Chapter 30
I’d expected a rapid denouement after the scene at the Blue Moon. I was disappointed.
It took Trey Stone two whole agonizing days until he called on me during my lunch break. “Your friend has been cleared.”
The penny dropped when he broke into a wide grin that unsettled me at first. It transformed the stern detective.
“Candice? That’s wonderful.” I decided against splitting hairs with him about the definition of friend.
We may not have become bosom buddies, but with her letter, Candice had restored my self-esteem, and that in itself was enough.
I was glad that while I had my inner freedom, I’d helped restore her outer freedom.
I’d call that even. “It was Champ, wasn’t it? ”
“He was careless enough to keep the gloves he used when he stabbed the victim. They found trace amounts of blood in the lab. We also uncovered a vial with soil in his car. It had Tim Boyd’s fingerprints on it. You probably already know what this means.”
“Is this why Champ killed him? To steal the sample and ensure that nobody else would hear about it? But what about the lab report?”
“Tim used a laboratory down in Florida. It was highly unlikely that the connection would ever come to light.”
“That’s why they both were at the fair. We should have realized sooner that Tim was the last person to be interested in old stuff.
He must have arranged a meeting there to collect money or whatever it was, after he’d made it clear to Champ that he could ruin him.
After Champ stabbed Tim, he must have stolen the vial with the soil sample, only it wasn’t completely tight. ”
“The first meeting was at the motel. I don’t think Charles Martin Pratt was ready to kill back then,” the detective said. “
“Probably not.” I had sensed anger in the room, but no malice when I cast my spell.
“The night the victim was killed, Pratt proposed to slip into the building and hand over a deed, giving Boyd ownership of ten percent of the retirement village. He knew when the place would be deserted.”
“Smart. And evil.”
“Blackmail is a dangerous business.”
“Yes, but however he justified killing Tim to himself, there’s no excuse for framing an innocent woman. And he almost succeeded.”
“Well, he didn’t, thanks to you. That was a clever trick you played.”
I accepted his compliment with a nonchalant shrug and saw him to the door.
“One more thing, Ms. Merriweather.”
“Yes?”
“When you tell your friends, ask them to keep the story to themselves.”
“We’re not tattle-tales.”
“Good. Then we’re on the same page.”
“We are.”
Cosmo, who’d spent the conversation snoozing, startled the detective with a shrill meow.
“What an excitable cat,” Trey Stone said. “Beautiful too.”
“I agree.”
When the door closed behind the detective, Cosmo said, “You’ve tamed him.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.”
“He informed you first, didn’t he? And he gave you the implicit permission to tell the coven.”
“Candice would have told me the same. I guess.”
“Makes you wonder why she hasn’t been in touch yet, now that you saved her.”
That thought hadn’t crossed my mind, until this very moment.
The answer came an hour later. Detective Stone had visited me before his Cannon Hill counterparts bothered to inform Candice that they had a murder suspect in custody, and she was free to leave.
I didn’t see her before she fled back home, to her fiancé.
Fine with me. I was busy enough, with my day job, my friends, and finishing the promised restoration.
I’d convinced her to keep the chest and take it back home to Rick.
It was sure to find its way into the perfect hands, even if was a collector of gruesome items.
The day I sent off the chest and Candice’s other furniture pieces, I received a picnic hamper the size of a baby bath, filled with an assortment of cheeses, three types of crackers, pear butter, fig butter, cookies, Jamaican Blue coffee, and three bottles of wine.
A plaid picnic blanket bolstered the bottom of the hamper. Slipped into it was a plain card. “I hope every day of your life will be a feast. Candice x”
“Do you have a lash in your eye? Its watery.” Cosmo said with a touching hint of concern in his voice.
I read him the card.
“That’s very thoughtful,” Cosmo said.
“You have no idea. These are all my favorites. How could she have known?”
“Maybe your ex-husband told her?”
“Rick?” I snorted. “When Alex was born, I asked him to bring me cookies and crackers to the maternity ward. Instead, I got flowers. Beautiful to look at, useless if you’re starving in the middle of the night. He’s clueless.”
Cosmo sniffed around the hamper. “That’s a lot of food.”
“Enough for a coven meeting.”
“You could invite Sam as well. He did assist you with the case too.”
“I’ll think about it.”
I snapped a photo and sent it to my friends, with a short text. “Picnic, anyone?”
Ange answered with an instant, “Hooray!”
Reina replied with a heart emoji.
Only Harper took longer to message me back. “Can you come over tonight?”
Puzzled, I set out after dinner. Meeting up at the Blue Moon was normal enough. Only, this request felt different.
Harper pulled me aside when I came in, right before the regular open mic night at the Blue Moon started.
She took the “Reserved” sign off a table and beckoned Reina over as well.
“What’s going on? Where’s Ange?” I asked.
“She’s decided to have some quality time with her husband. Don’t worry, she won’t miss out. I’m going to film this.” Harper laughed.
My tension melted. I took the seats she offered me and Reina.
“Prepare to be blown away,” Reina whispered to me.
“Aren’t you hosting?” Reina’s talents as MC were only surpassed by her singing.
“The first artist has asked if she could announce her act herself.” Reina and Harper both twinkled at me.
The lights went low. I heard more than I saw a woman passing by us on her way to the stage; a blonde woman in an azure halter neck dress, with a henna tattoo.
“Linda?” I gawked.
“The one and only.” Harper aimed her phone camera at the stage.
Linda picked up the microphone. “Hello, Willowmere.”
Not the greatest opening line of all times, but I joined Reina in clapping.
“You’ll all be surprised to see me of all people up here. Well, like a wise woman told me not too long ago, give it a whirl, girl. So, this girl is giving it a whirl.” She blew a kiss to a table on the other side of the room from my perspective.
I craned my neck to spot the recipient.
Harper stopped me. “No need to twist yourself into a pretzel. She’s here with her hubby.”
Soft music set in, and on stage, Linda spoke into the microphone.
“This song is what might so easily have happened to me if I’d gone on trying to be someone I never could be, to please people impossible to please.
But here I am, fifty years old, with a man who never gave up on me. I love you, babe.”
I misted up.
And then Linda sang, no, she serenaded her husband with “The Greatest Man I Never Knew”.
For a few precious moments it didn’t matter that her performance was wobbly or that she missed a few notes, because we got to see the real Linda, a gutsy woman brave enough to own up to her flaws and insecurities. This new and unfamiliar Linda was a lot braver than me.
I hadn’t realized it until she opened up in front of everyone at the Blue Moon that no matter how tough things got for me, I’d always had a safety net, first in the form of Aunt Violet, and then my coven, and my familiar.
I clasped Reina and Harper’s hands and squeezed them. “Careful, or I’ll ruin the video,” Harper whispered.
Linda finished her performance. Her husband strode to the stage and lifted her off.
Another tear trickled down my cheek.
Harper ended her recording. “Worth coming over for?”
“I have goosebumps,” I admitted. “Who’d have thought that Linda is capable of changing? That any of us is capable of changing at our mature age?”
Harper cleared her throat. “Speaking of which …”
“Don’t tell me you’ve got another big surprise waiting. I’m not sure I can handle any more excitement tonight.”
“What if it’s good news? At least I believe it is?”
“Spit it out. Please.”
“You might have to spend a few days without me.”
Fear gripped me. “That’s what you call good news? Are you ill?”
“Nothing of the sort.” Reina frowned at her wife. “Harper is trying to tell you that she’s Ms. Vine’s pick.”
“What?”
Harper lowered her voice. “You may recollect that Ms. Vine informed you that she was ready to pass on the baton as you-know-what to the next generation. She’s chosen me. She warned me that I’ll have to be prepared for a hardcore crash course.”
“That’s great. The part about you being the one, that is.” I hugged her. “The hardcore part is less great. Why the sudden hurry?”
“Beats me. Except that she said you’d better be prepared too.”
“Me?”
“Shh. You’ve got a visitor coming.”
Sure enough, Sam strolled over. I hadn’t spotted him before, but then Linda’s performance and Harper’s admission had been distracting.
Reina offered him her seat. “I’ve got to get on stage.” She sashayed away.
“I’ll bring you drinks,” Harper chimed in.
“Stay,” Sam said. “I thought you might like to hear this too.”
Harper and I exchanged a puzzled glance.
“I’ve studied old files and taken a dozen soil samples. There’s only a tiny area on the retirement village grounds that needs action to remove any potential health hazards. It won’t even hold up the building work.”
“The development can go ahead? What about ownership and investors?”
“A consortium has stepped in. I don’t know the details, only that from what I’ve heard so far, it’s all sorted. Whoever wants to spend their twilight years living it up in Cannon Hill, will be able to do so.”
“That is crying out for a bottle of fizz.” Harper rushed off, with a huge beam on her face.
I beamed too. Aside from Ms. Vine’s ominous words about me needing to be prepared, this was the best day in a while. What could possibly happen anyway that friendship, a cat, and magic couldn’t solve?
****