The Gambler Grimoire: An Urban Fantasy Mystery (Wicklow College of Arcane Arts Book 1)

by BR Kingsolver

  He shook his head. “I knew that he went to London to look at it, but if he brought it back, he didn’t tell me.”

  “I wondered if he bragged about it. Was he prone to do such a thing? Especially to women?”

  “Possibly. The fancy car, flashy clothes, holidays in exotic locations. He thought such things impressed women.”

  “Such things do impress some women. We found some very impressive books in his collection, for the magical literary sort of girl.”

  “Really? I’d be willing to take a look at them. Give you an estimate of the market values.”

  “Black magic grimoires? The Council takes a dim view of selling such things. If the college museum doesn’t want them, I’ll probably talk to my father. I’m not sure I trust anyone to play with them. Since I gave up becoming queen, I’ve been a little picky concerning who wields world-changing spells.”

  His surprise didn’t seem faked. “Oh really? No, I’ve managed to sail beneath the Council’s notice for fifty-two years. I think I’ll leave that particular thrill for someone younger and dumber.”

  “You didn’t know that Brett dabbled in such collectables?”

  Lowell shook his head. “A few questionable artifacts, but no, not dark magic books. And he didn’t get them through me.”

  “Malificium Spiritus,” I said. “Kelly says it’s the real thing.”

  He shuddered. “People dabble in things they don’t understand, then act shocked when they get burned.”

  “That’s how I feel about the Gambler Grimoire. Even if it’s fake, people are getting killed over it.”

  Chapter 31

  Lowell informed me that a bus ran by Helen’s nursery only twice a day—early in the morning going west, and again at suppertime going east. Its major purpose was to convey commuters to the west bank and back for the nursery and a couple of other businesses. I figured I could talk Steven into running me out there.

  That evening after dinner, there was a knock on my front door. I checked the scrying lens I had set up, and saw a tall young man nervously fidgeting. Corey Lindsay.

  Considering my suspicions and his admitted behavior, I took my wand in my left hand and held it in the folds of my skirt before opening the door.

  “Yes?”

  “Professor Robinson? I’m Corey Lindsay. I need to talk to you.”

  I ushered him in, and he ducked through the door. We sat in front of the fireplace. We had actually never met before. I had seen him only at a distance. A good-looking kid, sandy hair, lean, and well over six feet tall.

  “Lia didn’t kill herself,” he said.

  “I don’t think she did, either. Who do you think had a reason to do that?”

  “Maybe Agnes’s sister.”

  “And why would she? I mean, did she even know Lia?”

  “Or Emma.”

  “Again, why? Corey, you’re going to have to tell me a lot more to convince me. Simply throwing wild accusations around isn’t very helpful. You might as well tell me that Joshua’s ghost did it.”

  “Yeah. We did some stupid stuff, though.”

  “I have, too, although I never killed anyone. Do you have a book? Something that might be called a Gambler Grimoire?”

  He had been sitting with his elbows on his knees, head down, but that caused him to jerk, his eyes on my face.

  “How did you know about that?” He shook his head. “Lia had it. I don’t know if it’s still in her room, or if she hid it somewhere else.”

  “You don’t think that was the reason she was killed? Where did she get it?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Don’t know where she got it, or don’t know why she was killed? Besides Helen and Emma, who else knows about the book?”

  I could tell that he wanted me to buy into his story but didn’t want to tell me some of it.

  “Did you and Lia kill Agnes Bishop?” I asked.

  Once again, his eyes snapped to my face, only this time his face showed fear. I leaned back in my chair and waited, my wand still in my left hand, hanging down to the side of my chair out of his sight.

  “She attacked me. Us.”

  My first reaction was that a number of people had attacked him, and then ended up dead. The story came out, gradually, in bits and pieces. Kavanaugh had bragged about the grimoire, and Agnes let it be known that in her mind, the kind of magic that it represented was a perversion of the natural order. She and Kavanaugh argued, and then Helen joined in on Agnes’s side. According to Corey, the back-and-forth sniping went on for weeks, then blew up into the shouting match Emma told me about the day Kavanaugh was killed.

  According to Corey—and he admitted that a lot of what he told me was second or thirdhand—Emma and Kavanaugh were having an affair. Evidently on the night he was killed, Emma was at his apartment, and Lia saw her leave in the late evening. As soon as she did, Agnes appeared from the direction of the parking lot and went up to the apartment. Shortly thereafter, she came back down, got in her car, and drove away.

  “So, both Lia and Agnes were stalking Dr. Kavanaugh, watching his apartment that night?” I asked. “Or were they stalking Emma? I’m sure it wasn’t just a coincidence they were both standing out in Howard Quad.”

  He seemed to think about it, then took a deep breath. “I don’t know about Agnes, but I think Lia wanted to blackmail Emma. Lia used to take pictures of her and Dr. Kavanaugh together. If the cops have her phone, they would see them.”

  I let that go for the moment. While Kavanaugh would have been susceptible to blackmail, for Emma the repercussions would only be embarrassment and loss of a mentor. The college would consider her a victim. Besides, Emma was a student. Kavanaugh was the one with money and the book.

  When Kavanaugh didn’t show up for class the following morning, Lia went and found Emma, who went to Katy Bosun, who went to Kavanaugh’s apartment and found his body. After the police went away, taking the body with them, Lia and Josh Tupper broke into the apartment looking for the grimoire. They had done some research on the Witches’ Web and hoped to sell it. They didn’t find it, and within a couple of weeks, they broke up, and Lia started sleeping with Corey.

  Corey told me that he knew nothing about any of it until the night of Josh’s death. Josh had approached Lia at the party and tried to talk to her about the grimoire, along with a blackmail scheme. According to Corey, this scheme was something Josh dreamed up over the summer, but I got the feeling from a few things Corey said that it was something Josh and Lia had talked about before the end of the spring term. Again, when Corey spoke of blackmail, I didn’t get the feeling that he really understood who was being blackmailed over what.

  In any case, it led to a verbal altercation between Josh and Corey, which continued when Josh confronted the couple after they left the party. Corey knocked Josh down, Josh drew his athame, and Corey, being quite a bit larger, took it away from him.

  “You didn’t have to use it, you know,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah, that was really stupid. I was just so mad at him.”

  It was at that point that Corey demanded an explanation from Lia, and she told him the whole tale. Over the summer, she had discovered Trent McCarthy’s offer for the grimoire, so she talked Corey into strong-arming Agnes to get it. For some reason, she had decided Agnes was the one most likely to have it, rather than Emma.

  Agnes was a feisty old witch, and a lot tougher than they expected. She and Corey traded lightning bolts, and Corey got through her defenses once. Lia took the opportunity to jump on Agnes’s back and stab her with her own athame. They found the grimoire in the shop’s back room, then heard Kelly and me enter the shop, and ran out the back door.

  “And you think that either Emma or Helen killed Lia for the book?” I asked.

  “Who else?”

  I didn’t bother to mention George Peterson’s gang, because why would they know anything about Ophelia?

  “You know, even if you get off for Josh Tupper’s killing by claiming self-defense, you have
no defense for Agnes Bishop’s murder,” I said.

  “But I didn’t kill her!”

  I controlled the urge to roll my eyes. “Conspiracy to commit murder. Death during the commission of a felony. Those are still felonies under mundane law. And Corey, don’t think you’ll fare better under Council law. I know a little about their courts and processes. You don’t want to go there.”

  “I can’t believe I let her get me involved in this mess.”

  “So, tell me why you think Lia didn’t kill herself?”

  “Why would she? Guilt? Lia didn’t feel guilty about Agnes. She was just afraid of being caught. Her dad is really rich, and she was very immature and self-centered. It was all a big game to her until she got arrested.”

  He left my place at about ten o’clock, but the ethical dilemma he’d brought with him remained. I knew that I should tell either Kagan or Barclay what Corey had told me. Or, if anyone else turned up dead, I would share the guilt.

  Chapter 32

  The following day, I dropped by Carver’s office to see Katy Bosun.

  “Out of curiosity, was Brett Kavanaugh dressed when you found him?” I asked.

  “Yes, he was. He still had his tie on, although it was loosened, and he’d taken his jacket off and hung it up.” She kind of cocked her head to look at me. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, if it was a lover, then he was probably killed before they had sex, wouldn’t you agree? I can’t see him getting up, putting on his shoes and tie, just to see her out to the door. And if he was driving her home, I still can’t see him tying his tie.”

  “Hm. I see your logic, but since I never slept with him, I wouldn’t know what his normal routine was.”

  “I’m just projecting from experiences in my younger years when occasionally I had a love life.”

  That afternoon, I talked Steven into driving me out to Helen’s nursery in exchange for buying him dinner. I had looked the place up and found that it had gone bankrupt three years before. Helen had evidently used savings and a small loan to buy it from the bank.

  When we drove up, we could see the place had a lot going for it. It sat on the west bank of the river and had about ten acres of land, with three greenhouses and a small orchard of mixed apple, pear, and peach trees. It had been a retail nursery, catering to homeowners in the area. I agreed with Helen that it should do better growing herbs, fruits, and vegetables year-round. Considering trucking distances, she could probably compete for business selling to restaurants such as the Faculty Club and Carragher’s Resort in the winter.

  The map I’d found showed an office building in addition to three equipment sheds, as well as a small house on the property. According to Lowell, Helen was living in the house.

  The nursery as a whole looked a lot like something I could consider buying if Wicklow College continued to vie for its own show on British mystery television.

  I said as much to Steven, and he replied, “Yeah, that make sense. That or I saw a bar for sale the other day.”

  “Is there enough LGBT business in this town to make a go of it?” I asked.

  “Maybe not, but simply an inclusive, welcoming place would be nice.”

  “Let me guess. A place large enough to accommodate different clienteles. You know, a room for lezzies, one for gays, one for over-forty dancing, and one for nerds to play D and D.”

  He laughed and mentioned a place in Berkeley. “Like Lily’s? I think we need to go to a city and college a little larger than Wicklow to do that sort of thing. The bar I saw was a fraction of that size.”

  A sign at the entrance said, ‘Closed to the Public.’ There was plenty of parking space in the front of the property, but following the driveway back to the house, we discovered there was barely room for a second car beside the one already parked there, and almost no space to turn around.

  Helen Donnelly greeted me with a sour expression. “What do you want?”

  “I’m hoping you can help me clarify a few things. Are you aware that Ophelia Harkness died yesterday?”

  Her expression changed to stunned. “How?”

  “She was found hanging in the greenhouse at the college. Ms. Donnelly, I’m concerned about my safety and that of others working in the garden and the greenhouse. I have a feeling this all traces back to Brett Kavanaugh’s murder.”

  She bit her lip, gazed past me to where Steven was sitting in the car, took a deep breath, and said, “Tell your friend to come in, too. No sense sitting out there in the sun.”

  I waved for Steven to join me, then entered the home as Donnelly stepped aside.

  She offered us seats in a small living room but no refreshments.

  “There are a few students each term that harm themselves,” Helen said, “but this seems awfully early, especially for a graduate student. Or do the police think it’s murder?”

  “I’m not sure what Sam Kagan thinks,” I said, “but I think she was murdered. I keep hearing tales about something called the Gambler Grimoire. I understand there were some arguments concerning the book before Brett Kavanaugh was killed.”

  Helen shook her head. “That damned book. Agnes was ready to storm the battlements when she found out about it. It was like a religious crusade for her. And of course, Brett never could pass up a chance to needle her. When he found out it bothered her, he couldn’t stop talking about it. I tried to mediate at first, then I tried to schedule Agnes so she wouldn’t run into him. I even tried to ban him from the greenhouse, but I didn’t have the authority.”

  “Did you ever see the book?” I asked.

  “Yes, and I wasn’t impressed. It looked like something a high school kid put together.”

  “Green with a red spine? Like a journal or a ledger book?”

  “Yeah. Lined paper, and handwritten with what looked like ballpoint pen. Whether any of the spells did anything or not, I have no idea. You’d have to take it to a clairvoyant.”

  “A clairvoyant?”

  She nodded. “Just reading a couple of the spells, you could tell they weren’t designed to do anything. They were spells to enhance scrying—clairvoyance or pre-cognition. I said as much, and Brett told me I was an idiot. Hell, an idiot is someone who won’t listen to a person who knows more than they do. Brett was convinced that women should have never been taught to read. I tried to get him to show it to Ruth Buckley.”

  The name rang a faint bell as being on the college faculty.

  “Can you tell me anything about Kavanaugh’s and Emma’s relationship?” I asked.

  Helen shrugged. “He treated her like any other pretty young thing. She was extremely respectful toward him, but I think she had a crush on him. Just the way she watched him when he wasn’t looking.”

  “You’re from Wicklow, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I grew up here.”

  “Did you ever know a Rebecca Hall?”

  Her eyes narrowed, and she stared at me like she was trying to read my mind. “Don Hall owns a hardware store downtown. He had a daughter a couple of years younger than me. Looked a lot like Emma.”

  “What did Emma think about that spell book?”

  “She didn’t get involved in the arguments, if that’s what you want to know. Emma takes care of business. Not a lot of wasted motion or dreaming in that girl. Lia, on the other hand, always had her head in the clouds. I remember her asking if there really were spells that could affect the future, like a love spell or a happiness spell. I told her that planting a seed and watering it was the best spell I’d ever seen for that sort of thing.”

  On our way back to town, Steven asked, “Well, what do you think?”

  “What she said about that spell book makes a lot of sense.”

  “Who is Rebecca Hall?”

  “Emma’s mother. I’m pretty sure Brett Kavanaugh was her father.”

  “You don’t think Helen Donnelly is our killer, do you?”

  “Do you?”

  “Not for Ophelia. But, from what I’ve heard, half the town had a motiv
e to kill Kavanaugh, simply because he was an ass, if not for any other reason.”

  Chapter 33

  I thought I had it all put together, but proof was lacking. Possession of the spell book wouldn’t mean much to the police, since it wasn’t part of their investigation. Kelly and I had unearthed references to it, and tied it to Brett Kavanaugh’s trip to London and the murder of Harold Meriweather. But even if it was found, no one had proof it was stolen.

  Other than Helen Donnelly and Corey Lindsay, no one alive even admitted to having seen the book. Corey had a major reason to deny everything he’d told me, including about Ophelia’s possession of the book and how she obtained it.

  Five murders, and as far as I could figure out, four murderers. Maybe three, depending on whether I was willing to accept Corey’s story as truthful. My theory of a daisy chain looked more accurate all the time.

  And then there was the nitroglycerine hung on my front door. Ophelia had some alchemical talent, but Corey was working on a PhD in the field. Or, it could have been compounded by someone with no magical talent at all. Poisons and explosives were like that.

  Over the next few days after Ophelia’s death, I conducted an inventory of poisonous plants and toxins in the labs under my control. If I were the murderer, I might consider poisoning the local pain-in-the-neck when nitro didn’t work. The monkshood wasn’t the only deadly thing we grew in the herb garden. I made a note to myself to suggest isolating such plants from beneficial ones when we planted in the spring. And keeping track of them.

  One evening after dinner, I finished washing the dishes and came out into the darkening main room of my apartment. Looking through the windows overlooking the garden, I saw the light briefly come on through the open door of my lab, and then the door shut.

  The only people who had a key to that lab were Steven, Emma, and I. Everyone else had either quit, died, or both. Normally when Steve came around at odd hours, he’d stop in for a drink.