“Are you thinking translocation?”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“But how would Wei Liu know about your office, and how would he have a homing beacon?”
“There’s no way,” Rachel said. “It couldn’t have been him.”
“Who then?”
“Seth.”
“Seth? Why would Seth break in?”
“Maybe he’s still trying to get your Snoozer.”
“But we convinced Moshi and Debra that the wand burned.”
“Maybe Seth didn’t buy it, or maybe he’s just desperate.”
“But how did he get a homing beacon for your office?”
“That’s a good question, but I have a theory.”
“What’s your theory?” I asked.
“Remember when Moshi stole the fake wand, he hypnotized us with his Dream Dradle. We were zoned out for three hours. He had plenty of time to make a homing beacon like we did when I carved off a piece of Moshi’s desk in his house.”
“That damn Moshi; he’s smarter than we gave him credit for. What do you think the burglars took?”
“There’s nothing for them to find here. All my files are in the cloud, and my laptop is at the Goose. I don’t keep anything here but office and kitchen supplies. This office is as empty of clues as Lindsay Lohan’s head.”
“Well let me help you clean up. Maybe we’ll find that homing beacon in the process. Look for anything new or anything missing.”
We started straightening up Rachel’s office. Occasionally I would ask about something I thought was suspicious, but nothing I asked about turned out to be the homing beacon. Rachel crawled under her desk, but found no missing pieces.
“By the way,” I said as I was looking through magazines thrown about in the outer office, “what happened with Avery and the fingerprints?”
“Oh yeah, the prints. One of the prints on the X glass matched a print on the murder weapon.”
“That would be Wei Liu’s henchman’s fingerprint,” I said. “Now we know who the murderer is; all we have to do is catch him.”
“There’s a little more to it than that,” Rachel said. “We have to have probable cause to arrest him—a least Jack has to have probable cause. The prints on the glass aren’t allowable.”
“Hey! Look at this,” I said holding up a magazine. “Half a page has been torn out.”
“Put it on the coffee table. We’ll make a pile of suspicious stuff and destroy it later. This could be a laborious process.”
“Why don’t we just put all the magazines and other multi-page publications in the suspicious stack? We’ll burn them all.”
“Good idea,” Rachel said. “That way we’ll only have to scrutinize stuff I have to keep.”
“Why is your coffee table over near the refrigerator?”
“I guess the burglars moved it.”
“And look, there aren’t any papers on the floor in the center of the room. It’s the only clear space. This must be where they had their magic circle.”
“What happened to it then?” Rachel asked.
“That’s a good question, and why did they bother? It’s obvious somebody translocated into here. Why not just leave the circle behind?”
“They probably didn’t want to leave anything with their fingerprints or other clues.”
“That must be it. They probably used the same trick we suspect Seymour’s killers of using. Two magicians translocate in, the first one steps out of the circle. The second one automatically snaps back to the point of origin, and then the second one returns later to pick up the first one. That also means that the homing beacon is in this waiting room and not in your inner office. That narrows down our search area.”
We examined every object in the cabinets in the waiting room. We even emptied the refrigerator and examined the cabinets and furniture for missing pieces. Actually cleaning up the office would have only taken fifteen minutes, but we were there for two hours trying to exterminate homing beacons. We finally decided that, to the best of our ability, any homing beacons had to be in the discard pile on the coffee table.
“You know, burning all this stuff is going to be a pain,” I said. “Why don’t we just dump it all in the recycle dumpster outside?”
“Better yet, let’s dump it in a different neighborhood.”
“OK, are you sure you don’t want to find the specific homing beacon so we can follow it back to the guys who tossed your office?” I asked.
“You know, I’m tired of popping up in strange places following unknown homing beacons. We’ve been lucky so far, but one of these days our luck is going to run out. Let’s save the risky translocations for emergencies.”
“Agreed. I’ll carry this stuff down to your car, and you can find a remote recycle bin.”
Rachel drove us a few blocks away, and we dumped the suspicious publications in somebody else’s recycle bin. That accomplished, we drove back to the Goose.
“It’s tea time,” I said as we entered the Goose. “Want to come up for a snack?”
“I had a pretty big lunch, but a cup of coffee would be nice.”
“Great. Come on up.”
I brewed a pot of Sumatran coffee and poured two cups. I also put a few macadamia caramel chocolate clusters on a saucer.
“I’ll bet this is Sumatran coffee,” Rachel said.
“You’re exactly right.”
“Good God! these chocolate nut clusters are delicious,” Rachel exclaimed. “Where did you get them?”
“Costco,” I replied.
“Well get a box for me next time you go.”
“I’ll give you a dozen right now. They come in a huge jar—way too many for a single person.” I got up and put twelve clusters in a Ziploc and set it beside Rachel’s bag.
“What’s our next step in the Martingale case?” I asked.
“Umm,” Rachel said with her mouth full of chocolate, “I think we need to shake things up a bit.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, for one thing, I didn’t like Moshi’s gang breaking into my office. We need to put a stop to that. For another thing, I didn’t like Wei Liu kidnapping me.”
“So what do we do?”
“It seems that Moshi and Liu have something in common—they both lost Snoozers. It sounds to me like a match made in Heaven, or Hell. Let’s get them together and let them harass each other.”
“What good would that do?”
“I’m not sure, but sometimes you just have to shake the tree and let the nuts fall where they may.”
“How do we do that?”
“I’ve been thinking,” Rachel said. “Liu’s Snoozer looks just like yours, right?”
“Except Liu’s is a little lighter in color.”
“But what if the Snoozer was partially burned? Who’s to say it’s not Liu’s Snoozer?”
“I see where you’re going with this. Maybe we can make Liu think that Moshi destroyed his Snoozer—but how?”
“We just have to let Liu discover Moshi’s Snoozer.”
“Again, how?”
“Wherever Debra took Moshi’s burned Snoozer, she almost certainly kept it in its box. That box has a homing beacon hidden in it, so we can go there. Liu used his business card to translocate into my apartment, so we can take that business card to Debra, or whoever, and hide it there. Sooner or later, and I’m betting sooner, Liu will try translocating again to recover his Snoozer.”
“Brilliant! You are the Queen of Strategy. Let’s do it,” I said.
“OK, but here’s the thing, we don’t know which time zone Moshi’s burned Snoozer is in. Remember, we saw Debra take it from Moshi’s house. She could still be in California, or she could have taken it anywhere. If Debra and Moshi work for Seth, the Snoozer could be in England. England is eight hours later than Oregon and California.”
“We’ll just translocate at ten thirty tonight,” I said. “That’s our best bet for them being asleep. If the wand is in England, it'
ll be six thirty tomorrow morning. We’ll only be there for thirty seconds before the Spell of Translocation’s snap-back feature returns us here.”
“And we’ll only have thirty seconds to hide Liu’s business card in Debra’s lair.”
“That’s plenty of time.”
“OK then, partner. Tonight we hunt,” Rachel declared.
Rachel went to her apartment after tea, promising to return before ten thirty when we would translocate to parts unknown. I decided to get together everything we would need for the night’s adventure. The whole mission would only last thirty seconds, so we had to have things organized to go smoothly and efficiently.
At nine thirty, I set up a small magic circle in my living room and placed the symbol cards, all except one, in their proper locations around the circle with the wooden pivot point in the center.
I didn’t put the homing beacon on the pivot point yet. I was keeping that torn coupon and Wei Liu’s business card in the steel box until the last minute. I was tired of being surprised by magicians translocating into my apartment. I put a dozen glow sticks on the coffee table beside my magic bag. This was about all I could do until it was time to hunt, as Rachel would say.
At ten twenty that night Rachel showed up dressed in her all-black translocation outfit. I was similarly attired in black with a black unbuttoned overshirt that concealed my Snoozer in its shoulder holster.
“Are we ready?” Rachel asked.
“Almost. I have some high-powered glow sticks for illumination. They only last for five minutes, but they’re bright. I suggest we each carry two for illumination.”
“That’s a great idea.”
“If it turns out that there’s plenty of light, and we don’t need the glow sticks, just drop yours inside the circle, and they’ll snap back with us.”
“OK. I guess we ought to light them up before we translocate to save time,” Rachel said.
“I agree. Time is of the essence. I’m putting four extra glow sticks in the circle in case we don’t snap back and we need light. Be sure not to leave a glow stick behind.”
“We should definitely snap back, if at all possible,” Rachel said. “If we can’t find a place to hide Liu’s business card in thirty seconds, we should snap back and try again.”
“I’m going to leave it up to you to hide the card,” I said. “I’ll count down the thirty seconds and hold my glow sticks overhead for illumination. You can step out of the circle and hide the card.”
“Where is Liu’s business card?”
“It’s still in the steel box on the coffee table. I don’t want it to be unshielded any longer than necessary.”
“OK then, let’s hit it. Light ‘em up!” Rachel said as she cracked and shook her two glow sticks. I did the same.
Rachel stepped into the magic circle, and I opened the steel box and handed Liu’s business card to her. I retrieved the torn coupon from the steel box and stepped into the circle. I put the homing beacon on the pivot point and drew my Snoozer. My Spell Bell began chiming, warning me that my own magic was approaching. I stepped out of the circle, laid the Spell Bell on its side, and stepped back into the circle. Then I laid the final symbol card in place.
The air around us began to shimmer, the temperature dropped, there was a flash of light, and we found ourselves standing in a hallway. The air stopped shimmering, and I started counting: “One America, two America…”
The hallway was illuminated by can lights in the ceiling, and I looked in all directions without seeing anyone. Rachel stepped out of the circle and walked over to a door. The door was hinged to open out into the hallway, so it was probably a closet. “Six America, seven America…”
She opened the door and stepped into a narrow walk-in closet. Her glow sticks came in handy, because the closet was dark. There seemed to be a lot of stuff stored on lots of shelves on the walls of that closet. Rachel was rapidly scanning the shelves. “Thirteen America, fourteen America…”
Rachel was reaching into the back of a shelf at her eye level. After a few seconds of moving things around, she came out of the closet and closed the door. “Twenty-two America, twenty-three America…”
Rachel stepped into the circle with her glow sticks and said, “Mission accomplished,” as the air started to shimmer again. There was a flash of light, and we were back in my living room. I started picking up the translocation paraphernalia, and Rachel stepped out of the circle.
“That was tense, but it seemed to go off without a hitch,” I commented as I put the torn coupon homing beacon back into the steel box.
“Yeah, I saw the Snoozer’s sandalwood box on a shelf in that closet. The charred wand was in the box, not wrapped in anything. You could still make out the sigil on the shaft, but the handle was badly burned. I took the wand out of the box and set it on the shelf in front of the box. I put Liu’s business card under a shoe box at the back of a different cluttered shelf. I made sure that nothing looked disturbed, except for the burned wand sitting on the shelf. For what it’s worth, all the writing on the boxes in that closet was in English.”
“Another successful mission,” I said. “Would you like to celebrate with a little drink?”
“No thanks, Professor. I’m going to bed. I’ll call you in the morning.”
And with that, Rachel left my apartment.
Chapter 25
I awoke the next morning at about seven o’clock with a feeling of melancholy. I’m not a stranger to melancholy, but I hadn’t been bothered by it much in the past year. Most often, I can’t put my finger on the cause of the sadness, but if I can identify it, the feeling is easier to shake off. As I ate my first breakfast of cottage cheese and coffee, I mentally reviewed the events of the previous day. When I have a sudden onslaught of melancholy that develops overnight, it’s usually caused by events the day before.
We had talked with Gabriel the day before, and he didn’t give us any clear advice on the ethics of taking Liu’s Snoozer. Could this ethical dilemma be the source of my bad mood? Perhaps, but Rachel had seemed more conflicted over the ethical question than I had been.
Rachel had lunch with Avery the day before. Could that be the trigger for my sadness? Yes, that could definitely be a contributing factor, but she and Avery had dated before, and I had been upset, even jealous, but not melancholic.
Rachel’s office had been broken into, but she wasn’t hurt, and we thoroughly cleansed her office of homing beacons. I felt good about that. That couldn’t be the reason.
Last night we had planted Liu’s business card homing beacon in the house of whoever was behind Moshi’s theft of a fake Snoozer. Did I feel bad about the ethics of doing that? Rachel seemed fine with it—it was her idea. Both Liu and Moshi’s bosses were bad guys. I didn’t think I was conflicted over the ethics, but just thinking about it deepened my melancholy. Something about this was depressing me.
Rachel came up with the idea of planting Liu’s homing beacon because she wanted to shake things up. She didn’t know exactly what would happen, but she had felt the need to create more activity, even chaos, to further our investigation. Rachel is a good P.I. She has a gut instinct for doing what has to be done to solve a case. If Rachel thought this was the right thing to do, I knew at a very deep level that it was correct. However, I was getting more depressed as I thought of it. Was this feeling regret? Was it disappointment? That was it! I was feeling disappointed—left out.
I have come to realize that one of my character flaws is a lack of initiative. When it comes to life, I’m a little too passive, a little too introverted. I rely on others to initiate activity and decide what to do. I tend to live vicariously through the lives of other, more outgoing, people. This was one reason that I had come to like Rachel. I loved to hear her tell stories about her cases. It was better than reading an adventure novel. It was even better now that I was her partner. I got to see Rachel in action, first-hand. I realized that without Rachel, my life would be dull. Now I was really getting morose.
I had identified the problem. Rachel and I had taken action to shake things up, but I wasn’t going to be able to witness it. Planting that homing beacon last night was going to create a lot of action. The result would be exciting and possibly dangerous. It would be the most thrilling thing I had experienced in a long time. It would make a great story to tell and to discuss with Rachel—and I was going to miss out on it all. There was no way for me to know what happened. I wouldn’t be a witness, and there would be no one to tell me about it. Exciting things were going to happen that were very important to the case we were working on, and I would be completely in the dark, left out, excluded. This called for a second cup of coffee.
One good thing had come from this mental self-analysis—I was feeling less melancholy and more angry. Men only have four emotions: bummed out, pissed off, pumped up, and horny. I was moving from bummed out to pissed off, a more manageable emotion. I had made all the progress I was going to make talking to myself in my head. I needed to talk to Rachel about it. That would move me a little closer to pumped up. We won’t discuss the fourth emotion right now.
After first breakfast, I put on jeans and a polo shirt. I needed a little exercise to improve my mood. It was a beautiful July Friday morning in Portland—about sixty-five degrees, clear and dry, perfect weather for a walk. My walking route took me through my residential neighborhood to a commercial area of Northwest Portland, populated with coffee shops, niche retail stores, small cafes and artsy boutiques. Although I had consumed enough caffeine for one morning, I couldn’t pass the corner Starbucks without stopping in. I ordered a latte, to max out my daily ration of dairy, and found a seat outside. I was enjoying watching all the people strolling the sidewalks, window shopping and walking their dogs, when I realized that I was doing it again. Here I was watching other people live their lives while I sat drinking a latte and doing nothing. I ditched my coffee cup and continued walking my route that ended back at the Goose.
At ten o’clock, rather than waiting for Rachel to call me, I gave her a call.
Crimes of Magic: The Yard Sale Wand Page 17