A Potion to Die For: A Magic Potion Mystery (14 page)

I was taken aback at her show of emotions. I’d always known her as being ice-cold, but apparently this breakup had hit her hard. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t need your pity,” she seethed.

“It’s not pity,” I said. “It’s someone who’s had a broken heart and knows the pain.”

“Well, at least Dylan’s not dead.”

It was hard to argue with that.

I hated to push my luck but needed more information. “Do you know who his new girlfriend is? A local?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t care.”

I doubted that very much. “What about—”

Her eyes blazed. “It’s time for you to go, Carly.”

It was time to pull back and regroup. I nodded, and left her standing in her hexing room, looking a little lost and forlorn.

I knew that feeling, too, and couldn’t help feeling sorry for her.

Which shook me to my core.

We were strangers.

Worse than that, we were enemies.

Weren’t we?

And as I walked back out into the sunshine, I realized that I hadn’t really learned anything new from Delia. She’d only confirmed what Miz Morris had said.

I was back to square one.

P
edaling slowly, I circled the Ring, headed toward my shop. My journey to work was a far cry from yesterday morning’s frenzy.

Today there was no crowd nipping at my heels, no mad rush for any of my potions. It would be a surprise if anyone came into the shop today. Anyone other than Emmylou Pritcherd, at least.

Heat haze blurred the sidewalk, the wilting trees, and the shops straight ahead. It was going to be an absolute scorcher today, and I was mourning the lack of air-conditioning in my house. Maybe it was silly that I was living there while it was under construction, but as much as I adored my parents—and I did—moving back to within arm’s length seemed so . . . suffocating. I’d just plug in another fan and make plans to get a loan from the bank to get my air fixed.

I eyed Déjà Brew wistfully. It would be so easy to go inside, pull up a stool, and pass an hour or two. Or four or five.

As I was gliding along, I recognized my desire for a diversion for what it was. An attempt to delay what needed to get done.

My shop needed to be reopened, and I couldn’t keep putting it off.

Resolutely, I kept pedaling.

In the picnic park, I noticed Dudley still sweeping the grass with his metal detector, which reminded me that I hadn’t stopped back at Emmylou’s booth to pick up my piece of cake. Hopefully she’d bring a slice by when she came to the shop later on. I could use some cake right about now.

As I watched Dudley swing the detector back and forth across the grass, I couldn’t help the twinge of pity I felt for him. Emmylou wasn’t going to let him rest until that ring was back on her finger.

Even though I fully knew I should be getting to my shop, I steered my way toward Dudley. Now was the perfect time to ask him about the baseball league’s accounting books—and to see if he was harboring any guilty energy. It was a good way to put Bernice’s theory to rest once and for all.

I left my bike on the pathway and walked over to Dudley. An ashen face looked up as I neared.

“I’ll find it,” he said, continuing to swing with the metal detector.

“I have faith.”

“I’m glad
you
do.”

Ah, so Emmylou’s nagging was getting to him. “I’ll help look for a few minutes.”

“You don’t have to.”

“It’s okay. It’s helping me procrastinate on opening my shop. I hate the thought of going back in there.”

His pale face turned a bit green. I had the feeling mine was the same shade.

“I appreciate the help,” he said.

“How’s your stomach?” I asked.

“Hurts. I’m going to the doctor later today.”

The sting of rejection hurt. One of my potions would have fixed him right up. “Glad to hear it.”

“It’s this stress. . . .”

I was grateful for the opening. “From the trial?”

He nodded.

“Do you think Coach is guilty?”

He tipped his head back and forth. “It was his name on those checks. They’d all been made out to cash and Coach signed them.”

“Seems rather foolish of him, doesn’t it?” I asked, testing the waters. “I mean, it’s so easy to get caught.”

“It’s actually not all that unusual a way to embezzle. It’s just that the amounts started to add up and there weren’t receipts to back up the withdrawals. And then a check bounced. That sent up big red flags.”

“He had to have known he’d get caught eventually,” I said.

“He’s not the brightest bulb,” Dudley said softly.

No. No he wasn’t.

“Could someone have forged his name?”
Someone like you,
I wanted to add but didn’t.

I lowered my defenses and tapped into his energy. I felt no guilt coming from him—only his stomach pain and a good level of frustration. Bernice had been wrong about him. I latched onto my locket, took a few deep breaths, and rebuilt the blockade against his pain.

“It would have had to have been a very good forger,” he said. “Nelson was waiting to get the results from a handwriting expert.”

“When was the report due?”

“Two days ago,” Dudley said solemnly.

The day Nelson was killed. “Bernice said Nelson had gotten some proof that day that Coach was innocent.”

He turned off the metal detector. “It must have been the report.”

“She didn’t say. I’m not sure she knew for certain.”

“Well, I’d like to know. If those checks were forged, it changes the whole outlook on the case.”

I would’ve liked to know, too. Because as I’d been saying . . . if Coach was innocent, it meant that someone else stole that money.

Someone other than Dudley.

Someone who might have killed to cover up the crime.

• • •

A half hour later, I decided I’d stalled long enough. I left Dudley on the picnic green, still looking for Emmylou’s wedding band, and I headed toward my shop.

Tossing a look both ways before I crossed the street, I couldn’t help but think about Nelson and who’d done him in.

According to just about everyone I’d talked to, Nelson was a likeable guy. No enemies. Yet someone had split his skull and left him in my shop.

My
shop.

I still didn’t understand why. If there was some sort of message there, it was lost on me.

I drew up in front of the Little Shop of Potions’ large display window. My gaze fell on an antique cast-iron mortar and pestle. It had once belonged to Leila, and had been passed down through the family to me. I’d chosen not to use it—it was heavy and unwieldy—but I could easily picture Grammy Adelaide pounding the pestle into the bowl while she regaled me with stories of my heritage. Of Leila and Abraham. Of a love doomed from the beginning. Of a legacy born from their deaths.

My gaze wandered to my reflection in the glass. My hair still looked a sight, since I hadn’t had time to shower before Ainsley called. My eyes, too, had a strange look about them. A mix of confusion, trepidation, and determination that perfectly summed up my life these days.

A shadow fell over me. “You owe me big, Carly.”

I jumped as Caleb Montgomery appeared at my shoulder. I hadn’t heard him coming. My nerves were frayed. “How big? And for what?”

“I’m still weighing the enormity.” He leaned against the window and swiped a hand through his dark hair. “You can add it to my tab.”

I owed him for many things—it was true. He’d been my partner in crime for many years. And my savior, too. After I’d been arrested for setting that chapel on fire in Georgia, he’d been the one to bail me out and convince the police it had been an accident. I’d paid the deductible for the chapel’s insurance and had been asked kindly never to return once it was rebuilt.

“Well, why do I owe you this time?”

“I made some calls.”

“To?”

“Friends in Birmingham. I got the scoop on why Coach Butts fired Doughtree, Sullivan, and Gobble.”

I rolled Bessie Blue to a nearby bike stand and twisted a lock around her frame. “That is big,” I admitted. “What did they have to say?”

“The Birmingham lawyers had tried to get Coach to take a plea deal. Coach pitched a white-trash fit, including throwing some chairs and punching holes in the office walls.”

“That’s quite a fit.”

“By all accounts, it was a full-blown rage. Coach went on and on about how the lawyers were conspiring with the real embezzler. He fired them on the spot, though if he hadn’t they would have resigned the case. Clearly Coach is not right in the head.”

“Because of the violence?” It did seem out of character. He was a bit pervy, but I’d never known him to even raise his voice.

In the shade of my shop’s awning, Caleb’s eyes looked more gray than blue. They held a hint of amusement as he said, “Because of the conspiracy theory. If he’d been thinking straight, he would have realized twenty thousand dollars was nothing to that firm. Hell, Coach has probably racked double that in legal fees, not that he’s footing the bill. . . .”

“Ooh, I do owe you big. Who’s paying?”

“Bernice Morris.”

That knowledge didn’t surprise me much, but it did make me feel a bit sad for the woman.

“And apparently Nelson hadn’t really wanted to get involved in a case that had the town split down the middle, but out of fondness for Bernice, he signed on.”

His blue button-down was immaculate, not a wrinkle to be seen as he crossed his arms. “I also heard another little tidbit. About Nelson and that Birmingham law firm.”

I couldn’t help a smile. “That he was freelancing for them, hoping to be taken on full-time.”

Caleb’s eyes filled with outrage. “How’d you know?”

“John Richard Baldwin.”

“Who?”

“Long story.” I bit a nail.

“Well, here’s the interesting part about Nelson and that firm. He called them the day before he died and said he was no longer interested in the position—said he’d had a change of heart and was going to be staying put here in Hitching Post.”

“Did he say why he’d changed his mind? Was it because Aunt Marjie wouldn’t talk to him?”

“He didn’t say, but I’ve seen this kind of thing before, Carly. Where a man is willing to pack up his life and move away on what seems like a whim.”

“Oh?”

“Indeed, and usually there’s a woman involved. Find her, and you’ll get some answers.”

It was the second time I’d heard that advice in as many days.

But finding Nelson’s mystery woman was turning out to be much harder than I thought. Which only reinforced one thing in my mind.

She didn’t want to be found.

A
few minutes later, after seeing Caleb off, I decided I couldn’t procrastinate any longer. I needed to open the shop.

The lock on the front door of the Little Shop of Potions turned easily, reminding me that I still needed to call a locksmith. The familiar scents of the shop greeted me, erasing some of my unease. I breathed in deeply jasmine and vanilla as I looked around, took stock.

Colorful potion bottles were in disarray on the shelves, and I noted in dismay that one or two lay in shards on the floor, knocked over by a careless hand. I guessed the “stain magicians” had worked their magic only in the break room.

The back hallway was in shadow, dark and foreboding. My feet felt glued to the floor as I trudged toward the potion room . . . and the break room. As I passed a wall plate, I cut on the lights and the shop brightened immediately, further relieving my anxiety.

The door to the potion room was open, and I peeked inside. Nothing seemed amiss from the way I’d left it the day before when I made Francine Debbs’s hangover potion. I pressed onward, ready to face my fears.

Bracing a hand on the wall, I peered into the break room. Part of me had fully expected to find another dead body. . . . But all was clear. The room was immaculate, scrubbed top to bottom. My gaze lingered on the tile floor, and I knew without a doubt that it was going to have to be replaced. The walls painted. The cabinets torn out. It would be the only way I’d be able to use the space again—if it felt new. Untarnished. Mine, and mine alone.

Glancing at the back door, I noted that the double locks were still bolted. There hadn’t been another break-in. Good to know.

I grabbed a broom and other cleaning products from the supply closet and went to work in the shop cleaning up broken glass.

An hour later the floors were immaculate, the potions bottles were back in alignment, and I hadn’t had a single customer, even though plenty of people had stopped by to gawk through the window.

When the phone rang, I snatched up the receiver, glad to have
something
to do.

“Carlina Bell Hartwell, you have to help me,” my daddy said. He sounded out of breath.

“What’s wrong? Are you back in town?”

“Got in this morning. And it’s your mama. . . .”

I couldn’t help my smile. My mama was all kinds of wrong, it was true. “Did you find out what Mama’s planning exactly? Mr. Braxton is all worked up over her sabotaging his big weekend.”

“Don’t I know it?”

I rather hoped she changed her plans. “Is she still planning to sabotage his weekend?”

“Of course she is. You know your mama when she has a bee in her bonnet.”

“There’s no stopping her.”

He let out a deep breath filled with frustrated vibrato. Next to my mama and my aunt Eulalie, there was no one more dramatic than Augustus Hartwell. He had learned from the masters.

He said, “She is a freight train out of control.”

“And you?” I asked, playing along. I found it was best just to humor his rants.

“I am but her caboose, being dragged along behind her by the braids of my wig.”

“The braids of what?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right.

“My wig,” he repeated. “It’s why I called, Carly. I’m in desperate need of your help before your mama makes a fool of me this afternoon.”

A braided wig. I couldn’t wait to see what Mama had in mind. “Tell me what I can do.”

“First, I need you to—”

My head snapped up as the shop door swung open. “I need to call you back, Daddy.”

He protested. “But, Carly—”

“I’ll call you right back,” I said, and hung up, feeling guilty about cutting my daddy off. But I knew he’d understand if he could see who was here.

“Is it a bad time?” she asked as she scooted into the shop, throwing a look over her shoulder as if afraid someone might see her.

Which was understandable, considering most of the townsfolk suspected I had tried to kill her husband.

“What are you doing here, Angelea?”

Coach Butts’s wife was a pretty little thing, with long curly red hair, fair sun-kissed skin, and pouty lips. She and Floyd Butts had met while she was still in high school, she the head cheerleader and he the school’s gym teacher. It was a scandalous relationship and the only things that had kept him out of jail and from being fired were the facts that she’d been eighteen when they started dating and that their relationship hadn’t come to light until after she graduated.

When she found out she was pregnant.

They eloped right off and had come back to tongues wagging about their marriage. They weathered the storm, but unfortunately Angelea had miscarried after a month or two and had never been able to conceive again despite years of trying. Even my potions hadn’t helped any.

Rumor around town was that she’d faked the initial pregnancy all those years ago to trap Coach into marrying her. . . . Why, I’d never understand. Angelea could have had her pick of men. And still did, which she regularly proved whenever she and Coach were separated.

Why they kept getting back together was beyond me.

“I need a potion made up,” she said. “I heard about Mr. Dunwoody’s forecast yesterday.”

It seemed so long ago that he’d predicted sunny with a chance of divorce.

“You want one of
my
potions?” I asked, noticing she didn’t look so good and didn’t seem herself. Dark circles colored the fair skin beneath her eyes, and instead of her usual skintight jeans, heels, and tank top, she wore a pair of baggy cargo pants and a thick sweatshirt. In this heat. Something was definitely off. “Even after everything’s that happened?”

Chipped manicured nails gleamed as she waved a hand. “I’ve known you a long time, Carly. You don’t have it in you to hurt someone like that.”

It was nice of her not to bring up the pitchfork incident with Mrs. Jackson. She’d been at that party.

“Plus,” she added, “I don’t give a damn what other people say.”

Now probably wasn’t the right time to point out that her husband had accused me of poisoning him. If she was willing to overlook it, so was I.

“I appreciate that,” I said. “Did that sleep potion I made work okay for you?”

The mix of lemon balm, valerian, chamomile, and Leilara should have worked like a . . . well, like a charm. Since it was, in fact, charmed. But she looked like she hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in a month of Sundays.

Rolling her eyes, she shifted her weight and tossed another look over her shoulder. For someone who didn’t care what others said, she was sure nervous about being seen in my shop.

“I didn’t get a chance to use it. Floyd found the bottle and asked me a million questions.” Fussing with her collar, she said, “He didn’t give it back. And now the police have it, as you probably know.”

The bottle had been
empty
when Coach crashed. Had he dumped it out? “This is going to sound strange, but the remnants in that potion bottle weren’t those of the sleeping cure I gave you. Do you know what might have been in it?”

Her face drained of color. “In it? No . . . I don’t. Was it something bad?”

“The police are looking into it. It just didn’t smell like anything familiar. And the bottle was empty when Coach had it, but you say you didn’t drink any, so . . . what happened to the sleeping potion?”

“I-I don’t know. That’s surely strange,” she said, shifting her weight from foot to foot.

Her strange behavior was making me suspicious that she knew more than she was letting on. I tapped into her energy for a second and felt evasiveness wash over me. She was lying. “Are you sure you don’t know what happened to that potion?”

“I’m sure,” she said. “Maybe Floyd knows.”

“Maybe,” I murmured, wondering what she was hiding. “How’s he feeling?”

“Much better. My apologies about your house. Whatever the insurance doesn’t cover, we will, of course.”

Bass vibrated through the floor from distant yet loud music. I glanced out the window but didn’t see anything. “What’s that, do you think?”

“It’s probably from your mama’s block party,” Angelea said.

“Her what?”

Angelea smiled, and it lit her whole face. “The block party? Your mama’s quite the sight, I have to tell you.”

A block party. My word. I was definitely going to have to rescue my daddy—but not before I took a picture of how my mama had trussed him up. “Give me a quick sec, and I’ll fix you up a love potion. Then I’ve got to see what’s going on.”

“Wait,” she said, grabbing my arm as I passed by her. “It’s not a love potion I want, Carly.”

“But you said . . . about the forecast?”

“Right. But I don’t want a love potion. I want to make sure that the breakup Mr. Dunwoody predicted is my own. I want a divorce potion. I-I actually told Floyd earlier this week that I want a divorce. We’ve been living separate lives for so long now. . . . This divorce is a long time coming, and I want to make sure I actually go through with it this go-round.”

I felt my eyes go wide. “A divorce potion?”

“Surely you can concoct one,” she said, a desperate gleam in her eye.

“Actually, I can’t,” I said. “Divorce falls outside my abilities.” One of Delia’s hexes, however, would be just the thing she needed. Not that I told her so.

Water filled her eyes. “Why not?”

“My potions are to foster love, to heal, to fix.” Not to cause pain. I studied her carefully and noticed the anguish in her eyes she was trying desperately to hide. “Why do you think you wouldn’t go through with the divorce?”

People came from all over Alabama to Darling County for its quickie, no-muss, no-fuss divorces. We had laws here that didn’t apply to the rest of the state, grandfathered in from a time when government wasn’t quite so involved in people’s love lives.

“It’s like Floyd has a spell cast on me, making me come back to him time and again. It’s time I leave. For good.”

I thought it was a sensible decision. “How’d he take the news?”

She let out a weary sigh. “About as well as you’d expect with his temper these days.”

“He didn’t hurt you—”

“No, no. But he was angry as the devil, punching walls, throwing things, and accusing me of cheating on him. I had to promise to give him another chance just to get him to calm down.” Her voice cracked. “So I’m still living there, and now he’s hurt. . . . And he’s already vowed to fight a divorce if I do go through with it, dragging it out to a bitter end.”

Ah, there was the rub. Quickie divorces were only quickie if both parties agreed to the terms. I wanted to ask if she had been cheating, because most of the town had heard those rumors, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

“I just want out.” Her shoulders shook and she wrapped her arms around herself.

I motioned her to a stool. “Have you two tried counseling?”

A tear dripped from the corner of her eye. “I don’t think it will help. We’re too far gone. As you know, we’ve always been at odds, but this court case has just torn us apart.”

“Because he’s guilty?” I prodded. I couldn’t help myself.

She gave me a weak smile. “His ego has been bruised and battered,” she said, not answering the question. “It didn’t help that right around the time he was arrested we found out that it’s near impossible for him to have kids, neither. Some sort of complication of his diabetes. He’s taken that hard. So hard.”

Ah. That would explain why none of my fertility potions had worked on Angelea. The issue had been with Coach. “Maybe if he comes in, I can make something that will help. . . .”

Fear filled her eyes. “Oh no. That wouldn’t do at all. He’s not all that fond of you, and, in fact”—she winced—“he thinks your potions are to blame for my infertility. He believes that your potions made me barren so he couldn’t have kids.”

“That’s . . .” I was at a loss for words.

“Crazy. I know. He’s . . .” She searched for words. “He’s not really thinking straight right now. He hasn’t been really. Not for a while. He hasn’t touched me in months. He’s a shadow of the man I married. I need to get out.”

Once I would have thought that being a shadow of his former self wasn’t a bad thing. Seeing as how his former self was a big jerk. But in light of the fact that he’d been losing touch with reality, this news wasn’t good.

She looked up at me through lowered lashes. “I just want . . . I want him to get better—but without me.” Letting out a deep sigh, she said, “What am I going to do now?”

Even though I didn’t particularly like Coach, I did like Angelea. I hated seeing her hurting so, but wasn’t sure what kind of advice to give her. Finally, I said, “Maybe you should talk to Caleb Montgomery. He’s the best divorce lawyer in town, and he’ll know how best to handle this.”

Pulling a hankie from her purse, she nodded stoically. “Maybe I should. This stress is hurting me, too. “

“I
can
help with that.”

She looked like she was about to decline, then nodded.

I left her in the front of the shop and went to work on her potion. As I took out the Leilara from its hidey-hole, I glanced at her through the pass-through.

She looked over her shoulder once again and moved off to the side, out of sight of anyone happening by.

“Are you afraid Coach isn’t going to like you being here if he catches wind of it?” I asked.

“It’s not that. It’s just—” She tossed another glance out the window.

“Just?” I prompted as I gathered ingredients.

“It’s probably silly, but I can’t help but feel like someone’s been following me.”

I stopped working and took a good look at her. There was a hint of fear in her eyes, but when she blinked it was gone.

“Silliness,” she said with a wave of her hand.

Ordinarily, I’d have agreed with her. But strange things were happening in this town. “Is there any reason someone would be following you? No one has threatened you, have they?”

Uneasily, she laughed. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m just being paranoid.”

I let my guard down to feel her energy, and a wave of overwhelming anxiety crashed over me. I quickly wrapped my hand around my locket and blocked out her emotions. She might have a smile on her face, but under the surface she was a wreck. There were definitely things she wasn’t telling me, but I also wasn’t sure I wanted to prod her any more than I had.