The Curious Case of the Cursed Dagger (Curiosity Shop Cozy Mysteries Book 3)

by Constance Barker

  Clarence gave me a curious smile. "Okay."

  "What are you smiling about?"

  Clarence shrugged.

  "I’m smiling because it’s clear that you two are fairly off center already," Edgar said.

  Clarence didn’t answer. Edgar’s shot didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. In fact, it looked to me like it pleased him. That seemed totally out of character. Enjoying being thought of as off center certainly sat oddly on a man who always insists on wearing a sports coat and a bow tie. After a moment, he opened the car door. "Here’s a thought... why don’t we go chase down a mayor-killing artifact that no one has heard of but everyone thinks is familiar."

  “The hunt is on,” Edgar said, drifting into the car in his inimitable, ghostly fashion.

  When I got behind the wheel and looked over at Clarence, he was still wearing that smile.

  Chapter Five

  The rural highway that led from Destiny’s Point to the even smaller town of Traverse flowed through rolling hills, green with grass and sprinkled with the yellow and purple of wildflowers. The scenery made for a relaxing drive, and I was glad for it.

  At our destination, the little town itself made a genteel and gradual entrance. The four lane highway shrank to a two-lane blacktop road fronted by farm houses, which were soon replaced by closer-spaced, neat urban frame houses. These, in turn, finally gave way to a variety of storefronts and offices that sat cheek by jowl just past a sign welcoming us to Traverse.

  "You are going awfully slow," Edgar said as we crawled through the small downtown. Once he’d gotten used to riding in a car, Edgar had become something of a speed addict.

  "I know I am. First of all, breaking the speed limit is a bad way to introduce yourself to the authorities and besides, I want to get a sense of the place, a clear first impression of the town."

  "And are you getting one?"

  "I am.”

  “What sort of impression are you getting?” Clarence asked. “It all looks pretty ordinary to me.”

  I considered how to explain it. “This town has a certain sadness to it, as if it somehow got stuck halfway between prosperity and poverty."

  "It's neat and clean," Clarence said. "Well kept."

  I couldn’t quite place the feeling, but the longer I was there... “It’s rudderless,” I said after a time. “That’s the word.”

  “What does that mean?” Clarence asked. “How do you mean it?”

  “The town looks as if it isn’t going anywhere, as if it has no direction or leadership.”

  “The mayors were killed,” Edgar said. “I'd say that pretty well sums it up.”

  “It’s more than that. This downtown looks hollowed out," I said. I pointed to the large number of nice, older brick buildings, both storefronts and offices, that stood empty. "They look as if they've been vacant for a long time." Several sported faded signs in their windows, making them look uncertain and dispirited, but hopefully providing the phone numbers to call if anyone had the unlikely interest of buying or renting them. It was made worse when, right alongside them, were other businesses that appeared to be thriving.

  The main part of the downtown was compact – just a few blocks long. Peering down the side streets, we saw a few parallel streets that had more of the same combination of thriving businesses and empty buildings.

  “They have a nice town square,” Edgar said. And so they did and it looked pleasant.

  Overall, as Clarence said, everything was clean, neat, and fairly well taken care of. If it had been fully populated, with the empty buildings filled, I would’ve thought of Traverse as a quaint little town. The businesses that dotted the main street provided an interesting combination of art galleries and gift shops awaiting the flight of the migrating tourist, a bar, some restaurants, a small hotel, an accountancy office, a legal firm, a realtor (convenient), a thrift shop (open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 to 4), and the town hall. Further down the street we could see a garage that had seen better days.

  "This town... it isn’t really a very nice place," Edgar said.

  "Really? I kind of like it myself," Clarence said, peering out. "I appreciate the older architecture, and the way the buildings seem to be well-maintained. Overall there's lots of potential here. I mean, I haven't seen a single curio shop. We might have found an under served market."

  "I was talking about the feeling of the place," Edgar said. "There is a sinister something lurking here. I’m catching Cecelia’s unease. I don’t like that."

  It bothered me that I didn’t feel that at all. Not that I wanted to feel bad, but if there was a negative force here and I didn’t feel it, that made me uncomfortable. I wondered if I’d felt uneasy so long that I was numb to it now. "Do you think it’s cursed objects, Edgar? Is that the sinister presence you are reacting to?"

  He looked around warily. "I'm not sure. It’s all rather vague. It’s not as concentrated as I’d think it should be. " Edgar looked uneasy. "I can't tell if what I'm sensing is some object, a person..." He nodded at a diner. "But then maybe it's just motion sickness or the smell of bad food... or a combination of the two. I don’t know. In some ways, it feels like the whole town is cursed."

  "It would be a lot more helpful if you did know," Clarence said.

  I agreed. "It's rather hard to track down a vagueness."

  "I can't help it being what it is, can I?" Edgar said, turning sulky.

  “You are right, you can’t. I was being unhappy, not criticizing you.”

  "Could the town itself be a cursed object? Is it possible? That wouldn’t be right would it?" Clarence asked. "I mean the Grand Storehouse is, but I think, I hope it's an exception."

  "I certainly have no idea.” I didn’t, but now that he’d said it I had to consider it. A cursed town might be the succession of similar murders. “I suppose it is possible, and while I'd like to say that nothing could surprise me after all we've seen, I have a hunch that doing so would be just flat begging for trouble.”

  “How’s that?” Clarence asked.

  “I’m just saying that the way things have been working lately, I’m pretty sure that saying nothing could surprise me would ensure that something truly bizarre would pop up in our faces – just to shock me."

  He nodded. “Got it.” I knew he did. We’d both seen and experienced the contrariness that the magic loose in the world could produce far too many times already. And I had a feeling that we had just begun to scratch the tip of a very large iceberg of oddness. There was plenty more to come.

  “In this town, I wouldn’t be surprised about anything that happened,” Edgar said.

  Clarence put his nose to the side window, looking out. "So what do we do?" he asked.

  "We go on as planned and keep Edgar's concerns in mind. Edgar, let us know if you get any fine tuning on the feelings. Once we get our bearings, we will walk around and see if we can't locate what or who it is that feels so bad."

  "Good. I thought you might dismiss me and my senses out of hand," Edgar said. "Again."

  "I don't think it's wise to ignore gut feelings, in this case, yours especially." Whatever he was, or wasn't, ghost, hallucination, semi-invisible friend, on any given day he was far more in tune with the paranormal side of things than we were and I was pretty sure what was bothering him was paranormal and not the smell of bad food.

  When I pulled into an angled parking spot in front of the town hall Edgar gave me a look. "Why stop here?"

  "Why not? It seems like a sensible place to start looking for the town historian and see what she can tell us," I said. "Someone should know how to find her.”

  “It’s as good a starting point as any,” Clarence said. “Maybe someone will even have a town map."

  And so we went inside the town hall, entering a marble-floored, high ceiling lobby, made in the old style. It felt rather good to me, rather welcoming, although I had no idea why. Looking at the first office on our right as we walked in I read: "Linda Blakey, historian." I gave my companions a sneer
ing look. "Hah. Look at that. I took us right to her. You see what I mean about using gut feelings?"

  "Everyone gets lucky once in a while," Clarence said. He was still flashing me odd smiles that disarmed the dig.

  "And it is a small town," Edgar added. "There weren't that many places to park the car."

  It seemed I just couldn't win with these two lately. And having the spook who haunts you team up against you is a strange feeling.

  LINDA BLAKELY TURNED out to be a somewhat officious, more than slightly frustrated, although not unpleasant, woman of about forty-five. She was a well-dressed person who inhabited a small office that was overfilled with boxes of papers, books, pamphlets, maps, and photos. The walls were covered with even more old pictures, large sepia photos in frames that showed the town of Traverse during its boom days, its glory period of the late eighteen and early 1900s. The main street looked much like it did now, if you compensated for the vintage cars and clothing, that is. Few, if any of the buildings had changed.

  "Hello,” Clarence said, beaming a smile at her. “My name is Clarence Copperfield and this is Cecelia Parish. I understand that you are the town historian."

  She looked up and turned on a smile that she probably ordered by the case from an online supplier. It wasn't sincere, but it was cheerful and professional. "I am indeed," she said, putting out a hand. "How can I help you? If there is anything you need to know about this town... anything at all, well if I don't know the answer, I can find it. Are you thinking of moving here? I have some lovely brochures we developed for the visitor center. They give you all the facts about our entire region, schools, utilities, plans for the future. They will show you what a wonderful town we have."

  "I didn't see a visitor center when we drove in," I said.

  "It's the office next door," she said. "No one is there at the moment, but I have the keys. If you are thinking of opening a business here, well I don’t think there has ever been a better time to do that.” Her pitch was almost breathless. “Right now, we have so many good, no excellent, locations available that suit all sorts of businesses.” Then she stopped and grinned conspiratorially. “In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you that I'm the main realtor in town as well—I handle every sort of sales and rentals you might need. But putting my personal interests aside, I’d like you to know that this town offers some really great programs for encouraging small businesses to move here or start up in town. We have an assortment of tax breaks and some coordinated promotional activities."

  She was a booster, Linda Blakely was. I smiled at her. "Actually we are interested in the town’s history.”

  “Oh?” Suddenly she got a guarded look. “Anything in particular?”

  “Well, we are really curious about the long string of mayors who were murdered," I said.

  That last, simple sentence not only deflated Linda's enthusiasm for her sales pitch, it summoned a black squall. Linda Blakely's face actually grew dark. She dropped down into her desk chair. "Why?” She shook her head. “I can't imagine what there is to know that isn't widely known already," she said. "I can’t see it at all. What’s to be curious about? There are no unsolved cases to dig into or suspicious circumstances to investigate. Each criminal confessed and was put in jail. None have ever even appealed their sentences."

  Clarence went toward her. "I'm sorry, Linda. We didn't mean to upset you. It's just that... well, this does seem like such a nice town, but we have heard the story... just a general outline of it. You'll have to admit that the deaths of so many mayors that way could be a concern. And something of interest."

  She snorted. "With all the evil people loose in the world, all the people doing truly terrible things... well, my sakes alive, at least the only murders to take place in Traverse have all been solved and the killers put into prison."

  I thought she had a point, but Clarence pressed his case. "That isn't as reassuring as it might be because they keep happening."

  She put her elbows on the desk and rested her face in her hands. "You know, I keep thinking we can get past this. But it seems that just when the furor starts to calm down, someone wants to stir it up again.” She lifted her head. “Tell me, why are you here? Why are so many people suddenly interested in those unfortunate deaths?"

  "So many people?" Clarence asked. "Are there a lot of other people asking about them? We didn’t know there was a lot of interest."

  "Well, too many to suit me. First, there was that reporter from the tabloids, then this Emily girl, and then that creepy man and now you."

  "Creepy?"

  "Tall and just weird. I can’t explain it, but it seemed he looked weird... there was something unsettling about him." She shook herself as if the memory of him irritated her or perhaps frightened her.

  "Emily," Clarence muttered. "You think...?”

  I was sure of it. “Our Lila using another name."

  "At least you two are pleasant," Linda Blakely said.

  Her comment jolted me for two reasons. The first was that there were three of us and, as often happened, it took me a minute to remember that she couldn't see Edgar, who was studying maps that were displayed on a large cork board. The second reason came in the form of a sudden and rather unpleasant thought. "This tabloid reporter who came first and asked about the murders... by any chance was his name Kenneth?"

  Linda smiled. "Yes. Why? Do you know him? He seemed nice enough."

  "Yes, we do know him. We... worked together a while back. I'm surprised that he came here without telling us. Do you know if he’s still in town."

  "I’m pretty sure he's still here."

  "Really?"

  "He wanted to nose around. He’s likable, but I think that if he learns anything interesting he’ll write a story that will stir things up even more." She let out a breath.

  "Do you know where he's staying?"

  "He said he took a room, so that means he would have to be either at the hotel down the street or the motel out on the highway. There aren’t any other choices."

  "Did he say anything else?"

  "Not really. Just that he was looking for background for a piece he's writing about places where there have been multiple murders. He wanted to interview some of the town officials." She sighed softly. "I do wish the press would let the story die, but Kenneth seems nice and I suppose he has a job to do."

  Linda's phone rang and as she grabbed it up, Clarence and I took the opportunity to huddle. "That stinks," Clarence said. "If other people are poking their noses into this, especially Kenneth, that means the word is out about an aberrant phenomenon.”

  “How long have you waited to say that? Aberrant phenomenon?”

  He grinned. “Almost forever. But this much attention means we might be in a race to find the artifact and the others have a head start on us."

  He was right. "Okay, and if we rule out Emily that still leaves two others who are asking about the murders. We don’t know that either of them has actually tumbled to the presence of an artifact.”

  “Lila worked it out quick.”

  “But Kenneth could be doing exactly what he told Linda he was up to... working on a story about towns with multiple murders. Unless... do you think the Cabal heard about the artifact and sent Kenneth to check it out?" I asked.

  Clarence tipped his head. "You know how things seem to go—whenever we catch the scent of an artifact the Cabal winds up going after it as well. So it seems likely that either he or the bald guy represents that team.”

  I wondered if he shared my concern that Lila might be the one who tipped off the Cabal. She was good at working both sides of any given fence. I just didn’t know if Clarence saw that.

  “I doubt Kenneth is actually part of the Cabal, but it’s possible that he has an arrangement for getting paid for finding artifacts," Edgar said. “So he could be after whatever it is, or maybe the bald guy came when Kenneth called to say he’d discovered that something was going on.”

  "Then you think he might be bird dogging artifa
cts for them?

  Clarence liked that. “Sure. Even if he’s not directly connected, they might have told him they would pay a bounty for any information on them. Not that his reason for coming here matters much. We can't trust him, not after the way he betrayed us the last time."

  Clarence was right about that. Although I didn’t like all this uncertainty. I thought it did matter if he was going after artifacts. It mattered to me whether he was a villain of some description or a villain’s flunky. I’d thought, briefly that he was a friend and my gut had let me down. I wanted to know how badly I had missed the mark.

  "If we have other folks after it, then we better get going. We have to figure out what it is and find it before he does."

  "And there is another possibility," Clarence said. "We don’t know that either of them works for the Cabal. Kenneth might be trying to get more information, find out those very things before he calls it in." He groaned. "Of course, then we’d have another artifact hunter in this tiny town, and we have no idea who the Cabal might send here to get it."

  "I don't like any of those options," Edgar said.

  "Now we are agreeing again?" Clarence said. "Welcome to the club, but this is just a little scary."

  It was, but not as scary as having to deal with the Cabal again. They’d tried to kill us before, and that wasn’t the worst they could do. Walter, my ex-fiance, had been willing to alter the very fabric of the universe. We’d stopped him, but just barely.

  Chapter Six

  “What’s your interest in dredging up all that nastiness of the murders?” Linda asked. “Are you writing some kind of dreadful murder story too?”

  Although it had worked well for me on several occasions, for once it didn’t seem like a good idea for me to pretend to be the reporter I’d once dreamed of being. Linda wanted the story to die, to be buried once and for all. So I tried another approach. “No, that isn’t it at all. This is for school.”