A Charming Crime Page 2

  “It’s that apparent?” I leaned and looked into my reflection in the microwave. I tapped underneath my eyes to see if it would help blood flow.

  “Is it the same?”

  “Yep, the usual.” I got a couple of sodas out of the refrigerator, careful for him not to see my face. If I knew Oscar, he was going to study my every move, just like Darla did.

  As far back as I could remember I was having the same nightmare of me standing at the edge of a foggy lake looking down into the green murky water and seeing hands wrapped around someone’s neck. I always wake up before I can make out whether the person was a man or woman, and it was always the back of the person. The hands are never attached to arms, which really freaked me out.

  No matter how much “fairy dust” Darla gave me, the nightmares still came in full force.

  “And what are you doing to do about it?” Oscar popped open the can, and then pushed Mr. Prince Charming off the sturdy farm table.

  Hiss. Mr. Prince Charming batted air in front Oscar.

  “That is what I was trying to do when I blew up the shed.” I snickered as I remembered that I had folded the torn up paper with Darla’s “Mr. Sandman sprinkles” recipe and stuck it in my pocket right before the explosion. “I might’ve used a little too much Aconite.”

  I took the paper out, unfolded it and ran my hands over top it to try to get the creases out. Thank goodness I put it in my jeans, or it would’ve been ashes by now. I glanced over at the counter where Darla kept an old journal with all her remedies written in it, thinking I should probably either memorize them or make another copy just in case.

  30 c of Aconite, 6c Kali phos, 6c Nat suph, 3x passiflora, I continued to count the six ingredients needed on my fingers before Mr. Prince Charming batted at my egg roll while standing on his hind legs.

  “No, no,” I shooed him away. “Go eat your food.”

  That was the problem. Since it had always been the two of us, and it was hard to cook for one person, I had always included Mr. Prince Charming.

  “How old is he anyway?” Oscar scowled.

  “Good question.” I thought back to first time I’d ever laid eyes on Mr. Prince Charming.

  Actually, it was a long time ago. It was on my tenth birthday. We didn’t have a lot of money and Darla had gotten me a birthday cake that read Happy Retirement Stu. She didn’t even bother scraping Stu’s message off. She was good a pretending it wasn’t even there, nor the fact that there was a manager’s special sticker on it.

  All the same, it was a treat because Darla never let me eat any type of sweets growing up. Anyways, Mr. Prince Charming was unlike any other stray cat in our neighborhood, in which there was a lot of stray cats. He had on a faded collar with a tiny turtle charm dangling off it. The turtle had one green emerald stone for an eye and the other one missing. I didn’t care. It was beautiful.

  Oscar and I asked around if the cat belonged to anyone, no one claimed him, and he just continued to hang around. Darla didn’t mind so he stayed. I got him a new collar and kept the charm for myself. Oscar had given me his mom’s old bracelet and I hung it from there. I’ve never taken it off my wrist.

  “Well, he’s definitely defied the nine lives belief.” Oscar couldn’t resist Mr. Prince Charming rubbing his tail along his calf. He bent down and ran his hand along the cats back.

  “Yes, he has.” I smiled remembering all the times Mr. Prince Charming has beat the odds over the past fifteen years and didn’t seem to age a bit.

  “I see Izzy stopped by.” Oscar put Isadora’s card back on the table, and then continued to work on his chopstick skills, but wasn’t having any luck. “Where’s a fork?”

  “How do you know her?” I asked as I pointed to the card after I gave him a fork.

  “That’s what I was going to tell you about,” he said as he stuffed his mouth with a big forkful of rice.

  “She showed up after the fire debacle.” I picked up the card. I still hadn’t decided if I was going to see her not. I knew I had to make a business decision whether to grow A Dose of Darla or keep it small. “She wanted to talk to me about putting my remedies in her shop. How do you know her?”

  I didn’t even know where she was located. The business card said Whispering Falls, but I’d never even heard of the place. I had even tried to Google it early in the day, but nothing came up.

  “It was the strangest thing. I was driving and came upon this small town.” Oscar’s strong jaw line clinched, he grew serious. “Whispering Falls is nothing like I’ve ever seen. It’s its own village of houses, shops, visitors, and is nestled in the woods.”

  “Where is it?” I asked. He shrugged, but still didn’t answer my question. “I tried looking it up and couldn’t find it.”

  If it was really as happening as he thought, maybe it was something I should check out. Going into one store wasn’t much work. How many homeopathic remedies could one little village sell?

  “It’s only twenty or thirty minutes away. Depending on how fast you drive.” He smiled, showing off those pearly whites his uncle Jordan had spent so much money on. “And you drive fast.”

  He was lucky. Darla did good taking me to the dentist every other year. Thanks to Oscar and his uncle, they keep me in floss and toothbrushes. Luckily, I had pretty straight teeth. According to Darla, I had gotten that quality from my dad.

  “I don’t let grass grow under my feet, that’s for sure.”

  “I pulled into Whispering Falls to check it out. Izzy’s place was the first place I walked in. She was asking all sorts of questions about my uniform. She said the council was looking for a cop. We talked a little bit. She asked if I knew anyone who was into home remedies and I told her about you.”

  Meow, meow. Mr. Prince Charming was begging for attention. I put a little rice in my fingers and let him lick it off.

  “So you gave some strange woman my address? I thought you were supposed to protect and serve?” I nervously laughed, half kidding, half not.

  Meow, meow. Mr. Prince Charming jumped up on the table and curled his tail around my nose.

  “What is wrong with you tonight?” I grabbed him and put him on the floor. He batted at the dangling charm from my wrist. “Stop.”

  My eyes narrowed, and I studied him for a moment.

  “What’s up with him?” Oscar tilted his head to the side to get a better look at my disgruntled cat.

  “I have no idea. He’s been acting strange all afternoon.” I ignored Mr. Prince Charming. I wanted to get back to this Izzy person. “How did she find me? Especially my home?”

  Oscar stood up to throw away his trash. “It’s not like Locust Grove is so big. If she stopped and asked about you someone would tell her where you live.”

  True. It just sucked that she came on the day of the big fire. After seeing all the trouble I’ve caused the town, she might’ve changed her mind. No wonder Isadora Solstice high-tailed it after she handed me her business card.

  “Did you take the job?” There was no way his uncle Jordan was going to hear of him leaving Locust Grove department.

  “Not yet.”

  “Did you tell Jordan?”

  “Nope. No need to just yet.”

  Now who was being aloof?

  “Are you really thinking about it?”

  “What if I am?” His blue eyes narrowed speculatively. “I’m a big boy.”

  Chapter Three

  Last night before Oscar left, he gave me directions to Whispering Falls. They didn’t seem particularly hard to follow. And since the flea market was only open on the weekends, and my lab had burnt down, and I didn’t have anything to do with myself, I jumped in the Green Machine, my two-toned green ‘88 El Camino and headed toward Whispering Falls.

  I’d never been this far out of Locust Grove. The roads twisted and wound around bends, making me drive much slower than I and the Green Machine were used to.

  Oscar was right. About thirty minutes of swerves and curves, a clearing popped up as if it had magi
cally appeared.

  I pulled over to the side of the road to get a better view of the town. A calmness came over me, something familiar, like I’d been there before.

  Nah. I shook the notion out of my head. This didn’t look like a place that was forgettable.

  “Welcome to Whispering Falls, A Charming Village,” read the old beat-up wooden sign. I smiled. It did have a ring to it.

  Mewl, mewl. Mr. Prince Charming crawled from underneath the seat and jumped next to me.

  “What are you doing here?” I picked him up, looked him square in the eyes, and warned him, “You are going to have to stay in the car.”

  But I knew better. Many times I’d tried to sneak out of the house over the past fifteen years, but Mr. Prince Charming always either followed me or mysteriously showed up.

  The old Green Machine crept down the main street into Whispering Falls. Almost everyone on the sidewalks took time to stop what they were doing and wave at me. I didn’t pay much attention to them because the town was nothing like Oscar described it.

  It was as though someone came in and carved the town into the side of a mountain. The moss covered cottage shops were nestled deep in the woods, and had the most beautiful entrances I’d ever seen.

  Each shop had a colorful awning, displaying its name over the top of the ornamental gated doors. It had a magical feel.

  Mr. Prince Charming’s paws were planted on the window sill, and he stared out the window as if he knew this was a special place.

  I pulled the Green Machine into the parking space in front of Mystic Lights, the shop Isadora Solstice owned. I couldn’t wait to see what was inside. The outside was definitely mystic. The hunter green wood door was encased in the most beautiful stone archway. The heavy black metal door handles added to the old world charm.

  “You stay here,” I told Mr. Prince Charming as if he understood me. I rolled the windows down a little to let some air in, not like I was going to be in there for a long period of time, but just in case.

  With my purse strapped across my chest, I grabbed the cardboard box of homeopathic remedies from the bed of the El Camino and walked up the stone steps. I turned around to make sure the cat was okay, and he seemed to have found a nice sunny spot on the dash to curl up and nap.

  “Excuse me.” A petite round woman used her elbow to push me out of her way, and then opened the door. She looked back at me, gesturing with her stubby fingers. She snarled, “Well, are you coming in or just going to stand there in everyone’s way?”

  “I. . .yes. Thank you.” Tightly I held onto the box as though it was my comfort and followed the woman inside. If my intuition was right, and generally it was, she was not a happy soul.

  I decided there was no way she could be a member of the Whispering Falls village. She certainly wasn’t friendly. This woman was short and her yellow turban didn’t look great perched on top of her short bleach blonde hair. The green and purple cloak perfectly covered what seemed to be a plump-sized woman.

  “Izzy, you have company!” The woman ran her eyes up and down, taking in every inch of me. “And she’s not from here!”

  “I’ll be right out,” Isadora hollered from the back of the building.

  I smiled politely at the woman and sat my box of remedies on the glass counter. With my hands in my pocket, I walked around to see exactly what Isadora’s shop sold.

  “Are you from another spiritual village?” There was a pensive shimmer in the shadows of her eye.

  “A spiritual what?” I laughed. The only spiritual anything I ever got was going to church with Oscar and Uncle Jordan and from Darla’s little tidbits of Karma wisdom.

  “Um, hmm. I didn’t think so,” she replied with a heavy sigh and walked into the other room.

  We were standing in the middle of some kind of light shop. Above our heads were all sorts of hanging lights with all sorts of crazy shade designs. Some with stained glass, some with globes, but mostly chandelier type. I wondered if most of the houses in Whispering Falls had these types of decorative lights.

  I noticed a few snow globes in a glass case, but saw nothing to do with pharmaceuticals or remedies. They weren’t like any snow globes I’d seen before. A few were sparkly and the water was black, not clear like most of the snow globes I had seen. There was one snow globe that lit up every time I tilted my head to the side. I leaned in closer, to get a better look.

  Ah! I jumped when a face appeared.

  “Boo!” The globe radiated purple with yellow lines rotating around like there was static in it and then went black.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, and then opened them. It had to be one of those fancy musical snow globes with a Halloween Theme.

  “Do you think I like being cooped up in here?” a voice came out of nowhere.

  I pinched myself. I had to be in the middle of a nightmare. “Ouch.” I shook my arm in the air to shake off the sting. I looked into the globe because it appeared to be dark again.

  “Still here.” A woman’s face appeared. She threw her head back and cackled. Her turban fell off. Did everyone in Whispering Falls wear a turban? I rolled up on my toes to see where it went. Her face appeared, taking up the entire globe, making it hard for me to see. “What? What are you looking at?”

  “I. . .I,” I scratched my head. If this wasn’t a nightmare, what was it? I looked around Mystic Lights. The fake blond was nowhere to be found. I looked at the round glass ball and asked, “Who are you? What are you?”

  “I’m Madame Torres, voice to the spirits. Who do you seek? Or shall I say who seeks you?” She continued to babble more and more. I continued to stare, not able to wrap my head around what I was hearing.

  “This is not happening to me,” I repeated over and over, though my intuition told me it was. “This is not happening to me.” The more I repeated it, the brighter the globe got.

  “Silence!” she screamed, causing her head to spin around and around. “Whom do you seek, June?”

  “No one!” I shook my head. Madame Torres was demanding. “I seek no one. How do you know my name?”

  “A devils curse seeks to destroy you. Lift us, lift us up to the light and glide June through this stormy life.” Her globe illuminated a bright purple and in a flash went to black like when I found it.

  “No, no. Don’t you wish any evil spirits on me!” I picked up the globe and shook it.

  “What are you doing?” The mean woman approached. She stood stiff, her muscles tensed. The blood seemed to have drained from her face. “Did you see something?”

  “I. . .” I looked at the snow globe again, but nothing was there. I put it back in its place. Obviously my mind was playing tricks on me.

  “Ah, welcome to my little part of the world, June.” Isadora walked out of the door she had disappeared into earlier, and held her long skinny hands out. This time they weren’t covered in gloves. She had a huge ring on her middle finger that looked like a sleeping cat.

  She must’ve noticed me staring at it.

  “Isn’t it fabulous?” With her long fingernail, she flicked the cat’s back open to reveal a tiny mouse with diamond eyes. “I did notice you had a cat.”

  “Yes. Mr. Prince Charming.” I tried to glance out the door, but couldn’t see the Green Machine from here. My eyes wandered back to the snow globe. A light flickered.

  Mewl, mewl. Suddenly Mr. Prince Charming was doing figure eights around my ankles.

  “You brought him with you.” Isadora clasped her hands together, bent down, and picked him up.

  “Oh, no you don’t want to do that,” I warned her. “He doesn’t like to be picked up by anyone but me…” and apparently her. He was purring so loud, I was sure the woman in the snow globe could hear him.

  “I’m so sorry. I left him in the car.” I took him from her, and he bounced out of my arms. “Mr. Prince Charming, how did you get out?”

  “He’s fine. We love cats, don’t we, Ann?” Isadora looked over at the other woman. Ann was bent over rubbing her back.
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  “You do,” Ann snarled. She made her way behind the counter; she sat down on a stool, and continued to knead her back with her fist.

  Isadora turned to me and tried to disguise her annoyance. “Were you looking at my crystal, er, snow globes?” She pointed to the glass case.

  “I was. I, ah, have never seen snow globes like that.” The one that I had seen the face in was glowing. “They sure do make them fancy now. Sort of like those crazy eight balls.”

  “Well, they are special. They work off of people’s. . .um. . .energy.” She chose her words carefully. “Now then, let’s go in the back and take a look at your homeopathic cures. Ann, do you think you can do your job and watch the shop?”

  Ann’s eyes narrowed, and she snipped, “Of course I can.”

  I took the box off the counter.

  Isadora spun on her black, laced up pointy-toed, high-heeled boots and walked to the back of the shop. Mr. Prince Charming and I followed her. Her wavy blonde hair swung side to side along her shoulder blades in step with her long black A-line skirt.

  “Don’t mind her.” Isadora pointed toward the front of the shop, referring to Ann. “She only works here as a favor. She couldn’t keep a job in Whispering Falls for the life of her. Now it’s my turn to put up with her and her gimpy back.”

  My brows lifted in amusement. I didn’t know Ann or Isadora for that matter and none of it was my business.

  “I think Oscar might have misled you about what I really do.” I set the cardboard box on her desk and opened it up. I took out the prettiest bottle I had.

  Gently I held the lime green glass bottle with the tiny lizard corked on top. The glass had a hint of swirly gold throughout the bottle.

  “Stunning,” Isadora gasped, taking the bottle. She opened it up and smelled the contents.

  “I. . .um. . .don’t have cures, just homeopathic remedies that might or might not help what ails you,” I stuttered. “No. . .um. . .not cures.” Darla’s recipes were never potent.

  Her long lashes cast a dark shadow on her cheeks. With her eyes still closed, she wrapped her long thin hands around the delicate bottle, and drew in a long, deep breath. She smiled.