“That just means you’re getting close,” Agatha said. He gave her a quizzical look and she added, “That’s what they say in the detective shows when they get attacked by the bad guys.”
Tallow smiled. “Maybe. It’s still a bit early to say that, but we definitely rattled their cage.”
She pointed at him. “They say that in the detective shows too.”
Tallow turned back to the screen of his laptop, but only typed a few more things before closing it. “I have an idea. There is one thing I could do for Asher’s case right now, but it’s a little ways away and I’d have to take you with me. Would it help you feel better if you helped me out on the case?”
Agatha hopped out of her chair and grabbed her knitting. “Okay, but does your car smell funny? It looks old.”
“I know exactly what you are talking about and . . . Yes,” he admitted. “It smells like baked vinyl and 80’s carpeting. But it’s clean. And it doesn’t smell like cigarettes.”
“Fine,” she said with a sigh. “Let’s go.”
Chapter 12: 945 Edgewood Drive
It was already hot outside, but as Agatha opened the heavy door to Tallow’s car an even hotter rush of air hit her. The car did indeed smell old like Tallow had admitted it would. It could have been worse, though. The Rutnicks’ car smelled like cherry cigars and old socks. Or at least that’s the only explanation she could think of for that terribly sour and smoky smell. Tallow’s car was at least, as he had promised, clean.
The front seat of the car was one long bench. Agatha climbed in and winced as she sat on the hot vinyl. She wished she had worn tights instead of shorts. The backs of her legs were already sticking to the seat.
“Your air conditioning works, I hope.”
“Sure,” Tallow replied, stowing his cane in the back seat. He put on his seatbelt and cranked the engine. He adjusted the air conditioning slider on the dash to the coldest setting. “It takes a minute to get going, but after that it’ll throw snowballs at you.”
She hoped so. The air that was coming out now was slightly hotter than the temperature in the car already. Tallow pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and tapped at the screen, pulling up a GPS app.
“Where are we going?” Agatha asked him.
“Remember Asher’s friend that went missing?” Tallow asked. “The one he was looking into when he disappeared?”
Agatha nodded. “Polly Roberts.”
“Well, we are going to go by her house and pay a visit to her dad,” Tallow explained.
“Why?” she wondered.
Tallow sat the phone on the seat next to him, then turned the car onto the street. “Because something about the story doesn’t sit right with me. His only daughter went missing, was gone from school for two days, but when Aarin came to the house to talk to him he told her that he thought Polly was still at work.”
“She said he was passed-out drunk,” Agatha reminded him.
Tallow nodded. “That’s what Aarin told us. But Douglas told me that when the cops came by a day after Aarin visited him, Polly’s dad told them the same thing. He thought she was at work. Why would he still think she was at work after her friend had come looking for her?”
“I don’t know. He was too drunk to remember?” Agatha suggested. She had never known anyone that got that drunk herself, but she had seen enough TV to know it was possible.
“At a cursory glance that sounds plausible, but I don’t buy it.” He picked the phone up off the seat and glanced at it as he drove.
“Hey! You’re not supposed to be looking at your phone while you’re driving,” Agatha chastised him. They had talked about it in an assembly at school. An officer had come in and told them that it was a kid’s duty to remind grown-ups not to text and drive.
“I’m not texting. It’s GPS,” he explained. “I haven’t been to Polly’s house before.”
She grabbed the phone out of his hand. “I’ll tell you what it says.” She looked at the phone. “Go one more mile and then turn right.”
“You’ve done this before?” Tallow asked.
“When Daddy drives,” Agatha said. “So why don’t you believe Polly’s dad was drunk?”
“Oh, I believe he was drunk. What I find hard to believe is that he didn’t notice his daughter was missing,” Tallow said. “From what Douglas told me, this is a man at rock bottom. His wife died a long time ago. Then he got hurt at work and couldn’t do his job anymore. Polly was all he had. He would have depended on her.
“If he really was in the habit of getting drunk all the time, he would have needed her even more. If she was gone for two days he would have noticed that she didn’t make him food or clean his clothes. Even if he was that far gone when Aarin came by worried about Polly, it would have scared him. He definitely wouldn’t have forgotten all about it by the time the police came by a day later.”
“Turn at this next street. ‘Sanderson Avenue’,” Agatha told him, looking at the phone. “It’ll be two miles before you turn again.”
“Thanks,” Tallow said, turning onto the road as directed.
Agatha looked up from the phone, her brow furrowed as she thought about Polly and her dad. Their situation wasn’t all that different from hers with her dad, though thankfully Douglas still had his job and didn’t drink. “Do you think Polly’s daddy knows what really happened to her?”
“I’m not sure, but I think he knows more than he told Aarin or the police,” Tallow replied. “Even if he doesn’t, he has to have some sort of evidence that Polly was working at the travel agency. The company claims that she never worked there.”
“Why would they lie about that?” Agatha asked.
“Now that is a good question,” Tallow said, giving her an approving nod. “If they get caught lying about employing her, it would definitely make them suspects in her disappearance. It would be much easier for them to simply claim she hadn’t shown up to work. They must have been really worried that the police would sniff around and discover something about their operation.”
“Well I think you’re lying about something,” Agatha accused.
Tallow’s eyebrows rose. “Me? What?”
She reached out and put her hands in front of the air conditioning vents, cool air was barely beginning to come out. “You promised snowballs. The air conditioning at school works better than this and it’s always broken.”
“I said it took a while,” Tallow pointed out. He glanced at her hands. “Hey, what happened to your finger?”
“Oh, I cut myself earlier.” Agatha looked at the band-aid and saw a line of blood showing through. Maybe the cut was a little deeper than she had thought.
“Ah, so that’s why you haven’t been knitting today,” he said.
“It’s not gonna stop me,” Agatha declared. She picked the phone back up out of her lap. “You’re gonna turn just up here on the left. ‘Edgewood Drive’. Their house is on that street.”
“Okay,” said Tallow, turning on his blinker.
He moved to the center lane and had to push hard on the brakes not to miss the turn. The entrance to Edgewood Drive was an easy one to miss. It was stuck between the driveways of a brake shop and an abandoned fast food place.
The neighborhood they drove into was an old one. The houses were small and spaced close together. It didn’t seem like a dangerous neighborhood, kids played freely in the front yards, but it wasn’t a wealthy one. The parked cars were old models and the paint on many of the houses was peeling.
“The number is 945,” Agatha told him.
“Yeah, I think I see it,” Tallow replied.
He pulled up to the curb in front of a run-down brown brick house. The yard was more weeds than grass and looked like it hadn’t been mowed in a couple weeks. A dented yellow Toyota was parked in the driveway.
Agatha frowned as she looked at the place. “You’re not gonna tell me to stay in the car are you?”
Tallow looked at her and rubbed his chin thoughtfully as if stroking a
beard that wasn’t there. “No, Aggie. I need you with me. You are my secret weapon.”
“How is that?” she asked.
“Mr. Roberts’ didn’t tell everything to the police before,” Tallow said. “But I think he will be more likely to talk if he sees you with me.”
“Because I’m a little girl and his daughter is missing,” Agatha said. She cocked her head at him. “So you’re using me to help you manipulate a sad, lonely man.”
Tallow winced. “Well . . . yes. But we’re doing this to help us find Asher and Polly.”
Agatha shrugged. “Okay.” She took off her seatbelt and grabbed the door handle.
“One other thing,” Tallow said. “It’s very possible that he is going to be drunk when we get to the door. Emotional drunk people can be . . . unpredictable. I don’t know what he might say.”
“I’m not going to let him hug me,” she said.
“Of course,” he said, then frowned as if realizing that the man could try to do just that. “I’m starting to think that this is a bad idea. Maybe I should wait and go later. Maybe with your dad.”
“No. I want to help.” Agatha opened the door and pulled the skin of her legs free from the sticky vinyl seat as she scooted out. “Come on.”
Tallow got out of the car, his gaze troubled. “Okay, but you stay behind me. I’ll try and make sure this doesn’t get too weird.”
They walked up the driveway past the Toyota and down the short and cracked walkway to the front porch. The porch was wide, stretching across the brown painted brick. A couple of old rocking chairs sat not far from the front door under a small window. Agatha could see a ceiling fan turning inside.
Tallow reached for the doorbell, but saw that the button was missing, a stubby piece of wire hanging out. He knocked instead. He waited for a minute but there wasn’t an answer so he knocked again.
Agatha looked down the street at the other houses. There were a few kids here and there, but it was pretty quiet. No one was looking their way.
She walked over to the rocking chair and stood up on the seat. She wasn’t tall enough to get a good look through the small window, but she could tell that she was looking into the kitchen. She could just make out the edge of the countertop and the upper half of the refrigerator. A chill climbed her back. There was a red five-fingered smear across the front of the fridge.
“Uh, Uncle Tallow?” she said. “Is that . . ?”
He walked over to her and looked into the window. Tallow grabbed her and set her down from the chair. He looked into her eyes. “Agatha, I want you to stay back.”
Tallow returned to the front door and reached out towards the doorknob with an open hand. There was a soft click and a thunk as a deadbolt opened. He pulled a handkerchief out of his jacket pocket and placed it over the knob before turning it. Tallow eased the door open, his cane clutched in his left hand. “Mister Roberts? Are you here?”
Agatha ignored his instructions and moved up behind him, peering inside. The first thing she noticed was the awful smell. It was harsh, a mix of urine and something sour and metallic. Then she saw the blood.
There was a long trail of it, crossing the carpet of the entranceway and leading onto the linoleum of the kitchen floor. There was a lot of blood on the kitchen floor, smears and splotches and splatters. Sticking just out from behind the kitchen island she saw two bare feet. One of them was covered in blood, the other one pale. A soft cry escaped her mouth.
Tallow turned around and moved to block her view. “Turn away, Aggie,” he directed.
Agatha didn’t react right away. Her eyes were wide and her jaw trembling. Her mind was blank and her whole body tingly.
“Aggie,” he said again and this time she was able to move. Agatha turned away from the door and pressed her back against the brick front wall of the house. Tallow placed a hand briefly on her shoulder. “Stay here. I will only be gone a moment.”
He stuck his cane out in front of him and entered the house slowly, careful not to step on any blood. Tallow neared the kitchen and peered over the counter to see if he could get a better look at the body on the floor. Shaking his head, he closed his eyes briefly and pointed his cane around the room. Then he returned the way he had come and used his handkerchief to pull the front door shut. The lock and deadbolt engaged behind him.
“I don’t dare look around in there right now. There’s too much . . .” His eyes fell back on Agatha and he noticed her shivering and blank expression. “Let’s get away from here.”
Tallow put his arm around her shoulders and led her down the front steps and back to the car. She let him lead her, unable to think. He helped her inside the car and got in the driver’s side door. Sighing, he started the car.
“Aggie, I’m sorry you saw that,” he said. “I shouldn’t have brought you-.”
“Was that Polly’s dad?” she asked.
Tallow’s mouth hung open for a moment. “I . . . don’t know for sure. I have never met him before.”
“And he was dead?” she asked.
Tallow twisted, putting one knee up on the bench seat so that he could better face her. He looked her directly in the eyes. “Yes.”
“You’re sure?” she pressed. “You checked?”
“I got as close as I could without stepping in the . . . evidence,” he told her. “But yes, I am certain of it. He had been dead for at least an hour. Again I’m sorry you had to see that.”
“It’s not right.” Agatha swallowed and blinked dry eyes. She felt like tears should be coming out, but there weren’t any. Why wasn’t she crying? “Today’s not right. First Mr. Rutnick almost dies. Then people are shooting at Daddy. And now Polly’s dad is . . .”
Tallow cleared his throat. “Aggie, I don’t want you to think about that,” he said firmly. “You’ll just scare yourself and there is no need. You will be perfectly fine and your dad will be too. I promise.”
She looked up at him in disbelief. “How can you know?”
“I’m going to tell you something about me,” Tallow decided. “It’s a secret. A big one. Something that only two other people in this world know.”
Agatha’s fear eased momentarily, replaced by curiosity. “What?”
He straightened his back. “I am a wizard.”
Her lip curled in disappointment. “Not funny.”
“I’ll prove it,” he said and stuck out his left hand, the one with the tattoo on its palm. “Look.”
A flame rose from the tattoo. It curled and rolled, turning into a small ball of fire. Agatha’s eyes widened. Tallow closed his hand around the ball of fire and when he opened it again, the fire was gone, replaced by a small floating ball of water.
“I have magical powers,” Tallow stated. “Control over the elements, though I am actually weakest in water and fire. My strengths are in air and earth which allows me to do this.”
The ball of water vanished, turning to mist. There was a crackling sound and a light formed in the air above Tallow’s hand. The light solidified into a soft blue hue, and tiny arcs of electricity crackled around it. The presence of the ball caused Agatha’s hair to rise.
Tallow closed his hand again and the electricity vanished. “That was just a small sample of what I can do.”
“Cool tricks,” Agatha said. “A magician came to my school last year. He could do some of that.”
“I’m not a magician,” Tallow said. “And those were not ‘tricks’. That was real magic.”
“Right,” she said with a sigh. “I’m still eight, but I’m not dumb.”
He pursed his lips in thought. “Okay. I think I can prove it to you. Hold out your finger. The one with a band-aid on it.”
She covered the finger with her other hand. “Why?”
“I’m going to heal it,” Tallow told her. “A small cut like that is easy. Don’t worry. It won’t hurt.”
“Really?” Agatha said. He nodded and she held out her hand.
He placed his hands on either side of hers and Agatha gasped a
s she felt a tingle go through the skin of her finger. “What is that?”
“That is . . . done,” he said with a smile. “Go ahead. Take off the band-aid.”
A hesitant smile curled her lips and Agatha peeled the sticky bandage away from her finger. To her astonishment, the finger looked completely fine. There was blood on the band-aid, but not so much as a line on the side of her knuckle where the cut had been. She rubbed at her finger. “Whoa.”
“Do you believe me now?” he asked.
She blinked at him. “You’re a for real wizard? Like Harry Potter?”
“Harry Potter couldn’t heal people,” he pointed out, then frowned. “I don’t think so anyway. It’s been a really long time since I read those books.”
“Who else knows?” she asked. “You said two other people knew.”
Tallow smiled. “I told your dad and your Uncle Bob about it this morning.”
“And they believed you?” she asked.
“Not at first, but I think they have come around,” he said.
Agatha clapped her hands together excitedly. “Then you can make sure no one else gets hurt!”
Tallow hesitated, realizing he might have set the bar a little high. “I . . . will do my best. I can’t be everywhere. But I can make sure that you are protected.”
“You can?” she asked. “How?”
He reached into his pocket. “I wasn’t going to do this yet, but I think now is a good time. I want to give you something.” He pulled his hand out of his pocket and held out something round and dark gray. It was just the size of his palm.
“A rock?” she said. It looked like a river rock that had been worn smooth by water over time. A crude face had been drawn on it in yellow chalk. It was basically two dots for eyes, curved lines for eyebrows, and one wider line for a mouth. It looked terribly put out.
“This is no ordinary rock,” Tallow promised. “There is an earth elemental bound to it.” He turned the rock over so she could see that a series of shapes had been carved into the underside of it. The indentations had been partially filled in with what looked like red nail polish.
Tallow Jones: Wizard Detective (The Tallow Novels Book 1) Page 13
