Miss Spelled (The Kitchen Witch 1) (11 page)

Chapter 21

I stood in the back room, staring with horror at the cupcakes. Thyme was busy out front in the show room. I thought that was a silly name for the front of the cake store. It made me think of a car lot, but Thyme was so used to calling it that. I didn’t think I could get her to change now. Even if I could, I didn’t have an alternate name for it.

Thyme had left me alone in the kitchen to take a batch of cupcakes out of the oven, and to put the icing on an already cooked batch of cupcakes.

I hurried to the oven when the timer sounded. I tugged on two oven mitts and reached in with both hands, pulling out a hot pan of cupcakes. I left them on top of the oven to cool. I slipped off the oven mitts and turned my attention to the cooling rack laden with cakes on the counter.

Thyme had set everything out that I would need, in a few different stations. There was a mixing station and a decorating station, with everything ready to go in the order it would be needed.

The cooling rack held red velvet cupcakes, and I regarded them with fear. It was time for the icing. Despite the fact that Thyme and Ruprecht had told me over and over again that my problem was simply with fire, and that in turn meant that I would be a talented kitchen witch once I could control the fire, the thought of anything to do with baking filled me with trepidation, if not outright horror.

With Thyme’s words that coloring icing was one of the easiest tasks in the kitchen ringing in my ears, I got right to it. Thyme had earlier demonstrated a very neat looking red and white swirl icing, so I would need to color some of the icing red. She had put a line of the red icing and a line of plain white icing in a pastry bag. When she squeezed the tip and piped the icing high on the cupcake, it came out in a swirl.

I put some of the white icing into a smaller bowl and set it on the counter. There was a line of food coloring up on the small shelf above the counter, and I reached for the red. As I did, my hand brushed a smaller bottle. It tipped over and the small rubber cork fell out and into the icing bowl. Before I could react, the contents of the bottle had emptied into the icing.

“Shoot,” I said. The material from the bottle smelled strongly of strawberries, and I figured that was exactly what it was. Red strawberry flavoring. There simply wasn’t enough icing made to start over, and judging by the muffled voices I heard out on the show floor, there wasn’t enough time to make a whole new batch. I used a spatula to get the cork out of the icing.

A few minutes later, the icing was mixed and in the pastry bag. I took some time to pipe the icing onto the red velvet cupcakes, and then I took the tray and hurried out to the counter. Thyme was busy serving. She was used to this, and she was in her element. I knew Thyme would be happier if she could make everything in the back forever, but she also knew that I had to start somewhere. That is why she had put me where I would do the least damage. Or so she thought.

I was mixing the icing for the double chocolate chip cupcakes when I heard Thyme calling my name. I thought I detected a note of panic in her voice, so I stopped what I was doing and rushed out into the show room.

There were two customers. I recognized the first, a regular customer. She was in her fifties, had a sharp face with a nose like a hawk’s beak, and was the principal at the local Catholic school. She was very proper, and rather uptight. That’s why I found it quite odd that the woman had taken off one of her thick tan stockings and was now twirling it over her head.

As I watched, the woman let the stocking sail toward the other person in the shop. This was also a regular customer, Mr. Reynolds, a man of around sixty with a big fat nose that was always so red it looked like a tomato. He’d obviously had severe acne as a kid, evident by the pock marks on both his cheeks. His eyes were beady and small, and his teeth yellow and crooked. He had never been married, and likely never would be. His attitude was even worse than his looks.

The stocking landed on his shoulder, and he picked it off with a look of disgust. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you, lady, but you need to stop,” he said.

“I’ll stop when you love me!” the woman shouted.

“Mrs. Clutterbuck, are you all right?” Thyme asked.

“I’m perfect,” the woman answered in a shrill voice. “My prayers have been answered! I’ve never seen a man more perfect for me!”

“If this is some kind of joke, it needs to stop!” Mr. Reynolds said.

I turned to Thyme. “What’s happening?”

“You’re watching it!” Thyme said. “She ordered a cupcake, had one bite, and then she hugged Mr. Reynolds. Then she took off her stocking and threw it at him.”

“Yes, I saw that part,” I said. “I couldn’t miss it.”

“Tell me you love me!” she wailed.

Mr. Reynolds backed away. “I don’t even know your name!”

“And I don’t know yours!” Mrs. Clutterbuck said. “Mine is Claudia. Do you like it? Oh, learning about someone, the first part of new love, I adore it. I adore you! Please, tell me your name! Tell me everything about you; I have to know!”

The woman flung herself forward, and slid her arms around the man.

He looked like he needed help. “I only wanted a cupcake! What kind of place are you running here?” he asked.

Thyme took me by the arm. “Did you put anything in these cupcakes?” she whispered. “She had a red velvet cupcake.”

I blanched. “I dropped some strawberry flavoring into it.”

“Oh no,” Thyme said, shaking her head.

“It wasn’t strawberry flavoring, was it?” I asked.

“I don’t think so. A little brown bottle with a black rubber stopper?”

“Yes.”

“It was a love potion,” Thyme said.

I looked over at Mr. Reynolds. He had his arm up to protect his face as Claudia Clutterbuck tried to press her lips to his.

“I’ll have to whip up an antidote. She bit into it, and fell in love with the first man she saw. It takes months to wear off, so I have to reverse it. I’m sorry. I didn’t clean up like I should have. That should have never been out.”

I wasn’t sure why Thyme even had a love potion, and then for an amusing minute I thought about what I could do with a vial of the stuff, but as Thyme went through the swinging door to the back, Mr. Reynolds brought me out of my thoughts and back to the situation.

“I would like to leave!” he said firmly to Mrs. Clutterbuck, who was blocking the exit.

“Take me with you. Tell me your name!” Claudia Clutterbuck said, before she peppered Mr. Reynolds’s cheek with kisses.

“It’s Franklin!” the man screamed as he finally pushed the woman away. She was already going back for him when I ran around the counter and put my hands on Mrs. Clutterbuck’s arms.

“Quick, go!” I yelled, and Mr. Reynolds nodded and hurried for the door.

“No! My love! Franklin! What wonderful times we’ll have!” Mrs. Clutterbuck screamed, but when the man disappeared out the door, she burst into tears and practically fell down. The only thing keeping her from crumpling to the floor was my arm. “You sent him away! My love! We were to be married!”

“I don’t think he proposed, exactly,” I said.

The older woman sighed sharply. “Well, we were to be engaged at some later date. I just know it!”

I nodded and patted the woman’s head as she cried more. “Well, you know, they say true love can conquer anything,” she said. “So a little time apart, that’ll be nothing.” She appeared to perk up. She got to her feet, but I kept a hand on her, in case she tried to tear out of the door after the man she suddenly loved. “I love him more than anything. Have you ever loved anyone?”

I thought it best to humor her. “I thought I did.”

“Who was your first? Franklin wasn’t my first love, but he was my greatest, so I guess we broke that mold.”

“The first boy I had a crush on was named Ean Jackson,” I said. “We went to high school together.”

“Ah,” Claudia sighed as she clasped her hands together, as if she were praying. “Young love!”

“Not exactly. He didn’t feel the same about me.”

“You should have told him how you felt!” the older woman said. “Think of what your life could have been. You never know. One little question, and things end up different.”

“Yes, you’re right,” I said. Five minutes ago I hadn’t even known that a love potion was real. It was just another thing in the long list of witch-related facts I had no trouble accepting these days. Thyme had said ‘love potion’, and I had gone right along with it. It was strange.

Thyme came through the swinging door and held up a small vial. She motioned me over. “She needs to drink this,” she said. “Where’s the guy?”

“He ran when he could.”

“I would have, too.”

I grinned and took the vial. I turned to Mrs. Clutterbuck. “You should have a drink of this,” I said.

“No, I couldn’t,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t feel thirsty. I feel nothing but the fiery love I have for Franklin. Oh, my Franklin, when will I see his face again?”

“Franklin told me he loves women to drink this,” I said, saying the first thing that came into my head.

“Really?” Mrs. Clutterbuck said as her brow quirked. She stepped forward and snatched up the vial. She tilted her head back and swallowed the contents in one gulp.

The change was immediate. The woman seemed to calm, seemed to become herself as soon as the liquid was down her throat. She shook her head softly. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Where am I?”

“The cake store,” I said, “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I just feel odd. What happened? Why do I feel like this?”

“It’s a long story,” I said.

“You had a bit of a spell,” Thyme said, and she smirked at me. “You should be okay now. Would you like some water?”

“Yes, please,” the principal said. “My throat is a bit dry, and my heart is beating so fast. It feels strange.”

“It’s all passed now,” I said, going to the counter and taking the cup of water from Thyme. I handed it to Mrs. Clutterbuck and watched her down it.

“I just have one more question,” Claudia Clutterbuck said.

Thyme and I looked at each another. I wasn’t sure what the woman was going to say. I wasn’t sure if she remembered anything. She seemed not to, but I steeled myself for the question anyway.

“Yes?” I asked, tentatively.

“Why is my right leg colder than the left?”

Chapter 22

I sighed as I stood behind the counter of the cake shop. I was staring at the door. It hadn’t been opened in hours. In fact, the last person who had opened it was Thyme, when she arrived at work in the morning.

“People still think we killed Brant. I’m sure they think we did it accidentally, but still…” Thyme said, coming through the swinging door to stand next to me at the counter.

I shook my head. “We’ll figure it out. We just need to figure out how to get the people back into this place.”

Thyme nodded. “We just need to prove it wasn’t us.”

“You’re right,” I said. “And we’re trying, but all we’ve found out so far is that one politician likes to wear dresses, and that Melanie digs up secret boxes.”

Thyme laughed. “So what’s our next step?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that. I didn’t know what we could do now. We had followed all four of our suspects, and been unable to find out anything about them that would indicate they had murdered Brant. For the most part, they all seemed relatively normal.

In fact, both of us had began to wonder if we were on the wrong track altogether. Maybe there was someone we had missed, a suspect we weren’t even considering. A man like Brant had made a lot of people mad, so surely there was someone else out there. Thyme and I had discussed that fact the previous day.

Thyme brought something else up, as we stood behind the counter. “What if it wasn’t meant for Brant?”

I didn’t understand. I turned and looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“Just, what if Brant got poisoned, but he wasn’t supposed to?”

“You think it was some crazed person trying to kill at random? But if that’s the case, I don’t know how we could ever prove it, so I think we should just focus on our four. Plus if it was a homicidal maniac, they surely would’ve killed again.”

Thyme bit her fingernail. “I suppose you’re right. Well, what do you want to do now? We can call Ruprecht and Mint, do some more recon.”

I laughed. “You and that ‘recon’ word,” I said. “No, I think we can stick together today, me and you.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“You ever heard of dumpster diving?”

Thyme laughed and nodded. “I have, and I don’t think I’m going to enjoy today.”

Ten minutes later the two of us were locking the shop, having made the decision to close early so we could visit our four suspects’ homes during the day, while they were all likely to be at work. We were going to go through their trash, and we had decided it would be much easier not to be discovered in that act. We knew that we wouldn’t find any evidence of rat poison, but we thought we might turn up something. It was worth a try. Nothing else had worked so far.

We went to Bill Gafney’s house first. The cross-dressing politician had been blackmailed by Brant after Brant somehow found out that Bill liked to wear women’s clothing as often as he could, and had threatened to tell his wife. I felt sorry for Bill. After all,
I Am Cait
was one of my fave TV shows.

We parked on the street, near the rather large house. Neither of us got out right away.

“This isn’t exactly legal, is it?” Thyme asked.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “But we have to do it.”

“You’re right. I just don’t think jail would suit me.”

“Well then, let’s be fast,” I said with a chuckle. I pushed open my door and climbed out of the car. Thyme and I walked briskly up the sidewalk, side by side. We then hurried up the sloping driveway to the closed garage, and went to the left, sliding around the side of the garage. There were the trash cans, two large black plastic bins.

“Should we make sure no one is here?” Thyme asked, and I considered it.

“No,” I said finally. “Let’s just get this done.”

And with that, we went to work. I was hoping perhaps we would come across a letter, maybe written by Brant, threatening Bill and demanding payment.

Only one bin had any trash in it, and the other two sat empty. There were two plastic bags in the full bin, so I pulled them both out and handed one to Thyme. We set them on the ground and pulled the ties apart, and got to work. It was messy and unpleasant, but we got through it. When we were finished, we had absolutely nothing to go on.

“That’s okay,” I said, trying to look on the bright side. “One down, three to go.”

We hurried back to the car and drove to the next suspect’s house. Jason Mackay was the delivery man who had been sold a faulty van by Brant, and had gone on to lose his business. I felt something of a kinship with the man in a way. I too was in danger of losing my business because of the blustery car salesperson.

Jason’s house was smaller, and his trash more untidy and more unpleasant. Thankfully there was less of it, but once again we turned up nothing.

“Perhaps we’re on the wrong track,” Thyme said as she climbed into my car.

“We’re only halfway through. Let’s finish before we decide that,” I said.

Dermott Smith had the nicest house of the three, even bigger than the politician’s. It appeared that even though Brant had cost him a lot of money in a poker game, he still had plenty to fall back on.

Thyme and I sneaked around the side of his house and didn’t see any trash cans.

“Maybe he keeps them in the garage,” I suggested as we made our way back to the front of the house.

“Then we’re out of luck,” Thyme said as we stopped in front of the garage. It had room for two cars, and was attached to the house. As we looked helplessly at the large cream colored door, there was a rumble, and the door began to move up.

“Move!” I whispered, pushing Thyme to the side. We hid around the corner of the house, and as we peered around the edge, I heard a car engine roar to life. A sports car edged into view. The driver gunned it, and the car shot off down the winding driveway. The door rumbled again, and started to close.

I didn’t have time to think. I hurried around the corner of the home and sprinted for the door. I threw myself forward, under the door. I must have triggered an invisible beam, as the door went back up.

Thyme ran to the garage. “You are crazy, girl!” she said in a loud whisper.

I lay on the smooth concrete floor of the garage, on my back, panting. “I really want the customers to come back,” I said.

Thyme reached down and helped me to my feet, and then hurried over to press the button to shut the door.

The garage was well maintained, and there was barely anything inside it. Off to the side were two black trash bins. Once again, we pulled the trash out with our hands and went through it. It took us longer than the other two homes, but once again we found absolutely nothing that would indicate that the guy was a murderer. I sighed. “Let’s look on the shelves for thallium,” I said.

Thyme shook her head. “The cops would’ve searched, surely. And he’d have to be crazy to leave evidence like that lying around. We should get out of here in case he comes back.”

I ignored her, and did a quick skim of the shelves. There were plastic boxes of nuts and bolts, a few wrenches, and some old cans of paint. All were neatly stacked. “You’re right,” I said. “This guy’s a clean freak.”

“Let’s go.” Thyme pulled me over to the door. She hit the button again, and it opened. To my relief, no one was outside. “You go out, and then I’ll close it and duck under,” she said.

“And now we’re three down,” Thyme said once we were back in the car.

“Let’s keep going to Melanie’s house,” I said.

Melanie’s trash bins were sitting on the side of the road, their lids open.

“Collection day was two days ago,” Thyme said. “She clearly hasn’t bothered to take them in yet.”

“Shoot,” I said. I felt defeated. I wanted to cry, to scream. I didn’t know what else to do. This had been the last idea, our last hope at catching someone with something, anything at all. We just needed clues, and that was exactly what we weren’t getting. Without even bothering to get out of the car, I turned around in the cul-de-sac and headed for the cake store.

“Wait a minute,” Thyme said. “We didn’t check one place.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“What about all that land she owns? Does Melanie have a home out there?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, “but we should go check.”

Instead of turning left toward the center of town at the intersection, I turned right, and headed just out of town, where Melanie had five-hundred sprawling acres.

I wasn’t quite sure where the land was, but with Thyme checking her cell phone we eventually made it. The first thing I saw was a dirt road leading off the main road. It was surrounded by trees, so I couldn’t see too far down the road as it curved and continued on through the trees. There was a mailbox there, but it was broken, just a piece of wood painted white jutting out of the ground, with the actual box part hanging loosely, its front facing directly toward the ground.

I pulled onto the dirt road. “Let’s go see what we can find,” I said. “Keep an eye out for any cars. We don’t want her to catch us.”