Murder, Magic, and Moggies

by Pearl Goodfellow

  “You’re a little behind schedule, but when Hector is your escort, that’s to be expected,” she added in her natural way of Addams Family politeness.

  The veggie zombie acknowledged his spoken name with his usual look of surprise.

  Noticing my furry companion, Maude's skeletal features ignited in a full-blown beam of pleasure.

  "Before you start, Maude," Shade began, holding up a paw, "I've been busy. But I'm here now, right? And, that's what matters ain't it? I mean, I still get the treats, right?"

  Without warning, Maude scooped him up, and Shade nestled immediately into her loving arms, like a big, floppy marshmallow, and switched on his motor. Full volume.

  "Why, you handsome beast!" Maude exclaimed in sheer delight. "How could you let me wait so long to see your cute face?"

  She planted several gnaw-like kisses on top of my dear cat's head. Shade looked at me out of the corner of his eye and winked. I could only stand there, mouth agape.

  “And, as for kitty treats, let's see what we have inside, shall we?" Maude turned, and in we went, my Romeo kitty transported in the arms of a loving ghoul.

  The interior just inside the door was reminiscent of the Early Spanish Inquisition era. Torches lit the way down the stone hallway, the rock expanse broken only by a few thick wooden doors on either side. But, our destination lay at the very end of the hall.

  Stepping into the morgue proper was like walking into a Sci-Fi novel. The room was an ultra modern, state-of-the-art coroner’s space, complete with stainless steel examination table, body freezers, and surgical instruments. There was some expensive looking equipment in the far corner; a centrifuge, some large ECG type scanner and a high-powered microscope. Piles of notes lay scattered on just about every surface. A filing cabinet, tucked against the far back wall had a precarious pile of papers balanced on the top; the cabinet itself, presumably mostly empty.

  And yet, Maude had a sense of order. She was a dab-hand at locating any particular note at any given moment. She always knew which stack to shuffle toward if she believed a particular note contained the answers to something cause-of-death related. There was a sheet-covered body on the exam table, and given what crime I stood suspected of, I had a feeling I knew who it was.

  Feeling comfortable being back on his home ground, Hector shambled off to a wooden chair just to my left, sat down, and closed his eyes. I always thought of it as his “power down” mode. He’d awaken again when Maude or someone else needed him.

  As I watched the exhausted zombie start his rest cycle, I could smell something besides the usual formaldehyde and decay. It was a sweet, herbaceous scent, and also very familiar.

  “CPI Trew did inform me what kind of a day you’ve been having, dear,” Maude said by way of explanation, picking up the steaming cup of chamomile tea from her surgical tray. “So I took the time put the kettle on before you arrived. Would you like some turbinado sugar?”

  “I'll take it neat, please, Maude,” I said gratefully, inhaling the tea's calming aroma, as she passed me the china cup with a pair of surgical forceps.

  While I was sipping, Maude turned her attention to Shade, who was waiting patiently on top of the ghoul's cluttered desk.

  “Don’t think I forgot about you, handsome.”

  Shade merely purred and gave Maude a couple of head nudges.

  She pulled out a giant, dog-sized portion of cat treats from her lab coat pocket and piled them high before him. “Help yourself to as much as you want,” she cooed, giving him a bony-fingered chin rub.

  That killed my chamomile buzz a little. “Try not to give him too many, Maude.”

  “Oh, I think a sharp, stylish kitty like this knows exactly when to stop,” Maude countered with another full-dentured grin.

  "You'd be surprised," I muttered under my breath. "But I guess I wasn't brought here by Muerte just so I could watch my cat get fat," I nodded toward the shrouded form on the examination table.

  "Indeed, yes," Maude said, resting a sisterly hand on my shoulder, and steering me over to one of the stacks of reports. “I would like to preface this meeting by saying that while the Chief's hands are tied on not being able to use you in your usual official capacity as consultant, he did convey to me the opinion that he had no chance of finding the real culprit without your help.”

  I felt a smidgen of my pride return on hearing Maude's declaration. The fact that it came from David made me buzz a little more. “After this afternoon, I wasn’t so sure.”

  “Oh, girlfriend, you're way too hard on yourself,” Maude said, giving my shoulder a friendly squeeze. “If Raquel Berry is every bit the vain, superficial butterfly I think she is, she doesn’t stand a chance with your beloved CPI Trew, not even for a one-night stand.”

  I gave her a shocked look, which only made her laugh like I’d told the best joke she’d heard all month.

  “Examining bodies is my business, dearie,” she said letting out a sigh. “Mind you; dead ones are easier to figure out than living ones but—“

  “So what did Druida’s dead body tell you?” I asked, desperately wanting to change the subject. Maude meant well (in her unique Cryptkeeper way), but Raquel Berry wasn't someone I wanted crawling away in my mind just then. Thinking of that backbiting she-wolf shattered my focus. Big time.

  “Let’s start with the fact that there is a reason I have a sheet over the body,” Maude said, gesturing towards the table with her left hand while her right sorted through the papers in front of us. “Caved-in heads are never a pretty sight, even by my standards.”

  “I was told that the preliminary cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head,” I said, knowing that she’d know where I had gotten that info from. “I just didn’t realize—“

  “—that it would be THAT much blunt force trauma?” Maude finished, her hand finally finding the right paper. “Yes, indeed it was full force. Whoever laid waste our acidic librarian here surely drove all their rage into Druida's head with the clubbing she got. My autopsy confirms my preliminary conclusions, which are; multiple, full impact blows to the anterior cranial fossa."

  I arched an eyebrow at her.

  "Someone played golf with the right side of her skull and eventually got a hole in one." Maude offered.

  I nodded, thinking.

  “It makes no sense to me,” I said, my brain going into analysis mode. “Even allowing for any known kind of anti-magic, Druida should have been a competent enough witch to ward off a club.”

  “That would actually depend on the club in question,” Maude said, her left hand tracing a finger down the paper to a handwritten line at mid-point. “See what I noted here.”

  Taking the script from Maude while she kept her finger on the line, I held the paper up to the nearby surgical light and read aloud. “While micro-splinters of an as-yet-unidentified wood were found in the ACF, that's the anterior thing you said earlier?" I questioned.

  Maude nodded, and I continued. "The overall depth of the blows to the deceased suggests a heavier alloy was used, as indicated by the fleck of 'origin unknown' metal found lodged behind the amygdala. Further, an as-yet-undetermined magical signature was evident in both the cranium and each of the deceased's forearms.”

  Handing back the paper, I asked, “Defensive wounds?”

  “In all likelihood,” Maude agreed. “The first blow that struck Druida came from behind, but it lacked enough force to kill her outright. The rest of the blows to her skull were administered from the front, and TO the front, which tells me that she turned to face her attacker before they finished her off.”

  I sighed. “It’s a shame that the Eyeball Scrye was never perfected.”

  “Truly,” Maude said, putting the paper back. “It would make both my job and Chief Trew’s infinitely easier.”

  “So, no idea what sort of metal, wood or magic was used in the murder weapon?”

  “All questions I am currently seeking answers to. But, as you know, these things take more time when there's an abs
ence of corroborating evidence that would point me in the right direction.”

  Her eyes suddenly widened and she held up her finger. “Oh, there was one more thing. I found something that I was hoping you could help me shed some light on.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” I said, feeling a bit uneasy. I had watched too many Columbo mysteries growing up not to sense a possible trap in those words. Wow, my paranoia was getting out of control if I was finding Maude a threat.

  Walking over to the examination table, Maude carefully peeled back the left side of the head. I appreciated her courtesy for leaving the sheet over the right. The last thing I needed was the sight of a smashed-in skull to give me nightmares for the next month. She stopped at the earlobe, which was slightly torn at the bottom.

  “The last time I saw Druida, she was wearing an earring where this little tear is,” I said, using my finger to indicate where.

  Lowering the sheet, she gestured for me to follow her to the other side of the table. Once again lifting the cover carefully, just enough to show the right earlobe, she asked, “Was it an earring like this?”

  There was no way I could forget an earring that gaudy. “Yeah, that was it,” I said looking at the crazy unicorn ornament hanging from Druida's lifeless ear.

  Maude hummed a little as she once again lowered the sheet. “Well…now I know for certain that there had been something in the other ear previously.”

  “Hard to believe Druida would allow one ear to go so ruefully unadorned.”

  “No argument from me, Hattie,” Maude said. “Now the question is, did the tearing of the lobe happen pre or post-mortem?. I just wanted to confirm that what I was deducing so far will be born out by the facts.”

  “It’s usually the small details that turn out to be the most important,” I added.

  “Very true,” Maude said, walking over to her filing cabinet. “But there is something to be said about the big details as well.”

  Shade had eaten himself all the way to Happyville while Maude and I had been discussing the autopsy. The kitty treat bag, now half-empty, lay discarded by his side. Shade was busy washing the crumbs from his face and looked as content as I'd ever seen him.

  “Maude, I'd like to bring my shawty here. I think Miss. Poof would dig this place," he said as he continued washing.

  I did a facepalm at Shade’s audacity, but Maude only erupted in a throaty chuckle. “So glad you feel my company is worthy of your female companion. Now, handsome, would you kindly move over a bit? I believe you're sitting on something I need.”

  Shade was more than happy to comply, and Maude deftly snatched a rubber-band bound folder from the cluttered desk. She laid the file on the corner of the desk, faced in my direction so I could see the Talisman official 'Classified' brandished front and center on the cover.

  “I’m going to warm your tea up,” Maude said, noticing my interest in the folder. “This room does hot liquids no favors when it comes to keeping them at the right temperature.”

  She conveniently skipped the fact that I was down to the last few drops of the brew by this point. But, if anyone questioned her later, she could say, without lying, that she had never seen me read the file that she had just conspicuously pointed out to me.

  As soon as she was out of the room, I pulled the file from the desk. While I was undoing the rubber bands, Shade rubbed my leg.

  “Any way we can just stay here the night?” he asked dreamily. “I could use some more of those treats.”

  A little distracted, I said, “You can stay if you want. I’m out of here as soon as I’m done reading this file.”

  “Spoilsport,” Shade huffed. He sauntered off toward the sleeping Hector, and promptly jumped on the zombie's lap to conclude his washing in peace. Which suited me fine.

  I flipped over the cover. As I suspected, it was a file on our late, unlamented librarian before she came to Glessie. As noted in David’s file, her birth name had been Luludja Stanka. She had once been a mid-level clerk working for the Ministry of Defense on Talisman. A headshot of her from that time showed a slightly younger face, and her attire was certainly what I'd expect a Talisman suit to wear. Actually, I'd expect the same from a librarian, but back to matters at hand.

  Going by the performance reviews in the file, she was beyond excellent at her job, brutally efficient and possessing a computer-like recall on any of the contents of the reports she was working on. There were also notations on how this was unexpected for someone of a Romani background. I bristled at that. A thousand years later and the same stupid prejudices on the Romani were holding sway. Even in the Awakened community, racism and prejudice reared its ugly head sometimes.

  From the initial bio, the file became heavily redacted, broad black lines blotting out whole paragraphs of data that could have told me more about Luludja. But there was one thing that I managed to glean from one of the clear lines. Luludja had been the key witness in securing Milosh Besnick’s conviction for Strands peddling all those years ago. For her own safety and to distance herself from the Besnick cartel, she was put in Witness Protection and, per the newspaper clipping at the bottom of the file, her death was allegedly caused by a tragic boating accident. A faked death.

  I shook my head as I carefully rebound the file back the way it was left for me. It was a lot to take in at once. I was going to need time to figure some stuff out.

  Maude came back with another toothy grin and a full, steaming hot cup of tea she had presumably warmed up over the boiler.

  “Oh, by Brigid, did I leave that file there” Maude said as if she was seeing the report for the first time. “David managed to borrow it from your nemesis, Ms. Berry, earlier so that I could confirm the unofficial identity of our corpse. I promised him that I would get this back to him tomorrow morning, but I managed to lose it somehow. Silly me…”

  I traded her the teacup for the file, which Maude dropped back onto the desk with all the other scattered papers.

  “Not that I looked at that file over or anything,” I said casually. “But is that all the information on Druida concerning her old life?”

  “I honestly wouldn’t know,” Maude said, apparently meaning it. “What I do know is that this is all CPI Trew could get from Ms. Berry so far. I am quite impressed that she managed that much, given the stamps on its exterior.”

  I frowned a little, bristling at Maude's veiled compliment for Berry.

  “You know, Hattie,” Maude said, her smile widening a little. “I notice you’ve been staring at me for ten minutes and haven’t looked uncomfortable by my appearance. I suppose I must get prettier whenever you’ve had this bad of a day.”

  She capped it off with another of her ghoulish laughs, which made Shade pause from his grooming and offer a little chortle himself. I laughed too. And it felt good.

  “You sure you don’t mind, Shade?” I asked again as we walked down the deserted streets.

  “Hey, if it can help you sort out what’s up, boss, it’s cool with me,” Shade said, looking over the leash to give me his sweetest smile.

  “What I read at Maude's doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “A Strands kingpin and a Defense Ministry office drone…those aren't just separate worlds. They're different universes. How did Druida become THE key witness in putting Besnick away?”

  “Well, didn’t he get nabbed on the sabertooth tiger poaching?” Shade asked. “That’s what Onyx said.”

  I shook my head. “Since when has the Ministry of Defense cared about any priorities on the SPCA’s radar?”

  Shade was about to answer when we both heard a moan. It was coming from the alleyway that led to the back of the Angel.

  Shade did a quick sniff of the air. “Whoever that is, it ain’t Hector. He’s alive, and he’s hurt.”

  That was enough for me to nearly drag Shade through the alleyway in my eagerness to get to the back.

  “Easy, boss,” he said holding his belly with his front paw. “Those treats still haven’t—“

  The sig
ht of our late-night visitor put an end to Shade's grumbling. It was Bradford, leaning against the wall of my shop, seemingly in severe pain. His blue-black skin was splattered here and there with blood, and it looked like one of his eyes had swollen shut.

  Dropping the leash, I ran over to the bookseller to help him to his feet. He groaned at my unintentional touching of his wounds. But his good eye relaxed at the sight of me in the dim light.

  “Goddess bless, Bradford,” I said, using the dingy lamplight over the door to assess his injuries.

  “I’m okay,” he whispered, the pain in his voice arguing otherwise.

  “You let a doctor tell you that,” I said in my big sister tone as I draped his arm around my shoulders. “What happened?”

  “Was…kidnapped,” he said while I dragged him to the back door. “They took me…to…Crow Isle. Just…managed to get away…not unscathed, as you can see.” His breathing sounded labored, and beads of sweat collected in rows of tiny bubbles along his hairline.

  “Alright, you’re done talking,” I said, opening the door with my free hand. “Once we get you inside, I’m calling for help.”

  I would have liked to have heard more, sure. But right now, my need for information was less important than the health, or, maybe, the life of this gentle man.

  Chapter 14

  An hour later, I decided that I didn’t want to see David’s constables again for at least another month. They did everything as efficiently and professionally as you could ask, including getting some EMTs from Howling Mercy Hospital who flew Bradford out by broom chariot. But I still counted this as the third major invasion of my privacy within a twenty-four period. I was utterly exhausted.

  David finally arrived by broomstick as the constables were doing their best to wrap up their investigations. My heart sank when I noticed Berry sitting behind him, arms wrapped around David's waist, her beautifully sculpted chin, resting easily on his shoulder. But the gods bless David for only having eyes for me as soon as he got off the broom proper.