Free magical cures 07 - a charming fatality by tonya kappes

Charming Cure.

Chapter Ten
     
    “I swear I don’t know anything about it.” I bit my lip and glanced over Oscar’s shoulder to get a better look at the dead body of Burt Rossen. Someone had shot him dead.
    “All I know is that woman was over there doing some sort of voodoo crap in the corner with that snow globe glowing and this place with filled with smoke. Lots of smoke.” The security guard’s fat finger was pointing at me.
    “I was not doing voodoo.” I had to shut that train of thought down quickly. The last thing I needed was any type of rumors running around about me, though he was sort of right. “I’m the owner of this product and I wanted to make sure all the bottles were completely filled before they were shipped.”
    “And you were in here with that, that, and him.” He pointed to Madame Torres, Mr. Prince Charming who was too busy cleaning himself to help me out. . .some fairy-god cat. And he gestured to the dead body. “I came in here, cleared the smoke and shut down the machine.” The guard took his hat off and shook his head. He leaned in and whispered more toward Oscar’s way, “I don’t know how that cat did it, but he jumped up on the machine and hit the on button with his tail. If it weren’t for him, this woman would’ve left and Mr. Rossen, God bless his soul, wouldn’t have been found until Pearl started her shift.”
    “Pearl? Pearl!” I snapped my fingers. My intuition told me Pearl was the name of the woman I had met this morning and who really wanted my bottles to be used and not the cheap ones. “Yes. Pearl would know me.”
    “Then I called the sheriff’s department with this baby pointed at her the whole time.” The security guard patted the billy club on his belt. “She tried to talk her way out of this, but I know a witch when I see one.”
    “Witch?” Oscar’s eyes drew. “You believe in witches?”
    “Hell, no, but I’ve seen plenty of people do some weirdo things and she was doing some weirdo things.” The guard’s mouth pinched as did his eyes when he looked my way.
    “Did you see this woman pick up Mr. Rossen and put him on the conveyor belt?” Oscar asked. The man shook his head. “Did you see her knock him on the head with whatever blunt object caused the gash on his head?”
    “Um . . .no.” As the coroner rolled Burt Rossen’s body, the guard watched, his face flushed, turning white.
    “Then I’d say leave all the speculation to the sheriff’s department.” Oscar nodded and excused himself, tugging on the sleeve of my shirt to follow him.
    In the corner of the packing room, Oscar decided to question me.
    “What in the world are you doing here?” His eyes held a questioning stare. He was able to drown out the world around us, but I wasn’t.
    “I was going to tell you earlier, but then the whole wedding thing.” I rolled my eyes.
    “What are you doing here?” His voice more demanding this time.
    “Burt had decided, against my contract, that he was going to use a different bottle than the ones I had sent.” I lifted my brows and slowly moved my head forward.
    “The magic is in the bottles?” Oscar had never really asked how I got the magic in the new line for Head To Toe Works and it was an unspoken rule not to question how another spiritualist used their gift.
    “Yes.” I sucked in a deep breath and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “That is how the stress free lotion will work. The lotion is all the homeopathic herbs, but when the recipient touches my bottle, not the fake plastic one, their touch activates the right ingredient they need for their specific stress.”
    “Burt didn’t use your bottles?” He was putting two and two together.
    “When I came in to work this morning, they had these bottles going through the assembly line, squirting my lotion into them.  I refused to let them continue to bottle my lotion in the cheap non-magical bottles.” My head jerked when I heard the shriek of Tiffany Rossen.
    She was