by Erin Johnson
Zane nodded and showed us back out to the front. Once outside, Peter’s pocket buzzed, and he fished the communication device out and popped it in his ear. He nodded, murmured a few words, then pulled it back out again.
“That was the station. They’ve cross-checked missing persons reports, the guest list, and statements—no one’s reported our Jane Doe missing, no one saw her at the fundraiser, and she wasn’t on the guest list.”
I shook my head, at a loss. “Who was this lady? And why did she look like she was straight out of the ’70s?”
Peter jumped as the device began to buzz again. He still held it in his fingers and popped it into his ear. “Okay… yep… right away.”
He turned to me, brows pinched in apology. “I’m sorry—there’s a nearby call I’ve got to answer. Daisy and I are the closest officers.”
I waved it off. “No worries. I just remembered I’ve got to go by and talk to Madeline about what she found.”
He grinned. “Why don’t we meet up later?”
I nodded. “Sounds perfect.”
I rose on my tiptoes and planted a kiss on his cheek. “Be careful.” I pointed at Daisy and whined. You be careful, too.
I didn’t know dogs could roll their eyes, but Daisy did. Thanks, Mom.
Peter started off, but I suddenly remembered something. “Oh—the file?”
He spun around, brows raised.
“Could I borrow it? I just want to look it over. Our Jane Doe is driving me crazy.”
He grinned. “You sound like a cop more and more every night.”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”
“From me it is.” He kissed my head, and the manila file magically appeared in my hands. “See you soon!” And with that, Daisy and Peter took off up the mountain, while I headed in the opposite direction, back to the Darkmoon District.
25
MADELINE
I headed down the winding cobblestone streets to a lower level of the island and climbed the stairs through the old, dilapidated warehouse that was the local paper’s headquarters. By the time I pushed the dinged metal door open and stepped onto the chaotic floor of The Conch, my thighs burned.
I threaded my way through the maze of cubicles, put slightly on edge by the deafening clack of enchanted typewriters, ringing bells, and the threat of flying manila folders as articles zoomed from desk to desk.
I slid to the right to make way for a young man staggering along with a pile of scrolls in his arms that towered high above his head, then ducked into Madeline’s cubicle.
“Knock knock.”
She didn’t even look up from where she stood poring over a collage of papers, scrolls, and magically moving photographs on her desk.
“Hey, honey.”
I crossed my arms and ankles and leaned against the fuzzy cubicle wall. It was a faded brown that matched the carpet. I bit my lip—what color had it originally been about a thousand years ago when it was new?
“What can I do for you?” She swapped two photos out with a couple more she pulled from a file folder that balanced precariously on top of a half-empty pot of coffee. I sniffed—it smelled stale, though the whole office had a faint mildewed smell to it. I glanced to my right at the wall of dingy windows, battered by falling rain. The moisture wasn’t helping.
I shook myself and brought myself back to the task at hand. “You rang?” I raised my brows. “I got your note—you found something on Ludolf?”
“Mm-hmm.” She nibbled her lower lip, still engrossed in the task in front of her. “Ah.” She grabbed a quill and scratched out a whole paragraph, jotted down a couple of sentences, then finally looked up.
She wore reading glasses on her head and her long black hair loose over her shoulders. She grinned and waved me closer. “Come sit.”
I stepped closer and eyed the stack of books in the guest chair. She whipped her wand out of her back pocket, and with a flick of her wrist the books slid onto the floor. She murmured another spell as I settled into the cracked leather seat.
She grinned. “Silencing spell.”
I leaned forward, my lips twitching toward a matching grin. “Does that mean you found something good?”
She shrugged a slim shoulder. “You’ll have to be the judge of that.” She winked. “But, yeah.”
She came around to my side of the desk and perched on it, one leg hiked up. “So you and Officer Hot Stuff asked me to look into Carclaustra, which I already had a lot of information on—did I mention all the awards I won for that piece?”
I shot her a flat look. “Maybe once or twice.”
She grinned wider. “Have I told you about all the connections to Prince Harry I have? He personally thanked me for that.”
I rolled my eyes.
She quirked her lips to the side. “Though Princess Imogen doesn’t seem to be a fan of all those Is She Pregnant or Just Bad at Fashion? spreads I do on her.”
I shook my head at her. “Yeah. So weird.”
She winked, then clapped her hands. “Alright, bad news first—while I have no doubt that Señor Caterwaul is taking out his enemies, none of them seem to have ended up in Carclaustra.”
I frowned. “Wait—what do you mean?”
She waved a hand. “King Roch—may the sea slug rot in a deep ocean crevice—”
I nodded my agreement.
“—might have used the prison system to hide his enemies, political dissidents—basically anyone inconvenient, but Ludolf’s not doing the same.”
I frowned. “Okay. So what’s the good news?”
Her dark eyes lit up. “I did find some other stuff I think is pretty juicy. And I’m a good judge of juicy.” She talked with her hands. “I found a bunch of old records, dug into the lengthy King Roch depositions that he gave pre-trial and during it, and found that near the end of the Monster Wars, Roch started his propaganda against shifters—likening them to being part monster.”
I frowned. “Why?”
She shot me a flat look. “Why else? The spineless coward wanted scapegoats—something to shift the public’s attention away from all the atrocities he’d committed.”
I crossed my arms, anger brewing in my chest. “You mean atrocities like siccing monsters on a bunch of innocent people, which invited retaliation from other kingdoms?”
She snapped her fingers and pointed at me. “Right! Those. Anyway, before that, shifters were respected members of society, by all accounts. But by likening shifters to monsters, since they can turn into animals, spy on you, infiltrate your family as the household pet, etcetera—” She held up a finger. “—his words, not mine—he was able to shift all the post-war fear and anger to a minority population and deflect it from himself. Took a lot of propaganda, but he got it done.”
I’d need Peter to massage out the massive knot that was forming in my neck later. “Did people not stand up to him? How could this happen?”
She splayed her hands. “Fear, especially in desperate times, can be a powerful weapon in the wrong hands.” She held up a finger. “I did find some information that a bunch of prominent shifter rights activists rose up.” She grew grim. “There was a secret meeting among all of them—someone ratted them out, and Roch raided the meeting and they ‘disappeared.’” She made air quotes.
My stomach clenched. “You mean?”
She shrugged. “I couldn’t find any information on any of them after that. I don’t know what happened to them.”
I clenched my hands into fists. I wanted to simultaneously punch something and cry.
“Guess who that someone was?”
I jerked my head up. “Don’t tell me—”
She nodded. “Mr. Ludolf Caterwaul himself.”
I scoffed. “How did you find that out?”
She sniffed. “I’d like to pretend it’s my amazing journalistic skills, but it was actually pretty easy. There’s a bunch of letters between the former King Roch and Ludolf. Ludolf actually brags about it—tries to leverage t
he fact that he gave up the location of the secret meeting to gain favor with the king.”
I shook my head. “That’s despicable. He betrayed his own people.”
“Well, that’s only the half of it. I dug into Ludolf a little more.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice, despite the fact that she’d put a spell around her cubicle to avoid being heard. I found myself leaning in too.
“Get this—he failed out of architecture school, then worked as a low-level clerk for one of the activists. I assume that’s when he saw an opportunity to sell the activist leaders out for his own benefit.” She scoffed. “Real stand-up guy. After that, Ludolf shows up in a bunch of records of meetings and official decrees—Roch set him up as a sort of ambassador to shifters initially. I found a bunch of applications—Ludolf applying for positions in Roch’s cabinet—all denied.”
I smirked— Ludolf being denied anything was slightly consoling. “What happened there?”
Madeline tipped her head side to side. “Ludolf’s ambitious, I’ll give him that.” She shook her head, and her glasses fell down so that she had to push them back up. “Reading between the lines of some of Roch’s replies to his denied applications, I’m guessing the former king had a very specific use for Ludolf and wouldn’t let him rise any higher than underground shifter mob boss, despite Ludolf’s attempts to move up the hierarchy.”
I unclenched my jaw and drummed my fingers on the wooden arm of the chair. “So… Roch basically set Ludolf up as mob boss of the shifters. But even though Ludolf rules the shifters… he was still under the thumb of Roch.”
She nodded. “And from the tone of the letters I saw… I doubt Ludolf’s satisfied with that. He had grander aspirations than king of the sewers.” She shot an arm out. “No offense… you know, I’m sure the sewers are… cozy.”
I scoffed at her. “It’s fine. I didn’t grow up down there and have only visited a few times. And it’s pretty much what you’d imagine.”
Her pained expression relaxed.
I frowned. “Okay… so what does that mean for Ludolf now that Roch’s been tried for his crimes and locked up?”
Madeline shrugged. “A lot of Roch’s cronies are still at large and still in positions of power. Maybe Ludolf’s still trying to move up the political ladder? But I doubt anyone’s willing to overlook him being a shifter.”
I bit the tip of my thumb. Could Ludolf’s potion obsession have something to do with his attempts to rise up the ranks? Was he working on some project he thought would impress Roch or his cronies? I thought again of all the missing activists, and my stomach turned—how could he do that to his own people?
Madeline splayed her hands. “I told you what I know—now I’m going to need some intel from you in exchange for all I gave you.”
I frowned. “What do you want exactly?”
She scooted closer, knocking over a stack of letters, and looked intensely into my eyes. “I want to do a piece on the secret shifter underground. It’s going to be even bigger than my exposé on Carclaustra, I can feel it. This entire clandestine world below people’s feet—it’s going to blow their minds!”
“Err.” I leaned back in the chair and blew out a heavy breath. “Madeline, this is going to get me in even hotter water with Ludolf.”
She gripped my shoulder. “Girl, he cursed you and is testing potions on you. That’s not going to get better. If I write this piece, at least there’s a chance someone intervenes.”
I sighed. I didn’t have a whole lot of hope for that, but I took her point that it really couldn’t get much worse.
She pointed at the manila folder under my arm, the police file I’d borrowed from Peter. “What’s that? Does it have to do with the Malorie Rutherford case?” Her eyes lit up. “If I could just take a peek at that, we could call it even.”
I shot her a flat look. “Nice try.” I took a deep breath. If I told Madeline about the underground, it’d be taking a step in a direction I could never go back on. Keeping shifter secrets had been embedded in us from a young age, all of us shifters.
To reveal them to an outsider, much less a reporter, felt like a betrayal. I hoped I wasn’t pulling a Ludolf and selling out my own people. Then again, if the current system thrived on secrecy and misinformation about shifters, then maybe this would be a step in the right direction.
Maybe Madeline’s piece would help to get out the truth about shifters and break some of Ludolf’s power. Snakes, I hoped so.
I sighed. “Alright—what do you want to know?”
26
THE BODEGA
After talking with Madeline, I was just a few streets over from my neck of the woods in the Darkmoon District. I was exhausted from spilling shifter secrets to the thorough, though nosy, reporter, and felt I deserved some treats for all my hard work. I decided to pick up some snacks, with about a gallon of wine, from the corner bodega before heading back up to Peter’s place, where I might share some of it with him.
The bell tinkled over the door as I stepped in out of the rain. A few other shoppers milled about the tight, muggy space, the linoleum slick with muddy footprints. I glanced to my left toward the checkout counter to wave hello at Biddy and Jan—the two middle-aged women who ran the place. But they were both busy ringing up a customer, so I slid a basket over my arm, tucking the police file I’d borrowed from Peter under my armpit.
I browsed the few aisles, shelves packed with food, an assortment of everyday potions and tonics, along with quills, toenail clippers, and black candles. Bright neon lights flashed outside the windows, blurry with rain. I ducked under the bat perches for sale that hung overhead and threw an assortment of items into my basket until I could barely carry it.
I headed to the checkout and heaved my basket up onto the counter. Biddy and Jan worked together to ring me up—Biddy lifting each item and calling out the prices to Jan in an overly loud voice, considering she stood at her elbow. Jan, for her part, punched the prices into the metal cash register, which clicked and whirred.
I grabbed a red lollipop from a cup on the counter and held it up to Biddy. “This too, please.”
“One lollipop—half a merkle.”
Jan tapped away at the register.
As they worked, I unwrapped the lollipop, stuck it in my mouth, then pulled the police file from under my arm and opened it. I flipped through statements, pictures of evidence, the photo we’d found in the safe, and finally examined the photograph of our mystery Jane Doe.
A photograph of the dead body was much easier to tolerate than seeing the real thing in person. I puzzled over her fringed vest and bell bottoms. Why had she been dressed like that? Had she heard the phoenix fundraiser was a costume party and missed the bit about it being animal print themed?
“Why do you have a picture of Maria Begin?”
I glanced up and frowned at Biddy. She held a package of beef jerky in one hand, a bottle of red wine in the other. Jan took the jerky from her and placed it in a paper bag. It took me a moment to register her words.
I closed the file and pulled the lollipop out of my mouth. “Who?”
Biddy and Jan exchanged exasperated looks, then Biddy leaned forward over the tall counter, her dirty-blond hair falling forward over her shoulders. She tapped my file folder. “Maria Begin.”
My breath caught, and I stuck the lollipop back in my mouth and fumbled to open the file back up. I fished out the photograph and held it up for them to see. “You know who this is?”
Jan squinted, then pulled the glasses that hung from a beaded necklace around her neck onto the bridge of her nose. They both peered at the photo, nearly cheek to cheek.
Jan looked from it to me. “Why do you have a picture of someone when you don’t even know who they are?”
Good point. “She’s involved in a case—what can you tell me about her?”
The women looked at each other.
Biddy crossed her arms, expression flat. “She’s still alive, huh?
Jan smirked. “Pay up.�
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Biddy shook her head but fished around in the pockets of her overalls.
Jan grinned at me. “We had a bet. Biddy thought she was for sure dead, but I had a feeling she’d turn up some day.”
I frowned, thoroughly confused as Biddy slapped a gold coin into Jan’s hand. “Well, no, actually. This woman is a murder victim… and possibly also suspect?” I shook my head. This was turning into a thoroughly confusing case. Also, had they not noticed the giant gash running from her shoulder across her chest?
Jan’s shoulders slumped. “You sure she’s dead? One hundred percent positive? Dead forever?” She stiff armed Biddy, who was pawing at her hand to get the coin back.
I nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“Hmph. Fine.” She pushed the coin back at Biddy, who looked vindicated.
“I knew it. Dead.” She seemed to catch herself and grew serious. “Sea rest her soul.”
Jan shook her head. “Thought it was a sure thing she’d be alive still.”
Biddy shook her head, her bobbed hair swishing back and forth. “My intuition. You never listen to my intuition.”
Jan spun to face me. “Well, she was alive until recently, right, Jo?”
I nodded. “We’ve been having a rough time even identifying her. You’re sure this is that woman—Maria Begin, you said? What can you tell me about her?”
Biddy opened her mouth, then shut it again. The women exchanged knowing looks.
Jan frowned. “Hm… my memory is so fuzzy these days….”
Biddy bit her bottom lip. “When you get older, it takes more to grease the wheels, so to speak….”
They both fixed expectant gazes on me.
“Oh, for….” I rolled my eyes, dug around in my pocket, and slapped some gold coins down on the counter.
The women eagerly scooped them up and stuffed them in their pockets, then leaned forward, voices lowered.
Biddy raised her brows. “We haven’t seen Maria Begin around here for ages—what?”
She looked to Jan, who frowned and shook her head slightly. “Probably… over fifty years.”