Moggies, Magic and Murder
Page 10
“A couple of my constables have,” David said, steering me towards the second door on the left. “Let’s just say that their reports confirmed your warnings about her. Lovely lady, isn’t she?” The chief’s mouth broke into a cheeky smile so adorable, my legs nearly buckled.
We stepped through the door which gave way to a sitting room with ancient oak panels and equally antique furniture, sprinkled tastefully throughout the space. Hagatha Jinx was sitting in one of the love seats, her slight build making her look like a pouty child who’d just been given a timeout. Her eyes lit up with scarcely hidden malice at the sight of me.
“So you’re the ‘expert’ we’ve been waiting on?” She sneered.
“You know Ms. Jenkins, I take it.” David asked, pulling his notepad and pen from his jacket. He had on a casual white linen shirt. It draped flatteringly over his finest contours, hinting at toned arms, shoulders, and chest. The man was a God. But, hey, back to business.
“Just as a patron of the clay-pot baker who couldn’t get a simple order of muffins right. Hard to believe they let a golem run a bakery. She should still be in servitude, instead of back chatting with her customers, I’ve half a mind to—“
“Ms. Jinx, I believe that we share a mutual interest in my people leaving this house in short order. The sooner we can get these questions out of the way, the—“
“Don’t pretend that it’s ME wasting YOUR time, constable. While your officers have been languishing on my lawns, and drinking MY tea, and messing up MY bathroom with their unauthorized restroom breaks, I’ve been taking note of the things they’ve ruined, the goods they’ve used, eaten and drank, and will be presenting you with a bill for compensation.” Bran the Blessed, this woman’s husband had just been found dead, and she was worried that she might not get compensation for toilet paper used! I looked over at David, trying to gauge how he had taken the insult of being called ‘constable.’ His chin was dropped, and he was pinching the bridge of his nose. Hagatha Jinx interrupted.
“Chop, chop, officer. I have a ’Tibetan Bowl Energy’ class at three pm that I don’t want to miss it. Let’s get this over with, shall we?” I suddenly wondered if me saving Aurel from the Strands psychosis a month ago had been a merciful act after all. Perhaps I should have let the poor guy roll around in delirious unawareness. Because, well, this…
David kept his expression admirably neutral, but I could feel the tension under his words. “May we sit?”
Hagatha gave a curt nod to the two unoccupied sofas in the room. “No hands on the furniture, please,” she demanded. David took a golden velvet settee, while I perched on the edge of an emerald green Queen Anne love-seat. I was perpendicular to David. Hagatha sat inside the angle our positions made.
“How aware were you of your husband’s activities before he died?” David asked.
“The same amount of awareness I’ve had for the last seven years at least,” Hagatha said. “None. He and I have lived separate lives for quite some time. We shared a bed and a home but nothing more.”
David looked up from his note taking. “You also shared a son.”
Hagatha nodded in reluctant acknowledgment. “So we did. How that fine boy came to be fathered by my dopey dreamer of a husband, only Brigid knows.”
“But, your husband was a man of great accomplishments from everything I’ve heard,” I pointed out.
Hagatha’s expression pulled into a pinched sneer. “Oh, yes, I’m sure you’ve heard a mountain of sycophantic praise for the man. But the myth of the great Golden Chair of the CIAS should have died when he was felled by his own foolish experiments with a drug that he should have been more careful with. Given that he acted like an overage frat boy when he was around that Society of his, I say that sort of stupidity was to be expected.”
“But didn’t he inhale Strands so that he could try and find a cure to save Orville? Your son?” David countered.
Hagatha rubbed the bridge of her nose and snapped “His love for Orville was never in question, constable. I’m talking about his stupidity as a human being, not as Orville’s father.” Hagatha’s eyes glittered in black rage.
“So you maintain that you have no idea at all what your husband was up to during these last few weeks?”
“I think I already answered that.” she hissed.
“Any little detail you may have noticed, who he was with, where he had gone?”
“You think I didn’t ask those same questions of him over the years?” The lady of the Nugget estate countered, leaning forward in her chair. “The answer I got from Aurel was always the same: Research for that damned book.”
“The magnum opus?” I asked, remembering what Orville’s remark about this piece of work his father had endeavored to complete.
“More like the magnum doofus,” Hagatha scoffed. “All that poring over moldy documents and tomes, stinking up the house with those foul substances. I told him he had to keep his stupid hobby confined to his lab in the end.”
She pulled out a yellow stickie that matched the ones we’d found in his laboratory. “I mean, look at this nonsense: ‘Beckoning Balefire Brings Bitter Bounties.’ she read scornfully. I’ve known more poetic drunks. And, Aurel had the nerve to think he was a fiction writer? Pah!”
“Did you take that note from the laboratory?” David asked, his tone hardening at the sight of the stickie.
“What if I had? It’s my house, and I’ll do as—“
“Mrs. Jinx,” David said, his voice icy. “Were you anyone else, I’d be charging you with evidence tampering and for obstruction of a police investigation. I ask that you hand over that note immediately, or else be prepared to be cuffed and taken to the station. Fair?”
Hagatha blew a sharp breath out her nose and handed over the slip of yellow paper.
“Alright, let’s talk about Mr. Nugget’s behavior,” David said, shifting gears. “Was there anything you noticed about how he behaved? Was Aurel acting differently? Any strange events before his death?”
Hagatha’s face softened slightly at the question. “As a matter of fact, he was a bit sullen and withdrawn over the last couple of weeks or so. At the dinner table, all he did was play with his food, never eating a bite. Then, three nights before his death, he suddenly got up in the middle of the night and didn’t return before dawn.”
“Any idea where he went? And why?”
“I certainly harped on him enough for the answer, but no. If he were a little less in love with his work, I’d have thought the randy old dolt had found a mistress.”
“But there were no signs that—“
“You think I wouldn’t have brought them up if there were, officer?”
“How do you feel about your husband’s death?” I asked, hoping the question would head off a confrontation.
Hagatha took in another deep breath and blew out hard from her mouth. “The only one I feel sorry for is my boy. Orville worshiped his father. But, for me…Aurel can go to Tartarus for all I care.” She meant it. There was no love lost here. My heart felt like it had just gone through a mincer.
The hard look flooded her eyes again as she slid out of the chair. “Now, if the two of you are done, I have my class, and as it also happens, a funeral I need to arrange. Assuming that you can get his carcass back to me in a timely manner.” Ouch!
“I’ll see what we can do,” David said, standing. “Thank you for your cooperation, Mrs. Jinx. And for the record, it’s not constable. It’s Chief Para Inspector. “ He turned from Hagatha before she could answer. I knew David wasn’t going to let that one slide.
We waited until her footsteps were out of earshot before speaking.
“Okay, Hattie, so tell me about your morning. You looked frazzled. Still do, in fact.” I offered a weak smile and then gave David a rundown of what Millie and Midnight were going through, and of all the reports of other strange imbalances occurring across the isles.
When I was done, he simply nodded and said, “All this reeks of Fae magic.”
“Look, seeing as Aurel is going to stay dead and we’ve almost finished going over the scene, why don’t you go check on Millie? We’ll meet up later tonight at the morgue.”
I nodded.
“And, Hat, if there’s anything I can to do help … for Millie and Midnight …”
“You’ll be the first to know,” I strode away to collect my cat-in-the-bush.
As soon as we reached the door of Millie’s hospital room, Number 418, Fraidy suddenly stopped. “Wait a minute.”
Then pulling ahead on his leash, he started sniffing under the crack of the door, his nose working overtime. He turned around with wide yellow eyes and whispered, “Vampire.”
That alarmed me as well. What would a vampire be doing out in the daytime? Or, for that matter, in Millie’s room?
I carefully swung the door open to peek through the crack. A figure all wrapped in bandages and wearing sunglasses was standing over Millie. The visitor was slim and definitely female, her delicate gloved hands stroking my assistant’s forehead with a gentle caress. I was so busy processing this that I loosened my grip on the leash. Fraidy burst into the room, pulling the leash out of my hands completely. He managed to open the door enough to expose me completely to the female mummy. Subtle, Fraidy, I thought.
For his part, my unusually brave cat didn’t seem to care. He was circling the room, back arched, fur standing on end and hissing at the top of his little lungs. From under the cover of Millie’s left shoulder, Midnight stuck his head out with an annoyed expression on his face.
“Would you knock that off?” he asked sourly. “You’re embarrassing me.”
I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me. Fraidy looked at me like I’d just stepped into the path of an avalanche.
“I wouldn’t have figured you for the type to make house calls, Ms. Alecto,” I said with a grin. Fraidy lowered his attack stance and crept under the bed.
“Please, Hattie, call me Carpathia,” the figure said, confirming my guess. “Besides, when Verdantia Eyebright tells me that a client of mine has taken a turn for the worse, I deem that circumstances worth braving the sun for.”
Understanding started to dawn on my cat-in-hiding. “So…you’re the one who --”
“I am indeed, liebschen,” Carpathia confirmed, the smile in her voice evident through the wrappings. “I must apologize for this rather unseemly set of accoutrements. But I can assure you that nothing else will prevent a lethal suntan if I do not take such precautions.”
“So how did you get in?” I asked, taking a seat next to Millie’s bedside.
“Yet another matter in which I think you are owed an apology,” Carpathia said. “I masqueraded as Millie’s distant cousin. One who suffers from a nasty case of xenoderma pigmentosa. Thankfully, the nurse did not need to see my face to be persuaded to let me through.”
There was an aroma in the air. Something I was familiar with. “Is that raspberry seed oil I’m smelling on your bandages?”
“Very good. This plant’s oils act as an excellent sunscreen for my kind, combined with vitamin e; it makes for adequate extra protection.”
She nodded toward my assistant then. “Millie has no living relatives, correct?”
“Yes, she does,” I said, giving my unconscious friend’s hand a squeeze. “Me.”
Carpathia nodded. “Of course, not all families need the requirement of blood to be so.”
Fraidy skittered up to my feet and jumped into my lap. After a quick look up and down Millie’s body, he asked, “So, ho-how bad is she?”
“Nice that you’re thinking of me too,” Midnight quipped groggily.
“Physically, both Millie and Midnight are doing reasonably well,” Carpathia began.
“I beg to differ,” Midnight grumbled.
“But, as I told you last night, Hattie, this situation will only get worse for the both of them the longer this goes on.”
“What else we can do?” I pleaded with the mummy.
“It is paramount that we consult the Presences tonight. In person. Although they are not … of course … people ” Carpathia said cryptically. “Tonight would be ideal too, as a lunar eclipse will be passing through the Isles at the same time.”
“Would it be alright if I brought an extra friend to this meeting?”
“That won’t be a problem,” the vampire said, giving Millie’s other hand a motherly squeeze. “I assume that your friend is practiced with the arts? The Presences are only visible to the Awakened.”
“Well,” I managed. “He has about as much experience as I do. And is equally reluctant, but, yeah, I guess you’d class him as Awakened.” I sighed. “You know, he believes that all this madness going around might be a Fae enchantment.”
“A conclusion I must concur with,” Carpathia admitted. “The real tragedy here is that what we are witnessing with your dear family is merely a byproduct of some much bigger toxic magic at work.”
“It hasn’t just been these two around the shop,” Fraidy chimed in. “All sorts of weird things keep happening that keep freaking me out.”
“And annoying the rest of us with your freak-outs,” Midnight said. “But I’ve got a brownie I talk to who says that this is happening all over the Coven Isles.”
“And I’ve heard similar reports from Gabrielle at Celestial Cakes,” I added.
“I doubt none of you on this subject,” Carpathia said, holding up her hand. “A balefire beacon tends to leave a poisonous wake in its noxious flames.”
That statement startled me.
“You have heard of such a beacon, Hattie?” she asked, noting my expression.
“Just … the name is familiar,” confessed, thinking of the strange note that Hagatha Jinx had handed over this afternoon. We made hasty plans to meet back here, in Millie’s room, the following day, but my head stayed with what Carpathia had just uttered about the Balefire Beacon. I wondered why, of all the notes Hagatha could have taken from Aurel’s lab, she decided to take that one. Beckoning Balefire Brings Bitter Bounties. Did Hagatha know more than she let on? I thought of Portia Fearwyn then. Although we couldn’t yet pin anything on her, I happen to know that the severe witch was a mountain of wealth when it came to such dark tools as Balefire Beacons. I pondered briefly of when we might get the chance to question her on it. Then, of course, there was the open question of how any of this tied back into Aurel’s murder. Hagatha looked like the best link to that crime so far, but she was a tenuous suspect at best. Portia, also, seemed like a plausible suspect. Her strange and hidden connection to Aurel. The fact that the deceased had uttered her name as his last. I couldn’t wait to meet David at Maude Dulgrey’s place of work tonight to see if anything else might be revealed. Besides, I always enjoyed visiting our ghoul coroner.
CHAPTER 12
“Gotta say, girlfriend,” Maude said with her usual cheer. “Your visits are becoming far too frequent, wouldn’t you say?”
“Desperate times and all that,” David said with a shrug, looking over the ultra-modern forensic lab around us.
“You’re not kidding,” Carbon said as he munched on the last of Maude’s salmon kitty treats supply. “I’ve never been more glad to be out of the shop than tonight.”
“Oh dear, did someone make my favorite pyromaniac a little grumpy?” Maude asked as she clumsily walked towards my fire-happy cat. I was wondering when she’d get around to replacing that left foot she still wobbled preposterously on. How she managed to take dancing lessons with Horace Mangler was beyond me.
“Oh, it’s not really Midnight’s fault for his part in the noise-making,” Carbon admitted. “But my siblings raised a Hades-damned ruckus last night that I’m still not recovered from.”
“How about you go and cuddle up to the boiler? My regular guests
are a lot more quiet, as you well know.” Maude waved a bony arm across the few sheeted cadavers there to prove her point that silence reigned in this place.
“Best idea I’ve heard all week,” Carbon said, angling to be rubbed by Maude’s hand one last time. Then he trotted off to his second favorite place in the world aside from the fire at The Angel: Maude’s boiler room.
Maude turned to us and gave us her trademark toothy smile.
“What can you tell us about how Aurel died, Maude?” David ventured.
Walking over to a sheet covered body on the nearest examination table, she pulled it back to reveal Aurel’s dead face. I was still a little freaked out by the fact that his eyes were still open.
“My initial exam of the body indicates this to be a clear-cut case of Snake-Iron poisoning,” she said as we moved closer. “You’ll notice the black veins on the white portion of the eye. There’s a similar discoloration on all of his visible veins and arteries, which means whatever killed him was deep in his bloodstream. The heart would be the perfect place for it to spread quickly.”
“But you said that it LOOKS like Snake-Iron poisoning,” I pointed out. “Was there something else that told you it wasn’t?”
Maude tapped the forehead on the left side. “Well, there was the small matter of a skull fracture that I was able to make out on the back side of the head. It could well have been serious enough to do the job of killing him outright, but I’ll need to cut into him to know for sure.”
Then Maude did something that she rarely did: She frowned. I thought it made her look a bit like Judi Dench.
“What is it, Maude?” David asked.
“Oh, nothing, Chief Para Inspector…or maybe everything,” she said, her customary grin creeping back onto her face. “Something about all this does not sit well with me. It should be obvious that the Snake-Iron was the substance that killed our poor Aurel, and yet, it is not.”
She shook her head. “Oh, well. That’s why I go as deep in my post-mortems as I do.”
A groan heralded a new arrival at the front door. A zombie wearing an assistant coroner’s outfit stepped through, his flesh looking twice as rotten as Maude’s.