Murder, Magic, and Moggies

by Pearl Goodfellow

  We followed the fleeing feline down the narrow stone corridor. Flickering torches were stationed every few feet, their crack-pop echoing off the stone walls. The orange-yellow glow of the flames danced a mysterious waltz on the walls, a fitting precursor to the many mysteries Maude solved on her slab.

  Walking the breadth of Maude’s domain of the dead was a trippy Whovian mind twist. The medieval flavor of the entrance foyer gave way to a surprisingly state-of-the-art pathology lab. There were no bubbling cauldrons, no obscure herb jars, and no enchanted wands. That didn’t mean that any of the miracles Maude performed were any less magical. Her accoutrements just happened to be a little less Penn & Teller and a little more Pasteur: a mass spectrometer; a high-performance liquid chromatograph; and a centrifuge, just to name a few.

  “Check it out!” Jet shot toward the centrifuge where Fraidy had taken up a temporary roost.

  “No wonder Carbon likes coming here so much!” he continued. “Maude’s got rides!”

  One black, furry paw reached out and depressed the centrifuge’s power button and sent Fraidy catapulting across the room.

  “M-e-e-y-o-w-w-l!” Fraidy’s exclamation of terror arced over our heads and right into the surprised arms of Maude’s assistant, Hector Muerte, who we’d seen earlier at the crime scene.

  “Oh, my goodness! Thank the stars!” Fraidy exclaimed, grateful for the soft landing. That is until he realized just who his rescuer was. Fraidy promptly passed out, limp as a furry black noodle.

  “Thank you, Hector.” I acknowledged the zombie appreciatively. Hector let out an unintelligible grunt and shuffled off to tuck Fraidy in a safe corner.

  “Shame on you, Jet!” Maude scolded. She deftly reached over and switched off the centrifuge. “Just for that, no treats for you!”

  “Aw!” Jet complained. “You cats ruin all the fun for a guy!”

  “We’re not here for fun, Jet,” Chief Trew interjected. “You said you had something interesting for us, Maude?”

  “In fact, I do,” Maude replied, pulling bottle-thick lenses over her filmy white corneas. She blinked thickly as she thumbed through the file she picked up from her desk.

  “It would appear that Miss Roach had a nasty little habit.” Maude shuffled toward the body. “Come see this.”

  She waved the Chief and me over to the examination table where Spithilda’s body lay stiff and unmoving under a green drape. The thick, chunky stitches of the autopsy Y-incision peeked over the top fold. It appeared Spithilda did not approve of Maude’s needlework. Even in death, Spithilda’s countenance remained pursed in sour disdain.

  “Careful,” I muttered, remembering my mother’s admonishments when I’d stick out a tongue at an irritating playmate. “Or one day your face will stick like that.”

  “What’s that?” David asked.

  “Nothing,” I squeaked, not realizing I said anything out loud.

  “So, what was this ‘habit,'” the Chief turned his attentions back to Maude.

  “Well,” Maude began. She pried open Spithilda’s wrinkled, puckered mouth with gloved hands. Grabbing a tongue depressor, she flattened Spithilda’s papillae, and directed the exam light into the open orifice, over Spithilda’s stained tongue. “Look at these strange marks. Here and here.”

  Maude pointed out the irregular streaks and spots dotting the pale pink muscle.

  “Ink!” The total recall of my dream came flooding back. “I kept scratching my tongue with the nib of my quill!”

  The abrupt confession drew startled glances from both Maude and the Chief. I figured I had better explain myself before I wound up in a straightjacket and rooming with Cressida Dreddock at Midnight Hill Sanatorium.

  “The dream,” I offered. “Remember, Chief? I had that dream about Spithilda the night she died. In it, I was Spithilda. I remember continuously putting the nib in my mouth after I dipped it into the inkwell.”

  Judging from the look of relief that suddenly washed over the Chief’s face, I supposed I was off the hook for a crazy-suit fitting. At least for a while, anyway. When you owned eight immortal and magical felines, crazy had a way of following you around.

  “Well, that’s not unheard of. I chew on the end of my pen at the office all the time when I’m thinking,” Chief Trew offered.

  “Have a little pent up aggression and frustration there, Chief?” Maude needled.

  “Huh?”

  “Well, there’s solid psychophysiological research that suggests chewing and crunching are natural outlets for inborn aggression. You know there’s a much better cure for that than masticating poor, innocent office supplies.” Maude winked a milky eye and elbowed Chief Trew in my general direction.

  My face flushed pink as a pokeberry flower. For just a moment, I toyed with the concept of crawling under the sheet with Spithilda. Fortunately, Maude’s less-than-subtle suggestion was completely lost on the Chief. I decided to take full advantage of the opportunity to change the subject; and, fast.

  I moved closer toward the body, jockeying for a closer look at Spithilda’s self-inflicted graffiti. “I can remember writing. I kept saying ‘That will teach them,' and scratching furiously on a piece of yellowed parchment. I didn’t really get a good look but knowing Spithilda, I wouldn’t be surprised if she had been crafting some crazy, newfangled spell.”

  “Hmm,” Maude mused, stroking her angular chin thoughtfully.

  “What’s up, Maude?” Chief Trew queried.

  “It’s just, well, Spithilda presented with a conjunctival interjection.”

  Chief Trew’s face screwed up in consternation. If there was one thing he despised more than magical words and phrases, it was medical ones. “Translate, Doc.”

  “Laymen’s terms?” Maude confirmed.

  “If you please,” the Chief grumbled through gritted teeth.

  “Bloodshot eyes.”

  “Sounds like Spithilda had one too many glasses of elderberry wine,” Jet conjectured. “I’ve had nights like that. Albeit, with a different variety of poison.” My mercurial cat reflected momentarily, smiling and glassy eyed, on the catnip sessions he’d had over the years.

  “Ah, my dear Jet,” Maude began as she left-footed it over to the printer. “You are ‘berry’ close.”

  Maude retrieved a report from the feed tray. Two skeletal fingers pinched the frame of her wire glasses, and those cataract eyes peered over the rims. She looked like an ancient gray turtle about to dispense some sage wisdom.

  “But, my dear pussycat, if Miss Roach had, indeed ingested elderberries, I would have discovered sucrose, glucose, and fructose. Standard fruit sugars. More importantly, however, I would have been able to detect several particular acids, including citric, malic, shikimic and fumaric. Throw in a few good flavonoid glycosides and several anthocyanin glycosides and diglycosides, a good oak barrel and a little yeast, and in six months, give or take, you’ve got yourself an excellent, basic elderberry wine.”

  “There’s a reason I stick to whatever Horace has on tap at the Moon,” the Chief whispered into my ear as he leaned in and dropped a low hand on the small of my back. A quick, little tingle shivered up and down my spine. Portia’s butterflies erupted once again in my gut.

  Focus, Hattie! You want to earn points with the Chief? Keep the focus on the case!

  “I sense a great big ‘but’ coming,” I blurted with the worst possible timing as the giant lumbering Hector bent over a chiller drawer exposing just a hint of a plumber’s crack over the edge of his waistband.

  “Huh?” Hector exclaimed. He looked a little offended. Who knew the undead were still so body conscious? Even Maude and Chief Trew were a little taken aback. I shook my head vehemently.

  “No, no, no, Hector. I wasn’t talking about your butt. I was talking about Maude’s ‘but,'” I offered by way of condolences. Hector sort of gave me a blank, undead stare. He looked from me to Maude, then from me to Chief Trew. He shook his head and did the zombie lumber away to other parts of the lab – probably a p
art inhabited by less live people; his kin.

  “Hattie’s right,” Chief Trew broke the silence. “I’m guessing you did find something interesting, Maude.”

  “And you’d be absolutely correct, Chief,” Maude confirmed, seemingly glad to get the appropriate conversational train of thought back on track. “What I did find was phytolaccic acid combined with small quantities of acetic, citric, and tartaric acids.”

  I noticed the large vein on the side of the Chief’s neck was pulsing at an alarming rate.

  “Maude?” I suggested. She quickly noted my discreet head nod toward the steam-kettling Chief.

  “Oh! Oh, my goodness, yes. Sorry about that. Chief,” Maude gave a dry cough to clear her throat. “I believe Spithilda Roach was poisoned by none other than phytolacca americana, or as it is more commonly known…the pokeberry.”

  “Chief?” I turned to him with full eyes.

  “What’s that, Hattie?”

  “Guess who has an entire garden filled with pokeberry bushes?”

  “Can’t you just tell me? It’s so much more efficient.”

  Part of me didn’t want to admit it because I knew it would mean another visit to the creepy old manor. But, Chief Trew had asked for my help on this investigation, and by gum, I meant to give it to him.

  I swallowed hard. “Portia Fearwyn.”

  A sudden, heavy pall of silence draped the room, weighing heavy on all of us.

  Jet, my laissez-faire, fear-no-evil puss, entwined himself around my leg.

  “You’re not going to go see her, are you Hattie? You’ve already accused her for the death of Nebula, so I don’t think she’ll be too pleased if you muscle in on her with Spithilda’s death too.” He meowed nervously. My cat was right; Portia would not be pleased. I’m not sure how she kept cropping up on the suspect list, but there was no way we could leave this lead cold and dangling. Ms. Fearwyn would be subjected to our questions. Whether she, (or, maybe, we) liked it or not.

  “We have to, Jet,” Chief Trew interjected. “Portia may have information that’s vital to solving this case. Sure, she’s a little…ah, prickly, but we can’t let her ire put us off doing what needs to be done.”

  “Sure you can!” Jet countered.

  “What’s – meow – going on?” Jet’s outburst prompted Fraidy to come out from hiding.

  “Hattie and Tinsel-Badge here,” Jet pointed an accusatory claw toward the Chief, “suddenly think it’s a brilliant plan to go see Portia Fearwyn!”

  “Oh, no, Hattie!” Fraidy pleaded. “Please! You can’t! Portia’s swamp? That’s where things go…and they don’t come back! Not even Church!”

  Way to go, Fraidy. Sneak in a reference to the King of Horror. Thanks bunches. That’s the LAST time I let your siblings talk me into letting you in on an all-night Stephen King marathon.

  “I can’t believe I’m actually going to admit this, but I agree with Fraidy,” Jet stated.

  Jet’s uncharacteristic anxiety gave me some pause for concern. I turned to Chief Trew.

  “We have to at least go question Portia, right? I mean, if she even possibly had anything to do with Spithilda being dead, right?”

  The Chief nodded. “And with any amount of luck, she’ll confess, and we’ll have her dead to rights.”

  I felt Jet’s persuasive tug at my pant leg.

  “Dead.” He hissed.

  I gulped. “Right.”

  Chapter 6

  The topography of Glessie Isle was a good parallel to its inhabitants. There was my own near and dear Gless Inlet, with its warm and sunny beaches, salt-tinged air, majestic dunes, and bright, painted storefronts. There was the pleasantly pastoral Vale; home to content, cud-chewing cows, and peaceful elves, where life grazed and toiled lazily under perpetually blue skies. There was Spithilda’s Hagsmoor, out in The Humps, with unappealing, sucking quagmires and relentlessly jutting bedrock. And, lest we forget, the prickly, unforgiving, toffee-nosed heights of The Spires; the late Nebula Dreddock’s last address. But, perhaps no geographical corner of Glessie Isle better suited its denizen than Portia Fearwyn’s swamp.

  Some people readily confused the various types of wetlands that occupied different corners of the country. Truth of the matter was, marshes weren’t swamps, and swamps weren’t bogs, and fens were none of the above. The only thing the different places had in common was that they were neither exactly just land or water. Rather, they were a treacherous mix of unsure footing, gloopy shoe-sucking pitfalls, merciless jags of rock, and spine-tinglingly strange, even carnivorous, plants.

  Swamps, like the one Portia lived in, were typically shallow and flat landforms, carpeted, in turn, by a muddy, mucky greenish-brown sludge that sucked at your shoes with every tenuous step, amid more economical islands of solid, dryer land. Gaunt Manor, the queer, unnerving domicile of Portia Fearwyn sat squarely on one of these isolated islands, like a fat, warty toad waiting to snare a previously happy-go-lucky unsuspecting fly.

  The Chief and I hesitated at the massive oaken front door. Brushed in a dark, flaked and chipping black, the imposing entrance yawned like a great, sucking, toothless maw, devouring any sunlight, or visitor, that dared encroach too closely to its boundaries.

  “Are we absolutely sure we have to do this?” My voice trembled ever-so-slightly, belying my reservations about our current course of action. Like, I said, I wasn’t scared of Portia, per se, but accusing the indomitable witch, once more, about her possible role in a murder, didn’t exactly do anything to make me feel relaxed.

  “I’m afraid so, Hattie,” the Chief admitted. “Portia may very well be the key to solving this case. I’d be dropping the ball if I didn’t question her.”

  An innocent tinkle jingled mysteriously in a nonexistent breeze. Chief Trew glanced in the general direction of the sound, where a wind chime jingled beneath a gable. The hollowed bleached bones of something I did not care to identify dinged together in a macabre melody.

  “No matter how creepy she is,” the Chief finished.

  Gaunt Manor was aptly named. It's dingy gray façade was sunken in at the edges, like the cheeks of an old, bitter crone. Up close, it looked like a pile of giant rubble, what with hunks of parts of it’s carved exterior strewn haphazardly around it’s main bulk. Its smeared windows stared out over The Gorthland swamps with an apparent rheumy disinterest, and yet eerily observant at the same time.

  The structure itself gave the illusion of an asymmetrical lean, a crooked hag leaning on a pile of course rubble masonry. The edges of each brick were jagged and rough; no finesse applied after arrival from the quarry. Just knocked with the mason’s hammer and fitted, pell-mell, to break joints as much as possible, creating an awkward plane of stone chaos. A keen observer might notice random spalls wedged into some of the larger bones. It reminded me of bits of decaying meat and vegetation trapped in rotting teeth. The myriad of carved gargoyles, all in various states of apparent agony, stood guard on most of the estate’s columns and balustrades.

  The bones of the dwelling rose skyward in steeply pitched gables. Comprised of blackened oak timbers, the skeletal framework was held tenuously by aging wooden pegs. It was fleshed out with sallow wattle and daub, a woven morass of twigs and thin branches from the nearby black gum and spruce trees and dried clay and mud.

  Portia was a practitioner of Gloomy Magic. Perhaps the most prolific practitioner on all of the Coven Isles. Where the old crone was getting her licenses from is anyone’s guess, but she’d been busted many times, and had always produced the right documents, signed from a significantly well placed congressman on Talisman. Her work with the gloomy arts was well protected, to say the least. No one knew exactly what kind of evil spells she concocted within the confines of her ominous home, but every so often, the Chief would receive a report of strange lights and eerie sounds filling the airspace above the manor. Once, years ago, some foolhardy teens had dared to investigate, bent on defacing Portia’s home with toilet tissue and rotten eggs. They had returned from their
misadventure, pale and quaking, but without the willingness to report any wrongdoing on Portia’s part. Folks managed to steer a wide circle around The Gorthland Swamps from that point on.

  It was no wonder, I thought, as I surveyed the general area surrounding the manor. An odd conglomeration of trees stood sentinel, great bald cypress kneeling in the murky swamp surrounding the estate. They resembled great, dark giants waiting, at any moment, to pull up knotty knees from the black water, and overwhelm any daring trespasser. Long, eerie tendrils of Spanish moss and Witchmoss hung in limp, damp tendrils from scorched and blackened trees, like so many dead fingers waiting to curl around any unsuspecting intruder. The rotten egg scent of sulphur permeated the air, filling my nose with the dying smell of rot and decay. The humidity was tangible, pulling in thick through my nostrils, as if I was breathing water. I was certain I would need to wring out my shirt sooner rather than later.

  My ears pricked at the chirrup of invisible bullfrogs singing a melancholy dirge, a basso profundo funereal march, trumped only by the maniacal scree of cackling owls. It sounded like choir practice at Midnight Hill; lunatics in musical discord.

  The only pleasant note in the sinister symphony was the whisper of butterfly wings. As Chief Trew echoed a deep knock on the front door once more, I gestured to a narrow, undeveloped border near the edge of Portia’s property, where the terra-firma met a spongier, moister parcel. A clutch of green shrubs, all standing nearly five feet in height, rimmed the property. The deep-green, one-bladed leaves formed an organic ladder up the smooth, fleshy, reddish-purple stems. They bit through the air, jaggedly toothed near the edges and veined through on the underside with marked pink veins. The largest leaves stretched out to nearly ten inches, fanning out to the side at least half that length. An imposing plant until you noticed the brilliantly jewel-toned butterflies waltzing over clusters of pink and white flowers that blossomed over the breadth of the shrub. A few bunches of small, green berries, some beginning a blush toward purple, hung from several stems.