Pawsitively Lethal (Silver Springs Cozy Mystery Series Book 3) Page 5

  Yogi rolls again in the long grass, then asks, “Any news for me? How’s Barney? Is Pluto still living with him?” Winona added a second dog to her family after Pluto was homeless when his person, Mitch, was arrested for theft.

  “I just came from the dog park and Barney gave me some disturbing information.” The bulldog is Suzie’s main source of information since he lives with Winona, one of the humans tasked with overseeing the safety and secrecy of the powers of the keys and hidden object. “He told me the humans are thinking of destroying everything.”

  Yogi yelps in surprise. “Why?”

  “I think it has to do with Pluto’s person, Mitch. There are untrustworthy humans who want to take advantage of the powers.”

  “We can’t let them be destroyed.”

  “I know. But we also have to offer protection to the people who have the keys. There was another death. A murder. At the home of one of the keys. If the humans can’t keep the information safe, we have to at least protect everything from being destroyed.”

  “Without time travel, we’d all be stuck right where we are. Don’t the humans see that? Don’t they understand the good they can bring to the world?” Yogi whines.

  Suzie agrees. There is too great an opportunity within reach for the humans to give up this potential power. In the right hands, the world could be saved from their own destruction. The cats only see the bad that could come from keeping the powers alive, but Suzie knows that with the dogs’ help, everyone could benefit.

  It is now up to Suzie and the other dogs who know about the secret to make sure the keys and the hidden object are never destroyed, but also don’t fall into the hands of dangerous individuals.

  CHAPTER 11

  Maggie hears Clem park in the garage and close her car door. She’s home early, probably because they’re having company.

  “How was Two Sisters today?” Maggie asks, towel in hand, drying vegetables for the salad when Clem walks in.

  “It picked up this afternoon. Sunday mornings are always slow.” Clem slumps down onto a kitchen chair and exhales a sigh.

  “Why don’t we just open later on Sundays?” It’s only recently that Maggie got comfortable making suggestions using ‘we’ instead of ‘you.’ She’s starting to feel like they are truly partners. “It doesn’t make sense for you to work a full day if you only get customers in the afternoon,” Maggie suggests, turning back to the kale salad she’s half done making.

  Clem is silent for a few moments. “I guess I could give that a try. It would be nice to have the morning free so I can spend more time with Denis on the weekends.”

  Maggie turns around again so she can read Clem’s body language when she asks her next question. “You two are getting serious aren’t you?”

  Clem nods. “We’re talking about the next step.”

  “Which is . . .?”

  “Marriage.”

  “Whoa. Big step.”

  Clem nods again but there is no sign of doubt on her face. “It is, but I think it’s right for us. We’re not getting any younger.”

  Maggie knows that’s the truth. “That’s great. Congrats.”

  “It hasn’t happened yet. No need for congratulations.” Clem laughs. “What time is company coming?”

  “Around six,” Maggie answers, her back once again to Clem. “You have time still.”

  Maggie hears Clem stand and push her chair away from the table. “Where are the dogs? They usually come charging inside when I get home.”

  “Haven’t seen them all afternoon. But you’re early, so they might still be off gallivanting around town. Want a glass of wine?”

  “Mm. Not yet. I’m going to lie down before everyone comes. Oh, did you find anything out from Ginger Rae about Clara today?”

  Clem doesn’t sit back down so Maggie keeps her answer brief. “A little. But she’s convinced her murder had nothing to do with Clara or her family and their poor relationships. That’s why she’s coming tonight with Erline and Winona. They want to tell us about some keys that unlock some power or something that Mom was involved with.”

  “What?”

  Maggie never told Clem the real reason she decided to move to Silver Springs last month and not return to Denver. It had more to do with Winona, Erline and Ginger Rae thinking they were in trouble and wanting Maggie’s help and protection as a private detective than wanting to move back to her hometown and work at Two Sisters with Clem.

  “They’ll explain. I would only make them sound crazy.”

  “You already have.”

  Clem leaves the kitchen and Maggie pours a single glass of wine. She won’t be drinking alone for long, and if the night is going to revolve around magical powers connected to keys, then she’ll need something to keep her relaxed and not so cynical.

  After the salad is finished and dressed so the flavors meld together, Maggie chops potatoes, seasons them and sticks them in the oven. Then she marinates the chicken breasts and leaves them on the counter so she doesn’t forget to put them in the oven in fifteen minutes. If everything goes as planned—which it hardly ever does—then the potatoes and chicken will be done at the same time.

  Just before six o’clock, Clem comes back into the kitchen in a change of clothes and her long graying hair still wet. Either the dogs finally realized she’s home or they hear a car park in the driveway, but either way they charge through the dog door and slide to a stop in the kitchen. Without missing a beat, Clem is down on the floor on her hands and knees, receiving dog kisses and offering love to Suzie and Oscar.

  “I missed you too,” she croons, as she does every night. Maggie sips her wine at the table. “Maybe next Sunday morning we can do something outside together.”

  “Hello, hello, hello,” Ginger Rae’s voice booms from the front door and Maggie leaps to her feet to greet her.

  “Come in,” she calls, unhelpfully since she has already let herself, Winona and Erline inside.

  “It smells delicious in here,” Winona gushes, heading straight for the kitchen. “And there’s already a bottle of wine open. We better let the next one breathe too.”

  Erline takes two bottles of wine from her bag and starts looking for a corkscrew. Maggie knows how much these women like to drink, having attended Tuesday night Bingo with them. Instead of filling their water bottles with water, they enjoyed wine on the sly.

  “What smells so good?” Ginger Rae asks, catching up to everyone else congregating in the kitchen.

  “Tequila-lime chicken breasts and oven roasted potatoes,” Maggie tells them, mildly embarrassed to be feeding them even more alcohol.

  “Tequila!” Erline shouts, raising her hands in the air. Evan at 81, she is certainly the life of the party. “Sounds as good as it smells. I can’t wait.”

  “It should be done soon.” Maggie brings glasses down for everyone and fills five with wine. She doesn’t tell anyone it’s her second drink.

  “Have you heard from Detective Stevens today?” Winona asks.

  Maggie nods, her mouth full of wine. “Only briefly.” She turns her attention to Ginger Rae. “How well do you know Valerie Hunt?”

  Ginger Rae laughs, almost spewing red wine from her mouth and over her light colored top. “Not well at all. I’m surprised you even know her name.”

  “She’s your neighbor but you don’t know her?” Maggie asks.

  “That’s correct. She’s a recluse. Doesn’t ever leave her house. I guess you saw the article in the paper then.” Ginger Rae’s eyes cloud over.

  Maggie glances at the recycling where the newspaper is on top. She should have at least put it upside down so the ridiculous headline wasn’t visible. “I did. How do you think Karl managed to talk to Valerie if she’s a recluse?”

  Ginger Rae shrugs. “And then he had the nerve to come to Winona’s this morning and talk to me. I hadn’t been out yet so I hadn’t seen the article he’d so deceptively published.” Her voice rises and her face takes on a reddish tint. “I can’t believe him. I used t
o read all of his articles. I thought he was a good reporter. But this was pure slander.”

  Erline, sitting next to Ginger Rae at the table, places her hand on her friend’s shoulder. “We’ve already talked about visiting the Silver Times tomorrow after coffee. Are you going to join us at The Coffee Bean?” Erline asks Maggie.

  “I’m not sure. I’ll have to check with Clem.” She makes eye contact with her sister, who nods her head. “Looks like I can make it. At least for one cup of coffee.”

  “We’ll make a plan tomorrow then. Tonight we’re here to talk about something else,” Winona states, sipping her wine with a twinkle in her eye.

  CHAPTER 12

  The oven alerts Maggie to check the potatoes and chicken, and to her relief and surprise everything is done all at once. She places five plates on the table and adds the food to the center, family style. Conversation revolves around food while everyone serves themselves and passes the colorful dishes around, but Erline quickly gets down to business once everyone has helped themselves.

  “We’re here because your mother was in possession of a powerful object that bound us all together. Winona, Ginger Rae and I each hold a key to unlocking the powers of the final piece, that is somewhere in this house.” Each woman puts a skeleton key on the table—Ginger Rae takes hers off a necklace, Winona takes hers off of her keychain, and Erline pulls hers from her pocket.

  Maggie catches Clem’s eye and can see the disbelief in them. She knows hers must mirror the same skepticism.

  “What are these ‘powers?’” Clem asks, holding her fingers in the air to make air quotes around the word powers.

  Ginger Rae nods and swallows. “We understand where you’re coming from with not believing us. We wouldn’t have believed it if we hadn’t seen it for ourselves. But when all four pieces come together, they allow for time travel.”

  Clem nods slowly, chewing a piece of chicken. Maggie watches her, unable to make any kind of reaction.

  “You’ve time traveled?” Clem asks.

  “No. We haven’t,” Winona clarifies. “But your parents did.”

  This is all too much for the twin sisters. Clem laughs and Maggie joins her.

  “I know. It all sounds ridiculous,” Erline agrees.

  “What do you mean you’ve witnessed it?” Maggie finally recovers enough from the shock of her friends’ claims to ask a coherent question.

  “We helped your parents,” Ginger Rae says matter of factly.

  Maggie nods slowly, digesting this information. If they helped her parents, then that means her parents time traveled. She asks to make sure. “So then, our parents time traveled?”

  All three elderly ladies nod in unison. “Not after you two were born. They thought it was too risky. If something happened, they wouldn’t have been able to live with themselves. So it hasn’t been done for over fifty three years.” Ginger Rae takes another bite. “This is all delicious. Good cooking, Maggie.”

  Maggie is thrown off with the sudden change of topic, but everyone else joins in and praises her meal. “It’s nothing. I just followed some recipes.” She brushes off the compliments. “Last spring, when I was in Josh’s basement,” she starts, referring to her parents’ murderer, “he mentioned a secret my parents were keeping. This was it, wasn’t it? This was what got them killed.”

  The three women nod again.

  “But how did he know about it? Especially if it hadn’t been done in half a century?” Maggie asks.

  “That’s where this all gets tricky,” Winona says. She places her fork on her plate, settling in for a long explanation. “The last time your parents . . . traveled . . . they almost didn’t return. We were waiting and waiting for them and we ultimately had to agree that something had gone wrong. Only, we had no idea what. Finally, they returned. Of course the three of us were relieved, but we could tell your parents were shaken. In order to get back to the present, they needed all the keys.” Winona indicates the three keys sitting on the table. “One had been stolen while they were gone. Duplicates were made and the powers were revealed. We don’t know how many people know.”

  Maggie waits for more but nothing comes. “So if there are duplicate keys, then why are these so important?”

  “The other ones aren’t perfect,” Erline says, letting Winona enjoy her dinner again. “But the main reason we’ve been under attack is to get the final object, the one your parents held. It seems that even those who know we’re in possession of the keys don’t know who has the final object.”

  “It’s here? In this house?” Clem asks. “What does it look like?” Maggie hears fear in hers sister’s voice.

  “We think it’s here,” Erline says, exchanging worried looks with Winona and Ginger Rae. “We haven’t seen it in almost fifty years. Your parents kept it out in the open at first so it wouldn’t draw attention. They assumed that if someone was after it, having it out in the public would be the last place someone would look.”

  “Did it work?” Maggie asks.

  “It seems so. The last we heard before they died was that it was still safe,” Erline explains.

  “What does it look like? Where would we find it?” Clem’s voice is hurried in her panic.

  “It’s the small round trinket they used to have on your cat’s collar when you were kids. Do you remember?” Ginger Rae asks, looking from Maggie to Clem and back again.

  Maggie and Clem’s eyes meet. “We’ve seen it since their death. I found it in their bedroom last spring,” Maggie says. “It was still on a cat collar so I put it on Opal. It didn’t last. I found it on the bed one morning, so I left it on the night table in my bedroom. I only recently noticed that it’s missing.”

  “It’s missing?” all three women ask at the same time, leaning forward with their hands on the table.

  Maggie glances at Clem who she catches hiding a smile. Maggie wants to laugh but holds it in. These women are way too serious about a cat collar and magical powers.

  “I looked behind the night table and under the bed. It probably just rolled somewhere. Or Opal batted it around and it’s somewhere else in the bedroom,” Maggie says, suddenly feeling slightly guilty for not keeping a better eye on it, if only to keep these women calm.

  There’s a pause in conversation while everyone gets lost in their own heads. Maggie wants to bring up Clara’s parents as possible suspects but doesn’t want to upset Ginger Rae. She sips her wine instead.

  Clem breaks the silence by asking, “So, Ginger Rae, you think your niece’s murder was about these keys and the thing on the cat collar and had nothing to do with her?”

  Ginger Rae nods. “That’s right. I think she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  Clem nods slowly, taking a bite of chicken so she doesn’t have to respond.

  This is the start to a conversation Maggie wants to have. “So if that’s the case, then who’s on the suspect list?”

  CHAPTER 13

  No one responds to Maggie’s question so she lets it hang between everyone longer than she initially intended. “At lunch today,” she finally says, “you didn’t think it had anything to do with Clara’s adoptive or birth parents, or her ex-husband. For the police, I’m going to have to keep looking into those relationships, but in the meantime, what else should I be considering?”

  Ginger Rae shrugs. “I really don’t know. That’s the thing. We know Mitch Cable and Josh McMann learned about the powers of the keys, but we don’t know anyone else.”

  “We don’t seem to find out who knows until it’s too late,” Erline adds.

  “Which, if Ginger Rae is right about this one, is true once again,” Winona says.

  “Okay. So where do we start?” Maggie asks the women, setting her fork down. She means business.

  “You’re the private detective, you tell us.” Ginger Rae laughs.

  “Well, technically I’m not anymore. Now I’m . . . well, I don’t really know what my title is at Two Sisters. But that’s beside the point. For this to work
, I have to know everything you know about possible leads and then I can follow up on them. Should we go back to Josh and Mitch?” Maggie knows just who to call to learn more about these men but that call will have to wait until tomorrow.

  All three women nod but no one offers any insight.

  “Well, what do you know about them? Who were they close with? Were they even friends?” Maggie could come up with a dozen more questions but starts with just those.

  They all shrug in unison. Maggie could talk to just one of the women and learn the same amount of information.

  “Okay . . . Give me the night and I’ll have better questions to ask,” she says in defeat. “For now, just enjoy the food, company, and wine—let me get another bottle.”

  There are smiles all around and carefree chatter resumes.

  ***

  Maggie doesn’t get to bed until well after midnight, not unusual for her. Clem has been asleep for hours, the dogs upstairs with her, and Opal has been patiently waiting on the bed to curl up next to Maggie’s warm body.

  Maggie spent the rest of the night after their company left looking up anything she could find about Josh McMann and Mitch Cable. There is shockingly little information available online aside from the crimes they committed in Silver Springs, and even that leaves much to be desired. Karl Jacobs was the reporter in both instances, but his articles lack the details that he made available about Clara’s murder in today’s paper.

  Maggie knows slightly more about Josh since she met him a few times in Two Sisters last spring before it came to light that he had killed her parents. But her previous knowledge amounted only to knowing he grew up in Alaska, was divorced with no kids and lived in Silver Springs for three years. She remembers that he mentioned having two brothers, but without more computer skills, she can’t find anything about their existence. If they live remotely in Alaska, there’s a chance they have no digital fingerprint, only making her job harder.