by Tegan Maher
"Hank was arrogant enough that he wouldn't even think of something like that." Rae held up her finger. "That's not to say, though, that what Marge saw wasn't just a contact book or something. You know how that crew is—they tend to look for the interesting explanation. That's not always the accurate one."
"True," I agreed as I popped the lid back on my coffee cup. "Still, I'm going over to the sheriff's office to tell Hunter about it."
"Pop in and see Anna Mae while you're there," she said. "She's probably lonely and scared stiff."
"You don't think she killed him?" Jake asked.
I shook my head. "Absolutely not. She doesn't have it in her, though I surely wouldn't blame her if she did."
As an afterthought, I stuffed the cups in a carrier and threw a few pastries in a bag to take with me, too. Just as I reached the door, somebody pulled it open for me.
"Hey, Noelle. Looks like you have your hands full."
It was Will, and he looked much better than he had at the fair. At least he was clean-shaven, and the dark circles were mostly gone from his eyes. He smiled at me.
"Will! You look much better. I was worried about you when I saw you at the fair the other day."
"Yeah, I’m feeling much better. I had a lot on my mind, but managed to work most of it out. Things are looking up again."
"I'm glad to hear it. Whatever it was, I'm glad you managed to work through it. Have a good one."
"You too," he replied as the door swung shut behind him.
It only took me a few minutes to reach the courthouse and when I pushed through the door, Peggy Sue beamed at me. "Hey, Noelle. It's good to see ya again. How are you?"
It would take me awhile to get used to this new version of the formerly dour clerk, but I definitely liked it. Today, she was wearing a cheery paisley sundress cut to flatter her ample figure.
"I'm doing just great, Peggy Sue. How about you? Want a pastry? I just made ’em last night."
I was glad now that I'd brought more than a couple, because her eyes lit up as she reached for the bag and peered into it. "I'd love one, thank you." She pulled out a raspberry danish and moaned when she took a bite. "Girl, you have a magic touch."
If only she knew. "I'm glad you like it. Is Hunter in?"
She nodded and motioned me back toward his office. "Oh! Noelle, wait! I have something for you. She set the pastry on top of her coffee cup, then dug through her files and handed me an envelope. I pulled it out and read it, then read it again and looked at her, astonished.
"Peggy Sue, what is this?"
Well," she said, drawing the word out into two syllables, "I was just going through the property appraisals in order to compile the annual budget, and I happened to notice that for some reason, your property was appraised way too high during probate."
She paused. "Oh, who are we kiddin'? Hank told me a week ago to send out an 'amended' appraisal — even though he'd already put the screws to ya the first time around, because he wanted your farm. Now he's dead, and I did exactly what he asked. I sent you an amended appraisal that accurately reflects what you owe," she declared.
"It ain't right what he was doin' to people around here, Noelle. It don't take but half of what people have been payin' to run this town, and the other half was goin' in his pocket. Yours was easy enough to fix. I can't give you the cash back, but assuming there isn't a significant increase in value next year, you paid two years' worth of taxes instead of one. That's the amended receipt."
I didn't know what to say. "Thank you, Peggy Sue. He told me the other day he was charging me more and I've been worried about where I was going to get the money to pay it."
"Well now you don't have to worry about it, sugar. Enjoy that place the way Adelaide intended for you to."
I looked down at the envelope and a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. "I'm gonna keep you in pastries forever, Peggy Sue."
She laughed as I headed toward Hunter's office. "Are you trying to bribe an elected official, Miss Flynn?"
I grinned. "Nope. Just rewarding a darned good person for doing me right when she didn't have to."
I was still smiling when I walked into Hunter's office. For some reason, it was hotter than an Easy-Bake oven in there. He had a window open, the ceiling fan was going, and there was an oscillating fan on his desk, but they were just stirring around hot air.
If you've never experienced July in Georgia, think back to the last time you were in a sauna. It's like that, but you have to leave your clothes on. Still, even the heat in the room wasn't going to dampen my spirits after what Peggy Sue had just done for me.
"Well hello," He said, mopping his forehead with a hankie. He glanced at the extra cup of coffee and the grease-stained bag. "Please god, tell me those are for me."
"I figured somebody over here could use an iced mocha latte and pastries. If that person happens to be you, then I guess it's your lucky day," I teased as he took the coffee and bag from me. "What's up with the AC?"
"I have no idea, but it must be the vents leading to here, because the rest of the building is fine. I can't even get anybody to come look at it until tomorrow. He turned the fan up a notch higher and set it to oscillate so that I got a burst of hot air every few seconds, too.
"I did want to bring you coffee, but that's not the main reason I stopped by. I was at the salon and they mentioned that Hank had a book containing the names of people he was blackmailing or otherwise ripping off. We figured maybe it was the target of the break-ins and that you should know about it."
He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You gotta be kidding me. He was robbing so many people that he had to have a book to keep up with them all? I'm never going to find who murdered him. Hell, at this point, I'd like to kill him myself for disgracing the badge." He motioned with his chin toward a short filing cabinet to my right.
"The book could be why they broke in, I suppose. That's the locked filing cabinet I mentioned. I have no idea what was actually in there. It was open and empty, but they went through the other filing cabinets too."
I shrugged. "Well, take it to the basics. People almost always murder for either love or money. I'd bet dollars to donuts this was about money, because Hank's own mother didn't even like him so love is out.
"I also guarantee it wasn't Anna Mae, regardless of what you found in her house. If I were you, I'd do my best to find that book. If it actually exists, there's a good chance whoever killed him is in there for one reason or another."
"Maybe so, but for now, the evidence still points to her. It's pretty hard to ignore the fact that a man turns up dead after his wife—who he's been cheating on—takes out a life insurance policy on him for half a million dollars."
He had a file open in front of him and I couldn't help but notice Hank's name on it.
I motioned toward it. "So that's his file, huh? Will you at least tell me what kind of poison was used?"
Hunter shook his head. "I can't. It's not that I don't trust you, but it's the only part of this investigation that isn't public knowledge. I'm having enough problems controlling this. Especially since Hank was so crooked, it would be too easy for people he was working with to set somebody up. Right now, there are exactly three people who know what killed him—me, the coroner, and the murderer. I intend to keep it that way, at least for now."
I saw his point, but if Anna Mae didn't kill Hank, and I was sure she didn't, then the method of poison could narrow the pool down considerably depending on what type it was. Considering Hunter didn't know much about the citizens of the town—especially that some of them were witches—he was playing with one hand tied behind his back and didn't even know it.
"Look, I understand, but there are things about this town that you don't know yet. You haven't been here long enough. I know you think of me as just a waitress, but I also have a degree in criminal justice and I know everybody in these parts. I may be able to help."
I could see his internal struggle. On one hand, he knew I had a point
. On the other, it went against his training to breach protocol like that.
"Let me think about it. Don't take this the wrong way, but I have to keep in mind I just met you, too. I mean, I like you, but you have to admit I can't completely rule you out as a suspect. You were there and had motive."
That probably should have made me mad, but he was right. I shrugged. "Fair enough. Listen, there's something else I've been meaning to tell you about. Raeann insists it's important. I don't disagree with her, but I'm not sure what you can really do about it."
I filled him in on my experience with the real estate investor.
"The only thing that really bothers me is that he said this guy had a preliminary contract and applications for building and zoning permits. That's kinda creepy."
"And why would you think Hank had anything to do with it?"
"Well, he oversaw the permits, and just a few minutes before he died, he made an innuendo about my brakes."
He leaned forward and narrowed his eyes, his elbows resting on his desk. "Wait, you didn't tell me that."
I flushed. "I didn't really think it was a big deal. It's just how Hank was—he was always lording his power. He's dead, so whether or not he cut my brakes is basically a moot point."
"Actually, it's not moot at all—" One of the younger deputies came busting through the door without knocking. He skidded to a halt when he saw me and looked back and forth between us like he didn't know what to do. His face was beet red and he obviously had something on his mind.
"What can I do for you, J.C.?" Hunter asked.
The younger man looked at me and swallowed. His Adam's bobbed, and the look of indecision on his face was almost comical. "Well sir, can I see you in the hallway?"
Hunter stood up and followed him into the hallway, letting the door swing shut behind him. When it did, the open window and the fan combined to create a bit of a vacuum and blew the top paper on the folder off the pile and under the desk.
The edges of it slipped out from under the front of desk and came to rest about two feet in front of me. The top of the paper read coroner report.
I chewed my lip, looking back and forth between the paper and the door. I bent over to scoop it up to put it back on the desk, and I had the best of intentions to do just that, but the word 'belladonna' jumped out at me.
I sighed. There was no way to stuff that cat back in the bag, so I skimmed it quickly as I picked it up. The toxic plant was in the list of stomach contents.
I scanned through the rest of the list, picking out ingredients I recognized: raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, glucose, fructose, atropa belladonna berries, starch polymer, wheat proteins, lenoleic acid, lactones ... I didn't need to read anymore; I'm a witch and a dedicated baker; I know the chemical structures of my ingredients. Hank had eaten a poisoned piece of mixed-berry pie for breakfast.
Chapter 20
I slid the sheet of paper back onto the top of the pile and leaned back in my chair, thinking.
Poisoning somebody with belladonna was rockin' it old-school-witch style. That didn't make any sense. Anna Mae wasn't a witch and there was no other plausible reason she would just keep belladonna around. For that matter, most witches don't even use it anymore because it's too easy to miscalculate the dose.
I flipped through my mental Rolodex and tried to think of any herbalists who might be able to point me in the right direction. There was one who lived about ten miles out of town, clear out in the sticks, but she was a few bricks shy of an outhouse. The problem now was that I knew what killed Hank, but I wasn't supposed to.
The fan swung around and puffed another burst of hot air in my face. I couldn't take it anymore. I didn't know jack about air conditioning systems but fans were easy. I muttered a few words and sighed when the next blast of air that hit me in the face was cool.
Hunter said something from outside his door, then the latch clicked and he came back in looking flustered. I shot a guilty glance at the folder and debated whether or not I should come clean, then decided to hold off. I didn't want him to know I'd read his report, even though it had been an accident, and I couldn't exactly tell him he needed to start looking at witches anyway.
I decided to talk to Addy about it before I did anything. She’d lived here all her life and was a fair herbalist herself; it was a sure bet that she'd have some ideas about where it might have come from.
"Listen, I have a lot of baking to do so I need to go," I told Hunter, then remembered that J.C. had been pretty worked up. "But is everything okay?"
Hunter sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. "I may as well tell you. It's not like the entire town isn't going to know within the hour anyway. We just found a checkbook underneath a false bottom in Hank's desk drawer, and when we called to verify the account, we found out he had almost half a million dollars in it."
Color me surprised. "I told you Hank found a way to make being a sheriff in a backwoods town profitable. Though honestly, I figured there'd be way more than that."
He looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "More? I swear to god—up until this very minute, I thought everybody was exaggerating. We're going to have to do a complete audit of everything: tax records, fines, health department violations, code inspections."
I considered that for a minute. It would mean going through literally every record in the courthouse, and even then it would be in drops, not buckets. Lots of drops, for sure, but that didn’t feel like the right trail to follow. "If I were you, I'd concentrate more on finding that little black book than combing through official records. Unless I miss my guess, that's where you'll find the big sources of that money."
Hunter drew his brows together and shook his head. "No wonder nobody wanted this job."
I rose to leave and patted his on his arm on the way out, adopting a blasé tone. "If it makes you feel any better, they just didn't want to get stuck with Hank's murder. Hurry up and solve that, and I'm sure there will be plenty of takers. As you can see, it can be quite the lucrative career."
I pressed my lips together and walked out, giving Hunter plenty to think about. When I passed Peggy Sue, she asked if everything was all right. I smiled and told her that, for the first time in a long time, I thought it was about to be. "And you may as well start going through the records tracking down all the other errors," I added, "because unless I miss my guess, that man's gonna end up keeping the sheriff's badge for good."
She smiled and winked at me as I stepped into the main lobby of the courthouse. "Sugar, I figured that out the minute the council appointed him interim."
I made a pit-stop at the jail and visited with Anna Mae for a bit and remembered on my way back to the truck that I'd left the fan in Hunter's office blowing cold. I gave myself a mental forehead slap, but there wasn't much I could do about it at that point. Let him wonder, and enjoy it.
I needed to restock my baking supplies and grab something for supper, so I stopped at the grocery store on the way home. As Hunter had predicted, the news about Hank's hidden account was running through the gossip mill like a hot knife through butter.
The cashier, Emma, was a short, squat woman wearing bottle-bottom glasses. As she ran my flour over the scanner, she asked, "You hear about Hank's secret account? I heard it has over a million dollars in it."
I gave her a good-natured half-smile. "I did hear about it, Emma. As a matter of fact, I was at the sheriff's office when they found it. It only had just under a half-million in it." I shook my head when I realized I'd said only like that kind of cash was chicken feed.
"Oh." She blinked at me and the glasses exaggerated the movement so much that she reminded me of an owl. I couldn't decide which was more comical—her expression or the fact that she looked so disappointed that I'd cut the value of the gossip in half.
I paid her and as I was headed back to the truck, Raeann texted me.
R: Thx for letting your best friend find out thru the grapevine about the acct!
Crap on a cracker. She was going to kill
me, and I deserved it. I fired back a quick text.
N: OMG. I totally suck! Found out what killed Hank tho. Talk in a bit.
Of course, my phone rang two seconds later. I gave her the rundown and told her what I was doing, assuring her I'd keep her posted.
As soon as I got home, I hollered for Adelaide, who popped in and grouched, "No need to yell, girl. I'm dead, not deaf. And by the way, that worthless donkey is in my petunias."
I paused from putting the groceries away and stopped her before she could build a full head of steam. "Geez, what has your knickers in a twist?"
She heaved a sigh and floated to a chair. "I'm sorry, Noelle. It's just that I feel so out of the loop. All this excitement about Hank, and I have to wait around here to find out anything."
I'd never really thought about it, but I guess I'd probably get stir-crazy in her situation, too. Belle and Angus popped to mind. They seemed to go wherever they wanted, but I assumed since Addy never left, maybe she was bound to the house or something. It never occurred to me to ask if she'd tried.
"Aunt Adelaide, have you even tried to go anywhere besides here since you came back? Belle goes pretty much wherever she wants, and so does Angus."
"Actually, I did. I tried to ride to town with you shortly after I died. You couldn't see me yet, but I was worried about you and just wanted to be with you. The truck just pulled out from underneath me, though."
Unbidden, tears popped into my eyes and I wished for the thousandth time that I could hug her. I sniffed and wiped them away before she could see them. There was no need to upset her, too. Then I had an epiphany.
"Maybe it doesn't work that way. Maybe you just have to concentrate on a place, and you'll appear there."
I wasn't sure how this stuff worked, but it sounded logical.
Her face brightened. "I didn't even think of that—I'm going to try right now."
"No wait!" I reached out to grab her arm before I remembered she was incorporeal. I felt like I shoved my hand in an ice bucket. "First, I need to ask you something."
