Jamie arched a slender eyebrow at me, part amusement, part challenge. “When you volunteered us for this case, you thought it would be more my end than yours, didn’t you?”
Shrugging, I allowed, “I did, yes. I’m doubly glad that we have it now, though. I’m always far happier to take shoddy charm work off the market.”
“I know you are. I’m almost disappointed we have to catch the murderers. I’m beginning to think they had a very good motive for doing what they did.”
Sadly, she was likely not wrong. If the two victims had pulled this stunt multiple times, that meant the law had failed to catch them multiple times, and no doubt left a string of bodies in their wake. The thought saddened me. As much as I loved the law, I was not blind to its shortcomings.
“Buck up, Henri,” Jamie advised, not unsympathetically. “Maybe we can make this case the precedent, get the law changed so that conmen can’t pull stunts like this.”
“From your lips to the gods’ ears.”
Poor Henri. I could tell this bothered him. We have the same loopholes in the legal system on Earth, too. It bothers every lawman that sometimes we just can’t help. The law hasn’t caught up to some crimes, the criminals too quick to create new distinctions so they can skate by. I have faith, though, that Kingston will stomp this out quickly. This is the sort of case that we can really use to get public attention. Sometimes that’s all you need for precedent.
The dead man executed in the basement was confirmed to be one Peter Timms by the ID in his wallet. Weber estimated that he’d died the day before, late in the evening, sometime after normal business hours. With the car bomb occurring early morning the next day, I found this gap between murders rather interesting, as did McSparrin and Jamie.
As we boxed up the file room to cart back to the precinct, Jamie ruminated out loud, “The timeline makes me scratch my head a little. So, let’s say that Timms was down in the basement working, caught by the murderers, and tied up. They demanded information from him—whether they got it or not is anyone’s guess at this point—and then, what? Killed him immediately and rigged the car to explode?”
“Fits with the coroner’s finding,” McSparrin admitted, pausing with two folders in her hands. She looked speculatively through a window. “So Trevor Garner comes into work, perhaps does something in the office, pops down to confer with his colleague, finds him dead, then tries to run for it?”
“Hence why he died in the car,” I finished. “It all rather does fit, doesn’t it? Why the briefcase of charms, though? They were practically worthless.”
“That’s the odd thing,” Jamie admitted, hefting a full box onto the table. “But I think it’s equally possible he came into work, had the briefcase in hand, and when he saw the dead Timms just ran for it. He never set it down.”
Also entirely possible. Although, truly, the matter of the briefcase was idle speculation. It didn’t factor into the grand scheme of things whatsoever. “While the timeline helps a little, it gives us no clearer picture regarding suspects or motive.”
“I’ll take either at this point,” Jamie sighed. “Alright, is that all of them?”
I glanced about, double checking the file cabinets, but we’d emptied them quickly between the three of us. “I believe that it is. Officer McSparrin, can I entrust these to you? I truly wish to get the charms this business made off the market before the end of the day. Their shoddy craftsmanship alarms me.”
“Yes, of course,” McSparrin assured me, shooing us on.
“Excellent. Put them in the evidence locker for now. We’ll sort out an appropriate place to cull through them tomorrow.” It edged into mid-afternoon now and I fully anticipated that going to the two stores on the warrant would eat up the rest of the work day.
Somehow, Jamie beat me to the car, grinning as she went. I do believe that she enjoyed driving just to tweak my nose. I was not at all sure why she found it so amusing to terrify me, and yet the fact stood that I’d yet to drive when in her company. I found this suspicious. Resigned to my inevitable heart attack, I climbed into the passenger seat next to her, gripping the door for dear life.
My partner had the gall to pat my arm like I was a cranky child. “There, there, Henri. We’ll be there before you know it.”
I glared at her. “We can get there at a slower pace and it will make no difference to our agenda.”
“Yes, but that would be less fun,” she informed me, eyes dancing with laughter.
Why did I even try? After several weeks of being acquainted with this woman, I surely knew better.
Jamie took off in her usual squeal of tires, although she once again managed to avoid every other vehicle and pedestrian on the road. I began to suspect occult powers at play, because with her driving methods, an accident should have been inevitable by now. And yet she had never even come close to any sort of collision. It boggled the statistical mind.
“I learned something very important yesterday,” Jamie said in a matter-of-fact tone that suggested she actually laughed internally. “Clint informed me that he kept a log of all cuddle time. I’ve apparently failed to meet his quota. I was ordered—ordered, mind you—to stay in this evening, as he needed more lap time.”
Knowing the feline creature well, I rolled my eyes. “I had no notion when I acquired him for you that he would be so demanding upon your affections.”
“Really? I did. Cats on Earth are very similar to Clint. They like long cuddles, laps, scratches, and to be adored. The saying goes that thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have not forgotten this.”
Bemused, I stared at her. “They were worshipped as gods?”
“In a country called Egypt, long in the past,” she answered forthrightly. “One of their goddesses was half cat, half woman. Bastet…I think was her name. Anyway, in Egypt, it was a severe crime to kill or injure a cat.”
“But this didn’t remain true in modern times?”
“Nope. Hence the joke. The general attitude of cats is that they should still be worshipped and adored. Clint’s attitude fits the feline mentality to a T.”
I’d been half-afraid Clint would prove to be a nuisance, but Jamie not only seemed to take his attitude in stride, but found his antics entertaining. If she wasn’t regretting my somewhat impulsive gift, it was fine. “As long as he’s being good company.”
“He is. Better than TV, I think.” She cast me a glance, speculatively. “Since I’ve been ordered to stay in, that means I’m cooking dinner tonight.”
My ears perked up hopefully. “If I contribute dessert, may I have an invitation to join you?”
“I fully expected that question,” she acknowledged dryly. “I thought perhaps I’d make enchiladas tonight.”
I’d had these before, and they were mouthwatering and fattening in the best sense. “Sounds delightful. Six?”
“Assuming that we can get done with this in the next three hours.” Jamie pulled off the main street and into the parking lot next to a main shopping center. Garden Square brimmed with people even at this hour of the day, many with packages in their hands. The Square used to be a shoe factory, many decades ago, but had been converted over to multiple shops on two levels. The age of the place reflected in the red brick, the slightly crooked sidewalks. However, despite it not being the epicenter of shopping in Kingston, some care had been taken to keep the appearance of it clean. The middle-class citizen chose to shop here, as the wares were plentiful and cheap.
The store we wished to visit was fortunately on the ground floor and not far from the parking lot. It had a charming red brick and white trim exterior, the front window pane boasted the store’s name in painted cursive script. The white front door stood open, a concession to the heat, perhaps. As we walked towards it, I noticed that several people had stopped and started whispering behind their hands, their eyes obviously trained upon the woman at my side.
What was this about? Surely they couldn’t identify her at a—well, no. Perhaps they could ident
ify Jamie at a glance now. The morning edition of the Kingston Gazette had featured the car bombing front and center, with both my likeness and Jamie’s as a side caption. To my resigned frustration, they had recapped Jamie’s history with Belladonna as well in the article, illuminating my partner’s identity for the masses ahead of the dreaded anniversary article we all anticipated.
People didn’t seem to know what to make of her. Some of them edged away, others stared at her in open awe. More than one whisper grew just loud enough that I could make out the sentiment, if not every word, and I glared at the perpetrator until the man flinched and hastily looked away. Idiot. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was related to Sanderson in some form or fashion.
Jamie caught this reaction, naturally, and a dark frown grew on her face. She disliked fame and notoriety but, in this case, one could hardly escape it. For her benefit, I murmured in a low tone, “It’ll pass. Some new amusement or shocking news will rise to supplant this story.”
“I know,” she sighed. “It’s just slower without social media. It’s alright, Henri.”
Not the reaction I’d hoped for, but at least she did not seem outraged, simply resigned. I followed Jamie in through the open door, then instinctively put myself in between her and the majority of the shelves. The shelves themselves were neatly organized, each type of charm stacked in tidy piles of paper with clear labels and prices below each stack. These places tried to keep tabs on their stock, but their efforts didn’t always produce good results. I could tell that a few of the charms on the shelves sparked sporadically with magic. It would not be safe for her to come into contact with them.
Looking at me sharply, she leaned in to murmur near my ear, “Is it bad in here?”
“Certain areas of the store, yes. Please stay away from the shelves,” I returned in a low tone.
With a wary eye on the right side, she gave me a nod.
Fortunately, the cashier’s counter was where we needed to go, and precious little product cluttered up the wide expanse of the wood. I headed there, pulling out my badge as I went and flashing it at the female teller wearing a smart black uniform. “I’m Dr. Henri Davenforth with Fourth Precinct. This is my partner, Detective Jamie Edwards. May I speak with your manager or boss, please?”
The girl’s eyes went wide. “Ah, y-yes, just a minute.” She disappeared through a door marked ‘Employees only’ behind the counter, and I could hear her whisper something urgently before another woman appeared, a matron with her greying hair held up in a loose bun, dressed in the same black uniform. Their skirts and lacey shirts with flowing sleeves stood in sharp contrast to the woman at my side, who wore formfitting trousers and coat. I could see both of them do a bit of a doubletake to see Jamie in obviously male clothing.
“I’m Heather Lee, the owner of this store,” she introduced herself with an uneasy glance between us. “What’s wrong?”
“You’re not in trouble,” Jamie assured her with a charming smile, and the woman’s tension dropped by half. “It’s just that some crook has snuck dangerous charms into your inventory. You know Trevor Garner?”
Eyes narrowing, Mrs. Lee answered slowly, “I do. Mr. Garner has five different charms on our shelves, all anti-sickness charms of different types. You say that the charms are dangerous?”
“They’re unstable,” I explained patiently. “He made them using a printing press.”
Both Mrs. Lee and her clerk gasped in outrage, which pleased me, as it meant they knew enough about charm making to realize how dangerous that was.
“The nerve!” Mrs. Lee spluttered, already flipping open the counter’s door so she could come through to stand with us. “I’ll have those removed at once. If you know they’re here, have you arrested him?”
“He’s past that, I’m afraid,” Jamie drawled with a wry shake of the head. “He was murdered this morning.”
Mrs. Lee stopped dead, brown eyes flaring wide. “No! You don’t say. Was it because of the bad charms?”
“We’re still investigating,” Jamie said with an apologetic splay of hands. “But in the course of investigating, we learned about his charms. We’d like to take everything he had out of your inventory.”
“Yes, please. They’re all over here.”
Jamie stayed planted near the counter, drawing the clerk into a conversation to pump her for information. I drew out a containment pouch from my pocket, which I’d taken from my black bag for this purpose, and carefully sorted everything that Mrs. Lee pointed to inside. I was relieved she had the good sense to not handle anything herself. The stacks were not to be casually approached, as each paper charm sparked against the ones it pressed to, arcs of power and light like static electricity rebounding visibly in the air. With such obvious instability of the charms, I was very careful to not rub them against one another as I put them into the bag. Since I was there, and she seemed receptive, I inquired, “I do, in fact, see three other stacks of charms that are also dangerously unstable.”
She stopped, eyeing me carefully. “Are you a magician, Dr. Davenforth?”
“Magical Examiner.”
Her mouth dropped in a silent ‘oh’ of understanding. “In that case, sir, please do take them as well. I’ve no intention of keeping bad charms in my store; I just don’t have the means to always tell good from bad. Some of these fakes are quite well done.”
“Yes, I’m quite aware of the problem. If you’ll give me the names and contact information of the individuals who created them, I’d be delighted to report them.”
This satisfied her and she nodded firmly. “I’ll be happy to.”
I took out a separate bag from my pocket to contain the other charms, carefully labeling each one to preserve the chain of evidence. As I worked behind the shelves, I heard someone enter with a heavy tread, and a voice I knew very well sang out, “Jamie! Imagine finding you here.”
“Sherard,” Jamie greeted, equally surprised. “This is a coincidence. I’m here working. You?”
“The same, as it happens. Where’s Davenforth?”
I moved quickly, rounding the corner of the aisle so that Royal Mage Sherard Seaton came into view. He wore his usual theatrical red jacket, dark hair combed back in a rakish manner, and his eyes were lined with kohl, but for once, he appeared to be not in a jovial mood. In fact, he sported lines around his eyes that aged him five years at least. “I’m here. What’s happened?”
“Bit of bad business, I’m afraid. I’m investigating and hoping I’m in the right shop. Jamie, don’t touch this.” He pulled out a charm from his pocket and displayed it for Mrs. Lee. “Madam, I’m RM Sherard Seaton. Please tell me, does your shop sell this charm?”
She looked at the charm in hand and we both blanched. It was one of Garner’s charms and that boded quite ill indeed. She cast me an anxious look, and I answered for her. “She did, until about five minutes ago. We’re here to take all of those charms into evidence. The man who created them was murdered not eight hours ago.”
Seaton’s dark eyebrows arched as he let out a low whistle. “Was he, now.”
“Sherard,” Jamie pressed anxiously, “Why are you here looking for this?”
“As it happens, one of these was in the Kingsmen’s barracks,” he answered with a long face. “It’s made the entire barracks ill. I’m investigating on their behalf. Monkey balls, he really was murdered eight hours ago?”
“Car bomb,” Jamie informed him succinctly. When he winced, she gave him a grim smile. “That was my reaction. Sherard, I think it just became a dual investigation.”
That, finally, put a smile on his face. “You think? What am I saying? When they discover you and Davenforth are already on the case, they’ll insist I work with you. Oh, excellent, I’ve so looked forward to our next case together.”
I thought about protesting—next case? What the devil was that about?—but I sensed a certain inevitability about it all. Besides, in cases like this where volatile charms were involved, another magician to safeguard Jamie would b
e invaluable. “In that case, follow us to the next shop. We’ve one other that we have a warrant for, and then we can sit down and compare notes.”
“Splendid,” Seaton agreed heartily. “Although, if you know some of the other shops that he sold such charms to, you can just give me the list. I’ll have the Kingsmen gather them up for us. No need to extend the warrant.”
“There’s definite perks to working with you,” Jamie observed gratefully. “Yes, we have a list of several other distributors. Or I should say, Penny’s working on the list now.”
“Penny? We get her officially this time around, then? Good show,” Seaton approved. “I quite like that young woman. She shows intelligence. Here, give me the list. I’ll message it over.”
Because of his friendship with Jamie, Seaton had horned in on field testing the texting pad. He in fact had ten in total, half of them scattered among the upper ranks of the Kingsmen, the others being played with by the royal family. Ellie Warner, I understood, had almost daily updates from people asking for tweaks or offering suggestions. She might regret having given Seaton any of them by this point.
As he messaged the appropriate parties, I jotted down the information for the other bad charm makers. I also wrote Mrs. Lee a receipt so that she could report the inventory as claimed for evidence and get a tax deductible for it, which she appreciated.
As we left the store, I kept a weather eye out for trouble, or for stupid people who might try and crowd us. It might have happened if not for Seaton’s presence. He gave them all one scathing look and that was sufficient to make people suddenly remember their own business. I do wish I had the same ability. Apparently I’d not a sufficient reputation in order to manage it. We walked unencumbered toward our own vehicle. Seaton had somehow parked next to us, so we stopped to catch each other up on the particulars.
Charms and Death and Explosions Page 5