Brownies and Broomsticks: A Magical Bakery Mystery (10 page)

“She’s a happy person who wants other people to be happy, too. It’s hard not to love someone like that.”

Speaking of love. “Is she married?”

“To the same man for almost sixty years.”

“Is he … ?”

Lucy shook her head. “No, he’s not a witch. He’s a Baptist.”

I snorted.

“Then there’s Bianca. Her marriage was not so happy. When her husband found out she had become a practicing Wiccan, he left in a big, nasty huff. She has a little girl, Colette, who’s about five years old now, I think. Bianca has a small wine shop down on Factors Walk. Doesn’t really make a living from it, but she doesn’t have to. She is funded—seriously funded—for the rest of her life.”

That explained the society functions. Money, old or new, would gain her entrance into those circles.

“From her family?” I asked.

“Stock market. Knows how to get in early on trends, then scoots out before the bubbles burst. Made her first millions during the nineties, investing in all sorts of technology. So she has the luxury a lot of single moms don’t: She can still take care of her little girl full-time.”

I wanted to ask whether Bianca was teaching magic to Colette.

Lucy took a sip of coffee. “She’s a traditional witch, self-taught, and for a long time worked solitary, until she met Jaida in a professional capacity during her divorce. She focuses on straightforward spell work, especially in relation to the moon and sometimes other astrological influences. She’s very good at it, too.

“Jaida is next in age. She lives and practices with another witch—and lawyer—who chooses not to be
part of our spellbook club. His name is Gregory, and they’ve been together for more than ten years. She specializes in tarot magic and a bit of divination. Though Mimsey is still the best of us at the latter. Whenever Jaida works spells, either alone or with us, she uses tarot cards to augment her power.”

I was confused. “But tarot isn’t magic.”

“Of course it is. Remember when I did your cards last time I was in Fillmore?”

“Sure. Mama about popped a vein when she walked in on us. You would have thought you were teaching me how to shoot heroin.”

My aunt rolled her eyes. “She might have preferred that. Anyway, then there’s Cookie. Our Ms. Rios is a young witch—both chronologically and she’s somewhat new to the kind of witchcraft the rest of us practice. However, her magical roots go back to childhood. She’s from Haiti and grew up with a father who was a voodoo priest. They moved here when she was nine years old. I don’t know exactly what happened, but something prompted her to turn her back on the voodoo religion of her childhood and come to us through Bianca—who out of all of us knows her best.”

“Is Cookie married?”

“Ha! Hardly. Cookie plays the field. She always has a boyfriend, but never for very long. Every few months she dates someone else, and then she gets out of the relationship. You’d think there would be a string of bitter, broken hearts in her wake, but she seems to stay friends with most of them.” She laughed. “That girl has a
lot
of friends. And it’s not just boyfriends—she does the same thing with jobs. Right now she’s working for
the Savannah College of Art and Design, but it’s been almost three months, and I bet she’ll move on to something else pretty soon.”

And here I thought it was a big deal to change my job once.

The back door opened, and moments later Ben came around the corner. He stopped when he saw us.

I crooked a finger at him. “Why don’t you join us?”

He looked at Lucy, and so did I. She smiled at her husband, a smile that emanated affection and tenderness in waves. Ben looked back at me and nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” He strode over and sat on the sofa opposite us. “You two have certainly had your heads together today.”

“And you’ve been making yourself conveniently scarce.”

One side of his mouth quirked up. “Lucy said she was going to tell you about the witchy stuff.”

“The witchy stuff. That makes it sound a bit less esoteric.” I took a breath, forming the question I wasn’t really sure I wanted the answer to. “Are you one?”

Lucy patted me on the knee.

Uncle Ben laughed. “No. I’m not a witch or a sorcerer or whatever you’d call it. I’m just a guy.” He licked his lips. “Just a guy who fell head over heels in love with Lucy Sheffield and never found my balance again.”

She rose and crossed to the other sofa. He took her hand, and she sat beside him. “Except that’s not entirely accurate, because I only really feel grounded when I’m with her. That way you feel when you first fall in love? It’s never faded in seventeen years.” He
looked down at my aunt. “This woman could turn orange or go bald or tell me she’s from Mars, and I wouldn’t care. So when she told me she was a witch, I figured, why not? I’ve seen some pretty strange things in my life, and more of them make me think magic is possible than not.”

He raised his head. “You’re a lot like your aunt, Katie. You glow like she does, from inside.”

“Uh. Thanks.” The lump in my throat made it hard to talk. Like anyone else, I’d dreamed of loving and being loved like that.

The image of Andrew’s face filled my mind. Instead of anger or sadness, all I felt was regret for time lost. Marry him? What had I been thinking?

Chalk in hand, I climbed the stepladder and began writing the additional menu items Lucy and I had selected for the grand opening on the blackboard behind the counter. We’d developed more than a hundred recipes and planned to add more to our repertoire over time. Each day we’d offer three kinds each of cookies, biscotti, muffins and scones, as well as brioche and loaves of the signature house bread made with the sourdough levain I’d developed in Akron and brought with me to Savannah. In addition, every day there would be a special treat: handmade marshmallows, salted caramels, cinnamon pretzels, truffles and seasonal goodies. Lucy was a whiz at decorating cakes, and she would be responsible for those orders as well as helping me with the regular daily baking.

Ideas for things I wanted to try whirled in my mind as I wrote.

Oatmeal lace cookies. Orange-filled chocolate sandwich cookies. Cranberry macaroons. Molasses biscotti, along with macadamia nut and white chocolate. My
favorite peanut butter swirl brownies. Cheddar-sage scones and scones laced with lime zest and pickled sushi ginger.

Wait. That was too long to write. I needed a name for those.

Someone tried the front door, but I ignored the sound. Anyone who had business in here either had a key or knew to come around to the back door. A sharp knock sounded next. I ignored that, too.

Ginger-lime scones? Eh. Didn’t quite capture the magic of biting into a mouthful of hot-sweet pickled ginger, all buttery and citrusy and … My stomach growled. How could that be after that huge meal from Mrs. Wilkes’?

The pounding on the door was too much. Ben came out of the kitchen, where he’d been installing the convection oven, wiping his hands on a towel. I climbed down and moved to the window. Cracked the blinds. He strode to the door and yanked it open.

“Can I help you?”

A tall but stooped man shouldered my uncle aside to enter the bakery. Ben grabbed his arm before he could get very far. “Excuse me—”

“Take your hands off me, or I’ll have you arrested for assault!” Spittle flew from his wormlike lips.

I cringed.

Slowly Ben’s hand lowered, and his eyes narrowed. I moved to his side, feeling oddly protective. This guy set off all my alarm bells, and not just because red anger infused his doughy face and made his bald pate glow. He was furious about something, but his anger
threw off sparks of danger. I sensed violence roiling just under the surface.

He stomped just far enough past Ben to whirl around and face us. Ben and I didn’t take our eyes off him, and neither of us spoke. I was grateful for the open door behind us. I didn’t know who this nutcase was, but having an exit handy seemed like a good idea.

“So you’re the one who killed my aunt.” He spit the words out.

Ben flinched. The color drained from his face.

Enough. I stepped forward. “That’s a ridiculous accusation. Who told you that lie?”

He leaned over me. “I know people. Police people. People who know when people are under investigation. And they say this man”—he pointed a shaking finger at Ben—“this man killed my dear aunt Mavis.”

Dear aunt Mavis, my hat.

I shuddered as he moved even closer. His lips were shapeless and wet, his brown eyes strangely feminine, his face a map of broken capillaries. “And I’m going to make him pay.”

Rank halitosis wafted over me, laced with the strong scent of bourbon.

He pointed at Ben again. “I’m going to make you all pay for this travesty. You. Your wife. Your niece. The DBA. Your business. I’ll sue you all. Once my lawyers have finished with you, you’ll wish you were in prison.”

“Why?” I couldn’t help asking. “The police haven’t charged Ben with any crime. What can you hope to gain?”

His nostrils flared. “Restitution! You have to
pay
.” He moved toward me, and I dodged to my left to avoid him. Without another word, he stalked out to the sidewalk, not bothering to close the door behind him.

I took a deep breath and turned to Ben. “Whew! So that’s Albert Hill. I’ve got to say, that family is just chock-full of charmers.”

But my uncle looked worried. “If he goes through with that threat he could ruin us.”

“But he can’t win—especially if the police don’t even charge you.”

He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. Fighting a lawsuit like that would decimate our savings, ruin the bakery, and we’d have to default on our loans. And if he hit us on multiple levels like he said, it wouldn’t even take very long.”

Dear Albert had also threatened to sue me personally.

Why the heck had we decided against doing another protection spell?

Lucy darkened the doorway, at least as much as a five-foot-tall woman can. Her skirt swirled around her ankles as she came in, and then she stopped dead in her tracks.

“What happened?” she cried.

Ben took three steps and opened his arms, but she pushed him away. “Tell me.”

“Mavis Templeton’s nephew just paid us a visit. Albert Hill. He said he’s going to sue us.”

“But … why?”

“He says he’s seeking restitution for his aunt’s death.”

“It’s not like he needs money,” Lucy said. “He’s going to inherit millions.”

“I have a feeling that ‘enough money’ is not a phrase that’s in his lexicon,” I said.

Lucy shuddered. “We have to smudge the Honeybee and rid it of this horrid energy. Right now.”

Sounded good to me. I, too, could feel Albert’s threat hanging in the air like poison.

Declan drove with easy skill, negotiating the heavy afternoon traffic, dodging a tour trolley, and turning left on Whitney. The woman I’d talked to on the phone had given me directions, and now I read them off to him. The paper shook in my hand, which was still trembling slightly after the nasty encounter with Albert Hill.

“Got it,” he said.

“So you know the neighborhood?”

“Of course. Savannah isn’t all that big, you know. And firemen had better know where we’re going without some GPS babe telling us.”

“Right.” I said, watching him from the passenger seat.

Warm air winged in through the open windows of the king cab, carrying the scent of newly mown grass. It was a huge truck, with big tires, yet he didn’t seem like a guy who worried about the size of his … truck. Dark curls cut short enough to adhere to fire service regulations softened the edges of his broad, chiseled face. For a brief moment his blue eyes cut my way, and I was startled by how bright they were. The realization that I’d never seen him outside of the bakery slid into my consciousness as his lips turned up an infinitesimal
amount. And darn if that didn’t show off the dimple in his cheek.

Quickly looking out the window, I said, “Declan’s an Irish name, right?”

“Declan McCarthy, displaced Irishman, at your service, lassie.” The soft round vowels and the relaxed tempo of his words foiled his game attempt to pull off the lilt of Eire.

“Not first generation, I take it.”

He laughed. “Gosh, how could you tell? No, I was born in Pooler, then went away to Florida State University. After college I tried living in Boston, in eastern Illinois, even down in Texas for a summer, but this area is home, even though all my people are gone now. Been back in Savannah for almost ten years.”

“Your people are all gone?” Nosy me couldn’t help asking.

“Oh, they’re not gone gone, just gone from around here. My mother remarried after my dad died, and now she lives in Boston—which is one reason I moved there for a while. My sisters—two married, one divorced, one single—are scattered all over.”

“You have four sisters? No brothers?”

“Nope, I’m the only boy, and smack-dab in the middle of them all. But I think I turned out reasonably well despite almost drowning in estrogen growing up. At least I can cook.”

He caught my sidelong look and grinned. “You’ll have to let me make you dinner sometime. Prove my worth.”

I had to admit the idea was pretty appealing. This guy was easy to be around, and practically family. Not that I thought of him as a brother, exactly.

“You said you and Uncle Ben have been friends since you were a rookie.”

“We have.”

I waited, but he didn’t offer any additional information. Declan was still more or less a stranger to me, and even a rube from Ohio like me knew when it was better to shut up.

We pulled into the driveway of a ranch-style home in a neighborhood full of the same. No mansions here. No antebellum anything, but plenty of treeless yards, the bright toys scattered in many of them indicating lots of new families.

A skinny, sharp-featured woman about my age opened the door as we came up the walk and ushered us quickly inside. “No need to cool the outdoors,” she said, her voice abrupt and nasal, as she shut the door behind us.

The air-conditioning was going great guns indeed, and I shivered immediately. The sofa was worth the sudden temperature drop, though. It was, in fact, a seven-foot-long fainting couch, the swooping curve of the back sloping from a high arm on one side to a next-to-nothing one at the other end. And best of all? It was a deep, dark purple.