THE WITCH AND THE TEA PARTY (A Rachael Penzra Mystery) (16 page)

Patsy came downstairs hurriedly. “Sorry, I overslept a little. Do I have time for breakfast?”

“Of course,” I assured her. “There’s plenty of time.”

“Saturdays are always busy,” she said.

“Not first thing,” I told her. “David and I can handle the shop. Take your time.” She’s an excellent employee and has never taken advantage of her nepotistic position. I was more than willing to cut her some slack.

“The thing is,” she said, as she fixed her herbal tea. “Joe and I talked about the case a lot last night, and then I couldn’t get to sleep thinking about it.”

It was only a few minutes before opening, so she put off telling us until later. That’s the one difficulty with the way the shop is run. We naturally take alternate lunches and breaks, so two or three of us having time to talk together doesn’t really exist in the midst of summer mayhem.

I managed to tell David why I didn’t want Ralph mentioned. “You know those three… two. They’ll ask all sorts of questions and maybe get him upset. You know how difficult he is when he’s upset.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he chuckled. “Ralph knows the score, too. He’s right here in the shop today. Didn’t you notice?”

I hadn’t, but once I started watching I saw people turning their heads quickly and then shaking them uncomfortably. “Is he being naughty?” I asked David during a momentary pause.

“Sort of,” he admitted. “Do you want me to stop him?”

I said no. While the ghost might be making a few customers uncomfortable, most of them were aware that we claimed we had one in the store. We had a nicely displayed notice warning them that Ralph might be around and not to be upset.
Most of our customers liked the idea, and more than a few had convinced themselves they’d felt his presence when he wasn’t around. How did
I
know if he was or wasn’t? I didn’t, but David can see ghosts.

Since Ralph is extremely snoopy, it’s best not to discuss things about him unless you’re pretty sure he can’t hear. So we left him to his own devices during the day. When we finally closed the doors on the last customer, I suggested to David that he and I go to his place, that the dogs all needed a good get together to keep them socialized. It was a good thought on its own, and I was ready to spend a little quality time away from the pressure of a murder investigation.

Aunt Myrtle was in the kitchen when we got there. “Oh, there you are,” she said, almost as though she was surprised to find me where I almost always was at that time of day. It meant, to those of us who knew her, that she was about to ask/say/suggest something that wasn’t quite on the up and up. “I took your advice, Rachael, and wrote Moondance a nice letter.” She held up an addressed envelope for us to see with our own eyes. “I asked how she was doing and told her that we missed her.” She paused, waiting for our response.

“That’s really a good idea,” David said. He simply can’t seem to learn to read her body language. “She won’t feel you’ve forgotten her. I’m sure it’s just until this whole thing is cleared up.”

“Yes,” she said. “We don’t want to get her in any trouble with her husband.”

Oh, come on! Who did she think she was fooling? Well, the answer was ‘us’, and the more gullible half was actually buying her story.

I let it go. Until I figured out what they were up to, that’s all I could do.

We drove both vehicles, as I would be returning later. The four dogs, once the initial hysteria was over, settled down to snoop around the yard together, peeing as needed. We pulled up lawn chairs by the fence and watched them. “Okay, what’s the deal?” I asked. “Why is Ralph hanging around in my store? The excitement’s still based at Dora’s.”

“Remember when he first appeared? He was at my house. Then there was all that trouble with Rags being hunted, and he ended up at your place. I’m afraid that our friend, Ralph, is a coward. He does not like violence. When it occurs, he cuts and runs.”

“You’re kidding. He knows he’s already dead. What does he think is going to happen to him? Somebody might shoot him? Or hit him? Seems a little late to worry about that.”

“I don’t imagine ghosts are any more rational than humans. He doesn’t like that sort of thing.”

“Most of us don’t,” I retorted. “But we don’t always have a lot of choice in the matter. And he couldn’t have been too worried when he was alive. He managed to make someone mad enough to murder him, didn’t he?”

“I don’t think we’ll ever know that for sure. He’s awfully reticent about how and why he died. Anyway, I think we’ll have to be careful about how we ask him about the murder.”

I agreed to that, and we spent what was left of the evening enjoying each other’s company. If the dogs could have a play date, I figured we could, too.

Dice games are one of the oldest forms of entertainment. Sheep knuckles were the first dice to be used, the results depending on which side of the knuckle turned up. Cubic dice were in use in Sumer as early as 5000 BC. Usually dice are made from ivory or bone, but stone and wood have been used. Almost universally the dice have six dots opposite the one, three opposite sides of the four, and two the opposite of five. In China, they threw the dice into a pottery bowl to help prevent cheating, and loaded dice have been found in the ruins of Pompeii. Usually a tiny amount of lead was dug into one side and covered up carefully. That, of course, made the dice far more apt to land on the heavy side. Divination by dice can be complicated or simple. It is called variously cleromancy, astragalamancy, and psephomancy. Tibetan Buddhists read the future in the throw of dice. Twelve sided dice, displaying astrological symbols, the Zodiac signs, and astrological houses are used nowadays. The simplest way to seek answers is with a single die. If the number that turns up is odd, the answer is no. If the number is even, the answer is yes.

Chapter Eight

              Despite my best intentions, the investigation would have ended if I hadn’t had an outside push. No matter how many mysteries I read, I can’t imagine myself asking questions of strangers, much less gleaning any special clue from some obscure remark they’ve made. I am not that clever. And as far as counting on my erratic psychic skills, forget about it. Other people tended to have a lot more faith in them than I did. A lifetime of experience has taught me not to count on them when I need them.

And I had no desire to find myself in someone else’s mind again. It’s a harrowing experience, and I have a secret fear that somehow th
eir images and memories are going to influence who I am personally. I don’t want anybody else to be a part of me. So while I still have odd moments when someone’s thoughts pop into my head, I’ve learned to dismiss them as snippets of information such as what I’d find in a book.

Word, however, does get around, and no matter how much I tried to efface my ability, other people talked. I name no particular names, but it’s mostly ‘relatively’ speaking. Patsy knows better than to mention things to strangers, but she talks to Joe, and he, having seen a few examples of psychic power in action, has no doubt talked to other people about it, if for no other reason than to see what they felt about the idea.

Aunt Myrtle, in her new incarnation as a wild child, brags about me. Nothing will shut her up. She agrees with everything I say, promises not to mention my ability, and then goes right ahead and talks about it. Her excuse is that people need to develop a greater understanding of these things. That’s fine, but there are lots of psychics who would love to educate the world. They’re welcome to the chance.

When
Nicholas Brown-Hendricks approached me for help, I had little doubt where the word had leaked from. My aunt had told his wife about me, and she in turn had mentioned it to him. No doubt he had a good chuckle about my pretensions. I wasn’t sure where the wife had stood in her actual beliefs.

He phoned first. That was polite of him, but it didn’t give me a clue what he wanted. He’d asked if he could meet with me somewhere, preferably privately. Now, I know that David loves me and thinks I’m beautiful, but he’s the rare case of a man with excellent taste. I didn’t for a moment kid myself that my
rumored beauty and charm had anything to do with the new widower’s desire for my company. I thought, if anything, he wanted to question me about my aunt and her two buddies—probably some questions about the tea and its potential for poisoning.

We settled on meeting at a
fancy restaurant in Brainerd for dinner. I wasn’t overly worried about meeting anybody I knew there. None of us could afford the prices. I would have preferred to meet him at my house, but when I ventured to mention that, he sounded uneasy. That added to my belief that he wanted information about Aunt Myrtle. Well, I intended to set him straight about that in a hurry, and I might as well enjoy a good meal while I was at it.

David was the only person I told about the meeting, and it wasn’t with any intention of igniting a jealous rage in him.
It never occurred to me that he would doubt my intentions, or give serious thought to the idea of a possible seduction being the goal. So I was surprised when he frowned and said he didn’t think I should put myself in such a position.

“What position?” I a
sked, startled by his objection.

“Having dinner with a newly widowed man whose wi
fe was murdered,” he scolded me, sounding so unlike himself that I was a little startled. “What will people think?”

“About me?” I would have thought he was kidding except for the dark aura he suddenly produced around his head. When what he meant finally got through my thick skull, I didn’t know whether to laugh or be insulted. “David! You’ve got to be kidding. He isn’t interested in me. He’s never
even
met
me. No, this is something he wants to find out about Aunt Myrtle and the other two. I’m guessing he thinks he can soften me up with good food while intimidating me by the opulence of the surroundings. He might have a point about the food. I’ve heard it’s wonderful, but the rest is wishful thinking on his part.”

“Men don’t take attractive women out to fancy restaurants to ask questions about maiden aunts and neighbors.”

I didn’t giggle, or even simper, but it was tempting. If I hadn’t known him so well I would have thought he was kidding. But he was decidedly serious. I finally half convinced him that he was being foolish, and while I was delighted that he found me that irresistible, I knew my own charms better, and I was going with or without his permission. “If you want, I could go wired for sound,” I said mockingly.

“That’s a good idea.” He apparently missed the mockery part. “I’ll bet Joe can set you up with something that won’t show.”

Figuring that it wouldn’t be possible on such short notice, I agreed that it was a good idea
if
it could be done that quickly. My luck being what it is, Joe just happened to have a wiring setup that he’d bought when he first became a law enforcement officer. He’d been disappointed to find that he couldn’t wear it on duty without special permission in a sting operation.

Between Patsy and myself, we managed to set the wire up so it didn’t show. That meant I had to give up the idea of wearing my best dress, but I’d be more comfortable in a classic outfit of loose navy slacks and a soft blue silk blouse I’d bought in the first throes of finding myself with more money than I actually needed to survive. The blouse had come with a fancy scarf that the saleswoman had flipped around my neck a few times. It had looked perfect with the outfit. Experience, after I got home, had shown me that there’s more to ‘draping’
than a few twists and tucks—at least when amateurs attempted it.

I thought I looked nice, casual in a classy sort of way. I put on extra makeup, under my niece’s guidance. For someone who used little or nothing on her own face, she seemed to know what she was doing. That was a good thing, since like scarf adjustments, makeup is not one of my skills.

I wasn’t surprised to find that he was a good-looking man. He’d managed to catch a millionaire wife. His voice was as I remembered it from the tape, but I was fascinated to note that if I hadn’t heard it sight unseen before I met him, his looks and manner would have covered much of the unctuousness in it. He sounded like a tele-evangelist or a used car salesman. He was a man who thought he knew what was best for you and didn’t hesitate to guide you, whether you wanted him to or not.

“Delightful,” he rose from his chair when the
maitre’ d brought me over to the table. “I didn’t expect such a lovely woman to join me, although one can see that your aunt was a beauty in her day.”

Since she was probably only ten or so years his senior,
I thought he’d better start being careful about how he worded things. I was seated carefully, and looking at the array of linen and silver and glassware, I was for once thankful for my mother’s meticulous training in manners. I didn’t have to worry about making a mistake in that area.

He ordered for me, although he did ask my permission first. He didn’t wait for me to state my preference about it, however. It irked me slightly, but since he didn’t order veal or lamb, I let it pass.
As far as the wine went, I have Walmart tastes, although I will concede that some wines are definitely of a higher quality than others. Even I can tell that. It’s when it gets into the expert’s field that I’m completely lost. Liquor-wise, I’m probably what is known as a cheap date. Most of the time beer does me just fine, but I’m no connoisseur there, either.