by Erin Johnson
Peter didn’t seem to register his colleague’s unease, but I leaned into one hip. “Hey, buddy, I know you’re listening.”
The officer glanced up.
“I can read animal minds—you got a problem with that?”
The cop shot Peter a skeptical look, his eyes darting between us. “What’s up with this broad, Flint? She legit?”
Peter nodded.
The cop shook his head and grumbled to himself. “First a dog for a partner, now a chick who can read little bird minds. What’s next?”
I pointed at the guy but addressed Peter. “What’s he doing?”
The cop had quite a collection of brown powder in his glass vial.
Peter swept a broad hand in a line toward a door in the back wall. “We found muddy footprints. They lead in to this point, then turn around and go back out the way they came. There’s a back entrance through the storerooms off the alley behind the building.”
I perched on the edge of a long desk and looked at the storeroom door Peter had indicated. “How’d this person get in? Don’t they keep it locked?”
Peter bit his lip. “I’m sure. Which means someone must’ve had a key.”
I glanced at Turk, Millie, and Zo behind me. Those three would undoubtedly have keys to the business. I leaned closer to Peter and lowered my voice. “Hate to say it, but your truth-smelling dog’s nose might be off.”
“Flint.” Another uniformed officer burst through the storeroom door. She waved a sheet of paper in one hand. “Found this taped to the alley door downstairs.”
I pushed off the desk and followed Peter over. The officer handed the paper over and moved off.
Amelie,
Come in and meet me upstairs. Door’s unlocked.
-Bim
I shrugged. “Guess that explains how ‘muddy footprints’ got in—the door was unlocked.”
Peter, a line between his brows, flipped the page over to the blank back, then back to the handwriting again. “But who’s Amelie?”
“Wait! Did you say muddy footprints?”
Turk lurched out of his sulking spot in the corner and marched over to us. His robe flew open, revealing a mass of black fur under his white tank top and boxers. I averted my eyes and let out a low whine.
He’s almost as hairy as you, Daisy. Almost.
She glared up at me with her dark eyes and head that was as big as mine. I have a beautiful, shiny coat. Peter brushes me every day. She lifted her nose in the air.
I smirked. Probably to try and cut down on the shedding. I made a face and a big show of dusting her tawny hairs off my sweatpants. Maybe I’ll do Peter a big favor and have Will shave you.
Daisy let out a low growl. I’d like to see you try.
I caught Peter watching us, brows pulled together and eyes wide.
I waved it off. “Just a little girl time. She’s such a sweetie.”
Daisy snarled at me, and I edged away from her.
Peter’s throat bobbed and his mouth twitched toward a grin, though doubt still filled his eyes. “Oh. Okay.”
Turk lurched up to us and shook a finger at Peter. “Muddy footprints? You said muddy footprints, right?” He cast a wide-eyed look at Millie, then at Zo. Both women ignored him, so he turned back to Peter.
“Officer, I think I know who did this!”
13
The Feud
Peter squared his shoulders. “You know who did this?”
Turk nodded, the whites showing all around his eyes. “Yeah, our neighbor!” He thumbed over his hairy shoulder.
Millie snapped out of her stupor and turned to face her husband, a bewildered look on her pale face. “Our neighbor?”
Turk huffed. “That no good guppie, Martin Shaw!”
Millie only blinked rapidly, but Zo stopped pacing. She lifted a brow and crossed her arms over her ample bosom. “That weirdo across the street?” The neon sign outside lit up half her face in purple.
At least they weren’t talking about me. Though it would have been an accurate description. I chewed my lip and cast through my memory. Martin Shaw? If he was across the street, that would make him my neighbor too, but I couldn’t recall knowing a Martin.
The quill beside Peter’s head magically jotted down notes. “Why do you suspect this Martin Shaw fellow?”
“Our sign.” Turk led the way to the window, and Peter, Daisy, and I followed. Zo lifted her nose and marched away from the windows as soon as we neared them. Turk cast one anguished look after her, then shook himself and gestured through the dirty panes.
“See, down there, to the right? That’s where that spineless crustacean lives. Ooh!” He balled his hands into beefy fists. “If that bottom dweller did this to our Bim, I’ll wring his neck and—”
Peter cleared his throat.
Turk’s eyes widened as he caught himself, and he tugged on the tie of his robe. “Figuratively, of course.” He ran a hand over his balding head.
I found my own window, right across the way, black curtains drawn, then looked down and to the right. The looky-loos still gathered behind the police barrier outside, though the crowd had thinned.
Rain still pattered the dirty, cracked cobblestones below. I found the shop windows Turk had pointed out. A pale green light glowed from behind the crack in the curtains.
“Why do you believe your neighbor would kill over a sign?” Peter’s face remained impassive, his gaze fixed on Turk.
The man scoffed. “Guy claimed the sign was ruining some of his precious plants. Apparently they need absolute darkness to grow.” Turk rolled his eyes. “Put ’em in a closet or something.”
I lifted a brow. “Sounds like he’s really into his plants.” I had definitely never met this person before—I’d have remembered a neighbor like that.
“He’s a botanist.”
I jumped. I hadn’t noticed Millie come up and stand beside me.
“A botanist?”
She nodded at me, then at Peter, and sniffled, her eyes and nose red from crying. “The sign has become a major point of contention. If you check, there will be a record of an official complaint we filed against him. He kept breaking the sign by cursing it.”
Turk growled. “Been costing us a fortune to get it counter-spelled all the time!”
Peter lifted a brow. “You have proof of this?”
Turk’s cheeks flushed. “Well… not exactly. Charges were never leveled, but come on! We know it’s him, who else?” He threw a palm towards the guy’s shop.
I scoffed. “Uh! Any neighbor in the vicinity? The whole neighborhood hates that sign!”
Millie and Turk whirled on me, lips tight. Oops. That had just slipped right on out.
I shrugged. “Or… you know… so I imagine.” But it was true. I’d heard all my neighbors complaining about the flashing monstrosity.
“That would explain the mud—the man works with plants and dirt.” Peter shifted on his feet. “Do you have any reason to suspect he might have targeted Bim specifically?”
As Peter continued to question Turk and Millie, I kept my gaze out the windows. You got used to the familiar lineup of night market characters. The food vendors, the gamblers, the young kids wolfing down fried chicken after a night on the town. There were also the street urchins, the shady dealers, the pirates.
I leaned closer and squinted, trying to make out the figure down below. Someone tall and lean, in a black fur-trimmed cloak, tugged at the hood over their head. This person, though they were clearly trying to keep a low profile in that “disguise,” stood out like a sore thumb. If they really wanted to blend in, they just needed some ratty clothes and a shifty demeanor.
Well, the shifty demeanor they had down. The cloaked figure looked right and left, lingering in the shadows between two buildings across the street. When they lifted their face to the sky and caught sight of the police signal hovering above us, I saw her.
Bright white hair, a pretty face and square jaw. Mouth and eyes wide in surprise… or fear. I squinted
through the dirty windows and the rain, trying to make out that familiar-seeming face down below. But she whirled, cloak whipping around her, and sped away down an alley.
I tapped a finger to my lips. Where did I know her from? I was certain I recognized that woman.
“Jolene?”
I jumped and turned.
Peter gave me a good-natured grin. “Sorry. Just… looks like we’re speaking to the botanist next. You ready to go?”
I nodded and fell in step with him as we, accompanied by Daisy, headed toward the stairs. “You know it’s animals I’m good with, not plants.” I raised my brows.
He grinned. “You never know when a ladybug or a gnat might be hanging around.”
I rolled my eyes but jogged down the steps behind him.
14
The Botanist
“Martin Shaw?” Peter cleared his voice and tried again. “Mr. Shaw? I’m Officer Flint, I’d like to ask you some questions.” He knocked on the weathered wooden door.
“You’re so polite.” I hiked up my brows and shivered, rivulets of rain trickling down my face. “I say we just bust down the door—the guy sounds guilty.”
Peter grinned at me. “Tempting, but police procedure and—” His smile faded. “You’re soaked.”
My teeth chattered. “Eh. A little rain never hurt anyone.” The rain had plastered my mess of hair to my head. It was now such a matted tangle that I’d probably have to cut my ribbon tie out of it.
His thick brows drew together. “Why didn’t you spell your jacket?”
He meant, like every other normal magical person on the island. Though rain pattered against Peter’s hood and Daisy’s coat, the spell he’d cast over them before we left the office helped repel the water and keep them dry. I, however, had lost all my magical abilities and run out without grabbing an umbrella.
As I opened my mouth, unsure what lame excuse was about to come out of it, Peter reached for the brass doorknob and turned it. His brows hiked in surprise. “It’s open.” He pulled the door open and pressed a warm hand against my back. He ushered me inside. “Let’s get you out of this weather.”
I stepped inside the dark space, and Peter and Daisy ducked in behind me. The unlocked door had saved me from making up some lie that Peter’s dog would surely have called me out on, but….
“Are we allowed to just go in like this?” I whispered, the utter quiet and blackness inside unsettling.
With a crackle, Peter lit his wand, the end glowing a bright, pale blue. I blinked, spots dancing under my eyelids.
“Since it was unlocked and is technically a place of business…” Peter winked at me. “Sure.”
He held the wand aloft.
“Wow,” I breathed.
Plants crowded every surface in the front room, which, with its tall counter in the corner and till, was apparently the shop. Glowing green spores swirled around the ceiling, where baskets of flowers and plants with enormous root balls the size of watermelons hung.
Peter ducked, vines trailing over his head and shoulders as he led the way past shelves and tables crowded with pots of unusual vegetation, Daisy hugging close to his side.
“Martin Shaw?” he called again.
Still, no answer came, but the place was far from silent. I cringed away from a terrarium where a fanged trap plant with veins of bright red crunched loudly on crickets. An odd bubbling noise came from another corner. Somewhere in the back, a clock ticked away the seconds.
“Mr. Shaw!”
We passed through the curtain that led to the back rooms, where I’d expected to find the botanist’s living quarters. Instead, the plants seemed to have taken over every inch of the place, like an overgrown garden. I sneezed as I passed a particularly pungent plant, its odor sort of spicy and familiar, with glowing, pale, bell-shaped flowers. Vines laced up the walls and ceiling in the kitchen, and potted varieties crowded together in the sink.
Seedlings and big, established plants grew in pots, barrels, jugs, and mixing bowls over what would have been the kitchen counters and table. Enchanted tiny whisk brooms and clippers magically tidied up, trimming branches and sweeping away soil and cuttings.
We edged into the bedroom next, Peter’s wand lit and at the ready, Daisy’s tail straight and ears pricked. I hid behind them and used them as a human/canine shield, seeing as my only meager powers involved speaking to parakeets. Not likely to protect me from a plant-obsessed killer.
A glowing rose hovered magically inside a glass terrarium on the nightstand in the corner. Beside it sat a twin bed with rumpled flannel sheets. In here, the plants were of an aquatic nature. Glass aquariums, some rectangular, others round bowls, were stacked in precariously leaning towers against the wall. Inside them, moss balls glowed, seaweed swayed, and anemone tentacles brushed over their fish prey.
I jumped and screamed when a man burst from the closet.
“Halt!” Peter commanded, his wand aimed at the guy.
Daisy barked, her pointed ears tucked back.
The man froze, a black pot with a withered stalk in his hands. His small eyes widened behind his wire-rimmed glasses.
“W-what? Who are y-you?!” His shallow chest heaved, and his narrow shoulders hiked up toward his ears—and the fisherman’s hat on his head.
“Martin Shaw?” Peter asked in a deep, commanding voice.
The man’s skinny throat bobbed. “Y-yes?”
“Why were you hiding?” He kept his wand aimed at the man’s chest.
“I-I wasn’t hiding.” The man scoffed, and his large gray mustache twitched. “I was in the closet, taking care of my poor wittle noctas.” He pouted at the shriveled black plant in his hands.
“Your… noctas?” Peter dropped his wand a few inches, and Daisy’s hackles lowered.
“Yes, yes, it’s my dark room.” He rolled his eyes. “Or as c-close to one as I can get!” His lip curled. “No matter how I enchant it, no matter how I board up the window—argh!” He shoved another pot on the bookshelf beside him over and plunked the one he’d been holding down beside it. “That cursed light manages to fry them!” He stroked the pot, his demeanor suddenly softened. “My poor baby.”
Peter glanced back at me, and I returned his wide-eyed look. This guy was batty. I scrunched up my face as Peter turned back to face the weirdo. Then again, this was coming from the girl who talked to animals, so was talking to plants really any worse?
Flint cleared his throat, and this jolted Martin out of his intimate moment with his dead plant.
I edged around Peter and pointed at it. “Is that what killed that one? Light from the sign outside?”
Martin sniffed, his mustache twitching below his huge nose. “Yes. It’s a public nuisance, is what it is.”
“Is that why you killed Bim Pavani?”
Martin gasped, and I whipped my head around to look up at Peter. Way to go with the surprise accusation. He was so mild-mannered, I’d half expected him to politely ask Martin Shaw to confess. Maybe Peter was tougher than I thought.
“W-what are you s-saying?” Martin’s glasses fogged up in the warm, humid room. “I did-didn’t kill anyone!”
15
A Confession
We needed the botanist to confess. He had motive (revenge for the evil neon sign), and judging by the state of his disheveled, dirt-covered shirt, his shoes probably weren’t any cleaner, which likely made him our muddy footprints guy—giving him opportunity. Anyone with a wand or magical powers could have hit Bim with a spell and sent her flying.
I doubted this nerd would have had the wherewithal to erase his footprints after magicking a woman out a window to her death. We just had to push him a little bit—I had a hunch this guy would snap under pressure. And back in the day when I’d made my living interrogating witnesses and sussing out cases, my hunches had always been right.
I stuck a finger into the moist soil of a plant with tiny round leaves and held up my dirty finger. “These seem like quite unique plants, Mr. Shaw.”
Peter shot me a questioning look, and I winked at him. Trust me.
The space between his brows creased, just for a moment as he thought it over, then Peter gave me a slight nod.
I lifted my brows and continued. “I’ve never seen most of these before.”
Martin’s throat bobbed. “They’re qu-quite rare, indeed.” He lifted his large nose in the air. “I challenge you to find many of these in e-even the royal g-gardens.”
I nodded and pursed my lips. “Impressive. Which means they all have unique needs, right?” I strolled by a wall of aquariums, trailing a finger along the glass. Martin followed my every move like an overprotective mother hen.
“They must need just the right amount of light, water, plant food—right?”
He frowned but nodded. “Correct.”
“And soil, too, I imagine?”
“Oh yes.” Martin cleared his throat. “Each plant must be housed in soil native to its natural environment.”
I spun to face him. “Which I imagine would make it pretty easy to identify you as the person who left behind muddy footprints at the crime scene.”
Martin’s face went slack, and he looked like he might be sick.
I raised my brows at Peter. “Right, Officer Flint? I mean, your men are testing the samples right now, but as soon as the results show a mix of potting soil from what I imagine is a dizzying variety of locales, there’s really only going to be one person who might have left those prints.” I tilted my head to the side, eyes laser focused on the botanist. “You. Am I correct, Mr. Shaw?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Peter staring at me, a look of admiration on his face. I angled myself so I couldn’t see him, my neck burning. Stupid me. For a moment there, I’d felt like my old self, like the rising star lawyer who’d ruled the courtroom.
But that was my old life. Now I was a fraudulent pet psychic who needed to let the actual cop do the interrogating.