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It took Orville four rings to answer. That wasn’t like him at all. Not even at this time of night. I’d personally seen that man come out of a dead sleep and answer a call within seconds. I kind of thought that ability came with the title of Sheriff.
I was just about to hang up and take a drive over to his place when he finally picked up. His voice was breathless. “What’s wrong?”
Hesitating, I listened closely. There were sounds in the background. Orville wasn’t home. “Nothing’s wrong... but you’re on a call, aren’t you? We can talk in the morning.”
“Don’t hang up! Just give me a minute.” I heard some muffled conversation come through, then a minute later he was back with me. “I know you wouldn’t have called me at this godforsaken hour unless it was something urgent. Just tell me already. My night can’t get much worse.”
Now my guilt ratcheted up. Technically, what I was calling for wasn’t urgent at all. It could easily have waited until morning. Why had I thought differently?
“I’m sorry, Orville. I should have waited. I just didn’t want you stewing any longer than necessary. The wedding is back on... if you still want me.”
“And just like that, my night got a whole heck of a lot better. Thank you, Opal, I needed to hear that right now.” There was a pause. “Now I want you to remember your words when I give you the latest news, okay? I’m holding you to them.”
“What’s happened?”
“I am on a call. Kenny Driscoll’s body was just found. Method of death looks pretty dang similar to that of Reverend Castle, too, so I’m going to go on the assumption that we’re looking at the same killer. We’ll know more after the coroner gets through with her assessment.”
I took a deep breath. My first thought was that at least the townsfolk couldn’t blame this death on my upcoming wedding, but with that bet circulating around they probably could. In fact, I just might be a suspect myself. Especially seeing as how I’d just visited the man yesterday.
A fact which, what with the fallen tree and all the storm excitement, I had yet to share with Orville.
“You should know that I went to see Driscoll on Monday. Guess that puts me on the suspect list, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, Opal.” I heard a shout from behind him and his muffled answer to them. “Look, I’m going to want to hear all about your visit with Driscoll, but right now, I have to process this scene. Can you come to the station after you drop the kids off at school? Give me a statement?”
“See you then, Orville.” And then a split second later, I added, “Please take care, okay? Evil has its sights on the two of us.”
“I’m not sure I understand that, but I’ll watch my back. You do the same with yours.” His voice lowered. “And Opal? Thanks again for calling. I can handle this a lot better now. Love you.”
He hung up before I could say it back.
I put the phone on the nightstand and rolled over. “I love you, too, Orville.”
And yes, I might have shed a few more tears before I finally drifted off to sleep. But at least these were happy ones.
***
MY STEP WAS DEFINITELY lighter the next morning. I know that probably sounded terrible, what with there being another death and a possible serial killer on the loose. But it was true all the same.
Kimberly noticed right off the bat too. “It looks like whatever’s been bugging you the last few days must have resolved itself.”
I nodded. “It did. Thanks for giving me my space on that, by the way. I know that couldn’t have been easy.”
She smiled at me. “Believe me, it wasn’t. It’s never easy to watch someone you care about going through rough times.” She stared me right in the eyes. “Especially when they don’t seem to trust you enough to talk to you about it.”
“It wasn’t a trust issue, I promise.” I hesitated. I really didn’t want to go into the whole thing. But I had to give the girl something, and besides, the whole not saying anything for seven-day thing shouldn’t be valid anymore, right? “I guess I was just having cold feet about the wedding. What with everything going on and all.”
Kimberly frowned. “You don’t think Reverend Castle’s death had anything to do with your wedding, do you? That man was scum. Lots of people wanted him... well, gone.”
I shrugged. “A witch puts a lot of trust in omens. And there have been a fair few of them piling up lately.”
She nodded. “I’ll give you that.”
We went through all the motions and actions to get the kids off to school, then drove to the shop. Crapsnackles. A day and a half of the shop being closed because of the power outage, and there were literally people lined up at the door.
What the heck was going on with my shop’s sudden popularity boom?
As it wasn’t quite nine yet, we made our way to the backdoor and let ourselves in. I was halfway tempted to put up another closed for the day sign in the window, but Kimberly seemed pumped by all the business we’d been getting. I hated to disappoint her.
“You think you can handle the shop on your own with that crowd out there? I need to pay a visit to the sheriff. Kenny Driscoll was killed yesterday, and I need to give a statement.”
The odd look was back. “Why would you have to do that? I never thought you were the betting type.”
“I’m not.” Although I had made an exception to that rule on Monday. How could I not place a bet on my own bloody wedding? “But I went to see him on my lunch hour the other day, and he let me know that he had a bet running on the wedding. Guess that kind of makes me a lead suspect at the moment.”
“Oh, Opal, what rotten timing.”
Yeah. Tell me about it.
I helped her run through the shop, making sure things were in functioning order with the power back on in full, then we opened the shop. A few minutes later, I was on my way toward the sheriff’s station.
Orville met me halfway. “Let’s have our little meeting at the Flour Pot.” He didn’t give me a chance to answer, just took my elbow and turned me right around.
Like I was going to argue about a visit to the Flour Pot. They had my Raspberry Delights there. Of course, I probably should be watching my calories right now. I did have a wedding dress to fit into in a few weeks.
Although, now that I thought about it, I didn’t. Not yet. I still had to make the darn thing. The good thing was, I only had to make half a dress. The bad thing was, I had to make two of them.
Once we got our order at the counter, we took a seat at the farthest table from the center of the shop. The owner was a smart man. He didn’t offer free internet here. Nope. He wanted people to come in, get their donuts and coffee, and get out. As such, he only had a few tables, and most of the time at least one was free.
Orville took a bite of his donut and groaned—Raspberry Delights can cause that—before he looked at me. “Okay, I think I’m properly prepared now. Tell me about your visit to Kenny Driscoll.”
“Okay, but before I do... did you know the man had a bet running on whether or not our wedding would actually happen?”
His face scrunched up. That kind of told me the answer. “You knew about that, huh?” He took a deep breath. “You know that doesn’t help your whole being on the suspect list thing, right?”
“I do.”
Then his eyes met mine over the table. “Is that why you went to see him?”
I could totally have said yes. I mean, Orville had made it plain to me that he wanted me to stay out of the investigation. If I said yes, then he would never have to know that I was still encroaching on his job. But this was Orville. The man I was going to spend the rest of my life with. It simply wouldn’t do to go down that slippery slope.
“No. I didn’t find out about the bet until my visit. He was the one that told me.”
He frowned at me. “You went to talk about Reverend Castle’s gambling debt, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
To his credit, he was handling this rather well. He had to know that asking me to stay out of an investigation that the whole town kind of thought was necessary because of me and my possibly hexed wedding was out of line. And I hadn’t gotten in the way of any of his officers, so he really couldn’t grumble too much about it, either.
“And?”
“Well, once I convinced him that I wasn’t there to put a spell on him, he was so relieved that we had a nice little conversation.” I glanced around. No one appeared to be listening in on us. What few people were in the little shop were all at the counter, giving us a pretty wide berth. Probably didn’t want the hex to rub off on them. Can’t say I blamed them all that much, truth be told.
I lowered my voice all the same. “Did you know that Reverend Castle had an illegitimate daughter show up on his doorstep a while back?”
Orville almost choked on the bite he’d just taken. After a brief coughing spree and a drink of coffee to clear his throat, he looked at me. “He what? Who?”
Shrugging, I shook my head. “Driscoll didn’t know the who. Only that Reverend Castle was more than a little worried that the girl might make it public knowledge.”
“He didn’t happen to mention a timeframe, did he? Like when this girl showed up on that doorstep?”
“According to Driscoll, the reverend told him about it a few months ago. He made it sound like it had happened fairly recently before that. Either that or the girl was ramping things up. He said Reverend Castle was pretty upset by it.”
“Well, yeah, I can see that. His wife hasn’t been gone all that long.” Orville paused long enough to polish off his second donut. “Anything else?”
I couldn’t control my blush. And his slow smile told me he was enjoying this a little too much.
“Nothing about Reverend Castle, no.”
By now, he was grinning at me. “You placed a bet, didn’t you?”
I gave him a short nod. “I did. Do you have a problem with that?”
He chuckled. “Not as long as you bet for the wedding to happen.” Then he looked at me. “You did, right?”
“Of course, I did.” Something about his expression made me ask. “I don’t suppose you had any dog in that fight too?”
“I may have put a chunk of green down on the two of us.” He leaned back. “Not sure we’re ever going to see anything from it, though. I think Driscoll left his clients high and dry. No backup bookie that I know of.”
Not something I was going to lose sleep over. If you couldn’t afford to lose the money you were betting, you shouldn’t be betting it in the first place. His clients all just lost, that’s all.
“I don’t suppose you have any way to track down who is new to the town in the past year or so?”
“I have a few avenues I can go down to get that information.” He scratched his chin. “I think the local Welcome Wagon team might be a good place to start. I’d invite you to come along, but...”
“But you don’t want the office to know we’re working on this together.” I got that, even if it didn’t make me all that happy.
“It is what it is, Opal. And it’s only for a few more months. After that, we’ll be a proper team. And the town will just have to deal with it.”
I liked the sound of that. But still.
“You know you’re going to give me that list of names, right?”
He sighed. “Yeah, I know.”