“The necklace is a voodoo protection charm,” Hamilton said. “Not exactly harmless. Voodoo tends to think of offense as the best defense. Attack someone wearing it, and it will strike back.”
“And the statuette?” I asked.
Kelly shrugged. “No idea. Looks Middle Eastern. I’d have to study it, compare what I find to what I have in the database.” She passed her hand over the artifact. “It does have some kind of power.”
She turned and pointed to a much larger statuette on the dresser, about two or three feet tall. “That, I recognize. A nkisi nkondi, a power statue from central Africa. It’s used as a tracking device by witch hunters.” Kelly looked at Hamilton. “Did you know he collected such exotic toys?”
Hamilton shook his head. “I knew he collected.” He swung his hand toward the other room. “If you look around, you’ll see a lot of stuff, but not this kind of thing. I’ve never been in his bedroom before.”
“Have you ever heard of the Gambler Grimoire?” I asked.
He snorted a laugh. “Sure, who hasn’t? A myth. I’ve seen a couple of spells purportedly taken from it. I wasn’t impressed.”
“We think Dr. Kavanaugh considered it as more than a myth,” I said. “So, do you want us to leave all this here, close the door, and tell the police that we think someone should nuke the place? Or what?”
He licked his lips, then shook his head. “No, we should clear it out of here. You have secure storage for this, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Kelly said. “At the museum, if we can keep students out of it. What do I tell Carver and Phillips? I can’t just stash this sort of thing in the museum and pretend it floated in through the window. You do know Dr. Phillips’s talents.”
Hamilton took a deep breath, staring down at the box on the bed.
“The president, Dr. Phillips, is an archivist and archeologist, as well as a historian. Magically, he’s a librarian,” Kelly told me. “He’s my direct boss, and I can’t take something like this book into the museum without telling him. It would be my job.”
“Not to mention having to explain how we found it,” Hamilton said. “I, for one, am not very keen on telling Dr. Carver or Sam Kagan about this little midnight foray.”
“We can stash it in my place until we figure out what to do with it,” I said. I looked around, then turned to Hamilton. “You’ve been here long enough that I imagine you’ve managed to fill up your space.”
“Or,” Kelly said, “don’t you have an alchemist’s safe in your lab? That would be as secure as what I have at the museum.”
I nodded. “Yes, and it has plenty of room. Before I looked in it, I don’t think it had been opened since Dr. Kavanaugh died.”
“Well, we know that whoever killed him wasn’t looking for this,” Hamilton said.
Kelly pursed her lips and shook her head. “Not necessarily. I’m not sure either of you would have found this box. The spells on it were, shall we say, unusual, and quite complex.”
“How close were you and Dr. Kavanaugh?” I asked Hamilton.
He shrugged. “Fairly close. We’ve been working together for more than twenty years, lived right across the breezeway from each other. We took a couple of vacations together when we were younger, but our tastes for certain things diverged as we got older.”
The three of us made another pass through the suite, searching for more books or items of interest. I was the unfortunate one who opened the refrigerator, quickly closing it. Even the rose oil wasn’t enough to completely block the stench.
“Whew. No one even bothered to clean out his fridge. It looks and smells like a biology student’s nightmare.”
Hamilton raised an eyebrow when I gathered the files from the desk.
“I’ll tell you later,” I said.
It was almost midnight by the time I sealed the grimoire box, other books, and the artifacts we found into the alchemist’s safe in the lab. We trooped back to my apartment, where we poured ourselves another drink. Hamilton took his without the cranberry juice.
I pulled out the GG file I’d taken from Kavanaugh’s office and handed it to Hamilton.
“No one cleaned out his office. I found this in his desk.”
After fifteen minutes, he put the file folder on the table. “So, you think this is about the Gambler Grimoire?”
I shrugged. “He was interested in some rare book coded GG.”
“And you suspect Brett might have killed Harold Merriweather to get it.”
Again, I shrugged. “Everyone I’ve talked to seems to think Kavanaugh was killed by a jealous lover or ex-lover. This is another theory. What bothers me is that the police didn’t even investigate his death very thoroughly. Suppose we have some madman running around with a hatred of alchemists? That would put me square in the crosshairs. I just want to know what happened so I know if I’m safe or not.”
“That’s reasonable,” he said. “Although, judging from tonight, you’re quite capable of taking care of yourself.”
“I’m sure Brett Kavanaugh thought he was, too, until someone brained him from behind. I had hoped we might find a computer tonight, since there wasn’t one in his office. There was a printer in both places.”
“Really?” Hamilton looked surprised. “He had a fancy new laptop he gave himself for Christmas. Maybe the police have it.”
Chapter 8
The following morning, I dragged myself out of bed, took a shower, then woke Kelly, who was sleeping on my couch. I made breakfast while Kelly showered, then walked with her as far as the Administration Building.
At Carver’s office, I spoke to Katy. “I have a bunch of Dr. Kavanaugh’s stuff boxed up. Can you please have a porter take it to wherever you want to store it?”
“Yes, I’ll call the porter service and have it taken care of.”
“One other thing. What about the books in his apartment? Is there any way I could take a look at them?”
She looked thoughtful. “I don’t know. No one’s been in there, that I know of. I think the police still have the apartment sealed off.”
“No one? No one’s cleaned the place? It’s been five months, Katy.” I put on a surprised expression. “I don’t know much about how the police handle this sort of thing, but did they empty his refrigerator?”
Katy leaned forward, her brow furrowed, then her eyes popped wide. “Oh, my. I’ll call Lieutenant Kagan.”
She reached for the phone while I waited.
“Lieutenant? This is Katy Bosun in Dr. Carver’s office at the college. Have you finished with Dr. Kavanaugh’s apartment? Yes, we would like to get some things from it, and get it cleaned, you know. We do have a waiting list for apartments in that building. Uh huh. Uh huh. All right, thank you. And, oh, do you know if anyone cleaned out the refrigerator?”
When she hung up, she said, “He said he’ll be right over. My word, if no one’s cleaned up, how are we ever going to get the blood…there was so much blood.”
I reached over, patted her hand, and gave her a comforting smile. “I’m an alchemist. I can mix up a cleaning solution that will pull blood out of a turnip. I can also give your cleaner something that will fix the odors.”
“Oh, that would be wonderful. Thank you, Dr. Robinson.”
“Savanna, please.”
Katy grinned and winked at me. “Not at work, but I’d be pleased to call you Savanna outside of work hours.” Her eyes flicked toward the inner door to Carver’s office. “Decorum, you know.”
“So, you can’t think of anyone who didn’t get along with Dr. Kavanaugh?” I asked.
“Oh, there were people he didn’t get along with, I imagine. Brett could be rather pompous and condescending. But hate him enough to kill him? Not that I know of.” Katy shrugged. “I think that’s why most people think it was one of his lovers. The problem is figuring out who he was bedding that week.”
“Who were his friends?”
“Here at the college? Me, David Hamilton. He used to be close to Anton Ricard, but som
e years ago he and David and Anton had a falling out. Over a woman, of course. But that was what, ten, twelve years ago? And she left Wicklow that long ago. He’d been here long enough to have quite a few friends in town and in Pittsburgh.”
“A love quadrangle?” I said with a smirk.
Katy grinned. “Something like that. I got the impression that she liked all three men, but didn’t love any of them.”
After leaving Katy, I walked over to my lab. The cleaning solution and the air freshener took me about an hour to whip up. Then I went up to Kavanaugh’s apartment. The door was still as I had left it the previous night, with a paper match closed in the door. Satisfied that Lieutenant Kagan had not arrived yet, I went downstairs and sat on my stoop to wait for him. He would have to pass me to reach Kavanaugh’s place.
I was daydreaming when a voice, very close, asked, “Are you locked out?”
Looking up at David Hamilton, I said, “No, waiting for the police. Katy called them about Kavanaugh’s apartment. Do you know what Lieutenant Kagan looks like?”
His face twisted into a half-grin. “He looks like a cop. Flattop haircut, about five-ten, thirty or forty pounds overweight. Smart, though. I think he feels the people here at the college are stonewalling him, because he can’t find anything he can grab onto. I know how he feels, but I think it’s because there isn’t much. What you found the past couple of days, well, he probably should have that. Enjoy.”
And with that, he walked off and entered the stairwell to his apartment. I waited, and about five minutes later spotted him in his window. I smiled and waved, he frowned and disappeared. A difficult man to figure out.
So far, I had made friends with Kelly, and Katy seemed like someone I’d enjoy spending time with, but she was married with kids and grandkids. A male friend would be nice.
When a man fitting Kagan’s description, wearing an ill-fitting cheap suit, trotted up the outside steps, I stood. As he passed, I called out to him.
“Lieutenant Kagan?”
He stopped and turned toward me. “Yes?”
“Hi. I’m Dr. Savanna Robinson. Katy asked me to meet you here.”
“Oh? Well, shall we?”
He started off toward Kavanaugh’s, and I fell in beside him.
Kagan was scoping me out from the corner of his eye. “I don’t remember speaking to you when I was investigating the case.”
“I’ve been here five days. I’m Dr. Kavanaugh’s replacement. Dr. Carver said he didn’t have any family, no heirs that they know of, so he said I could have his books. I wanted some of the ones I found in his office, but I wondered what he might have at home. Katy said I’d have to ask the police if I could go in.”
We walked a little farther. “His office?”
“Yes, in the Administration Building. All the professors have offices there.”
When we reached the door, Kagan pulled it open and stood aside so I could go first.
“No one told me he had an office apart from this one. I thought this was his office.”
“Nope. I’ve been told that most of the faculty live off campus. We all have offices away from our living quarters.”
We trudged up the stairs, and I arrived at the top while a panting Kagan was a flight below me. I wondered if the climb was part of what discouraged him from investigating more thoroughly. I hadn’t seen an elevator anywhere at the college. The fact he hadn’t known about Kavanaugh’s office made me wonder how competent Kagan was. He didn’t seem to have asked some very basic questions.
While I waited for him, I took a sniff of the magic-infused rose oil.
Kagan arrived and pulled a set of keys from his jacket pocket, sorted through them until he found the one he wanted, and opened the door.
“Do you always lock the door?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“Are those Dr. Kavanaugh’s keys?”
He blinked at me, looked down at the keys in his hand, then back to me. “Yes, why?”
“Well, I’m his replacement. I don’t have a key to my desk, or my office. I have to ask Katy to open it for me,” I lied.
“Oh. Yes, well, I’ll see what I can do.”
No keys and no promise. I hoped he solved the case before I retired.
“It is a little ripe in here,” he said, skirting the bloodstain on the floor to open the windows across the room.
“If no one has cleaned out that refrigerator, I’ll bet it’s more than ripe.”
He took the bait, walking into the kitchen and opening the appliance in question. He slammed it shut even quicker, gagging, and then running to the window and sticking his head out. Taking pity on him, I walked over beside him and held out the rose oil.
“Take a sniff. It’ll help.”
Kagan took the bottle and gingerly passed it under his nostrils. His eyes widened, and he inhaled deeply.
“Thanks,” he said, handing the bottle back. “Normally, the police don’t clean up crime scenes, but I can give you a number the college can call.”
“Normally, do you keep yellow tape across the door for five months?”
His face reddened. “In my defense, I got pulled onto another case. A drug dealer came up from Pittsburgh and had a shootout with a biker gang a few days after this happened.”
As we walked through the apartment, I pumped him a little more.
“All I can get out of anyone is that he had no enemies,” Kagan said, “and everyone’s best bet is jealous lover, jealous husband, or ex-lover. But with no physical evidence, I don’t even know where to start. Look, I liked Brett, but I can’t just question everyone who ever met him hoping one of them confesses.”
I handed him the folder. Kelly had photocopied it all, so it wasn’t a loss. Kagan sat down in a chair and spent half an hour reading it all. When he finished, he raised his head to look at me.
“Something I can’t do,” I said, “is check to see if he actually went to England. Was he in London on December twenty-eighth?”
Kagan shook his head. “Can I keep this?”
I shrugged. “I found it in a desk drawer in his office. I was surprised you hadn’t found it. But as to the books, and other stuff,” I said, waving at the pictures on the wall, figurines on the mantle, and other personal items, “Dr. Carver said he didn’t have any family, no will, and no heirs. We haven’t found his computer either. We wondered if you have it.”
“No computer. I thought that was strange. As for the other stuff, no will, and no indications of any family. We found bank and brokerage accounts, and his retirement account. A couple of those had a named beneficiary.”
I raised my eyebrows expectantly.
“I shouldn’t—”
I pointedly looked at the folder in his hand.
With a deep sigh, he said, “I guess it can’t hurt. The beneficiary of the retirement account is Katy Bosun, and the brokerage account beneficiary is the Wicklow College endowment fund.”
“How much?”
“About half a mil to Mrs. Bosun, two-and-a-half million to the college.”
I waited.
He curled his lip at me, but continued. “Almost a quarter mil in the bank. And that Jaguar parked across the street is worth a cool sixty or seventy grand. He wasn’t hurting.”
I looked around the room at the sculptures, artifacts, and paintings. “Dr. Hamilton said Kavanaugh was a collector. I wonder how much some of this might be worth.”
Chapter 9
I spent that evening going through all the files I had pulled from Kavanaugh’s two desks. There were receipts for more than two dozen paintings, artifacts, and books that totaled almost a million dollars. Five books of the arcane from Merriweather’s ranged from three thousand to twenty-five thousand dollars each. One of the paintings had cost him a quarter of a million dollars. I reflected on my lack of art knowledge, because I hadn’t seen anything in his apartment that I found that attractive.
Other files detailed his finances and verified what Kagan had told me. Two document
s of interest—one twenty-five years old and the other twelve years old—were settlements, releases of liability, and promises not to sue from lawyers in exchange for fifty thousand dollars on the first one to a Rebecca Hall, and thirty-five thousand on the second to someone named Seanan Murphy. Both had been filed with the county court there in Wicklow. Both had strict non-disclosure attached to the payments. I wondered if Kagan could get into those cases.
I set aside those documents I wanted Kelly to copy for me, and the rest I put in banker boxes for Kagan. He probably wouldn’t be happy I’d taken them in the first place, but more than half of all the files contained professional research and scholarly papers Kavanaugh had either written or reviewed for other scholars. Easy enough to make the case that I had a professional interest in those, and returned the others.
Katy had told me that about half the students were back on campus, with the other half expected by the end of the weekend. I didn’t have a lot else to do. The courses I was assigned were some I had taught at other colleges. I had checked out the lab supplies I needed for the first trimester. I could go out and hit the bars, but nothing Kelly had told me about any of them excited me.
“So, what did you do for fun in San Francisco?” Kelly asked when she dropped by on Friday evening.
“I like music—nightclubs, concerts, outdoor venues in nice weather—Broadway road shows, theater,” I said. “Great places to eat, although the food I’ve had here is pretty good.”
“Pittsburgh for music. Exercise?”
I laughed. “Oh, you consider exercise fun? I had a gym membership, and went at least once a week to work out and swim. I did try the pool here yesterday. The Institute in Sausalito didn’t have the kind of facilities we have here. I didn’t own a car, so I rode my bike a lot. I sold it before I came here, though. There’s only so much you want to haul with you. Why?”
I planned to go kayaking with some friends tomorrow. Would you like to come?”
The Gambler Grimoire: An Urban Fantasy Mystery (Wicklow College of Arcane Arts Book 1) Page 5