Hey, boss lady. I’m not alone down here.
I froze. What do you mean? I heard Raoul grunt and groan. Sounds of a scuffle?
“What’s the matter, Rose?” the sheriff asked.
I peered down the chute and saw Raoul’s beady eyes glitter in the darkness. “Who’s down there with you?”
My raccoon familiar’s claws clicked against the metal chute as he struggled back up. He’s heavier than he looks.
“Who?” I shouted. I cleared the way as Raoul emerged, dragging an unconscious animal behind him. He pushed the reddish brown creature onto the floor of the hotel corridor.
“You found a fox?” the sheriff asked.
Tell your boyfriend to use his nose, Raoul said.
“Why is he unconscious?” I asked.
I may have hit him over the head with a piece of plywood.
Sheriff Nash sniffed the air. “He’s not an ordinary fox.”
Finally, Raoul declared. I guess it’s a good thing he’s attractive. Guy’s gotta have something going for him.
The sheriff nudged the fox with the toe of his boot. I watched in amazement as the fox shifted to human form. A naked man.
A familiar naked man.
“Jenkins?” I queried.
His dark eyes fluttered open. He panicked when he realized the sheriff and I were standing over him.
“What happened?” he asked.
I gestured to my familiar. “Trevor Jenkins, meet my familiar, Raoul.”
Jenkins balked. “You have a trash panda as a familiar?”
The sheriff removed his jacket and tossed it to Jenkins. “Mind telling me what you were doing in there?”
“This isn’t even your hotel,” I said. “You’re staying at Palmetto House.”
Jenkins covered himself with the jacket. “Could we maybe go into a conference room or something? I’m feeling a little exposed.”
Raoul scampered down the hall. There’s an empty room here.
The sheriff helped Jenkins to his feet and we accompanied him into the room. He replaced the sheriff’s jacket with one of the white, fluffy robes.
“Let me guess,” the sheriff began, “you were searching for the map.”
Jenkins knew he was caught. “I haven’t found it, in case you’re wondering.”
“What makes you think it’s somewhere in the trash?” the sheriff asked. “Seems like something the killer might know.”
“I’ve been listening to the other butlers, even followed a few of them, but no one seemed to have the map,” Jenkins explained. “I decided to start searching the garbage in each hotel connected to the conference attendees. I’ve been working my way through them all, not too difficult in my fox form. When I smelled the blood in this chute, I thought I might be on to a winner.”
“Hate to break the news, but you won’t find it there,” the sheriff said. “We have the map.”
Jenkins’ expression soured. “That’s unfortunate.”
“Are you a werefox?” I asked.
Jenkins lowered his gaze to the floor. "I’m a kitsune.”
"You’re a what?" I asked. It sounded like he’d identified himself as a musical instrument.
The sheriff looked at me. "A kitsune. A werefox of Japanese descent. They’re known tricksters." He shifted his attention back to Jenkins. “Or thieves, depending on their chosen path."
Jenkins folded his arms, looking ridiculous in the puffy marshmallow robe. "Yes, I'm a professional thief. That's why Mr. Stanhope hired me. He wanted me to steal the map from Higgins and find the treasure.”
“I’ve heard of butlers going above and beyond the call of duty, but sending you to steal for him…” I shook my head.
"He is my employer, but I'm not his butler. There’s a real Jenkins, but he’s at the estate. Mr. Stanhope sent me in his place."
The sheriff leaned forward, his voice low. "What's your real name?"
Jenkins shrank back. "Hitachi. Ken Hitachi."
The sheriff paced the crowded room. “You’re telling me that Mr. Stanhope sent you here to steal a treasure map from his dead sister’s butler?”
“That’s right,” Hitachi said.
The sheriff fixed him with a hard stare. “And the butler ends up dead, but you had nothing to do with it?”
"I admit that I came here to steal the map from Higgins, but I didn't get the chance to make a move,” Hitachi insisted. "He died before I could do anything.”
“Didn’t Higgins know you weren’t the real Jenkins?” I asked.
Hitachi shook his head. “They never met. The estates are nowhere near each other.”
“How did Mr. Stanhope know the map would even be here?” I asked.
Hitachi tightened the belt of the robe. “He originally hired me to steal the map from Lottie Stanhope’s vault, but it was gone when I arrived. When Mr. Stanhope heard from relatives that Higgins was planning to attend the conference in Starry Hollow, he suspected the map would come with him.”
“So your employer thinks Higgins planned to steal the treasure for himself?" I asked. It seemed to be the only explanation for Higgins to bring the map with him.
Hitachi slumped in his chair. “Maybe he saw a golden opportunity, now that Lottie Stanhope was dead. I don’t know. I'm only given the barest of details, enough to get the job done." He heaved a sigh. "Which I failed to do."
“Couldn’t Mr. Stanhope simply have asked his sister for the map?” I asked.
“Lottie and her father were very close, and she refused to give my employer anything connected to him. She was never interested in the treasure, but it didn’t matter. When Lottie died, my employer decided this was his chance to recover the map, but everything in the home, including the contents of the vault, was left to Laura."
"And she wouldn't let him have it, either?” I asked.
Hitachi shrugged. "I'm not sure whether he even asked. He's been estranged from his sister and her family for years. When Lottie died, he hired me.”
"How do we know you're telling the truth?" The sheriff asked.
"You can verify my story with Lawrence Stanhope," he said. "Although he won't be happy about it. As for the murder, you don't have any evidence that ties me to his death. I was in the room with everyone else when he staggered in."
"Every butler in the conference was in the room at the time," I said. "The timing still suggests it was one of you."
“There’s something else,” Hitachi said. “A scent.”
The sheriff squinted at him. “What kind of scent?”
“A floral perfume. Faint now, but sickeningly sweet,” Hitachi said. “I smelled it in the chute here.”
Raoul nodded in agreement. Disgusting.
“It wasn’t the first time I’d smelled it,” Hitachi said.
“Let me guess,” I said. “The first time you smelled it was when you went to steal the map from Lottie Stanhope’s vault.”
Hitachi nodded solemnly.
The sheriff’s knowing gaze met mine. “This was never about the treasure.”
“No,” I said quietly. My thoughts turned to Irina, a vampire scorned. “It wasn’t.”
The sheriff released Ken Hitachi and took the evidence kit back to the office. He made me swear not to make a move until he returned. I sent Raoul to get me a latte from the downstairs lobby.
You know they’re not going to wait on a raccoon, right?
“Do your best.”
Are you just trying to get rid of me so you can snoop around the suspect’s room by yourself?
“Consider this a trust exercise. I ask you to do something, and you do it.” Ian would be so proud.
Sounds more like a discipline exercise. He harrumphed before heading into the stairwell.
Laura Stanhope’s room was just around the corner from where we spoke to Ken Hitachi. She must have returned to her hotel room straight from the convention center and chucked the bloodstained map down the trash chute, or tried to.
I told myself that I would only look aro
und the room for evidence before the sheriff arrived. The door was ajar with a maid’s cart partially blocking the entryway. Perfect timing.
I pulled the ‘H’ rune from my pocket and turned myself invisible. Homework for Hazel accomplished. I slipped into the hotel room, unnoticed. With the maid standing within feet of me, I had to wait until she moved into the bathroom to open and close the drawers. I was still in the middle of searching for evidence when Laura returned to the room. Oops.
“So sorry, miss,” the maid said. “I’ll be out of your way in just a second.” She pushed her cart into the hallway and closed the door before I had a chance to follow.
Laura tossed her handbag onto the bed, her body weary. She removed a clip from her hair and let it fall loose to her shoulders. She set the clip on the dresser and sighed deeply.
“Go home, Laura,” she told herself. “There’s no point in staying. He’s dead and you can’t change that, not without an expensive necromancer, and you know that’s risky business. Remember Mommy’s second husband. Total disaster.”
Laura’s floral perfume permeated the air. In a confined space, the scent was overpowering.
“You’re an absolute fool, Laura,” she continued. “You should have known you’d screw this up, just like you screw everything up. He loved you, yet you refused to believe it.” She dropped onto the edge of the bed. “And now he’s dead because of you.”
I halted. Was that a metaphorical statement, or an admission of guilt? One look at her face and I could see the truth. I saw it in her frown lines. In her downturned mouth. In her tragic gaze. Laura Stanhope killed Higgins. I needed to tell the sheriff.
“Come now, Laura,” she said. “You know what you need to do. No Mommy. No Higgins. The only paranormals in the world who ever cared for you are gone.” She bit her lip, fighting the emotions. I watched as she pulled several vials of potion from her handbag and set them on the dresser. “What’s the point in carrying on?”
Oh no. She wouldn’t drink them all, would she? Murderer or not, I couldn’t let her do that.
Laura popped the lid off the first vial. “Perhaps I’ll see you soon, Higgins, so that I can apologize and tell you how much I really cared.”
I pulled the rune from my pocket and made myself visible again. “Laura, stop!”
She dropped the vial on the floor, spilling the contents. “What the devil?” She spun toward me. “Where did you come from?”
I didn’t answer. “Please don’t kill yourself. No matter what you did to him, Higgins wouldn’t want that.”
Laura regarded me carefully. “What do you mean?”
Hmm. Maybe I’d overplayed my hand. I decided to plow ahead anyway. “I know you killed him. You stabbed him in the convention center restroom with the corkscrew from the Wine Cellar Room. The question is—why?”
Laura cast a sidelong glance at the remaining vials on the dresser. I could see the wheels turning, calculating whether they’d be enough to do the job without the third vial.
“Please don’t,” I said.
“I didn’t intend to use the corkscrew,” she said finally. “I only meant to threaten her with it.”
“Her?” I echoed. “Who’s her?”
Laura closed her eyes. “No one. The woman I imagined he was meeting.”
“In the bathroom of the convention center?” I asked, perplexed.
“That’s where I confronted him,” she said. “I’d lifted the corkscrew when I toured the room earlier, thinking I’d see them together before registration, sipping coffee together. Contemplating their new life. But he was alone. Always alone.” She sank onto the bed. “There was no one else. Only me.”
“Did you know he’d taken the map?”
Tears spilled down her cheeks. “Not until he showed it to me. He had it in his pocket. He said he liked to keep it close to his heart because it reminded him why he was really here. For love.” She broke into sobs. “But I was so overcome with jealousy that I couldn’t think straight. The thought of Higgins with someone else…” She pressed her palms flat against her temples. “I couldn’t bear it.”
“And when he denied there was someone else, you didn’t believe him?” I prompted.
She shook her head. “I thought he had her stashed away somewhere. That the map only proved his deceit. They were going to hunt for the treasure together, to fund their new life. I was furious that he would lie to me.”
Talk about paranoid and neurotic. “Did he know how you felt about him?”
“I never told him explicitly,” Laura said. “I couldn’t. I had to act indifferent. He was the butler, you see. Mommy adored Higgins, but she would’ve cut me off had she known.”
“But she’s dead now,” I said. “You were free to choose.”
“And that’s why I decided to out myself, but when I went to Mommy’s estate, Higgins announced he was heading to Starry Hollow for a few days. I convinced myself there was someone else. That only another woman could lure him away from me in my time of need.” She sniffed. “I’d never felt good enough for him. I pictured him with some devoted brownie. A woman who could take care of him in a way that I couldn’t.”
I handed her a tissue from the box on the bedside table. Streaks of mascara appeared under her eyes. All the magic in the paranormal world and she couldn’t find a decent waterproof mascara.
“I loved him beyond reason,” she said, blowing her nose. “He was so shocked to see me in the bathroom.” She reached for more tissues.
“And you didn’t know how Higgins felt about you?” I asked.
“Sometimes I thought I detected a look in his eye, but he was Higgins,” she said. “The butler. He never would’ve compromised his position.”
“But your mother’s death seems to have prompted him to take action,” I said. “I think he felt like it was now or never.”
Laura stared at the vials on the dresser. “Never, apparently.” She inhaled deeply. “He tried to tell me the truth, but I was already so angry. He showed me the map and said that he’d hoped to find the treasure and offer it to me as a gift. Like a knight bringing back the head of a dragon for his princess.”
“He wanted to prove he was worthy of you,” I said softly.
“He didn’t need a treasure for that,” Laura said. “He’d earned my love a long time ago and I rewarded him by burying a corkscrew into his gut. I was so horrified, I ran from the bathroom before he even had time to collapse.”
“He didn’t collapse,” I said. “Not in the bathroom, anyway. He came looking for help.” I paused. “Why did you take the map?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “It fell on the floor when I…when I…” She couldn’t say the words. “It was instinct. When I got back to my hotel, I noticed the blood on it and freaked out. I threw it away before I got back to my room.”
“There were no fingerprints on the corkscrew,” I said. “How is that possible if you ran from the bathroom so quickly after stabbing him?”
“I held the corkscrew in the edge of my sleeve because it looked grubby. I didn’t want to touch it with my bare hand.” She wrinkled her nose. “Gross.” Her attention returned to the vials. “I should never have run off. I should have stayed and used it on myself.”
“Laura, I understand how you might feel right now, but please don’t do anything rash.”
She drew her knees to her chest. “Why not? It’s either die now, or rot in prison for the rest of my life. And I deserve the worst possible fate.”
“You seem a little…” How could I say it without setting her off? Unhinged? Mentally unbalanced? “You seem to be struggling. Maybe your lawyer can set you up with a psychiatrist. I don’t know about the paranormal world, but, in the human world, there are certain defenses available.” Was that justice for Higgins, though? I didn’t know. What I did know was that, by all accounts, Higgins was the type of man who would have shown her mercy. He wouldn’t want Laura to suffer, not if he truly loved her.
Laura squeezed her arms around h
er knees. “I think I would prefer to join Mommy and Higgins in Nirvana.”
I sat beside her on the bed. “Why are you still here, Laura? You could have downed those vials days ago. Or you could have fled the country. You have enough money to hide for the rest of your life.”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “Higgins is still here. I guess I couldn’t bear to leave him behind.”
“We never really leave behind those we love,” I said. “We carry them with us wherever we go.”
She sniffed. “He was so good and kind. He always looked out for me. When I was a little girl, I told my mother that when I grew up, I was going to marry Higgins.” A small smile formed on her lips. “Mommy laughed and said I’d feel differently when I was older, but I never did.”
I took out my phone. “I’m going to call the sheriff now. I don’t want you to touch those vials. Higgins wouldn’t want that, either.”
Laura nodded absently. “He was so good and kind.” She buried her face between her knees. “So good and kind. You didn’t deserve him, Laura. You deserve to rot.”
My heart ached for both Higgins and Laura. They both felt unworthy of the other’s love and now they would never get the chance to overcome it.
“Sheriff, I’m here with Laura Stanhope,” I said. “She has a few things to tell you. I’m going to drive her over to your office now.” I paused to listen as he ranted and raved about my lunacy in handling her alone when he told me to wait. I held the phone away from my ear as he ordered me to call hotel security and sit tight until he got there.
When I finally ended the call, Laura leaned her head on my shoulder. “He loves you, you know. I could hear it in his tone. So frantic. How lucky you are.” Her voice was practically a whisper.
I swallowed hard. “To be honest, he’s good and kind, and I don’t know that I deserve him, either.”
“What will happen to the map?” she asked. “Will it go to Uncle Larry now?”
“It will get logged into evidence,” I said. “Beyond that, I’m not sure.”
“Life is very tiresome,” she said. “I shall be grateful for the rest in prison.”
Magic & Mercy Page 17