A Dash Of Pepper Read online

  A Dash Of Pepper

  A Pepper Grinder Cozy Witch Mystery - Book One

  Sam Short

  www.samshortauthor.com

  Copyright © 2019 by Sam Short

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Version. 08.04.19

  Created with Vellum

  For Aleisha, Jess, Jake, George and Jack. My wonderful nieces and nephews.

  Also by Sam Short

  The Spellbinder Bay Series

  Book One - Witch Way to Spellbinder Bay

  Book Two - Broomsticks And Bones

  Book Three - Spells And Cells

  Don’t forget to read the complete Water Witch Cozy Paranormal Series! The first series by Sam Short.

  Book one — Under Lock and Key

  Book Two — Four and Twenty Blackbirds

  Book Three — An Eye For an Eye

  Book Four — A Meeting of Minds

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Also by Sam Short

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Pepper wasn’t comfortable sitting with her back to the door, but as the hard-plastic seat she perched on was bolted to the tiled floor, and the other seats in the claustrophobic waiting room were taken by reprobates and anti-social outlaws, she didn’t have much choice.

  She slipped a hand into her cardigan pocket and rummaged around the cluttered interior, her fingers sifting through shopping receipts she’d meant to throw out.

  She found what she was looking for in the deepest corner, nestled in a ball of pocket fuzz, and wet to the touch. She took the sticky mint from her pocket, wiped what fluff she could from it, while ignoring the ignorant stare of the middle-aged criminal seated opposite her, and popped it into her mouth.

  She swallowed what fluff remained on the sweet and returned the criminal’s stare, being sure to narrow her eyes and curl her top lip upward. The sort of people she’d erroneously found herself sharing space with were the sort of people who preyed on weakness, and Pepper was not going to give even the smallest of indications that she was weak.

  She hardened her stare, being sure to roll the mint around her mouth as she did, testing the criminal’s resolve. It had become a contest. A contest between her, an innocent person caught up in a criminal world she didn’t belong to, and the woman opposite her — one of Picklebury’s most hardened criminals. Probably.

  Glad of the spearmint fumes which helped her keep a cool head, Pepper lifted her left nostril, hoping the silent snarl she’d emblazoned on her face would work. It did, and as the woman looked away, pretending to engross herself in the embroidery magazine she took from her tartan shopping trolley, Pepper allowed herself a satisfied smirk. She’d held her resolve, and should she ever cross that same woman again in the criminal system, Pepper would get no hassle from her.

  Feeling more confident in her surroundings, Pepper looked around the room, wondering what crimes had been committed by the people sharing the stuffy space with her. The overweight man to her right, with ratty eyes which darted around the room, and fingers as thick and white as raw bratwurst sausages, was probably not guilty of a violent crime. He looked too nervous to be the fighting type. His eyes were what told his story. Shifty and dishonest; they wouldn’t stay still, flicking from left to right, and up and down, as if they hadn’t been attached to the optical nerves properly.

  Watching him play nervously with the zipper on his black raincoat, Pepper suspected he was guilty of fraud, or some sort of identity theft. Probably online, where he wouldn’t have to look his victims in the eyes. He was a typical cowardly criminal, and as his eyes briefly caught hers, Pepper pursed her lips and shook her head, hoping her body language portrayed the disgust she felt.

  Satisfied that she was the morally purest of the six people in the small room, Pepper took her attention from them. They didn’t deserve it, and she didn’t deserve to be in that room. She was respectable. She was law abiding. She was a witch.

  Granted, it might have been because of that last quality that she was currently attending Picklebury police station to be interviewed about her alleged involvement in a crime. And granted, she couldn’t broadcast the fact that she was a witch, so it gave her no edge over the other people in the room, but she was a witch. And she was proud of that fact.

  “Next please!”

  Pepper looked at the glass screen separating the young red-haired policeman from the other people in the room. Protected by the impenetrable shield, the young constable could afford to look so disinterested as he sauntered into the cubicle from an open door beyond it. He was only an observer of the wolves on the other side of his partition. He’d never know what it was like to be in the den, amongst them.

  The woman opposite Pepper and the man to her right exchanged glances, and then the man spoke in a voice which, for some reason, made Pepper think of cheese. “It’s your turn; you were here before me. Then it’s my turn,” he said.

  Pepper was surprised to see that during their little exchange, nobody else in the room had leapt to their feet and approached the desk — all of them waiting patiently for the man and the woman to negotiate the order of the queueing system, instead. There was honour among thieves, it seemed.

  “Thank you,” smiled the woman, shoving her magazine back in her trolley. She balanced her green beret on the pile of loose curls on her head, and approached the desk.

  Pepper tutted to herself as she studied the woman. The left elbow of her coat was dirty, and she seemed to crumple into a limp each time the polished black leather shoe on her left foot made contact with the ground, but those two clues aside, she showed no other qualities that suggested to Pepper that she was a criminal.

  “I’m sorry you had to wait so long,” said the policeman, from his hiding place. “We had a mini crisis out the back. Somebody had their sandwich taken from the fridge. It’s all sorted out now, though. He realised it was never in the fridge in the first place. He left it in his car when he got to work this morning. The sun hasn’t done the tuna much good, but it’s edible.”

  “Oh, that’s fine, Constable,” said the lady, her mouth aimed at the circle of neatly drilled holes in the glass partition. “I didn’t mind waiting. I understand.”

  “I can hardly hear you,” answered the young man, fiddling with the glass screen. Then he swung it inwards, exposing himself to the room. “There, that’s better! We fought against having this shield fitted, but those up top insisted on it. We told them this is Picklebury and not the blooming Bronx, but you know what it’s like. Health and safety and all that rubbish.”

  “Oh gosh,” said the woman. “Health and
safety. Tell me about it! You can’t move for it these days! We were made to fill out forms at the Picklebury Garden Lover’s Club to show we acknowledged the dangers of pruning knives! We’ve been meeting every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday night for the last ten years and nobody’s ever had a bad accident! Why we have to have this health and safety rubbish thrust upon us after all that time, I don’t know!”

  “The world’s gone mad,” said the policeman, shaking his head. “Now, how can I be of assistance?”

  The lady sighed. “It’s my purse,” she said. “I’ve gone and lost it. I must have dropped it when I was throwing my old bread to the ducks on the canal. I had a good look for it, but I couldn’t find it. I was hoping that some honest soul may have handed it in. Either that, or it’s at the bottom of the canal.”

  Pepper zoned out of the conversation and ran her eyes over the woman once more. Perhaps she’d misjudged her. Her cream trousers were neatly pressed, after all, and her coat was certainly not a cheap one. The biggest giveaway, though, was her membership of a gardening club. Plant lovers were decent people, not criminals.

  It all began making sense. The dirty elbow was a natural consequence of being a gardener. It came with the territory and was to be expected. And the limp? Pepper didn’t like to imagine what awful injury the poor woman had sustained. A gardening fork through her foot? A malfunctioning rotavator? She winced as the next possibility came to her — a rogue lawnmower?

  Shaking her head, Pepper silently sympathised with the woman — they were the same, after all; decent women who were out of place at a police station, but were there because of events beyond their control.

  “Thank you, Constable,” said the woman, sliding the form the young policeman had asked her to fill out, across the countertop.

  The policeman smiled. “It was my pleasure…” He glanced at the form. “Miss Mowbray. I’ll let you know if your purse is handed in.”

  “Thank you,” said Miss Mowbray. “And I’ll try and be more careful with my personal belongings in the future.”

  As Miss Mowbray dragged her shopping trolley towards the door, Pepper did her best to catch her eye, succeeding after theatrically clearing her throat three times in desperate succession. As Miss Mowbray glanced at her, Pepper gave her the sort of smile, accompanied with a roll of her eyes, which said — what are we doing here? Two respectable ladies like us!

  Rather than acknowledge Pepper’s covert message of solidarity, Miss Mowbray twisted her face into a rude scowl and hurried from the waiting room, allowing the door to slam shut behind her with a heavy thud.

  Unfazed by the woman’s discourteous demeanour, but a little hurt, and quite angry indeed, Pepper turned her attention to the fraudster beside her who’d stood up and was shuffling on squeaking soles towards the desk. Still fiddling nervously with the zipper on his raincoat, his eyes scanned the room incessantly, sweeping left to right as he approached the counter and gave the young policeman a broad smile.

  The policeman smiled back. “Father Dominic!” he said. “Lovely to see you! Monday night was a great success! We raised almost three hundred pounds for the church roof. You’ve come to collect it, I assume? The Chief Inspector said you’d be in for it today.” He reached beneath the desk and retrieved a thin brown envelope, which he placed on the counter. “There you go, Father. Three hundred pounds. It was twenty pounds short, so the boys and I rounded it up. We’ve written a cheque for you.”

  “A cheque?” asked Father Dominic, picking up the envelope.

  “Is that okay?” asked the policeman.

  “Of course it is! It’s wonderful. God bless you, son,” said Father Dominic. “It’s a good thing you’ve done for the church.”

  The constable waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, we just hosted a sponsored five-aside football match, Father — you reach out to the homeless and provide them with hot meals. Helping you raise money for the church roof was our pleasure.” He narrowed his eyes and looked at the priest with concern. “Are you okay, Father? You look a little peaky. Do you need to sit down?”

  “I do feel a little warm, son,” said Father Dominic. “It’s the zip on my coat. It’s stuck. I was beginning to panic a little because of my blood pressure. I’ll be okay as soon as I get some fresh air.”

  “Let me see what I can do, Father,” said the constable, leaning across the desk. Grasping the priest’s coat zipper, he gave it three quick tugs. “There you go!” he said, as the zipper released its death grip.

  With relief on his face, Father Dominic put two fingers behind his now exposed white collar, allowing fresh air into his shirt. “That’s better!” he said. “Thank you, Constable.”

  “We’re not just here to put criminals behind bars, Father,” laughed the policeman.

  Father Dominic pocketed the brown envelope and gave Pepper a look she didn’t much like. As he made his way towards the exit, the door alongside the desk opened with a buzz and a click. The sign on the door said No Entry Without Authorisation, and the man who barged through it, followed by a short policewoman, appeared to be in urgent need of what Pepper had heard people refer to as a chill-pill.

  He ran an exasperated hand through his long curly hair and scowled at the public servant who was holding the door open, her face a forced mask of indifference. “You make sure you find them, okay!” he demanded. “What sort of town is this, anyway? I only left those lights unattended for a few minutes, and I reported them missing over two weeks ago! I expect to hear good news from you by tomorrow. Do you hear me, Sergeant?”

  The policewoman appeared to gain an inch in height as she took a deep breath. “Oh, I hear you loud and clear, Mister Clementine, and as I’ve explained repeatedly; we will do everything in our power to find and return them to you.” She gave the man what Pepper considered to be a smile fuelled by the energy a thankless task provides in abundance. “Remember to keep the crime number I gave you safe. Your insurance company will ask you for it if we can’t recover your missing property.”

  His blonde curls bouncing, the man shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb. “I’ve already informed you that we don’t have insurance, Sergeant. We’re a small operation. I’m operating on a shoestring as it is, without paying inflated prices for insurance, too!”

  “Oh yes! You did mention it Mister Clementine,” said the police sergeant, her black hair in a tight bun which pulled at the peripherals of her face. “Oh well. I suppose the Picklebury Constabulary is your only hope now. We’d better remain on friendly terms, I suppose. I find things get done with a lot more urgency that way.” She gave the man a loaded smile. “Don’t you?”

  Narrowing his eyes below thin eyebrows, the man scowled. “I shall be expecting to hear from you soon,” he said. “Good day!”

  Watching the man stride across the room towards the exit, the policewoman allowed herself a satisfied smile which didn’t go unnoticed by Pepper. In fact, Pepper found herself warming to the sergeant, even though she represented authority. Short in stature but tall in attitude, the perky young copper had impressed Pepper, and Pepper considered that quite a feat.

  As the sergeant glanced at the clock on the wall, looked around the room and called her next appointment’s name, all the goodwill she’d built up with Pepper vanished in an instant. “Pepper Grinder?” she said, her eyes flitting between four potential candidates.

  Her lips pressed firmly together, Pepper exaggerated the long breath she sucked through her nostrils, shaking her head slowly as she made her irritation known to everybody in the room. Adding a grunt to the outward breath, she grabbed her denim bag from between her feet and stood up. She strode with confidence towards the keeper of the law and stared her straight in the eyes. “I beg your pardon?” she asked.

  “Pepper Grinder?” said the sergeant. “I do apologise for keeping you waiting.”

  “Do you think my parents are stupid, officer?” asked Pepper, her bag over her shoulder and her arms crossed.

  Suitably p
erplexed, the sergeant paused for a moment before speaking. “Excuse me?”

  “I said, do you think my parents are stupid?” repeated Pepper.

  The feisty attitude which had impressed Pepper suddenly made another appearance, and the sergeant tilted her head, staring at Pepper through unamused eyes. “If you have something to say, please say it, otherwise please answer my question. Are you Pepper Grinder, here for a voluntary interview regarding your alleged involvement in a crime?”

  Pepper sighed. “They’re not,” she said. “My parents are not stupid. Not now, and certainly not when I was born. Do you really think they’d have named me Pepper if my surname were Grinder? Do you really think they’d name me after a condiment dispenser? Does that make sense to you?”

  “I can only go by the information I was given,” said the sergeant. “The name you gave to the officer who identified you from the CCTV footage, was Pepper Grinder. That’s what it says on the statement you filled out. The statement you signed.”

  “It’s not Grinder!” said Pepper. “That would be preposterous! I explained that to the officer who came knocking on my door at half-past eight yesterday morning! I explicitly explained that my name was not pronounced Grinder!”

  The sergeant puffed out her cheeks, making her look like an important hamster, and then blew out a forced breath. “Then how do you pronounce it?”