Leighann Dobbs - Mystic Notch 02 - A Spirited Tail (10 page)

“Beep!”

My heart skidded to a stop and I jumped back as the yellow Dodge lurched past. I’d been so focused on Felicity and her look-alike friend, I hadn’t been watching the traffic.  

“Sorry!” The driver yelled out the open window as he kept going. I recognized the voice of Steve Van Dorn and chuckled to myself, thinking about how ironic it would be if he’d killed me before I could figure out who killed his uncle.

Finally, I reached the safety of my shop, unlocked the door and stepped inside.

“Meow.”

Pandora must have spied the sandwich wrapper in my hand. She looked up at me and chattered her teeth together—something she did when watching birds and begging for tuna.

“Okay, hold your horses.” 

I sat down on one of the chairs and she trotted over, hopped up on the other chair and blinked at me. I ripped off a piece of paper and put a smidge of tuna on it, then set it on the floor. 

Pandora looked put out, like I should have been feeding her on the chair, but she jumped down anyway and sniffed suspiciously at the lump of tuna.

I looked around for Ranger, hoping the promise of some of the sandwich would have roused him, but he still lay in the same spot he’d been in when I’d left. 

“You want a piece, Ranger?” 

He lifted his head and sniffed, but didn’t get up.

I shrugged and bit into the sandwich. The zest of the pickles and the tang of the tuna tap-danced deliciously on my taste buds. “Yumm.” 

I ripped open the chips, took the top piece of bread off the sandwich, stuck some chips in and replaced the bread. The next bite was even better with the added crunch of the salty chips. 

Pandora had finished her glob of tuna, so I scooped out some more and put it on the piece of paper. She sniffed, then backed away, wrinkling her nose at the big piece of pickle that stuck up from the middle.  To my surprise, she pushed the paper over to Ranger, sliding it right under his nose.

Ranger opened one eye. He sniffed. He thought for a moment, then he stuck out his big tongue and the tuna glob disappeared into his mouth.

“Well, at least he’s eating a little,” I said to Pandora. “Maybe I should buy him some tuna for supper—but without the mayo.”

She twitched her whiskers at me, then tilted her head to look under the chair. Her paw shot out and a pen rolled out from under the front of the chair. She pounced on it, flinging it up in the air with her paws and then batting it when it fell to the ground. The pen spun wildly and then rolled to a stop at my feet. 

Pandora looked up at me expectantly.

“Umm … thanks,” I said, and picked up the pen. 

“Mew.” She turned, her kinked tail looking like a question mark high in the air and leapt up onto her comfy bed in the windowsill just as the front door opened and Pepper stepped inside.

Unlike me, Pepper always dressed nice. Today was no exception. She wore a lavender tank top that complemented her auburn hair beautifully. Her lavender, navy and gray plaid skort fell an inch above the knees, revealing legs perfectly shaped by her rigorous daily walking routine. Her hair was piled high on her head. One long strand on the side of her face had escaped, falling past her shoulder. I knew that the rest of her hair fell past her waist, but she rarely wore it down.

Pepper caught the excited look on my face and smiled. “I
thought
you might have something new to share.”

She was right, I’d been dying to tell someone about Van Dorn’s love letters but she was the only one I trusted. 

“You won’t believe what I found over at Van Dorn’s.” I glanced out the window to make sure no one was coming to the shop as I made my way behind the counter where’d I’d stashed the notebook with the letters. “But you have to promise not to tell a soul.”

Pepper had squatted down next to Ranger to rub his ears. I tried to envision the Golden Retriever taking up residence in Pepper’s cozy cottage. She kept everything neat as a pin, but Ranger didn’t seem like he’d mess things up too much.  I made a mental note to consider Pepper as a potential adopter for the dog.

She looked up at me, her green eyes twinkling with excitement. 

“I won’t tell a soul, promise.” She made ‘cross my heart’ motions with her right hand just in case I didn’t believe her.

I held up the letters.

“What are those?” she asked as we worked our way toward the purple couch.

“Love letters.”

“Love letters?” Pepper wiggled her eyebrows. “From Striker?”

I rolled my eyes. “No, I found them at Van Dorn’s.  They’re from him to some unknown lover.”

“Really? How romantic.” Pepper gently picked up one of the letters and opened it. Her perfectly arched brows climbed her forehead as her eyes scanned the page. “Wow.”

“Yes, apparently this affair was hush-hush.”

“Right. Which means he wasn’t supposed to be having it.” Pepper chewed her bottom lip. “Do you think the person was married and the jealous husband killed Van Dorn?”

“Maybe. I’m definitely going to have to ask him about these, but I don’t see how they could have had anything to do with Lily, because one of the letters says, ‘Lily must not find out’. I pulled the third letter out of the pile and Pepper unfolded it to read.

“We need a list of the women who hung around Van Dorn back in the day,” Pepper said, her eyes still glued to the letter.

“I know. Too bad that was so long ago. I don’t know who to ask.”

“Maybe Bing knows. He must have known Van Dorn if they were in the same type of business.” 

“He did say he knew him. He even asked if I would look for some journals with instructions for magic tricks.” I made a mental note to ask Bing about the people who hung around Charles Van Dorn.

Pepper leaned back in the chair and picked up another letter. “So, did you find out anything more about Bruce Norton’s murder?”

“Not really. I did see Striker looking over the crime scene last night when I was at Van Dorn’s.”

“Oh?” Peppers brows ticked up.

I nodded. “He didn’t really give me any clues, though. Only that Ruth heard cars going up and down the road all night.”

“On that road? No one drives down there.”

“I know. But the killer must have, so she must have heard at least one car, and of course she said it was around six and Bruce died around two so that doesn’t make much sense.”

“Ruth has been complaining about cars going by all day and night since they put that stream gaging station in up the road from her thirty years ago.  Plus, she hasn’t made much sense in years.”

“True. Striker also said that Bruce was hit hard with something.  I guess it must have been in the back of his head because I didn’t see anything bashed in when I found him face up.”

“He was face-up?”

“Yep, that’s how I saw the weird triangle mark.”

Pepper puckered her lips and squinted her eyes. “Well, if he was hit in the back of the head, wouldn’t he have fallen face down?”

I hadn’t thought about that. “I guess so. The killer must have turned him to make the mark on his forehead.”

“Yeah, I guess. I’m sure Striker and Augusta have thought of that.”

“They wouldn’t tell me if they had. You know how tight-lipped those two are.”

“Yeah, we need someone in that police department that will feed us information,” Pepper said. 

I looked at her curiously. She was getting more interested in these cases than I was. “I didn’t realize you had a hankering for solving murders.”

Her face brightened. “Oh, I love to watch murder mysteries on TV. Of course, I don’t have the experience you do with your background, but I still think it’s fun. We do need an ‘in’ at the police station, though. What about that new recruit Gus has?”

“Jimmy?”

“Yes!  He doesn’t seem to have a lot of confidence. I bet we could persuade him to fill us in.” Pepper got a dreamy look on her face and I was afraid of what was coming next. “In fact, I bet I could help him out with that lack of confidence”

“Oh, no, don’t mess with that poor guy. He’s just a kid.” I remembered the disastrous consequences the last time one of Peppers herbal teas had backfired and I could only imagine what would happen if she made Jimmy even less confident.”

“What?” Pepper blinked at me innocently. “You have to admit, I did help Ophelia.”

I nodded my agreement. “But Jimmy will get confidence over time as he gets more experience.  Besides, I don’t really need information on
Bruce’s
murder. I’m leaving that to the police.” 

“But, don’t you think the two are related?”

“Related? No. What makes you say that?”

Pepper shrugged. “Well, it just seems pretty odd that all of a sudden the house is being sold off and Bruce ends up dead in the back yard with that symbol on his forehead.” 

“Maybe, but I think it’s more likely that someone put that symbol there to capitalize on the curse.” 

“What do you mean?”

“You know how people collect weird stuff, right? Well, it turns out the Van Dorn curse is very collectible. Especially since Bruce was found with that symbol on his forehead. It seems to have rekindled interest in the old curse.”

“You think someone killed Bruce to make the curse more popular?”

“According to Hattie and Cordelia, the nephew who inherited the house is making a bundle off the contents on eBay. It wouldn’t be the first time someone killed to make more money.”

“But why Bruce?”

I shrugged. “Maybe he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“I didn’t realize that kind of stuff was so popular.”

“I guess so. There’s even a guy in town that is writing a book on Van Dorn. Come to think of it, he had a run-in with Bruce the night before Bruce was killed.”

“A run-in?” Pepper’s eyes lit up. “Maybe he’s the killer?”

“I thought about that. I even talked to him down at
The
Mystic Cafe
, but judging by the way he reacted when I told him about Bruce’s body being found, he probably isn’t the killer.”

“Maybe he’s just a good actor. I mean, the killer would hardly want to let on that they knew about it already. And it sounds like a book on the curse would surely be profitable.”

I thought back to Les’s reaction. “I don’t think he was that good of an actor. His father covered a lot of the stories about Charles Van Dorn fifty years ago. He’d even started, but never finished, a book on him. His father recently passed away and I guess he wants to finish the book to honor his dad. I don’t think he’d be strong enough to club Bruce–he was just a little guy.”

“You might want to team up with him, then, because he might know a lot about what went on fifty years ago. He could be a good resource to help you figure out what happened to Charles.”

I pressed my lips together. She did have a point, and I didn’t have too many ideas on other places to find information. I made a mental note to become friends with Les Price.

Pepper fluffed the letters gently into a pile and stood. “I have to get back to
The Tea Shoppe
. You’ll let me know if you get any more clues, right?”

“Sure.” I picked up the letters to hide them back in my notebook. “But, like I said, I’m not investigating Bruce’s death, just Van Dorn’s.”

“Right. That’s what I meant.” She pulled the door open, then turned back to face me. “And Willa …”

“Yeah?” 

“I think you’d be smart to stay away from that nephew. If your suspicions are correct, he could be the killer and if he’s killed once, he might not think twice about killing again.”

Chapter Ten

I spent the rest of the afternoon half-heartedly waiting on customers. Pepper’s parting words echoed in my mind. I had planned to go back to Van Dorn’s after work and try to complete my inventory of his library, but if my suspicions were correct and Steve really was the killer, that might not be very smart.

I had been so busy with customers and so deep in my own thoughts, I didn’t notice the storm rolling in. Suddenly, the street outside the shop was dark. Pandora and Ranger shifted their positions restlessly. The leaves twisted furiously on the trees. I angled my head to look out the window at the angry, deep purplish-gray sky and then saw something else that made me pull back sharply from the window.

Felicity Bates and the silver-haired woman were on the sidewalk looking in at me!

The door blew open with a loud bang, filling the shop with the scent of ozone, and the two women sashayed in as if they were out for a Sunday afternoon stroll on a sunny day.

Pandora jolted out of her cat bed, took one look at Felicity, arched her back and hissed loudly. Then she scrambled off the window seat and ran into the back.  

I remembered Felicity didn’t like cats. Apparently, the feeling was mutual.

“Can I help you?” I reached down to massage the dull throb in my leg.

“Hello, Wilhelmina,” Felicity looked at me as fondly as she would look at a cockroach in her salad. “This is our family friend Claire Smith-Baker.”

I turned to the silver-haired woman, who nodded a greeting. At least she wasn’t looking at me with distaste. Instead, she was looking at me with a keen interest, like I was science experiment. 

“Nice to make your acquaintance.” She nodded her head at me.

“Same here.”
I think. 

I raised my brows expectantly, hoping they’d get to the reason for their visit. I knew it couldn’t be social, given the history between Felicity and me. And I figured it had to be important for that same reason—there was no way Felicity would come into my shop unless she absolutely had to.

“We heard you were selling off the books from the Van Dorn estate.” Claire glanced at the rows of bookshelves and I followed her gaze, my heart jumping when Robert Frost’s ghost peeked out from the end of one of the rows. Claire did a double-take, squinting in that direction. 

Had she see him?
 

I felt a momentary panic, but then she turned back to me with a smile on her lips.

“I’m not actually selling them off,” I said. “I’m just inventorying them for the estate. I suggested they sell them at auction. There are so many books in the collection.”