“When one of my deputies was going through Aubrey’s boxed belongings, she found this. It had been in her night table drawer.” Arthur pulled a plastic bag out of his pocket. In it was a fishhook, and tied to the hook were three silk threads. On the other ends of the silk threads were flat patches, the ones you’d buy at a sewing store or craft store to apply to a garment or pillow. One of them was a heart. And one of them was shaped like lips.

Though he hadn’t exactly offered the bag to her, Fiji leaned over and took it. She looked down at it with some distaste. “I can only guess about the interpretation,” she said. “I suppose the hook means the spell was cast so the person owning this could get their hooks into someone. The heart means the caster wanted to get the person to love her, and the lips are for physical passion. This is just my guess.”

“Is this the kind of thing you do?” Arthur Smith looked at her with level blue eyes.

She was tempted, so tempted, to show him exactly what she could do, but that way lay disaster. It had taken her years to learn that lesson. “I would never create such a thing,” she said. “And it doesn’t come from any school of witchcraft that I know about. It seems . . . made up. By someone who really doesn’t know anything about the craft.”

He was good at staring, she found. “I just about believe you,” he said finally.

She shrugged. “You do or you don’t,” she said, but she felt relieved. “This is not my work. I don’t know if she bought So You Think You’re a Witch or Magic Is Us, or if someone with a little woo-woo in her system made this for Aubrey. Frankly, I have a hard time believing Aubrey would be interested in making something like this. But no true practitioner would have created it.” She handed the plastic bag to the sheriff. Mr. Snuggly appeared from behind the shop counter, where one of his many pillows was positioned, and came to look up at Arthur Smith.

“Nice cat.” Smith’s admiration seemed to be genuine.

“Sometimes he’s not as nice as he looks,” she said. Mr. Snuggly’s head swiveled with uncanny abruptness as he gave Fiji what could only be described as a glare.

“Claws the furniture?” Smith asked.

“Ah, likes to wake me up in the morning,” she said. “He’s got to have his chow.” The cat turned his broad golden-striped back to her in a pointed fashion.

“It’s just like he knows what you’re saying.”

“It is, isn’t it,” she said.

Smith left a moment later. He didn’t volunteer any more information, but Fiji saw that he was driving down to the Antique Gallery and Nail Salon.