“I think you need to stay near Gabriel and see who he talks to. Maestro, if you could find out where Frank was staying or how he got to Good Fortune, there may very well be evidence sitting in a hotel room, or in a car that no one knows about.”

  His ears pricked. “Evidence? Of what?”

  “Stockbrokers can make bad predictions, no matter how much research they do. They can also use information to push a customer into a deal that benefits them as well. You see, the more buying and selling they encourage a customer to do, the better they do. It’s not illegal.”

  “Do you think Gabriel has done something illegal?” Lissa asked.

  “We don’t know him well enough to judge, though I can’t picture it. However that doesn’t mean to say he hasn’t pushed boundaries and upset some people. There are always those who expect more for their money and there are always bad guys wanting to take advantage of people who possess knowledge they don’t.”

  “That’s for sure, and Gabriel could fit into any of those categories,” Maestro reminded her.

  Jess nodded slowly. Perhaps having a good smell didn’t make a person good, but she would bet an oven full of muffins that Gabriel wasn’t the bad guy here.

  All she had to do now, was prove it.

  Chapter

  Seventeen

  Plating apple muffins, Jess was weighing her options when a face appeared at the back door.

  Amy Crandle—just what she didn’t need. To be fair, it had taken most of the day for Amy to come by and that was unusual too. “I’m glad to see you are okay.”

  “Hello to you,” Amy said breathily. And why wouldn’t I be okay?”

  “You haven’t heard about the shooting?” Jess couldn’t believe any major happening could elude this woman.

  Amy gaped. “What shooting?”

  “A man was shot dead on Main Street this afternoon.”

  Amy paled and wobbled a little so Jess led her to a kitchen chair.

  The older woman slumped into it thankfully. “I’ve been out at Daphne’s farm. We’ve been compiling a list of ways to make money so she can keep helping the animals. Who was killed and by whom?”

  “The dead man was a cousin of Gabriel Lester’s. We don’t know who the killer is at this stage, so it’s best if we all stay home for now.”

  “Oh dear. This is awful.”

  “I’ll make us tea, but please don’t let it upset you too much. Brodie insists that the killer won’t be hanging around. It looks like it was a grudge that is now resolved.” Jess didn’t believe this, but she was worried about the small woman who was still awfully pale.

  “Well, I sure hope he’s right about that.”

  Jess made them tea and placed a muffin in front of Amy, which did the trick of perking her up.

  “I knew you had been baking. Your house always smells wonderful these days.”

  Jess smiled. It was true that her mom’s potions did not always have the best odor and often it lingered around the cottage. “Thank you. I hope you like the muffin. How did you get on with Daphne and the list of things to help the farm survive?”

  Amy wiped her mouth with a napkin then shook her head sadly. “Not so good. It’s a very short list.”

  “What did you decide?”

  “I suggested a bake sale, but then had to backtrack quickly in case Daphne wanted to contribute, which she would. I told her that everyone is so busy, but then she waved away the whole idea. She hates handouts as you know.”

  Jess had blanched at the mention of Daphne’s cooking. She made coffee better than a professional, but baking was not her forte. “As much as I feel guilty about it, I agree with you about the bake sale.”

  “Everyone would, dear. Daphne can’t bake worth a darn, but she does make good coffee.”

  “Hmmm.” Jess’s mind ticked over, clutching at, and discarding every idea. All except for coffee. Daphne roasted her own beans and sold them to a couple of regular local clients including the diner. It was the best coffee Jess had ever tasted, so that made it a winner, but how could they get the word out about it that didn’t cost an arm and a leg in advertising? “Anything else on the list?”

  “We could sell blood?” Amy said with a shrug.

  “No!” A shame-faced Maestro slunk under the table.

  Amy frowned and glanced around the room. “Did you hear anything, dear?”

  “Only my gasp of horror,” Jess faked a grin. “I’m a fainter and I’m not sure we have enough blood collectively to be of much use.”

  Amy sighed. “You’re probably right. Do you have any flashes of brilliance?”

  “I do have a couple of ideas and one would flow on from the other. First, if we could get the town behind the project, which is for a good cause, what about a baking competition?”

  Amy clapped her hands. “Yes! That would be perfect. We could charge an entry fee and...” Her face fell. “We’re back to the same problem. How will we tell Daphne she can’t enter?”

  “We don’t.”

  “But who will want to test her baking?” Amy shuddered. “Not me, that’s for sure.”

  Jess laughed. “We’ll make Daphne a judge. She can’t enter if she’s judging, can she?”

  “Ohhh. You are so clever.” Amy clapped her hands. “That will work. She loves to be in charge.”

  “Do you think she’ll go along with it and not rule it out as charity?”

  “She’ll take it much better if you explain things rather than if I did. Especially after you solved the crime of the murdered developer you found on her land.”

  “Okay,” Jess said dubiously. “I do have a second idea to piggy-back on the competition. Daphne could run a coffee booth. If people are trying food or watching they’ll want coffee, right?”

  The clapping resumed. “Oh yes!”

  “It would have the dual purpose to serve as advertising for the future too.”

  Amy nodded enthusiastically. “It’s such a shame we don’t have a proper coffee shop in Good Fortune.”

  “Not yet.” The words slipped out but saying them gave Jess a buzz she hadn’t had in a long while. Could this be the start of something she was longing for?

  “I like your optimism, dear. Unfortunately Good Fortune is not a big town, so the customer base is limited. Someone tried not long ago but they failed and the cafe closed. To be honest, even though they bought Daphne’s beans, they simply never got it right. Sometimes the beans were burnt and often the coffee was cold.”

  They both shuddered. The diner had a similar track record. There was no refuting that a good barista could make or break a cafe.

  “Hmmm,” Jess chewed her bottom lip for a moment. “Do you think it could have worked if they had someone else making the drinks?”

  “Oh, dear me, no! The food was awful too.” The bright blue eyes twinkled mischievously. “If I didn’t know better I would have sworn that Daphne had a hand in it.”

  Jess snorted. “You are a terrible woman.”

  “I know, but it’s okay now and again between friends to say honestly what’s on your mind, right?”

  It was almost a challenge which Jess declined. Whatever Amy wanted to share next was anyone’s guess, but Jess thought a bit of restraint would do the woman good. “I should start dinner. Would you like to take a muffin home?” It was the best Jess could muster, other than drag Amy to the door.

  “How kind.” Amy stood and took the muffin Jess had wrapped in a napkin. “I do love your baking.” Her eyes suddenly widened. “Oh dear, you won’t enter will you? It would be impossible to beat you.”

  Jess chuckled. “That’s nice of you to say, but I thought if I organize it, I could be a judge too.”

  “Oh I do think that is best for everyone. Well I’ll let you figure out how to approach Daphne while I try out a few recipes. I could use some practice. Good luck.”

  “Thanks so much.” Jess said dryly. “Please stay safe.”

  “Don’t you worry about me.” Amy winked. “I don’t have any enemies.”

  Jess wasn’t sure that was true, but certainly no one could dislike the woman badly enough to kill her. Though Daphne had looked capable a few times—like when Amy told everyone of her financial woes.

  Maestro slunk out from under the table and stretched. “Good grief, I thought she would never leave.”

  “You and me both.”

  He eyed her for a moment. “May I make an observation?”

  “I suspect you will anyway.”

  “Well, I have mentioned it before, but you do have a lot on your plate right now.”

  “You mean the muffins?”

  His eye roll was precious. “Hilarious. I mean taking on another business would be hard.”

  She hesitated. “I didn’t say I was going to.”

  “But you want to.”

  “I do,” she said softly, and for once he let her be. Albeit not for very long.

  “You might like to know that Gabriel has just left his house and is about to get in his car.”

  Jess hurried to the front window. “I wonder where he’s off to?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Now is a good opportunity to get back inside his house and find some evidence.”

  “I guess it is, but we don’t know how long he’ll be gone.”

  “Even more reason to get over there ASAP.”

  “Easy for you to say. He’s not likely to arrest a cat for trespassing, is he?”

  Maestro simply stared at her.

  “Fine. I’ll go.” Jess would love to wipe the smug look off his face, but was determined to get along with him for her mother’s sake.

  The best laid plans…

  Chapter

  Eighteen

  Jess waited until Gabriel drove off. She couldn’t follow him as her car was far too obvious, but she did need more information and Brodie wasn’t sharing. Maestro’s suggestion to go back into the house, while it didn’t fill her with enthusiasm, was the soundest.

  Lissa called her from the back door. “This is the best option for now, darling,” she assured her. “We don’t know how long he’ll be, but we might not get another chance to search for it. I’ll meet you there.”

  Reluctantly, Jess headed down the garden a little way. Climbing over the low part of the fence, and with a feeling of deja vu, she ran up the path and reached for the key hidden on a ledge. With a sigh of relief that it was still there she pushed the key into the lock and turned. Being a small town, Good Fortune was perceived as not having much of a theft problem and perhaps her new neighbor was banking on that. The key turned, proving that Gabriel hadn’t changed the locks.

  Taking this as a good sign, Jess slipped inside and squealed as something brushed her leg. “Maestro,” she hissed. “You frightened me.”

  “I can’t think why,” he said innocently, though his eyes twinkled. “As if I would let you come here alone.”

  “Hmmm. Since I scoured the main bedroom, I think we should start in his office. I know he was expecting files that he urgently needed in the delivery, but I never saw them.”

  They crept through the house, though Lissa assured them it was empty. All the furniture was now in place. It could not be said that it was fully furnished—unless Gabriel liked the less is more look.

  The dining room boasted a small table with two chairs. The lounge had a sofa, a cabinet with an extra-large television perched on it, and a small bookcase, full of stockbroker’s books. After a quick perusal of a couple of them, Jess decided that they weren’t something that would ever be on her to-read list and certainly wouldn’t grace her bedside table.

  “It looks rather sad,” Lissa said as she shimmered around the rooms.

  Jess nodded, noticing that her gift from the store sat beside the television. It appeared to be untouched. So much for getting rid of the musty smell.

  They continued down the hall past the master bedroom. The next room was small and empty. The last room looked out over the back lawn which badly needed mowing. Beyond this were fields and this was the same view as Jess’s outlook from her cottage. A white desk sat in front of the window, exactly where Jess would have it if she lived here, and it gave her the urge to redo her own bedroom. A medium-sized filing cabinet was in the corner and the only other furniture was a large black chair. It looked very comfortable.

  “Focus,” Maestro said sharply.

  “We need to work together, so don’t start with the snarkiness, okay?”

  He nodded slightly. “I shall try my best.”

  Jess snuck a wink at her mother. “I just had a thought. Would Gabriel have personal stuff in his office?”

  Maestro shrugged. “Even after all my years, I don’t really understand humans attachments to things. Therefore, I have no idea.”

  Lissa smiled, wondering again how old her familiar was and how many Lavender witches he had trained. “We usually keep things we cherish like photos, jewelry or mementos close so we can look at them when we want to.”

  “And what you’re looking for would be deemed as cherished?”

  “Now that is a good question,” Jess answered him. “Finding something that tells us about his relationship with his cousin would be helpful. For all we know information on Frank might have been cherished at one stage, even though they were very much at loggerheads over something.”

  “Meaning anything he might still have would not be categorized this way?”

  “Exactly.” Lissa agreed looking at Jess with something that suggested she was proud of her.

  Jess grinned stupidly. At her age you’d think she’d be over needing approval, but apparently not. “Since we don’t know either way, I think the hidden space in the window seat in his bedroom would be a good start for our search and that’s where I found the book. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to check out the whole thing.”

  “Very well.” Maestro scampered ahead to wait while she opened the lid.

  The blanket was gone. Jess grinned at what she saw in its place.

  Maestro jumped on the bed to peer over her shoulder. “What is it?”

  “Photos and a scrapbook.” Lissa crowed from her other side.

  Jess pulled the scrapbook out first and sat back on her heels. “I feel guilty. This is a terrible invasion of privacy.”

  “Of course it is, but it’s a means to an end,” Lissa said gently. “It’s all part of what we do to help people.”

  Maestro merely stared pointedly at the book.

  With a sigh she opened it to the first page. It was a newspaper clipping she’d seen before online. She flicked through the book. “These are all about Gabriel’s rise through the ranks in the stockbroking world. I guess they must have their own magazine for stockbroking success.”

  Maestro yawned. “Sounds boring.”

  She snickered. “To most of us that is true. To them I should imagine it would prove how good they are to prospective clients.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes!” Jess stabbed a finger at one of the last clippings. “Look. There was a scandal and this is a picture of Frank Lester and another man who does not look happy. It says that Frank Lester took information from one Gabriel Lester and sold it to another man who lost everything.”

  “Who is this man?”

  “An Arnold Coombs, also from Portland.” Jess flicked over the last pages. “Look here’s his picture,” she said excitedly. The middle-aged man with a hefty frame stood beside a woman that the clipping said was his wife. They were at a charity event and dressed to the nines. Another man in a suit—that was interesting. What did losing everything mean to people like them?

  “Do you know him?” Maestro asked seriously.

  Jess snorted. “Just because I lived there for years doesn’t mean I knew many people, and I certainly had nothing to do with the stock market. With what my boss at the bakery paid me, I didn’t have too much disposable income as you know.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Fine, we get it. Life wasn’t so good. Let’s get back to how this information helps us?”

  “For a start, we should find out if Arnold was anywhere near Good Fortune at the time of the shooting.”

  Lissa nodded encouragingly. “How do you propose to do that, dear?”

  “I guess we look up his details first.”

  “If this man is indeed the killer, you must be very careful not to bring his anger back onto you,” her mother warned.

  “Good point. I hadn’t considered that.” The last thing Jess wanted was for the killer to turn his attention to her or someone she knew. “Perhaps now is a good time to talk to Brodie. Only, what can I say about how I came across the new information?”

  “You can hardly confess that you broke into Gabriel’s house,” Maestro noted.

  “Not without ending up in jail.” Absently, Jess spread out the photos on the bed. They were a collection of Gabriel’s graduation and achievements as well as a small portrait of Gabriel and what must be his parents. Jess smiled. “They look happy.”

  “What a lovely picture,” Lissa agreed.

  “You can see a family resemblance here with Frank,” Jess noted before carefully pushing the pictures together and laying the scrapbook on the top. She studied it for a second, thinking that it looked the same as when she had opened it. Satisfied, she closed the lid. “We don’t know when Gabriel will return, so I don’t think we should stay much longer.”

  All in agreement they retraced their steps. They weren’t home long before Gabriel’s car pulled up next door. He got out with a couple of supermarket bags and headed inside.

  “That was lucky,” Jess muttered as she peered through the side window. Collecting her coat and bag, still not sure how she was going to tackle this, she set off to see Brodie.

  As she left the house she saw red tail lights disappear around the corner ahead and heard the squeal of brakes. A horrible smell hit her. Was it just the burning of rubber on the road from hooligans, or perhaps someone in a hurry because they were late? Or was it something more sinister?

  Chapter

  Nineteen

  Jess had never walked so fast in her life and she arrived at the station a little breathless. It always seemed silly to get out the car when it was only a five-minute walk, but that was before the murder.

 

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