every year?
Not through theft, but because they’d simply been tucked behind something else and forgotten.
It reminded me a lot of Elwood’s store, except all this merchandise was old.
And instead of the earthy and floral scents of sage, lavender, and incense that hung in the air at The Mystic Menagerie, this had an unpleasant blend of mildew, mothballs, lemon-scented cleaner, and, unfortunately, a hint of body odor.
Leon rose like an apparition from behind a cluttered desk at the back of the store. His smile disappeared as soon as he realized I wasn’t a wealthy tourist. His gaze darted down to his desk as I approached.
“Are you here about the social media?” Leon asked.
I frowned. “What social media?”
Leon scowled as he shuffled papers around on his desk. “Last night, the festival board agreed to put you in charge of our social media.”
Right. I’d forgotten about that. Oops. Still, it was a good excuse.
Because now that I was here, I had no idea how to confront Leon.
I should’ve searched the internet for how to politely ask someone if they were a murderer.
But if I played along, I could try slipping in a few discreet questions while we talked about social media engagement, viral videos, and trending topics.
Unfortunately, now that he was standing in front of me, I couldn’t see him killing Winston any more than Elwood had. He was an angry, bitter man, but killing Winston was wrecking his weekend festival. Would he actually jeopardize that?
Still, I needed more than a gut feeling to let go of the idea completely. He was behaving too suspiciously to be completely innocent.
“Yes. I thought I should get started,” I said.
Leon nodded. “Good. What do you need?”
“You need to allow me access to your accounts.”
Leon narrowed his eyes. “As an admin?”
Such a suspicious guy. “That’d be the easiest way, but every client has different ways of doing things.”
What else could I say to butter him up? People liked flattery, right?
“Fine. But only because the rest of the board voted for it. Even though the meeting hadn’t started yet…
” He clenched his teeth as he scribbled a few things on a piece of paper.
I shuffled forward to see what he was writing, but he looked up sharply, and I stopped moving forward.
Still, his behavior was piquing my curiosity.
He thrust the paper at me. “Here.”
I glanced at what he’d written. It was a list of all the typical social media platforms, along with usernames and passwords. “Okay. But I’ll need you to add me as an admin to a couple of these, too.”
Damn it. That had been the perfect spot to say something encouraging and get in his good books. I’d blown it.
“I don’t have time for this,” he muttered.
But rather than ushering me out of the store, he plopped down in his chair.
As he straightened his papers, I realized they were merchandise listings from online auction sites.
I caught a glimpse of a Cabbage Patch Kid, a Happy Meal toy, and even something about those floppy stuffed animals that were popular before I was born.
He shoved the papers into his desk drawer before I could ask about them.
Once the papers were hidden, he motioned me around to his side of the desk. “What do I do?”
Huh, I’d been invited into the lion’s lair… or Leon’s lair…
I scurried around to join him on the other side of the desk.
While he signed into one of the social media platforms, I scanned the desk for clues.
He hadn’t shut the drawer he’d shoved the papers into, so I snapped a picture with my phone hoping it captured more than the info about junk no one wanted.
A guy could only hope it’d say something incriminating like I killed Winston because…
I wasn’t going to hold my breath, though.
Given my luck lately, it’d be some article about how Pokémon cards were now considered vintage collectibles.
Josh the Jerk, who was older than me by about ten years, had drunk himself into a stupor when he’d discovered that a few months ago.
People saved a lot of strange things, thinking they would someday be worth money.
When we’d finished with the social media and I didn’t immediately leave, Leon skewered me with a glare. “Is there something else? And don’t ask me about your grandfather. I don’t have anything more to say about that. I told the police what I saw, and Elwood didn’t deny it.”
“You can’t possibly think that Elwood killed Winston.” So much for making discreet inquiries.
Leon compressed his lips into a hard and tight line. Which made me do the same, mostly so I didn’t blurt out all the angry things I wanted to shout at the man. I sucked in a breath through my nose.
“People kill other people all the time,” Leon said. “Anyone can be driven to murder, your grandfather included.”
You too? I wanted to ask. Instead, I went with, “So what’s his motive?”
Leon rolled his eyes at me. “Money, of course.”
“Money…” I repeated slowly.
“I bet he was after the treasure.”
“Treasure,” I repeated, just as slowly. Elwood had said something about treasure, hadn’t he? What was it again? Something about toenails and rubies? “I didn’t think that was real.”
Leon snorted. “Of course it is. Xalvador talked about it all the time.”
What Leon obviously didn’t realize was that Elwood had never been driven by money and greed.
He wouldn’t care about getting his hands on a treasure, especially if it came at the expense of a man’s life.
His building, which housed both his business and his home, had been bequeathed to him by his grandfather, who’d been one of the founding fathers of Ravenstone. There’d never been a mortgage on it.
And although The Mystic Menagerie might not be thriving by most people’s standards, it did steady enough business to pay for all his needs and contribute to his retirement fund.
My father, who was an astute investment banker (a decidedly unusual career choice for a man raised by Elwood), managed all the family accounts, including Elwood’s.
So, although most people might not realize it, I knew Elwood had no financial worries.
“Okay. I’ll bite. If it’s real, why would Elwood want it?”
“That wackadoodle store of his hardly sells anything. It’s a wonder he’s lasted this long.”
Well, I wasn’t about to explain my grandfather’s financial situation to him. And wackadoodle? Really? Leon had his tighty-whities in a knot about having everything perfect for the magic festival, but he had no trouble disparaging The Mystic Menagerie. What a hypocrite.
“And what about you?” I demanded, tired of his attitude. “You looked ready to murder Winston last night.”
Leon jolted back like I’d slapped him. “I’d never!”
“Well, neither would Elwood!”
“I think you should leave now.” He pointed at the door.
Beyond the glass door at the front of the store, a raven hopped up and down, cawing and flapping its wings, as if it was as angry as I was.
“Gladly!” I stormed out of the store.
Despite how desperately he was trying to throw Elwood to the wolves—wait, was that saying derogatory to wolf shifters?
Whatever. The important point was that, although I doubted Leon was a murderer, if only because it would put his festival at risk, he was a jerk, and he had a secret.
And until I uncovered that secret, he was my prime suspect.
But what if other people suspected Elwood was strapped for cash? Would they think he could murder over an imaginary treasure, too?
I needed to prove my grandfather’s innocence and stop these speculations, because small-town rumor mills were notoriously vicious. Elwood would be heartbroken if his neighbors turned their backs on him. Community was everything to him.