Spells and Scones (16 page)

“Wow,” I said.

“Katie.” Bianca pointed to where Angie was holding out a piece of folded paper to me. It trembled in her hand.

I took it. Inside was a simple, typed note.

We all know you killed our Dr. Dana. If the police don't punish you, we will.

Wide-eyed, I handed it to Bianca. “When did you get this?”

“I came home from work and found it slipped under my door.” Angie's voice quavered. “I'm really scared.” She swallowed, hard. “Maybe I'm overreacting, though.” She sounded hopeful, like I'd assure her the note was utter bunk.

Bianca handed it back to her. “Better safe than sorry. I really don't like how they used the word
punish
.”

Angie blanched.

“She's right,” I said. “Have you called the police?”

“The police? Right. Because they're on my side. If I called them about this, that Detective Quinn would probably arrest me on the spot.”

I didn't think that was true, but I understood why she didn't exactly see the police as reliable allies. “I can't force you to call them.”

She shook her head. “It would only make it worse.” She buried her face in her hands.

I put my arm around Angie, and a small sob escaped her. She took several deep breaths, struggling to get control of herself again.

When she had, she said, “I don't want to stay here by myself. I'm off work until Friday, too.”

“Is there a friend you can stay with?” Bianca asked.

Angie sniffed. “I thought about that. My good friend is hosting a big Thanksgiving dinner, though. Her house is full of family from out of town.” She turned a pleading gaze on me. “Maybe I could, you know, if you have room . . . ?”

I'm sure my face showed surprise, but I managed to hide the suspicion that rose with it. Why would she want to stay with me? Because I was helping her? Because of Mungo?

Mungo.
He wanted me to help her. If he'd been standing there, I knew darn well he would have wanted me to invite her to stay at the carriage house. It also occurred to me that having a little company while Declan was on his forty-eight-hour shift at the firehouse might be nice.

More than nice. It might keep me from obsessing about his proposal.

But I wasn't willing to go so far as to just give her the keys to my home. “Is there someplace you can stay until I get off work?”

Angie looked doubtful.

“I have to get back to the Honeybee.” I looked at my watch. “And soon. We have a gazillion pumpkin pies to make tomorrow, as well as the usual prep for tomorrow morning.”

“Maybe I could come with you?”

My eyebrow rose. “You bake?”

“Not so much, but I can still help clean up or whatever manual labor you might need.”

Cookie had said she'd come back after her client appointment, but Iris was leaving with her family for
Hilton Head that afternoon. Maybe Lucy would welcome a little extra help. I looked at Bianca.

She smiled and inclined her head. “You've hired day help before.”

“Oh! You don't have to pay me,” Angie said.

“Nonsense,” I said. “Bianca, do you mind if I ride back with Angie?”

“Not at all. I have to get back to Moon Grapes soon, anyway.”

Angie looked surprised, then nodded. “Okay. Just let me take care of a couple of things here and pack a bag.”

“We'll help,” I said.

Angie asked me to water some plants, while Bianca offered to help her pack her overnight bag. I could feel the power wafting from the delicate star-shaped flowers of the borage, protecting the apartment with peace and cheer. A trio of amaryllises held fat buds on their long stems, promising to bloom in time for Christmas, and potent with something I couldn't identify. Since they were poisonous, Lucy and I never used them in the kitchen. But no doubt Angie knew what the amaryllis' properties were; she might claim to have stopped practicing the Craft, but the fertile greenness in her home demonstrated an innate gift she couldn't escape.

I heard my coven mate's soothing voice in the bedroom, and then Angie responded in a low tone. From the few words I caught as I tended the garden, they were talking about their ex-husbands. The meeting with Mungo's former witch hadn't gone at all as I'd intended, but at least she and Bianca had discovered their common ground.

And I'd have a chance to talk to Angie about Nate Dobbs on the trip back to the Honeybee.

Bianca took off for Moon Grapes, which she said
was doing a booming business for the holiday. “Good thing I stocked up on Pinot Noir.”

Angie locked up, and soon we were on our way back to the Honeybee in her Toyota. She seemed to become more relaxed by the mile.

“Feeling better?” I asked.

She nodded. Then she glanced over at me. “You said on the phone that you wanted to talk to me about Dana Dobbs.”

Glad that she'd brought the subject up herself, I said, “Actually, I thought you might be able to tell me some things about her husband.”

“Really? Why?”

I shrugged, trying for casual. “Well, they were talking about getting a restraining order against you. So I figured if you were following Dr. Dana around, you might have seen some things about her husband as well. Or their marriage.” After what Ronnie Lake had told me, I was curious about whether the Dobbs' relationship problems had been evident.

However, Angie glared at me with her red-rimmed eyes. I suppressed a sigh. Maybe I should have been a bit more tactful, but we were getting close to the Honeybee, and I didn't want to ask her these questions where others could hear. It also seemed slightly precious to think I had to tread on eggshells around a stalker.

“I wasn't following her,” she said.

“Oh, now. She saw you . . .”

“No! I went to two signings—one in Port Royal, and the one the other night. That's all.” She slowed to a stop at a red light and turned to me.

“Really?” I said. “Why would she say you were following her?”

Angie's lips pressed together. “Dana and Nate
happened to live about five blocks away from my apartment. We belong to the same gym, we shop at the same grocery store, and she was a jogger. Naturally, we ran into each other every once in a while.” She made a face. “She ran by my apartment and then accused me of following
her
. Though I do admit—I tried to approach her when I saw her at the gym. I wanted her to understand how literally people took her advice and how ruinous it could be.” She sighed. “Not that she'd listen. I thought I'd try one last time on Saturday night.” She fell into silence.

“And the letter-writing campaign aimed at taking
The Dr. Dana Show
off the radio?”

She nodded vigorously. “Yep. I did that. Absolutely.”

“All because you blame her for your divorce?” I couldn't help it. It just didn't add up.

Angie shook her head. “Not just that. I mean, I made the decision to tell my husband I used to be a witch. I own that. In fact, maybe I wanted him to know all along. But what happened to me made me pay more attention to her show, and I realized that she was doing real damage to her listeners. Katie, have you ever heard her?”

“Once. She told a woman to stop talking to her father because he didn't get along with her new husband.”

“Yes! I remember that one. What if the woman followed her advice because she assumed Dr. Dana knew more than she did? And believe me—Dana Dobbs made sure that people thought she was smarter than them.”

I thought of Margie crying on my sofa because she'd fallen for the psychologist's concept of Radical Trust.

“Was all of her advice bad?” I asked.

Angie shook her head. “No. But enough of it was.” She made a left-hand turn onto Broughton.

“Okay. I get it.” I frowned. “So you don't know anything about Nate Dobbs.”

Angie shook her head. “I don't even know where he worked.” She pulled into the parking lot around the corner from the bakery.

“I looked that up. Some kind of agricultural fumigation.”

She parked and shut off the engine. I opened my door, but she didn't move. “Fumigation? Like grain silos and the like?”

“I think so. Why?”

“Sometimes big nurseries get insect infestations in their stock. The one where I work never had that happen, thank goodness, but there's a method they borrow from big agriculture to solve the problem.” She turned to me with wide eyes. “They tent the affected plants and dose them with hydrogen cyanide. They use the same method to kill insects in grain silos, weevils in cotton, and the like.”

“Agricultural fumigation uses cyanide,” I said thoughtfully. “Good Lord.”

*   *   *

Things were hopping in the Honeybee. Lucy was working the register, Ben was making one coffee drink after another, and Cookie was in the kitchen mixing up the sourdough levain for the next day's baking. They all looked surprised when I brought Angie in, but after she greeted Mungo briefly in the office, I set her to work measuring out spices for the pie filling. Soon we'd made real headway into prepping for the four dozen pumpkin pies we had orders for the next day.

Once the rich custard had been mixed and poured into large lidded containers to sit in the fridge overnight, Angie started in on the cleanup. True to her word, she was a hard worker. I brought her a rosemary Parmesan scone and a cup of tea, then headed out to the main
seating area and began wiping down tables. I had just finished with the one nearest the door when Detective Quinn walked in.

“Hi, Katie. Boy, you guys are busy today.”

“And loving it. Are you here for a Thanksgiving pie?”

He sat at the table I'd just cleaned and shook his head. “My wife insists on making her grandmother's banana toffee pie every Thanksgiving.”

“Sounds delish. Maybe I can convince her to share the recipe.”

“I'll ask her. For now I was hoping for a slice of lemon pound . . .” He trailed off as something behind me caught his attention. “Who is that working in your kitchen?”

I deliberately didn't turn around, as if that would magically remove Angie from his view. “Cookie still comes in to help sometimes when we're swamped.”

“I'm not talking about Cookie Rios,” he said through gritted teeth.

My smile slid off my face like warm butter.

“Why is the prime suspect in Dana Dobbs' murder doing dishes in the Honeybee Bakery?”

Glancing at the nearest customer, I sat down across from him and summoned my courage. What I ended up with felt a lot more like stubbornness than courage. My jaw set. “Angie's staying at my carriage house tonight, too.”

“What? Why on God's green earth would you put yourself in that kind of danger?” he hissed. “And here I'd thought you'd given up on messing around in that murder. I should have known better.”

“Angie Kissel is innocent.”

He made a rude noise. “And you know this how?”

My dog told me. Oh, and he also acted as a conduit
between Angie and me so I could sense her innocence for myself. Because he's her ex-familiar.

“You remember when we've talked about intuition?” I asked. “I just know.”

“Oh, come on.” He shook his head emphatically. “You know that's not good enough.”

Knowing I should check with Angie first, I said, “Someone left her a threatening note. Shoved it under her door. Someone who sounds like a crazed fan—or fans—of Dr. Dana. So she's scared and doesn't want to be by herself.”

“Oh, really.” He still didn't look convinced. “Did she call us?”

“Of course not. She's frightened of you, too. And I don't blame her.”

A flash of surprise crossed his face.

“There are plenty of other suspects in this case, and from what I can tell, you haven't followed up with any of them,” I said.

He sighed. “Like who?”

“Like Earl King and/or his wife, Sophie.”

“Who are they?”

“A couple who Dr. Dana nearly broke up with her Radical Trust nonsense. They were at the signing and had just as much opportunity to slip poison in her drink as anyone. Furthermore, Mr. King heckled Dr. Dana just like Angie did, and before that he and his wife were happy to tell Ben and the rest of us about Dana Dobbs' lack of professional credentials. They didn't like her at all and were definitely not at her signing to purchase a book.”

Quinn still looked doubtful.

“I was actually there and saw them,” I said. “And I told you about them in my statement.”

“Yes. I remember. You didn't give me their names, though.” His face creased in thought. “Bring me some lemon pound cake and tell me more.”

With a sense of gleeful hope, I hurried over and put the biggest slice of cake on a plate and poured him a cup of freshly brewed dark roast. Back at the table, I started back in, keeping my voice low so passing customers couldn't hear.

“A big problem is finding out how the killer got access to the cyanide. Right? As you said, it's not something you can just walk in and buy at the hardware store.”

He nodded.

“And I don't know enough about the Kings—they own that bar King's Castle, down the street, by the way—to figure out how they could get it. But there is one suspect that might very well have had access to the poison.”

Quinn took a big bite of cake and chewed slowly, watching me.

“Nate Dobbs.”

Now a sip of coffee. “Do tell.”

“He works for an agricultural fumigation company. Or used to.”

He held up a finger. “Not anymore. He quit a year ago.”

“So he had access to cyanide. Or at least it's a possibility. I haven't gotten that far.”

“Mmm-hmm. Did you know that Ms. Kissel's ex-husband is an industrial scientist? It turns out there is cyanide in his lab.”

I felt the hope slipping away. “But they aren't married anymore.”

“They were in contact during the breakup. She came by his lab a few times after the divorce proceedings had started.” He glanced up at Angie, who was standing in
the kitchen watching us with wide eyes. When she saw us looking at her, she quickly moved out of view.

“Maybe she was thinking ahead,” he said.

I couldn't very well tell him that Angie wouldn't have stolen cyanide from her husband since she could likely extract it from the pits of stone fruit herself.

“Anyone else?” He wore an amused expression that I didn't appreciate.

“Dr. Dana fired her agent,” I said.

“Ronnie Lake. Yes, I spoke with her.”

“So you already know about the Dobbs' failing marriage.”

His forehead wrinkled. “No . . .”

I nodded. “Yep. The relationship guru was heading for divorce, at least according to her former agent.”

“Huh. Well, I have to admit that people sometimes tell you things they don't tell me, Katie.”

I smiled weakly, then went on. “Plus, Nate Dobbs has a piece of commercial real estate that's been sitting empty and useless ever since he bought it. Money problems, apparently. Now that his wife is dead he's suddenly back in business.”

“Is that so? Well, I guess I'd better look into that.” He reached in his wallet and handed me a bill, then wrapped the rest of his pound cake in a napkin.

“It's on me, Detective.”

“I prefer to pay up. Keep the change.”

“Okay. Thanks.” I suppressed a grimace. His unwillingness to let me treat him to the cake told me he was more upset about my involvement in his investigation than he was letting on.

Standing, he shot a look toward the kitchen and leaned toward me. “Stay on your toes around her. Okay, Katie? You drive me nuts, but I like you.”

I nodded. “I will. And, Quinn? Will you follow up on the Kings and Nate Dobbs?”

“Sure,” he said. “Or I'll have someone else make inquiries. Turns out that other case I told you about is more complicated than I'd anticipated.”

Great.
Quinn made me nuts, too, but I didn't want anyone else working on the Dr. Dana case.

“I'll be in touch,” he said, and gave my shoulder a light squeeze before he left.

Angie was waiting in the office. “What did he want?”

“He just stopped in for a pastry,” I said. “He saw you, though. I'm afraid I told him about your note.”

“Did he ask to see it?”

I grimaced. “Now that you mention it, he didn't.”

Her face fell. “He's still sure I'm the one who killed Dana Dobbs.”

I didn't deny it.

*   *   *

A little before five there was a line four deep at the register, all there to pick up their frozen pies. Cookie had stuck around, and now she and Angie were fetching pies for customers, while Ben rang them up. Lucy was closing the window blinds, and I tidied the reading area. A book club had met there that afternoon, and the ladies had felt free to rearrange all the furniture. As I put the chairs and tables back in place by the floor-to-ceiling shelves, I reflected that it was actually kind of nice that people felt so free to make themselves at home in the Honeybee.

The last customer left, and I walked by Ben on my way back to the kitchen. “You were right about Bing Hawkins being a good salesman,” I said casually. “In fact, I need to tell you about something that happened at the radio station yesterday.”