“How long have you been working for her?” I asked.
“Almost three years now.” Her strange eyes cut toward me. “The money is a lot better than working at the gym or my private practice.”
“Your practice as a psychic?”
She nodded.
“I heard Simon was good at taking care of things. Someone used the word ‘fixer.’”
Ursula laughed. “I bet they did.”
“Did he fix anything for Althea?”
She stopped and put her hands on her hips. “You don’t like her very much, either, do you?”
“I was just wondering who might have a motive to kill Simon.”
“Hmm. Guess you’re taking Franklin’s message seriously. I can honestly say I don’t know of any reason why Althea would want Simon dead, though.”
I hesitated, then plunged ahead. “Do you think you could contact Franklin again?”
We reached the car, and I opened the door. Mungo jumped in and then wiggled over to the passenger seat.
“Maybe,” Ursula said in a musing tone as we stacked the empty containers on the seat.
I snapped my fingers and suddenly stood upright. “Oh, my goddess,” I said without thinking how that might sound. “Why couldn’t you simply contact Simon and ask him who stabbed him?” Talk about streamlining the investigation!
A speculative look crossed her face. “You know, that’s not a terrible idea. I felt his spirit hanging around right after he died, and he knows what I do. He might be willing.”
“Why wouldn’t he want justice?” I couldn’t keep the excitement out of my voice. Grabbing a couple of garbage bags, I rolled down the window for Mungo and shut the car door.
“You want me to take those back to the catering tent?” she asked, eyeing the plastic bags.
“I’ll do it. Might as well do some of the preliminary cleanup.”
“I want to snag another one of those cookies, so I’ll go with you.” We started back. “If I contact Simon, I want to do it right,” Ursula said.
“Meaning?”
“A séance. It will help to have the energy of other people to reach to the other side.”
“Makes sense to me,” I said as we reentered the tent. The tables were littered with paper plates and napkins, but I was pleased to see the majority of the Honeybee’s lunch had been decimated.
“When would be a good time?” I asked. “Tonight?” Then I saw Althea still sitting at one of the tables with Owen Glade.
Great.
She had a square of cold macaroni and cheese on the plate in front of her. When she saw me looking, she stuffed a big bite in her mouth and chewed with great gusto. Glancing at her tiny waist, I wondered if she might be wearing a corset. Owen sat next to her, nibbling on a flaccid fried green tomato. He gazed at her like a puppy with a new and particularly shiny toy.
“Tonight should be fine,” Ursula said, grabbing another oatmeal cookie.
My stomach clamored. Woman could not live on scone alone. I took one of the loaded oatmeal cookies, too.
“Come over to the house where we’re staying,” Ursula said, then louder, “I bet Althea will happy to help, won’t you?”
“Help with what?” The movie star sounded suspicious.
“A séance tonight. We’re going to try to contact Simon on the other side to see if he’ll reveal who murdered him.” Ursula said it as if contacting the dead was the most natural thing in the world, like going to the grocery store or mowing the lawn.
Althea came to her feet. “At our house? Are you out of your mind? I’m not inviting a stranger into our house for a séance.”
“Well, honey, it’s not exactly ours,” Ursula said. “Simon only rented it for two weeks.” And then, in an aside to me, “It’s haunted as the dickens, too.”
Steve entered and steered a direct course to the food table. I could tell he was listening, however, and wondered whether he might have been eavesdropping outside.
“Actually, I’m hoping I can invite a few friends,” I said. “Since you said the more people are there, the more likely you’ll be successful.” I wanted as many members of the spellbook club at the séance as possible. It would be harder to fool all of us if Ursula was a fraud, and if she wasn’t, then I figured our natural affinity for working together would add extra oomph to the proceedings.
“Absolutely not.” Althea actually stamped her foot. Owen blinked up at her.
I struggled to keep from laughing at her antics as Steve took his plate, piled high with satay and melon skewers, to the place across from Althea. He sat down and snagged her gaze. She stared down at him for a long moment before finally taking her seat again. Owen directed a petulant look at Steve, got up, and went to the food table.
I was lifting the cookie to my mouth when Ursula’s fingers gripped my wrist and pulled my hand away. With her other hand, she took my cookie away.
“What the—?” I said.
She shook her head curtly and laid the cookies down on an empty plate, surreptitiously covering them with a napkin.
I frowned at her. Who did she think she was?
She leaned toward me and said in an undertone. “There’s something wrong. I don’t know what, but trust me.”
Wrong? With my cookies?
“Althea, why wouldn’t you want to help find Simon’s killer?” Steve asked in a gentle voice, redirecting my attention back to them.
“It’s not that,” Althea said.
“Don’t you believe in Ursula’s abilities?” he asked.
“Don’t be silly. Of course I do. She’s my psychic.”
I glanced at my companion, but she appeared unperturbed by her employer’s possessiveness.
“Then what’s the problem?” Steve asked.
Althea pointed at me. “She is.”
He turned and looked at me. “Really? What did Katie ever do to you?”
“I, uh . . .”
“Nothing at all, right?” He didn’t seem to be using his Voice, the one that literally compelled people, but Althea nonetheless responded. “I guess not.”
His voice lowered so that we couldn’t hear the words, but Althea seemed to soften further. “Althea, what do you say?” Steve said in a normal tone.
“You can have the séance at the house, of course. We all want justice for Simon, after all.” She smiled at me, the very picture of graciousness.
I smiled as well. “Thank you so much, Ms. Cole.”
“Althea, please.”
“Um, okay,” I said.
All of a sudden, I heard Ursula cry, “Owen, don’t,” from beside me.
He’d taken one of the oatmeal cookies and was about to take a bite. Waving it in her face, he asked, “Why not? Are you such a big fan of that Honeybee place that you don’t want anyone else eating what the other caterer brought?”
I was about to point out that those cookies, even though they were sitting next to Bonner Catering’s chocolate cake, were actually from “that Honeybee place” when he stuffed half the cookie in his mouth.
“No!” Ursula reached for his arm.
He chewed with a defiant look in his watery eyes.
“There’s something wrong with it!” the psychic insisted.
Fear suddenly brightened in Owen’s eyes, and a strangulated groan came from his throat. I watched with horror as his face crumpled with revulsion. He clamped his hand over his mouth and bolted from the tent.
“Oh, dear,” Althea said, dabbing at the corner of her mouth with a paper napkin.
From outside, we heard the sound of loud retching, then worse as Owen was sick. The sound repeated over and over. Steve jumped to his feet and ran out. To my amazement, Althea took another bite of congealed macaroni and cheese. I swallowed hard and looked away.
Puzzlement creasing her brow, Ursula pushed th
e napkin-covered plate on the table behind us to one side. “We should put aside the rest of those cookies.”
“Indeed,” Althea said. “It seems the Honeybee Bakery could poison us all.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. “But . . .” I gestured toward the disgusting noises still coming from the other side of the canvas. “Ursula, you had two of those oatmeal cookies earlier, and you’re fine.”
“There’s something wrong with these, though, and with the one that Owen ate.”
My breath hitched in my throat. “How do you know?”
“Let’s just say I have it on good authority.” She shook her head. “I only wish my guides gave me more complete information sometimes.”
Yeah, I thought. Me too.
* * *
The assistant production coordinator was so violently ill that Ben called an ambulance. Steve stayed with the poor guy until it got there, but Althea seemed to have evaporated. I’d have speculated that her sensibilities were too delicate for such distasteful goings-on if I hadn’t seen her stuffing her face right in the middle of it all.
Niklas Egan had added to the festivities with another string of epithets directed at no one in particular, and Van Grayson had lived up to his name, his face turning a sickly shade of wallpaper paste when he’d heard Owen dry heaving.
I shuddered, remembering. “Will he be okay?” I asked my uncle as they wheeled Simon’s assistant away.
“I think so,” Ben said. “Whatever disagreed with him didn’t stay in his stomach for very long.”
My appetite had flown and didn’t seem inclined to return anytime soon. Funny how hearing someone be violently sick was almost worse than seeing a dead body.
“Ursula said there’s something wrong with the cookies.” After she’d said that, she strode out of the tent with a firm sense of purpose, but I had no idea where she’d gone.
Ben looked surprised. “From the Honeybee?”
I nodded. “The loaded oatmeal cookies. I can’t imagine what I could have done wrong. All the ingredients are innocuous. The most unstable thing would be the butter, and if that went bad for some reason, it would only taste unpleasant, not make anyone ill like that. At least I think so. Besides, the cookies Ursula ate earlier today were perfectly fine.”
His brow furrowed. “That’s pretty suspicious, don’t you think? Especially the day after someone is murdered. I’ve never known you to make mistakes baking, and I’d think if something wasn’t right, the whole batch would have been affected. No, I’m sure you didn’t do anything wrong, Katie,” he said. “And we can’t afford to have the Honeybee’s reputation sullied. I’m calling Peter.”
The ambulance drove away. Declan was busy keeping people out of the square since so many had been attracted to the sketchy perimeter of the set after yesterday’s swarm of police and then today’s visit from the ambulance.
I couldn’t really blame them. I wanted to know what the heck was going on, too.
In the empty catering tent, I opened a garbage bag with the intention of cleaning up, but slowly sank onto one of the benches instead. Once more I mentally ran through mixing the oatmeal cookies. It had been a huge batch, which we then kept for a couple of days in the refrigerator so we could easily bake fresh cookies throughout the day. Portions of that same batch had been served to Honeybee customers already. Other than a small incantation to give an extra kick to the prosperity-producing aspects of the cinnamon and the healing and love contained in the chunks of dark chocolate, no strange ingredients had gone into those cookies.
Either something else had made Owen sick, or someone had tampered with the cookies. In the latter case, I doubted the police would want me to touch anything.
Great. First I’d lost the catering job for the Honeybee for the rest of the week, and now the catering tent itself was a potential crime scene.
Ursula opened the side of the tent wider and came to join me.
“Where did you run off to?” I asked.
“I was awfully vocal about how much I liked those cookies,” she said. “I wanted to see who was hanging around.”
I tipped my head to the side. “You think someone was trying to poison you specifically?”
She shrugged. “Like I said, I ate most of those cookies yesterday.”
“But why would anyone want to do that?” I asked.
“Perhaps they overheard us talking about the séance tonight.”
“Oh,” I breathed. “Of course the murderer wouldn’t want Simon to reveal who killed him. But how would anyone have time? We’d just come up with the idea.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. We’d have seen anyone around the cookies once we were in the catering tent talking with Althea and Owen. I suppose Steve could have slipped something into the cookies when he was getting his lunch . . .”
I gave a definitive shake of my head. “It wasn’t Steve.”
Her eyebrows rose. “Then it would have to have been someone who heard us talking by your car.”
“Niklas? Or Van? Were they close enough to hear?” I asked. “Because I don’t remember anyone else being around.”
“I’m not going to accuse anyone until we find out what’s in those cookies,” Ursula said. “I saw the police cars arriving. I assume you called them?”
“Ben did.” I touched her forearm with my fingertips. She felt cayenne hot, and I realized I could physically feel her anger. “Are you still up for the séance tonight?”
Her jaw set. “You bet I am.”
Peter Quinn came in then with a couple of uniformed police officers carrying their own bags.
“Leave everything as it is,” he said.
“Don’t worry.” I rose. “I know the drill.”
“Ben said someone was poisoned.”
“Owen Glade,” Ursula said, also coming to her feet. “He’s already on his way to the hospital.”
“What happened?” Quinn asked.
We took turns telling him. “And those are the two cookies we were about to eat when Owen got so sick.” I indicated the two oatmeal treats Ursula had covered with napkins. “I’ve racked my brain and can’t see how it could be the Honeybee’s fault.”
He removed one of the napkins. “I hope not. My wife brought home half a dozen of these a few days ago.” His face was serious as a tomb when he looked up. “Don’t worry. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“Do you think this incident has anything to do with Simon Knapp’s death?” I asked, daring a glance at my psychic companion.
“Sure would be a coincidence if it didn’t,” Quinn said.
Beside me, Ursula pressed her lips together.
Chapter 10
I’d been gone from the Honeybee a lot longer than I’d planned, so while I walked back to my car, I called Lucy to check in.
“Jaida had to go file her paperwork at the courthouse, but Bianca is still here and we’re doing fine,” she said. “When do you think you’ll be back?”
“I’m on my way,” I said.
“Did you find out anything?”
“Not anything very useful.” Except that Franklin Taite might be dead. “There was a rather . . . unsavory development, though. The new production coordinator became ill after eating one of our oatmeal cookies.”
“Oh, no! Is he allergic to chocolate or nuts?”
My steps slowed. “I don’t know. I guess it’s a possibility. He got really sick to his stomach, though. Don’t food allergies typically give people hives or make it hard to breathe?”
“From what I know, yes.”
“Well, he’s at the hospital, so they’ll know what to do,” I said.
“Oh, no! It was that bad?” she asked.
“Definitely that bad. Ben thinks someone tampered with the cookies.” As did Ursula, but that was a little harder to explain.
�
��What? Why would anyone do that?” Lucy asked.
“I don’t know. Detective Quinn is looking into it. And there’s more bad news—at least for us,” I said. “Before he got sick, the new production coordinator hired the old caterer back. I barely managed to get paid for today’s meal.”
“Oh, sweetie. I’m so sorry.”
“It would have been a challenge anyway,” I said. “A lucrative one, but still.”
There was a long pause before she tentatively asked, “They don’t think you did something to the cookies out of spite, do they? To get back at the new guy for rehiring the other caterer?”
My stomach sank. “Honestly, that never occurred to me, Luce. Quinn didn’t give that impression, but then again, he might not know we got fired this morning. Darn it. I hope he doesn’t pull the same kind of nonsense he did when he accused Ben of murder last year.”
“I’m sure that won’t happen,” my aunt soothed. “You two are friends now.”
“Hmm,” I murmured, noncommittal. “There is one other thing I want to give you a heads-up about.”
“More?” She sounded wary now.
“It’s a good thing. At least I think so.”
“Katie,” came my aunt’s gentle voice. “Just tell me.”
“Remember me telling you about the psychic?”
“The one who said you’d find Simon’s killer.”
“Well, she agreed to hold a séance tonight to try to contact Simon Knapp himself,” I said.
“Oh, honey! That’s a wonderful idea.” Lucy’s voice trilled with excitement.
“Will you come? She said I could invite some friends.”
“Of course she did! Contacting the dead must be like any other spell, and as you well know, we are more powerful as a group than alone. You can count on me to be there. Shall I contact the others?”
“If you don’t mind. But keep in mind that Ursula knows I’m bringing reinforcements, but she doesn’t know we’re a practicing coven.”
“Got it.”
“Thanks, Lucy. I’ll be there soon.”
I hung up and opened the car door. “Hey, little guy. Thanks for hanging out here. It got a little crazy there for a while.”
Some Enchanted clair : A Magical Bakery Mystery (9780698140561) Page 10
