The Sinister Secrets of the Enchanting Blaze

by Constance Barker

  “Sorry, girl.” Grace dropped the cover, shuddering a little. If there was anything she disliked more than snakes, it was their food. Freeze-dried or not, Grace was not about to pluck a dead mouse from a box and drop it in the cage.

  The only other thing of interest was a standard wall calendar. Paisley had chosen bats as the theme. October’s image showed a bat in flight, a vivid green grasshopper in its mouth. On the grid of dates below the fold, one date had been completely blacked out. It was less than a week from today. Grace could only assume it was the anniversary of Will Cartwright’s suicide.

  Grace turned away. She made a search of the nightstand. On top was one of Paisley’s black bags. Inside, she found a familiar iPad. In the top drawer, she found a pistol in a holster. For a moment, Grace was floored. Even though she was aware of Paisley’s brief employment by BPD, the sight of the weapon ran counter to everything she knew about her trainee. Or thought she knew. Could she even imagine the Goth with a gun? She put the Glock back and closed the drawer. Wherever Paisley had gone, she hadn’t gone armed.

  Having enough of Paisley's surprise-filled room, she checked out Will’s. It turned out to be a kind of altar to an early-2000s teenage boy. Motorsport posters, and one of Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry adorned the walls. His furniture was a light wood. Grace found two photographs. One depicted a young soldier and a chubby little girl. Grace looked closer, squinting. She’d never seen Paisley without wild green hair and Bela Lugosi makeup. She put it back down.

  The other was a face she knew well. A vivacious blonde smiled at the camera, her eyeteeth elongated. She held a skull in one hand, a bloody knife in the other. It was local horror movie host Misty Moonlight. It was signed, I love you baby; Mom.

  Misty Moonlight was Paisley’s mother? While the old Saturday night monster movie fest she had hosted aired before Grace was old enough to watch, Channel 7 ran marathons of the old shows every October. Misty was kind of a knock-off Elvira, although the stunning blonde could hold her own against the raven-haired Mistress of the Dark. Now Grace saw some resemblance. Change the hair to green, the bright red lipstick to black, add a pound of eye makeup...

  Grace looked out the window at her car parked below. Most of the leaves had fallen from the street trees. Every porch in sight had a jack-o-lantern, some yards were made into elaborate graveyards. Salem started decorating for Halloween around Labor Day. On the sill, she spotted a circle surrounded by slightly faded paint. A candle had sat here for a long time. Grace realized that Will must have mourned his parents the same way Paisley mourned him.

  Grace started to feel like a creep. She closed the door to Will’s room and examined the other second floor rooms. One served as a walk-in closet. Black clothing, perhaps hundreds of articles, hung from wheeled racks parked on the floor. Grace saw lace, leather, spider patterns, bat motifs, a standing rack of hats, gloves, scarves, an open jewelry box of chains and chokers and earrings. Skirts, bodices, dresses, corsets, sweaters, blouses—Grace realized she didn’t recognize a single one. The last door was locked. There must be a second closet somewhere. But she’d had enough snooping. She went back downstairs.

  Chapter 4

  “Misty Moonlight?” she asked The Old Lady.

  Victoria had parked her butt in a French Empire chair, a tea set on the table in front of her. The tea smelled suspiciously like scotch. “My nephew’s wife, yes.”

  A larger portrait of Misty Moonlight stood on the mantel. Dressed in a period dress with a lace up bodice, it looked like she’d just stepped out of a Hammer horror film from the sixties.

  “Jane had a PhD in meteorology, and by a set of misunderstandings, worked as the Channel 7 weather girl for years. At some point, the station wanted a show to compete on Saturday night after the news. They pushed Jane into it. Although I think she liked being Misty Moonlight more than she did the Channel 7 weather girl.”

  Grace saw a wedding picture. Jane looking like Misty Moonlight in a wedding dress. The groom towered over the bride. He looked a lot like the young soldier from the picture in Will’s room. Paisley’s parents.

  Victoria was watching her. “They died around this time of year, too, on November fifth. It’s probably contributing to my grand-niece’s... Angst?”

  Still having no idea why or where Paisley would go, Grace sat. “Her helmets are upstairs in the closet. Have you seen her scooter?”

  “In the garage.”

  Taking a moment to think she remembered something. “She said something about a car?”

  “Her mother’s, yes. I have no idea where she keeps it.”

  That’s what Grace remembered—Paisley not knowing where the car was. “If I may state the obvious, I got nothing to go on here.”

  “I’ll try to give you something. Two years ago, when Will took his life, Paisley was practically catatonic. She didn’t eat, she didn’t sleep, she quit her job on the police force in Boston. This went on for about a month. Perhaps I was too indulgent. Can you blame me? The girl was born an orphan, and she’d lost her only family. Other than me, of course. Eventually, I thought she was working through it. She spoke with a therapist but... She also adopted her mother’s on-air appearance. Well, except in black instead of red. I offered her a job at the company. Computer background checks, things of that nature. She didn’t have to take it. Jefferson and Jane set up a trust for her. They were a successful couple, so there was plenty of money. Add to that Will’s trust...”

  Victoria was woolgathering out loud. “You said you had something?” Grace prompted.

  “Apologies.” The Old Lady sipped her scotch tea and lit a cigarette. “One year ago, Paisley requested the file on her brother’s suicide. I think if she hadn’t been a sworn officer herself, she never would’ve been granted permission. She got a copy of the file, and put the box on top of her bookcase. It sat there for a year.”

  Grace hadn’t seen a file box on the bookcase in Paisley’s room. “She’s looking into it now.”

  The Old Lady toasted her with the fine china cup. “So it would seem.”

  COMPLETELY OUT OF HER depth, Grace called the only cop friend she had. Lt. Pete Willoughby agreed to meet her for coffee. He insisted on the Dunkin on New Carfax’ town square. While he didn’t say it, she knew he didn’t want to accidentally get a cup of kopi luwak. Paisley had become addicted to it on her first case as a trainee. Well, the case had less to do with insurance investigation than it did Grace’s other line of work—possessed antiques. Kopi luwak was the rarest coffee on earth. It was harvested after passing through the digestive tract of an animal called a civet. Judy’s Java was the only place Grace had ever heard of that served it. But as far as getting a cup accidentally—that was out of the question. It cost around fifty bucks at Judy’s.

  They sat at the counter. “What’s up, Grace? We haven’t fished any bodies out of the ocean with your card in their pocket. No one was murdered in a locked room. In fact, it’s been quiet in New Carfax. Hardly even any parking violations to speak of.”

  Pete had broad shoulders, a shock of absolutely black hair brush-cut over the bluest eyes Grace had ever seen. His strong chin had a Captain America dimple. He smelled nice, and crows’ feet raised from his eyes as he teased her. The detective knew that Grace dealt in some highly weird areas, although he seemed to choose to ignore that. Unless there was an unexplainable crime to solve. In that case, it was either Grace going to Pete, or vice versa.

  She sighed over her large black coffee. “Paisley’s gone missing.”

  “Gone missing? Have you filed a missing persons report?”

  While Grace helped Pete out on a few cases, he drew the line at Grace doing more than investigating insurance fraud. “Her great-aunt was told that it wouldn’t amount to anything. Grace is an adult. She’s free to go where she wants.”

  “I don’t know if I’d classify her as an adult.”

  Grace made a face. “She was a cop.”

  “For six months. I mean, it takes at least three times longer
to go through the process of becoming a cop than she served on the force. Who does that?”

  Paisley Cartwright does that, Grace thought. “It was because of her brother.”

  Pete slapped the top of his head. “Oh my God, that’s right. Will Cartwright committed suicide in October. Fine, I take it back.”

  “I think she’s looking into it. Do you have any perspective?”

  Pete gave his cup a thoughtful sip. He worked out of the Essex County Sheriff’s Department, but he was actually employed by the State Police. Or maybe it was the other way around.

  “Drugs are a real problem around here,” Pete said. “Especially heroin, and now Fentanyl. The county, state and local law enforcement work together on drug cases. I was on a task force or two with Will Cartwright. He worked BPD narcotics, a UC guy. Made a lot of collars. Far as I knew, he was a good cop.”

  Grace knew something more was coming.

  “The thing is, when he took a dive off the Custom House Tower, I would’ve expected some action from the force in Boston. A note was found, by his partner, I think it was, half-written on his laptop. But a guy working UC, undercover, you might expect that the bad guys found out he was blue, that he was set up and pushed off the tower. But that didn’t happen. It just didn’t sit right that they found the case so open-and-shut. There must’ve been more to it.”

  “Like what?”

  Pete raised his brows. “I don’t know, like the rest of the force assumed his jump was related to something on the job. Because there was something else. Not long before that, Will and his partner, I think it was O’Malley, got caught up in an OIS. Killed a couple drug dealers. Boston IAD said the shoot was good. I mean, two cops with Glocks against two dealers with automatic weapons, of course it was a good shoot.”

  Grace did some translating in her head. OIS, officer-involved shooting, IAD, Internal Affairs Division. “Will knew this before he took his life?”

  “Yeah. The shooting took place three years ago. If you were a cop, you’d laugh and ask if IAD was still on the case. For whatever reason, it takes them forever to investigate anything. But they cleared him and Lisa O’Malley. And why not? A couple kilos of smack and Poison and two shitbirds off the street—I say give ’em both a medal. However, something must’ve happened for them to look the other way regarding Cartwright’s suicide.”

  Chapter 5

  Sleep had eluded Grace and she found herself on the couch watching TV as dawn broke. Channel 7 was running the Misty Moonlight Marathon, and she had caught two episodes. Funny, even though Jane Cartwright died before ever meeting her daughter, the two shared a few gestures, a few expressions. Or maybe funny was the opposite word.

  Unlike the Mistress of the Dark, Misty Moonlight interviewed horror movie stars, directors and producers—even some lighting guys and technicians. She equated it to a spooky talk show between the movie and the commercials. It gave the program a legitimate feel to it, as if even if you were home on a Saturday night watching Misty Moonlight instead of out on a date, maybe you weren’t as much of a loser as you thought.

  Twenty-plus years later, Grace wondered what kind of loser she was for watching for six hours on a weeknight. She had nodded off during the four a.m. news, watching the flash mob race onto the Essex Bridge to block traffic. As the sun’s rays peeked through her blinds, the images on the screen remained the same, even though hours had passed. She rubbed a crick in her neck and headed for a shower.

  Drying off and dressing, she realized what she was missing. Grace needed someone to bounce ideas off of. And that person was usually Paisley. Forlornly, she gazed at her closet. Usually, Paisley would inspire some change in what she wore. She couldn’t compete with full-on Goth. But Paisley often teased her about her conservative power suits and flats, or, worse, her non-work clothes, which consisted of the rattiest of tops, bottoms and sneakers. Knowing her first stop, she went with her taupe power suit and brown flats. She sighed, dressing and checking her hair in the mirror. “That’s as good as it gets today, Paize,” she said out loud.

  Yesterday, she had been overcome with the feeling she was violating Paisley’s trust by going through her personal stuff. If Paisley really was looking into her brother’s death, Grace would need to dig beyond the panties and bras in the dresser, a snake in a cage and a gun in the night stand. Grace had to get beneath the Goth surface, because if The Old Lady was right, Paisley’s obsession began long before she donned a dark mantle.

  Half an hour later, she pulled in front of the brick Federalist house. Unable to help herself, she knocked on the front door and waited. It seemed impolite to burst in, even if she had been given the keys.

  “Miss Longstreet, excellent. I’ve never seen you show up for work this early.” The Old Lady answered the door. She was dressed for work in a burgundy skirt and bolero jacket; black beret, purse and low heels; Gramma chic. “Would you care for some coffee? I can absolutely guarantee it never passed through the anus of an animal.”

  Grace hadn’t bothered to make any for herself, and even a fast trip to Dunkin seemed too long to wait. She was a day closer to the blacked out box on the calendar, but none closer to finding Paisley. “That would be great. Thank you.”

  Kitchen and dining room were situated behind the stairs. The Old Lady topped off her own cup and poured one for Grace. “So, did you uncover any pertinent information, or are you stuck at square one and wanted to look through the house again?”

  “Both.” Grace didn’t elaborate. She sipped the coffee. It was weak, but it had caffeine in it. “Paisley mentioned having an office, but I didn’t see one.”

  “In the attic,” Victoria said. “She kept the door locked. Like I didn’t have the key, but I got the message. When she was younger, Paisley wanted to live on the third floor. But the view made Will uncomfortable. He was not good with heights.”

  Yet he jumped to his death, Grace mused. Did the cops investigating his death know this? She filed the fact mentally.

  “Any surprises up there?” Grace remembered the gun, and the snake. “Oh, and is anyone feeding Patricia? Not that I’m offering.”

  The Old Lady nodded in understanding. “My housekeeper’s little boy loves that thing. Maybe he doesn’t realize the snake is just big enough to eat him. I’m sure he’s feeding her, but I’ll ask.”

  It would suck if Paisley returned home to find a dead snake. Wouldn’t it?

  “No, no surprises up there. It’s almost all storage. I was just up there last month to gather Halloween decorations. It was Will’s favorite holiday, Paisley keeps reminding me.”

  “But not Paisley’s?”

  Victoria eyed her. “What do you think Paisley’s favorite holiday is?”

  Grace thrust out her lower lip in thought. “Halloween is creepy, but Christmas is more filled with mystery, when you think about it. Wrapped packages with unknown contents, the Santa Claus thing, trying to pry information from someone about a perfect gift.”

  “Yule, she makes me call it,” The Old Lady said. “But you’re right. And I think I’m right for asking you to find her. Now, if you don’t mind, it’s time for both of us to get to work.”

  Victoria retrieved her purse from the back of the chair, adjusted her beret in the hall mirror, and walked out of the house. A car started. The engine faded. Grace sat in a silent house.

  “Where are you, Paisley?” she called out. “You didn’t run away, did you? You’re chasing something.”

  When she got no answer, Grace pulled the keys from her purse and started upstairs. That last door led to the attic stairs. While she expected a dusty storage space, she found the third floor finished, welcoming, even. Excepting a bathroom, the floor plan mirrored the one below. Skylights provided warm illumination. Grace explored, finding a storage room full of bins and boxes, another “closet” filled with Goth-wear on one side. The opposite side of the hall featured a guest bedroom with dormer windows and roof angles. In the last room, she found Paisley’s office.

  There was
a desk, filing cabinet and chair in black on top of a black area rug. Curtains were red velvet. Brass floor lamps with black shades stood in three corners. Grace flipped the light switch, and although the lamps came on, they didn’t brighten much. On the desk, a taxidermy raccoon was posed around a desk lamp. Its claws seemed to guard the pull chain. She picked up a laptop. It was covered in dust, and left a clean rectangle on the desk. Little used. Grace put it back and opened the drawer over the knee hole. Two pens were in a pen tray, and a small key. She glanced at the file cabinet.

  Unlocking the top drawer, she hit pay dirt. A fat file folder contained smudgy copies of police reports. The rest seemed to be paid bills. The bottom drawer was taken up by scrapbooks. Grace hauled her find to the desk, stacking it under the watchful eye of the snarling raccoon. Delicately, she reached between the hand-like paws and pulled the chain. This light was bright.

  To her surprise, the police files were not about Will’s suicide, but about the shootout with drug dealers. It took her a while to sort through the stack. Not knowing much about police work, she skimmed, reading officer statements and summaries to put the case together. The writing was so dry, she could imagine Jack Webb reading the reports on an old Dragnet rerun.

  Nearly all of Lisa O’Malley’s reports were redacted, with line after line of thick black marker obscuring the words. Grace figured it was because she worked UC and there were people who needed to be protected.

  It took a while, but Grace put a narrative together out of the reports. After several months of undercover work, Will and Lisa had contacted two dealers in Roxbury to set up a deal for fifty grams of heroin. The location was a self-storage facility. The officers were given an entry code and a storage unit number. However, in the long hallway where the unit was located, two men exited units on each end of the long hall, trapping the cops in a crossfire. O’Malley took a bullet and went down. Will charged the nearest gunman, shooting him as he darted from cover. Then, Will took cover in the storage unit with the shooting victim and eventually shot and killed the man at the other end of the hall.