One Potion in the Grave: A Magic Potion Mystery (24 page)

Chapter Twenty-nine

“W
here are you off to this early?” Aunt Marjie asked the next morning. She leaned against the kitchen counter, which had been scrubbed immaculately clean. The whole house smelled lemony-fresh from the dust polish she’d used. “Leaving before you had your coffee and everything. Must be in a hurry.”

I was. “I’m off to bail Lyla Jameson out of jail.”

The Huntsville police had arrested her last night, and nothing Dylan could say or do could sway them. It wasn’t likely the charges would stick considering that Cletus and Dinah were on the run. They’d gotten away, slipping into the dark night like the two slippery snakes that they were. The police, however, did let Dylan speak with Lyla, and he’d told her all about the night’s events. When he left her, she was sobbing tears of gratitude.

It had been a long night for everyone, and was undoubtedly going to be a long day. The manhunt for Cletus and Dinah was still under way. I’d already spent a half hour on the phone this morning giving Ainsley
every last detail of what had happened. And last night, I had an idea how to help my mama get rid of all those flowers, so after I bailed Lyla out of jail, Delia and I were going to load up our cars and take the flowers to the hospital to give them out to the patients. They would add just a little bit of cheer to chase off the dreariness. After that, I wanted to visit with Jamie Lynn and try to figure out how Cletus got those signatures, and see if I could read her energy again to see if the Leilara had cured whatever had been ailing her in the first place.

“You’re a good girl, Carly Bell.”

I slipped my purse over my head and across my body. “Don’t let it get around.”

She laughed. Who was this woman?

“I’ve been thinking,” she said.

“About?”

“It might be high time for me to move on back home. My leg don’t hurt at all anymore, and stairs aren’t a problem.”

My heart sank. “You sure? You’re more than welcome to stay as long as you want.” I swallowed hard. “The cats have really loved having you here.”

“The cats, you say?”

Both sat at her feet, swishing their tails.

I bit a nail and nodded.

Marjie pursed her lips. “Maybe one more day. That’s it, though. I’ve got a man to whip into shape and a life to be getting back to . . . and so do you.”

I smiled, glad she wouldn’t be leaving today. “The man or the life?”

“The man you have is already whipped. Head over heels for you. It’s the life with him you need to work out.”

I knew. “Your yard is looking mighty nice,” I said, teasing her, changing the subject. I didn’t really want to talk about a future with Dylan. I didn’t even want to think about it. Or hope for it.

She smiled again—
mercy!
—and said, “It’s coming along.”

Realization dawned. “Aunt Marjie . . .”

“What?” she asked, crossing her arms.

“Are you using Johnny Braxton to fix up your house?”

“I ain’t using nobody. If he has the desire to do it as a gift to me, who am I to complain?”

“And you wouldn’t have planted those seeds in his head, would you have?”

Her eyes softened. “I learned it here.”

Puzzled, I said, “Learned what?”

“Watching Dylan around this place. Hanging sheetrock here. Laying tiles there. Doing whatever he can to get the job done.”

“I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

“Carly Bell,” she said softly, “the job he’s doing is not fixing this
house
.”

Not the house? “Now I really don’t understand.”

Sunlight streamed through the windows. “Every day that man’s here, he’s fixing a piece of you. Patching together your broken heart as surely as he patches a hole in the wall. Open your eyes, girl. Open your heart. You’ll see it’s working just fine again.”

“I—I mean . . .”

“What?” she prodded.

Holy hell, was she right?

The phone rang once, twice. I was too stunned to answer. Marjie plucked it out of its dock. After saying hello,
she covered the mouthpiece. “Speak of the devil,” she whispered to me.

My chest felt tight, and I was suddenly anxious. I was scared and hopeful at the same time.

“Uh-huh,” Marjie said. “I’ll tell her. Yup. ’Bye.”

“What was that?” I asked.

“Said he’s still tracking Cletus and Dinah, but wanted to let you know the post office was broken into last night.”

“Broken into?” It hit me why. “My word. Katie Sue’s envelope?”

She nodded. “Video caught the suspect, but he was covered head to toe—so no ID—but the culprit left the post office empty-handed.”

“So the envelope is still out there somewhere.”

Marjie nodded.

“Great.” I’d hoped to never see the Calhouns again, but if they were still on the hunt for that envelope, no way were they leaving town just yet. Dylan had told me how after I left the Loon last night that Landry had clammed up. He’d sided with his family instead of standing up for the woman he’d loved. The coward.

I glanced at the clock. “I need to go. I don’t want Lyla sitting in that cell a minute longer than necessary.” I’d tried bailing her out last night, but had been told to come back first thing in the morning.

I gave the cats some loving, then headed for the door. I had so much on my mind. Beyond Katie Sue’s murder, and that missing package, I had to decide what to do with Dylan.

Every day that man’s here, he’s fixing a piece of you. Patching together your broken heart as surely as he patches a hole in the wall.

Hand on the doorknob, I turned back to face my aunt.

“What?” she asked. “You forget somethin’?”

“You learned it here?” I said, repeating what she said just minutes ago.

“What’re you talking about?”

“You said you learned it here. The fixing, the patching.”

Was that what was truly going on with her and Johnny? Was she letting him fix
her
heart one insult at a time?

“You’ve gone daft,” she said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Oh, but I did. I smiled.

Slowly, a return smile crept across her face. “Now git on with you.”

As I walked out to my Jeep, I couldn’t help but wonder at the way fate worked sometimes.

Turned out Johnny Braxton hadn’t needed a love potion after all.

But the question remained if Marjie did.

*   *   *

“I can’t thank you enough,” Lyla said when I dropped her off at her house. “I’ll pay you back the bail money, every cent.”

“No rush,” I said. “I know you’re eager to get back to Jamie Lynn, but I have a few questions I hope you don’t mind answering.”

“I am eager, but at this point, I’d do just about anything you wanted. Come inside.”

I parked and followed her into a large airy kitchen. Light spilled through the windows, highlighting old wooden floors and distressed cabinets. It was a cozy space, inviting, which made it all the more strange that my witchy senses had just kicked in.

“Tea?”

“Do you have coffee?” I asked, missing the cup I hadn’t had this morning. I sat at a worn wooden table.

“Sorry.” She smiled. “We’re a tea-drinking family.”

“Is it caffeinated?”

“Definitely.”

“Fill ’er up.” Could Cletus and Dinah be nearby? That might trigger my warning system. I listened for any unusual sounds and heard nothing.

“What do you want to know?” She worked quickly, efficiently as she set a tea kettle on to boil, grabbed mugs from the rack on the counter, and pulled tea bags from a turquoise canister on the countertop.

“Why do you think Cletus killed Travis?”

“I don’t think.” She opened a cabinet and removed a small sugar dish and a crock of honey, took two tiny spoons from a drawer, and set it all on the table. “I
know
. Travis had been working some with Cletus back in those days. Odds and ends. Construction. That kind of thing. Then one day we get this notice in the mail from an insurance company about Travis needin’ to come in for a physical to complete his life insurance policy. Only, he hadn’t signed up for any policy. We thought it was junk mail and tossed it. The next week, he and Cletus were working on Travis’s truck.” Her bottom lip pushed out as her jaw clenched. “Next thing I know, Travis is dead.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Me, too. More than you know. I loved that man somethin’ fierce. Still do.” She unwrapped the tea bags and put them in the mugs. “Anyway, ’bout a week later, my mama’s asking if Travis had a physical before he died. It was then that I put it together. She and Cletus had
tried to take a policy out on Travis and were too high to realize it wouldn’t be processed without him taking a physical and having his signature.”

“Did you go to the police?”

“I did. They said they didn’t have enough evidence that a crime was committed. But I knew. And they knew I knew.”

“Did you tell Jamie Lynn?”

She shook her head. “It would have hurt her too much to know her mama was a murderer. But I did forbid contact with them, using their addiction as an excuse. But if Cletus had her signature on those papers, she’s been seeing them somehow.”

“Here, every Friday while you’re at the garden meeting.” I told her how Delia and I bumped into her mama. And also how Jamie Lynn believed her mama deserved a second chance.

“I should have told her more about them. Maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”

“You were trying to protect her.” It made sense now why Lyla had always kept a tight rein on her little sister.

“Fat lot of good that did me.”

The tea kettle whistled and she poured steaming water into the mugs and carried them over to the table. Wearily, she sat next to me. If she’d had a wink of sleep the night before, I’d be surprised.

“I have these,” I said, reaching into my purse and pulling out the stack of letters I’d taken from Katie Sue’s house.

Her mouth dropped open. “My Lord! I thought these were lost and gone forever. I’m so glad you have them. Jamie Lynn will most definitely want them now.”

“What do you mean?”

“She stubbornly refused to read them when she was younger. She’d write ‘return to sender’ on them and stick them back in the mailbox.”

I stirred a little honey into my tea, swirling the liquid round and round. “Jamie Lynn sent them back? Not you?”

“Not me. I wanted Jamie Lynn to have a relationship with Katie Sue. It was Katie Sue and her stubbornness that segregated herself from us.”

“I’m confused. I thought you refused to let Katie Sue see Jamie Lynn unless Katie Sue gave you money.”

She spooned sugar into her tea. “Not true. I never asked for money.”

I almost choked on my tea. “Then I have this story all wrong.”

“Most people do. Because I didn’t make my side public. I didn’t want to put Jamie Lynn through that. I’ve never said a bad word about Katie Sue in front of my sister, and I never will.”

“What’s true?”

“It’s true I sued for custody and won. Everything else is . . . muddled. I never wanted Jamie Lynn’s money. It was hers. She earned it, just like Katie Sue had earned hers. All I wanted was to give Jamie Lynn a home with a surrogate mother and father to replace the crappy ones she’d been born to. I wanted her to know love and comfort . . . and safety. I’d grown up in the years after I moved out and realized what a brat I’d been about not helping with my granddaddy. But I was twenty-five, Travis and I had just bought this place, my gardens were taking off, and we were making decent livings. I was in a good
place. I was happy. I thought it was time Katie Sue had a chance at happiness, too.”

“All the court battles . . .”

“Katie Sue wouldn’t let it go. She never could just walk away. She wanted Jamie Lynn and that was that. She couldn’t see the bigger picture if it hit her in the face.”

I sipped. “What bigger picture?”

“That I was also trying to help Katie Sue.”

A chill went through me, another warning, and I wrapped my hands around the mug for warmth. I listened again, but there was no hint that we weren’t alone in the house. “How so?”

Tears filled Lyla’s eyes and she backhanded them away. “She had the whole world in front of her. She was so smart. So motivated. She was always telling me how she was going to go to her fancy college, get her fancy degree. Could she really do that with a ten-year-old girl to look after? I wanted her to live her dream.”