She watched as he headed to the front door, before turning toward the kitchen. He was right—the Po’ Boy leftovers did smell good. She’d better put them away before she finished them.
5
As the late afternoon sun slanted through the B&B’s many gabled windows, the day’s chores were just coming under control. Maris and Cookie had spent almost the entire day with all their usual tasks. While the chef saw to her kitchen and the bathrooms, Maris took care of turning down the beds, dusting, and vacuuming. Cookie washed the sheets and towels, and Maris folded and put everything away. As she took out the trash, Cookie made sure that enough toiletries and healthy snacks were on hand. Occasionally the phone would ring for a reservation, but mostly they bustled back and forth.
Downstairs in the hallway, Cookie had paused outside the kitchen, and caught Maris’s eye as she left the library. The chef put her hands on her hips. “I’d say we’ve earned a nice cup of tea.”
“If not the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval,” Maris agreed. “Let me just put away this duster.”
Cookie chuckled. “I’ll put the water on the boil.”
But as they started for the kitchen, a tiny, tinny harmonica-like meow stopped them.
“Mojo,” Maris said. “Where have you been?”
More than likely her slightly pudgy and entirely fluffy little black cat had been taking his usual nap in their room. His big orange eyes stared up at her and, in answer, he gave her another meow, sounding a bit insistent now.
“I think you’re being paged,” the chef said.
Although Maris went over to give him a pet, he didn’t wait for her. Instead he quickly turned and bounced into the parlor.
“Bait and switch,” Cookie said, but the two of them followed him in.
There, he lightly leapt up to the coffee table and sat next to the Ouija board.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Maris said lowly.
Cookie came to her side. “Do you think this has to do with the thefts?” she whispered.
Maris shrugged a little. “I don’t know,” she said quietly, “but I sure hope so.”
As they fell silent, Mojo seemed to settle in, his eyes focused on some unseen place in the distance. His tail went still and his whiskers froze in place, while all the energy of his little body seemed to be channeled into his ears. The downy triangles went into overdrive, spinning one way and then the other, as though his “voices of the spirits” radar was homing in on something only he could hear.
Maris and Cookie exchanged a look. As many times as Maris had seen this, she could still hardly believe it was happening. Neither she nor the chef doubted Mojo’s ability any longer. But if she was going to take advantage of these sessions, she would need to seriously up her interpretive ability when it came to solving crimes. Maybe it was the nature of the Ouija in the first place, the way the board doled out a clue of several letters at most. But she was determined to figure it out.
Slowly, Mojo’s paw moved to the heart-shaped planchette, and Maris and Cookie both leaned forward a bit. He pushed it steadily until it came to a brief rest over the first letter: F. Maris immediately started to imagine names that started with F. Fabiola Toussaint? She and her husband owned and operated Flour Power. But as the planchette moved on, it traveled just a short distance to the “I”.
Well, it’s not Fabiola, Maris thought. Not that she could have imagined the gorgeous woman as a thief. Nor were there any other people in Pixie Point Bay whose names, first or last, started with the letters F and I.
As she and Cookie stared at the board, Mojo’s paw seemed to twitch and the clear lens of the planchette centered itself directly over the “V”. Then it was just a short distance back up to the first row, ending on the “E”.
“Five?” Cookie whispered.
Maris had to shake her head. Of all the vague clues that Mojo had spelled out, this had to be the worst.
Five.
It could be part of an address, a phone number, the number of people in a family, the number of countries they’d recently visited. It could be anything.
“Good grief,” Maris muttered.
She began to turn away when Cookie put a hand on her arm. “There’s more.”
Maris stared at the chef. There was never any more, no matter how many times she’d asked the little cat. But as she turned to look at the board, she had to watch in disbelief. Mojo was spelling something else.
As she cocked her head at the transfixed cat, the planchette went again to the “F”.
“Here we go again,” Cookie said under her breath.
But it wasn’t a repeat of the first word. Instead, Mojo had to stretch his leg almost all the way to the far side of the board—where the planchette stopped over the “O”.
Five for, Maris thought. Or maybe five fobs.
But the next letter, all the way across the board again, ended more speculation: L.
She and Cookie exchanged another look. Mojo had them stumped.
But as they watched, he slowly scooted the planchette back toward the middle of the board. It stuttered a little, as though it had caught on something—maybe the seam of the fold—and Maris found herself holding her breath. Finally though, it resumed its course and came to a stop on the “D”.
“Five fold?” Cookie whispered, just as Mojo sat back. With a blink of his big orange eyes, he stood and shook out his fur. Then he gave them one of his signature meows.
Maris smiled at the little creature. As she gently rubbed the soft fur on the top of his head, he nudged upward for a scratch behind the ears. “You’ve earned it,” she told him.
“Five fold,” Cookie said, frowning. She picked up
