Funerals and Familiars (Willowmere mysteries #1)

Chapter 1

Chapter one

Forget thunderbolt and lightning or the gentle chimes of angelic bells as the harbinger of great change.

In my case all that happened was a sudden warmth surging through my body and covering my forehead in what in a younger woman would have been called a healthy glow when I reached for the bottle with the ammonia free, cruelty free hair dye.

The color was periwinkle in case you're wondering.

Going from an instantly forgettable brown with a few silvery threads to vivid blue had been a spur of the moment decision, one more step in reclaiming my life.

I fought the urge of also grabbing a bottle of cold water and dumping the contents all over me.

What was going on? I’d had a few hot flashes lately, but nothing compared to this. I fanned myself with my free hand.

The sales assistant, who’d helped me select my hair dye, gave me a knowing nod. “It's only going to get worse from here,” she said. “I've given birth to three kids and passed a kidney stone the size of a walnut and believe me they’re a picnic compared to the perimenopause.”

I gave her a wan smile, trying to mind my manners.

I did not intend to discuss my age, which edged close to fifty, the state of my ovaries, or anything else private with a woman I'd never met before, and that in a public space.

To make matters worse, I noticed a few familiar faces staring at me as I dissolved into a puddle.

It would be only a matter of hours until it spread through our small town that recently divorced Bex Merriweather was having a menopausal meltdown in the middle of the drug store aisle.

I could imagine my ex-husband sharing the joke with my much younger replacement, his former personal assistant who’d become his personal everything.

The man was such a cliché. Even his midlife crisis had followed the same pattern I’d noticed lately. Among all my divorced friends, only one of the men hadn’t dumped the old model for a younger version. He’d instead decided on searching for himself in a monastery in Europe.

I averted everyone’s gaze as I paid for my hair dye and rushed home. Following the instructions was easy. Forgetting the nagging sensation in my stomach that something was wrong was not. The hot flash had been too intense to put it down to business as usual.

I'd barely finished rinsing my hair, admiring how it shone either blue or purple, depending on the way the light fell on it, when my phone rang.

“Bex?” I hardly recognized Ange Gale's voice. My old friend seemed to be crying.

“What's wrong?” I asked. The fiery sensation returned.

“It's your aunt.”

“Aunt Violet?” I sank back onto my bed and stared at the skull-shaped damp spot from hell. It had been haunting my sleep for weeks, growing and changing, ever since I left the family home and moved into this crappy apartment.

“I don't know what's wrong, but I came back from her house when I took the dogs for a walk. I think it might be bad. Her phone’s switched off.”

I gulped. “You think they've taken her to hospital?”

“I haven’t got a clue, and Nick hasn’t picked up his phone yet”, she whispered. “I only thought you should know, just in case.”

“That’s a good sign, right?” Her husband was one of Willowmere’s doctors, so if anything bad had happened to my aunt, he surely would be among the first to know, and he’d have called his wife.

I had another thought. “What about her cat? If I get into my car I could be there tomorrow.” My stomach knotted up.

Aunt Violet lived in a small town close to the Oregon coast. I was 750 miles away.

Deep breath, I told myself. Maybe I should ring the hospital before I did anything rash, but Cosmo, my aunt’s adored black cat, needed somebody to look after him if she was hospitalized.

My mind whirled. I’d seen Aunt Violet only a few weeks ago, when she helped me sort out myself after a messy break-up with my husband of 25 years. She’d been fine, as sharp and smart and comforting as always.

“I'll see what I can find out”, Ange promised. “I’ll call you back.”

“Wait,” I said. “Aunt Violet told me that her neighbour has a spare key, so he might be able to help with Cosmo?”

“Jake Gee?” Ange sounded even worse than before. “That's another thing. Jake passed away two days ago.”

She ended the call. I resisted my emergency bottle of whisky, grabbed a long drink of water and prepared to wait.

24 hours later I took the exit off the highway onto the road leading to Willowmere.

I rolled down the car windows and drank in the clean pine scented air.

Primeval Oregon forest flanked the road on both sides.

Hidden from view by the trees, somewhere in the distance, were mountains, and half an hour away the ocean waves lapped against the shore.

Under normal circumstances, driving down this road was one of my favorite things.

Today I drove as slowly as I could, without blocking the sparse traffic.

I'd have given a lot to be somewhere else, doing anything else.

Heck, I'd even have been willing to bump into my ex-husband and the soon-to-be new wife.

No. Shirking responsibilities never changed facts. I interrupted my train of thoughts and put my foot on the accelerator. The speedometer needle crept from 30 to 50 miles.

The billboard-sized town sign welcoming visitors had been recently repainted. For decades, it had only stated the town name. Now, the words were surrounded by trees and a stylized picture of the azure lake the town was named for.

I drove past pastel-colored wooden houses, imposing brick mansions and alpine-style chalets combining stone masonry and logs.

One of the many charms of Willowmere had always been its eclectic style. It was as if every newcomer who arrived in the first 100 years of its existence had brought his or her architectural heritage with them.

The tires of my car crunched on the graveled lane that connected the lake with the road leading to Aunt Violet’s.

I gripped the steering wheel so tight, my knuckles turned white as I made a U-turn.

Without a key, I wouldn’t be staying at my aunt’s.

Get it over with, I told myself. She wouldn't want me to fall apart now.

There was also Cosmo to think of. I counted to ten under my breath and drove the mile towards Main Street.

Harper Fox, the other member of my closest circle of friends, awaited me outside the Blue Moon, a popular bar she ran with her wife Reina. She must have peered out of the window to see me coming, I thought.

“I'm so sorry, sweetheart,” she said, crushing me in a bear hug. “Where's your luggage?”

Wordlessly, I pointed to the trunk of my car.

Harper led me through the main room, where a small, raised stage and a dance floor took up two thirds of the space.

A well-stocked bar more reminiscent of an upscale big-town establishment and a dozen tables completed the room.

On open mic nights, the Blue Moon was packed, same as when one of the local bands played.

We passed the kitchen and rest rooms – both were on opposite sides of the main room – and entered the games room through a baize-covered door.

Harper didn’t want musicians and poets to be disturbed by the pool players, or the other way around.

A back staircase next to an old-fashioned dart board took us up to the second floor where she had a couple of guest rooms.

The best of them was reserved for me. When Ange had called me, Aunt Violet had already been declared dead on the scene.

“It was a massive heart attack. She wouldn’t have felt a thing,” Harper told me.

She'd been able to convince the hospital to let her have the key to Aunt Violet's house from her purse, so she could save the cat. Cosmo now waited for me in the guest room. Afterwards, she’d handed the key back to the local police, until my arrival.

We were both unsure about the proper procedure. I was the next of kin apart from my two cousins, but I had no idea if my aunt had made a will or named an executor. Tears prickled in my eyes. I wiped them away.

Harper squared her shoulders, unlocked the door with an old-fashioned key, and pulled me inside. “Quick, I don't want Cosmo to run away to search for her.”

The poor kitty. He’d spent all his life being doted on by Aunt Violet, since she found him, years ago, sitting atop a pumpkin on a cold October night. Now, he stood on the windowsill. His black fur had lost its sheen, and he looked as heartbroken as a cat could.

A lump formed in my throat as I stroked him. “I know what you feel like, buddy,” I said. “She was one in a million.” He meowed softly and lifted a paw as if to push back a blue lock that had fallen into my face.

“I’ll leave you two to it,” Harper said. “Dinner’s ready in half an hour. Towels are in the bathroom.” Cosmo meowed again.

I spotted an empty food bowl on a mat. “I think he’s hungry.”

She opened the lower dresser drawer. Inside, she’d stored half a dozen tins with salmon, tuna, and chicken, and a small bag with cat biscuits.

At the back were the harness Aunt Violet insisted he wore when she took him to the park or on other visits, and his favorite ball.

The cat carrier with a plastic bubble window where he could look through like a furry goldfish (or a black vampire, in bad lighting and from a certain angle) stood next to the king-size bed.

I toyed with the idea of taking a quick nap, but odds were I’d end up hiding under the patchwork-quilt until we either ran out of cat food or Harper broke down the door.

A shower would have to do. It was also the perfect place to cry.

I left the door to the connecting bathroom open, so Cosmo wouldn’t fear he’d be abandoned. We both had already experienced the worst, losing Aunt Violet, I thought as I opened the hot water tap and stepped into the rainfall shower.

I was wrong.