Moggies, Magic and Murder

by Pearl Goodfellow

  “Remember, buddy,” I cautioned. “Keep the tip away from your face, and be careful when you hand it over to Maude, okay?” Carbon nodded but said nothing.

  “Tell Maude, if she’s not too busy, that I’d like to get results on this as soon as possible. She can call my cell anytime, I’ll have it on me. We’ll meet you back at the shop later, understood?”

  Carbon bobbed his head again and trotted off.

  Fraidy, Onyx, Shade and I continued onward to the Sugar Dunes Community Gardens.

  “Park down there,” Shade said, as we approached the allotments. He pointed to a kind of gardener’s alley that pushed through the back of the gardens.

  I tipped downward, and we made a gentle descent until we were at the end of the alleyway. The plots lay on either side of the lane.

  “Remember which one it was?” I asked Shade. My confident cat prowled at the front of the pack, turning his head left, then right.

  “This one,” he said, coming to a standstill.

  I came up behind him and looked into the garden. It made my eyes water it was such a delight to the senses. Fall flowers, by the multitude, boasted their colors in brazen display. Squash, pumpkin, golden corn; all sprouted from this lovingly tended plot of land. I pushed on the small chain link gate and followed Shade into the garden, Onyx and Fraidy sticking close to my ankles.

  Goddess, this spot was beautiful. I admired and envied the gardener of this plot at the same time.

  “Here,” Shade said, beaming. He was sitting in front of a stand of pink and white Foxglove, looking like the proudest cat on the planet.

  “Wow, it’s beautiful,” I murmured.

  “You think it’s beautiful now?” Shade scoffed. “You should have seen these when they were graced with Poof’s face!” Shade’s face softened at the romantic memory.

  I looked around the yard. No sign of anyone. No movement from the cute little potting shed at the back of the plot either.

  “We shouldn’t really be here,” I whispered, more to myself, than my cats. Onyx and Fraidy were already chasing butterflies, and Shade had plopped himself by the Foxglove, stretching out in a slice of afternoon sunshine.

  I walked cautiously to the shed. Dying to see how cute it’d be inside, but feeling overwhelmingly like an intruder at the same time.

  “Hello?” I called. “Hi? Anyone home?”

  I moved to the door at the side of the small dwelling and pressed down on the ornate, brass handle. The door opened. I guess there wasn’t really much you could steal from a potting shed unless a few gardening hand tools were your thing.

  I won’t go in, I’ll just look from the door here, I convinced myself.

  It was so lovely inside. The rough wood was washed with a duck-egg blue color. Terracotta pots lined the shelves and the back of the workbench. Various tools protruded from other terracotta containers attached to the wall. It was tidy and very well organized. I felt another pang of envy that this wasn’t my own tranquil haven.

  I saw the book, then. And, I couldn’t resist. A dark, mahogany leather, embossed with the words ‘Pressed Flowers.’ If this garden was anything to go by, I suspected I’d find some gems in this book. I reached for it, still not crossing the threshold.

  Opening the first page, I smiled at the delicate yellow of flattened primrose. I’d always loved this springtime flower. Something clattered to the floor. It dropped directly out of the large circular spine of the book. A pill bottle. I scooped it up and put it on the workbench and turned my attention back to the book.

  I flipped the page.

  It was a recent photo of Barnabus Kramp, and a short bio of the man’s life, including date of birth, address, place of work, etc. I felt my world shift a little.

  I flipped again. A letter from Deevie Greenfield to Kramp. My breath hitched in my throat, and with a shaking hand, I flipped to the next page.

  A photo of mother and daughter, standing in front of a school. Probably Summer’s first day. The little girl was crying, while Deevie half-laughed, and pointed at the camera … trying to convince Summer that everything was okay.

  The next page was a letter that had never been sent. A letter written in an adult hand. A letter from Summer to her father, Kramp. My eyes flew over some of the words there. The sentiments were bitter and hateful. And, vengeful.

  I probably knew it before I saw the name of the person who had signed the unsent letter, but I didn’t want it to be true.

  But it was true. The two words that signed off on the note made my heart feel as heavy as hematite.

  I grabbed the pills. There was no label on the container, but I was pretty confident I knew what tablets were. I stuffed them in my bag with the book, closed the door and ordered my kitties out of the garden. Their faces fell into masks of concern. “What’s going on?” Shade asked.

  “There was a dead body in the shed, wasn’t there?” Fraidy wailed.

  “Seraphim, you look devastated, is there anything we can do?” Onyx already knew what was going on, because he could read my mind, but, in his politely thoughtful way, all he did was offer help. I loved Onyx dearly for it.

  I pulled out my phone and called David, but turned to my wise cat.

  “Make your way back to The Angel. And wait there for me. Just go home and stay put for a bit, okay?”

  Onyx didn’t wait for an answer. He gathered his brother’s and they trotted at a brisk pace in the direction of The Angel.

  David picked up. Thank you, Goddess.

  My friend didn’t interrupt. He listened patiently while I gushed out what had happened in the Galedoom shanties, and what I’d found in the potting shed. It was a barely intelligible torrent, so my friend did well to understand what I was saying.

  “How long before you can get here?” He asked.

  “About fifteen minutes?” I blubbered. I strolled back into the little garden absentmindedly.

  “Good. Okay, calm yourself down, okay? Clear your head a little before you get here. We’ll be waiting for you.”

  I offered a strangled “Okay,” and hung up.

  I felt like a rug had been pulled from under me. I dropped to my knees and sucked in a deep breath. I pushed my fingers into the earth and clenched a handful of soil in each hand, trying to ground myself. I pulled in a few more breaths, and on shaky legs, I ran for my broom.

  To face the truth of what I’d just found in the potting shed of the avid gardener.

  CHAPTER 17

  It was bedlam at GIPPD when I pushed through the doors. Three handcuffed men were being taken away, but they each had a wailing-banshee-for-a-wife, attached to them, trying to pull them in the opposite direction to where the officers were trying to take them.

  I saw Spinefield trying to bring calm to the situation from behind his desk. His face was beet red and glistening with sweat. The guy had clearly had a rough day so far.

  I picked my way around the edge of the foray to the front desk, holding my bag that contained the book close to my side.

  I was about to alert Spinefield to my arrival so he could get David when one of the men in handcuffs invaded my personal space. His face, not more than six inches from mine, sneered at me. “Hattie Jenkins, you’re too late.” He snarled.

  Let me tell you, I was quite taken aback. “What? How do you know my name? What do you mean I’m too late?”

  The first handcuffed man, who had nearly made it through the doors to the holding cell, overheard his ally and shouted his own sliver of wisdom at me. “You’re too late, Hattie Jenkins. You’re all too late.” The man threw his head back and guffawed an awful, awful laugh, as the officer shoved him through the opening.

  The other detainees were pushed, likewise, through the door, to take to their cots in the cells, leaving the shrieking harpy wives behind to fall into sobbing wrecks.

  I inched my way toward the desk, raising my eyebrows in question at desk sergeant Spinefield.

  “Don’t mind them, Hattie,” he said waving one hand dismissively and w
riting with the other. “They’ve been shouting the same thing at the Chief all day. We have no idea what they’re talking about.” He looked at me over the rim of his glasses while he wiped his forehead with his handkerchief. “Bloody Warlocks,” he said conspiratorially.

  “They’ve said the same things to D--”

  “Hat?”

  “David!” I said, running over to my friend. “What’s going on here? Are these more Warlocks getting arrested?”

  “Yep. Seven in total now. All acting suspicious in public places, all caught with the Warlock Weapon. Red Handed.” He ran a hand through his hand. I noticed how pale he was. “They’re being handed to us on a plate, Hat,” he said. “And, I don’t like it.”

  Goddess, I didn’t like it either. I had a really icky feeling about all of this.

  “Do they know us, David? The Warlocks? They said my name. They said we were ‘too late.’”

  David looked at Spinefield. “You know where we are.”

  “No problem, sir.”

  My friend turned to me. “Yeah, I still don’t know what that’s all about,” he said, ushering me down the hall to the interrogation room. “I’ve asked them. Numerous times. But they just keep jeering the same words ‘too late.’”

  The chief opened the interrogation room door.

  I looked up at him. “Is --”

  He nodded. “Spinefield’s on it. Two minutes or so.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and bobbed my head.

  We took our places on one side of the scuffed table and waited.

  The door opened about a minute later. Spinefield’s head popped in.

  “Sir?” he moved aside to let the woman in. “She’s here.”

  “Very good, Spinefield, that will be all,” David said. Spinefield closed the door.

  “Please, take a seat, Eve,” the chief motioned for Eve Fernacre to sit down.

  Eve sat. “Everything okay, chief?” She gave a nervous chuckle. “So, I made it to the interrogation room after all, huh?” She joked.

  David sighed and nodded at me. I couldn’t believe I was about to do this.

  I pulled her pressed flower journal from my bag and nudged it across the table toward her.

  Eve’s face was expressionless as she saw her life go down the tubes. Not a flicker of the eye, not a twitch of the jaw. Deadpan. Or, maybe just dead inside.

  “How’d you put it together?” She said, her voice flat. Had all the life just drained out of Summer Eve Fernacre?

  “I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time, but when I asked you if you knew anything about Foxglove, you said you’d never heard of it. Something didn’t feel quite right about that statement, and it’s only now I realize what it was.”

  Eve cocked her head to the side.

  “About a month ago, you and Spinefield were having a conversation about gardening, and you had told him how much you loved it. I overheard you. You didn’t know I was listening. That was the first thing.”

  I looked down at my hands and folded them.

  “What else?” Eve asked.

  “Kramp’s wife, Zinnie,” I said. “She told me Barnabus thought you were stealing from him. She mentioned the medication among other things.”

  “Paranoid old fart,” Eve said. “Yeah, I stole some of his pills, but I didn’t touch any of his other stuff. I’m not a thief.” She sighed and rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

  “How did you do it, Eve? How did you administer the Digitalis?” David asked.

  “It was easy,” Eve said. “I added powdered Foxglove to his herbal teas. The drinks I gave him for indigestion. I knew his meds contained the same basic compound as Foxglove, so I knew it wouldn’t be detected. At least not as a ‘foreign’ agent.”

  “So you stole Kramp’s pills to make it look like he had taken too many?”

  “Pretty much, yeah. My father took his regular meds, and I just topped it up with Foxglove, pushing him over the edge. Just as I’d planned. I stole his pills, so it’d look like he was over medicating.” Eve shrugged. As if to say: What else can I tell you, it was simple.

  “I never knew that someone else was out to kill him on the same day, though,” she said, referencing the Warlock bomb.

  “But, Eve, I don’t understand. Everyone kinda knew that Barney Kramp had everything to look forward to. It just doesn’t … I don’t know … sit right, I guess, that he would take his own life. You must have known that this would have raised some eyebrows, no?”

  “You don’t need to tell me how rosy my father’s life was,” Eve spat. I pushed back slightly in my chair as the woman’s face broke out into a venomous sneer.

  She blew air out of her nose and sat back in the seat. “I know how wonderful my father’s life was, thanks,” she murmured. “I’d been watching his every movement since I left North Illwind.” She nodded to the pressed flower book. “It’s all in there. It’s a pretty decent folio if I say so myself.”

  Eve looked at us. “I wanted my father’s family, his wife, everybody who knew him to feel doubt.”

  “Doubt?” I said.

  “The kind of doubt my mother and I suffered from for years before she took her life. My father promised mom many times that he’d come for us. That he’d make our lives easy, and we’d be happy, and have a garden, and a dog.” Eve swallowed. “All we had was hope and doubt. I wanted Kramp’s loved ones to feel the confusion and pain of not really knowing whether Barnabus took his own life or not.”

  Wow. Hate really does have some phenomenal low points.

  “Was that you in Galedoom?” I asked. “Firing the darts?”

  “I got your broom pretty good, huh?” She offered a quirky smile. “Sorry about that, but I didn’t really want you snooping around into my history, if you know what I mean?”

  “What was on the tips of the darts, Eve?” David asked.

  “Ageratina altissima,” Fernacre replied, looking directly at me.

  “White Snakeroot,” I confirmed. “Nasty.”

  “How could you know that Kramp was going to be ‘staying’ here?” David asked, lacing his fingers behind his head.

  “I didn’t,” Eve said. “I just took the opportunity. If it hadn’t have happened this way, then it would have happened another way.” Eve looked at me. “Hey, Hattie, was old Heffer still at the institute?” She asked, half chuckling.

  “She said you were spritely,” I said. “She showed me a picture you’d drawn. You had signed your name: Summer Eve in the corner. But, I read it as: ‘A Summer’s Eve.’ I guess because of the big red sun.”

  Eve smiled. “I remember drawing that picture. That was how the sun would look when Dad came home.”

  I felt as if I was about to burst into tears. The woman in front of me had tried to kill me, and all I wanted to do was to give her a hug.

  “When did you change your name?” David asked, getting back to business.

  “As soon as I left the institution,” Eve admitted. “I didn’t actually change my first name; it’s still Summer, but I just use my middle name. My last name, I turned it to Fernacre ... at an illegal outfit in Galedoom. Cost about twenty sols.” She shrugged again.

  Was this how it looked when your life is in the throws of utter defeat?

  David sighed. “I’m so sorry, Eve. I really am,” he said, folding his hands in front of him.

  “S’okay, chief. I did what I had to do, and that’s all I can ask for. My life was already in ruins.”

  “He didn’t know that you were his daughter, though?” David blurted.

  Eve shook her head. “My father didn’t know me. Not even when I was right under his nose.”

  She didn’t crack. She didn’t blubber. She was just flat. And wooden. I suspected that the pain had burrowed into her so deeply, and her defenses had become so primed, that the woman could barely register her feelings.

  “Summer Eve Fernacre, I’m arresting you for the murder of Barnabus Kramp,” David murmured. His eyes looked shiny. I knew this hurt him.


  And it hurt me too.

  Spinefield led Eve away to the holding cells, and David and I walked to the coffee machine on the lower level. We didn’t talk. There was nothing to say. We walked past yet another Warlock being brought in, and I watched as he was loaded into a vacant cell.

  “You think all these guys are Shields scapegoats? You think the governor is trying to keep our attention here while he gets up to no good somewhere else?” I said, looking at the chief.

  A rattling of metal made us both spin around. Dargon Snothatch squeezed his pinched face through the bars of his cell. “Scapegoats?” He laughed, white spittle flying from his thin lips. “We’re not Scapegoats, we’re devoted servants! And you and your Custodians are too late!”

  The bars of the other cells rattled, and the sound of stomping feet and dark jeering filled the air. “You’re too late, you’re too late, you’re too late.”

  The menacing chant got louder as David and I fled for the door out of there.

  The chief slammed it shut behind us. I leaned against the wall of the corridor. “Okay, I’m officially freaked out,” I panted. “This is all getting too weird now, and I’m ….well, I’m scared.”

  David leaned on the wall next to me and rolled on his heels. “I know, Hat. It’s creepy, for sure. But...” He pushed off the wall and faced me, placing his hands on each of my shoulders.

  “...We’ve just solved a murder case. Well, you mostly did. It wasn’t an easy one, obviously, but we served justice today.”

  My bottom lip trembled.

  “Hattie, we’ve solved a case. Orville is working his fingers to the bone trying to find the right way to temper Dragon Steel, the rock grumlins are fighting to get through the rock to block off the waterfall, and Artemus, Carpathia and Gabbie are working on the document that Morag Devlin left in the bell, AND we’ve got at least seven guilty Warlocks filling our cells downstairs.” David lifted my chin.

  I looked at him. “So? What’s your point?”

  “My point is, is that you and I have entirely wrapped up a murder investigation, and everything else that matters right now is already being taken care of. I mean that it’s now time to have a breather, okay? I’m saying we’ve done a good job all things considered. So, go rest. Go home, be with your kitties for the evening. We can meet tomorrow at Portia’s. We’re going to need to have a Custodian’s meeting. Tomorrow at four p.m. See where we’re at with the Warlock/Dragon threat, and whatnot.”