by Sharon Pape
I bumped into my aunt in the Breakfast Bar, with Merlin in tow. He had his nose pressed against the glass-fronted display case like an ancient toddler. One of the women behind the counter asked him to step back behind the red line. Good luck with that, I thought.
“Hi, Aunt Tilly,” I said, tapping her on the shoulder. I could tell I’d startled her, because when she turned to face me she looked like I’d caught her doing something illicit. “As I recall, you once called me a traitor for frequenting this place.”
She managed a lopsided smile, and I could almost hear the wheels spinning madly in her head as she tried to come up with a believable explanation for her presence there. “One has to check on the competition in order to stay ahead in the game,” she said in a whisper that caused half the store to turn in her direction. “It’s called industrial espionage.”
When it was her turn, she bought half a dozen different goodies for her and Merlin to try. “You can’t possibly judge a place by tasting one thing,” she said as they passed me on their way out. Five minutes later, as I was leaving The Bar with coffee and a sticky bun, I bumped into Elise.
“You ruined my surprise,” she said. “School is closed for parent-teacher conferences. Mine aren’t until this afternoon, so I was planning to pop into Abracadabra for a breakfast visit.”
“Surprises are overrated,” I said, having had my share of them lately. “Breakfast together is the real treat.”
I was already up on the counter sipping my coffee, when Elise walked in. She hiked herself up beside me. The counter had seen many a conversation between us over the years. She updated me on her boys, who were still coming to terms with their father’s death. She said they were making progress—fewer down times, friends and laughter filling the house more often. I updated her on the investigation. She laughed so hard at the Elvis story that she spilled coffee on herself. But the events of last night changed her mood, even though I tried to minimize the danger.
She put her hand on my arm. “I’m sure your family and Travis have all expressed their concerns, so I’m not going to pile on. What can I do to help?”
“Thanks,” I said. “You can help me think things through. This case keeps getting more confusing. With the exceptions of Biker Dude and Ski Mask Guy our suspects have good motives and reasonable opportunity. We just don’t have enough evidence on any one of them to say definitively ‘it’s him or it’s her.’”
“Okay, recap for me what you do know,” Elise said in her getting-down-to-business tone.
“We know that someone has been killing off people who have either been acquitted of a crime or given a light sentence. Some of these fools have gone right back to their illegal behavior and wind up causing the deaths of innocent people. From my perspective, Epps has the perfect motive for the role of caped crusader, protecting the populace from potential repeat offenders. He’s lost almost every case in which he’s gone up against Sam Crawford. He can’t find justice in the courts, so maybe he metes out justice after hours.”
Elise swallowed a bite of sticky bun. “If he were the only suspect, it would be a slam dunk,” she said, licking her fingers. “Where do you stand with the others at this point?”
“It’s sketchy, but here’s what we’ve dug up: Lena is Austin Stubbs’s niece. He lets her borrow his Harley from time to time; she then lends it to Biker Dude, who’s been keeping tabs on me and our investigation. We know that Lena stole papers from the CP’s office on at least one occasion. We know that Stubbs lied about where he was the night his drug-dealing son was killed. We know that Everett Royce lost his wife to a man who’d been convicted of distracted driving once before, but was back on the streets in no time, courtesy of Sam Crawford.”
“So lots of leads, but no hard evidence, except for the knife Ski Mask Guy dropped last night,” she said. “Fingers crossed; maybe the ME will find usable prints.”
I sighed. “Even if he does, it’s not like Duggan is going to tell me whose they are.”
“Now that he’s on the case, you’ll just have to go about the investigation in a different way.”
I missed what she was saying, because my mind had just pieced together what had been nagging at me since last night. “The guy who attacked me was Biker Dude,” I blurted out. “Ski Mask Guy is Biker Dude.”
“What? Wow! Are you sure?”
“Ski Mask Guy’s voice was a little familiar from the get-go,” I said, “but I couldn’t place it until just now. I’m kind of amazed that I made the connection at all. I only spoke to Biker Dude once, weeks ago. The voice last night was nasty, threatening, not at all like the one conversation I had with Biker Dude. But I’m still pretty sure it was him.”
“I bet that’s one of the reasons every bit of his skin was covered,” Elise said. “He was hiding his tattoos!”
“You’re probably right. But how do I connect everything? The next logical step is to find out whether or not Stubbs is aware that Lena lends his Harley to someone else. If he isn’t, why has she been keeping it a secret? The fact I keep coming back to is that Lena knows Epps, Stubbs, and Biker Dude, but there’s a good chance they don’t know each other.”
“Let’s take one thing at a time,” Elise said. “What if I call Stubbs? He’s never heard my voice, so he’ll at least give me a chance to talk. I can grab his attention right off if I say I know he couldn’t have been at the bar the night his son was killed.”
“That should keep him from hanging up on you initially,” I agreed, warming to the idea. “When the police shut down the investigation based on the ME’s report, Stubbs probably thought he was home free and no one would ever find out his alibi was a lie. It would also explain why he didn’t want anything to do with me once I said I was reopening the case.”
“I’m hoping what I say will unsettle him enough that when I tell him about his niece lending Biker Dude the Harley, he’ll be too surprised to hide his true reaction.”
“If he’s not surprised, it’s because he already knows about Biker Dude,” I said. “But none of it proves he’s the killer or if the three of them are in cahoots with Epps.”
“You’re right,” Elise said, her exuberance fizzling. “I’m starting to understand your frustration.”
“Look, your call to Stubbs will provide us with information we don’t have and you never know which bit will be the key to finding the killer. I’d like to listen in on speaker phone. I’ve talked to Stubbs a few times now; I might have a better take on his reaction.”
“Done,” Elise said. “How’s tomorrow night at six?”
“Pizza or Chinese?”
“You know my boys…. What do you think?”
“Mushroom and sausage it is.”
* * * *
I poked my head in Tilly’s shop at lunchtime and found her at her desk. Merlin was reading a book, not one of his usual pastimes when technology was available.
“No teas today?” I asked, after kissing her cheek.
“Today is inventory, reorder, and restock day—a pleasant interlude after weeks of nonstop baking.”
“She calls it pleasant, I call it unfortunate,” Merlin said, looking up from his book. His cheeks were a flaming red.
“Do you feel all right?” I asked him. “You look like you might be running a fever.”
“Oh there’s not a thing wrong with him,” Tilly answered before he could. “I suggested he take time away from electronics and read a book, immerse himself in the arts of this era. The problem was that I let him choose the book.” I had no idea what she meant, until I looked at the spine of the book he was holding.
“Fifty Shades of Grey?” I said, bursting into laughter. His enflamed face suddenly made sense.
“He already has the second and third books reserved at the library,” Tilly said. “It’s a good thing I can’t be charged with endangering the welfare of a legendary sorcerer. Was there something
you wanted, dear?”
“Yes,” I said once I was able to stop giggling. “I need help restoring all my protective wards to full capacity. What do you say, Merlin?”
“Mayhap it can wait until this evening?” he asked. “I shall have finished this tome by then.”
“That would be great,” I agreed. It wasn’t possible during the workday anyway.
Chapter 43
Duggan walked into the shop near the end of the afternoon. I’d been expecting a visit from him once he read Hobart’s report. He roamed through the aisles while I rang up a customer’s purchase. When the door chimes signaled her departure, he came out of the third aisle holding a jar and marched up to the counter “Hello, Detective,” I said in the same pleasant tone I used with customers. No point in getting off to a bad start. I’d be gracious unless he treated me otherwise. “How may I help you?”
“What is this stuff?” he asked, setting the jar down hard on the counter. It was a good thing I didn’t skimp on the quality of the jars I used.
“It’s Arnica Montana, like it says on the label.”
“This stuff approved by the FDA?”
“Everything in here is made from plants and herbs.” I had no intentions of telling him about the secret ingredient otherwise known as magick. “The FDA doesn’t regulate them.”
“Figures,” he said. “That’s not why I’m here anyway. I came to talk to you about the incident last night.”
“I told Officer Hobart everything I could remember.”
“Anything else come to mind since then?”
I didn’t want to tell him about my epiphany earlier in the day, but I’d promised Travis I’d be aboveboard with the police. And I don’t take promises lightly. “It occurred to me just today that the voice of my assailant sounded a lot like the voice of a biker who dropped in here a few weeks back.”
“Okay, I need you to come down to the station house to see if you can pick the guy out of a photo array.”
“I need ten minutes to close up,” I said.
“You’ve got it. Describe the guy for me.”
“Under thirty, about your height, broad shoulders, dark eyes and spiked dark hair, stubble beard, tattoos on his arms and neck.”
“Pictures? Words?”
“I don’t know. They were mostly hidden by his clothes.”
When I walked into the police station, Duggan was behind the desk, tapping away at the computer keyboard. Paul Curtis was fixing himself a cup of coffee from the old ten-cupper across the room. I declined his offer of one. Duggan pushed back from the desk and got to his feet. “Over here, Miss Wilde,” he said indicating the chair he’d vacated. I sat down and found myself looking at four mug shots on the computer screen. “Click your way through all the photos, take your time. If you see the guy, tell Curtis. I’ll check back later.”
After Duggan left, the room instantly seemed bigger and airier. I started searching through the mug shots. Although I tried to stay focused on the faces in front of me, I couldn’t help noticing Paul’s movements. He seemed at odds over what to do with himself. I was using the only computer in the small sub-station and the precinct phone was silent—no one needed his help. I saw him glance up at the TV mounted on the wall across from the desk. It probably helped the officers on New Camel rotation pass the time in the days before our bucolic little town began hosting murders.
“It won’t bother me if you want to put on the TV,” I said.
“Thanks, I’m good. Anything I can get you?”
“No, but thank you.” I realized that he might be worried Duggan would return and catch him watching TV. The detective didn’t strike me as a man who would condone goofing off on the taxpayers’ dime. But the TV was there for some purpose. Paul took out his personal phone and went into the back room to fiddle with it. He probably figured it would be easy to ditch when Duggan returned.
An hour passed before I reached the end of the file. I’d gone through hundreds of mug shots without finding a single one that came close to my memory of Biker Dude. Maybe he was a recent convert to the world of crime. If he didn’t have a record, there wouldn’t be a mug shot. Duggan was still MIA, so I told Paul I’d struck out, and he promised to pass that on.
“What will the next step be?” I asked. The detective might not tell me, but I had a shot with Paul. I could see the tug of war play out across his face. As much as he wanted to ingratiate himself with me, he didn’t want to run afoul of Duggan. “I’m sure the detective won’t just throw his hands in the air and give up on this lead,” I said trying to draw him out.
“No, there are a lot of other databases, state and federal, where he can try to locate the guy, but you didn’t hear that from me.” I didn’t have to; it was the kind of information you could learn from any number of television shows or a Google search. “The problem is that we don’t have a name and he can’t make you look through millions of DMV photos. Most likely he’s going to ask you to sit down with a sketch artist. Then he can run the picture through facial recognition software. Not even that’s a slam-dunk though. As much as half the adult population in this country can’t be found on any databases.”
“You’re kidding? It certainly feels like Big Brother is watching each and every one of us.”
“Yeah well, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time.”
“I’m surprised he didn’t start with the sketch artist,” I said.
“Having you ID a photo would have been more accurate than running a sketch that may or may not be good enough to find a match.”
“I appreciate the info,” I said. “The sooner you make detective, the happier everyone around here will be.” I hadn’t taken a poll, but I didn’t want to lead him on by saying “the happier I’d be.” Besides, I was pretty sure I spoke for everyone, except maybe Duggan’s mother.
Chapter 44
Morgana dropped in the next morning and found me in the bathroom applying mascara. Her cloud appeared behind me in the mirror, looking a little deflated like a basketball with a slow leak. “Hi, Mom, how are you?” I asked, turning around to face her.
“Fine,” she said in a gloomy tone, “well not entirely fine. It occurred to me that when you get married, I won’t be able to come to your wedding.”
“You can come if I have it here in the house.”
She gave a little bounce. “You would do that for me and your grandmother?”
“Of course,” I said, wondering how I would explain them to future in-laws. I might have to marry an orphan. “But I’m nowhere near thinking of marriage. I may decide not to ever marry.” I’d hoped that announcement would end the discussion for now, but I should have known better.
My mother was clearly in shock. If her cloud had a mouth, it would have been hanging open. “What do you mean?” she sputtered. “You have to get married. It’s up to you to continue the Wilde bloodline. It’s a sacred obligation. Your grandmother will have a stroke if she hears about this.”
“I don’t think that’s possible once you’re dead,” I pointed out.
“What’s all this?” Bronwen’s cloud popped up next to hers. The bathroom was getting crowded. Unlike Morgana, my grandmother appeared to be in fine mettle. Morgana launched into a recap of our conversation. I went back to my mascara.
“Is this true, Kailyn?” Bronwen asked calmly.
“I don’t even know if I’ve found my forever guy. Can’t we just table the subject for now? There’s a tour group coming and I need to get over to the shop.”
“What about Travis?” my mother said.
“I really like him, but I’ve only known him for a few months. We’ll see.”
“That’s reasonable,” Bronwen said. “We can revisit the subject at another time. Is that okay with you, Morgana?”
My mother ignored the question, choosing instead to pounce on me. “Aren’t you and Travis still a couple?”
Her voice rose three octaves; any further and only dogs would have heard her.
“We’re dating, but we’re nowhere near forever or till death do us part.”
“You’re not getting any younger,” she muttered.
I’m aging by the second, I thought, but I kept my mouth shut.
“She has plenty of time,” Bronwen said. “Women today aren’t marrying young the way we did.”
“She is not just a woman of today,” Morgana scoffed. “Like we, she is a woman of the ages. She is the last with the magickal bloodline. If she were to die without a child, it would mean the end of magick in the world.”
“I’m leaving now, ladies,” I said, edging my way out of the bathroom. “Why don’t you talk this over and get back to me.” They were so focused on each other at that point I’m not sure they even noticed I was gone.
I found Sashkatu dozing near the front door. I woke him gently and off we went to Abracadabra. They could have followed me there, but I was grateful they didn’t. For all I knew, my nearly, dearly-departed remained in the bathroom for the rest of the day, thrashing out their eternal issues.
The tour group arrived at ten and within minutes, I was inundated with customers. Some of them had come to buy products for themselves, others came with gifts on their agenda, but all of them eventually left with both. It was a good day financially as well as socially, not a single sour note.
After the last shopper left to board the bus, I flopped down in the customer chair, exhausted from being on my feet all day and thirsty from talking non-stop. I’d left my water bottle on the desk behind the counter, but I was too tired and lazy to get up again. I went the easy route instead. I got a tight focus on the bottle and flew it over the counter into my waiting hand. At that exact moment, the door chimes rang. I jumped up like a kid caught cheating on an exam.