Chapter 18
The instant the last yoga lady had left the building, I locked the front door and pulled Ange back into the library.
She grinned from ear to ear. “Give it a whirl, girl?”
I winced. “Sorry. I’ve got no idea what came over me.”
“I do. You unleashed your inner witch. Great job!” She held out her hand for a high five.
“If it lasts. Linda needs to be willing to change. All I can do is point her in the right direction. Speaking of which …”
“You had a Columbo moment?” Her gaze traveled to my feet. “You’re channeling the disheveled look already.”
I looked down as well. I had put on one black and one blue sock, without noticing it. Dismissing my sartorial choices, I leant against a bookcase. “Linda busted an alibi.”
“She did?”
“I knew Skye was lying when she said she hadn’t been to Cannon Hill in a while. Well, she was definitely there the same day that we were.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“You’re not the only one who has a free-hand mehndi created by Skye. She’s got a distinctive style. I’m sure she did Linda’s too, and we saw her leave the studio.”
“That’s right, we did.”
“There’s also something else.” I fished out the business card that had caused a tiny witchfire wave. “I found this in the chest.”
Ange took it. “Weird that the police didn’t take a peek.”
“I don’t think that Cannon Hill has a large staff.
They did some examinations at Bert’s and moved on.
And this card had slipped behind the fabric lining.
I think it fell out of a pocket when Tim’s body was toppled inside.
There’s a fresh scratch in the wood, maybe from his watch or a metal button, that could have been the result of him being dumped. ”
Ange flopped down on the floor and mimicked rolling over. “Like this?”
“That’s what I think most likely.”
She rested on her back and read the business card.
“Sweet Haven Motel. That’s weird. Why would Tim have the card of a motel on the outskirts of Cannon Hill?
I get that he might not want to travel there for business, or fun, or both, and have to drive back 90 minutes to Willowmere, but then why not stay in a good hotel downtown? ”
“That’s what struck me. Do you know the place?”
“No, but I wouldn’t mind taking Mrs. Miniver and Mr. Chips for a walk in the area. There should be a nice bit of primeval woods left.”
Cosmo stretched and groomed his flank. “I’ll be back soon,” I promised, texting Ms. Vine to ask her yet again to fill in for me. She instantly replied with a thumbs up emoji. When things were back to normal, I owed her a special treat.
I filled Cosmo’s water bowl, put a few treats out for him, and followed Ange to her car.
First, we swung by Tim’s home in the new subdivision.
It stretched out in a triangle from the farthest edge of the lake that had given Willowmere its name. At the tip were a new private nursery, an eco-friendly co-living and co-working space, and a trendy gym with all the latest equipment and a price tag to match.
Ange wrinkled her nose as we passed it. She taught her yoga classes for free in my lending library.
Sam’s condo was half hidden behind fir trees, and its mix of old school logs and energy efficient smart glass that reacted to heat and sunlight added charm to its sustainable appeal.
The house the late Tim Boyd had lived in was the exact opposite. Concrete walls, expanses of glass, and a paved front yard with precisely shaped ornamental shrubs in concrete containers made me wonder how Skye could ever have believed this man was a fellow environmentalist.
I wrote down the time as we left the place behind and headed for the motel.
“I’d use GPS to do the maths,” Ange said.
“When was the last time that turned out to be correct?” I asked.
“Fair enough.”
The Sweet Haven was half a mile off the main road, through the woods, and consisted of a dozen units, split into two rows with a pool in between. A screened wooden porch connecting the six units on either side.
A converted shipping container served as reception and a vending machine outside offered snacks and soda. A hand-painted sign said, Dogs welcome. Humans must be well behaved.
“This can’t be it,” Ange said. “There’s no way the dead dude would’ve been slumming it here.”
I touched the card again. Nothing. But the initial reactions had been too strong to ignore. “I’m sure there’s a connection.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” She reached for the dog leashes and handed me Mr. Chips’, while she took the leash for Mrs. Miniver and clipped it on.
With the dogs, we circled the pool. I waited for a sensation that told me Tim had been here.
It came at the end of our round. Without a conscious move of my own, my body made a quarter turn, and I faced the last two units on the left. Behind them, a trail led deeper into the woods.
I signaled to Ange that I’d found the place.
“This looks so peaceful,” she called out, presumably for the sake of a possible audience. She went to the converted container and turned the handle of the reception door.
It didn’t open. We were out of luck.
“Let’s explore,” she suggested. Mrs. Miniver and Mr. Chips greeted the opportunity to sniff around the trees and undergrowth with tail-wagging delight.
On our mosey we saw a startled rabbit, birds sang in the trees, and sunshine filtered through the branches and dappled the uneven track.
Low traffic noise indicated that ahead of us, another road wasn’t far away, yet with the heady smell of subtropical rainforest and dense greenery, it felt like we were a million miles from city life.
“Petrichor,” Ange mumbled. “The smell of grass after the rain. I love that word.”
“I love that smell.” We grinned at each other. All my worries lifted. With my friends, a wise familiar, and a little witchcraft, nothing was too hard to achieve.
My stomach rumbled, and so did Ange’s.
“We’ll see if the receptionist is back. Otherwise, we’ll press on to Cannon Hill for a quick lunch and a recce,” I suggested.
Mrs. Miniver and Mr. Chips sat on their haunches.
“We’ll go for another, longer walk later,” Ange promised them.
With the sad look of two very good dogs who had one pulled over on them, they gave in.
Again, the reception was locked, so we moved on.
On the way, I peered at the billboard for Champ’s retirement village. If the pictures on it, the glossy prospectus, and what was already visible from the road were indicative of the project, Garth and Linda’s investment should pay off nicely.
Personally, I’d rather spend my twilight years in the much smaller, cozy environment of Serenity Springs, where community ruled over cash (or credit card).
We had lunch at the same place we’d eaten before.
“What’s next on our agenda?” Ange asked between bites of fresh sourdough bread that accompanied our lentil soup.
I scanned the room. The other customers were busy with their own food and too far from us to overhear our conversation if we talked quietly. “I think we can take it for granted that you know what happened at the antiques’ fair. The question is, how did you know who ended up in you know where.”
“Gotcha. We need to establish if you know who would have been able to do you know what to you know who after you know who had left.”
I silently repeated her phrase in my head a couple of times until I figured out which you know who referred to Tim, which you know who meant Skye, and which stood for Candice.
She chuckled as she noticed my confusion.
“Your version wasn’t any easier for me. In future, we must come up with a code.
Like, if gen 1 or gen 2 had access to the lab when the specimen was filled into the petri dish.
Actually, I should write that down. Nick will be so pleased I’m adopting the code of science. ”
“Maybe it’s easier just to talk in private. Shall we go?”
Mrs. Miniver and Mr. Chips rose with the kind of promptness that reminded me to ask Cosmo again if he was certain they were not familiars in canine form. On the other hand, I’d never had a dog, so I lacked the expertise to tell if they were unusually attuned to Ange.
The building where the fatal fair had been held had no public event scheduled.
The number of people milling around and vans standing in the parking lot were down to the fact that lots of bigger items still needed to be taken to their new owners or returned to wherever they’d come from. I rubbed my hands in glee.
“You’re glowing again, in a purely normal fashion, not in a witchy way,” Ange said.
“It’s nice to be back in my old world, where I don’t have to make things up as I go along,” I admitted.
“Like me, when I shape a blob of molten glass into the exact thing I’ve pictured in my mind,” Ange said.
“Yes.”