Oh dear. I did see her point. “By your tone, I assume you don’t wish to go to them?”
“I might, eventually. It does hold some appeal. I have a lot of friends there. But I have to admit it doesn’t feel like the right option to me right now. I really don’t understand enough about this culture to be in that high of a position. And frankly, I’d miss working with you too much.”
My heart warmed at this sentiment, one I shared completely. Although it also worried me that she might leave in the future. I’d not known what to do with a partner in the beginning of our acquaintance, but now having experienced it, I was loath to lose her. “I’d much prefer you stay.”
She flashed me a smile. The sun caught her just so, lighting up her eyes, turning her skin even more golden, and she looked picture-perfect in that moment. It distracted me utterly for a moment.
“Even if I do steal your chocolates?”
“Speaking of, you owe me a box. Don’t think I don’t know where that last one went.”
“Now, Henri, maybe you ate it without remembering.”
I scoffed at this and bent a glare on her, fighting to keep my mouth from twitching up and betraying my humor. “Ha! Is that really what you’re going with?”
“Maybe, instead of just buying yourself a box, you should buy two. One for me, one for you.” Her eyes were on the road, leaving her in profile, but I didn’t have to see her face clearly to know she was laughing internally.
“I don’t suppose the concept of just buying your own chocolates has occurred to you?”
“That sounds like a lot of work and not nearly as much fun.”
Rolling my eyes, I prayed for patience. Until this game became dull, she wouldn’t stop anytime soon.
The line we followed took a detour. It didn’t follow roads, of course, more a course the crow would fly. It meant taking several different turns, attempting to keep it within line of sight, and sometimes backtracking when a particular street didn’t go the way we predicted. If we’d been in Kingston, we’d not have needed to backtrack or guess nearly as much. I knew the streets well there, after all. Being on unfamiliar ground left me vaguely uncomfortable.
After twenty minutes of driving the streets, I found myself heartily glad we weren’t walking this after all. Jamie was sedately staying within normal speeds too, keeping to her promise. I’d compliment her for the good suggestion if I didn’t fear it would go to her head and make her speed up.
We wandered our way into the residential area in the hills not far from where Burtchell’s bungalow sat. Eventually, the line went through the front door of a house more seaside cottage than anything fancy. It looked very much like a vacation house, not large enough to comfortably hold more than six people. Even that might be more a stretch. The house was made of white planks that gave off a charming air. Carefully tended flower beds bracketed the doors and lined the paved pathway to the front door. I ended the spell at that point, as we more or less had our location. It alarmed people to see a magical line attached to them, and doing so with a magician attached sent them into a tizzy. Ending it now gave them a chance to gather themselves and I didn’t have to deal with accusations and the like. If, by some chance, the line had alerted the murderer, and he took the chance to bolt? I could also renew the spell. But I’d rather play this cautiously at the start.
Jamie parked and shut the car off. We both exited the vehicle. Neither of us looked at each other or said a word but we were both anxious about this meeting. The timing was suspicious enough to incline us to believe that this person knew something about the murder, and it might give us the lead we desperately needed.
As we approached the house, I observed the nation’s green-and-gold flag was at half-mast. A white ribbon of mourning hung over the doors and windows as well. Was this house grieving someone?
Deities take it, of course we’d stumble into a house of mourning. The tensions inside would be lethal. My shoulders hunched in grim anticipation.
Jamie took it all in with a glance but it didn’t dismay her. She strode right to the door and knocked on it firmly.
The door was opened a moment later by a stalwart looking woman, long in the face and body, her bearing stiff with pride. White touched her temples, and the fine wrinkles around her unsmiling eyes leant an age to her person. I mentally placed her in the same generation as Burtchell. She was not, to my surprise, in mourning white.
“Hello,” Jamie greeted in that professional manner of hers. “I’m Detective Edwards. This is my partner, Dr. Henri Davenforth. We have a few questions for someone in your household.”
“Oh. Yes, you must mean Oscar. I told him to go to the constable, but the man’s so distraught, you can barely get three words out of him at a time.” She waved us inside with a fixed smile on her face, looking badly adhered on. “I’m Priscilla, Priscilla Villarreal. Come through, please.”
Unlike Burtchell’s house, this one had a more open floor plan, and I was immediately able to see through to the formal sitting room. I could hear the sound of water boiling and pots being shuffled about through a closed door I assumed to be the kitchen. Mrs. Villarreal led us through the sitting room and out the back, onto a covered patio that offered blissful shade and a cool sea breeze to keep the edge of the heat off. A stodgy man sat in one of the chairs, staring blankly out, oddly dressed in a warm cable sweater and thick pants and boots, as if chilled. Grief sometimes felt like shock to a person. Perhaps he experienced it as such.
I discreetly cast the spell again, double checking we were indeed facing the right man. The line stopped at him and I silently cancelled the spell, pocketing my wand. One look at him, and I knew this wasn’t our killer. This man was shaken to his core over Joseph Burtchell’s death. The lines of grief in his face were so deep he seemed a hundred, although he couldn’t have been more than sixty. He was ravaged by loss. Our murderer had killed Burtchell in cold blood face-to-face. It took a different type of emotion altogether to do that.
“Oscar,” his wife said with some compassion, coming over to lay a hand on his shoulder, using physical touch to draw his attention to her. “Two policemen are here. They want to talk to you about Joseph.”
Oscar Villarreal turned to regard us with puffy, red-rimmed eyes. “You are?”
Stepping in closer, Jamie offered a hand, which he took. They did not shake, however, with her holding it in a more sympathetic manner. “I’m Detective Edwards. Queen Regina appointed me and my partner, Dr. Davenforth, to investigate his death. May we ask you a few questions about him?”
He nodded faintly. Mrs. Villarreal settled onto the seat next to his, keeping an arm around him in a supportive manner. We took the two chairs facing the low settee, Jamie reclaiming her hand as she settled. I let her take lead on the interview, as he responded readily to her.
Jamie pulled out her ever-present little notebook, readying a pen. “May I ask your relationship with him?”
“We were dear friends, ever since he moved out here.” Villarreal spoke in a rasp, his hands winding in and around a handkerchief in his lap. “He didn’t know many people here. I bumped into him casually in town, as one does, and invited him to a card game. Didn’t know he was such a sharp at the time. He was ever going about, helping people with things. Loved to use his magic, you know.”
I did understand that perfectly. Magic liked to be used. It felt uncomfortable for a magician to go any real length of time without using it in some manner or another.
“Can you tell me about the last time you saw him?”
“Well. It was the morning he died, actually. We’d been playing cards up at Benny’s—”
“Benjamin Walterson’s,” Mrs. Villarreal interjected for our benefit.
Her husband barely noticed, still speaking. “—and it went into the early hours of the morning, as it often did. Us old people don’t sleep much. He’d walked home after that, and I did the same, when I remembered he’d asked me for a favor. Seems his car was giving him some trouble, and he wanted h
elp taking it to a garage. I stopped in at his house to see what time he wanted to deal with it. We smoked, talked about his winning at one of the races the day before, decided to celebrate it a bit….” He trailed off, fresh tears brimming in his eyes.
No wound hurts more than the possibility of happiness thwarted. That, I knew achingly well. It would haunt him for some time, not being able to share that small celebration. “You smoked the cigarette, I take it?”
Mr. Villarreal blinked and turned to me as if just now properly seeing me. “What? Oh. Yes. He never did like them, said they were too small for a man’s mouth. Preferred black cigars.”
“What time did you leave?” Jamie asked gently.
“I don’t know.”
“He got home at nearly seven, and it takes him ten minutes to walk between our houses,” Mrs. Villarreal filled in for him.
Mr. Villarreal nodded, as if agreeing.
“Did you see anyone on the way?”
He didn’t just respond, he paused and truly thought about it for a moment. “The paperboy. The mailman. He’d dropped off the post while I was there. Joseph collected it as he showed me out.”
“Mr. Villarreal this part is very important. Was there anyone else in the house, anyone at all, before you left?”
Mr. Villarreal shook his head immediately. “No, no one.”
I’d expected the answer, and yet cursed it. Jamie’s expression said she felt the same.
“And can you tell me if he locked the doors behind him?”
Mr. Villarreal stared at her, unblinking, for a long moment. He opened his mouth, then closed it, seeming to go back to that morning. “You know, I believe he did. The wards on his house, they always made this deep hum sound when they first kicked on. Like a queen bee, you know the sound? I heard that as I was leaving. It wasn’t unusual. Joseph liked his wards up. Only way to do that, he said, was to lock the doors. That’s just how it was designed.”
I mentally went through every curse and foul swear word I could think of. I’d hoped he’d give us some sort of clue on another visitor. Of how the doors came to be locked with a dead man inside and no suspect. But of course this case wouldn’t be so neatly solved.
“Do you know of anyone who was angry with him? Or had any issues with him?”
He immediately shook his head.
Jamie changed the question, softening it with a gentle tone. “I’ve heard he liked to gamble. Was he in any debt because of that?”
“No, Joseph was good with his finances. Careful managing the vice. We don’t usually play for money, anyway. Play for peanuts. Most of us old folk up here aren’t flush. Joseph was, but you never really knew it talking to him. He just liked to play.”
I knew Jamie wouldn’t leave it at that, and she didn’t. “There wasn’t anyone angry at him for winning? Accusing him of cheating, or anything like that?”
That brought a brief, watery smile to the man’s face. “Often. But it was always teasing, never in earnest. People liked to say he had used the magic up his sleeve. He lost too often to make him a real card sharp, though.”
“I see. I’m going to change topics, ask you about something else. The research he was doing, did he say anything about it?”
Mr. Villarreal stared at her hard, and I could see the figurative light flicker on. “Detective Edwards. The Shinigami Detective?”
Her smile turned rueful. “Yes, people like to call me that, for some reason.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, I just realized who you were. Joseph was studying you, he said. How you got here. He didn’t speak of it much, just that he’d been handed this glorious puzzle to try and solve.”
“Did he mention this to anyone else?”
“Just those of us who were in and out of the house. Maybe a handful of people. Why do you ask?”
“Right now, I’m searching for a motive,” Jamie admitted frankly. “Someone hated this man enough to kill him, but I can’t see any motive for it.”
“You think it was the research? Someone wanted it?”
“It’d be very strange if that’s the case. We found it in his study. I’m just asking questions at this point, trying to get an overall picture. You can’t think of anyone who was angry with him?
“Well, some were over the sunken ships.” Mrs. Villarreal patted her husband’s hand. “Remember, Oscar? He got all those nasty letters for not saving all the ships.” To us she explained, “There were five ships in danger that night, nearly two weeks ago. The storm was so brutal no one could get onto the sea to help them. Joseph was called in and he used his magic to transport three of the ships to the docks, saving them from being dashed against the rocks. The other two were too large, he said, he couldn’t save them. He did get some of the crew and passengers off before they went down. But some people thought he should have done more and sent him all sorts of letters calling him out. It upset Joseph terribly.”
I shared a glance with Jamie. That sounded like a potential suspect pool.
“Did anyone come to his house? Come up to him personally?”
“I—” Mrs. Villarreal paused and shared a frown with her husband. “No, no one did. I think he would have said if someone had.”
“A few people actually sent apology letters afterwards,” Mr. Villarreal tacked on. “Joseph went and recovered the bodies from the sea, you see, so people could bury loved ones. It healed some of the grief.”
Alright, maybe it wasn’t such a good potential suspect pool after all. I mentally groaned in frustration. If Burtchell’s closest friend couldn’t think of anything, that didn’t leave us many places to turn.
“Thank you, Mr. Villarreal. I’m going to leave my card with you. If at any point, you remember something else, you can find us at the Brighton Hotel. We’re staying there while we investigate. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
He dredged up a watery smile. “Thank you, Detective. I do feel a little better, knowing the queen sent you both herself. I trust you’ll find the person who did this.”
“As to that, sir, we’re doing our level best. We don’t take any death lightly.” She gave his hand another squeeze before standing.
I stood with her, following her out, Mrs. Villarreal showing us the way. She paused at the doorway and eyed us both fearfully. “You don’t think my husband did it?”
“At this point, it seems highly unlikely,” Jamie answered frankly. “Your husband’s testimony matches up quite neatly with every other witnesses’. I’m not inclined to suspect him. Mrs. Villarreal, I couldn’t press him on this point, but did RM Burtchell have any enemies?”
“Not here,” she answered, a relieved hand pressed over her heart. “He was a hero here. He might have had old enemies in Kingston, from when he was still a Royal Mage, but he didn’t mention them if he did. He was quite at peace here. And Oscar and Joseph loved each other so, like lost brothers who’d found each other. It was heartrending when we heard the news. Thank you for not suspecting him, that would have destroyed him utterly—that anyone could think he’d harm Joseph.”
Jamie gave a sad smile. “I know that. I’ve seen it before. Please, encourage him to reach out if he thinks of anything else, alright?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Can you tell me where Benjamin Walterson lives?”
“Oh yes.” She rattled it off from memory, which I jotted down. Another round of goodbyes and we were able to leave the house.
We turned for the car. As I walked at her side, I leaned in to murmur, “Not the news we were hoping for.”
Jamie groused, “It feels like we’re back to square one. Hopefully Weber has something. Otherwise we’re going to be spinning in circles.”
“What do you want to do now?”
“I think it’s time to get a second opinion about the gambling. Let’s go talk to Benjamin Walterson, shall we?”
Benjamin Walterson had to be the most unremarkable person I’d ever made acquaintance with. He was a weredog—not a common race to be sure—and he was still unrema
rkable. Not an ebony pelt, or a rich ermine, or anything pleasing to the eye. Just a regular dusky tan looking frazzled around the edges. His whiskers kept twitching on his face, as if he were one second from a sneeze that never seemed to arrive. Shirt untucked in the back, missing a vest button in the middle, and collar popped up on one side, he was the epitome of a slovenly gentleman.
He stood on his doorstep and blinked at us quite owlishly from behind his spectacles and then jerked them off, pointing them at Jamie. “I say! You’re the detective in charge of Joseph Burtchell’s murder, aren’t you?”
“I am, sir,” Jamie responded levelly. She held out a hand, which he shook without really looking at. “Detective Edwards. This is my partner, Doctor Davenforth.”
“Oh, pleasure, pleasure. I’m Benjamin Walterson. Come in. Sorry for the state of the house, the missus has been in a right state ever since she heard about Joseph. Won’t leave her sunny spot in the garden for all the world. Says it’s the only place she feels any comfort. It disturbed her deeply, it did, that ours was the last card game he played. Might not be able to host another game for a long while. Come on through, sit here—oh, no, best not, let’s sit at the table, it’s clear there, and—”
I let the man prattle on without even trying to get a word in edgewise. The house was indeed in a state. Evidence of a party lay on every possible surface, and not much effort had been made in cleaning it up afterwards. I catalogued discarded playing cards on various tables, half-filled glasses, plates of peanut shells and other sundry finger foods, and the air smelled stale and sour with the leftover remains of food and alcohol. My nose twitched and I suddenly understood why Walterson’s kept doing the same. I did feel on the verge of a sneeze.
The main room was so thoroughly taken up we had to skirt sideways to gain the dining room. Someone had the windows wide open there, and it appeared Walterson had claimed the space as his own, attested by a discarded paper, a pad and pen, and a half-drunk cup of coffee.
“Can I get you a cup?” he offered as we took the sturdy wooden chairs on the other side of the table.
Magic Outside the Box Page 9
