While I’d been at the police station, Erin had taken refuge in her lab. She appeared to be lost in thought. Lost deep.
“Hey. How are you?” I asked.
She roused herself and gave me half a smile. “Okay.”
“You had some scrapes and bumps. Do you need anything for those?”
“I heal quickly. It’s hard to use magic on yourself but I don’t need it. I’m fine.”
Upon inspection, the bump on her head was almost gone and the scrapes on her arm had all but vanished.
“How about you?” she asked. “Any other complaints?”
I had a few, where I’d landed on the sidewalk. “Only that we didn’t get to have lunch.”
“Mmm,” she replied.
“Would you show me how to use magic?”
She took a deep breath. “I guess that is my duty now, isn’t it,” she said. “As your undesired helpmeet.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. I didn’t . . .” I hated sounding defensive. “You don’t have to do anything. Just tell me who else to talk to and I’ll . . .”
“No, no,” she stopped me. She put her hand on my arm for a moment. “I didn’t mean anything against you. It’s this whole . . .”
“Deception thing?”
“Yeah.”
“I understand. Look. How about you come over to my house, okay? Max will make a great dinner for us and we can talk like we thought we would at lunch. There won’t be any truck-driving assassins. You can teach me to make a nickel float in the air or something.”
Erin smiled and it was two halves this time. “Okay. Dinner’s on you. Lesson’s on me.”
“Sounds good.”
She got serious again. “What happened with the guy in the truck?”
“You’ll find that very interesting. I’ll tell you after dinner. I have something else to show you and I think they may be related.” I wiggled my eyebrows. “The plot will thicken.”
Erin rolled her eyes just enough to make it cute. “So dumb.”
* * *
I was waiting at home, nervous like a teenage kid pacing around before a date with the prom queen. Which this wasn’t. Not a date. Just two professionals, talking business over dinner, who were married. Why be nervous? The phone rang. Kapok.
“How did you know?” No graciousness at all. Not a drop from this guy.
“Hello, lieutenant.” I said.
“How did you know about the tattoo?”
“Just a hunch, Kapok.”
“Hunch. Baloney,” he replied.
“I prefer malarkey over baloney. Except on a sandwich. Then it’s the other way around.”
Kapok ignored me. “What’s going on? What do you know about this mess? Who is this guy?”
“Never met him before today. But I’ll make a deal with you. I have some leads I want to follow. If they pan out, I’ll give you a heads up and the arrest will be all yours.”
“Why not tell me now?”
“Wouldn’t want to waste the time and resources of the City of Miami Police Department on baloney.”
Even over the phone I could hear Kapok licking his lips while he took a minute to think it over.
“This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” I said.
“Screw your friendship. I expect you to tell me everything you know when you know it.”
Kapok would have to get in line behind Chief Cuevas and Milly Mallondyke’s father.
“It’s a deal, detective. So what happened with Mr. Charles Mayer?”
Kapok coughed it all up like a cat with a hairball.
* * *
“This is really beautiful,” Erin said. She was walking around the house checking the layout and the decorations. She’d kicked off her shoes the second she’d come through the door and I realized I had never seen her without heels. She was still tall and gorgeous. She’d changed into a deep maroon summer dress before coming over. I wore jeans and a pullover.
I’d told her it was the Alder King’s house by mortgage, but I had done the interior design, and the furniture and artwork were mine. I was pleased she thought the place was beautiful.
I followed her into the great room. The piano remained unrepaired.
“Ooo,” she said. She ran her fingers into the gouges on the piano. “Madrasceartán?”
“Yep. Madeira-is-certain. Whatever you said.”
Erin laughed and it was musical. “You’ll need to learn how to pronounce words precisely if you expect to cast a spell,” she said.
“Then I will have to work on that.”
She lifted the fallboard and ran her fingers down the keys, but not hard enough to make a note. I could still hear the whispering sound of her skin caressing the keyboard.
“Do you play?” she asked.
“But of course,” I replied.
I sat down on the bench and pretended to crack my knuckles. “Name a song. Any song at all.”
She thought for a moment and said, “‘Claire de Lune.’”
I placed my hands on the keyboard. I closed my eyes and tilted my head back and struck a key, sounding a single note. “There you go. Gimme another one. I can play the first note of anything. As long I get to choose the key it’s in.”
Erin laughed again. “So you’re a poser.”
“I am. I really am.”
Then I played. The selection included a lot of runs up and down the keyboard and the music flowed with a lyrical style that was satisfying to play. After the first couple of minutes Erin sat down on the bench. By the time I finished the piece, she had her head on my shoulder. The world was a bright and shining place.
“What was that?” she asked.
“Beethoven. Piano Sonata Number 21. Third Movement. I picked it because when I’m not a poser I’m a shameless show off.”
She was quiet for a minute. Then, “How long have we known each other, Got?”
“Four years. At least that’s when I remember meeting you. It was when I was on the force. Popsicle Killer case.”
“Oh. I guess I didn’t notice you then. I just remember when you got in hot water with the Chief. About six months before you quit. Or were told to quit.”
“Not my finest hour,” I said.
“Everyone at the station knows you were railroaded out. And now you’re a mysterious private investigator. Like Sam Spade.”
“Ah. Now we’re back to me being a poser,” I said. She smiled. “Hey, I have a question for you.”
She lifted her head off my shoulder and I instantly wished she would put in back. “All right,” she replied.
“Since we’re allergic to steel, what do you use for tools in the lab?”
“Sterling silver,” she answered. “It’s just the iron in the steel that affects the Fae. Iron weapons can make wounds that won’t heal in our folk. So my instruments are sterling silver. It costs a lot more but there’s no iron. Just silver and copper. A dwarf makes them for me.”
“A dwarf? As in a short guy or an actual . . .”
“Dwarf. Yeah. A race of people whose stature is naturally under five feet tall, just like in the movies. Impeccable craftsmanship. Great beards.”
Sandretta appeared at the entry for the dining room. She stepped softly, not wanting to break the moment, and she waited until both Erin and I noticed her before she gave us a nod and said, “Dinner is ready.”
“Okay. Dinner and then magic,” I said.
I followed Erin and made sure she was seated comfortably. The place settings were silver—always had been—and it occurred to me now that there was a reason for that. Max had gone Italian since we hadn’t been able to have an Italian meal earlier in the day. Pasta primavera followed by a saltimbocca, which was a veal dish with sage and prosciutto di parma. Tender and flavorful enough to put any Robaccio chef to shame. This was served with a Barbaresco wine, perfectly matched. There was no wine with dessert, which was probably smart, but there was sparkling San Pellegrino along with some fruit and cheese and sweet little cannoli Max had made.
During dinner we had managed to avoid the subject of work until the cannoli.
“So what happened with the guy in the truck?” Erin finally asked.
“He was enchanted,” I said. “He was convinced that I was somehow involved in the death of his daughter. He said he’d been trying to kill me out of vengeance. He confessed to shooting at me through the window of my office. The police found a sniper rifle in the back of his truck.”
“What had him so convinced?” Erin asked.
“He had some photos with him. They looked blank to me. To him, however, they looked like photos of me and his daughter.” I didn’t tell her what Mayer had accused me of doing. “He also had a tattoo on the back of his neck. I think it was magic. They washed it off and now he’s a completely different person.”
“They don’t think it was magic, do they?”
“I’ve already got the detective in charge thinking that there’s some kind of drug responsible.”
“Okay. Maybe we can work with that,” Erin said. “People are rather blind to magic. They’ll be more likely to accept that story.”
“I thought they might. They’re holding Mayer overnight. I’m going to see him again in the morning.”
“Did he really have a daughter?” Erin asked.
“I checked into it. He had a daughter all right. She died about a year ago of a drug overdose. Sad story.”
“The best deceptions are based on fact,” Erin said. “Someone knew about this poor man and used the tragic events of his actual past to turn him against you.”
“That’s my guess.”
“Too bad we don’t know who did this to him. That’s the person we need to find. That’s the person responsible for almost killing us.”
“Ah. But I do have a connection.” Luck the Triumphant. That’s me.
I led Erin from the table to the couch. Sandretta brought out coffee while I retrieved the napkin and the bullet casing in the baggie. I showed her the casing first. “We probably don’t even need this anymore, now that we have Mayer in custody. But this should match the bullet I brought in.”
I held up the folded napkin. “This is a little more interesting. I don’t find it agreeable to look at and I’m guessing you won’t either.” I unfolded the cloth.
As before, the drawing was alive. Erin’s reaction was quick. “Where did you find that?”
“It was on the back of Barry Mallondyke’s neck. I copied this from the medical examiner’s report.”
Erin looked more closely. “I must have missed seeing this when the report was filed.”
“It was faded. The tattoo was temporary and was gone when the body was washed. I copied it because it was the only thing that jumped out at me. The Alder King’s liondog placed a sigil on my forehead and here was this on Mallondyke. Max told me it would allow the caster to control him.”
“It would.” Erin went back to the table and grabbed a knife. She brought it back and cut through the circle of the drawing. The symbol almost gave a sigh and the lines coalesced. It was just a drawing now.
“If you’d put a little power into it, that would have been a working spell,” she said. “You were playing with fire, Got.”
“I didn’t know,” I said. Lame.
“Lucky for you, you’ve got me,” she replied. “Which way to the kitchen?” I led her there. The kitchen was already immaculately clean after the dinner Max had made. Everything was put away and there was no sign that a culinary artist had been at work.
We found some matches and burned the napkin in the sink. We watched the flame consume the paper, then we washed the ashes down the sink and the design was no more.
Erin put a soft hand on my arm and said, “I think it’s time for that magic lesson.”