The Black Diamond Curse (Hattie Jenkins & The Infiniti Chronicles Book 4)

by Pearl Goodfellow

  “Hattie!” the Chief lunged to help me.

  An errant bolt also licked David’s shoes, but, strangely, he didn’t flinch, or even indicate that he’d even felt it. I didn’t take the time to consider the implications before I yelled out. “Maude!”

  The ghoul’s eyes widened in shock when she realized the parameters of her little experiment were zapping afoul. Her two left feet suddenly found agility and speed, and she lurched for the large wall switch.

  The high pitched shuddering hum rumbled to a stop, and the arcs of electricity collapsed with their source of energy turned off.

  “Heavens to Brigid!” Maude cried. “Dearest, Hattie. I am so sorry. I have no idea why the electricity is behaving that way. It should not have channeled anywhere but Hector! That just shouldn't have happened!” Maude's thin hair was standing in an alarming formation, as she whipped her head around looking for the culprit who might have sabotaged her voltage-testing.

  “You intentionally deep-fried your assistant?” David asked, concerned but none the worse for wear after our electrifying experience.

  Maude pursed her dry lips. “What? Hector? What’s the big deal? He’s a zombie. It’s not like he can get any deader.”

  David blinked rapidly and looked at me. I shrugged. Maude had a point.

  “Besides,” she continued, disconnecting the zapped zombie from all his electrical accoutrements. “Something about Millicent’s remains was bothering me. I needed to replicate the damage that the average electrical surge of a lightning bolt would have on human tissue. I didn’t think you would approve of me conducting my little experiment on a live subject so, of course, Hector was the next logical choice. So, I hooked him up, Franken-style, and wham, bam, thank you, ma’am, I got the results I expected.”

  Maude struck a little “tah-dah” pose just as a blackened puff-ball dropped from the ceiling. Maude gave a tiny yelp of shock as Carbon stumbled drunkenly across the lab floor looking like a dust-bunny on crack.

  “Well, maybe a little more than I expected.”

  Carbon hiccoughed. A small plume of black smoke wafted from his mouth as he left a wobbly trail of charcoal paw prints across the linoleum. I winced. Maude was gonna need a bucket-load of salmon treats to earn Carbon’s forgiveness on this one.

  “Carbon! You okay?” I cried.

  “S-s-smokin’, Hat.” He gave two furry mitten paws up and stumbled an ashen trail in the opposite direction. I might need to have Dilwyn Werelamb give my cooked kitty a once over, just to be sure. I’d have preferred to have taken him to see Anima Mink, but she had just moved to Talisman to open an even larger animal practice there. Dilwyn was hardly a qualified vet. And, yet, the crotchety old man did have a remarkable way with animals, and was lauded as one of the best diagnosticians for animal ailments on the islands. So, as the town’s unofficial veterinarian, of both mythical and ordinary creatures alike, he’d be able to tell if the zap had sapped anything crucial from the immortal feline.

  “And just what results were you expecting, Maude?” David pressed. “I thought Millicent was struck by lightning? Did you discover something unusual about her death?”

  Maude pressed her thin lips together and haughtily crossed her arms.

  “Well, of course, I did,” she declared. “Do you honestly think I’d put poor Hector through all this if I didn’t expect a definitive result? Look at this.”

  She gestured to Hector’s feet, charred and blackened around the edges. “See here? Lightning is nothing more than electricity. One hundred thousand amperes of electricity, but electricity nonetheless. A flow of either positively or negatively charged electrons. A channel of ionized air develops from a charged region in the thundercloud and seeks the most direct path away from the region of dense charge.”

  “S-s-somebody say charge? D-d-drinks all ar-r-round! Put it on H-ha-hattie's Alchem-m-m-y Express C-c-card,” Carbon slurred.

  Yeah. Make that a LOT of salmon treats.

  Maude grimaced. “Oh, dear. Anyway, do you see these markings on Hector?”

  She pointed to a series of branched, tree-like markings traveling up the length of Hector’s pasty legs. David and I nodded in tandem. Maude continued. “Lichtenberg figures. Keraunographic markings that form when capillaries beneath the skin rupture due to the electrical discharge. Other than that, true lightning doesn’t leave much of a mark on its victims. Most people who have been struck by lightning die, not from burns and charring, but because of atrial defibrillation. Heart failure. But, Millicent here? Not only was she generally cooked like a blackened redfish, but she had one particular super-doozie of a burn. Right over her sternum. Strange, too, because there was no evidence of a conductive source of any kind there. Just the burn in this weird kind of starburst pattern. Right over the old ticker.”

  “It’s a shame, really, because she might have been saved with prompt administration of CPR.” Maude sighed. “Sadly, many people labor under the delusion that bodies that have been struck by lightning somehow still retain an electrical charge and could zap a would-be rescuer. Tsk, tsk. The only true danger is ignorance.”

  She shook her gray head. “So, the unfortunate truth is that most often, much-needed help doesn’t get administered in time.”

  “So, what you’re saying is that a person who's been struck by lightning would not be twerking and jerking from a residual current after being struck.” David stretched his words out slow and long.

  Maude nodded. “Highly unlikely.” She cleared her throat. "Actually, almost impossible."

  David returned an even slower nod. “Got it. And such, ahem, unusual mobility would likely rule out death from natural causes.”

  “It would certainly steer the investigation toward a more supernatural explanation, yes.”

  Great. There went any hope of wrapping things up and stealing a quick slice with Cathedral’s devastatingly handsome governor.

  Maude’s face twisted in that odd, quizzical look again. “But, I don’t understand, Inspector. Why so curious about residual current?”

  “’Cause Miley Cyrus has got nothin’ on Millicent and her moves!” Carbon exclaimed, his frazzled brain rocking back on all four cylinders. “She’s ALIVE and TWERKING!!!”

  His claws skittered uselessly on the hard tile as he vainly attempted to find traction. “Get MEOW-t of here!”

  No amount of wood stoking the fire was going to keep Carbon in the lab for even a second longer. He shot, frizzed fur and all, like a bat out of hell and disappeared into the dark stone corridor. I stared blankly at David who raised a stiff arm toward the still figure on the far side of Hector. Only, the figure was no longer still. It twitched and writhed in foul, jumpy movements under the white shroud. For a moment, I toyed with the concept that Maude’s little experiment with Hector had, indeed, brought the recently deceased back to life.

  David clutched my arm, and I felt an entirely different kind of electricity. For a moment, our eyes locked. There was a surge…

  …and then...

  …Millicent’s body fell still.

  Flat.

  Dead.

  “Well, Hattie,” David began once he found his voice again. “Looks like we have another murder investigation on our hands. You should probably call Gideon and tell him you’re definitely not going to make it to the pizza parlor.”

  I couldn’t be sure, but I’d almost swear I saw a satisfied little grin creep into the edges of David’s mouth.

  Great. Gless Inlet gets another murder, and I don’t get any food.

  Another one bites the crust.

  Chapter Six

  Whoever came up with the phrase “green with envy” never tried to satiate the gnawing pangs of a devastating hunger with broccoli. As I crunched down emphatically on the cruciferous vegetable Hector had so graciously donated to my growling stomach, I decided I was in no way envious of the vegetarian zombie’s restrictive diet. No matter how healthy it might be.

  There was something green I was very interested in, howeve
r. When I reminded Chief Inspector Trew of the reports of Beryl lightning arcing in the gloomy skies over Gaunt Manor, he had nearly yanked my arm from its socket dragging me to WYRD, Gless Inlet’s local television station. I’d barely had time to grab the broccoli on the way out the door.

  “Okay! Okay! Okay!” I hollered as we booked it away from Maude’s.

  “But, I need to stop at The Angel for a second. Thanks to Maude’s little experiment, I need new shoes.” I pointed down to the still-smoking sandals on my feet.

  “And, thanks to you, I could use some real food.” I waved an annoyed floret of broccoli in his face for emphasis.

  Fortunately for him, he looked acceptably sheepish at that last. “You’re right. I haven’t exactly been the best friend lately, have I? I’m sorry, Hat.”

  He lowered his baby blues behind his round-rimmed glasses, dark lashes brushing the tops of his cheeks. Damn, but it was hard to stay mad at him for very long.

  “It’s okay, David. I’m probably not going to win any awards for being Miss Congeniality either. I turn into kind of shrew when I’m hungry. In case you haven’t noticed.” I tendered a smile as a peace offering and rested a broccoli-free hand on his arm.

  The sudden sensation that shot through my fingers as it touched his bare skin caused me to draw back instinctively. Hot and cold at the same time. Like when the bath water runs scalding hot, yet feels icy cold.

  I tried to remember my high school science class. What was it called? Paradoxical cold? I vaguely remembered Malaise Dred, my stuffy ninth grade Physics teacher who always smelled of mothballs, talking about how both cold and heat thermo-receptors would sometimes fire simultaneously when exposed to temperatures above one hundred and thirteen degrees Fahrenheit. It was one of the mysteries science could not explain.

  I chalked it up to frazzled nerve endings from the jarring jolt I’d received in Maude’s lab. Who knows what other little side effects would result from her experimental escapade? I thought of poor Carbon. I hoped he was okay.

  If David noticed my involuntary reaction, he didn’t say anything. I let the matter drop as we strolled briskly toward my family’s shop.

  “What exactly do you hope to find at the television station?” I asked, rubbing my fingertips together trying to regain feeling. “I thought we were going to question Portia Fearwyn.”

  “Three things a good detective always looks for, Hattie. Motive, means, and opportunity. Sure, there have been reports of green lightning over Portia’s neck of the woods, but to assume that she’s got something to do with Millicent’s death based solely on that? The powers that be on Talisman would have me out on my keister faster than you could say ‘abracadabra. But, still. She IS using electricity. And she DID have a beef with old Millicent. She’s looking good for suspect number one, wouldn’t you say?’”

  I gave a thoughtful crunch on my broccoli. It was an adorable keister. Would be a shame to see it bouncing and bruising down Main Street.

  The celestial bells on the door of The Angel Apothecary chimed brightly as David opened the door and stepped aside to allow me passage. Fact of the matter was, David wasn’t wrong. I’d worked enough cases with him and the GIPPD to know that somebody had to have a legitimate reason to dispatch someone into Oneness with the Divine…at least if you were going to make a murder charge stick. And as unpleasant as Portia Fearwyn was, I guess we couldn’t just go around accusing her of every single murder that occurred on Glessie Isle. No sooner had we stepped inside the door, did we collide with my assistant. Millie gushed a torrent of panicky words from under her cheery hair-do.

  “Hattie! Hattie! Hattie! Portia Fearwyn? She’s a murderer!”

  Then again…

  “Whoa, there, Pinkalicious!” David caught Millie under the arms as she skidded into us. “What do you mean Portia’s a murderer? Did you hear her confess?”

  As long as we’re talking about true confessions, I have to say; my tummy did a little dance of joy. If Portia had admitted to killing Millicent, we were more than well on our way to meeting the criteria for the murder trifecta. Maybe we could wrap up this whole investigation, and I would still have time to meet Gideon for dinner. Or, at least a late night snack anyway. I swept my tongue over my broccoli filled teeth.

  Millie shook her mane of pink curls. “No, no, no!”

  My salivating taste buds blew a big fat raspberry.

  Peanut butter and jelly it is.

  “But, she just ordered a truckload of baneful herbs! Hellebore, Datura, Wormwood! Demongrass!” Millie waved the inventory slip under our noses. “She had all the legal paperwork. But, Hat! She ordered so much! I can’t even begin to think what that evil old crone is up to with that many lethal supplies. What are we going to do?

  “She had all the legal paperwork?” David asked.

  Millie nodded. “All signed and sealed from Talisman.”

  David sighed soberly. “Well, then, Millie, I’m afraid there’s not much we can do about it. If she went through the proper channels, my hands are tied. Now, if she had bought a crate of Mandrake off a smuggler’s boat down at the wharf? Well, now that’s a different story entirely.”

  I perused Millie’s list, worry wrinkling my forehead. I reached for David’s arm but hesitated at the last moment remembering the uncomfortable sensation from our last contact. “But, I think Millie’s right to be concerned, David. These are incredibly dangerous herbs. What could Portia be planning with such massive amounts?”

  “I’ll put it on the list of questions I’m going to ask her,” David replied. “But, I want to go check out a hunch at the television station first. So, if you’ll fix your fried footwear…”

  “You know, Chief, I always said you were hot stuff, but easy on the kicks, huh?” Eclipse quipped from his nearby perch on a shelf next to the Lion’s Mane. Hericium Erinaceus was a medicinal mushroom which promoted nerve regeneration. I rubbed my tingling fingertips together again. Maybe I’d snag one or two for the road.

  “It was-s-s-n’t the Ch-ch-chief,” Carbon stuttered as his frizzled form entered the room. Little blue sparks leaped from his fur as he brushed up against the furniture. “M-m-maude f-f-fried the c-c-circuits.”

  Eclipse convulsed with laughter and duly rolled off his shelf. He hit the ground with a solid thud and a pained “Oof!”

  “S-s-serves y-y-you r-r-right,” Carbon grumbled.

  Gloom padded into the room and blinked at Carbon’s frazzled fur. “And you guys think I’m joking about the Omega-3s for your fur. Try some fish oil, you hot mess.”

  She shook her head and moved on.

  “Oh, my gracious!” Millie gasped. “Carbon! Are you okay?”

  She reached to scoop him up, but I stayed her hand. “Might want to wait until he totally discharges first, Mil. But, do me a favor, huh? Will you keep an eye on him while I go to the television station with Chief Trew?”

  “Sure. I hope that he doesn't short out the tv, though. My favorite show is coming on. 'Man vs. Food'.” Gloom casually licked her paw and remarked: “Personally, I’m rooting for the food.”

  Millie shot a disparaging look at her.

  “Keep it up, Gloom and it’s canned tuna this week instead of fresh off Galen Killoran’s boat,” I warned. Gloom’s mouth dropped open in horror.

  Okay. So maybe the threat was a little drastic, but we were a family. I wasn’t going to abide sniping. Not even from my negative-nelly feline. Millie looked anxious, and I felt a strong urge to comfort her, or at least to distract her from the alarming interaction with our witch of the Gorth Swamps.

  "I saw you talking to Reuben Thornheart at the town meeting.” I smiled gently.

  Millie’s eyes flew wide in surprise. “What? You saw that? I, I was just asking him what it was like working for a major paper like the Gazette.”

  “The Gazette? A major paper?” Jet giggled. My agoraphobic kitty curled around Millie’s legs. “Millie, honey, we have got to expand your mind. Might I recommend a little nip of the catnip?”r />
  Millie waved him off. “Oh, go on with the Chief, Hattie. I think we’ve got things under control here. I’ll lock up.”

  “Thanks, Millie,” I replied.

  “Don’t worry; We shouldn’t be too long. It’s getting far too late to head out to the Gaunt Manor tonight. We’ll just check out this lead at the television station, and I’ll have her back in the blink of a newt’s eye. And we’ll go question Portia in the morning.” David's words comforted my anxious assistant. They didn't me, though. Morning? I hate mornings.

  But, before I had time to protest, David had me out the door and headed toward WYRD.

  It seemed like an entirely pedestrian thing to do; but little did I know just how weird things were going to get.

  “Well, sure you can look at our footage, Chief!” Leland Void bellowed in a Sunday-Supersale voice that was anything but void. He clapped two jovial hands on both our backs, knocking us each a few inches forward. The station manager led us toward the editing room.

  “You know, I always wanted to go into TV,” he said as we passed the studio floor. “But, my Mee-Maw always told it to me straight. She’d chew on that old bramblewood pipe of hers and say ‘Sonny, you’ve got to own facts. You’ve got a face for radio.’”

  I looked at his heavy jowl and droopy lower lip, and, frankly, I had to agree with Mee-Maw. Leland looked more like something that should be guarding the junkyard than reading off the highlights of the evening news.

  He held his massive arms out wide. “But, then again, what the hell did Mee-Maw know anyhow? Invested my money. Made a mint. And I bought me a whole damned TV station instead. I may not be in front of the cameras, but I’m still in TV! Ain’t nobody gonna tell Leland Void what he can or can't do.”

  Somehow, looking at his garish polka dot tie with his bright striped shirt, I felt that behind the cameras was definitely an appropriate place for him.