Night Shift Witch, #1

by Cate Lawley

  It could even be perceived as a compliment given the fact my last boyfriend was Alex himself.

  9

  The Butler Did It

  When I walked into the office, I found Ben scrolling through his accounting ledger.

  “You pulled Chalmers’ records?” I asked.

  Ben nodded and pointed to a file on the corner of his desk. “Since I didn’t take payment, I was checking to see who had actually been charged for the service. The person arranging the service isn’t always the one footing the bill.”

  I grabbed the file, then perched on the edge of Ben’s desk. “Nice. You’re already building our suspect pool. Maybe you were a detective in a former life.”

  He glanced at my rear—mostly in a why-are-you-sitting-on-my-desk way—and then his gaze traveled higher and met mine. “Definitely not.”

  “Is there a wife?” I asked as I flipped open the file. “It’s always the spouse.”

  “There’s a Mrs. Chalmers. It’s in the file.” He tapped a few keys and his printer spat out a page. He stood up and retrieved the sheet then headed for the door. He opened it and waited for me to precede him.

  Polite? Or just convinced I wasn’t trustworthy enough to be left unsupervised in his office?

  I guessed I’d find out when this little golem problem was resolved. If I still had a job, I was calling that a win.

  I hopped off his desk and exited the office, Chalmers’ file in hand.

  Once the door shut with a click, he said, “I thought it was always the butler.”

  “You’re thinking of mystery novels. I’m talking about real life.”

  “Real life…with witches and wizards.”

  Looking over my shoulder, I frowned at him. “I thought we were past this. Magic is real, and sometimes it even sparkles. What else do you need to know?” I shoved the swinging door to the prep room a little too hard, and it banged against the wall.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve set her off now,” Alex said.

  “No,” Ben replied. “We were just discussing the merits of butlers over wives as suspects.”

  “Oh, yeah. If there’s a butler, my money’s on him.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I said.” Ben handed the piece of paper in his hand to Alex. “Robert Chalmers prepaid for his own funeral. Do you guys have an explanation for that piece of evidence?”

  “How do you know?” I had to ask—because no golem in his right mind would make arrangements to be buried like a nonmagical human.

  “Personal check.” Alex handed me the sheet of paper.

  On it was a copy of a check for a rather large sum of money, signed by one Robert Chalmers.

  “But since you didn’t take payment, you can’t be sure it was him. Maybe someone else with access to his checkbook wrote it.” Yes, I was making a wild guess, but golems didn’t pay to get buried in the ground. With an open casket, no less. They just didn’t.

  “And he didn’t notice when ten grand disappeared from his account?” Ben looked unconvinced.

  “Maybe not, depending on the account. Golems can be long-lived, and, correspondingly, very wealthy.” Alex shrugged. “A lengthy life span can be manipulated as a financial advantage and frequently is by the enhanced community. I also happen to know that Robert wasn’t hard up for cash.”

  “That still doesn’t mean he wouldn’t miss such a large withdrawal. And I find it difficult to believe that my assistant director would accept a check without ID.” Ben held up a hand. “I can’t call her. She’s traveling out of the country on a combined retirement and twentieth-anniversary trip.”

  “So, Ben, I have some bad news for you.” I smacked the file I’d been clutching against Alex’s chest and then turned back to Ben. “Here’s the thing. You’ve got the basics. Magic is real—”

  “And sparkles.” Ben crossed his arms.

  I gave him my serious-stuff-forthcoming look. “Right. But there’s also the nonsparkly, sneaky variety, some of which is morally questionable, depending on how it’s used.”

  “She’s talking about mind control,” Alex said. “More accurately, persuasion. Your assistant could have spoken with a woman and still be willing to swear five minutes later that she had been a he. That’s how persuasion works.”

  “So a phone call to my former assistant director would be pointless.” Ben shook his head. “Read the file and tell me what you think. Other than disclosing there’s a Mrs. Chalmers who is listed as his wife, there isn’t much information other than service and burial instructions.”

  Alex had set the file down on a counter and was flipping through it. “And this form that’s included, the body disposition and authorization, how common is it for your clients to have something like this prepared?”

  “Given that Mr. Chalmers wasn’t terminally ill or elderly and died in an accident, I’d say not that common at all.” Ben pulled up his rolling stool and sat down. “A good portion of my clientele want to believe they’ll live forever.”

  I glanced at Chalmers’ corpse, once again covered. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t think a golem would anticipate his death.” I sighed. “Since I’m pretty sure the butler didn’t do it, how about we start with a list of suspects? Alex, you knew Chalmers, right?” When Alex nodded, I said, “So? Who are the most likely suspects? He has a wife, but who else?”

  “Oh, Robert had a wife…and a mistress and a girlfriend.”

  “Good grief,” I muttered. “You’ve got to be kidding me. When did he sleep?”

  “Do golems need to sleep?” Ben asked in a curiously nonjudgmental tone.

  I sighed. Excellent point. I didn’t think they did; not as much as I did, at any rate. “All right. You guys have to admit that three women and one man practically screams motive for murder. Any one of them could have offed him in a fit of jealousy. And”—I pointed at both of them—“they make a much better set of suspects than the nonexistent butler.”

  “We’ve got a few hours to kill before we start cooking up a doppelganger at Camille’s.” A pained look crossed Alex’s face. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think we should interview the wife.”

  “Oh, yeah. I’m in.” Ben was on his feet in a flash.

  I wasn’t sure whether to be shocked by Ben’s interest, or pleased it would be so easy to keep an eye on him for the evening. Alex might not rat out Ben and his newfound knowledge to Cornelius, but these things had a way of getting back to the big boss man. And I wanted to at least make a pitch for Ben keeping his memory before Cornelius had a chance to form preconceived ideas about him. Having Ben’s involuntary memory wipe on my conscience was a broken promise I didn’t want on my conscience.

  I liked him—but I’d feel that way about any hapless human tangled in Society politics.

  Probably.

  My gaze wandered his way.

  He was tall, with neatly trimmed red hair and an open expression. I’d bet he didn’t have any problems demonstrating the sympathy his clients so desperately needed. He wasn’t wearing a suit today, but still had on slacks, a dress shirt and a different equally bland tie. But he also sported a sneaky flair that I’d caught sight of earlier when he’d perched on the stool—wildly inappropriate giraffe socks.

  Speaking of early judgments: that generic tie predilection of his had definitely led me astray.

  Alex stood next to him, making for an interesting comparison. Alex was also tall, even taller than Ben. His dark hair was in need of a trim, like it always seemed to be. And he was sporting at least three days of stubble. Also per usual, his attire was clean but slightly disheveled, like he’d left his clothes in the dryer overnight. (He probably had.)

  I was having a hard time envisioning the three of us cooperating to conduct an investigation of any kind.

  “Are you coming, or do you want to hang out in the cool room with Chalmers?” Alex asked.

  While I’d been daydreaming, Ben had rolled Chalmers back into the refrigeration room and grabbed a sports coat. Both he and Alex were both st
anding by the door waiting for me.

  “Wouldn’t miss this for anything.”

  True fact. The why of that statement, though, I wasn’t about to analyze..

  10

  The Ice Queen Did It

  Annoyance and amusement warred briefly when Mrs. Chalmers’ butler answered her door.

  I studiously avoided catching either Ben or Alex’s eye. The mere existence of a butler was not evidence that “the butler did it.”

  He gave us a condescending look—a neat trick for someone who looked to be about my age—and said begrudgingly, “Richard Fox, Lydia’s personal assistant, at your service.” Without waiting for us to identify ourselves, he swung the door wide and gestured for us to enter. “She’ll receive you in her office.”

  After closing the door behind us, he led the way down the large, formal hallway. As Ben, Alex, and I followed obediently behind, I couldn’t help thinking that PA Richard could have been a butler in another life. He had the superiority and formal manners down. Replace his expensive, tailored shirt and natty dress slacks with a dark suit and white gloves, and I’d call him Jeeves.

  Alex lifted an eyebrow and tipped his head in Richard’s direction.

  “A little young,” I mouthed.

  Alex rolled his eyes. I was pretty sure I was the only person who could elicit that particular response from him, which was oddly satisfying.

  I gave Richard another look—with just a touch of magical sight this time—but I didn’t catch any leaking magic that identified him as enhanced. If only I’d been more diligent with my homework, I’d trust what I was—or wasn’t—seeing. Youngish, probably midtwenties, not poorly paid, and average-looking; that was all I got from him.

  One thing was certain; he wasn’t nearly attractive enough to be a golem. They were notoriously good-looking. A natural result when you got to choose your kids’ body parts…if there was anything natural about scavenging bits and pieces of different people to make a new person.

  Richard paused at a closed door, knocked, then swung it open after a barely perceptible pause. He motioned for us to enter.

  It was all so weirdly formal. I half expected to see the equivalent of a receiving room, not a study, on the other side of the door.

  As I entered, a stunning woman stood up from behind a massive, tidy desk. Just my luck—all that wood surface and not a single visible handwriting exemplar. Lydia Chalmers didn’t look the type to leave scraps of paper lying about. She was all business, from her sleek chignon without a stray strand of hair to soften her face, to the perfectly tailored suit that displayed her feminine figure to advantage but lacked any warmth.

  When our little party came to a stop in front of her desk, she excused Richard and said, “Alex, introduce me to your colleagues.”

  “Ben Kawolski.” Alex indicated Ben but didn’t linger before moving to me. “And Star. We have news about your husband.”

  Lydia gestured at the seats in front of her desk and then gracefully sank into her chair. “So you said on the phone. He’s out of town at the moment.” She paused, tilted her head, and said, “Or is he?” With a cool look at Ben, she said, “Are you affiliated in any way with Kawolski Funeral Home?”

  We’d agreed on the ride over that Alex would do most of the speaking. He was the one with the most experience with both the enhanced community and Society rules. He was an enforcer, after all. He’d also told us in the car ride over that he’d met Lydia before.

  “He’s the owner and funeral director,” Alex said. “That’s why we’re here. Your husband’s body is being stored there and is scheduled for burial tomorrow.”

  She was so still that I thought she hadn’t heard Alex. Then I saw it: a small twitch in her left eye. “Have you damaged his body?”

  Alex turned to Ben, and for the first time that evening, my new boss looked nervous. “Your husband’s remains have been prepared for burial.”

  “Is that your euphemistic way of saying that my husband has been mutilated? More precisely, that you’ve embalmed him?”

  Ben nodded slowly. “Those were the instructions I received.”

  Lydia’s nostrils pinched. Under all the layers of restraint and civility, she was livid. In a perfectly calm voice, she said, “So be it.” And then, very quietly, more to herself than the room full of people, she said, “A child was obviously too much to ask of him.”

  What embalming had to do with an inability to have children, I had no idea. A dead guy couldn’t exactly get the job done, could he?

  Then again, golems’ reproductive methods were a fuzzy gray area. How the heck did they procreate if they were stitching together parts from other people? I wasn’t the queasy sort, but…eww.

  “Can you tell us about Robert’s travel plans?” Alex asked. “When he left, where he was scheduled to stay, when he was expected to return?”

  She picked up the phone on her desk and punched one of the buttons. “Richard, bring me a copy of Robert’s itinerary.”

  And then we waited in tense silence for Richard to appear.

  I’d have filled the silence with questions. We’d hardly scratched the surface so far, but Alex was the expert.

  Richard entered the room with an air of quiet deference. The guy was annoyingly butlerlike. I wanted to shake him and tell him to get a backbone. Figuratively. Literally, his posture couldn’t have been better.

  Lydia took the sheaf of papers from Richard with a small smile, the first sign of any warmth she’d displayed. I tried again to get a good look at him, to see what exactly he was. And this time, I saw just a hint of magic. I wasn’t sure what type of enhanced being he was, only that he wasn’t fully human. I shot Alex a peevish look. I’d bet my favorite black eyeliner that Alex knew.

  Lydia flipped through the papers then handed them to Alex, the implication being she had no clue where her darling husband had planned to travel.

  Alex accepted the paperwork and, after perusing it, asked, “Do you have any evidence that your husband ever arrived in Pittsburgh?”

  “Do you mean, did he call me to check in and say he’d landed safely? No, we didn’t have that kind of relationship. You might check with his girlfriend. It’s possible she heard from him—unless he didn’t make it that far.” Lydia turned to Richard, standing quietly to the side. “Richard, could you please provide Alex with Abby’s contact information? Brooke’s as well, so we’ve covered all the bases.”

  “Of course.” Richard didn’t look appalled. He didn’t look anything, just pulled out a small electronic device and started tapping away. After a few seconds, he moved to Lydia’s desk and dashed off two numbers on a sticky note.

  I was closest, so I took it from him. He’d made note of the names and numbers of the women. That he had Robert’s lovers’ contact information in his PDA didn’t seem surprising to anyone else in the room, so I bit my lip. Occasionally, my suburban roots threatened to reveal themselves, and I liked to minimize their effect on my witchy life.

  Alex snatched the sticky note from my hand with a warning look.

  I smoothed over my features, trying for just a fraction of the blandness Lydia had mastered. With a husband like Robert, the woman probably had a lot of practice.

  Alex pulled out the printout of Chalmers’ check from a file folder tucked under his arm and handed it to Lydia. “Is this your husband’s writing?”

  Lydia took the piece of paper and examined it briefly. “No.” But she didn’t return it to Alex, and I could hear the paper crackle under her tensed fingers.

  “Does it look like his handwriting?” Alex asked very softly, almost kindly.

  “It does.” Her fingers clenched, crumpling the paper. She looked down at the creased page with surprise. But then her features blanked again, and she handed it back to Alex without further comment.

  “What makes you think your husband didn’t write the check?” Alex asked.

  “The fact that it’s for his burial. No golem in his right mind would make arrangements to have himself
buried by a human. The idea is ridiculous, as you well know.” Lydia gave Alex a cold, hard stare. “Robert was very much in his right mind.”

  Alex didn’t blink, didn’t twitch even an eyelash at her nasty tone. “To clarify, the handwriting on the check looks like his?” When Lydia inclined her head, he said, “Neither Star nor I are interested in tarnishing your husband’s good name.”

  Lydia turned her icy stare on me.

  I nodded. I had no clue if that was the right response, and I held my breath, half afraid the contained woman would completely lose it, jump over her desk, and beat the snot out of me.

  After a split second of much-too-intense scrutiny, Lydia dismissed me.

  “Any other questions?” Richard asked from the corner of the room. “Mrs. Chalmers has a busy evening ahead of her.”

  Lydia didn’t deny it…because her husband dying was just another item to add to her calendar? The woman was like a snowy mountain peak hiding a soon-to-erupt volcano.

  Alex nudged me.

  Everyone but me was standing, so I rose to my feet.

  Lydia looked expectantly at Alex. “When should we expect the body?”

  Alex considered the question, probably adding in a few extra hours to compensate for Camille’s perceived incompetence, then said, “Preparations should be complete by tomorrow early morning.”

  Addressing Lydia, Ben said, “If you’ll provide a location, we can have Mr. Chalmers’ remains delivered to your preferred funeral home. Again, I’m very sorry for your loss.” He took a deep breath. “If you’d prefer for us to handle the arrangements, Kawolski’s is prepared to do what’s necessary to accommodate any special needs your family has.”

  Bit of a shocker, that one, because I didn’t even know what those special needs were other than containing any loose magic and cremation. I’d never been in a golem’s passing or seen funeral rites. Obviously, Ben didn’t have a clue what he’d just offered.

  Lydia inspected Ben with new interest, then—jaw dropper—she said, “I’ll give it some consideration. You’ll hear from Richard by nine tomorrow with my decision.”