Murder, Magic, and Moggies

by Pearl Goodfellow

  “Gloom,” I grumbled, as my eyelids pulled heavily shut.

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m done.”

  I felt a rough kitty tongue lick my cheek as its owner settled in beside my head. “Good night, dear Seraphim.”

  For once, hearing Onyx say that name didn’t make me angry. I pulled him into me, and he snuggled his warm head under my chin. I loved the weight of him on me. The day’s toll finally over, a warm and loving bundle of fur in my arms, I was asleep inside of a minute.

  I awoke just before dawn. I felt an immediate kind of dread fill my body as I swung my feet to the floor. Some strange energies are amassing, I feel it.

  I showered quickly in cool water, fed and watered my kitties, we exchanged some love, and then I went to get the shop ready for the day. Millie had already cleaned up the mess that Jet had made the previous day but hadn’t replaced the herbs yet. I was just reaching for some myrrh when I heard a firm knock at the backdoor of the kitchen at the rear of the store. I frowned and furrowed my brow. Millie wouldn’t have knocked; she’d have just come straight in.

  I cautiously opened the back door to find David standing there, with a couple of his constables. My longtime friend’s face was taut and grave looking. My stomach took a sudden lurch, which told me that this was anything but a social call. My sense of dread earlier this morning was now confirmed.

  “David, what’s wrong?” I asked, opening my door a little wider.

  David looked down at the ground before looking back up at me. “Druida Stone was found dead this morning…murdered.”

  I felt the air get sucked right out of my lungs at his news. Okay, I wasn’t that fond of the obnoxious librarian, but I never wanted her dead. I just wanted her to be anyone else but her, truth be known. But never dead!

  “We found ‘er in that, whatcha call, Romani section,” the constable on the left added in a thick Glessie accent. “Her boy Reg were the one that—“

  “Phillips,” David said with a tone of rebuke. “You know better.”

  Constable Phillips gave him a sideway glance before giving him a sheepish, “Sorry, sir.”

  That little exchange told me why they were here. “So, because I told her off, you think I killed her?”

  “You’re a person of interest, Hattie,” David said, not relishing the words in the slightest. “We need you to come to the station to ask a few questions.”

  “Why don’t you just slap the cuffs on—“

  “Please,” David pleaded with me, holding up his hand. “Don’t make this harder than it already is. You know what position I’m in, Hat.”

  “Alright if I speak up now, sir?” the constable on the right asked, his slight Scottish accent punctuating his words.

  “Just be brief, Richards,” David said.

  “There’s no evidence linking you to the crime, ma’am,” Richards said. “That’s why we’re only gonna ask questions. You don’t have to come wit’ us. But I think I speak for CPI Trew when I say that it’d be a lot easier on all a’ us if’n you do.”

  Great, I thought with a sigh. All this time helping David investigate murder cases, and now I was a suspect in one.

  “Can we wait until Millie gets here?” I asked. “I want to be sure my shop is running while I’m gone.”

  “Not a problem,” David said with a nod. “I just ask that we all wait by the door for her.”

  While we waited for my assistant to arrive, I stood in shocked silence, my thoughts as mixed up as I’d imagine a Stranded victim’s might be.

  Chapter 5

  Our chat in the interrogation room didn’t take that long. While he had a lot of questions, David mostly wanted to know just two things. First, how much contact did I have with Druida Stone on a regular basis? (Which was mercifully very little -- my little request-turned-argument was the most I had spoken to her in the last six months, let alone the last six weeks.) Second, where was I before, during and after the murder?

  “You have a time of death yet?” I asked while David was writing down my last answer.

  “C’mon, Hattie,” David said, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “You know I can’t—“

  “If I know the time, I can answer the question better.”

  “Look, just tell me everything you did between the time you argued with Druida until the time we came by this morning.”

  I gave him the full rundown, complete with the names of everyone who could verify where I was at those times.

  “I don’t suppose that the testimony of my cats is admissible as evidence the same way it was with Gabrielle’s statement on the Dreddock case?” I asked.

  “Well, today just happens to be your lucky day,” David said. “About a week ago, the high court in Talisman ruled that magical sentient creature eyewitness testimony is admissible as evidence.”

  “Just like it is for golems?” I asked, leaning forward. I had to say that I was intrigued by that development, despite myself. During the Nebula Dreddock case that David and I had worked on several months previous, Nebula’s clay servant, a golem now known as Gabrielle, had given a statement that showcased her oppressive mistress’ treatment of her.

  “The golem precedent was part of what helped make this ruling possible, sure,” David admitted. “But there are a few restrictions when it comes to familiars, especially legacy familiars that are passed down through the family or from teacher to student. We’re going to need to take their statements without you being anywhere close to them.”

  I shrugged. “That’s no problem. When I’m out on deliveries, I’m hardly ever—“

  David held his hand up.

  “Wait, Hattie, there's more,” David said, his tone getting just firm enough to halt me in my tracks. “I’m going to need to know where you are while I’m asking the cat-crew the questions. It has to be a public place where plenty of people can ID and see you. Otherwise, the evidence might get thrown out later. If there's an opportunity for potential 'tampering,' then the courts will be all over it.”

  “Are you kidding me, David?” I snapped, doing my best not to yell.

  The look on his face as I said that was not a good sign. I wasn’t talking to David anymore. I was talking to Chief Para Inspector Trew.

  “I am trying to help you, Hattie,” he said in that level, professional voice. “Will you let me do that?”

  I just groaned. How much extra work was I going to have to do because David thought he was doing me a favor?

  “Fine,” I said. “I take it that we need to do this as soon as this session is over.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, this meeting IS over,” David said, putting away his trademark pen and notepad. Artemus Caves could learn something from his habits.

  “So,” I said, getting up. “How do we make this happen?”

  “There is some paperwork involved,” he explained, getting up himself. “Normally, I’d just fob this off to the desk sergeant. But, under the circumstances…”

  David was doing his best not to let a goofy grin crack through the façade, but I could see through it. I shook my head and said, “A trip to your office, then, CPI Trew?”

  “Where else?” he confirmed as he gestured for the door.

  We walked through the bustling station house. It always amazed me that this small of a building could hold so much activity. At least, it surprised me until I realized that this little police station had to serve the entire isle of Glessie by its lonesome. And not just Glessie; it had to take care of exactly six of the fourteen inner isles of the Covens. Okay, these islands were small and were rarely affected by crime. But add in the draconian budget that David was always bitching about (well out of earshot of Talisman higher-ups who occasionally stopped by) and it was a miracle anything got done on a regular basis.

  David closed the office door behind us and started rummaging through his desk drawers before even sitting down. I happened to notice what looked like a thin case file at the outer edge of the desk, turned to face in my direction.

  Adjustin
g his glasses as he pulled his pen back out, David said, “Oh, nearly forgot to mention. Whatever you do, don’t look at that file.”

  He started scratching out some words on the top form as I pointed at the folder. “This file?”

  “That file,” David confirmed, not looking up.

  “And why exactly would I not want to look at that file?” I asked, getting into the rhythm of reverse logic that was playing out.

  “Because, if you did,” David said as he turned over the top form to write on the next one. “You would find out certain facts about the late, unlamented Druida Stone not known to the general public. We can’t have that getting out, now can we?”

  “No, we cannot,” I said, opening up the folder to take a look.

  I barely recognized Druida from the picture that was at the top of the file. It wasn’t just that it was a few years ago. It was that the headshot she was in had her dressed in an extremely conservative, button-up dress or pantsuit that I usually associated with Talisman bureaucrats. She was even wearing glasses like she was a female Clark Kent.

  There were a couple of forms after the picture that told me a little bit more. The first one was a transfer order signed off by the Ministry of Justice’s Witness Protection Program. It was one of those government programs you heard about more in whispers than you did in hard facts. If you believe half the Witness Protection stories, they used everything from age regression formulas to full body transfer to guarantee the security of those under threat. Seeing as I still recognized Druida as Druida and that there was no indication of any high-level magic being used, I was prepared to call out those rumors for the hysterical BS they were.

  The second form was something that the stories had gotten right, a so-called “Lazarus ticket.” It was a combination death/rebirth certificate that was issued for the most vulnerable of witnesses. The top half of the form included all the pre-Wit Sec vital information on the “deceased” while the bottom showed the new identity that had been created for the person in question. In Druida’s case, she had started off life as Luludja Stanka, originally hailing from the Bohemia region of Germany on the Mainland. I wasn’t the least bit surprised to find that she was of Romani ancestry, given how much she had pushed those beliefs on everybody around her when she was alive. So much for Bradford’s cross-culture theory. So old Lady Stone was Romani....

  “You know,” I said carefully as I put the file back the way I found it. “If I did happen to get curious enough to look over this file—which, by the way, I haven’t—I’d wonder what Druida knew that made a Lazarus ticket to conceal her identity and location necessary.”

  “Of course, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” David said, his eyes fixed on his forms. “Lazarus tickets are an island myth. But, still, I have no clue as to what this woman could have seen or did to deserve one. Questions like that are way above the pay grade of a lowly Chief Para Inspector.”

  A thought hit him that made him look up. Tapping the non-writing end of his pen on his chin in a steady rhythm, he added, “On the other hand, I do have an ex-girlfriend who might be persuaded to supply just such information on Druida's past and how she came to be here. Should it become important to obtain through something other than official channels. She did some black-ops for the Ministry of Defense before moving onto a more lucrative global security consultation gig.”

  Maybe it was all those years of reading Modesty Blaise, but the background for the ex instantly put me on my guard. “Far be it for me to bring up past misjudgments, but that sounds like an ally on the order of Amber Crystal.”

  “Amber was a local girl with particular community ties,” David countered, going back to his forms. “Raquel came through here a few years ago on Ministry business, and I was her only significant contact at that time. So it’s not one-for-one.”

  Finishing the last form with a flourish, he handed them to me saying, “Even without Druida’s background, which I categorically deny having any knowledge of, HER community ties made her a much-hated figure with a long list of potential enemies. You just happened to be the most recently vocal one on that list, which, as I tried to tell you at the shop, Hattie, was foolish.”

  “How the Tartarus was I supposed to know that she was going to get killed the next day?” I protested, bristling at his insinuation of being labeled a 'fool.' “How much of her abuse was I supposed to take in the name of good manners? Frankly, somebody should have told her to go to Tartarus a long time before I did.”

  “Not disputing that, Hattie,” he said as I sat down in front of the desk. “But that loss of temper is why you’re in the current fix you are, true?”

  I blew out a quick, irritated breath before saying, “True, CPI Trew.”

  David raised his eyebrows.

  I realized what I had just said and giggled a little, and softened. “I honestly didn’t mean my interaction with Druida to turn out that way. This Strands thing, David ... I just ... ”

  "I understand, Hat. I do. I know your heart's in the right place. Please sign here."

  He handed me the pen so that I could fill out my part of the forms. The info that I had to fill on the first form was the basics: address, occupation, how many magical creatures were in residence and so on.

  “Okay,” David said, picking up another piece of paper from his desk. “In other, unofficial news, Maude gave me a preliminary cause of death for Druida before I came for you this morning. Apparently, she died from a massive blunt force trauma to the head.”

  Maude Dulgrey was Gless Inlet’s ghoul pathologist. She was an unusually cheerful person for somebody in her trade. Maude was positively bubbly when she was explaining the rate of putrefaction of a corpse’s skin, for example. Or, how the hair follicles rapidly receded on a cadaver’s head, giving the impression of accelerated hair growth post mortem. Yes, Maude was passionate when it came to post death anatomical processes

  My writing stopped cold at his statement. “What? I never liked that haughty woman, but even I would think that she was competent enough with magic to ward off a club.”

  “And what if it isn’t as mundane as it seems?” David asks. “What if the blow to the head covered up the actual cause of death?”

  I held up my hand. “Okay, okay, anything is possible. You did say that was just Maude’s preliminary finding on the cause of death, right?”

  “Should know more soon,” David confirmed as he put the paper back down and I finished the first form. “But one thing I would like to get a better idea of is who not only would want to kill her but who actually could.”

  Handing him back the first, now-completed paper, I asked, “So, I guess that you want me to dust off my consultant hat and give you my read on the situation?”

  “It would be appreciated,” David said, that irrepressible kid’s grin blossoming on his face. “Out of everyone you were around yesterday, who seems most likely fit the bill of someone who is capable of murder?”

  I thought about everything and everyone I saw yesterday while I initialed and signed my way through the second document. “Just keep in mind that I hardly have an inside track on any of the players I’m about to investigate for you.”

  “As you know yourself by now, all investigations have to start somewhere,” David said, adjusting his glasses. “That’s why I’d rather get a narrow list with a few wrong suspects than having to investigate the whole phone book.”

  “Well, let’s go from least likely to most likely in my mind,” I said, handing him the next form.

  I was about to say more when I looked down at what the next form was asking from me. “I have to give you an address on the public place where I’m going to be?” I asked incredulously. “Why don’t you just fit me with a GPS while you’re at it?”

  “Just fill in the place name,” David said to me. “I’ll make a point of writing in the address myself later.”

  “Okay by me,” I said, filling in the name of the public place I knew I would go to. “Now that that’s out of the
way, do you want me to run through that list?”

  David made a “go ahead” gesture.

  “Okay, let's start with Reg Minder,” I said, pushing away my hastily filled in record. “He was running a book-smuggling operation right under Druida’s nose, taking all the cast-offs that she was throwing out and giving them to the Book of Thoth store. He was also cut to shreds on a daily basis by Ms. Stone’s razor tongue. Which is excuse enough for anybody to want her silenced.”

  “But, since he’s also Unawakened and doesn’t look like the type who could club anyone but himself, you don’t suspect him,” David said, pulling his notepad out of his pocket. “Bertha Crabtree was helping him with this, according to what you told me earlier.”

  “Sure, but I don't see Bertha as a killer any more than I do Reg,” I said. “Bertha didn’t like Druida any better than the rest of us but what motive would she have to go from dislike to death-dealing? Ms. Crabtree has been at the library for years. She would know how to handle Druida by now. She wouldn't just crack, after all these years, for no reason. Besides, I talked to her yesterday morning. She was way too relaxed and composed for someone who was about to take someone's life.”

  “I’ll check the files to see what her magical status is, anyway,” David said. “If she’s Unawakened, I’d be inclined to cross her off the list like we probably will Reg. But, if she’s Aware or even Active, we might have a viable suspect on our hands.”

  “Big 'if,' Chief Para Inspector,” I said, looking up at the cork ceiling. “Moving up to more likely suspects, we have the Scroll’s proprietor, Bradford Obonyo, who is the clearinghouse for this alternative lending program that Reg and Bertha are part of.”

  “Motive is still a little murky on this one,” David countered, his eyes now fixed on his notepad as he scratched out his thoughts. “He kills her, the odds are the next librarian in charge is going to be a little more considerate of the patrons. That would dry up his business in a hurry.”