Some Enchanted clair : A Magical Bakery Mystery (9780698140561)

by Cates, Bailey

  Mungo shot out of the car.

  “Oh, sorry,” I said, assuming he had to use the lawn facilities. But he kept running frantically toward an azalea bush on the other side of the square. A squirrel’s tail twitched from the underbrush. “You little stinker,” I muttered under my breath.

  Shutting the door, I retraced my steps for what felt like the umpteenth time. When I got to the bush, my familiar was nowhere to be seen, however.

  “Mungo,” I called.

  Steve rounded the corner, still in full eighteenth-century regalia. “What’s wrong?”

  “Have you seen a Cairn terrier in the last few seconds?”

  He grinned and shook his head. “It’s not like he’s a runner. He’ll find you if you don’t find him.”

  “It’s not like him to take off at all, even after a squirrel, and I need to get back to the bakery.”

  “Do you want me to watch for him and bring him to you when he makes himself known?”

  I shook my head. “No. I wouldn’t feel good about that. I’ll find him soon.”

  “Okay. But I’m happy to help,” Steve said.

  “I know. Thanks.” And I did know. Steve had steered clear when Declan and I started getting serious, and then he’d pursued a platonic friendship because he wanted to be in my life. It had been a little awkward at first, but I wanted him in my life, too. Declan didn’t love the idea, but he wouldn’t presume to choose my friends for me.

  Steve continued on his way, and I went looking for Mungo. I finally spied him sitting near the relocated wardrobe tent Detective Quinn had made me wait in while he interviewed other, more important people after Simon’s murder. When I approached the little dickens, he threw a glance over his shoulder and trotted around the corner.

  I started to call for him when I heard voices inside. Rounding the edge of the canvas, I saw Mungo waiting for me in the opening. He came toward me, but when I reached down to pick him up, he ran back toward the tent with another backward look. Come on, he seemed to be urging.

  Something about his manner told me to be quiet. I slipped into the tent, recognizing the racks of clothing and hats, even the mannequin, which, though now dressed in a frumpy nightdress, still sported a slight dent in her cheek from our encounter the day before.

  And there, at the rear of the tent, stood Althea Cole, still wearing the elaborate peach satin gown. She was embracing a man with a neat blond ponytail, and in the dim light, I immediately thought of Steve. A pang of something arrowed through my solar plexus—concern? Wonder? Certainly not jealousy, I began to tell myself before realizing I’d just seen Steve, and he’d been in full costume down to the bow in his hair.

  Squinting, I could now see the man with his arms around the testy leading lady was taller than my friend by several inches, had a pale complexion, and wore casual shorts and a plain white T-shirt. His hair was a few shades darker than Steve’s, too.

  He looked up, and our eyes met over Althea’s shoulder. “Can I help you?” He sounded irritated.

  “Er, sorry,” I said, backing away.

  Althea stepped back from him, whirling to see who had interrupted her tryst. I was surprised to see something very like fear drawn across her features before she masked it with an imperious toss of her head and a slight sneer.

  “Don’t mind her,” she said. “She’s a bit of snoop, that’s all. And just leaving. Weren’t you, Miss Lightfoot?”

  I bit back a reply and bent to pick up Mungo, who watched our exchange with eager interest. “Indeed.” I gritted my teeth, gave her the widest smile I could manage, and said in a chipper tone, “I’ll see you later tonight, though!” I bestowed a vestige of my smile on her paramour and hightailed it back to my car with my familiar.

  “What was that all about?” I asked as I deposited him into the passenger seat. “Do you think Althea’s dalliance is relevant to Simon’s death?”

  Yip!

  “How so?”

  But my familiar only grinned his doggy grin and left me to mull over the possible answers.

  * * *

  Before I pulled away from the curb, I texted Declan: Hey, big guy. Have to get back to the Honeybee. Check in when you get a chance?

  He called as I was parking the Bug in the alley behind the bakery. “That was quick,” I said.

  “Hey, darlin’. I’d hoped to see you before you left.”

  “Sorry. I’ve been gone much longer than I expected and felt like I needed to get back.”

  “No problem. No one expected all that drama this afternoon. I wanted to see if I could take you out to dinner tonight, though. To make up for last night.”

  “Er . . .”

  “You’re not mad at me, are you?”

  “Oh, no. Of course not. But I kind of have plans for tonight,” I said.

  “Another date?” he asked, teasing.

  “Not exactly.” Should I tell him? Well, it wasn’t going to be a secret. “We’re having a séance at the house where the movie muckety-mucks are staying.”

  “A . . . You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. I figure if Ursula Banford is the real deal, then why not ask Simon himself who killed him?”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah. Crazy, huh?” I opened the back door of the Honeybee and carried Mungo, hunkered down in the bottom of my tote, through to the office. Lucy waved at me from where she was chatting with a customer at the register.

  “I don’t know that I like you going into that house by yourself,” Declan said. “Most of the people who live there are suspects.”

  “Don’t worry. Lucy is going to come, too, and she’s checking with the other members of the spellbook club to see who else can make it. I want lots of support, and even Ursula says the more energy she can draw on, the better luck we will have.”

  “What about me?” he asked.

  “What about you?”

  “Were you going to ask me to come with you?”

  “Honestly, I hadn’t thought about it,” I said. “I’m surprised that you’d even consider coming to a séance.”

  “Maybe it’s time I learn more about that part of your life,” he said. “And it’s not like you’re going to invite me to one of your spellbook club meetings, right? Not even Ben gets to go to those.”

  I had to give him credit for making the effort. “Do you really believe we can communicate with those who have passed on?” Ursula hadn’t said anything about participants needing to be believers, but it couldn’t hurt, right? Plus, I had to admit I was testing him a little.

  “I’ll do my best,” he said.

  That was good enough for me. “Okay, then. I’ll pick you up at your place at seven,” I said. “We can grab a quick bite and then head over to the house where the cast is staying. Festivities are slated to begin at eight thirty.”

  * * *

  I found Jaida and Mimsey seated at a bistro table by a front window.

  “I came back as soon as I was done,” Jaida said. “I want to hear more about this séance you have planned.”

  Mimsey beamed at me. “It’s an excellent idea, Katie.”

  Bianca came out from behind the espresso counter, scanning the Honeybee for customers. A couple sat next to each other on the sofa, heads together as they looked at something on the laptop screen between them. A dreadlocked dude rocked out silently to whatever was streaming through his earbuds, reading a copy of Khalil Gibran from the bakery’s library. In a far corner, a mother tended two little girls dressed up in lace and petticoats, bright patent-leather shoes on their swinging feet.

  No one paid us any mind, so I sat down as Lucy left the register and joined us. Quickly, I outlined the plan and gave everyone the address.

  “Declan wants to come, too, so I’m going to pick him up on the way,” I said.

  Lucy looked satisfied. “See. I told you he’d come ar
ound.”

  “He was never antimagic,” I said. “He just didn’t get it.”

  “Tonight could change that.” Jaida’s lips twitched. “If your psychic manages to reach the murder victim, that is. I’m still not convinced.”

  “Well, I’m not either, not all the way. But I can’t figure out why Ursula would try to hoodwink me, and heaven knows we understand there’s a lot more happening on this plane—and the next—than most people realize.”

  “True,” Bianca said. “And I’m willing to believe.”

  “That’s called faith,” Mimsey said with a decisive nod.

  Jaida shook her head. “It might be called something else. What if Ursula is the one who killed Simon? Then she’d have a good reason to try to misdirect you, Katie.”

  “Sure,” I agreed. “But telling someone they’ve been chosen to solve his murder sure isn’t the first step I’d take in that situation.”

  Jaida made a moue of agreement.

  I dropped my voice to a low murmur, and they all leaned forward so they could hear me. “Besides, someone must believe that Ursula can really talk to the dead, because it looks like she might have been the intended victim of the poisoned oatmeal cookies.”

  Exclamations at that. Lucy hadn’t had a chance to tell them that part of the story, so I caught them up. “But if that was the idea, then it only made her angry. She’s even more determined to go on with the séance.”

  “Good for her!” Mimsey said.

  Lucy’s head bobbed. “Let’s just go with it and hope. What’s the worst that could happen?”

  The spellbook club members looked around at each other. What indeed?

  “Just so you know, I don’t think Ursula knows I’m a witch,” I said. “Or that you are. Until we know more, we might want to keep it that way.”

  “Oh, poo,” Mimsey said with a wave of her hand. “A psychic isn’t going to care one way or the other.”

  Before I could respond, the door swung open, and Mrs. Standish burst in. “Helloooo, darlings! How are we this fine afternoon?”

  Lucy and I both came to our feet. “Fine and dandy,” I replied.

  “Twice in one day?” Lucy said. “You flatter us, my dear. Or perhaps you’re simply thirsty?”

  “Nonsense,” Mrs. Standish boomed. All the customers, including earbud man and the two patent-leather princesses, turned their heads toward us. “I simply must have two more of those Black and Tan éclairs. Samantha—my daughter, you know?—confiscated the last two from those I bought this morning. I’d been saving them to share with a friend of mine this afternoon, and as much as I love my darling girl, I still want those éclairs.”

  Lucy bustled behind the counter and shook out a bakery bag.

  “Can I get you any more whoopie pies to go with those?” I asked.

  “What? Oh.” She waved her hand in a gesture of dismissal. “No, thank you. I’ve had enough whoopie pies to last me for a while.”

  As she left, Lucy winked at me. “I have a feeling that any whoopee in Mrs. Standish’s future will not involve red velvet cake.”

  “Why, Lucy Eagel. You’re enjoying this matchmaking a little too much,” I said.

  “Not matchmaking, my dear. Only . . . facilitating.”

  Chapter 11

  At six thirty I packed up Mungo and took him over to Declan’s apartment. We left the little guy contentedly tucked into an afghan on the sofa to catch up on his soap operas. The house where the séance was to be held was within walking distance from Deck’s, but we didn’t want to rush supper at the casual and kitschy Toucan Café. He folded himself into the Bug with nary a complaint, his knees jutting up and his head almost brushing the roof of the compartment. My car was easier to park downtown than his extended-cab pickup, and as he put it, he was literally along for the ride.

  After a rib eye steak for Declan and the jerk tilapia for me, we motored the short distance to the address Ursula had given me. Given my aunt’s terrific parking karma, I wasn’t surprised to see Ben and Lucy’s baby blue 1964 Thunderbird convertible already squeezed into a convenient space, but I was surprised to see Ben get out of the driver’s side.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” I said, approaching and giving him a hug.

  “Declan told me about what you had planned for tonight, and Lucy said it would be okay if I came, too.”

  “Of course it is. I just didn’t expect, well—”

  “I know,” my uncle broke in. “But I’m willing to do whatever I have to in order to find this murderer. Believe me. I’ve seen your aunt pull off some pretty strange stuff—you, too—and I have to at least admit it’s possible that this might work.” He looked uncomfortable in his dress shoes and sports coat, and I wondered whether he’d ever enjoyed wearing his dress uniform or if over the last two years he had simply grown used to the freedom of retirement.

  Retirement—or whatever you called working at a bakery nine to ten hours a day.

  Lucy greeted me with her own hug as Bianca’s red Jaguar pulled up. A flushed Mimsey rolled out of the passenger seat. She was resplendent in a pantsuit of eye-popping yellow, white alligator pumps, a string of oversized pearls, and a yellow ribbon in her hair. Bianca swirled out of the driver’s side wearing a sleeveless watered-silk blouse, dark slacks, high-heeled gemmed sandals, and a row of silver bangles halfway up her forearm. Jaida arrived next, wearing jeans, a Stonehenge T-shirt, a black jacket, and knee-high boots.

  I had changed into a long skirt and silky tank top, and Declan wore a collared shirt and jeans. Yes, I decided, we were all dressed nicely enough for a visitation from the spirit of Simon Knapp.

  Squarish and tall, the house was three stories high, with three sets of windows on each floor. Those on the top floor were set back and smaller, as if the top layer of the cake had come out a bit smaller than the first two. Brick trim studded all the vertical corners and set off the creamy white exterior. Wrought-iron balconies outside the middle windows matched the fence that enclosed the small front yard. More iron, decorative spikes this time, ringed the flat roof and probably served to deflect the attentions of pigeons as much as anything.

  The building certainly gave off an effluvium of age, so much so that I felt sure it was an original antebellum home. Of course Simon wouldn’t have stinted on finding the best Savannah had on offer for his A. Dendum charges. It was quite beautiful, and certainly not the kind of place you’d find for rent on Craigslist. I guessed it was a private residence whose owners were off in St. Moritz or some such, and Simon had arranged with them for the cast to stay there.

  It couldn’t have been cheap, though, and the only people staying there were, as Niklas Egan had put it, “major players,” while the regular crew stayed at the Hyatt. It was a very nice hotel, of course, but nothing like this. I wondered whether this evident hierarchy between cast and crew was typical for film projects or specific to Love in Revolution.

  I hadn’t been in many true antebellum homes and looked forward to seeing the interior. Althea answered the door wearing a little black dress. Make that a tiny black dress, cut low on top and high on the bottom and cinched around her wispy waist with a wide magenta belt. It was further accessorized by glittering diamond studs in her ears, stiletto heels, and a goblet of red wine in her left hand. Her hair, which I had thought might be a wig, hung in luxurious tresses down her back.

  “Come in,” she intoned as if trying to emulate a female Vincent Price with a Deep South accent. Séance in the offing or not, it didn’t quite work.

  I glanced at Declan. His eyes sparked with amusement, and I barely managed to control my urge to giggle.

  Ben stepped forward. “Ms. Cole, I’d like you to meet my wife, Lucy.”

  Althea gave a regal nod. “Ms. Eagel.”

  “Lucy, please.”

  “Oh, my stars and garters, what a pretty girl you are!” Mimsey stepped forward before an
yone could introduce her. “Of course, I already knew that having seen every single one of your pictures, but you’re even lovelier in person!”

  Althea’s ice appeared to fracture.

  Mimsey barreled on. “You are just the nicest thing, too, to let us invade your home like this so we can have a little confab with Mr. Knapp. Just the most generous, sweetest thing ever.”

  Man, she’s laying it on kind of thick.

  But Althea loved it. Her prim little smile grew into a wide, genuine grin. “You are most welcome, my dear.”

  “I’m Mimsey.” She suddenly embraced Althea, who looked stunned for a moment before the older woman stepped back. In fact, I’m pretty sure we all looked stunned. “Mimsey Carmichael. Your passionflowers come from my florist shop. And this here is Jaida French.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Jaida said.

  “Sure. You, too.” Althea replied, more interested in the fawning Mimsey.

  “Hello, Althea,” Bianca greeted her. “I think you know everyone else.”

  The actress glanced at the rest of us, gaze lingering for a moment on me before moving on. “Mm-hmm. Well, come on in.” She stepped back and waved us inside.

  We stepped into a wide entryway, where a fountain trickled water from lily pad to lily pad. The sound was soothing, as was the indirect lighting that extended into the large open space. Indirect but bright, spilling from sconces, exploding from torchères, and sneaking from uplights hidden behind furniture and potted palms.

  Niklas Egan appeared at the top of the stairway to the right. He ran lightly down the steps, Van Grayson behind him. They were dressed designer casual, and both paused when they saw us.

  “Ah, the spiritualists have gathered already,” Niklas said. “We’d better vacate the premises ASAP unless we want to become ensnared in their silliness.”

  “Well . . . ,” Van said.

  “Poor Nik is jealous of those who believe in something beyond what can be seen with the naked eye,” Althea said in a frosty tone. “It must be difficult to get through life believing in nothing but your own ego.”