Tide and Punishment

by Bree Baker

  Mrs. Dunfree sat in a sobbing heap halfway up.

  She was alive! Unharmed! And she was also with Grady, so even if she turned out to be the killer, I breathed a little easier.

  Grady was crouched before her. “Tell me what happened.” His voice was low and encouraging. His posture and expression were all business. “Take your time. Stick to the facts. I know it’s hard to focus during a tragedy, but I’d appreciate whatever you can share.”

  She nodded and sniffled, swiping tears with the pads of her thumbs and fingertips. “I was waiting in the golf cart,” she said. “Dudley stopped to take a call, and I told him I’d meet him in the cart. When he didn’t follow, I went looking for him to remind him he has a wife who was freezing!” Her voice cracked, and she broke into sobs. “If he hadn’t taken that stupid call, he would’ve been with me.”

  “Any idea who called?” Grady asked as I crept a little closer, hoping to hear her answer without ruining the conversation’s momentum.

  Grady looked over his shoulder to where I stood.

  I raised my shoulders in case that look of his was some kind of question.

  “Mrs. Dunfree,” he said, turning back to the grieving woman, “why don’t we get you out of the cold? I’m sure a deputy would be glad to escort you anywhere you’d like to go. Then, I’ll follow up with you tomorrow.”

  She nodded, accepting his offered hand and rising unsteadily onto her feet.

  The deputy I recognized as Tom peeled himself away from his post at my door and went to help Mrs. Dunfree into a waiting cruiser.

  Aunt Fran and Aunt Clara passed Dunfree’s widow on their way up the steps.

  The EMT who followed them shot Grady an apologetic look. “I saw them huddled in the gazebo and thought they ought to get in out of the cold.”

  Grady shook the man’s hand. “Thank you.” He motioned my aunts inside. “Why don’t you wait for me in Everly’s private quarters?” he suggested.

  In other words, away from the crowd.

  I lifted my palms in a plea. “Aunt Fran didn’t do this. I know it looks bad, but she wouldn’t, and you know it.”

  Grady pinched the bridge of his nose. “What I know,” he said, dropping both hands to his hips, “is that you had a café full of folks who heard Fran announce her intent to run against Dunfree in the election, and those same folks saw him interrupt and condescend all over her until she fled the scene. The next time anyone saw the two of them, he was dead, and she was hunkered over him with the possible murder weapon.”

  “Hey,” I said, lifting a finger to point at him. “She wasn’t hunkered.”

  He rolled his eyes, then pulled the phone from his pocket and handed it to me. “This isn’t going to be an easy one to get out of, Everly. You can’t ignore facts like these with the number of witnesses you have here. It’s your word and Fran’s against half the town.”

  “No one saw her do it,” I said, accepting the phone. “Everything you have here is circumstantial evidence.”

  “You’re a lawyer now?” he mused. One corner of his grumpy mouth twitched with an almost half smile.

  “No.” I smiled back, enjoying the fact I amused him, even at times like these, “but I’ve watched some on TV.”

  I lowered my attention from his steel-gray eyes to the phone, where the Town Charmer, Charm’s anonymously run gossip blog, glowed the screen. A photo of Aunt Fran scowling at a self-important Mayor Dunfree erased my moment of good humor.

  “‘Holiday Gnomes: Whimsical Delight, or Eyesore and Tripping Hazard?’” I read the headline, my shoulders drooping lower. The article rehashed my aunts’ earlier debate with the mayor, blow by blow. “This just covers a typical store owner and council member discussion,” I said.

  “Dunfree isn’t a council member,” Grady corrected. “He’s the mayor.”

  “All the more reason he should’ve left this alone.”

  Grady tented his brows. “All the more reason for Fran to be angry. And we haven’t even seen what kind of article will cover their public spat about her run for office. You know that’s coming, and this blog gets everyone all worked up, not to mention it’s been a couple of months since the gossips have had anything meaty to gnaw on. I hate to say it but not arresting her won’t be easy.”

  I scoffed. “Be serious.”

  Grady leveled me with sharp eyes. “I’m dead serious. I have to follow procedures and the evidence. Right now, all the evidence is pointing at your great-aunt.”

  * * *

  My aunts had waited while Grady and his deputies spoke with the remaining guests. I’d listened earnestly and to no avail for a clue about who might’ve been outside when Mayor Dunfree and his wife left the party, who else might be angry with him, or who’d written the anonymous blog post covering the mayor’s behavior toward Aunt Fran. The gossip blog was a lesser, but ongoing curiosity to me. Nearly a year after having moved back to Charm after a long time away, I still had no idea who was behind the website, if that person worked alone or if they had help, and if they had help, how large was their crew?

  I wiped my countertops for the thousandth time, threatening to wear grooves in the marble and waiting for Grady to return from dropping my aunts off at their home.

  The chimes and bells above my door jingled into action, and I dropped my hands below the counter for the three-foot candy cane I’d kept handy, just in case. “Hello?”

  “Everly!” My best friend, Amelia Butters, skidded into the café looking as utterly bewildered as I felt. “I heard what happened! Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” I released the giant peppermint stick and darted around the counter to meet her.

  She launched herself at me, sliding on the melting snow and ice from her boots. She flung her arms around my neck. “Some of your guests came to Charming Reads after the police busted up the party. I can’t believe this is happening again. And so close to your home!”

  She was referring to the fact a dead man had been found in the surf just down the beach from my home last summer. A few months before that, a body had turned up on the boardwalk several yards from my mailbox. I’d found them both and had the residual nightmares to prove it.

  Amelia owned Charming Reads, Charm’s only bookstore, and she took the responsibility of being our community’s literary overseer very seriously, lining up speakers, story times, and other literary and education-related events as often as possible. She was equal parts book and theater nerd, and I loved her for both.

  “I suppose you still don’t believe this house is haunted,” she said. “Maybe it’s cursed.” She shivered.

  I puffed my cheeks and stepped out of her embrace. “It’s not haunted or cursed,” I said. “You know how I can be sure? Because neither of those things are real.” At least, that was what I told myself on a near-daily basis.

  Amelia shrugged, as if to say to each her own. Amelia was a believer. “How’s Fran? Was she really found standing over the body? Holding the murder weapon?”

  “Yeah. By me.”

  Amelia pulled her petal-pink lips into a deep, unnatural frown. “Yikes.” She unfastened her red vintage swing coat and slid the fashionable number off her shoulders, then hooked it over the back of the nearest chair with her bag and knitted hat. Her black dress pants accentuated her trim figure, and the shimmery silver blouse she wore illuminated her pretty face. She hopped on to a stool at the counter and rested her elbows on the meticulously cleaned marble. “What can I do?”

  I turned to fix us a snack. “I don’t know, but I’m glad you’re here.”

  “I came the moment I locked up for the night,” she said through a long yawn. “Sorry. The holiday hours are killing me. You wouldn’t think that adding an hour or two to the start and finish of your day would wipe a person out, but it really does.”

  It wasn’t just the extra hours at her shop that exhausted her; it was t
he season. Amelia had a creative mind and an intense love for Christmas. She went overboard on everything from Halloween until New Year’s, attempting to make the time as special for everyone else as it was for her. I was slightly guilty of the same thing. I made seasonal cookies, specialty teas, holiday menus with coordinating decorations, gifts, cards… And I’d doubled down on my usual over-the-top efforts this year in an attempt to show everyone in Charm how glad I was to be home again.

  I filled a mason jar with ice, then set the cubes afloat with tea and delivered it to her.

  She lifted the drink to her nose and inhaled. “This smells amazing. What is it?”

  “I’m calling it Santa’s Southern Cinnamon. It’s apple cinnamon tea with a little nutmeg and pumpkin pie spice.”

  She took a long sip before setting the cup on the counter. “I think the tea’s delicious and the name is adorable.”

  I beamed. Those were the kinds of compliments I lived for. I poured a jar for myself, then set a tray of my family’s secret recipe snickerdoodles on the counter between us.

  “You should probably lock your door,” she said. “All things considered.”

  Meaning: since there’s another killer on the loose.

  I snagged a pudgy cinnamon cookie from the top of the pile and sunk my teeth in. “I’m hoping Grady will stop by on his way home and fill me in on what he knows about the murder.”

  Amelia frowned. She didn’t like it when I asked too many questions about dead people. She wasn’t wrong to worry. My curiosity admittedly got the best of me from time to time.

  I waited for words of warning or a plea to leave this case alone.

  Instead, she pointed at my receipt pad, which was covered in frantic scribbles. “Are these all cookie orders?”

  “Yep, and those are just the orders that were placed tonight,” I said, selecting a second cookie. “I’ve got enough baking to keep me busy until spring.” Sadly, it all needed to be done in the next nine days.

  “What about your website videos?” she asked, pushing the pad away with a frown. “I checked today, and that video you made for the seven-layer bars isn’t up yet.”

  “I’ve been busy prepping for tonight’s party,” I said. Though, it was only partially true. In reality I’d been worried about what people might think. I’d loved making tutorials while I was away at culinary school, back when I’d been required to keep a video log as part of my first-year grade. Students kept a blog of their favorite recipes and posted videos of themselves as they created them so the chefs could take their time scrutinizing our techniques. For most students, video blogging was a frustration, but I’d enjoyed the process and had a lot of fun with the results. I’d planned to continue after graduation, but I never graduated. I’d flown home in tears after a heartbreak and started a new life. Was it ridiculous that I missed the videos? Or that I wanted to start them again, but now featuring the Swan family recipes I used at Sun, Sand, and Tea?

  “Get out of your head,” Amelia said. “I can literally see you getting in your own way right now.” She dusted crumbs from her fingertips with a grin. “Do it. Put up the video. Share your gift. Spread your wings, Everly Swan.”

  I snorted.

  She bobbed her head. “I accept your snort as agreement.”

  I lifted a third cookie from the pile, my mind still turning over the awful night’s events. “What do you know about that group, Charmers for Change?” I asked.

  “Not much. Aside from their occasional calls to action pinned to telephone poles all over town,” she said.

  Charmers for Change was a group of locals in support of Fran’s policies to fund local arts and increase tourism. They also had a desire to appoint new voices to the town council and mayoral throne. It was easy to see why so many people assumed Aunt Fran was a part of their organization, but in truth, she had nothing to do with them. We didn’t even know exactly who belonged to the cause, but their alignment to her well-voiced opinions had made her the unspoken face of their movement.

  “Do you think the CFC could be behind what happened to Mayor Dunfree?” I asked.

  Amelia stopped chewing and swallowed audibly. “I think the CFC wants a reassessment of town rules and regulations by the local government. They want hundred-year-old nonsense like ordinances against carrying an ice cream cone in your pocket or riding a horse into church erased from the books. Fresh eyes. New beginnings. That kind of thing. I don’t think there’s reason to think they’re a violent group, and most importantly, I think Detective Hays will figure out what happened to the mayor. After all, that’s his job.” She gave me a stern look.

  “I know,” I said. “I just wish I knew at least one of their members so I could see what they think of all this.”

  Amelia rolled her bright blue eyes. She’d been my voice of reason when I’d dove headlong into the last two murder investigations, a voice I’d elected to ignore, much to my own peril.

  “I saw his wife crying tonight, but spouses are always suspect in these things,” I said. “Then, there’s Bracie Gracie. He might’ve billed her as his future deputy, but a few months ago she’d planned to run for his seat.”

  Amelia shook her head. “Her name’s Mary Grace Chatsworth. You’ve got to stop calling her Bracie. People will think it’s a reflection on Fran, and she needs to look above reproach right now.”

  I frowned. “I am trying.”

  My phone buzzed with a message from Aunt Clara. “My aunts are home,” I told Amelia after reading the message. “Grady should be here soon, if he’s coming. He didn’t say for certain either way.” He rarely did.

  Amelia nodded. “How’s he doing with this? I know he likes your aunts. It’s going to be awkward if he has to arrest one of them.”

  I made a sour face. “He’s not arresting Aunt Fran. She didn’t do it.” Grady had done his best to shield my aunts from the whispers and curious looks while the other guests were still here, but it wouldn’t take long for the embers of doubt to light a fire.

  I shivered at the visual. My ancestors had literally fled a similar situation in Salem, Massachusetts, many centuries ago. The witch trials had been too heartbreaking for them to stick around and watch, so they’d run south, found our island, and set up a new home. That home soon became a village, and that village became Charm.

  Folks had speculated over the years that my ancestors fled Salem to avoid being held at trial themselves. The notion still clung to our name. I would agree that we were somewhat odd, decidedly quirky, and possibly cursed, but we weren’t witches. Though, we could use a little of that rumored magic right now.

  Chapter Three

  I dragged myself out of bed at the first sign of daylight. The churning fear in my gut had kept me awake most of the night, worried that the entire island had come to the wrong conclusion about Aunt Fran and Mayor Dunfree’s murder.

  I stretched my weary muscles, then begrudgingly pushed my feet into waiting slippers. I missed the soothing feel of cool floorboards under my bare toes. The bizarre cold snap we were suffering through had made multiple layers of clothing and boots a requirement. No more sticky hot walks on the boardwalk in cutoff shorts, flip-flops, and tank tops. I had to get bundled up to visit the mailbox.

  I shuffled to the kitchen in flannel jammies and set the coffee to brew. I thanked the home’s history as a boardinghouse for my substantial second-floor living space and respectable kitchen. The cabinets and fixtures were all older than me, but the appliances were somewhat new and the counter space was plentiful.

  A private staircase in the foyer provided passage to my second-story living quarters. The space was just as big and full of potential as the first floor, but more cosmetically neglected. My theory was that the previous owner had simply run out of money before putting the house on the market the moment I was looking to buy. As a result, parts of the first floor and the entirety of the second were in need of a handyma
n.

  I’d been putting a little money and a lot of elbow grease into the place any chance I got. I’d already repainted the rooms, sealed the aged windows, and added personal touches throughout the upstairs, but there were still nearly a thousand square feet downstairs that could become an expansion to the café. The possible updates to my private quarters were limitless. In a home as old as mine, there were perpetual opportunities for sprucing. If the snow kept up beyond Christmas, it would be a great distraction from being held hostage to the cold.

  I poured the coffee and moseyed downstairs to count cookies. Amelia and I had worked until midnight when she’d gone home to get some sleep, and then I had kept going. I’d completed enough inventory to begin scheduling deliveries, assuming the forecast cooperated.

  I set my mug aside when the empty bottom came into view, then plucked a tiny tea bag from my grandma’s advent calendar. The quilted, hanging portrait of a fancy white teapot had been in our family for generations, hand-stitched by an ancestor and slightly yellow from age and wear. Little pockets around the teapot contained mock tea bags with strings attached to paper tags with the numbers from one to twenty-five. I dragged my fingertip across the delicate blue snowflakes around the pot’s middle, then tossed the faux tea bag into a little dish on the countertop. This dish was filling up fast. Only nine days left until Christmas.

  I rolled my shoulders for several beats, then twisted at the waist a few times, attempting to release the tension in my bunched-up muscles. I’d implemented a morning stretching routine two weeks back when the temperatures had first dipped into freezing territory and the windchills had kept me indoors. I sometimes kept it up until I broke a sweat, adding a few sit-ups, push-ups, and general calisthenics to the agenda, but I didn’t have all that in me today. Instead, I cut the whole thing short and poured another cup of coffee.

  My little plastic fitness bracelet beeped at me.

  Be more active.

  “Easy for you to say,” I complained. The bracelet didn’t have to sleep or manage stress, holidays, cookie orders, and insane winter weather issues. “I can’t go walk in this,” I told it. “I’d probably slip, slide, and break something I need, like a hip or my head. You’re going to have to be happy with the stretching.” I dropped my arm to my side and shook my head, deflated. The bracelet was right. I did need to keep moving. I just didn’t want to. The stress was too high. My mind was already reeling with a super-sized to-do list and the sun had barely risen.