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

by Constance Barker

  “School?”

  “I’m majoring in criminal law,” I said. “My class was given a field assignment where we are supposed to find a series of related crimes. We have to take a look at how they were handled. We write up a background report and then the class reviews it and decides if it might have been dealt with differently, or if there might be any procedures that we could recommend to keep the crime from recurring. These crimes are intriguing because they all happened in the same place, to mayors, but they are all solved.” I grinned. “If I can find the common element it should be an easy A.”

  “So you want to try to find out why the crime happens over and over?” She looked hopeful.

  “And see if there is a way to put an end to it,” Clarence said firmly. “Squash it.”

  “That’s a good idea,” she said. “So you’d research the situation, and then let us know if you saw a way to keep our mayors from getting killed?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you won’t publish the results?”

  “Not beyond what might appear in an obscure doctoral thesis.”

  She nodded, considering it. “If there is any chance you might be able to help us... the town needs a chance to recover from the shock and all the bad publicity.”

  “If we can find the key to these murders, learn what really motivated or triggered the killings, we might be able to do that,” I said.

  She bit her lip. “In that case, I think I have some things that might be of use.”

  I tried not to show my excitement. “We’ll be grateful for any help you can give us.”

  She nodded. “In the closet,” she said, pointing to a door. She looked at Clarence. “There are some boxes in the back. Would you mind getting them?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Not at all.”

  He opened the door and found four boxes. As Clarence dragged them into the center of the room, Linda explained what they were. "I’m pretty sure that these boxes contain everything anyone could possibly want to know about the murders," she said. “As far as I can tell it’s everything ever written about them.”

  There was quite a bit of it. The boxes weren’t huge but they were stuffed full of copies of police reports, newspaper articles, court records, and press releases.

  “Did you collect these as part of the town history?”

  She laughed. “I pretty much whitewash that. No one wants that recorded. Our sanitized history is intended to bring in business, not provide a true historical record.”

  “So why are these here?”

  “We had a man working here for a time doing editing, proofreading, that sort of thing. I shared him with the visitor’s center. At some point he got obsessed with the murders, that dark side of our town's history," she said. "I didn’t realize it at first, but he started collecting every scrap of information he could find on the murders. I never got around to tossing it; now I think it might be just what you need.”

  I thought so too, and the look in Clarence eye’s told me he was anxious to look through it.

  "Is this guy still around?" I asked. "It might be useful to talk to someone who has gone through all the records and see if he has any leads.”

  She smiled. "Not any longer. I think he took it all too seriously. Like I said, he got obsessive about it. After a time, he decided, or imagined, that the mayors were killed due to some kind of a conspiracy. He was tracing the murders to something or another... he called it a historical thread. He was acting odder every day, really... strange. I’m not sure what happened, but he was suddenly absorbed with ancient history, reading books.”

  “And you fired him?”

  “Heaven’s sake no. He was harmless and a good worker. One day he just left.”

  “Where did he go?”

  She tilted her head. “I have no idea. He left some brochures on his desk... travel brochures for... let me think. I remember. They were for Rome. But I have no idea if that meant anything.”

  “So no one looked for him?”

  “He had no family and no roots. And honestly, I’ll admit it was a relief that he was gone, so I didn’t give his disappearance much thought.” She touched her cheek. “In hindsight. I’m a little embarrassed about that.”

  “Do you know where he was from? Maybe he went back there.”

  She shook her head. “It was curious that once he was gone... that was when I realized that I really didn’t know much about him at all. He was a nice, but forgettable man and that isn’t the kind of thing we ask in hiring interviews.”

  Clearly, we weren’t going to get more than that, and it didn’t make sense to press her. After all, we already had the mother lode of information to explore and we were eager to get to it. So, with our copious thanks and the offer of buying Linda dinner before we left town, Clarence and I each grabbed a box and began hauling our treasures out to the car.

  On the second trip, as Clarence picked up the last box, she tucked her business card into his pocket. "Just in case you decide you might like to look at some property while you’re here," she said, winking. "It's the time to buy. Real estate is a good investment, even if you don’t move here."

  Clarence smiled at her politely. "Thank you.”

  “Just in case. You might get to like the place.”

  He smiled. “You never know."

  I caught the look in her eye. It was nice to see that Linda took time to be a woman as well as historian and ardent realtor.

  Once we'd said goodbye, Clarence waited at the car while I walked three doors down Main Street to the hotel and got us two rooms. Then we hauled our suitcases and the boxes up to the rooms. Clarence went back down and walked to a convenience store for beer while I picked one box at random, put it on the bed and started spreading out the documents. When Clarence came back and stared at the bed covered with papers, we opened the beer, then settled in to see what we could learn.

  Edgar focused on photos, seemingly fascinated by the images of the town itself. Clarence and I went through the documents, organizing them chronologically into stacks.

  "Okay, I see why Linda is so sensitive about the killings. It just keeps happening. The town gets a mayor who is murdered. The killer is caught red handed and confesses. There are a ton of stories about it in the local, regional and sometimes national press, then it calms down until the next mayor is assassinated." Clarence tossed the legal pad he’d been using to take notes onto the stacks and sighed. "It’s got to take a toll on the town.”

  I double checked my own notes, doing some quick math. “So, as you’d discovered back in Destiny’s Point, the first recorded mayoral murder happened over fifty years ago." I dropped the news clipping and picked up the legal pad I’d been making notes on. “It’s pretty amazing. The documents account for the thirteen reports of murdered mayors over that time that you’d run across," I said.

  “Have you noticed the connections? There is more to this than these victims being the mayor of Traverse.”

  "Well, they weren’t all killed in their first term in office. In fact, some served for a few years before being killed. So it wasn’t the fact of getting elected.” I looked at Clarence. “I’d hoped that might be the thing—some aftermath of the election. Killed by a disgruntled opponent, perhaps.”

  “Not even close.”

  “But they are definitely connected in several ways.” I took my pen and started numbering the notes I’d made on my own pad. “Every one of them was stabbed to death.”

  “Some stabbed once, some several times,” Clarence pointed out.

  “But stabbed and, in fifty years, over thirteen murders, no murder weapon was ever found. In most of the more recent cases, the police forensics suggested that a similar knife, a dagger of some sort, about eight inches long, was used for all the murders. Naturally, there is less evidence for most of the older cases, but it’s a reasonable guess that it was used in the first ones too. The wounds were similar."

  "Making it look like the work of a serial killer."

  "Excep
t that, in every case, the killer confessed. And every killer was a close friend or professional associate of the victim.”

  “With one exception,” Clarence said. “One mayor was killed by three town council members working together."

  "A group stabbing?"

  "They told the police that they each intended to kill the mayor, and when they discovered the others were there for the same reason, they took turns stabbing the poor guy.”

  “So it was a conspiracy,” Edgar said solemnly.

  I laughed. “One that none of them remember, or that they all deny.”

  “Despite the confessions, none of the murderers, not one, ever gave a convincing motive for the murder.”

  “That doesn’t seem right. You’d think they’d know why they did it. And if you are going to confess, why not tell?”

  “Remember how the people who used the cursed dice and spectacles were unable to remember a lot of what happened?"

  I remembered that all too clearly. "Yes! That’s right.”

  “Which makes this sound like there is a cursed knife at work," Edgar said. "Or some other murderous artifact that somehow shows the killer or killers where a dagger is hidden and convinces them to use it to strike down the mayor." He smiled. "It also means that this wasn't an artifact that came from the back room at the Curiosity Shop.”

  We looked at Edgar and he laughed. “The killings predate the theft by quite some time,” he said. Then he got thoughtful. “Unless, of course, your old fiance Walter was able to go back in time and plant it here."

  I choked. There was far too much talk and thoughts in my head about people screwing with time for me to appreciate Edgar’s little joke. Or was it a joke? “Do you think that happened?”

  Edgar shrugged his ethereal shoulders. “How would I know? I’m just tossing out possibilities. We don’t know much yet.”

  "So we are looking for an object that wasn't stolen from us," Clarence said. "One that Mason probably didn't even know about, since no mention of anything that might do this made it into the journal."

  I had to agree. "It seems that way. As if there weren't enough artifacts to track down that we do know about..."

  He pointed to the articles cut out of newspapers. "Because the crimes were always solved, no one has ever made a big deal about the missing murder weapon. Apparently, the tabloids never caught on to that little nugget or they would've made up all sorts of possibilities. That kind of missing evidence would be good for selling papers." He laughed. “Police say they expect to find the missing dagger stuck in Elvis’ brain on Mars.”

  "Although maybe that is the story Kenneth is working on," I said.

  Edgar grinned. "Elvis on Mars?"

  "The missing dagger.”

  "Or the whole thing,” Clarence said. “It's curious that despite all the press reports of the murders none of them ever connect the murders. Together."

  "Probably because they were all solved," I said. “If there was an unknown killer, they’d be all over it.”

  "Still, it’s amazing that none of the tabloids ever came up with a story of a town where mayors get murdered even though here it's become a creepy local legend."

  “And where they worry about the word getting out in a big way,” I said.

  “Another item to keep in mind. This town desperately needs a mayor. These deaths have meant that for a fair amount of the past fifty years the town hasn't had one—like right now. What was it you called the town, rudderless? Well, they are definitely without leadership, except of the deceased variety."

  "The town without a head," Edgar said, intoning his words to sound like a voice-over in a horror show. "It makes Sleepy Hollow sound, well, sleepy."

  Talking more to himself than us, Clarence drifted into his summarizing mode. "So we know these murders have been occurring over the last fifty years, and we have a pretty sure idea that the artifact is a knife or something that produces one—the same one, most likely."

  "A dagger which we don't see before us," Edgar said dramatically. "In fact, one that no one has seen before them... not counting the murderers."

  "His theatrical personae is really coming out lately," Clarence said.

  "It was that stupid play," I said. "He's mixing them up now, bringing Macbeth into the middle of Julius Caesar..."

  "They are by the same playwright," Edgar snorted. "It's poetic license. And for all you know I might’ve acted on the stage."

  Clarence snorted. “Right. Appearing with your friend John Wilkes Booth, I assume?”

  "You know, something about that play that bothered me. Thinking about it still makes me uncomfortable." The memory gave me a shiver.

  "I didn't think the acting was that bad," Clarence said.

  "No," I said. "It wasn't terrible for a high school production. I wasn't thinking about the acting at all. I didn’t even mean the production."

  "What then?"

  I shrugged off the feeling. "I have no idea other than it was something about the play.”

  “Caesar’s death?”

  “All I know right now is that I want to go check out the menu at the diner down the street. I'm starved. I’d like to take another look at the town before it gets dark anyway."

  “Before dark, because she’s afraid of ghosts,” Edgar told Clarence. “I can tell.”

  “More annoyed by the ghosts I know, than afraid of them.”

  “It’s always the ghost you don’t know that gets you,” Edgar said, making big eyes and sticking out his tongue. As we left the room I tried closing the door on him, locking him inside, but I knew it was a futile gesture. He just went right through it.

  ACTING ALMOST OUT OF habit I picked up a local newspaper on the way into the diner. We often used local papers when we were searching for artifacts. We’d look for stories of some strange occurrence, or a phenomenon often dismissed by the local authorities because it was too bizarre. We’d come to learn that things that were too bizarre to consider tended to often be the truth. Anything offbeat could be a lead.

  "So, have you found the 'cursed objects for sale or trade' section in the classifieds?" Clarence asked as we slid into the booth and he saw me open the paper.

  "Not that I noticed. I’m just starting. But there is this..." I turned the paper so he could see the front page. The headline story was about the search for a new mayor and how the town council was unable to do a lot of the town business until they had a new one. "Seems like they can't find anyone with a death wish to run for mayor."

  "Public office is a thankless thing," Clarence said. "And with the downside of the job offering a high probability of being assassinated, I'm not surprised."

  "No, I’m not either," I said. I watched him reading the paper and found myself confident he'd pick up on something in the story. We were a good team, Clarence and I. We approached things differently and even collided at times, but that also meant we each brought something to the task of unraveling the puzzles that always came with tracking down artifacts.

  Lila had been a complication. We’d found she had useful skills too and she was clever, but Clarence was attracted to her. She knew it. In fact, she had encouraged it. I didn’t mind that as much as her willingness to use that to manipulate him. She exerted a control over him that worried me. And I wasn’t thrilled about our dynamic duo becoming a triumvirate. When you had three people involved, two always wind up siding against the third. In this case, with Lila around, I knew how Clarence would vote.

  Not that I was jealous mind you. No, that wasn't what it was. Sure, I liked Clarence. He was good looking and intelligent, and kind most of the time, but I didn't want to get involved with anyone right now. I couldn’t afford to. My life was too crazy without developing emotional entanglements. At a moment's notice, we had to take off for odd places and track down artifacts. Not to mention that with Edgar around, I seldom had any alone time with anyone unless I locked him in his pen box. That wasn't a situation that set the stage for any sort of romance that was likely to survive. No,
although I cared for Clarence, it was because we were a good team.

  Clarence put down the paper. "So we need to find the knife."

  "The police have been looking for it for fifty years," Edgar pointed out. "They know the town better than we do. Unless it's a ghost knife."

  "Bad enough it's cursed without it being invisible," I said. “And we can’t assume that the dagger is the artifact.”

  “We can’t?” Clarence asked.

  “Edgar was right.”

  “Of course I was,” Edgar said. “I was? When?”

  “When you said that there could be an artifact that reveals the knife and then hides it again once the deed is done.”

  “Oh, that.” Edgar seemed disappointed.

  “It’s an important point,” I said, wanting to buck him up.

  Clarence picked up a menu. "Well, I think..."

  "The burger seems harmless," I said, pointing to a picture of a juicy looking hamburger and fries.

  Clarence coughed and went on with his thought. "...I think that we need to talk to a murderer.”

  “Hannibal Lector?” Edgar asked.

  “One of the many local murderers. Hannibal Lector would be interesting, but I doubt he’d know much about these murders or the artifact."

  "That sounds delightful," I said trying to sound as ironic as possible.

  Clarence motioned to a waitress who was chatting with a customer seated at the counter. "Your sarcasm notwithstanding..."

  "That, Clarence, was irony, not sarcasm."

  "In that case, your misfired attempt at irony notwithstanding, that seems the next logical step if we are going to find the knife. Who else has seen it?"

  “No one,” I said.

  "Unless everyone has because it's in plain sight," Edgar said, pointing. We looked and saw he was pointing through an open door into the kitchen where a rack of knives hung on the wall. Given our focus and state of mind, they looked rather lethal. "Maybe the mayors ate here and complained about the food. They might have been revenge killings for bad reviews."