"That’s true," I admitted. "But I still don’t understand what that’s supposed to tell me."
"Why didn’t he leave those boots downstairs?" Cosmo pressed.
I frowned. "Because he didn’t want anyone else to see them?"
"Exactly. And why didn’t he want anyone to see them?"
We seemed to be aligned in our thinking. "Because he had a secret rendezvous with somebody he shouldn’t have met. And then he got distracted or ran out of time and forgot to clean them properly."
"Now you’re getting it," Cosmo purred.
I sat down, my mind racing. "I think we need to go over our timeline again. Because while I was on the treatment couch, I could remember—pinpoint exactly—when I decided that my hair needed a serious change."
He purred again, not to relax me, but to show his appreciation.
I gave myself a slight pat on the shoulder. I’d been too hard on myself for too long, and that was going to change—for good. I grabbed a sheet of paper. "Let’s start from the beginning. When did Aunt Violet close the library on her last night?"
"At the normal time," Cosmo said.
"And everything was fine then. But about thirty minutes later..." I tapped my pen against the table. "That’s when I had the sudden urge to buy hair dye. I remember checking how long the drugstore would be open."
"Are you absolutely sure?" Cosmo asked.
"Positively. I double-checked online, and their opening hours haven’t changed. I had enough time to get there, ask a shop assistant for help, and then..."
"And then?"
"Go home," I finished.
The question lingered between us. What was happening here at that exact time?
"Violet and I had a conversation. Or rather, she was talking to me," he recalled. "She told me that, in her opinion, Jake’s death was no accident. And that she planned to do something about it."
A cold shiver ran down my spine. “If that’s what you and she were talking about," I said slowly, "then it triggered whatever is going on in the witchosphere—the transfer of Aunt Violet’s powers to me. And that means..."
"That’swhat led to her death.”
The room felt colder suddenly.
"The question is," I asked, swallowing hard, "who would have known?"
"Anyone within earshot. We had the windows open. And she spoke loudly. Since she started losing her hearing, I got used to it."
We both stood back and looked at the timeline I’d scribbled down.
"The big question is—why was it so urgent to get rid of her?" I said aloud. "Everybody was buying the idea that Jake had died of natural causes. Or ate a bad mushroom."
"But she did send that letter," Cosmo pointed out.
"Yes, but even after the autopsy, there wasn’t much of an investigation. Which makes it likely that our killer wasn’t obviously linked to Jake’s death. They didn’t stand to gain so much from it that suspicion would immediately fall on them."
I paused. This was getting more complicated with every new revelation.
"Let’s write down the facts as we know them," Cosmo suggested.
I obeyed. There was too little to go on, but maybe, just maybe, writing it down would help us see the bigger picture.
"If only she’d made herself clear," Cosmo said. "She could have told me or left a note saying who she suspected—if she had a concrete suspicion."
