Miss Spelled (The Kitchen Witch 1) (13 page)
Read Miss Spelled (The Kitchen Witch 1) Online
Authors: Morgana Best
I hurried next door to Camino’s house and banged on the door frantically. After a few moments, the door swung open, revealing my startled neighbor.
I was likely more startled than she was. At first I thought the door had been opened by a giant koala, but then I realized it was Camino after all, dressed in an outsized gray koala onesie, and wearing giant fluffy koala slippers, each with rounded koala ears and a big black nose.
“It’s Melanie, Brant McCallum’s fiancée!” I said, trying not to stare. “The crazy woman just showed up at my house with a gun. She saw me looking around on her property and got spooked. She admitted everything about Brant’s murder, but that was when I thought she was going to kill me,” I said, gasping for air.
“Where is she now? Come inside!” Camino said, motioning for me to enter her home.
“The house has trapped her,” I said, as I followed Koala Camino inside. “She’s sitting in the center of the room with her hands up like she’s stuck there. Luckily, she dropped the gun and I don’t think she can reach it from inside her, err, from inside whatever’s happening to her.”
“Hmm,” Camino said. “We need to get her to confess, but this time she needs to confess to the police.” She left the room momentarily and then returned with a small bottle. “This calls for a truth potion.”
“How will we get her to drink it?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Camino replied. “Will you call Ruprecht and the others? The phone’s right over there,” she said, pointing to an antique desk. “Numbers are in the book.”
“Sure,” I said. I had forgotten about land lines and their lack of access to contacts. I looked up Ruprecht’s number in the book.
“Hello?”
“Oh, Ruprecht!” I screeched, more loudly than I had intended. “We have a problem. Melanie’s in my house right now with a gun. She’s trapped inside, and I’m over at Camino’s. Camino has a truth potion.”
“A truth potion, you say? For what reason?”
I slapped myself on the forehead. “Sorry! Melanie did it! She confessed to murdering Brant McCallum. Camino wants to give her the truth potion so she’ll confess to the police.”
“Yes, I think she has the right idea in mind. I’ll get my granddaughter right away and head to your house,” Ruprecht replied.
“Okay, we’ll meet you there.” I ended the call and then called Thyme. She picked up at once.
“Thyme? Can you come over right now? Melanie was watching us when we were looking through that broken down barn. She showed up with a gun, but the house trapped her inside,” I said without drawing breath. “Camino’s going to give her a truth potion so she’ll confess to the police.”
“I’ll be right there,” Thyme replied, and the phone went silent.
I couldn’t help but smile with relief. It was good to have friends who would back me up.
Camino looked up. “Let’s go!” she said urgently.
By the time we were walking up my front path, Thyme’s car pulled up, followed by Ruprecht and Mint. Joys of living in a small town, I suppose, with one end of town being no more than five minutes from the other.
With that, we entered the house and turned left into the living room. I saw that Melanie hadn’t moved an inch. “Get me out of here!” she yelled, waving her arms around in the air.
“Out of where?” Thyme asked, garnering a look of disapproval from Ruprecht.
“This room or whatever it is! What are you crazy people doing to me? Help! Help!” she yelled, still holding her arms up and slapping at the invisible walls.
“Camino, is it ready?” Ruprecht asked.
Camino nodded and held up the small bottle in her hand.
“Good,” he replied, turning to Melanie. He crouched down beside her and spoke softly. “Melanie, we need you to be calm. What is it that you’re seeing?”
Melanie settled down somewhat. “What am I seeing? You don’t see the huge walls that are slowly trying to crush me?” she wailed.
“I see nothing of the sort,” he remarked. “But this might help,” he added, extending his hand to Camino for the potion. She placed it in his hand gently. Ruprecht uncorked the bottle and looked at Melanie. “Drink this, and everything will be over.”
“You think I’m going to trust you crazy people?” she yelled. “I’m not drinking anything, especially until I’m out of this torture!”
“What torture?” Thyme said. “It’s all in your mind.”
“Don’t tell me what I can see!” the woman snapped angrily.
Just then, I had an idea. “Even though you came here to harm me, we’re not here to hurt you,” I said in a calm tone, although my heart was racing. “Let us help. You seem to be hallucinating, and from what I know, that’s a common occurrence when someone is exposed to too much thallium. This is the antidote. The walls will go away if you drink it.”
Melanie looked down and sighed. After several moments, she glanced back up at me and nodded. “Exposure to thallium? I’ll be free if I trust you and drink that?”
“You’ll be free from this room, yes,” I replied, careful not to make any false promises. I knew that the police wouldn’t allow Melanie to be free in any true sense of the word.
Ruprecht sat patiently in his crouched position, with the potion still extended to the woman. She seemed to be thinking about her options, but as they had run out, she finally took the bottle from his hand and gulped it down.
Camino turned to Thyme and whispered in her ear. “Give it a few minutes to work before you call the police, please.”
“Sure thing,” she replied.
Ruprecht took the empty bottle from the woman when she had finished it, and stood back up. “It shouldn’t take long to kick in,” he said to us. “Then we can call the authorities.”
Melanie stood up, a look of disgust on her face. “You’re calling the cops?”
“Of course we are. What else would we do with a murderer?” Camino asked her.
“Are you serious?” the woman said. “Just because I killed my fiancé and then tried to kill Amelia, you’re going to label me like that?” As the words left her lips, Melanie’s face contorted into a sour look, like she had tasted a dozen lemons all at once. “Why did I say that? What is going on?” she asked, a look of horror draining the color from her face.
“Perhaps your guilty conscience is finally catching up with you,” Thyme said.
“So, now what?” I asked Ruprecht.
“Now, we just wait,” he said. “Thyme, you can call the police now.”
Melanie was still watching the others, but as the realization that she was caught kicked in, she seemed to give up. She collapsed back to the ground and sighed. “I was only doing what was best for the environment,” she whispered.
At that moment, there was a loud knock on the front door and Ruprecht went to answer it. He returned with Sergeant Greer and a still-smiling Constable Stevens.
“How did you get here so soon?” I asked them. “Thyme was calling you right now.”
“Alder Vervain called us,” Sergeant Greer said. “He said a woman went into your house with a gun.”
I saw Camino and Mint give each other a significant look, and then they both fixed me with a hard stare. I tried to look blank. “Well, good that you got here so fast,” I said to the cops. I did not want the others to know that I had met Alder Vervain. They sure were acting weird about that man. I’d have to find out why. Actually, I’d like to know how Alder Vervain saw Melanie enter my house. Was he watching my house? And if so, why?
The police officers wasted no time talking to Melanie. “My name is Sergeant Greer and this is Constable Stevens. I have been told that you have something you’d like to confess. Is this true?”
Melanie slowly pulled herself up from the ground, and looked at the officer intently. “Well, of course I don’t want to confess,” she replied.
I shot Camino a quick glance, but she just winked at me. “What did you do to Brant McCallum?” Camino asked her.
“I killed the smug jerk, but he deserved it!” she said, the anger rising in her voice.
Both the police officers immediately gasped. “Are you admitting to your fiancé’s murder?”
“It sure seems like that’s what I’m doing, doesn’t it?” she said, shaking her head emphatically.
Greer and Stevens exchanged glances. “You are not obliged to say or do anything unless you wish to do so, but whatever you say or do may be used in evidence. Do you understand?” he asked Melanie.
“I understand,” she snapped, clamping her hand over her mouth.
Greer pulled a small notepad from his pocket and began scribbling in it. “Can you explain to me what you did to Brant McCallum, please?”
“When I found out that he was using me and seeing another woman, I lost it. I began poisoning him with small amounts of Thall-rat. It’s a type of rat poison that contains thallium,” Melanie said, no emotion or remorse apparent in her voice. “It was banned in Australia in the 1950s, but I found some in my old barn. I read that one gram mixed in food would kill in two weeks. The symptoms look like many other diseases, so it’s hard to detect.”
The two police officers looked at each other and nodded. Stevens was still smiling widely.
“Well, that sure does match up to what the evidence suggests happened, but why are you confessing to this now?” Sergeant Greer asked.
“I didn’t want to!” she screamed. “The only reason I came here was because Amelia Spelled found out about the old rat poison and was going to turn me in. I saw her out at my land today. I tried to kill her, but then the walls started closing in around me! The house trapped me! I didn’t want to confess, but I had to!”
Sergeant Greer couldn’t resist sniggering, despite his apparent best efforts. “Excuse me? The house trapped you here and made you confess?” he asked, clearly in disbelief.
Melanie looked around the room with terror in her eyes. “Yes, that’s exactly what happened!”
I couldn’t believe my ears. “What did you say to me?” I asked, placing my hands on my hip. I was standing behind the counter, turned toward Thyme. A line was forming behind the counter.
“You heard me, lady,” Thyme said, not backing down.
I took a step forward. “Did you tell your boss that she isn’t allowed in the kitchen?”
“I did,” Thyme said with a laugh. She turned and reached into the case beside me, selecting a cupcake for the next customer in line. She boxed it up and handed it over, while I took an offered credit card and ran it through the machine.
“Well, we’re out of double chocolate,” I went on. “And we both know you’re faster out here, so let me have a go at the baking. I think by now I can get the hang of it.”
“You would think so,” Thyme said, chuckling, “but we can’t risk setting the place on fire, as much as you’d like to see Craig.”
I laughed. Did I want to see Craig? Well, yes, I supposed I did. Still, I couldn’t get Alder Vervain out of my mind. Logically, I figured I was only attracted to him as he was mysterious, whereas Craig was sweet and dependable.
“I haven’t set out all the ingredients,” Thyme said, concern apparent in her voice.
“Oh, please, I don’t need you to hold my hand any more.”
Thyme pouted. “No, I need to hold you down and chain you up out here.”
I waved her off. “You help the customers. I’ll whip up a batch of double chocolate.”
“You know, the only reason I’m letting you do this is because you’re the boss,” Thyme said, shaking her head.
I laughed again and went into the back. It was amazing how different I could feel in just a few days. Melanie had been arrested, and the news that she had poisoned her fiancée had gotten around town pretty quickly. Business was booming. Nothing had been in the cakes, and now everyone knew it, and it was almost as if the town folks felt so bad for avoiding the place that they were now coming three times more often than they would have normally. There had been a lot of handshakes, a lot of smiles, and I was getting to know many of the locals rather well, even in only three days.
My best customers were the store owners who owned the shops nearby. They came in for snacks throughout the day, and chatted and gossiped with me. It made me finally feel like one of them.
When I had first moved to town, I hadn’t known what to expect. And to be sure, there was no way I could have known I was going to get caught up in a murder mystery, or that I would be one big reason that a killer confessed and was arrested. There had been moments of sheer terror, that was for sure, but there had also been moments of belonging, moments of friendship like I had never known.
As I took out the bowls I would need, pulling them down from a shelf bolted to the wall above the workspace, I thought of the people I had met in the last few months. Thyme was absolutely the best friend I’d ever had. Coming into work, no matter how stressful it had been for a while there, when we had no customers and the money was running out, had still been a pleasure. Thyme had been friendly and caring, and had made the move and the new responsibilities so easy on me.
And of course, she had started me down a magical path. I still couldn’t quite believe that I was actually a witch. My aunt had been a witch. I lived in a temperamental house which could grow smaller or bigger, rearranging its rooms at will.
As I set out the ingredients I would need, I thought of Ruprecht, so helpful and kind, and his granddaughter, Mint. Camino, my neighbor, was as thoughtful and caring as the others. So many people had been willing to help me out, solely because of my aunt. That was something special to me.
I had the dry ingredients in the bowl, and I used a wooden spoon to mix them, before cracking three eggs into the bowl. So far so good. If only Thyme could see me now!
The mixing went well, better than I had expected. As much bravado as I pretended to have, the idea of baking unsupervised still frightened me. I was a terrible cook, after all.
But I was doing it. Maybe I had learned something after all. It was possible, wasn’t it? If someone did something long enough, even if they were terrible at it, surely they could learn to do it. Not everyone who picked up a guitar was a virtuoso when they plucked their first string. Not every writer could use words to describe a scene or a character beautifully. They learned. I could learn.
I poured the batter into cupcake tins and slid them into a preheated oven. Now I had to wait. I set the timer and went back out to the show room. There was still a line, stretching to the door. Thyme looked at me in surprise.
“Well, I guess that was better than I expected, huh?” she asked. “I can’t smell smoke.”
I laughed and rolled my eyes. “I told you I would be fine,” I said. “No fires at all.”
I settled in next to Thyme, the two of us falling into an easy rhythm. Thyme would take orders and box the cupcakes, while I took payment. A woman came in looking for a cake for her son’s birthday party in a week, and Thyme broke away, taking her to the end of the counter to get her order, while I was left to handle the customers by myself. When Thyme returned, tucking the order form into an envelope by the phone on the counter, the line had died down. There was a ding from the oven out the back.
“I can get them,” Thyme said, but I reached out and pressed my fingers to her arm.
“No, I got them,” I said. “I want to see these through.”
Thyme smiled and nodded. “Promise me there’s no love potion in this batch, though.”
“I only add love potion to the red velvet cake icing,” I said with a laugh, hurrying through the swinging double door and into the back room.
I turned off the oven and pulled down the door, half expecting to see a horribly burnt pan with rock hard cupcakes charred black. But no, these looked good. What a shock!
I pulled out the two tins and set them on top of the oven. I then checked the bucket of cream cheese frosting in a refrigerator against the wall. It would be a while before the cupcakes were cool enough to ice.
I tried to remember the last time I had been so happy. I almost felt like a kid again, in a way. That’s how happy I was.
I had to turn out the cupcakes onto the cooling rack. Surely they’d had enough time to settle. I reached for one, and just before my fingers touched it, it gave off a hiss, and blew up in my face. And then, as if spurred on by the first, the others did too. Chocolate was everywhere, on me, on the wall, the ceiling, the floor. I didn’t know what I had done. Too much baking soda? Too much flour? What could even make a cupcake blow up like that? Had they heated and cooled too fast? I had no idea.
Luckily, there were no customers in the shop when I stepped through the double doors. Thyme took one look at me, all covered in chocolate, and burst into laughter. She doubled over, unable to say anything for a long while, tears falling from her eyes. I joined her, laughing as well. Chocolate dripped down to the top of my eyelashes, and then fell onto the floor.
After a while Thyme walked to the double doors and pushed one open. She let it shut and turned around. She simply nodded, and then she laughed again and shook her head. “I have to tell you, boss,” she said, “and let me assure you, I’m not lying when I say this, but that’s a new one for me.”
I laughed, nodding my head slowly. “You forgot the best part, though,” I said.
“What’s that?” Thyme asked.
“I’m the boss. I get to tell you to clean it up.”
I watched the smile disappear from Thyme’s face. Her mouth dropped open, and she shook her head. And then both of us fell into helpless laughter once more.
* * * * The End * * * *
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Book TWO in The Kitchen Witch series.
Amelia’s spells have improved, but her baking has not. She needs to make enough dough to save her crumbling cake store business. Yet that is soon the least of her worries, when a body is found on her porch and her new friend, Dianne, becomes the main suspect.
As Amelia tries to clear Dianne’s name, she finds that some people in her life are not what they seem. Craig finally whisks Amelia away on a date, but Amelia’s house has something to say about the matter, much to her distress.
The police say that solving the murder will be a piece of cake, but are they keeping her on a knead-to-know basis?
Will Amelia discover why Alder Vervain has been watching her?
Will she rise to the occasion and solve the murder, or will she become the next victim?
* * *
You might also enjoy Morgana Best’s latest series, The Deadly Habit Cozy Mystery Series.
Nun of That
(Book ONE).
Rose Taylor is struggling to keep her furniture store afloat, but her financial problems soon become the least of her worries when her neighbor is murdered, with Rose as the only witness. The problem is, nobody will believe that she saw a nun fleeing the scene. The population of her small Australian country town increases with the arrival of Adam Bowen, an investigative journalist writing a book on an infamous gang of bank robbers, and Bunny, the murder victim’s estranged and colorful wife. Are these things connected, and if so, how? Rose plans to find out – because in her town, she’s having Nun of That.
* * *
You might also like Morgana Best’s #1 Amazon Cozy Mystery Bestseller and Kindle All-Star Award recipient series,
Sibyl Potts Cozy Mystery Series.
A Cereal Killer (A Sibyl Potts Cozy Mystery, Book ONE)
Sybil Potts has moved to the pleasant town of Little Tatterford, eager to find a life of peace and quiet after her stressful divorce.
With minutes of arriving in town, she sees a dead body and finds she is surrounded by eccentric people: the English gentleman, Mr. Buttons, who serves everyone tea and cucumber sandwiches, and her landlord, Cressida Upthorpe, who is convinced that her fat cat, Lord Farringdon, speaks to her. Yet Sibyl herself has a secret to keep.
How will Sybil’s secret put her at odds with Blake Wessley, the exasperated police officer who is trying to solve the murder?
#1 Best-selling Cozy Mystery author, Morgana Best, lives in a small, historic, former gold mining town in the middle of nowhere in Australia. She is owned by one highly demanding, rescued cat who is half Chinchilla, and two less demanding dogs, a chocolate Labrador and a rescued Dingo, as well as two rescued Dorper sheep, the ram, Herbert, and his wether friend, Bertie.
Morgana is a former college professor who now writes full time. Her subject was grammar. Morgana was a published author of dry academic books under a pen name, but abandoned academia to write cozy mysteries.
In her spare time, Morgana loves to read cozy mysteries, repurpose furniture, and renovate her old house. She is vegan.
