Spells and Fangs by Lynn Morrison

Author:Lynn Morrison
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Marketing Chair Press

8

Winnie looked as dejected as I felt, her shoulders slumped as she groaned, “I don’t know whether that interrogation helped us or hurt us.”

“We ruled out one suspect, but who knows how many Samson added to our list,” I moaned, my mind spinning. “If Mayor West had dirt on as many people as Samson insinuated, there’s no shortage of motives in this town.”

We were going to need some time to regroup, but I couldn’t bear the thought of returning to our cramped motel rooms. At least here we had fresh air and space to move. As I paced back and forth behind the bench, I conjured up a shield to keep our group out of sight. Anyone who looked our way would see two empty wooden benches tucked away in a parking space.

Aldo’s tail twitched, his eyes half-closed while he was deep in thought. “For all our talk about the poor performance of the local police department, I’m not sure we’ve done much better. We ran in, jumped on the first available lead, and completely ignored the stack of background materials Baba Yaga provided. Wasn’t there a print-out of the mayor’s family tree in there?”

“There was,” Winnie confirmed, her cheeks pink with frustration. “I assumed Baba had given us everything she had in her files, with no thought to the relevance. Now I’m wondering whether it was actually a test. It would be just like Baba to bury a note identifying the murderer in the middle of the papers, waiting to see if we’d find it.”

I brightened momentarily at the idea, but quickly discarded it. “No, I think we can safely assume she doesn’t know who the real killer is. She means for this task to be a challenge for me.”

“That doesn’t mean we should continue ignoring the background materials, though,” Aldo argued. His yellow eyes glittered in the sunlight, daring me to disagree. I had no intention of doing so. He was completely right. We were fumbling around in the dark, and it was no one’s fault but our own.

“What we need is more resources,” Raddix suggested, pulling his phone from his pocket. “I can call the bureau and have them send a few field agents our way.”

“As much as I’d welcome the help, there’s a problem with that plan.” I spread my arms wide in a silent invitation to look around us. “Look at this town. It’s so tiny, you can’t sneeze without someone commenting on it. We’re having a hard enough time keeping our sleuthing under the radar. Our undercover Hollywood identities are flimsy, and won’t hold up if people here start asking a lot of questions.”

Raddix crossed his arms and sat back. “You make an excellent point. What do you suggest we do?”

I glanced around our group, weighing and discarding options. In the end, the answer was simple. “We’ve got to be smarter about how we use the resources we have. There’s no point in all four of us sticking together. We need to split into at least two groups.

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