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

by Constance Barker

  “She sure behaved like a Maenad. Thrill-seeking, odd behaviors and stunts. I wouldn’t be surprised if her death wasn’t a result of her acting out. She always seemed to be seeking attention, or approval; but from whom, I have no idea.”

  “Maybe Dionysus,” I said.

  Alice cracked a smile. She nodded to a chair. “Maybe. What did you find absent from her very long, very dry dissertation, Inspector?”

  “There’s a lot glorifying the Maenads, exalting girl-power or whatever. I’m no scholar, but there isn’t a whole lot about Maenads on Google. If they were all that, why don’t we hear about them more today? Obviously, aside from the patriarchy, something must have stood in their way.”

  The professor gave me an assessing look. “Precisely why the board wanted changes made to her dissertation before we accepted it. There were several, obviously patriarchal, enemies of the Maenads. That is, the human worshippers of Dionysus, not the mythical nursemaids. Jane wrote about the Maenads’ dancing and whooping it up turning armies away, their manual, group sacrifices of bulls, a symbol of the god. She doesn’t mention that the Maenads themselves were done in a number of times. Chiefly, by Lycurgus.”

  I shook my head. “Not ringing a bell.”

  “It shouldn’t. Lycurgus was an otherwise boring mythological king of Thrace. A total misogynist. Had trouble with the Amazons as well as the Maenads. Talk about the patriarchy—this is your guy. He drove Dionysus and his minions from Thrace, forcing them to take shelter under the sea in a grotto.”

  “A king chased a god away? How did he do that?”

  “Supposedly, with an ox-goad.”

  What the hell was an ox-goad? She read my expression.

  “An ancient equivalent of a cattle prod. Ox-goads are, in times of war, a farmer’s, or peasant’s weapon. In the Bible, Shamgar, from the Book of Judges, killed six hundred Philistines with an ox-goad. Essentially, these are a metal hook on a long stick.”

  “Huh,” I said.

  “But sometimes, they look like that.” Alice pointed to my neck.

  I lifted the pendant.

  “Our archeological department unearthed some Spanish Colonial artifacts some time back. They may have been related to the Portolá Expedition. Cattle prods with two prongs were unearthed, as well as stirrups and other hand-forged items.”

  The professor went on, but my mind was elsewhere. Injuries to Jane Smith’s back were in the same shape of the pendant, though larger. Apparently, the shape was a variety of ox-goad, a weapon that had successfully defeated Maenads in ancient times. Nysa was an antiques dealer. How tough would it be for her to get ahold of an ox-goad?

  “I do have lectures today.”

  I realized I’d been lost in thought. “Right. You’ve been very helpful. Thank you for your time.”

  “Has any of this been helpful? I can’t imagine how.”

  “It’s helping me make connections.” I stood, waving my fingers at my head. “Thanks again.”

  I managed to get to the parking lot before the current classes let out. Thus, I managed to avoid my father. For now, anyway.

  “SORRY, I DIDN’T KNOW who else to call.” I waited outside Nysa’s apartment building in the Links. Sgt. Gustafson pulled up in the Animal Control mobile.

  “Why not call Shen?”

  “He’s on night stakeout duty again. My fault.”

  Josephine sighed, but she parked and got out. “What’s going on out there, anyway?”

  I briefed her about what we’d seen—which was next to nothing. A small boat, a single rented vehicle, unseen passenger or passengers, and none of it adding up to nightly vigil.

  “Who rented the vehicle?”

  “You’ll have to ask the FBI. This is their case.”

  She nodded. “I think I will. What are we doing here?”

  “I need someone to watch my back. I have a lead on a possible murder weapon. But since Nysa Galatas showed up when I was on the courthouse roof, she might know I’m in her apartment.”

  The sergeant’s face was impassive. “You need a lookout for your illegal B&E. How do you know she’s not in there?”

  “Already checked,” I said.

  “A lookout for your second burglary, then.” Sgt. Gustafson scanned the street. At this hour, there was hardly any traffic in the Links. Most people were at work. “Okay, I’m your girl. Make it quick. What are you looking for?”

  “An ox-goad,” I said. Without giving an explanation, I went back in the building. Since first picking the locks, I’d left the front door open. My first check confirmed that Nysa was still living in the apartment, but wasn’t at home. The idea that she might show up, and toss me out a window, forced me to call for backup.

  More focused, I went through every closet, every drawer, every nook big enough. Sheila Brandt, the assistant ME, gave me the approximate size. If the ox-goad wasn’t attached to a pole, that made for lots of hiding places. Finding nothing, I looked under low furniture, in the broiler drawer of the oven, rolled out the fridge to look behind. If nothing else, Nysa was a good housekeeper. I hadn’t been neat about tossing the place. She would know I was here.

  “Not there.” I walked back out of the building.

  Josephine leaned against her vehicle. “No sign of Nysa Galatas, either.”

  Which was weird. Nysa had found me on the roof of the courthouse. Why hadn’t she confronted me here? “Thanks, Sarge.”

  “No problem. What next?”

  I shrugged. “I got nothing.”

  “Roger that,” she said. “Let me make a call.”

  Chapter 17

  Back in the empty house, I sat at the card table, plotting my next move. Some Thracian king had knocked down the Maenads with an ox-goad. Nysa Glatas, I reasoned, had done the same to her sister, Jane. Maybe whoever took the case over had tracked her Uber alibi. I knew that was just a set-up. She’d been so eager to tell us about it. But as a department pariah, no one in the bullpen was eager to share any details with me. Probably not Shen, either, but he was back on the night watch.

  Nor had I found the murder weapon in Nysa’s apartment. For all I knew, she had fled the country, leaving her belongings behind, maybe packing her ox-goad with her. I could call ICE to find out, or the FAA to see if she’d boarded an international flight. Except I was off the case, of course, and any calls I made or discoveries I unearthed would be thrown out of court.

  Ugly strolled down the stairs and rubbed figure-eights around my ankles.

  “You have any ideas, Cat?”

  Bug eyes looked up at me. The cat jumped up on the card table, rubbing her face against my hands. I looked at her uneven tortoise shell fur. Her collar had a name tag. It actually read “Ugly.”

  “Poor girl.” I rubbed her behind the ears, inducing a rough purr. “Who named you Ugly? You’re not that ugly.”

  She crawled into my lap and purred herself to sleep.

  “Good kitty,” I said.

  I wondered why an ox-goad could take out a god. Dionysus had not loomed large in my fifth-grade mythology class. Maybe it had to do with the fact that Dionysus was a god of cultivation? I took the necklace off to study the shape. If a weapon of this shape was dangerous to you—

  “Eccckk!” Ugly stood up, back arched, fur standing. I felt her claws dig through my jeans, into my thighs. I heard her voice in my head. Hexed!

  “Ow!” I shouted. “No one’s keeping you on my lap, Ugly.”

  With another hiss I could not decipher, the animal leaped away and ran back up the stairs. “Split personality much?” I called after her.

  My cell phone buzzed across the table. I grabbed it before it could fall. “Garcia.”

  “If you have time, there’s something I’d like to show you.”

  A male voice. Even over the phone it sounded warm in my ear. I identified the caller before I could ask: Kade Wallace, tall, with long, sexy hair and spooky eyes. “If you’re showing me yours, am I showing you mine?”

  His chuckle gave me a subt
le tingle. “I would like to get a look at your... insights.”

  Flirting back. In an awkward way. But still, a good sign, I thought. “Let’s call it a date. Are you picking me up?”

  “Meet me at the crime scene. I know you live close by. Then we can go for a ride in the country baby.”

  This was sounding better by the minute. I smiled and began absently toying with the necklace on the table. With a jolt, my smile faded. Walleye Wallace? With the two-colored eyes and potential chauvinism? Had he really called me baby? I squinted at the necklace. Hang on a second. I took my finger away.

  “I could use a good ride... in the country.” Slut-me was back. Wallace was tall as a tree, and probably a lot more fun to climb. His voice was so deep, it made a flutter in my stomach. I put my finger back on the pendant.

  “Meet me at the corner in ten,” he said. “Looking forward to a solid working... relationship.”

  Once again, he sounded like a jerk cowboy. But now I knew. The necklace somehow stopped the hex. I hung up and hastily put it back around my neck.

  THE GREEN SUV PARKED on Buitre Creek and the West 9th Extension. Walleye leaned against the vehicle, watching my approach. I shot a look at Antonio Sanchez’ house. “You want to get a look at the garbage can pen?”

  He gave a side-nod down the Extension. We walked together. With the necklace on, I had no urge to hold his hand. We walked around the barricade that kept cars from driving on down West 9th and into the river. Although this was a major thoroughfare, the bridge was about five blocks north, on Carta Boulevard.

  To our left was the former golf course, formerly manicured but now looking almost as wild as the right side of the street—a protected wetland area five blocks by ten. Some endangered bird nested there, and the west side of Delta Vista was dotted with similar sites. Dead ahead was the levee. Walleye stopped short of it, and headed into the micro-wetlands.

  Only a scrap of crime scene taped marked the spot, waving like a tiny yellow flag. No one had put flowers at the site. I shivered with the lonely thought of dying here, unknown, un-mourned. I saw no trace of blood on the ground, on the leaf litter. But then, it had rained pretty hard.

  “Our subject died right here.” Walleye took off his hat.

  I wondered at the word subject, instead of victim. This I kept to myself.

  “Was it the gunshot?”

  The Fish and Wildlife agent shook his head. “Blunt force trauma. We think it was the UNSUB who got shot.”

  UNSUB, federal talk meaning unknown subject. I was getting a weird vibe from this excursion. Blunt force trauma—the same cause of death for Jane Smith.

  “Notice anything?”

  I looked at the ground, looked all around. In the distance, I saw the Carta Boulevard Bridge.

  Walleye put his hat back on. “Right. It’s the only break in the trees on the levee road, a straight shot from the bridge.”

  “Except you can’t drive on the levee.”

  “Right again. Both the UNSUB and subject arrived on foot.” The cowboy agent nodded back down the Extension. “Let’s go for a drive.”

  In the Fish and Wildlife SUV, we had a roundabout drive to get to the bridge across the river. There was a brief stand of trees, a few farmhouses, and then nothing but fields, plowed under, empty, planted for the spring. The delta flattened out as far as the eye could see. Walleye took a right off the highway.

  “This is the middle of nowhere. What are we out here for?” I asked.

  “Cattle mutilation.”

  Not long after he spoke, I could see a herd of black and white cows standing in the distance. “This is hardly ranch country.”

  “You’re right,” Walleye said. “It’s dairy country.”

  A stand of trees sheltered a farmhouse, a barn behind. We followed barely visible tracks across the yard into a field. Ahead, another green SUV parked next to a sheriff’s black-and-white. As we rounded them, I saw that the vehicles sheltered a big, dead animal.

  From my reading, and my interview with Prof. Descartes, I asked, “Is that a bull?”

  There wasn’t a whole lot left of the animal to identify. Blood pooled the ground around it, gore spreading outward unpleasantly. Flies and odor hung in the air.

  “The third one we’ve found, although this one is still a calf,” Walleye said. “The first was a full-grown bull. It was called in the same night as the murder.”

  Which put it the same night before the murder of Jane Smith. “Okay, why show me this?”

  “You notice anything unusual?” Walleye asked. His partner, I think his name was Stoney, took a drone from a big suitcase. After a moment, he let it fly.

  “Other than this is an icky mess? No,” I said. But I looked closer at the icky mess. There were no cut marks, just a bunch of horrible wounds.

  “No claws,” Walleye nodded. “Like this poor guy was torn apart. Matches the MO of the other mutilations.”

  “You think it has some connection to your murder?” I asked.

  “This is the closest place to Delta Vista with cattle,” Walleye said. “Usually, we see this kind of thing out in ranch country, way out in the middle of nowhere. After the previous incident, we followed a blood trail. It headed straight for the murder scene.”

  “Take a look, Kade,” Stoney nodded to his remote control thing.

  Kade Wallace, the sheriff guy and I looked at a little camera screen. The drone hovered fifty feet above the dead cow. I saw the tops of our heads, the carcass, and then we all grew smaller as the drone gained altitude.

  I didn’t say anything when I saw it, but I recognized the shape. In gory cow parts, a large crescent in reddish-brown covered the field. It was the same shape of my necklace—the shape of an ox-goad with the sacrifice in the center.

  “Some kind of occult symbol?” the sheriff guy asked.

  “Too crude to be a crop circle,” Stoney murmured.

  “Get some footage, Mark,” Walleye said to Stoney. Then he pulled me aside.

  “We want the doer,” he said. “Alive.”

  “You think whoever did this killed that woman near my house?”

  Walleye’s different colored eyes became sharp and intense (and not un-spooky). “We both know who we’re talking about. The government wants her.”

  “Why?” For study, I thought. They wanted to find ways to weaponize Nysa Galatas, a modern Maenad.

  “I’m going to walk over to those trees and pretend to take a leak,” Walleye said. “There’s a file in the vehicle. You have until I walk there and back to take a look.”

  The stand of trees was maybe thirty paces away. I hopped in the SUV and found the file in a door pocket. “EYES ONLY” and “TOP SECRET” were stamped on the manila. To my surprise, it wasn’t about Nysa Galatas. It was a thin file on Jacinth Galatas Smith. She was employed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, recruited just over two years ago. It explained where she had been since the divorce. Maybe some kind of training, or brainwashing, or maybe just what the file said: recruiting.

  Walleye reached the trees and looked back at me before standing behind one. Maybe he really did have to pee. There wasn’t time to read much. I gleaned that she was an asset for a government program with the name redacted in black Sharpie. At the end of the brief dossier, a line read: manner of death to be determined.

  I flipped on. Her mission was to bring in new assets, specifically family members. She was supposed to recruit the woman who murdered her, I read. Her sister, Nysa Galatas. I flipped the page and saw a photo of a woman. There was a similar picture in Jane’s apartment. The report following detailed another potential asset: Efrosini Galatas. In big, red, stamped letters across the page was the word TERMINATED.

  There were smears of red on my fingers. At first I thought it was blood, and, eew. But I saw my fingerprint in the T of TERMINATED. The ink was fresh. I saw Walleye heading back toward the vehicle. Special Agent Stoney landed the drone and put it back in the case.

  Fresh ink, I thought, as if they just foun
d out. I didn’t wonder that this all fell under the auspices of Fish and Wildlife. Sgt. Gustafson said she didn’t know which agency worked out of the Special Investigations Office, so why not a couple cowboys under the Fish and Wildlife cover? I did wonder if they knew Efrosini was dead because hers was the murder they were investigating. I also wondered if they were involved in bringing her into the country.

  The stakeouts, a small boat, a single vehicle—maybe the FBI was interested in what Fish and Wildlife was up to. Walleye approached, and I tucked the file away.

  “Is Efrosini Galatas your murder victim?”

  Walleye started the engine. “That’s classified.”

  “Did you bring her into the country illegally?”

  “Classified.” He followed the vague ruts back out of the field.

  “You want me to help you bring in Nysa. I need more than ‘classified.’”

  The Fish and Wildlife agent got the car back on the road. “Some years ago, under the USAPATRIOT Act and other Homeland Security operations, it came to our attention that this nation was under threat from... unusual menaces. Many of these menaces were already ensconced in our society, living ordinary lives. No agency in the federal government had the means to combat them. And so, such an agency was formed. For the sake of national security, you’ll ask no more questions.”

  “Do you guys have a file on me?”

  “Of course we do. That’s why I’ve come to you.” He looked at me, eyes behind sunglasses. “Bring her in, Mary. Every misstep with your department will vanish. So will Nysa Galatas—with a fitting MO and federal prosecution.”

  “Because Jane was an asset?”

  He faced the road again. “Because Jane deserves justice. And we want Nysa Galatas neutralized.”

  Chapter 18

  That afternoon, Internal Affairs called me into the office. I didn’t balk at the word affairs. Of course, I couldn’t tell them that I was under some kind of lust-inducing, impulse control muting magic spell. What could I tell them? That Nysa Galatas, a servant of Dionysus, had murdered her sister, an undercover recruitment agent of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, with an ox-goat that she swung hard enough to knock her victim half a mile through the air?