Hector Muerte greeted us --or, rather he grunted at us -- at the door of Maude Dulgrey’s place of work. Maude’s zombie assistant swayed on the spot and waited for us to pass before him. We could hear him do the ‘shamble-shuffle’ behind us as he followed us into our friend, the coroner’s, lab. The light of Maude’s workshop was in stark contrast to her torch-lit, medieval hallway. Sodium-bright light flooded across the surfaces of so many stainless steel ‘things.’ The equipment was hi-tech, cutting-edge stuff, and mostly covered with a multitude of Maude’s piled-high notes and folders.
Hector dragged his frame past us when we reached the door and moaned our arrival to the ghoul coroner.
Maude’s head bobbed up from her work, and her face broke in two with a fabulously sunny smile. The chirpy coroner’s mouth was crammed with teeth and gums, in that order. Her rheumy eyes sparkled with delight as she rose to her two left feet.
“Hattie, kitties!” Maude bent down to give my cats a whole lot of love. “I don’t know how you do it, Carbie,” she gushed. “Every time I get a new batch of salmon treats in, you show up!” The medical examiner reached behind her, her deft fingers scurrying in a drawer for the promised goods.
“Hat,” David said, moving from a shadowy corner into the light to greet me.
“Hi,” I said, closing the distance between us. “David, Shields has blocked off the Glimmer Mountains,” I whispered in a hissy voice. “Nobody can get into Burning Peak.”
“Shields.”
I nodded. “What does it mean?” I couldn’t help but think of all of the possibilities the kitties had brought up back at the apothecary.
“He can’t get away with this,” David said, shaking his head. “We need to go out to Cathedral. Shake him up a bit. Get under his skin. Something, anyway.” The chief nodded his head toward Maude. “Wanna see what our friend found out about Kramp?” He didn’t wait for me to answer, he just took me by the elbow and led me over to Maude Dulgrey. I felt an icy tingle in my arm. Or was it heat? I couldn’t tell. I just knew that I had had this reaction to David’s touch on more than one occasion lately.
“Maude, tell Hattie what you wrote in your report,” David said.
Maude Dulgrey’s eyebrows were like tattered gerbils, and those rodent-like brows shot into the air right now. The coroner’s face broke out into her toothy trademark grin.
“Yes, quite!” She clapped her hands in ecstasy. “Hector, dear,” she called in a sing-song voice. “Please bring me the Barnabus Kramp file,” she waved her fingers at the far side of the room. “It’s over there somewhere,” she finished.
Hector always looked surprised when he was asked to do something, and this time was no different. The vegetarian zombie’s face looked amazed as he carried his broccoli snack across the lab to retrieve the folder.
“The grenade isn’t what killed our guest here,” Maude said, taking the folio from Hector’s hands. “Thank you, dear. Go and sit in your chair now and eat your vegetables. Take a load off.” She offered Hector Muerte an earnest smile. Hector looked startled at that. He shuffled off, no doubt happy to get off work early.
“David told me, Maude. But, if not the grenade, then what?”
“Our illustrious lawyer here died of a series of myocardial infarctions.”
David looked at me. “Heart attacks,” he said.
Maude looked at me over the rim of her glasses. “Rapid and severe attacks, I’d say.”
“Heart attacks? What?” And, then “Oh.”
“Oh?” Maude and David said in concert.
I explained about Midnight having Kramp’s prescription for a brand name drug that came from a host of drugs known as digitalin.
“Barnabus Kramp died of a heart attack in the back of the patrol car. Likely seconds before the bomb went off.” CPI Trew said.
“What?” I couldn’t stop saying this word, apparently. “What do you mean ‘seconds before the bomb went off’?”
“Well, the driver’s report says the blast happened almost as soon as he’d reached the kiddie toy in the street,” the chief explained. “And, he also stated that Kramp was definitely alive and well before he left the vehicle to move the toy.”
“Wow.”
Maude cleared her throat. “Ahem, maybe we should brief Hattie on Kramp’s medical history?” she suggested.
David nodded and folded his arms while my coroner friend filled me in on Barnabus’ physical background.
“Well, as you already know, he had a very weak ticker,” she said, pointing with the end of her pen at a color photograph of Kramp’s heart. I wrinkled my nose, and Maude continued. “Weakening of the arteries, blockages here, a stent here,” she jabbed a circled area on the photograph with the pen. “I’ve no doubt his high-pressure job did nothing to help matters here … well, anyway, we need to confirm all of this with Kramp’s physician, but Barnabus was apparently taking a Foxglove based medication for his condition.”
My memories flew over pages of botanical medicine books. “Can’t Digitalin also cause heart attacks, Maude?” I questioned the coroner. “If too much is ingested?”
“It’s true,” Maude said. “And, there are fairly liberal doses of the stuff in Kramp’s bloodstream,” she confessed.
“Enough to kill?”
Maude motorboated her lips. “So many variables, dear. Is it enough to kill? Well, maybe it could be enough to kill some. But, perhaps not enough to kill most. It depends on age, tolerance level to the drug, size, even gender,” she said shrugging her bony shoulders.
“Kramp had no reason to kill himself,” the chief said. “He knew he had that sentencing wrapped up. A cushy two year stint in Steeltrap? A fully established career awaiting him as head lawyer to the Shields administration?”
I looked at David. “So, what do we make of this, Chief Para Inspector? Attempted murder, but Kramp died before his hater could take him out?”
“Maybe,” my friend said, scratching his chin. “It’s looking like it, I guess.” He didn’t sound sure. I didn’t feel confident, either. But, if this were the case -- if Barnabus Kramp died from natural causes, then at least we’d be looking for attempted murder, as opposed to the grisly act itself. It’s wasn’t much, but I’d take it. I would.
“So, what’s left then? We have to find who constructed and planted the grenade?”
“Pretty much,” David agreed. “Plus, we still have to interview Typhon Jyldrar. We still don’t know if he saw anything of any use to us.”
“You still have him locked up?” I asked, my eyes bulging. “Shouldn’t we be, like, getting on that?”
“Actually, he’s free,” David said, leveling me with an intense gaze. “Violet Mulberry came to the station while I was napping this morning to report that she saw Typhon show up on the scene AFTER the explosion. She saw Jyldrar picking blackberries from the side of the road, near the Greyrock estate. A few minutes up the street from the blast site. Violet said that although she didn’t like the idea of a strange man wandering around the streets of Gless Inlet, she knew it’d be unfair to lock someone up for something he didn’t take part in. Anyway, Vi’s story checks out. Jyldrar had a bag of poached berries in his bag when we took him in.”
“But, couldn’t the bomb have been activated by remote control?”
“Yep. But, we combed the area thoroughly. Certainly within a radius that would have encompassed any area the device could have been thrown.”
“So, what do think Jyldrar can tell us, then?”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t talk much, as you know, but I figure if he saw anything that took place before the blast, perhaps? We swabbed him for explosive residue, and nothing. So, yeah, he’s clean as far as bomb-making, or activation goes.”
“Where is he now? Typhon, I mean?”
“The station’s jam-packed, Hat. We couldn’t keep him there. Although, he actually wanted to stay the night. I guess a warm, dry bed is a draw for the guy. I sent him off to the Mwyrden Bluffs again. Eve made him some sandwich
es to take with him.There are some caves in the cliffs; nobody will bother him out there. We can collect him for questioning when the time is right.”
I smiled at Eve Fernacre’s thoughtfulness for making the drifter something to eat before he was banished from GIPPD.
“Okay, so what do we do now?” I pleaded. My mind was reeling, trying to get a handle on the order of things.
“Well, we definitely head out to Cathedral,” David said, looking at me over his glasses. For a second I faltered under his gaze. The chief’s eyes had such power over me.
“Let’s ask Governor Shields some uncomfortable questions. About the blast. About Burning Peak being cordoned off. See if we can get a read on the slime-ball.” A cloud passed over David’s face. “He can’t do whatever the hell he wants and get away with it.”
“And, what about Typhon?”
“We can pick him up later and ask some questions,” my friend said. “At the same time, we’ll ask Eve about Kramp. She was the one looking after him before the trial. She brought in his food and supervised his visitor's et cetera. She might know something about Kramp’s medication, or his general state of mind. She’s a sharp observer, is Eve.”
“I’d have thought you’d have already asked Eve the pertinent questions?” I said, eyeing the chief.
“Hat, she’s not going anywhere. And, anyway, have you seen how many directions I’m being pulled in right now?”
He had a point.
“Okay, Shields, Typhon, and Eve. See if we can piece anything together with their combined statements?”
The chief nodded. Looking at his face, it seemed like the hour or so sleep he got earlier didn’t really have any effect. David’s skin looked gray, and there was a hardness to the lines around his eyes. I felt my heart constrict. Stop it, Hattie. Focus on what’s important here.
“What about Burning Peak? Do we go see for ourselves just how many of Shields’ men have the place covered?” I asked, trying to throw myself into the details.
“Yeah. And, hopefully, we see a grumlin and get the inside scoop on what’s going on in there.”
“We’ll need Dilwyn Werelamb,” I said, already bobbing my head in agreement with myself. “If we manage to see a rock grumlin, then we’ll need Dilwyn to translate.”
“Good idea. Can you have one of your kitties go fetch him and tell him to meet us there?”
“I’ll have Carbon to tell Jet to go. We can get him ‘nipped up. He’ll be out there and back in no time.” I said.
The Werelamb farm wasn’t that far from Gless Inlet. And, once Jet had a healthy dose of catnip in him, he’d welcome the challenge of the great outdoors, and the chance to hare around in it. Dilwyn Werelamb loved the cats. He’d even proffered some much-needed relief to Midnight when Middie had had a case of daytime insomnia last month.
Werelamb’s ‘farm’ was more of a smallholding for mythical, fabled creatures. To say he was adept at tending, and managing beasts and animals was an understatement. Dilwyn was practically a gryphon whisperer.
Because of his in-depth knowledge of storied monsters, Dilwyn also had a reasonably good grasp on the language of ‘grumlin.' He had helped us speak to the peculiar creatures once before. Without him, there would have been no way for us to comprehend the RG’s hand signs. The grumlin’s used their hands to communicate, and from those craggy hands shot razored blades of the hardest rock known to man. Their fingers were made from a mineral known as Gabbah Strata; a mineral that could be found in the deepest recesses of the earth’s crust. No man or machine could get to this rock. Only grumlin hands could mine that deep. Which is why the peaceable creatures had been extorted throughout history for mining other more precious gems.
Black Diamond.
Cathedral’s core was a Zurich bank vault of these exquisitely expensive jewels. Even Cathedral’s Cathedral, which the island was named after, was crafted from this glittering obsidian stone.
Black Diamond was valuable. Cathedral’s primary commodity, in fact. And the isle made a pretty penny off tourism, to boot. The Black Diamond landscape was a draw for holidaymakers the world over.
If only people knew of the plight of the grumlin, and their life of near slavery under the Shields administration.
“I don’t know though, David,” I said, rubbing my arms. “If Verdantia and Hinrika couldn’t see a way in, then I’m not sure that we could really do any better.”
“Ah, but we never told Hinrika and Vee about the waterfall, did we?” The chief’s full lips turned upward in a mock crafty grin.
“Goddess! I’d forgotten about that! So, what are you saying? Do you think that Shields’ goons might have overlooked the falls?”
I paced before him and smiled at the sight of my kitties who were across the room harassing Maude as she tried to look through a microscope. I saw Fraidy’s paw dart out and swipe the slide from the coroner’s equipment. She giggled, and put a fresh plate of glass under the lens.
I continued my pacing.
How could I have forgotten about the waterfall?
The last time David and I managed to get inside Burning Peak, it had been the waterfall that had granted our exit from the sacred cavern. We were led there, down a secret passageway inside the cave, by a friendly grumlin.
Okay, so it wasn’t exactly a ‘pleasant’ way out of the mountain, but it certainly worked. A one hundred foot drop through a torrent of rushing cold water wasn’t exactly my idea of fun, but we had gotten out of the mountain discreetly. And discretion was almost the grumlin’s credo. They were a very private bunch.
A thought hit me.
“But, coming out that way was one thing,” I said to the chief. “Going in, though? That’s going to be one heck of a climb, David.”
“And, through a water pressure usually saved for prisoner’s being ‘hosed,’ yeah,” he said, rocking on his feet. “But, chances are, Shields’ men will already be guarding it. I can’t imagine them not knowing it’s there. And, anyway, what choice do we have?”
He was right. If the falls weren’t somehow being screened by the governor’s henchmen, then that would be the only way in. I just hoped that we’d see a grumlin there that could help our ascent, in case we needed it.
I whistled for my cats who came trotting over to me to take their instructions.
They nodded, meowed and chirruped their understanding.
David gave Maude one last instruction. “Ms. Dulgrey, I know you’re certain that this was a heart attack, but can I ask that you go over the evidence one more time? Just to make sure?”
Maude raised her rodent eyebrows. “Well, CPI Trew, I do declare!” She teased. “Are you suggesting my preliminary findings aren’t conclusive enough for your police reports?”
“Not at all, Maude. I know you’re very competent. It’s just … well, this is an unusual turn of events. I want to make sure we’re looking at attempted murder and not the act itself.”
“Very well, chief, very well,” Maude said, laying an affectionate hand on David’s arm. “I will comb through everything once more. I should have another definitive answer for you … by, say, tomorrow morning?”
“There’s a reason why you’re the coroner we work so closely with,” my friend praised the toothy medical examiner.
We said our goodbye’s, and Hector Muerte walked us out. He moaned a surprised farewell before he shut the door.
I looked down at Carbon and Fraidy. “Now, remember guys,” I said, giving my kitties a stern eye. “Send Jet to Dilwyn, and Jet only. Make sure he comes straight back to The Angel after he’s passed on his message, okay? Mr. Werelamb will know where to come, and Millie will know how much catnip to give Jet to get the job done. All of you are to wait for me at the apothecary, clear?”
Fraidy and Carbon’s heads bobbed in a peculiar, circular motion.
“What are you doing?” My eyes narrowed at them.
“What?” They chimed together.
“Why are you moving your heads like that? Is it a ‘ye
s’ or a ‘no’?”
“Nes,” Carbon said.
“Yo,” said Fraidy.
I flung my arms up in the air, “Guys, seriously? Enough of the Indian head nod, alright?”
They gave me another Indian head nod.
My kitties trotted off just as David thrust a broom in front of me. “Here,” he said. “Forget those goofballs. You know they’re going to do exactly what they want to do, anyway.” He pushed the besom into my hand. “I brought two along with me. I knew you’d walk here.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but I snapped it shut and hopped on the broom instead.
David and I took to the skies, to see Gideon Shields, Cathedral’s governor, Chief Warlock, and all around sleaze-ball.
He surely had to give us some answers?
CHAPTER SIX
David tumbled from the broom just as soon as we landed on Crystal Beach on the West coast of Cathedral Isle. My besom was slower on the descent so I couldn’t get to my friend immediately, but when I touched down, the chief was already curled up in a ball, his forehead to his knees, evidently trying to roll up the severe pain he was experiencing.
I knelt down beside him and took his hand. “That’s it; we’re going back. I’m taking you to Howling Mercy hospital,” I commanded, reaching for my broom behind me.
“No!” David’s face turned an intense crimson color, as he spat the word through his gritted teeth. His hand clasped mine even harder, and I felt my blood throbbing in my fingertips. I could do nothing but stare, slack-jawed, at my friend in need.
The chief heaved in great gulps of air, spittle flying off his lips as he steered his breath through his teeth in short grunts. I looked away, and let the hot tears fall freely down my cheeks. I bit down on my bottom lip to stop its frenetic trembling.
“I’m okay,” my friend wheezed, slackening his grip on my hand somewhat.
I dared to turn my head toward him again. He was sitting up now, and the livid red color was draining from his cheeks.
David wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his right arm and looked at me sheepishly. “I guess I should go for a check-up, huh?”
The Warlock Weapon Page 5