Charms and Chocolate Chips: A Magical Bakery Mystery

by Bailey Cates

  A sudden banging on the door made me jump. It could have been anyone, of course, but Mungo hadn’t barked. Instead, he jumped down from the guest chair, silent as smoke. Hand over my racing heart, I dropped the photo and sidled to the peek hole.

  Whoever was knocking stood too far to the side for me to see them.

  On purpose?

  Edging to the window, I carefully leaned around the frame and peered out. A Jeep Wrangler was parked on the other side of the street. It was dark green.

  Hunter green.

  Uh-oh.

  I remembered the jumbled images of green I’d sensed when attempting my divination spell with the bowl of water earlier that morning. Craning my head a little farther, I could see Hunter Normandy standing on the wraparound porch. He shifted from foot to foot, obviously impatient. As I watched, he raised his arm and banged his fist on the door again.

  “I know there’s someone in there.” The doorknob rattled.

  Heart hammering against my ribs, I tiptoed over to the phone on the desk. I picked it up, only to realize I didn’t have Quinn’s number memorized. As much as I’d called him lately, it had always been on my cell phone. Dang it. I cradled the handset and was reaching for my phone when I heard the sound of metal in the lock.

  I froze. Oh, no. Autumn gave him a key.

  Hunter opened the door and stepped inside, eyes darting to me and then around the room. Evaluating. Assessing. He’d ditched the funky thrift-store clothes I’d seen him wear before for a Carhartt coat over jeans and hiking boots. His sandy hair was in disarray, and a few days’ worth of stubble darkened his chin. Dark circles under his eyes accented irises so light blue they were almost gray. And unlike the other few times I’d seen Hunter, now I sensed an aura around him. It had the mental flavor of misery and fear. However, I couldn’t know the cause. Autumn’s death, sure—but had he been involved in it? Whatever he felt, it was different than Skip Thorsen’s serious grief.

  “Where’s Wren?” His bellicose tone contradicted his dejected appearance.

  “I don’t know,” I lied, barely managing to keep my voice from shaking.

  His gaze settled on my face. “Is anyone else here?”

  I didn’t answer but glanced back toward the kitchenette to give the impression we weren’t alone.

  He didn’t seem to buy it. “What’s your name again? Kate? Is that right?” He paused. “I saw your picture in the paper, along with that other woman who works here.”

  Great.

  “Now listen, Kate. All I need is for you to answer a question for me.” He took a step in my direction.

  Mungo shot out from under the desk, barking and snarling, stopping only inches from Hunter’s leg.

  Good boy.

  “Call it off!” he yelled. “Call your dog off!”

  “Maybe give him a little space,” I murmured to my familiar.

  Mungo backed off two terrier paces and lowered the volume of his growl a fraction.

  “Please ask your question and then go.” I took a couple of steps around a desk, putting it between us. “We’re closed.”

  Never taking his eyes off my familiar, Hunter put his hands in his coat pockets. I tensed, and Mungo’s lips curled back in warning. He jerked them back out so we could see them.

  With apparent effort, he looked away from the canine threat and up at me. “Of course you’re closed. You know Autumn was my girlfriend. My fiancée.”

  I felt my eyes go wide.

  “She didn’t say anything?”

  I quickly shook my head to indicate the negative.

  He sighed. “I guess she kept it to herself. I asked her two days before she . . . passed. She hadn’t said yes yet, but she would have.” Something hard entered his voice. “I know it.”

  Autumn hadn’t given him an answer right away. I could certainly understand that, but her caution didn’t seem like a very good motive for him to commit murder.

  Providing, of course, that Hunter was telling the truth. Either way, he’d still gone to ground and managed to avoid the police for three days. There had to be a reason for that.

  “Your question,” I prompted, wanting him to leave me alone as soon as possible.

  Hesitating, he glanced down at Mungo who had stopped growling but still held a combative stance closer to Hunter’s leg than the man seemed to enjoy. I sent a jolt of gratitude to my familiar, but he was too intent to respond.

  “Did you see her, um, after?”

  My lips pressed together. “Yes.”

  “Was she wearing any rings? I mean—” He seemed to fumble. “She didn’t generally wear much jewelry, so you might have noticed.” His lips twisted, and a surge of pity eddied through me.

  Sometimes I couldn’t properly bring to mind the face of my fiancé of just a year before, his visage swamped by feelings of betrayal and anger, but when I thought of Autumn’s body, I saw tawny hair tamed to a precise curl, white blouse, blue bruises, pink toe polish, and long fingers.

  Long unadorned fingers, at least on the one hand that had been visible.

  And yet—there was the diamond filigree ring I’d found among the mailers. “You gave her an engagement ring,” I guessed.

  “She was wearing it?” He looked unaccountably terrified at the thought. Weird.

  “Not exactly. I found a ring tucked in with some promotional materials.”

  Relief slid onto his face. It was an odd reaction, really. Was the ring more important than the woman he’d hoped to marry?

  “It looked really old,” I continued, watching him carefully. “Antique filigree platinum with a diamond set in the middle and two on the outside. Is that it?”

  “Yes, yes, that’s it. I looked for it, but—” He ran trembling fingers through his already disheveled hair. “Okay. Okay, I can fix this. I can. Somehow.”

  What on earth?

  My cell phone gave a good old-fashioned trill. It was sitting on the desk by where Hunter stood. He looked down and sudden fear shone from those eyes the color of water—deep fear mixed with desperation. “Oh, no!”

  A low warning rumbled from Mungo’s chest.

  Hunter turned and ran outside, down the steps, and across the street.

  Fumbling for the cell, I rushed after him. “Hunter! Wait!” It might be the only chance to question him. Glancing down, I saw what had spooked him. The caller ID said Detective Peter Quinn. The phone went silent before I could answer.

  Hunter looked back over his shoulder but didn’t slow. If anything, the desperation in his eyes had increased, and it scared me. I slammed the door and flipped the deadbolt, though a locked door hadn’t stopped him before. Someone had tried to run Wren down, then given me the same warning she’d received, and I’d promptly gone and isolated myself in a place where I’d be easy to find. Stupid.

  “Thanks for having my back, little wolf.” I returned the phone call, picking up Mungo so we could both watch the green Jeep Wrangler speed down the street. He snuggled under my chin as if nothing had happened, nosing the phone as Quinn answered.

  I told him about Hunter’s visit, his preoccupation with the ring, and which way he’d been driving.

  “Hang on,” he said. “I need to alert patrol to watch for him in your area.” He put me on hold.

  While I waited, I gathered the cleaning supplies by the door to take out to the Bug. Then I grabbed the satellite photo of Fagen Swamp and tucked it in my bag. Surveying the main office, I was pleased with my work. Next time I’d hit the other rooms.

  Including Autumn’s office.

  “Katie? You still there?”

  “Yes—did you find him?” I asked, sinking into the guest chair by the window.

  Mungo stood on his hind legs by the chair. I patted my knee and he jumped up.

  “Not yet. Did he threaten you?”

  “Not really. He ha
d a key and walked right in. I suspect he may have searched in here already.” I’d blamed the extra mess on the police, but now I had to wonder. “He just wanted that ring.”

  “Oh, I bet he did,” Quinn said.

  “Meaning?”

  “He stole it.”

  “Whoa. He stole a ring and then gave it to Autumn? That’s downright rude.”

  Quinn made a noise of distracted agreement.

  “At least the owner will get her ring back. Or did he take it from a jeweler?” I remembered the chain store box the ring had been in.

  “The owner is dead.”

  “Hunter killed . . . oh, no. Wait. This is about his job at the mortuary, isn’t it?”

  “His supervisor found out about it. Apparently there was a problem another time, but in that case the, uh, client’s missing possession turned up, and they simply thought it had been mislaid. This time they pinpointed Normandy as the culprit. I don’t know how he found out—maybe one of his coworkers warned him—but that’s probably one of the reasons he hasn’t gone into work.”

  “One of the reasons?”

  Quinn fell silent, and I could hear him breathing. I waited.

  “Katie, the lab called me this morning. They found something on those paper bats.”

  “What was it?” I tried not to sound too excited.

  “Formalin and methanol. Formaldehyde.”

  “But . . . I don’t understand. Formaldehyde isn’t exactly a poison, is it?”

  “It can be in large enough amounts, but there was only a trace on the paper. Katie, formaldehyde is a primary ingredient in embalming fluid.”

  I felt the blood drain from my face.

  “If Hunter Normandy comes back, do not let him in. In fact, I’d prefer you leave Georgia Wild immediately since he already knows you’re there.”

  But why on the good green earth would Hunter Normandy want to kill me?

  Speaking of which.

  “I saw in the paper that you guys found the SUV involved in the hit-and-run yesterday.”

  “We did,” he said. “A BMW abandoned in an alley on the Southside. The front is totally trashed, and it has red paint on it that matches the Corolla it hit.”

  My heart gave a double thump in my chest. “And it was stolen?”

  “At least that’s what the owner said last night. It took him that long to report it. Says he left it home all day and walked to work.”

  That sounded familiar. But no, that would be too much. “What’s the owner’s name?” I pushed.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” Quinn said.

  Try me.

  “Logan Seward.”

  “Did that son of a . . . biscuit try to run Wren down? Or was he aiming for me?”

  “He has a pretty good alibi for the afternoon—unless Heinrich and Steve Dawes are both lying.”

  They were fellow druids. How far would they go to protect one another? How far would Steve go? With an unpleasant feeling deep in my gut, I had to admit I really didn’t know.

  “So you believe Seward?” I asked. “Because that’s kind of a crazy big coincidence, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” Quinn agreed. “Any thoughts on that?”

  “Not really.”

  “Me, either. At any rate, I’m going after Hunter with everything I can muster.”

  I hung up after promising to pass on the information to Wren. On the way out to my car, I spent more time looking over my shoulder than watching where I was going.

  Chapter 20

  Mimsey and her husband lived in a newer ranch-style home in Midtown. The lawn was an even, perfect green without a blade of grass out of place or a single weed. Even the edges along the sidewalk were precisely trimmed in winter. I pulled into the driveway leading to their two-car garage and got out. Mungo bounced to the ground, ran once around the yard, and came back to where I was retrieving Wren’s file from the backseat.

  All around the tasteful charcoal-gray house, winter shrubs unfurled in bloom. Bright yellow flowers dotted the witch hazel by the garage, while the wintersweet sported purple-brown and yellow petals. Winter jasmine flowed over the retaining wall that separated the Carmichaels’ yard from their neighbors’, and the winter honeysuckle flowers, though small, filled the slight breeze with their sweet fragrance. Pansies gamboled around purple ornamental kale in the pots on either side of the front door, and hundreds of spring bulb spikes reached upward from garden soil rich with compost and potential.

  Mimsey’s husband, James, answered the door. “Katie Lightfoot! You are a sight for sore eyes, sugar. Come on in.”

  “Good to see you, too.” I followed him through the formal living room to the comfy family room off the open kitchen. Mimsey and Wren were seated on the floor in front of the hearth, surrounded by black-and-white photographs. Heckle snoozed on his perch by the window, training one fierce eye on me for a moment before letting it drift closed again. An oak-wood fire crackled in the fireplace, filling the air with warmth. The aroma of popcorn filled the room, and a bowl of fluffy kernels sat nearby. It would have been a scene of homey domestic bliss except for the cast on Wren’s arm and the haunted look in her eyes.

  Still, she smiled up at me. “Thanks for bringing over the donor file. At least I can make some phone calls now.” She held up a picture of a young man in uniform. “Gran and I were going through some old family pictures. And I do mean old.”

  “Watch yourself, young lady,” James said. “That picture is of me.”

  His granddaughter ducked her head. “Oops.” But they were both grinning.

  Mimsey smiled at them both, a bit of the twinkle back in her blue eyes, and beckoned for me to come over. “Join us here by the fire, Katie. Hello, Mungo.”

  James Carmichael settled on the sofa, and Mungo lay down next to Wren and put his chin on his paws, blinking up at her. I sat down cross-legged on the carpet and let the fire warm my back. “A few things have happened since I spoke with you this morning.”

  In answer to their quizzical looks, I told them how Hunter Normandy had come to Georgia Wild looking for the ring that Quinn said he’d stolen.

  “From a dead body?” James said, obviously astonished. “That’s low.”

  “The lowest,” I agreed.

  Mimsey blanched when I related the information about trace amounts of formaldehyde being on the origami bats, but Wren looked at me with tired eyes that seemed incapable of surprise any longer.

  “So the police are on the lookout for him as we speak,” I said.

  “Golly!” Heckle squawked, apparently awake after all.

  “Oh, hush.” James glared at the bird. Heckle returned the favor. I barely managed not to smile.

  “Do you think he killed her?” Wren asked.

  Mimsey tsked.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I’m pretty sure that was his Wrangler leaving when I got to Georgia Wild, but you didn’t see him that night, did you?”

  “Nuh-uh,” Wren said. “If he killed her, it had to have been before I got there. Why would he hang around?”

  “Hard telling what goes on in the mind of a killer,” James said.

  “True.” I grabbed a handful of popcorn as my brain worked. “I guess the ring could be the motive. Maybe he wanted it back and Autumn wouldn’t give it to him. Or maybe she found out where he got it. I can’t imagine she would have been pleased. She might have even threatened to report him to the police if she knew. And he could have stolen Logan Seward’s BMW and tried to run you down. Us down.”

  “What?” Mimsey and James said together.

  I explained about Seward reporting his SUV stolen shortly before the police found it wrecked and abandoned.

  Wren nodded. “No one knows where Hunter’s been, so he could have been the one who stole it. But why Logan Seward’s car?”

 
“I’ve been wondering that. Autumn must have at least mentioned the maroon bats and her environmental battle over the sale of Fagen Swamp. Hunter could have left the origami bats to direct suspicion away from himself. Maybe he tracked down Logan Seward’s vehicle for the same reason.”

  “Maybe.” Mimsey looked thoughtful.

  The others nodded slowly.

  I pulled the satellite photo out of my bag and handed it to her. “Does this make any sense to you?”

  She took it with a frown and settled her reading glasses on her nose.

  Wren scooted next to her grandmother to take a look. “That’s the swamp, of course.”

  “It is,” I agreed. “But see those lines? They lead to a giant cypress tree out there. The biggest one in the area. Do you remember it?”

  Wren nodded. “It’s impressive.”

  “Do you know if it’s part of the land that Fagen wants to sell? It looks to be on the far edge of the swamp.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I assumed it was, but I don’t really know exactly where the boundary lines are for Fagen’s property.”

  “That tree is—” I glanced at James. “It’s powerful.”

  “Magic!” Heckle crowed.

  James directed a dirty look at his wife’s familiar. Somehow Heckle managed to look self-satisfied.

  Mimsey handed the photo back and took off her glasses. She spoke slowly. “I’m not positive, but I think the satellite may have somehow captured a set of ley lines.”

  James stood. “I’ll leave you all to your photographs. There’s a game on that I’ll watch in my den.” Leaning over, he gave Mimsey a buss on the check and an affectionate look.

  “What kind of game?” I asked as he walked down a hallway and shut the door behind him.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Mimsey said lightly. “He gets bored with magic talk.”

  I squinted at her. “And that doesn’t bother you?”

  “Good heavens, why should it? We’ve shared a long life together, have a wonderful daughter and a wonderful granddaughter.” She beamed at Wren. “But he isn’t interested in magic, and I don’t want to watch his Neanderthal football or have anything to do with that silly game of golf. We have different interests, and after forty-nine years of marriage, we’ve worked out how to leave each other alone to enjoy them.”