Pet Psychic Mysteries Boxset Books 5-8 (Magic Market Mysteries Book 2) by Erin Johnson (reading diary .TXT) 📗

Peter sniffed. “Not after what Madeline told us. He may be innocent of murder, but it sounds like we should be asking him about fraud and a host of other crimes.”

I grinned. “We’re on our way to arrest Opal?”

Peter nodded.

I smirked. “Probably won’t look too good in front of whatever family she has staying with her.”

28

Sisters

Peter, Daisy, and I crowded together on Opal Whitaker’s stoop. Peter pounded on the door again.

“Police! Open up!”

I grinned, and he frowned. “What?”

I shrugged. “You just sound so—commanding.”

“I am a police officer.” He lifted his nose, and I smirked. Of course I knew he was, it’s just he was usually so mild mannered. I hadn’t seen the “open up! Police!” side of him before.

He drew his wand. That had been our third attempt, and it looked like it was about to get real. He extended his arm, ushering Daisy and I down the steps a few paces. “Stand back.” He leveled his wand at the red door and muttered a few words of a spell.

The door shuddered, then blew open, banged against the wall, and swung back and forth a few times. Peter stormed in, the tip of his wand glowing. “Opal Whitaker, you’re under arrest for—”

Daisy and I raced inside behind him, then stopped short and froze.

Opal Whitaker lay slumped in her clear glass chair, a trickle of foam oozing from the corner of her mouth, eyes wide and unseeing. Her arm hung limply at her side with a spilled glass of white wine right below her hand. I turned quickly away, and Daisy whined.

Smells like death.

I whined back at her, my stomach tight. No doy, Daisy. I was still not used to dead bodies.

Peter grunted a little and edged closer to her body. I sneaked a peek and found him pressing his fingers to the side of Opal’s pale, bluish throat. I quickly looked away.

“She’s gone. Poisoned, by the looks of it.”

I curled my lip. “Remind me to never buy a Potent Potion. Way too many poisonings for my liking.”

“I’m going to check the rest of the house.” Peter jogged upstairs, his footsteps sounding overhead.

Daisy sniffed around, her nose twitching.

I glanced behind me and found her nearing the body. I huffed. Ew, Daisy.

She huffed back. It’s my job, you baby.

I growled. You don’t have to enjoy it so much. I glanced over my shoulder and woofed. Does her body “reek of lies” like her sister’s did?

Daisy bared her teeth. No. Just death.

My stomach turned. Great.

Peter quickly rejoined us.

“Nothing?”

He shook his head. “I called in the murder to the station. I found sheets crumpled in the guest bedroom—she definitely had someone staying with her, but no one’s up there.”

I frowned. “Think her guest took her out?”

Peter looked around the room, brows pinched. He let out a little sigh, and his shoulders slumped.

“What?”

He stalked across the space into the kitchen and lifted two sacks emblazoned with an insurance company’s logo. “Well, the merkles from the life insurance payout appear to be gone.”

I raised a brow. “So maybe their whole family is as messed-up as Pearl and Opal and a crazy aunt saw the opportunity to make a cash grab, or something?”

“That’d be quite the coincidence.” Peter scratched at the scruff on the side of his cheek and paced. “Ralph’s in jail, Pearl’s dead, and now Opal, too. Who’d want them all dead?”

I shrugged. “Could’ve been anyone with a beef with the company.” I smirked. “Which is apparently half the island.”

Peter shook his head. “But who’d benefit most from Pearl’s death?”

I scoffed. “Aside from her sister, who clearly collected a hefty life insurance policy?”

Peter nodded and paced, agitated. “The money’s been taken. Who else would have known about the payout?”

I shrugged. “Maybe it was just a coincidence. Like I said, a corrupt family member saw an opportunity and seized it.”

Peter clicked his tongue. “I don’t know. I had a weird feeling about whoever was staying with Opal. It seemed like she didn’t want us to go upstairs.”

I frowned as I thought about it. I’d felt the same way. Who would Opal have wanted to keep us from seeing? Ralph jumped to mind, especially since the pig had told us he had a predilection for affairs (even if I’d been wrong about him having one with Avery Ann). But Ralph was in jail—he couldn’t have been here the other night.

Daisy had sensed Opal was telling the truth when she said family was staying with her. Technically, Avery Ann would have been some kind of illegitimate niece to Opal, but I could see no reason for her to be hiding the girl. And as far as we knew, none of our other suspects were related to them. I bit my lip, lost deep in thought.

It seemed most likely that Pearl and Opal had a relative just as conniving and greedy as they were who’d seized the opportunity to kill Opal and steal the life insurance payout. But why had Opal seemed like she was hiding this family member from us? And what were the chances they had another family member as shady as the sisters themselves?

Icy dread crept in at the edges, my stomach seizing as a thought trickled in. I whirled on Peter. “You said, who’d benefit most from Pearl’s death?”

He startled. “Yeah…?”

My chest heaved as my thoughts raced. “That’s it!”

A light flashed in his eyes and he stepped closer. “You have it?”

I nodded. “I think so….”

29

Solved

“Talk it through with me. What if it was Pearl herself staying with Opal?”

Peter looked at me like I needed help. “Pearl’s dead, Jolene.”

I arched a brow, growing more confident as I thought it through. “What if she isn’t, though? What if she faked her own death.” Opal had been first on the body. “Her sister helped her.”

I snapped my fingers and turned to the bewildered German shepherd who was watching me, head cocked. “That’s why her body smelled of lies—she wasn’t really dead!”

Peter ran his tongue over his teeth, brow pinched. “How would she