Dewitched (Witchless In Seattle Mysteries Book 3) (11 page)

“Admit it, you thought I was exaggerating, didn’t you?”

“I’ll own that statement. Yes. I thought you exaggerated. I was wrong. But I’m proud of how you’re handling the shambles her life is right now. I realize there’s a great deal of fodder to be had, but you have on your restraint pants and you’re wearing them well. So let’s refresh, yes? Beginning with Masters.”

“Her ex-husband?”

“Poor sap,” Belfry chimed in.

“Yes. Well, it seems he may be the spirit from last night who warned us Dita wasn’t what she seemed. He revealed himself to me just this morning as your mother frantically entered incorrect passwords for Bart’s credit card accounts. Who uses muffinloveshisbunny as a password?”

I snorted. “Did he have any other gems from the afterlife?”

“Just the one, but I fear he’s simply striking out as a form of payback. While we obviously can’t dismiss his statement, we surely should be on the lookout for retaliation.”

Leaning back in my Madam Zoltar chair, I sipped my cup of freshly made coffee. “Fair enough. I’ll make sure to keep my ducking skills brushed up. So let’s move on to the bigger mystery. Why the heck did Bart have the number for the Washington State Penn, and do we call the police and mention they missed a piece of possible evidence? Do we show that potential piece of evidence to Momster and see if it really was Bart’s?”

Win scoffed. “Well, the first is obvious. His BFF’s probably in doing twenty for some scam or another. Grifters like Bart don’t make close friends often, but they do make contacts. Maybe he was trying to reach out to one of them?”

I thought about that. Sure, if Bart had been doing this all his life, maybe he did have connections to others like him. “Maybe. But it’s not like we can call up the pokey and ask if a Bart has called recently.”

“Point. But if we could get our hands on his phone records…”

“Right. Because Officer Dana Do-The-Right-Thing Nelson’s going to just hand them over to me?”

“Then consider that a dead end for now. Also, yes and no. You do tell the police about the money clip and phone number, because if Sardine Pickles finds a connection to the Penn and Bart’s death, you’re going to begin working that charm you’ve been brushing up on to find out what he knows. And I vote no on telling your mother. She has the eye of the tiger, and it has nothing to do with whether Bart was killed or not.”

I felt such shame over my mother confessing her motives. “I have to give her credit for her honesty. She made no bones about why she’d married Bart.”

“True enough. You know, there’s something I’ve been wondering. If your circle of witches is so small, why haven’t you ever heard of Bart and his unsavory reputation? He is a warlock, is he not? And why doesn’t he—or for that matter, your mother—just conjure up some money and a villa in Greece? One spell is all it would take.”

Everyone thought that. Everyone thought we could have whatever we wanted with a flick of our wands. But not true. Not if you liked living as a free witch.

“It’s pretty easy to slip under the radar in the witch world. Some choose to live with humans and others choose places like my old hometown, Paris, simply because we didn’t have to hide our magic there. We’re as scattered as humans are, so, while close-knit, we don’t all barbecue together. Second, we’re not allowed to use our magic for personal gain. Not that it doesn’t occur, and not that my mother hasn’t done it, and obviously Bart did, too. But something as big as a villa in Greece with no work history would make Baba Yaga and her council of goons sit up and take big notice.”

“Have you ever used your magic for personal gain?”

I chuckled and batted my eyelashes. “I don’t magic and tell. So moving right along—the business card from Petula with Bart’s name on the back?”

“Now for that, we get out the old detective’s kit and investigate thoroughly. You definitely should ask Petula if she knew Bart, or maybe if someone working for her knew him.”

Resting my chin in my hand, I wound a piece of hair around my finger. “You know, I’ve been thinking. Maybe considering all the debt Bart was in, he
did
take his own life. I’d hate that just as much as murder, but he owed everyone and their grandmother money, Win. It isn’t unlikely.”

“But does the word suicide make your spine tingle the way murder does, Dove?”

“No.” No, it definitely did not.

“Then we proceed as such.”

“Fair enough. I’ll call Petula and see if she can give me a couple seconds of her time later this afternoon. Next up, my mother’s debt.” Ugh. The mountain of it made me want to curl up in a corner.

“That can be handled, Stevie. You know it can,” Win said with his usual generosity when it came to any hardship in my life.

“
No
. No it can’t. No way am I letting you dig her out of this mess.”

“It’s
your
money, Stevie.”

I shook my head, resting my palms flat on the table. “No. That’s not how I’ve ever considered it. If we call it anything, we call it
our
money. Period. Technically, you’re still around to see where it’s spent. It’s like bringing the Invisible Man to the bank, and then making him watch you piss away his hard-earned money on the horses or something, knowing he can’t do a thing about it.”

“I don’t see it the same way, I guess. But if you’d like to call it our money, then let’s consider how
we
can help Dita with it.”

“It won’t be by paying off her credit cards. I just can’t, Win. Let’s be honest here. She has a pretty cold heart. And I don’t mean just with me, with everyone. Bart’s not even dead twenty-four hours and she’s looking to find insurance policies and cash. That’s not forgetting Masters, who was a really good guy, by the way, and how she called his kids greedy. My mom’s selfish, and you shouldn’t have to pay for it. We’ll figure something else out. Credit counseling, bankruptcy, I dunno…”

“How about we revisit this particular subject later?”

In other words, Win didn’t want to fight. But neither did I. “Done deal. Onto the magic portion of this investigation. My mother said she smelled magic when she found Bart, but she wasn’t sure it was Bart’s magic.”

“Please explain this smell of magic, would you?”

“Witches intuitively sense when magic is used. We can smell it, feel it. It’s a vibe of sorts, and the scent is unique to each witch. After a time, once you get to know someone, you can identify a person’s magic by the scent.”

“Then we consider magical foul play. Which means you must tread carefully. Without your powers, no amount of spy training will save you. I won’t watch that happen, Dove.”

Win was incredibly overprotective of me, but this time he was right. I was no match for magic anymore.

“Oh, something I failed to mention last night. One of the Cirque acrobats was talking to another male acrobat about a woman named CC, who slapped Bart.”

“Hmmm,” Win purred. “Interesting. Why did she slap Bart?”

“Apparently, he made a very inappropriate comment about—”

“Her boobs,” Belfry piped in.

I sighed. “How did you know about that, Bel? I just overhead the conversation. I didn’t see it happen.”

“Sonar, baby. I got it and it’s honed to a sharp point. I hear all sorts of stuff I’m not supposed to hear—when I’m awake, anyway. When the sirens began wailing and the cops were crawling all over the house, they woke me up.”

I smiled at him, tucking him into his towel. “If only that sonar had picked up something around the time when Bart was killed. Anyway, yes. According to these two acrobats, this CC was offended by something Bart said and she slapped him.”

“So you remember who the acrobat was, Mini-Spy?”

“I didn’t get her name but I know what she looks like, and they’re all staying at the inn, sharing the few rooms available until the police clear them to leave town and go back to Vegas. Easy enough to check on them.” I added that to my list of people to talk to about last night.

“Then one last thing, Dove. The commotion I mentioned last night with Hardy Clemmons.”

“Oh yeah. You said you didn’t see what it was about, right?”

“Correct, but he’s worth talking to anyway.”

“Then I’ll add him to the list of people we should wow with my subtle yet charming interrogation skills. So are we done briefing for the moment? Anything else you can think of at this point?” I asked, scrolling my cell for my Ebenezer Falls phone app for the
Herald
.

“Your father.
The
Hugh Granite. I hate to say it, but can we rule him out? He
was
unaccounted for the better part of the evening.”

I thought about that for a moment. It was only fair to consider him. He was the only outsider in Ebenezer Falls, and suspiciously enough, he’d appeared on my doorstep the night his old flame’s husband was killed.

But after talking with him, that didn’t sit well with me. “Okay, if we go on my gut, which I’m trying not to pepper with my giddy girl feelings about finding my father, then I’d have to say he just doesn’t seem capable. He could have come back for my mother a hundred times over the years and he didn’t. His motivation, if anything, would certainly be jealousy, right? A crime of passion? Seems a stretch to think Bart was the one to send him spiraling into a murderous rage. Mom’s been married five times over the years since they were yeehawing it up in Texas.”

“All valid points. Now on the flips side, talk to me, Dove. Tell me how you feel about him and his presence after a night of rest and letting this information sink in.”

I smiled. I couldn’t help it. “He’s pretty vain, huh?”

Win’s chuckle warmed my ear. “But in the most charming of ways, wouldn’t you say? I’ve never seen anything quite like it. He refers to himself in the third person as though he’s an entity—nay, a force. Yet he’s utterly, unabashedly unaware he’s doing so in the most delightful way.”

I agreed a thousand percent. “Did you see the way the two of them looked at each other?”

Win hummed in my ear. “As though right out of a movie.”

“I’d sure like someone to look at
me
that way someday.”

“Maybe someone already does.”

I waved a dismissive hand, giving Whiskey belly rubs with the side of my foot. He loved a good scratch. “You mean Forrest? Naw. He’s not there yet, if he ever will be. But then, neither am I. You know what one of my first thoughts was when my mother and father saw each other for the first time again after all these years?”

“What’s that?”

I hesitated only for a moment before I said, “You and Miranda. You two looked at each other in the picture that way, too.”

I was referring to the only piece of evidence I had that Win really existed once. A picture I’d found in the back of the closet of our house, in which he was smiling down at a gorgeous redhead with complete adoration in his eyes.

Win was everything I’d secretly thought he’d be and more. Dangerously dark, all angles and chiseled lines, his face rugged and raven’s wing hair almost exactly as I’d imagined.

When I first saw the picture, it left me breathless…and then it dredged up feelings I didn’t even know I was having until I had them. Feelings I wasn’t comfortable with at this point in my life. Feelings that there was nothing I could do about anyway.

I waited in silence while Win processed what I’d just admitted. It was like pulling teeth when it came to the subject since I’d found the picture. I only knew one thing—he thought Miranda, the woman he’d loved, had killed him.

When he finally spoke, his voice was stoic and husky. “I admit, I was once very much in love with her.”

“Right. And then she murdered you.” I waited again, keeping my poker face in place.

“That she did,” he responded in a sharp tone.

“And then?” I coaxed him with a hopeful glance.

“And then I don’t know, Stevie. I have no answers as to why she betrayed me so deeply. But she did,” he replied, his voice tight with tension, like an arrow ready to spring from its bow.

“But she’s dead, too, right?”

“That
is
the rumor at MI6.”

“Have you investigated that rumor, Spy Guy?”

“How would you suggest I do such?”

He was getting snippy again, a clear sign I was pushing too hard. But it was time for some honesty. We’d beat around this bush a hundred times over the last month or so. Him giving me bits and pieces of his former life and the mystery surrounding it; me backing off and letting him breathe until I wanted to scream.

I don’t know why it was so important to me to know what went down with him and Miranda. Maybe it’s because I know it’s important to Win. Otherwise, he’d just tell me what happened and it would be done.

So I cracked my knuckles and decided to jump into the deep end. “Listen, Win, I’m going to lay something on the table here. You know everything about me and I’ve been as open as possible about all the things in my life, good and bad. But the time has come for
you
to be as open with me…or this will never work. I’m going to end up feeling resentful if our relationship is so one-sided. It’s obvious your death and the events leading up to it bother you. It’s unresolved and it will eventually affect how you feel about everything we do together. I’m not asking you to put your heart on your sleeve. Just state the facts and maybe I can help you find out what happened with Miranda. And that’s all I’m asking. So you think it over and let me know.”

“Is this an ultimatum?”

I made a face. And men always say
women
don’t listen to the facts, that we cloud them with our emotions. Poppycock with a capital P.

“Does it sound like one, Win? I don’t remember saying you had to tell all or I was hitting the road. What I said was, things between us are very one-sided and I’m open all the time, but you not so much.
That’s
what I said. Then I offered to help you find out what happened the day you died and what happened to Miranda. Women don’t have to be from Mars and men don’t have to be from Venus if we listen to what the other says and really hear the words.”

“It’s men who are from Mars, and women from Venus.”

“Yeah? Well, Venus was just made a planet again. We women didn’t even have our own planet for a little while there, so I borrowed Mars.”