A Charming Crime (14 page)

“I heard.
Whispering Falls hasn’t been a good move for me.” I walked down the steps,
jumped over the cicada cemetery, and checked on my cement mold.

“What’s that?”
Jordan asked.

“I’m going to
find out who is framing me for murder. I think they broke in my house and stole
my bracelet off my wrist when I was sleeping.” I touched the mold and it was
dry.

“You? Sleeping?”
Jordan laughed. He did know everything about me. After my dad was killed, he
did everything he could to help me and Darla out. One time I thought he was
going to marry Darla, making Oscar and I brother and sister. Yuck!

“I know it sounds
far-fetched, but I think this is the print.” I picked up the cement block and
looked at the perfect mold.

“You need to let
Oscar do his job, and that’s what I told Gerald.” We walked back to the front
of the house. “But I still want to talk to you. Maybe I can help out. I thought
they sold your place?”

“Not yet.” I
wasn’t going into the whole spiritual routine. I was already accused of killing
someone, attempted murder on another. I didn’t want to add crazy to the list.

“I’ll stop by
one night.” I did need his advice, but I wanted to wait to see what Izzy found
out. “How about you make me some of that famous box spaghetti?”

“You got it,
kid.” He waved. I watched him leave, and then ran into the house to grab the
bag of cement. I was going to make more mix and get the print from the lake.

The entire way
back, I couldn’t get my nightmare out of my head. It was the first time I had a
nightmare while napping. Up until now, they had always taken place at night.

It was the same
as every other time. There was a head underwater with hands around the neck.
Only the head was different this time. The hair was darker and longer. Not like
Ann’s. But the hands were still the same.

Before I knew
it, I was back driving back down the main street of Whispering Falls. I parked
the El Camino in the empty space in front of A Dose of Darla. I took the cement
bag out of the bed of the Green Machine.

“Where have you
been?” Chandra giggled, twisting her hands together. She stood underneath her
little pink awning of A Cleansing Spirit Spa. “I heard what happened with
Gerald after I left the Gathering Grove this morning. What’s that?”

I rested my hand
over the word “cement” on the bag and tucked it close to my chest. “It’s an
ingredient I need to make a cure.”

“Oh.” She slid a
little closer and leaned in to get a better look at what I had.

“I’ll be by
later.” I peeled a note off the gate, and unlocked it. Once inside, I locked it
behind me.

“June,” I read
the note out loud, “please come by Petunia’s and get me. I need you to make me
something. ~ Mac McGurtle.”

I hardly
finished the note when there was a knock at the door.

On the other
side stood Mr. McGurtle and Mr. Prince Charming.

Hmmm
. . .when we
lived next door to each other, they despised one another.

“I saw Mr.
Prince Charming hanging around the gate, so I knew you had to be around.
Besides, your old beater sticks out like a sore thumb.” He gestured to the Green
Machine.

“Hey, that’s a
classic.” I always had a special place in my heart for my ride. I held the note
up in the air, and opened the door wider so he could come in. “I was just
reading your note.”

He followed me
into the shop. I noticed the items that needed to be restocked, but why bother
when I wasn’t able to sale anything because Gerald thought I tried to kill him.
Plus I was possibly going to jail for killing Ann.

I motioned for
him to follow me to the back of the store where the ingredients were stored.
Luckily, there was a small refrigerator stocked with pop and a couch to relax.
Before all this mess, I loved the idea that I could come to work and get
through the day or go hang out in the back mixing all sorts of potions and
relaxing. That was a far-fetched dream.

“I was wondering
if you could make me a lucky mojo bag?” He drummed his foot on the floor and
staring at me.

What in the hell
was a mojo bag? Much less a lucky one? If I knew, I would have made
me
one, because luck didn’t seem to be on my side at the moment.

“What’s in a
lucky mojo bag?” I rubbed my neck. This was obviously one of those things only
a true spiritualist should automatically know. And I was a little leery on the
whole instinct thing. I saw where that got me. “This is awful!”

I fell on the
couch, face down and sobbed. There had never been another time when I wanted
Darla so bad. Not even Oscar would do.

Mr. McGurtle sat
down next to me. “This is the exact thing that Darla thought was going to
happen.”

“Tell me. Tell
me everything.” I rolled over, sat up and brushed my tears. Darla had confided
in him. Maybe he could help me.

“There isn’t
much to tell.” He stood up and paced. His eyes darted nervously around the
room. “I’m a spiritualist. I read tarot cards. And I knew your dad and Darla
from a long time ago.”

He paused and
looked at me.

“Kiddo,” he
pointed between the two of us, “you and I use to play together in this shop. We
got along great. So when Darla wanted you to have a ‘normal’ childhood, we knew
we couldn’t just send you out in the world with a spiritual gift.”

“Why not?” I had
seen plenty of celebrities endorsing the psychic hotlines on TV.

“A true
spiritualist has to be embraced and live around other spiritualists. Especially
when they are children. So I agreed to move to Locust Grove and live next door
when the council asked me to. Darla was happy, until she got sick. That is when
she made me promise to watch over you. But you were grown and doing great, so I
keep my distance.” He cleared his throat.
Grown?
I was barely out of
high school. “I know you have the gift, but you have put up a wall. You can’t
accept the fact that you are a spiritualist and that is causing the blockage.
You have to learn to accept who you are. Darla wasn’t sure if you had it or
not.”

“What makes you
so sure I am a spiritualist?” I crossed my arms in front of me.

“Do you remember
when I had the indigestion issue and I asked you for a remedy?” He asked.

I nodded. I
remember looking at Darla’s recipe and knew that something was off, so I added
my own touch, albeit oyster shell clippings crushed and mixed in, and it
worked.

“You whipped up
that mixture without even thinking about it.” His eyes glittered with inner
light. “It worked like a charm. All of your remedies began to help a lot of
people in the village. I didn’t tell the council, but they found out. That is
why I was shocked to see Izzy standing in your yard. They never contacted me to
let me know they were coming for you.”

“Coming for me?”
I drew back.

“They would
never make you come, but they have a great way of persuading you.” He laughed.
“And this whole thing with Ann is a mess. They aren’t even looking into Gerald.
Everyone wants to overlook that.”

“Overlook what?”
I was never one for gossip, but if this was going to help me, then I was all
ears.

“Ann has been
after Gerald for years. From what I heard, he gave in a few times then and she
wouldn’t leave him alone. But with the council taking away her spiritual shop
and banning her from using her gifts, he had to be careful. Him being on the
council and all. I even heard they met at the Gathering Grove the night before
she died. But that’s just what Petunia had said.” He threw his hands up to his
mouth, but it was too late.

“The council
banned Ann?” What I needed to know was who really didn’t see eye-to-eye with
Ann. And if they had reasons to kill her. “What in the world did she do to get
banned?”

“I’ve said too
much. Just forget everything I said.” He wrung his hands together.

I heard every
word he said, and put Petunia on my list of people to question, along with Izzy.
And I could ask Izzy about Ann getting her ‘gift’ taken away. Ann must’ve done
something really bad.

“Who told
Petunia?” I asked.

“Did I say
Petunia?” His brows drew. “I’m not sure who said it. Anyways, a lucky mojo bag
is a bag that is filled with items that will keep me safe. I think a lot of the
village might be requesting a few since there is a killer on the loose.”

I went over to the
work station and picked up two pieces of red cloth from the cloth bin and
quickly hand-stitched the seams. I’d never sewn a button on a shirt, but
something took over me and I whipped it up in no time. Mr. McGurtle and Mr.
Prince Charming watched in silence.

I grabbed
different blue items for peace and serenity to put in the bag. The items would
surround him, giving him peace of mind. Even though I’ve never used a bat’s
wing for anything or even thought of it, for some reason I had a feeling to use
it. I walked up and down the rows of shelves that started at the floor and
didn’t stop until the ceiling. They were stocked piled with all sorts of
ingredients that weren’t available to me in Locust Grove.

“A pinch of bat
wing, a few touches of root, a couple coins, and a couple of carved amulets.” I
repeated everything I was putting in the bag. I scribbled Mac McGurtle on a
piece of paper and stuck it in the bag. I pinned it shut and handed it to him.
“Thank you, Mr. McGurtle. You have helped me more than you know.”

I wanted to tell
him to watch over his shoulder because everything I put in the mojo bag was all
intuition and lately my intuition had been off. . .way off.

When he left, I
locked the door behind him. I had the urge to make more mojo bags and sell them
in the shop. Not just protection bags, but all sorts of bags like happy, money,
good luck, and peace bags.

I worked way up
into the night as Mr. Prince Charming worked alongside me. He would bat at
different ingredients and I’d stick them in. It was like he knew what he was
doing, but I thought I knew better than that.

As I created, my
mind was free and let me think about why anyone would want to frame me for
Ann’s murder. I understood why Gerald would have it in the back of his head
that I had tried to hurt him and I was sure he was going to come to his senses.
Or at least hoped Izzy had talked him into his senses.

I was definitely
going to make a visit to Petunia’s tomorrow and pick her brain about Ann and
Gerald’s relationship. And find out from the two sisters if there was honey in
Ann’s system. I wondered how many people knew about Gerald’s distaste for her,
not that I thought he killed her—well maybe.

Chapter
Fifteen

When
I finally decided it was time to go home, I quickly mixed up a small batch of
cement. There was no way someone would see me in the middle of the night, go to
the lake and pour the mixture in the shoe print.

Outside
of A Dose of Darla, Mr. Prince Charming stood as still as a statue looking
toward Gollybee Pets. A long thin shadow ran across the street and darted off
toward Mystic Lights.

“Hey!”
I yelled, wondering who it was. Chills ran up my legs and traveled down my
arms.

The
shadow stopped, briefly turned and looked at me. The glowing teeth were the
only thing exposed in the upward grin. Then it was gone.

The
shadow made me feel the same way I had felt when I thought I had hit someone
with the Green Machine the first time I had come to Whispering Falls.

“Let’s
get out of here.” I played with my charm bracelet. Bella said Mr. Prince
Charming had picked out protective charms. There was no better time like the present
to be proteted.

Mewwwl.
Mr.
Prince Charming let out one long, low groan. We watched a shadow move closer to
us, but from the opposite direction.

The
gait was fast, but the night wind had whipped up and was quicker. A top hat flew
into the middle of the street. Gerald ran to get it, but not before he looked
around to see if anyone saw him.

Mr.
Prince Charming and I slipped back into the shadow in the entrance of A Dose of
Darla, so Gerald wouldn’t see us. It made me wonder if he was breaking into
Gollybee like Petunia had said he’d broken into A Dose of Darla.

I
reached in my black bag and grabbed my phone. With a few clicks, I took the
pictures I needed for that ‘just in case’ moment.

Once
Gerald was out of sight, Mr. Prince Charming and I made our way to the lake.

The
starry sky lit up the dark night just like a flashlight, reflecting off the
lake. I bent down at the edge where I had seen the print and parted the grass.

Mewl,
mewl, hiss, hiss.

“I
know. It’s creepy out here.” I looked around to see what Mr. Prince Charming
was in an uproar about, but chalked it off when I didn’t see anyone, just a few
fireflies. And he batted at those, sending them off flying in a straight line.

I
poured the mix into the shoe print. Luckily the print had hardened making it a
perfect mold.