Bound for Magic (The Tortie Kitten Mystery Trilogy Series Book 1)

by Constance Barker

  His voice faltered. We walked to the end of the block.

  “Monsters?” I interjected.

  Remy looked away. We were standing at the terminus of West 9th, where the attack occurred, where the animal fled, dropping its human prize.

  “Tell me about your monster, Remy.”

  He didn’t meet my eyes. “Frankly, I don’t know much about it. It’s a family curse, going back to the Spanish colonization of Africa in the 1800s. Some jungle dust-up between soldiers and Arab slave traders.”

  “I thought you were Salvadoran.”

  “Tracts of land were awarded for slaughtering Aztecs and Incas.” Remy shrugged. “The Zelidons used to be a Spanish military family before we became Salvadoran farmers.”

  We started down Buitre Creek.

  “Mama says it was cute when I was a baby, and the moon turned full,” Remy went on. “But the family’s had a couple hundred years to learn how to deal with it. I don’t even know what I shift into. Mostly, I don’t shift at all. There are herbs I take. I found some other remedies when I was in pharmacy school, like colloidal silver.”

  The house loomed at the end of the street. Diminished moonlight threw the porch in shadow. With a creak, the dog door opened. I could see Ugly’s judgmental eye-shine. “What happened this time?”

  “State inspection next week. It’s got me all stressed out. They’re pretty tough on me, since Leo was busted for drugs. I’ve been working day and night, getting paperwork in order, doing inventory. The full moon just slipped my mind. So I... changed.”

  Remy was right about Delta Vista. Had this conversation occurred anywhere else in the world, I would recommend emergency psychological counseling. But here, with the moon beating down on the creepy house, the spooky, staring cat, the wind in the palms and the river’s distant murmur... “Do you remember anything?”

  “Just the fragments of a nightmare. My place was busted up when I woke the next morning. Then I heard about the woman, the animal.” He shook his head. “If it was me, I’ll face up to it. I can claim diminished capacity or something.” His hand stole to the blood-stained sleeve.

  If he claimed he changed into an animal, he could go with an insanity plea. But the angst that warped his face tugged at my heart. Remy was a good guy. Good looking. We stood only a foot apart.

  I side-nodded toward the house. “This is me. You wanna come in?” I was surprised by the husky tone of my voice. Remy had nearly admitted to killing a woman. Yet the pull was still there, the handsome, rough features, full lips, strong jaw blued with the need to shave. I was pretty sure the prom night prematurity was a thing of the past.

  His amber eyes searched mine for a moment. Remy moved a little closer. But then he caught sight of the house. “You live there, in the haunted house? Why?”

  “It’s not haunted.” Actually, I hadn’t been there long enough to know for sure.

  “Maybe another time,” he said. “In the daylight. I have to get ready for the inspectors.”

  Remy hurried off down the block. He hadn’t even gone in for a quick peck on the cheek. “House,” I said, facing the leaning, dark pile. “You suck.”

  Chapter 8

  You live there, in the haunted house? Why?

  I lay in the sleeping bag, looking at the cracked plaster of the ceiling. If Remy had taken me up, what would we be doing? Sitting in folding chairs at the card table, eating microwave food? Rolling around on this sleeping bag on a hardwood floor? I’d saved myself from mortification. My impoverished lifestyle was best kept hidden.

  On the flip side, I hadn’t been in a relationship in two years. Maybe a few bruises would’ve been worth it. My lack of a love life might even be coloring my judgement. Shen and I should’ve brought Errol Smith in for questioning. But I was attracted to him, without a doubt. He had a nice smile. He looked good and smelled good, and seemed like a good dad. Good parenting skills were always a turn-on for me. This, I realized, was counterproductive because usually good dads a) had kids and b) were married and thus unavailable or divorced with baggage. Was it the unavailability that attracted me? It could just as likely be the baggage, I thought.

  Urging sleep to take me before depression could, instead, I was set upon by more memories.

  AFTER THE CAMARO REPO, I took the shame train to my accountant’s office. Gus was a gruff old guy who smoked on his fire escape. Though it wasn’t tax season, files stacked up on all available horizontal surfaces, including the chairs and the floor.

  “What’s the problem, Miss Garcia?”

  “I don’t have any money.”

  He grinned at me with nicotine teeth. “Join the club.”

  “No, I mean, I should have money. In the bank. I make good money. But it’s gone. The bank tells me that I’m behind on my mortgage and home equity loan, and there’s nothing in my checking or savings account.”

  “Why did you take out all those loans? Didn’t we get that place paid off for you?” In addition to the stacks of files, Gus also had several dozen filing cabinets. He pulled open a drawer and grabbed my paperwork. “Yeah. This was all done and dusted.”

  “I didn’t take out any loans. My car just got repossessed!” Panic set in. I caught myself before I started screaming.

  He turned to his computer, the monitor sitting on a stack of files, and typed. Gus checked the numbers and typed them from my file. Bushy brows raised, then lowered into a scowl. “This all happened yesterday.”

  “Yesterday I was working.”

  His eyes narrowed as he scanned the screen. “Your retirement is still intact. No activity there. Huh. Let me call the bank. This has to be a mistake.”

  “Maybe I should talk to them myself.”

  He flicked his eyes from the screen. “You’re a cop, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re carrying a gun?”

  “Always.”

  “Let me talk to the bank. I speak bank-ese. This is some major kinda snafu here. From the way the loans were applied for and dispersed...” He shook his head and frowned at the screen. “Let me talk to the bank. Come back tomorrow morning.”

  “Tomorrow morning?” I was shouting. Taking some breaths, I said, “I don’t have a car, and I need to work. I can’t buy lunch. I had to dig change out of the couch to take the bus here. This is illegal. Someone stole all my money!”

  “That’s why I’m asking you to let me call the bank. From where I’m sitting, this doesn’t look illegal at all. Unusual, sure. It’ll take some time.”

  I agreed to wait, and not storm into the bank. My shouting, I’m sure, would elevate into ‘call security.’ So I got a ride to the station, signed out an unmarked car, and headed back home. When I pulled my fireproof box from under my panties, I was shocked.

  For emergencies, I kept two thousand bucks in there. Twenty one hundred dollar bills. Now, I was looking at forty-three dollars and seventeen cents. I never kept bills other than C-notes; certainly not a dime, a nickel and two pennies. I found a flat, yellowed slip of paper under one of the twenties. Four words were scrawled in red:

  First Payment Plus Fees

  It was signed with a squiggly sigil inside an upside-down triangle. In tiny print in the lower left corner, it said: Soul Brokers.

  HOW I MANAGED TO SLEEP, I didn’t know. It seemed like I nodded off for second before my phone alarm went off. The case put us back on days. My brain wasn’t on a day schedule. I struggled to the bathroom. I filled the tub and grabbed my toothbrush.

  The face in the mirror wasn’t mine.

  With a grunt, I jumped back. The other face, while sharing the expression of shock I felt, didn’t move away. Ugly made a squawk on the other side of the door. I jumped again, distracted. “I’ll feed you when I’m done!”

  Then, it was just me in the mirror, looking scared, bed-head, old sleeping shirt. I held the toothbrush and toothpaste in front of me like a weapon. For whatever reason, I opened the bathroom door. Ugly came in and hopped up on the closed toilet lid. Even thou
gh she stared at me with boggled eyes—did I feel a little safer with the company?

  I stripped and got in the tub. Ugly gave me a hypercritical once-over. My diet of comped diner food and frozen dinners wasn’t doing my skin or my figure any good. If I didn’t do something soon, I wouldn’t be able to sit my butt down in the tub.

  I considered exfoliating, but I didn’t have an exfoliator. My shampoo bottle made empty fart noises. I filled it with water and used the weak rinse to clean my hair. Distain showed in the cat’s eyes as I stood up and toweled off.

  There was half of my formerly frozen chicken fried chicken in the fridge. I eyed Ugly chowing down. Meow Mix looked more appetizing than the glop in the plastic tray. I nuked it and ate it anyway.

  “I think this house is haunted, Ugly.”

  The cat ate on, ignoring me.

  Outside, a car engine growled, getting closer. I grabbed my jacket. “Off to work. Be a good animal.”

  The undercover car idled at my curb. “What’s with the Babykiller? We’re working a case, not surveillance.”

  Shen got out and tossed me the keys. “She’s all yours, Garcia.”

  I missed my catch and fumbled around in the grass. “What?”

  “The guys in the bullpen were discussing how many rides you bummed from us. We all chipped in and bought this from impound. Figured it was cheaper than all the gas we use driving out to The Hammer.”

  “Oh, a Chrysler Cordoba of my very own?” It looked cleaner. Most of the graffiti was gone, although you could still read, very faintly, “rot in hell babykiller” on the hood.

  Shen got in on the passenger side. “City’s been trying to auction this off for years. It’s not that practical for stakeouts. We got it cheap. DMV paperwork’s in the glove box.”

  I headed toward the city, my driving herky-jerky. The huge old car had sensitive power breaks and roulette wheel power steering. “What’s with the babykiller thing, anyway?”

  “Belonged to a child murder suspect. CAP couldn’t prove he used this vehicle to lure children.”

  “This POS couldn’t lure rats if it was full of garbage,” I said.

  “Suspect put wraps on it. Cartoons, dinosaurs, superheroes, stuff like that. The press got word that we were looking at him pretty hard. Neighbors set the car on fire a couple times.” Shen shrugged. “It could use some paint.”

  “Jeeze. Did we get this guy?”

  “Before my time,” Shen said. “But since we have the car, I’m guessing we did.”

  Paperwork had grown overnight like mushrooms, contaminating our desks. Records found a home address for Jane Smith. I wrote a warrant. A post-mortem was scheduled for this afternoon. A judge had signed a search warrant for Errol Smith’s home and phone.

  “We’ll do both when the husband gets here,” Shen suggested.

  I grabbed Records’ report on Jane Smith. She had two sisters, one who lived in the area, the other living in Greece. Jane had earned an MA in Classics at University of the Valley. Her most recent employment was from two years ago. Capitol Construction, LLC, employed her as a riveter, as Errol had mentioned. “Lotta doors to knock on,” I said.

  Shen’s tongue stuck out the corner of his mouth as he filed pertinent documents in the purple chronological file. “Smith won’t be here for a couple hours. Plenty of time to toss the vic’s apartment.”

  “If you know an early-bird judge, I can e-mail the warrant,” I said.

  “Judy Erickson’s an insomniac,” Shen said.

  Twenty minutes later, we arrived at a low building on the border of City Center and Playtown, about a quarter mile from the airport. The live-in manager met us outside wearing a bathrobe and slippers. He was short and broad, a fringe of hair sticking up around his bald head. He handed me a master key. “Just slip it in the mail slot when you’re done. I’m going back to bed.”

  “How long has Jane Smith lived here?” Shen asked.

  “Less than a month. She paid for two. Listen, if you wanna ask me anything else, try me during business hours.” The manager wandered into the building. We followed, and took the stairs to apartment 201. Overhead, a plane took off, rattling the windows.

  Shen looked skyward. “Probably pretty cheap digs.”

  I put on gloves and unlocked the door. “No paper trail for the past two years,” I said. “She probably couldn’t afford much.”

  It was a studio, a fold-out sofa bed folded out, but neatly made. Furnishings were sparse, but compared to my house, well-appointed. Three suits hung in the closet, matching pumps on the floor. Jeans, T-shirts and unmentionables occupied a short dresser. There were two photos atop it. One depicted two little girls, younger versions of Electra and Ophelia Smith. The other showed three women, black hair and eyes. The person on the left was Jane Smith.

  “Family portrait?” Shen looked over my shoulder. “They almost look like triplets. Where do you think this was taken?”

  In the background, white buildings piled up on a hill beyond a growth of scrubby trees. “Greece, I guess. Maybe that’s where Jane has been for the past two years. She has a sister living there.”

  “We’ll get more when we talk to Nysa Galatas,” Shen said. “There isn’t much here.”

  “I think we’re done.” I took a last look at the photos on the dresser. There wasn’t much else to look at.

  Chapter 9

  “We’ll need your phone.” Shen pushed the search warrants across the table at Errol Smith. “There’s a team searching your house as well. We’re looking for communication devices, mostly.”

  Errol was dressed for work in a suit and tie. His skin flushed under a fresh shave. “You—what?”

  “This is a suspicious death case, Mr. Smith. We have to cover all the bases,” I said.

  His green eyes darted from Shen to me. “I need my phone for work.”

  “Are we going to find messages from you to your ex-wife, Mr. Smith?” Shen asked.

  “No.” Reluctance slowed his hand, but Errol retrieved his phone and passed it across the table. “You’ll find a message from her lawyer telling me there’s a hearing scheduled for the custody of my children. If you note the date of the message, it was sent a day before the hearing.”

  “They didn’t give you time to prepare.” Shen put the phone in a plastic evidence bag. “That would piss me off.”

  “I haven’t seen her for two years, and then she shows up in family court. There’s a stack of documents attesting to her sound mental health, her stability. She’s fine, she’s cured, she was never sick. I’ve seen the release forms before, the lack of diagnosis, the clean bill of mental health. And I’ve also seen her, apropos of nothing, get up from a restaurant table and attempt to destroy a parked car with the tableware. She’s not fit. Given my day in court, I could prove it.”

  While feeling sympathetic, I had to back Shen’s play. “But you married her, Mr. Smith. Dated her, married her, had children with her. Didn’t you have some inkling of her instability?”

  Smith took a deep breath. “Quirkiness. That’s what I put it down to. It made her even more attractive. On one of our first dates, she got up in the middle of a movie. She said she needed to run. I thought she was dumping me, rejecting me. I sat through the rest of the film, too embarrassed to go after her. Afterwards, when I went back to my car, she ran up to me. Her feet were bare, and filthy. She was dripping in sweat. I asked her what happened, was she all right. Without apologizing, she said when she needed to run, she ran.”

  “Pretty quirky,” I said.

  “There was one night, after we were first married, I came home and Jane wasn’t there. Around midnight, she showed up. She was covered with blood and gore. I thought she’d been in a car accident. Without saying anything, she took a shower. I followed her. There wasn’t a mark on her. But she had this look in her eyes, just, crazy. After she put on a robe, she opened a case of wine we’d received as a wedding present. She sat at the kitchen table and drank every bottle, one after the other. When she finished, s
he said we should order a pizza and watch some Netflix. She wasn’t sick, not even drunk, but she acted as if nothing had happened.”

  Shen and I shared a look.

  “I know,” Smith said. “Why did I stay with her. I loved her. We went to the doctor, who found nothing wrong. We went to specialists. Nothing. She did things that were utterly insane. But for the majority of the time, she was a normal, loving wife, loving mother, kept a steady job. We lived an idyllic life.”

  “Until you didn’t,” I said. Shen and I had read the police reports. The incidents Errol described didn’t match the bizarre behavior that had landed his ex-wife in jail, and in the state emergency mental health ward.

  Jane Smith had broken into an exhibit at the Sacramento Zoo, naked, and rode a giraffe, apparently trying to lead the tiny herd to freedom. Locally, she had tried to overturn an occupied police car by herself. Failing that, she caused significant damage to the vehicle until she was tased and brought to the state hospital. She had scaled the façade of the Cathedral of the Annunciation and smashed the stained glass windows. Or, at least, she smashed a few panes near the bottoms of the windows. Given that the act was, first, blasphemous, and second, could have brought hundreds of pounds of glass shards down on Jane, she was deemed suicidal. Still, she only spent a week in the state hospital.

  “The psychiatrists thought she suffered IED, Intermittent Explosive Disorder. But she never expressed the symptoms, the stages, of an impulse-control disorder, and not all of the incidents were violent. Jane went on the meds, saw a therapist three times a week. After every episode, I thought we had it under control.”

  “Until you didn’t,” I said again.

  Errol’s shoulders slumped. “I could deal with the incidents. Sometimes, they seemed like stunts. I didn’t divorce her from some spectacularly bizarre act. Her impulses sometimes led to abandonment. She would leave the girls and go for a run. Just like when we went to our first movie together. Sometimes she left the girls alone at home, which is bad enough. But she left them at school, off somewhere, forgetting to pick them up. When she left them in the park one day—that was it. I couldn’t have her around the girls anymore.”