Bewitched, Bothered, and Biscotti: A Magical Bakery Mystery

by Bailey Cates

  “Ah.” I explained who I was and why I was calling.

  “Well, we just loved working with Nel. Everyone was sorry to see her go. I’m glad to hear she’s found work again in the field she enjoys so much.”

  “Would you say she’s reliable?” I asked, thinking about Cookie.

  “Oh my, yes. Showed up on time—or early—every day. Rarely called in sick. And I already miss her creative approach in the kitchen.”

  “Sounds like you’d happily hire her back again?”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  I thanked him and hung up, feeling happily satisfied.

  The Honeybee phone rang. I grabbed it from the cradle. “Honeybee Bakery.”

  “Katie?”

  There was a click as someone out front picked up, too.

  “I’ve got it,” I said, and heard another click as they hung up. “Yes, this is Katie.”

  “Just the person I was hoping to talk to. This is Andersen Lane.”

  I sank into the desk chair. “Andersen. Hello.”

  “Have you had any luck since we spoke yesterday?”

  “I wouldn’t call it luck. I met Brandon Sikes, saw his horrid artwork, and now he and Cookie Rios appear to be an item. Steve says Brandon was at Heinrich’s the night Dr. Eastmore was killed, so unless he’s lying—which I’m pretty sure he isn’t—or Heinrich and Brandon were in cahoots, that’s a bust. Victor Powers was in town Friday, however.”

  “For his grandson’s party. Right.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I was there. We all were.”

  “All the Dragohs?”

  “Except Larry. And I do wish you’d stop bandying that word about.”

  “So you didn’t see Dr. Eastmore that evening?”

  “He said he would be late, but he never showed up at all.”

  “When did the party start?”

  “About three thirty in the afternoon. Everyone got there a little early, so we could surprise the birthday boy. Then it broke up around seven thirty. Why?”

  I sighed. “Detective Taite told me Dr. Eastmore was struck at his home sometime after five o’clock in the afternoon, when a neighbor saw him, and two o’clock in the morning, when he died in Johnson Square.”

  There was a long silence.

  Oh, dear. “I’m sorry. You didn’t know about that.” I took a deep, bracing breath and went on. “Your friend was hit over the head at home, but managed to get to the square before he died.”

  “I see,” he said after a moment. “Well, that complicates things, I suppose.” He sounded sad and tired.

  “I’m afraid that birthday party ends up being part of everyone’s alibi. You’re part of their alibi.”

  “Only for a few hours. The others might be lying.”

  They might be, sure. But why would Carolyn Powers lie about Victor staying home all night? I didn’t know her, though. As a woman behind a powerful husband, why wouldn’t she lie?

  Hard to think the same thing about Steve.

  “Andersen? I have to ask.”

  “What?”

  “Where were you after the party?”

  “I went home.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t stop by your friend Larry’s to see why he didn’t come to the birthday party?”

  “I’m afraid not. You’ll just have to take my word.”

  Though I didn’t particularly care for Andersen Lane, it was hard to believe he would drag me into investigating his friend’s murder if he was the killer.

  I changed the subject. “Any luck with a spell to counter the Necretius summoning?” Unlike Dragoh, I didn’t like saying Zesh out loud.

  “Unfortunately, no. I did gain access to the collection last evening, not in a terribly legal way, mind you. But I need one more book to complete the counterspell. This afternoon I spoke with Larry’s son, Greer. The police have given their permission for him to stay in his father’s home, but he refuses to let me in. He’s being quite stubborn about it.”

  “Well, heck. Now what?”

  He hesitated. “I was hoping you might be willing to talk to him. Use your powers of persuasion. Get him to let you see the collection, ask to borrow something. The book I need is called The 33 Curses by Anton Maestrada. It may be able to help us.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Why on earth do you think Eastmore Junior would give me something he won’t give you?”

  “Because he doesn’t like me, and he doesn’t know you. I’m not suggesting that you tell him anything—about your coven or your knowledge that his father was a member of the society. Didn’t your aunt have some interaction with Larry? He lent her a book, yes?”

  “Yes,” I said with reluctance.

  “Use that. Tell him you want to borrow the Curses.”

  I groaned. “You sure aren’t afraid of asking people to do things for you.”

  “Please, Katie. Will you at least try?”

  “Oh, fine. What’s the address?”

  Andersen recited it. After we hung up, I put my chin in my hands and thought. It made more sense to ask Steve to go with me, but I was feeling uncomfortable about his recent “We need to be together” speech. However, I didn’t want to approach Lawrence Eastmore’s son by myself. Surely if I was simply trying to borrow a book for our “book club” to read, then it wouldn’t hurt anything to invite a brawny firefighter to come along. And he’d be off during the day again after tonight. Afterward I’d make him something special at the Honeybee to pay him back for the excellent picnic grub on Saturday.

  I dialed from the office phone again. “Declan? What are you doing tomorrow morning?”

  * * *

  Mungo trotted beside me as I carried the bowl of salad next door that evening. It was almost six thirty, and the remnants of the earlier clouds created another spectacular sunset. Fireflies danced around my familiar’s head like an electric halo. His affinity for them matched mine for dragonflies. Though there were fewer fireflies around in late October, they still seemed to find him in the gloaming.

  “Hello?” I called through the front screen. The cheery yellow porch light shone down on us.

  “Come on in!” Margie’s voice beckoned from inside.

  I managed to wrestle the door open without dropping the salad—or the lemon vinaigrette—and followed the surprisingly good odors issuing from the kitchen.

  “Do I smell warm chocolate?” I asked as we entered. Sure enough, Margie stood over a bowl on the counter, mixing up a dark batter. A can of cola sat next to the bowl, and as I watched, she dribbled a bit out of the can into the batter.

  “What on earth are you doing?” I asked.

  “Hey, Katie! And you brought Mungo—great!”

  “I thought the JJs might want to play.” I looked around. Bart was wedged into his high chair, gnawing sloppily on Cheerios, but there was no sign of the twins. “Where are they?”

  She put her hands on her hips. “I farmed them out to my sister for the night. The whole night. It’s just you and me. And baby Bart, and Mungo, of course, but we are free of bath time and whining about teeth getting brushed and the truly spectacular inventiveness employed by a pair of four-year-olds who don’t want to go to bed.”

  I laughed.

  “And, darlin’, I’ve got wine.” She raised a glass from the counter and took a sip of pink liquid. “Sweet and good. Getcha some?”

  “Sure.” I set the salad on the counter and peered at the cake batter.

  Wine glugged into a goblet from a jug in the refrigerator. She handed it to me and said, “As for what I’m doing, I’m making Coca-Cola cupcakes for dessert.”

  “Coca…you’re kidding.”

  She looked genuinely surprised. “You’ve never heard of Coca-Cola cake? Good Lord. And you a professional baker.”

  “Yes, well…” It looked like I’d stumbled across another Southern specialty.

  Now she began to dollop the batter into paper-lined muffin tins. �
�They’re one of the only things I like to cook, or that I’m any good at, at least. The kids love ’em, so I thought I’d make up a batch to surprise them with when they get home tomorrow. And tonight we can have them all warm and yummy for dessert. They’re real good.” She winked. “Way better than Twinkies.”

  “Wow. I know how you love a Twinkie now and again.”

  Margie whirled around and opened the oven, removed a pie, and set it on the counter, then popped the cupcakes in to bake.

  I leaned on the counter and peered at the gravy oozing out of the crust. Inhaled deeply. “Chicken potpie? My goodness. You’ve gone all out tonight.”

  She waved her hand. “Oh, honey, those cupcakes are my limit. My mother-in-law brought over three of the potpies last week, all nicely frozen so I can just pop them in the oven. She does make a nice potpie. You’ll like it.”

  “Of course I will.”

  “Listen, the inside of that thing is like molten lava,” Margie said. “Let’s take our wine outside for a few minutes and let it set up.”

  She extracted Bart from his high chair, swiped his face and hands clean, and carted him out to the playpen on the back patio. Mungo trailed behind me and took up station under my chair as I sat down. My feet still hurt from sprinting in high heels that morning and then spending the afternoon showing Nel the ropes at the Honeybee.

  “We hired a new employee down at the bakery today,” I said.

  “Another one? Y’all are going great guns down there.” She settled into a lounge chair and took an appreciative sip of wine.

  “Not exactly. Our other employee moved on. She found her own replacement, though, and she’s very qualified.”

  “Is she old?”

  “Margie!”

  “I’m just asking because that other one was so young, and someone with a little more, shall we say, maturity, might stick around longer.”

  “True,” I admitted. I hoped so. Never mind that Cookie was only four years younger than me.

  “So what are you going to be this Halloween?”

  I frowned and shrugged. “No idea. I thought about going as a witch, but changed my mind.” Or had it changed for me.

  She took another sip. “Nah. That’s boring. You should go as something exciting. Sexy. Wonder Woman or the Green Hornet or something.”

  Laughing, I said, “Right. What are you dressing up as?”

  “Oh, I’m too old for that.”

  “You’re only three years older than me! And you’re still coming to the Honeybee party, aren’t you?”

  “Of course. But I’ll leave the Coopersmith costumes to Bart and the JJs.”

  “I can hardly wait to see them.”

  “Seriously, you should dress up as something fun. You could always be a zombie secretary. Or a zombie baker! Just wear what you normally wear but with zombie makeup and dirt in your hair!”

  I started to protest, then paused. “You know, Margie. You’ve given me a great idea.”

  She leaned back in her chair, looking pleased.

  Beside his mother, Bart dragged himself to his feet and clung to the edge of the playpen, staring at Mungo, who blinked placidly back at him. Then the baby let go, wobbled, and sat down with a thump on the padded surface. His mouth formed an O of surprise, and then he laughed, which set us off, too.

  “Who are you taking to the party?” Margie asked, trying to sound casual.

  “No one. Why?”

  “Not your firefighter? Or your reporter?”

  “It’s a party, but I’ll be working.”

  “They don’t really like each other, do they?”

  “Not so much.”

  “A regular soap opera triangle.”

  “It’s complicated, Margie, and it has nothing to do with me.”

  She blew a raspberry, which made Bart laugh. She grinned down at him, then up at me. “Sister, you are so full of it. And I think you’re on the edge of making a decision between those two.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because the yummy firefighter hasn’t been over lately, but the other one has. You look pretty intense around him, too.”

  “Who needs a neighborhood watch with you around?” I said.

  She took it with good grace. “Heck, I have to watch something besides these kids. Let’s go dive into that potpie.”

  The four of us went inside. I dressed the salad while Margie cut the pie into wedges. She even knew to put some on a plate for Mungo, who wiggled his behind in enthusiastic thanks when she set it on the floor in front of him. Sitting there at her kitchen table, Bart mashing pie onto his face between happy baby squeals, chatting with possibly the most normal woman in the world, I felt a slight shift in perspective. Spell work was fine, and seeing the world through the eyes of magic was wonderful, but sometimes I needed to remind myself that normal, everyday life had a magic of its own.

  * * *

  It was after ten by the time Mungo and I left. Margie had put Bart down to sleep and poured herself another glass of sweet pink wine, and we’d spent the next couple of hours gossiping and laughing like schoolgirls.

  Before leaving I’d snagged a copy of her recipe for Coca-Cola cake—those cupcakes had turned out to be fantastically moist and yummy, not to mention that she’d frosted them with Coca-Cola frosting. Who knew?

  The fireflies zeroed in on Mungo again on the return walk, circling him in a sparkling nimbus. The clouds had returned to seethe in the sky above. The temperature had dropped, too. I shivered and hastened toward the carriage house door.

  Mungo yelped, and suddenly the phalanx of fireflies seemed to explode, flying outward from where they’d gathered around my familiar’s head. Several dropped to the ground.

  I twisted around, searching the shadows. The air felt electric, a storm brewing on the horizon. Shaking my head at myself, I scooped up the little dog and hurried inside.

  As soon as we got in the house, I checked his paws. “Did you step on something in the yard?”

  He whined, but I didn’t see anything wrong. When I put him down, he hightailed it into the bedroom. I followed after locking the front door behind me. It took several seconds before I discovered Mungo huddled in the corner behind the armoire. I knelt in front of him.

  “Sweetie, what’s wrong?”

  His pink tongue snaked out and licked his black nose. His dark eyes blinked at me in the dim light of the bedside lamp.

  Frowning, I stood up. Why was he acting so strangely?

  I got undressed and put on my version of pajamas: a pair of soft gray yoga shorts and a white spaghetti-strap tank. As I tossed my clothes into the hamper, an arrow of pain shot behind my eyes, then vanished.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose, hoping it wasn’t the beginning of a migraine. I’d gone through a spate of nasty headaches right after Andrew ended our engagement. But when the pain didn’t return, I went into the bathroom and washed my face. I flossed and brushed my teeth and reached for my brush to give my hair a few quick swipes.

  Great. I’d brought in my Evan Picone suit from the car, but left the duffel in which I’d packed my work clothes out in the Bug. I ran my fingers through my hair, consulted briefly with myself in the mirror, and decided it could wait.

  The shooting pain hit again as I was climbing up to the loft, but disappeared just as quickly. Still, I found myself gripping the railing with white knuckles. I needed to put Dr. Eastmore’s murder on the shelf and get a good night’s sleep.

  Upstairs, I opened the built-in cupboard and lifted a white box off the floor. Closing the cupboard, I turned off the light and took it back down to my room. Placing the box on the bed, I whipped off the top in one motion. A pile of frothy white lace spilled out over the top.

  Speaking of Andrew ending our engagement…

  “Now that’s a costume,” I said to Mungo, laying my never-worn wedding dress on the bed. “How fitting to be a zombie bride for Halloween, eh?”

  But my familiar continued to hunker in the corner.

&n
bsp; “Come on out.” I reached toward him. “I need a Mungo snuggle.”

  He backed away, as far into the corner as he could get.

  Then I realized he was shaking. “Oh, gosh. Honey, are you sick?”

  He made a noise in the back of his throat that sounded like a negative. A badly frightened negative. Now I was getting scared. Glancing at the alarm clock, I saw it was late, at least for phone calls. Lucy and Ben would both be asleep by now. But I didn’t know who else to call, and I needed help.

  Mungo needed help.

  Looking into his eyes again, I tried once more to figure out what was going on. A sense of foreboding dropped across my shoulders like a lead weight.

  “I’m going to call Aunt Lucy, see if she can help. You stay here.”

  He made another little noise, but at least it sounded like agreement. He lay down and put his nose on his front paws, blinking up at me.

  Okay, that seemed a little more normal. Quickly standing, I hurried into the living room, where my cell phone sat on the coffee table.

  I reached out my hand, but the phone was so far away. My movements slowed. Everything slowed. The walls began to rotate around me. Dizziness unlike anything I’d ever experienced made me stumble. I fell to one knee, hard, on the wooden floor. Pain shot up my leg. The walls whirled. The ceiling turned. Yet I knew they weren’t actually moving.

  Fear stabbed through me. This was way worse than any migraine I’d had before.

  “Help,” I croaked. Maybe Margie was still up. Maybe she was outside and could hear me. But my windows and doors were closed and locked tightly against intruders.

  But someone was here. Inside the carriage house.

  No. Inside my head.

  This was no migraine.

  I shook my head, trying to clear it, but that only made things worse. My stomach twisted, and I retched. The phone was still on the coffee table. On hands and knees I inched across the floor.

  Nine, one, one. That’s all I needed to be able to do. Dial nine, then one, then one again.

  A yellow-green mist seemed to rise around me, punctuated with streaks of maroon. Pain arrowed behind my eyes again, and this time it didn’t subside. I squeezed them shut and felt myself fall, heard my body strike wood.