A Potion to Die For: A Magic Potion Mystery (8 page)

“Out!” Dylan ordered her, pointing down the hallway.

Without a fight, she slunk away, the potion bottle clutched to her chest. “I’ll wait for you outside, Carly.”

I felt glued to the ground. Stuck there, staring at all that blood. I felt a hand on my elbow.

Dylan said, “Come on, Carly. Let’s go.” He tugged, and I slowly rose to my feet, a bit wobbly.

“I’ll have to scrub for days. That stain’s never going to come out of the grout.” I grew queasier just thinking about it.

“No you won’t, Cinderella. Someone’s coming in later today to clean up. A professional crew. Stain magicians.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Really.”

I was beyond grateful, because I couldn’t imagine taking a scrub brush to that floor.

Looking around, I said, “Why did someone break in but not take anything? Nothing is missing.”

He leaned against the wall. “I don’t know. Yet. But I’ll figure it out.”

As I walked into the alley, leaving my shop behind, I really, really wanted to believe him.

But I had the uneasy feeling that Nelson’s murderer was going to great lengths to keep that from happening.

A
insley and I sat in Déjà Brew, the only coffee shop located in the Ring, sipping iced coffee.

“What now?” Ainsley asked, dragging her straw through the mocha liquid, swirling the ice into a mini tornado.

Condensation dripped from my cup onto my shorts, leaving a dark shadow on the white fabric. “We have to find out who Nelson was dating. You never heard anything about him dating, did you?”

“Not a peep, and I’m surprised. I tend to hear all the gossip either through church events or at Dr. O’Leary’s office. That place is nothing but a hen house—you should hear all the squawking.”

Colley O’Leary was the only ob-gyn within Hitching Post’s town limits, and Ainsley worked for her a few days a week.

I set my cup on a paper napkin to absorb the drips sliding down the side of the glass tumbler. “But no squawking about Nelson?”

She shook her head. “Nothing about a girl. Only some buzz about Coach Butts’s case.”

“What kind of buzz?”

“That that Nelson was going to get Coach off, free and clear.”

Dylan had said the same earlier. Tearing an edge off the soggy napkin, I rolled the paper between two fingers. “Win because Coach isn’t guilty? Or because Nelson is such a good lawyer he’d get him off?”

“Not guilty. Coach has been claiming all along that someone forged his name on those checks, and talk is that Nelson could prove it true by getting some fancy handwriting analysis done. He’s been waiting on the report that was due any day now.” She shrugged. “It may have already come in.”

A handwriting analysis . . . that would answer a lot of questions. I wondered if Dylan had found one in the search of Nelson’s office.

Ainsley took a sip of her coffee, then said, “Everyone’s speculating that Coach is so dang angry and picking fights all the time now because he’s innocent and feels like he’s getting railroaded. I have to admit, if I were falsely accused, I might be picking fights, too.”

“He has been getting into a fair share of trouble lately, hasn’t he?”

“Fighting with everyone under the sun, including Angelea, Bernice, and Nelson, so I hear told.”

Angelea and Bernice I could understand—it was easy to snap at family. “Why Nelson?”

“Word is Coach wasn’t happy with how slowly Nelson was working to clear his name. He was getting mighty impatient.”

“How’d Nelson handle Coach’s outburst?” This could take the case in a whole new direction. . . .

“Cool as could be. Calmed Coach right down. Like I said, Nelson believed he’d clear Coach’s name for good when that handwriting analysis came in.”

The scent of blueberry scones wafted through the shop as I tapped my fingers on the tabletop. “Okay, for conversation’s sake, let’s say Coach is innocent.” It was hard for me to even say those words. “If Coach didn’t take the money, then where is it? Twenty thousand dollars doesn’t just vanish.” Maybe Angelea Butts had it; that might be why she wasn’t sleeping so well these days.

I suddenly had a ridiculous image of her sleeping on a mound of hundred-dollar bills. I smiled. That would explain some things.

Ainsley shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“But if he
wasn’t
innocent, and Nelson found out he wasn’t, maybe Coach got scared and killed him to keep him quiet? What?” I said at Ainsley’s dubious look. “It could have happened.”

“Not likely, darlin’,” Jessamine Yadkin said in her raspy voice as she set a plate of cookies on the table. She’d obviously been eavesdropping—a regular Darling County extracurricular activity.

I could have kissed her for the cookies. I grabbed one up and took a big bite.

“No reason for Coach to kill him,” Jessa added. Her brassy-colored hair was piled atop her head and held in place with two pencils. Heavy wrinkles pulled at the corners of her bright blue eyes and bracketed her mouth. All those years of smoking hadn’t been kind to her but didn’t dull the sparkle in her eyes.

I mumbled heartfelt thanks for the cookie over a mouthful of oatmeal chocolate chip, then said, “What do you mean, no reason?”

Jessa cocked a plump hip and tightened her bright pink apron strings. She was sixty, if a day, and happily married to her second husband, Odell. She’d owned this place for as long as I could remember and made the best coffee in all of Darling County. “Nelson couldn’t rightly say anything even if Coach had given him a full confession on a silver platter. He’s bound by attorney-client privilege.” She winked. “I learned all about that when my first husband was incarcerated. It’s basically a gag order for Nelson.”

The cowbell on the front door jangled as a young couple walked in, holding hands. The man wore a T-shirt that said
I JUST GOT HITCHED IN HITCHING POST, ALABAMA
.

Jessa said to them, “Y’all have a seat, now. I’ll be right with you.”

The newlyweds sat at a table in the corner and gazed dreamily at each other. Tourists, probably only in town for a weekend elopement. They were adorable, and I sure hoped theirs wasn’t the divorce Mr. Dunwoody had predicted.

“So, there wasn’t no motive on Coach’s part to kill Nelson, leastways if the killin’ was because Coach stole that money,” Jessa added before sashaying away to the newlyweds’ table.

“Jessa is right.” Ainsley broke her cookie in half and watched warm chocolate stretch from one side to the other.

“Well, someone killed him.” Admittedly, I wouldn’t have been devastated to see Coach behind bars. I had never liked him, and especially not now that he’d accused me of poisoning him. “We have to find that girlfriend.”

Ainsley nodded.

Jessa ambled by, and I snagged her apron string. “Have you heard about Nelson having himself a girlfriend?”

Jessa’s eyes widened. “You don’t say. He did?”

“So we heard.” I dropped what was left of my cookie on my plate, my appetite suddenly gone.

“Not one I know of, darlin’,” Jessa said. “The only person I’ve seen him with lately is Johnny Braxton, and whoo-ee, were they going at it right outside this here door. They were shoutin’ at each other something fierce before Johnny stomped off.”

“You sure it was Nelson and not Coach?” Ainsley asked.

Jessa smiled. “Coach sure is making a name for himself lately, isn’t he? But no, it wasn’t him. It was Nelson—I saw the whole thing clear as day.”

“When was this?” I asked.

Jessa looked upward, as if searching the recesses of her brain. “Two, three days ago.”

“What were they fighting about?” Ainsley asked.

“I didn’t hear that much, only Nelson saying he didn’t care anymore. By the time I made it outside to eavesdrop properly, Johnny was already storming away.”

Didn’t care anymore? About what? “Did you tell this to Dylan?”

“Didn’t think of it till just now.” She tightened her apron. “I’ll give him a call straight off.” She hurried into the kitchen.

“You know,” Ainsley said, wetting her thumb to dab up cookie crumbs from her plate, “I’ve been thinking on what you said to Dylan earlier, about the potion bottles and how there are colors for men and women. . . .”

Ainsley already knew my color-coding system since she worked for me. I picked up my cookie again. I couldn’t bear to leave it uneaten—plus, I didn’t like the way Ainsley was eyeing it. “What about them?”

Shifting left and right, she wouldn’t look me in the eye. “It’s just that at the white-elephant sale, there’s a new booth that—”

She was interrupted by Jessa, who had barreled up to the table. “I’ve just realized y’all should talk to Bernice Morris about Nelson’s personal life. If anyone knows about a secret girl, it’d be her. She’d probably also know why Nelson was gettin’ on with Johnny something fierce.”

Brilliant! Bernice was Nelson Winston’s secretary and had been for years. Of course she’d know all his secrets. “We’ve got to talk to her.”

Ainsley looked at her watch and stood up. “
You’ve
got to talk to her. I’ve got to be getting to the market to buy a box of wine. But you’ll call me to let me know how it goes?”

It was getting late, almost supper time, and for a moment, it felt like finding Nelson’s body had happened days ago, not this morning.

We settled up with Jessa and walked outside, where the scent of rain hung heavy in the thick air.

“Storm’s coming,” Ainsley said unnecessarily. She pecked my cheek and hurried off, headed for the market. Calling over her shoulder, she added, “You be careful, Carly. Y’hear?”

It was the second time today I’d heard that sentiment, and as I set off toward Bernice’s place I decided to take it to heart.

• • •

Bernice lived on the other side of town, near the Darling Playhouse Cinema, which was, appropriately, half playhouse and half movie theater. I’d seen many a movie sitting in the worn red velvet seats, on the screen draped with golden fabric.

As I started across the Ring and headed toward Bernice’s house, I suddenly realized that I couldn’t go knocking on Bernice’s door—unless I wanted it slammed in my face.

Bernice Morris was Coach Butts’s sister.

There was no way she was going to talk to me about Nelson’s murder, especially if she’d heard the rumors that I’d tried to poison Coach.

Gnawing my thumbnail, I was debating what to do when I spotted Emmylou and Dudley Pritcherd on their hands and knees crawling around a blanket near the big gazebo in the picnic park.

Had she lost her contact again?

“Yoo-hoo! Carly!”

Emmylou’s high-pitched voice sliced through my soul. I hid a cringe and walked over. Dudley sat back on his haunches in the grass, a pinched look to his handsome face.

“Good afternoon,” I said. “You two doing well?”

Emmylou gave a brief shake of her head, as if warning me to not talk about Dudley’s bedroom dudliness.

As if I would.

“We’ve been better,” she said.

Dudley added, “Much better. Afternoon, Carly.” He bent back over, bringing his nose down close to the grass and sweeping his hands over the blades.

“You lose your contact again?” I asked Emmylou.

“I wish,” she said, tears pooling in her eyes. “It’s my wedding ring this time. It flew off my finger while we were sitting here,” she said, clearly exasperated. “Went thataway.” She pointed vaguely behind Dudley.

Still on the hunt, he peered into the depths of the thick lawn.

“I can’t believe it,” she said. “I knew it had come loose, but not that loose. It’s this weight I lost. Sympathy weight.”

“Sympathy weight?” I asked.

Dudley’s big blue eyes looked pained as he glanced up. “Emmylou . . .”

Ignoring him, she said, “Dudley’s lost so much lately that I’ve lost some, too, just worrying about him. Look at him. Just look. Shrinking away. Isn’t he shrinking, Carly?”

Dudley gave me a pleading, “please don’t look at me” gaze, but the truth was, he had lost a lot of weight, and he hadn’t been a big man to begin with.

Before I could say anything about his appearance one way or another, Emmylou added, “Do you have a potion for that? Weight gain?”

Dudley dragged a hand through his curly brown hair, rolled his eyes, and went back to crawling around.

“Depends on what’s causing the weight to come off,” I said. “A tried-and-true doctor would be needed for something serious.”

There was a good chance Dudley’s health was why he was having bedroom issues in the first place. Emmylou hadn’t said anything at all about him losing weight when she came in for the potency potion a couple of days ago.

“I’ll tell you what’s causing that weight to come off,” she said, fluffing the ruffles on her blouse.

“Emmylou, sweetheart,” Dudley murmured, sitting back on his haunches. “Carly doesn’t need to know.”

Actually in this case I was kind of curious.

“Pish-posh,” she said. “It’s just Carly. Maybe she can help. It’s this trial.”

“Coach Butts’s trial?” I asked.

Emmylou nodded. “Dudley was due to take the stand next week.”

Was
. Now with Nelson dead, that timeline was likely to change.

“Emmylou.” Dudley sighed, a scarlet stain spreading across his cheeks. “Really.”

She paid him no mind. “You know Dudley’s the one who found the accounting discrepancy in the first place, right? He keeps the baseball league’s books.”

Dudley had discovered the mistake after a check to buy new uniforms for the team had bounced.

“He was to testify against Coach, and was worried the town wasn’t going to like what he had to say.” She
tsk
ed loudly. “Plus that old biddy Bernice Morris can’t stop spouting off, trying to ruin Dudley’s reputation.”

“Emmy,” Dudley pleaded quietly.

Bernice? Coach’s sister? Nelson’s secretary? The one who probably wouldn’t talk with me even if I came bearing an oversized check with her name on it? “What is Bernice saying?”

Emmylou threw her hands in the air. “I can’t believe you haven’t heard! Seems to me she’s been telling everyone who will listen that Dudley made a
mistake
. That Dudley wasn’t
qualified
to run the audit. That maybe even Dudley was the one who
stole
that money and is framing Coach. She even talked Nelson into getting another accountant to perform a second audit on the books, as if that was going to help the cause. It’s
outrageous
.”

I glanced at Dudley, who looked like he wanted to dig a hole and throw himself in. By Emmylou’s theatrics, I suspected this wasn’t her first retelling of this story, and wondered who was the bigger spouter—her or Bernice.

With one look at the gleam in Emmylou’s eyes, I figured I already knew the answer to that.

Tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, Emmylou said, “She’s a bitter old pill, that Bernice, one who has it out for Dudley. It’s tearing him up, and I’m sure she’s pleased as punch about that.”

My brain whirred with information. The first thing that jumped out at me was that Bernice wasn’t old. She was maybe fifty at most. The second thing was that Dudley did have easy access to those funds. The third was wondering about the outcome of the second audit. The fourth was that Bernice had never seemed the vindictive type to me. “Why would Bernice have it out for Dudley?”