THE WITCH AND THE TEA PARTY (A Rachael Penzra Mystery) (10 page)

Ha!

Until I could certify Aunt Myrtle as senile, it seemed that she was free to do as she pleased in life. It was a frightening thought to someone like myself who had a faint clue to what went on in her mind sometimes, but there was nothing I could do about it. I wondered if my own children would be tempted to lock me away in a few decades. I imagine that would depend on whether or not I was as full of the enthusiasm and energy my aunt had. Not likely. If I didn’t have it at this stage of the game, chances are things weren’t going to get any better. So my kids should pretty much leave me alone.

The day passed pretty quickly. The longest days were often those when business was slow. Fortunately, things always needed straightening or dusting. I was the lucky one. I could work on my bookwork if need be. It was always nice to have a lot of that out of the way by the end of the day, except by the same token it meant that there wasn’t a lot to be done. No customers, no bookwork. Not a win-win situation.

David had been hinting around for some time that perhaps I should be on the lookout for another clerk. I took it to mean that he would just as soon quit. I’ve never been clear on how much money he has, or what the source of his income was when he first showed up in town. One thing was certain. He couldn’t exactly be thriving on the seasonal work I gave him. I more or less understood that he’d shown up at my door in my time of need because Elena sent him. They’d never said why, however, so I’ve never been quite sure how much he needed the meager income the shop provided. I’d never asked, operating on the theory that he’d tell me if he felt I should know.

But he’d managed to buy a house. Granted that real estate was at a low point, he still had to have had enough for at least a down payment. Again, it couldn’t have come from me.

I had been ducking the hints, but I had the feeling that this was the last season he’d be working for me. The thought was depressing. Not only was he an excellent salesman, he was also there every day so we had all that time together. His leaving would mean no more pre-opening cup of coffee, no more lingering after work to sit and talk. It meant change, and I’m not very good at change. I have to be forced into it.

As soon as we closed, we three hurried over to check on Dora and Aunt Myrtle. The latter was excited. It had been a nearly perfect day for her. Not one to let a little thing like murder and/or the possibility of coming under suspicion deter her, she’d spent the afternoon with Mac hovering nearby, and she’d managed to tell fortunes to the unwary.

“It really is simple, Rachael,” she addressed my no doubt surprised-looking expression. “I did just what Moondance said. I waved my hand over the cards, let the client pick one, pretended to study it and then gave a vague prediction that more or less accorded with the card’s general meaning. I always named the card when they turned it over. I said things like, ‘I see you’ve chosen the Knight of Cups. Hmm.’ Then I’d study it some more and give my prediction. I kept them all really upbeat today. It didn’t seem right to sound too forbidding after what happened last night.”

“That was smart,” I said. It was, too. Some people are extremely impressionable and were capable of taking the slightest
hint of danger to mean they were going to die. “Have you gotten hold of Moondance yet?”

“She texted me,” my aunt admitted. “It was short. Neither one of us is very good at it. She said that
Jimbo has absolutely forbidden her to see us, or text or call us. Can you imagine that? Does he think this is the Dark Ages?”

“I’m sure he’s just worried about her,” I soothed. I could emphasize with him, and secretly wished I had that kind of control over my elderly relative.

“It won’t last,” Dora assured us. “He gives in too easily to be taken seriously.”

“Won’t hurt to keep her locked away until this is cleared up,” Mac said. “She must be a key witness. Wish I knew how their reading had gone. Might be a clue there.”

I fervently hoped Mac wasn’t catching detective fever, although it wouldn’t be surprising if he did. The rest of us were spreading the disease with every breath we took. At least my family was. I could never tell about Dora. She’d seemed like an addled nutcase when I’d first known her, but she seems to have thrown off that persona and taken up a stronger one. She must be a wonderful actress.

“Oh, we can listen to the whole thing if you want,” Aunt Myrtle assured him. “We thought the sheriff probably found the recording machine, even though we had it buried pretty well under other things. But we checked and it’s still there, even the tape. Dora has been making a copy, so we can hand the original over to the cops.”

“You shouldn’t have made a copy,” I said firmly.

“Why not?” Mac challenged.

I couldn’t think of a good answer, so I fell back on righteousness. “You should have handed it over right away.”

“A couple of hours won’t make any difference,” Dora said. “Besides, it would have brought him back here and scared my customers away.”

“I doubt that,” Patsy said, dryly. “After the mob scene today, it probably would have doubled your customers.

“Then he’d have shut the store,” Mac opined, and probably with good sense.

“Well, you’d better call him now and let him know you have it,” I told them.

“What if he asks if we made a copy?” Aunt Myrtle fretted. “Shouldn’t we listen to it first?”

“No, your niece is right,” Mac suddenly changed sides. “Call him right now. If he asks if we made a copy, we’ll hand it over. If he doesn’t, there’s no reason to mention it. Does that sound fair to you, Rachael?”

I agreed that it did, but I was worried that the sheriff, with his naturally suspicious mind, would ask about the copy. I realized that I really wanted to listen to it, but having stuck my goodie two-shoes argument in, I was stuck with the results.

Patsy gave me a dirty look as she called on her cell phone, but David just sighed and put his arm around my shoulder. He must love me to be so noble about it. I sighed, too, and put my arm around his waist.

We didn’t have long to wait. The sheriff entered with his usual bombardment. “Where was it and how come you didn’t mention it?”

Dora showed him how they’d had it angled into a small slot between two boards. They in turn were covered with boxes of various oddments. “Oddments” is such an unusual word, but for once I understood exactly what it meant. How else describe a box that contained some old books, a hardened leather boot, someone’s ball of strings, a bottle of old vitamins, and various other unrelated junk. And that was only one of half a dozen boxes hiding the recorder. My sympathy went out to the deputies who had been given the task of searching the place.

Some innate sense of fairness prompted the sheriff to admit that he hadn’t told his people to search everything. “I don’t ask the impossible of them,” he grumbled.
He turned the tables back against us. “Did you make a copy?”

Everybody turned to Dora. She took a deep breath and said, “Yes. We haven’t had a chance to listen to it yet, but we want to hear it, too.”

“You can have them back when the case is over,” he said, I thought a little maliciously. “Now hand over that copy.” He held out his hand like he would with a naughty child.

Dora went over by Eloise’s aquarium and picked up a tape. She slapped it into the waiting hand. He grunted and turned and left without saying good bye.

“There,” Aunt Myrtle challenged me. “Did you see that? ‘You can have them back when the case is over!’ And what good will it do us then?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wanted to hear it, too. It just seemed like a sneaky thing to do, and this
is
a murder case.”

Dora turned to her brother. “Why did you agree to that? You must have known he’d be sure to check on a copy.”

“Took a chance,” he admitted. “And if he’d asked about any more than one copy, all of you could have honestly sworn that there weren’t any more. If he’d pinned me down, I would just have lied about it.”

“You have another copy?” Patsy whooped delightedly, then recalled that she intended to become a law officer in the future. “Well, we probably should turn it over, but I can’t see what difference it makes. If Moondance were here, she’d tell us herself what was said.” Her face took on a blank stare. I had a feeling that she was thinking of how she could find information and feed it to Joe so he could look good to his boss.

Dora and my aunt exchanged a look I couldn’t interpret.

“I can order some pizza,
and maybe Rachael will let me run across and grab some of her beer supply,” David said, cleverly, knowing those were two of Mac’s basic weaknesses. “Then we can listen to it while we eat.” He clearly had no intention of rushing home to his pets. He’d fix up a dog door for them into a fenced area and had calmed down about worrying about them. That was good because I had been getting a little jealous of his new girls. I guess that makes me a bit of a bitch, too.

The Tarot is a deck of cards
used for divination. Originally the deck was used for games. The first basic rules appeared in manuscript form before 1425. Earliest recorded use of the cards for divination was around 1750, but it didn’t really become popular until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Reportedly, Gypsies were the first to use the deck for telling fortunes. In the early nineteen hundreds, pictures and symbols replaced the common ‘pips’. There are a number of different decks divided in different ways. Some of the best known cards are The Empress, The Fool, The Hanged Man, Death, and The Tower. There are generally fifty-six cards, with four suits of fourteen each. In the Minor Arcana, pentagrams correspond with earth, Swords with Air, Wands with fire, and Cups with water. The Major Arcana has twenty-two cards with no suits. There are different spreads that can be used for readings. The Celtic Cross is perhaps the most popular. The three card spread is often used as a secondary reading, the cards representing past, present and future. Some believe that certain cards, in certain positions, are not open to any but the strictest interpretations. Some believe that interpretations should be guided mainly by intuition on the reader’s part. Often the cards mean one thing upright and quite the opposite when upside down. Arguably the Tarot is open to the individual’s reading, so be sure you’re comfortable with the skill of the reader before being too deeply influenced.

Chapter Five

I have to admit that the tapes were fascinating. Moondance really was a good reader, or maybe just a good BSer. Either way, it seemed to work. It was interesting to see how much a client’s needs and reactions showed up in the voice. It must be that way in everyday life, but I’ve never really noticed it so strongly as with just the sound—no sight. Add body language to the mix and a clever, alert person must be able to tell a lot about people. I imagine psychologists learn to listen and watch just as much as they hone in on certain words and descriptions. A patient calling someone stupid is one thing. Heavy emphasis on the word “stupid” moves the word from general to personal, and clenched fists, or even change of position, adds strong emotion.  “He’s so stupid,” becomes “HE … IS … SO …
STUPID!
” It’s no longer a comment, it’s an accusation.

Apparently Mrs. Brown-Hendricks felt that she should be the first client, either as a form of entitlement as the provider, or as a good example. The sound of a chair being moved indicated that she’d seated herself.

“Welcome,” Moondance began in a deep voice. She didn’t get a chance to continue her spiel.

“We’ve done this before,” the party mistress said. “I don’t need a repeat. Now, what I want you to do is find out which of them is guilty of trying to kill me. This is not to be repeated to your buddies, either. Don’t think I won’t find out if you talk.” Moondance tried to interrupt, but was overridden. “I have some ideas of my own, but I’m not sure one
of the problems is connected with the murder attempts.

“You’ll tell my husband that you know he’s been unfaithful, but that you sense he’s being used and deceived. That’s enough for him. You can do some extra mumbo-jumbo, but those two things need to be the main point.”

“I don’t do that sort of thing,” Moondance said indignantly. “I only repeat what I see in the ball. I can’t make things up.”

“This is my party,” Mrs. B-H made her position clear. “You’ll do what I say.” She changed to a more placatory voice. “Of course you can do a regular reading
along with my instructions, but it won’t hurt to include my needs, will it? You can understand why I have to know these things, can’t you?”

“Can’t you talk to him
yourself?”

“Could you accuse your husband of adultery without proof? Even if you knew it was true? If it isn’t, your warning will just be a joke to him. Right? And that will tell me a lot and make me feel much better.”
She really sounded persuasive.

“I can see that,” Moondance was beginning to sound mesmerized.
“I could say that to him, I suppose, but what about the other thing? What happened?”

The
‘other thing’ must have been the attempted killing.

“Someone put a string across my outside steps, the ones leading from my bedroom balcony to the pool. Anybody who knows me
knows that I often go down to swim in the middle of the night.”

Moondance gasped. “What did the sheriff say?”