A Potion to Die For: A Magic Potion Mystery

by blake, heather

  “Not yet at least.”

  I nodded. “Give me a sec to get this thing out, and I’ll make something for you. You’ll be feeling better in no time.”

  “I, uh . . .” His cheeks flamed. “I’m sorry, Carly. For what I said the other day. I didn’t mean any harm. I let the gossip go to my head.”

  “I should say sorry, too. For a day or so there I thought you might have had an affair with Angelea Butts. I’m sorry I misjudged your character.”

  “It’s okay. I’m sure I looked guilty as sin. It’s been difficult keeping the news of Nelson’s and her relationship a secret.”

  “You knew?” I asked.

  He nodded. “From the beginning. They’d both talk to me about it but swore me to secrecy.”

  “Did you know Angelea was the true embezzler?”

  “No. If I’d known, I would have spoken up. Coach, well, he’s not perfect by any means, as you well know, but he didn’t deserve the hell he’s been put through by being arrested, then finding out his wife wanted a divorce and had taken up with his lawyer. . . .”

  Coach was a big jerk, but Dudley had a point. A lot of Coach’s troubles had been brought on by someone else. Angelea. It didn’t excuse his reactions, by any means, but it did make them slightly more understandable.

  Not that I was going to forgive him anytime soon . . .

  “Do you need some help?” Dudley asked, motioning to the bauble.

  “Sure.” I wedged the chisel behind the baseboard, shoving it down as far as it would go with the hammer. Then I leaned back, using the chisel as a lever.

  Dudley grabbed the baseboard and pulled. A loud cracking noise filled the air and the board popped loose, sending him backward.

  He laughed as he sat up and dusted himself off. I zeroed in on the shiny bit, which popped right out of the crevice with a little encouragement from the end of a pen.

  I pulled it out and set it in the palm of my hand. It was a ring. A wedding band.

  “That looks like . . . ,” Dudley began, then fell silent.

  I checked the inscription.

  4-ever & 4-always

  It didn’t just look like Emmylou’s wedding ring. It was her ring.

  But what was it doing in my shop?

  Chapter Thirty-one

  We were still sitting and staring at the platinum orb when the front door opened.

  “Yoo-hoo!” Emmylou yelled. “What’re y’all doing back there?”

  I glanced at Dudley. His face wore no expression at all.

  Mine, I was sure, looked confused as all get-out. She’d lost the ring on Friday afternoon . . . or had she? I thought back long and hard to Friday morning, when I ran into her outside Mr. Dunwoody’s house. Closing my eyes, I tried to recall if she’d been wearing her ring when she tucked her hair behind her ear.

  She hadn’t been. Her finger had been bare.

  Which meant she had already lost her ring before her picnic later that day with Dudley.

  She’d staged the whole scene of her ring flying off, probably using that tin ring I’d found on the picnic green as a decoy.

  I could think of only one reason why she’d want Dudley to think she’d lost her ring that day and not before. . . .

  Because she’d lost the ring in my shop. When she left Nelson’s body in here.

  Puzzle pieces tumbled into my head, fitting neatly in place. It hadn’t been Coach at all. . . . It had been Emmylou. Emmylou!

  Swallowing hard, I stood up and wobbled a little, knocked off-balance by my thoughts. “Just cleaning up the mess Coach made yesterday. Dudley was kind enough to lend a hand.”

  Emmylou sashayed into the shop. “I couldn’t believe the news when I heard it this morning. Is Angelea going to be okay?” Her voice dropped. “The baby?”

  The ring grew warm in my palm as I squeezed it tightly. Dudley followed behind me and stepped up next to Emmylou, a dazed look in his eyes. My guess was he had come to the same conclusion I had.

  “Nelson’s baby, you mean,” I said, watching her closely.

  Her eyes flew open wide. “Nelson’s?” she squeaked.

  “Whose did you think it was?” I asked.

  Sharply plucked eyebrows drew downward. “I-I’m not sure. I heard Coach couldn’t have children, but I thought it some sort of miracle. . . .”

  “You didn’t know Angelea was having an affair with Nelson for months now? Dudley knew. He’s been keeping their secret.”

  Emmylou’s gaze flashed to her husband. Her face had gone as pale as his. “Of course I didn’t know.”

  “No,” I said, “because you thought Angelea and Dudley were having an affair, didn’t you?”

  I was slowly putting more pieces together. Emmylou had been worried about Dudley not loving her because of his performance problems and automatically jumped to the conclusion that he was having an affair. She had snapped, just as Coach had. Except she was smarter and more calculating.

  Emmylou straightened. “What’s all this about?”

  I set the ring on the counter, where it spun in small circles before coming to a stop. “We found your ring while we were cleaning up the glass.”

  Her head snapped between Dudley and me.

  I went on the offensive, hoping that if I talked fast enough, I could encourage her to make a confession. “You poisoned the potion I gave Angelea, but you didn’t count on her suspecting she was pregnant and not drinking it. She left it at Nelson’s, and when he couldn’t sleep, he drank it. And when he was sick and dying, he called your house for help. You answered that call, didn’t you, Emmylou? It wasn’t a hang-up at all, was it?”

  As if in a trance, she nodded. “He said he’d had some of Angelea’s potion. . . .”

  “You didn’t think to question why he had Angelea’s potion?”

  She shook her head. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. Nelson was in such pain.”

  Dudley gripped the counter.

  I prodded. “So you went over there?”

  “Dudley was asleep. I snuck out to . . .”

  Oh, dear Lord. “To put him out of his misery?”

  She nodded. “I had to. I’m not cruel, you know.”

  I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of that statement but managed to keep my cool.

  “I knew he couldn’t survive the poison,” she said. “I managed to get him into my truck and . . .”

  “You hit him on the head with a baseball bat,” I supplied. No wonder her van had been so clean. And I bet she hadn’t been looking for her contact lens the afternoon Ainsley and I saw her on all fours. She’d been looking for her ring. It also explained why she’d snuck back into my shop after the police had been here: She was still looking. Clearly, she didn’t know for certain where she had lost it.

  “I didn’t want him to suffer,” Emmylou explained.

  My temper was rising. “Why did you put him in my shop? How’d you get into my shop? Where did that potion bottle in his hand come from?”

  “Ainsley’s keys. I stole them from her purse when she came in to check the menu for her boys’ party.”

  “Wait a sec. That was before Nelson died. . . .”

  “You’re not very bright, are you, Carly?”

  I’d been called many things, but stupid was never one of them.

  “Emmylou,” Dudley said.

  She shot him a look. “Shut up, Dudley. I planned all along to put the body in your shop, Carly. Although I thought it would be Angelea’s body. I’d seen her in here, getting her potion, and I couldn’t abide the sight of her anymore. She had to go, and I knew just the way to do it. A way that would get at the both of you. I’ve been watching her as much as possible, just waiting for her to take the potion. . . .”

  So Angelea hadn’t been paranoid about someone watching her. I was surprised that Emmylou had never caught Angelea with Nelson. If only she had . . . maybe this whole situation would have been avoided.

  If only.

  “Emmy,” Dudley said again, reaching out to her.
/>   “Shut! Up!” she snapped, shaking off his hand.

  Her gaze narrowed on me, and I’d never noticed the hint of crazy in her eyes before. Why haven’t my witchy senses picked up on that? I wondered.

  “I had that violet potion bottle a while now,” Emmylou said, “and I didn’t plan on using it, but in my rush to get Nelson out of his house, I forgot to take the poisoned potion with me. I didn’t dare go back for it—I wanted to minimize my presence in his house because of forensics and all. I’d been careful handling the poisoned potion, so I knew my prints weren’t on it, and by using the bottle I had at home I still got my message about you across.”

  She sounded proud. Smug. My temper was rising. I wanted to cry out that the potion hadn’t been poisoned—it was simply poison in the bottle. She’d left it behind at Nelson’s, and Angelea, in a rushed attempt to cover her tracks at his house, had unwittingly put the murder weapon in the car, where her husband later found it . . . and ironically accused me of using it to poison him. It was quite the tangled web.

  “If I hadn’t been so flustered by it all,” Emmylou said, “I would have put some strychnine in the potion bottle Nelson was found with.” She shook her head as though chastising herself. “It was a crazy night. I wasn’t thinking straight.” Her eyes glazed a little as she added, “I had trouble getting Nelson in here—I ended up having to use my dolly from the truck to get him inside, and it was near impossible not to drip any blood, too. I had to wrap dish towels around his head, and he kind of looked like a mummy and that freaked me out a little. And then I realized I lost my ring somewhere, but I didn’t know where. . . .” She gave her head a little shake, as though trying to break the creepy trance she’d been in.

  Dudley and I stared at her in horror. No, she definitely was not thinking straight.

  I pressed for more information. “What message was it that you wanted to send to me, Emmylou? What did I ever do to you?” I asked.

  Sharply, she said, “This whole mess with Dudley is your fault.”

  Oh, hell, no, as Delia would say. “Mine? How so?”

  “Your stupid potions. They don’t work. You only say they do.”

  “They do when they’re used properly,” I said. “And why keep coming back for them if you don’t think they work?”

  “To keep up the charade. It might have looked suspicious if I suddenly stopped coming by. None of the potions you gave me worked.” She stamped her foot. “Especially not your love potion! Dudley was supposed to love and honor me always.”

  “But I did, Emmy,” Dudley said softly.

  Her eyes narrowed, then widened. She shook her head. “No . . . You cheated. You got her pregnant!”

  “I didn’t,” he insisted.

  She’d woven a story in her head that she could no longer keep straight. It was obvious she couldn’t grasp that she’d been wrong about the cheating. Because if she was wrong, all her actions had no reasoning behind them.

  “So, what?” I asked. “You left a dying Nelson in your food truck and went home to get an empty potion bottle? Just for a little misguided revenge? That’s plain sick.”

  “Don’t you judge me, Carly Hartwell!” Her eyes blazed with fury.

  “Oh,” I said snidely, “I’m judging. You’re touched in the head.” I banged my hand on the counter like a judge’s gavel. “Guilty! And you cut Angelea’s brake line, didn’t you?” I accused.

  Color flooded her cheeks. “How dare she chase after my husband? And then she gets pregnant with Dudley’s baby, too? Oh, hell, no. That should have been my baby! I couldn’t allow it. The poisoned potion didn’t work out the way I’d planned, but I thought for sure the cut brake line would.” She jabbed a finger at me. “I should have known you’d mess that up for me somehow!”

  “It is Nelson’s baby,” Dudley said loudly.

  But she wasn’t listening. There was a distant look in her eyes as tears fell down her face. “My baby!”

  She’d attempted to kill Angelea and her unborn child and instead unwittingly killed Nelson. All because of some psychotic attachment to Dudley.

  I’d heard enough. I picked up the phone.

  “What are you doing?” Emmylou cried.

  “Calling the police.”

  “No, no, no!” She looked around and her gaze landed on the countertop. She snatched the vial pendant Delia had given me and ripped out the stopper. “Put the phone down. I don’t know what’s in here, but I know it’s bad. I saw the way you reacted when Delia gave it to you. Put the phone down!”

  I put it down as she waved the vial back and forth.

  “C’mon, Dudley, we’re leaving.”

  Dudley shook his head.

  “Come on!” she shouted.

  “No, Emmylou.”

  He’d picked a fine time to stand up to her. “Maybe you should go,” I prodded him.

  He looked at me like I’d grown two heads. He didn’t realize that this wasn’t going to end well unless he left with her. Then I could call the police.

  I eyed the stapler, but Emmylou was pacing, and I didn’t have good aim.

  Outside the window, I saw John Richard Baldwin walk by. He glanced in, saw me, and waved.

  I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t want him coming in, so I gave a friendly wave as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on in here.

  Unfortunately, he took my wave as an invitation and pushed open the door.

  Emmylou raged at him. “Get out! Get out! Get out!”

  He stood frozen, just like he’d been in Aunt Marjie’s yard.

  When he didn’t move Emmylou doused him with the hex, and he started screaming. “My eyes! My eyes!”

  Dudley lunged for his wife, and she threw the hex on him as well. He dropped to his knees. “I can’t see! I’m blind!”

  She immediately fell next to him, telling him she was sorry. I quickly picked up the phone and dialed 9-1-1, leaving the phone off the hook so the dispatcher could trace the call.

  John Richard stumbled over both of them, and they all ended up in a pig pile on the floor. I quickly grabbed the broom Delia had given me and pressed the handle into Emmylou’s back.

  “Don’t move or I’ll shoot!” I yelled.

  Everyone froze. John Richard’s whimpering filled the air. I reached down and grabbed the vial pendant from Emmylou’s fist and let out a breath. It was empty.

  Emmylou cried, “Dudley? Dudley? Where are you?” And I realized she must have gotten some of the hex on herself as well.

  “I’m here,” he said dully.

  “Don’t leave me,” she cried. “Don’t ever leave me.”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  It had been nearly a week since the showdown with Emmylou in my shop. Mr. Dunwoody’s forecast this morning had been cloudy with a chance of many weddings, which wasn’t much of a stretch. It was a beautiful May evening, and the town was busy with tourists here for weekend weddings. Mama’s chapel was booked solid through till Sunday night, and I hoped that meant she wouldn’t have time for any more impromptu concerts.

  Mr. Dunwoody’s forecast last week had sadly proven true not just for one couple but for two; Coach and Angelea and Emmylou and Dudley. Coach had been cleared of the embezzlement and murder charges but would go to trial for my assault, breaking out of jail, breaking and entering, and a host of other crimes he’d committed against me. It would be a long time before he was free again, and I hoped he’d get some psychological help while he was locked up. He’d filed divorce papers from jail. I’d heard through the town grapevine that Bernice Morris had put her house up for sale and planned to use the proceeds to hire Coach a new lawyer. She was currently staying with a cousin just north of here in Tennessee.

  The blindness from the hex splashed on John Richard, Emmylou, and Dudley had worn off within a couple of hours. Which was just about how long it took for Dudley to initiate plans for the dissolution of his marriage, but I wasn’t sure Emmylou was even aware of that fact. She was currently in a psych ward being evaluat
ed for an insanity plea after being charged with murder.

  Dudley had been spending an awful lot of time at the hospital, too. But not to see Emmylou. He’d been visiting with Angelea, who was awake and out of the ICU but not completely out of the woods. Her baby, miraculously, was doing well. The doctors had gone from guarded to cautiously optimistic.

  I didn’t want to speculate on Dudley’s motives, but I couldn’t help but wonder if Emmylou hadn’t been all that wrong about Dudley’s feelings for Angelea. . . .

  Mysteriously, the missing twenty thousand dollars had been returned to the baseball league sometime during the week, and I suspected Dudley had a hand in helping Angelea anonymously return the money. Last I heard, everyone, including Dylan, was willing to pretend the whole embezzling incident never happened.

  John Richard Baldwin had been fired from the fancy Birmingham firm. Much to everyone’s surprise, he’d moved to Hitching Post, and was in the process of setting up his own firm.

  He claimed that he liked it here. Why, after what he’d been through, no one could quite decipher.

  Birdsong filled the night air as I rode Bessie Blue home. Roly and Poly sat in the basket, with their eyes to the sky, as if hoping one of the birds would fall right on their paws.

  I had to laugh at the thought, since they wouldn’t know what to do with the poor creature if one did fall. The critters in my house had been evicted, thanks not to my two feline friends but to a local exterminator, who’d thankfully used humane traps to locate the generations of mice that had taken up residence behind my walls.

  Jasper, my electrician, had taken pity on me and charged me a pittance for redoing all the electrical work in the house. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have accepted such a gift, but I’d had a hell of a week, and his generosity had nearly brought me to tears.

  Streetlamps threw light across the cobblestones as I turned onto my road. It wasn’t all that late, just a little after eight, but I’d closed up my shop an hour early.

  Business was back to normal, better even than before, but being in the shop was harder than I thought. The comfort it used to bring me was gone. Ainsley kept telling me that it would eventually return if I just had faith. I chose to believe her, mostly because she threatened me with a switch if I didn’t. And, well, the thought of closing the shop didn’t sit well with me, either.