Dramatic Paws (Kitten Witch Cozy Mystery Series Book 1) Read online

  “But it’s not like I did anything about it. I never let people like that bother me.” Ember waved her hand vaguely, a gesture intended to communicate I have more important things to worry about by probably came off closer to I’m feeling lost and overwhelmed. “I served her, and that was that. Didn’t even try to rush them out the door, either. When those ones get drinking, the tab usually goes pretty high.”

  “And who was Laura with again? I heard that there were three women, but nobody I talked to knew exactly who.”

  Ember couldn’t help but wonder who Sage had been talking to. How did half the town already seem to know about this?

  “Jayla Graham and Sheila Myers,” Ember said.

  “Ah yes. Her two shadows.”

  It was true. They’d all been part of this tight, mean-girl enclave as long as Ember had known them. Of course, it was always a pity when someone died so young and suddenly, but Ember doubted that the loss of those three in particular would really detract from the net happiness of this particular little community.

  Jake, too. Ember had never had any problems with him personally, but she’d heard he was tough to get along with at work.

  If, indeed, there was any connection between the deaths at all.

  “They all connect back here,” Ember sighed. “This is going to be terrible for business. You know how everyone in this town talks. I’ll be the pub owner that murdered four people. Malice or negligence, even coincidence… nobody’ll want to touch me with a thirty-foot pole.”

  “I’ll eat here,” Sage said kindly. “And I’ll bring all my friends, too.”

  Ember smiled. “So… me?”

  Sage scoffed, but she was laughing. “I have other friends. Or I’ll make other friends, just so I can convince them that the Broken Broom is the best place in town and they have to spend all their money here.” She squeezed Ember’s hands again. “Don’t worry. This’ll blow over soon. You don’t have anything to do with the murders, and Cedric is good at his job. He’ll clear up the official record soon.”

  Ember was grateful to hear her friend say these words, even if she couldn’t quite bring herself to believe them. She looked up at Sage with a hesitant smile and asked, “You don’t think I had anything to do with it, do you?”

  “Of course not,” Sage said, and she took Ember’s hand and squeezed it. “I know you wouldn’t ever do anything like this. And I’ll tell anyone the same, if they ask.”

  “Thank you.” Ember was feeling a little misty-eyed. It was good to know she had a friend who stood by her side no matter what.

  “Oh, look.” Sage pointed through the freshly cleaned windows at where a small group of people was approaching the pub door. “Customers!”

  “I guess some people don’t read the papers,” Ember said wryly, but she stood up anyway and gathered her cleaning supplies.

  “I’ll let you get to it,” Sage said, swooping in to hug Ember tightly before breezing out the door as the customers were coming in.

  Sage’s words managed to sustain Ember throughout the entire evening, which turned out to be much busier than Ember was anticipating. Perhaps word really hadn’t gotten around yet, since the turnout was on par with a normal night.

  Or else people were showing up tonight out of prurient interest.

  Either way, Ember knew that these murders had to be solved as soon as possible. Or else she wasn’t sure how long the Broken Broom--or its owner--would manage.

  Four

  The next day Cedric came in again before opening, rapping his knuckles on the door so that Ember would come up and unlock it.

  “Coming to take me away?” she asked grimly.

  “Oh please,” he said. “I wouldn’t dream of tackling you without backup.” He had that dry, sarcastic tone, the same one Ember knew people often mistook for seriousness. Although the joke made her uneasy, she was a little relieved by the fact that he had made a joke at all.

  Maybe that meant that he wasn’t halfway to imagining her as a mass murderer.

  Or maybe it just meant he was really good at pretending to trust people. Ember imagined the fake-joking act got people to let down their defenses, let their secrets out. Coming from someone as intimidating as Cedric, it probably worked like a charm.

  Except that I don’t have any secrets, Ember’s racing mind objected. But how am I supposed to convince him of that when I’ve got so much evidence stacked against me?

  Still, Ember reasoned, Cedric must have come to the bar for some purpose. She waited him out, watching him carefully as he paced, seemingly without aim, amongst the tables and chairs, craning his neck to look around the space.

  “Just heard from the ME,” Cedric said eventually. “That’s the medical examiner, by the way.”

  “I know what it is,” Ember said. “What did they say?”

  “They determined that Laura, who was driving, was dead before the car hit that tree.” He had turned to watch Ember carefully, as though trying to gage her reaction to this information. She felt suddenly very self-conscious about the expression her face was making.

  “Dead before the crash?” Ember asked. “I mean, I guess that explains the crash.”

  “I guess so.”

  “And the others?”

  Cedric hesitated, still watching Ember, calculating. She wondered what his extra shifter’s senses were telling him about her right now. If he could somehow smell or hear the fact that she was telling the truth. That she sincerely didn’t know what had happened to them.

  “They died after the crash,” he said eventually. “But not because of it.”

  “This is starting to sound like a riddle.”

  “The accident wasn’t serious enough to have caused any of the deaths. Injuries, maybe. I bet they would have racked up a pretty serious chiropractor’s bill, sure. But if those women had been otherwise healthy and well, there’s no way that the impact would have left them all dead.”

  “So what did?”

  “The ME doesn’t know just yet,” Cedric admitted. “She performed the autopsy on all three of them. She’s sending some elements off for testing--I’m sure you’ll be shocked to know that we don’t have all the fanciest equipment here in town, some of the more obscure procedures need to be outsourced, and they end up in a long queue and we never get priority. But as of now, there’s no official account as to what killed any of them.”

  Ember huffed a sigh. She wanted to be pleasant, to make Cedric’s job easier on him by cooperating. But she also didn’t like to hear that it might be a while before they had any answers.

  “I’m sure you’re not happy to hear that,” he said, a little too carefully.

  It also meant: Are you happy to hear that?

  If she was the killer, she’d certainly be pleased to know that there would be such a long delay. Was he really that suspicious of her, that he didn’t believe she wanted the truth to be discovered?

  “Listen,” she said, doing her best to keep her voice level and pleasant, “I know you’ve got a tough job to do here. This is a really upsetting event and there’s a lot to be figured out. But I am right in the crosshairs. It’s only a matter of time before people stop coming around here.”

  “I heard you did a good business last night.”

  She shrugged. She didn’t need to make the point that it wouldn’t last if people really started to think her pub was deadly, or cursed, or run by a homicidal maniac.

  “That’s actually what I came here for,” he admitted after a pause. “I wanted to ask if you’d consider closing your pub until we can figure out what happened. It would be good for you, too, to take some time off, lie low. You look a little strained.”

  Ember frowned. “As much as I’d love to kick my feet up with a book and go to the spa for the foreseeable future, I really can’t afford to do that. The Broken Broom is my livelihood.”

  He shrugged. “You might find it a little less profitable than it’s worth to keep running, is all I’m saying.”

  “And all I�
��m saying is that you can’t force me to close, can you? You don’t have any real proof that those people died because of me. Everything is circumstantial. You’re not ordering me to do anything, right?”

  He shook his head. “Just a friendly suggestion.”

  “All right,” she said. “Suggestion noted. But I’m going to stay open.”

  He huffed out a frustrated breath like they’d just argued, even though she’d worked so hard to keep the tone civil. Was he really so concerned for her?

  Or concerned about her?

  As he turned to leave, he shot back over his shoulder, “You know, if your customers keep dying after they visit your pub, you’re going to lose everything anyway. Closing up could be a way of protecting yourself, too.”

  Before she really had the time to take that in, he was gone, the door swinging shut behind him.

  Once she was alone with her thoughts and her opening checklist, Ember put her body to the task of wiping down menus and wrapping silverware sets and her mind to the task of thinking through what might have happened to those women--and Jake, too, if he was involved in this somehow.

  The only thing that united all four of them was, potentially, the wine.

  And she knew that Lyndsy hated all three of the women. She hardly made a secret of it.

  But Lyndsy had poured the wine right in front of Ember. She wouldn’t have had time to do anything to tamper with it.

  Would she?

  Five

  Ember wiped down the bar in a circular motion; her thoughts were still on Lyndsy. She was a sweet girl and very kind. This whole thing was a mess.

  She was about to use her cleaning spray when she noticed a trail of paw prints leading from one end of the bar to the other. She looked up to see Kali leaping off onto a nearby table.

  “You do know that I have health inspections!” she scolded. “This bar should be bacteria free and preferably cat free.”

  Kali casually walked back to Ember. “I was just testing to see if you noticed me but my ninja-like skills make me practically invisible.”

  Ember laughed. “You may be invisible but your paw prints are definitely not. Anyway, I was busy thinking, that’s why I didn’t notice you.”

  “Are you thinking about how you might be arrested for murder?”

  Ember took a step back. “No, not at all, I was just thinking about how Lyndsy is a kind and thoughtful person...”

  Kali leaped back onto the bar. “A kind and thoughtful person who could be a murderer?”

  “No, stop putting words in my mouth; I’m sure Lyndsy had nothing to do with the deaths.” Ember placed her cloth down and her index finger on her nose.

  “You’re in deep thought,” Kali purred. “I can tell because you’re doing that thing where you wriggle your nose with your index finger.”

  “No I’m not.” Ember protested, pulling her finger away.

  “Anyway, I was remembering something Lyndsy said once about the fact that those girls bullied her at school.”

  “They look like mean girls.”

  “Apparently they terrorized her all through school and haven’t really stopped since. That sort of constant bullying can change your personality but I’m not sure it would turn you into a murderer.”

  Kali walked along the bar then stretched her front paws out in a yoga puppy pose before responding. “We are all capable of murder given the right circumstances.”

  Ember picked up her cloth. “Who said that, Sun Tzu?”

  “No, Agatha Christie,” Kali said before rolling on her back and stretching again.

  Ember shook her head and grinned before going back to her chores. “Actually, Lyndsy hated all mean people, she said they were jerks.”

  “That Jake was a big jerk,” Kali said.

  “He certainly was,” said Ember. “I can imagine there would be a lot of people happy that he’s gone.”

  “Perhaps Lyndsy is on a mission to kill all the jerks in the world with dodgy wine.”

  “We don’t even know that the wine had anything to do with their deaths. It’s all just speculation at this point. Although I would like to know where that bottle of wine came from that Lyndsy found. And will you please get your dirty paws off my bar?”

  “If you were going to poison someone with wine, wouldn’t it be easier to poison a bottle of wine that you already sell here?” Kali replied before licking both front paws and placing them back on the bar.

  “No, not really, if you think about it, anyone working here could pick it up and serve it. You couldn’t guarantee the right people would drink that particular bottle. And by the way that doesn’t make your paws clean.”

  “True,” Kali said. “I mean about the bottle. I can see that a mistake could be a disaster.”

  Ember decided to call the sheriff and let him know her thoughts. She grabbed her cell phone from her purse and tapped his number but it went to voicemail.

  Cedric’s deep baritone voice emerged from the door.

  “Jamison here.”

  “Oh hi Cedric, I was just calling you.”

  He smiled. “I know.” He held up his phone.

  Ember laughed. “I just had a thought about Lyndsy; we were theorizing about poison in the wine and I still think she’s innocent and I’m not saying they were poisoned but I kind of need to get ahead of this.”

  “Go on.”

  “I’m slightly perplexed why, when she saw a bottle that was not one we usually stock, that she didn’t ask me before serving it.”

  “Have you asked her that?” he said walking towards the bar.

  “No I just thought about it, and another thing I remembered earlier was that Belladonna grows in the swamps around here and the sweet berries would make a delicious flavor of wine; you know before it rips your guts out and kills you.”

  “Mmm, sounds very appealing. Ripe berries with a hint of acrid poison from the swamps of Cauchemar, Louisiana. Could be a bestseller.”

  “Do you know if it was poison yet?”

  “No but I’ll let the ME know about the Belladonna so she can rule that out first.”

  “Okay, that’s great. Thanks.”

  Cedric’s voice took a more serious tone. “Ember, you should be careful. Someone out there killed four people and we have nothing linking them so far...”

  “Except they were all jerks,” Ember said with a smile.

  “Well, yes except for that. But seriously, we have no way of knowing if his or her killing spree is over and as it appears to revolve around your establishment. I feel I need to make you aware and encourage you to take extra precautions.”

  “Thank you for being so considerate but I’m more worried that the people of the town think I had something to do with it.”

  Cedric leaned his elbows on the bar. “Look, I know you didn’t poison anyone and never would but there are some gullible people out there who will jump on the bandwagon if even one person spreads the word that your customers were being targeted or worse that it was you who did it.”

  “I know, I have thought about that but there’s nothing I can do except to help figure out who did do it.”

  “Right, I need to get back to the station.”

  Ember walked round to see him to the door. “Let me know if you find out anything new.”

  “Will do,” he said giving her a hug before leaving.

  Once she closed the door behind him, Ember looked around her pub and tried to think of what her next move should be.

  Six

  Sage Weyant pushed her sleek dark hair behind her ears as she walked along the street. It was one of the things she loved about being a bat shifter, her hearing was incredible and she loved to listen in on the townsfolk as they went about their day.

  Bates Barber Shop had been on the high street since the town was built and Mr Bates the barber had taken over from his father in 1968. As she got closer she tuned in to Mr Bates who was having a conversation with his dog, Pete.

  The man was complaining about his last cu
stomer who wanted a certain haircut but he didn’t have enough hair for it. ‘I’m good’, he’d said to Pete, ‘but I can’t give the man more hair than he’s got. Perhaps he should visit the church and ask for a miracle before he comes back.’

  Sage was still laughing when she arrived at the Broken Broom.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Ember as she entered. “I could do with a laugh at the moment.”

  Sage recounted the story of the barber and his dog while Ember poured them both some lemonade.

  “I don’t know how you keep sane being able to see things and hear things that normal people can’t. I know it comes in handy but the dreams I see sometimes crowd my head and it’s too much. I don’t know how I’d cope with what you must pick up every day.”

  “I know but I’ve learned to shut stuff out. I know when we first met I was a bit neurotic sometimes but it’s all good now. I’ve finally learnt to embrace my gifts.” She unfurled her arms in a dramatic gesture.

  “I’m glad. You’re a good person, Sage Weyant.”

  “I know. I’m awesome. So, have you heard anything else about the murders?” Sage asked.

  “Not really, I spoke to Cedric about the fact that Belladonna grows in the swamps around here—”

  “Oh do think that’s how they were murdered?”

  “Maybe,” said Ember. “Anyway I suggested that the sweet berries from the plant could make a great wine.”

  Sage took a seat on one of the stools up at the bar. “Yes I suppose it would. Although, I’m not sure there would be a great demand for it. Let’s face it; it leaves you with a hell of a hangover.” She winked and flicked her eyebrows before taking a sip of her lemonade.

  Ember giggled. It was good to see her friend. “I’m assuming you’ve heard something,” she said. “You never come to see me this time of day; you’re normally still working in the store.”

  Sage shifted her bony butt on the stool and moved her drink to one side. “Well, I heard that Laura, Jayla and Sheila cornered poor Lyndsy while she was getting her hair done. They were making several rude remarks and Lyndsy was really embarrassed because the salon was busy and everyone was looking at her.”