Murder, Magic, and Moggies

by Pearl Goodfellow

  “Why, Hattie, dear,” she trilled in her contralto voice that seemed to resonate with the mysteries of death. “What a surprise.”

  “Good evening, Maude,”

  “Oh, how many times must I tell you?” Maude fussed pleasantly. “It’s Maude, dear."

  Huh?

  Yep, Maude was pretty batty.

  “Hattie’s acting as a consultant on the Dreddock case,” David explained. “No offense to your skills—“

  “And none was taken, Chief Trew,” Maude said, waving the imagined affront away.

  “But, Hattie, being the last herbalist Ms. Dreddock worked with, might spot something that you may have missed.”

  Maude gave a high-pitched giggle. “The lengths a man will go to get a date, eh, Hattie?”

  I was still processing that piece of conversation when Maude waved us in. As she shut the door, Carbon said, “And when are you going to get around to noticing me, Maude?”

  “Oh, I was most certainly getting to it, Carbon, my dear friend,” Maude said, leading us down the torch lit corridor that looked like it belonged in some ancient dungeon. “One of the side effects of working with the newly dead is that you always take your time with things. I was just distracted by the novelty of seeing your mistress in tow.”

  “My PET, Maude,” Carbon asserted. “That’s something I’ve had to tell you more than a few times.”

  “And, how many kitty treats will it take to make you forgive me this newest lapse?” Maude asked as we came up to the door at the end of the corridor.

  “Six?” Carbon proposed hopefully, while Maude opened the door.

  “Quite doable,” Maude said, pale light streaming in through the other side of the door. “I’ll get them once we’re inside.”

  In contrast to the Spanish Inquisition setup at the front, the room we were in was incredibly modern. Fluorescent lights hung from overhead. Steel cabinets in the walls had room for what looked a hundred corpses to be stored. The bulk of Maude’s work seemed to be centered on a stainless steel table in the middle of the room; complete with overhead lights and a surgical tray. A sheet covered the current body on that metal slab; presumably Nebula, given recent events. It occurred to me that this was the second time I’d been in proximity to her corpse in one day. I hoped that this would be the last time.

  Maude, being used to all this, showed none of my discomforts and went over to what looked like a surgical cabinet. From the third drawer down, she pulled out the promised treats and tossed them to Carbon one by one. Each of them vanished in an eye-blink down his throat.

  After giving a lengthy yawn, Carbon looked at me and said, “I know that you and Chief Trew will be here for a bit. Any chance that I can be let off this ridiculous leash so I can curl up next to Maude’s fire?”

  When it came to fire, you could always trust Carbon. I did as he asked and he trotted to the door. One smoky contortionist act later, he was on his way to the boiler room to nap.

  “So…now that we have settled accounts with my dear friend and sometime house guest,” Maude said, walking over to the slab. “I believe we can get down to business.”

  She pulled back the sheet slightly, revealing Nebula’s face. The death rictus was still going strong, I noted. I recoiled in reflex horror.

  “Come, come, Hattie,” Maude said. “She’s hardly about to get off the table and do something terrible to you now.”

  “A little warning would have been nice, Ms. Dulgrey,” David said, his handsome face looking very displeased at the shock treatment.

  Then, turning to me, he asked, “Sorry about that, Hattie. It’s just that we need an official identification of the deceased and her only living relative is in no shape to do the job.”

  That detail seemed to snap me out of my funk. “What relative?”

  “Later,” David said, holding up his hand. “Right now, can you positively identify this woman as Nebula Dreddock?”

  I looked at David and then down at the floor. God and Goddess, I didn’t want to do this.

  “Take your time, dear,” Maude said in what she thought was a tone of assurance. “Nebula can provide as much of that as you need at this point.”

  Knowing this wasn’t going to get any easier the longer I waited, I finally looked at the face and nodded. “That’s her.”

  Maude mercifully pulled the sheet back over Nebula’s head and made some notations on a clipboard that had been hanging on the other side of the surgical table.

  “And that officially concludes the autopsy report, Chief Trew,” Maude said, tearing off a carbon copy underneath the original to hand to David.

  While David was putting that copy into his valise, Maude asked, “Shall I read back the highlights for the benefit of you both?”

  “It’s why we’re here,” David answered.

  Maude nodded and began with, “Overall composition of the flesh indicates an acute allergic reaction to some foreign substance. Hair was found dyed by an all-natural solution that has been positively identified as Mother Night; formulated exclusively by the Angel Apothecary here in Gless Inlet,” she glanced at me with a slight nod of recognition. .”Nails were partially colored with some custom blend, possibly also homemade.”

  “That wasn’t us,” I interjected. “Nebula had a lot of her cosmetics made by some Hollywood people who came to stay here in the Coven Isles.”

  “But, the same isn’t true for at least some of the Wraithsgourd I found in the corpse?” Maude asked, her professionalism making the question more a matter of factual accuracy than judgment.

  I nodded. “She had been getting it from somewhere else before she came to me. I don’t know for how long, or from whom.” Wraithsgourd was the newest trend in beauty treatments. Used specifically for slowing down, and in some cases, reversing, the signs of aging, the all natural witch herbal that grew exclusively on the Crimean Peninsula was fast becoming the anti-aging-agent of choice. It certainly helped that one of its biggest users was the beautiful, world famous, Nebula Dreddock.

  “It must have been quite some time because I found massive amounts of Wraithsgourd in her system,” Maude continued. “Judging from the rate of decay, I would estimate that we are looking at roughly two decades worth of related toxins in her body. It is my medical opinion that her last dosage of this substance proved to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. The physiological evidence seems to back that up, also. She has almost burn-like lesions to the muscles and sinew buried under her skin, a very swollen and inflamed larynx, a hardening of the nails; both hands and feet, and, need I go on?” She raised her eyebrows at us over the corpse of the once famous Nebula. “Leave it to our own local celebrity to overdose on something more boring than heroin or cocaine.”

  “I assume that you told her about the dangers of this substance,” David said, giving me a serious cop look.

  “I warned Nebula about that at the very beginning; I even had her sign on off on it, as per Talisman policy for dispensing baneful herbs,” I said. “If she wanted to die that badly, she’d be better off mixing up a wormwood & hemlock cocktail. It’d kill her quicker and with a lot less pain.”

  “But, Wraithsgourd DOES do a body beautiful,” Maude sighed as she admired her latest well-preserved cadaver. “I daresay that she’s just saved her estate considerable embalming costs by this spectacular form of self-abuse.”

  “Even after all the cutting you had to—“ David wanted to know.

  “Easily hidden with a few grafts and cosmetic sprucing up,” Maude assured him. “Not to mention whatever dress they’ll get around to burying her in.”

  A thought hit me. “Are we sure that it’s the Wraithsgourd that killed her? There are plenty of toxic substances that could have done the same job that could have left a trace in her system.”

  Maude gave me a full-throated laugh that made my flesh crawl. It sounded like gravel tumbling down a drainpipe. “This isn’t my first day on the job, Hattie. I did indeed do such a thorough analysis of the substances. Not
hing I came back with even came close to the sort of toxicity needed to kill her. Why, if it weren't for the reports produced by the scrying forensics team, I would rule this an accident in a heartbeat. The damage to her body and cells? All of the signs are exactly what abuse of Wraithsgourd would produce.”

  Then, Maude got a thoughtful look and tapped her chin. “Just the same, I do believe that I’ll give everything a second look in the interests of doing my due diligence. Assuming makes an ass out of you. Period.” David was fanning himself with a stray clipboard. I was pretty sure we had concluded our affairs here for now. I addressed Maude:

  “We might want to check on Carbon,” I said, realizing the temperature in the usually cool morgue was climbing higher, seemingly by the second. I was pretty sure I could detect a strong, pungent sweetness to the air. Heat just isn’t good for already decomposing bodies. “Which way’s the boiler?”

  Maude led us back out to the corridor and through the second door on the left. Carbon was stretched out to full length — seriously, you can’t believe just long that cat can get — in front of the old-fashioned boiler, purring in his sleep. A quick look through the boiler’s window showed the almighty inferno dancing inside.

  “Carbon, you know I’m going to have to turn up the cooling settings to keep the bodies fresh, just to counteract your work here, yes?” Maude admonished my cat, kneeling down to rub his forehead.

  Carbon’s motor just got louder at the affection; his continuous purr could be heard over the roar of oxygen through flames.

  “I do wish you would learn a modicum of self-control, dear,” Maude said, but still tickling his chin affectionately. But, Carbon had already gone back to sleep. After all that, I’m amazed that Maude was willing to let him stay the night, with the promise of getting him back to me the next morning.

  Once we were outside, David said, “Look, about the Wraithsgourd thing—“

  “I know, you were just doing your job,” I said a little hotly. “Mostly by accusing me of not doing MY job.”

  “I HAD to ask,” David protested. “The answer you gave me was good enough for me, and that’s the last you’ll hear of it…swear on the Lady.”

  I felt my anger die down. “The Lady” was none other than Lady Justitia, the supposed spiritual founder of law enforcement here in the Coven Isles. Any policeman who swears by her name is invoking an oath every bit as sacred as swearing by the Styx was for the ancient Greeks.

  “I’m really beginning to wonder if we’re even looking at a murder,” I said. “You heard what Maude said in there. Wraithsgourd looks like it could be the real culprit, not some phantom enemy the scrying spell spotted.”

  “But the evidence does point to SOMEBODY being there,” David argued. “At the very least, we’re looking at negligent homicide for letting Nebula die.”

  Something clicked in my head as he said this. “The scrying spells aren’t the only proof you have that someone was there.”

  “No,” David admitted. “But I’d feel a lot better telling you about it someplace a bit more private.”

  “Back of my shop is as good as we’re going to get this time of night,” I said. “Carbon’s the only one who usually sleeps down there, and seeing as he’s heating up Maude’s place right now, we’ll be able to sit comfortably.”

  I didn’t tell him that there was a good chance that the rest of The Infiniti could likely hear every word we would say from the apartment, anyway. That was probably why he nodded, and we walked back to the Angel.

  Chapter 5

  “We did a complete inventory of the house,” David explained after I’d cleared the large center table of its detritus. We were sitting in the giant kitchen at the back of the shop. A museum-like room, with heavy, cast iron pans, and copper pots that hung from every hook possible. A pot bellied stove sat on the back wall, staunch and robust and carrying a sturdy cauldron on its range. It was a homely yet very professional looking kitchen at the same time. Shame that the only cooking that went on here, was my one minute boil of instant noodles in the microwave.

  “Thanks to talking with the golem, we were able to determine that a couple of items were missing.” The Chief continued.

  From a file folder he had in his valise, he handed me a black-and-white photo of an elaborate scarab necklace. I recognized the scarab from all those summers spent studying world mythology with Grandma. “That’s Khepri,” I said, tapping the scarab in the photo. “He was the dung beetle that rolled the sun to the top of the world every morning, according to the Egyptians.”

  “Wait, I thought that their sun god was Ra or Amun or Atun or someone like that,” David said, looking puzzled.

  “Your confusion is forgiven,” I said with a sigh. “Grandma always said that trying to make sense of Egyptian mythology was only slightly harder than predicting the weather on the Mainland.”

  “Well, whatever that thing’s supposed to be,” David said, getting back to the point. “It dates back to the 14th Dynasty and was supposed to be in a display case upstairs, which we found very empty.”

  “Is the other missing piece related to that?” I asked.

  “Not even a little,” David admitted, pulling out the next photo. This one showed an ancient, unrolled scroll written in letters that most Unawakened laypeople would have described as runes. But I knew enough from Grandma to know what it really was.

  “This is written in Ogham, the old Celtic alphabet,” I said.

  “Can you tell what it means?” David asked, hoping for details. He hoped in vain.

  “Not without an Ogham/English dictionary close by,” I admitted. “I know enough to recognize what the letters are. But your guess is as good as mine on what they actually say when they're all put together.”

  “Well, it’s still more than what we knew before,” David said, easing the disappointment we both felt at my limits. “The only things we knew were that the scroll dated back to pre-Roman Britain and that it was supposed to have been shelved in a prime spot in Ms. Dreddock’s library.”

  “No doubt a crown jewel to go with all the books that Nebula never bothered to read,” I said acidly.

  “But here’s the question: why would anyone, in a house full of valuable antiques and artifacts, take just those pieces?” David wanted to know. “Was it just one person who took both? What made either of them more valuable than the rest of it?”

  “Here’s another one to ask yourself,” I added. “Did that person or persons know about or cause Nebula’s death and take advantage?”

  “That’s one I’ve been turning around in my head all day,” David admitted. “So far, I haven’t got a good answer because I don’t really know enough yet.”

  David suddenly sighed and looked down at the table. “Alright, time for me to explain that bit about Nebula’s relative that I mentioned at the morgue.”

  “Wondering when you’d get to it,” I said with a bit of a tease.

  He pulled out of the folder; a copy of a file from Midnight Hill Asylum. The photo of the person on record was the spitting image of Nebula if you could allow for a few decades of wrinkles, liver spots, and general wear and tear. The name of the file listed her as Cressida Dreddock.

  “Okay, I didn’t see this one coming,” I admitted. “Nebula has a twin sister?”

  “Who, at one time, was quite a practitioner of the Gloomy Arts,” David added. “The doctors at Midnight Hill have told me that she has a fixation on her more famous sister that is downright pathological.”

  “Being related to Nebula would probably drive anyone crazy,” I joked.

  David’s face remained serious. “Cressida took it a step too far. She came up with some sort of ritual that, near as can be determined, was designed to have her take over Nebula’s mind and body. In short, Cressida wanted to take over Nebula's life. Poor soul. Anyway, we know that the ritual involved massive doses of Ravingsbatch. And, we all know what Ravingsbatch does to the mind, even in small doses,” David whistled, “You should have seen the doses
this loon ingested though, Hattie. Wow, it’s no wonder Cressida’s mind snapped like a twig.”

  I shuddered at the mention of the herb. “An insane Gloomy Arts witch. I’m surprised that Midnight Hill has been able to hold her.”

  “It doesn’t always,” David countered. “If you look further down the file, you’ll notice at least a dozen escapes. Each time they hauled her back in, she was attempting some kind of strange — likely barking mad — ritual. No more details on that yet, though. But, the doctors tell me that, if anything, Cressida is more harmless now than she was before. What with all the opiate based meds she’s taking. She still obsesses over Nebula and drives her fellow patients insane. But she’s never done harm to anyone since her first committal to Midnight Hill.”

  “Not even during her escapes?” I asked, not feeling convinced.

  “Not even then,” he said with a shake of his head. “Just the same, who knows if now may have been the time she decided to do something about Nebula? It’s what makes her my second most probably suspect.”

  “And the first likely one is?” I asked.

  David pulled out a photo of someone I knew all too well. All those hours of her coming to visit Grandma made those black beady eyes, that vulture nose and sallow skin all too recognizable.

  “Really, David?” I asked, giving him a disbelieving stare. “Every time someone drops dead of a heart attack from a lifetime of fatty foods, they want to say Portia Fearwyn had something to do with it.”

  “I happen to have some substantial grounds for putting her on the list,” David said. “She lives in the Gorthland Swamps, which isn’t that far from the Spires. She traffics in dangerous herbs and concoctions in alarmingly large quantities. Finally (and I will have a hard time believing you didn’t already know this), she was the previous supplier of Nebula’s Wraithsgourd before the two of them had their epic falling out.”