Witch School Dropout: A Witch Squad Cozy Mystery #7

by M. Z. Andrews

  “Mr. Bailey and Char decided that they were going to start easing into retirement when they got back from their honeymoon. Louis assumed that he would be the one to take over the management of the bakery, but they basically announced at the party that they were looking at Sweets for the managerial position, especially once Mr. Bailey fully retired.”

  Detective Whitman nodded, leaned forward and scribbled something down on his notepad. “I see. So with Mr. Bailey out of the way, Sweets would be the one to take over the bakery?”

  I made a face. I didn’t like the way he said that. As if Sweets was the one to gain something by Mr. Bailey being killed. I sat up straighter and tried to strain my neck to see what he’d written down without it being obvious that that’s what I was doing. “I guess,” I began hesitantly, “but Louis was the one that was upset with Mr. Bailey about it.”

  “But he really didn’t have anything to gain by killing Vic. In fact, he’s worse off now than he was before. Is that correct?”

  I wiggled around in my seat. “You don’t understand Detective Whitman. It’s not about what he was to gain, but it was about vengeance against Mr. Bailey for not giving him the managerial position.”

  “Mercy,” he said, leaning forward in his seat. “You know that Mr. Bailey died by magical means. Is Louis Albertson capable of performing magic?”

  “Well, not that I-I’m aware of,” I stumbled over my words.

  “But Sweets is, right?”

  “Well, yeah, but…”

  “And she’s actually considered a potion-maker, is that correct?”

  “Yes, she’s a potion-maker…”

  “I heard from your mother earlier that Char offered Sweets full-time employment at the bakery now that Mr. Bailey’s gone. Is that right?”

  “Y-yes…” Now my brain was befuddled.

  “But she goes to school full-time. How will she do both?”

  “Sh-she’s thinking about quitting school.”

  “Oh, she’s thinking about dropping out of school so that she can work full-time at the bakery.”

  My mind was swirling now. What was Detective Whitman getting at? Was he insinuating that perhaps Mr. Bailey’s death benefited Sweets the most?

  “Mercy, I’m just going to be honest with you and Vic. My men searched the bakery. Vic’s champagne was poisoned. We found unnatural substances in one of the glasses. I was told that Sweets was the one that insisted on having the party. I was also told that she was the one that ordered the champagne and decorated the champagne flutes.”

  “Detective Whitman! I don’t like where you’re going with this! Are you insinuating that Sweets had something to do with this?”

  He leaned back and lifted his shoulders ever so slightly. His face told me that that was exactly what he was insinuating.

  I sucked in a breath, narrowed my eyes, and pointed a long finger at the detective. “You don’t know Sweets then. She would never hurt Mr. Bailey. She loved him like a father!”

  “Mercy, we found a potion vial in Sweets’ apron, hanging up in the bakery. The ingredients of the vial match with the ingredients used to poison Mr. Bailey.”

  I sucked in my breath. “But surely you know that anyone could have planted that in Sweets’ apron. It was Louis, I’m sure of it.”

  “How about you Vic? Are you sure it was Louis, too, or do you think it could have been Sweets?”

  My hands shook as I looked down at the text message on Jax’s phone. “Mr. Bailey says it most certainly couldn’t have been Sweets or Louis. He doesn’t think either of them would have killed him. He says it’s ridiculous to say such things and you need to keep looking.”

  Sweets came out of the kitchen then. She didn’t even seem to notice the crazed look I had on my face or the way Detective Whitman could barely make eye contact with her. “Detective Whitman, I should have asked. Can I get you something to eat or drink? Or you, Mercy?”

  Detective Whitman and I exchanged a quick glance. Would a woman capable of killing Mr. Bailey be offering us food and drink out of the goodness of her heart? Does that seem like a cold-blooded killer to you? I wanted to scream at him.

  “No, I’m fine,” he said gruffly and then stood up. “Sweets, I’m going to need to ask you some questions.”

  Two hours later we found ourselves out in front of the Aspen Falls Police Department, waiting for Sweets to get done with her interview with Detective Whitman. Despite his objections, we left Mr. Bailey back at the b&b to hang out with Chesney. It was going to be hard enough figuring out who wanted to hurt Mr. Bailey, but having him following us around with those short little legs was going to make everything take twice as long.

  “What are we going to do? We all know full good and well that Sweets isn’t the killer here,” said Jax, wringing her hands.

  “Of course we know that,” I snapped. My fuse was short once again. It had been since the minute Detective Whitman had taken Sweets down to the station for questioning. “It has to have been Louis. We need to figure out a way to prove that it was him.”

  With her window rolled down, Holly stuck one arm out of it. “What if it wasn’t Louis,” she suggested with a shrug.

  “Then we need to figure out who it was,” said Alba. I could tell she was just as upset with everything we had to deal with as I was. To think that Detective Whitman could possibly accuse Sweets, of all people, of the murder was almost as ridiculous as believing that someone actually wanted to kill poor Mr. Bailey.

  “Well, no matter what, whether we find the real killer or not, we can’t let Sweets take the rap for this,” I said, my face flushed with anger.

  Just then Sweets came running out of the police station in tears. I opened the passenger side door from the driver’s seat, and Sweets climbed inside.

  “Sweets! Why are you crying?” asked Jax.

  Her shoulders shook in a fit of tears. “Th-they th-think I-I did it!”

  “They think you killed Mr. Bailey?”

  Sweets’ head bobbed up and down. “The potion that killed him was in my apron! I didn’t put it there, I swear. I didn’t even know that was in there. Someone had to have put it in there!”

  “We know, Sweets. It had to have been Louis. Who else could it have been? He killed Mr. Bailey, and now he’s trying to frame you as the murderer so you take the fall and then he gets the bakery!” I exclaimed.

  Sweets sobbed even harder after my exclamation.

  “Why are you crying now, Sweets?” asked Holly. She leaned forward and grabbed her purse from the floor. Plucking a tissue out of a small plastic wrapper, she handed it to Sweets.

  Sweets took it and swiped the underside of her nose with it. “Because Mr. Bailey is dead and Detective Whitman thinks I have it in me to kill him. I loved Mr. Bailey like a father.”

  “We know you loved him, Sweets. Did you tell Detective Whitman that?” I asked patting her shoulder.

  “Yes, I told him that,” she sniffled.

  “Did he believe you?”

  “Apparently not. He told me not to leave town,” she said as new tears streamed down her rounded pink cheeks.

  “Did you describe to Detective Whitman how Louis has treated you since you started working at the bakery and how he’s underhanded and probably the one who is framing you?” asked Alba.

  Sweets grimaced and swallowed hard. “No. I didn’t tell him that.”

  “Sweets!” I exclaimed. “Why would you keep all that to yourself?”

  Sweets looked down at her hands. “I-I don’t know. I guess because I don’t know that Louis did it. I don’t want to tell Detective Whitman that Louis was the one that framed me. I mean, I don’t know that he framed me.”

  “Sweets! After all the rotten things that Louis has done to you, you don’t think he’s the one that framed you?”

  “I mean the thought has crossed my mind,” she agreed sadly. “I just don’t know for sure, and I don’t want to get him in trouble if he’s not really the one that did it!”

  “Why not?
He’d throw you under the bus if the roles were reversed. In fact, he already did! Remember when you were doing CPR on Mr. Bailey, the first thing he did was to accuse you of killing him!”

  Sweets didn’t say a word.

  Jax frowned. “Sweets, you can’t let people push you around like this.”

  “I’m not letting him push me around. Look, I know Louis isn’t the greatest guy, but I really believe he liked Mr. Bailey. It’s hard for me to believe that he’d actually kill him. Mr. Bailey was like a father to him too.”

  “Sweets, I get it. You like to see the best in people. That’s a great quality to have. Sometimes I wish I could be more like that. I don’t trust anyone until they’ve proven themselves to me repeatedly. You, you give everyone the benefit of the doubt even when they showed you time and time again that they don’t deserve it,” I said. “But now’s not the time to put other people’s interests first. Now’s the time to put Sweets first.”

  Sweets sighed and twisted around to look at Holly in the backseat. “Holly. Detective Whitman has the potion bottle inside. Is there any way you can come inside and see if you can’t get a reading on it?”

  Holly nodded. “Absolutely, anything to clear your name.”

  “I don’t know if it will clear my name or not, but maybe you’ll be able to help me figure out how it got in my apron.”

  Holly opened her car door. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

  Inside, Officer Vargas was behind the plexiglass window filling out paperwork.

  I walked up to the window first. “Hi Officer Vargas, we need to see Detective Whitman about Vic Bailey’s case. Would that be possible?”

  “He’s got someone in his office right now. You’ll have to wait,” he said.

  “It won’t take long,” I assured him. “Can we speak to him for just a second?”

  Officer Vargas sighed and pushed a button on his phone and lifted the handle. “Detective, Mercy Habernackle, and her friends are out here. They said they need to speak with you and it will only take a moment.” Officer Vargas nodded and then cradled the phone. “He’ll be out in a second. Have a seat.” He pointed at the benches in the small vestibule waiting area in front of the plexiglass.

  Jax and Holly took seats next to each other on a heavy iron bench. Sweets paced the small room, while Alba and I leaned back against the wall waiting.

  It didn’t take long before the door buzzed open and Detective Whitman stuck his head out. “What’s up?”

  I was the first to shoot forward, launching myself off the brick wall as if it burned my skin to the touch. “Sweets swears that she didn’t put that potion bottle in her apron. Can you allow Holly to touch it and see if she can get a reading on it?” I asked.

  Detective Whitman nodded. “It was on my list of things to do anyway. Come on. I’ve got someone in my office right now, but I’ll see what I can do.”

  He held the door open for us and then led us back to a long, rectangular-shaped room. It was devoid of any character whatsoever and had only a rectangle table and eight chairs in it. The walls were bare, and the floor was covered in an industrial grey Berber carpet. He stood at the doorway and let the five of us enter. “I’ll be right back,” he said before shutting the door behind him.

  He was gone no more than a minute when the door opened again, and he put a baggie down on the table.

  “Can you get a read on it without taking it out of the bag?” he asked Holly specifically.

  She shrugged. “I won’t know until I try,” she answered and reached out to him to take the bag which contained a slim blue vial with a corked top. With it in her hands, Holly closed her eyes, but I could tell right away she wasn’t getting anything. She gave it fifteen or twenty seconds longer before she opened her eyes back up. “Nothing.”

  He sighed. “I was hoping not to get your fingerprints on it.”

  “I’ll just touch the cork. I don’t have to touch the vial,” she said. “I just need to make contact with the object.”

  We could see him debating the risk versus reward of allowing Holly to get her fingerprints on the item. On the one hand, she could contaminate the evidence. On the other hand, she could provide him with the name of the killer in the blink of an eye. “Fine. Don’t touch the sides,” he agreed.

  Holly pulled apart the zipped baggie and poked her finger inside, touching just a small part of the vial before going into a near immediate trance.

  “It’s working,” Sweets said excitedly.

  We all watched Holly, excitedly anticipating what she would say. Her lids were closed, but we could see her eyes moving back and forth rapidly behind them. She saw something. Finally, with a gasping sound, she awoke from her trance, panting as if she’d just emerged from an action-filled dream.

  “I saw something!” she said with wide eyes.

  20

  “What? What did you see?” implored Sweets, her eyes filled with hope.

  Holly leaned forward in her seat, resting her elbows and full upper torso on the table, she inadvertently - or intentionally, one couldn’t be sure with Holly - flashed her ample cleavage to the room. Her round bottom lifted up off of her chair, and she wagged it like an excited puppy. “I saw Louis Albertson putting the vial in your apron!” she proclaimed with the kind of panache that Academy Award presenters announced the award for best film of the year.

  “Ha!” I cheered, fist pumping the air. My mouth curled into a half-smile, half-angry snarl. I knew it had been Louis. I felt vindicated and at the same time livid.

  But Sweets had a different reaction. “Louis!” she gasped. She slumped back in her seat with a slack jaw. Her eyes took on a faraway look as she whispered more to herself than to anyone in the room, “Louis framed me?”

  Standing, Detective Whitman leaned forward with his hands planted shoulder width apart on the table. When he heard Holly’s accusation, his head dropped in disappointment. It hung there for a handful of seconds, limp between his shoulders like a horse with a sagging back before he finally tightened his neck muscles and raised his head to look at Holly, his face somber. “You’re going to have to tell me exactly what you saw.”

  Holly’s blue eyes flicked towards us nervously and slowly her smile dissipated. She’d been excited, proud really, to be able to prove Sweets’ innocence, but now Detective Whitman’s and Sweets’ reactions to the news seemed to make her nervous. “I was in the kitchen at the bakery,” she began slowly, her voice jittery and unconfident. “There were two green aprons hanging side by side on a set of hooks by the walk-in freezer. One had a nametag that said Louis and the other one had Sweets’ name tag pinned to it. I saw Louis reach into the pocket of his apron and pull out the vial. He looked at it, looked around, and then put the vial into Sweets’ apron pocket. Then he walked away.” Holly glanced over at Sweets whose eyebrows had lifted and furrowed together at the same time, wrinkling her forehead. She didn’t look relieved. Quite the opposite, really. She looked – sad. “My vision was clear. I’m sorry, Sweets.”

  “Could you tell when it was? Was it before the party? During – after?” asked the detective.

  Holly had to take a pause and think about it. “I’m not really sure. I could hear voices in the background, though. But I couldn’t make out what anyone was saying.”

  “Was it before or after Vic was discovered dead?”

  Holly shook her head while splaying her perfectly manicured hands out in front of her. “I really don’t know, that’s all I saw. I couldn’t see any more of the kitchen than that brief scene.”

  As if in a trance, Sweets spoke up. Her voice was small, and at first, it was hard to tell that it had even come from her. “It had to have been after the party. I put my apron on that morning when I got to work, and I didn’t take it back off again until we were done cleaning up.”

  “Holly, was Louis wearing gloves in your vision?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No, he didn’t have any gloves on.”

  He nodded his head before r
esealing the zipper on the baggie that held the vial. “I’m sure we’ll get a fingerprint on it then, to confirm your vision. In the meantime, listen, I need to get back to my office. I’ve got someone in there waiting for me, but … can you girls possibly stay here for a moment?”

  No one said anything.

  “Wait? Yes? No?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yeah, we’ll wait,” I agreed.

  He nodded his appreciation and then left the room, shutting the door behind him. Once he was safely out of earshot, we all turned to face Sweets. But before we could say anything, she opened her mouth and began to speak in a shushed, even tone. “You guys were right,” she said with a little shrug.

  “Sweets, you have to tell Detective Whitman about Louis’ character now. About every little thing he’s ever done or said to you. It’s time for the gloves to come off. Look what he did to you! Look what he did to Mr. Bailey!” ranted Alba before I had a chance to say the exact same things.

  “I just can’t believe he framed me,” said Sweets, all but ignoring Alba’s words. She just couldn’t see past her nose at the moment. She was just too consumed with the fact that Louis truly didn’t like her.

  “Believe it! Holly saw it with her own sixth sense!” I said. I wanted to shake Sweets and tell her she needed to open her eyes. Louis was evil and conniving, and we all knew it. Even she knew it. She just had to get to the point where she could tell Detective Whitman.

  “Yeah,” she said, nodding her head in disbelief. “It’s just really hard to believe that he dislikes me that much. I’ve never had anyone dislike me enough to want to frame me for murder,” she said sniffling, her eyes glimmering like a piece of wet glass.

  Alba groaned while palming her forehead. “Sweets! You need to get a backbone. Who cares if Louis likes you or dislikes you? It isn’t a popularity contest. You don’t need that man to like you! He’s framing you for murder! Do you understand?”

  “Sweets, you could go to prison for this,” said Jax fearfully. “You have to tell Detective Whitman what kind of a man Louis really is.”