Carolyn gestured around her. “You want any of the rest of this stuff? I can make you a good deal.”
I looked around the store, at the stuff piled in boxes, the bare floors, the empty shelves. Carolyn, brisk, waiting for my response. She was ready to head back to Atlanta, sweep the rest clean, move on. Maybe that was the way, after all. Empty and let go and move on.
“No thanks,” I said. “I have everything I need.”
***
I stopped at Forsyth Park on my way back. Finding a spot in the leaf-filtered shade near the fountain, I reached into my tote bag and pulled out my old familiar Rider-Waite-Smith. My first tarot deck. I picked up the cards and held them in my hands, listening to the tumble and fall of the water. The air smelled clean despite the humming traffic behind me, and I grounded and centered in that scent, like wet sunshine.
I shuffled the deck lightly and started a quick three-card spread, but stopped after the first card. The Seven of Swords.
I knew it well. The man sneaking an armload of weapons away, his face a mask of deceit and furtive satisfaction.
That did it, as far as I was concerned. But I made one more stop on my way home, just to have something concrete. And then I called the police station and asked for Will.
***
Later that afternoon, Will held my quartz orb in one hand and cocked a curious eye into it. “Is this how you figured it out?”
I shook my head. “Not this time.”
“What then?”
I shrugged, as if it had been as simple as abracadabra. “As you may have guessed, I have connections in the antique relics department. I took that photograph to one and let him take a gander at that dagger. He said from what he could tell, Thomas really had seen one like it on Antiques Roadshow—he suspected it was the genuine article.”
“He figured this out from a picture?”
“Not just that. Seems Carolyn had been approaching lots of the dealers around town about buying out the rest of the Colonel’s stock. My friend took most of the reenactment things for a flat price.”
“Did he know they were real when he bought them?”
“Suspected, yes. Once he got that fact verified, he didn’t offer to give the stuff back or anything—he’s honest, but he is an antiques dealer. He did, however, tell her that if she had anything else in that vein, she should be more careful with it. Which made her remember the dagger.”
Will nodded. He knew the next part of the story.
So did I. I considered the flow chart Carolyn’s mental processes must have taken, how easy she’d decided it would be to just take the dagger back. She had Thomas’ address right there on his check. All she had to do was wait until the house was empty, break inside, then trash things up a bit and engage in a little stereotypical anti-Pagan harassment (of which she knew some things).
“Where did you find the dagger?” I said.
“Wrapped up in the trunk of her car. She clammed up real fast when we did and called a hot shot lawyer in Atlanta. For all the good it will do her.” He handed the orb back to me and examined the cards on the counter. “Callie, is there anything to all this? For real?”
I considered his question. Coming from anyone else, I would have taken it as a mildly insulting challenge. But Will wanted to know exactly what he was asking. That didn’t mean, however, that I had to answer it exactly.
“Why?” I said. “Do you want to get something for yourself?”
“I might.” He leaned against the counter. Up close, his eyes were the blue of lapis lazuli. “Would you cut me a deal?”
“I could be persuaded.” I leaned on the counter too. “But I have to tell you, Will. Cards and orbs are fine tools, but when it comes to actually solving a problem, witches consider the mundane as well as the magical.”
Will nodded. “And greed is about as mundane as it gets.”
I started to correct him, started to explain that jealousy was pretty pervasively mundane as well. As was nostalgia, and the tendency to look back, to cling to that which you’d understood, once upon a time. Battle flags and the smell of jessamine and moonflower. All perfectly natural to hold onto, all perfectly mundane.
I leaned closer. “You ever watch the moon come up over the marsh, and it seemed so close you could put your hand to it?”
He examined me curiously, as if he’d been waiting for that question for a long time. “I know a spot in Thunderbolt. Quiet. Secluded.”
Always the same and always different, the moon. Ever-changing and ever-constant, so close, so far. The most ordinary of miracles.
I tucked the orb back into its case. “I’ll close early. Mondays are always slow anyway.”
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Bound by Mystery Page 46