“Which is why we’re here,” I picked it up smoothly. “We suspect that the powder monkey who set the charge didn’t buy the dynamite. It would leave too obvious of a record. Odds are he snuck in somewhere and stole a stick or two. Can you confirm your inventory hasn’t been touched?”
Now he truly looked alarmed. “We haven’t done an audit in a good month. I’m afraid I can’t.”
“Do you mind if we go back with you, do a quick audit? I’d like to know if he broke into your shop to get the goods.”
“I’d like to know that very thing,” Reynolds declared, hot and bothered now. “You come straight back with me, please. Dreadful, dreadful business.”
Following him back through the narrow white hallway, I dropped casually, “We think the motive was because the victim was making bad health charms. They were actually causing people to get sick.”
Reynolds cast me a startled look over his shoulder. “Truly? Dreadful. I hear from time to time that people get sick from those shoddy anti-sickness charms.”
“Know anyone specifically?” Penny asked, matching my stride. “We’re trying to track down the charm maker’s victims. We want to make sure all of those bad charms are scooped up and disposed of.”
“Well, now, that’s a splendid idea. I’m glad you’re on top of that too. I can’t say off hand I can think of anyone—” he paused just outside the back door, his paw on the brass knob and a wrinkle in his forehead. “No. Wait, I did hear of someone, a daughter of a friend at church. Allison, Allison Watts. But I’m not sure if that was really charm-related; just that they’d bought a dozen charms to keep her healthy and they’d all failed.”
I hid a smile. Gossiping people were the best at information. “Really? I’ll drop in and visit the family, make sure they weren’t one of the charm maker’s victims. Anyone else you can think of?”
“Well, now that I think on it….”
Penny pulled out a small notebook, jotting down names as he said them, me egging him on. The dynamite was likely a lost cause, but just maybe I could find a powder monkey who’d lost someone recently. And that was information I’d dearly like to lay my hands on.
“I remember your lab being more cluttered than this,” Seaton mused, taking in the scarred work table, the multiple bookshelves, the equipment tucked away along the shelves. He’d shed his outer coat as he’d come in and hung it up, a necessary precaution when working with any sort of chemicals or magical elements in a lab.
“The addition of another colleague has taken a considerable amount of work off my shoulders,” I informed him factually, retrieving the charms from the protective pouches I’d collected them in the day before. We had more than Garner’s work, of course, but I thought it best to deal with all of the charms I’d collected at once. Especially if I could apply Seaton’s signature to the warrants, it would ensure a quick response in rounding up the shoddy charm makers. “I’m no longer doing the work of three people, so naturally the area is tidier. Garner’s charms first?”
With a decisive nod, Seaton agreed, “Yes. Hand me two or three.”
I obligingly did so before taking the chair next to him. We spread the charms out side by side on the table, Seaton borrowing a magnifying glass from me, and we both bent over them to peer carefully at every line and word written. Charms of this nature served three purposes: to cleanse the exposed air of communicable diseases, prevent the cross-contamination of any shared items, and to bolster a person’s vitality to fight off any contracted illness. I could tell in a glance that the power of this charm wasn’t sufficient to do anything of that nature. But I would still need to perform a more in-depth analysis to truly understand how the ‘charm’ had been crafted.
I started with the paper, as any decent charm maker understood that the weight of the paper was very important. Thin paper easily stained, wrinkled, and so forth. Any alteration of the paper directly impacted the charm, usually in an alarming manner. The best charms used a heavy weight paper, something that could be embossed on.
This was not that sort of paper.
“Cheap, isn’t it?” Seaton observed, distaste curling his upper lip. He flicked a finger against the edge of the charm.
“Indeed it is,” I agreed sourly. “I do believe my utility bills come in on heavier paper than this.”
“Shoddy, shoddy, shoddy,” Seaton grumbled. “The ink isn’t appropriate for this sort of use either, not that I’m surprised. Not with a printing press being involved.”
“I find dye ink in the use of charms alarming, no matter the fashion it was applied.” I held the charm up at an angle, closer to the lamp on the table, and felt the strongest urge to curse. There were two different types of ink in the world: pigment ink and dye ink. Pigment ink was essentially a waterproof ink made to stick permanently to paper without any runs. Artists, charm makers, magicians, and tattoo artists all used some solution of pigment ink because of its solid permanency. There were downsides to it, of course. They were more difficult to write with, as they didn’t dissolve completely in water, and they didn’t offer the same brightness and vibrancy in color as other inks.
Dye inks were quite the opposite—not permanent, easily smeared with water, and tended to fade with time. However, because they mixed well with water, they were the ink of choice for fountain pens, printing presses, and some artists. They were also considerably cheaper than pigment ink.
In this particular case, I believed that Garner had used dye ink for two simple reasons: it would work with the printing press and it was cheaper than pigment ink. Which, in my humble opinion, was a truly disgusting reason to use the wrong ink for a charm that another human being depended upon for safety.
I scraped a sample of the ink into a small glass dish and ran it through several chemical analyses, frowning at the results. “Destroying Angels is mixed in with this.”
Seaton went taut, warding himself instantly. “How active? Sproutling?”
“The trace of it is small enough that I believe so, yes. However, I want to take a sample from the other charms to determine that before staking my reputation on it.”
“With their printing process, they actually used Destroying Angel ink,” Seaton muttered in disgust. “I realize it’s a powerful ingredient, but the wrongful use of it could not only have killed them, but every person within range of their charms!”
“Have you ever noticed,” I inquired of my companion acidly, “that greed directly leads to stupidity?”
“They certainly share the same bed,” Seaton agreed, dropping his charm in disgust. “Cheap paper, cheap ink, and the charm has been compromised to the point that it does the opposite of what it’s designed to do; however, I’m not finding a fault on the charm design itself. What do we know about Trevor Garner?”
“Precious little,” I admitted frankly. “The coroner is still working on the autopsy. He submitted a request for information with the government, but that hasn’t come in yet. However, I think the earmarks of the design tell us something about our victim. The design structure itself is sound. I see no fault with it. It’s also unique—I haven’t encountered any other charm with this design before. See the element here?”
Seaton nodded, staring at the small wind and light symbol incorporated into the corner of the design. “I noticed that earlier. He called upon air and sunlight to keep the charm powered. It’s rather ingenious in theory, although I’m not sure how well that would have worked in practice. Even if he’d used the proper paper and ink.”
“I agree, it bears testing, but my point is that he wasn’t copying someone else’s design. The man wasn’t a thief, or a plagiarist. He knew what he was about in designing the charm. I wonder if we’re perhaps looking at someone who actually attended school for charm making.”
Seaton’s gaze sharpened and he regarded the charm in my hand with new eyes. “A drop-out, perhaps?”
“Or simply a poor student—one who didn’t pay attention as he should have. There are those who believe that marginally p
assing grades still nets a diploma and suffices.” My tone made it very clear what I thought of that mentality. “This man might be of that school of thought.”
“Perish the thought,” Seaton grumbled with a shudder. “But I take your meaning. Then, you believe this isn’t a case of criminal negligence, but stupidity?”
I phrased my response carefully, as truly, I didn’t have enough evidence to support my instincts at this time. “I’m inclined to believe that he didn’t properly understand charm making. He was going off half-cocked, as it were. If I could find an example of a charm that he made on the east side of town, from his first business, it would clarify matters. If he used the same design in the first business, the same methods, then he’s obviously a crook. But if he changed anything, it would make it clear that he was trying to learn from his mistakes.”
“Hmmm.” Seaton sat back and regarded me thoughtfully. “The difference between mensa and actusa?”
I twitched my mouth up in a quick smile. The intention of the act versus the action itself. Sometimes it was a very fine line where the law was concerned; it wasn’t always necessary to know if there had been criminal intent or not to prosecute someone with. “In this case, I’m not certain how it will aid us. Even if we can prove that he had no ill intentions while creating the charms, it won’t change his state. But with such little information to go off of, I think anything we add to the evidence pile can only be helpful.”
Shrugging, Seaton allowed, “I certainly can’t argue that. For what it’s worth, I think you’re correct. But I’d like to have that confirmed with his schooling history before I say that definitively.”
“Understandable,” I assured him. “I’ll note it down as just an opinion.”
“Very good. Well, if you’ll write up the findings, I’ll turn my attention to the other charms you confiscated.”
Agreeable to this, I fetched the appropriate form and set about writing out an analysis on the charms and our own findings. Naturally, I stated things more in-depth on the report than Seaton and I had discussed. Such reports were often quoted verbatim in a court of law, and I’d learned early in my career to make them as simply stated as possible, with explanations as appropriate, so that both judge and jury could understand the facts explicitly. Nothing irked me more than having evidence thrown out by a judge because he couldn’t comprehend it.
My mind suddenly sparked with a remembrance. My first case with Jamie, we had by necessity gathered a list of all the students who had graduated from a magical university in the past few decades. I still had the list here in the lab, a reference that I hadn’t gotten around to submitting to Archives yet. Heading for the shelf on which it sat, I mentioned to Seaton, “I do actually have a list of graduated students here in the lab. Remember how we needed that for the Nightfox Thieves case?”
Alert, he snapped a finger and straightened on his stool. “That I do. That should tell us at least if he properly graduated or not.”
“Indeed.” Pulling it out, I thumped it on the table, dividing the list so that he could look through one set of university graduates while I took the other. With them in alphabetical order, it didn’t take long to page through. When I failed to find Garner’s name, I went back through more carefully. Still to no avail. “He didn’t graduate that I can find in my list. Yours?”
“No, he’s not listed. Nor is Timms.”
Timms. Now there was a good idea. We actually had no proof that Garner had been the one designing the charms, after all. I went back through looking for Peter Timms’ name but came up equally blank. “No, nor him. I know for a fact they had a business license. Bit tricky to do that when you can’t produce a magical license, unless—”
“Your magical license is a forgery,” Seaton completed the sentence with a wry expression. “I’ll bet you anything you care to name that it is. Where is the magical license?”
“If memory serves, it’s framed and hanging nicely upon Garner’s wall. I’ll have to swing by and fetch it today or tomorrow. That bares a more proper examination as well.” I sat back, thinking. “It might behoove us to look more into Timms and Garner. Jamie’s lead of the dynamite might or might not pan out, but the possibility of a jealous lover being behind all of this still bears investigation. If nothing else, I would like to cross out the possibility.”
“Yes, and if nothing else, an investigation of their homes—”
The door to my lab abruptly burst open. Only one man possessed the gall to stomp about in my lab like a wounded elephant, so I didn’t bother to look up.
“Davenforth! This is the outside of enough!” Sanderson snarled, slamming a hand down on the table, dangerously close to the more unstable of the confiscated charms.
“You bloody fool, are you senile?” Seaton demanded of him sharply, yanking the charms away before Sanderson could actually land a digit on the charms themselves. Sanderson was sparking enough errant magic that he shouldn’t come in direct contact with anything remotely magical, much less unstable charms like these. I actually quite fancied the idea of him losing a hand through his own stupidity, but it would likely set my table on fire in the process, which I didn’t fancy. Seaton’s quick reaction was likely the better avenue.
Sanderson looked at Seaton without any recognition. Then again, members of the Endangered Species list had better survival instincts than Sanderson when he’s lost his temper. I relaxed back into my seat, fully anticipating a show that would rival anything I’d purchased a ticket for. At my most genial, I inquired helpfully, “Why, my dear Sanderson, whatever could be the matter?”
“It’s not enough that you shuffle your work off to the rest of us, no,” he thumped his hand against the table again, hard enough to make everything on the surface jump, his temper adding strength to his small stature, “now you’re stealing cases! That car bombing should have gone directly to me! How dare you call in that woman and force Berghetta’s hand. You know he’s terrified of her!”
Seaton’s face set in an interesting manner. It reminded me rather of Clint’s expression when a bug had deigned to crawl into his line of vision. “Davenforth, who is this blustering fellow?”
“Dr. Sanderson, one of the Magical Examiners here,” I introduced briefly, purposefully failing to introduce Seaton in return. “And Sanderson, Jamie was given permission by Captain—”
“Oh, it’s Jamie now,” he snapped, mobile features morphing into an expression both suggestive and ugly in its contortion. Pugnacious monkeys had a more pleasant demeanor about them.
I knew very well what he insinuated. But my relationship with my partner had little to do with romance and more to do with mutual respect and genuine liking. I refused to be baited. “Sanderson, you are only here stomping about because the car bombing has enough splash to it that it made the morning paper. Being the Magical Examiner on the case would have boosted both your career and ego, assuming that you managed to solve it.”
Sanderson made to step around the table, hands flexing in clear threat of a physical altercation. He barely shifted a foot before abruptly halting, Seaton’s hand on his chest stopping him in his tracks.
“Jamie Edwards is the expert on car bombings,” Seaton informed him flatly. “It was she the case was given to, not us. And don’t think I haven’t noticed that it’s him you take your complaint to and not her. Jamie would flatten you before folding you like a sheet if you dared to throw this tantrum in front of her.”
For the first time, Sanderson blinked the rage out of his eyes, at least a notch. He looked at Seaton in acrimonious regard, tense with residual anger. “Who by magic are you to call her that way?”
An evil smile on his face, Seaton practically purred, “Royal Mage Sherard Seaton.”
Sanderson blanched. I’d never seen blood drain so quickly from a human being’s face. I doubted even a vampire could manage a drain that swift. He backed up two steps, hastily, the motion jerky. Then he stared up at Seaton, jaw flapping about, making croaking noises like a beached fish.
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br /> “I am here on Queen’s business,” Seaton added, practically jovial in his menace, “which ties into the very case that you’re blustering about. Let’s be clear on this, Dr. Sanderson. Detective Jamie Edwards is the crown’s preferred expert, and our beloved queen is both delighted and relieved that she is already working this case. Queen Regina is equally delighted that Dr. Davenforth is lending his considerable expertise to the magical side of this case, as am I. By coming in here and throwing such a fit, you are putting a noose about your neck and attempting political suicide. A wise man would apologize, remove the noose, and hastily beat an exit.”
Miserable and with the grey coloring of a corpse, Sanderson stared at me mutely. He couldn’t bring himself to apologize—or at least, his mouth failed to deliver anything that I could interpret as such. He stumbled out the door and out of sight.
“What in all deities was that about?” Seaton demanded of me, throwing his arms out in an expansive gesture of incredulity. “Does he routinely pull such nonsense? You didn’t even look up when he barged in.”
“Unfortunately so,” I admitted with a long sigh. “Sanderson is not the most sensible man when it comes to social graces, and he regularly runs roughshod over his colleagues. I’ve been picking up the man’s slack for years. I’ve jested that he only maintains his position because he’s courting the police commissioner’s daughter, but I’m afraid there’s more truth in that than anyone cares to admit.”
Seaton listened intently, the wheels visibly turning in his mind. “And why is he so belligerent where Jamie is concerned?”
“She’s gotten the best of him, publicly. He’s also one of those chauvinist pigs who believes a woman shouldn’t be in the workforce. At least, not in this line of work.” I shrugged, as Sanderson’s idiocy was a known evil in my life. “I generally ignore him. Reporting him has yielded no results.”
Dark eyes narrowing, Seaton repeated, “‘Reporting him has yielded no results.’”
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