by Tegan Maher
I pinched the bridge of my nose. I knew Ms. Simmons; she came into Brew a few times a week, and now I was never gonna be able to scrub that visual from my brain.
“Jeanie, you sure you didn’t change any ingredients in anything at all?” I asked. “Maybe you should get Ray out here, too.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t change nothin’. Got everything from the same people I buy from every week. Didn’t change no recipes or anything. If it ain’t broke, there’s no need to fix it.” She turned toward the back and bellowed, “Ray! Get out here!”
Almost immediately, Ray, a lumberjack of a man, pushed through the batwings wiping his hands on a towel. “Whatcha hollerin’ about out here? Oh, hey y’all! How goes it?”
“Hey Ray. Not too great,” I said. We gave him the general idea and he shook his head, looking at Hunter with sympathy. “Onlyest thing I can tell ya is they was all standing around the back of Hunter’s truck shootin’ the breeze after they finished eatin’.”
“All of them? Even Sam?” I asked.
He nodded once. “Yup. All of ’em. They was standin’ out there when Sam came out carryin’ his food. I know because I was takin’ the trash out.”
I turned to Hunter and narrowed my eyes. “Did you guys eat or drink anything while you were standin’ out there?”
He shrugged, but his expression became guarded. “Maybe. But nothin’ much.”
I ran my tongue over my teeth. “And what, may I ask, was it?”
“We might maybe have had a nip or two outta Mr. Spangler’s private stock while Mrs. Spangler was in the bathroom.”
I rolled my eyes. Private stock was a polite term for the turpentine the Spanglers made and called liquor. To be fair, it was pure—so pure it burned blue; Mr. Spangler prided himself on that. I’d warned Hunter when he first moved to town not to drink anything from a mason jar, but apparently my advice had gone in one ear and out the other.
“He had it left over from the holidays. Apple pie-flavored,” Hunter said.
In his defense, the Spangler pie shine was hailed near and far as the most delicious—and dangerous—holiday home-brew in the state. But I’d had it plenty of times, and it hadn’t done anything weird to me, or to anybody else that I knew of. At least not anything more weird than pure shine makes anybody do.
I sighed. “C’mon then. It looks like we need to talk to the Spanglers.”
Chapter 6
We’d just buckled up when Hunter’s radio went off. “Sheriff, you got your ears on? This here’s Smitty. We got a problem.”
I snatched the radio off Hunter’s hip before he could answer. Lord only knows what’d come out of his mouth. “Smitty, it’s Noelle. Please tell me nobody’s nekkid.”
“What? No!” His embarrassment was obvious even over the scratchy waves of the walkie-talkie. Smitty was a home-grown boy, raised as a true backwoods gentlemen. Just the word nekkid used in mixed company was enough to turn his face scarlet.
“Okay, then. Hunter’s a bit under the weather”—understatement of the year—“so what can I do for you?”
Hunter scowled at me and snatched the radio from my hand. “Smitty, this is Hunter. I’m here. Just admiring how Noelle’s eyes are the color of Kentucky bluegrass. What’s up?” He really was looking into my eyes like they were deep pools he wanted to drown in. I squeezed them shut and turned away, fighting the urge to drown him for real.
Smitty’s voice squawked back through the box. “We just got a 911 call that was a little strange.”
“How strange?” I asked, worrying my lip.
“Donnie Stills and Cody are takin’ swings at each other over Ms. Shelby down at Bobbie Sue’s. Earl’s got Donnie locked down and Shelby and Bobbie Sue managed to talk Cody off the ledge, but it’s weird. Usually, a fight happens and it’s over, but Donnie’s mad as the dickens. Every time Earl sets him loose, he jumps back after Cody. What on earth is goin’ on?”
I snatched the mic from Hunter. “Smitty, you don’t happen to know whether or not Donnie’s been around the Spanglers today do you?” Shelby had dated Donnie briefly in her freshman year, back before she became a royal pain in the butt and developed a thing for bad boys. He was crushed when she broke up with him.
“I’m not for sure, but I know he helps with odd jobs out there a couple times a week. But how did you know that?”
I heaved a sigh. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll take care of it. Just ... if anything else weird happens, call me.”
I disconnected and turned to Belle. “Can you please go get Addy, then go help Shelby?” Addy was my living-impaired aunt, and she was good at putting a broom to a backside even if it was a proverbial one rather than a physical one. Trust me. Addy—or Belle either, for that matter—didn’t need a corporeal body to bend folks, especially kids, to their wills.
She nodded and popped out of view.
Ray and Jeanie had delivered food to the Spanglers’ a few times for reunions, so they gave me directions. Fortunately, they didn’t live far away, and we were rumbling up their dirt-road drive ten minutes later.
The sight that greeted us when we arrived was nothing short of bizarre. Keep in mind that the Spanglers are well into their seventies. Mrs. Spangler was standing behind a rocking chair on the porch holding an old straw broom like a baseball bat. Mr. Spangler was on the other side of the chair, facing her with his shirt off. The sun glinted off the gray hair on his shoulders and he was jumping around in such a way that I thought maybe he’d gotten into a fire-ant hill.
When I pushed my truck door open, Mr. Spangler’s off-key voice about ruptured my eardrums, and it took me a minute to recognize the mangled lyrics to J-Bieb’s Love Me that he was belting out at the top of his lungs. Apparently there were no ants in his pants, either; he was bustin’ some moves. Or a seam, one of the two.
Rae and I rushed to the porch. Poor Mrs. Spangler looked horrified, brandishing her straw-tipped Louisville Slugger.
“What’s going on here?” I shouted over the chorus. Mr. Spangler’s voice trailed off when he saw us.
Hunter clapped him on the shoulder. “Serenading. Man, I wish I’da thought of that.”
He cleared his voice and I glowered at him. “Don’t even think about it.”
With our arrival and the blessed silence that accompanied it, Mrs. Spangler lowered the broom and stepped from behind the rocker, keeping a wary eye on her husband. She glanced at me.
“You have any idea what’s wrong with him?” she snapped.
“Well,” I told her, “I was hoping you could shed some light on that. Seems we’re having a bit of a crisis. All the boys who got into your home brew this mornin’ at the diner while you were in the ladies’ room are acting like lovesick fools.”
She glanced nervously at Hunter, who was in uniform, and set the broom down. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I ain’t got nothin’ to do with no home brew. That stuff’s illegal.” Her prim tone and posture would have made a nun proud.
I scoffed. “Oh please! Everybody in the county knows you brew the best lightnin’ in Georgia. That’s not even up for debate. What I need to know is whether you did anything different to this batch. Your apple-pie batch.”
She looked confused for a few seconds, then a look of dawning crept across her face and she held up a finger. “Oh dear,” she said. “Wait here for just a minute.” She started off across the yard toward their truck, but turned back around and pointed at her husband. “And you put your clothes on! Ain’t gonna be none of that hanky-panky crap goin’ on now. Specially not after all that caterwaulin’. And you’re gonna catch your death in this weather.”
After stomping the rest of the way to the truck, muttering and shaking her head, she pushed the seat forward and pulled out a brown paper bag with a bottle in it. The bag was twisted around the neck, and when she pulled the bottle out, it was only more than half empty.
She looked at Mr. Spangler, then at Hunter, who was staring at me like I was a filet and he hadn’t eaten i
n a week. Her wrinkles shifted from a scowl to a grin, and within seconds, she was laughing so hard she could barely draw breath. Holding onto the truck to keep from falling over, she tried to speak between hoots of laughter, but all she could manage was gasping incoherent phrases while waving her finger back and forth between the two men.
Chapter 7
It took a full two minutes for her laughter to subside enough for her to speak. She wiped the tears from her eyes with her knuckles, then patted her husband on the cheek. “Arnie, sugar, I’d apologize, but it’s what you get for dippin’ into my hidden stash.”
She turned to me and Hunter. “I truly am sorry to you two, though.”
Rae, ever the mixologist, was about to burst with curiosity, to the point that she was getting irritated. “So what’d you do? What’d you put in it?”
Mrs. Spangler pinched her lips together and motioned us toward the house. “C’mon inside. It’s freezin’ out here.” When Rae started to protest, the older lady silenced her with a look, so we followed her to the house and through the screen door. Warmth and the smell of wood smoke and apple pie—whether from an actual pie, a batch of shine, or a candle was anyone’s guess—enveloped us as we crossed the threshold.
She motioned toward the dining room table, and as we sat down, she reached into the cupboard and pulled out a mason jar full of amber liquid. “A nip to chase away the cold?”
Rae shook her head and I held up my hand. “We’re good, I think. No offense, but ...” I motioned to the guys, who still looked a little goofy. I noticed Hunter was getting a bit of a green tinge, though, and figured if he barfed on the carpet, it was Karma.
Mrs. Spangler snorted. “They got into my special batch. This is just the plain stuff.”
“Still, we’ll pass,” Rae said. “Now what did you put in that special batch?”
The older woman’s blue eyes sparkled. “My granddaughter and her new husband have been having a little bit of a problem gettin’ on the same page, so to speak. She manages the Piggly Wiggly and he works as an accountant, and it’s tax season. They’re workin’ their fingers to the bone and ain’t hardly got the energy to cook, let alone do anythin’ romantic.”
She picked up the bottle she’d retrieved from the truck. “So I made ’em up a special batch for Valentine’s Day.” She looked at the guys, who seemed to be coming back around. They’d wandered over to load more wood into the wood burner.
Rae pulled the bottle from the bag and held it up to the light, then twisted the lid off and sniffed it, crinkling her brow in thought. “I can smell a hint of somethin’, ma’am, but the pie scent covers it up.”
“Hmph. Some witch you are.” She cackled when Rae and I exchanged a startled glance. “Course I know. I was good friends with your grand-mammy. I got a touch of the magic in me, too, though nothin’ that could hold a candle to you two. Or so I thought.”
“Hey!” I said. “She’s dang good at what she does.”
“Oh, untwist your knickers, young lady. I ain’t insultin’ her. I been at this decades longer than she has. ’Sides, in case you didn’t notice, I didn’t exactly hit the nail on the head with this one.”
She turned back to Rae. “I used what my mammy called the trifecta of love. ’Ceptin’ she used the blend in a tea. In hindsight, I outta done it that way, too. Mandrake root, horny goat weed, and damiana. Oh, and I put just a wee pinch of magic mushrooms in it to give it that extra boost.” She smiled and held her thumb and forefinger a quarter-inch or so apart.
“How much of each, and in how much hooch?” Rae asked.
Mrs. Spangler rattled off the amounts and Rae did some mental math. In about five seconds, her eyes about popped out of her head. “Holy crap on a cracker!” She turned to me. “Count yourself lucky Hunter and Cody managed to keep their clothes on!”
The older lady blushed. “I reckon I didn’t take the interaction with alcohol into consideration enough.”
“You reckon?” Rae asked, brows raised.
“Don’t get sassy, with me, missy! This wouldn’t even be an issue if he’da kept his paws to himself.” She scowled at her husband, who was beginning to look sheepish. Hunter was looking better, too, and had lost the green tinge.
“I thought I had it hid,” she said, still giving him the stink eye. “I had it in the bag behind the seat in the truck to give to her when I go to the grocery store later.”
“I’m sorry, mother,” Mr. Spangler hung his head. “I just figured you had it in there for an extra gift or somethin’.”
“She picked up a rolled-up newspaper from the table and whacked him on the shoulder with it. “Easy to say sorry now, you old coot! You went and drugged half the town, includin’ the sheriff!” She punctuated the last three words with additional whacks. “At this rate, I ain’t never gonna have any great-grandbabies!”
While she was cleaning his clock with the classifieds, I turned to Rae. “So do we need to come up with an antidote or will this wear off?” I motioned to Mr. Spangler and Hunter. “It looks like it’s wearing off.”
She waved a hand. “They’ll be fine. From the looks of the bottle, divided between six grown men, including Donny—”
Mr. Spangler interrupted her, cheeks pink. “Actually, they all only had a couple pulls each. The rest was all me.”
“Oh, well then,” Rae said, “It should be wearin’ off any time then. With the amount of herbs combined with the way the alcohol is metabolized, they should be fine as soon the alcohol burns off. Call Shelby, Coralee, and Callie. I’ll bet Cody, Buddy, and Sam are fine as frog’s hair by now, or gettin’ there.”
I nodded and reached for my phone, glaring at Hunter as I did. “Yeah, I’ll check on Shelby’s underage boyfriend and see if the booze wore off yet.”
He held up his hand defensively. “I didn’t even know he drank any. I went to the john and when I came out, they were passin’ the bottle around. I took a couple swigs just to be polite, then we shot the breeze for a few minutes and went our own ways.”
That earned Mr. Spangler another whack. “You gave my sauce to a kid? You ain’t got the sense God gave a”—two more whacks—“wooden goose!”
The older man scowled and snatched the paper from her. “Ouch, woman! Knock it off—the kid’s eighteen, same as Donnie.”
“Oh,” she said, plopping down next to him. “That’s a horse of a different color then. Kid’s old enough to die for his country, he’s old enough to have himself a snoot or two.”
Yeah, maybe that idea wouldn’t worry me quite so much if I didn’t have little old ladies spiking moonshine with love potions, but I suppose that was one of the saner incidents in our lives lately.
All things considered, it was just another day in Keyhole Lake, and I was just glad this was a case of all’s well that ends well.
Content everything was righting itself, we left the Spanglers and headed back to town. Hunter’d grown quiet and I glanced at him, worried he was having some sort of magical hangover. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, “Just a little embarrassed. And glad we didn’t run into too many people.”
“Look at it this way,” Rae said. “At least you’re better off than poor Cody. He’s gonna have a heck of a time cleanin’ that water tower, and he’s terrified of heights.”
“City council’s been talkin’ about painting the water tower, anyway. The poor kid was high on love potion-laced moonshine, so I’ll do my best to see if they’ll bump up the schedule,” Hunter said then shook his head.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothin’,” he replied. “That’s yet another phrase I never thought I’d hear myself say.”
I smiled and reached over to lay my hand over his. “And I’m sure it won’t be the last. This is, after all, Keyhole Lake.”
Considering nobody was dead or married, we called it a win, grabbed a pizza and a Redbox, and had the best Valentine’s day ever.
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Other Books by Tegan Maher
Witches of Keyhole Lake Series
Book 1: Sweet Murder
Book 2: Murder to the Max
Book 3: Murder so Magical
Book 4: Mayhem and Murder
Book 5: Murder and Marinade
Book 6: Hook, Line, and Murder
Book 7: Murder of the Month
Witches of Keyhole Lake Shorts
Bubble, Bubble, Here Comes Trouble
Witching for a Miracle
Moonshine Valentine
Cori Sloane Witchy Werewolf Mysteries
Howling for Revenge
Dead Man’s Hand
Bad Moon Rising
Enchanted Coast Magical Mystery Series
Deadly Daiquiri
Surfboard Slaying
About Tegan
I was born and raised in the South and even hung my motorcycle helmet in Colorado for a few months. I've always had a touch of wanderlust and have never feared just packing up and going on new adventures, whether in real life or via the pages of a great book.