by Tegan Maher
She turned back to me. "What?"
"I found out Hank was poisoned with belladonna. Specifically, the berries. I caught a peek of the autopsy report when Hunter was out of his office and, based on what they found in his stomach, my guess is they were baked into a mixed-berry pie." I sighed. "I doubt Anna Mae even knows what belladonna is, and I don't know where she would get it if she did. Do you know anybody?"
She hovered back over the chair again and rubbed her chin. "I can't think of anybody at all. Most of us stopped growing it decades ago. There's just no reason to use it, even in potions." She pursed her lips. "I'll think on it, but nothing comes to mind right off the bat. I'm sorry."
I felt like somebody let all the air out of me. "It's okay. I figured it was a long shot."
Aunt Adelaide gasped and popped up from her chair so quickly that if she'd been solid, it would have tipped over. "Wait—did you say it was mixed-berry pie?"
I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye as I put the groceries away. I didn't understand why the type of pie mattered. "Yeah. Strawberries, raspberries, and belladonna berries, which would have looked like blueberries. Why?"
She had a huge smile on her face. "Unless we have a bakery here that sells belladonna-berry pies, Anna Mae didn't kill Hank."
Chapter 21
I dropped the flour on the counter and spun to give her my full attention. "What? Why do you say that?"
She had her arms crossed and was shimmering with excitement. "Because," she said, "I know for a fact Anna Mae Doolittle is deathly allergic to strawberries.”
"Are you absolutely sure?" I began to pace, trying to figure out a way to tell Hunter this without admitting I'd looked at the report.
"Positive," she declared. "I hosted the church summer camp out here a couple of times back when we had the boarding license. The kids always brought a packed lunch from home, and poor Anna Mae switched sandwiches with her friend once. It had strawberry jam on it."
She paused with a faraway look on her face. "Within just a few minutes, she couldn't breathe. Luckily, I kept an epi pen in the first aid kit or else I'm afraid she would have died before we could get her to the hospital. We found out later that she can't even touch them without getting a nasty rash."
My mind was going a mile a minute. I was going to have to come clean to Hunter so he could cut Anna Mae loose.
I picked up my phone and called him but it went straight to voicemail. Frustrated, I grabbed my keys and ran out the door. I'd just made it to the outskirts of town when my phone began playing "Kryptonite," the ringtone I used for Raeann.
I hated to blow her off, so I pulled over and answered. "Hey, I can't talk right now. I'm in the truck and I need to get to the courthouse to talk to Hunter."
"Oh. Well then, the courthouse isn't where you want to go; he's here. Want me to have him wait?"
"Absolutely. I'll be there in five. Bye."
I swung into a spot in front of the shop and jumped out of the truck almost before it came to a complete stop. The closed sign was already in the window, so when I burst through the door, the only two people there were Raeann and Hunter.
"Hey, Noelle. Raeann said you needed to talk to me."
I bit my lip and swallowed hard. How mad was he going to be when he found out that I'd looked at the file? It didn't matter; Anna Mae's freedom was on the line, so I'd just have to bite the bullet and let the chips fall where they may.
"Yeah. I uh ... you're probably not going to believe this, but when you left your office today while I was there, when you pushed the door shut, the top sheet of paper—the coroner's report—blew off your desk. When I went to pick it up, one specific item caught my eye, and I read part of the report."
I waited for him to blow up. His set his jaw and his expression turned stony. "I left the room for five minutes and you went through a confidential file? Even after I'd specifically told you I wasn't ready to share the information with you?"
I sighed and shifted my weight. He looked livid.
He raked his hand through his hair and glared at me. "Okay, given the massive breach of trust here, I assume there's a reason you're confessing?"
"Yes. There is. I'm sorry if you feel like I breached your trust—I swear to god that wasn't my intent—but I'm not sorry I saw it, because you have evidence right in that report that proves Anna Mae is innocent. Or at least unless she really reached around her elbow to scratch her butt in order to poison him."
Had the situation not been so serious, the look on his face would have been comical.
"Okay, I didn't understand half of that, but the half I did get is that you feel there's something there that would exonerate Anna Mae. May I ask what it is?"
I blew out a breath. I had a feeling that the issue of my nosiness was only tabled, not forgiven.
"The stomach contents listed ingredients that led me to believe the actual vehicle used to poison him was mixed berry pie. It had the chemical compounds for flour, cornstarch, butter, and then of course strawberries, raspberries, and belladonna berries, which, in case you don't know, look a lot like blueberries." I paused to take a breath.
"I'm listening." He was, but he didn't look happy about it. He had his arms crossed and was standing with his feet shoulder-width apart. And, of course, he was frowning and his eyes were practically shooting laser beams at me.
"So, if that's the case, then Anna Mae didn't do it. Obviously, the pie was homemade; you can't exactly swing by Walmart and pick up a belladonna fruit pie. But she's so allergic to strawberries that she can't even touch them. There's no way she made that pie."
"Maybe she wore gloves."
"That makes no sense. Why wouldn't she have just made a 'blueberry' pie with the belladonna berries? Sure, they're bitter, but he would have only have had to take a couple of bites for it to be lethal. And for Hank—pig that he was—a couple of bites would have been close to an entire piece."
He was relaxing his stance, but he was still suspicious. "Maybe she did, and he just at some fresh strawberries and raspberries."
I rolled my eyes. "Hank never ate anything healthy unless it was covered in sugar, ranch dressing, or bacon. C'mon. What did the coroner postulate?"
He looked down at his feet and grumbled, "Mixed-berry pie."
"Okay, then. Combine her allergy with the fact that her house was ransacked and I think you pretty much have to admit she's looking less and less like a suspect."
Hunter ground his teeth together, but conceded. "All right. I'll follow up with her doctor to confirm the allergy, and if it's true, I'll release her."
He opened his mouth to say something else, but snapped it shut and stomped toward the door.
"Hunter, wait—"
He turned back toward me and the look on his face was thunderous. "No, Noelle. I'm not waiting. There's nothing to say. Just ... leave it." He stomped out the door and the little bell above the door jangled twice, then fell silent.
Well. That was that, then. Tears pricked the back of my eyes and I fought to swallow the lump in my throat.
Raeann rushed around the counter and pulled me into a hug. "Aww, honey, bless your heart; that was an impossible situation for you. He'll understand that and come around. Right now, he's just got a whole lot on his plate, and feels like the one person he was actually starting to trust in this town betrayed him. Once he calms down and has a chance to chew on things for a minute, he'll be fine. I know it."
I hugged her back. "I sure hope so. I honestly didn't mean to be nosy. It's just—it was there. When it slipped onto the floor face up, my eyes just scanned it. And what was I supposed to do? Nothing? I can't do that; belladonna is a witch thing, which puts him completely out of his element."
She pulled back from me. "No matter what, don't you feel bad for trying to help somebody. There's no such thing as a coincidence in a witch's life. That paper blew off the desk for a reason; you were meant to see it. You and I both know it, and for now, that's good enough."
She nodded her head
once and handed me a tissue. "Now, help me close up and we'll go see if Anna Mae needs a ride home."
I waited in the car while Raeann went in to fetch Anna Mae. When they came out, she rushed over and hugged me.
"Oh Noelle—Raeann here was just telling me what you did. Thank you so much! And thank you for the ride, too. I was just fixin' to call Hank's folks, but I really don't think I could stand ridin' in a car with them right now. Those people wear me plumb out."
I hugged her back, then made a show of opening the passenger side door and motioning her in. "I'll even give you shotgun to celebrate your newfound freedom. We were going to hire a limo but the only one available on such short notice was Ricky Holly's Just Married Love Limo, and we thought that might be a tad inappropriate given the circumstances."
She giggled. "Yeah, but it sure would have set tongues wagging." Her mood shifted, and she looked down at her hands. "Not that I'm not already the talk of the town, I'm sure."
Raeann reached over from the driver's side and squeezed her hands. "Aww, Anna Mae, everybody with a lick of sense knows you didn't do it."
She heaved a sigh. "I know that in my heart, but I can't help but feel like a bug under a microscope."
The ride to her house didn't take long and we made idle chit-chat, avoiding any mention of her current situation. When we pulled into her drive, I couldn't help but admire the view. It curved in such a way that the house wasn't visible from the road. Grand oaks lined the road and met overhead, forming a leafy canopy.
Little splashes of sunshine dappled the road were relaxing and by the time we pulled up to her front door, her mood was lighter. When she unlocked the door and let us in, I was a little surprised to see that it was pristine.
"Wasn't your house trashed, too?"
"Yeah, but Mama Doolittle called for a cleaning service. She said there wasn't much damage; it just looked like somebody was lookin' for somethin'. They decided to stay at the Holiday Inn though, because she was afraid they'd come and molest her in her sleep."
I snorted at the visual. "I think she's probably safe."
For the first time, Anna Mae actually smiled. "Yeah. Me too, though I'd never say that to her. The woman is terrifying. I'm not gonna lie—I'll be glad when the funeral is over and they'll be out of my life. They're like a cross between the Gottis and the Addams family."
She dropped her purse on a marble entry table in the foyer and kicked off her shoes. Raeann and I toed ours off too and followed her through to the kitchen. Like the rest of her house, it was done in light colors with pops of color added strategically throughout.
"Do y'all want a glass of wine? I know I'm gonna have one. Or three."
After the day I'd had, wine sounded like a fabulous idea. She poured us each a glass and we headed out to the veranda to enjoy it. White wicker chairs with red-checkered cushions sat around a matching table.
She sat down, pulled a foot up underneath her, took a sip of wine, and sighed. "Wow. I was afraid I was never going to do this again. Thank you again, Noelle."
"It was my pleasure, Anna Mae. Now we just have to find out who really did it."
"Well tonight, all we have to do is drink a glass of wine or two and enjoy the air and the freedom," she said, raising her glass.
I shot Shelby a quick text to let her know where I was, then settled back into the chair. Ann Mae had a great garden in the back filled with a wide variety of plants and flowers that created a calliope of colors. She had a fountain right in the middle of it all and the sound of the water hitting the rocks was soothing.
We talked for a little bit about nothing, then after the first glass of wine, we started reminiscing about our high school days.
We'd already killed one bottle and were halfway through another when Raeann voiced the question everybody in Keyhole Lake had been wondering about for years.
"I don't mean to hurt your feelings, and I know you're probably grievin', but why on earth did you stay with him all these years?"
Her eyes misted a little. "I wasn't stayin' with him per se, Raeann. I was stayin' with all of this." She motioned to the house and the gardens.
"I built this into a home—my home. He wasn't even here most of the time, and when he was, we slept in different rooms. I was just an arm piece to him, but that's okay, because he was just a meal ticket to me. I figure after putting up with him for all these years, I wasn't gonna walk away from it without a pot to piss in."
She paused to empty her glass. "I knew just enough about him to have him where I wanted him. I told him he wasn't layin' a hand on me after he slept with that white-trash gypsy stripper, and we came to an arrangement."
Knowing all that, I suddenly understood. In a town like Keyhole, she really wouldn't have had anywhere to go. Most of Hank's money was off the books so she wouldn't get hardly anything in a divorce, and he had enough power that she probably wouldn't have been able to find a place to live even if she did manage to get a job.
She found a way to make her situation work and I couldn't find it in me to look down my nose at her for it.
Out of nowhere, she giggled. "Are you girls willing to help me do somethin' I've been dying to do for ages?"
Raeann and I looked at each other and shrugged.
"Sure thing." Raeann answered. "What're we doing?"
"We're gonna take that god-awful moose head down. That thing's been uglyin' up my livin' room for almost a decade and I swore the day he took his dyin' breath, it was gonna be the first thing to go."
She had cathedral ceilings and the top of beast was nine feet or so up the wall. We each grabbed a kitchen chair. Now that I was paying attention to it, I could see why she thought it was so creepy. The glassy eyes seemed to follow you wherever you moved, and the tongue was sticking out.
Rae and I situated our chairs on either side of it and Anna Mae stood front and center. We all reached up and shoved it up a bit, expecting it to be hanging from screws or wires. Instead, I about fell off my chair when the thing finally gave and swung away from the wall like a door.
It swung so fast it darn near knocked Raeann off her chair. She squealed and found herself dangling from the antlers as she fought to regain her balance. I was too busy staring at what was on the wall behind it to even try to catch her.
The late afternoon sun glinted off the stainless-steel dial of a safe door that was about three feet wide by three feet tall.
Rae and I climbed down and looked at each other, then at Anna Mae.
She stared at it for a few seconds, then growled and threw her hands on her hips. "Leave it to that sumbitch to hide the money in the one place he knew for sure I wouldn't look. Well joke's on his carcass," she hiccupped. "I figured out his combinations years ago; he uses the same numbers - his birthday - for everything. A perfect combination of his stupidity and arrogance."
We moved her chair forward and steadied her so she could work the dial. Within just a few seconds, she grabbed the handle and gave a yank. When the door swung open, we just stood there with our chins on the floor. There were at least twenty bricks of money, and that was just what we could see. She reached up and grabbed a stack of hundreds, and a little black book slipped off the top.
It slid across the floor with a soft hiss and came to rest beside the couch, the worn black leather a stark contrast to the gleaming white tile beneath it.
"Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit," Raeann breathed. "It does exist."
Chapter 22
I was the first to recover. "We need to call Hunter and tell him about"—I made a circular motion with my pointer finger—"all that."
Raeann moved closer to the safe. "How much do you think is there?"
I walked around to the stand beside Anna Mae, who was still rooted to her spot in front of the safe, just staring at the bundle of hundred-dollar bills in her hand. I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and about jumped out of my skin. I admit, I squealed like a little girl.
When I pivoted to see what it was, the moose "doo
r" was swinging a little bit. In profile, the creature looked even creepier, so I reached up and pushed the door a little wider so that most of it was completely hidden.
I was going to have nightmares about that thing eating me. Yes, I realized that moose—mooses? moosi?—don't eat people, but you would have had to see this thing to appreciate just how emotionally scarring stuffed antlered beings can be.
I touched her arm and she snapped out of her haze, though she was still staring at the safe like it was a combination of a brain-sucking alien and the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
"I don't know," she said. "I guess it depends on if all those stacks are hundreds."
She and Raeann pulled a chair closer so they could climb up and see, but I was more interested in the black book.
I leaned over to pick it up and was a little disgusted when I felt some sort of grease on the cover of it. Eww. The man was still managing to gross me out even after he'd been dead for several days.
I wiped my hand on my jeans, then flipped it open. Considering it had been locked in a safe full of cash, I was almost afraid to see what it contained. It only took one glance at the first page to knock my idea that it might only be a book of contacts right out the window.
At the top of each page was a name — yes, he was stupid enough to use full names as well as contact info. Beneath the name was a brief description of how he was extorting them, then the rest of the lines were divided in quarters, with two rows each of dates and amounts.
I flipped through the book, paying more attention to the reason and the dates and amounts than I did to the names. Some of these people had been paying him for years. I went back to the front and started focusing on the names.
Holy crap, was Hunter going to have his work cut out for him. There had to be at least forty names in the book—some I recognized, some I didn't. Hank's reasons for extortion ran from telling spouses about various nefarious activities to some real whoppers, such as some serious dirt on council members and even a couple of district judges.