The Gambler Grimoire: An Urban Fantasy Mystery (Wicklow College of Arcane Arts Book 1)

by BR Kingsolver

  “Well, I’m glad it worked out. If there really is a Gambler Grimoire, it would be nice to try and find it.”

  “Do you know if Merriweather’s computer in London was stolen?” Kagan asked.

  Remembering Harold, I had to smile. “No computer, Lieutenant. He didn’t believe in them.”

  I didn’t have classes on Fridays, just a tutorial with my graduate students in the Apothecary lab in the late morning. I had just taken fresh pumpkin bread from the oven and brewed a pot of tea when there was a knock on my door.

  The man standing there was tall, broad-shouldered, and extraordinarily good-looking.

  “Dr. Robinson?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Lieutenant James Barclay with State Police computer forensics. Do you have a few minutes?”

  “Certainly. Come in, Lieutenant.” I saw his nostrils dilate. “I just pulled some pumpkin bread out of the oven. Would you care for a slice and some tea?”

  “That smells great.”

  I led him to the kitchen and served him and myself a slice of the bread, placed butter and the teapot on the table, and sat across from him. I figured him for mid-to-early forties, and I was very aware of his eyes following me around the kitchen.

  “What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”

  “I understand that you’re the reason I’m here. You’re Seth Robinson’s daughter?”

  “I am. But the problem is a book—purported to be a specialized grimoire—four murders, and several missing computers. Lieutenant Kagan arranged for a computer expert from Pittsburgh to come out and look at a couple of computers that were recovered, but the expert isn’t a witch. Considering the possibility that the murders may deal with a grimoire, and that all the victims and suspects are witches…”

  He nodded. “I see the problem. The locals should have seen it as well.”

  “I got the feeling that they don’t have a list of arcane coppers hanging on the wall.”

  Barclay raised his eyebrows. “Chief Crumley should. I’ll suggest it to him. This bread is very good.”

  “It’s autumn, and the pumpkins are ripe. Someone gave me one, and I really don’t care for pumpkin pie, so I find other ways of using it.”

  “I did some checking before I came out here from Harrisburg,” he said. “You used to work for the Council?”

  I shook my head. “Twenty years ago. I worked as a sort of jack-of-all-trades investigator when I first graduated college and didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. Got to travel, see the world, and meet a lot of very interesting people.”

  We talked for about an hour. I laid out my reasoning and suspicions, then Barclay left, and I got ready for my tutorial.

  I had to admit, the lingering up-and-down look he gave me before I shut the door made me feel pretty good. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, either.

  Chapter 29

  Both Emma and Lia were absent from the tutorial. Emma’s absence was strange, as she was always punctual and had never missed a session or an appointment.

  When the tutorial was over, and the students finished cleaning up and had left, I lingered a while, checking the inventory of herbs and other items I would need for my labs the following week.

  It was about twenty after twelve when I left the lab. The nights were getting cold enough that the plants in the outdoor herb garden were affected. Steven and his staff had harvested many of the plants and transplanted some into the greenhouse. Rather than go to my apartment, I turned toward the greenhouse to check on the available quantities of a few herbs I was going to need.

  I was almost to the door when I heard a muffled scream from inside. Rushing through the airlock into the greenhouse, I saw Emma. The young woman was standing in the main aisle, looking toward the far end.

  And the sight of what was there stopped me in my tracks. The cat, Koshka, trotted toward me, mewling pitifully. Whipping my wand out, I swung it in a slashing motion. “Incisio!” Reaching down, I caught up the cat with my other hand and hugged her to me. She buried her head in my armpit, making distressed noises.

  The woman hanging from the greenhouse frame fell to the ground. I raced past Emma, but as I approached the girl on the ground, I realized there was no hurry. Ophelia was dead. I put the back of my hand against her cheek. Her skin was too cool.

  “Lieutenant Kagan?” I said after setting the cat down and dialing my phone with shaking hands. “Can you come to the campus greenhouse? Ophelia Harkness is dead.”

  I called the campus police, then leaned back against one of the growing benches, and stared at Lia. She had been hung using parachute cord, which was used to string shade cloth in some parts of the herb garden during the hottest summer weather. She was wearing a red shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers.

  After carefully scrutinizing the area around the body, I turned toward Emma, who had followed me to that end of the greenhouse. Although Emma’s face was pale, she didn’t seem as upset as I felt.

  “I missed you two for our tutorial,” I said. “I think I know why Lia didn’t show up, what about you?”

  “I-I-uh-she—” Emma stammered.

  “What were you doing in here?”

  “I-I was looking for Lia.”

  Over Emma’s shoulder, I saw Steven come into the greenhouse and walk toward us.

  “So, you weren’t with her earlier this morning?” I asked Emma.

  “Uh, no. She went someplace after breakfast.”

  “She was in the lab earlier,” Steven said. Emma jumped and whirled around. “I thought I saw you in the lab, too.” His brow furrowed in question.

  “Uh, I just stopped in for a moment, but I didn’t see her.”

  “That must have been early,” I said. “I was in there from about twenty to ten until I heard you scream.”

  “I-I came in and saw her.”

  Lia’s body was blocked from Steven’s sight by the two of us standing between him and the dead girl. He moved to the side a little, and I saw his eyes widen, then shift to my face.

  “She’s dead,” I said. “Can you go to the Apothecary lab and make sure no one goes in there? I think the police will want to check things over. Don’t touch anything.”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that,” Steven said. “You’ve called them?”

  “Uh-huh. I expect they’ll show up pretty quickly.”

  The campus police did show up just as Steven was leaving. They spoke with him for a couple of minutes, then he left with one of them, and the other policeman walked to where Emma and I were standing.

  “Ophelia Harkness,” I said. “Graduate student. She worked here in the greenhouse.”

  Dr. Evans from the campus infirmary came in shortly after, then Lieutenants Kagan and Barclay came a few minutes later.

  I gave my statement to Kagan while Barclay spoke with Emma. When I was finished, Dr. Evans motioned me over to the body. I gave Kagan a questioning look, and he handed me gloves and shoe covers.

  “What is the smell on her breath?” Evans asked.

  I bent over, inhaled deeply, then stood up. “Something I might give someone if I planned to kill them and wanted them compliant.” I turned to Kagan. “You might look for a small bottle. She’s taken some sort of tincture. Something to knock her out, I think.”

  Turning my attention back to Evans, I said, “I smell a mixture of stuff. The smells I can readily identify include St. John’s wort, valerian, and kava kava. Maybe using pure ethanol as the reagent, but more likely vodka. Smells pretty strong, which would take it beyond the therapeutic dosages. I still wouldn’t put all three of those things together. I can’t tell from smell, but I’ll bet it was magically enhanced.”

  “How did you cut her down without touching her?” Kagan asked.

  “Magic. Do you see what she stood on?”

  “I think that bench where those plants are moved aside.” He pointed to several potted plants that had been pushed away from the edge of the bench next to Lia’s body.

  “That would work for the final a
ct. What was used to tie the cord to the frame up there? I couldn’t reach the roof from that bench and I’m a good half-a-foot taller than she was.”

  Kagan looked around, spotted an eight-foot stepladder leaning against the wall fifty feet away.

  “That, maybe.”

  “Nice of whoever tied the rope to put the ladder away for us. Someone could trip over it and get hurt.”

  Kagan glared at me. Barclay rolled his eyes and turned away. Emma suddenly looked more frightened than she had before. Evans looked around at everyone, rather speculatively, from my point of view.

  Looking down at Lia’s blue face, I felt like I wanted to throw up. I was so sorry for her. The fear and the panic she had shown when we last spoke weighed on me. Then another thought struck me.

  “Dr. Evans,” I said, “I think we should consider her only provisionally dead.”

  “And what the hell does that mean?” Kagan asked.

  I watched Emma’s face as I said, “There are drugs that, in the proper dosages, mimic death. Depending on how long she hung, whether or not her neck is broken, there is a possibility she could recover.”

  “What kind of drug?” Evans asked.

  “Tetrodotoxin—an extract from puffer fish—is one possibility. It’s used in the first step for the creation of a voodoo zombie. I don’t know if we have any of it in our inventories, but Dr. McCallum and I can check.”

  “You’re saying that you don’t think this is a suicide,” Lieutenant Barclay said.

  “I’m saying that if it is, she went to a lot of trouble to complicate it.” I turned to Emma. “You were looking for her. Why? Was there something you were concerned about?”

  “She was kinda depressed, and she didn’t show up to study with me like we planned. We were going to go over our notes before your tutorial.”

  Emma acted as though she was fishing for words. “I mean, it’s been rough on her lately. She keeps getting arrested, and no one has really accused her of doing anything. She told me she was afraid she’d get sent to prison, her whole life ruined, just because two guys got in a fight.”

  Eventually, Ophelia’s body was taken to the college infirmary rather than the city morgue. The police told me I could go, but as I was leaving the greenhouse, Dr. Evans pulled me aside.

  “What is that puffer fish BS you were telling the cops? You don’t really believe that girl is still alive, do you?”

  “No, nor do I believe that she mixed and took a cocktail of botanicals that would knock her out, and then went clambering around with ladders and ropes and all that to hang herself.”

  Evans nodded. “I’ve had enough apothecary courses to understand the drugs you mentioned, and I agree with you.”

  “Unless they find the vial the tincture was in here, then it would mean she took it at her dorm or some other place, managed to walk all the way over here, mess with that ladder, tie knots, and all that. If what she took was as strong as I think it was, she’d have been more likely to die of a broken neck falling off that ladder. Doctor, she was doing research in potions, and she was smart. I don’t buy that she drugged herself, then hung herself. She could have painlessly poisoned herself without all the fuss.”

  Chapter 30

  Bad news, of course, travels quickly. Salacious news travels faster. In less than half an hour, I was at the Faculty Club with Steven, Kelly, and David. At least I had to repeat my story only once.

  “I’m sure the girl was upset,” I said after I finished, “but when I talked to her last, she was scared, and exasperated that Kagan was targeting her. Tupper’s death was a minor inconvenience in her mind. She just wanted it all to be over so she could go back to her life.”

  “She didn’t consider accessory and obstruction a big deal?” David said.

  “No, not really. She basically said that Kagan was an idiot for expecting her to tattle on her boyfriend. David, you’ve been here a lot longer than I have. How entitled do all these rich kids see themselves? And you all should know, kids consider adults the enemy in many ways.”

  Steven nodded. “Their societal norms and adult societal norms are two circles that don’t completely overlap. Even when they understand what society’s laws, morals, and ethics are, and the reasons behind them, it doesn’t mean such things apply to them personally.”

  “Exactly. I had to remind her that no matter what else was going on, Joshua Tupper is dead. Yes, I understand that she didn’t immediately call the cops to report it, but she couldn’t expect everyone to ignore it. It just turns my stomach that someone killed her, though.”

  “But if you’re right, and she was murdered,” David said, “who is your suspect? Corey? I mean, with her dead, there’s no witness to Tupper’s killing.”

  I shook my head. “He’s basically confessed, but says it was self-defense. And they have enough evidence that they don’t need her statements. In fact, he’s just lost the only witness in his favor. I think it goes back to the recovery of Kavanaugh’s computer and that damned book.”

  “The mythical grimoire,” David said.

  “Yes, but I’m starting to think that wasn’t the reason Kavanaugh was killed.” I considered telling them my suspicions, but it really wasn’t fair since I had no proof.

  “Back to the jealous lover theory?” Kelly asked.

  “Jilted woman,” I said. “I’m beginning to think the book was stolen by someone other than his killer.”

  “Who do you think knew he had it?” David asked.

  “I think Lowell Carragher knew, or at least suspected, and I’m beginning to think Agnes, Helen, Ophelia, and Emma knew. I think he bragged. Emma and Lia told me about some major arguments he had with Agnes and Helen just before he died.”

  “If that’s the case,” Kelly said, “then Helen or Emma would be the logical choices for who has it.”

  “As well as the logical choices for who killed Ophelia,” Steven said.

  “And the next logical targets for our English grimoire hunters,” I said. “One thing for certain, if it falls into my hands, I’m dumping it on someone else like a hot potato. The damned thing’s cursed, whether it’s real or not.”

  To my mind, Ophelia’s killing took the whole mess at Wicklow up another notch. Either she had the grimoire and someone killed her for it, or someone thought the girl knew too much about at least one of the other murders. A third possibility could have been blackmail.

  Ophelia’s ethics were a little too loose for me. I knew that rich kids were used to their parents buying their way out of trouble. I was all too familiar with their feelings of invulnerability. Some of the spells they attempted every semester always left me shaking my head in disbelief.

  The girl’s murder seemed to place the killer on campus, but I wanted to be sure. There were two people off campus I needed to talk to.

  The bus let me off a block from Lowell Carragher’s bookstore. As far as I could tell, none of Peterson’s London crowd were standing around watching either the bus stop or the store, but who knew what spells they might have sprinkled about.

  “Well, it is my lucky day!” Lowell said when I walked into the shop.

  “Not necessarily. Wicklow’s on a roll that would make Agatha Christie blush. Another murder at the college.”

  “And of course, the first thing you thought of was to come here and accuse me of it.” His grin and a wink let me know he was joking.

  “I’m not the accusatory sort,” I said. “Did you sneak onto campus earlier today and murder a coed? Steal her grimoire? Plant pot seeds in her apothecary project? Enquiring minds want to know.”

  He chortled. “You make it sound like fun. Instead, I’ve been here trying to figure out why in the world this terrible book has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.” He held up a copy of a best seller I had seen the author parade through all the TV shows before I arrived at Wicklow College and discovered television no longer existed.

  “Okay, then have you fenced a copy of the Gambler Grimoire this afternoon?”


  “Just a moment, let me check. I’ve been so busy with people attempting to sell me mythical artifacts, I haven’t had time to see what exactly I spent my money on.”

  He took a deep breath, and his face took on a more serious expression. “Seriously? Another murder? Anyone I know?”

  I shook my head. “I sort of doubt it. A graduate student named Ophelia Harkness. She was found hanged in the greenhouse.”

  He studied my face. “Not suicide?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “You know, I checked up on you.”

  “It seems a number of people are entertaining themselves that way. Not hard to do. I’m using my real name.”

  “I noticed. Whereas most people I know spent their youth partying and traveling, you worked as an investigator for the Witches’ Council.”

  “I was always a creative child. Why misspend my youth in a conventional way? Besides, the Council paid for me to travel and party. A mutually beneficial arrangement, although they tended to send me to places I wouldn’t have frequented if left to my own inclinations. How well do you know Helen Donnelly?”

  “Well enough. We dated in our early twenties. Good apothecary, decent alchemist. Very good accountant. Why?”

  “In the days prior to his death, Brett Kavanaugh had a couple of major rows with Agnes Bishop and Helen Donnelly. I’m wondering if the arguments might have had something to do with the Gambler Grimoire. And is there a woman in this town you haven’t dated?”

  Lowell cocked his head to the side, and his face assumed a thoughtful expression. “I could see Agnes reacting to such magic. Rather a puritan, in some ways. Truly someone who thought of magic as a religion, and a devotee of the Earth Goddess. Helen, no. Any fights she had with Brett were probably over his love life, and the fact she wasn’t in it. She never got over him.”

  “Did you know that he had a purported copy of that grimoire?”