Magic and the Shinigami Detective

by Honor Raconteur

  I knelt at her side and watched with some surprise as fingerprints appeared under the brush, taking on the dark grey color of the charcoal powder. Some of them were smudged looking, others pristine but looked like only half a finger. I breathed, “Remarkable.”

  Edwards shot me a smile before bending back to the task. She even brushed over the inside of the door handle, making a grunt of satisfaction when she picked up a print there. “I count two prints, three partials.”

  As I didn’t see a camera anywhere about her person, I inquired, “Should I fetch a camera for us? My recording devices aren’t good at focused details such as these.”

  “No need,” she assured me. From inside her case, she brought out a flat roll of what looked to be tape but it was oddly clear. With expert precision, she tore off a piece and carefully levered it over the print.

  “Where in the world did you acquire clear tape?” I asked.

  “Had it made for me. I have friends in high places,” the last part she said jokingly. “You’re not the first to find fingerprints interesting.”

  “I’d wager not.” Anticipating what she would do next, I took out a spare notebook and offered it to her.

  She half turned, mouth open to speak, which she closed as she took in the proffered book. “Well. You are quick on the uptake, aren’t you? Thanks.”

  It pleased me that I had surmised her next steps correctly. She carefully took the tape back off, applying it to the blank page, and made a notation for where it was taken from. She repeated the process for each fingerprint that she found, even the partial ones.

  My mind went ahead, taking what she had told me, and offering possible scenarios. “You think that if we amass enough fingerprints at enough crimes, we can not only prove the criminal was at the scene for this occasion, but others?”

  “That’s precisely what will happen. Assuming I can train and convince enough people to do this at every crime scene.” Edwards closed up her kit enough to stand. “Let’s continue.”

  I wondered at her confidence but it seemed to me that she spoke out of experience. Her tone and manner indicated that, at least.

  Where was this woman from? I felt certain she did not hail from Kingston. She didn’t have the right looks, to start with, nor did her carriage conform with this culture. Her accent, manner, phrasing, and attire all shouted of a foreign culture. One with which I had no familiarity. And this technique, so useful for police work, which I had never even heard a whisper of before, where had that come from?

  Also strange to me were the multitude of magical spells twined about her. I counted a language translating spell, a stasis spell, a general health spell, an emergency code, and others so jumbled up together I couldn’t begin to untwine them with my eyes alone. Detectives could not afford this sort of spellwork, not the intricate type encasing her, at least.

  Jamie Edwards, who are you really?

  Not a mystery I could solve immediately. I’d need to bide my time and observe a little longer. Setting it aside for now, I focused again on the task at hand. Each crate that we passed, with its half-spilled contents, drew our attention. It never ceased to amaze me what could be collected as evidence in a case. Weapons, of course, but also clothes, watches, jewelry. I even saw a doll protruding out of one box. Several times, Edwards bent down to dust something she thought a human hand would touch. Sometimes it produced results, sometimes not. As she did this, a thought occurred. “How do you know that these fingerprints are the criminals and not the officers on duty?”

  “I don’t,” she responded calmly, not ruffled by the question. “I’ll need to take the fingerprints of everyone that worked here and compare them to rule them out. It’ll be a process of elimination. I can do it when I interview them later.”

  It made sense, and I’d expected the answer, but I’d hoped that she would detail how fingerprints could be told apart. Apparently, I would have to hover when she worked on them and make my own observations.

  The front desk remained unmanned at this point, although as soon as we gave them clearance, the duty officers would be back inside. The stretch of wooden counter looked strangely vulnerable without any people behind it. We moved past it, toward the rows of shelving taking up the rest of the building. I took note as we walked inside, eyes darting to either side of the aisles, seeing all sorts of evidence. Some of it common detritus—clothing and weapons used in crimes—but other sorts had considerable value. I saw finely printed hexes, some jewelry, and even one box that held a denomination of cash inside that pulled a silent whistle from me. “They didn’t come here for monetary gain.”

  Pausing, Edwards glanced at me thoughtfully over her shoulder. “You see that too, do you?”

  I gestured toward the box of unopened cash. “It’s intuitively obvious by what they left behind.”

  “Yes, elementary, one might say.” She grinned at her inside joke, and I could tell from her expression, she was silently laughing on some level. “I agree they were after something in particular. We’ll have to wait for the inventory to know what. But it might give us a clue on their motivations, which I could sorely use right now. If they weren’t here for money, then what were they after?”

  I normally didn’t take statements, converse with sketch artists, or anything else along the investigative line. My proficiency resided in Magical Examination, as denoted on my lab door, and my expertise lay in deciphering the remains of magic in crime scenes. Or at least, in theory, that was all I dealt with. Unfortunately, life was never quite that clear cut and I often found my services overlapping with the coroner’s or what have you. But our work lay in the minutiae, generally, not in flatfoot investigative techniques.

  So I might have been slightly out of my depth when Edwards made a beeline inside for the main building, heading straight for the breakroom. Upon her entrance, several other officers quickly vacated, slipping sideways to get around her and through the door. I found their behavior odd. Edwards didn’t look upset, she certainly wasn’t exhibiting any signs of lashing out, so why did they so quickly avoid her?

  Edwards ignored this and seemed to know exactly who to look for as she entered the slightly dingy room without pause. “Gerring!”

  The dark-haired young Svartalfár popped out of his seat in sheer reflex, coffee sloshing out of his mug as he moved, jerking an oath from his lips as it sloshed over his wrist. He looked more than a little rattled by who was calling for him. “Yes si—er, ma’am?”

  “Gerring, you were on duty tonight?” Edwards briskly grabbed a towel from the sink nearby and tossed it to him.

  He cast her a thankful smile as he caught it and dabbed up the mess. “Yes, ma’am. Well, that is to say, I came on about three hours ago. Before that was Dreyfus.”

  From a breast pocket, she pulled out a slim notebook and pencil, which she scribbled a note into. “Did anyone suspicious come in today? Someone you haven’t seen before?”

  “Couldn’t tell you, ma’am,” Gerring answered solemnly. “I never made it to the building before we heard what had happened. As soon as I came on, they sent me to fetch Doctor Davenforth.”

  Edwards paused in her notetaking and gave him quite the look for that. “Duty switch is when?”

  “Six o’clock, ma’am,” he answered, unusually light eyes nearly disappearing into his dark skin as he gave a slight grimace, as if realizing from her tone how unhappy she was to hear that he’d not been at his station on time. His pointed ears went flat against his head, a sure sign he felt uneasy. “Can I take this from the top, ma’am?”

  “Please do, Gerring. I have the feeling it would go better for you that way.”

  “I came in ten ’til, as usual,” Gerring phrased carefully, as if navigating through a minefield, “and Dreyfus met me at the door. He had something going on tonight, so he’d locked the building and passed on the daily report to me, asked if I would run it by the captain. I said sure, he handed me the building’s key, then he went home. Think it was his anniversary, ma’am.”
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  “He flogged the glass?” I frowned at this but truly, it wasn’t a complete breach of protocol as long as the building had been left securely. And technically, Dreyfus had made sure that Gerring was on premises and alerted before leaving. He’d done everything by the book.

  Edwards apparently realized this as well as she didn’t argue, although the frown furrowing her brows deepened. “I don’t know that term.”

  “It means to leave your watch ahead of schedule,” I explained. It was a common enough phrase and I found it strange she hadn’t heard it before now.

  “Ah, I see. Thanks.” Her expression cleared somewhat and she encouraged the young officer, “Go on, Gerring.”

  “We had some unusual things in Evidence, including two we thought might need some magical expertise,” he inclined his head in my direction meaningfully, “so I spent longer over the report with Captain than usual. Maybe fifteen minutes? I was still in his office when the alarm went up.”

  “What time exactly did the alarm sound?” Edwards prompted.

  “6:05, ma’am. It was Sanderson that raised it, as he went to log something in and found the building in tatters.”

  Fifteen minutes. The thieves had hit within fifteen minutes, into a magically protected building that would put most banks to shame, and out again with no one the wiser. I did not like the sound of this at all.

  The fact Sanderson had discovered the theft added more bile on top of my unease.

  Edwards paused, tapped the end of the pencil thoughtfully against her mouth, and asked the question that I already knew the answer to. “Why didn’t Doctor Sanderson process the scene if he was already on premises? Why send for Doctor Davenforth?”

  “It was end of shift for Doctor Sanderson, ma’am,” Gerring managed to say in a completely neutral tone.

  Her eyes went flat, the very definition of Not Amused. “I see.”

  “Captain said to fetch Doctor Davenforth,” Gerring tacked on helpfully.

  “Which he did.” I felt unsurprised in the least that Sanderson had shifted the duty over to me. Just as well, too—he would have botched it.

  “And you can’t think of anyone unusual that visited, in say, the past two or three weeks?” Edwards pressed.

  “No one visits after six o’clock while I’m on duty but other officers,” Gerring answered with a shrug. “But I think Dreyfus mentioned some hoopla or other two weeks back. Something about reporters? I didn’t follow it, as I had a bad head cold at the time.”

  I cast Edwards a glance and we silently agreed that while it might be nothing, we’d follow up with it.

  “Thank you, Gerring,” Edwards said kindly. “I might have follow up questions for you later, but for now, can you go through your inventory and see what was taken?”

  “Yes ma’am, of course; am I clear to go in now?”

  “Not just yet.” She pointed an authoritative finger towards the small round table. “Sit. I need your fingerprints.”

  He obediently sat even as he trotted out a puzzled, “My fingerprints?”

  Edwards kindly explained her actions as she opened the notebook I had given her and, with a pad of ink from her box, painstakingly took each of Gerring’s fingerprints. I noted the technique, of how she rolled each finger on the page in order to get the side of the prints as well. Then she labeled which finger and which hand each print came from. It was so thoroughly scientific that it inherently delighted my organizational soul.

  Gerring, bemused as much by the experience as the explanation, didn’t fight it and gingerly went to wash his hands after she finished. Considering his dark skin, I couldn’t tell if this effort to remove the ink met with any success.

  Gingerly, he repeated his earlier question, “Can I return to work now?”

  “You can, yes, we’ve done everything we can there for now.”

  Happy to be out of the tense interview, the young officer abandoned his half-empty mug in the sink and nearly skipped out the door.

  “They’re very good, our thieves,” she mentioned, an apropos to nothing in particular.

  Something about the confidence of her tone made me glance around at her in askance. “I agree, but why do you say so?”

  “Fifteen minutes isn’t much time in which to break through all of this magical shielding,” she waved a hand to indicate the building and its protections in general, “find what they want, grab it, and escape far enough that a quick search doesn’t give us any clues on where they fled. Regular Pink Panthers, these guys.”

  The reference went straight over my head and I chose not to follow through on it. I saw her point and frowned for a moment. “So either these are professional thieves, well trained in their vocation or—”

  “Or we have military trained thieves,” she finished wryly. “Not a comforting thought either way.”

  No, indeed not. “If that’s the case we’ll likely not find any evidence to link to them.”

  “I wouldn’t give it good odds, no.” She looked at the wall clock, noting the time. “If it is the man’s anniversary, he likely won’t be at home. We’d do better to just wait for him to come on duty tomorrow before interviewing him. Doctor Davenforth, I believe you technically got off shift an hour ago?”

  “You are correct.” I felt ill at ease leaving her to do any investigative work without me. I fully believed her capable of defending herself if the need arose but at the same time, detectives worked in pairs for a reason. As her partner, it would behoove me to stay with her as much as feasibly possible. “Is there some other lead you wish to follow tonight?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t think of anything else to do at the moment. Gerring is the only one on night shift, so that’s covered. We need day shift’s fingerprints, but it’ll have to wait for morning. Other than that, we’re waiting on other people to supply us with answers. We might as well rest while we can.”

  I confess I love food. Perhaps too much. Well, no, to be perfectly frank I knew I loved it too much because the extra padding around my stomach was a mute testament to that. I sat in my kitchen, trying to come up with something to cook for myself, but the smell coming in through my open window distracted me utterly from this pursuit. How could I think of other food when I couldn’t identify that rich, spicy scent?

  Inhaling another deep breath, I followed my nose to the window, navigating around my high-backed sofa and wing-backed chair as I did so, focusing entirely on that delightful smell. Chicken was involved somehow. And…apples?

  A knock sounded on the door. It came hesitantly, a pause between each soft rendition, and I knew instantly who stood on the other side. Only one person in my acquaintance knocked like that. Sighing, I put on a patient face and headed for the door, greeting my landlady as I opened the portal. “Mrs. Henderson, how are you?”

  “I’m fine, dear, thank you, but there’s a little trouble out front.” She hesitated, reaching up to pat her greying hair into place and gave me a game smile. “I do hate to trouble you, it’s just…well, you know, getting a repairman in takes days sometimes.”

  This was not the first time she’d requested my aid. Likely wouldn’t be the last, either. With my knowledge of magic and my intense interest in machines, I (un)fortunately knew how to fix a great deal. “What’s the trouble?”

  “It’s the front lights, dear. They won’t turn on.” The wrinkles around her brown eyes deepened, mouth pulling down into lines of distress.

  Frowning, I stepped out, absently shutting my door behind me. That was troublesome. The front steps to the apartment had a certain steepness to them and something about the angle of the building encouraged both water and ice to accumulate. Descending them in dim lighting would surely lead to an accident. I now understood her concerns. “Let me take a look.”

  “Thank you, dear, I know it’s troublesome, and you with that demanding job too.”

  “It’s no trouble,” I assured her, even though it was. Still, I preferred to tackle the problem than to have an injury. Injuries led to complaint
s, yelling, and tension. I abhorred tension.

  As I followed her down the stairs, I couldn’t help but ask, “That spicy, rich aroma, do you know which room that’s coming from?”

  “Likely from that foreign woman,” Mrs. Henderson responded promptly. “She moved in a month ago, rather pretty, but…” here her voice dropped to a scandalous whisper, “She does dress in an unconventional style. Downright scandalous, I say. Still, she’s been kind to me, and so far has kept to herself, which is more than I can say of others. Why do you ask, dear?”

  “It smells quite enticing,” I responded. We had a female lodger? Here in this building? I thought Mrs. Henderson the only woman. Most of the rooms, sixteen in all, had bachelors like myself in them. “I’ve never smelled the like and wondered what it was.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know, dear.” Turning the corner, she came into the tiled front foyer and went to the knob switch near the front door, turning it and demonstrating the complete lack of lighting on the other side of the front door. “You see?”

  “I do.” Frowning, I bent closer to the knob, wondering if perhaps something had shorted out the line. Mrs. Henderson had had the new lights installed barely six months ago; they were surely too new to develop problems now. I didn’t see any signs of fire, nothing scorched. Frowning, I went outside to the front and checked the lights over. The fixture itself seemed fine, nothing about it untoward, but I noticed a certain darkness inside the bulb.

  Ah. An easy problem, then. “Mrs. Henderson, it appears the bulbs have burned out. Don’t be alarmed, it will happen now and again, and it’s easy to fix. I’ll run out and buy some replacements. It shouldn’t take five minutes to fix.”

  “Oh, thank you, dear.” She put a relieved hand to her heart, a smile lighting up her face, emphasizing the crow’s feet around her grey eyes.

  With a wave to her, I went to the local mercantile store on the corner, bought the bulbs, and returned without any adventure. I had the cover off on the first one, unscrewing the bulb, when Mrs. Henderson opened the door and popped her head out. “I just ran into our female tenant. She said it’s something called cur-ry and wanted to know if you would like a plate?”