Death Quixote (A Paranormal Cozy Mystery) (Magical Bookshop Mystery Book 4) Read online

  There were no lights out the back, and I fumbled around with my phone for a little bit, trying to get the flashlight to turn on. It shone onto a flattened, old bike box made darker by the rain that had been falling lightly all day; the back alley was always filled with discarded old boxes, abandoned beer cans drunk people had been too lazy to take to the nearest recycling bin and random dirt.. I focused the light on the easy dumpster latch–if you were a human and knew how it worked, it was crazy simple to work–and when the bag was safely in the dumpster, I turned back around and flashed the light directly on a dead body.

  “Uhhhhh, Cat, is that what I think it is?” I asked as my blood ran cold. Hopefully it was just some guy passed out for the night. After all, that was completely possible. He wore a Superman costume, complete with a big letter ‘S’ on the front, a red cape, and a mask that shielded his face.

  “Oh my God!” Cat exclaimed, making her way toward the guy.

  “Please tell me he’s just drunk and passed out,” I said, but I already knew better. The man’s chest wasn’t moving at all. He was definitely dead. Cat shook her head as she checked for a pulse, which confirmed my fear.

  “Do you think he died of alcohol poisoning?” I asked. “Or maybe drugs? Fentanyl’s a big thing these days, and he looks like he was at a party.”

  “No,” Cat said. “No, this guy didn’t come from a party. This was Sapphire Sam.”

  “Who?” I asked, confused.

  “Let’s go inside, call Chase, and I’ll tell you all about him,” Cat said, and I nodded. I was very happy to get away from the body as soon as possible. We made our way into the building while I called my boyfriend.

  “Hey, sweet cheeks,” he greeted me. “What’s up?”

  “Sorry, Chase. This isn’t exactly a social call. There’s a body in the alley behind Cat’s shop.”

  “Damn, really?”

  “Yup. We were just taking out some trash when we found the body.”

  “I’ll be there soon. Don’t touch anything, but did it look suspicious at all?”

  “Like, did he have a hole through the front of his head? No, nothing like that. I figured it was someone who partied a bit too hard, but Cat tells me it’s someone named Sapphire Sam. She hasn’t told me who that is yet though.”

  “Well that’s a bit troubling,” Chase said. “Thanks. I’ll be there soon.”

  I hung up the phone and made my way toward Cat, who was busy whipping up some frosting for a batch of cupcakes she’d made that afternoon.

  “Busy hands?” I asked.

  “More like there’s going to be a bunch of hungry hands here soon,” she replied. “The least we can offer the people who are going to spend the whole night looking over a dead body is some food.”

  “Good idea,” I replied, picking up a piping bag and putting some of the icing into it. “Now, who’s this Sapphire Sam?”

  “He’s a local guy, he’s lived here his whole life. He has a few mental health issues, but nothing serious enough for him to be able to get decent help for them from the state. I don’t know the details, but I know that he’s been taken away a couple of times and then just dropped back onto the streets. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s on the autism spectrum. No one knows where he’s from; he doesn’t seem to have any family. At least, not in the area. The community makes sure he always has a place to live, and he goes around wearing that costume and pretending to be a superhero.”

  “Really?” I asked, incredulous.

  “Yeah. I mean, sure, a lot of the time all he does is annoy drunk people trying to get it on in the park at night, but he actually has managed to scare away some thieves. In the summer, with all the expensive mountain bikes around here, we tend to get a handful of people who come up from the city and steal the easy-to-find bikes. The cops leave bait bikes around and that sort of thing, but last year Sam actually managed to record a video of a guy breaking into a shed, stealing a bike and driving off. The video caught the truck’s license plate number, the guy was arrested, and they found fifty stolen bikes in the guy’s garage that were reunited with their proper owners.”

  “Wow,” I said, stealing a zebra cupcake topped with black and white icing from the pile and taking it for myself. “It sounds like Sam was a good guy.”

  Cat nodded. “He definitely was. I mean sure, the cops didn’t exactly like that he snuck around the residential neighborhoods at night looking for criminals. But for the most part he just pretended to be a superhero and didn’t actually do very much. It’s not like he was going around actually solving crime, he was mainly just pretending to be Batman.”

  “Still, if he was sneaking around at night, maybe he came across something that someone didn’t want him to see?” I offered.

  “It might have been something like that,” Cat admitted. “After all, I have no idea who else would have wanted to kill him.”

  Suddenly, she slammed her fist on the table, and I jumped. Cat was very rarely actually angry about things. “Damn it. Sam was a good guy. He didn’t come by here often, but whenever I saw him at the front of the store I’d make sure someone took him out a cupcake. He didn’t deserve to die like this.”

  “I’m sorry, Cat,” I said to my cousin quietly. She nodded.

  “If it turns out this is murder, we have to find out who did this,” she said.

  “Well, Chase will do that for sure.”

  “I know, but we need to help. Chase is only one person, and he’s limited by not having magic at his disposal. If it turns out that this wasn’t a natural death, I don’t want whoever did this to Sam to get away with it. Whoever did it had to have killed him between three-forty, when I last went out to the back of the shop, and now, at eight-fifteen.”

  Before I had a chance to respond there was a knock at the front door, and I made my way over there to let Chase in. As soon as I set eyes on his tall, muscular frame, my heart skipped a beat. His brown hair was messy–he’d probably just settled in for the night when I called him–and he was dressed casually in slacks and a polo. Despite the serious expression on his face, his cheekbones still gave his face a gorgeous, chiselled look that made me want to reach up and kiss him.

  “Hey,” he said when I opened the door, all business. “Can you show me the body?”

  “Yeah,” I nodded, turning around as Chase followed me inside. We went into the back room, and Chase nodded to Cat, who did the same back.

  “Do you want me out there too?” she asked, and Chase shook his head.

  “No, it should be fine for now, thanks. I’ll come back in and take your statements later.”

  Cat nodded and went back to her cupcakes. I had a feeling it wasn’t so much for the first responders that she was doing them so much as for herself. She seemed really rattled by Sam’s death.

  Before I had a chance to turn on my phone flashlight, Chase had pulled out a heavy-duty cop one, and shone it on the ground. “He’s over there,” I said, motioning to where the body was. Chase made his way over, checked for a pulse, and then sighed.

  “Yup, definitely dead. Did you two touch anything?”

  I shook my head. “No. Well, Cat checked to see if he was still alive, and we touched the dumpster over there, but that’s all,” I said.

  “Good,” Chase told me. “I’m going to go get some police tape from the car, and do some preliminary work out here while I wait for some extra staff and for the coroner to get here from the city. Do you mind waiting with Cat in the shop for a while until I can take your statements?”

  “Sure,” I replied. “We’ll be in there when you’re ready. Cat’s making cupcakes for all your crew as well, if you want to let them know.”

  “Thanks,” Chase nodded, and I went back in to help my cousin.

  Chapter 3

  Two hours later Cat and I had finished decorating the cupcakes, and she’d even let me help as she started making the rest of the batches for tomorrow, figuring she could come in to work late tomorrow if she did them all now.

&nbs
p; As I carefully spooned exactly the right amount of batter into one of the last remaining cupcake pans, Chase came in through the back door. Red and blue lights reflected off him as he made his way inside; I assumed there would now be a nice crowd built up outside trying to see what was going on.

  “Was he murdered?” I asked when Chase came in, and I got a wry smile in response.

  “What makes you think that?”

  I shrugged. “Nothing, really.”

  “So you didn’t notice the bike lock next to him?”

  “I realize that you’re a former marine, and that this sort of thing is normal to you, but no, I was definitely only focused on the dead body. Why?”

  “Well, he was strangled with the bike lock.”

  “Seriously?” Cat asked, her face sombre. She shook her head. “What kind of monster would do that to someone like Sam?”

  Chase sighed. “I know. I was always worried something like this would happen to him. I saw him a couple of weeks ago while doing rounds and I asked him to stop, but he just wouldn’t. He said he had to save Sapphire Village from the bad guys, and that he could handle himself. I told him that he didn’t have any training, and that I was a professional, and we had bait bikes out and were doing a whole bunch of other things to prevent crime in Sapphire Village, but I never got through to him.”

  I put my hand on Chase’s arm; it was obvious that this death had hit close to home for him as well.

  “It feels like the town’s little kid brother has just been killed,” Cat said. “Do me a favor, and find whoever did this, will you?”

  “I guarantee you I’ll do my best,” Chase said, pulling out his notebook. “Now, let me take a full statement from you ladies, and I’ll let you get on for the night.”

  Twenty minutes later, Cat and I had explained exactly what had happened, Chase wrote it all down and Cat gave him a key to the store so that he and all the other emergency workers could come and go as they needed to that night, as well as get the cupcakes Cat had left out for all of them before they left.

  A few onlookers meandered around the building as we left, but most of the people who had come to see what the excitement was all about had left. I assumed everyone in town knew Sapphire Sam was dead; news definitely traveled fast here. And it wasn’t like there was much to see from the front of the store; the body was in the alley, and the cops had completely cordoned it off.

  It was now definitely night time, and by the time we walked past Pickles’ Pizza, they’d closed for the night. It was now after ten o’clock.

  “Should we hit up The Avalanche instead?” I asked, motioning to the popular bar a few doors down the street. “I could definitely use a drink.”

  “Same here,” Cat agreed, and we made our way into the bar. The music was loud, but not so loud that we couldn’t have a conversation, and the two of us slipped into a booth at the far end of the bar. Cat waved at one of the waitresses, obviously knowing her, and I started to look at the menu. The cupcake I’d eaten hours ago was all I’d eaten the whole day, and I only realized after sitting down that I was ravenously hungry.

  “So it was murder after all,” I said to Cat after the waitress came by and took our orders.

  “It was,” Cat said solemnly. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Who do you think it could have been?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that since Chase told you about the bike lock he was strangled with. Maybe it was a message? After all, that was one of the main things Sapphire Sam managed to do, was stop bike thieves. I wouldn’t be surprised if he came across a gang of them or something, and they found him and strangled him.”

  I nodded. “Ok, so in that case we have to figure out who in Portland is coming up here and stealing bikes.”

  “Which of course means doing a lot of late-night stake-outs, which also increases the odds of The Others coming back after us.”

  I felt my stomach drop at Cat’s words, which were correct. The Others were happiest in the dark, or around sunset, when there was no one else around. Sneaking around in the middle of the night looking for bike thieves would absolutely make us targets.

  Just then, our waitress came back, putting a big plate of burgers and fries in front of me and nachos in front of Cat. We’d decided to go for pub grub that night for sure.

  “Do you think they’re going to come back anytime soon?” I asked my cousin. After all, I’d only learned a couple of months ago that I was a witch. I had no idea how this magical world worked.

  “I have no idea,” Cat shrugged. The music in the bar was loud enough that we were able to speak freely without fear of being overheard by other patrons. “We’re really in uncharted territory here. I know that in the past we’ve been able to fend them off and prevent them from taking our souls. Not me, personally, but I know they came for my mom a few years after they came for yours, and she managed to drive them off so that they stopped, but no one that we know has ever managed to actually kill one of them before. Or at least, whatever you did. Destroy them, anyway.”

  “Great, so I’ve annoyed the weird dementors,” I muttered. “That’s good work by me.”

  “Well, otherwise you’d probably be dead now,” Cat replied. “And besides, you’re the first one to have figured out how to actually defeat them for good. And you’re such a powerful witch, my bet is you might be instrumental to defeating them forever.”

  I shuddered at the idea of facing The Others again. I’d seen them a few times now, and it was absolutely not a pleasant experience.

  “Maybe. I’m really not that good though. I mean, I might have a bit of natural ability, but you’ve been doing it your whole life. I can’t teleport like you. Or ride a broom.”

  “Yeah, but when it really counts, your magic is stronger than mine. I’m happy to admit that. It might save all of us one day.”

  Just then the waitress that Cat had waved to on the way in stopped by our table. “Cat! I haven’t seen you in forever.”

  “Hey, Becky! How’s life?”

  “Oh, you know, same ol’, same ol’. Telling drunk people they can’t have any more booze at night, then mountain biking during the day. How about you? I heard they found a body behind your store tonight.”

  Cat nodded. “Yeah.”

  “Was it really Sapphire Sam?”

  Cat didn’t need to answer for Becky to know the truth; her face said it all. “Oh,” she said sadly. “What awful news that is.”

  “It sure is,” I chimed in.

  “He came here, from time to time. To be totally honest, I’m pretty sure the bouncers here hated him. He’d stand outside the bar and watch for drunk guys trying to take advantage of women, and then follow them when they tried to make the moves, while yelling at them. I actually thought it was quite good of him. He’d also walk any women that were obviously completely plastered back home and make sure they got there safely.”

  “He sounds like he was a good guy,” I said. “I didn’t know him.”

  “You’re Cat’s cousin, the one who’s new to town, right?” Becky asked, and I nodded. “I can see the family resemblance,” she grinned. “He was a good guy. He definitely didn’t deserve to be murdered.”

  “Did you ever have problems with guys who didn’t like to be told off about taking advantage of drunk girls?” Cat asked.

  “Yeah, sometimes,” Becky said, nodding thoughtfully. “Actually, there was one just last week. Some idiot from the city was trying to get a girl to go home with him, she was trying to resist but way too drunk to really do anything about it. Sapphire Sam got in between them and the creep got a punch in the face for his trouble.”

  “Were the police called?” I asked.

  “No,” Becky replied. “Some of the bouncers wanted to call the cops, but the guy insisted that he was just going to go home. I figured he didn’t want to get picked up on drunk and disorderly, and the bouncers didn’t want Sapphire Sam to get nailed for assault. So they dropped it.”

  “Do you know who the g
uy was?” Cat asked. “I really want to catch the person who killed Sapphire Sam.”

  “Me too,” Becky said. “I don’t know the guy’s name, but I know he paid by credit card. If you promise to look into it, I’ll give you the list, but be subtle about it or I’ll get fired.”

  “I promise,” Cat replied. Becky nodded and made her way back to the front counter, looking furtively around her as she used the computer.

  “Well, that’s the least subtle looking thing ever,” I said to Cat, motioning with my head to Becky.

  Cat laughed when she saw how guilty Becky looked. “Great. I’ll go over there and talk to her.”

  “I’m stealing your nachos when you leave!” I joked.

  “I will cut you,” Cat threatened, and I laughed as I took another bite of burger while thinking about what we’d just learned. It seemed that Sapphire Sam had done a decent amount of good in this town, but in doing so he made a lot of enemies. Maybe one of them wasn’t happy just letting things go.

  Chapter 4

  I woke up the next day feeling stiff and sore, presumably from my run-in with Cat on the broomstick.

  “I don’t know why witches insist on being able to fly,” I said to Muffin, the grey tabby who was currently sitting in the bedroom doorway, meowing that he was hungry and hadn’t been fed. “It’s extremely painful. My back is killing me.”

  I made my way to the kitchen and put some food in Muffin’s bowl before pouring myself a bowl of cereal, then I wandered downstairs into the bookshop that I ran and got ready for the day.

  Magical Books was a shop that had belonged to my Aunt Francine–whose ghost was probably hanging around somewhere–until she died after being targeted by The Others, choosing to end her life herself rather than have her soul taken the way my biological mother had. The family decided to get me to come over and run the bookshop after her death, thinking that leaving me in Miami where I would be isolated and exposed to The Others would be too dangerous.

  I’d had absolutely no idea how to run a bookshop, but I’d grown to love this place. It wasn’t filled with traditional bestsellers, but rather a vampire from Europe supplied me with many first edition, leather-bound and other fancy versions of some of the greatest works in literature. I had updated a lot of the books that we kept in store–there were now copies of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, A Song of Ice and Fire, Angels and Demons, The Hunger Games and other newer bestsellers in the store, alongside Don Quixote, The Canterbury Tales and Dante’s Inferno, but I still made sure that it kept its rustic charm.