Blood Rite (Maggie Devereaux Book 2)

by Stephen Penner

  It was as she traversed the short distance to Sarah’s table that Maggie finally realized who the professor reminded her of. The thick cascading brown curls, so prominent from behind, were exactly how Maggie remembered her own mother’s hair, cuddling into it as a child. She didn’t have a lot of memories of her mother, but she hadn’t forgotten the smell and feel of the soft auburn locks across her face and nose. It was an exceedingly pleasant memory.

  “Good afternoon, Sarah,” Maggie offered in greeting as she reached the table.

  “Afternoon, Maggie.” Sarah MacKenzie didn’t seem at all startled by the greeting in the quiet café, even though she too was engrossed in reading some thick tome. She turned her face up toward Maggie even as her eyes held the page just long enough to finish the last sentence. “And please, call me Sarah.” She closed her book on a silver bookmark. “Any trouble finding the place?”

  “No, none at all.” Maggie took the seat opposite her mentor. “I’m glad you started the directions with, ‘It can be a bit hard to find.’ I paid pretty good attention after that. And the directions were dead on. Although I wasn’t sure once I got here. The door,” she nodded toward where she’d entered, “isn’t green.”

  Sarah smiled warmly as she finally set her book down, silver bookmark slicing the volume in two roughly equal halves. “I think that’s why I ended up falling in love with the place. It’s a mistranslation from the Gaelic. This café has been here since 1740. It’s changed owners over time, but it’s always been here. When it was established, the owners were Gaels, and so they named it in Gaelic. After Culloden, when Gaelic was more or less illegal, they’d been forced to change the name. The owners claimed not to know exactly how to translate the name so some English bureaucrat who thought he spoke the language gave it a try. He missed the adjective though. The original name was ‘An Doras Uaigneach.’”

  “‘Uaigneach,’” Maggie repeated as she considered the word. “That means ‘secret.’ But the Englishman thought it meant ‘green?’”

  “Aye. The Gaelic word for green is ‘uaine,’ apparently a bit too similar for the Englishman. So he decreed that they must call the place ‘The Green Door Café’ even though the front door was obviously not green. The Gaelic speaking owners thought it was hilarious,” Sarah concluded, “so they accepted the English name, kept the Gaelic one in their hearts, and made damned sure no one ever painted the door green.”

  “Fantastic,” Maggie enthused. “Don’t you just love languages?”

  “It’s why I do what I do,” Sarah smiled broadly. “Speaking of which, thank you again for meeting with me on such short notice. I always like to take my students out to tea right away. It’s good to talk about academic interests and plans right at the beginning, before classes start up again and things get too hectic. And doing it over tea is so much more civilized than in that stifling little closet of an office they give me.”

  Maggie regarded the homey confines of the café. “This isn’t much bigger,” she joked, “but it’s a lot more comfortable,” she agreed. “Thank you for bringing me here.”

  “Not at all,” Sarah waved away the thanks. Then it was finally time to talk shop. “So you want to study Welsh, do you?”

  Maggie started to respond, but caught the ‘No, not really’ on its way out. And she suddenly regretted her earlier duplicity. She was so enjoying her visit with Sarah that she’d forgotten it was based on the misrepresentation that she wanted to learn Welsh.

  Although, she supposed, she probably did ‘want’ to study Welsh—sort of. The way one ‘wants’ to eat broccoli: not because it’s fun, but because it’s good for you and afterwards you’re glad you did it. So with Welsh. Maggie’s true linguistic love was Gaelic, especially Scottish Gaelic, but also Irish Gaelic and their common ancestors Middle and Old Gaelic. Welsh on the other hand had never really interested her. Still, any good Ph.D. student in Celtic Studies should know at least a little bit of each of the four surviving Celtic languages and hence the course on Welsh she had suffered through so far; she was still getting around to that Breton class. In any event, she’d come to have tea with Sarah mainly because she liked the woman and needed an academic advisor anyway. She’d forgotten about the Welsh part. Time to eat her vegetables.

  “Yes,” she prevaricated, “very much so. I suppose I should admit my main interest is in Gaelic, but I feel I should—that is, I’d like to know Welsh too. At least a reading knowledge of it. And the older forms as well.”

  “Of course, of course,” Sarah agreed, but before she could respond further, the thick old proprietress waddled over to their table.

  “Are you ladies a’ ready tae order, then?” she asked in a thick Highland brogue.

  “Aye,” Sarah replied after receiving an affirmative nod from Maggie. “I’d like a pot of Earl Grey and a raspberry scone.”

  “Very good. An’ fer you, lass?”

  “Er,” Maggie paused. Sarah had just stolen her order. But no reason she couldn’t follow suit. “I’d like the same actually. Earl Grey and a scone. Um, do you have blueberry?”

  “Nae, love.” The woman seemed genuinely ashamed. “Only raspberry and strawberry.”

  “Raspberry, then,” Maggie acquiesced. “Thank you.”

  “Thank you, lass.” And the woman trudged slowly back toward her counter.

  “So, anyway,” Sarah started up again, “your main interest is in Gaelic, then?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Good. Mine too.”

  Maggie was surprised by this. “Not Welsh?”

  “No, Gaelic. Everyone has to have a primary interest,” Sarah explained. “Mine’s Gaelic—like yours. But I’m also very interested in Welsh, less so in Breton, and also a bit in Japanese.”

  “Japanese?” Maggie found that delightful.

  “Well, Aye,” Sarah replied proudly. “Konichiwa, ogenki desu-ka?” She suppressed a delighted laugh. “I think all languages are wonderful. You just have to find the ones that, well, that speak to you, if you’ll pardon the expression.”

  “I will,” Maggie graciously offered. “I suppose you’re right. Well, let’s see if Welsh isn’t ready to strike up a conversation with me.”

  “That’s the spirit. So the interest in Gaelic, is that familial? You’re of Scottish descent, aye?”

  “Er, yes, on my mother’s side.” Maggie looked at her new mentor quizzically. “How did you know that?”

  Sarah smiled again, that warm friendly smile. “Well, the ‘Devereaux’ seemed French to my ear, but the ‘NicInnes’ kind of gave it away.”

  “Oh, right,” Maggie tried not to blush.

  “I looked up your records when Robert—Professor Hamilton—called me. Margaret NicInnes Devereaux. That ‘NicInnes’ does catch one’s eye.”

  “I suppose so,” Maggie admitted.

  “So ‘Daughter of Innes,’” Sarah continued. “Is that on your mother’s side?”

  “Right,” Maggie agreed quickly. “My mother and grandmother. They both had ‘NicInnes’ as their second middle name too. It’s been given to every daughter of every daughter for thirteen generations, back to a woman named Brìghde Innes, who was a noble woman from around here. She was my great-great-great-and so on-grandmother.”

  “Brìghde Innes, eh?” Sarah considered the name. “Well, that’s wonderful that you have that family connection. Family,” she paused earnestly, “is very important.”

  The weight of this hanging thought was interrupted by the arrival of two small teapots and a pair of raspberry scones.

  “Here you are, luvs,” the proprietress announced as she set the goodies down on the table. Then she smiled pleasantly and strolled again toward the counter.

  Maggie reached for her tea and scone, but while her right hand made it to the pot of tea, her left was tackled halfway to the scone by Sarah’s own soft hand.

  “Oh!” Sarah turned Maggie’s hand over to expose the wound from that morning’s thorn. “What did you do?”

  “Oh that?”
Maggie too regarded her thumb, still turned upwards in Sarah’s grasp. “I just stuck it on a thorn this morning. It’s nothing serious.”

  Sarah examined the thumb critically, a slight frown creasing her brow. “Chamomile tea,” she announced.

  Maggie laughed nervously. “Uh, okay. I should drink chamomile tea for a stuck thumb?”

  “No, no,” Sarah finally released Maggie’s hand. “Don’t drink it; soak your thumb in it. Twice daily for fifteen minutes. Let it cool first, so it’s just a bit above room temperature. Do that for three days. The oils in the tea will keep it from scarring.”

  Maggie stared down stupidly at her thumb. “Really?”

  “Och, aye. It’s an old Highland remedy,” Sarah assured. “Works like a charm.”

  Maggie retracted her hand slowly, still considering her injury and Sarah’s words. Her consideration was interrupted by more words.

  “So, then,” Sarah poured herself a cup from the teapot. “You’re ready to branch out into Welsh. And exactly how much Welsh do you know already?”

  This succeeded very well thank you in tearing Maggie’s attention away from her injured thumb. For the second time since she’d arrived at the Green Door, she felt her comfort drain away like a receding tide. She’d already told Sarah—at their first meeting—what her Welsh proficiency was. But she’d lied, more or less, needing to overstate her abilities to make it believable that she’d understood, at least in part, the ancient manuscript of the Welsh Book of Souls. Understood it without black magic, that is. And so now Maggie found herself faced with the dilemma of having to recall exactly what she’d said so as to remain, more or less, consistent. ‘Oh, what a tangled web…’

  “Er,” she began weakly, “I’ve only taken a course or two in Modern Welsh. But I’ve studied enough other languages that with the aid of a dictionary, and a lot of patience, I was able to decipher a bit of what I found in Aberystwyth. But it really just showed me how much more I have to learn.”

  Oh, good finish, Devereaux, she applauded herself.

  “The beginning of wisdom,” Sarah winked over her teacup. “So what did you think of the manuscript, then? The Welsh Book of Souls, aye?”

  “Er, yes.” Maggie too sipped from her tea. She broke off a piece of scone but held off inserting it into her mouth. “As I said, I didn’t fully understand it. But what I did understand seemed a bit, well, barbaric.”

  “Barbaric?” This characterization seemed to shock Sarah. “How so?”

  Maggie chewed her bite of scone and swallowed. “Okay, maybe ‘barbaric’ isn’t the right word. Maybe it was more, let me see, maybe ‘bloody’ would be better. Gruesome.”

  “Well, aye,” Sarah conceded, “I suppose I could agree with that description. But those were different times, aye?”

  “Of course,” Maggie agreed. “It just struck me that there seemed to be a lot of blood letting required for most of their rites. But as you say, a function of the times, I suppose.”

  Sarah considered this with a silent nod as she too enjoyed a bite of raspberry scone.

  “But still, there was one…” Maggie started.

  “Aye? Which rite then?”

  “No, never mind,” Maggie stopped herself. She wasn’t sure how to explain her ability to understand it. “I couldn’t really read it all,” she tried.

  “Nonsense,” Sarah encouraged. “Just tell me what you understood. Maybe I know it.”

  “Well, okay,” Maggie acquiesced. “It involved—from what I could tell, that is—slitting the throats of two babies. I don’t care what era it is, infanticide just seems barbaric to me.”

  “Aye. I know that one.” Sarah took a thoughtful sip of tea. “But you know, what I found really interesting about that one,” another sip, “is that it didn’t actually require that the babies die.”

  Maggie set her scone down and blinked hard at the professor. To Maggie’s recollection, the spell included the requirement that the babies throats be slit and their blood spilt into the ground. She wasn’t sure how an infant would survive that. She said as much.

  “Aye, I suppose so,” Sarah conceded carefully. “But it really comes down to the wording of the spell, doesn’t it? Do you recall the exact words used?”

  Maggie had to shake her head. ‘No,’ she imagined herself saying, ‘I cast a black magic translation spell that allowed me to recognize the meaning behind the words.’ She settled for just the first word. “No.”

  “Well, the exact wording is something like, ‘Two infants shall suffer their throats to be slit, and their blood shall be spilt into the earth.’”

  Maggie looked askance at the professor. “Okay…?” She didn’t see Sarah’s point.

  “It doesn’t say the babies have to die,” Sarah asserted.

  “But how does an infant with a slit throat survive in Sixth Century Wales?” Maggie had to ask.

  “Ah, well, quite simple,” Sarah replied. “He doesn’t. But nowadays—now, with modern medicine standing by to heal their wounds—I’d wager the rite could be performed without the babies having to die.”

  Maggie’s brow creased deeply as she considered this. “Well, I suppose so, but—”

  “The most important thing,” Sarah interrupted, “would be to save the babies.”

  This phrase struck a chord inside Maggie that she didn’t even know was there. “Save the babies…?”

  “Aye.” Sarah nodded, as she reached again for her scone. “Save the babies.”

  And suddenly Maggie knew exactly where her priorities lay.

  40. Reasonable Minds May Differ

  “Are you blind? It’s as plain as the nose on your face!”

  Warwick crossed her arms and leaned back in her desk chair. She understood that reasonable minds often differ and she was neither adverse nor unaccustomed to having her judgment scrutinized—it was part of the job. But there was no need for raised voices or insults. They were cops after all, not lawyers.

  “There’s no need to yell, Alison.”

  Chisholm, who had been pacing the floor like a caged tiger, stopped short and glared down sharply at the floor, pressing her fists against her hips. When, after a moment, she raised her face again, there was a self-conscious grin on it. “You’re right, Elizabeth. I’m sorry. It’s just— It’s just that it’s so obvious. She’s guilty as hell. Jessie MacLeod is the kidnapper.”

  Warwick uncrossed her arms and rested her chin on a fist. “I’m not so certain…”

  “Not so certain?” Chisholm echoed incredulously. Then she caught herself. “I’m sorry, but just think about it for a moment. You know as well as I do that eighty-odd percent of all kidnappings are committed by family members, and usually because they lost out on the custody arrangements.”

  “Statistics don’t make a case,” Warwick observed dryly.

  “Of course not,” Chisholm huffed. “But it’s motive. Come on, Elizabeth, think back to the basics. Motive, means and opportunity. When you find all three of those in one individual, you’ve got your man—or woman, as the case may be. And Jessie MacLeod had motive, means and opportunity.”

  Warwick pursed her lips and offered up her opinion of this assertion, “Hm.”

  “All right, then,” Chisholm finally sat down opposite Warwick and pointed to her fingers, “let’s go through it.”

  Warwick leaned forward and folded her hands on her desk. “All right, let’s.”

  “Motive.” Chisholm ticked off the first finger. “MacLeod was divorcing her. He had physical custody of Douglas and even Jessie’s lawyer admitted that no court was likely to take the heir apparent of the MacLeod chieftaincy away from the Chieftain himself. The only thing that might accomplish that would be some demonstration of his unfitness to have custody of Douglas. So she gains doubly by stealing her son back. First, she gets her son back. Second, she embarrasses MacLeod and gains the advantage in court. That’s motive.”

  “I’ll give you motive,” Warwick conceded. “What about means?”

  “R
ight. Means.” The second finger was ticked off. “There was no forced entry, so we know whoever did it must have had a key to the townhouse. In her interview Jessie admitted she’d had a key before the divorce. Now, she claimed she returned it to him when he kicked her out, but she would have had ample time to make a duplicate. That’s means.”

  “That’s potential means,” Warwick corrected. “But please, do go on.”

  “Opportunity.” The third finger. “Now we know that she’s got no alibi for that night. She wasn’t at Le Bistro Écosse and she wasn’t at Frankenwald. And not only is her alibi gone, but we know she lied to us. That’s opportunity. And it’s only reinforced by her deception.”

  Warwick nodded thoughtfully for several moments. Then she raised her own fingers and counted them off herself. “The motive is there, I have to admit that, but the means is hypothetical at best. We’ve no proof she kept a key. All we know is that there was no forced entry and so she would have needed a key to enter. But there are other ways it could have gone down. Similarly, the opportunity is pure speculation. All we know is that the waitress at the restaurant didn’t succeed in getting Jessie seated in her section, and ‘Günther’ wouldn’t tell us one way or another.”

  “Now wait a minute,” Chisholm interrupted. “Günther told us she hadn’t been in that night.”

  “No,” Warwick raised a confident finger, “Günther said he didn’t recognize her, and even if he did he wouldn’t tell us. So she may well have been there, but Günther isn’t saying.”

  Chisholm scowled across the desk at her compatriot.