Catnip & Curses (The Faerie Files Book 2)

by Emigh Cannaday

  "So you're quite the history expert here in Mariposa?" I asked. Jillian’s eyes lit up.

  "Well, I don't like to toot my own horn, but yes. I’d say I'm probably the most knowledgeable on certain subjects around here."

  She smiled proudly and leaned against her desk.

  "What do you know about the history of the police station?” asked Logan.

  "Oh, wow,” gushed Jillian. "What do I not know? That place is full of interesting facts. Did you know that the first drinking fountain in the state was installed right in that police station?”

  "Fascinating," yawned Logan, pulling the plastic evidence bag out of his briefcase. “Do you happen to know anything about handcuffs?"

  Jillian stared in shock as he set them on her desk with a clunk.

  "Where did you find these?” She clutched the bag to her chest as though she'd been reunited with a much-loved set of lost pearls. “Were they at the police station again?”

  Logan and I exchanged a confused sideways glance and looked back to Jillian.

  “They were,” he said slowly. “Although I’m curious how you knew that.”

  “Everyone knows that place is cursed,” she explained. “The first time they went missing, I filed a report with the Mariposa police. About a week later, Chief Alvarez returned them. Then they disappeared again, and Chief Alvarez himself came to take the report. And wouldn’t you know, he found them again. It’s like they grew legs and kept escaping.”

  “Is that so?” While Logan frowned in disapproval, Jillian looked at him incredulously before turning back to me. “You don’t think it’s me taking them, do you? Because the cameras will all show how I lock them up every night."

  “Nobody’s accusing you of anything,” I assured her with a grin. “We’re just trying to get a grasp on what’s going on around here. When’s the first time the handcuffs went missing?”

  Jillian’s face softened once she realized she wasn’t in trouble.

  “Easy. It was right before Halloween," she said, stretching out the plastic bag so she could see the cuffs more clearly. "I thought someone must’ve stolen them as a prank."

  "Why would someone do that? Is there something special about this pair?”

  "Well . . . yeah. They were worn by one of Mariposa’s local legends. He was pretty notorious.”

  "And who would that be?"

  "Clyde McQueen," she replied girlishly as though she was talking about a rock star she had a teenage crush on. "Have you heard of him?"

  We both shook our heads in unison.

  "He was a bank robber . . . and a murderer," she said while gazing down at the handcuffs.

  "Sounds dreamy," I replied.

  "Except he wasn’t. Not really,” she said, and grew more serious. “Back in eighteen-forty-seven, just about everyone thought he robbed the bank down on Collins Street. He allegedly took around five hundred dollars in coins and killed three men in the process."

  “Did they catch him?”

  “They did. He was found guilty and sentenced to hang,” said Jillian. “But that’s not what happened."

  She paused for dramatic effect and leaned back in her seat. I was fairly curious, although Logan was far from hanging on her every word.

  "So?” I probed. "What happened?”

  “Clyde killed himself before he got to the gallows," she said. Logan gave a condescending grumble of disapproval.

  "Too much of a pussy to face the executioner?"

  Moving with a mind of its own, my hand immediately lashed out and thumped Logan in the chest.

  “Time out for a second. You know I hate it when you say that kind of shit. Everybody knows pussies are tough as hell. They can take a pounding, push out a motherfucking baby, and then do it all over again. It’s nutsacks that are all Susie Sensitive. They shrivel up if you so much as flick em.” Just for emphasis, I made a flicking motion with my middle finger and thumb. Sure enough, Logan winced.

  “Sorry about that. It’s just a habit.”

  “Get a new fucking habit,” I snarked at him, then turned back to Jillian. “So? Why did Clyde kill himself?”

  “Aw, it’s such a sad story,” she said. “Nice point you made just now, by the way. I never thought about it like that, but I totally agree.”

  She hesitated, but not because she was reveling in the wondrous realization that pussies were, in fact, a million times tougher than nutsacks. I could see there was a sincere look of sadness in her eyes, a kind of wistful melancholy that made me wonder if she was related to this Clyde dude or if he was just a colorful character from the local archives.

  "It wasn't Clyde who robbed the bank," she explained. "In fact, he wasn't even in town when it happened."

  “Okay . . . so who robbed the bank?"

  Still clutching the bagged handcuffs, she smiled wryly and leaned towards us.

  “Well, nobody knew for sure until about twenty years ago. That’s when the Mariposa Historical Society uncovered one of the biggest scandals in our town’s history. It turns out that Clyde was secretly engaged to a Chinese woman who belonged to another man—a wealthy landowner. And I say she belonged to him because her dad owed the guy a few months of rent, so he took Li Mei as payment.”

  “Holy shit!” I gasped. "That’s awful! How could the landowner do something like that?”

  “Easy,” Jillian replied. “Slavery was still legal back then. A Chinese immigrant woman wouldn’t have been seen as good for anything except doing laundry or working in a brothel. Back in the wild west, being married to a Chinese woman would’ve been a huge scandal.” She sighed and shook her head. “Such a shame that couples like Clyde and Li Mei had to go through that back then. Anyhow, no one had a clue about their secret engagement until Li Mei’s personal diaries were found about twenty years ago. It took a few more years before they were made available to the public.”

  “How extensive were they?”

  “Extensive enough to eliminate any doubt whatsoever about what happened back then,” Jillian replied. “Li Mei said that she dressed up in some of Clyde’s clothes and robbed the bank. Apparently she was pregnant with Clyde’s baby and they were desperate to get enough money to run away. They wanted to start a new life in San Francisco . . . probably because there was a bigger Chinese community and they could blend in better. She never meant to hurt anyone, but things didn't go to plan. She ended up shooting three people. She said it was something she’d always regret."

  Jillian pursed her lips into a tight line as a solemn expression fell across her face. Grasping the cuffs tighter in her hands, she looked down at them and frowned.

  “The sheriff recognized Clyde’s clothes, so he went to his house and found Li Mei there with all the money. Of course Clyde didn't want to see the the love of his life be arrested and executed, so he confessed to the crimes to save her.”

  “How noble,” I agreed.

  "Yeah, poor guy. He thought he was doing the right thing," said Jillian. “Except their story just gets sadder."

  She was staring into the bag of cuffs as though she could see the past inside them.

  "The night before Clyde was scheduled to be executed, he hung himself in his cell," she said. “But I always thought if he was brave enough to confess to a crime he didn't commit, he was brave enough to go to the gallows."

  "I sense you think there's some other reason he killed himself," said Logan.

  "The thing is, I don't know why he killed himself," replied Jillian. "There are theories floating around of course. That Li Mei had abandoned him in his jail cell leaving him heartbroken, that their big secret might be revealed so he committed suicide before the world could find out. Some rumors have suggested that he really did rob the bank and kill all those people—he hung himself because he couldn't live with the guilt. Some say Li Mei wrote those things in her diary as a way to preserve Clyde’s honor. I think those are most of the rumors.

  Logan and I fell silent as we contemplated the case. It was getting more complicated by the
minute.

  "And now you're bringing me his handcuffs, yet again,” Jillian said. “Where do they keep turning up?"

  "The cuffs are always found in the oldest part of the police station. It started happening right after some work was done in the nearby parking lot.”

  “Oh . . . well, I suppose that's where they would’ve been back when Clyde was locked up . . . ” Jillian’s eyebrows arched as the wheels in her brain started to spin. “But that’s interesting you mentioned the parking lot.”

  "Really? Is there something significant about it?”

  “Well . . . yeah.” Her whole face was starting to light up, and I caught a hint of her excitement. “That parking lot used to be a grave site for people who were executed. If Clyde McQueen is anywhere, it'll be under the asphalt beside the police station."

  I could feel the thrill of the chase rising within me.

  "I have a plot map," Jillian beamed. "It shows where most of the inmates were buried. Want me to find it?"

  "Absolutely!"

  "It might take a hot second,” she said, propelling herself off the edge of her desk where she’d been leaning. "It's in the archives upstairs."

  Before I could thank her, I heard her high heels clicking up the stairs two at a time.

  I stared at my partner. This was a great start to our investigation.

  "So what the fuck does all this mean?" asked Logan. “Clyde killed himself in the cells before he could be executed. So why would he be buried in the grave site reserved for people at the end of the noose?"

  "I suppose if he died in the police station he still qualifies. He did confess to the crime, after all.”

  Logan scratched his chin in thought and stared up towards the ceiling so long that I wondered if he was thinking about cute, quirky Jillian all alone up in the archives. Maybe he was trying to figure out how to offer to help her without it looking obvious.

  But as he lowered his gaze and looked off into the distance, I saw something else was on his mind. Something that snuffed out the twinkle I normally saw in his eyes.

  "Are you okay?" I asked him.

  "Sure."

  "You don't look okay. You haven't all morning. Did you have another nightmare?”

  He didn't say anything, but the look on his face clearly answered my question.

  "It was just a dream," I reminded him.

  “Except it wasn’t just a dream."

  I regretted bringing up the dream again. I should’ve kept his mind focused on the cuffs and Clyde McQueen.

  Logan started to pace around the main room, glowering at the various artifacts and photos on display in the softly lit museum. Walking back to the large window in the front lobby, he looked down the street to where the corner of the police station was slightly visible. From the way he stood, I could see all his muscles were tensed up. His shoulders were pulled halfway up to his ears and his biceps were flexed, pulling the fabric of his suit jacket tight. He was so big and burly, and yet, at least to me, all I could see was a vulnerable creature.

  "I'm sorry," I said, walking over to him. I reached up and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "I didn't mean to be dismissive. We had a long day yesterday, and listening to fucking Johnson nag at us for hours wasn’t exactly helpful. No wonder your brain was in overdrive while you slept."

  "No," he said, his voice sharp as he turned around to face me. "It wasn't like that. This was more than a dream or a vision. It was a real experience. I was really there. It was like . . . I dunno . . . astral projection or something."

  I could see the genuine fear in his eyes. The cocky, arrogant football star had been replaced with something wild and feral.

  "Logan, I've never seen you like this before. Tell me exactly what happened."

  He walked back to the window where he peered out towards the Mariposa jail parking lot.

  "I saw Sylvia," he began. "She was dressed like a cat. Her reptile husband was mowing the lawn and—”

  "Okay stop right there. This is what kept you up all night?"

  “Are you going to listen to me or not?”

  His eyes darted down to the sidewalk where he studied a group of pigeons gathered around the remnants of a partially-eaten ice cream cone.

  "There was a tree with a hole in the bottom,” he said. "It looked small but I could fit right in it."

  “Where did it lead?”

  “It felt like an opening to the fae world. And I was falling through the darkness for what felt like years. I thought I was going to fall through the center of the Earth."

  His eyes were still on the pigeons, but I’m not sure that he saw them. He was too busy directing his mind inward . . . back into his nightmare.

  “Eventually there was light," he continued, “and then I was in some kind of ancient subterranean castle. The whole place was covered in plants, and I was in a crib. I was a baby and I was so happy. I had a mom . . . she wasn’t my mom who died when I was a kid. She was someone else. Someone named Sanne."

  My breath caught in my throat. I froze and looked into his eyes.

  "Sanne?"

  “Yeah. Does that sound familiar to you at all?”

  “Kinda, but I haven't heard of it since I was . . . actually, it doesn't matter. We’re talking about you, not me. So you were in an old underground castle, and you were a baby. What happened next?”

  He rubbed his eyes and leaned against the wall as if just thinking about his dream was enough to exhaust him. I knew he should’ve had more for breakfast than his stupid Americano.

  “So Sanne, my mom, she loved me so much. I’ve never felt anything like it before. It wasn’t just mental or emotional . . . it was physical. It felt almost magnetic. It was so strong . . . so pure . . . just so . . . so perfect.”

  Sucking in a deep breath, he brought his eyes to mine.

  "She was so beautiful, Elena. She looked like an angel. And she was so real—as real as you are to me right now. And . . . ” A pained expression clouded his face and he shook his head. “I feel like such an asshole for saying this, but I loved Sanne more than my real mom. It felt like Sanne was my real mom. Isn't that terrible?"

  "No," I said softly. “We can’t help what happens when we close our eyes at night. I know you loved your mom, Logan. You still do. You visit her grave all the time. Maybe the feelings you had for Sanne represent the feelings between you and your mom?”

  Visibly shaken, Logan meandered back over to Jillian’s desk and sat on the edge, trying to compose himself.

  "I had a dad too, a great big tall guy. He had a scar on his chin and his voice reminded me of Zeus. He looked like a warrior, but there was something regal about him. And the way he doted on me and Sanne . . . ”

  Again, I could feel the tension mount within me. Logan was dreaming about a big, tall warrior with a scar on his chin and a loud, deep voice like a god? And the guy was married to a woman named Sanne?

  How was that even possible?

  "You okay, Elena?"

  “Huh? Oh, yeah,” I said, tossing my long pink hair over my shoulder. “I’m fine."

  "You don’t look like you’re fine.”

  “I’m just hungry.”

  Logan’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  “Bullshit. You never look like that when you’re thinking about food. What aren’t you telling me?”

  I pulled the hair tie from my wrist and twirled my hair into a haphazard bun, trying to think of how to construct my next few sentences.

  “When I was growing up in the Hollows, my parents didn’t have a lot of allies. Elphame was a kingdom built on violence, and my parents were hell-bent on establishing some level of peace after centuries of war.”

  “Yeah, I remember you telling me about that. What’s that got to do with my dream?”

  “I’m about to tell you, dumbass. I just wanted to give you some context. Now where was I? Oh, right. My parents didn’t have a lot of allies they could trust. So whenever they had friends come to stay, they stayed for a long time. One of my dad
’s closest friends was a general in the army . . . I think he was a marquess—but we just called him Lord Tierstand. He was a big elven guy with the bluest eyes and a laugh that could fill a room. I remember him visiting our castle and telling all the kids at court stories from his battles . . . and he had a scar on his chin to prove it.” Still fiddling with my hair, I glanced at Logan and saw that sweat had started to form across his forehead.

  “But it would make sense for a general to have a scar on his chin, right?” Logan said, and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “And it’s not like blue eyes are uncommon.”

  I wrinkled my face into a skeptical grimace.

  “Maybe not, but elves are usually conceited dickheads, and Lord Tierstand was a pretty cool guy. Plus, he was married to one of the sweetest, nicest elven women I’d ever met. Her name was Sanne. Lady Sanne.”

  "Lady Sanne . . . " Logan murmured to himself. “It sounds so elegant.”

  “Yeah, well, she was a classy lady. I remember my parents would always tell us to use their formal titles, but the Marquess and Marchioness of Tierstand insisted that we call them Sanne and Niklas.”

  My partner drew in a sharp breath and looked like he might pass out any second.

  “Logan? Shit, are you all right?”

  I grabbed him by the shoulder and gave him a slight shake, but it was like he was stuck in a trance.

  "Logan! What's gotten into you?"

  “I didn’t tell you, but that was my name in the dream . . . Niklas.” he finally breathed. "I was baby Niklas, and my mother was Sanne, and my dad had the scar on his chin . . . so I suppose that makes my father Lord Tierstand.”

  “Logan, it was just a dream.”

  Slowly, two dark blue eyes turned to meet my gaze, and the man who owned them began to snap out of his trance. I was as confused as he was. None of this made any sense. But one thing was crystal clear in my mind—whatever he’d seen wasn't just a dream.

  It was so much more than that.

  Logan swallowed hard, fighting the incredulous disbelief that was quickly taking over his mind.