Stirring the Plot Read online

  “Remember, they’re not real witches. My aunt told me the ceremony is as harmless as bridging from a Girl Scout Brownie to a Junior. You have sisters. You must know what I mean.”

  He held up three fingers and started to recite the Girl Scout promise: “On my honor—”

  I laid a finger across his mouth to quiet him. He kissed it and a zing of passion ran straight to my toes.

  “Emma, come forward,” Pearl said.

  Emma, with her scarlet witch hat slightly atilt and her eyes glowing with excitement, hurried to Pearl. After righting Emma’s hat, Pearl patted Emma’s cheek.

  “What makes a woman a Winsome Witch?” Pearl asked the throng. She didn’t wait for a response. “We seek balance and harmony. We seek to help others. We use our kinship to brighten this world. We are fire, we are energy, and we are all things positive. We welcome you, Emma Wright, as the newest member of the Winsome Witches. Do you accept this honor?”

  “Aye,” Emma gushed.

  “You will be my handmaiden for the next year.” A handmaiden, Aunt Vera had told me, helped the High Priestess in all ritual purposes. Each year’s new inductee—and there was only one—assumed the responsibility. “Are you prepared to take on such a task?”

  “Aye.”

  “Then welcome, Emma Wright, into our family.”

  The crowd applauded, and Pearl handed Emma a gold box wrapped with a gold bow. The pair exchanged a few quiet words, and then Emma moved toward me.

  I stopped her and said, “Is your husband here to celebrate?”

  Emma blanched. “Um, no, he . . . he . . .” She seemed panicked and unable to form a sentence.

  I felt the urge to steady her but held back. Maybe she was overstimulated from the ceremony. “What happened? Couldn’t he break free from work?” I asked.

  “Not exactly. He—” She shuddered. “He said he wouldn’t be caught dead in the presence of witches.”

  * * *

  WHEN I ARRIVED home, I was wound tighter than a top. The evening’s affairs that had included the spooked Boots, the trio of black cats, the anxious calico, and me almost walking beneath a ladder—well, scaffolding—not to mention the raw emotions pouring out of Trisha, and finally, the dread that Emma displayed following her induction, had set me off. Sleep was out of the question for at least an hour.

  I cuddled Tigger, freshened his water bowl, and ogled the empty antique bookcase I had purchased last week. Way back when I was eight years old and had needed to stay home sick with the flu, I became an avid reader. I read the entire set of Nancy Drew novels that week, and even though I couldn’t cook, I devoured The Nancy Drew Cookbook: Clues to Good Cooking, too. How could I resist? I graduated to The Chronicles of Narnia, and then, thanks to Bailey’s mother who was a devout reader herself, I discovered books like The Secret Garden, The Yearling, Black Beauty, and more. Over the years, I bought and saved my favorite titles, but when David and I married, because he liked to live in a sparse environment that didn’t attract dust, I packed up my books and stored them. It was time to put them on display.

  The cottage I lived in was like a bachelor apartment with a tiny kitchen at one end, a living space complete with fireplace in the middle, and a bedroom setup at the other end, lovingly decorated by my aunt with the addition of a Chinese cabinet I’d brought with me . . . and now the bookcase. I fetched the boxes filled with books that I had stowed on the far side of the brass bed.

  “No time like the present.” Tigger scampered to me as if he were going to help. “Back up, little buddy,” I said. “I don’t want you getting bonked with a hardback.” I arranged the books in alphabetical order by title, not author: The Giver, Gone with the Wind, The Grapes of Wrath, To Kill a Mockingbird, Old Yeller, White Fang. I managed about thirty books on each shelf. At the bottom of the case, I set up the array of adult cookbooks I was amassing, including titles by celebrity chefs like Flay, Garten, and Bourdain.

  As I was placing the last grouping of cookbooks on the shelf, I paused. The Betty Crocker Halloween Cookbook, which had an adorable purple cover adorned with pumpkins, black cats, and foodie pictures, made me think of the Halloween party I’d offered to throw. Now, as the hour neared midnight, I wondered what had possessed me to suggest such a ridiculous thing. Me? Hostess a party? Gack. Sure, I had been practicing in the kitchen, but I wasn’t a cook. Would my friends and family mind if I changed the menu to potluck?

  My pulse began to race. Get a grip, Jenna. You can do this.

  I opened the cookbook and reviewed the table of contents. Each section sounded so fun: Bewitching Bites and Drinks and Mystifying Main Dishes. Some of the recipes, most accompanied by photographs, made me laugh out loud: Wart-Topped Quesadilla Wedges, a Brie jack-o’-lantern, and Bugs in a Blanket. There was even a section for planning the party, complete with hints on how to decorate the table. After a few minutes, my heart rate settled back to normal; I could do this.

  Divining a menu might be a good idea; beverages first. A memory from college came back to me, and I started to giggle. I remembered attending a frat party. As a few of my dorm mates and I entered, a guy dressed in a toga handed us oranges and Sharpie pens. We were supposed to draw a face on our oranges, like you would a pumpkin, and then, using a flavor injector that looked like a syringe, we were told to insert a shot’s worth of vodka into the fruit. While we obeyed, Toga Guy gave us a lecture about hypodermics. He explained that the first hypodermic involved animal bladders and goose quills. One of my pals heaved. Though I would forgo the history lesson at my party, I decided that something whimsical like funny-faced, liquor-infused oranges would be fun.

  I switched on my computer and did a search for food injectors. I found one that was quite stylish with a green handle. I purchased a few so we would be able to offer them for sale in the store. Next, I considered the main course. I tracked down a recipe for turkey basted with maple syrup. Yum, I thought, until I read through the ingredients. Over fifteen. Yipes. And the steps were complicated. I started to perspire, but rather than go berserk, I did the rational thing. Just as I would when preparing for a new ad campaign, I wrote a list, or in this case, an industrious menu. It consisted of seven courses. I paused, crossed off two items, and settled on five. Next, I made a shopping list, which by the end—heart be still—seemed to be as long as my arm.

  More deep breaths.

  I folded the list and stowed it in my purse and suddenly felt better. Stronger. Nearly confident. I could pull off this party. I could.

  When I went to sleep, the spooky events of the night were all but erased from my memory.

  However, at 6:04 A.M. Wednesday morning, when the telephone jangled, I bolted to a sitting position in my bed. Tigger awoke, too, and bounded from my feet to my chin in two seconds flat. He kneaded my arm.

  “Stop. Off, kitty.” With my heart hammering my rib cage, I switched on a light and snatched up the phone. “Hello?”

  “Jenna, darling. It’s so . . . oh, dear—” Aunt Vera’s voice cut out. The line crackled with static. “She’s—” Aunt Vera gasped. She sounded freaked out. “Bingo—” More static. “She’s dead.”

  Chapter 5

  I SHOOK THE cobwebs from my brain and glanced a second time at my clock. I was an early riser, but after a late-night party with only me, my cat, and my bookcase, waking up at this hour was proving difficult, to say the least. “Slow down, Aunt Vera. Where are you?”

  “Pearl’s house. Come quickly. It’s so—” More fizzling static. I hated cell phone reception sometimes, but what would we do without the darned contraptions?

  The connection ended. I scrambled out of bed, dressed in seconds, fed Tigger, and promised I would return for him before going to the shop.

  A few minutes later, I arrived at Pearl’s house. At rush hour, a person could drive across town in less than ten minutes. At the crack of dawn and speeding, less than that.

  Four cars st
ood in the driveway. The front door hung open. I parked my VW bug behind the last car and raced inside. Voices rang out in the backyard. I hurried in that direction.

  Bingo, wearing all white and looking as determined as an avenging angel, tore past me, nearly knocking me down.

  “You’re not dead!” I shouted with glee. My aunt had been wrong. Or I’d heard her wrong. She must have been talking to Bingo when she’d called me on the telephone. Did it matter? Bingo was alive. I chased after her. “Where’s my aunt?”

  Bingo charged onto the patio while waggling her cell phone. “Girls, girls. I finally got through to 911. Reception up here is horrible. EMTs are on their way.”

  “911?” I said, a new bout of panic surging through me. “EMTs?”

  My aunt, who stood with Maya on the patio near the fire pit, rushed to me. She embraced me as she sniffed back tears.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “It’s Pearl. She died during the night.”

  “Pearl?”

  Maya stepped to the side and I saw Pearl, sprawled facedown across the cold fire pit.

  My hand flew to my mouth. “What happened?”

  “That’s the thing,” Aunt Vera said. “We don’t know. We arrived for our early-morning coffee.”

  Way too early, I mused.

  “We had to discuss the program for the luncheon,” my aunt went on. “We have an agenda, but sometimes we run too long. Pearl wanted to cut a few items. I brought muffins.” She pointed to a pastry bag sitting on the ground beside her tote bag.

  “I brought coffee,” Maya said. She held up a tray of four coffees. Her fingers were gripping the edges so hard her knuckles were pasty. “Pearl liked half caf. One sugar.” Her hands started to shake.

  I dashed to her, removed the tray of coffees, and set them on the wrought-iron dining table. Afterward, I returned to the trio of women. “Go on.”

  “We think she suffered a heart attack,” Bingo said.

  My aunt nodded. “Remember how Pearl said she was being treated for type 2 diabetes? Maybe . . . maybe . . .” She pressed her lips together.

  I remembered Pearl’s fake death at the outdoor faire and how she had laughed at tricking her friends. Not so funny now.

  “Maybe she went into cardiac arrest due to complications,” Bingo said. “It appears she was drinking. Diabetics shouldn’t drink.”

  I said, “Not all diabetics follow that rule.” An assistant at Taylor & Squibb drank and fell into a coma. She never woke up. “Besides, Pearl was just recently diagnosed. Maybe she didn’t know to stop drinking.”

  Bingo hitched her head toward a pair of wicker chaise lounges. Beyond the chairs were banks of white roses and drifts of lavender-colored aster. On the table set between the chairs stood a martini glass with a tad left of what was most likely the bloodred Witchy Woman concoction. I spied Pearl’s witch hat resting on one of the chaises. Why had she moved to the fire pit? If she was having a heart attack or lapsing into a coma, why not head indoors toward a telephone?

  “She looks like she was reaching for something,” Aunt Vera said.

  My aunt was right. Pearl’s right arm was outstretched and twisted, palm upward. The sleeve of her elegant dress was bunched up around her bicep. The crook of her arm was slightly red.

  The sound of pounding footsteps drew my attention toward the house. A pair of young men in emergency medical technician uniforms hustled onto the patio. “Back away, ladies,” the tallest said.

  “She’s dead,” Bingo offered. “There’s no pulse. I fear she’s been dead for hours.”

  “Let us do our job,” the lead EMT said.

  “Listen to the man,” a woman ordered. I recognized the voice. Cinnamon Pritchett, our chief of police, strode onto the patio. She wasn’t dressed in her usual brown uniform. She wore a coral-colored sweater and jeans and looked downright casual. She didn’t have on any makeup, not that she ever donned much. She was a natural, sun-splashed, girl-next-door type. She tucked her bobbed dark hair behind her ears. “Good morning, everyone.”

  “Why are you here?” I blurted. Dumb question. My aunt had contacted 911.

  “I could ask you the same thing, but I won’t, although”—she added under her breath—“this is becoming a far too regular occurrence.”

  You’re telling me. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized that I was shaking. All over. Another dead body. Three in three months. Each was someone I’d known. Death was a natural occurrence—ashes to ashes and all that rot—but, honestly, what in the heck was going on? Was I—was my presence—in some otherworldly way, responsible for attracting this evil to Crystal Cove?

  Cinnamon toured the fire pit while the EMTs checked Pearl’s vitals. “To answer your question, I’m here because the police are called in all instances of death when 911 is involved.”

  “I know that.”

  “I’m first because I was close by.”

  Close by where? I wanted to ask, but didn’t. Not my business.

  Cinnamon said, “What do you think happened, Jenna?”

  Why did she nominate me to be spokesman? Fine. I quickly explained about Pearl’s recent diagnosis. “She must have lost consciousness.”

  “Shame,” Cinnamon said and meant it. She pursed her lips as she eyed the side table holding the martini glass. “Was she drinking alcohol?”

  Bingo said, “Possibly. At last night’s party, she was serving Witchy Woman cocktails.”

  “A sweet concoction made with rum,” my aunt added.

  “Was Dr. Thornton a heavy drinker?” Cinnamon asked.

  Bingo shook her head. “No. She is . . . was . . . a lightweight in that department.”

  “It could have been someone else’s cocktail,” I said. “There were a lot of us here.” I filled her in on the haunted tour that ended at Pearl’s house.

  A shriek rattled the quiet. A stout, gray-haired woman in black uniform and white apron raced onto the patio. “Heavens. It’s—” She had the uncomely face of a female Alfred Hitchcock, with a hooked nose, pointed chin, and flabby neck, and she had an accent right out of Downton Abbey. She peeked past Cinnamon, then wailed again. “Is that the missus? Is she dead?”

  One of Cinnamon’s subordinates, a moose-faced man, hurried in after the woman. “Got your text, boss. I’m here. What’s up?”

  “In a sec.” Cinnamon addressed the frantic woman. “Ma’am, who are you?”

  “Mrs. Davies.” She slurped back a sob. “The housekeeper. I wondered why there were so many cars outside. I didn’t think much about it. Maybe the party ran long, I says to myself, so I started with my chores. When I noticed it was gone, I came looking for the missus.”

  “When you noticed what was gone?” Cinnamon asked.

  “Heavens, that means—” Mrs. Davies glanced again at her employer. “She didn’t know. The missus didn’t have a clue that it’s missing.”

  “What’s missing?” Cinnamon said, her tone steady. She must have run into all sorts of frenzied characters as a police chief.

  “The sapphire.”

  “The sapphire’s gone?” I blurted. “As in someone stole it?”

  Mrs. Davies nodded like an out-of-whack bobble-headed doll.

  “What sapphire?” Cinnamon asked.

  “Thomas Thornton was a collector,” I explained, even though I was sure she knew. She hadn’t left Crystal Cove like I had. Had she investigated his death by car accident, too? “He has a display room filled with minerals, and one of his great treasures was a rough sapphire probably worth millions. He found it in Kashmir.”

  Mrs. Davies intertwined her gnarled hands, which looked like they were permanently afflicted with writer’s cramp. Did she spend her weekends diarizing the lives of her wealthy employers?

  Stop it, Jenna. Not nice.

  “Miss Pearl was such a wonderful woman,” Mrs. Dav
ies said. “Everyone loved her. Who would do this ghastly thing to her?”

  “What ghastly thing?” Cinnamon said.

  “Why, murder her, of course. She’s been stabbed, hasn’t she?”

  “No, she hasn’t been stabbed,” Cinnamon said.

  “Why else would she be lying that way?”

  Everyone turned and took note of Pearl. Had she been murdered? How? There wasn’t any blood.

  Aunt Vera gasped. “Are you saying someone killed her to get the sapphire?”

  “Trisha must have done it!” Bingo shouted. “She and her mother had a horrible fight last night. She stormed out of the house.”

  Maya stepped forward. “Trisha wanted to sell the Thornton Collection. Remember, y’all? She said the stones were evil.”

  Bingo nodded and looked at the others for confirmation. “Pearl refused. She claimed her husband wouldn’t have wanted her to sell them. Maybe Trisha came back and pushed her mother into the pit.”

  “Maybe Pearl bumped her head on the stone,” Aunt Vera theorized, “and died instantly.”

  “And Trisha ran off with the sapphire,” Maya said.

  “Pearl isn’t burned,” I said, “which means she must have been killed after the fire cooled.”

  “Hold it!” Cinnamon barked. “We don’t know that she was murdered.”

  “But she’s not lying in a natural way,” I countered. “If she’d passed out, wouldn’t she have slumped to the ground, not pitched forward?”

  Cinnamon clapped her hands. “All right. That’s enough speculation.”

  “You have to admit the two crimes must be connected,” I said. “The sapphire’s missing, and—”

  “Jenna. All of you. Stop. Please.” Cinnamon herded everyone into the living room, warned us to stay put, and then returned to the EMTs, who were still examining Pearl’s body.

  The Moose—his real name was Marlon Appleby—approached her. I heard Cinnamon ask about the cause of death. The lead EMT pointed to the redness I’d noticed on Pearl’s arm. I heard Cinnamon say, “A toxicology test will have to be run.”