Tobias had made coffee and put it in a carafe for me, so it was still piping hot. Next to the carafe were several gorgeous jars of peach honey butter and a note. Hope you slept well; call me when you wake up, please. Love you--Tobias P.S. Chuck already had breakfast; don't let him convince you otherwise.

  I laughed. Chuck was what dog trainers called "food-motivated;" he'd do anything for a snack, and Tobias had been trying to get me to put him on a strict diet since we'd met. I had learned to put the kittens' food on a small table in the pantry so they could get to it and Chuck couldn't; he'd polished off their breakfasts several times before I figured out what was happening.

  I checked the kittens' food--they were curled up together asleep in the cat hammock I'd set up in the living room for them-- and then poured myself a cup of coffee and retreated to the front porch. It was a luxury not to have my morning chores to attend to. As I sipped my coffee and watched Chuck nose around the yard, I wondered again about my attacker last night.

  Someone didn't want me poking around into what had happened to Priscilla. But who knew I was? The only person I'd really questioned directly was Alicia, the museum director... and Aimee. Why would one of them want me to stop investigating Priscilla's death?

  It wasn't Aimee; she had asked me to help her free her sister. Which left Alicia.

  Had she been trying to put me off her trail when she told me about Arthur? She certainly had access to the garden shed, and could easily have taken the knife and planted the gopher poison. And she'd been around--and had contact with--Priscilla the night she died. I thought again of the bills she'd shoved into the folder when I was talking with her. Was something going on at the museum beyond the relocation of the Warren house? Something Priscilla knew about, and was going to bring up to the board?

  I needed to talk to Serafine to find out what she knew about Alicia... and Nigel. I also needed to talk to Nigel himself. Although he was on my suspect list, it didn't make sense for him to make a nocturnal visit to my home... unless Alicia had mentioned to him that I had come by asking questions.

  I finished my coffee and went inside, buttered a honey muffin, and layered on some honey peach butter. I took a bite, almost groaning in delight, and poured myself more coffee. I took a few minutes to enjoy the fruits of my labor, then opened the back door to take a closer look at the scene of last night's attack.

  We hadn't had rain recently, so there were no footprints in the yard. One of the pickets had sprung loose a bit where the intruder had leapt over the fence; I made a mental note to hammer a new nail in so that Chuck couldn't go gallivanting. I headed back into the house, feeling a chill pass over me when I saw the gash in the doorframe. Who had been so spooked they felt the need to threaten my life?

  It was a short drive to downtown Buttercup. As always, I relished the views of rolling farmland and quaint historic houses interspersed with cattle and swathes of wildflowers, as well as the transition to the town's historic square, which featured the white-painted courthouse snugged into the town square's green. It was ringed by quaint buildings housing antique stores, bed and breakfasts, the Enchanted Florist, with pots of bright red and coral geraniums in front of the short picket fence, and the Red & White Grocery, which still featured a few lanky tomato plants for late gardeners. I stopped by and picked up a few to replace the plants the goats had pulled up, then got back into my truck and drove past the Blue Onion cafe, which was buzzing with townspeople hungry for lunch and gossip. A small line had formed outside the restaurant, and I decided to stop by after I had a chat with Serafine.

  The sheriff's department was in a small bungalow a couple of blocks off the main square, and there was plenty of parking on the tree-lined street. I pulled under a broad-leafed sycamore tree, and retrieved the small Tupperware container of honey muffins and two jars of honey peach butter from the passenger seat. To my relief, Opal was at the front desk of the sheriff's office. Her eyes lit up when she saw me... and the jars of peach honey butter.

  "I was wondering when I'd see you," she said as I proffered a jar of last night's efforts. "How are things down at Dewberry Farm?"

  "Well, things have been better. I don't know if Deputy Garcia told you about the surprise visitor I had last night?"

  "Surprise visitor?'

  "Yeah. Someone whacked me in the head with a rock and left a note on my back door... pinned down with a knife." I touched the swelling on temple.

  "Oof," she said. "That looks bad. Did you get it checked out?

  "Tobias looked at it for me," I told her. "How's Serafine doing?"

  "Well," Opal said, adjusting her glasses, "I brought her a new batch of magazines today, but she doesn't seem to like Southern Living as much as I do."

  I realized I had left one of Cee Cee James's most recent mysteries in my bag; I hadn't finished it yet, but Serafine needed it more than I did. I fished around and pulled out a slightly dog-eared paperback. "Mind if I drop this off with her, along with some muffins and a jar of peach honey butter?"

  "As long as you didn't slip a file into it," she said. "Hang on a second." She reached under the desk and pulled out an enormous metal detector, the kind you usually see being carried by beachcombers.

  "You're kidding me, right?"

  "Unfortunately not," she said. "Rooster picked this up at a pawn shop a couple months back, and now it's the official security device." She turned it on and ran it over the Tupperware of muffins and the paperback. "All good," she said.

  "What's up with Rooster, anyway?" I asked.

  "Between you and me," she said, "he's doing some kind of marriage intensive with Lacey; she told him she'd file for divorce if he didn't go along with it. She's insisted he cut his hours or she's leaving, so between doing all the workbooks from the marriage thing and getting home by five for dinner, he's been kind of scarce around here."

  "How involved is he with Serafine's case?"

  "He looks over the paperwork, and he interrogated her the other day. He's convinced he's got the right person," she said as she put the metal detector away.

  "What about the peach butter?" I asked, realizing she hadn't scanned it.

  "Kind of hard to get a reading off a jar with a metal lid,” she said. She turned it over a couple of times in her hands and examined it. "I think you're good to go."

  "You sure you won't get in trouble?" I asked.

  "Nah," she said. "Although come to think of it, maybe I should hold onto it, just in case. Rooster and I got into it a couple weeks back over who's supposed to wash the coffee mugs. I won, of course, but I don't want to push my luck." She tucked the peach butter into a drawer. "I'll give it to her when she gets out."

  "You think she will?" I asked.

  "She's got somebody from New Orleans going to post bail for her," Opal said. "I'll be glad to see her go: not because I don't like her, but because that's an awful small room to spend your days in. I make it as homey as I can, of course, with curtains and magazines, but reading cobbler recipes only goes so far, particularly when you don't have a kitchen."

  "Good point," I said.

  "I'll go tell her you're here," she told me, standing up and smoothing down her pink and blue floral dress.

  "Before you do, any idea on how things are going?

  She pursed her lips. "Everybody here is pretty fixed on Serafine, I'm afraid. I don't believe she did it, but nobody here listens to me."

  "Where's Deputy Shames?" I asked.

  "She's takin' a few days off," Opal told me. "Her mom broke her leg, so she's helpin' her out. Well, you met the new addition to the force last night."

  "You mean Deputy Garcia? Yes."

  "He's a good one, but he's young," she said, "and he thinks Rooster knows what he's talking about. He'll figure it out soon enough, I suppose. The rest of us have."

  "I just don't understand how Rooster keeps getting elected."

  "Me neither, honey. There's always next time, right?" She sighed. "Last time I wanted to put a yard sign for his opponent on my front lawn, but I figured it might not be too good for office harmony, you know?"

  "I know," I said.

  "Let me go tell Serafine you're here," she said. Before disappearing into the back, she opened a folder and pushed it to the edge of the desk, then winked at me. As she walked to the back, I glanced down at the folder.

  There was a copy of a will in it. The last will and testament, in fact, of Priscilla Jordan-Melville. I looked down at the page Opal had opened to. It was a dispensation of a trust fund. None of it went to Nigel... or to Priscilla's brother Arthur. Ninety percent went to Damian, along with the property and the house, with another ten percent going to the Heritage Farm. I flipped through the pages to look at the date of execution; it had been signed and witnessed only a week before Priscilla died.

  Interesting, I thought, as Opal reappeared in the doorway.

  "Serafine's ready for you," she said, glancing down at the open folder and nodding as I touched it with one hand. "I'll walk you back."

  I followed her down the short hallway to the cell where Serafine was being held. Opal had spruced up the place since last I'd been here, adding a blue rag rug and a new hand-crocheted afghan in blue and green at the end of the quilted single bed. As usual, a stack of Texas Monthly and Southern Living magazines lay on a small round night table next to a plastic lamp that looked like Opal might have picked it up at IKEA. Serafine looked like she hadn't slept in days, and the bed hadn't been turned down; she might not have.

  "Thanks for coming," she said as Opal closed the door behind me.

  "I brought you a book; also some muffins and some peach butter," I said, "but Opal's holding onto the peach butter so we don't get in trouble. I hear you're going to be out of this joint soon."

  "Apparently so. Aimee got in touch with some of our relatives in New Orleans and they're putting together bail money. If I manage to get out of here permanently, though, they all want me to go back to Louisiana. Who would have thought that a big city like New Orleans would be safer than Buttercup?"

  "I want to talk to you about getting out of here. Do you know what they have on you?"

  "Unfortunately," she said, "Nigel made the mistake of sending me some texts that the police have their hands on, thanks to some pictures Priscilla took of them with her phone. Plus, Alicia overheard an argument that got pretty heated between Priscilla and me a few days before she died."

  "The director, huh?"

  "Yeah," she said, rubbing her temples wearily. "Priscilla was pretty focused on keeping the stories at the museum about her family and the people--not the enslaved folks, but the landowners--who lived in their neighborhood. She didn't like the idea of me, who she called an 'outsider,' coming in and teaching about things that weren't 'part of our heritage.' I said what I was teaching really was a part of Buttercup's heritage, and if it really was about the history of the neighborhood, maybe we should reproduce some of the houses her ancestors relegated their unpaid workers--you know, the ones who built the big houses--to. She didn't like that too much."

  "Did you tell her you might have been related to some of those... uh... 'unpaid workers’?" I asked, thinking it was an interesting term for enslaved people. Although how do you talk about slavery? It was such a painful thing.

  "I didn't bother bringing it up. I haven't met my relatives yet, and now I don't know if I ever will. Besides, the odds that we're connected to the museum's history are not very big."

  "What do you know about the tea?" I asked. "Did you give her a bottle? Do you remember her drinking a bottle?"

  "I remember she had a bottle of it before the workshop," Serafine said. "Chloe and I filled the galvanized tub with tea bottles. She took one then."

  "Did she drink any of it then?"

  "No. Actually, yes. She did take the lid off and had a swig while she was telling me why I shouldn't be doing my presentation at the farm."

  "Did you happen to see anyone drinking a bottle of Arizona Tea?"

  "Arizona Tea?" She looked up, a furrow between her sculpted eyebrows. “That's a weird question. No... why?"

  "Just curious," I said. "Do you remember seeing her when she came into the barn to talk to Nigel, just before your workshop started?"

  "I do."

  "I saw her, too. I'd just heard her having a tiff with the director, but I don't remember her having a tea bottle. How long before the workshop did you have your argument with her?"

  "About an hour."

  "So she was drinking the tea then."

  "Yeah. I remember, because she kept playing with the label and folding back a corner of it, and it was making me crazy."

  "So she had the tea bottle before the workshop, and then she had the tea bottle when she was found dead, and that was what... two and a half hours later?"

  "I guess. I wasn't there," Serafine said.

  "I'm curious about the museum director. What do you think of her?"

  "She is good people, from what I can tell. She was definitely on board with putting forth the full history of Buttercup and representing everybody who was here, and I respect her for that. I know she risked her job to do it because she thought it was right. I have nothing bad to say about her."

  "How were the finances at the museum? Any idea?"

  Serafine shrugged. "I really don't know. I know I got an honorarium for the workshop, and my materials covered, and between that and the money they were spending on moving the Warren house, I figured they were doing pretty well. Why do you ask?"

  "Just curious," I said. "And this is kind of awkward, but... tell me about Nigel."

  "Oh, Nigel," she said, her shoulders slumping. "I met him a couple months ago. At the Blue Onion, actually... I was having lunch. He was at the table next to me, and we struck up a conversation." She smiled. "Chloe was with me; I remember her telling me later how cute she thought he was, which was kind of odd, considering he's old enough to be her father. I gave him a business card because he said he wanted to take a tour of the mead winery. He told me he knew a journalist in Houston who might be interested in doing a write-up on the Honeyed Moon. But then he started texting me and getting a little too intimate about how things were going with his wife."

  "Did you text back?"

  "I did," she said, "and I'll admit, I was a bit flirtatious. I mean, he is a handsome man, and there just aren't many of them here, but when I figured out who he was and that he was married, I pulled back."

  “How did he respond to that?" I asked.

  "Not well. He kept at it. He showed up at my door a few times, told me his relationship with his wife was over."

  "Had he filed for divorce when you met him?"

  "I don't know when he filed, to be honest. I only heard about it from you. But Chloe told me she thought it was meeting me that inspired him to leave his wife."

  "What did you think of Priscilla?"

  "One word leaps to mind," she said. "Entitled. I mean, I appreciate that she donated the acreage to the museum. But I realized after a short time that it was less about keeping the history of Buttercup alive and more about paying homage to her wealthy ancestors… and getting a tax write-off, too."

  "Seems to be a lot of that in town," I said, thinking of how Nettie Kocurek had tried to get a sausage-nosed statue of her ancestor plunked down in the middle of the town square a few years back.

  "Yeah," she said. "So, we crossed swords a bit, but I didn't have that much of a dog in that fight; her main argument was with the director."

  "Did anyone else on the board get involved?"

  "I think Alicia told me Flora Kocurek was backing her plans, and donated a bit of extra money to pay for the Warren house being moved, but I don't know about the other board members."

  Good for Flora, I thought. I really did need to catch up with her and see how things were going with Gus. "Well, somebody thinks I shouldn't be poking around."

  "Why?" she asked.

  I told her about the incident at my house the night before.

  "Oh, Lucy. Be careful," she said, reaching out to squeeze my hand. "I appreciate you trying to help me out, but I don't want you to get hurt in the process. There's a dangerous person out there."

  "Don't worry," I said. "I can't afford to eat out much, and I make my own food, so the odds of me getting poisoned are rather low."

  "But a knife in your doorframe? And that rock? Poison's not the only way to kill someone."

  Unfortunately, I was all too aware of that.

  "One more question before I go," I said. "And it's kind of awkward."

  "What is it?" Serafine asked, her brown eyes wide.

  "Do you know anyone in town who might be making doll babies?'

  I felt her tense. "Why?"

  "I... I found one by the Warren house, right after I found Priscilla."

  "That little thing in the blue cloth? Yeah. Rooster showed me that, said he couldn't think of anyone else who could have done something like that. I don't know who did that, but I don't appreciate it."

  "You think someone was framing you?"

  "Why else would someone put a doll baby out there?"

  "Maybe someone else linked with the house? Is it possible someone put it there because there were rumors it was haunted?"

  "Doll babies aren't for hauntings," she said flatly.

  I took a deep breath. "I found another one," I told her. "Nailed to my fence."

  She sat up straight. "What? When?"

  "The day you came to check on the hives. The cows and goats got out; I found it when I was checking the gate."

  "I don't touch that stuff," she told me. "Haven't for more than a decade. It was nailed to the fence post?"

  "It was," I said.

  "Do you still have it?"

  I nodded. "I don't know what to do with it. Is it... well, is it supposed to be me?"

  "I don't know. Bring it to me," she said, "and I'll see what I can do."

  "Who would be nailing wax dolls to my fence?" I asked her.

  "I don't know," she said, "but it's nobody who means you well, I'm pretty sure of that."

  14

  Originally, I was planning on going back to the farm, but when I saw a red Mercedes convertible in front of the Hitching Post. I remembered Alicia mentioning Damian getting a Mercedes for his 21st birthday, so I decided to take a detour, just in case Priscilla’s son and his girlfriend were there.

 

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