Even so, she knew deep down that these plants hadn’t been the source of the belladonna that had poisoned Laura and the others.
She and Kali made their way back to the car. It wasn’t any easier going back than it had been coming up. If anything, the fact that Ember hadn’t learned anything definitive made her motivation sink, which in turn made the going all that much worse.
Now, all that was motivating her was the thought of a big, cozy blanket and a cup of sleepy tea.
Once they were safely back in the car, heading toward home, Kali spoke up. “Just because those plants weren’t tampered with, doesn’t mean that the others weren’t. The ones further in the swamp.”
“No,” Ember agreed. “Lyndsy might have chosen the ones further out because she knew the plants closer to the garden might be inspected once the cause of death was identified.”
“So we didn’t learn anything tonight?”
Ember shrugged. “I guess we learned that it’s a tiny bit less likely that Lyndsy killed those women.”
They were quiet a while. Ember knew they were both half-grateful at the thought that Lyndsey might not be guilty, after all. Ember liked Lyndsy, and Kali did too, even if she was a mundane human and Kali wasn’t allowed to speak around her.
But the question remained: if it wasn’t Lyndsy who killed all those people, then who else could it have been?
Sixteen
Late the next morning, Ember woke still feeling tired and sore from her adventures snooping around Lyndsy’s house the night before. She lingered a while in bed, watching the clock on her bedside table inch closer to the time she would need to depart for work, wondering if she should even bother opening up the pub today. It’s not like they would be getting enough customers to make it worth her while.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” Kali chided her, pouncing up onto Ember’s sternum in a way that knocked some of the breath out of her with a guttural oof. “Tell your staff they’ve got the day off, that you can handle the current customer stream yourself, and designate one of them--maybe not Lyndsy, all things considered--to be on call. Then pick yourself up and head into work.”
“And just hang around an empty shop all day? That sounds fun,” she said, but she knew she was being petulant. She was already shifting Kali off of her and onto the duvet and sitting up in bed.
“Bring a book,” Kali advised. “You know I have several recommendations to add to your to-read pile.”
Ember smiled. She’d already read more philosophy books at Kali’s suggestion than she could really wrap her mind around. Maybe it was time to revisit Lolly Willowes.
“And besides, I’m coming in with you,” Kali said. “Surely I’m company enough.”
The brunch hour wasn’t quite as dead as Ember expected. No one came in to eat, but she got a couple of takeout orders, and the countertop dessert and pastry stand was half-empty by the early afternoon. The customers who came in acted maybe a little cagey around her, and she definitely caught one of them taking a big sniff of the cheese and berry danish she’d bought before taking a bite, but a sale was a sale, and Ember couldn’t afford to be offended.
“Like she’d know what a poisoned danish smelled like, anyway,” Kali said irritably, slinking around from behind the bar when the door had closed behind that particular customer.
Kali mostly hid out away from sight when there were customers in the shop. Sometimes, she was feeling lazy enough not to bother, but Ember had asked her to be on extra good behavior today. She didn’t need to throw in trouble with the Louisiana Department of Health’s Retail Food Inspection office, not on top of the holdup with the liquor license, the dwindling customer base, and the murder investigation.
But neither of them noticed the door open again, not until a loud voice called out, “Is that a cat?”
Kali jumped and ran back to hide behind the bar again. Ember turned swiftly to the person who was just walking in.
It was Kara, taking off her sunglasses as she stepped in from the sunny light outside.
“Huh?” Ember asked, figuring if she played dumb Kara might think her glimpse of Kali was just a trick of the sudden change in light.
Kara pursed her lips, suspicious for a moment, then evidently let it go. Today she was dressed in an impeccable fuchsia skirt suit set, a matching bag dangling from her bent elbow. It was a windy day, but somehow not a single hair was out of place.
Kara pasted a big, phony, sympathetic smile on her face and walked up to Ember. “How’s it going around here? It’s usually a lot busier than this, isn’t it?”
Ember forced a tight smile. “Yeah, well.” Then, incapable of coming up with a good excuse, she echoed Sage’s hollow attempt from last night. “It’s a weekday.”
“I never have problems at my shop, even on a weekday,” Kara said breezily. “Then again, people have to drink! Though I guess they’re probably going to be drinking at home for a little while.”
“Guess so.”
“Since I saw your pub was closed up early last night?” She gave Ember a wide-eyed, sad-faced look that set Ember’s nerves on edge.
“What were you doing dropping by my pub last night?”
“Same thing I’m doing right now, of course,” she said, switching into sales mode just like that. “Truth is I’ve got a new brand of wine coming in that you will absolutely love. I thought you might start featuring it here as some kind of house option.”
Sounded like a big investment. More than Ember could afford right now, honestly. But Kara was like a pit bull with her sales--once she latched on it was hard to get her to let up.
“I don’t know,” Ember said, as casually as she could manage. “Now might not be quite the right time….”
“Oh, but it’s exactly the right time,” Kara interrupted. “Don’t you think a fun event like the launch of a new wine brand might be just what it’ll take to fill this pub right up again?”
Frankly, Ember thought the everyday residents of Cauchemar were less likely than Kara calculated to consider a new wine label debuting at their local pub was anything worth turning out in droves for. It took her a while of rebuffing Kara’s enthusiasm to get her to back off the idea. By the time she’d managed the onerous task, Kara was sniffing a little, clearly bitter.
“You know,” Kara said, looking around the Broken Broom with a curious sparkle in her eye. “Jeffrey mentioned that you might be having a little trouble with renewing your alcohol license? It would be a shame if your orders to my shop dried up.”
“Yes,” Ember said tersely. “It sure would.”
“You might not know this, but Jeffrey had been involved with Sheila. One of the women in the crash?”
“Sure, I knew.”
Kara stepped in and added in a conspiratorial tone, “But did you know that Jeffrey had tried to end it?”
Suddenly, Ember found herself very interested in Kara’s gossip. “He had?”
“Mmhmm.” Kara smirked, clearly pleased at Ember’s enthusiasm. “I heard she was essentially blackmailing him to keep going out with her. He was paying for her apartment, you see. She didn’t want to lose that good, lucrative little setup she’d got for herself.”
Ember wanted to ask more, but Kara’s phone chirped right at that second, and she looked down at it and rolled her eyes.
“Duty calls,” she said, popping her sunglasses on again and turning for the door. “You just let me know if you change your mind about that wine. I’ve sampled them all and I can tell you that they’re simply to die for.”
Seventeen
Since there was no one hanging around the pub, Ember decided to run out to grab a quick lunch. She phoned in an order at a little sandwich shop down the street, then locked up, hung the BACK IN 15 MINUTES sign, and went out for a little stroll, hoping to enjoy the sunshine.
There was a sweet, light smell in the air, and somewhere not far off birds were singing. Ember had always found downtown Cauchemar charming. It was just small-town enough to feel idyllic in
its little brickwork storefronts and light, vintage architectural flourishes, and was just country enough to feel vaguely pastoral, not to interfere with that gentle, buzzing power Ember felt when her magic was really connected to the land.
Ember tried to enjoy her walk, focusing on the things she loved about this town. However, it was a little hard to focus when she realized how many people were out and about. People she knew well, had known for years, were carefully avoiding her gaze, pointedly failing to provide the customary Southern wave of polite recognition.
The sandwich place she’d ordered from was full to bursting, bodies filling all the tables inside as well as the little round tables out front. Ember had to join the end of a long line to wait her turn to pick up her order.
The man who came up after her in the line was facing purposefully away, so it took Ember a moment to recognize him.
“Jeffrey,” she said, tapping his arm.
He recoiled like he’d been hit. She held up both her hands, a little startled at his reaction.
“It’s just me.” She tried a smile. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I wasn’t scared,” he objected, sniffing. “Hello, Ember.”
“Hey there,” she said. “Funny running into you right now. I was just thinking of checking in on you. Seeing how you’re feeling about everything that happened. I remember you said you were friends with the women who died.”
Ember knew better than to take Kara entirely at her word, but the information she’d provided that morning had piqued Ember’s interest. Could it really be true that Sheila was blackmailing Jeffrey into continuing to be romantically involved with her, as well as paying for her upkeep? If Ember could glean some hint that Kara’s story was true, that could be a powerful motive for murder.
“I believe I said I was acquainted with them,” Jeffrey said defensively. “Not exactly friends.”
“Still, you must be feeling sad about their deaths,” Ember offered. “If you ever wanted to come by the Broken Broom and talk about it, there’s a latte with your name on it. Or a beer. Depending on the time of day.”
Jeffrey looked a little softened, like he wasn’t expecting that sort of kindness from Ember, but just then someone else walked up, nearly fuming.
To Ember’s surprise, it was Lyndsy.
“Can’t you learn to leave well enough alone?” Lyndsy said, voice clipped and angry.
For half a beat, Ember thought Lyndsy was talking to Jeffrey, and she almost spoke up in Jeffrey’s defense. Then, she realized that Lyndsy was addressing her.
“I’m sorry?” she asked, confused.
“I think it would be better if you backed off Jeffrey, is all,” Lyndsy continued, crossing her arms tightly across her chest. “I know how desperate you are to clear your own name, but you shouldn’t go around accusing others.”
Oh. Ember realized this probably meant that, somehow or other, Lyndsy was aware of what Ember had spent last night doing, traipsing around Lyndsy’s garden for evidence that the belladonna plants on her property had been messed with.
Had Lyndsy’s mother told her about Ember’s earlier visit, and Lyndsy figured out what she was up to?
Or had she somehow caught Ember sneaking around even later on, in the dark?
She shouldn’t have used that penlight.
“I’m not accusing anyone,” Ember objected. She was aware that a handful of people in the shop, both seated at tables and standing in line, had turned their attention and were watching this altercation. She did her best to calm the energy down, taking a deep breath and then responding again more neutrally, “I was just offering Jeffrey here some consolation.”
“Yeah, right. Try that schtick on someone else. Jeffrey is smart enough to know what you were really up to. And neither Jeffrey nor I had anything to do with those deaths, you hear me?”
By this point, the line had advanced, and the clerk behind the counter called Ember up. She was eager to walk away from whatever was going on with Jeffrey and Lyndsy. Luckily, her sandwich was ready, so she didn’t have to linger any longer in the shop. She paid at the till and hurried out and back to the Broken Broom.
It had probably been more than fifteen minutes, all told, since she closed the pub up. She didn’t want to leave anyone waiting for her to reopen and risk deterring any potential customers.
Luckily--or unluckily, as it was--there was nobody waiting. The Broken Broom was the only shop on the main drag of Cauchemar on this fine day without a single customer.
As she let herself back into the pub, her mind traced and retraced what had just happened. Lyndsy had come up, seemingly out of nowhere, to defend Jeffrey against Ember. Ember hadn’t even been aware the two knew each other.
Had they been at the sandwich shop together? Or just happened to meet there?
She shared all of this information with Kali as she ate her sandwich at the bar. Kali listened, sniffing around the potato chips until Ember finally relented and opened the bag so Kali could crunch one happily between her teeth.
“You’re been thinking of them both as potential suspects in the murder,” Kali offered eventually, after Ember had gotten the entire story out. “Isn’t it possible they were working in concert together?”
Now that was a thought Ember hadn’t considered.
Eighteen
After lunch, Ember had decided this long early-afternoon lull would be a good time to go back over her books from the last few months. If she really could expect to have so few customers until the murder investigation ended and her name was cleared, she wanted to figure out exactly how long she could keep the place open on a shoestring budget.
She was coming to the depressing calculation that, so long as she stopped restocking pricey specialty coffee products and laid off every worker but herself, the Broken Broom might be able to last another month without going irrevocably into the red.
Ember was, predictably, feeling a headache coming on.
Then, she heard someone else in the pub, and she looked up hopefully. Even Kali at her feet perked up, eager for a customer to break the monotony of the day.
But it wasn’t a customer who appeared in and among the empty tables, but rather Talako.
“Was it better this time?” he asked when Ember looked up at him. “I tried not to appear so near to you because you said I frighten you.”
“A little better,” she said encouragingly, even though her heart rate had spiked at the first sight of him.
She wondered if it even was possible to get used to the sudden appearances of your ancestor ghost in your pub. It had been happening for years and she still never quite managed to handle it with the casual grace she’d like.
“It’s nice of you to come visit me,” she said with a smile, setting her account books aside gratefully. “Considering how dead this place is.”
Kali pricked Ember’s leg pointedly with one claw. Right, Ember thought, it might not be so polite to say that around a person who is actually dead.
Talako didn’t seem to notice, however. He smiled at Ember and drifted through the bar toward her.
“I have been doing my best to help you in your investigations,” he said.
“My investigations?”
He nodded. “Haven’t you been looking into the truth behind the recent tragic deaths?”
“Well,” Ember conceded, “I’ve been trying to clear my name. But Cedric asked me to keep my nose out of it.”
“Kali told me you were sneaking around in Lyndsy’s garden last night, trying to find out if she had been harvesting the belladonna on her property.”
Ember cut Kali an irritated look. “Have you been telling everyone that?”
Kali looked utterly unperturbed. “You were gone for a long time to get those sandwiches,” she said archly. “Talako dropped by. We chatted.”
“And I have done my best to occupy spaces where I might hear information that would be of interest to you,” Talako said.
“Well, judging by the fact that you�
�re here right now, I’m guessing you found something?”
Talako inclined his head. “Lyndsy’s mother was talking on the phone to a friend of hers, discussing her daughter’s predicament. Did you know that Lyndsy and Jake used to be involved?”
“Yeah,” Ember said, thinking back to the photographs at Jake’s place, then to the side of the story Lyndsy had given her. “A long time ago, according to Lyndsy.”
“Evidently, he had been pressuring her lately into becoming involved with him again,” Talako said. “She would repeatedly refuse him, of course. Her mother said that he had been abusive toward her, that when they were together he had only been interested in her for her body and hadn’t been dedicated to the relationship or to Lyndsy as a person.”
“That’s what Lyndsy said, too,” Ember replied, nodding. “I didn’t know he’d been pressuring her lately, though. What happened?”
“His pressuring behavior did not relent, and Lyndsy and her mother had been discussing taking out a legal restraining order against him. Lyndsy even threatened him with it.”
“Wow,” Ember said, sitting up straighter in her chair. “This is really helpful information, Talako. Thanks so much for spying for us.”
“There’s more,” Talako said gravely. “According to Lyndsy’s mother, between the harassment of Laura Hall and the others and Jake’s aggressive, stalking behaviors, Lyndsy had taken recently to seeing a therapist. She wasn’t well. She thought she was going mad, and Lyndsy’s mother was alarmed by some of the things her daughter was saying.”
“Things like what?” Ember asked.
“Like she wasn’t sure if she could take it anymore. Lyndsy’s mother was worried Lyndsy was going to harm herself.”
Ember and Kali exchanged a look.
“Or harm someone else,” Kali offered.
“Or several someones.”
“It did occur to me,” Talako remarked. “Lyndsy’s mother was saying that, although she was sad to hear of the death of those four particular people, she couldn’t help but appreciate that it had an immediate positive effect on Lyndsy’s mood. She hasn’t spoken in such a way since the murders happened.”
Dramatic Paws (Kitten Witch Cozy Mystery Series Book 1) Page 6