“Do you know this man?” Gabrielle asked, genuinely curious.
“No, but I do know very much what it is like to be innocent, vulnerable and alone,” Artemus said. “It’s a feeling that I honestly wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.”
Gabrielle slid a hand across the counter, to cover Artemus’ own, leaving a cloud of red clay dust in its wake. The look he gave her showed how he almost didn’t dare hope that this was happening. As for me, the detective part of my brain kept scratching at me as I looked at his walking stick again. Was the real reason why he was keeping a respectable distance from Gabrielle, not because he saw himself as unworthy, but because he was Druida’s killer?
Chapter 12
I stayed at Celestial Cakes until closing time. Which was more than enough time for Gabrielle to rustle up a bear claw for Artemus’ sister. The pastry likely only bore a superficial resemblance to the one from the cookbook my favorite ex-golem experimented with to make better cakes.
After Gabrielle had bidden us good night, Artemus insisted that he walk me back to the shop. I was a little nervous about that. What if he actually was the murderer? Still, I saw it as a good way to keep an eye on my suspect, so I engaged in some small talk while we strolled.
“Aren't you nervous to walk all the way back to your home this late?” I asked, looking up at the sky’s fading light, as we approached the Angel. I was more thinking about his limping limb than anything, but I thought it’d be rude to ask if that might be a valid reason to stop him walking home.
“The most dangerous fauna on my part of the island are the insects, so there's nothing to be concerned about,” Artemus said with a grin, which, I could see, was strained by the effort of putting weight on his bad leg. “Werewolf packs apparently do not see much in the way of desirable roaming territory out on the coast, and the local vampires always complain about the taste of Strands-doused blood.” He chuckled bitterly.
“Wait, you know some of our local vampires?” I asked, wondering how a vulnerable specimen like him hadn’t already been drained dry.
“Well, that is a bit of an overstatement,” Artemus admitted. “I had one stay with me overnight…or should I call it ‘overday?'...when she found herself too far from home. I was lonely, she was hungry, I hardly had a pressing schedule, and…well, things happened, including a bit of pillow talk, after a meal of one plump Godmarsh Toad.”
He paused. "She ate the Godmarsh Toad, not I!"
He chortled at the very idea.
“So were you and her—“
“Oh, heavens, no. It was just a one-time thing. She was pleasant company; worldly and exciting. I've not seen her since."
“Well, I hope that she’s still…I guess ‘alive’ isn’t the right word, is it?”
Artemus broke out into another hearty laugh. “One of the linguistic hazards of being undead…some terms seem to apply better than others.”
By then, we had turned the corner into the back alley of the Angel.
“And here we are, safe and sound,” I said with a satisfied sigh. “Thank you, Mr. Caves, for being my escort.”
Artemus gave a courtly if somewhat comedic bow. He reminded me of Onyx then, when my head cat was forced to perform formal introductions. “The least I can do for a lovely lady who took the time to offer me much-needed advice…good night.”
Millie, opening the door a crack, as Artemus disappeared around the corner to the main street, stuck her head out slightly to see what was going on.
“Growl,” she said with a smirk. “Looking at other prospects while David goes to play with Ms. Berry?”
Barging past her, I said affectionately, “You seriously need a boyfriend…or at least start asking out all the guys you think are hot.”
Millie grimaced. “Remember what you said about how you didn’t think David would look at you after seeing his smoking hot ex? You’re not the only one who feels that way sometimes.”
I got it right away. Don’t get me wrong. Millie IS cute as a button in her own right, and, in my opinion, she deserved to have men draped all over her. And, yet, that strangely wasn't the case.
The smell of cauliflower gave me just the exit I needed to change the subject. “So, Hector's payment is ready, I see? Or rather, smell?
“Keeping warm in the oven,” Millie said, pointing to the ancient Franklin stove in the back corner. “It'll stay fresh until the midnight hour.”
“I told you that I could have cooked it faster for you in here,” Carbon called out from the front.
“I don’t think even Muerte would have appreciated his meal being turned into a solid block of cinder,” I called back.
“Whatever,” Carbon said through a yawn. “Mind doing me a favor and opening the upstairs door? Everybody else is whining nonstop about not being able to get to bed.”
“And, on that note, I’d better get home myself,” Millie said. “See you bright and early tomorrow, Hat?”
I gave my assistant a peck on the cheek, followed by a full bear-hug.
"Thanks for everything, Millie. And sorry for the way I acted today."
She gave me a quick squeeze, a radiant smile, and then flew out the door.
I had finished my third cup of pep while waiting for Maude’s zombie assistant. I’d spent the last hour after Millie left getting the cats settled in for the night. Well, most of them…Shade was nowhere to be found and Midnight had yet to rise from his all-day slumber to even say hello. After assuring Fraidy five times in a row that I would be coming back safe and sound, I descended the stairs to wait in the back kitchen for Hector Muerte. That's when the cats started playing ping-pong.
As tired as I was, I winced at the clitter-clatter of the balls that rang through the building. I heard muffled arguing as one of the balls apparently struck Gloom on the rear end. Jet was cheering, no doubt having a field day with this kind of rapid play. Onyx, by all accounts, was trying his best to set up some rules. But, Fraidy, in an unusual act of bravery, could be heard shouting: "Rules be damned!", followed by deranged scampering around the wooden floor, batting balls in every direction to anyone who would take up the challenge. I could clearly picture Eclipse hanging from near the top of the curtains, one paw out so he could bat from a lofty position. He loved to hit balls from high places, and dangling from the uppermost part of the curtains seemed to be his favorite spot in which to accomplish this. I groaned inwardly, rubbing my temples. David would pay for this.
Despite the racket upstairs, the day had taken its toll, and I was on the verge of nodding off. Until I heard something smash, followed by Midnight (clearly in on the game now) whispering “Shhh,” a brief silence, and then the lively ball games starting back up again. I was about to go up there and give them a piece of my mind when I noticed the solid black ball of fur sitting next to the back door. Some of the blackness cleared away to reveal a pair of round golden eyes.
“Wondering when you were going to notice me, boss lady,” Shade said, walking up to my feet.
“How long have you been there?” I asked, reaching down to pet him.
“A little while,” Shade said between purrs, letting my hand dig into his fur. “I just got back from my lady’s place with some info on Mayor Fog I figured you’d want to hear.”
Then, turning his head towards the ruckus upstairs, he added gravely, “But it sounds like there are more important things going on upstairs that need my attention.”
His face lit up as he recognized some of the sounds. "Ping-pong balls!!"
He nearly bounded from the room, clearly forgetting what relevant info he'd come to share with me. I caught him by the chest just in time.
"Hold it, buddy,” I said levelly. “You can join in the play once you've shared what you've learned."
His shoulders slumped.
“So you weren’t here when David slipped the note in the door?” I asked, realizing that I hadn’t seen him after getting back from the police station the second time as I let him go.
“Let’s just s
ay that Sister Gloom’s little crack about me needing an excuse to, well, cat around, stung a bit,” Shade said, leaping into my lap. “So I decided to head back to Miss Poof's house early for something that might help out. What’d I miss?”
I gave Shade the rundown on the note and the dish that was going to be used to pay Muerte for his time.
“Was wondering why this place smelled more like a veggie-diner than the usual herb garden,” Shade said, screwing up his nose in blatant disgust. “Mind if I tag along on this little jaunt, seeing as I’m the only one still up?”
“Well, Midnight should be—“
“Can you see that Otherworld gossip even WANTING to go to something as pedestrian as a morgue?” Shade scoffed. “No, no, Hattie, I’m the man…well, cat…for the job.”
He looked at me levelly, "Besides, it's not really fair to Maude that she hasn't seen me in such a long time. It's time I did my proper duty and remedied that."
He looked pleased with himself; as if he had just done an excellent deed for the community. I had to laugh at this dude's utterly delusional sense of self. His inflated self-confidence was adorable...and it took his mind off the ping pong balls.
Giving him a quick, scratch behind his ears, I asked teasingly, “Well, will the cat for the job let me get up so I can get the kitty leash?”
Shade jumped off my lap so that I could get to my feet. I drained the last of the tea and grabbed the leash from the wall. A knock came on my back door. A quick look through the peephole confirmed that it was Hector. Even in the dark, the shuffling gait was as recognizable as his decomposing face.
I opened the door, and the assistant zombie coroner looked at me with a look of anticipation. Mostly, you could see it in his glassy eyes. The rest of his expression was just as dead as his reanimated flesh.
“Give me just a second, Hector,” I said, draping the kitty leash over my neck. “I’ll get that dish you were promised.”
Grabbing a couple of potholders, I removed the cauliflower casserole from the oven. Muerte was less concerned about things like excessive heat. I could almost hear his flesh sizzle as he took the dish from me. He then buried his face into the food and gnawed on it like a dog on a bowl full of Mainland Puppy Chow. I was just about to turn around to take care of the oven when Shade muttered something. The oven flames went out like they’d been flipped off by a light switch.
“What was that, a dousing spell?” I asked as I put the potholders back on the wall.
“Not exactly, boss,” Shade said while I walked over to him with his leash in hand. “I was always told that it was the Reforma spell. You take away a certain additional quality away from something. Returning it to its true inert state for a full month.”
“So those logs are going to burst back into flames when the month is up?” I asked with concern, putting the kitty leash on Shade.
“Unless they get doused by water first, sure,” Shade confirmed. “Still you can end the spell at any time before the month is up, so you could douse the logs straightaway and then—“
“So this spell only works on things that can burn?” I asked, standing back up.
“No, and that’s the beauty of it. You can cast this spell on a lot of things: ice back to water, trees to keep them from being cut down, vocal chords so you can snatch someone’s voice if it gets too irritating.” For some reason, Gloom popped in my head at Shade’s last comment.
Muerte was starting to get loud with his earnest munching. The way he was tearing into the cauliflower hotpot almost made me glad that he was a vegetarian rather than the usual undead carnivore.
Shade’s expression turned to disdain. “As a matter of fact, I’d almost suggest you use it on the vegetarian vegetable over there. Watching him eat is seriously putting a crimp on my appetite.”
“Now that’s rude,” I admonished my amorous tomcat, cupping his face as I said it. “Once he gets done, how about you fill me in on what you learned from your confidential informant on the walk to Maude’s?”
“Good idea,” Shade said with another grimace as Hector got a little louder. “I don’t think I could concentrate with that veggie horror show going on.”
I spent a couple of minutes wiping Hector's face from the pulpy remnants of the casserole. I doubted that he cared and maybe his boss Maude Dulgrey didn’t either. But, for the love of the Gods, I wasn't about to take to the streets with a foodie-face in tow.
Of course, both Shade and I could have walked a lot faster to the morgue. But Hector's shambling, slow pace allowed us the time to talk. Besides, it would be rude to turn up to Maude's without her assistant who had so very graciously come to collect me.
“My honey’s human absolutely HATES the mayor,” Shade announced as he trotted just slightly ahead of me.
“Well, except Millie and maybe Gabrielle’s waitresses, who doesn’t hate their boss?” I quipped.
“I don’t think you’re getting it, boss,” Shade said, looking over his shoulder at me. “One, I call you ‘boss’ all the time and I sure don’t hate you. I actually love you with all my heart and that's saying something, considering you’re, you know, human. Two, there’s finding something you dislike about someone and then there is the bone marrow hatred that my Miss. Poof's human has for our Marty Fog.”
“I’m guessing there’s a reason behind this? ” I suggested as we finally rounded the first corner.
“You know it,” Shade confirmed. “See, most people -- even the folks who voted for this clown -- think Fog’s annoying but fairly harmless. But the inner circle, according to my lady's human, anyway, tells a very different story. This guy’s got no clue on how to do taxes right, has as much of an idea on how to implement those infrastructure projects he was yelling about during the campaign as I do on how to open a tin of sardines with my bare paws."
Shade looked back at me and gave me a ‘Can you believe this guy?’ look. "And the dude's got a real nasty habit of pursuing vendettas.”
“What kind of vendettas?” I asked, remembering how he wanted me arrested so badly at the station.
“You know, the typical queen-bee-mean-girl in high school who loves to put everybody in their place by the power of her word alone?” Shade asked, turning his head back to the street. “That’s this guy…every bit as petty as the cash he scoops up on a weekly basis from the general office funds.”
“Who does he have a vendetta against, though, sweetie?” I pressed. I felt a little chill prickle at the top of my spine just from remembering Fog's vitriol aimed at me just this morning.
“Oh, just anybody that makes him feel bad or stupid,” Shade said with a shrug to his voice. “Trust me when I say that a) it’s a fairly long list at this point and b) you’re likely the newest addition to it. The human talked about how Fog couldn’t shut up about how much you ‘disrespected’ Druida before she was murdered.”
That set off a light bulb in my head. “So Marty Fog never had any bitter feelings towards Druida as he does me?”
“Yeah, well, his hatred of you wasn’t JUST about Druida,” Shade added. “Apparently, the Fog family had some kind of beef going with the Opal clan on your late Grandma’s side that stretches back about a century. Don’t ask me what it was about…probably just the normal nonsense humans love to hold on to when it comes to holding a grudge way past its expiration date.”
“Okay, sure,” I said impatiently. “But what about Druida? How did he feel about her?”
“That’s where it gets sticky…and not the way I like to get sticky with my ladies either.”
“Did not need to hear that,” I said, holding up my free hand.
By then, I could see the solid slab of rock that was our local morgue come into view. Judging from the speed that Hector was shuffling, we’d be there in about five minutes.
“Well, if you must know, he definitely wanted to get sticky with Druida, like—“
“Shade!”
“Okay, okay, boss, chill your prudish jets,” Shade meowed. “Point is, that Fog
was absolutely obsessed with her, never shut up about her no matter how much the rest of his staff—and my lady’s human— tried to steer the conversation in another direction. He even sicced private investigators on her to keep tabs.”
“This something our secondhand source found out about by accident?”
“Let’s just say that our mayor sucks at creative accounting as much as he does in every other legitimate aspect of his job,” Shade said ruefully. “Bottom line: thanks to his putting those private investigation expenses into the official ledger under some other made-up nonsense, everybody in the office knew about his spying on Druida. My squeeze actually said how her human called it: classic stalker behavior. Which is kind of hard to disagree with, don’t you think?”
I did think. The fact that Fog was abusing the powers and purse of his office didn’t surprise me. I had always suspected the weasel was up to no good, one way or the other, which was a big reason why I voted for his opponent. But coveting Druida to the point of hiring a P.I to keep tabs on her day-to-day? Especially as Ms. Stone never once reciprocated his desperate advances? Well, that sounded like it might contain good grounds for murder. Whatever the case, wow, what a snake!
Chapter 13
Maude greeted us at the door with one of her top-notch toothy grins. Of course, I seriously doubted they were actually her original dentures. The old ghoul had a habit of nicking spare parts from corpses when her own organs, limbs and enamels started to disintegrate. Sometimes her nighttime activities weren't so successful, as the two left feet, (one stapled carelessly to the bottom of her right shin bone) could attest. Though Maude was ghoulish, you could sense the warm, generous vibes rolling off her in gentle ripples. All of The Infiniti loved her. Goddess, I loved her.
“So happy to see you as always, Hattie,” she said in her usual ingratiating tone, the lamplight showing off her semi-exposed scalp through the thin hair on her head.
Murder, Magic, and Moggies Page 47
