| |
An hour later, Febe stood in the kitchen sticking toothpicks with decorative images of pumpkins and cartoon characters into the Halloween cookies and cupcakes. The college nearby requested the Halloween treats for their fundraiser.
“Darling, there’s someone here to see you,” Aunt Trixie called out.
Just then the double swinging doors opened and in walked the gorgeous Detective Trey.
“Ms. Summer, you wanted to speak with me,” he said, arching his brow.
“Yes, I did,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. “I’ll be right with you.”
“Take your time.”
“What are you doing?” Kris, the baker, said. Kris was a normal, non-magical person. She didn’t know that the café was owned by witches.
“I’ve finished decorating the Halloween treats?”
“With Disney characters? Those aren’t scary witches.”
“What do you mean?”
“The college wanted scary. You know witches with ugly wart noses, tall hats, creepy looking...”
Febe gave her a you’re-not-serious look. “What makes you think witches are really like that?”
“Excuse me?” Kris said, shocked
Febe’s heart raced.
Crap.
She’d almost forgotten her place; no one was supposed to know about her...background. Not amongst the normals anyway.
She caught Detective Trey looking at her funny, too, out of the corner of her eye. What must he think of her?
“Um, never mind. I...” she remembered what her aunts said about negative stereotypes about witches. “Listen, let’s just deliver these and see what they say. I’m sure they’ll like it. It’ll be a nice change, right?”
Kris frowned then looked at the large wall clock in the kitchen, “Fine then,” she said. “We don’t have much time to waste. You need to deliver these by noon.”
Febe smiled appreciatively.
Now to the next task.
“So what were you so desperate to speak to me about?” Detective Trey said as he followed Febe out to her sister’s SUV. “Do you need help with those?”
“Oh, no. I’m good, thanks.” Truth be told, if she were allowed to practice magic, she’d try a witching spell to have the goodies in the vehicle with the twitch of her finger. Never mind that. She’d just concentrate her energies and have it appear at the dorm so that she could get on to finding out what happened to poor Darla.
If only...
Febe opened the door and placed the box of cookies and cupcakes in the back seat. “I’m just on my way over to the dorm up on Main Street. But I heard that you arrested our street performer guy, Yella, for the crime of killing Darla.”
“Yes, he was arrested. He’s out on bail now.”
“Why do you think he did it?”
“We can’t go into every detail now, but there were witnesses that corroborated the story that he made threats to Darla when she came by the café. She’d apparently given him a scathing review on her website and said something about him cleaning up the streets by getting off it or something. It’s published in the papers.”
“Oh, no. But people say all sorts of things, Trey.”
“Febe, this is a police investigation. Wait a minute, why am I even telling you all this?”
“We seem to have some sort of connection,” she teased.
The truth was, they did seem to gel magically, but she was reminded that now that she knew she was a witch, getting together with a normal was not going to happen anytime soon. Not that she thought about getting together with Trey.
“He said he didn’t do it, but we have to follow procedures.”
“Who led you to him?”
“Do you know something, Febe? If you do, you should share it with us.”
“Not yet. I don’t know why I’m even telling you this, but...I just have a feeling that he’s being used as a scapegoat while the real killer gets away.”
“As far as I know Febe, we’ve got our guy.”
“Let me guess, he didn’t have an airtight alibi?”
“He didn’t have any alibi and he was casual about it, too.”
“Hmmm,” Febe said thinking out loud. “I think I’m going to pay another visit to Amy at the papers.”
“Why?”
“Oh, nothing. Yella isn’t the only person she maligned in her reviews.”
“Febe, I don’t want you snooping around on this case. It’s way too dangerous. If the killer is loose out there, your life could be in danger.”
Moments later, Trey received another call on his phone and said, “I’ve got to get back to the station. Remember to let me know if you hear anything, all right?”
”I will.”
Febe thought about it for a moment. Maybe she should just keep out of it. But if there was a killer on the loose who was after witches, she really needed to help the cops in the investigation. They’d thank her later. At least she hoped they would.