Love Can Be Murder Box Set

by Bond, Stephanie

  It was Jules who had put their business on the map a few months ago when the New Orleans Post had reported that Jules stopped by The Charm Farm on her daily walk and chugged a cup of Vigor Juice, claiming it made her feel like a spry ninety-nine-year-old again. The juice and smoothie bar, which Penny had hoped would appeal to tourists on their way to visit the Instruments of Death and Voodoo Museum next door, had become an overnight sensation.

  The article in the Post had also caught the eye of a New Orleans celebrity chef, Ziggy Hines, who was looking for a source for unusual herbs and spices. Shortly after the article had run, he had arrived at The Charm Farm unannounced, sporting his tall chef's hat. After much nodding and humming, he had bought every ginseng root and cinnamon fern fiddlehead that woodsman Jimmy Scaggs had foraged for Penny, plus all the fresh sulfur shelf and dried porcini mushrooms she'd had on hand, with an order to call him the minute she had more. Word had spread like warm cocoa butter, and soon professional chefs and fledgling gourmets from all over had made The Charm Farm a buying destination, all thanks to the ball that Jules had started rolling.

  "Good morning, Jules," Marie said.

  "Bonjour, ladies," Jules said, her voice warbling, but strong. She was a wrinkled slip of a woman, dressed in jeans, a flannel shirt, and white Adidas high-top athletic shoes. Time had robbed the centenarian of every feminine characteristic; her creased face, narrow figure, gnarled hands, and baritone speech were all androgynous. As she climbed up on a stool and leaned her intricately carved walking stick against the counter, she appeared more mythical than human. "I came for my morning elixir."

  "Coming right up," Marie said.

  Jules slanted her chin toward Penny. "Don't you own the house across the rue?"

  Penny could follow Cajun expressions as long as they were in context. "I used to. But now it belongs to my ex-husband, Deke Black."

  "Is he blind?"

  "Pardon me?"

  Jules tapped her temple. "I said, is the man blind? Must be, considering the godawful color he's painting that poor house. There should be a law against uglying up the town like that."

  "There is," Marie said, pulling a lever to dispense a greenish liquid into a glass. "But when your mama is mayor, laws don't apply."

  "I know who his mama is." Jules snorted, then took the glass that Marie extended, leveling her vibrant gaze on Penny. "How come you and that Deke Black to split up?"

  Penny hedged with a little smile. "Our marriage had run its course."

  "He was fucking around on you, was he?"

  Penny blinked. "Well—"

  "Yes," Marie declared.

  Jules swirled the liquid in her glass. "Fils de putain."

  "Son of a bitch," Marie explained, grinning.

  "Want me to put a hex on him?" Jules asked.

  "Yes!" Marie said excitedly.

  "No," Penny said, giving Marie a stern look.

  Marie pouted. "Oh, come on—get into the spirit of the festival."

  "Thanks anyway," Penny said to Jules with a little laugh.

  Jules looked disappointed, then raised the glass of fibrous Vigor Juice. "To the old days, when women had a remedy for cheating men."

  Her mind churning, Penny watched as the woman chugged the vitamin-packed liquid.

  Jules sat the empty glass on the counter, wiped her mouth on her sleeve, then heaved a satisfied sigh. "Guess I'd better be going. Thanks for the tipple."

  "Um, Jules," Penny said, her curiosity burning a hole through her common sense, "what did you mean when you said 'a remedy for cheating men'?"

  Jules grinned. "In my day, when a man got out of line, the wife put the voodoo on him as punition."

  "As punishment," Marie whispered.

  "Put the voodoo on him?" Penny asked.

  Jules leaned in, her aged eyes flashing with an eerie light. "You know—put a hex on him. Before long, the woman's problem was solved. You should think on it."

  A chill skittered up Penny's back, sending goose-flesh over her arms. "But Deke Black isn't my problem anymore. I'm over him."

  Jules studied her until Penny felt jittery, as if the woman could see into her soul and see what a big, fat liar she was. Finally, Jules shrugged her frail shoulders. "Whatever you say."

  "Are you going to stay in town for the festival, Jules?" Marie asked.

  The old woman made a face. "No. Bunch of fools playing with black magic—they'd better watch themselves. Voodoo is not for amateurs." Jules pushed away from the counter, then gathered her walking stick and reached in her pocket to withdraw a leather change purse.

  "Put your money away, Jules," Marie said. "Penny gave you a lifetime supply of Vigor Juice on the house, remember?"

  Jules chuckled, then lifted a crooked finger in Penny's direction. "You're going to be surprised when I'm still coming in here twenty years from now."

  Penny laughed, although it came out sounding a bit strangled because she half-believed the woman.

  Then Jules's eyes constricted and she appeared to turn inward, as if she were remembering back...or maybe remembering forward. "In fact, a lot of people around Mojo are going mourir before me."

  Penny looked to Marie for translation.

  Marie swallowed, then whispered. "To die."

  "Some of them soon," Jules added.

  At the hoarse intensity of the woman's prediction, Penny's pulse picked up. She exchanged a wide-eyed glance with Marie, then she hugged herself, feeling silly, as the old woman turned to go. Jules loved to scare people with her stories of the supernatural. "See you tomorrow, Jules."

  "Bon Dieu willing," the woman said, throwing up her hand.

  "Jules," Marie called, "we have a new juice to improve your sex drive—want to try some?"

  Jules cackled. "Mr. Fielding is only allowed one conjugal visit a week at the nursing home. I don't want to kill the man." The old woman was still laughing as she left.

  Penny looked at Marie, her mouth open in disbelief. "No way."

  Marie pursed her mouth and nodded. "Yep. My cousin Eddie is an orderly at the nursing home and says that Jules shows up like clockwork on Tuesday afternoons to get it on with Mr. Fielding."

  Penny grimaced. "So you're telling me that a one-hundred-nine-year-old woman is getting more action than I am?" Too late, she realized she'd told on herself.

  Marie held out her hand and fluttered her fingers. "You owe me ten dollars."

  "Okay, okay, you'll get your money." Penny rubbed her hands up and down her arms, trying to dispel the peculiar chill that had settled into her pores. She needed to turn on the heat. "Marie...you don't really believe all that stuff about hexes, do you?"

  Marie shrugged. "Why not? Lots of people do. I've told you how many people come in asking for voodoo dolls. We could probably sell a thousand this weekend alone!"

  Penny frowned. "People can buy all they want at the souvenir shop at the Voodoo Museum. And there will be booths full of them on the square."

  "Some people don't want the ones made in Taiwan. They're looking for the real ones made out of human hair and tar."

  Penny shook her head. "Well, they won't find them here. I don't believe in all that hocus-pocus, and I refuse to promote it."

  Marie gave a wry laugh. "Just remember that the power of suggestion is a tremendous force." She nodded pointedly toward the glass of "love potion" juice Penny had abandoned, then picked up an empty cardboard box and headed toward the stockroom.

  Penny nodded thoughtfully, then picked up the glass of juice, staring into the clear yellow liquid. Marie was right—it was time she started getting on with her life...and her sex life. She had allowed Deke to destroy her confidence and her libido, while the pink house was a public symbol of his prowess—and rejection. In a sudden burst of defiance, she lifted the glass to her mouth and drained it. Inexplicably, the image of a long-limbed, dark-haired man in a brown leather jacket and faded jeans came to mind, but she pushed it away.

  The last thing she needed in her life was another man connected t
o Sheena Linder.

  She rinsed the glass. At a sudden tingling on her tongue, she swallowed hard and looked over her shoulder to see if Marie was still occupied. She was. Penny wet her lips and tiptoed through the vitamin room into the bedroom she had turned into her personal office. She stared at the locked bottom drawer of her desk, her mouth watering now. The stress was making her weak.

  She shouldn't...she couldn't. The door chime sounded, announcing a customer. Penny exhaled, grateful for the distraction. She wouldn't. For now.

  Chapter Three

  A pinch of revenge...

  AS PENNY WALKED TOWARD the entrance of the store, she heard a man call, "It's only me!" She smiled when Guy Bishop came into view. He had been working for her since the store opened. He kept the books, helped her find vendors, and dealt with salespeople. Although Guy was nearing forty, he could pass for a college youth, dressed as he was in slim corduroys and an untucked button-up shirt. His hair was blond, gelled, and lofty, his funky wire-rimmed glasses sparkling clean. He was buff and handsome and everyone in town seemed to know that Guy was gay...except Guy. He'd had several long-term relationships with gorgeous, cosmopolitan women who lived in nearby New Orleans, but for one vague reason or another, the relationships had seemed to...peter out. Still, Penny humored Guy when he exhibited uber-hetero behavior and didn't comment on the more feminine manners that seemed to leap out of him involuntarily.

  "Good morning, Guy."

  He stopped and angled his head. "Have you seen the train wreck happening across the street?"

  She nodded, biting her tongue.

  He sighed. "It looks like a decorating reality show gone bad."

  She attempted a nonchalant shrug. "Maybe we can use it in our advertising—Located Across from the Tacky Pink House."

  He pursed his mouth, nodding. "I like that."

  Marie stuck her head out of the stockroom. "Guy, are you coming to the party at Caskey's tonight?"

  "Won't Caskey's be packed with the festival crowd?"

  "We have a private room reserved."

  "Oh. Well, is it okay if I bring a date?"

  "Sure."

  "Great. I met this new babe named Carrie." He grinned sheepishly. "We've only gone out a couple of times, but I think she might be the one. She's really hot, was first runner-up in the Miss Louisiana pageant a couple of years ago."

  Penny avoided looking at Marie. "That's...great. But are you sure that you want to bring her to a divorce party?"

  His eyebrows climbed. "Why not? Are you planning to do something cheesy, like have half-naked guys dancing around?"

  "No," Marie said.

  His disappointment was apparent. "Oh. Well, then everything should be fine. It's just a regular party, right?"

  "Ask Marie," Penny said, pointing. "She's the organizer."

  "It's not just a party," Marie declared. "It's to celebrate Penny's liberation. She's a single woman again!"

  "She is?" a man's voice said behind them.

  Penny startled, then turned to see Jimmy Scaggs, the man who sold her goods he scavenged from the woods, standing inside the door, wearing brown camouflage gear. It wasn't the first time he had managed to slip in without triggering the door chime.

  "Jesus," Guy said sourly. "Sneak up on people, why don't you?"

  Jimmy grinned. "It's what I do best, Gay."

  Guy scowled. "My name is Guy."

  "Jimmy," Penny said to intervene, "do you have something for me today?"

  He smiled at Penny and removed his hat, revealing long, flattened hair. "Yes, ma'am."

  She gestured to the dry sink along the wall. "Why don't you show me?"

  Jimmy Scaggs was a wiry, rawboned man of indeterminate age. He lifted a green canvas sling bag over his head and walked to the area where he always showed her his finds. Jimmy wet his thin lips. "Did I hear right—that you're...single now?"

  Penny hesitated. The man had nice teeth and interesting, if spooky, pale blue eyes, and underneath the layer of perpetual dust he might be a passably good-looking man. But Jimmy Scaggs took the survival gig just a little too far for her comfort level. "Um, yes. I'm divorced. Did you bring more ginseng?"

  "Yeah, a couple with interesting shapes." He spread out several orange-brown roots and picked out one about five inches long that looked like a human leg. "Some people say the root will cure the part of the body it most resembles."

  "Is that so?" Penny asked, noticing that despite the dirt caked beneath the man's fingernails, he had well-shaped hands.

  He nodded and picked out another root that was the size of her palm and shaped remarkably like a human heart. "I brought this one for you," he offered gently. "Your ex is a no-good polecat, running around with that nasty Sheena Linder."

  Penny bristled at the personal topic and raised her gaze to his. A mistake, she realized, when she saw affection shining in his eyes. "Thank you, Jimmy, but actually, Toby Madeer was in last week asking for ginseng. He lost his wife over the summer and he's still in a bad way. I think he could grind up this root and use it more than I."

  Jimmy stared at her for a few seconds, then something akin to frustration flashed in his eyes. "Whatever you say, Miss Penny."

  She smiled. "I'll buy all of these. Did you bring anything else?"

  "Some oyster mushrooms," he said, lifting them out of his bag and spreading them on the table.

  Penny nodded. "I'll take them. Anything else?"

  He scratched his temple. "Got any interest in truffles?"

  Penny's eyes went wide. "Truffles? You mean the underground kind?"

  He nodded.

  "But truffles grow only in the Pacific Northwest and in France."

  "And here " Jimmy said with a mischievous smile.

  Penny gave a little laugh. "How is that possible?"

  Jimmy leaned in closer and lowered his chin. "My granddaddy was a Frenchie and knew something about truffles. He started messing around with growing them when I was just a boy—even if they catch in the ground, it takes ten years or so before they're ready to harvest." He made a rueful noise. "Granddaddy died a few years back, but I've kept watch over the area. Trained my dog Henry to sniff 'em out."

  He opened his hand to reveal two dark lumps of what looked like large animal droppings, but their fishy pungency wafted through the air. She had never seen a whole black truffle before—just precious shavings over pasta or baked in puff pastry. She carefully picked up one of the spongy lumps and knew instantly that she was holding gold. "H-how many do you have, Jimmy?"

  "Probably a pound or so. And there's more where they came from."

  She felt giddy. "Let me make a phone call." As she made her way back to the office, she glanced over to see Marie and Guy both tending to the first customers of the morning. She closed the door to her office, checked her Rolodex, and dialed the number for Ziggy's in New Orleans, her pulse clicking higher. When a woman answered on the second ring, Penny identified herself and asked for Ziggy.

  "Chere, Penny! How are you?"

  "I'm fine, Ziggy. I called to see if you would be interested in homegrown truffles."

  "Grown where?" he asked, sounding dubious.

  "According to my woodsman, right here in Mojo."

  He made a dismissive noise. "That's impossible."

  "That's what I thought...until he showed them to me. It's possible to grow them commercially, right?"

  "Yes, but the conditions have to be perfect, and even then it's iffy. Are you sure they aren't morels?"

  She held up the truffle between forefinger and thumb. "I've only seen pictures, but they look like the real thing to me, Ziggy."

  "What color?"

  "Black."

  He was silent for several seconds, but Penny could hear the wheels turning in his head...or maybe it was his saliva glands pumping. "How much of these homegrown truffles does your man have to sell?"

  "A pound."

  "Bon Dieu. Is he trustworthy? People have been known to dye cheap Chinese truffles and try to pass them
off as authentic black ones."

  "That's not how this guy works," Penny said. "But if you're not interested, I'll call someone else—"

  "Okay, okay." He sighed dramatically. "I'll come up and take a look at these so-called truffles. What time do you close?"

  "Six p.m."

  "I'll be there just before six."

  She frowned. "Won't that cut it close for you getting back for the dinner hour?"

  "There's a water line break on our street—it's chaos here and we can't open tonight. The city is trying to put me out of business!" Ziggy cleared his throat delicately. "And Penny...just in case there is some truth to these homegrown truffles, let's keep this between you and me and your woodsman, shall we?"

  She smirked. "For now, Ziggy. But I can't make any long-term promises."

  He grunted and hung up.

  Penny laughed, then hurried back to Jimmy, who stared warily at the activity around him. The man was antisocial and a bit of a conspiracy theorist. She leaned in and whispered, "Jimmy, I have someone coming from the city to look at the truffles. Do you trust me enough to leave them with me?"

  He withdrew a bulging cheesecloth sack and handed it to her. "I trust you."

  She smiled. "I'll check the Internet for market prices and get you the best deal I can."

  He nodded. "Thank you kindly."

  "Meanwhile, I'll pay you for the other items." She weighed the ginseng and oyster mushrooms and jotted figures in a notebook.

  Two more customers had arrived, including Steve Chasen, a clean-cut guy in his twenties who worked as a paralegal in Deke's office and who dropped in occasionally to get a fruit smoothie. Penny didn't completely trust the man, and from the probing nature of his questions, she'd sometimes wondered if Deke had sent him to spy on her...although admittedly, that could have been a manifestation of her fantasy that Deke cared what she did.

  She also suspected that Steve had a crush on Marie, although the young woman seemed to have nothing but disdain for the man who looked as if he'd been scrubbed with a brush and spit-shined. Steve waved, and Penny smiled hello. Voices buzzed, and the smoothie machine whirred busily in the background.