by Bailey Cates
After all, if the murderer hadn’t killed Autumn because of the maroon bats, then why had Autumn been clutching the origami version of one with that curious and distasteful signature? And why on earth would someone slip one under Wren’s door?
“Okay, here’s the deal,” I said to the ladies. “We need to tell Detective Quinn about this second origami bat. Maybe the lab can find fingerprints or figure out if the paper is the same as the other bat. I don’t know. It really would have been better to have the police come to Wren’s apartment when you discovered it.”
Mimsey looked chastened.
“Don’t worry. He’ll be happy to get it now,” I said, hurrying to assure her. “Wren, I know you and Autumn were close. Can you tell me a bit more about that boyfriend I may or may not have seen on the street outside Georgia Wild last night?”
Jaida raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really. You didn’t mention that.”
“I told Detective Quinn,” I said. “Wren?”
“Well, his name is Hunter Normandy.”
Bianca snorted, though she managed to make it sound delicate and feminine.
“Yeah, yeah. He has a fancy name,” I said. So did she, for that matter. “Sounds like a trust-fund baby. Ivy League or something. Though the two times I met him he was dressed in funky vintage stuff—mismatched plaids, Panama hat, stuff like that.”
Wren shook her head. “I don’t think he comes from money. He’s a nice enough guy, though I haven’t spent any real time around him. He works at a mortuary.”
“Doing what?” For all I knew, he could be their bookkeeper.
“I have no idea.”
“What else?” I prompted.
She shrugged. “Autumn didn’t talk about him that much. She seemed happy enough, and I know she liked spending time with him. Sometimes she’d compare him to her ex-husband, and Hunter always came out on top.”
“Nothing else?” Meaning: No juicy secrets? “After all, he was her boyfriend. And you guys spent a lot of time together.”
“Autumn didn’t talk about her personal life much. I mean, you have a boyfriend and I don’t know very much about him, either.”
Lucy directed a wry look my way.
“Okay. I get it,” I said. “She didn’t blather on about herself.” Hard to argue with that.
“At Georgia Wild she was all about the business of the nonprofit, and while we were really close at work, we didn’t socialize much outside of G.W.,” Wren said. “Frankly, we were so busy, we didn’t have much time to socialize at all.”
“What about her ex?”
Again with the shrug. “The divorce was final about five months ago, but he kept calling. She ended up blocking him from her phone.”
My ears perked up at that. Were we dealing with a possible stalker? “Was he threatening? Violent?”
“She didn’t say that, only that he wouldn’t leave her alone.” Wren looked frustrated.
I tried not to sigh. “Okay. So I’ll call Peter Quinn and tell him about the bat and see what’s going on. For all we know, they have a suspect in custody.”
Hey, a girl could hope, right?
The others looked about as convinced as I felt.
“In the meantime, Jaida and Bianca, would you two mind going with Mimsey and Wren to her apartment? Take juniper berries and basil and sage and anything else that will help with both a personal-protection spell and a home-protection spell.”
The four women rose as one. Jaida said, “I’ll stop by my house on the way and pick up a fresh Rider-Waite deck. The Hierophant card will add power to a protection spell.”
“Well, you’re the expert,” I said. “Lucy, are you okay taking care of things here? It’s slow enough that it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Of course,” my aunt said. “What are you going to do?”
“Well, first I’ll call Quinn. Then it seems I need to go see a man about a golf course.”
• • •
In the Honeybee office I grabbed my cell phone and sank into the desk chair. Mungo stood up on his hind legs on the floor next to me until I picked him up and put him on my lap. He nudged my free hand with his wet nose until I scratched him behind the ear.
Detective Quinn answered on the first ring, skipping the niceties. “Why am I not surprised to see your name come up on my phone the day after a homicide?”
“So you’ve determined for sure that Autumn was murdered?”
“Hard to kill yourself by strangulation—at least in a way that would leave actual finger marks on your neck.”
I shuddered, remembering, then plowed on. “Finger marks. I don’t suppose there’s any way to get actual fingerprints from skin?”
“It is possible in some cases,” he said. “But no such luck in this one. Either the heavy moisturizer the victim used caused the killer’s fingers to slip or he wore gloves.”
Victim. Ugh. “Do you know the time of death?”
“Late afternoon between . . . Katie, do you have some kind of CSI complex? Or did you always dream of being a policewoman when you were a little girl?”
“What are you talking about? Of course not.”
“Then why are you calling and asking me all these questions? Because I have to tell you that kind of behavior would make most investigators very suspicious.”
“Good thing you’re not most investigators, isn’t it? I called because there’s some new evidence you should know about. At least I assume it has something to do with the murder.” And I’d asked all those other questions because . . . well, because I wanted to know what we were dealing with.
He sighed. “Really.”
“Remember that origami bat Autumn was clutching?”
“Yeah . . .”
“Wren found another one slipped under her door when she got home from Mimsey’s this morning.”
“Hang on. She was at Mimsey Carmichael’s?”
“You didn’t know? Mimsey is her grandmother. I would have thought you’d have verified Wren’s alibi by now.”
“Only for the afternoon.” His tone was elaborately patient. “Since the medical examiner’s office determined that’s when Boles was killed.”
“Oh. Well, Wren spent the night with her grandparents last night and arrived home this morning to find the folded bat. She brought it to the Honeybee.”
Quinn swore under his breath.
“I know, I know,” I said. “We put it in a plastic bag, and I can bring it by your office if you want.” Police headquarters was only a few blocks away.
“You’re at the bakery? I’ll come get it,” Quinn said. “Is Wren still there? I want to talk to her.”
“She was when I came back to the office to call you,” I replied, fudging a bit. If I sent him over to Wren’s apartment right now, he’d probably stumble into the ladies burning juniper berries and tarot cards and invoking protections.
“Tell her to stay there.”
“Okay,” I agreed, even though I knew she and the others had probably left already. “So, I take it you don’t have a suspect in mind already.”
“Katie . . .” Quinn’s voice held warning.
“Have you had a chance to talk to Heinrich Dawes yet?”
“He’s not at the top of my priority list. Been focusing on finding the boyfriend, Hunter Normandy.”
“Makes sense.” Even I knew the police usually looked at victims’ spouses or love interests in murder cases, and I had seen that Wrangler driving away the night before.
Wait a minute. “Finding him? You don’t know where he is?”
“Katie. This isn’t really your business.”
“What if he knows that I saw him? Could I be in danger?”
He hesitated. “I don’t think so. But yes, he does seem to have disappeared. Didn’t show up for work today, either.”
“Real
ly. Do you know what he does at the mortuary?”
Quinn hesitated again, then answered, “He’s their primary embalmer.”
So much for the bookkeeper idea.
I looked at the clock on the wall, surprised to see it was only a few minutes after eleven. A lot had happened in one hour. “All righty then. I’ll let you get back to it. The origami bat will be right here, but we close at one.”
“Oh, I’ll be there within the hour.”
That should give Mimsey et al plenty of time to finish their spell casting by the time Quinn made it to Wren’s apartment. Not only had he said he wanted to talk with her, but it was likely that he’d want to take a look at the scene of the crime—if slipping a piece of origami under someone’s door could be considered a crime.
I said good-bye and hung up without mentioning that I didn’t plan on being at the Honeybee when he arrived. Lucy could hand him a plastic bag of evidence as easily as I could, and I wanted to take Steve up on his offer to help as soon as possible. Next I called Mimsey to let her know Quinn would probably be dropping by Wren’s apartment. They were just preparing to set up wards, but she assured me they’d pick up the pace.
Chapter 8
With a twinge of guilt that he was still in my contact list, I dialed Steve’s cell and waited while it rang.
“Well, well, well. I thought you’d never call.”
Didn’t anyone just answer hello anymore?
“It turns out I really do need to know more about the sale of the swamp,” I said. “Are you at home?” Steve had moved into his family’s guesthouse, but I’d never been there. I did know the estate had a swimming pool and a tennis court, and I was curious to see the place.
“Actually I’m at the office on this sunny Sunday afternoon.”
“At the News? Can I drop by?”
“No, at Dawes Corp. Thought I’d take a look and see what I could find out about this golf course thing in case you called after all. Which you just did.” I could hear him smiling.
Dawes Corp. Lordy.
“Something happened to change my mind,” I said.
There were a few beats of silence before he answered. “That sounds serious.”
“It is. Someone threatened Wren.”
Mungo nudged my hand again, and I absently scratched the top of his head.
“I’m not far from the Honeybee.” He gave me the address on Drayton Street. “Top floor. I’ll leave the side door to the street unlocked.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes.” I hung up.
“He wasn’t the least bit surprised that I called,” I said to Mungo.
He made a noise in the back of his throat and jumped down to where my tote bag sat open on the floor.
On my way out, I told Lucy where I was going. Her response was a quirked eyebrow that I pointedly ignored.
“Detective Quinn is dropping by in the next hour or so to pick up the bat,” I said. “It’s in a bag on the shelf under the register. Oh, and tell him I’m sorry Wren and Mimsey left before he could talk to them. My bad. They’re expecting him at Wren’s apartment, though.”
“Got it,” she said. “Now scoot.”
• • •
It actually took twelve minutes for Mungo and me to walk to Steve’s office. As he’d said, it was a sunny Sunday, and the humid air had warmed to sixty-five degrees. A few acclimated Southerners hurried by me on the sidewalk bundled up in sweaters, but I slipped off my jacket and looped it through the handles of my tote bag. Leaning against it, my familiar’s head bobbed in time with my steps.
On the way I thought about bats and swampland, boyfriends and ex-husbands. About halfway there, I realized that I was developing a mental to-do list. I might not know how to be a lightwitch per se, but in less than a year I’d developed a knack for getting information and figuring things out. Quinn wouldn’t be excited about my involvement, but if I stayed out of his way, I might be able to help in the end. I’d left the Honeybee feeling strongly protective of Wren, and now that was joined by the combination of intense curiosity and a desire for justice that I’d been so carefully trying to tamp down ever since I’d gotten that strange vibe from the first origami bat.
I stopped on the sidewalk in front of the address Steve had given me. Not surprisingly, subtlety ruled when it came to the Dawes Corporation. Nothing indicated the nondescript brick building held offices at all—no signage, no view into windows revealing office furniture, no parking lot. In front a concrete pathway led from the public sidewalk to three steps and then a large wooden door with a brass knocker. Wrought-iron window boxes on the second and third floors spilled over with bright pansies.
Then a single gargoyle downspout on a corner by the roofline caught my attention. Grotesque but amusing with bulging eyes and bulbous nose, the sculpture had something about it.
It held power. Not the cloying, rotting feel of Autumn’s paper bat, but a power I recognized.
Looking down at Mungo, I said, “Feel that?”
Yip!
The Dawes Corporation office would be in that corner of the third floor, and Heinrich Dawes had imbued the sculpted stone with a protection spell—and possibly something else. No surprise there. Heinrich wasn’t shy about using his druidic power both personally and in business. I just didn’t know to what degree.
I veered off the front path and went around to the narrow walkway that led between the buildings. The side door was indeed open. I entered the dark stairwell, blinking as my eyes adjusted to the dimness. Wending my way up the narrow stairs, I bypassed the first landing and entered a short hallway on the third floor. It ended in an open space thirty-five feet square. Light streamed down from multiple skylights set into the high ceiling, and plush carpet muffled my footsteps. Huge potted ficus trees in each corner reached toward the light above, and more lined the wide stairway, which was visible through a glass wall. Comfortable chairs were interspersed along walls graced with splashy modern art, and an unmanned reception desk sat near the entrance from the front stairs.
Three doors opened off the reception area. The first had a nameplate that unsurprisingly read HEINRICH DAWES. I did a double take when I saw the second name: LOGAN SEWARD.
Colleague indeed.
Steve sat behind an enormous burled-walnut desk in the third office. His office, the brass plate told me. I’d thought he was merely dabbling in Daddy’s business, and now I reassessed.
“Hello,” I said.
He looked up and rose to his feet. “Come in.”
I paused in the doorway, then continued in. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”
He laughed. “How formal. You’re very welcome.”
I sat down in the distressed leather guest chair that he waved me toward. There was plenty of room for my tote, too, and for Mungo, whose dark brown eyes were fixed on Steve. He sat back down on the other side of the desk.
Another skylight above offered plenty of daylight to tease out the elaborate grain of the desk, illuminate the dark wood of the bookcases and filing cabinets, and echo off the indigo paint on the beadboard wainscoting that ran around the periphery of the room. A marble sculpture of a bull dominated a corner behind the desk, and a single painting of a stormy country scene hung on the wall to my right. It looked like a Constable—so it probably was—and not a reproduction, either. A kind of fuzzy veil surrounded it, indicating it was heavily warded. I had to give Steve credit for keeping things simple in this plush and ornate space. Despite the palpable presence of wealth, the feng shui felt right.
“I’m intrigued,” he said. “This is the third time in a year that something like this has landed in your lap, so to speak. And they do say the third time’s a charm.”
I grimaced at his pun. “Funny.”
“Really, I’d like to help if I can.”
That’s why you’re here. Take him up on it.
Taking a deep breath, I plunged in. “So, what can you tell me about the swampland-slash-golf-course deal?”
He considered me. “Well, you do get to the point.”
“Sorry.” I leaned forward. “But this isn’t exactly a social call. I’d think you’d rather I didn’t waste your time.”
Amusement flickered across his face. “Tell you what. I’ll answer your questions to the extent that I’m able if you’ll listen to a proposal I have for you.”
Uh-oh. Warning klaxons went off in my mind, but I did my best to ignore them, knowing that if I didn’t agree, Steve might usher me out right then and there.
I nodded my agreement.
He smiled. “What do you want to know?”
I sat back and scrambled to gather my thoughts. “What, exactly, is your involvement with the sale of Fagen Swamp?”
“I’m not involved at all. Father is.”
“Perhaps I should be talking to him, then.”
“Yeah. Good luck with that.”
He was right. Heinrich probably wouldn’t even take my call. I wondered what Quinn would get out of him, if anything.
“He’s a venture capitalist,” Steve said. “In this case he’s investing capital in the venture of building a golf course—along with a few other people, I might add. Obviously the first step is to purchase the land. After looking at several sites, the investment group decided that the location of Fagen Swamp, which is about halfway to Tybee Island, was close enough to Savannah and the price was right.”
“Which has to be completely negated by the fact that it’s a swamp,” I said. “Won’t it have to be drained, razed, and then completely rebuilt down to the most basic level?” I struggled to keep the indignity out of my voice.
He gave a kind of facial shrug. “Still at less expense than the other land options.”
“And if somehow the land can’t be sold?” I asked.
“Bah. That silly bat thing? I don’t think they’re too worried about that.”