My sympathy for the dead imbecile dropped by half.
“Dr. Davenforth?”
Lifting my head, I turned toward the hail and found Gerring with Herbert Drake. It had been a good year since I’d seen Drake, and aside from the new beard he sported, I detected no change in his appearance. Still broad as a keg, dark eyes sharp in his lined face, salt and pepper hair flying about in every direction.
Stripping off my right glove, I approached. “Thank you, Gerring. Mr. Drake, I’m not sure if you recall our meeting last year.”
“You’re a hard man to forget, Dr. Davenforth,” Drake denied, accepting my hand in a firm clasp. He smelled faintly of black powder, which inclined me to think that my summons had interrupted something. His eyes darted to the car beyond me and hardened visibly. “Gerring here explained what happened, and I’m happy to come and look it over, as this isn’t the sort of nonsense I want to see in my city.”
“Indeed not,” I agreed wholeheartedly. “Please, come take a look. Ah, do wear gloves. It avoids contamination of the scene.”
He accepted the gloves I handed him without a qualm, pulling them on while carefully maneuvering around the car to view it from all angles. “When did this happen?”
“Roughly two hours ago.”
“Gerring said there was a victim?”
“A man. The driver.”
“Did the hood come off in the explosion?”
I enjoyed the rapid-fire questioning, as I could see his mind taking in facts, absorbing what knowledge I imparted and what his eyes alone told him. “It did not. The hood was warped but stayed more or less on. My partner and I removed it to see if we could find any trace of an incendiary element.”
He stopped abruptly at the boot and looked up sharply. “Was there?”
“Not that we could determine in a cursory examination,” I denied with a shake of the head. “However, neither of us are experts in demolitions, which was why I thought it wise to ask your opinion.”
“Hmmm.” He went back to walking around the car. “Anything taken from the car, aside from that briefcase? I assume it was in there.”
“Yes, backseat. And no, we’ve not touched the vehicle otherwise, aside from the removal of the corpse, of course—just transported it here.”
“How much damage was there to the car’s surroundings?”
“Scorch marks for the most part, superficial damage. The explosion seemed very localized to the vehicle itself.” I observed that Gerring hovered nearby, still and quiet, as if unsure he should be here but unwilling to leave. It was to his betterment that he learned about things like this, as such knowledge might help him in the future, and I knew he was another of Jamie’s ducklings she’d taken under her wing. I caught his eye and gave him a nod to indicate he was fine where he was. Only then did he relax.
Because of my momentary preoccupation, I nearly didn’t pick up on Drake’s discomfort at this information. Straightening, I asked tautly, “That says something to you?”
“Easiest thing in the world is to pile on too much powder,” Drake answered slowly. He came to stand at the hood of the car again, staring intently down into what remained of the engine compartment. “It’s much, much harder to use exactly the right amount for the job. That’s either the luckiest fluke in the world, or it means you have someone with a lot of skill and knowledge behind this. I’m leaning towards the latter.”
I was not at all inclined to argue. I doubted anyone not in the demolitions business would think to hot wire a car to explode to begin with. Human beings tended to stick to their comfort zones. “Who would have the necessary expertise?”
“I don’t know enough at this point to answer that question,” Drake responded semi-apologetically. “Let me get a good look of the inside, see if I can backwards engineer what they did.”
That was entirely reasonable and I waved him to it. “Yes, of course.” As I detested having people hovering over my shoulder while I worked, I did him the courtesy of turning my back to him and focusing once again on the charms at the table. In fact, since I still had Gerring, I decided to make use of him. “Gerring.”
He obeyed my summons and came to stand next to me. “Yes, Doctor?”
“There’s a bit of unpleasantness here,” I explained to him, gesturing towards the charms. “I’m not sure if it will provide motive or not, but we should definitely investigate it. These charms are some of those fake off-the-press sorts that cause all ends of trouble. I’ll message Jamie now, informing her of this finding, but can you go to Legal and inform them that I need a warrant issued to have these things pulled from the shelves? I shudder to think there’s a batch lot available to the masses.”
“Yes, of course,” Gerring assured me with a distasteful glare at the charms in question. “What are the charms for?”
“They’re anti-sickness charms, so hopefully they haven’t done too much damage.” I crossed my fingers when I said it, then nearly laughed at myself. That was very much a Jamie maneuver. Strange how quickly I picked up her mannerisms. “Here, take these top invoices and this charm. Don’t worry, this one is powerless, but they’ll need the information from all of them in order to issue the warrant.”
Gerring still picked it up as gingerly as he would have a moldy, dead kitchen rag. “Yes, Doctor. I’ll be right back.”
Shooing him on, I retrieved my texting pad and scrawled a quick message: Jamie, charms are bad.
It took a minute for her to respond: Possible motive?
Possibly. Do not enter business building without me.
Dangerous?
Could be. I honestly didn’t know. But if the man was careless enough to mess with printing presses and charms then he most likely hadn’t been the sort to take proper work precautions. Magical booby-traps could be set up, just waiting to be sprung. I did know that I didn’t want my magically unstable partner anywhere near that potential landmine. Not until I had done a proper sweep through first and made it safe for her.
Roger that, she responded promptly.
Bless her for being so sensible. Relieved I wouldn’t have to worry about her, I tacked on, Demolitions expert here. Then I frowned. Did she know the word demolitions? Well, she knew the word ‘expert’ so surely she could infer what I’d meant.
On our way back.
Good. That way I didn’t need to repeat myself later. Repetition of any sort made my skin crawl.
“What is that thing?” Drake inquired, coming to stand at my elbow.
“Ah. It’s a new invention of Guildmaster Warner’s. It allows instantaneous communication with a similar device.”
Drake’s thick eyebrows shot straight into his hairline. “Like a telegraph?”
“Similar principal, yes.”
He eyed the device in my hand with considerable respect. “Brilliant, that. You’re testing it, I assume? I haven’t heard of something like this on the market.”
“Yes, I’m one of the testers,” I confirmed, setting it back down on the table. “It’s still in the experimental stage. There are a few kinks to work out yet. My partner tells me that she’s on her way back. Do you have findings to report as of yet?”
“Not quite. I think I see something, but I need a magnifying glass and a pair of tweezers to get to it. Can I borrow a few tools?”
“Yes, of course.” He’d come with nothing on hand, but then, I didn’t know what he’d been doing prior. It could well be he’d hadn’t the opportunity to pack up his own tools.
I opened up my bag, then went to my lab to fetch a few other things, including a journal so we could record his findings and preserve the chain of evidence. My nose kept itching from the acrid smell of gunpowder prevalent in the air. It took willpower to not rub at the appendage every five seconds.
Gerring returned with the warrant, which I quickly perused, making sure that all of the pertinent details were correct. They were, fortunately, and I folded the warrant to rest inside my pocket. Thanking him, I let him linger again to watch as Drake half
crawled inside of the engine compartment. The man would be perfectly filthy after digging about. I’d offer him a cleaning charm before he left as a professional courtesy, I decided. Only fair. He’d done me a very good turn by showing up as quickly as he had, and I’d not wish him to ruin a good set of clothes in the endeavor.
Drake made several satisfied grunting noises, pulling out scraps of various sizes and makes, everything from shreds of paper to something that looked suspiciously like wire. Charred, twisted wire. He laid it out on the table next to the charms, in a precise little row, then went back for another look.
I heard her footsteps before I saw her—the quick and ground-eating stride—and turned to greet my partner. “Jamie, Officer McSparrin. What did you ladies discover?”
“Nothing good, but informative,” Jamie reported, coming to stand next to the table. “Did we miss anything here?”
“He has yet to report his findings to me,” I confided with a glance at Drake, “but he’s making happy noises at what he’s found, which is indicative enough, I believe.”
Drake paused in his rummaging enough to pop his head up and correct, “Not happy, satisfied. I think I know what the powder monkey did. This who we were waiting on?”
“Indeed, sir,” I confirmed.
“I know enough to give you the general picture, at least.” Drake picked himself off the car and came closer, pulling off a glove so he could offer a hand.
Since I knew all parties, I made the introductions. “Demolitions expert Herbert Drake. This is Detective Jamie Edwards and Officer Penny McSparrin.”
“Pleasure,” Jamie said as she shook the man’s hand. “And thank you for coming quickly.”
“Downright disturbing, this is,” he responded, then shook Penny’s hand with the same professional courtesy. “I wanted to know what happened, once Officer Gerring got across the problem. I certainly want to catch the devil who did it before the mechanics of how-to gets about. Now, near as I can tell, you’ve got an experienced powder monkey behind this. He knew precisely how much powder to cause damage and kill the poor bloke, but to not hurt innocent bystanders. He wired up precisely one stick of dynamite to the engine, the wire keeping it in place with the fuse attached to the spark plug. Common materials, but he knew what to do with them.”
“So we’re looking for a demo expert.” Jamie looked somewhat pleased by this, and I understood why, as it narrowed the suspect field.
Drake hesitated, mouth visibly mulling the words over before releasing them. “I think more than one person. I think he’d need a mechanic of some sort, too. This new model of car, the spark plugs are hard to get to. You’d have to know where they are, where to attach the wire to get the most voltage.”
My brows rose. “You believe two people were behind this?”
“Yes. Powder monkeys make good money; it’s not often they change professions. Same for mechanics. Doubt you’ll find the same skillset in the same man.” Drake shrugged, allowing us to come to our own conclusions.
I rocked back on my heels and thought about it. The man made an excellent point.
“Murder,” McSparrin murmured with a disturbed look at the car. “But how can we be sure he was the right victim? I mean, it was a business car.”
“That was something we discovered today,” Jamie filled me in, almost as an aside. “The car was a registered vehicle to the charms business. He had a painted logo on the side and everything, which you can barely see now. The man—Trevor Garner is his name—had one employee, whereabouts currently unknown. It’s entirely possible that the wrong person got into the car at the wrong time.”
“Just when I think we are approaching clarity, something appears to muddy the waters,” I bemoaned with a sigh.
Jamie gave me a commiserating look. “Tell me about it. The reviews we got on the victim were just as mixed. He was either a wonderful man or a snake charmer. Take your pick. You said the charms were bad, and we certainly heard a lot of war stories about that, but what’s bad about them?”
It didn’t surprise me others had cottoned onto the charms’ less than stellar qualities. Or that Jamie had already heard about it. “The earmarks of the charms indicate that he was using a printing press to make them, then would add a line or two on his own so that they would register a magical signature.” I grimaced, nearly shuddering at the shoddiness of it. “If he wasn’t careful—and all indication from this stack of charms indicates that caution was not in this man’s nature—then any charms misprinted could potentially cause harm.”
“Like making people sick instead of preventing it?” McSparrin inquired, her tone and expression indicating it was more a rhetorical question.
Eyes narrowing, I asked her, “How many people claimed to be victims of his?”
“About a dozen,” she answered in a flat, unhappy manner.
I took this information to its logical conclusion and winced. “In other words, his potential victims could incorporate half of this city.”
“It’s why I’m so happy that it takes expertise to pull this job off,” Jamie said, leaning over to look at the charms more closely, “as we need all the help we can get in limiting the suspect pool. I’m sorry, Mr. Drake, are we boring you?”
“Not at all, very curious how this case will turn out,” Drake assured her. “I want time to look over the car one more time, get up underneath it, you know. I’m pretty sure it went down as I said, but I want to be able to prove it to a court of law.”
Jamie nodded in understanding. “As do we, sir. First order of business, though, I want those charms of his pulled from the marketplace. Let’s do the city a favor and limit his victims.”
I tapped my breast pocket. “I had Gerring get us a warrant while we worked out here. Legal was very quick to give us one. Care to step back out with me?”
Jamie flashed me a smile. “You bet. Gerring, Penny, we could use your help on this.”
Holding up a hand, I intervened. “Actually, Gerring, perhaps you can assist Mr. Drake? Take notes on his findings so he’s not constantly climbing out from under the car.”
Drake, I think, also picked up on Gerring’s interest and he was quick to back me up. “Yes, that will be very helpful. And I can explain to you as I go, just in case you see something like this again.”
Gerring looked to Jamie for approval, for all the world like a child begging a favor from his mother. I think Jamie saw the similarity, as she bit the inside of her check before giving him a serious nod. “That’s fine. Penny?”
“I’m with you,” McSparrin stated promptly.
“Then let’s be off,” I encouraged, already doffing both gloves and striding for the open door. “The sooner we remove those charms, the better.”
Unfortunately, Jamie chose to take one of the cars from the motor pool. Equally unfortunate, I was unable to dissuade her from driving. Something on my face must have clued my partner in, as Jamie rolled her big brown eyes in an expressive manner before promising me, “I won’t go over twenty.”
Breathing out a sigh of relief, I gave McSparrin a hand up into the vehicle, then climbed in myself. If Jamie kept to her promise, I’d at least be assured that all of my limbs would still be intact upon our arrival.
Once everyone was seated, Jamie drove off, merging with her usual recklessness into oncoming traffic, but she did maintain her speed at a sane twenty instead of the insane thirty she normally favored. With the top down, a wash of warm air scented with petrol rushed around us, the noise of the street more hectic than usual. I noticed signs in the windows of several businesses as we passed them, all offering deals or specials in honor of the anniversary of Belladonna’s demise. I shot a look at my companion but Jamie seemed either blind to it or determined to be blind to it. I could not determine which.
As we drove, she inquired of me, “You said the charms were bad. Does that mean you think the charms tie into the motive?”
“I believe it too soon to make any such assumptions,” I responded, pitching my voice so
that McSparrin, in the back seat, could also hear me. “However, at this juncture I would not be surprised. I hesitate to make any assumptions simply because a man was careless in his work place. It could well be that we’re dealing with a jealous husband, a scorned lover, or something of that ilk.”
Jamie pursed her lips in a manner that I’d come to learn meant she didn’t entirely agree. “And yet he was killed at his business and not his house.”
Opening my mouth, I thought about that, then slowly closed it again. That was quite an excellent point.
Leaning over the back bench, McSparrin put her head between us to ask, “Does that mean you think it’s professional? That the charms are definitely the motive?”
“Not necessarily, but it does lean more toward that side,” Jamie explained to her, not taking her eyes off the road. I felt quite relieved she maintained at least that modicum of safe driving practices, as the traffic was more helter-skelter than normal—pedestrians apparently of a suicidal bent kept darting between the lanes of traffic and getting blown at by drivers for their trouble. The horns sounded so frequently they resembled a discordant orchestra. “It also says something to me, that they hit him at his business. It means they possibly didn’t know where he lived, that the business was a guaranteed location. Why else would you choose to hit someone on an open, busy street? Anyone could have seen them set the bomb.”
Another point I had not considered, but she was quite correct. Some business areas closed at night, making them easier to rob or sneak through, but the street of this business was a main one, used by everyone to pass quickly from the docks to the downtown area. Even we policemen used it frequently at all hours. It must have been deucedly difficult to get in, get the job done, and not be spotted in the process. “A residential house would have been easier to access. Safer.”
Jamie cast me a glance and a nod. “Yup. Exactly. Now, we could be wrong. Could be he doesn’t take the car home, or he lives on a very busy street too. I haven’t gotten the personal information about him yet. We’re still trying to find his business partner.”
Charms and Death and Explosions Page 3