Casting Spells by Barbara Bretton Page B

First” riff.
    “So do you want to open it for me or just toss me the key.”
    “Why go in there at all until it’s cleaned up? You’ll need a gas mask.”
    “I want to take some measurements.”
    “Planning to hang curtains, are you?”
    Her friends laughed and she seemed pleased, which pissed me off.
    “Montpelier is sending down some furniture.”
    “Nice to know our tax dollars are being put to good use.” She swung toward her red-haired friend. “Kick me one more time, Meany, and so help me ...”
    The redhead stood up and extended her hand to me. “Janice Meany. I own the hair salon across the street.”
    “Luke MacKenzie.” I glanced toward Chloe then back again. “You probably already know my name.”
    We shook hands.
    No sparks.
    The brunette was named Lynette Pendragon. She and her husband owned and operated the community theater I’d noticed on my drive through town.
    No sparks there either.
    And there had been no sparks with Paul at the hardware store or with Martha the mail carrier. The only sparks had been with Chloe, giant sparks that made me think of the Fourth of July. My palm still burned from them.
    Chloe unfolded herself from her chair and plucked the key from the corkboard for the second time that day. She tossed it to me and I pocketed it.
    “I cleared a spot for you in the storage room,” she said. “You can set up whenever you want to.”
    “Do you have a fax machine I can use?”
    She pointed toward a setup in the corner.
    “And a high-speed connection.”
    “The connection is wireless but not all that fast. I’ll give you the password.”
    “One more thing,” I said as I turned to leave. “I’ll need a list of everyone who was here the night Suzanne Marsden died.”
    “I was giving a workshop that evening so some of them were out-of-towners.”
    “Addresses, phone numbers, e-mails?”
    “No problem.”
    “Are the locals available for questioning?”
    She gestured over her shoulder. “The locals are sitting right there.”
    Janice and Lynette winked and waved at me.
    “I have an opening tomorrow between eleven and twelve,” Janice said. “I can talk and give you a haircut at the same time.”
    Lynette whipped out a planner bulging with inserts, Post-its, and index cards that sprayed across the table when she opened it. “Before nine in the morning or after ten at night,” she said, “except on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays between now and New Year’s Day.”
    “They’re staging A Christmas Carol at the playhouse,” Janice explained.
    “My fifteenth year as Mrs. Fezziwig,” Lynette said with obvious pride. “We open Saturday night. I’ll leave a pair of tickets for you at the box office. You can bring your wife or significant other.”
    I thanked her and sidestepped the veiled marital status question.
    “What’s the problem?” I asked Chloe, who was glaring in the general direction of her dark-haired friend. “She’s being friendly, not offering me a bribe.”
    “You’re a cop. I thought you weren’t supposed to accept freebies.”
    “Until that paperwork you mentioned comes through, I’m just a random tourist.”
    “If you’re just a random tourist, why should I give you the names and addresses of my customers?”
    We locked eyes. “You must be one hell of a chess player.”
    “I play Scrabble.”
    “Listen, I—”
    “I shouldn’t have—”
    We laughed and some of the tension in the shop evaporated.
    “You first,” I said.
    “We got off to a bad start,” she said. “How about we declare a truce and start over again.”
    “Sounds like a plan.”
    We shook for the second time that day, and just like the first time, silver-white sparks leaped into the air between us.
    “Next time we’d better ground ourselves first,” I said, my right palm crackling from the static electricity.
    Chloe laughed but her two friends didn’t.
    Something had changed in the room. It was as if the molecules had rearranged themselves into a pattern that