Read Online The Witching on the Wall: A Cozy Mystery (The Witchy Women of Coven Grove Book 1) by Constance Barker - Free Book Online Page A

Bailey’s arm. “You know it’s okay to not be okay, right?”
    “ I’m really fine,” Bailey assured him, as earnestly as she could manage. “It was terrible, of course, and scary but… I can’t just dwell on it. I’m moving forward.”
    “ By hiding in here?” Piper asked, grimacing as though she expected Bailey to snap at her in response.
    Piper wasn’t always like that. Things must have been getting worse at home. Bailey sighed, and put her sandwich down, and tucked hair behind her ears. “I’m concerned about what it’s going to do to the town. And about Martha, and her getting justice. You saw the article, right? Eighty years since there was a murder in Coven Grove. I know that Sheriff Larson has a lot of experience, and I know he even has a masters in criminal justice—”
    “ Er, it’s a bachelor’s,” Avery corrected; he didn’t seem confident it would be enough.
    “ Well, whatever—he’s been the Sheriff for a long time but… well he’s a local, born and raised here. I’m worried he just doesn’t know what to do about this. And every day he doesn’t figure this out is a day that either there’s a murderer out there on the run, getting away with what they did; or there’s a murderer in our town. And who knows who’ll be next? What if it’s a serial killer and this was just the beginning?”
    The two of them stared at Bailey, eyebrows having slowly risen as she let it all out.
    Bailey sighed. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it.”
    “ We can see that,” Piper said. She frowned. “You’re not okay, are you?”
    Bailey waved her off and took another bite of her sandwich to avoid another rant.
    “ Well I haven’t been okay,” Avery said seriously. “So I’ve been thinking about all the evidence assembled so far.” It was very little. “I think we need to take a clear, critical look at everyone who associated with Martha since she arrived in town and figure out who doesn’t fit—or who might have had an agenda.”
    “ We’ve been compiling a list,” Piper said. She pulled something from the top of her dress, stowed presumably in the bra that covered her ample bosom. She was known to produce all manner of oddities from there; Bailey never quite got that developed, and was as mystified by this ongoing magic trick as Avery often was.
    Bailey stared at the folded slip of paper. “Have you taken it to Sheriff Larson?”
    “ Of course we did,” Avery said. “We took it to him first thing. He said to leave it to the department.”
    “ Well, maybe we should,” Bailey said around a mouthful of sandwich. “It’s their jurisdiction. We don’t have jurisdiction.”
    “ There’s such a thing as citizen’s arrest,” Piper supplied. “I read about it. Oregon state law has provisions for civilian investigation and even arrests with appropriate evidence, of course. It’s been on the books for ages, from back when this was all frontier.”
    They were really serious about this. Bailey put her sandwich back down again, and took the list. She unfolded it. “This is… a long list.”
    “ Well, we figured you could help us narrow it down,” Avery said, excited to be investigating a murder.
    “ From everyone in town?” Bailey wondered. It was a very long list.
    Piper shrugged. “We got carried away, maybe.”
    Bailey opened one of the books she’d collected and took back the pen she’d used as a temporary book mark, and started picking down the list and circling names she thought were worth considering.
    Avery tugged the book toward him and looked it over. “Wow. Thinking about making another go at translating the writing in the Caves? That takes me back…”
    “ Let me see,” Piper said. She looked through the section Bailey had bookmarked, lips pursed with interest.
    Bailey finished her assessment of the list. Circled on it now were Trevor, Gloria, Poppy, ‘crewmen’—Piper and Avery didn’t know any of the AVT crewman's names, of course—and at the