"I will,” I said.
The Darlington descendants didn't actually live at the manor any longer. They had moved into a larger, newer house elsewhere. While they still owned the property, they used it as a rental space for events. Brookdale City Council utilized the manor for meetings and other gatherings as well.
"Ugh, I don't want to go back there,” I said to Jenny when I hung up the phone. "I don't know if I'm ready to face the scene again. It creeps me out thinking that I was so close to the murderer. Darlington Manor is so huge. What if they were like hiding in the walls or something? You know that place has to have secret passages and stuff."
"I'll go with you," Jenny said. "We'll do it together."
"We should bring Gumbo too. He can protect us from any bad energy that might have been raised by a magical killing,” I said.
"No," I heard Gumbo say from the back.
I shushed him because there were non-magicals in the bakery eating. I didn't want them to see me talking to my cat. None of them would understand that I could hear what he was saying.
Since I was eager to get back to the manor and get my things, the rest of the afternoon dragged on. If Jenny Mae and Gumbo weren't going, I would have dreaded it and the time would have flown.
"I doubt the murderer is lurking in the walls," Jenny said as she counted down the cash register. "We should be fine."
"Are you getting nervous?" I asked.
"Maybe a little."
"Tell her not to worry. I won't let you dumbos get hurt," Gumbo said as he walked out of the back of the bakery. There were no customers around, so he didn't feel the need to stay in the office.
"Gumbo said not to worry that he'd protect us."
"Aw, you're such a good kitty. Such a sweet, sweet little baby," Jenny cooed as she picked him up.
She squeezed him to her chest and gave Gumbo a shower of kisses on his face and neck. I knew he was in agony. It served him right for calling us dumbos.
Jenny finished closing up the front of the shop while I hummed and cleaned the kitchen. After one last inspection to make sure none of my relatives were in the walk-in cooler or locked in the freezer, I shut off the lights and took the trash out to the dumpster in back.
I locked the back door after Jenny followed behind me. She had Gumbo in her arms again, and I chuckled at how ticked he looked.
"Did you lock the front door and turn the sign to closed?" I asked.
"I did,” she said.
I opened the side of the van, and Jenny put Gumbo in the back. He probably would have made a break for it except he knew that he'd get a bite of something if he let us drag him along.
When we got to Darlington Manor, I parked the van close to the back door. There was still a bit of crime scene tape stuck to one side of the back porch railing. It was flapping in the wind. A sad reminder of what had happened there the day before. A chill went down my spine as I saw Marcel dead on the floor in my mind's eye.
"We can do this," Jenny said as she slapped me on the back.
Everything was exactly how I'd left it in the kitchen. Well, almost exactly. Someone had taken all of the hot appetizers and stuck them in the manor's refrigerators.
"Let's get all of this packed up,” I said.
"I wonder if it's bad manners to serve this stuff at the bakery if it's been at a crime scene," Jenny said.
"We're not doing that,” I said with a chuckle. "We'll donate the baked goods, and I'm not sure what we'll do with the hot appetizers. We can have as much of it as you want. I've got trays and trays of mini baked brie. I'm sure they'll be fine if we heat them up. Not as good as fresh, but it's a shame to throw away so much brie."
"We'll have a feast," Jenny said. "I guess it wouldn't make sense to resell this stuff since you already got paid for it."
I packed up the rest of my cooking gear while Jenny worked on the food. After I cleaned the manor's silver trays that Patrick had insisted I use, I told Jenny we needed to go upstairs and clean up the stain from the elderberry wine I dropped.
"They have staff that will do that," Jenny said.
"I know, but I made the mess. If they haven't cleaned it up already, I want to take care of it."
"Do you have lemon and salt?" Jenny asked.
"I do. There's salt on the counter and there's a lemon in the fridge. I brought it for garnish,” I said. "Or, I can use the salt from my protection bag?"
"Nah, just use the regular table salt."
I took Jenny upstairs to the room where Marcel was killed. Gumbo followed behind us. I'd seen Jenny slipping him bites of carrot cake and small bits of bacon, so I was sure he was happy he'd been dragged along.
While I was on my hands and knees scrubbing dried wine off the hardwood floor and out of the nearby rug, Jenny wandered around the room looking at the books on the massive shelves. Gumbo sat a few feet away from me trying to stare holes in my head. He'd gotten some treats, so I didn't know what his deal was. As long as he kept me safe, he could just keep on being mad at me.
"Who do you think could have killed him?" I asked as I scrubbed the wine from another section of the rug. "I know this place is big, but it's so weird that no one saw the killer. I mean, I assume no one saw them. If they did, then I probably wouldn't be a suspect anymore."
"You know, Patrick has always kind of resented Marcel," Jenny said.
"It must have been terrible working as his assistant. I can understand why he would be resentful,” I said.
"Resentful enough to kill him?" Jenny asked. "What do you think?"
"You think that Patrick stabbed him in the back and then came down to get me. What was he doing by sending me up with the wine? Framing me?" I didn't want to believe it, but...
"I think that's entirely possible, Fern. If I had to work for Marcel, I probably would have killed him too," Jenny said with a nervous chuckle.
"Good thing you didn't work with me that night,” I said. "At least you have an alibi."
I moved forward to clean the next section of rug and found a small flower pendant half hidden underneath the edge. Someone had lost their necklace in the room where Marcel happened to have been killed. Could it have been broken in a struggle? Did it belong to the killer?
As I was slipping the pendant into my pocket, the woman who I assumed was the estate manager walked into the room. "What are you two doing in here?" she demanded.
"I spilled a glass of wine in here last night. I wanted to clean it up before we left,” I said.
"We have people here who can do that. You have no business snooping around in this room,” she snapped.
"We're not snooping,” I said. "I'm cleaning the rug."
But I looked up as Jenny closed a book and slid it back on the shelf. She was snooping.
"And you brought a cat in here?" The woman's voice was getting shrill.
"He sat right there the whole time. He hasn't touched a thing."
"I'll thank you to get your things and go,” she said curtly. "You've done enough damage already."
She wasn't talking about the rug. If anything was obvious, it was that she thought I killed Marcel Love.
I scooped up Gumbo, and Jenny and I hurried from the room. We went downstairs and started carrying loads out to the van while the estate manager stood in the kitchen doorway and watched us silently. She wanted to make good and sure that we didn't leave the kitchen area again. Gumbo didn't like her one bit, so he lay out on the back porch in what was left of the day's sunshine while Jenny and I worked.
"She probably eats cats," Gumbo said as I walked down the steps with a container full of mini cheesecakes.
I just narrowed my eyes at him and kept going. After all, he was probably right. That made me chuckle, and Jenny Mae shot me a look.
While we finished up, I made up my mind. There was no choice but to get involved in the investigation. How else was I going to clear my name?
Chapter Four
On the way back to the bakery, I realized we needed to stop for gas. As I was
at the pump filling up the van, Garnet Guillory pulled in behind me. As soon as she started speaking, I wondered if she really needed gas, or if she'd just come to annoy me.
"Wow, you're having a bad week," Garnet said with fake concern as she sauntered up to where I was standing.
Jenny came out of the gas station at the exact same time. She had her hands full of slushies and bags of kettle potato chips. When she saw Garnet, Jenny put her head down and made a beeline across the parking lot to us.
"I'm doing fine,” I said.
"I guessed you might be," Garnet said with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "That Marcel Love deserved what he got. What a nasty little man. I'm glad he's gone, and I think Brookdale is a better place for it."
"You're glad he's dead?"
I couldn't believe she was just saying it out loud where everyone could hear. It was just Jenny and me, but there could have been others around. Cars could pull up to the pumps at any time.
"He told everyone in town that I was a liar," Garnet spat. "He said my claim that Montgomery Brookdale was wed on the site were my bakery stands was a lie. Can you even imagine what that did to my reputation and the reputation of my coven? But it wasn't a lie. My bakery is built on the site where a town founder was married. It's one of the reasons my wedding cakes are so magical,” she said bitterly, but around that time, two cars pulled up. People got out and turned their attention to us. A man and child came out of the gas station as well, and they couldn't help but look over at Garnet's ranting.
"My poor cousin, Marcel. He's gone too soon. He was a treasure to this community, and I imagine you had something to do with his death!" she hissed and pointed at me before flouncing back to her car.
I watched as Garnet got back in her car and left immediately. I'd been right. She hadn't needed any gas and had only stopped to harass me. My cheeks burned with embarrassment as people stared and whispered.
Garnet better have enjoyed her little spectacle, because I was going to put a stop to it. The sooner I figured out who really killed Marcel, the sooner I could stop people from accusing me.
"You paid, right?" Jenny asked as I got into the driver's seat.
"Yeah, why? I always pay with a credit card up front,” I said.
"Because the last thing you need is to get arrested for shoplifting gas. You'd be a one-stop shop criminal enterprise in this town," Jenny said with a chuckle.
"Oh, you're hilarious,” I said and put the van in gear.
On the way back, Jenny and I discussed whether or not we believed that Garnet could have killed Marcel. We both believed that she could have, but that it was also possible she was just harassing me for fun.
"What about that stuff about Montgomery Brookdale getting married on the site of her bakery?" I asked.
"Okay, Marcel Love was a horrible little man, but he was right about her being a liar," Jenny said. "That's one of the reasons she hates him so much. Calling her a liar was one of the few true things he put in his stupid tell-alls."
"They would have gotten married at the old stone church, right?" I asked. "Why would they have gotten married out in the middle of what would have been a field at the time?"
"You're thinking too much," Jenny said. "She lied. She lied and she probably did want Marcel dead because she's a spiteful witch."
"You're right."
When we got back to the bakery, Jenny started sorting the food into packages for the closest homeless shelter. She'd contacted them, and they'd agreed to come pick up the food if we could have it packaged up for them.
While she worked on that, I called Mitch and asked him if he had time to come to the bakery and talk to me.
"I was about to call you,” he said.
"You were?" My stomach dropped. "What's going on?"
"We can talk about it when I get there,” he said.
"Wait, are you coming to arrest me?"
"No, but we'll talk when I get there."
As soon as I got off the phone with Mitch, the bakery phone rang. I contemplated not answering it since it was after closing time but ultimately decided to pick up. Whatever it was would be a distraction from my wait for Mitch's arrival.
"Blue Moon Bakery, this is Fern speaking. How may I help you?" I asked into the receiver.
"Um, hello. Uh, this is Newman Jones. I'm calling about your ad for an assistant." He sounded nervous.
"The job is still available. What do you know about the bakery, Newman?"
"Well, I'm from a family coven that isn’t really into kitchen witchery, but I am. I really am,” he said eagerly. "I want to branch into cooking, and I think I've got the skills to pull it off."
This was a good start. A potential kitchen witch was exactly someone I needed. I wouldn't have to pay them as much because I'd have to teach them, but they'd at least have the raw magical talent to be of use.
"Newman, why don't you come in sometime in the next couple of days and fill out an application? While you're here, we can sit down and talk about the job,” I said.
"I could make it in the day after tomorrow,” he said.
"That would be perfect."
After the phone call, I made some coffee for when Mitch arrived. It was probably a little late in the day for strong coffee, so I used a little magic to temper the energizing effects of his favorite dark roast. We had a few De-Stress Donuts left too, so I put them on a plate. He could eat what he wanted here and take the rest.
I waited out in the front of the shop until Mitch appeared outside the door. When he arrived, I unlocked the door and let him in.
"I'm going to get us some coffee,” I said as I locked the door behind us. "Have a seat wherever you like."
"It's a little late for it, but that dark roast smells incredible,” he said.
"I don't think one cup with hurt,” I said.
"No, I imagine it won't,” he said and narrowed his aquamarine eyes.
Something was up. He was looking at me like he was trying to figure me out. It was a strange feeling being dissected by such a handsome man.
"I'll be right back."
When I came back, I had a tray with the coffee mugs and plate of donuts. Mitch blew out a breath and ran his hand through his auburn hair.
"What's in these?" he asked.
"The usual donut stuff,” I said with a shrug. "Why?"
"Yours are so much better than any other donuts I've eaten. They always make my shift easier."
"Thank you for the compliment."
"It's more than that," Mitch said. "There are things you're not telling me."
"I don't..." I had to change the subject fast because I sensed he wasn't talking about the murder. "I asked you to come here because I wanted to talk about Garnet. I ran into her at the gas station today, and she was a little too happy that Marcel was dead. He humiliated her, you know. By calling her a liar and saying her story about the founder’s wedding being on the site of her bakeshop wasn't true."
"Well, that might add up with some of the evidence we found," Mitch said.
"Is that why you came to talk to me? Did you find evidence to clear me?" I asked hopefully.
"Unfortunately, it doesn't clear you, but it could mean that Garnet is a suspect too," Mitch said before taking a sip of his coffee.
"Why's that?"
"Because you're both witches,” he said flatly.
"What?"
"You and Garnet Guillory are both witches."
"How..."
"And the knife found in Marcel's back was oozing with black magic. It's the only reason the killer was able to stab him through all of the protection spells around him that night. The department is waiting on a spell expert to come to town and unravel the spells on the blade. Until then, we don't have any more leads to follow."
"How do you know all that? And if you know all of that, are you okay?" I asked.
"I was going over the evidence in the case, and I picked up the evidence bag with the knife in it. There was something like a jolt of electricity that tra
veled up my arm and into my brain. At first, I thought that I was having a heart attack or a stroke, but I felt fine after. I also had a new awareness of things around me that I'd never known existed before."
"Magic,” I said.
"Yes, and witches too. Some of my colleagues on the force are witches, and so are you,” he said with a tight smile. "You never told me."
"I didn't think you were ready,” I said.
"Would you have ever told me?"
There was something more to that question. He didn't really care that the woman who sold him coffee was a witch. He'd already begun to see me as more. At least, perhaps potentially more.
"Why would it matter if the woman who sells you coffee is a witch?" I deflected.
"Fern."
"I would have told you,” I said with a sigh.
"Before or after?" he asked.
"Before or after what?"
"Before or after you let me fall for you,” he said.
"I didn't know that was on the table."
"You don't..."
I cut him off. "Let's talk about the case for now. Patrick was the last person I know of to see Marcel alive. He's the one that came down and asked me to take the wine to Marcel. He wanted to take over the Medium Association. Maybe he killed him and set me up."
I hated to accuse someone without knowing for sure they were guilty, but what I was saying was entirely possible.
"We're looking into Patrick, of course," Mitch said. "But you have to stay out of this." He placed his hand gently over mine, and I felt a little jolt of electricity shoot up my arm. "You're still a suspect, and I don't want anything to happen to you."
Chapter Five
The next morning, I went in early to start working on a batch of my special brownies for a custom order. The brownies were laced with a spell to give the eater a boost of bravery, and they were one of my most popular items. They were especially helpful for people who had an important job interview or audition. The required a great deal of concentration to get just the right amount of bravery, though. Too much bravery magic, and people would be doing stupid things that could potentially be deadly. I'd never had a problem, but I'd heard stories of people doing everything from punching their boss to jumping off buildings. The guy who jumped off the building was wearing one of those parachute glider thingies. He didn't die, but he broke a few bones. I didn't want anyone to get hurt, so I meticulously crafted the magic that went into the batch.
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