Murder, Magic, and Moggies

by Pearl Goodfellow

  Rabbi Goldsmith moved up next to me with David close behind. He sighed heavily as he looked at Avery.

  “To think that had I merely gone straight back to the cottage instead of this station that I could—“ he started to say.

  “The important part is that Hattie stopped him, Rabbi,” David said. “And, that she pointed me towards Midnight Hill’s visitor logs to show you were with Cressida at the time of Nebula’s death. That’s why we’ve got the killer of Nebula Dreddock on the other side of the glass.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the letter in your pocket? And, why didn’t you come to the station to report it immediately, instead of finishing off the documentation for Gabrielle’s new venture?” I asked Goldsmith as I turned around.

  The rabbi sighed like the whole weight of the world had just landed on his shoulders. “Chalk it up to the foolish sentimentality of age, Ms. Jenkins. I knew him just as I knew Nebula and Cressida, a happy child who only wanted to be loved. He was misha pasha. Avery Flute didn’t need the extra humiliation from everyone knowing of his transgressions. As enough harm had been done and your own Chief Para Inspector was the proper authority…” His shoulders slumped further down. “And, the Fae told me the note had been left at least three hours previous. I thought that the …ah, event, had already happened. I was fully expecting a clean-up operation, not a rescue mission.”

  I bowed my head and nodded. He reported it to the right authorities first. I had to check my own self-importance in the case. He had been doing the right thing under the circumstances he knew.

  “Even so,” David interjected. “I doubt that we would have been in time to stop him if you hadn’t shown up first.”

  “Quite true, CPI Trew,” Goldsmith said.

  He winced. “Forgive me, as no time for a bad pun this is.”

  “Forgiven,” David said. “Actually, this is time for a confession. Want to join me in getting that out of him, Hattie? He might do better if he has a friendly face in that room.”

  I nodded without hesitation. The rabbi was coming up to the glass when we stepped in.

  Avery’s eyes lit up as he saw me. He even tried for a smile that he really didn’t feel.

  “Looks like you got your man in the end, Officer,” he said to me in a broken voice.

  “I didn’t want it to be you, Avery,” I told him as I settled in the opposite chair while David went to his usual corner. “But, it is you who killed Nebula, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I thought I was doing it in a way that…would spare her, you know?”

  I frowned a little. “No, Avery, I don’t know. Why don’t you explain it to me?”

  “You see,” Avery said.

  His throat went dry to the point of needing to clear it. Once he felt ready, he started again. “You see, I love Nebula…still. Even with all the things she did, even though she became the kind of horrible person we both know she was, even…even when she laughed at me that last time…”

  By that point, he was fighting back tears and gripping the table.

  “Love can be a really terrible thing, Hattie,” he finally said, the tears shining but staying in his eyes. “Especially when it’s to a woman like that.”

  “So, while you had an hour-long block of music going, you slipped into her estate with your Mirror Gate charm, knocked out her in-house golem, slipped some of the local lavender into her Wraithsgourd, and used the Mirror Gate to get back out when the job was done,” I outlined.

  “Got in before she even woke up,” Avery admitted. “She may look like a young girl but she slept in like anyone in my age bracket is prone to do. Somehow, though…I just had to stay to see it through. I knew it would have been easier on me to just leave but…”

  “You were there when she died,” I interjected, filling in the details. “At that last minute, you stepped into her sight long enough for me to spot with my scrying spell.”

  Avery’s eyes widened. “You mean you saw me enough to—“

  “She saw someone,” David corrected him. “Our own scryers saw the same thing she did, enough to know somebody was there but not enough to make an ID.”

  “Then, how did you figure out it was me?”

  “It was the little things,” I explained, pulling out the Ogham note he’d left at the Fingernail Moon.

  As I flattened the note out enough for him to see it, I asked, “Recognize this?”

  Avery gave out something between a sigh and a moan at the sight of the paper. “Cressida made that list out for the Soul Snatcher charm a long time ago. Nobody me, her or Nebula knew had any idea how to read Ogham so she probably thought it was safe. She threw it away and I picked it up when she wasn’t looking.”

  “You knew it was for the Soul Snatcher charm?” David asked. “Why didn’t you tell anyone about it?”

  “Because of the lavender on the list,” Avery explained. “I knew about her and Nebula’s allergy to the stuff, so I got to thinking that she wouldn’t go through with it.”

  “Only she did,” I said. “She tried using some cinnamon as a substitute per the scene where she was found, but it never worked. So she upped the dosage on the Ravingsbatch, thinking it was the problem.”

  “Then there was that allergy thing I mentioned at your shop,” Avery put in. “That must have gotten you to thinking about that list.”

  “It didn’t help, Avery, that my kitty cats could smell the lavender all over the scene in the kitchen,” I added. “I know you wanted to be sure that what you were doing would work. But you used way too much of the stuff. It was all over the golem’s clay flesh when you knocked her out.”

  “Any other mistakes I made?” Avery asked with reluctance.

  “Getting your lavender from the same area you used to have trysts with Nebula was a big one,” David mentioned. “Thanks to Rabbi Goldsmith staying in the same place while he was here, Hattie was able to trace the lavender used in Nebula’s murder back to it.”

  “I didn’t get my lavender from there,” Avery countered. “It grows wild up and down the coastline. But, its composition makes it completely useless for your kind of herbal work, Hattie.”

  “Just the same, the fact that there was a clump of it close to where you betrayed Nebula’s trust was particularly damning in the end,” I said.

  Avery winced. “You figured that out from the story I told you, huh?”

  “It wasn’t very hard to connect those dots,” I said gently. “But, now that I think about it, the clincher was when we first talked at the station.”

  “When I told you about my keychain alarm that let me know when to be back in the booth?” he asked.

  “No, that part of things didn’t come into focus until after you told me about your Mirror Gate charm at the shop,” I explained. “It was what you told me close to the end of our initial interview: ‘All the Wraithsgourd in the world can’t buy you another breath.’”

  Avery looked at me quizzically. “I don’t follow.”

  “Most non-herbalists wouldn’t,” I admitted. “There are a lot of anti-aging beauty treatments I can make at the Angel Apothecary besides Wraithsgourd, not as effective but a lot less hazardous. If you’ve got the right sort of build and bone structure, you can even look as good as Nebula did.”

  “Yet, I mention Wraithsgourd out loud and…”

  “And, I remember it for later, especially after I talked with poor, gone-round-the-bend Cressida,” I finished. “It told me two things. First, you knew she was using that as her treatment of choice because you had put the lavender in it. Second, you also knew that the same thing that made her allergic to lavender gave her a full-blown immunity to Wraithsgourd, which we were able to confirm when the constables caught Cressida during her latest escape attempt. We took samples from your victim’s twin. Her biological double.”

  Avery slumped forward in his chair. “Cressida…still my undoing after all these years.”

  “Why did you attempt to take your own life tonight?” David asked. “
Did you have some idea that we were onto you?”

  Avery blew a breath out his nose in a long strained sigh. “The honest truth is that I didn’t have the slightest clue that anyone had put it together, Chief Para Inspector,” he admitted. “I just…I couldn’t live with it anymore. But I wanted people to know why I had done what I had done. That’s why I left the letter in the cottage the night before.”

  “Which was found by Rabbi Goldsmith,” I said. “He had just gotten to the police desk here to report it at the same time Millie rang it in from the shop.”

  “But, not before Millie told you, Hattie,” Avery deduced. “So you could save my life…such as it is.”

  “Why did you choose the cottage at the dunes as your place of … ah, termination?” I couldn’t look at the poor man.

  “Simple. That was where Nebula and I spent some of our most treasured moments.” I saw a single tear drop from Flute’s face onto the faux wood veneered table.

  “The law of the Isles can get a little messy,” David said gently. “But it’s very clear on the subject of premeditated murder, Mr. Flute. I’m afraid that I’m going to have to charge you with murder in the second degree, based on both your confession and the evidence.”

  “I understand, Inspector,” Avery said with a nod. “It’s funny…”

  “What is?” I asked.

  “Now that I’ve told you everything…or, rather, you’ve told me everything you figured out…it’s a complete relief. I didn’t realize how hard the burden was to bear after a certain point.”

  “If we could get a written statement from you, Mr. Flute, it would be a big help,” David said gently.

  “Of course,” Avery said. “Just let me know when we can do that.”

  “No time like the present,” David said, pushing himself off the wall. “I’ll go get some paper and a pen.”

  “I think my part is done here,” I said, getting up. “Once again, Avery, I’m sorry it was you.”

  “Don’t be,” Avery said. “We all have to stand for what we have done, Hattie Jenkins. Today, it is my turn.”

  I couldn’t look at him anymore. I walked out and did my best to fight off tears of sadness and helplessness. The rabbi was right at my elbow with Fraidy hiding behind his neck.

  “Be of good cheer, child,” he said quietly. “Saved his life you did. And they who save one life save the world entire.”

  “So, why do I feel like I’ve managed anything but justice here?” I asked.

  The rabbi had no answer to that. He stayed by my side as I finally let the tears fall. Sometime in the middle of that, Fraidy crossed from Goldsmith’s neck to my shoulders.

  Chapter 18

  Half an hour later, my tears long gone, I nursed a mug of green tea in David’s office. Fraidy was back to his usual cowardly self, hiding in a corner next to a filing cabinet. Glancing at him, I asked: “How is it that a cat brave enough to jump off a flying broomstick and onto a wanted felon is still so freaked out by an empty office?”

  “You DID notice all the stuff outside the office, right?” Fraidy asked.

  “Yeah, cops, desks, phones ringing and the intake of the local criminals.”

  “Exactly!” Fraidy yelped. “Why in the Duat would I feel safe with all that going on?!”

  I sighed. And here I thought that Fraidy was finally taking a step towards courage.

  Before I could say anything else, the door opened. David had a freshly inked and signed paper in his hand; Avery’s confession.

  “I take it our disappearing rabbi has left the premises?” David asked as he sat down at his desk.

  “He’s taking Cressida back to Midnight Hill with a few of your constables,” I explained. “He thought it might be a good time to tell her about what Avery did.”

  David adjusted his glasses nervously. “That’s one conversation I’m glad someone else is having with her besides me.”

  “Get in line,” I said while he filled out some sort of form on his desk. “I feel terrible about how all this played out.”

  David glanced over his glasses before getting back to his writing. “Me too. Hattie…the truth isn’t always a pleasant find in my experience. But, you get used to it if you do this sort of thing long enough.” He sounded resigned.

  “That’s vaguely like an invitation for me to keep on working with you on ‘this sort of thing’, Chief Trew,” I said.

  David put down his pen and rubbed his face. “Look, Hattie…speaking of unpleasant truths, I’m afraid that I won’t be able to give you any of proper credit for solving this case.”

  “So?” I said with a shrug. “It’s not like I care.”

  “Bast it all, I care,” David growled. “If you hadn’t gone above and beyond your duties as this case’s consultant, we would have pinned it on the wrong man or, Lady Justitia help us, ruled it an accident like Avery had planned.”

  “David, my business is running an apothecary, not imitating Miss. Marple. So, it’s enough for me that I was able to help you solve this case the right way.”

  David shook his head in what looked like worn out amazement, as his hand found the pen once more. “You are a truly remarkable woman, Hattie Jenkins. Anyone else would have been fighting me tooth and nail for at least a mention.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing I’m … well, me then, yes?” I said with a playful smile.

  “Just the same, right now I’m wishing it was you who was being sent by Talisman from Nanker Isle to be my new assistant.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked with a laugh. “Those penny-pinchers barely give you the resources to solve the local garden variety crimes. When did you merit an assistant?”

  “Somehow…and I’d really like to know how,” David said, the growl back in his voice. “Word got back to Talisman on how I had a female associate helping me out with the Nebula Dreddock case.”

  “Well, wouldn’t that have been covered by the whole consultant angle?” I asked with a shrug.

  “A consultant who is present at every major break in the case, keeps the victim’s golem at my behest and is frequently in contact with me at odd hours…do you see where this is going?”

  “Not really,” I said, shaking my head. “I mean, why not just ask me for the job if they want—“

  “You’re not a copper,” David interrupted, finishing up his paperwork and rising from his desk. “Near as I can tell, that’s the one reason why that someone else who should be showing up any minute got the job.”

  A knock on the door, followed by the door opening. The woman on the other side of it was…the politest word I could use would be ‘ridiculous’. She was a bouncy, cherub-cheeked woman with serious curves and a grin so fake that I found myself looking for a “Made in Taiwan” label on her teeth. She was dressed in regulation clothes for her job but they were stretched a little too tight for them to be professional. Add in the box of cookies that had the distinctive label of Gless Inlet Goodies on them (you wouldn’t catch me eating in that bakery) and I found her irritating immediately.

  “CPI Trew?” she asked, all smiles and light.

  Before David could get out a response, she stepped through the door and plopped the cookies down on his desk. “I’m Amber Crystal, your new assistant,” she said without preamble. “I just wanted to—“

  That’s when the annoying little twerp FINALLY noticed me sitting behind her.

  “Oh,” she said, making an exaggerated O with her lips as she brought a dainty hand up to her lips. “I didn’t realize that you were filling out a complaint with one of the local teachers.”

  David must have recognized the flare of temper in my eyes because he quickly said, “Actually, Ms. Crystal, this is Hattie Jenkins; a local apothecarian who has been consulting with us on the Nebula Dreddock case.”

  She glowered at me. “Her? This is the woman who was mentioned in those case reports I saw?”

  “If you’ve got a problem with me,” I said, rising from my seat while Fraidy tiptoed to the still-open door. “Now�
��s the time to say it to my face.”

  “Oh, I don’t have a problem with you, honey,” Amber said rather too cheerfully for my liking. “I just wasn’t expecting someone so … very ordinary looking.”

  Bitch

  “Still, I’m eager to get started, Chief Trew,” Amber said, immediately ignoring me as she turned back around to face David. “What do you say we get started by you showing me the ropes?”

  “Well, there is the small matter of getting the rest of this paperwork on the Dreddock case done,” David said nervously, his eyes darting between her and me. “I’m certain that Ms. Jenkins—“

  “Oh, I think I’ve gotten all my meaningful contributions out of the way, Chief Trew,” I said, noting that Fraidy had just slipped out the door. “So, if you don’t mind, I’ll let you both get to it.”

  David looked at me with pleading eyes, which I acknowledged with a barely perceptible shake of my head. As Amber turned around, I gave her the fake friendly smile I reserve for bad customers at the Angel. “It was lovely meeting you,” I said. “I’m sure we’ll see each other again sometime.”

  “Oh, I’m sure of it,” Amber said with a little wave of her hand.

  I took that opportunity to leave as straight backed as possible.

  “Someone so ordinary looking,” I grumbled to myself as I passed by the constables at their desks. “Who does this bimbette think she is?”

  Fraidy had the good sense to say nothing as we walked out. But that was probably due to the fact that talking would have given away his position.

  * * *

  The story of the true circumstances of Nebula’s death broke a couple of days before her funeral. As David had told me, my contributions to the case were either credited to the department as a whole or a vague “outside consultant” reference for the more technical aspects of Nebula’s fatal poisoning. Avery himself granted an exclusive interview to the Glessie Examiner where he repeated details of his life with Nebula, minus a few choice details such as Cressida’s involvement. After entering a guilty plea at his trial, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for his crime. His confession turned into a Biography of the secret life of Nebula Dreddock, and no doubt made him a rich man; even if he was confined to a cell for most of his waking hours.