“What should I do with our half of the pencil?” I asked.
“Oh, that’s a good point. We don’t want it here, but it can’t be in your steel box. Let’s take it to Moshi’s house.”
“OK, it’s almost ten o’clock. It should be dark in Huntington Beach. Let’s go down to the basement where the big circle is, and we’ll translocate to Liu’s yard.” I opened my steel box and retrieved the chunk of wood that Rachel had carved off of Moshi’s desk.
“Grab your paraphernalia and let’s go,” Rachel said.
I gathered up all my stuff and we rushed down to the basement. I still had marks around the giant magic circle so I could place the symbol cards in the proper places. I put the chunk from Moshi’s desk on the pivot point, put the last card in place, and shimmer, flash, shimmer, we were in Moshi’s darkened side yard.
Rachel stepped out of the circle and stuck the pencil in the soft ground at the base of a tree. She carefully stepped on the end of the pencil to be sure it was completely buried, and she stepped back into the circle. Shimmer, flash, shimmer and we were back in my living room.
“Easy peasy,” I said, and I took the cong out from under my couch cushion. I looked through the cong, and Liu’s office was still empty.
Chapter 30
Looking through the cong, we saw Liu return to his office not long after we had hidden both halves of the pencil homing beacon. It was as if he had been reading our minds. Evidently, eating lunch had calmed Liu’s mind and allowed him to begin to think about the theft of his cong in a more logical and rational manner. He must have come to the conclusion that magic had to have been used to pull off the heist, and he was afraid that a homing beacon had been hidden in his office. He began to methodically search his office.
“I hope Liu doesn’t discover his cong while searching for the homing beacon,” Rachel said.
“Drat!” I exclaimed. “Why didn’t I think of that.”
“Don’t worry, Professor. Any reasonable person will look under the couch cushions before he looks in more obscure places.”
Once again, Rachel was right. It only took a couple of minutes for Liu to find the broken pencil. He knew that he had found the object of his search, because he stopped searching and began putting symbol cards around the magic circle woven into his carpet.
“Look,” I said handing the cong to Rachel. “He’s getting ready to translocate.”
“That’s what it looks like,” Rachel said, “but I don’t believe it. I don’t think he would go by himself. Here, you keep an eye on him and tell me what you think.”
I gave Rachel a blow-by-blow commentary on Liu’s actions. After he had all except one of the symbol cards placed around the circle, he pulled a pendulum out of his pocket. He placed the broken pencil on the pivot point and hanged the pendulum from the shade of the lamp on the table near the carpet. The pendulum began to swing in slow clockwise circles. Just as our Spell Bells warned of impending magic, so did Liu’s pendulum.
“Liu has just used a Coriolis to verify that the broken pencil is actually acting as a real homing beacon,” I said. Liu then picked up the broken pencil, all the symbol cards and the pendulum. He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and made a call.
“Liu cancelled the spell and is making a call on his cell phone.”
“I’ll bet he’s calling Chan,” Rachel said. “He’s not using his official desk phone, so something is up. I know it’s late, but I’ve got to call Mary Martingale.”
Rachel went to the kitchen, but I could tell she had gotten through to Mary. She was using a soft conspiratorial tone, and I couldn’t hear everything she said. A few minutes later she came back into the living room.
“I told Mary that Seymour’s murderer might try breaking into her home office tonight and that we were going to arrest him there. I told her to unlock her front door and stay locked in her bedroom until she heard from me. I told her we were going to be using magic, and I would explain everything to her later. Now we need to get ready to translocate to Liu’s office and to Mary’s house.”
“No problem,” I said. “I’ll get the half business card that we can use as a homing beacon to Mary’s study.”
I handed the cong to Rachel to keep an eye on Liu, and I got everything ready for the night’s adventure.
“Here’s the plan,” Rachel said. “If Chan shows up in Liu’s office, we’ll translocate there and use your Snoozer on both of them. Then we’ll bring Chan back here to your apartment, and we’ll all three translocate to Mary’s study. You’ll then have to carry Chan out of the magic circle and allow me to snap back here. I’ll get my gun and drive to Mary’s house to meet you. Then we’ll call Jack. We don’t want to leave anything magic at Mary’s house.”
“OK, you’re the boss. We can do that. I’m ready, willing and able. But what about my Snoozer? It’ll take you a lot more than twelve minutes to drive from here to Mary’s house. I need to keep Chan asleep until you get back.”
“You keep your Snoozer. After I get there with my gun you can put the Snoozer in my car.”
“Good plan. Here, you take the cong and watch Liu while I get everything ready.”
Chapter 31
We had to wait less than an hour for Chan to arrive in Liu’s office. I was watching through the cong when Chan closed the office door behind him and stood in front of Liu’s desk. Liu sat in his desk chair and began talking to Chan.
“Let’s go,” I said. “Chan just arrived and Liu’s talking to him.”
We both stepped into the magic circle, and I cast the Spell of Translocation. Since we had translocated to Liu’s office before, I knew which way to face so that I would be facing Liu’s desk when we materialized in his office. I had my Snoozer pointed and my trigger thumb ready when we shimmered into view.
Both men looked toward us in surprise, and Chan started to lunge toward us, but I was too quick on the trigger. Chan fell face forward halfway into the magic circle, and Liu slumped in his desk chair. Chan’s fall had moved a few symbol cards, so the spell was broken.
“I’m going to check Chan’s pockets,” Rachel said. “You go check on Liu.”
Liu was about to fall sideways out of his chair, so I straightened him up. I crossed his forearms on the desk and gently laid his head on his arms as if Liu were taking a nap. I placed his cell phone near him on the desk. I was trying to make it look as if Liu had just fallen asleep rather than having been “snoozed.” Because the Snoozer erased the victim’s memories from two minutes before he was snoozed, Liu wouldn’t remember anything about us materializing in his office.
“You know what,” I said, “I believe we arrived less than two minutes after Chan’s arrival, so Liu won’t even remember that Chan was here. He’ll wake up thinking he’s still waiting for Chan. That should give us a little time cushion.”
“Great,” Rachel replied. “There are only two things in Chan’s pockets, and neither is made of iron, so he won’t leave any iron behind after we translocate. Let’s get out of here.”
I moved Chan completely into the magic circle. I had to put him into a fetal position to make room for Rachel and myself in the small circle of symbol cards. I put all the symbol cards into position, and shimmer, flash, shimmer, we were all three back in my living room.
With Chan still lying on his side, Rachel used the big cable ties to bind his hands behind his back and bind his feet together. Then she ran a couple of cable ties between his ankle ties and his wrist ties behind his back.
“Do you have any duct tape?” Rachel asked.
“You’re asking a man if he has duct tape? That’s like asking a dog if he has a bone.” I pulled a roll out of my magic bag and handed it to Rachel. She tore off a piece of tape and put it over Chan’s mouth.
“Look at this,” Rachel said as she reached into two of Chan’s pockets. “This looks like half of a Chinese currency note with extra writing on it. It has to be a homing beacon. Put it in your steel box.”
I complied and sto
red away the torn note. “What’s that other thing?”
Rachel held up a brass key. “This must be the key to his house or apartment. Should we take it or leave it in his pocket?”
“I don’t know. It looks pretty ordinary, and it could be evidence against him, somehow.”
“OK, I’ll put it back in his pocket. I’d better search his body and clothing more closely. Ha! Look at this.”
Rachel pulled up a pants leg and, using the cloth of his pants leg, pulled a knife with a wooden handle and a six-inch ceramic blade half way out of a leather sheath strapped to Chan’s right calf. “I’m going to leave the knife on his leg, because we now know he’s armed, and it could be evidence against him.” Rachel found nothing else in her thorough search of his body.
“OK, let’s translocate to Mary’s place,” Rachel said.
I put the correct homing beacon on the pivot point, cast the spell, and shimmer, flash, shimmer, we were in Mary’s home office. Rachel and I lifted Chan out of the circle and laid him on the floor.
“I’ll call Mary when I snap back to your apartment,” Rachel said as she stepped back into the circle. “I’ll drive back here as quick as I can.” The air shimmered; there was a flash of light, and I was alone in Mary’s home office with the hogtied Chan. I sat in a chair facing Chan with my Snoozer in my hand.
In a couple of minutes, Chan started to move. He opened his eyes and saw me.
“I know you speak English, and I know you know what this is,” I said as I held up my Snoozer for him to see. “You just rest there, and I won’t have to use this again.”
Chan grunted and started to get to his knees, so I zapped him again. I started to wonder if there was any limit on how many consecutive times you could snooze a person. I was pretty sure that there wouldn’t be any harmful side effects, but there could possibly be a limit on the number of snoozes possible. In order to test that question, and also because I was afraid of Chan, I re-snoozed him every twelve minutes when he started to wake up.
After three re-snoozes, Rachel came into Mary’s office with her pistol in hand. “Is everything OK?” she asked.
“A-OK. I’ve kept Chan snoozed while you were gone.”
“Good. I called Mary and told her that we were here in her study with the murderer. I also called Jack. He should be here any minute. Here, take my car keys and put your Snoozer in Fred.”
I picked up all the symbol cards and other magical paraphernalia and put it all in Rachel’s car. When I got back to Mary’s study, Chan was awake, and Rachel had removed the tape from his mouth.
“What’s your name?” Rachel asked. Chan remained silent. “I know you understand English. I’m sure you recognize me. You and Wei Liu kidnapped me and took me to China. You’re in Portland, Oregon, USA. I’m sure you recognize this room. It’s where you killed an innocent man.”
Flashing police lights shone through one of the windows which Rachel and evidently opened while I was outside. Soon, detective Jack Avery entered the room followed by two uniformed officers.
“Here he is, Jack,” Rachel said. “Don’t let him fool you, he can speak English. He has a knife strapped to his right leg.”
The officers cut Chan’s cable ties, handcuffed him and took his hidden knife. Avery read him his rights, and the two officers took him away to jail.
“OK, what really happened here?” Avery asked.
“What really happened,” Rachel said, “was that we tricked that guy into using magic to return to the scene of the crime. We were waiting for him, and we got the jump on him. Then we called you.”
“Where’s Mrs. Martingale?”
“She’s safe in her bedroom.”
“Why is that window open?”
“I opened it so it would look as if Chan, that’s not really his name, could have come in through the window.”
“You’re sure this guy is the killer?”
“His fingerprints are the ones you unofficially matched to the print on the murder weapon.”
“We’ll definitely be checking that out. Professor, would you go get Mrs. Martingale?”
“Sure,” I answered, and I went to the master bedroom.
“Mary. It’s the Professor. The coast is clear. The police have arrested the killer and hauled him off to jail. Rachel and Detective Avery are in your study, and Avery would like to talk with you.” Mary came out of her bedroom, and we went to the study.
“Are you OK?” Avery asked Mary.
“Yes, I’m fine.”
“Can you tell me what you know about what happened here tonight?”
“Yes, I really don’t know much. Rachel told me that she thought Seymour’s killer was going to return to the scene of the crime tonight, and that she and the Professor were going to try to catch him. She told me to stay in my bedroom, which I did. I never saw the killer and I didn’t even hear anything.”
“Why would the killer come back to your house?”
“I have no idea. Maybe he thought we had valuable antiques here.”
“Thank you Mrs. Martingale. I’m sure it’s been a stressful night for you. If you could please wait in the living room, we’ll be finished here in just a few minutes.”
Mary left the study, and Avery closed and latched the window. “What’s your official version of what happened here tonight?” Avery asked.
“Officially, the Professor and I suspected that Seymour’s killer did not find what he was looking for the day he killed Seymour. We believed that he would return to the scene of the crime to find it. We’ve been staking out Mary’s house where we could see her study window. Tonight, we saw Chan enter through the window, so we sneaked over and I held him at gunpoint while the Professor tied him up.”
“What was he looking for?”
“We don’t know.”
“So that completes your official story?”
“That’s right.”
“OK. I’ve got that written in my notebook. I’m going to skip my speech about you two staying out of police business, but don’t make a habit of this. I’m truly worried about your safety. If this guy turns out to be the real killer, I think we’ll be OK; but if his prints don’t match, you two are going to be in big trouble.”
“Thanks, Jack,” Rachel said. “Everything will turn out just fine. Be sure to take all of his clothes, underwear, shoes, everything. Burn it all or he may be able to magically escape.”
“We can take all his clothes, but we can’t destroy them; they’re evidence,” Avery said.
“Can you at least keep them in a steel file cabinet. That’ll block magic.”
“I think I can do that. You two go home. I’m going to search the house before I leave and make sure Mrs. Martingale is OK.”
We met Mary in the living room, and her live-in housekeeper was with her. Rachel asked if Mary would like for Rachel to stay with her for the night. Avery assured her that he would make sure the house was safe and locked up tight, and Mary said that she would be OK with her housekeeper to keep her company. As we left, we heard the housekeeper telling Avery that she hadn’t heard anything until the police arrived.
As soon as we got back to the Goose, I used the cong to spy on Liu. “There’s nobody in Liu’s office,” I said.
“I wish we had an automatic camera looking through that Remote Viewer while we were gone,” Rachel said. “We don’t know what Liu’s up to.”
“I’m sure he’s wondering what happened to Chan, and why he never showed up in his office.”
“Maybe,” Rachel said. “At any rate, it’s one o’clock in the morning, and we need some rest. I’m going to bed, and I suggest you do the same. Let’s meet here for breakfast at nine and plan our next steps.”
“OK,” I agreed, and Rachel went downstairs to her apartment. I poured myself a Scotch and continued to look at Liu’s office for another fifteen minutes before I locked the cong in my safe and went to bed.
Chapter 32
The next morning I brewed a pot of Sumatran coffee, toasted
and buttered four slices of bread, wrapped several slices of pre-cooked bacon in a paper towel by the microwave, and set a carton of eggs beside the cooktop. I was all ready to cook at nine AM, but Rachel was late. At nine twenty, she knocked and let herself in.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“I’m late because I have news.”
“Good news or bad news?”
“Good news. I just got off the phone with Jack, and Chan’s fingerprints match the prints on the murder weapon. Mary is no longer a murder suspect.”
“Excellent!” I said. “Mission accomplished. Did Chan confess?”
“They got nothing out of him, not even his real name. His prints aren’t in the IAFIS database. Jack sent the prints to Interpol, but I doubt they’ll have a match either. They don’t have a motive for Chan killing Seymour; all they have is his fingerprints on the murder weapon.”
“Well Rachel,” I said, “I think that falls into the category of someone else’s problem. We captured the killer and cleared Mary’s name so that she’s no longer a suspect. Send Charlene a bill, and we’re done.”
“Not so fast, Professor. We still have to return the cong and the deBabelizer to Liu.”
“Right. I forgot about that. At least let’s have some breakfast first.”
As we ate breakfast, we reviewed how the case had played out. “You know,” I said, “there was at least one time when we got lucky.”
“When was that?”
“When Liu checked the broken pencil to see if it was a real homing beacon, he put it on the pivot point of the magic circle before he tested with his Coriolis. If he had set up the Coriolis first, he would have realized that magic was already in the room. We were watching through the Remote Viewer, and the Coriolis would have detected that. The pencil could have been a dud, and he would still have thought it was a homing beacon.”
“Leave it to you to detect a lapse in the scientific method. I guess we did get lucky, but luck counts. When a golfer gets a hole in one, he doesn’t say, “Oh, I just got lucky. I’ll take a par.”
Crimes of Magic: The Yard Sale Wand Page 22