by Bailey Cates
The house was set back from the street, and a meticulously maintained lawn spanned the area between the porch and the public sidewalk. As we approached it, my stomach slowly clenched like a fist. What had happened to the dapper little man I’d given a mint chocolate cookie to just that afternoon? Taking a deep breath, I tried to relax, soften my gaze, and allow my intuition free rein. I felt a twinge of darkness, muddy and unfocused, but not much more. In fact, there was so little for my senses to pick up that I immediately wondered if there was some kind of shielding spell in place.
If so, that didn’t bode well at all.
Quinn came out on the porch and saw Declan and me on the sidewalk. He must have been watching for us. On one hand, that was gratifying. On the other, it was a bit alarming. There should have been a gazillion other things more important to him than little ol’ me showing up.
He strode toward us, flashing an irritated glance at Declan before his face transformed into a passive mask. His thick hair seemed to gain a bit more silver every time I saw him. Like the rest of Quinn, it was precise. He wore beige slacks, perfectly polished loafers, and a white shirt that was still brilliant and crisply pressed despite the stifling summer heat. Or perhaps he’d recently changed into one of the many similar shirts he kept in his bottom desk drawer. Either way, he looked cool, smooth, and perfectly tanned, though for once he wore no sports coat and was even sans tie.
Then I saw the dark smudges under his sharp gray eyes. And wait—was his right sideburn just a bit longer than the left? Such a minor thing, yet I found it thoroughly disturbing. I’d seen Quinn slightly ruffled in the past, but only after days on end with little to no sleep while he was in the midst of a murder investigation.
I reminded myself that he might be in the middle of or just off a difficult case. After all, there was an awful lot about Peter Quinn that I didn’t know.
“Katie,” he said when he reached us. “Declan.”
“Detective,” I said with a nod.
Yep. Perfectly awkward already.
Declan smiled and stepped forward with his hand out. Surprised, Quinn shook it.
“I’d like you to come inside,” Quinn said to me. “Declan, I’m sorry, but I’m going to ask you to wait outside. You can come up to the porch, though.”
Declan looked at me, and I tipped my head a fraction forward. “Sure thing,” he said.
Quinn raised the tape and ducked beneath it. I sent a grateful glance toward Declan, and we followed the detective.
“Quinn?” I said as we climbed the porch steps.
He stopped by the front door and turned, his posture radiating impatience.
Too bad. I set my jaw. “What am I walking into?”
“I thought you knew,” he said.
Quickly, I shook my head. “Nope. Not a clue. Other than something seems to have happened to Kensington Bosworth. Since you’re a homicide detective, I assume it was murder or at least there were some suspicious circumstances.”
“Oh, it’s murder, all right.”
Beside me, Declan made a noise, and I felt the blood drain from my face. It was one thing to guess, another entirely to hear the word from an official source.
“Why did you call me?”
“Bakery bag,” Quinn said.
I blinked. “What?”
“There’s a bag from the Honeybee on his kitchen counter. Knowing how you end up involved with my cases anyway, I figured I might as well find out what you know.” He quirked an eyebrow. “And then lo and behold, when I call you, you already know the poor guy is dead.”
“But—” I began.
He flicked a glance around the yard. “Inside, if you don’t mind.”
Baffled, I followed him inside the house, leaving Declan to lean against a porch column.
As I crossed the threshold, it felt like I was passing through thicker air. Suddenly stuffy, cloying, like cotton or gauze. My breath seemed trapped in my chest. Color faded, and my vision grayed, and for a flash I saw the furnishings in the front hall as if I were looking at an old-fashioned photographic negative. Then there was an inaudible pop, like on a plane when you yawn to clear the pressure from your ears.
It lasted only a moment, and then everything was normal again. Slightly dazed and a little unsure of what had just happened, indeed unsure if anything had happened, I looked around.
Ah. Everything wasn’t normal again, after all.
My intuition flared, and my witchy senses reached out as I realized I had just passed through a protection spell. I’d been practicing the Craft for only a little over two years, but I was pretty sure that thick veil I’d passed through had been cast by an expert. If it was anything like what Lucy and the spellbook club had taught me, it encompassed the entire house.
Quinn was staring at me. “What are you doing?”
I took a few more steps inside and tried a smile. “Getting the lay of the land.”
He frowned but didn’t say anything. It was the first time I’d been at a crime scene where he knew I was a witch. It was a relief, but it was also weird.
We were in a large entryway. Black-and-white tiles covered the floor. An imposing flower arrangement stood on the nearby console table, filling the air with the scent of lilies. A curved staircase led up to a hallway lined with dark mahogany doors. A doorway to the left of where we stood opened to a richly furnished formal dining room with a massive table that could have easily seated a dozen people. In one of the chairs, a woman who looked a bit like Meryl Streep on a bad-hair day sat staring straight ahead with a stunned expression. Her fist lay on the table, so tightly clenched around a tissue that I could see it trembling.
Opposite the entrance were three more doors, beyond which I guessed would be the kitchen and service areas. A house this big and old would have had live-in servants at one time. The third floor likely held their quarters, accessed by a back stair. To our right, another door stood partially open. The sound of voices echoed from inside.
Sure enough, Quinn strode in that direction, beckoning to me over his shoulder. Feeling a combination of curiosity and reluctance, I walked to where he’d stopped in the doorway. As I approached, I could feel the power subtly emanating from the room. He moved aside and indicated I should go in first.
Peering around him, I saw a crime scene tech with a camera on the far side of the room and hesitated. “Is he in there?”
“Bosworth? Do you really think I’d invite you in to examine a dead body, Katie? You hardly have that kind of expertise.”
I flinched at his sharp tone as well as the bluntness of his words. Then I met his eye and said too low for anyone else to hear, “Honestly, Quinn, I don’t know what you’d do these days. Ever since I told you what I am and about Franklin Taite, you’ve been standoffish. Now you call me up and demand I come over here, but you won’t tell me what happened or why you want me here.”
His attention slid away for a moment, and when he looked back at me, his gaze had softened. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ve been working another case for the last twenty-four hours and getting nowhere, and then the lieutenant called me in on this one, too. You know why? Because I have a great track record with cases that involve things like voodoo and strange potions. And that, of course, is in large part due to you.”
“So, I’m not a suspect?”
His lips parted in surprise for a moment, and then a ghost of a smile crossed his face. “No. You’re not a suspect. However, I’d sure like to know how you knew I was calling about Bosworth before I had a chance to fill you in.”
A few beats passed as I considered what to say. Probably best not to go into details about dragonfly totems and the like. He was still getting used to the other things I’d told him.
I smiled. “Oh, I just had a feeling. Since I’d seen him today and all.”
Quinn gave me a wry look. “Right. Well, I’ll file that
under things to ask you about later and move along. Because right now I want you to look at the murder weapon.”
I blanched. “Well, I guess that’s better than having to look at a dead body, but not much. Just tell me it’s not a knife. I hate knives.”
His eyebrow rose a fraction. “I remember. Must be a problem for someone who spends so much time in a kitchen, but okay. No, it’s not a knife. In fact, I don’t know what it is, but given all the other weird stuff the guy had lying around, I was hoping you could tell me.”
At that, my curiosity trumped my apprehension. I stepped past him and looked around. It was an office, richly appointed in dark wood. A bank of glassed-in bookshelves marched along the wall to my right. Straight ahead, a multipaned window reached from the floor to the ten-foot ceiling. What I thought was a Hepplewhite desk and chair sat to my left. There was, of all things, a typewriter on the desk, along with an open datebook, fountain pen, and on the corner, a well-thumbed dictionary. Beyond the desk was a doorway to another room. The only other furnishings were two chairs similar to the desk chair and four long, low tables with a variety of items on display.
I glimpsed the corner of another desk in the room beyond, and the white-haired man who had arrived in the van outside moved through my limited field of vision. Again, the muted murmur of voices reached my ears. That room was where all the action was, it seemed. As it should be. I could sense death in there.
My gaze swept the room I was in again. This was the outer office, and that was the inner sanctum. I stepped toward the tables and examined the items arranged on the surfaces and displayed under glass.
And bit my lip. No wonder Quinn had called me. And no wonder this room—and the one beyond, I realized—throbbed with potential power.
There were items from several magical disciplines. A collection of pentacles was arranged on black velvet. There were two clear crystal balls, one the size of a bowling ball and the other the size of a clementine. Three athames, which were ceremonial knives that gave me the heebie-jeebies, lay neatly within one of the cases. I shied away from them and went to the next table. There I found a good, old-fashioned voodoo doll, some ceremonial masks, a small skull, and several strands of metal beads. There were decks of tarot cards, some brand-new and still in their boxes, but also one loose deck frayed at the edges from frequent use.
Moving along, I discovered a ceremonial ankh and a scarab amulet, along with a crook, an Eye of Horus, a peacock feather, and a few pots of dried plant matter. I didn’t know much about heka, or the power that Egyptians believed lay behind their magic, but the items were from that practice. The plants in particular piqued my interest, as Lucy had told me the use of herbs was a large part of heka. It was the hedgewitchery of the Middle East, so to speak. The final display reminded me of my father. It contained a turtle-shell rattle, a tomahawk decorated with leather and feathers, several examples of small medicine bags, and a chest plate with an intricate beaded pattern.
I turned to Quinn, who had been watching me.
“See?” he asked.
“Yeah. This guy was into a lot of stuff I’m familiar with. Also, a lot of stuff I’m not so familiar with.” I pointed to the ankh. “That’s Egyptian, but that’s all I can tell you. And that”—I pointed to the tomahawk—“is obviously Native American, but I couldn’t tell you what tribe it’s from.” I frowned and wondered out loud, “Why so many items from different disciplines? Did he practice?” He sure hadn’t struck me as the type.
“Mr. Bosworth was a collector,” a voice behind me drawled.
I turned to see a tall, thin, African American man with a pencil mustache and wire-framed glasses had entered the room. He wore a black suit with a white shirt and a narrow black tie. Behind him, a uniformed officer hovered in the foyer.
“A collector of all things paranormal,” he continued. “Books on sorcery and alchemy, and items used in all manner of magical ceremonies across cultures and time.” The almost lackadaisical tones of a deep Georgia accent rounded the edges of his words.
“And who might you be?” Quinn asked.
The newcomer gave a little bow. “Malcolm Cardwell, at your service. I am . . . was . . . Mr. Bosworth’s personal secretary. I understand he’s dead?” He sounded calm, but I could see the clenched muscles in his jaw and neck.
Quinn approached Cardwell and stopped in front of him. “He is. How did you find out?”
The man’s lips pressed together in a thin smile. “I received a phone call from Mrs. Gleason, the housekeeper. She told me she found Mr. Bosworth and called the police.”
Mrs. Gleason. The woman sitting in the dining room? She must have been the one who was supposed to use my sourdough bread to make the grilled cheese sandwich Bosworth had mentioned. I wondered whether he’d had a chance to eat his soup-and-sandwich supper before he’d been killed.
“She did,” the detective confirmed. “Thank you for coming. Perhaps you can answer some questions I have about your employer. Tell me, how did you get into the house? It’s cordoned off.”
“When I arrived, I encountered a reporter, a very personable young man, works for the News, I believe. He directed me to an officer and told him I might be of some use to your investigation. The officer brought me inside.”
Quinn glanced out at the uniformed man and gave him a dismissive nod. The officer inclined his head and moved away. I heard the front door open and close.
I rubbed my temple, hoping the reporter wasn’t who I knew darn well it was. Steve Dawes had stopped working for his father and gone back to his old job at the Savannah Morning News a few months before. Not the job as a business columnist, but the one before that: crime-beat reporter.
Of course, he’d hie straight to the murder of a collector of all things paranormal, as Cardwell had put it. Heck, he might have even known about Bosworth’s death in a way similar to the way I had. After all, Steve was a member of the oldest druid clan in Georgia.
And he was out front where Declan was waiting for me on the porch. Steve and Declan had hated each other long before I’d entered the picture. Steve’s brother and Declan had been roommates and trained in the fire department together, but the younger Dawes had been a bit of a hot dog and had broken protocol when fighting a fire with Declan. He’d died in that fire, and Steve had blamed Declan ever since.
However, it didn’t help their relationship that I’d met Steve around the same time I’d met Declan, and for a time I’d kind of, sort of, been seeing them both.
I forced my attention back to what Cardwell was saying.
“Well, Mr. Bosworth didn’t have any enemies in the sense I believe you mean, Detective. He was certainly a wealthy man, though, and money always seems to make enemies, doesn’t it? Then there was his collection here.”
Quinn shot me a glance, then said, “Tell me about this collection. It’s certainly unique.”
Cardwell looked wry. “Isn’t it? He inherited most of it and occasionally worked with a dealer here in town to add new items. It’s quite valuable, not to mention the other contents of the house.” His gaze fell on the antique desk. “It was such an invitation to burglars. I was relieved when he had a security system installed two weeks ago.”
“He must not have been in the habit of arming it, yet,” Quinn said. “Unfortunately for him. Mr. Cardwell, would you mind waiting for me outside? I want to talk with you more. I’ll be with you as soon as I’m finished here.”
Cardwell eyed me. “Certainly, Detective. But what did you mean about Mr. Bosworth not arming the security system? Because I assure you, he was quite religious about it from the very first day it was installed.”
“Well, there was no report of an alarm. We thought perhaps Mrs. Gleason disarmed it when she arrived, but she said it was already turned off.”
Cardwell looked thoughtful, then said, “Detective, I believe you might want to talk to the gentleman who installed the system
.”
I felt my breath catch.
Quinn nodded. “Do you happen to know his name?”
“Mr. Post. His given name is Randy, I believe.”
“I see.” The detective knew most of the firefighters in town, and I could almost feel how hard he was trying not to look at me. He jotted something in his little notebook.
“I should be very interested in hearing what he has to say,” the secretary said. “You see, he had a master code that he used when he was working on the system.” He looked around the room. “And he showed a great deal of interest in some of Mr. Bosworth’s Native American artifacts. The statue of Ginegosh in particular. Half fox and half snake. I believe the gentleman is Native American himself.”
Something tickled the back of my mind. Then it was gone.
But he was right. Randy was part Chippewa. I didn’t like the turn the conversation was taking.
Cardwell frowned. “You might check to see if it’s still in Mr. Bosworth’s office. Also, there was a bit of an altercation between the two.”
“What kind of an altercation?” I demanded.
Quinn gave me a look.
Bosworth’s secretary turned his gaze on me. “And who might you be?”
“Consultant,” I said shortly.
“Ah.” He looked at Quinn, who hesitated then nodded.
With a tight smile, Cardwell said, “Mr. Bosworth and the security system installer had a disagreement about the amount of the bill.” He pursed his lips. “A rather loud disagreement, if you understand what I mean.”
Great.
I smiled at him through gritted teeth. “Thank you.”
He responded with a sharp nod, turned on his heel, and went out to the foyer to wait for Quinn.
The detective was jotting something in his notebook again.
I, on the other hand, was striving to keep a poker face, because Kensington Bosworth’s secretary had, more or less, accused my friend Randy Post of murder.
