A Potion to Die For: A Magic Potion Mystery (10 page)

T
he gun blasted the trespasser out of his hiding spot in the bushes and sent him scurrying for better cover.

I jumped into action before there was another murder in Hitching Post today. Hightailing it out my back door, I dashed toward my aunt’s house.

Mr. Dunwoody’s loud
tee-hee-hee
reverberated as I sprinted down the street, my bare feet slapping on the wet brick road. Aunt Marjie stood on her front porch, a shotgun balanced against her shoulder, one eye squinted.

“Don’t shoot, Aunt Marjie!” I shouted.

One of these days she was going to hit someone, and I didn’t think she would look good in prison stripes, either.

Marjie yelled, “Come out of those brambles, you son of bitch, or I won’t miss next time!”

I hurdled Marjie’s front fence (I was getting good at it) but nearly fell because of slippery landing area. Standing firm, I put myself between her gun and the culprit. I didn’t think she’d shoot me.

At least I hoped she wouldn’t.

“Could you put that gun down, Aunt Marjie?” I huffed, trying to catch my breath.

“This ain’t your business, Carly. Get on with you, now,” she barked. “I’ve got a city slicker to pop holes in. He’s gonna look like Swiss cheese when I’m done with him.”

Another round of Mr. Dunwoody’s
tee-hee-hee
s echoed. I was glad he was having a jolly good time.

What sounded like pitiful mewls emerged from the bushes behind me. I wasn’t sure what had set the trespasser to crying—the Swiss cheese threat or the brambles. Those thorns hurt something fierce.

“The gun, Aunt Marjie,” I said firmly. Pleading never carried much weight with her—she saw it as a sign of weakness.

Heaving a sigh, she slowly lowered the weapon, though I noticed she still kept a finger on the trigger. She was itching to bag herself a city slicker.

“Thank you,” I said.

“He has exactly ten seconds to get himself out of my yard. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly,” I said.

“Eight,” she intoned.

I spun around, crouched, and stared into the face of a terrified man.

“Six.”

“Get up!” I yelled.

Like a deer caught in headlights, he just stared at me, making those pitiful sounds.

“Four!” Marjie yelled.

“Tee-hee-hee,” Mr. Dunwoody laughed.

“Three!”

I grabbed the guy’s arm and pulled. Brambles tore at his fancy—yet soggy—suit as he found his feet.

“Two!”

I threw a glance at Marjie, who’d once again braced the gun on her shoulder.

More mewling came from the city slicker.

I glanced into his terrified eyes, said, “Sorry,” and gave him the biggest shove I had in me.

He tumbled backward, right over Marjie’s fence and onto the sidewalk.

The public sidewalk.

I winced at the sound of him hitting the cement. A long, drawn-out moan filled the air.

“He didn’t break my fence, now, did he?” Marjie asked with an accusatory tone.

Marjie’s fence had been falling apart for years. It was only the brambles that kept it from crumbling.

“No, ma’am,” I said.

She grunted and went back inside, slamming the door.

Giving the brambles a wide berth, I walked around the fence. The rain had stopped but moisture hung thickly in the air, and I was sweating like crazy.

The trespasser lay in a fetal position on the sidewalk. Blood oozed from small scrapes and punctures from the thorns. I didn’t see any bullet holes.

I crouched down. “Jeez, do you have a death wish?”

Wide, terrified eyes blinked at me. His perfect white teeth chattered as he said, “I thought they were kidding about the gun.”

“Didn’t you see the No Trespassing signs?” There were enough of them. I saw five with just a quick glance around the yard.

“I thought they were kidding about the gun,” he mumbled again.

Taking pity on the poor thing, I grabbed his hand helped him to his feet.

Wobbly, he reached out for Marjie’s fence post, and I said, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

He immediately snatched his hand back, as if it had been electrocuted.

“Who are you?” I asked as I picked leaves off his once-fancy suit.

“John Richard Baldwin, ma’am.”

At least his teeth had stopped chattering, but his eyes were still wide. Shock, I reasoned. “What are you doing here, John Richard Baldwin?”

He blinked as though I’d asked him to name all the presidents in alphabetical order. Bits of shrubbery clung to tufts of light brown hair that stuck out in every direction. His face had been scratched to hell and back.

“Working, ma’am,” he finally said.

“Working where?” I prompted, leading him down the sidewalk toward my about-to-be-condemned house.

Aunt Eulalie came out onto her porch and said, “Did she get him?”

“Nope,” I said.

“Dang!” She spun and went back inside.

John Richard looked at me. “Is everyone in this town bloodthirsty?”

I led him across the street to my freestanding set of steps. “Pretty much. Who do you work for?”

His eyes brightened a bit, and it was good to see some color in his cheeks that wasn’t from the bloody scratches. “Doughtree, Sullivan, and Gobble.” With a flourish, he handed me a damp business card.

“I see.” I’d heard the name before. It was the Birmingham law firm that had been trying to get Aunt Marjie to sell her inn. It was also the firm that had once represented Coach Butts, until Coach fired them to hire Nelson. “Sit.”

He glanced around. “Where?”

I dusted pebbles off the damp brick steps. “Here.”

“You’re kidding.”

He wasn’t much younger than I was, maybe three or four years, but with his baby face and naive air, he seemed more like a high school boy than a big-city lawyer. I pegged him to be fresh out of law school. “If you’re worried you’ll ruin your suit, I’m afraid it’s too late for that.”

He glanced down and let out a small cry, as if just noticing all the rips.

I left him whimpering and ran inside for some rubbing alcohol and cotton balls. When I came back out, he had his head in his hands. “I’m going to get fired for sure.”

“Hush,” I said, dabbing his hand with the alcohol. “They’re not going to fire you. You weren’t successful in your quest, but no one in the firm has been. They can’t fire the lot of you. There won’t be anyone left to make fun of Gobble’s last name.”

He yowled at the sting, then gave me a halfhearted smile. “We do have ourselves a good time around Thanksgiving.”

I could imagine.

“Who’s your client?” I asked. “The one who wants the inn so bad?”

“Can’t say, ma’am.”

“Can’t or won’t?” I dabbed at his cheek and he let out a hiss.

“Can’t.” He grabbed the bottle from me. “I’ll do that. I don’t know who the client is. Just that it’s someone who’s willing to pay a bunch of money for what looks like a fire trap.”

It was true—the Old Buzzard did look like it could burst into flames at any moment. But appearances weren’t everything. Its location near the town square made it prime real estate.

He glanced around at the rubble. “What happened here, anyway?”

“Someone drove his Chevy into my porch.”

John Richard’s eyes lit. “Are you lookin’ to sue him?”

Although suing Coach Butts held a certain appeal, I shook my head. “I think he did me a favor, actually. The porch needed to come down. Saved me demolition costs.”

Plus, now insurance would pay for the debris removal and new construction.

His face fell. “If you change your mind, you have my card. I should go.” Standing, he looked down the street, toward the Old Buzzard. “I can’t believe she shot at me,” he said in wonder. “Thank goodness she’s got bad aim.”

“Nothing wrong with her aim, John Richard. Let that be fair warning to you.”

For a second he said nothing, only looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. “Who’re you exactly?”

“I’m Broom-Hilda.”

“Like the witch from the funnies?”

I nodded. “Exactly.”

Rolling his eyes, he said, “Is everyone in this place crazy?”

“Plumb.”

“Good to know for when I come back.”

“Back?” I asked, capping the alcohol bottle.

“I’ve got to get that old lady to sell. My career depends on it. Time is of the essence. There’s a big fat bonus involved if the old lady sells by the end of the month. I don’t intend to fail like the last guy.” He winced. “Not that he could help it and all, dying the way he did this morning. It wouldn’t surprise me none if that crazy lady shot him dead.” John Richard headed for the sidewalk.

I scurried to catch up to him and said, “The last guy? What was his name?”

“Supposedly he lived in this nutty place.” His eyes rolled up as if he were searching the corners of his brain for the correct name.

“Nelson Winston?” I supplied.

Snapping his fingers, he said, “That’s it! You knew him?”

“Not very well.” I didn’t think finding his dead body changed the status of our casual relationship. “He was working for
your
law firm?”

“Freelancing, hoping to get a full-time gig. It was suggested to the senior partners that getting a local involved might help the cause. Fat lot of good it did them.” John Richard shrugged.

“Suggested by whom?”

“Don’t know. But now this is my chance to prove myself to the firm.”

Birds chirped as what he’d said about Nelson’s moonlighting sat heavy in my mind. Mr. Dunwoody had heard talk about Nelson looking for a new job in Birmingham, but to work for
that
firm in particular? The one Coach had fired? It was an odd coincidence, to be sure, and I had to wonder if Coach had known. With his hair-trigger temper these days it might have been enough to set the man off but good. Maybe that was why Nelson was found with a cracked skull in my shop.

Or maybe I was grasping at straws simply because I wanted Coach to be guilty of
something
.

The latter was definitely more likely.

John Richard said, “Anyway, thanks for saving my hide.”

I didn’t like the determined gleam in his eyes. “If you want to keep that hide safe, I recommend you stay away from the Old Buzzard. Far, far away.” If his career depended on Aunt Marjie selling, he ought to start spiffing up his résumé.

“Thanks for the advice.”

I watched him walk away, knowing I’d see the young fool again.

Hopefully without bullet holes.

E
arly the next morning, I dragged my hot, sticky self out of bed and headed to Déjà Brew. No electricity meant no morning coffee. Which meant a cranky me.

On my way out the back door, I gave the frame a swift kick, which resulted only in me stubbing my toe. I thought I actually heard the old house laugh at me as I hopped on my bike, Bessie Blue, and headed down the street, trying my best to ignore the sting in my toe and the pile of debris in my front yard.

Mr. Dunwoody sat on his porch and held his glass up high in a salute. “Morning, Miss Carly.”

With a halfhearted wave, I growled out, “Mornin’,” and kept on pedaling. I was a witch on a mission for some much-needed caffeine.

Last night, I’d dropped all my refrigerated and frozen goods off at Aunt Eulalie’s so they wouldn’t spoil, and I used her phone to call Jasper Cates, the electrician who’d been working on my house off and on since I’d bought it. Unfortunately, he was in Mobile for the weekend. That left me two options: I could rough it at my house with cold showers and no coffee, or I could pack up the cats and move back to the apartment above Without a Hitch, where my mama would have twenty-four-hour access to me.

Neither option held much appeal, but roughing it won out by a slim margin.

As I passed the Old Buzzard, I noticed that Aunt Marjie had added yet another No Trespassing sign to her front yard. I had a feeling it wouldn’t keep John Richard Baldwin away.

Most of Hitching Post was still asleep at this time of the morning, a little past six thirty, but it was only a matter of time before it bustled with business. Both Eulalie’s and Hazel’s inns were at capacity, and Johnny Braxton’s weekend extravaganza was bound to draw tourists and locals alike.

My plans for the day were in limbo, depending on whether I could open up my shop. No matter what, I needed to track down Bernice Morris. Someone had made this murder my business by killing Nelson in my shop. I had to figure out who and why before my livelihood went down in flames.

Flames reminded me of my ill-fated second wedding, which reminded me of Dylan. I didn’t want to think about him, so I pedaled harder. Faster.

Right now I had one suspect in Nelson’s murder: the real embezzler.

If there was an embezzler other than Coach.

Obviously, my suspect list was sadly lacking.

I had to find out who else had access to those funds—and I knew just who to ask. Dudley Pritcherd. I could probably guilt him into just about anything after the way he’d treated me yesterday. Southern guilt was just as good as Catholic guilt. Maybe a touch better when used on Southern men who’d rather swallow their tongues than unwittingly insult someone. Dudley owed me.

Then I thought about Bernice spouting that Dudley himself might be the embezzler. . . . He didn’t seem the dishonest type, but I couldn’t deny he could have taken those funds easily. I had an easy way to find out whether he felt guilty or not. . . . I could simply tap into his energy when asking him about the money. I would be able to feel his guilt.

If he
was
guilty . . . well, I’d cross that bridge later.

Morning sunbeams set the town aglow, sparkling on dewy grass and giving a sunshiny “anything’s possible” feeling to the day.

I wanted to enjoy that mood, but I felt more like flipping it the bird.

Grumpily, I parked my bike and pulled open the door to Déjà Brew. For a second, I stopped and breathed in all the aromas. Coffee and blueberry muffins and cinnamon scones.

Better. Much better. My mood immediately improved.

My mouth watered as Jessa looked up from refilling a customer’s cup and then down at the oversized watch on her wrist.

As she tucked a pencil into her rat’s-nest hairdo, her bright eyes sized me up. “You’re up and at ’em early this morning, Carly. Busy day at the shop?” She scooted around the horseshoe-shaped counter, picked up the coffeepot, dropped her voice, and added, “I saw the cleaning crew working there last night.”

I sidled up to the display cases as Jessa filled a to-go cup with a dark brew and tried to wrestle on a lid. I didn’t even want to think about the cleaning crew—and what it was cleaning. “I’m not even sure if I can open today.” I glanced around. The coffee shop wasn’t too crowded this early, but I dropped my voice anyway. “Have the tourists heard the news?”

“About the murder?” She continued to fight with the coffee lid. “Oh yes. It’s all the talk.”

I slumped. “Then it probably doesn’t matter if I open today or not. No one will come in, anyway.”

“Hush, now, with that kind of talk, darlin’. Not
everyone
thinks you poisoned Nelson and Coach.”

I rolled my eyes. “Just some of them?”

She shrugged. “Small-minded folks.”

Odell Yadkin, Jessa’s husband, came out from the kitchen, covered in flour. A smile spread across his plump face when he spotted me. “Miss Carly, you’re out and about early this morning!”

I eased myself onto a stool. “I was up early reading about electric panels.”

“Stimulating,” Odell quipped, cracking himself up.

“Necessary, unfortunately. My power’s out. The old wiring up and died.”

“Lots of dying happening lately,” Odell said, still cracking jokes.

Jessa elbowed him, giving him a stern look.

“It’s okay,” I said. After all, I made the same joke last night.

Jessa said, her eyes sparkling with humor, “No power explains what’s wrong with your hair. Bless your heart.”

Unfortunately, I wasn’t in a joking mood. The humidity in the air added to the insult of not being able to use a hair dryer, so I’d twisted my thick blond hair into a sloppy knot at the base of my neck. I patted my head, checking for loose strands. “Is my hair really looking that bad?”

“Not if you’re Mrs. Neumeyer,” Odell said, setting a tray of cookies into the display case.

Mrs. Neumeyer was Hitching Post’s oldest resident. At 103, she still worked at the county clerk’s office three days a week filing wedding licenses. She looked every bit a stereotypical elderly librarian, from coiled bun to orthopedic black shoes.

The old lady was spunky, though, so I didn’t mind the comparison all that much. Besides, there wasn’t much I could do with my hair without electricity. I should’ve been grateful for running water at this point, even if it was ice-cold. However, after the electricity was fixed, I was going to have to look into replacing the air-conditioning, which hadn’t worked since the Clinton administration, if I didn’t want to melt to death in my sleep come summertime.

I might need to rob a bank in the meantime.

I glanced at Odell. “You don’t happen to know anything about electricity, do you?”

Jessa threw her head back and laughed. Odell shook his head at me, then frowned at her before heading back into the kitchen.

Jessa lifted her eyebrows and said, “You should ask Dylan for some help. He’s handy.”

I knew exactly how handy the man was. My cheeks surely aflame, I said, “That’s okay. I’ll muddle through.”

As she continued to fight with the lid, she said, “Suit yourself” in a way that told me she thought I was making a big mistake. She’d always had a soft spot for Dylan Jackson.

I knew the feeling. And I also knew Jessa. She wasn’t one to give up so easily, and I could only imagine what kind of plan she was concocting.

“You can leave off the top, Jessa,” I said, desperate for some caffeine.

With a grateful sigh, she slid the cup and its lid across the counter and leaned down on her elbows. “Have you heard anything else about what happened with Nelson, darlin’?”

The murder.

I added a bit of sugar and a little half-and-half to my cup before taking that amazing first sip. “Not much. Have you? What’s the latest gossip?”

Next to Mr. Dunwoody and my mama, no one knew gossip like Jessa.

“Besides you poisoning everyone?”

“Yeah. Besides that.” I snapped the lid on my cup without a bit of trouble.

“I must’ve loosened it up,” Jessa said, referring to the lid.

“Must have.”

“Anyways, I’ve been keeping an ear out for any talk about Nelson having a girlfriend, but no one knows anything. Maybe you heard wrong?”

It was possible Emmylou Pritcherd had been mistaken, but I was a big believer in women’s intuition, so I wasn’t ready to let the notion go. It did make me wonder who the woman could possibly be and why—if she truly existed—the relationship was so hush-hush.

What were they hiding?

Nelson’s secretary would surely know if he had someone special in his life. It was too early to pay her a call right now, so I’d have to bide my time.

Hopping off the stool, I took a five-dollar bill out of the pocket of my shorts and slid it across the counter.

“You want a muffin to go, darlin’?”

Shaking my head, I said, “Thanks, but I’m not very hungry.”

Jessa rang up my order and reached over into the display case and pulled out several of Odell’s chocolate fudge cookies. She stuck them in a bag and handed it to me. “On the house.”

“Thanks, Jessa.”

“If I hear anything, I’ll call your place,” she yelled as I headed out the front door. I knew she’d be eavesdropping on every conversation at the shop that day, and I hoped someone would let something slip.

It was only after I left that I remembered my home phone was as dead as Nelson.

Outside it was still quiet, the humid air barely stirring. I placed my bag of cookies in my wicker basket and set out on my way. Steering with one hand and holding on to my coffee with the other, I decided to take the long way home—the route that passed my shop. I wanted to check on it and make sure nothing else dreadful had happened there overnight.

As soon as I circled around the Ring, I spotted Emmylou and Dudley almost exactly where I’d seen them the day before. Only this time Dudley had a metal detector with him, and Emmylou was bossing him about.

“Try there,” she said, pointing toward a flower bed.

I slowed Bessie Blue as my witchy senses kicked up, a forewarning. Waves of energy suddenly washed over me. My nerves began to dance with anger and anxiety and a deep bellyache nearly doubled me over.

This happened to me sometimes, either when I was distracted or when someone else’s emotion was so powerful that it could break through my highly refined defenses. In this case, I was distracted
and
picking up strong emotions from both Dudley and Emmylou. My psyche had been tag-teamed.

I took a few deep breaths, trying to rebuild the wall between their energy and mine. I put my coffee cup in my basket and set my kickstand. My palms grew sweaty and my heart pounded as I walked up to them. My stomach hurt something fierce, a painful gnawing sensation, and I wondered which one of them had the ulcer.

Most likely it was Dudley, if his pale face was any indication. No wonder he’d lost all that weight. One of my potions would do him wonders. I could make him one as soon as my shop opened. . . .

But no. He didn’t want any of
my
potions.

“Oh, Carly!” Emmylou cried. “We can’t find it anywhere!” She nibbled her lip and wrung her hands.

The anxiety I was feeling was clearly coming from her. I took a step back, hoping the distance would help me block their emotions, but between them, I was overwhelmed.

My hand curled around my locket. Warmth flowed into my palm, and I took a few deep breaths as I slowly detached myself from their collective maladies.

Feeling better, I said, “It?”

“My ring!” Emmylou said, her gaze glued to the ground.

“Right.” Her wedding ring—the one that had flown off her hand yesterday afternoon.

“It’ll turn up, Emmylou,” Dudley said, wiping his brow with a handkerchief. “Patience.”

“I refuse to believe it’s gone,” she said, continuing to wring her hands. “It’s custom made by a jeweler in Huntsville, you know.” She sighed. “We have special engravings on the inside of our bands. Show Carly the engravings, Dudley.”

He stared at her a second before just doing as she bid. He slid the ring easily off his finger and handed it over.

“See?” she said.

4-ever & 4-always

Sunlight glinted off the teardrops in her eyes, making them sparkle. “We used the number four instead of spelling out f-o-r on account of Dudley being an accountant.” She tittered. “On account . . . that’s funny.”

I glanced at Dudley—he seemed embarrassed by the way his wife carried on.

I didn’t blame him.

Now probably wasn’t the best time to ask him about keeping the books for the baseball league. I made a mental note to track him down later to ask him some questions about who all had access to the league’s checkbook.

“Cute,” I said.

“Absolutely darling,” she added wistfully, handing his ring back to him. “But now my ring is gone!” Her gaze settled on me. “Will you help us look for it? We’d be most thankful.”

“Now, honey. I’m sure Carly has things to do,” Dudley said softly, his cheeks a bright, guilty pink. He still wouldn’t look at me in the eye. “She doesn’t need to spend her morning helping us.”

Because his tone clearly conveyed that he’d rather I just go so he wouldn’t have to face me, I said, “Oh, I have a few minutes I can spare.”

Emmylou smiled gratefully, but Dudley merely stared at the ground. How he was functioning with that kind of stomach pain bewildered me. He had a high pain tolerance, that’s for sure. The desire to heal him with a potion was impossible to ignore. I was, after all, a healer by nature. But I refused to try to talk Dudley into trying one of my cures—he would have to come to me.

Dudley had manners enough not to argue. I said, “Where have you looked?”

“Everywhere,” Emmylou said, gesturing wide. “Maybe someone found it last night? We should put up Lost flyers. Perhaps offer a cash reward?”

“It couldn’t hurt,” I said. The picnic park was popular with townsfolk and tourists alike. It was a nice place to hang out, have lunch, fly a kite. . . . It was very possible someone could have found the ring already.

As I helped search, Emmylou fell in step with me. She dropped her voice and said, “Do you think you’ll be able to reopen your shop today? I can stop by any time. Any time at all.”