“That’s because they were,” he confirmed. “Since the year I was born, Dad has…had…been working on a magnum opus that he hoped would one day be published.”
David nodded. I smiled at Aurel's gumption. “Like the Emerald Tablet, you mean? The definitive text on alchemy, written by Hermes Trismigestus?”
Orville looked impressed with my knowledge. But the boy shook his head. “No, not this one. This was to be a work of fiction. A sweeping epic of lost lands and magical creatures. Not that he wasn't going to weave in some factual stuff, of course. Dad was the consummate researcher. Last we talked, he told me was exploring the links between alchemy and dragon lore. I mean, both of them hold fire as a central theme, so I guess it makes sense, right?"
“Given that dragons have been extinct for nearly a millennium,” David suggested. “I imagine your father must have faced some challenges finding reliable sources?”
“Oh, you don’t know the half of it, Chief Para Inspector,” Orville said, warming to the topic. “He could rant and rave for hours on how hard it was to find any useful information on the subject. Every scrap of data he found, he tested it out just like he’d have tested any of the metals in his cabinet, looking for impurities.”
Deflating again, he finished, “I really wish he could have lived long enough to finish it. Now…”
“Can you think of anyone who’d want to hurt your father?” I asked gently. “For any reason?”
Orville licked his lips at the question before answering with, “Well…he and Mom haven’t gotten along in a while. It’s one of the reasons why I managed to invent Futura not so long ago. I spent nearly all my time in the lab at Coven's Cauldron's just to avoid Mom and Dad's constant arguing. Or worse, just stonewalling each other." Orville's eyes glistened with his recalling of painful memories. He was an outrageously smart kid. He had single handedly designed the most cutting edge cauldron in all of the magical kingdoms: The Futura. A cauldron that was so light, so tough, and so easy to clean. According to the cheesy ads on TV, you could wipe the slime from a Godmarsh toad from its surface with nothing other than a damp cloth. God marsh toad slime! In years past, you’d need a chisel to get than darned goo off!
“Is there anyone else you can think of?” David asked.
“I can’t think of anyone. Everybody else loved Dad, me included. I was so hoping that the ‘Portia’ he mentioned before dying was the one who killed him. But I…I just don’t…”
Orville stuck his fist in his mouth to hold back the tears. David put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I think we have everything we need, for now, bud. Thank you for your help. I must apologize, but my constables still need to go over the area thoroughly. I promise we’ll be done by the time your mother returns.”
“Oh, it’s alright, Chief Para Inspector,” Orville said, dropping his hand and trying for another smile. “Like I said, whatever it takes to find Dad’s killer.”
I was about to go hunting for Midnight on the front steps of the estate when a nearby bush spoke to me. “Psst!”
I tried to suppress a rising giggle. “Okay, what supernatural creature did you manage to piss off this time?”
“Nobody,” Midnight said matter-of-factly. “I just wanted to hang out somewhere dark.”
“Okay, mission accomplished. Now are you going to come on out and tell me what you’ve found or do I need to drag your fuzzy butt out of there?”
“If this were back home, then maybe you’d need to,” Midnight said, coming out of the foliage with great reluctance. David walked up behind me right at that moment.
“So,” he said, staring directly at my tired cat. “Find anything?"
“I was getting to that,” Midnight snapped. “I’m just not used to all this…light. But the good news is that some of my regular contacts are still up this late…early…whatever, you get the idea.”
“Midnight,” I said, my tone wanting him to get on with it.
“Anyway, I ran into this brownie over there in the bushes. He spotted something a little further down the stairs. I’ll take you to it.”
I didn't even know there were stairs out here in the garden. I'd been so focused on the tragic events on the inside of the estate.
We followed Midnight down a set of ancient looking bronze steps; the upper end of a fifty-four step staircase, David said, “I’m wondering if Portia is actually our killer as young Mr. Nugget suggested.”
“So am I,” I said as we kept up with my insomniac kitty.
David audibly gasped at my saying so.
I shrugged and said, “How many Portia's do you know on Glessie? Of those Portia's, how many of them would necessarily swim in some of the same magical circles that Aurel did? Plus, we both saw Aurel come out of the basement in Gaunt Manor not so long ago. Put it all together, and we’ve got a suspect worth looking at.”
“Not that I necessarily disagree, Hattie,” David said slowly. “But this is usually the part where you’re telling me that most to all of my supposition on this subject is just a coincidence.”
“Helping you solve these cases has made me stop believing in coincidence.”
David shrugged his shoulders and gave a quick bob of his head in understanding. That sort of thinking had likely been burned out of his system a long time ago too.
“Here it is,” Midnight said, pointing to a spot on the left near the bushes. There was a gray dust pile that resembled fine ash. At first glance, there seemed to be more than a bit of resemblance to the Snake-Iron inside. But a closer look revealed that it was several shades darker than the substance that had apparently killed Aurel.
“Gloves, Chief Para Inspector?” I asked, stretching my hand back to him as I kneeled down.
“And an evidence baggie,” David confirmed as the gloves hit my fingers.
A minute later, I’d taken a sample of the substance and David had called over his forensic people to examine the spot. Something tinkled off to the right, and I saw Midnight playing with what looked like a canine tooth.
“Look what I found,” he said with glee, batting the tooth over to me. “Bet you anything it’s a vampire fang.” Midnight's eyes danced with excitement. I wondered if this was the kind of zeal he had for his night time discoveries. Goddess, I realized then, I knew so little of my kitty’s nightly pursuits.
A closer look at the object revealed that it wasn’t any tooth I’d ever seen before. Yes, it was long and sharp and came up to a fine point at the end. But this wasn't a tooth. It was a bone. I'd seen enough of them in my time to recognize one when I saw it. But a bone from what, exactly? Right now it was anyone's guess.
“Going to need another baggie, David,” I said casually, holding up my kitty’s find with gloved hands. David took it and deposited it in a fresh plastic wrap.
“Hey, listen,” Midnight said uncomfortably. “I couldn’t help but overhear you talking about Portia Fearwyn. You’re not seriously thinking of going—“
“Yes, we are, Special Agent Fuzzybutt,” I said, giving him a quick stroke of the head. “That’s typically what you do when you want to question suspects.”
“Yeah, well, everything I’ve ever heard from my peeps tells me that’s a REALLY bad idea. Individuals who show up on Gaunt Manor’s doorstep with accusations have a nasty habit of getting very dead. And that’s just if Portia is in a good mood. But, hey, my peeps don't have my kind of personality. Because I actually like the old woman. She's good for nibbles and belly rubs, you know?” He washed his ears as he said, "But, I know ol' Portia isn't too fond of humans. Awakened or otherwise, so my suggestion would be to stay away."
I should have known that Gaunt Manor would have been one of Midnight's spots.
“Yet, I’ve managed to accuse Ms. Fearwyn of no less than four murders, and she still hasn’t turned me into a toad,” David said, handing off the bone charm to the nearest CSI.
“Not from lack of trying,” I muttered soto voce.
“Hey!”
“Look, you two,” Midnight said, still hoping to ta
lk us out of this idea. “There is a reason nobody in my gossip circles ever goes into Gaunt Manor. This naiad I know on the west coast had this theory that Portia’s actually a direct descendent of Hecate.”
That sparked a connection in my head. “Hecate of the Presences?”
“No, not that Hecate. You mean to tell me that you spent all that time around Grandma Chimera and now don’t even recognize the name of the Greek queen of witches?”
I did, and I had to say that he might have been onto something. Although, if Portia resembled any of the Greek Goddess’s I would have her pegged for Persephone. The Goddess of the Underworld.
“Well, that’s going to be our next stop as soon as I tie off some loose ends,” David said, unmoved by Midnight’s dissertation. “Come along or stay behind. Those are the only two options.”
Wanting at least one of my kitties by my side for the trip, I sweetened the pot by saying, “There's a tin of sardines at home with your name on it, Middie.”
Midnight arched his back and yawned in exhaustion. “I guess I could stay awake long enough to indulge.”
Despite his hesitation, when David and I reached our brooms at the bottom of the stairs, Midnight was sitting right by mine. He hopped on, and once again we were on our way to the Gorthlands, and Portia Fearwyn's crumbling manor.
It was impossible to miss Gaunt Manor from the air. Actually, it was hard to miss any man-made structure from the air when you were looking at the Gorthlands from an aerial view. As far as the eye could see, there was a tangle of swamps, wetlands, fens and other stinking bog-like terrain stretching out like a nasty patchwork quilt thrown askance.
Looking down at it, I tried to put the best spin I could on the forlorn landscape. I thought about the rich diversity of plant life found nowhere else on the Coven Isles, some of which became my best money-making herbs at The Angel. I pondered the distinctive creatures that lived here; Godmarsh toads, Blue-eyed bats, Mudglumpers, Neethies, Swamp-Sidler's. Sure, I'd die if one of these critters actually came near me, but, hey, they were still all Goddess' creatures, right? They belonged on these Isles as much as my kitties did. Life! Glorious life! In all of its varied splendor! How lucky I was to be alive with all this slithering, crawling, galumphing fauna.
Okay, the positive thinking wasn't helping. The fact remained that I was about to land in a swamp, that I was about to accuse Portia Fearwyn of a crime. AGAIN. And this time I didn't feel as if my safety was quite so, um, safe.
Gaunt Manor sat in the center of the swamp like a giant rotting skull. It was still an impressive structure to look at, even with all the incidental decay that had made it look dilapidated. But it had definitely seen better days, and the whole thing came off looking like the world’s most haunted house.
As we were coming in for a landing, Midnight remarked, “Wow, this place actually looks worse in daylight.”
When I glanced over my shoulder at him, he added, “Not that it's the Ritz at the best of times." He offered a cheeky smile.
“Uh-huh,” I said while my feet touched one of the few dry patches of ground in the immediate area. All of my kitties come off as knowing a lot more than they like to let on. So while I wasn’t surprised that Midnight had been out here before, I felt a little let down that I didn't know this before today, but if I knew the Infiniti, I could pretty much guarantee they only kept things from me if they felt it would somehow make me uncomfortable.
David was off his broom quicker than Midnight could dismount. The chief stomped purposefully up to Portia's door in one fluid motion. Three knocks and the door opened to reveal the most feared woman on Glessie. Portia looked like your classic wicked witch: pinched face, stick build, gray-white hair, beady black eyes and a perma-sneer on her thin lips. She was wearing her usual choice of clothes, a body swallowing black robe. Also, as usual, she looked annoyed but not genuinely surprised by our unannounced visit.
“I take it that your presence here means that yet another body has shown up,” she barked, dispensing with any greeting.
David was more than happy to just get right to it. He held up the evidence bag of the powder we found in the study. “Do you know what this is?”
“Of course,” Portia said, her tone resting somewhere between sullen and offended. “Snake-Iron. A substance you have so little experience with that I’d bet Gaunt Manor on it that you think it's some kind of Mainland recreational drug.”
As this initial exchange should make clear, there was no love lost between the two of them. Portia’s activities had long invoked suspicion in the Chief. He had yet to connect a murder back to her, but it never stopped him from trying. For her part, Portia had long since left behind the need to explain anything that she didn’t have to. Were it not for the fact that she had had such respect for my late Grandma Opal; I doubt that she’d have bothered opening her mouth to David at all.
“Well, as you're on a roll with your usual brand of helpfulness,” he said, pulling out the bagged sticky note. He read it out loud in a monotone, unmoving string of words. “‘One by one The Custodians will fall.’ Mean anything to you?”
I saw the slightest twitch flicker at the corner of Portia's thin lips. Her eyes hardened then. Apparently, that phrase meant something to her. “Where did you find that?” She snarled.
“Hattie pried this out of the hand of one dead Aurel Nugget not more than an hour ago. The last word out of poor Aurel's mouth was apparently your name." This time David wasn't asking a question. He stared directly at Portia, his chin jutting, and his expression stony.
At this statement, there was more than a passing flicker to her features. Portia's body visibly tensed, and her pupils dilated, so her eyes looked like black buttons. Bast! I wish David hadn't delivered the news of both Aurel's death and his uttering her name in one sentence. Did she tense up because Aurel was dead? Because his last words were her name? Both?
“Where were you last night?” David growled. Yikes, he's in freight train mode. I was starting to feel a little uncomfortable. Midnight stood stock still behind my legs, not making a peep. I was convinced that not one of us had taken a breath since this exchange started.
“No comment,” Portia answered, gathering her regular sour and superior countenance.
“What were you doing last night?”
“No comment.”
“Who were you with last night?”
“No comment.”
This last was delivered in a hissing whisper.
Midnight pushed his whole body into my legs, tucking his tail in so that not a strand of fur would be seen. I felt a slight tremble on my calf coming from his soft coat.
“Ms. Fearwyn,” I said, hoping I sounded confident even as my lips were comically stuck to my teeth. Yeah, my mouth went that dry. I swallowed, trying to muster up some moisture.
“As usual, CPI Trew isn’t accusing you of anything yet. But all those ‘no comment's’ make it look like you have something to hide.”
Portia gave me a curt nod. “That may be true, Ms. Jenkins. It does not, however, automatically make me guilty of Aurel’s murder.”
“We’d like to look around—“ David started.
“I’m sure you would, Chief Para Inspector,” Portia said, closing the door a couple of inches. “Unfortunately for you, I have no interest in playing show-and-tell.”
“I come back with a search warrant for all your properties, you won’t have a choice,” David said, leaning in to make his point.
I stepped closer to him. While things had never gone beyond verbal jabs between these two, there was always the chance that THIS time would be the back-breaking straw. And after David's onslaught just now, well ...
“You will do no such thing, David Trew,” Portia said, leaning in toward David through the ever-narrowing door opening.
David gave her a nasty smile. “And what are you going to do to stop me?”
“Oh, I'd never waste my time cooking up nefarious ways to make you suffer, Inspector. No, I won't need to DO anything
. You'll simply find no authorization, nor indeed, any kind of co-operation, from your superiors on Talisman.” She returned David's acid sneer.
I'm sure my friend wouldn't clue into this just yet, but I knew. Portia had won. She wasn't bluffing. She was super powerful, and I didn't know why. Or how.
“I go high enough up the food chain, I’m sure I’ll find somebody.” Bless him; you had to admire him for trying.
“It's quaint that you have dreams, Inspector. Please. Do try and keep them alive,” she said with murderous sweetness.
David got caught up on what was happening here, finally. He said nothing. Just turned on his heel to where we had left the brooms. I felt Midnight peel away from my leg, and, slinking so low to the ground that he resembled a freshly steam-rolled Wyle E Coyote, he followed the Chief.
I let out a sigh of relief. That was all just way too close to the bone. I gave the old witch a half smile, half shrug combo and pivoted toward David and my spooked out cat. I was stopped by Portia's bony hand, grasping my wrist in a vice-like grip. My eyes bulged in abject terror, and I let out an almighty blood-curdling scream, flailing my arms like a woman who'd been swarmed by bees.
Well, that's what I figure SHOULD have happened. But, instead, my legs buckled, and I squeaked like a baby mouse. I guess I had just fallen victim to the 'collapse and die' side of the 'fight or flight' equation.
“Hattie. Wait.”
Her tone was far gentler than my terror supposed it should sound, and my heart resumed a less emergency-room-rhythm once her grip relaxed. I wanted to thank her then. I wanted to gush and kiss her feet and genuinely thank her for not killing me. Such was my relief.
Whatever Portia had to tell me was for my ears only and it was obviously quite important.
She pointed to a rustling bush not two feet away from where David now stood with our brooms. Midnight's head poked out, and he hastily trotted the last twenty-four inches or so to relative safety by the Chief. “This Lemniscate. He's inflicted with an imbalance, is he not?” I couldn't help but smile at the term. Only Onyx used this outdated descriptor for my clan of fur-babies. These days they were known simply as the Infiniti.
The Infiniti Investigates: Hattie Jenkins & the Infiniti Chronicles Books 1 to 5 Page 81