A Potion to Die For: A Magic Potion Mystery (13 page)

“Hurry,” Ainsley said.

I took off at a run and shouted, “Miz Morris! Wait!”

She took a look at me and quickly whipped her bike helmet onto her head and yanked her front tires from the rack. Luckily, one of the pedals tangled with the bike next to it, slowing her up. I reached her just as she threw a leg over the low frame.

“Miz Morris,” I said, jumping in front of her to cut her off. “I need to speak with you.”

Looking like a frightened rabbit, her eyes wide and darting, she said, “I don’t believe I have anything to say to you, Carly Hartwell.”

The thick humidity made the simple act of catching my breath difficult. “First, my condolences on Nelson’s passing. I know you were close.”

Some of the fear left her eyes, and I could easily see the resemblance between her and Coach. The same narrow eyes, the same weak jaw and long craggy nose. Her saving grace was her beautiful skin tone and plump lips. She’d been married once, but Mr. Morris had long since passed away. She’d been swallowed by widowhood for quite a while before finally shaking off her grief and finding a job—as Nelson’s secretary. It’d been four or five years now that she’d worked for him.

Those thick lips pursed into a scowl. “I was greatly fond of him. Everyone was. You took away a good man when you killed him, Carly Hartwell. But you’ll get yours.”

Surprised by the venom in her voice, I staggered back a bit. “You don’t really believe I’d hurt someone, do you? Especially someone I barely knew? Why would I do that?”

I should’ve been glad she had said nothing about my supposed poisoning of her brother. She had to know Coach’s diabetes had been to blame, or I was sure she’d have been the one to track me down—for retribution.

As though a steel rod were sliding down her spine, she slowly straightened an inch at a time. “You want to see my brother go to jail. What better way than to kill the person who could prove his innocence?”

The sharp and condemning tone of her voice set my teeth on edge. Wrapping my hands tightly around her wire basket, I said, “If Coach is guilty, he deserves to go to jail. If he’s innocent, he deserves to be set free. That’s not my call to make. It’s no one’s call besides a judge and a jury.”

Her eyes narrowed into spiteful slits. “He’s
not
guilty.”

She sounded so sure, so righteous, that for a second there I completely believed what she was saying. “You mentioned that Nelson could prove Coach’s innocence. Why are you so certain?”

Sunbeams lit the freckles sprinkled on her arms as she folded them across her chest. “The afternoon of the day he died, he told me he’d finally found the proof he needed to clear Floyd’s name once and for all. He said the case would be wrapped up by the end of next week.”

“What kind of proof?” My curiosity was killing me. “The second audit verified Dudley Pritcherd’s findings.”

People passed by, openly curious about our discussion. Ainsley hung back a bit, peeking out from behind a nearby tree.

Perspiration beaded along Bernice’s brow line, just below the edge of the helmet. Wagging a finger at me, she said, “I ain’t saying anything more to you, seeing as how you’re the one who killed Nelson.”

Not this again. “Let’s say you’re right, Miz Morris. Not about me, of course. Let’s assume I’m not out to get your brother for a decades-old grudge, okay?” Seriously, what was with people around here? “But let’s say someone killed Nelson because they want Coach to be found guilty, because that person is the real embezzler who doesn’t want to be found out. Did Nelson ever offer up any suspects who could have taken the money?”

Tufts of tawny hair stuck out around her ears. “I’ve said it all along that Dudley Pritcherd had just as much access to those baseball accounts as my brother, and could have easily had Floyd sign checks that were never deposited correctly. Floyd wasn’t one to focus on details.”

Dudley just didn’t seem the murderous type, but I supposed if he had taken the money he’d be desperate to keep it a secret. And since he and Nelson were friends, Nelson may have unknowingly tipped him off about any evidence that would prove his guilt.

I wondered if the police had looked into Dudley’s finances as I said, “Does that mean the handwriting analysis report came back?” Had it shown that Coach actually signed those checks? Was she setting up a defense?

But no. If Nelson said he had proof Coach didn’t commit the crime, there would have to be hard evidence, not just a theory.

“I have to go,” she said, setting her feet on the pedals.

Taking hold of the handlebars, I said, “Before you do, did you know Nelson was thinking about leaving town for good?”

Something flashed across her eyes, and it looked a lot like betrayal. Obviously she hadn’t known Nelson as well as she thought.

“Let go of my handlebars, Carly Hartwell, or I’ll run you over.”

There was a gleam in her eye that had me believing she would love trying. Still, I was stronger, and held on. “I know this is a mite unusual, but I think we can help each other, Miz Morris.”

“How’s that?”

I laid it on the line. “You want to prove that Coach is innocent, and I want to prove that I had nothing to do with Nelson’s death. We’re probably looking for the same person. If we pool our facts, we might be able to narrow down a list of suspects.”

Her beady eyes shifted. I could tell she didn’t trust me a whit, but I was banking on her desire to see her brother proven innocent being enough to let down her guard.

“Who’re your suspects?” she asked warily.

I couldn’t admit I had none at the moment. “I heard Nelson had a girlfriend. Maybe she’d be willing to share her thoughts with us. Do you know who she is?”

The strap on her helmet looked to be digging into her chin as she fastened the clasp. “True fact. He had a new girl in his life, but I don’t know who. He kept that information to himself. But his old girl might be able to tell you something. They only recently broke up a couple months ago.”

My mind whirred, trying to process the new information that Nelson had himself another girl I hadn’t known about.

“Who is she?” I asked.

Malice glittered in her eyes, and for that split second her true resemblance to Coach shone clearly through. “Why,” she said, her voice syrupy sweet, “I do believe it was your cousin. Delia Bell Barrows.”

I
was spittin’ mad and seeing red.

Delia and Nelson had been a couple? An odd couple to be sure, but a couple nonetheless.

And yet yesterday morning in my shop, she hadn’t said a word about knowing him well.

My cousin had some explaining to do.

As I stomped toward Delia’s booth, I was waylaid by Ainsley, who quickly fell in step beside me.

“What’s got your gussie up?” she asked, her cheeks red from either the sun or the exertion. “What’d Miz Morris have to say?”

“Delia,” I said through clenched teeth.

Ainsley put a kick in her step to keep up with me, and pressed her hand to her chest to keep her breasts from bouncing right out of her sundress. “I don’t understand.”

“Delia and Nelson dated a few months ago.”

“Hush your mouth!”

I shared her shock. Delia and Nelson. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. He was so clean-cut and boy next door, while she was . . . Delia, black cape, skulls, and all.

On a mission, we sliced through the crowd and headed straight for Delia’s booth. But all our storming and steaming was for nothing. Delia had cleared out. All that remained of her visit was tamped-down grass and a bad taste in my mouth.

I let my anger cool. “Why didn’t you tell me she was selling my potion bottles here?”

“I thought you knew,” she said. “I realized you didn’t only yesterday, when you were talking to Dylan. I tried to tell you at the coffee shop, but then I got cut off and forgot. Delia’s been selling them here for about a month now.” Her nose wrinkled. “I’m sorry. I should have said something sooner.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said. It was Delia’s. “Nelson had one of my potions in his hand when he died, which made it look like one of my cures killed him. Or at least had something to do with it. But anyone could have bought that bottle and put something in it. And there’s no telling where the murderer got that bottle—from me, one of my clients, or Delia.”

Ainsley chewed her lip. “Hadn’t thought of that.”

“All this is so crazy, isn’t it?” I asked, not really looking for an answer. A murder, rumors of tainted potions, Dylan’s sudden presence back in my life. “Anyways, I should go. Dylan said I could reopen the shop today.”

“That’s good news, but don’t forget it’s the first Saturday of the month. . . .”

I’d completely forgotten.

Ainsley’s hands settled on her hips. “You can still carry me over to Rock Creek this afternoon, right?”

It wasn’t really a question if her demanding tone was any indication. I knew better than to say I had too much going on to make our monthly trip to the county seat ten miles to the south. She didn’t dare drive her van in case someone recognized it, so we always took my old Jeep, pulling it out from its dusty slumber in my garage. Because I biked everywhere around town, my Jeep didn’t get much use except for these little monthly trips I took with Ainsley.

“Of course,” I said.

Relief flooded her eyes. “Just remember that Bixby’s closes at six on Saturdays, and I don’t want to cut it too close.”

I understood. “We’ll have plenty of time. I doubt my shop will be busy today.”

Across the lawn, I saw Ainsley’s twin boys climbing an old oak tree. Little Olive had herself wrapped around her daddy’s leg, clinging like she was a baby cub too scared to come down from the branch it had climbed. She was wailing something fierce, and it looked like Carter was doing his best to ignore her.

Ainsley watched the scene, too, a tender, loving look in her eyes. Probably out of gratitude that it wasn’t her leg Olive was attached to.

Giving Ainsley a nudge, I said, “Does Carter have any idea you ran him over on purpose all those years ago?” It had been no accident the day she hit him in the crosswalk, but a well-orchestrated plan years in the making, to get his attention. All because he never looked up from his books long enough to notice her many (futile) attempts to catch his eye. Her plan had worked perfectly. There was no ignoring a car hitting you.

A wide smile bloomed on her face. “Not a clue.” She winked and sashayed away.

I watched her extricate her spirited daughter from her husband’s leg before I turned toward town. It was a little surreal to be on the other end of a witch hunt, but I needed to find Delia.

And she’d better have some answers for me.

• • •

One would think that in a town based on love and marriage a shop like Till Hex Do Us Part would fail miserably. But in fact it was one of the most successful stores around.

With its mystical kitsch, it drew a crowd looking for something different, something a little darker.

I parked Bessie Blue and stood on the sidewalk facing the front of the store. I’d never actually been inside—had only passed by, sparing furtive glances through the shaded window. My aunt Neige had opened the store nearly twenty years ago but signed it over to Delia just about a year ago when Neige followed her heart to New Orleans to shack up with a scary voodoo practitioner named Xavier.

She was clearly following in Leila’s footsteps of choosing the wrong man to fall for, though I hoped my aunt wouldn’t share the same fate. We were hardly close, but kin was kin, and I didn’t want to see anything happen to her.

My thoughts led me back to the conversation I’d had with Delia yesterday morning. The one where she warned me something bad was going to happen . . . Had she known about Nelson’s death all along? Was that why she hadn’t been too surprised to see him on the floor?

I supposed there was no way to find out but to go in and ask Delia flat out.

Taking a deep breath, I pulled open the leaded glass door. Long arcing shadows danced in the dimly lit shop, and it took a second for my eyesight to adjust. When it did, I was surprised to see how beautifully decorated the store was. Dark purple walls, velvet draping, and gold trim should have felt cheap and tacky yet instead seemed rich and oddly soothing. Some sort of sweet incense scented the air as I looked around, soaking in the atmosphere. Twigs fashioned into arched doorways led into smaller rooms at the back of the store. The front room held a lot of novelty items, including many, many skull-emblazoned items (no surprise there), voodoo dolls, charms, talismans, jewelry, crystals, gemstones, New Age CDs, journals, and books. A cash register and small displays of key chains and beaded bracelets sat on a long counter ran along the wall to my left. There was no one else around.

“Hello?” I called out.

No one answered, and I wondered where Delia was hiding, because I knew she was around here somewhere. As I passed display tables, I stopped to lift the fabric skirts on each one, but so far Delia hadn’t turned up under any of them.

The next room, a tiny nook, held incense, beautiful pairs of tapered candles, stunning crystal candle holders, lots of jarred herbs, and small leather pouches called gris-gris that were used to hold all sorts of things from hair to bone.

Dark-stained, rough-hewn floors creaked as I made my way into the last area, the hexing room. I passed under a twig arch and into a space that made my skin tingle with the magic in the air.

Although Delia and I had been cut from the same cloth, she chose to practice the dark arts of our great-great-granddaddy, while I chose the white magic of our great-great-grandmother.

And it was a choice. Although Delia didn’t have access to the magical Leilara, she could easily conjure her own potions and be quite successful at running an herbal-remedy shop.

Just as easily as I could use hexes.

We’d chosen our paths.

I shied away from hexes, wanting to help people rather than cause harm. And, of course, Delia had chosen hexes instead of helping people with her abilities.

“Delia?” I said loudly. “Hello?”

Sunshine streamed into the room from a high window, highlighting stunning handmade brooms and wands. Small cauldrons, runes, and tarot decks were also beautifully displayed on tables of varying heights.

I couldn’t help but smile at the hex menu board on the wall behind a high wood-planked counter. Delia sold liquid hexes of every variety. Ones that caused baldness, misfortune, impotence, career problems, cramps, warts, cankers, relationship woes, bad breath, wrinkles . . . The list went on. As far as I knew she didn’t market anything truly dangerous—nothing that would cause chronic illness or death—but it wouldn’t surprise me if she knew them backward and forward.

And that was exactly why she shouldn’t have access to the Leilara. Just as the tears made my healing potions magically potent, they would do the same for Delia’s hexes. And that would be very dangerous indeed.

Someone had to be in the shop—it certainly wouldn’t have been left unstaffed. And though I was sure Delia had employees, if one of them were here they would have helped me by now.

A swinging door behind the counter probably led to a stockroom and office space. Skirting the counter, I headed toward it and was surprised to find it locked.

I was also surprised to feel a pinprick of concern for my cousin. Had something happened to her? A vision of Nelson’s lifeless body on my break room floor had beads of sweat popping up along my hairline as I imagined a similar fate for Delia. Did she even have a break room back there?

Before I went into full-blown worry mode, I tried another tactic. “Boo! Here, Boo!” I gave a short, sharp whistle and smiled when I heard a muffled bark from behind the door.

I hopped up on the counter, letting my legs dangle. “You might as well come out, Delia, considering I’m not fixin’ to leave until you do.”

Behind me, I heard customers come into the shop, their voices easily carrying the length of the store. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw a young couple looking at a display of amulets.

“Howdy!” I called out. “Let me know if you need any help.”

The couple smiled my way and went back to browsing. I hopped off the table and walked over to the door. “And now you’ve got customers here,” I said. “Unless you want me sending them across the street to my shop, you’d best be getting out here.”

I heard a bolt slide across a metal plate and the door swung open. Delia strode out, calm as could be, with Boo tucked into the crook of her arm. He wagged his tail when he spotted me, and I reached over and patted his head.

Looking me dead in the eye, she said in a low whisper, “What do you want, Carly? This isn’t about the bottles again, is it? Last time I checked, it was a free country.” She set Boo on the floor and he raced off to greet the guests.

“He’s friendly!” she called out.

Sunbeams fell on her like a spotlight, making her look like some sort of fallen angel. There was no denying how pretty she was—at least on the outside.

“I still have questions about the bottles,” I said, keeping my voice low, “but what I really want to know is if you dated Nelson Winston.”

Her locket swung back and forth as she reached for a feather duster. “Where’d you hear that?”

“Bernice Morris.”

Swiping the duster across the counter, Delia rolled her eyes. “That woman never did like me.”

I knew the feeling.

“So, it’s true?” I asked. “You and Nelson?”

She stopped dusting long enough to nibble her thumbnail. The black polish had seen better days. “I wouldn’t call it dating. We went out a few times.”

“How few?”

“We were together for a month or so.” She shrugged. “No big deal.”

I wasn’t getting that feeling. I was picking up that she had cared a great deal. “Why didn’t you tell me you knew him yesterday morning in my shop?”

Pain flashed in her eyes. “I was in a bit of shock.”

“Then you didn’t know he’d be there? That’s not why you showed up?”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” she said angrily. “I came because I had a dream about you. And foolishly I thought—” She cut herself off.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me.”

“You’re annoying.”

I ran my hand down a beautifully crafted broom. “I’ve been called worse.”

Letting out a deep sigh, Delia said, “I just thought it might be time we start acting like family and not strangers.”

She’d caught me off guard, and I found myself at a loss for words.

“It was stupid,” she went on. “Obviously.”

The thing was, I couldn’t tell if she was serious or if she was manipulating me in order to find out more about the Leilara. Because she was right: we were strangers.

“Not
stupid
,” I said, wanting to believe the best of her. But I also recognized I couldn’t trust her. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

“Delusional?” she threw out.

“Closer.” I smiled.

She didn’t smile back.

I wandered around a bit before I got back to the reason I was here. Nelson. “How’d you two get together? You and Nelson?”

“What’s with all the questions, Carly?”

“He was found dead in my shop, remember?”

“Hard to forget,” she said quietly. Looking away, she grabbed her locket and held it tightly.

I thought back to yesterday morning and recalled she had been a bit off. I supposed she could have been in shock. I knew I had been.

Finally, I said, “How’d you two meet?”

“We bumped into each other at the bookshop, in the magazine section. Got to chatting. It went from there.”

“And then?”

“And then what?” she asked, heading with her duster for the display of miniature iron cauldrons. Boo wandered back to us and went straight to a doggy bed tucked into a dark corner.

“How come no one knew about your relationship?” A couple like them would certainly be on the lips of every gossip in town.

“It was no one’s business. We went to Huntsville a lot to dinner and the movies.” Her head snapped up as another couple came into the shop. Boo went off to greet them, possibly the cutest welcome wagon I’d ever seen.

“Did he ever talk about having any enemies?” I asked.

“None. Everyone liked Nelson.”

Except for the person who killed him.

“And why did you two break up?” I asked.

Her body stiffened. “We just did.”

“Did it have anything to do with Coach Butts?” I could hope.

Delia looked toward her customers, then back at me, her eyes sparking with anger, with hurt. “It had nothing to do with him and everything to do with Nelson falling for another woman.”