Pawsitively Lethal (Silver Springs Cozy Mystery Series Book 3) Read online

  “Right. Yes, I’d like to find out what happened last night,” Maggie says.

  “Well, I didn’t kill myself like some people probably think. Sure, my life wasn’t that great, but I came to my aunt’s house to turn it around. I really was ready to make changes this time.”

  Maggie decides to ask a question to which she doesn’t expect a helpful answer. “So what happened?”

  “You tell me.” Clara’s remark is quick and biting.

  “It’d make it easier if you can tell me anything you remember about what happened. And anyone who might have . . . held a grudge.”

  “You mean anyone who wanted me dead.” Clara is right but it sounds so much harsher than how Maggie phrased it. Maggie doesn’t respond and Clara continues. “Well, I was about to take a shower. Aunt Ginger Rae had invited me to join your birthday party—sorry it was ruined—but I thought I’d make myself a little more presentable first. So I went to my dresser to get some clothes to bring with me to the bathroom and the next thing I knew, there was a gun to my head.”

  “Did the perpetrator say anything?” Maggie asks.

  “Perpetrator? How about we tell it like it is. The killer. And no, I don’t remember hearing them say anything.”

  “How long before they shot you?”

  “Just long enough for me to scream. Why would I scream if I killed myself?”

  Maggie smiles. Clara has more going on in her head than those girls who spoke ill of her at the salon. “I thought the same thing. Is there anyone you can think of who would have done this to you?” Maggie asks, getting Clara back on track.

  There’s a pause on the phone before Clara says, “I don’t think anyone would actually want me dead, but I didn’t exactly get along with everyone I met.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, there’s my ex-husband Stewart Cole. Find me a divorced couple who does get along,” Clara says snidely.

  “Fair enough,” Maggie agrees.

  “And my adoptive parents, we didn’t exactly see eye to eye.”

  So far none of this information is new to Maggie. “What about your birth parents, were you in touch with them?”

  “Only my birth mother, Jessie. She found me about ten years ago and wanted to rekindle the relationship we didn’t have but it didn’t go well.”

  “Why not?”

  Maggie is met with only silence.

  “When was the last time you saw her?” Maggie tries again.

  Maggie can almost hear Clara tap her chin as she thinks. “Six months ago maybe. Before this last trip to rehab.”

  “Any indication that things had gotten worse?” Maggie is sure her time is limited with Clara and wants as much information as possible.

  “Nope. Sorry. That’s not helpful. Maybe next time I can offer you more.”

  “Next time?” Maggie asks as the line goes dead. She hangs up, coming away with no more information than Detective Stevens and Ginger Rae gave her as leads to follow.

  She walks back to Clem who is still enjoying her tea with no customers in the store. “Clara?” Clem asks, looking up from her smart phone.

  “Yeah.”

  “Helpful?”

  “Not really. I have the first name of her birth mother, but everything else she told me just corroborates what Ginger Rae shared with me about Clara last night.”

  “Well that’s something,” Clem says optimistically.

  Maggie smiles and picks up her handbag from next to the antique chair. “I’m heading over to see Ginger Rae early. I’ll let you get back to work.”

  Clem laughs. “Yeah, because I’m so busy right now.”

  As if on cue, the front door opens and a group of six adults, immersed in conversation, walks through the door. Maggie smiles at her sister and heads back out to Main Street and to her car.

  CHAPTER 6

  Opal’s whiskers twitch as her cat reflexes kick into high gear. She’s having a hard time keeping up with the long haired gray cat in front of her.

  “Where are we going, Misty?” Opal pants between breaths.

  “It’s just up here,” Misty replies without looking back at Opal, or sounding out of breath. Opal hopes ‘up here’ means nearby.

  Opal is sure they’ve been running as fast as they can—or at least as fast as she can. She hopes she’s not slowing Misty down or she’ll hear about it later. Opal is used to leisurely days with plenty of napping and minimal running. Some days, the most movement she allows herself is to sprint after a bird that dares come within range.

  But today is different. She was summoned early this morning by her cat friend Luna yowling outside her window, before Maggie had even opened her escape route through the bathroom.

  Together, Opal and Luna returned to the abandoned house where a group of a dozen cats—excluding Opal who doesn’t visit as often—meet regularly and their leader, Jester, informed them that another murder had taken place in Silver Springs the night before. Another murder at one of the homes the cats had been keeping surveillance on for decades.

  Completely of out character for Opal, she had spoken up at the meeting. “Why do we care about these people?” she’d asked, and immediately regretted it. Jester’s glare was penetrating and Opal wanted to disappear.

  “It was at the home of Ginger Rae, a friend of Maggie’s. I believe Maggie is important to you.” His eyes started to clear and his voice returned from the low growl. “But more than that, she has in her possession another one of the keys used to unlock time travel.”

  Opal has been told about these keys and their powers in the past but thought it was all a bunch of make believe. She pressed on and asked, “Why do we care about time travel?”

  Jester jumped down from the chair he was perched on and landed right in front of Opal. His eyes never blinked and Opal tried her best to match his stare. “There are humans who want to use the powers for good, and there are others who want to use it for themselves.” He paused to let that sink in. “As the story goes, passed down from our ancestors, there was once a time travel episode that went bad. Maggie’s parents, Eleanor and Charles, used the powers only for good. They saved lives. But the last time they traveled, someone got wind of what they were capable of and duplicated the keys.”

  Jester paused and Opal asked, “But what about that trinket on my collar? Wouldn’t they need that too?”

  “They made a copy of it. No one knows how. But it was faulty. It worked for a while and the people using it did terrible things. They used time travel to their advantage to win power and wealth. They changed the course of history and brought corruption to places it should never have been. Now they’re looking for all of the original pieces because their copies aren’t functioning and our fear is that they won’t stop searching until they’re all found. Then they’ll be the only ones capable of time travel and will use the secret for world domination. We’re keeping tabs on the location of all of the keys and the final trinket on your collar and waiting for the perfect opportunity to destroy everything. That’s the only way to keep the world safe.”

  Jester walked off, abruptly ending any further questions Opal had.

  To Opal’s relief, Misty stops running and crawls under a bush where Opal happily follows. Misty is barely breathing hard but it’s a few moments before Opal can form a sentence.

  “This . . . is the . . . house . . . we’re looking for?” she huffs and puffs, embarrassed that she sounds like a dog who’s been chasing a ball. It’s demeaning.

  “Just through there.” Misty doesn’t take her green eyes off the house through the bushes. It’s white with two levels.

  “Who lives here?” Opal’s breathing is returning to normal.

  “Winona. But we’re here to make sure Ginger Rae still has her key. The murder was at Ginger Rae’s house last night and we think whoever killed her niece was actually after Ginger Rae’s key.”

  “How will we know if she has it?” Opal asks, her breathing returning to normal.

  “She wears it all the ti
me.”

  As Opal and Misty lie hidden in the bush, Opal hears a familiar sounding car on the opposite side of the house. She’s been fooled before, but she’s almost positive that her human, Maggie, has just arrived. Her car is quieter than most others and can easily be missed by the untrained ear. Misty makes no indication that she’s heard the car.

  Opal creeps out of the bush and around the side of the house, keeping low to the ground and out of sight in the dense bushes.

  “Where are you going?” Misty hisses, suddenly beside Opal again.

  “I think someone just got here and I want to see who it is.”

  Misty emits a low growl but backs off, returning to the safety of the bush. Opal continues on and sees Maggie enter the house just before the front door closes. She keeps moving forward and sees the car she knows will be parked out front, the one that brought her to Silver Springs. But there are other cars she doesn’t recognize.

  CHAPTER 7

  Maggie parks at Winona’s house and checks the time before turning off her Prius. She’s an hour early for her lunch with Ginger Rae but the conversation in the red phone booth at Two Sisters with Clara’s ghost has Maggie wanting to keep working on this murder right away. She grabs her bag off the passenger seat and walks to the front door.

  There’s a long pause after Maggie knocks and she briefly wonders if the cars in the driveway don’t mean that someone is home. Just as she raises her hand to knock a second time, Winona opens the door.

  “Maggie, we weren’t expecting you for another hour,” the older woman says cheerfully.

  “Sorry. Should I come back later?” Maggie asks self consciously as she hesitantly walks inside. “I finished things up early and thought I’d see if Ginger Rae was around now.”

  “No, no. Don’t go anywhere. We’re just sitting down to another cup of tea with Karl Jacobs, have you met him?” Maggie shakes her head. “That’s surprising. He’s covered all of the previous murders for the Silver Times. I can’t believe he didn’t get a statement from you when you were helping Erline and Jeff last month.”

  Maggie is surprised too. “I guess I wasn’t the person he wanted to talk to.” Maggie continues following Winona toward the living room where she hears laughter coming from multiple mouths.

  Conversation stops when Maggie and Winona enter, but Maggie can see that Ginger Rae was belly laughing from the redness of her face. “You must be Maggie,” the only man in the room says, standing and offering his hand to shake.

  Maggie accepts and asks, “Karl Jacobs?”

  “The one and only. In Silver Springs at least.” This elicits more laughter that Maggie can barely join in on. She was looking forward to talking to Ginger Rae alone and now she has to at least pretend to want to make polite conversation with a reporter. At least Ginger Rae appears to be calmer and happier than last night.

  “Can I get you some tea?” Winona asks. Maggie sees a kettle and boxes of tea bags on the coffee table, but the only mugs she can find in the room are already in hands and are full.

  Maggie hesitates. She doesn’t want to waste her time with idle chit chat but she also doesn’t want to be rude. “Sure,” she finally says, settling into an empty chair that she hopes isn’t Winona’s.

  Winona leaves the room briefly and Karl launches into a lively story about a recent event he covered. “You heard about the to-do at The Dancing Donkey?” His attention is focused completely on Ginger Rae and she nods, sipping her tea. Karl’s hands wave in the air as he continues. “Well, Delilah swears it wasn’t her tea that caused the food poisoning, and to prove it, she drank a whole gallon of it.”

  Ginger Rae gasps and her hand flies to her mouth. “You haven’t written the follow-up. I think the whole town is wondering if The Dancing Donkey will be shut down.”

  Maggie hasn’t kept up on her reading of the Silver Times so this is the first she’s hearing about the tea leaf reader’s business troubles.

  “I haven’t yet, but it’s coming. So don’t spread this.” Karl points his finger at Ginger Rae and Maggie, then at Winona as she enters with an empty mug and more hot water.

  “Don’t look at me,” Winona says in her defense. “I wasn’t even in the room.”

  Karl’s eyes narrow in a teasing squint. “I know you women; you’re always listening to every word anyone says around you.”

  Winona and Ginger Rae’s eyes meet and they exchange a knowing smile.

  “So what happed to Delilah?” Ginger Rae asks. “She was invited to Maggie and Clem’s party last night but she was a no show before all of the . . . drama.” Her voice trails off at the end, losing the carefree sound it’s held since Maggie walked in.

  Karl sits up straighter and continues, relishing in the spotlight. “Well, she was fine for a few hours, but then she ended up in the hospital too! Now everyone is sure that her tea was the cause of the food poisoning. But, she didn’t have food poisoning. She normally drinks a lot of tea in the morning, and this gallon of tea was too much for her body. She actually had water poisoning. It’s a good thing her symptoms were similar to food poisoning or she might not have gone to the hospital.”

  “She’s okay now, I hope,” Winona says, concern lacing her every word.

  Karl nods emphatically. “And right back to trying to serve everyone the same tea that landed her in the hospital. Just not a gallon of it at a time.” Despite the seriousness of Delilah’s water poisoning, Karl laughs heartily.

  Suddenly Karl looks at the giant watch on his wrist and stands. “I’m sorry, ladies, but I have to get back to the office. I didn’t even get to ask you everything I wanted to about last night. I’ll have to schedule another interview. Here’s my card.” He hands one to Ginger Rae. “Call me when you’re free.”

  Ginger Rae takes the card but doesn’t promise to call. She and Winona walk Karl to the front door and Maggie offers a wave as he passes her chair. She leans back and takes the first sip of her tea, enjoying the quiet and calm that is left in the room as Karl vacates it.

  The calm is quickly replaced by Ginger Rae’s high energy when she comes back alone. “You’re early,” Ginger Rae tells Maggie.

  “Yeah. Sorry. I . . . finished some things up and figured I’d see if you were free before twelve thirty.” Maggie expects Winona to walk in behind Ginger Rae. “Where’s Winona?”

  “She’s going to her sewing room. She’s working on a quilt that she wants to finish. Clem agreed to start selling them at Two Sisters . . . I guess you probably already knew that since you’re working there now too.”

  Maggie nods once. “Her work is really incredible.”

  “I love the one she made me years ago. It still looks brand new. Should we go to lunch then?” Ginger Rae asks, abruptly changing the subject.

  They both stand and Maggie leads them to her car, leaving her half full mug of tea on the kitchen counter as they pass. “Is the brewery okay with you?” Maggie asks.

  “Perfect. I could use a drink.” Maggie smiles. If she’d just lost her niece, she’d feel the same way.

  Maggie drives them in silence to Main Street and parks in the parking garage, not even bothering to look for a spot on the street. It’s now past noon and she’d be as lucky as a lottery winner to find something.

  When they reach the street, Ginger Rae asks Maggie, with happiness in her voice, “Did you pick the brewery so you could see Drew?”

  Maggie blushes slightly. “No. I picked it because they have the best burgers. And I could use some of their onion rings.”

  “But seeing Drew is an added bonus,” Ginger Rae adds, holding the front door open for Maggie.

  Maggie shrugs. “He doesn’t work on the weekends.” As soon as the words are out of her mouth, Drew walks out from a crowded room, dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, his normal attire whether at work or at play.

  “Maggie,” he exclaims, hands in the air and a smile on his face. Maggie’s heart melts at the obvious joy he feels at seeing her.

  “Hi Drew. I didn’t t
hink you’d be working today. Do you . . . want to join us?” she asks, looking at Ginger Rae for confirmation, who nods encouragingly.

  “Sorry, I can’t. I’m picking up a shift to cover for someone.” He plants a kiss on her cheek. “How are you doing?” His voice quiets with the question.

  “I’m doing fine. Ginger Rae is really who you should be asking.”

  Drew turns to Ginger Rae and asks, “How are you? I can’t imagine how hard this must be for you.” He never lets go of Maggie’s hand and gently places his other hand on Ginger Rae’s arm.

  Ginger Rae nods. “I have a good support system.”

  “I’m glad. I really have to get back to work. Ladies, drinks are on me.” He kisses Maggie’s cheek again and heads to the back of the brewery.

  “You found a good one,” Ginger Rae says, all smiles at Maggie.

  Maggie pulls her stare away from Drew’s retreating back and returns Ginger Rae’s smile. “You’re right. I did.”

  They are quickly seated just before a rush of families, couples and groups of friends enter the brewery, causing a longer wait for everyone after Maggie and Ginger Rae. “I think we got here just in time,” Ginger Rae observes, sliding her chair as close to the table as her round body will allow.

  “Sure looks like it,” Maggie agrees. They both take a few moments to look at the menu and pick out beers, which they promptly order. Maggie already knows she wants the burger with onion rings on it but she reads the rest of the menu for good measure.

  Ginger Rae puts her menu down when their beers arrive and takes her first sip, followed by a question. “What do you want to know about Clara?”

  Maggie is glad that Ginger Rae is jumping right into this conversation. But it reminds her of her morning at the salon and the rumors she heard. Against her better judgment, she decides to tell Ginger Rae . . . as gently as possible. “Did Clara have any enemies in Silver Springs?” she asks.