Black Cat Blues

by Jo-Ann Carson

  He put the picture back into the wallet and put the wallet in his pocket. Then he turned the bedroom upside down. Nothing. It was getting late and he had things to do.

  The time had come to take action, no matter the cost. They knew something he didn’t. He was sure of it. And now he had a way to get Logan to tell him the location of the gold.

  45

  The truest expression of a people is in its dance and music. Agnes de Mile

  When Maggy opened the door of her houseboat a weird, musky smell hit her first, then a faint vibration of something truly nasty, like a psychic echo. Ye gads, she was really beginning to lose it. Smells, echoes, what next? Chanting monkeys? Time to take it in stride. She slammed the door behind her and rushed to get ready for her dinner date, the first in six months.

  ***

  Maggy and Logan met at Giovanni’s, an Italian restaurant known for fine cuisine and intimate seating. After they sat down Logan leaned over and said, “Can you pay for dinner tonight.”

  She raised a brow.

  “I lost my wallet.” His face reddened. “I think it’s at your place. We’ll settle up later.”

  “No problem,” she said. She couldn’t afford this dinner, but that was the least of her worries right now.

  The menus arrived and, soon after, Tuscany bread with aged, fig-flavored, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Candlelight dinners for two were supposed to be romantic, but it felt like a crowded table. The friggen ghosts of the murder victims hovered in her head, and she supposed by the drawn look on Logan’s face that, he felt their presence too.

  “Dead people really kill the ambience, eh?”

  “I keep thinking about the marlin spike.” His voice caught on “spike.”

  She reached for his hand, cool to the touch. If only she could turn back the clock a week, to the time before the murders. Then maybe she’d be more ready for a romantic dinner. Even the expensive wine Logan ordered tasted off.

  They spoke of their days. Maggy gave him a rundown of her chat with the inspector. Logan told her about spending time with his family, swapping stories about Jimmy. The air grew heavier with loss as each story reminded her of how a young man had been taken in his prime. She ran a hand through her hair. “I wish I could do something to ease your pain.”

  He shook his head and then looked at her with tenderness. “Talking helps,” he said. “And being with you makes me feel more alive than I have felt in years. It’s a good thing, you and me, a very good thing.”

  She nodded. What else could she do?

  Their meal had been bene, in a distinctly Italian way, rich in flavors that reminded her of Tuscany sunshine. They lingered over tiramisu and coffee.

  “The highlight of my day,” Logan said, “was being with Sasha, my little girl. She just turned five and is the one perfect thing in my world. My little angel.

  “Was she close to Jimmy?”

  “Oh yeah. She loved him with all her heart. He’d get down on the floor and play games with her for hours. She doesn’t really get death. She told me . . .” The emotion in his voice brought him to a stop. “She said. . .” Logan stopped again and took a deep breath. “’Uncle Jimmy wants us to be happy, always. He’s waiting for us in heaven.’” Tears welled in his eyes.

  “She’s a smart little girl.”

  His face relaxed. “She lost another tooth this week. When she smiles she looks so darn cute.”

  “Proud papa.”

  Logan reached for her hand on the table and was about to say something when his cell phone rang. “I’ll just take this. It says ‘unknown’ but could be someone in the family. I’ve been giving everyone my number today.” He shook his head as if sharing his number was as difficult as baring his soul to the universe.

  Maggy put her spoon into the delicate mocha colored pudding and lifted a mouthful.

  “What!” Logan’s eyes widened. The color drained from his face. Maggy put down her spoon.

  “Who took her? When?” Sweat formed on his brow. He stood up.

  “What man?” His chin trembled. “He took her from her home? How could that happen?”

  Holding onto the edge of his chair he listened to the caller. “Have you phoned the police?” Anger rolled into his voice.

  “Me? What have I. . .Oh shit.” He dropped the cell phone. As it fell to the table, a woman’s voice rattled on.

  Maggy grabbed the phone. Logan took it back from her and shook his head.

  “I’ll take care of it,” he said and clicked it off.

  He looked at Maggy. His face was deathly white. His eyes bulged, nostrils flared, and she could see tremors take his body. His cell phone made another noise.

  “A text.” He read it out loud: “I have Sasha. Where is the gold?”

  Logan’s face sunk. “The murderer’s got Sasha.” His voice caught. “Sasha.” He put his head in his hands.

  “So tell him,” Maggy said.

  Logan lifted his head. “How do I know he won’t hurt her anyway?”

  “Just—tell him.”

  “That I know nothing? I have to do what’s best for Sasha.” Logan looked away from her and breathed out slowly. “I’ll phone Peterson.”

  “Not the police.” Maggy’s heart sank into her personal cesspool of bad cop memories.

  “They know how to deal with kidnappers,” he said firmly.

  “Yeah, maybe.” But they don’t care about Sasha the way you do. How could she tell him that without upsetting him more, that policemen are only human, and they’re bound by protocols made in offices not hearts?

  Logan sat down and punched buttons on his cell. Maggy drank down the rest of her hot coffee, feeling it burn her throat all the way down. There had to be another way.

  Logan stated fact after fact like a shopping list. Sweat beaded on his brow and the rancid smell of his fear hung in the air.

  “Yeah, yeah, okay,” Logan said and ended the call.

  “I’m meeting Peterson at his office. We’re going to go over all the options.” He must have seen her apprehension in her face. “Maggy. I heard what you said, but I want his help. There’s got to . . .” He choked on his words. “There’s got to be a way for me to save my baby.”

  The image of a child’s body with a marlin spike in it crossed her mind like a whip from hell, and her chest froze. How could she make him listen to her? “The guy’s not going to like you bringing in the police.”

  Logan glared at her. “Like I care.”

  She opened her mouth and closed it.

  “Aren’t you coming?” He stood, doing up his jacket

  She swallowed. “No.” She couldn’t stand by and watch a child be murdered. All over gold. This had to stop. Somehow the whole mess had something to do with her. As silly as it sounded to her reasoning mind, she had become the vortex of this evil. She had known this right from the beginning; felt it in her bones. Just as she now knew she would be the one to make it stop. A strange determination rose like anger within her, empowering her with purpose. “I’ll catch up with you later. I have something to do.”

  He winced and stared at her for a few seconds. Then he turned and ran out of the restaurant.

  Maggy sat alone. If only she had the information the murderer wanted, a bargaining chip in this horrid game of death. Where the hell was the journal? What had Peterson said? They’d searched Rita’s boxes for hours. So if it wasn’t there, where could it be?

  Feeling the answer lay just beyond her fingertips she replayed every moment she’d spent with Edgar. There had to be something he said that would lead her to the book. He’d talked about Rita’s life, about Brother XII, about the islands. . . Nothing. He’d said nothing. Okay, if he didn’t say anything that would help her, maybe he did something to. . . . lead her to a clue. What? What? She played his actions over in her mind. Just as Peterson said from the beginning, she knew something; she just had to figure out what it was. Again she went over every movement of his body, every bead of sweat that rolled down his wiry neck.
<
br />   Then it hit her. Sweet baby Jesus. Was that it?

  The very first time she saw Edgar he stood in the library stacks in the reference section. He had his hand on the books. Could he have left it there? Wouldn’t it be found in the library stacks? She ran a hand through her hair.

  Her chances were slim to none. But her intuition said she “had it.” She went back over everything he said, and then again everything he did, and the only thing that stood out in her mind was the image of him when she first saw him in the library, and she knew what she had to do.

  She paid the bill and ran for her car.

  46

  Music is the resonance of the soul. Maggy Malone

  The library was open late, one of the new initiatives of the city to make the community more livable. Sometimes politicians did good things.

  Maggy went directly to where Edgar had stood looking at the shelves. There were rows of books, tomes of knowledge rarely looked at. She pulled one so that it tipped forward. Nothing. Did the same for the next, and the next and the next. She looked at every book on the shelf. Nothing.

  Would he leave the journal inside a book? She started the same row again and shook out every book. When she was half way down the line, a pile of papers fell out. She picked up the papers from the floor. Notebook pages with beautiful handwriting. Rita’s journal? Could it be?

  Grabbing the pages, she walked over to the nearest table. The same one she had sat at with Edgar. She opened the papers and started reading. There were a lot of pages to go through.

  She sent a text to Joe: “The murderer has taken a kid—won’t be coming tonight—replace me.” She clicked send and went back to reading.

  Joe responded: “Be careful.”

  The lights in the library flickered just as she read the first details of Brother XII’s black magic rituals. Closing time.

  She gathered her papers and headed for home, racing through the city traffic like a desperate woman trying to outrun a murderer. The weather had turned nasty, the way it does before a big storm comes in. The roads were slick from rain.

  Once home she took Rita’s journal out again and combed through the last details. She wouldn’t call Logan unless she had something definite. The sound of rain on her roof, which usually made her feel cozy inside, sounded threatening. Time slowed. Focus, Maggy, focus.

  She poured through page after page of old-fashioned prose detailing the local plants and animals. If she heard the word “sublime” one more time she thought she would retch. She pushed through it all. Towards the end an image of the location began to form in her head. At first it wasn’t distinct, but it became clearer and clearer. Little details here and there came together to create a picture in her mind.

  She started the last page. Her phone buzzed. A text from an ‘unknown’. She clicked it open: “I’ve got Sasha. Tell me what you know or she dies.” He signed it M. Spike. Not funny.

  Sweet baby Jesus, she needed to do this right. She wrote, “You’re the murderer?” and pressed send, wanting to stall him while she conjured up some kind of plan.

  “What do you think?”

  Her throat constricted.

  “You’re not responding Maggy. That makes me nervous. When I get nervous. . . THINGS HAPPEN.”

  “Relax,” she wrote. “I have what you want.”

  “TELL ME. . .”

  The tiny hairs on the back of her neck rose. So much depended on her doing this right. She swallowed and punched her response. “I’ll take you there.”

  “You know where it is?”

  “I know everything. I know the general location and the details for finding it when we get there.”

  “TELL ME OR…”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “You want Sasha?” She could almost hear him laugh.

  “It’s on an island.”

  “I got a boat.”

  “Where?”

  Her door burst open and banged against the wall. A strong gust of wind blew in the rain. Gilbert stood there with a cell in his right hand, looking like the devil himself.

  “Let’s go,” he said in a voice as cold as the grave.

  “I. . .” Things weren’t going the way she’d planned. She hadn’t had time to hide the notes or text Logan. If she left now. . .he’d kill them both.

  “Maggy, get your jacket, and bring the charts you need.”

  She stood and faced the asshole. Her heart lodged in her throat. Her body trembled, but she ignored it. “I have to go to the bathroom, and then I’ll be ready. Is Sasha okay?”

  “She’s still breathing.” He grabbed her arm roughly and took her cell phone. His fingers dug into her. He threw her cell phone on the floor and stomped on it, hard. The sound was like another nail being hammered into her coffin. “Be quick,” he said.

  In the head Maggy took out her lipstick and wrote on the mirror, “Drumbeg-Smokey’s guy.” What were the chances Logan would come to her place? What were the chances he or anyone else would look in her bathroom and get the message before she and Sasha were sent to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean?

  Something inside her said she still had a chance. Funny how hope was the last thing to leave. But as long as she was breathing, she’d fight the bastard.

  “Ready,” she said, when she came back out into the living area.

  “If you left him a message he’s not going to get it in time.” His wicked laugh bounced between the walls of the room. Bastard.

  47

  Life hurts . . . but there is always music. Maggy Malone

  Fucked up—my life’s so fucked up. Logan raced to the police station. He had to get Sasha back. Had to make things right. He ran an amber light, then another. The rain fell hard, making visibility poor and the roads slick. When he ran his third light his luck ran out. A blue pickup sideswiped him. He felt the hit, felt the car lose control. . . knew he had to ride it out.

  His car spun. Taking his foot off the brake he tried to straighten his path. Gripping the steering wheel with all his might, the car spun once, twice, and then a third time, stopping abruptly against a telephone pole. His body wrenched forward, then whipped back as the air bag engaged.

  A guy in green work overalls and a slicker pried his door open and helped him out crawl out. At least he was conscious. Rain poured down. Logan stood up slowly, his heart pumped in his ears and his mind buzzed. Couldn’t he do anything right? He looked over at the pickup. An angry lady with black hair waved a fist in the air and strode his way. “What the fuck, mister. You ran a red.”

  “Sasha,” he mumbled.

  There must have been something in his eyes that made her stop. “What?” she screeched.

  “My daughter. A murderer’s holding my daughter. I got to get to. . . ”

  The woman blinked and took a step back. “You should call the police mister.”

  Logan licked fluid off his lip and tasted blood.

  The man in overalls said, “An ambulance is on its way. The police will come.”

  There would be so many questions about the fucking accident. By the time he got out of this mess. . . Shit. There was no telling what the murderer would do. Should he phone Peterson?

  Fuck it. He punched the top of his car. Now his hand and his head hurt. Sirens approached. The lady with the black hair talked to the man in overalls. Probably trying to get them to stay and make a statement. He knew he was in the wrong. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but Sasha.

  Logan walked slowly towards the sidewalk. Once there, he picked up his pace. A couple hundred meters from the wreckage he began to run towards Maggy’s. Together they’d work this all out. She may have been right about the police. Calling them was a knee jerk reaction. She understood the world better. He could trust her.

  Law abiding citizens call the cops, but this murderer was ruthless, and to fight him, to beat him, he needed to be more creative, needed to do whatever he had to do to get Sasha back. That’s what Maggy tried to tell him. It took a car accident to get it through his
thick skull. Maggy understood. He phoned her as he ran. She didn’t answer.

  When he got to Maggy’s, her place was empty. Fuck.

  He pulled out his cell. No messages. It rang. It was Peterson.

  “Peterson,” he said, “Sorry, I had a car accident. I’ll be awhile. Can you, uh.” He clicked off. Why lie? Better to just work under the radar. That’s what Maggy tried to tell him. His head ached. His body trembled.

  Maggy? It wasn’t like her to leave no message or text. He didn’t know her that well yet, but he knew she took care of the people close to her. Nothing seemed out of place. Guitars, music sheets, half-empty coffee cups.

  Blood flowed freely into his mouth now. He went to the head to check it out and he saw her message. “Drumbeg Park!” Fuckin hell. He should have guessed it. The Garry oaks and petroglyphs that Edgar Whitley was looking for were there. Drumbeg Park on Gabriola Island. Everything about the location made sense now.

  Wait. Why would she go on her own? Why leave a cryptic message in lipstick. Fuck. He went back to the main room. On the table lay an old, leather-bound book, and on the floor Maggy’s smashed cell phone. She wouldn’t have contacted the murderer on her own, would she? How could she?

  Running onto the dock with the journal and charts, he ran straight into Hunter talking to Smokey under an umbrella. They must be doing a patrol.

  They turned to look at him. Smokey’s jaw dropped. Hunter just stared.

  “You’re face is bleeding, lover boy,” Smokey said.

  “Maggy’s in trouble. I need a boat—fast.” He gulped air. “She said it was your guy.”

  “Gilbert?” The color in Smokey’s face drained.

  “Does he have a boat?”