Lachlan came back with the melons. Together, we chopped those up too.
Then we slid those onto Wyatt’s placemat. Wyatt grinned at us. “Dadadadada,” he pronounced.
“That’s me,” said Lachlan.
I rolled my eyes. He wasn’t actually saying words, he was just making noise, but let Lachlan think what he wanted.
Then Wyatt picked up a piece of melon.
“Put that in your mouth, sweetie,” I said.
Wyatt threw it on the floor.
I sighed.
Lachlan sighed.
Neither of us had even had a chance to get food for ourselves yet. “You go through the buffet,” I said. “I’ll stay with Wyatt, and then we’ll switch.”
“No, you go first,” he said.
“You sure?”
“Positive,” he said.
I got up and headed for the buffet. I quickly filled my plate and headed back to our table.
Ophelia was there, kneeling next to Wyatt’s high chair and talking to him. “…there, you big, big boy. Oh, you’re so cute, yes you are. You’re just the cutest little thing that I ever did see. Did you know that? I bet you did, little man. I just bet you did.”
I grinned, listening to her coo at my son. “Hey, there, Ophelia.” I set down my plate.
“Good to see you, Penny.” She got up and gave me a big hug.
“Good to see you, too,” I said.
She released me. “How have you been?”
“Oh, you know, totally exhausted, but really, really happy,” I said. I turned to Lachlan. “Go get food.”
He loped off toward the buffet.
I turned back to Ophelia. “Um, actually, there was something I wanted to ask you about.”
“Sure thing,” she said. “What is it? Something magical?”
“Am I that predictable?” I said, laughing.
“You’re not predictable, child, but it’s the one thing that I can help you with. You’ve got pretty much everything else under control.”
“Oh, I don’t,” I said. “I really don’t.”
She patted me on the shoulder. “You’re doing much better than you think you are. Trust me. So, what’s this you’d like to ask me?”
“Well, it’s about Lachlan,” I said, and I ruffled Wyatt’s hair. He was eating his toast with gusto. He liked toast. “He gets worried about… I don’t know, about not having magic if he doesn’t drink my blood, which he doesn’t always do. He worries about Wyatt, not being able to protect him. Anyway, I thought maybe a powerful talisman might put his mind at ease?”
“A talisman as powerful as drinking dragon blood? That’s a tall order. It’s definitely out of the scope of my capabilities.”
“Well, I could provide artifacts,” I said. I would take them from my ancestor’s tombs, as was tradition amongst my people.
“Even with powerful artifacts, I don’t know if I could do it,” she said.
“Oh,” I said. “Too bad.”
“I might be able to find someone who could do it, though,” said Ophelia. “Let me ask around my circles, and I’ll get back to you.”
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”
Lachlan was back with a plate full of food now. He sat down. “What are you two talking about?”
“A talisman for you,” I said, sitting down too. “So that you’ll feel like you have enough magic to protect Wyatt.”
He cocked his head to one side. “Really? You’re looking into that for me? Thanks.”
“I can’t do it,” said Ophelia. “But I’ll find someone who can. We have to keep this little man safe.” She knelt down by Wyatt and made a silly face at him.
Wyatt giggled.
* * *
Rowan Lynch was stacking her dishes into the dishwasher. “Sorry about this. If I don’t do it now, I won’t do it at all, and the dishes will just sit in the sink all day.”
“It’s all right,” said Lachlan.
“Fine,” I said. We were standing in her kitchen, both of us watching her put away dishes.
“So,” she said, putting in a bowl and a coffee cup, “you two are investigating Beckett’s murder?”
“That’s right,” said Lachlan. “We wondered if we could talk to you about your relationship with him.”
“Oh, of course,” she said. “We hadn’t had a romantic relationship in quite some time, of course. I knew him a long time ago. I met him at one of those rallies back about ten years ago.”
“You go to gargoyle rights rallies?” said Lachlan.
“Well, it wasn’t only about gargoyle rights,” she said. “It was a rally for civil rights no matter of race, gender, species, sexual orientation. All that jazz.” She smiled at us. “That’s a good cause. One dear to my heart, I know.”
“So, after this rally, the two of you started dating?” I said.
“Oh, not exactly,” she said. “He wasn’t the sort of man who did that. Dating. And anyway, he’s a gargoyle, and they have a completely different culture. Poor man didn’t know any different. In gargoyle culture, a man is contributing to the community by mating with the women. Nothing else is required of that interaction. So, that’s what Beckett knew. That’s what Beckett did.”
“You’re saying it was a one night stand,” I said.
“I wouldn’t put it that way. I didn’t feel as if he stood me up or if he hurt me in any way. I was grateful for our time together. I loved him in my own way for that. And it didn’t even occur to me, not until about two years ago, when I ran into him at work, that he might be interested in knowing his son.”
“Wait, what?” said Lachlan. “His son?”
“Oh, yes,” said Rowan. “You see, I gave birth to Beckett’s son after that little encounter.”
“But you never sought him out?” I said. “Not even to tell him you were pregnant?”
“Well, gargoyle women don’t seek out men to tell them,” she said.
“No,” I said, “but gargoyle women have their entire family to help out with the pregnancy—their mothers and sisters and brothers.”
“Sure,” she said. “But I did okay for myself without him. And anyway, I didn’t know how to get in touch with him.”
“Surely you could have found a way,” said Lachlan. “He’s a public figure.”
She shrugged. “I didn’t. Is it really so unbelievable?”
Neither of us answered.
“Well, anyway,” said Lachlan, “you said you met him again two years ago.”
“That’s right,” she said. “I was working at a bank. By chance, it happened to be Beckett’s bank, and he came to my window one day. He remembered me right away, which I hadn’t expected. When I told him about Harlem, he asked if he could meet him.”
“Harlem is your son?” said Lachlan.
“Yes, that’s right,” said Rowan, smiling. “Apparently, Beckett wanted a relationship with his little boy. And so, I was able to arrange for them to visit each other, and Harlem was able to have a father. It turned out well for everyone. Now, of course, I wish I would have sought out Beckett back when I had just discovered I was pregnant. But who knows how that would have worked? Maybe he wouldn’t have been as receptive back then. Maybe he needed to grow a bit and to realize that he wanted to leave behind some kind of legacy.”
“So, you and Beckett see each other regularly now?” I said.
“I don’t know if I’d say that exactly,’ she said. “But we saw each other often enough.”
“He had regular visitations with Harlem?” asked Lachlan.
“Nothing… scheduled,” she said. “If Beckett wanted to see him, he’d get in touch with me, and then I’d take Harlem to meet him.”
“But you didn’t take Harlem to the hospital with you the night of Beckett’s death?” said Lachlan.
“Oh, no, I didn’t. That wasn’t some kind of visitation. I was simply going to see him. He was ill, and I wanted to bring him flowers and cheer him up, that kind of thing.” She considered, loading a plastic cutti
ng board into the dishwasher. “I suppose it would have been nice if Harlem had been with me. Then he would have had a chance to see his father one last time.” She looked into the sink, but all the dishes had been loaded, so she shut the dishwasher.
“How did he seem when you arrived?” said Lachlan.
“Oh, I don’t know. A bit tired, but otherwise okay,” she said.
“You were the last person to enter his room before his death,” said Lachlan.
“I was?” She looked a bit alarmed. “You mean, when I was talking to him, someone had already injected him with that horrid drug?”
“Must have,” said Lachlan. “Unless…”
“Unless I did it, you mean.” She crossed the room to her kitchen table and gestured to the chairs. “Have a seat. Sorry. I should have offered you seats before. I didn’t mean to be rude.”
We all sat down.
“I realize that you have to check out everyone,” she said. “So, I guess it makes sense that I’d be on the list of suspects. But I didn’t kill him. I had no reason to. I only ever had good experiences with that man.”
A voice called out from the depths of the house. “Mom?”
“What is it, Harlem?” she called back.
“Where are my new jeans?” the voice called back.
“Have you checked the dryer?”
“No,” said Harlem, and his voice sounded closer. Then he appeared in the doorway of the kitchen. He was a tall and lanky ten-year-old wearing pajamas with baseballs all over them. He looked human for the most part. His eyes were gray. His skin was pale. And he was moving around in the daylight, which was something that gargoyles couldn’t do. But he had wings. Big, gray wings.
“Well, go check the dryer, then,” said Rowan. “I’d help you look, but I’m talking with these detectives from the police department.”
“Whoa,” said Harlem. “You guys are really police detectives? Do you have badges?”
“I’m a detective,” said Lachlan, showing the kid his badge with a grin. “Penny here is a consultant.”
I waved, smiling at him too.
Harlem scrutinized the badge. “Whoa,” he said again.
“Go on, Harlem,” she said. “Go look for your pants.”
“Can’t I stay here?” he said.
“No, because they’re talking to me,” she said. “It might not be things that are okay for children to hear.”
“Actually,” said Lachlan, getting up, “we’re probably done here, for now. We might have some more questions for you at some point, Ms. Lynch, but for right now, I think that’s all we need.”
* * *
“Okay,” said Lachlan, staring at the whiteboard he’d pulled over next to his desk. “So, I’ve got pictures and magnets. We just need to decide what order to put the suspects up there.”
“Wait,” I said, “who are the suspects again?”
He shot me a funny look. “You kidding me? You don’t remember?”
“I think it might be useful to run through it all again. Stick them up there and then we can move them around.”
He shrugged. “All right, fine.” He picked up the first photograph and stuck it to the whiteboard with magnets. “We’ve got Paloma, the niece.”
I squinted at her. “And her motive?”
“Nothing we know of yet, but she was with him all the time. People who spend that much time together end up hating each other.”
“They do not,” I said. “Not always. We spend lots of time together. We work together. We eat together. We sleep together. We don’t hate each other.”
He grinned at me. “Well, that’s because you’re so damned pretty, though. Makes you impossible to hate.”
In spite of myself, I blushed a little. “Shut up,” I told my shoes.
He chuckled. “Next, we have Dashiell, the son.” He slapped that photo up on the whiteboard.
“Right,” I said. “He’s obviously angry about lacking his father in his life when he was young.”
“Maybe he snapped,” said Lachlan. “Maybe he couldn’t take it anymore. Saw that storage room, with the door open and grabbed the syringe.”
“Which reminds me,” I said. “Shouldn’t we be asking these people if they have knowledge of that drug. Because how would they know if it was going to kill him?”
Lachlan considered. “Yeah, I guess that doesn’t tend toward a crime of passion, does it?” He nodded at his computer. “Google ‘drug that makes it look like a heart attack.’”
Dutifully, I sat down at the computer and typed in the query. The results popped up. “Uh, it’s the first search result.”
He nodded. “So, the information is readily available, but it points to premeditation. The killer would have had to have known that the storage closet was there and accessible and that the drug would be there before he or she picked it up and used it against Beckett.”
“So, if it’s the first hospital visit for any of our suspects, we could cross them off,” I said.
“Good point,” said Lachlan. “We’ll have to check that out.”
“Next suspect?” I said.
“Um…” He fished another photograph off the table. “Here we go. It’s Samuel Jacobs, the human supremacist turned vampire.”
“Motive is that he hates gargoyles,” I said. “Even though he claims he doesn’t. However, he won’t let us see what’s in his phone records, so he might be hiding something.”
Lachlan used a magnet to stick Samuel up there. “No opportunity to commit the crime unless he paid someone to do it.”
“Which brings us to Sierra,” I said, handing him her photograph. “You have a chance to dig into her story yet? See if she’s lying about anything?”
“Nah, I haven’t gotten around to it,” said Lachlan. “Maybe this afternoon.” He put Sierra up on the board and picked up the last photograph. “And that leaves Rowan, the ex-lover and mother of his half-gargoyle/half-human child.”
“She seemed really cheery about the fact that he abandoned her and left her to raise a child on her own,” I said.
“Right?” said Lachlan. “Who’s that zen about that, even knowing that gargoyle culture is different?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “So, she might have done it just to get back at him. Revenge for abandonment.”
“And if she did it, she wouldn’t want us to think she was angry with him.”
“No, she wouldn’t,” I said.
Lachlan took a step back and surveyed the board.
I took a step back too.
“So,” he said, “who should we put at the top of the list?”
“Uh… for me right now, it’s probably Dashiell,” I said.
“Yeah, I’m thinking he could have done it,” said Lachlan, moving Dashiell up to the top of the board. “He’s got a lot of anger under the surface. But I’m also thinking Rowan.”
“Yeah, I’d agree with that too,” I said, moving her up next to Dashiell.
We both stared at their photos.
“You like either one better than the others?” said Lachlan.
I shrugged. “I don’t feel like we know enough yet.”
“No, I don’t guess we do.” He stroked his chin. “Who’s next?”
“Sierra,” I said.
“You still think she’s guilty.”
“I have a feeling about her,” I said. “She’s not my top pick, but she’s up there.”
“No way,” said Lachlan.
“Who’s next for you, then?” I said.
“Paloma,” he said. “She was super hostile to us.”
“Maybe because she’s grieving?” I said. “Maybe because she’s had it tough growing up as a gargoyle?”
“Maybe,” said Lachlan.
“Well, so we put those two next, then,” I said.
“If you think it’s Sierra, though,” he said, “then you also think it’s Samuel. Someone had to pay her, right?”
I wrinkled up my nose. “Well, I don’t think it’s him. I mean, asi
de from the fact he’s hiding his communications stuff from us… Could someone else have paid her off?”
“Someone like who?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Let’s put all three of these guys under Dashiell and Rowan,” he said. “So, we’ve got two levels of suspects. It’s a starting point.”
“Sure, fine,” I said.
He rearranged the pictures. Next to the top level, he wrote, “Top Suspects.” Next to the bottom level, he wrote, “Lower Priority.” He set down the marker in the tray under the board and turned toward his desk. “Oh, hey, there’s Tom.”
“Tom?” I said.
“Yeah, prosecuting attorney,” said Lachlan. “I know him a little. I was going to ask him about the stuff with Eaglelinx and the zoning.”
“Would a criminal attorney know about that kind of thing?” I said.
“Can’t hurt to ask, right?” said Lachlan, setting off after Tom.
* * *
We took a long lunch that afternoon, which was something we liked to do. We’d go home and spent an hour and a half or so with Wyatt, Vivica, and Jackson. Sometimes Vivica and I would cook. Sometimes Lachlan and I would bring home takeout from someplace. Both Wyatt and Jackson were doing some table food at this point—obviously, Wyatt was doing a bit more than Jackson—so Lachlan and I decided to bring home some pizza. If we cut it up into tiny bites, the boys would eat some of it. They both loved pizza already.
“So,” said Vivica, “how’s your murder case coming?” We were all gathered around the table in my kitchen. The boys were in high chairs, smearing cheese and tomato sauce all over their cheeks and we adults were getting greasy fingers too.
“It’s coming,” I said. “We’ve got a whiteboard. We’ve got suspects.”
“I even called Sierra to ask if it was anyone’s first visit,” said Lachlan.
“You did?” I said. “When?”
“After I talked to Tom,” said Lachlan. “She said that all three of them had come in a few times before that.”
“Even Rowan? She made it sound like that was her first trip in, don’t you think?”
Fire Brand (City of Dragons Book 6) Page 6