Chapter 32
Tess
Shelley texted me a barrage of exclamation points:
The racing pigs are in town!! Our school bus drove by them. I saw Peter Porker!!! They’re coming to visit us at school!
“Life was easier when I was ten,” I murmured, looking out the window as we drove home from Orlando. “Shelley’s so excited about the racing pigs.”
“It’s nice that she can get excited about racing pigs,” Jack said.
“I know.” Shelley had been through a lot. “Just remembering how much fun it was to be ten, I guess. Life is complicated now.”
He blew out a breath and then was silent for several miles.
“Do you ever think about it?”
I glanced over at him. “Think about what?”
“Babies. Having kids.”
Wow!
“I—” My phone rang before I figured out how I was going to answer that question.
“Hey, Eleanor. Jack’s here.” I put her on speaker.
“Tina is here now, so I’m going over the paperwork with her. If you still want to take her out to Beau’s for lunch, should I just have her meet you there? Or are you going to be a while?”
“We’re about fifteen minutes out. If it’s okay with her—and you—please ask her to meet us at Beau’s. Jack hasn’t had any food in at least half an hour, so he’s probably starving.”
He grinned at me. “Yep. Hi, Eleanor.”
“Should I bring you lunch back?”
“No, thanks. Unless it’s a problem, I’m still out of here when you get back from lunch. So much to do.”
“Of course.” I hadn’t been able to bring myself to ask whether she’d still work for me after the wedding. I was afraid of what she’d say, and I didn’t know how I’d run the shop without her. Tina would be great, I hoped, but she had an awful lot to learn.
When we reached Beau’s, it was almost one o’clock, so the usual lunch crowd had thinned out. Lorraine, wearing her uniform of pink starched dress and pink orthopedic shoes, gave us a big smile and led us to our favorite table by the front window.
Several people started clapping as we walked by, and I was surprised to see that they were all looking at me.
“Good job, Tess!”
“Way to go!”
“Tess Callahan, Baby Whisperer!”
I blushed and waved.
“How are mom and babies?” Lorraine asked. “I’m guessing dad is over the moon.”
“Definitely,” Jack told her. “Rose and the babies are fine. Tess, tell her.”
“Tell me what?”
I felt an ear-to-ear smile spread across my face. “They named their new daughter—the baby I helped deliver—Jasmine Tess Cardinal Vasquez.”
“That’s wonderful! Lunch is on the house!” She didn’t bother to hand us menus. “The special is fried chicken with mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, cornbread, and apple pie for dessert.”
“One for me. But we have a guest coming,” I said. “I’m not sure if she even eats chicken or has food allergies or what, so I guess we’ll wait for her, if that’s okay.”
Jack raised a hand. “I’ll take three specials.”
“Only three?” Lorraine raised an eyebrow.
“I don’t want to scare Tina off.”
Lorraine turned to me and put her hands on her hips. “You hired the shoplifter?”
“She wasn’t a shoplifter. She was … an almost-shoplifter,” I protested. “And please don’t say anything about it to her. She’s making a new start, okay?”
“Everybody deserves one of those,” she said. “I’ll send her over when she gets here.”
The door opened, but it wasn’t Tina. It was Andy, in full deputy gear. He waved and strolled across the room toward us, chatting briefly with folks on the way. His carrot-red hair and freckles made him look about twelve, but he was tough as nails.
When he reached us, he grinned at me. “Hey, it’s the Hero of Dead End. Are you thinking of changing careers?”
I shuddered. “Definitely not. It was pretty amazing, though.”
“Since you’ve been so involved in this, I wanted to tell you that Reynolds called me. His Sheriff Lawless just arrested Probie in connection with Ace.”
Jack frowned. “I don’t see Probie as any criminal mastermind. And arrested him for what? Kidnapping? Magic?”
“Attempted murder.”
“What? Why would he blame Probie?” I asked.
“They found evidence at his apartment that he knew Ace was embezzling from the family business and, especially, stealing from Probie’s share. Ace planned to cut Probie out pretty much entirely, it looks like.”
“That’s definitely a motive,” Jack said. “But why magical stasis? Why on the Dead End softball field?”
“No idea on the stasis. But the theory about the softball field is Probie was trying to pin it on Brenda.”
“None of this makes sense,” I said slowly.
Andy shrugged. “If Probie made a plan, it would be a messed-up plan like this. He’s definitely not a chess master kind of guy.”
“What about Celine, though? The witch?”
“She had an alibi for the time Ace would have disappeared. She was giving a talk in Jacksonville. Hundreds of people saw her there, and she was out drinking with friends half the night and checked out of the hotel in the morning. No way she could have done this.”
“Too bad,” I said. “That would have been easy.”
“Yeah. Weird thing, though. When Susan asked her about the missing trophy, Celine was very offended. Said her grandmother helped fabricate the thing with the two old dudes. Said she never would have interfered with the game or the trophy.”
I shrugged. “Nobody wants to mess with the game, really. As we all know, it has been a tradition for thirty years. That’s why this is all so odd.”
“Deputy,” Lorraine called out, holding up a bag.
“Okay, that’s our food. I’m going to get going.” Andy paused, a puzzled expression on his face. “I’ve never met anybody before Lizzie who liked to eat hamburgers almost rare.”
“I love raw tuna,” I piped up, brain whirling about how not to let on that Lizzie liked raw meat because she was practically a wolf shifter.
Andy winced. “I only like tuna fully cooked, mixed in mayo, and stuffed in a sandwich, the way tuna should be eaten.”
“To each his own,” Jack drawled. “I like tuna fresh out of the ocean.”
The deputy laughed and went to get his food. When he walked out the door, he stopped to hold it open for Tina, who walked in and looked around shyly.
“Here we go,” I said, smiling and waving at her. “Try not to scare my employee.”
Jack pretended to look injured. “Who, me? I’m a sweetheart.”
Sure enough, she lit up when she saw he was with me.
“Jack!”
Oh, right. She’d helped with the house painting.
“Hi, Tina. We’re so glad you could make it.” I scooted over so she could take the seat next to me. Now that I’d already seen her death once, I’d never see it again.
We learned a lot about Tina during that lunch. Like, she loved fried chicken and apple pie. Really, really loved it. I watched in bemused wonder as she and Jack polished off two slices of pie each.
Also, she told us about her classes and the paper she was writing on the causes and impacts of the Salem witch trials.
“Really?” I was intrigued. “Are there witches in your family tree?”
“That’s the story, but none recently. I’m just interested in the topic, because the trials were more about misogyny than about actual witchcraft.”
We talked about that for a while, and I was surprised to learn that Jack had quite a bit of knowledge on the topic, too.
“I know a lot of witches,” he said, when I expressed as much.
We spent an enjoyable hour together, which made me even more optimistic about my new employee. When we were wrapping up, Connor Murphy stopped by our table holding a carry-out bag.
“Hey, guys! Tess, way to go. I don’t think I would have been able to step up like that.”
“Thanks. Connor, this is?—”
“Hi, Tina.” He flashed a huge smile. “So nice to meet you.”
“Hi,” she said shyly.
“Tina is going to be working part time with me at the shop,” I explained.
“Part-time?” He gave her a speculative look that made me nervous. Sure enough, the next words out of his mouth were bad.
For me.
“If you want to pick up some extra work, Tina, I’m going to need some extra help at the pub. Maybe you could pick up a shift or two a week?”
“Stop trying to steal my new employee,” I said sternly, shaking my finger at him.
He laughed, apparently thinking I was kidding.
I wasn’t.
Why didn’t Jack ever growl at people when I needed him to?
Tina’s eyes widened. “I … actually, that might be nice. My textbooks are going to cost more than I expected.”
“Come by anytime and talk to me. I’m always there,” Connor said cheerfully. With one last “way to go” to me, he was gone.
“Are you still up for starting tomorrow?”
Tina nodded. “I am! Oh, thank you again, Tess. I’m so grateful.”
“Please stop thanking me. I’m happy to have you. It’s going to be great.”
Tina excused herself and went home to study. Jack left money on the table for a big tip—Lorraine had insisted our meals were on the house—and we headed for the door, chatting with friends on the way. Just before we got to the door, it swung open, and Mr. Albert and Mr. Henry shuffled into the diner.
And they were carrying the missing softball trophy.