Magic and the Shinigami Detective

by Honor Raconteur

  Although what they would choose to lie about at this stage, I couldn’t fathom.

  The Night Fox thief sat a little slumped in the high-backed chair, his wrists chained to the top of the table. He looked forty at most, but a rough forty, as if life had knocked him around and then done it again for good measure. He looked up at our entrance with bloodshot blue eyes, his face bruising a little from where he’d been slammed into the rooftop before. He sat gingerly, cradling bruised ribs on his right side.

  “We have a few questions for you,” Edwards informed him, casually closing the door behind us and sliding into the chair directly facing the thief.

  I took the chair next to her a little more gingerly as my body protested any and all movement including breathing.

  “Got nothin’ to say,” he grumbled to the scarred table top.

  For a moment, I observed his body language. His legs were crossed, hands folded tightly together, head bowed so he couldn’t meet either of us in the eyes. He practically screamed that he had secrets to hide.

  “Mack Hardy,” Edwards flipped open a file and pretended to read it. I knew she couldn’t read more than half the words, most of them the simpler ones, and yet nothing about her expression indicated that was the case. “You’ve been arrested—wow, quite a few times—for burglary, breaking and entering, and…a bar fight? Seriously? At your age?”

  Hardy’s lip curled up in a dismissive sneer. “Some layabout got drunk and lit into me.”

  “Right.” Edwards’ tone did not signal agreement. “But let’s talk about tonight. Whose idea was it?”

  Heaving a very tired sigh, Hardy asked, “Don’t matter much, do it?”

  “I suppose not. But we’re very, very curious on where the idea for that Ghost Gun came from.”

  The man’s thin shoulders twitched, and he shot her an incredulous look. “Who told you what—Orin. Orin, that tosser, he told you. Told him not to name it such a stupid thing.”

  I kept my expression schooled with considerable effort. Had we really hit upon the same nickname that the thieves called the spectral energy device? Then again, it wasn’t a very creative name—perhaps it was nothing more than a mildly lucky guess.

  Whatever the case, it enraged Hardy. He sat there fuming, although after that outburst, he had his mouth clamped mulishly shut.

  “Orin doesn’t strike me as the sharpest tool in the drawer,” Edwards said casually, relaxing back in her chair as if we had all the time in the world. “Neither does Billy or that other one, Wallace. I haven’t seen Wallace before now, actually. I chased you once before, and it was dark, but Wallace is a big man. I couldn’t have missed him. He come in recently?”

  Hardy pressed his mouth even tighter together, so tightly that his lips were white under the pressure.

  “Orin’s friend, maybe? Billy’s?”

  Looking away, Hardy snorted.

  “Not the case, I see.” Leaning forward, Edwards pinned him with the least friendly smile I’ve ever seen on a woman’s face. “Hardy. Orin, Billy, and Wallace, they’re clearly not good friends. They left you behind without a second of hesitation, they’re already selling out secrets, what’s the point of protecting them? You’ve got someone in the group you want to protect, don’t you?”

  Sensing a trap, not sure where she was going with this, Hardy gave a very ginger nod.

  “Then protect them, I’m not going to torture information out of you.” Edwards’ smile widened but did not become more genuine. “Just tell me about the two men that obviously don’t care about you. No harm in that.”

  “That’s it?” he asked, eyes narrowed, suspicion dripping from every word.

  “That’s it. I know Orin doesn’t have the brains to plan out four heists like this,” Edwards flicked a dismissive hand, “you can tell by looking at him. I bet Wallace isn’t much brighter.”

  Still suspicious, Hardy only relaxed a fraction and grunted agreement.

  Undeterred, Edwards kept talking. “So, what was the point of bringing them on? More muscle? Or were they connected to the group already in some way?”

  “Wallace’s a brother,” Hardy said shortly.

  “Ahh, a relation,” Edwards intoned in sympathy. “That’s always the worst. Relations are hardly ever a good deal in business. Well, I won’t ask who thought of it, but why did you choose the Royal Museum? Why not do a lot of little targets instead? That Ghost Gun can go through almost every ward in this city.”

  Hardy slapped a hand against the table, anger rising, chains rattling as he moved. “You think we’re stupid? You nearly caught us with the mermaid tear!”

  I had to bite the inside of my lip to keep from crowing. We had a great deal of evidence on this gang, but having a confession just made the case that more airtight. It made it easier to prosecute and it was hard not to smile.

  Professional that she was, Edwards didn’t even blink. “So, what, you thought it better to just prep for one big job and then leave town? Too many small jobs increased the risk of being caught, I get it. Not bad logic, really. I can’t say that you’re wrong. But why the Royal Museum, of all places?”

  “Closer to the train station,” Hardy finally admitted, anger draining, leaving him tired and resigned once more. “Figured it be better for a getaway. And they got baubles there that ain’t anywhere else. One of us heard a rumor about that crazy witch Belladonna bringing people in from all over. Stuff they had on them ain’t like anything people in Kingston have seen. We figure, it’ll go for a pretty copper, right?”

  My eyes threatened to pop out of my head when I realized what he meant. They had broken into the Royal Museum to steal alien artifacts leftover from Belladonna’s kidnapping spree? Why did the Royal Museum even have them to begin with? My eyes darted to the woman at my side, not sure how she would take this bit of news.

  “So you devised a Ghost Gun, stole the different elements to make a Sink off your magician’s instructions, and broke into the Royal Museum, all to steal this stuff secreted away in the basement.” Nothing about Edwards indicated who she was or how personal this case had just become. “How did you know where it was? That basement is huge.”

  “Orin had an in,” Hardy answered. “They hire people on sometimes, short term, to move stuff around. He got in as a worker.”

  The director and I would have a very interesting talk after this about his policy on hiring contract workers—if Edwards didn’t beat me to it. I had a feeling from that fiery look in her eye that she’d track the man down at her first opportunity.

  “And the parts that you needed to create the Sink with? Was that Orin scouting out too?”

  Hardy gave a single shake of the head in denial and went silent.

  Not deterred, Edwards gave him a smile. “Ah, I see. Well, Hardy, anything else you want to tell us?”

  Again, a shake of the head.

  “Then I’ll have you taken back to the cells.” Edwards stepped out to the hallway to signal an officer.

  I took the opportunity to lean further in and say in a low voice. “Hardy. That woman? Is the Shinigami Detective.”

  His jaw near left a dent in the table. “Cor,” he breathed. “You mean she’s the one that did in Belladonna?”

  “Correct. Which means some of the things you took tonight? Originally belonged to her.” I paused for a moment and let that sink in. “I don’t know who suggested this to you, Hardy, but I have to say it has to be one of the most misguided, imbecilic decisions of this century. The only thing that could top it is Belladonna’s decision to bring Jamie Edwards into her lair.”

  Hardy stared at her back, pale as death, and swallowed hard.

  I masked a sinister chuckle behind a bland smile.

  It took three hours to interrogate the four men, as not all of them were as cooperative as Hardy. Orin in particular had a belligerent and foul mouth. I almost hexed the man three times just to shut him up, and would have, if we didn’t need information. Edwards took their fingerprints, which they readily gave, as
they didn’t understand what she’d do with them. I helped her put them up on the slides, using the six prints we had on hand from the first break-in. It took less than twenty minutes to find a match for each.

  After all of our work collecting, matching, and cataloguing them, it almost felt anti-climactic to be done with this particular project. If only the case had been as easy to solve.

  Unfortunately, none of the men would admit to Eda Robbins. They maintained stalwart about keeping her whereabouts secret. After several hours of this, we realized the futility of pursuing this point and gave up. We’d have to find the girl some other way.

  Well past midnight, we went searching for our captain and found him in the large conference room with bags of loot spread out over the table. He and Chief Slade bent over the piles with clipboard in hand, tagging each item and double checking that everything was accounted for. Both men looked up with expressions of anticipation when we came in.

  “Chief,” Edwards greeted with outstretched hand, which the dwarf took in a firm handshake. “Sorry the thieves actually got in.”

  “You caught them, I’m not mad,” the dwarf assured her with a grin. At least, the beard moved, I assumed he grinned.

  “Glad to hear it.” Turning to our captain, she asked, “Interrogations are done. At least the initial phase. Want the long or short version?”

  “Short,” Gregson advised, looking dead on his feet but too stubborn to admit it yet. “Save the long for the report I’ll have to read.”

  An apercu was advisable, as my energy level had hit the negatives an hour ago. I dearly wished to see my bed before sunrise. I only remained standing because I felt that if I sat, they’d never get me on my feet again.

  “Short version is this: the thieves are an odd collection of an old ring with new members. It wasn’t even a challenge to get them to turn on each other. The new ones felt the older members were too bossy, the older ones thought the new ones young and stupid.” Edwards splayed her hands in a shrug as if to say, nothing interesting in that. “One of them—no one will admit to who, which makes me think it’s the girl, Eda Robbins—heard a rumor that when Belladonna brought in people from all over, she kept the things they had on them. All of that loot was said to end up in the basement of the Royal Museum for examination.”

  Chief Slade’s face went apoplectic red. “It’s those contract workers they hire on at the beginning of every season, isn’t it? They’re the ones that spread the story.”

  “And also the in for how our thieves got into the basement and verified it,” Edwards answered with a pointed look. “I’ll be speaking with your director about this later.”

  “Let me listen in when you do,” Slade requested, cracking his knuckles into one hand like a fighter gearing up for another round. “I’ve told him time and again that’s a bad idea. About time someone cracked down on him for it.”

  “It’s a date,” Edwards promised easily. “Anyway, once they had verified it, they consulted one of their members, the mysterious magician. Now this part is partially conjecture as none of them will admit to it, but he’s the only one with the magical know-how. He created the Ghost Gun, the Sink, all of it. None of the members will talk about him directly, just allude to him, which makes me think they’re either terrified of him or just protective. None of them want him caught.”

  “My impression,” I couldn’t help but add, “is that they’re protecting him. We know this man isn’t fully trained, has mediocre talent, but is sufficiently knowledgeable enough to cause us trouble. He’s also powerful enough to gain a level of position in the underworld.”

  Edwards inclined her head toward me. “I agree. Anyway, they didn’t want to do a small series of jobs with just the Ghost Gun as they were afraid it would get them caught eventually. They wanted to do one big score and then get out of town. Right now, we have confessions for all three robberies, fingerprints to prove they stole the kris from the Evidence Locker, and enough evidence to make sure they stay in jail a very long time.”

  Rubbing his temple, Gregson blew out a gusty sigh. “Good work, both of you. I’d say you’re done for the night. Go home for now. I’ve got others looking for the girl and the magician. You can focus on finding them tomorrow.”

  I’d need a full night’s sleep at least to recuperate, so agreed immediately, “Thank you, Captain, we will.”

  “That will be fine.” Gregson held up a staying hand, “Edwards, I know you’re dead on your feet, but can you help us match up a few things first? There’s a few things on this table that we’re not sure about and we want to match them up quickly with the inventory list.”

  Neither man could go home until that was done. Technically, I was not sure if we could go home until that was done, as it was directly part of our case. Resigned, I didn’t move, just braced my hands against the table to help take some of the weight off my aching feet.

  Edwards realized the same and immediately agreed, “Of course. What items are you having trouble with?”

  Gregson pointed to a small canister on the table that was red with white lettering going up the side. “What’s this?”

  “Cherry Coke,” Edwards responded promptly, eyeing the can longingly. “I don’t suppose I can drink that?”

  I regarded the can with some puzzlement. It looked perfectly sealed. “You can drink that?”

  “You can, and it’s delicious.”

  Gregson deadpanned, “It’s also evidence. So, no.”

  “Spoilsport.” Edwards made a face at him but let it go. “What else?”

  Slade pointed to something on his inventory sheet. “We’ve got two entries for a small, white tube in unknown material but there’s no way to figure out which one is which.”

  Edwards lifted a tube no longer than her finger and held it up. “Chapstick. It’s for moisturizing your lips.”

  With a grunt of satisfaction, Slade found the entry and marked that off while Gregson tagged it.

  Lifting the second tube from the table, she said, “Tampon, and no, I’m not explaining this as I refuse to have the ‘birds and bees’ talk with three grown men.”

  Ah. Some sort of feminine thing, then. I let that one go. My eyes landed on a book, of a slightly different size than the normal dime novel, and with a very boldly colored cover on it. There was a young boy, and a machine of some sort in the background. Picking it up, I flipped it open to the middle and found it to be a comic of some sort, although with more action scenes than I have seen in comics. Other machines of different designs faced each other and…was this supposed to be happening in space? That was a planet in the background, was it not? “Edwards, what is this?”

  She glanced over, saw what was in my hands, and groaned. “Of course you pick up the Gundam Wing manga. Henri, we do not have the several hours I require in order to explain Mecha to you, okay? Let’s save that for our next dinner conversation.”

  Gregson pulled her attention back to the table. “Edwards, what about this? The bottle with the clear looking gel in it.”

  “Ah, that’s hand sanitizer.”

  “And this?”

  They kept going through that vein and bit by bit, I could piece together what items came with Edwards into my world—things that a woman would carry with her on her way home from work. A candy bar, a canned drink, a book, beauty products, something called a cell phone, a wallet with currency I’d never seen the like of, all in a black leather purse. It made me sad to realize this was the only connection she still had with her world and yet she didn’t have access to any of it.

  “Is that it?” Edwards asked the men.

  Jarred out of my reverie, I looked hopefully up.

  Gregson shooed us out with a hand. “That’s it. I’ll have McSparrin put this into the Evidence Locker. Go home.”

  Gladly. I crooked my elbow toward my partner. “Do allow me to escort you home, Detective.”

  Batting her eyelids at me, she crooned in a falsetto, “Why Doctor, I do appreciate the courtesy.” Dropping the s
trange accent, she admitted, “And let’s take a cab. I’m beat.”

  I stumbled into the precinct six hours later, feeling anything but bright eyed and bushytailed. As much as my body craved rest, my mind wouldn’t let go of this problem. It wanted the rest of the thieves caught. I called in this morning only for Gregson to report that further questioning of the thieves still hadn’t revealed their hideout and they were no closer to finding the missing members.

  Frustrated, I chose to come into work early and put my own intellect to the problem. I came in armed with nothing more than a coffee and a half-eaten pastry, only to find that my partner had somehow beaten me in. She sat at her desk, poring over a file, her own coffee sitting almost untouched at her elbow. Seeing her with the case files in front of her gave me pause as I knew she would struggle mightily to read them. What was this about?

  “Henri, I had two thoughts,” she greeted, pointing imperiously to the chair situated near her desk.

  “Good morning to you as well, Edwards,” I greeted sardonically, taking the chair. After yesterday’s unusual amount of exercise, my muscles protested any kind of movement and even sitting didn’t quite feel comfortable. My nose twitched as something that smelled of sausage and eggs drifted across the desk.

  She must have caught my sniffing as Edwards rolled her eyes and reached for the paper sack on her desk. “You would put a bloodhound to shame, Henri. Here.”

  I took the cylindrical tinfoil offering and unwrapped it at the top, but it didn’t look like anything I’d seen before. A thin bread wrapped in itself met my eyes and the scents of sausage and eggs grew stronger. “What’s this?”