Charms and Chocolate Chips: A Magical Bakery Mystery (9 page)

At one o’clock I turned the sign in the window to
CLOSED
and was about to lock the door when Uncle Ben came in. I finished with the door and closed the blinds as Lucy greeted him with a warm embrace.

“Stop that,” she said with a giggle. “It tickles.”

“I thought you liked my beard.” A smile crinkled the corners of his eyes behind his rimless glasses. He let her go and asked, “What would a nice witch like you recommend to a customer who wants to improve his golf game?”

“Oh, Ben,” she said.

“Specifically putting.”

Lucy went behind the display case and snagged a chunk of sour cream coffee cake thick with chopped dates and speckled with poppy seeds. She handed it to him. “Try this.”

His eyes widened. “Really?”

“You’ll like it, but it’s not going to do anything for your putting—though it might relax you. Poppy seeds are sometimes a cure for insomnia. However, if you really were a customer, I’d recommend more time on the practice greens.”

Looking rueful, he took the offered plate to a table and sat down. I poured the last cup of coffee out of the drip pot and joined him. It was bitter as sin, but I wasn’t about to make a fresh pot right before leaving for the day. Lucy took the empty pot into the kitchen, and I heard the sound of water running.

My uncle spoke around a bite of cake. “Now, tell me about what’s going on with that nonprofit you volunteer with. Lucy told me all about how you found that poor woman dead and that Peter Quinn is on the case. Do you know if he’s made any progress?”

Uncle Ben had been Savannah’s fire chief until his recent retirement inspired him to start the bakery with Lucy and me. He’d known Detective Quinn for years, but I was the one who’d had more contact with the police in the last year. Each time my uncle had been very resistant to my being involved in anything remotely dangerous.

“You sound remarkably calm about the fact that I stumbled onto another dead body,” I said.

He glanced toward the kitchen as the dishwasher started up. “Your aunt can be very persuasive.”

I laughed. “I bet.” Ben was putty in my gentle aunt’s hands. “I did talk to Quinn this morning. It sounds like they’re focusing on Autumn’s boyfriend and ex-husband. They’re probably on the right track, too. I had a little visit with Steve Dawes this morning.”

Ben frowned, and I knew he was thinking of Declan.

Lucy hurried over to join us at the table. “You never told me what he said.”

“I didn’t have a chance to tell you before Mrs. Standish came in. I was hoping Steve would be able to tell me more about the golf-course-development deal, but he wasn’t very forthcoming. However, I did learn Autumn’s ex-husband has a decent motive for murder.”

“Oh, dear,” she said. “What’s that?”

“Life insurance policy. Money he needed because he wanted to invest in the golf course, too.”

“What? Even while Autumn was trying to save the swamp?” Lucy’s eyes widened in outrage.

“Well, they were exes,” I said. “So it stands to reason they’d have some differing opinions on certain things. Apparently that was one of them.”

Ben pushed his empty plate aside. “What’s all this about a golf course?”

I outlined the details.

“In Fagen Swamp?” he said. “Well, that is interesting. It would be wonderful to have another world-class golf course in the area—”

I rolled my eyes.

“But that swamp’s an odd place,” he continued. “Spooky. Though I suppose it wouldn’t be once you cut down all the cypress trees and drained away the water. I wonder if they’d relocate the animals?”

“I doubt it,” I said. “I take it you’ve been there?”

“Oh, gosh,” he said. “A long time ago, when I was a teenager. Trespassing, of course. Old man Fagen was a tough sort, though. Downright mean. It was a good thing we didn’t get caught.”

“You don’t seem like the kind of guy who would do something like that.”

“We all did,” he said. “Kind of a rite of passage around here then.”

I squinted at him. “Really? I guess boys will be boys. How many times did you trespass for fun?”

He shrugged. “A dozen or so.”

“Really?” I asked in surprise.

“It was a . . . compelling place. I don’t know how else to put it.”

Interesting.

Before we all left, I remembered to load up a bag of Honeybee goodies for my neighbors. At the rate they weren’t selling and the rate I was giving them away, we’d be out of business in no time.

•   •   •

On my way home, I stopped by Georgia Wild to see whether the police had released the crime scene yet. On Sunday afternoon, parking was open, and I pulled to the curb only a few spaces away from where I’d parked the night before.

Egad. Hard to believe it had been less than twenty-four hours.

Yellow crime scene tape crisscrossed the door, and I almost pulled back into the street. The blinds were open, though, and I saw someone moving around inside. If it was Detective Quinn, at least I could find out whether they already knew about Autumn’s ex, Skip Thorsen.

“I think you should stay in the car,” I said to Mungo as I unbuckled his seat belt. “In fact, they probably won’t even let me inside.”

He climbed out of the tote bag and stood with his paws on the dash of the Bug, watching me as I walked up to the door. When I was closer, I could see that the tape had been removed from the opening. I knocked and called, “Hello?”

A uniformed officer opened the door. He was tall, with closely shorn red hair and a hooked nose. “I’m afraid this business is closed, ma’am.”

“Oh, Katie!” Wren appeared behind him. “Please, can’t you let her in? This is Katie Lightfoot. She volunteers here and can help me sort through some of these files so we can all leave more quickly.”

The promise of saving time seemed to convince him. He stepped back and I walked inside. Wren hugged me, and I could feel how frantic she was.

“Tell me what to do,” I said.

“The police think they’re done here, but they aren’t quite ready to release the crime scene. So they gave me permission to retrieve some files and paperwork so we can at least try to keep working. Officer Feherty here has the unfortunate job of babysitting as I try to organize what to take.”

I smiled at Feherty, and he smiled back. “There are worse duties,” he said.

Hanging my jacket on the corner of a desk chair, I looked around. One of the narcissus bulbs Wren had forced in the interior window boxes was finally blooming, the tiny white flower unfurling in sweet scented glory to cover the faint burnt coffee smell that still lingered. The sunlight from outside illuminated the worn carpet and used furniture in a way the soft glow of the floor lamp never could. It also highlighted the sheen of black powder across most of the flat surfaces, both vertical and horizontal: fingerprint dust.

Keeping my hands clasped behind my back, I slowly walked around the perimeter. A few rectangular spots showed where a print had been lifted as evidence. The crime scene techs had even dusted the surfaces of photo printouts that lay scattered on the file cabinet near the printer.

One in particular caught my eye. Even through the dusty sheen I could see it was the satellite photo of Fagen Swamp that Wren had printed off the Internet. I leaned nearer, taking in the features of the place recorded from space. I could see a road winding through an open area before trees hid it. Near the middle of the swamp they thinned again to reveal a bridge that led to a clearing and a small building. It was hard to see more because the powder fractured into an odd starburst pattern that obscured any detail. There were no visible fingerprints, though.

Glancing up, I saw Feherty watching me. Fingerprints or no fingerprints, if I wanted to see more of the swamp, I’d better print out another copy myself.

“It’s going to take forever to clean all this up,” Wren said.

Returning to where she stood sorting through files, I asked what she wanted me to do.

“The new mailing list Autumn bought to target potential donors is right here. I’ve already printed the labels. Would you mind addressing the solicitation packets?”

“Sure,” I said. “I can do all that at home.”

“Thank you, Katie. I know it’s grunt work, but it does have to be done. I just want to do whatever I can to keep G.W. going. It’s what Autumn would have wanted.”

“Of course, sweetie.” I gave her a quick hug and started gathering what I’d need: brochures and hard-copy information about Georgia Wild, premetered envelopes, and the sheets of mailing labels Wren had printed out.

“You’ll need more brochures. There are some in . . . in Autumn’s office.”

We both looked at Officer Feherty. “Can we remove something from in there?” I asked.

“Show me,” he said.

I followed him down the hallway. In the open doorway, I paused. The desk where Autumn had been lying was empty, the contents that had been tossed to the floor still heaped in piles around it. Even in the friendly daylight, Autumn’s pale face and pretty polished toenails came flooding back. The weird energy I’d felt from the origami bat lingered much like the coffee smell still did out front, but there wasn’t any sweet narcissus energy to cover it in here. Suddenly woozy, I grabbed the door frame.

“You okay?” Feherty asked.

I took a shaky breath. “Not really.” I pointed to a cabinet by the window. “I think the extra mailers are in there.”

He opened the cabinet and found an open box. “These?”

I nodded, and he grabbed the box. Together we returned to where Wren was finishing up with her files. Feherty flipped through the contents of the two boxes we were removing.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“I don’t think so.” Wren sounded worried. “At least not for now. When do you think we’ll be able to get back in here to work?”

“Should be soon.”

“Well, okay. Thanks for, um, supervising,” she said.

The policeman looked amused. “Sure. You take care, now.”

Their eyes met. Oh, my. There was a very strong attraction between those two.

Interesting.

Back in the car I arranged the boxes in the hatchback and buckled Mungo into the passenger seat. Wren and Officer Feherty were still talking on the front sidewalk.

“Right in the middle of all this darkness, I do believe there might be a romance in the making,” I said, buckling my own seat belt.

Yip!
Mungo agreed.

Margie was unloading the kids from her Subaru wagon when I pulled into my driveway. As soon as I set my familiar on the ground, he veered toward them. The towheaded twins ran to meet him, Julia squealing with delight. I grinned at Margie and grabbed the bakery bag out of the car.

“Brought you a little something,” I said. “Healthwise . . . I mean carrot muffins and apple fritters.”

“You are a gem! We’ve been at the park all afternoon and I’m famished.” She hefted Baby Bart onto her hip and walked toward me. “Want to come in for a cup of tea? These hooligans can play with Mungo while we have a catch-up.”

I glanced back at the box of mailers from Georgia Wild. They could wait. “Sure. I’d love to.”

The inside of the Coopersmiths’ house was messy but clean. Navigating around the blanket-and-chair fort still standing in the living room, I followed Margie into her kitchen. She put tea bags into cups, filled them with water, and popped them into the microwave while I rustled up plates.

“These don’t have a ton of sugar in them, so they shouldn’t make the kids hyper,” I said, pointing at the muffins.

“Oh, good.” Her apple cheeks were pink from an afternoon in the sun. “God knows they’re hyper enough as it is.”

Steaming cups in hand, we moved into the living room. Margie cleared a space on the sofa, and we both sat down. Bart used a chair seat to pull himself upright and practiced standing for a while. His blue eyes were riveted on the action inside the blanket fort. Through a gap I saw his siblings building a Lego masterpiece. The bottom of the blanket moved as Mungo’s black nose worked under it. He peeked out at me, all adorable and sweet.

Or at least I thought so until I realized he was boring holes in my apple fritter with his eyes.

“You’ve already had enough,” I said. “I happen to know Lucy slipped you three whole slices of bacon at the Honeybee before we left.”

A low whine rose in his throat.

I shook my head. “If you keep being such a chowhound, you’re going to weigh twenty-five pounds. And I’m not carrying around twenty-five pounds in that darn tote bag.”

He sighed and wiggled backward into the fort.

“I swear, sometimes I think that dog actually understands you,” Margie said, licking crumbs off her lips.

“Only when he wants to.” My tone was wry.

“Ha. I know exactly what you mean.”

“The JJs?”

“Redding.”

I laughed.

“Oh, heck. I’m probably just as bad. That’s what happens when you get married. You settle into each other, I guess. Stop listening to every little thing because so many words have already been said.” She took a sip of tea. “You’re not at that point with your handsome firefighter, of course. You’re still in that goofy stage where you can’t tear your eyes off each other. Or your hands, I bet.”

I snorted. “Oh, I don’t know that we’ve ever really been that bad. Our relationship is more . . . down-to-earth.” I’d been going to say
practical
, but that sounded boring.

Margie frowned. “But you love him, right?”

“Of course.” Not that I’d come right out and said it.

“And Valentine’s Day is coming up.”

Crap. I’d nearly forgotten. Since I didn’t watch much television, I didn’t get the constant reminders from the jewelry stores that gold and diamonds equaled love. I could only hope that Declan didn’t buy into that idea.

“What are you getting your beau?” Margie asked.

“I honestly have no idea. What are you doing for Redding?”

She grinned. “I’m letting him dump the kids at his mother’s and take me out to dinner.”

I pointed at her. “Good plan.”

“Oh, I’ll get him some silly card, too. But we don’t go in for gifts much anymore. Sheez—keeping up with birthdays and Christmas is enough.”

Jonathan came out of the fort and crawled onto her lap. She gave him a chunk of Healthwise muffin and told him to share with his sister. He climbed down and went back into the fort, dutifully minding his mother. Then he gave Mungo a piece before I could say anything.

Mungo swallowed and grinned.

“You’ve lived here your whole life, right?” I asked Margie.

“Sure have.”

“Do you know anything about Fagen Swamp?”

She settled back on the sofa cushion. “Holy crumb! I haven’t thought about that place for ages.”

“So you know it?”

“More than I should. I went to high school with Gart Fagen. He used to throw some wild-ass parties out there when his daddy wasn’t around.” Her eyes cut to her children. Bart had crawled into the fort and was systematically throwing the oversized Legos out the door.

“Why, Margie Coopersmith,” I said. “Are you telling me you attended ‘wild-ass’ parties? With drinking and such?”

She gave me a look. “How do you think I met Redding?”

“No kidding?”

“No kidding.”

“What was Gart like?”

“Kind of a jerk, actually. But why on earth do you want to know about him? He moved away years ago.”

So I told her about volunteering at Georgia Wild, the maroon bats, and all the rest, ending with Autumn’s murder.

Margie stared at me. “Killed? That’s terrible. Just awful.” She shook her head. “And all because of that stupid swamp.”

“Well, that might not be the case. Her death might not have anything to do with her work at all.” I drained the last of my tea and stood. “But it might. And I have a box of mailers for Georgia Wild to put together, so I’d better get going.”

Margie stood, too. “You keep safe, Katie.”

“Believe me, I’ll do my best.”

•   •   •

I heated up the last of Declan’s firehouse chili for my supper and fixed Mungo one of his favorite meals: shrimp fried rice with peas, carrots, and lots of soy sauce. Then I hauled in the mailers and spent the next few hours of my evening upstairs in the carriage house loft, slapping labels on Georgia Wild pleas for funding while an old Doris Day film droned in the background to keep me from going crazy from boredom. Even with that distraction, thoughts ping-ponged through my brain. Most of them were about Fagen Swamp. It was past time for me to see the place.

As the movie credits came up I reached for one of the last brochures to stuff into yet another mailing packet. My fingertips brushed against something solid, something definitely not paper. Pulling the brochure box toward me, I peered down and then reached inside. A small box had been nestled beneath the Georgia Wild literature—specifically a dark blue ring box, and darn if it didn’t have one of those chain jewelry store names embossed in gold on the top.

The ring inside was prettier than any I’d seen during the frequent advertising that had interrupted
The Pajama Game
. It was heavy and silvery, so my guess was platinum. The central diamond was small, but the metal surrounding it was an elaborately filigreed hexagram. It had an art deco flair to it, with two tiny diamonds on the sides surrounded by tiny platinum hearts.

Mungo jumped onto the settee and sniffed at the ring.

“What do you think?” I asked. “This was in Autumn’s office, so I assume it belonged to her. But why stuff it down in the bottom of a box like that?”

He didn’t have an answer to that, but I thought of what I’d done when my fiancé had broken off our engagement. The cheap ring had swirled down the toilet quite nicely. It was possible this had been Autumn’s wedding ring.

Closing my hand around the ring, I shut my eyes and concentrated. Mungo leaned against my arm, offering to help if he could. The ring felt warm in my hand, but I could have been imagining it. After what seemed like a long time but was probably only a minute or so, I began to feel that the piece of jewelry was quite old—decades at least, perhaps a century.

Opening my eyes, I ruffled the fur around my familiar’s neck. “Well, duh. Of course it’s old. Just look at it. Good goddess, I suck at divination.” With a sigh, I returned the old ring to its newfangled box and put it in the carton with the assembled and addressed mailers. I doubted that it had anything to do with Autumn’s murder, but I’d inadvertently removed it from a crime scene and needed to let Detective Quinn know about it. Besides, maybe it was worth some real money that could help out Georgia Wild.

I called Wren, but she didn’t know anything about the ring. Then I asked if she’d go with me to Fagen Swamp the next day and introduce me to Evanston Rickers. She reminded me that she planned to go to the bank in the morning. Impatient, I didn’t want to wait. Heck, now that I’d made the decision to go, I would have gone out there that night if it had been any kind of real option.

“What’s this Rickers guy like?” I asked.

“Kind of odd, but aren’t we all?” was Wren’s not-very-helpful response. “He’s a herpetologist from Oregon. He’s doing some kind of ground-truthing study in the swamp.”

“Herpetologist as in reptiles?”

“You got it. Snakes specifically in this case.”

Snakes. Ugh.
“What’s ‘ground truthing’?”

“Taking an actual count of species—flora or fauna—in any given area as opposed to taking a sampling and using that to extrapolate a figure. Probably more than you need to know.”

“Sounds very scientific.”

“I told you he was a scientist and not some kind of nut,” she said.

As we rang off, I considered my options. Bianca often had free time during the day, so I called her next.

“Sure, I’ll go with you, Katie. What time?”

“How about nine tomorrow morning?” That would give me time to get most of the baking done for the day and help Lucy and Ben through the morning rush . . . if there was one.

“Sounds good. I’m meeting Cookie for breakfast at Clary’s Cafe. Can she come, too?”

“Why not meet at the Honeybee?” I asked. Was the youngest member of the spellbook club working that hard to avoid me?

Bianca was silent for a few moments, then said, “Okay, confession time. I joined Savannah Singles. You know, that online dating site? I’ve hardly gone out at all since my divorce, and I’m sick and tired of being alone. Cookie’s been helping me weed through the possibilities. I want to be careful who I respond to.”

“Good for you,” I said. “But I don’t know why you kept it a secret from the rest of us. We all want you to be happy.”

“It’s kind of embarrassing. It turns out there are a lot of weirdos out there, especially when you say right in your profile that you’re Wiccan. However, I don’t want a repeat of what happened in my marriage, so I’m not removing it.”

Bianca’s husband had left her in a blazing huff when he found out she was practicing the Craft. Too bad for him.

“So I’d like to wait until I at least have a prospect or two before I tell the others,” she said.

“Gotcha. Well, I’m glad you’re being careful—and heaven knows Cookie is good at evaluating men.”

“She’s nixed every single one so far.” She sounded discouraged.

“Be patient,” I said. “Someone perfect will show up when they’re supposed to.”

She sighed. “I guess so. See you in the morning.”

I hung up and the phone rang in my hand. I checked the caller ID:
Mary Jane Lightfoot
.

I debated briefly, then gave in to the incessant ring. “Hello, Mama.”

“I suppose you were out with your little club last night, lighting a candle for Brigit,” she said by way of greeting. My mother’s words were clipped. Sarcastic.

My heart sank. I shouldn’t have answered.

“Actually, everyone came over here,” I said with forced cheer. “We celebrated in my backyard. I just got a new freestanding fireplace.”

“I bet the neighbors love that.”

I’d so enjoyed honoring Brigit with the spellbook club. Now that memory faded with every word my mother said.

So I pushed back. “I made bannock cakes with raisins and orange rind, and Jaida made a candle just for the ritual.”

My mother’s sigh was loud and long. “And Lucy insisted on champagne, I suppose.”

“Well, yeah.”

She made a very unladylike snorting sound. “You can thank my mother for that. Lucy got it from her.”

I gripped the phone tighter. This was the first time Mama had brought up Nonna Sheffield in reference to magic. “She did?”

“You don’t think it’s something new, do you? Good heavens, Katie. None of this nonsense you’re playing with is original. I don’t know why you’re so fascinated by it all.”

Already stretched thin from fatigue and a couple of really lousy days, my patience snapped. “Are you ever going to forgive me for being your daughter?”

“What?”

“You heard me. I inherited my affinity for magic from you and Daddy, but you seem to blame me. I’m sorry you turned your back on this gift, on the honor of being more tuned in than others to the web of reality, on your own abilities, but I’m not going to do that. It’s not nonsense, and I’m
not
playing with it.”

She didn’t say anything, and I thought I’d stepped over the line. Still, we’d been dancing around this very conversation for months now, and I was too frustrated to stop.

“I love you. I miss having you in my life, but if you can’t forgive me for simply being who I am, then I don’t know what else we have to say to each other.”

I heard her take a shaky breath, and then a little sniffle.

“Mama?”

“It’s not you that I can’t forgive, Katie.” Her voice wavered. “It’s me.”

I was stunned. “But Mama—why?”

“I knew when I was pregnant with you that you’d inherit what you call a gift. And I should have known it would be even stronger because of your father. We used to practice together, you know, and I was aware of how powerful he was. Is.” She cleared her throat and repeated, “I should have known.”

“You act like it’s a curse.”

“Maybe it is. It can certainly be dangerous.”

Well, I couldn’t argue with that. In my short time practicing, I’d been magically attacked as well as physically attacked. And then there was that whole lightwitch thing, whatever that was about. It probably would not be a good idea to tell Mama about that right now.

“Listen,” I went on. “I’m not sorry, and you shouldn’t be, either. I guess I can understand how you were worried when I was a child that I might do something irresponsible. So you didn’t tell me. But don’t you see? I did something anyway, only I didn’t know it. I didn’t understand what had happened.”