Doyle Times Police Blotter, Saturday, May 18th
Parking Problems: Deputies responded to a report of a suspicious vehicle stopping at mailboxes at 2:17 PM on Friday, May 17th. It was a mail truck.
My parents had warded the sheriff’s station.
There was an incident the year before your parents died. Mrs. Steinberg hadn’t given me any more answers. I still couldn’t quite believe she’d admitted to magic.
Stunned, I walked to the media cupboard in my guestroom. Crystals and tarot cards and talismans decorated its shelves. A curled photo, my parent’s wedding portrait, leaned against an amethyst geode. I plucked it from the crystal and studied the faded image, scanning it for clues and unsure what I thought I’d find.
My mother’s dress.
Princess style. A high, lace collar, as if my mom had been protecting her neck from a thirst of vampires. Billowing sleeves with wide strips of ivory ribbon at the hems. Or was it white ribbon? Was the gown’s sepia tint due to the photo’s age, or was that the actual color?
And my dad, one arm curled around mom’s waist, as if he was sneaking into the picture. He wore a brown tuxedo with a ruffled shirt. Yikes. I’m not sure if the ruffles were even styling in his time. What had he been thinking?
What had he been thinking?
Their body language was right, leaning into each other, smiling. But uncertainty tinted their eyes. Or was it fear? Was I imagining that look because I knew what was coming?
But they’d known what was coming too. Their hope had won out over experience, over reality, but only for a short time.
In the end, reality always won.
As a kid, I’d studied my mother’s wedding dress so much our aunt had finally put the photo under glass. I frowned. I couldn’t remember when it had lost its frame.
My parents stood beneath an olive tree, and there are no olives in Doyle. Where was the photo taken? There was no one I could ask. I studied the people in the background. Their heads were turned from the camera as they hurried away.
Was it magic that had brought my parents together?
All I knew for sure was it had gotten them killed.
My shoulders tightened. I wasn’t going to let that happen to anyone else I loved. Not to Brayden. Not to my sisters.
Not by magic.
But how were we supposed to fight a Black Lodge without our magic? Though my optimism spell in the coffee shop earlier seemed to have worked, it had also been super-easy. It also wasn’t important. I hadn’t been trying to find a killer or a Black Lodge…
I canted my head. Was that the trick? Were we only being blocked on Lodge-related spells?
My jaw hardened. The Black Lodge had thrown up a magical wall. Well, I was a pretty good climber.
Setting the photo aside, I pulled out candles and my pendulum. Brayden kept a map of the area in the kitchen drawer, and I dug that out too.
Though the air was still, I weighted the map with lit candles at its four corners. I shook out my hands, blew out my breath, and worked a location spell for the Black Lodge.
And nearly blew up my kitchen.
It took two hours to clean up the mess. I was wiping the blue-black counters when Brayden’s footsteps sounded on the stairs outside. The door snicked open and shut.
“I’m in here,” I called and wiped oily grit from the green subway tile backsplash.
Brayden walked into the open kitchen. He wrapped his arms around my waist and nuzzled my neck. “Mm. My woman’s in the kitchen.” He smelled faintly of sweat.
“And not cooking.” I flicked water droplets over my shoulder at him, and he laughed.
“You’re cleaning? Who are you, and what have you done with my girlfriend?”
“I clean,” I said, defensive.
“You keep Ground spotless.”
“There’s an implied criticism in there that I am choosing to ignore.” I turned in his arms, and he kissed me.
“Besides,” I murmured. “There are always better things to do than cleaning.”
He picked up my parents’ wedding photo, discarded on a nearby cutting board. “What’s this?”
“My parents wedding picture.”
“From the amethyst. Yeah. I haven’t seen any other pictures of them.”
“Haven’t got any,” I said more casually than I felt. I was still sorting through the feelings Mrs. Steinberg’s revelation had stirred up. “I still can’t believe that tux.”
He studied the photo for a long moment. “Alicia and I had a big wedding,” he said in a low voice. Brayden didn’t meet my gaze. “I wouldn’t want to do that again.”
My heart constricted. Brayden was a widower. Though there’d been problems in their marriage before she’d died, Alicia would always have a part of his heart. “Get married?” I asked too lightly.
“Have a big, formal wedding. I’d rather just elope.”
“Me too. Who wants all that stress? You wouldn’t believe how planned Karin’s wedding was — and she was still a mess on the big day. Weddings are supposed to be fun,” I blundered on. “And why are we talking about weddings?”
He set down the photo and smiled. “Didn’t you say something about better things?”
And yes, we did find better things to do.
*****
I was never a huge fan of taking orders. It’s why I was my own boss. And Mrs. Steinberg’s pronouncements were never super reliable. So, the next morning, after Brayden had left for work, I skimmed the morning paper. The colonel’s death was page three.
Retired Air Force Colonel Theodore Fitzgerald passed away of a heart attack in his Doyle home on Saturday. Fitzgerald was 68.
Friends and neighbors who knew Fitzgerald took to Facebook to express condolences and memories of the colonel.
"He was an incredibly civic-minded man, and quite active in the Historical Society,” Dora Parks said in a post on Facebook on Sunday.
"He had a really unique throw when bowling," Ron Graham said in a Facebook post. “He got a strike nearly every time.”
No information about funeral services have been made available yet. Collins-VanKirk Funeral Home is handling the arrangements.
So Mrs. Steinberg had been right. This wasn’t my business, because it had been a heart attack, not murder.
I tapped my fingers on the table. But could his death have been due to magic? I needed to make certain. And I needed to learn more about that symbol at Deputy Marsh’s crash site.
My fingers skimmed across my laptop’s keyboard. Three interlocking triangles turned out to be a Norse symbol. But the symbol, Valknut had several different meanings. It could mean the Norse god Odin and the afterlife. Or it could represent the connectedness of the nine Viking worlds. Or it could be a ward against evil. I liked the last one best, but it hadn’t done much good for Deputy Marsh.
This is why I usually left the research to Lenore and Karin.
Snapping my laptop shut, I tied my hair into a ponytail. I stepped into my hiking boots and walked outside and into the alley. I congratulated myself for dressing for the heat in my fav ruby tank top and black shorts. The morning was warming, promising another hot, spring day.
I walked down Main Street but didn’t recognize a single soul. My only fellow wanderers were tourists. Where were all the locals?
Worry wriggled in my gut, and I sped my pace, turning down residential streets. Staid Victorians sat side-by-side with funky cabins sporting rainbow windsocks and aluminum whirligigs.
I found the trailhead on Grizzly Drive and started hiking.
The trail to the colonel’s house wound up a hill and into thick pines, before dropping toward Wits’ End. Sunlight glinted off the fake UFO in the B&B’s shingled roof, and I grinned. Aliens. Ha.
A spring breeze rustled the pine boughs, drying the sweat on my arms. The sun heated my bare shoulders. I stretched, enjoying the alpine air against my skin.
Leaving the trail, I descended the hill. Loose earth skidded beneath my hiking boots. I grabbed a pine branch to steady myself and drew a slow breath. I’d nearly ripped my jeans at the crash site, and I didn’t want to lose these shorts. I liked these shorts.
About a hundred feet from the colonel’s trim backyard, I stopped beneath a pine. So far, my magic had only gone haywire when I’d tried to use it against the Black Lodge. Ergo, if I was able to do magic at the colonel’s, his death wasn’t connected to the Lodge.
At least I hoped that was how it worked.
I sat cross-legged on the ground and rested my hands on my knees, closed my eyes. Centering myself, I cast an extra boost of protection, expanding and clearing my aura. I felt a warm column of light flow through me into the earth. It raced past tree roots and stones and wrapped around a massive quartz crystal.
The forest stilled, the barriers between it and me dissolving. I bent my head.
The tree roots whispered, their language slow and steady. Small creatures emerged from the ground, their tails and whiskers twitching. A crow fluttered on a branch. Sunlight gilded the treetops and mountain peaks.
And then I was the earth, the trees, the stones. The borders of my being fell away completely in a haze of joyful warmth.
“Um, Jayce?”
My eyes flashed open. I toppled sideways and slammed one palm on the needle-strewn ground.
Lenore’s boyfriend, Connor Hernandez, frowned down at me. “I guess you were um, working on something, but we’re searching the area.” He adjusted the wide-brimmed deputy’s hat shading his olive skin.
“Searching? We?” Cheeks hot, I struggled to my feet. Good thing I hadn’t tried this ritual skyclad. Not that I had anything against running naked through the woods, but not in the broad daylight.
“I’m surprised you didn’t hear us,” Connor said. Wrinkles sprouted from the corners of his deep-brown eyes.
I was surprised I hadn’t sensed the deputies. I’d been so blissed out, I’d forgotten why I’d come here — to feel for dark magic. “What’s going on?” I stood on my toes, flexing to exorcise the crawling-ant numbness in my legs. How long had I been sitting there?
He motioned down the hill, toward the B&B. Beside the gazebo in its rose garden, one deputy shouted to another.
“Has something happened at Susan’s?” I asked, alarmed. “Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. We’re just doing some wrap-up work on the colonel’s death. Since he lived next door to Wits’ End, her yard is fair game.”
Poor Susan. She was so orderly, she must be freaking out with all the cops tromping around her garden. “The newspaper said the colonel’s death was due to natural causes.”
“Looks that way,” he said. “But the sheriff likes to be thorough.”
So did I. “Sure, but that seems a little too thorough.”
He exhaled gustily. “It’s because of all the calls we’ve been getting.”
“About the colonel?”
“About the colonel working for the Air Force, some say at Area 51. You know, where people think the military keeps crashed UFOs?” He laughed half-heartedly.
“And people are calling because…?”
“They think he was killed by aliens.”
I glanced toward the fake UFO in Susan’s shingled roof. “Oh boy.”
“Yeah. The sheriff thinks if the town sees us going the extra mile and coming up with natural causes, they’ll be more likely to believe it. What are you doing here?”
“Just being thorough.” I waved toward the colonel’s house.
He glanced down the hill at the uniformed men roaming Susan’s garden. “Did you find anything?”
“Nope. Not a thing. The colonel’s murder is magic free.”
His chiseled face creased. “That’s good, since everything seems clear on the non-magical side too.” He hesitated. “Lenore told me what you think about Deputy Marsh’s accident.”
“What I think? Then Lenore doesn’t think it?”
“No, she’s worried his death has to do with that book too.” He rested his broad hands on his belt, weighted with a weapon, flashlight, cuffs, and other tools of his trade. “It might at that. His brake line was cut. It was murder.”
“Oh.” Hell. “Does Gertrude know?”
“Not yet. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell her.” He shifted his weight. “The sheriff’s looking at his death closely. Real closely. Marsh was one of ours.”
“I used to go to their house for game nights,” I said sadly. “I never sensed any magic there, but… Did you hear anything? Was John involved in magic at all? In the occult?”
“No,” he exploded. More quietly, he said, “No. Look, I know where you’re going with this, but you’re wrong. Marsh was a straight arrow. He’s not working for this Black Lodge. John never would have betrayed the sheriff, or his duty.”
“I heard he narced on a fellow officer who worked in the evidence room.”
A crow shot from the pine above us. Dried needles floated to the sloping ground.
Connor’s face tightened. “On Ben Daley. Look, I’ve known Ben since forever. He’s a good guy, but he’s getting old. He’s going to retire next year. Misplacing that evidence was a mistake, that’s all. And that’s got nothing to do with magic.”
Unless Ben had been trying to get the book to the Black Lodge. How much would they pay for it? And how easy would it be to bribe an overworked, overtired cop on the verge of retirement?
I shook my head. I knew Ben from Ground. He was gruff and unsmiling, but I’d never gotten bad vibes off him.
“But it doesn’t matter anymore,” he said. “The book’s not in evidence.”
“Did someone claim it?” I asked.
“No. The sheriff’s keeping it.”
“Sheriff McCourt?” I frowned. “Why?”
“Because someone tried to steal it from evidence last winter. Remember?”
I remembered, and I drew my mouth into a straight line. I also remembered every odd thing the sheriff had ever said to me. She’d once hinted that she knew about the magic in Doyle. And then there were those wards on her station. Did she know about them? “When did she move it?”
“On Saturday,” he continued.
“The day after Deputy Marsh died.”
“She’s not stupid,” he said.
“No, she’s not. And since there’s no magic here, I’ll leave the alien-rumor suppression in your capable hands.”
Mrs. Steinberg was right about one thing. I needed to focus if I was going to solve this fast and keep my sisters and Brayden safe. That meant I could leave the colonel’s death to the pros, especially if it was natural.
“Thanks for that,” he said wryly. Connor removed his hat and swept his hands over his near-black hair. “The sheriff’s on the warpath over Marsh. When I say she’s looking closely, I mean she’s looking personally into his death.”
“Well, sure she is. It was murder.” And the fact that she’d removed the book from the evidence room meant she’d thought the two were connected. She might not believe in Black Lodges, but she believed in bad guys.
But would a magical society cut a brake line? It seemed a little… prosaic.
He gave me a look. “The point is, if she catches you nosing around, she’ll arrest you for interfering in an investigation.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Where had I heard that before?
“I’m serious,” he said sharply. “She’s dealing with a suspicious death, a town that sees little green men behind every mailbox, and Susan Witsend...” He shook his dark head and looked toward the Victorian B&B. “I don’t know what it is with those two, but Susan really knows how to push the sheriff’s buttons.”
Someone shouted Connor’s name, and he glanced over his shoulder at the homes below.
“You’d better get out of here,” he said to me.
“I will. See you around.” I nodded and made my way up the wooded hill. The old sheriff hadn’t been the only one who believed in magic. I had good reason to believe the current one did too. She’d keep that book safe.
I hoped.