Spells and Scones (19 page)

So mote it be.

Taking a deep breath, I turned the light back on and opened my book.

I read for a while but found it hard to concentrate. For one thing, I kept thinking of Margie's description of the fire starter. If, that is, the person she'd seen had been the same one who'd started the blaze in my yard. It could have just been somebody who accidentally knocked over a garbage can and became frightened when Margie came out to yell at them.

But I didn't think so. I'd assumed it was Steve because he'd already tried to hex me with the furata. Who else would have placed a binding spell on me? Such magic wasn't only used to bind someone in love. You could bind an enemy, or it could even be used for protection.

Had I jumped the gun, thinking it was Steve? Still, there was a bronze figure in my backyard where water and moonlight could strip its power—and I had no doubt he was responsible for that sorcery.

Even so, I remembered how I'd described the foiled burglar in the dark alley behind the Honeybee to the police: bulky coat, hat, hard to tell if it was a man or a woman.

Could it have been the same person Margie had seen? If the attempted burglary had been connected to
Dr. Dana's murder—and given the coincidence of someone trying to break into a store the day after a murder had been committed there, it seemed more than likely they
were
related—and the same person had cast a binding spell on my lawn . . . what did that mean?

Maybe, just maybe, it meant there was something in the back room of Croft's store the police had missed. Something the burglar had wanted to retrieve, and barring that, wanted to keep me from finding. And why me? Well, I was the only one looking at suspects other than Angie, which made me a threat to the real killer.

Tomorrow, between baking eight dozen pies in the morning and stopping by Dana Dobbs' memorial in the afternoon, I needed to look in that back room.

Finally, I turned out the light. As I snuggled down with Mungo, another thought occurred to me, and my eyes popped back open.

That evening, Angie Kissel had given me magical information and instructions, both of which I was grateful for. But when we'd been setting protections, she'd been actually invoking power. She'd been
practicing
magic. Like a real witch.

Did that mean she was coming back to the Craft after all?

Yet again, sleep did not come
quickly.

The next morning, I was surprised when Angie came downstairs as I was making coffee. It was four a.m., and I was getting a later start than I wanted, but I hadn't expected her to be awake.

“You mind if I come in to work with you?” she asked. “I know I said I felt safe here, but I really enjoyed myself yesterday.”

“We could probably use the help,” I admitted. Especially with Iris gone until Monday, and my mission of getting away to look in the storage room of the Fox and Hound. “Sure. But I'm leaving in twenty minutes.”

She grinned. “Deal.”

Not many women can shower and dress that quickly. Surprisingly, she was ready to go on time, sans makeup and wearing jeans, boots, and a long-sleeved brown T-shirt. It also helped that her pixie hair was even shorter than mine. She rode with me, and it dried in the car on the way.

At the Honeybee, we got right to work. First thing, I set the ovens to preheat. Then lights came on, upbeat music wafted from the speakers, and the loaves of sourdough went in to bake. Soon the heady aroma of browning
bread filled the kitchen, and I breathed it in with a sigh of contentment. Magic and murder aside, I loved being a baker as much as anything.

Next, I pulled the crusts I'd mixed and rolled the day before out of the refrigerator and started arranging them in aluminum pans. Angie was ladling pumpkin filling into them when Lucy and Ben came in.

“Ah, you're back,” my aunt said to her, taking off her coat and putting a forest green chef's apron over her rust-colored skirt. She smiled. “I'm glad.”

By the time we opened, the first batch of still warm pies was ready for pickup. Half were pumpkin; half were a mix of fruit and pecan pies. The first customer showed up a little before eight o'clock, and after that there was a steady stream of pies into the oven, out of the oven, and out the door.

Around ten we'd finished with all the baking. Lucy, Angie, and I grabbed our caffeine of choice and sprawled in the library for a break, while Ben continued to help customers.

“I never knew running a bakery was so much work,” Angie said, visibly stifling a yawn.

“Oh, honey,” Lucy said. “It's not always like this. High pie days are unusual.”

“There's always something, though,” I said. “A catering job, wedding cakes, fund-raisers.”

“And I thought working in a nursery was hard,” Angie said.

I sat up from my half-prone position on the sofa. “Say, would you mind helping Ben out for a bit longer? I want to steal Lucy for a little while.”

“Sure,” Angie said easily.

My aunt raised her eyebrows in question.

I glanced around to see if there were any customers
close enough to hear. There weren't. “Angie, I don't think you know that someone tried to break into the Fox and Hound.”

She shook her head.

“Two mornings after the murder, super early. I scared them off.”

Lucy snorted. “After they almost killed you.”

Angie's mouth dropped open.

“It wasn't that bad. Lucy, I haven't had a chance to tell you someone set a fire on my lawn last night.”

She scooted to the edge of her seat. “What?”

“It was burning magic. A binding spell. Angie and I thought it might have been Steve.”

“Steve!” she exclaimed. “Why would you think that?”

Angie and I exchanged a meaningful look. “Because that little ‘souvenir' he gave me yesterday turned out to be another kind of binding spell,” I said. “A love spell.”

Lucy gasped.

“You did put it in my tote bag, didn't you?” I asked.

“Me? Why would I do that?” she asked. “You didn't seem to want it.”

I frowned. “So how did it get in there?”

The look of horror on my aunt's face deepened.

“Don't worry,” I said quickly. “Angie showed me how remove its power. But when someone set a burning spell in front of my house right after that, we thought of Steve immediately.”

“Oh, dear,” Lucy said.

“But I was thinking about it overnight,” I continued. “And the person who set the fire might have been the same person who tried to break into the Fox and Hound.”

My aunt opened her mouth to say something, but I barreled on to explain how similar Margie and my descriptions of the spell caster and the burglar had been.
“What if it was the same person? And what if he or she was trying to get into Croft's store for a reason other than robbery?”

Lucy frowned. “Like what?”

I shook my head. “I don't know. But I'd like to take another look around that back room where Dr. Dana died.”

“The police checked it already.”

My shoulders rose and fell. “True. It's probably a long shot.”

Or maybe not such a long shot.

Lucy must have seen something in my eyes, though, because she nodded as if making a decision. “Let's go next door right now.”

*   *   *

I was happy to see there were several customers in the Fox and Hound when Lucy and I went inside. Mrs. Potter was back in the children's section, helping customers select books for the little ones on their Christmas list. Croft bustled out from the mystery section with an actual smile on his face. It broadened when he saw us.

“Hey, you two.”

“Hi, Croft,” I said, gesturing at the numerous browsers. “Looks like things are getting back to normal.”

“Thank God,” he said with feeling. “It's not as good as last year yet, but I have high hopes.” He put his hands on his hips. “Now, what can I do for you ladies?”

I walked to a secluded corner. Lucy and Croft followed. His smile had dropped once he realized we weren't in shopping mode, but he listened as I said, “Remember when you offered to do whatever you could to help find Dr. Dana's killer?”

“Sure I do. I'm not senile yet, you know.”

“Of course not. I'm wondering if you'd let us look in
your back room. The police have released it, haven't they?”

“Yup.” One side of his mouth came up. “What are you looking for?”

“No idea. But I got to thinking about why someone might want to break in from the alley. What if it wasn't random?”

“Huh. Well, I don't know what you think you're gonna find, but you're welcome to check it out. I haven't moved much around since, well, you know. Just tidied up a bit.” He made a face. “I don't know if I'll ever be able to go back there without thinking about that night.”

“Thanks, Croft.” I smiled and considered bussing him on the cheek. I was pretty sure he'd die of apoplexy, though.

We went through to the storage room and shut the door behind us. Silence descended. There were no windows, so it was utterly dark. I flipped on the light switch by the door, and fluorescent bulbs flickered to life above us. Lucy's eyes moved over the room and its contents with an expression of sorrow on her face. I knew she was thinking about the loss of life that had occurred there so recently. Witches might profess that death was simply a journey to the next plane, but that didn't mean we handled it better than anyone else.

I'd never been farther into this room than the doorway with Margie, though apparently my aunt had ventured quite near the body before the police had arrived Saturday night. Now we moved inside to assess the situation. Without the scents of mulled cider and—for Lucy, at least—almonds to flavor the air, the distinct smell of ink on paper I always associated with libraries and bookstores filled my nose and tugged at a nostalgia for something I couldn't quite define.

Croft wasn't the tidiest housekeeper, but things were arranged in a fairly logical manner. Industrial wall-mounted shelves were divided into sections. There were a few cartons of books, but most of the extra books were stacked freely, easy to view and restock out front. One shelf was labeled
RETURNS
. Other shelves held boxes of toys, games, and gift items.

The space on the floor where the victim had fallen was clear now. One small section was cleaner than the rest, and from what I could remember, that was probably where the sweet tea had spilled. The table where Dr. Dana had been signing Croft's extra stock had been moved to one side, but it was still stacked with her books. A rack in the corner held the folding chairs that Croft used for events.

Here and there I saw dark smudges of powder that I recognized from another crime scene. Quinn hadn't mentioned fingerprints, but I supposed the police had to make an attempt. Since Dr. Dana had probably been given the poison before she ever came back here, it seemed unlikely fingerprinting would be helpful, though.

“Let's try to be methodical,” Lucy said briskly. “You take the upper shelves since you can reach them better, and I'll take the lower ones. This unit first.”

I nodded. “Look for anything that might seem strange, out of place, or in the least bit suspicious.”

We got to work, checking each stack of books, looking behind them, and even flipping through a few.

Nada.

Then we checked the bins of nonbook items for sale, taking things out of shipping cartons, lifting boxes, and looking underneath them. I peered behind the shelving units and got down on the floor to check beneath them.

Zilch.

We went to the rack of chairs, taking each one out and looking for anything that could have been tucked between them. Then I got the grand idea of checking under the seat of each one, and Lucy gamely pitched in. That took several minutes.

Except for an old, dried piece of chewing gum: zippo.

As long as I was checking under things for who knows what—hidden envelopes? a note in a bottle? a random Post-it with a scribbled confession?—I crawled under the table where Dana Dobbs had sat to sign the last books she ever would.

Zero.

I slumped into the chair pulled up to the table. “I guess this was a stupid idea.”

Lucy sighed. “It was a good idea, honey. But if there was something the killer was looking for, the police must have already found it and taken it away.”

Dr. Dana's face looked up at me from the cover of the books still stacked there. Absently, I lifted the stack and checked between each one.

Nothing unusual.

Flipping through, I saw she'd signed several of them but then found one that was blank. The next one I looked at made me stop cold.

“Lucy,” I said slowly.

She turned from where she'd been looking at the middle of the floor. When she saw my face, she hurried over. “What is it?”

Silently, I showed her the last book Dr. Dana had signed. I felt sure she'd been signing it when she'd taken a drink of her sweet tea and realized she was going to die.

“Oh, my,” Lucy said in a low voice.

The reason I thought it was the one Dana had been writing in before she died was because she hadn't signed her name.

The name scrawled under
How to Do Marriage Right
on the title page was that of her husband.

Nate.

Next to it was another wavy, illegible line that ran off the edge of the page. I peered at it closely. “Lucy? Is this a word?”

She leaned in. “I can't tell. It looks like the mark left by a pen as the user lost consciousness.”

“Oh. Yeah, that could be it.”
Ugh.

My aunt began to pace. “Why would she write her husband's name?” She stopped. “Do you think . . . ?”

I gave a tiny shrug. “That she was identifying her killer? I can't think of any other reason she'd write his name immediately before she died. Can you?”

She looked thoughtful. “But how could she know for sure? I mean, if the poison was given to her before she came back here, she'd have to guess about who gave it to her unless she actually saw them do it. And if she saw them, I can't imagine she would have drunk the sweet tea at all.”

“There were a few times on Saturday night when Dr. Dana seemed awfully anxious. It's possible that she was worried her husband had his own plans for ending their marriage—with her death.”

Lucy frowned. “I don't know . . .”

I pointed at the book. “It supports what I told Quinn yesterday. Maybe he'll take me seriously now. Nate Dobbs' wife told the whole world about their private life, and then kept convincing him not to file for the divorce he wanted.”

“How did she do that?” Lucy mused.

“I don't know. Guilt? Or maybe in the course of practicing Radical Trust, her spouse stalking turned up something she could blackmail him with. Either way, he had motive. And if Angie's right about his old job, then he had access to cyanide. Plus, this”—I pointed to the book now open on the table—“looks like Dana herself thought he was her killer. He must have seen that she'd written his name when he rushed to her side.”

“Or when he went back in with the police. I wonder why they didn't notice.” Lucy pressed her lips together. “Is all that enough to make a murder case against him?”

“It's a good start. Of course, Quinn has a good start on the case against Angie, too. A really good start, and he never called me back after I left the message about Earl King last night. The only thing that would completely convince him would be a full confession.”

An idea took root. I jumped up out of the chair.

Lucy tipped her head. “What?”

I grinned. “And I might know how to get one.”

*   *   *

“So what do you think?” I asked Croft. Without him, my plan couldn't get off the ground.

He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall of the storage room. “I don't know, Katie. You're talking about more or less inviting someone to break into my store. I just installed a nice big lock on the back door after what happened earlier.”

“All you have to do is skip using it tonight. The other lock wasn't broken, was it?”

“Nah. It's still on there, too. But I hadn't realized how flimsy it is.”