Chapter 27
Ange’s arrival coincided with Sam’s departure. “Quick, tell all before my yoga ladies arrive,” she said, nudging me to the library.
“I have no definite answers from him yet, but he thinks the lab results point to contamination.” I helped her arrange folding chairs in the reading nook, for a session of chair yoga.
“Bad enough that someone could blackmail Tim over it?”
“We’ll see when Sam has done his tests. But he reminded me of something else. I didn’t ask Trey Stone if there were only Candice’s fingerprints on the letter opener or if there were loads.”
Ange stopped mid-motion. “Did he send you a picture of the weapon?”
“No. All he said is that it was stolen from a stall.”
“Have you tried that spell again, the one that takes you back?”
“Why should I – Oh. Because I had a tiny glimpse when I opened the chest.”
Ange put the chair in place, made me sit on it, and rubbed my back. “Unless it’ll give you nightmares, to relive that scene.”
I took a deep breath and focused. Even without the yarrow, my mind flashed back to the discovery and the silver handle sticking out of Tim’s body.
Just as I tried to mentally zoom in, the picture dissolved and switched to a scene from the fair in Cannon Hill.
Candice, holding a silver letter opener at the same stall where Ange had later bought the napkin ring.
“My goodness,” I said aloud as the scene disappeared.
“What did you see?”
“Do you recollect your purchases?”
“That’s a weird question. Are you doubting my memory?”
“Sorry, that came out wrong. Let me ask Trey Stone first.”
We had no privacy left anyway. The chair yoga ladies were already waiting outside the door.
While Ange took her students through seated cow, camel, and tree poses, I composed a message for the detective.
Everything I thought to have figured out – well, most of everything – hinged on his answer.
It came through while Ange guided her ladies through a final bit of meditation. Calm and peacefulness spread over me too.
The second her students were gone, I locked the library door and hung up a sign, “Back in 5.”
“You look like, well, not like the cat that got the cream, because the poor things then tend to get diarrhea, but something close. And not the Mona Lisa, because she’s a little creepy.”
I interrupted Ange before she meandered so far in her musings that she needed a map to get back on track. “I have a photo.”
“Of the body?”
“Of the letter opener. It’s been cleaned so there’s nothing gory to see.” I showed it to her. “You might have seen this in Cannon Hill.”
She scanned the letter opener, with its distinct handle. Then she described the shape in the air. “It was on display between a cocktail shaker and a silver-plated teapot when I got the napkin ring.”
“That’s what I thought. Therefore Candice couldn’t have taken it when she looked at it earlier.”
“That’s not proof that she didn’t come back later to steal it,” Ange pointed out.
“That’s true, but it’s another point in her favor.”
“I thought it’s already clear that she didn’t do it?”
“To us it is. But the police insist on more evidence than ‘I’m a witch, and the spells showed me that the suspect is innocent’.”
I received another message from the detective. “This is the important part,” I told Ange. “There were several sets of fingerprints on the letter opener, not only Candice’s. And a few were smudged, as if someone wearing gloves had touched it last.”
“Couldn’t they argue that someone also had been Candice?”
“How likely is it that you steal a letter opener and leave your fingerprints on it before you put on gloves to stab your victim with it?”
“Do you know who the killer is?”
“I do and I don’t.”
Loud knocks on the window reminded me that the avid readers of Willowmere desired to be let inside.
“I’ll explain tonight,” I promised.
“My place or the Blue Moon?”
“The latter. It’s not fair to expect Harper and Reina to neglect their business again.”
With any luck, Sam had completed his part by then. I was certain that proper science took time. I was equally certain that he’d do his best to speed the analysis up.
It would be nice to have a solution ready to try out on my coven before I approached the detective. So far, he’d been willing to play ball. I didn’t want to squander his goodwill by sending him on a wild goose chase that could damage his standing with his superiors.
How lucky was I, with only Cosmo to answer to.