The Sinister Secrets of the Deadly Summoner

by Constance Barker

“Macro-scale extra tropical cyclone,” Paisley seemed to agree. “Gonna hit from Portland, Maine, all the way to Long Island. I’m expecting thunderstorms in our area, given the water temperature offshore.”

  “You seem to know a lot about weather.”

  “Mom was a meteorologist.”

  “You mean a TV weather girl, or a scientist studying the weather?”

  “Yes.” Paisley said.

  A fat man in a windbreaker and army helmet loped along the sidewalk. He looked Paisley over and stopped. “Guess they didn’t tell you, missy, but the bands have been canceled today. Enjoy the Clam Fest anyway, hon.”

  They headed for the Prius. “Guess he thought you were a musician,” Grace said.

  “I can play. Harp, bagpipes, keyboard. Aunt Vickie made us take lessons.” Paisley smirked. “That’s why I’m so well-rounded.”

  She beeped open the doors. “You play in a band?”

  “Oh, hell-to-the-no. Musicians are turd weasels.”

  “Of course.”

  They drove to the office, the first big splats of rain hitting the windshield. By the time they reached Antiques Alley, the streets flooded with a downpour.

  “I don’t think I can ride in this.” Paisley held her hat on her lap.

  Grace eyed the orange scooter sitting forlorn on an empty curb. “What are you going to do in the winter, Paize?”

  “I don’t know, go tobogganing, burn a Yule log, buy presents, build a snowman; the ushe.”

  “About transportation, I mean. If you can’t drive in a rainstorm, how are you going to drive in the snow?” Grace unlocked the door to her shop.

  “I have a car somewhere. Don’t worry, I’ll find it.”

  Before she could pursue that, the light on her answering machine distracted her. She sat at her desk, Paisley in the visitor chair.

  “You have an answering machine?”

  “Well, yeah, I’m hardly here.”

  Paisley took off her hat. “I think you missed a message. ‘Hello, Grace Longstreet? This is the twenty-first century calling. We have this crazy new technology called voice mail’”

  Ignoring her, Grace pushed the button.

  “Grace, it’s Barb. You’re gonna owe me drinks for the rest of the year. Call me on my cell.”

  Barb was Barbara Luna, an assistant to the Essex County Medical Examiner, and Grace’s friend since grade school. Grace occasionally turned to her for information. In trade, Barb accepted food and drink.

  She and Paisley eyed each other for a moment.

  “Junior Polaski?” Paisley asked.

  “Only one way to find out.” Grace dialed the number.

  Paisley gawped. “You can dial her number from memory?”

  “Well, duh.”

  “You don’t just store the numbers on your cell phone?”

  The phone on the other end purred. “Not usually. What if it gets stolen, or I drop it in the toilet?” Again, she didn’t say.

  Paisley’s jaw dropped. “Well, then you—you. You wait for all your contacts to call back so you can store them again.”

  “Calling me on Crab Fest opening day? Now I know I was right,” Barb’s voice issued from the speaker. “You’re working some angle on a kid from town, right? Lived on the mudflats.”

  “Peripherally,” Grace said.

  “I knew it!”

  Grace didn’t want to ask. “How?”

  “Because it’s weird. You’re always mixed up in weird stuff.”

  And I hang out with weird people, Grace remembered Judy’s words. She glanced at Paisley, who was twirling her rain hat on her finger.

  “I already talked with Pete. He said Junior Polaski’s COD was unknown until autopsy.”

  “Yep, he’s right there. Not a lot of Junior left to carve up either way.”

  Again, the clams once lodged happily in her stomach did a little dance.

  “He said the fish were at him.” Grace breathed heavily through her nose. Ick.

  “We live on the shore. You gotta expect some of that. Here’s the thing, though, the weird thing. Junior’s hands and feet were glowing.”

  “Does that mean something gross?”

  “Not gross—weird. He was covered in blue-green and red goo. Bio-luminescence.”

  Paisley’s eyes went a little wide. Grace didn’t get it. “And that’s because…?”

  “We don’t know. Samples were sent to Manomet, but they won’t get back to us until after the holiday. Still, this is the kind of stuff deep sea creatures generate.”

  “Well, like you said, we live on the shore.”

  “Nope. There isn’t any deep water between the mudflats and Marblehead. That’s just it. The stuff isn’t from dinoflagellates like you see in the surf. It looks like Junior encountered deep sea fishes. A lot of deep sea fishes. And we don’t have those near the shore.”

  “Weird. I get it. What’s the theory?”

  “None as of right now. Junior’s chilling out for the time being. I just thought you want to know.”

  Grace wasn’t sure if she wanted to or not.

  Chapter 10

  She hung up the phone and watched Liberty Park across the street become Liberty Pond. Legend had it that several executed victims of the Salem Witch Trials were buried there. Grace had never seen any evidence of this. It was just an irregular pentagram of a park with a few ice age boulders sticking out of the ground.

  “So what’s next?” Paisley asked.

  Grace put her feet on the desk and leaned back. “We’ve swerved well off the path of an insurance investigation. You tell me what’s next.”

  Paisley twirled her hat some more until she dropped it. “I guess we should interview known associates, maybe family members.”

  “You want to interview people who just lost a son?”

  Paisley shrugged with her brows. “No, but I thought you might be good at it.”

  “Great. Thanks. No way.”

  With a frown, Paisley crossed her arms. “It’s not like we’re going to get anything from the cops. What else can we do?”

  “Maybe there’s nothing we can do.”

  “I want to get that book back to Jack Stoughton.” The Goth looked over her shoulder out the window. “I said I would.”

  “You said you’d try.” Grace put her hands behind her head, digesting. “It was pretty cool that you tracked down the burglar.”

  Paisley didn’t face her. “The book is what we need to find.”

  Her look in profile looked so melancholy, it tugged on Grace’s heart. “Are you really crushing that hard on Jack Stoughton?”

  Paisley didn’t speak.

  “Hey, Paize, c’mon, the guys at least a decade older than you.”

  The Goth turned with a look of disbelief. “Get off the grass. He’s only a few years older than you.”

  “He’s more than a few years older. And I’m more than a few years older than you.”

  Paisley’s eyes went somewhere else. “But he’s elegant. Got great bones. And jumpable bones. Big hands. I like big hands.”

  “Maybe the reason you’re into him is because he’s kinda unobtainable.”

  Her eyes were back, and a little intense. “Go shrink someone else’s head, Grace.”

  “Fine. Sorry.”

  “You know what bothers me? It’s what Pete said. How Junior and his pals were too dumb to read. Why would some illiterate poop-gopher steal books, of all things? Are books that valuable? Do people even read anymore? Why would they want old books, because they look cool in the den?”

  “Decorators buy books by the pound, literally, they get weighed, especially sets of books, just for that reason.” Grace studied the books on the shelves. “I don’t like assessing book collections. They’re such wild cards. I’ve seen a book about building windows for houses go for a thousand bucks at auction. Just a trade paperback, nothing fancy. I’ve seen a signed, first edition Maltese Falcon go for five figures, but I picked one up at a used book store for fifty bucks. It’s tha
t one, with the yellow cover, top shelf. ‘To my friend Joe, best wishes, Dash.’”

  “Why wouldn’t Junior steal that book?”

  “You have to know books. People specialize in book assessment. Sometimes, it’s all about condition, sometimes rarity, or a famous author, the list goes on and on…” An idea clicked in her head, so strong as to derail her train of thought.

  “What if you did steal something you knew nothing about?” Grace said out loud.

  Paisley took a stick of gum from her coat pocket and chewed. “I’d Google it.”

  “And if you couldn’t find anything?”

  “Change my search terms?” She cracked her gum. “What kind of stolen thing are we talking about? Like your ancient answering machine?”

  “Sure. For example. You understand that it answers phone calls and records them. But you only know about cell phones, voice mail. There are input jacks you haven’t seen before, a little plastic thing that pops out that has wheels and tape. When you Google it, you only find more wireless stuff, and Bluetooth and VOIP. What’s your next step?”

  “Throw it away and use the voice mail on my cell phone?”

  Grace bulled forward. “You’ve heard there’s a place where old-school telephones are sold. You go there, and find a manual with a picture of an answering machine. But it’s not for sale. Still, you’re obsessed by this answering machine.”

  “Grace, you lost me. Who freaking cares about an outdated piece of technology anyway? You think someone would steal a manual for one? You could just play with it and figure it out. The buttons are marked, right?”

  Grace pushed the silver machine across the desk. “What’s the memo button for? How about the ANNC/Day, or 2 Way/Hour?”

  “Okay, I evolved after the Stone Age, and I don’t know. What are you getting at?”

  Grace pulled out her cell phone and scrolled through the photos. She came up with the close up of George’s walking stick. “Know what that is?”

  Taking the phone, Paisley squinted, scanning for a long moment. She handed the cell back. “No.”

  “Do you have some idea what it is?”

  “It looks like it might be a walking stick. But something about the carvings—it’s magic, isn’t it?”

  Now Grace studied the image. “Probably. According to Millie Ryan, George took a walk with this every single day, even in blizzards, and when he was sick. The dog wouldn’t go with him when he took this. She said her husband kissed it three times every sunset while he walked the mudflats. George died in February. Now, there isn’t a single clam left in the mudflats.”

  “Why is everything about clams all of a sudden?” Paisley asked. “You’re saying this is a magic clam stick?”

  “If you thought it might be, and the owner was dead, where would you look for answers?”

  Paisley smiled. “In the spooky shop with severed hands in glass cases. Maybe in the not-so-spooky shop of the family in town with the spookiest reputation. And if you’d steal a magic clam stick, you’d probably want to steal the manual for it.”

  The smile went slack, and her eyes popped. “Holy shit—the deep sea fish, the green goop on Junior’s body…”

  “So we go talk to Senior,” Grace sighed.

  “How are we going to do that?”

  “I have a stupid idea.” She pulled her feet off the desk and planted them on the floor. “We can only hope that Senior is as bright as Junior was.”

  Chapter 11

  “Wow, this is a stupid idea.”

  Paisley rode shotgun, the seat belt hardly fitting her. Grace had her stuff her scooter helmet under her coat. If you didn’t look too closely, you might think she was pregnant.

  “We need some entre. An idea that’s as shocking as losing a son.” Grace paused at a stop sign for way too long. No one was on the road behind her, with the rain still bucketing down. She watched the wipers go back and forth. “I don’t think this is going to work.”

  “Me, neither. I’m supposed to be a girl Junior knocked up and you’re my—wait, what is your role again?”

  “I was hoping to develop the plan as we drove, but…” Rain drummed the roof, sluiced down the street. “Duping grieving parents? What are we doing, Paize?”

  Paisley squirmed in her seat. “I’m finding a book for Jack. You, and I’m stretching here, are finding clams.”

  She remained stopped at the sign. “My folks took me every year. That was back when Clam Fest included one of those traveling fun fairs. You know, a knock-off Tilt-a-Whirl, a sad merry-go-round, and total rip-off prize games. There was fair food, but we were usually too full of clams.”

  “Right now, you’re full of something else. Let’s go.”

  “It was like our own special event. It was lame. It was cheesy. But it was ours. Dammit, what am I doing?”

  “Trying to keep the memories alive by keeping Clam Fest alive,” Paisley said.

  Grace gunned it. “Go shrink someone else’s head, Paize.”

  Gunning a Prius didn’t amount to much.

  “A man died,” Grace made a hard left. “Probably because of that stick. Sure, he stole from me, from Jack. But I have to find that walking stick. We don’t know if it will harm some other person.”

  Paisley rubbed her helmet. “You’re saying the stick killed Junior?”

  “In my experience, that’s what Objets de Puissance do. That and worse.” A memory intruded: a young woman trapped in a dark, inaccessible place, running for her life in an unknown dimension. Grace shook it off.

  “You’re the guardian of New Carfax or something? And you tell me it’s not my job to catch burglars.”

  Grace started down the steep, meandering driveway. “No, it’s not my job. It’s my side job.”

  At the wide spot in the drive in front of the Polaski home, she nearly ran into an SUV. Stan Polaski got out on one side, his wife the other. Immediately, Grace saw the flaw that had been gnawing at the back of her mind. She didn’t know either of them by name, but Stan worked as a butcher in the Market Basket where she shopped. The wife cashiered at Your Corner Drug on the town square. In a town as small as New Carfax, it was almost inevitable that she would know the Polaskis.

  “Okay, you can take the helmet out of your coat,” she sighed.

  Paisley opened the coat and removed the headgear. Grace was shocked to see her bra. Paisley really was wearing the raincoat as a dress. “Thank you. That was really starting to dig in.”

  Mrs. Polaski trudged into the house, more miserable than the weather could account for. Stanley stood in place, waiting. Grace opened her door.

  “What’s the plan now?” Paisley asked.

  “Wing it.”

  They approached the father, standing his ground, arms folded. “Grace Longstreet, right? I had a feeling.”

  He looked at Grace’s hand for a moment before shaking. When he looked at Paisley’s pale as death face, his feet shuffled, as if he might edge away.

  “Why did you have a feeling?” Grace studied the rough, square face.

  “Your family history, family business. Something dark happened to my boy. He never amounted to much, but he was still my son. I wanna know what it was, and the cops won’t never tell me crap.” He faced the house and slowly walked. “Better come in. Don’t talk to Sara. She’s…”

  Like most houses in New Carfax, they entered a small foyer that served as a kind of mudroom. Stan didn’t bother with his coat and boots, just kept walking. Sara sat in the living room off to the left, gazing at something in her lap. Stan Senior led them to the kitchen. From an upper cabinet, he took a bottle of Jim Beam. Without offering any, he took a few hefty gulps.

  Junior’s father sighed explosively with the liquor. “Cops said we didn’t need to ID Junior. Should’ve listened. Not enough left to identify. Shouldn’t have let Sara see, but she insisted.”

  He sat, not offering chairs, but Grace sat across from him. “I’m surprised they let you. The morgue’s not open on holidays.”

  “It
’s because of some big-deal drug bust Junior had information on. Those dubbas he hangs out with, no doubt.” Polaski read the label on the bottle.

  Paisley stood behind Grace. “Do you think Junior was selling drugs?” Bad Cop.

  “Yeah, probably. Junior was lazy. Wanted the easy life. So I can see him doing that. Not that he ever had anything to show for it. Prescription drug dealers, the paper said. Cops rounded up the whole lot of ’em. They let Junior go, supposedly to testify at trial.”

  Good Cop Grace asked, “Do you think this was some kind of vendetta?”

  “Hell no. Like I said, they’re all in jail. And besides, what happened to Junior wasn’t done by human hands.” Stan gave Grace a hard look. “It wasn’t sharks or crabs that done him, either.”

  Lingering in the air was a question Stan was afraid to voice.

  “Junior had a record,” Bad Cop Paisley jumped in. “Maybe he crossed the wrong people.”

  “No ‘wrong people’ did what was done to my boy!”

  In the stunned silence, a distant sound of soft weeping crept into the kitchen. Feet squeaked up the stairs.

  “What was it, Grace? Your family’s been dealing with dark magic shit since before this was a town. I know you’re looking for it. I have to know.”

  Grace took out her cell phone, swiped to the photo of the walking stick. Other than hands and boots, there was no way to identify George Ryan. She showed it to Stanley, Senior. “Have you seen this in Junior’s possession?”

  “That’s George’s walking stick. George Ryan was my best friend. Why would Junior have it?” Stan’s face went gray. He took a few more pulls from the bottle. “You think that stick…?”

  Bad Cop Paisley cut in. “What do you know about it? Did you see Junior with any books? Really old books?”

  “Junior with a book? Please. But that stick—George used to walk with it at sundown. All the time. But he didn’t die the way my boy did. Junior was chewed up and spit out.” Stan’s voice cracked. He closed his eyes.

  Grace was hating this. “You don’t know anything about the walking stick?”

  All Stan Polaski could muster was a negative shake of the head.

  “Okay. Sorry to take up your time. I’m—I’m sorry.” Grace stood. Paisley lowered her brows, but Grace ignored her.