Wardens of Wisteria (Wisteria Witches Mysteries - Daybreak Book 1)

by Angela Pepper

  He continued to say nothing. His pupils dilated and contracted wildly.

  Oops, I thought. I broke Bentley.

  By now, the other three bunny-suited people had gotten the body loaded into the zippered bag. They carted it outside, then closed the door behind them. Bentley and I were alone in the crime scene.

  I pointed my gloved finger at the cube and changed the topic back to the clue I’d found. “You wanted me to help, and I am helping. This little box is a clue. It means Ishmael was connected to the DWM.”

  His pupils returned to normal, and he nodded slowly. “It would appear that way.”

  “You’re not surprised he’s connected to the DWM?”

  “I’d be more surprised if someone in this town got murdered and wasn’t connected to the DWM.”

  He made an excellent point. We probably should have started with that assumption. Point taken for our next case, if there was one.

  My whole face tickled. I ducked my chin into my hood to catch another drip of sweat. “You know, they claim to be the good guys.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  The heat rose inside my suit. I was breathing heavily. The blood-stained wall seemed to be closer now than it had been a minute ago. My pulse whooshed in my ears. The temperature inside my bunny suit reached inferno levels. I felt bile coming up my throat.

  “Thank you for pointing out the cube,” he said evenly. “That was helpful.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said, swallowing hard to keep my stomach contents down. There was no ghost in the tiny apartment, yet there was a lingering energy. A malignant hatred that I could practically taste.

  “You can take a break now,” he said.

  “I don’t need one,” I lied.

  “Of course not.” He smirked. “But take one as a favor to me. I’d like to be alone in here for a moment.”

  “If that’s something you’d like to do, I suppose I could step outside for some fresh air.”

  “Thanks for doing that for me,” he said, still smirking.

  I walked to the door as slowly as I could manage.

  The air outside was just as hot as the interior of the apartment, but it smelled infinitely better.

  I pushed back my stifling white hood and took shelter under the welcoming shade of a tree.

  I hadn’t been enjoying the shady spot for long when I was joined by someone I’d never met before—the town’s coroner, Dr. Jerry Lund.

  Chapter 8

  I unzipped my suit to the waist to get some air circulation. I stood in the shade of a tree outside the garage apartment, enjoying the fresh air and debating whether I should cross the street and return to my house or go back into the crime scene. I kept glancing up at the tree branches, expecting to find a nosy wyvern demanding the inside scoop, but Ribbons either wasn’t around or wasn’t in the mood for boring human business.

  Something white emerged from the side of the garage and moved toward me. It was a short person in one of the crime scene bunny suits.

  “There you are,” the man said in a friendly tone, as though he knew who I was.

  “Hello,” I said to the man in an even tone. I didn’t know who he was, but he certainly wasn’t Bentley. Not unless the detective had shrunk a foot and become bow-legged.

  “You must be Riddle,” the man said.

  “If you insist,” I said with a smile. “Zara Riddle.”

  “That makes you the witch.”

  “I’ve been called worse.” I gave him a tight smile. Apparently, he was one of those in the know.

  “Lund,” he said, waving one green-gloved hand. “I’d shake your hand, but I’m not done collecting specimens.”

  “Lund,” I repeated. “And what are you?”

  He narrowed his eyes playfully. “Do you mean what, or who?”

  I shrugged, equally playfully. “Surprise me.”

  “I’m the M.E. The medical examiner. Jeremiah Lund. Some folks call me Jerry, but most folks call me Lund.”

  “Lund,” I said again. “Would that make you Dr. Lund?”

  “You can call me that. I am a doctor, yes, among other things.” He waved a gloved hand vaguely. “You can call me Doctor, but don’t call me Doc. It makes me feel like one of the seven dwarves. I may be vertically challenged, but I don’t have a white beard or glasses.”

  I fought a devilish grin. Now that he’d asked me not to call him Doc, the temptation to do so was almost overwhelming. Thanks to his height and his bow-leggedness, he really would have fit into a collection with six others.

  The man pushed back the hood on his white suit, giving me a better look at him.

  Dr. Jerry Lund, the medical examiner, was a short man, though not quite as short as one of Disney’s seven dwarves. He was round in the middle of his body, but with skinny arms and legs. He had a wide, heavy-looking head with soft features. His hair was fair and thin, damp and disheveled from the suit’s hood. His face was clean-shaven, and he had a very wide mouth with thick lips that gave him a bullfrog appearance. His eyes were wide-set, light-blue, and bulging. I was reminded of the victim’s bulging blue eyes; I swallowed hard, hoping the young man who’d met with such a grisly end hadn’t been a relative of Lund’s.

  I was about to ask him if he knew Ishmael, but he spoke first.

  “Bentley says you live across the street,” he said, amiably enough.

  “In the red house on the corner. I’ve lived here since March of this year. Almost four months. I’ve met a few neighbors, but I didn’t know the victim. Did you know him?”

  Lund’s large, soft features didn’t move much. “Greyson worked for the same organization that employs yours truly.” He was careful not to mention the DWM by name. “I worked with the kid.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  “No need to be sorry,” he said neutrally. “I knew him, but he wasn’t a friend. It’s a large organization.”

  “And how big is the organization?”

  “That depends.” He winked at me. “How long is a piece of string?”

  “Nice evasion. Do they teach all of you how to do that on your first day underground?”

  “Never mind my training.” He waved a hand. “You are the witch, right?”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “Great. Now, tell me what you need to channel the ghost. I’ll see that you get what you require. What’ll it be? A pound of flesh or a bucket of blood?” His bullfrog mouth twitched into a smile. “You want the heart? Don’t be shy. We’re all on the same team these days, it seems. I’ll set aside the heart for you.”

  “That’s a very generous offer, but I don’t need anyone’s heart.” At the mention of hearts, the rapid beating of my own caught my attention. Ever since it had been turned to stone and then back to flesh again by a gorgon, I had been sensitive to the topic of hearts.

  He looked me over. “If you don’t need any flesh to channel the dead, you must be as powerful as they say.”

  “Who’s been telling you I’m powerful? Not Bentley.”

  “The people we both work for.”

  I laughed lightly. “I don’t work for those people. I’m just a librarian.”

  “You’re just a librarian, you say.” He gave me a wide, bullfrog smile. “Does a librarian typically spend her Saturdays at blood-soaked crime scenes?”

  He had me there. “Today’s a special day,” I said slowly. “I came along to give Bentley a hand.”

  “Librarian or otherwise, it’s good that you’re around.” His expression grew serious. He blew a lank of damp hair out of his eyes. “Ms. Riddle, I want you to know that we all appreciate everything you’ve done for the organization. You—” His voice cracked, and his bulging blue eyes glistened. “You got rid of Bhamidipati, that flying sack of crap.”

  He meant Dr. Bhamidipati, whom most people called Dr. Bob. The DWM doctor had been violently dispatched of earlier that year. Sack of crap or not, the man wouldn’t be flying anymore. Or even breathing.

  Lund went on, s
eething through gritted teeth. “If I’d known what that monster was up to, and using our facilities, no less, I’d have ripped him apart myself.”

  “He was a bad man.”

  “Very bad. And thanks to that serum he created, he was also huge and powerful in his shifter form.”

  “What kind of bird was he, anyway? I swear he was bigger than a condor.”

  “He was a sparrow.”

  “Shut the front door!” I couldn't hide my surprise. “A sparrow,” I muttered in disbelief. “That must have been one strong serum. Do all the shifters at the Department take it to make themselves bigger?”

  “It's... not recommended. Dr. Bob was conducting some tests outside of the facility, overseas, and what few notes we've been able to locate have served as warnings.”

  “I guess the shifters can't pass for regular animals if they're three times the size they're supposed to be.”

  “Exactly.”

  I shook my head. “Dr. Bob was a super-sized sparrow.”

  “Magic and science make strange bedfellows,” Dr. Lund said, his eyes shining in a very mad-scientist manner.

  “Some things probably shouldn't get in bed with each other at all,” I said, sounding not unlike my overly cautious aunt.

  Lund blinked the sheen from his eyes. “It’s a shame there wasn’t much left of the giant sparrow's body for me to examine. I would have liked to have seen the effects the growth serum had on his internal organs. Also, I would like to have seen... what made him tick.”

  What made him tick? I didn’t know what the medical examiner meant, but I definitely got a sense of it from the way his gloved fingers twitched excitedly. I’d seen that same finger-twitch before. It happened at the library, when shipments of new releases arrived, and the librarians crowded around for the unboxing, fingers twitching in anticipation. To a coroner, cutting into a body must have been its own form of unboxing.

  Lund continued talking, squinting as he stared past the shade of the tree, into the sunny distance. “The dead share their secrets, if you know where to look.” Another finger-twitch. “But look who I’m talking to.” He focused on me again, looking upward. “Being a witch, you must know all about the secrets of the dead.”

  I shrugged. My instincts told me to divert the topic away from myself. “Dr. Bob sure didn’t help your organization’s reputation as,” I made air quotes, “the good guys, did he?”

  Lund scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He stepped closer to me so the big tree’s leaves shaded the blazing afternoon sun from his eyes.

  “Never mind,” I said. “I’m sure there are a lot of great people working at the department.”

  “A lot of great people, yes.”

  I decided right then to cast another fishing line. Information was hard to come by, and my new friend could be a helpful resource.

  “Great people such as Dr. Ankh?” I asked.

  His expression froze again. His wide mouth barely moved as he asked, “You know Dr. Ankh?”

  Did I know the necromancer who’d brought my mother back from death? Not very well, but I had shared a hot tub with her briefly.

  He pressed on. “How do you know about Dr. Ankh?”

  “She’s the one who showed me the DWM’s fancy little projection box,” I said lightly. “The same kind that Ishmael has in his apartment, by his television.”

  Lund’s posture relaxed as he exhaled. “Yes. Bentley pointed that out to me. As you might have guessed by now, Greyson shouldn’t have had the box in his residence.”

  “They’re not supposed to leave DWM premises.”

  Lund looked left and right. “Yes, well, some people believe the rules don’t apply to them.”

  “Such as Dr. Ankh?”

  He pressed his thick lips together in silence. I wasn’t going to get any more dirt on my mother’s savior.

  I asked, “Why do you suppose Ishmael Greyson had the device in his apartment?”

  He shrugged. “It might have been something as simple as watching unreleased movies. We have a subdivision that monitors mainstream media for potential security leaks. In fact...” He trailed off into a croaking sound. “No. I shouldn’t say.”

  “Ishmael Greyson worked for that department,” I guessed.

  Lund blinked up at me and then admitted, “He did. He was only a junior agent, so he filled in across a few departments. He reviewed media when he wasn’t needed in legal.” Lund narrowed his eyes as he gazed up at me. “You’re easy to talk to, Ms. Riddle. Is this a spell?” He withdrew a pen from an inner pocket and prepared to give it a click. It was a MPCG, a multi-pulse click generator. The agents used it as a defense against witch magic.

  I held my hands out innocently. “Just my natural charm, I swear. You can click your pen if you’d like.”

  He slowly put the pen away, unclicked. They had a limited number of charges. “I trust you,” he said. “For now.”

  “What about Greyson? Do you think he was up to something at the department that got him killed?”

  “He was clearly up to something. My final report is pending, but I believe we can rule out suicide.” He chuckled darkly.

  “And what do you have for motive so far? Any suspects?”

  “I’ll leave that part to you and Bentley. My specialty is the body.” More finger-twitching. “Finding out its secrets.”

  Curiosity got the better of me, and I had to ask the question burning on my mind. “Dr. Lund, if I may be so bold, are you talking about finding magic? Can it be found inside the body?”

  His eyes twinkled, catching the dappled sunlight beneath the tree. “There are signs, if you know where to look.”

  “I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that testing a body for supernatural powers is a bit... invasive?”

  Another bullfrog smile. “You could say that.”

  “Does this testing of yours involve chopping off the head?”

  He let out a staccato bark of laughter. “No, no, no,” he said. “Whoever did that to Ishmael Greyson wasn’t looking for anything.” He swiveled his head and looked around nervously. “However, I suppose it’s possible they were about to look for something within the body, but then you scared them off.”

  “Me? Are you suggesting the killer was still inside the apartment when I came by?” I didn’t ask the question that followed in my mind. Had the killer seen me? My skin prickled all over.

  “The killer might have still been around,” Lund said casually. “I’d put the time of death at 5:00 am. The body’s temperature had barely dropped when we arrived.” He stared at me, unblinking. “How was it you came to be on the victim’s stairwell shortly before dawn?”

  “His ghost paid me a visit at my house,” I said. “I thought you knew all about me.”

  “If it’s all the same, I’d like to hear your version.”

  “Okay,” I said, and then I repeated the whole story. Judging by Lund’s lack of reaction, he didn’t hear anything that surprised him. As I stepped back through the sequence of events, I remembered something I hadn’t mentioned to Bentley. How could I have forgotten?

  “There was a car that pulled out in a hurry,” I said.

  He showed interest in that fact. “That could be something.”

  Just then, Bentley emerged from the apartment, came down the stairs, and joined us under the tree.

  “Tell him about the car,” Lund said to me, nodding to Bentley, so I did. As for the license plate, I hadn’t caught the letters, but I was certain of the last four digits. “It was 5319.”

  Bentley asked, “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. It’s my favorite four-digit number.”

  The two sweaty-haired men in bunny suits exchanged a look.

  Lund said, “I’ll bite. You have a favorite four-digit number? Is it your bank card password?”

  “No,” I lied, making a mental note to change my password. “Here. It makes more sense if I show you. Paper? My purse is in Bentley’s car.” Lund produced a notebook and pen,
and gave it to me. I wrote 5319 in block letters. I flipped the paper over and held it up to the dappled light. “See how 5319 in reverse looks like it says PIES?”

  Bentley’s mouth opened with surprise.

  “Neat-o!” Lund exclaimed, peering closer at the paper. “Once you see it, you can’t un-see it. PIES.”

  “But more importantly, that’s enough to narrow it down and get a suspect from the plate, right?”

  Lund shrugged. “Like I said before, I’m happy to brainstorm, but I’m no detective. I’ll be busy digging through the victim’s entrails.” He gave me what started as a wink but turned into a blink, his eyelids out of sync with each other in a way that seemed amphibian. “For my coroner’s report,” he added dryly. “Not for my personal enjoyment.”

  Maybe just a little personal enjoyment, I thought. The man was passionate about his career.

  Bentley took the paper from me. “We’ll call this in to the station from the car,” he said, shifting his body to indicate we should be leaving now.

  “You don’t need my help for that,” I said. “I’ll get my purse, then I should probably walk across the street and return to my house.”

  Bentley raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you want to do?”

  “It’s what I should do. Ishmael might already be there in ghost form, sitting on my couch. If he’s not there, I could always find something to do in the house while I wait around for him.” I stuck out my tongue. “Like housekeeping, or laundry.”

  The detective narrowed his steely gray eyes. “You don’t strike me as someone who waits around for anything.”

  He was right. I hated the idea of doing laundry while waiting for a ghost. Particularly the part about doing laundry. Laundry was no picnic. I’d recently learned several spells for stain-removal and button-strengthening. But instead of making laundry a breeze, it had only increased the level of attention involved in doing that particular chore.

  “Waiting around sucks, but isn’t patience a big part of investigation?” I asked.

  “Patience, but not waiting around,” Bentley said.