Murder, Magic, and Moggies

by Pearl Goodfellow

  “Are you suggesting that Lavender has something to do wi—“ David started to query.

  “I’m not saying anything,” I said, turning over what I had been told in my head. “But, it does explain the ingredients on this list.”

  Then I asked Goldsmith, “There’s actually something else I want to ask you about. Your golem mentioned that you had a very special gift for her for tomorrow.”

  “Oy vey,” the rabbi said with a shake of his head. “And to think that I nearly forgot such an important day was so close at hand.”

  Looking to David, he asked, “Would it be possible that I—“

  “Soon,” David confirmed with a nod of his head and then giving me a slight nod too. “At dawn, we have to either charge you or let you go. Nothing I’ve seen or heard tells me that I’ll be doing the former.”

  “Quite fortunate,” the rabbi admitted. “I so wanted to deliver my gift to my creation personally. Although, I left it in the kitchen of the cottage I'm staying in. The Dunes Fae are like magpies, and they do love to 'collect' things. I hope they haven't decided that this piece will fit in nicely with their already existing horde of stolen goods." The Rabbi looked genuinely worried.

  Without warning, Fraidy bolted from his corner and ran out of the door. I was so stunned by the sudden movement that I didn’t think to grab him until it was too late.

  “What scared your cat THIS time?” David asked impatiently.

  “Who knows?” I said back genuinely surprised by Fraidy's hurried exit.

  “In any case, I do hope that I was of some value to your investigation, CPI Trew,” the Rabbi said, turning the conversation back on him.

  “Time will tell, Rabbi,” David said. “Good night.”

  Once we were outside of the cells, David said, “I guess now is the time where we do the second request you had in mind.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a sourpuss about it,” I said back. “We both know that Maude always welcomes visitors; even living ones.”

  Chapter 15

  Surprisingly, Maude was waiting for us at the front door of the morgue with one of her hideously toothy smiles plastered on her face.

  “Well, I have to say this is most gratifying,” she said. “Here I was, wondering when I could get some vital information to you, CPI Trew, and lo and behold, here you and the lovely Hattie are.”

  “What sort of vital information?” David wanted to know as he narrowed his eyes through his glasses.

  “Oh, it wouldn’t do to tell such things on the street, even if it IS the dead of night,” Maude assured him with a chuckle. “So, why don’t you both come in? I promise that I’ll share my secrets…well, some of them.”

  With a self-congratulatory chuckle, she got out of our way so that we could follow her inside. As we walked back along the torch-strewn corridor, Maude said, “CPI Trew, I would expect to be up so late. But isn’t a little past your bedtime, Hattie?”

  I was going to say something when she held up her hand. “Let me guess…the business of this case interrupted a date night that was just on the verge of getting interesting.”

  “It’s strictly professional,” David said, doing his best to sound convincing.

  “So is, I assure you, my interest in your social agenda, Chief,” Maude said, lowering her hand. “Anything you have to tell me about your true relationship, I promise, will never leave these stone halls I call my home away from home.”

  “NOTHING is going on, Maude,” I said, getting a little impatient with her insinuation. I noticed that David and I avoided eye contact with one another as the ghoulish medical examiner threw her jibes.

  “If you say so, girlfriend,” Maude said with a shrug as she opened the exam room’s door. “But, you will let me know when that changes, right?”

  I couldn't help but notice that there was something wrong with Maude's gait. As we followed her down the corridor, it was pretty apparent that Maude kept veering right, and had to keep pushing off the right wall to get her straight-ahead-trajectory back on course. I glanced down when Maude stepped into the fluorescent light of her cold room. Something was certainly off kilter with her feet. They just didn't seem to match.

  “What's wrong with your feet, Maude?” I asked, pointing at the strangely angled limb.

  Maude turned around and hummed. Then, following the path of my finger, she explained, “Oh, that was my own fool fault. I'm afraid I spilled acid on it during an exam,” she advised, pointing to what should have been her right foot.

  “What kind of acid?” David asked, looking around the room in alarm.

  “The flesh-eating variety,” Maude explained without batting an eyelash. “No need for alarm, CPI Trew…I’ve long since contained and disposed of the offending substance.”

  “But, your foot…?” I prompted.

  “Yes, well, it was sadly beyond repair,” Maude went on. “I am no use to anyone with just one foot, so I ordered a replacement. I should have checked the orientation of the limb, however." She looked sheepish. "So, I have two left feet currently. It is awkward, to be sure, but it is adequate for conveyance right now." I looked down again in disbelief and had to suppress a chuckle. "The problem is with buying shoes, of course. I tried to match these two up the best I could from my own shoe collection. Rather poorly, I'll confess." I stole a quick glance of the mismatched footwear. One black patent leather court shoe, and one dull black, flat lace up. I guessed she did the best she could under the circumstances.

  Maude gave a cheerful hum and said; “But, enough of my troubles. What brings you two would-be lovebirds back to my sanctum sanctorum?”

  “You first,” David said, pointing at the examiner. “What did you want to tell me?”

  “Only that I made a major mistake when it came to Nebula Dreddock’s cause of death,” Maude said as she picked up a clipboard.

  “You’re actually admitting you made a mistake, ghoul-friend?” I asked with a tease in my voice.

  Another unpleasant smile spread its way across Maude’s face, making her look like Mrs. Grinch. “It’s not something that happens very often, I admit. But I do take sufficient pride in my work; I always like the record to be correct.”

  Then, glancing down at the sheet on her clipboard, she added, “Honestly, if you hadn’t had Cressida Dreddock in custody, I likely wouldn’t have caught this in the first place.”

  I threw a questioning look at David.

  “We took standard skin and blood samples from her while she was in custody,” he explained. “Being Nebula’s identical twin—genetically, at least—would have made confirming her presence on the scene hard. But sympathetic magic tests helped us with that.”

  “Which, on a hunch, I decided to check against my findings on Nebula,” Maude added, tapping the clipboard with one of her bony fingers. “So imagine my surprise when I tested the Wraithsgourd on Cressida's samples and found none of the usual ill-effects associated with the exposure.”

  I blinked in surprise. “But…would not the effects of Wraithsgourd need years and years of repeated exposure to prove to be fatal?”

  “Of course,” Maude said with an incredulous expression. “But that’s like saying that you don’t detect harmful carcinogens in the lungs of someone taking their first smoke of tobacco. The adverse effects happen to the body of a Wraithsgourd user virtually from the start, but they are so negligible as not to show up until several years of dosing on it later.”

  “So, what’s different about Nebula and Cressida’s physical makeup from the general population?” David asked, crossing his arms.

  “They each belong to an indeed blessed minority who are immune to the toxic effects of Wraithsgourd,” Maude explained. “Though the buildup in the cells is as visible as it would be for anyone else, there are no signs of the usual degeneration in Nebula’s cells from such exposure.”

  “Shouldn’t you have caught that during the autopsy?” David asked in disbelief.

  Maude held up her hands. “I just admitted to making a
mistake, Chief. Surely you can be a bit more forgiving towards me for owning up to it. Besides, the oversight is almost forgivable, given that the symptoms displayed in her corpse are virtually identical to those of a Wraithsgourd abuser.”

  “But, something still killed Nebula,” I said. “If it wasn’t the Wraithsgourd—“

  “Right, what could it have been?” Maude admitted with sadness. “I’ve been running test after test on the cells to find that very answer. I’ve had to cross off some of the preferred favorites: hebona, arsenic, nightshade…”

  “What about lavender?” I asked.

  Maude raised her nonexistent eyebrows at the question. “I would suggest that is highly unlikely. It's not even a baneful herb. Unless, for whatever very improbable reason, Nebula had a severe reaction to it. I guess there's only one way to find out, though.”

  She went over to the mini-laboratory she had set up in the corner of the room and started shuffling chemicals around. While she worked, David said, “You realize that lavender eliminates Cressida Dreddock as a viable suspect, right?”

  “David, we already know she's innocent. It was you who told me, remember?” I countered.

  “But, the lavender angle makes no sense,” David said, desperately grabbing for an answer from an ever increasing amount of unraveled questions. “You heard Goldsmith say it was an essential ingredient in that Soul Snatcher charm that Cressida was trying to use on her sister. She couldn't have included it if she was deathly allergic to it.”

  “Actually, it makes perfect sense,” I argued back. “What if the ritual failed because Cressida omitted the lavender AND tried to balance the spell by increasing the dose on any of the other ingredients?"

  David’s eyes lit up under his lenses as he caught on. “That would cause the ritual to fail and make her go hog-wild on the Ravingsbatch. She thought increasing it would counteract the absence of lavender. Still, you wouldn’t expect a Gloomy Arts practitioner to be that careless.”

  “Grandma Chimera always told me that logic and reason are no defence against feelings,” I said. “So, if Cressida was feeling desperate for this to work and it became apparent to her that what she was doing wasn't getting it done…”

  David was about to reply when Maude called out, “I think I have it!”

  Holding up a vial in a pair of iron tongs, Maude triumphantly marched back to us. “Your private girl detective had the right idea, Chief,” she said. “I barely had introduced ten milligrams of lavender before the cells started to have a violent allergic reaction.”

  “Could it have been fatal?” David asked, adjusting his glasses.

  “I’ll run a few more tests to confirm one way or the other. But all things being equal, I would say yes.”

  Maude went back to merrily humming “Space Oddity” as she went to return the vial to its proper laboratory setting.

  “Assuming that Maude’s hypothesis is confirmed,” I murmured. “This tells me that what happened to Nebula was no accident. She WAS murdered in cold blood.”

  “And, as it appears that the twins' lavender allergy was very little known -- Maude, the allergy isn't noted in Nebula's medical files, I'm guessing?" Maude shook her head in the negative. David continued; "So, it looks like we're dealing with someone in the inner circle of Nebula's friends and/or family. Someone intimate enough with Nebula to know of her deathly reaction to the plant. And, someone cunning enough to make it look like Wraithsgourd had finally caught up with her. They, would, of course, had to have known that the symptoms after ingestion of either plant would produce very similar results. Quite a clever way to throw people off the scent, as it were, of the real culprit." I nodded thoughtfully.

  "Ok, so what facts do we have here? 1) The person who knew about Nebula's reaction to Lavender is obviously someone really close. Or, was close at some point, at least. 2) They also knew that Nebula was one of the rare beings who was immune to the grave effects of Wraithsgourd.

  3) They knew that the consequences of lavender on her system would mirror those of Wraithsgourd on anyone else's system. Therefore, almost camouflaging the real cause of death." I concluded.

  “You do realize that this pet theory of yours reduces the suspect list from being phone book size to nearly nonexistent, right?” David asked.

  I shrugged. It wasn’t my fault that the killer had used this kind of murder weapon on our deceased actress and witch with a capital B.

  “These tests will take a few hours,” Maude said from her corner. “As I imagine this case needs to be resolved with some speed, I’ll have to stay on this for the rest of the night. Can you find your way out?”

  “Thanks for the due diligence, Ms. Dulgrey,” David called out.

  “Always happy to perform such a grave duty, Chief,” Maude said back with a macabre chortle.

  I took that as a cue to walk away from the Crypt-keeper with two left feet and out into the fresh evening air. David was right behind me.

  Chapter 16

  David and I parted ways on the nearly deserted streets. I could feel my bed calling me, and I dreaded the thought of the lack of sleep that my activities this evening had wrought. Truth be told, I still hadn’t completely recovered from my previous nocturnal visit to Maude’s. But, there was nothing for it. Better a few hours of rest than none at all.

  My cats thankfully made none of their usual comments as I staggered in the back door of the Angel and upstairs to the apartment, not even Onyx. I was frankly too tired to care. However, just as I got in front of my bed, I had a thought strike me.

  “Did Fraidy get back?” I asked while turning down the sheets. I peered under the bed. No sign of him; just my jumble of fairly expensive sweaters under the bed.

  “According to some boojums I was just talking to, he was still at that place he talked about,” Midnight said from the baseboard.

  "What's a booj...wait, never mind," I knew it was better not to ask.

  “So Fraidy DID make it back here? So, where is he now? What place he talked about?” I have to admit I found it quite alarming. I was picturing Fraidy out in the dark, in an unknown (to him) place. Alone. I gulped on his behalf.

  “Sure,” Gloom purred. “He flew in one of his usual blind panics. He wanted our assistance, I think. He was saying that we absolutely HAD to get somewhere to check and see if some package was where it should be. I told him that it was probably gone already anyway, so why bother?”

  “At which point I asked the pertinent question of why he wasn’t already there,” Onyx put in smoothly as I crawled under the sheets. “He was trying to get one of us to go along with him, but in the end our quaking little brother went off to guard this … package alone.” Onyx circled and pawed his soon-to-be bed.

  “Alone??” My eyes nearly popped out of my head. “Fraidy? Alone?” I simply couldn’t contain my alarm at this piece of information.

  “I'd sent some neethies out to scout the place in question. No fairy thievery as of yet,” Midnight went on.

  The mention of the word “gift” rang a bell. But, my head felt so full of cotton right then that I couldn’t make the connection. I was still trying to figure out where I’d heard that before when I finally dropped off to sleep, having haunting visions of my least fearsome cat, quivering in the dark.

  I woke up to the sound of Millie saying, “Hattie, you up yet?”

  I groaned, not just because of the interruption but because Millie being here meant that I’d overslept.

  “I am now,” I called back. “Give me a minute?”

  “You alone?” Millie asked.

  I all but growled while I threw off the sheets. “It was bad enough when I took that from Maude Dulgrey. I am NOT taking that from you first thing this morning.”

  “So is that a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’?”

  “It’s a ‘mind your own business and wait for me to get downstairs.'”

  “Okay, Boss Crankypants,” Millie called back as I got to my feet. “I’ll make sure you have a good hot pot of green tea re
ady by the time you get down.”

  I groaned and rubbed my face. This detective stuff was fun and worthwhile. But it definitely carried some costs for the small business owner that the books never talk about.

  Twenty minutes later, I had gotten on some clothes, fed the cats (I noticed Fraidy was still missing and I tried not to be worried about it) and put some makeup on my face that I hoped would hide the dark circles for the rest of the day. Then and only then did I head downstairs.

  As promised, Millie had a piping hot kettle sitting just behind the counter with a pair of tea cups and saucers at the ready. As the “Open” sign attested, the store was ready for the day’s business. The golem was just finishing up with some light sweeping by the front door while I could hear Millie humming a tune that sounded like Rasputina’s “Brand New Key” in the back.

  While pouring out my cup of tea, a thought hit me. After taking a sip to work the cobwebs out of my head, I poured tea into the other cup. Picking it up by the saucer, I walked over to the golem.

  “Would you care to join me for some morning tea?” I asked the clay humanoid.

  A wan smile came onto the golem’s face as she took the saucer in her own hand. “Yes, I would, Hattie. Thank you.”

  “You can leave the broom by the door,” I said. “Come with me.”

  The golem didn’t ask any of the usual questions I’d have expected from a human in the same position. I picked up my teacup, and mentally flattered myself that I was getting used to the rhythms of her speech and thought patterns.

  “Is there a particular reason why we are sharing a cup of tea?” the golem asked between sips.

  “Well, today IS your fortieth birthday,” I said, setting my teacup and saucer down. “Or whatever you would call the day you were created.”

  “Yes,” the golem said with a bit of sadness. “Yes, it is. I only wish that my creator were here to—“

  The front door opened with the jingling of a bell. But the person who walked through was not just a regular customer. Rabbi Goldsmith walked in with a large package wrapped in brown paper under his arm. Fraidy trotted in just ahead of him as he closed the door behind him. My timorous feline went off to the back for some serious scarfing down of some cat chow, but I noticed Fraidy's proud grin as he waltzed past me without a word. I felt a warm glow of affection and pride at my one-cat army.