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Doug’s blue eyes crinkled as he smiled. He was mostly bald, and what remained of his hair was pure white. Tall and solidly built, he was a former ’Bama football player, and owned quite a few restaurants in town. “The usual, Carly?”

My usual was a pomegranate martini. “Actually, can I get a club soda with cranberry juice and lime?”

“After the night you had, I thought you’d order something stronger.” Grabbing a glass, he glanced over his shoulder at Hyacinth and dropped his voice. “It’s not every day you get a front-row seat to a murder.”

Fortunately, no, but I had seen more than my fair share in the past year. Now probably wasn’t the best time to refresh his memory, however.

“It was shocking,” I said truthfully, then tried to get him to open up. “You didn’t see anything, did you?”

He slid my drink across the bar top. “Nothing at all. Barbara Jean and I were talking with your mama and daddy when it all happened.”

That’s right—I’d seen them myself. So, if Idella hadn’t known Haywood was the heir, and Barbara Jean had an airtight alibi, that left Patricia and . . . Hyacinth.

Where had
she
been during the murder?

“Dougie, can I get another?” she called across the bar.

“Be right back,” he said to me.

Hyacinth didn’t appear to be a woman who killed her man. She looked like a woman who was about to bury the man she loved. Grief tugged at her features, creasing her forehead and pulling down the corners of her mouth. The headband that held back her blond hair was crooked, her button-down blouse was wrinkled, her red lipstick smudged. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen her not looking properly put together. It was troubling to say the least.

She’d been drinking before arriving at the Silly Goose this morning and it appeared as though she had no thoughts of stopping anytime soon.

When Doug came back, I said, “She’s not driving herself home later, is she?”

“She just called for a ride. She always does when she gets like this. Or she walks home,” he added.

Fidgety, I pushed my glass between my hands. “She does this often?”

“Often enough,” he said without really answering, which raised red flags.

I’d assumed Hyacinth had been drowning her sorrows.

But maybe she was just drowning.

If she had a drinking problem, Doug would know. “I can understand why she might drink a lot. She hasn’t had an easy time of things,” I whispered, hoping I didn’t sound overly gossipy. I mean, I
was
gossipy, but I didn’t want to come off that way. “Three dead husbands, and now Haywood . . .”

Storm clouds darkened his eyes, but he kept his voice low. “I don’t know about the first three, but if you ask me, Haywood Dodd got what was coming to him, sending those letters the way he did.”

Now we were getting somewhere. This was the second mention today about letters in reference to Haywood. Trying for casual, I said, “What letters are those?”

Light shined on his bare head as he ran a hand over it. He snapped a rag against the counter and said, “Doesn’t matter now.”

Squeezing a lime into my drink, I said, “I think it does matter, considering he’s dead.”

“He played with fire, Carly. If you play with fire, you get burned. Simple as that. Let it be a warning to others to mind their own damn business.”

I wasn’t sure whether he was simply blathering or if he was warning me.

It felt a little like a warning.

No, it felt a
lot
like a warning.

Seeing that I wasn’t going to get far asking him questions about Haywood, I switched topics to why I’d come here in the first place. “I actually stopped by to see if you knew how I could reach Barbara Jean. I need to ask her about an old friend. It’s kind of important.”

Suddenly, he was fascinated with a spot on the bar top. Using a rag, he rubbed and rubbed. “She’s out of touch for the rest of the afternoon.”

This was a problem with having no cell reception in town. No one owned cell phones. Out of touch truly meant out of touch.

“She won’t be back until late tonight. What’s this about, Carly?” he asked, his voice hard.

It had definitely been a warning.

I wondered what had made him suddenly uptight. Where exactly
was
Barbara Jean? Did her location have something to do with those mysterious letters?

“I heard she was good friends with Jenny Jane Booth,” I explained, “and I’m trying to get in touch with Jenny Jane’s oldest daughter, Moriah. I was told Barbara Jean might have contact info for her.”

Letting out a breath, he looked visibly relieved. “I know she does somewhere at home. I’ll have her give you a call tomorrow.”

“Not tonight?” I asked.

“No.”

Well, okay, then. “Tomorrow’s fine, I suppose.” I patted my pocket and pulled out a five-dollar bill.

He held up a hand. “On the house. Take care, Carly Bell. And be careful out there.”

Wondering if he was giving me another warning, I tipped my head, and threw him a questioning glance.

“It being Halloween and all. Ghosts and goblins.” He smiled a toothy smile that suddenly felt sinister.

“I will. Thanks, Doug.” As I made my way back outside, I slipped on my sunglasses and looked at Jenny Jane and Virgil, who’d been waiting patiently for me. I grabbed my locket, holding it tight.

I wasn’t so worried about the ghosts anymore.

No, it was an invisible evil that was now making me anxious. The kind that hid behind the familiar faces of people I’d grown up with. People I knew well.

Or so I’d thought.

I couldn’t help but feel that someone I had talked to recently had killed Haywood Dodd.

Feel it straight down to the marrow of my witchy bones.

Chapter Twelve

T
here were a few places around town to visit when in need of reliable gossip, but hands down the best place to get local scoop was at Dèjá Brew, the local coffee shop. I detoured there on my way home, hoping Jessa Yadkin, the shop’s owner, knew a thing or two about Haywood and the Harpies.

Splinters of sunlight pierced the cloudy sky, highlighting autumn leaves, and hinting at a mild evening to come. After parking my bike at a rack near the door of the coffee shop, I smiled at a group of school kids running by in their costumes and wondered how they’d react if they knew there were real ghosts floating right in front of them.

Most likely, they’d think they were fake. Holograms or something along those lines.

I’d think so, too, if I didn’t know better.

The bell jangled on the shop’s door as I pushed inside, and I breathed in a blended scent of melting chocolate and coffee. Jessa looked up from behind the counter to greet me, and immediately went for the coffeepot. “Good afternoon, Carly!”

It was a hair past noontime, but it felt like this day had dragged on. “Hi, Jessa,” I said, taking off my sunglasses and noting that many of the tables were full. Sundays were one of the busiest for the shop. “What’s Odell cooking up? Smells like heaven in here.”

“Chocolate truffle cupcakes,” she said, her voice raspy from a former two-pack-a-day smoking habit. Her bottle-blond hair was pulled back into a wobbly bun, and today she wore a flirty ruffled apron, its fabric printed with bright red lips that matched her own lip color.

“No wonder it smells like heaven. If I eat those, I’ll die from happiness.”

She filled a cardboard coffee cup, added a bit of cream and a touch of sugar, then set the lid loosely on top of the cup and pushed it over to me. “So you want me to box some up for you when they’re done cooling?”

“Yes, ma’am.” I tightened the top on the cup—Jessa never seemed to get it just right—and took a seat on a turquoise-colored padded stool at the counter. “If I’ve got to die, those are the perfect way to go.”

Country music floated from speakers mounted at the ceiling, not too soft and not too loud. Customer laughter and chatter filled the shop and also filled me with a sense of normalcy, which had been hard to come by in the past twenty-four hours.

“Speaking of dyin’ . . .” Propping her elbows on the counter, she leaned toward me, her heavily lined eyelids blinking innocently. Clumps of mascara teetered on long fake lashes.

“You heard about Haywood.” I took a sip of the coffee and wished I’d blown on it first as it seared the back of my throat.

“Sugar, who hasn’t? The news is all over town. Whenever I first heard, I couldn’t believe it. I’d just seen him yesterday with Hyacinth picking up some last-minute doodads for the ball.”

I copied her movements by setting my elbows on the countertop and leaning in. I cut straight to the chase. “Between the two of us, what do you know about Hyacinth’s drinking habits? I saw her this morning at the Silly Goose and she’d already been drinking, and I just saw her at the Delphinium’s bar, too. It looked like she had been there for a while.”

Surreptitiously, Jessa looked around and dropped her voice. “
Shoo
, girl, I’m surprised her blood isn’t ninety proof. When I was a drinking woman, that there Hyacinth could drink me under the table, and you know I could hold my liquor like no one’s business.”

Jessa had quit smoking and drinking after an unfortunate incident involving her heart two years ago: It had up and quit on her during a walk to work. If it hadn’t been for Odell’s quick thinking, she’d have died right outside this shop’s front door.

“You think she has a problem?” I whispered.

“Can’t rightly say. Lots of folks drink, social and all. Some more than others.”

“Is she one of those ‘some’?”

“If I was a betting woman, I’d say yes.”

“You
are
a betting woman.” Her love of scratch-off lotto tickets was well-known around here.

She laughed, a raucous, raspy, contagious sound that make me laugh too. “That’s right, I am.”

I didn’t know whether Hyacinth’s excessive drinking had anything to do with what had happened to Haywood. It was just one of the many pieces of the puzzle I was trying to figure out.

“Give me a sec and I’ll check those cupcakes.” She ducked into the kitchen.

Spinning on my stool, I glanced out the front windows. Virgil and Jenny Jane were standing outside the door, peeking inside. I gave them a little wave hello.

“The cupcakes need another couple of minutes. Who’re you waving to?” Jessa asked as she came back, squinting.

“I thought I saw someone I knew,” I lied quickly. But as I was about to spin back around, I did see Dr. Gabriel, Idella, and Hyacinth stroll by, Doc visibly drooping under the weight of shopping bags.

Idella had clearly made him pay at the local women’s boutiques for his earlier sniping.

As he trudged behind Idella and Hyacinth, I realized that the Kirbys must have been who Hyacinth had called for a ride home from the bar, and I was glad she was in capable hands.

Seeing Doc reminded me about Louella, the she-devil dog. “I don’t suppose you’re in the market for adopting a dog?”

“What dog? Did you find a stray?”

“It’s Virgil Keane’s old dog.”

“Louella?” Jessa tipped her head back and laughed again. Laughed so hard tears leaked from her eyes and black rivulets streamed down her face.

I didn’t think it was funny at all. “You could have just said no.”

Which made her laugh harder.

Heads turned and customers smiled at Jessa’s amusement.

“She’s been in Dr. Gabriel’s kennel since Virgil passed last May,” I said once she quieted enough for me to be heard. “In a moment of weakness I agreed to adopt her, but I can’t keep her. The cats would kick me out of the house.”

“Have mercy on your soul,” she gasped, using the pads of her fingertips to wipe beneath her eyes. “That dog ain’t right in the head.”

I was glad Virgil was outside and hadn’t heard that diss.

A couple in the shop stood up to leave, and Jessa called out, “Y’all have a good day! And congratulations again.”

Newlyweds. The town was full of them, so in love, making MoonPie eyes at each other.

They reminded me of Dylan, and I tried not to think too hard about his emotional state right now. I said to Jessa, “I don’t suppose you know where Mayor Ramelle is today?”

“Probably the same place she is every Sunday,” Jessa answered, tapping long nails on the counter.