A Whiff of Murder

by Angela M. Sanders

Genres: Mystery; Cozy Mystery; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

This intoxicating debut spin-off of the author’s popular small-town Oregon-set Witch Way Librarian mysteries features an intriguing young woman with a unique connection to the magical realm of scent. Sometimes, she can even sniff out a killer . . .

Some people read auras—a light or color that surrounds others, revealing their character or emotions. Lise Bloom reads ribbons—of fragrance, that is. Whether she’s around old friends or new, fragrance often unfurls from them—an ability called “clairalience.”

Hoping to gain insight into her gift, Lise works at the Lucky Lotus, a New Age shop. Unfortunately, the oils the owner, Dyann, concocts, nauseate Lise and impede her sense of scent. Worse, the shop feels more like wealthy Dyann’s hobby than a spiritual place, thanks to her toxic love-torment relationship with her ex-husband, Richard.

Dyann is so pleased with her latest vengeful scheme that she shares it with Lise and gleefully remarks that when Richard finds out, he’ll kill her. For Lise, it’s the last straw. Persuaded to quit by her caring, colorful crew of housemates, Lise emails Dyann a resignation letter. But when she goes to the store the next morning, she detects a fetid odor she doesn’t recognize—and discovers a spilled bottle of Mayan ceremonial liqueur . . . beside Dyann’s dead body.  

In her rush to call the police, Lise doesn’t notice that Dyann’s half-completed reply to Lise’s resignation email is on the monitor of her desktop computer—making her the prime suspect. Now, she’ll have to follow her nose to uncoil a venomous truth. It just may lead her life in an entirely new direction—unless a killer cuts it short . . .

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

The customer hesitated near a display of oracle cards. With her parchment-white skin and equally pale, wispy hair, she might have been a phantom.

But what really drew Lise’s attention was the scent of violets that wafted from her in airborne ribbons. The odor was sickly sweet, as if the flowers had been left to rot in a vase. In other words, the stranger was grieving.

“May I help you?” Lise asked.

The customer picked up a box of cards with angels on its cover, then returned it to the pile. “I want to attract abundance. I wonder if the Lucky Lotus has some kind of potion for that?”

No, Lise thought. Not the Magnet Oil. She ratcheted up her smile a few degrees. “What kind of potion would you mean?”

“I’m not sure.” Despite her nonchalant shrug, she watched Lise closely. “Something I couldn’t find anywhere else. Something with real power.”

“Perhaps you’d be interested in our crystal jewelry? We carry a rose quartz necklace that attracts love. It would look great with your coloring.” Anything to keep away from the heinous stench of Magnet Oil.

“That won’t work. I’m allergic to metals. No potions?”

If her skin was too sensitive for jewelry, the Magnet Oil would raise hives before she could say “Wow, that burns.”

“Our book selection—” Lise began.

Dyann emerged from the beaded curtain separating the Lucky Lotus’s back room from the shop. As if to announce her arrival, the shop’s playlist changed from pan flutes to an Irish jig. “What you need is Magnet Oil, and you’re in luck. I just made a fresh batch. Lise, bring us a bottle.”

Lise reluctantly stooped to open the cabinet where they kept the unlabeled brown bottles and handed one to Dyann.

People who came to the Lucky Lotus for Dyann’s aura readings expecting an Earth Mother–type in an Indian skirt and Birkenstocks were disappointed. Her style was more Beverly Hills housewife than yoga matron, and her wardrobe was expensive enough to be labeled “boho” instead of “hippie.” That said, she was all-in on the woo.

Dyann ran a finger down the bottle. “Magnet Oil is special.”

“What’s in it?” the customer asked.

“It’s from a recipe I received in a vision from my spirit guide, Running Bull, a Native American elder.” Dyann let her focus soften, as if she were communing with him at that very moment. “It was a gift, a gift to help people like yourself attract whatever it is you need in your life.”

In fact, the oil was a fifty-fifty blend from industrial-sized jugs of Love Evermore and Evil Be Gone, ordered by the crate from a firm in China specializing in Santeria-inspired goods. Last week Dyann had insisted Lise help her decant it into sample spray tubes, and Lise’s resulting migraine had taken days to dissipate. She was still finding vials in her pockets.

“I’ll take a bottle,” the customer said.

“Apply it after you wake up and again before you go to bed,” Dyann said. “As you rub it over your chakras, say the words ‘With this potion, I magnetize my greatest good.’” Dyann set the bottle on the counter. “Perhaps you’d like a backup? We’re running a special. Buy one, get the second half off.”

“Then I’ll take two,” the customer said.

As Lise crouched to retrieve another bottle, Dyann said, “Lise, when you get a moment, would you see me?” The beads clacked as she disappeared into the back room.

The customer’s waft of violets had already lightened, as if Astoria’s marine air had infused it. Even the thought of relief from her pain had bettered the customer’s mood. Working at the Lucky Lotus was teaching Lise how deeply the need for hope plumbed. If a bundle of sage or a labradorite ring helped someone weather their trauma, so be it.

Once the customer had left, Lise went to the back room. “You wanted to see me?”

Dyann looked up from her desk, an unraveling dream catcher next to her. She tapped her pen on a sheet of paper. “I need you to sign this. By the way, that customer?”

“Yes?”

“She came in for Magnet Oil, but you tried to sell her a necklace. What was that about?”

“It was a strategy,” Lise said, thinking quickly. “Sure, she wanted Magnet Oil, but wouldn’t she be happier with both Magnet Oil and a necklace? Besides, holding off for a minute makes the Magnet Oil feel more exclusive.”

Dyann regarded her with doubt. “An upsell?”

Lise nodded. “Sure.” Her gaze crept to the clock on the shelf behind Dyann. Two hours until she could go home.

“I guess so,” Dyann said reluctantly. “You might wear one of the necklaces, too. I’d give you ten percent off. Employee discount.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Dyann eyed Lise’s clothing, a men’s button-up shirt and a denim skirt. “I know you’re here for the spiritual education, but you might wear something more in keeping with the shop. Maybe one of our T-shirts?”

Lise had picked up the habit of wearing men’s button-ups when she worked planting scent gardens. Cotton shirts were loose and comfortable and kept off the sun, and it was hard to find women’s clothing to fit someone as tall as she was. Plus, the shirts were a dime a dozen at thrift stores, and she’d much rather wear them than a T-shirt that read “WITCHES DO IT IN CIRCLES.” Dyann probably wasn’t nuts, either, about her freckles, making her look younger than her thirty years, her lack of makeup, or the simple braid down her back.

“You wanted me to sign something?” Lise asked.

“Right.” She handed Lise the pen. “At the bottom of the page.” Dyann sneaked a look at her. “I can’t wait to see what he does.”

“Who is that?” Lise asked, guessing her response.

“Richard.” Her ex-husband. “He’ll be furious.” Strangely, instead of triumph—or even vindictiveness—Dyann’s expression radiated joy. “He’ll kill me when he finds out.”

“No kidding?” Lise responded without enthusiasm.

She’d worked at the Lucky Lotus since earlier that summer, but already she’d witnessed two assaults on Richard—the surreptitious installation of a bird feeder above his beloved Camaro and the delivery to his house of anchovy pizzas from four restaurants. Richard had returned the favor by taking out an ad in the Astorian announcing that the Lucky Lotus now offered “sensual massage.” Lise dreaded answering the shop’s phone.

“This is the big one.” Dyann smiled at the paper on her desk. “I’m changing my will. I’m going to announce it tonight at Murphy’s birthday party.”

Lise seized this opportunity for a new subject. “You’re having a party for your son? How nice.” She’d met Murphy twice, both times when he’d shown up at the shop to ask for money.

“At the Fort George Brewery. He’s turning eighteen.” She leaned forward. “Today he would have inherited everything. If I’d died, that is.”

Lise watched, a bland smile on her lips. Yes, Dyann had been kind to her, encouraging her to learn more about her ability to smell emotion. However, as right as it had seemed at the time, taking this job was a mistake. The irritation of weathering Dyann’s attacks on her ex, of pretending not to care while Dyann found new ways to torment him, overrode the small gains she’d made in understanding her gift.

Lise willed the front door to chime so she could leave the back room. If a customer walked in now, she’d even be willing to peddle Magnet Oil.

“He’ll still get an allowance—I’m not a monster—but I’m leaving most of my money to Blavatsky Manor. Richard will have a fit.” Dyann’s glee soured. “He threatened to bring his girlfriend to the party. She came in the other day, waving around an engagement ring. I got even, though.”

“I’m not familiar with Blavatsky Manor,” Lise said, ignoring the bit about the girlfriend. There was no way she was going there.

“It’s a retirement home for psychic mediums. Appropriate, don’t you think? I mean, given my interest in the spiritual?” One hand went to her diamond-studded yin-yang pendant. “Honestly, all Murphy does anyway is play video games and feed his snake. Plus, I worry that …” She shook her head. “Anyway, it won’t hurt him to know he won’t have a free ride when I’m gone. The kid needs to learn how to be a man.” This provoked a happy snort. “Not that it’s a skill Richard could ever teach him.” She pushed the sheet of paper across her desk. “I want you to witness this for me.”

Lise lifted the paper to read, but Dyann placed her arm over the text. “You don’t need to see it. Just sign.”

Lise shot her a curious glance. Dyann had just told her what was in the changed will. Why hide it? “Okay.” She signed and returned the pen to Dyann. “Don’t you need two signatures?”

“I’ll get the other one tonight at the party. It’s going to be quite a gathering.”

“Oh?” Lise said, hoping she hadn’t expressed too much interest.

“Me, Richard, Murphy, that friend of Murphy’s from the snake place, and a palm reader from Blavatsky Manor. I want her there when I make my announcement.”

Lise inhaled honey, cinnamon, and anise over Dyann’s jasmine-heavy perfume. That explained a lot. Dyann had been into the Mayan ceremonial liqueur again.

“Oh,” Dyann said, clearly remembering something. Lise braced herself for more anti-Richard venom, but Dyann pulled a thick book from a tote bag at her feet. “A customer brought this in, and I thought you’d like it.”

A History of Magical Gifts, the cover read in faded gold letters. The book had to be a hundred years old, and the scent of vanilla and mildew rose from its yellowed pages. Dyann could be so irritating, then she’d come through with a thoughtful gesture like this.

“Thank you.” Lise held the book to her chest.

“Maybe there’s something in it that will help you figure out your own gift,” Dyann said. Her smile cloaked a profound sadness, dark and sharp, like cedar wrapped in aged patchouli leaves.

At last, the front door’s chime sounded. “Thank you again,” Lise said. “I’d better go.”

After work, Lise locked the shop’s front door, leaving Dyann in back to prepare for her son’s birthday party. Taking the job at the Lucky Lotus in Astoria, Oregon, had so seemed right, if not inevitable. Now Lise had to wonder if she’d fallen into the same ambush of hope as so many of the shop’s customers. She had a longing to know where she’d come from and who she was. Maybe it had led her to confuse coincidence with destiny.

Victorian homes in varying states of repair dotted the hills edging town. Wood fires and fallen leaves were weeks away, and the season’s last crickets still chirped, but autumn was in the wind. A knot of clouds gathered, and a gust ruffled Lise’s hair. Perhaps it would rain tonight. This evening two cargo ships were anchored in the depths of the broad Columbia River below, waiting for guidance through the shoals to the Pacific Ocean. Beyond them, forested hills rose on the Washington side of the river.

Lise climbed the hill toward home. Home—Corrie House—was a two-story Victorian pile built for what must have been an agoraphobic sea captain. A peaked attic, Gothic-arched windows, and an octagonal tower rising from its east side contributed to its reputation as “that haunted place on the hill.” The house stood apart from others, and Lise and her two housemates had to park on the dead-end street below and wind up a path worn into the shrubbery and through a small clearing to reach home.

Yes, Corrie House was a climb from town, but Lise loved it here. With her bedroom window open, wind from the ocean washed away the residual smells of the day and cleared her head.

She mounted the stone steps to the house’s foyer and passed through the double front doors to open a second door with a stained glass window with three missing panels.

“There’s a letter for you on the table,” her housemate Fran said.

Fran, mousy bangs hanging over her eyes, sat on the floor at the entrance to the sitting room with its door handle and lock in pieces around her. The lock, molded in brass with designs of vines and a Tudor rose, was almost certainly original to the house. She wiped a rag on some sort of bolt.

“I didn’t know you could fix locks,” Lise said.

Fran looked up, revealing luminous eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses. She quickly turned away, her face again hidden by her overgrown bangs. “Yeah. The latches in this place are in bad shape. The tumbler springs are completely missing in this one. Teddy said I could work off part of my rent.”

Lise sifted through the mail on the waterfall bureau in the hall and found her letter under a grocery store circular. Yes. It was from the DNA firm she’d sent her saliva sample to. Maybe this time she’d get answers about her birth family. Maybe she’d find someone who shared her abilities, who wouldn’t look at her strangely when she asked why someone smelled anxious. Her last two DNA tests had been a bust. One said she was one hundred percent Nigerian, Chinese, and Swedish—each. The other said she had the DNA of a squirrel.

She dug her thumbnail under the envelope’s flap and unfolded the single page.

“Dear Lise Meitner Bloom,” the letter read. “We are sending this letter because our attempts at email continue to be returned. We regret to inform you we are unable to match your DNA. We have refunded your fee.”

Again? Lise dropped the hand holding the letter. And what was up with the email? She was sure they had the right address. It’s what she’d used when she’d asked them to rerun the test. It had worked then.

She shoved the letter into her tote and made her way to the stairs to climb to her room. Voices from the kitchen interrupted her before she’d gone more than a few steps.

“Lise, come join us. Burt brought a bottle of scotch.”

Lise only paused a moment before saying, “Gladly.”

“See if you can convince Fran to come, too.”

“No, thank you,” Fran shouted from the entry hall.

The house’s owner Teddy—Theodora Bright on her mail—sat at the kitchen table with Burt, her gentleman friend. Despite Teddy’s age, it was easy to see the delicate-featured angel she’d been when she’d lounged in Morocco with the Rolling Stones and hung out backstage at Woodstock. Today her waist-length white hair was twisted into a loose chignon. Burt had the weathered look of someone who had spent decades on the ocean. His cane leaned against the wall.

“Darling,” Teddy said, “look at you. Why so sad? Dyann, again?”

“It’s been a day,” Lise said.

The house’s two tabby cats, Grace and Charm, were settled one each in Teddy’s and Burt’s laps. Lise couldn’t tell them apart by looks, but Grace, the female, usually smelled faintly of rosemary from her napping spot in the garden.

Lise pulled up a chair. The kitchen chairs, like everything in the house, were mismatched. This one was spindle-backed and painted red, like the kitchen cabinets. Behind the linoleum-topped table sat a down-stuffed armchair. It was an ideal place for reading with a cup of coffee in the morning, but it was more often a cat bed. Rag rugs were scattered over the scarred floorboards.

“Tell us more,” Burt said.

“It’s the Lucky Lotus,” Lise said. She didn’t need to bend their ears with her failed efforts to trace her biological family. “Dyann is driving me crazy.”

“Here, honey.” Burt poured an inch from the bottle into a small jelly jar with stars molded into its sides and pushed it toward her. “A gift from a cargo ship captain I helped out of a jam once. It’s good. Now tell us what’s wrong.”

The scotch smelled of peat, sure, but of something more—of heather, wool, and rain.

“She’s at it again. Dyann is. For someone who claims to be so spiritual, she is ridiculously nasty toward her ex-husband.” Lise set the glass on the table, and Charm stepped from Teddy’s lap into hers. She ran her fingers through his silky fur. “I wonder if I made a mistake taking that job. Summer is over, too. Pretty soon it will be too late to plant, and I have exactly zero landscaping clients. I feel like I’m stuck at the shop.”

Rent at Corrie House was low, but her savings were lower. She really couldn’t afford to quit.

“Richard is a piece of work,” Teddy said. “But so is Dyann. I’m not sure why they ever split up. They’re made for each other.” She shook her head. “What’s happened now?”

“Dyann had me witness a change to her will. She’s cutting her son’s share, all to spite her ex. She was so gleeful, like she couldn’t wait to see how angry Richard would be.”

Lise wasn’t sure about the full extent of Dyann’s estate, but it had to be large. She’d heard many times about how, a decade earlier, when Dyann was still the secretary at her ex-husband’s car lot, she’d played the lottery numbers printed on the reverse of the fortune in her cookie from that day’s take-out chow mein. The ticket had won the jackpot. When the restaurant went out of business shortly thereafter, Dyann had adopted its name for her shop. The fortune, “What you sow you shall reap,” was now framed in her office.

“Vindictive,” Teddy said.

“She’s not a bad person, but it’s not worth the emotional blackmail.”

“Life is too short to be miserable,” Burt said. “You should leave. You’ll find something else.”

“I know, but Dyann has been good to me.” Dyann had listened with interest to Lise’s discussion of her strange ability to smell emotion and even taught her its name, “clairalience.” That said, she was moody and demanding, and the stench of the Magnet Oil alone was enough to drive her to quit.

“Burt’s right, darling.” Teddy leaned back to give Grace room to shift from Burt’s lap to hers. “If you’re worried about the rent, don’t be. You can work on the garden here until you find something else. Lord knows it needs it.”

“Maybe I should move back home.” Lise didn’t know why she’d said that. There was no returning to Seattle now.

“Don’t you like it here?” Teddy asked.

“I love it here.”

She did. As soon as she’d pulled open Corrie House’s tall double doors and walked through the foyer into the entry hall, she’d felt as if the house were drawing her in, as if it had been waiting for her. Teddy’s thrifted portraits of strange women—anonymous ladies with sad faces, flowers in their hair, awkwardly painted dresses—lined the walls, seeming to whisper “welcome.” Even the faded rug, its rose pattern worn through in spots, had urged her feet forward.

“Then stay,” Teddy said.

Lightning flashed, followed by a low rumble. Tonight they’d have a storm.

“You got home just in time.”

Burt refilled his and Teddy’s glasses and capped the bottle. “As I said, you should quit. It seems like every time I’m here when you get home”—more evenings than not—“you’re miserable. Leave. You’ll find another job, something that doesn’t leave you feeling so dejected.” The scotch had deepened the rumble in his voice.

“Burt has a point, Lise. Dyann will find someone to replace you. God forbid she’d actually work the floor herself.”

“Here.” From the counter, Burt swiped the notebook they used for grocery lists. “We’re going to draft your resignation letter right now. You take the pen. Then you’ll email it to her tonight. Okay?”

Lise obeyed. Burt’s military air made him hard to ignore.

“I, Lise …” Burt paused. “What’s your last name?”

“Bloom. Lise Meitner Bloom.” She’d been named for a German nuclear physicist. Her brother was Albert Einstein.

“Keep the letter to the point,” Teddy advised. “You don’t need to convince her, and you don’t want to give her any room to argue. If I were you, I’d simply say, ‘This is my two weeks’ notice. My last day of work will be’”—she glanced at the calendar stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet—“‘October tenth.’”

The scotch loosened Lise’s hesitation. She transcribed Teddy’s words. Yes, this was perfect. As she wrote, her despair lifted. The Lucky Lotus had been a dead end. She would pin notes about her landscape work on bulletin boards around town. She would fill the town with perfumed gardens, and when walking its hills she’d breathe lilacs, Edgeworthia, and bourbon roses washed with ocean air. The flexibility of freelance gardening would give her more time to track down her biological roots.

Burt raised his glass. “I hereby toast Lise Meitner Bloom and her glorious future.”

“Here, here,” Teddy said.

Lise raised her glass. “I’ll drink to that.”

Lise settled into bed and hoisted to her lap the book Dyann had given her that afternoon. Burt had left hours ago, and Teddy had retreated to the house’s former sitting room and parlor, now her private quarters. Lise imagined her doing restorative yoga or reading the volume of Mary Oliver’s poetry she’d caught sight of when Teddy was having coffee in the kitchen.

In the room next door, Fran was doing whatever it was she did at night. Sometimes Lise heard her moving around in the early hours, but with Fran’s reclusive ways, it was hard to know what she was up to. She’d let drop hints that she was writing a novel. Fran’s brother was a famous late-night TV host—Lise had learned the hard way not to ask about him—and she worked at the bookstore, but that was about all Lise knew about her. That, and thanks to seeing her surrounded by tools and brass door fittings, that she was handy with locks.

Lise returned her attention to A History of Magical Gifts. Its pages were brittle, and a few were loose from its spine. Dyann had been so kind to think of her. She felt a pang of guilt. Was she wrong to leave the Lucky Lotus?

She hadn’t taken the job for its relentless Yanni—peppered with Enya and didgeridoo—nor for the recent furtive phone calls requesting massages, and certainly not for the oils that messed with her ability to smell. She had wanted to learn more about her gift, and Dyann had encouraged her. Besides giving her the book, Dyann had suggested podcasts and television programs on magic and had even given her a few days off to visit Josie Way, a librarian in nearby Wilfred who was rumored to be a witch. After a harrowing experience with Josie, another dimension of her abilities had been released. She’d discovered she could smell not just emotion but also, at unexpected times, history.

As for the Lucky Lotus, the resignation email was sent. Teddy and Burt had both cheered when she’d pressed SEND. It was too late now to change course.

Lise scanned the book’s table of contents and flipped ahead.

“Cases of clairalience,” the page read.

“Clairalience is a rare phenomenon, much overshadowed by the other clairs, particularly clairvoyance and claircognizance. It is characterized by the ability to smell people who have passed as well as to smell angels and demons.”

Lise paused. So far, this had not been her experience, although the Magnet Oil might be classified as demonic.

“However, additional cases adjacent to classic clairalience have been reported. In 1747, Isabel Stone, a young woman in Devon, was known to have the ability to smell illness on the inhabitants of her village. Unfortunately, as many of those whom she diagnosed as. . .