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

by Constance Barker

  Once in the cul-de-sac maze, I drove carefully. Getting lost in here would no doubt run me out of gas. I found the right street, the right house, quickly. Errol answered the front door before I could knock. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, incongruous dress socks and a puzzled smile.

  “Has there been a development?”

  Damn, the guy was handsome. Out of his suit, you could see the contours of his broad shoulders, a ripple of muscle in his abdomen. A five o’clock shadow roughened the lines of his jaw. It took me a second to respond. “Oh. No. I’m dropping off your cellphone. We got the usual demand from your attorney. Everyone’s addicted to phones these days. They’re needed.” I was babbling.

  He took the phone. I handed him the release form to sign.

  “C’mon in. The girls are at a friend’s house. This has been a lot for us... C’mon in.”

  We sat in the living room on a well-worn couch. Errol searched for a pen amongst the scattering of crayons on the coffee table. I saw kid drawings, most of them depicting a dark-haired woman with a crown of leaves. Their mother, I thought.

  “I’m guessing the department doesn’t send inspectors to deliver phones,” Errol handed the signed form back.

  “Can you tell me about Jane’s sisters?”

  “A little. I’ve only met Eliana once, at our wedding. She lives in Greece on a farm of some kind, I think. Very old-fashioned, very Old World. She’s the baby, but she looks the oldest. Nysa is in town occasionally. She’s an antiques dealer, or antiquities, I guess. Ancient stuff. She’s a jet-setter, if there still is such a thing. Has places in France, Turkey, here in town. She loves to take the girls shopping, and buy them cute outfits. I mean, even as a single dad, I wouldn’t know where to get cute outfits, outside of Sears or Target. Nysa is a sophisticate, I guess you’d say.”

  “Did Jane and Nysa get along?”

  I got that adorable quizzical look again. “Funny you should say that. They were cordial to each other. Both of them are kind of cold, until you get to know them. I never saw them fight, but I never saw them hug. If the three of them didn’t look so much alike, you wouldn’t think they were sisters at all. A farmer, a world-traveling art dealer, and a construction worker—kinda weird the way things work out.”

  “Jane wasn’t always a construction worker. Why did she drop out of academia?”

  Errol hiked one shoulder. “I got the impression that the doctoral committee wanted her to make changes to her thesis. She didn’t want to. Besides, she enjoyed the riveting work, and it paid really well. She was happy. At least, when she wasn’t... crazy.”

  Sympathy welled in me, and I confessed. “I was with a crazy, risk-taker. The highs and lows, the stress of it all. You don’t even know how deep you’re in it until it’s over.”

  Errol assessed me with his eyes. “Would you like a glass of wine? I haven’t had one in years, but I got some on the way home today. The stress of it all, like you said. Or are you on duty?”

  “I’m not on duty. I was on my way home.” I hadn’t had anything to drink in a long time. It was one more expense I found I could do without. So I found myself accepting.

  “Hope you’re not a wine snob,” Errol got up and moved to the kitchen. I studied the snug fit of his jeans. Definitely not dad jeans. “I really don’t know much about wine, which is sad, since we live in wine country.”

  “Nope, not a snob.” I watched him take a bottle from the fridge, pour two glasses. “Chardonnay, pinot, box, whatever.”

  He handed me a long-stemmed glass and clinked his against mine. “I hope you find out what happened to Jane.”

  I drank to that. It was the kind of wine I liked, vaguely fruity, somewhere in the spectrum above bum wine from a gas station and less than twenty-five bucks. I sighed in appreciation. “I think I needed that.”

  Errol snuggled into the couch. “You know a lot about my crazy risk-taker. Tell me about yours.”

  “Murph never admitted to it, but he had a gambling addiction. He said he was a professional gambler, cards, horses, sports, dogs, whatever; that he had an inside track, a system, that he never took a chance against the house, blah-blah-blah, but the truth was, like all gamblers, sometimes he won big, sometimes he lost big.”

  “Murph?”

  “Patrick Murphy.”

  “If experience is any teacher, I’m guessing he hurt you. Like Jane hurt me, hurt our family. Not on purpose, maybe. But still selfishly.”

  Selfishly. Good word. Errol’s green eyes seemed to see inside me. That was my schtick.

  “In the aftermath,” Errol went on, “you just want to curl in on yourself. It’s like they had all the fun, and you get stuck with all the worries.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah!”

  He clinked his glass against mine again. “To survivors,” he said.

  “Survivors.” I drank. It had been so long, that warmth suffused my insides and my head went light.

  “You want more?”

  “I definitely want more.” He refilled our glasses. When he sat on the couch again, his knee brushed my thigh. Errol’s thoughts filled my head. I was both surprised and delighted by what he was thinking. It wasn’t far off from what I was thinking. I definitely wanted more. Although it was a bad idea, a really, really terrible idea, I moved closer to him. Our lips brushed. His breath quickened.

  We kissed again, more firmly, urgently. I let him push me down on the couch. Well, maybe I pulled him down. I threw my arms around his neck and drank him deeper than the wine.

  “GARCIA!” LIEUTENANT Dan’s shout stabbed into my brain. I hadn’t had that much to drink, but I was out of practice. “In my office!”

  I’d spent the morning writing paper for LERTs requests for Uber and LYFT. Law Enforcement Response Teams were generally helpful, as long as you had a signed warrant. Local taxi companies, because they had to be licensed, were generally even more helpful.

  Shen’s narrowed eyes followed me as I rose. He’d been oddly quiet all morning.

  “See if there are security or traffic cams that might’ve picked up Nysa and Jane near the courthouse. Maybe we can track the sister.”

  I noticed all the other inspectors watching me as I entered the loot’s office. Lt. Danielson glared at me. I closed the door. When I pulled out a visitor chair, he said, “Don’t bother.”

  “Loot?”

  “Tell me you’re not banging the prime suspect in the case you’re investigating.”

  Uh-oh. How had anyone found out?

  Danielson’s face heated. “I’ll take it from your silence that you are. We’ve been keeping an eye on him. That horrible Cordoba you own appears on four reports.”

  “Why didn’t I know Errol was under surveillance?”

  The lieutenant went a shade darker—maybe a little purpler. “You’re suspended, Garcia.”

  “What?”

  “How the hell can we prosecute this case now? You think a defense attorney will overlook your little dalliance with Errol Smith?”

  “He’s not the prime suspect. He didn’t do it.”

  “Expect a call from IA. If they clear you, I’ll put in your transfer. Maybe Traffic Division would suit you better.”

  “Traffic?” I sputtered. “Look, Lieutenant, give me the rest of the day, and I’ll bring in Jane Smith’s killer.”

  Disbelief rolled over his features like a dark cloud. “You think this is a movie? You think I’m supposed to say, ‘you have twenty-four hours’ and then that’s it? Jeeze-Louise, Garcia, you’re a seasoned detective. This whole case is tainted now. Errol Smith will be pulled in as a witness, regardless of who we pinch for this. And then the whole thing goes down the toilet. Every report you wrote, every witness statement you took, it’s not worth the paper it’s written on anymore. There’s a dead woman who won’t receive justice now. Send in Shen on your way out.”

  All eyes turned my way as I exited the lieutenant’s office, and then quickly turned to whatever was on the desk in front of them. All except Chuck She
n, who stared me down.

  “Sorry, Shen, I screwed the pooch,” I said.

  “Pooch wasn’t what I heard,” Shen said.

  “You got this,” I said. “You just need to track Nysa’s movements.” There wasn’t anything to collect from my desk. I hadn’t been here long enough.

  “The only thing I’m going to be tracking is seagulls at the Naval base,” Shen said. He handed me a folder. I didn’t know why, I was on my way out. I took it automatically. He eyed the post-it note. All it said was “See Burl Jefferson.” He motioned with his chin, trying to keep it on the down low.

  “Shen!” Lt. Danielson shouted from his office.

  “Good luck, Garcia,” he said, low.

  “Thanks, Chuck.”

  Chapter 12

  The CSU outbuilding was on the way to the garage anyway. I popped into Jefferson’s office. His expression was hang-dog, but he nodded at a report on his desk. “I heard. Not too smooth, Garcia.”

  “Did you call me in here to shame me, or what?”

  “We got the results before I heard, before the whole department heard—anyway, the DNA came back. We got a match from the epithelial cells in the broken tree branches.” He pushed the file toward me.

  “Jane Smith?”

  He sighed. “Her body passed through the branches of those trees on her way down.”

  “Purple binder,” I said.

  Burl just shook his head. “The science tells us that the impossible occurred. Find the impossible, and you solve this one.”

  I doubted I’d be solving anything anytime soon. “See you around, Burl.”

  “Why the hell did you put this case, your career, in jeopardy like this, Mare?”

  “Like you said, find the impossible. I didn’t have a fling with the impossible. He’s not involved in this.” Was I justifying my bad decision? No, I knew it wasn’t Errol. I knew Nysa was responsible. Still, it seemed I’d tossed my career in the Dumpster for a night of fun.

  “Must be nice to feel so confident,” Burl said.

  It would be, I didn’t say. Instead, I was confused. Why did it seem fine for me to sleep with a witness? A logical part of my brain was screaming how stupid that was. Up in the front of my brain, I felt justified somehow. Confident, like Burl said, but that made no sense. This was a suspicious death investigation. I had blown it, big time, biggest time, and yet...

  In the garage, I found Josephine Gustafson leaning against Babykiller, smoking. I didn’t think anyone in California still smoked. Her head angled inquisitively as I approached. “You feeling all right, Garcia?”

  Was she going to bust my balls, too? “Not so much.”

  Her blue eyes squinted, studying me. “Huh.”

  She still had a bandage around her arm, protecting the fresh tattoo. Her uniform accentuated her statuesque figure. I didn’t know many women who could look good in a police uniform. “I’m sure you heard the scuttlebutt. I’m going home.” The car was too old to beep open. I had to use the key.

  “You’re gonna be okay, Garcia,” Sgt. Gustafson unleaned herself. “One way or another. I’m pretty sure you’re here for a reason.”

  “If you come up with that reason, let me know, okay, Sarge?”

  Despite kicking myself for being an idiot, I wasted a lot of gas driving out to Bear Brook. Errol’s car wasn’t there, of course. He was at work. I was just hoping...

  What the hell was wrong with me?

  Later, I stood in the empty house. Empty houses usually meant something; a bad end, a fresh start, a new place. This house was simply empty. I looked at my card table and folding chairs. No TV. My phone was a drug store special, and I paid for minutes. No entertainment there. Maybe I could go to the library. There was that nice one in Bear Brook. Maybe Errol would bring the girls there after school. We’d meet up by chance, and have a nice afternoon, maybe dinner.

  Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!

  Ugly trotted up from whatever secret cat places she hid. Upon seeing me, she arched her back and hissed. Well, not so much hissed as made a choking noise. It sounded like “Ech!” which was also kinda how I felt.

  “Go chase your tail,” I said.

  “Eccck!” she said.

  Awesome. Now the cat that usually showed me distain, outside of feeding time, now seemed outright hateful. “I don’t want a cat, anyway. You’re too expensive. You eat every day.”

  With a final retch, Ugly ran off. I was alone again. Alone in an empty house.

  I’m pretty sure you’re here for a reason.

  I thought about the Animal Control sergeant’s words. Okay, in a sense, I was here for a reason.

  THE NIGHT AFTER MY finances were raided, the Angle Man appeared again. Frozen in my bed, I watched his shadow form on the wall, stretch upward, slant across the ceiling, arms sliding on opposite walls. Claw-like fingers extended and flexed. When its head was directly above mine, he spoke.

  Do we have a deal?

  “You said I had twenty-four hours.” I thought I sounded brave, by my voice in the quiet room sounded high-pitched and overly loud.

  The hour is nigh, Mary Elizabeth Garcia.

  “Look, I don’t wanna pay off Murph’s debts. And I’m pretty damn sure his soul isn’t worth my house, my car, my savings, and the emergency cash in my undies drawer.”

  His soul is not. The Angle Man’s green, glowing eyes formed crescents, as if he was smiling. While Patrick Michael Murphy’s soul is worthless and beyond our grasp, new arrangements have been made.

  “Is it my soul you want?” Did I have a soul? Raised Catholic, I was pretty sure I did, but I really wasn’t sure I was using it.

  Again, eye crescents. In reply, the gangly fingers of his right hand made a motion, thumb against fingers, the symbol for money. A bright glimmer appeared. The flat, shadow arm detached from the wall. Next to my bedside clock, flashing 12:00, Angle Man set something down with a light thump.

  It was a sphere, like a big soap bubble. Shadows moved within, gritty and grainy as an old movie. As I watched, a face formed. The big smile immediately tugged at my heart. Raspy and whispery, a song emitted from the sphere. A little girl singing.

  “Her soul?” Shards of fear cut through me, both frozen and fiery. “She’s just a little girl.”

  New arrangements have been made. The luminous green eyes locked with mine. If you reject the bargain, her soul will be forfeit. If you agree, we will arrange further payments in future.

  “What the hell kinda deal is this? This is Murph’s debt, go after him for it, not me, not her!”

  This is the closest thing to a soul that Patrick Michael Murphy possesses. Either you pay the debt, or we collect the soul. What is your decision, Mary Elizabeth Garcia?

  Was there even a decision to make?

  I REMEMBERED SHEN LEAVING Jane Smith’s thesis in Babykiller’s trunk. With nothing better to do, I went out and fetched it. Overhead, clouds had gathered. It would rain soon. The valley needed rain. It seemed the valley always needed rain, except in those rare El Nino years when the valley needed lots of boats.

  Sitting in a folding chair, I opened the bound manuscript on the card table. It depicted a history of the followers of Dionysus, arguing that these were the first feminists. These women, the Maenads, liked to run in the mountains, drink a lot, and party hearty despite protests of the men-folk. The name Maenad meant raving one. I could see how a woman like Jane could identify with these ancient gals.

  A knock fell on my door. I lifted my head from the manuscript. There was a little drool on it. The thesis wasn’t the most thrilling of reads. I rubbed the side of my face, which was surely imprinted by the edge of the pages.

  “Inspector Garcia.” My neighbor, Antonio Sanchez, stood on the saggy porch. His eyes darted every which way. From his rigid posture, it seemed he was ready to bolt at the slightest provocation. It took my sleep-slowed brain a moment to realize that the neighborhood considered this house to be haunted.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Sanchez?”
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  His brush of a mustache moved around a bit before words came out. “I was wondering if you heard anything about the investigation, the animal in my back yard.”

  “I’m sorry, but the case is in federal jurisdiction. They’re not big on sharing with local law enforcement.” For Mr. Sanchez’ sake, I stepped out onto the porch and shut the door. Beneath my feet, the boards felt weak.

  Even as our footing became precarious, Sanchez seemed more at ease as we walked into the street. “What I really want is my gun back,” he said. “In case the nagual returns.”

  “The what?”

  He gave me a look. “Nagual. Oh, you’re not Mexican, are you?”

  My father’s side of the family headed to these parts in 1850, along with the zillion other men looking for gold. “Nicaraguan,” I said, “But a long time ago.”

  “Nagual, it’s, uh, you know, like the movies, el hombre-lobo.”

  El hombre-lobo? My below-average Spanish kicked in. Wolf-man. “Werewolf?”

  “Sí, sí. What other thing could carry a woman over a fence? We get them here more often since the golf course closed. People use it as a dog park now. I think, why not take your own inner dog to the park to run around?” He shrugged. “It would be good to have a gun, no?”

  Chapter 13

  Under darkening, gray skies and a wind that smelled of rain, we stood in the Sanchez’ backyard. He was pointing at the garbage cans. Remy was sure he changed into some kind of animal under the full moon. I’d heard stories growing up, abandoned farms haunted by half-goat, half-men. There were supposed to be large, black panthers that prowled the almond orchards east of town. Then, there was Josephine Gustafson, a sergeant in charge of Animal Control that was headquartered on the command floor at DVMPD. Talk about nuisance animals.

  Curious, bored, and edgy about the future of my career, I figured I might as well investigate this. Sure, the feds had taken it over, but both Antonio Sanchez and Remy Zelidon were feeling afraid.