The Girl in Gold: A Vox Swift Mystery (Vox Swift Mysteries Book 2)

by Beth Lyons

  “Long enough to pump her for information about me.”

  “I did not! She brought you up, not me. And let’s talk about you asking after me – who’d you talk to?” I jostled my messenger bag. “Why do you care about my other work?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself, Vox Swift.” With that Jesskah stormed away.

  Someone tapped on my shoulder. I turned to see a man in an apron emblazoned with Mel’s Flowers and Plants. “Hey pal,” he said, “could you have your arguments somewhere else? Dames arguing in front of my shop? Bad for business.”

  Chapter 15 Falsehoods

  My messenger bag felt heavy as I resumed my rounds. I couldn’t shake the argument with Jesskah – I didn’t even know what we’d been arguing about. I’d asked a simple question. Wait, she’d asked the question. She started it, and when it got too personal, she stormed away.

  Which was fine because I had more important things to focus on anyway.

  Flipping through the messages I spied a familiar name: Nori Hawktite. Professor Table for One had four, no five messages. Fan mail, no doubt, but anything to keep the Swifts in business.

  I’d love to get Hawktite’s take on the murder next door, and also talk with Billows, his sullen butler. Maybe he’d seen something that night, but why had that turned him sour, as Dewey put it?

  Of course if the killer had used dimension door or something to arrive – but no, we didn’t find any magic in the library. So up the sidewalk went the killer and the girl in gold – it was still hard to think of her as Helena because I couldn’t get a clear picture of Helena. Was she the flirty wannabe singer or the business mogul in the making? I vowed to talk with her sister Jana later that day. If anyone would give me the unvarnished truth, it’d be the sister.

  Billows promptly answered the door.

  “Vox Swift wi—”

  He swiped the letters from my hand and began to close the door all in one motion.

  I jammed my foot in the door. “Hold up, friend. What’s the rush? Is the Professor available? I’m a fan – a big fan of the book.”

  “He is not.”

  I blinked. “Not what? What’s the problem, Billows? You know me.”

  “Professor Hawktite,” the butler paused, and a grimace flashed across his face. “Professor Hawktite is quite indisposed.”

  “That’s alright, I guess.” Leaning against the door jamb I said, “What do you think about the news? What happened next door, eh? The murder. That’s something else. Who’d a thought that Morningstar would up and off someone?”

  “Is that what people think? That Mr. Morningstar killed that girl?” Billows frowned so hard his lips turned white.

  “Possession is nine-tenths of the law, my friend. She was found in his library.”

  “That’s absurd!”

  I hadn’t expected Billows to wring his hands over the murder. I said, “Hard to say what’s absurd when you’re talking murder. Did you hear anything strange on Saturday?”

  Billows handed me a ten silver piece and said, “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”

  “Thanks but about my quest—” And for the second time that week Billows shut the door in my face.

  ###

  I finished my deliveries just past lunchtime and decided to chance that I might find Jana Grimwell at home. Kinda dicey to pop by unexpected to a grieving house. Helena had only been gone three days. Jana might be a mess, distraught, disbelieving, broken by the death of her little sister.

  Although the brief time I’d seen Jana Grimwell at Central she seemed composed. And that’s when she’d just finished identifying her sister’s body. Maybe she’d been in shock. And now that the truth had settled in, now that she’d spent a few nights alone, I might find a very different Jana.

  The Grimwell apartment sat off a little side street near Raven’s Rest. Probably a five minute walk to the Lamplighter. Nice digs from the outside anyway. Who knew singing could be so lucrative?

  Jana Grimwell was as tall, blonde, and beautiful as I’d remembered. The smile died on her lips when I introduced myself. “Oh,” she said, “a detective?”

  “I am sorry for your loss, Miss Grimwell. I was one of the first people on the scene when Helena’s body was found.” I paused. She was taking this all too well. “And I have just a few follow up questions.”

  She stepped away from the door, inviting me in. “I already talked with that old wizard.” She swept her hair back from her forehead. “Honestly, what more is there to say? Some horrible man killed Helly and got away with it.”

  “We have some strong leads, Miss Grimwell—”

  “Call me Jana. Listen, I need to get ready. You can ask your questions while I finish my face.”

  I followed her to the back of the apartment. “Nice place. I live over on Jackton. You got a lot of room here. Nice light.”

  “I’ve been here for years. Helly moved up to Thornbury last year. I was thankful to have the extra bedroom for her.”

  “You’re not a native? Where you from then?” I was trying to put Jana at ease.

  “Pildee, on the coast.”

  “Heard of it. Not a lot of singing gigs down there, huh?”

  Jana gave me a tight smile by way of an answer. I needed to speed up, or she’d roll me out of her place like a dust ball.

  Alright Vox, jump right into the pond. “Miles Edjrest said he’d planned to adopt Helena.”

  Jana paused mid-stroke with her eyebrow pencil. “He told you that?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Seemed to think that Helly woulda been a storm in the boardroom.” Since Jana was actually looking at me, I decided to try to charm her. Smile, hum, touch the face. “What do you think? You knew her better than anyone.”

  “People see what they want to see.” She turned back to the mirror and her makeup.

  Makeup. Again that reminded me of something but I couldn’t think what.

  “So,” I said, “you disagree. Not CEO material?”

  “I wouldn’t want to give you the wrong impression. I loved my sister, and who knows? Maybe in a few years she would have settled down. But all she cared about was boys, baubles, and bright lights.”

  “Boys like Beltine Byrd?”

  “You have done your homework!” Jana caught my eye in the mirror and smiled. “Helly didn’t think that Miles would approve of Beltine, so she kept quiet about him.” She applied lipstick and studied the effects for a long moment. “Smart girl. Miles would not have approved.”

  “How so?”

  She turned in her chair to face me. “You want me to say that Miles Edjrest was in love with a girl young enough to be his daughter.”

  I opened my hands, gesturing my innocence of such a thought.

  “I think,” Jana went on, “that he was a little bit in love with her.” She held up her hand, pointer finger and thumb about an inch apart. “Just a little bit.”

  I shrugged. “As you said, he’s old enough to be her father, maybe even her grandfather.”

  “And a cripple to boot.”

  “Yeah,” I said slowly. “So who’d want to kill her? Who had the means and the motive?”

  Jana sat silent for a long moment. I was about to prompt her when she said, “I haven’t told anyone this – she and Beltine quarreled. Often lately. He was pressuring her to… to advance their relationship beyond its current bounds.”

  Delicately put, big sister. So Beltine Byrd was trying to get Helena in the sack? I thought back to my conversation with the dwarf paladin Del Totely in the Morningstar’s library. So Beltine hadn’t succeeded in being the first to bed Helena. Maybe they fought about her virginity. Maybe Beltine lost his head when he didn’t get his way. Maybe he didn’t mean to kill her, but she ended up dead anyway.

  Beltine Byrd was the one player in this tragedy that I hadn’t yet seen. For once I was glad I hadn’t dropped off my messenger bag right after my shift. I stopped at the nearest station and grabbed the full book, looking for Byrd’s address. I could at least get a l
ook at him without him knowing who I was.

  He lived in Jackton – not far from me. He didn’t respond to my knocks.

  What’s our friend Beltine do for a living? When would he be home? Questions that I didn’t have answers for. I started to turn away when the door to my right opened. A voice said, “Belt’s gone.”

  I held up an envelope. “When’s he coming back?”

  “He’s not.” The door opened more to reveal an older elf woman. She crossed her arms. “He got a new job. Moved out.”

  “Is that so?” Wouldn’t be the first killer to try to flee the city. “Any forwarding address? ‘S my duty to deliver this letter.” I waggled the envelope carefully so she wouldn’t see that it was devoid of writing.

  The woman cocked her head. “Not one for letters, usually.” I kept my mouth shut. Less said to the nosey type, the better. “He kept himself to himself,” she said. “But, I guess you could deliver it to his company. They’re the ones sent him halfway across Varana.”

  I nodded and fished out my notebook. “Ready.”

  “Don’t need that, do ya? Two words: Edjrest Industries.”

  My pencil skipped across the page. “You don’t say. I have a friend who works there! Maybe my friend can deliver the message for me.”

  “Your friend work in Thornbury? That won’t help. Belt said the pay was so good because they were sending him east to the Rinchik Range.”

  “All that way, huh?”

  I touched my finger to my cap and thanked the neighbor. Turning away I had a thought. Maybe Byrd got his new job last week, which would put him out of the running for murder suspect number one. “When was that?” I asked. “When did he leave?”

  “Monday afternoon.”

  ###

  “Significant, don’t you think?” I paced in front of Boleian’s desk. “Jana spills the goods about Byrd, and Bam! He’s gone.”

  Boleian had merely nodded during my recitation of the afternoon’s events, and now he said, “How did you find the sister?”

  “How did I find her? She was at her apartment!”

  “Don’t play the clown, Vox. What did you think of Jana Grimwell?”

  “She’s one cool number. If she’s grieving it’s on the inside. She had some nice things to say about Helena – Helly she called her – but she didn’t seem all that upset.”

  “What did she say about Farley Edjrest?”

  I frowned. “Farley? What’s he got to do with anything?”

  “He is a suspect. As is Jana Grimwell, as is Hugo Morningstar, as is this missing boy, Beltine.” Boleian got up and looked out the window.

  “Farley’s got an alibi.” I held up my hand to tick off the names. “Jana, well she’s related. I really don’t—”

  “No sibling has ever killed another? I told you on Monday, everybody lies, Vox. The key is to figure out what they are lying about. Is it murder or something else?”

  “So you think Farley is lying? Think he set Helena on fire? Miles could have just as easily set up the fire trap. Wheeled chair or no.”

  “You’re thinking of Fara Fram, Vox. Helena is the girl in gold. Library? Strangled? Surely you haven’t forgotten. And you can’t seriously think that Miles Edjrest killed her. He was going to adopt her.”

  “Maybe he didn’t like the company she was keeping.”

  “And maybe the answer is much more simple than that.” Boleian lifted his heavy cloak off the peg behind his door.

  “You going somewhere?”

  “Yes, the Rinchik Range.”

  “We don’t have time for you to travel there!”

  “I’m going by druid.”

  Boleian meant that he was going to pay a druid to transport him from a tree here in Thornbury to a similar tree in the Rinchik Range. It’s expensive but if you have the gold, it’s the way to travel any distance.

  I gave a laugh. “This is where the plus expenses clause comes in handy, right? Edjrest doesn’t know it, but he’s paying for this.”

  Boleian sighed. “We need to confirm that this boy Beltine is innocent.”

  “You get what you look for, Boleian of Vedasa!” I called out, but my words were lost on him since he was already heading down the stairs.

  Chapter 16 Liar’s Fee

  No time to grab a sandwich before heading to Heilo Underwood’s for my lesson. Let Boleian traipse across Varana, I was going to try to make a difference not just in the Grimwell case, but for all my cases going forward.

  What Boleian said about lying rankled me. It had rankled me the first time he said it and now again, today. People shouldn’t be able to lie. Not when murder is the subject, and somehow I was sure magic could help tip the scales toward justice.

  “Making a spell?” Heilo raised his eyebrows. “People do it, more than you’d think, but few of them are quite as new to magic as you. Tell me what you want. Likely there’s a spell for it already, lass.”

  “I want to make someone tell the truth.”

  “Done. Zone of truth it’s called. The cleric—”

  “What about bards?”

  “Nah, clerics and paladins. It’s a divine spell, you see. A gift of the gods.” He put his fingertips together, making a tent shape. “It’s a cone, and anyone inside the cone—”

  “Anything for bards? We’ve gotta have a truth spell.”

  “Mmm, suggestion, maybe? You could suggest that the person tell the truth. Like as not, they will.”

  “Suggest they tell the truth? Great. I want something that takes them unaware.” I looked past Helio’s ear, trying to think of how to describe what I wanted. “I want them to blurt out a truth for every lie they tell. A liar’s fee. That’s what I want.”

  Helio scratched his beard. “Interesting. Interesting. Wholecloth magic, it’s not easy, Vox.” He inclined his head. “Nor is it cheap. You’ll need time, quiet, spell components – no telling what might be the right ingredient to help your spell along. You could spend hundreds of gold on material alone.”

  I couldn’t breathe. Helio was telling me that I might be able to create the very spell I wished to have in my pocket. “Fine,” I said. “How do I start?”

  “What about your scrying?”

  “What about it?” There’s always a catch with magic, and frankly sometimes I wondered why I bothered with the whole thing.

  Helio was shaking his head. “You’ll be devoting all your time to – what’cha call it?”

  “Liar’s fee. That’s what the spell will be called.”

  My teacher traced his finger along the wood of the bar. “It’s a good name. I’ll give you that.”

  When he didn’t go on I said, “So I put scry aside. Fine. I have a murder – murders – to solve anyway. What do I do first?”

  “First you need books. More than I have here.” Helio stood and rummaged behind the bar. “Can’t believe I’m…. Where was….?” He turned around a few moments later with a small white card. Printed on it in red ink was the word Thaumaturgy.

  I flipped it over. The other side was blank. “Alright,” I said. “What’s ‘that-ma-mercy’?”

  “Thou-matt-urg-ee.” Helio stood with his chin in his hand, faint smile on his face.

  “Fine then. What’s it mean?”

  “Fancy word for magic.” He grabbed a rag and wiped the bar. “It’s also the name of the magic library.”

  “There’s a magical library?” I couldn’t contain my delight.

  “A magic library, Vox. Not magical.”

  I nodded. “Fair enough. You’re saying I need to go there. What’s the address? How come I’ve never heard of it? Don’t they use Swifts?”

  “Yes, not telling, no comment, and I don’t know.”

  Flicking the card with my finger I said, “It’s a test.”

  Helio nodded. “That’s one way of putting it. Can you detect secret doors yet, Vox?”

  “Haven’t tried.”

  “You should try. It’s a bit like detect magic.” With a smile Helio started stacking
glasses.

  “Is our lesson over, then?”

  “Almost. With secret doors, the longer you linger in one spot, the more you will learn. You will know immediately if there is a door, but linger to understand its workings. Oh! And you won’t see it if it’s covered by metal or thick rock.”

  “And the library door?”

  “Not covered.”

  “Alright then.” I nodded, waiting for more information. “Anything else you’d like to share, Helio?”

  “Like what?”

  “The address, perhaps? What I should do once I find the library?”

  “All part of the journey, Vox.”

  “So we’re done.” I waggled my finger in the space between us. “Nothing else you want to tell me?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve given you a full plate, Vox Swift. Do you want me to eat it for you, too?”

  I really hate it when people are smug. Here was Helio acting like I should have some idea of what he was blabbing about. “Full plate? I don’t even have a glass, thank you very much. I got a magical library sitting behind a magical door. Is it in a magical neighborhood, too? Help an elf out here, yeah?”

  “Alright. Here: What grows when it eats, but dies when it drinks?”

  I blinked. “Are you…?”

  “Giving you a riddle? Yes. It’s a clue to the library’s location.” He shrugged. “I don’t make the rules, Vox. You want to make a spell so bad, this is what you must do.”

  I made him repeat the riddle twice, flipped him a 50 silver piece and headed into the evening to try my hand at solving riddles.

  Walking up Bloom Avenue I turned Underwoood’s words in my mind. Riddles invariably involve mundane objects. What grows when it eats? Plants. A person. Puppies. But they don’t die. Not when they drink.

  Early evening, midweek meant that the streets were sparse. I turned up Flint Avenue for a change of scenery. I rarely shop, but I had an idea that window shopping might help me solve the riddle. No place better in Thornbury for shopping than Flint and its surrounding alleys.

  Maybe the riddle’s answer was a sieve, or collapsible funnel, or a garlic press. Something silly like that.

  I smiled at my reflection in a shop window. Garlic press, Vox? That doesn’t even make sense.