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Because the cottage was almost as familiar to me as the flat I’d once lived in over the store, I knew its single bathroom was in the middle of a short hall off the living room, between the main bedroom and a secondary space that Hazel had once used as a studio but was now decorated as a children’s room with two twin beds, making the little house a good choice for vacationers with kids. I headed straight for that bathroom and moved past the vanity, my gaze already landing on the plunger where it was almost hidden behind the toilet.
I hurried over and wrapped my fingers around the wooden handle, then paused. In the trash can on the other side of the toilet, a brightly colored box caught my eye. Looking closer, I saw it was a box of hair color — L’Óreal Light Ash Brown, to be exact.
On the surface, finding a box of hair color didn’t seem like that big a deal. Maybe Melanie was prematurely gray, or maybe she just didn’t like her natural shade and used something to spice it up a bit.
But….
All of my hedgewitch senses were tingling, and I knew in my gut there had to be a much less innocent reason for Melanie wanting to change her hair color.
Grandma Ellen’s words echoed in my mind.
The answer to your question isn’t as far away as you might think.
Had she been trying to tell me that Melanie Knowles was the person who’d murdered Jeffrey Sellers?
After all, if she was trying to hide her identity, then coloring her bright blonde hair a nondescript brown was probably a good place to start.
I didn’t know why Melanie would have gotten a job at the store, though. Was it only because she needed access to Victoria’s studio, and being right there had seemed the easiest way to go about it? After all, the same key opened both the door to the shop and her studio — we’d set it up that way because it was just easier, and we knew we could trust each other with our property.
And…I kept that key in the cash register during business hours. It would have been way too easy for Melanie to grab the key while I was taking a bathroom break and head upstairs to pour that atropine into the creamer in Victoria’s fridge.
No wonder the police hadn’t detected any signs of forced entry.
My hands began to shake, and I forced myself to take a deep breath. Right now, I only had a theory, and I knew I was going to need a lot more than that to convince Henry he needed to arrest Melanie Knowles for Jeffrey Sellers’ murder.
And the only way to get that evidence was to force a confession out of my would-be assistant.
I hurried out of the bathroom, pausing just long enough to lock the front door, then practically ran to my Renegade where it was parked at the curb. For just a moment, I thought about heading straight to the shop, but then I remembered Victoria was waiting for me.
Cursing under my breath, I pointed the Jeep toward her house and took the front steps two at a time. I rang the doorbell, waited, and then all but threw the plunger at Victoria when she opened the door.
“Here you go,” I said breathlessly. “But I just thought of something I need to do at the store. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
She frowned. “Is everything okay?”
“Sure,” I said quickly. “I hope the plunger works out!”
Before she could reply, I’d already turned and was running back down the steps to my car. Once inside, I practically had the poor Jeep leap away from the curb as my foot hit the accelerator, although I made myself slow down once I was off her street, telling myself that getting pulled over for speeding wouldn’t help my situation any.
As I drove, I tried to rehearse what I would say to Melanie. Should I go with a straight-up accusation, or should I try to circle around to the subject and hope she might drop a few incriminating comments all on her own?
The direct approach was probably best. She’d been smart enough to pull the wool over my eyes for the past week, so I had no reason to believe she would say anything that would give up the game without my goading her into it.
And I knew I was going on a hunch, and that maybe I was absolutely dead wrong about all this. After all, with my spells and my magic currently being checked by the baby’s “medicine,” how could I be sure I was right?
Okay, little one, I thought as I pulled into the parking lot behind the shop. If you could let me see my auras for even a minute, that would be an enormous help. At least then, I’d know I haven’t gone crazy.
Because I knew if I was wrong about all this, there was no way I’d be able to keep Melanie as my assistant. Usually, people cut ties with anyone who wrongly accused them of murder…and who could blame them?
I also knew I was taking a huge chance coming here alone. The thought had crossed my mind that I should call Calvin and tell him what I had planned, ask him to come provide backup, but it would take him at least twenty minutes to get to town, and even then, I didn’t know whether having him here was a very good idea. Jeffrey Sellers’ murder had taken place firmly in Chief Lewis’s jurisdiction, and I knew he was not a fan of having my husband butt in.
But there wasn’t any reason why I couldn’t let Henry know what I was doing…as long as I got him to promise he wouldn’t intercede until I’d managed to have Melanie spill the beans.
Long ago, I’d programmed the Globe police department’s number in my phone, so it was easy enough to make a quick call while I was parked there, all the while praying that Melanie wouldn’t take that exact moment to come out and put the trash in the dumpster behind the building.
“Hi, Loretta,” I said when the deputy at the reception desk answered the phone with her usual spiel about asking whether this was an emergency. “I need to talk to Henry. Is he in his office?”
“Yes,” she replied, her tone guarded. It wasn’t that Loretta and I didn’t get along, but more that she knew if I was calling to talk to her boss, then something must be going down. “Can I tell him why you’re calling?”
