Murder Casts Its Spell

by Margaret C. Morse

  Bernie planted himself before us. Sweat popped out on his bald scalp. "Okay, here's the deal. The grandparents have a fifteen-minute visit today at the courthouse. Assuming that goes okay, they can have him for two hours every Saturday afternoon. We come back in sixty days to reassess."

  Oscar threw the teddy bear onto the tile and screeched, one of those rasping baby cries. I picked up the bear, careful to avoid the slobbery appendage.

  Shirley went nose-to-nose with Bernie. "Can you imagine how traumatic it will be for us to just dump Oscar on those people. You'll really hear some screaming."

  Paul thumped Shirley on the back as if he were burping her. "I'm sure Felicia's parents are decent if not deadly dull. Think how much our mother enjoys time with Oscar."

  Mona stroked Shirley's arm. The crystal on Mona's neck flickered so briefly I thought I imagined it. Shirley swallowed and backed away from Bernie.

  "How about this?" Mona waggled the bear's arm, making Oscar laugh. "I'll take Oscar into that little room back there with a table and chairs. The grandparents can join us. I'll introduce Oscar to them. Shirley is right about not just leaving him with them."

  "Let me run that idea by their lawyer." Bernie strode down the hall to the woman seated next to the Morlattis. He and the woman waved their hands at each other. Finally, Bernie beckoned to Mona, who disappeared with Oscar into a conference room, followed by the Morlattis.

  Shirley stalked off to the restroom, slamming the door with a bang.

  "This fizzled out. No hearing with startling revelations." Rusty yawned.

  I settled on the bench to check for messages, irritated that I hadn't accomplished anything. "Let's talk to Mona when she finishes with the grandparents. At least she doesn't look like the hysterical type."

  After I'd finished my messages, Shirley returned with fresh lipstick and the drool stain gone. She said she'd used the hot-air dryer for five cycles to remove the moisture. Paul dry-swallowed two aspirin and closed his eyes. He muttered something about being glad he'd "remembered not to have children."

  Fifteen minutes later, Mona stood in front of us holding Oscar, who still sucked on the brown teddy bear's right leg. It turned out she was Oscar's caretaker for the afternoon. She wanted to talk to us in the courtyard between the two county buildings because Oscar needed some fresh air. She said the grandparent visit "went as well as could be expected."

  In the courtyard, stone benches formed squares around yellow and pink lantana. Rusty and I sat on either side of Mona. The noon desert sun beat down on all of us except Oscar who was protected by the awning of his stroller. A fountain with water flowing down shallow steps gave an illusion of coolness. Pigeons strutted and bobbed for crumbs from office workers' lunches.

  Oscar wriggled in his stroller. The smile that had turned up the corners of Mona's lips faded as her black eyes fixed on me. When Rusty pulled out a notebook, Mona shook her head. "No notes. No recording." Frown lines cut into her forehead. "You suspect Ira."

  Her words felt like a jab. "I suspect everyone who was around Felicia Sunday night or Monday morning. Except Keegan."

  She watched Oscar slap the bear on the tray of the stroller. "Monday morning, when Ira came out of the flashback to his childhood, he called me. I told him to go to his mother's. I know you think he might've gone back to Felicia's, but he usually ends up in the same dives when he has one of his spells. I'm going to check them out. If someone saw him with blood on his shirt from cutting on himself, that would show part of his story is true. If I knew exactly when Felicia was murdered, I could see if he has an alibi. Do you know when she died?"

  "I haven't seen the medical examiner's report yet. How did you find out about the bloody shirt?"

  "Ira told me. He's found out it's best to tell me everything."

  I used a file to shade myself from the sun and from the burn of Mona's gaze, which was both intimate and disturbing. I had to fight down the fear she could read my mind. You can go crazy with worry that everyone is an empath. Let her read my mind. I wasn't ashamed of my thoughts. The shame was hers if she was snooping. "Look, it's my job to fight for Keegan. I'm not trying to pin the murder on Ira, but his instability makes him an obvious suspect."

  Her voice got deeper, rougher. "You can do a better job for Keegan if you don't waste any more time trying to involve Ira. You need to see more clearly."

  She put her hand over mine. My vision sharpened. I saw the color of people's eyes as they emerged from the courthouse a hundred feet away. Shirley stepped out of the electric doors, eyes blue as the noon sky. She looked up and laughed at Bear, who leaned into her. Envious of their quick rapport, I had trouble being happy for them. Mona lifted her hand from mine. When my vision returned to normal, the fountain and flowers in the courtyard seemed to go slightly out of focus.

  Shirley and Bear didn't glance our way. Oscar whimpered and drooled on the bear.

  "When he was a teenager," Mona said, "Ira had trouble at home after they finished with him at that so-called treatment center. One day, Deidre saw bruises on his arms and back. She accused his father of beating him. That's the reason she gave for taking the children and getting a divorce from Connor. Neither one of them could handle Ira, so he came to us."

  I felt heat come off her, the burning anger of the past. "I understand you're protective of Ira. So is Keegan."

  "Do you want to know the truth?" She breathed deeply and pulled her shoulders back. "Connor wasn't beating Ira. Every day, he struggled with Ira to stop him from cutting on himself. Ira begged Connor not to tell Deidre about the self-mutilation. When Connor and Ira finally told her the truth, she wouldn't believe them. She said they were in denial."

  Golden-haired compassionate counselor Deidre. I didn't like the discovery that my former therapist had screwed up her life. "All this cutting on himself makes Ira seem a very angry, frustrated man."

  "It shows Ira turns his anger on himself. You need to back off from him. If he feels too pressured, he might hurt himself again."

  Her black eyes flashed from me to Rusty. Oscar sat up and hurled the bear away. It flew out and landed on the fountain, bouncing down the steps. It ended up in the bottom of the shallow pool.

  Mona lifted her hand palm up. The bear rose dripping from the water. When she squeezed her hand shut, the bear twisted and wrung itself out. With jerky movements, it walked across the air to us in response to Mona's beckoning wave. I froze on the bench as my eyes tracked the brown bear. This kind of magic had propelled Felicia's body.

  As the bear hovered above us, Mona pointed her index finger and guided it into a plastic bag she withdrew from a stroller compartment. Knuckles crammed in his mouth, Oscar watched her stow it away.

  Mona focused back on me. "I know Ira better than I know myself. When Ira came to live with Ronan and me, I was the one who took him to every counseling session so he could heal from the violence. I watched every step he took to regain his empathic powers. I was the one who taught him how to use his shape-shifting talent. I have less talent than his family in shape-shifting but more patience. I know Ira. The only person he's good at hurting is himself."

  "I understand you want to protect Ira."

  "That visitation I just did with those people, Oscar's grandparents. They're afraid of Oscar, like he's going to burp up magic on them. But they still want to fight over him. The grandmother wasn't so bad. But the grandfather, he was rigid with anger. What if he found out Ira had talked Felicia out of having Oscar exorcised?"

  "We're looking into that." We weren't, but we would.

  "I have an insight for you." She handed Oscar a cloth book with a blue duck on the cover. He crammed it in his mouth. "Monday morning, the grandfather had angry words with Felicia."

  "How do you know?"

  Without answering, Mona arose and draped the strap of the diaper bag over her shoulder. She scanned the sidewalk across the street until she saw her husband, Ronan Flynn, come around the corner. As he approached closer, Mona's eyes sparkled. She offered R
usty and me her hand. She surprised me by having a limp grip. She let her hand slip out of mine.

  She pushed the stroller two paces then turned back. "I'm going to be following up about the grandparents. You handle it your way."

  I waited until she reached Ronan and they embraced before I turned to Rusty. "I'd have told her not to butt into a police investigation, but I have the feeling she doesn't take direction well. What about her knowing Mr. Morlatti had words with Felicia?"

  Rusty fingered a pack of Marlboros. "She could have done a mind read on him during the visitation. Not many wizards would come that close to almost admitting they did an illegal mind contact."

  "And the deal with her levitating the teddy bear. Powers like that may have been used to kill Felicia, cannonball her out the window."

  "I'd count her as another potential suspect. I can definitely see her killing to protect her young. And she insisted on telling us she had shape-shifting powers." Rusty had her cigarette out, ready to light up once we left the courtyard.

  Sweat oozed through my hair and down my back. "But I can't see her using Keegan's form when she was at Felicia's door. Why would she implicate him? Let's go to Mamacita's. I want food that will make my nose run and my stomach burn."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  FRIDAY AFTERNOON

  After three hours of paperwork at the office, I went home to change into sweatpants and a T-shirt. Dress casual, Jake Herz had said in his email. I hoped he'd noted the last sentence of my message. Be ready to perform a spell to remove whatever magic poor crazy homeless Ernie accidentally sent my way. If the spell was temporary, I wanted him to get rid of it quickly. If the spell had awakened magic powers within me, I'd have no fast solution.

  From the Disclaimer Ranch web page, I knew it was an old farm property converted into a treatment center. As I slowed down for the turnoff, I passed a pecan grove that hid a gourmet restaurant. Down the road, rows of barrel cactus lined up as far as the eye could see, part of a wholesale nursery. Ten minutes from downtown and twenty minutes from suburbia, this rural area was a green spot on the patchwork quilt of Phoenix.

  No sign proclaimed the Disclaimer Ranch. You were supposed to know you were there. The parking lot consisted of ruts and jagged rocks. In front of a two-story house surfaced with granite, a sign announced Office. Two wings angled off from the house. Finished in a taupe plaster, they seemed afterthought additions. Cottonwood trees and a barn loomed in the background.

  Furnished with rockers and benches, the front porch had a welcoming air. I raised my hand to tap on a door intricately carved with stars and half-moons. The moons rotated to form smiles. A young man clad in tattered jeans and a black T-shirt flung open the door.

  "You aren't dressed like a lawyer," he said. He had impossibly white skin so translucent I could see blue veins throbbing in his temples.

  "My name is Petra Rakowitz. I'm here to see Jake Herz."

  "They call me Vidoc."

  He made a sweeping gesture for me to enter. I paused as I stepped into the living room, which extended to the back of the house. Beanbags and futons were jumbled about. To the left, an iron staircase led to the second floor.

  Vidoc darted to the right in front of an entryway. "Come here. First you must see her."

  I didn't know if Vidoc was an inmate and thus a dysfunctional wizard or one of the staff. Although his delicate skin gave him a fragile appearance, he had the firm, flowing walk of a dancer.

  Vidoc moved aside from the doorway, and I entered the kitchen, a bright room with yellow cupboards and a white tile floor. On a table to my right rested a woman's head. I halted, my eyes bugging out as I recognized the face. Vidoc switched off the light and closed the door.

  My hands flattened on my chest, as if I expected an attack to the heart. With a flick of a switch, the head reappeared under a ceiling spotlight. Felicia, face uplifted, lips parted in a smile, regarded me with dazzling blue eyes. A spike supported her head.

  I spun around, disoriented and confused. "What are you doing?"

  I blinked rapidly when the fluorescent lights flashed on. Felicia still stared at me.

  Vidoc brushed the thing's cheeks with his fingers. "I wanted you to have the full effect." He smiled, obviously thinking he'd given me a big treat.

  I wrenched my gaze away from Felicia. "You got that all right."

  "I was up all night imagining her to life. I have a studio in the barn." He waved his fingers at the long dark hair, making it flutter.

  It was unnerving to see the thing move. "What's it for?"

  Using the stake, he lifted the head. With his thumb and forefinger, he closed the eyelids. "You'll find out. Time for you to see Jake."

  I followed him to the staircase, where he called up, "Jake, that woman you said is a lawyer with magic control problems is here. She's bringing up the head."

  Shoving it at me, he went out the front door. I held the post with two hands. The head's coarse hair tickled my arms. The scent of face powder and hair spray wafted off it. I lurched as the entire staircase moved up, an escalator that creaked and groaned. I grabbed for the rail, barely able to support the head with one hand. Felicia's eyes flew open.

  I made a sound like "Yrck." The eyes glistened as if alive. I tried to turn the head around. The stake swiveled, not the face. When I pressed on the eyelids, they stuck halfway down. Her partly veiled eyes watched me.

  On the second floor, I paused at an open door at the corridor's end. I remembered the opera with Salome carrying the head of John the Baptist on a platter. Feeling ridiculous, I spotted Jake in the middle of the room next to a headless mannequin on the floor.

  He took the head from me. "Thanks."

  Aside from Jake and the mannequin, the room contained two folding chairs and a backpack. Jake had braided his soft brown hair into a single tail down his back. He wore jeans that hung in shreds, the knees gone. The bottom of a black T-shirt barely hit the top of his waistband. When he moved his arms, I glimpsed his flat belly.

  My insides had that fluttery feeling I got before I argued a tough case. If I said the right words to Jake, I could make this evaluation go my way. "You know I want the magic removed if it's temporary. Can you tell me now if the magic is short term or permanent?"

  He moved across the room and stood with his back against a six-foot-wide window. I joined him and saw the window looked out over a backyard of dirt and tufts of weeds. Wind rustled the cottonwood trees that bordered the scruffy space. Warm air stirred our clothes.

  Jake stared at the mannequin. "You want control over this power inside you."

  "I want to know what's happening to me. How long will you take?"

  He faced me. "For an answer, I must observe you displaying the magic."

  "That might take days. Probably something happened when we were at Chris's office and when I touched Felicia's brother Sal last night. That's Monday and Thursday. And maybe something happened Wednesday. That's when Ira touched me during a shape-shift and it disrupted."

  "That's every day except Tuesday." He put his hands on his hips. "And you didn't ask for help until last night. You didn't believe that this was urgent. I'm available for the next twenty-four hours. We'll start now."

  I tried to multiply his hourly fee by twenty-four but gave up. "Can't you just zap me with a generic removal spell?"

  "That would be useless and possibly dangerous if the power is inherent to you and not some temporary spell."

  "Do you mean dangerous the way an exorcism is traumatic?"

  "Magic permeates your whole being. It's not a removable organ like an appendix.

  You could have magic blood since you don't know your family history."

  In spite of the warm summer air, a chill tingled up my spine. "Do my experiences seem to you like inherent magic?"

  "I need to observe it in action." Yellow lights swirled in his brown irises. "If all you need is a removal spell, you may be done tonight. If you're a wizard whose power has just manifested, you'll be with me much
longer." He glanced at my clenched fists. "Since we have the mannequin, let's start with a reconstruction of Felicia's murder. Chris wants me to give him a ballpark idea of how it happened. He said it sounded like she went out the window like a cannonball."

  I studied the mannequin's face, which looked enough like Felicia to be creepy. "I'm supposed to throw her out the window?"

  "Should be a new experience for you." Jake positioned the post in the mannequin's head in a tube emerging from the neck. His tanned arms rippled with tendons as he adjusted the head until it clicked into place. When he flicked his hand in front of her face, her half-lidded eyes opened. I didn't like the cold look in her dead eyes.

  Jake lifted the dummy to her feet. When he withdrew his hands, the Felicia doll stood on her own, dressed in denim shorts and a blue tank top. He pulled out his cell. "Vidoc, make sure no one goes into the backyard. We're starting experiments with the dummy." He nodded at me. "You try it, Petra. Let's see what happens."

  I gripped my hands so he wouldn't see they were shaking. I was a talker, not a fighter. "You seriously want me to try to throw her out the window?"

  "Chris had some inside information about defensive marks on the victim, so apparently she resisted. To keep the test simple, I'll only animate her to walk to you, not fight." He touched the mannequin's hips, knees, and ankles. "When she reaches you, try to toss her out the window."

  My heart jump-started as she moved in jerky steps. Desperate to get the event over, I shoved the mannequin and knocked her to the floor. Grabbing her feet, I dragged her toward the window. She curled herself up and lunged at me. That was a surprise because Jake said she wouldn't fight. With a yank on her ankles, I flung her back, but she kicked out, and I fell, landing on my butt.

  When she scuttled away, I charged and clutched her. I dragged her by one arm to the window, where I dropped her. Sweat poured down my body. With a series of heaves, I raised the mannequin until her head and shoulders flopped over the windowsill. With my final shove, she fell out and thudded onto the dirt close to the house.