Doyle Times Police Blotter, Sunday, May 19th
Hangry Customers: An attendant at the Gas n’ Stop reported a fight between two customers over the last bag of tortilla chips on Saturday, May 18th, at 7:38 PM.
My pickup skidded to a halt on the highway’s shoulder. A low-hanging pine branch swayed, brushing the hood.
Straight-armed, I clenched the wheel.
A pinecone thudded onto the hood and bounced to the ground.
I winced and exhaled slowly, my heart thudding in my ears.
A magical attack.
The Black Lodge had tried to take over my pickup.
And I had no idea how I’d regained control.
I’d like to think the protection I set every morning had kicked in. I’d like to think my earth magic had wrenched the truck back under my control. I’d like to think the attack hadn’t happened, I’d imagined it.
But I thought none of these things.
I pounded one fist on the wheel. “Damn those witches!”
A siren blatted, and my gaze flicked to the rearview mirror.
A sheriff’s SUV coasted to a halt behind my F-150.
Terrific. I swallowed, rummaged in my glove compartment for insurance and registration.
Deputy Ben Daley walked along the shoulder to me. The beefy man was middle aged, with a paunch around his middle. Ben Daley? What were the odds the guy who’d pull me over was also the deputy who’d had a beef with John Marsh? Was the universe working in my favor or against me?
I pasted on a smile. “Hello, officer.”
“License and registration.” His broad face was expressionless behind his mirrored sunglasses.
I handed him my documents, and my shoulders curved inward. Sure, he liked my coffee. But I didn’t think he’d give me any java driving credits.
“Were you texting and driving?” He looked up from my paperwork and glanced at my phone, clamped to my pickup’s A/C vents.
“No,” I squeaked. “I’m not sure what happened. I think I might have hit a rock.”
“I didn’t see any obstructions in the road.”
This was where it would be handy to witch something into the road and prove my point. Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to do that. Also, another car might crash into the stone, and that would be bad.
“I saw you pass me earlier,” he said, “you were in the middle of the road.”
“That was you? I moved over to give you space.”
“Have you been drinking?”
“Not yet.”
He looked at me, and his forehead puckered.
“I’m sorry.” I hesitated. “It was a bad joke, especially after what happened to Deputy Marsh.”
“Marsh wasn’t drinking,” he said sharply.
“I know. I mean, I assumed. I mean, traffic accidents aren’t funny. Neither is drinking and driving.”
His graying brows sloped downward.
“I know his wife and sister-in-law,” I said in a low voice. “I’ve seen how this has affected them. They’re devastated.”
His expression hardened. “I’ll bet,” he muttered.
What did that mean?
Another sheriff’s SUV pulled up. Connor Hernandez stepped out. He adjusted his hat over his thick, dark hair, and walked to the F-150. “Hey, Ben. What’s happening?”
“Bad driving,” he said.
“I think I hit a rock,” I said. “Then my brakes went funny.”
“There was no rock,” Daley said.
“Maybe when I hit it, it moved, skidded off the road.” It could have happened.
Connor nodded solemnly, but his brown eyes twinkled. “That explains the skid marks back there.”
I relaxed slightly. Was Lenore’s boyfriend about to do me a solid?
The older deputy shot him an exasperated look. “Since when did you become an expert in traffic accidents?”
“Since never, but I’ve worked a few.” He nodded to my truck. “Funny brakes? Mind if I take a look inside?”
“Go ahead.” Hoping he knew what he was doing, I unlocked the hood. It clunked open.
Connor lifted the hood higher and disappeared behind it.
Daley’s lips curled, his nostrils flaring. He walked around the front of my truck. “I can handle this,” he said in a low, hard voice.
“Sure,” Connor said, “but I’m here. The regs say if another deputy is in the area, to stop and assist.”
Daley grunted. “McCourt’s been all about those rules and regs lately.”
“Yeah. Well. You know what’s going on.”
“People are losing their minds. You hear about the fight at the Gas n’ Stop last night?”
I leaned closer, straining to hear more.
“Over a bag of chips, wasn’t it?” Connor asked.
“Idiots.”
Connor came to my window. “Your power steering fluid is low,” he said loudly. “That could cause you to lose some control. You should add fluid ASAP.”
Ben Daley scowled.
Whoa. There really had been a technical problem? Or was he covering for me on Lenore’s behalf? “Thanks, Deputy Hernandez.”
“You know,” Connor said, “I think I’ve got some fluid in my trunk. Just a minute.”
He walked to his SUV and returned with a cannister. Connor leaned inside my open hood. A few minutes later, he slammed down my hood and grinned.
Daley’s expression was thunderous.
“You’re good to go,” Connor said. “You might want to have a mechanic check it out though, see if there’s a leak.”
My muscles unbunched. “I will,” I said. “Right away. Thanks.”
Daley handed my license and other papers through the window. “Get your truck checked.” He stomped to his SUV, the gravel crunching beneath his heavy boots.
“It’s been a rough week for us all,” Connor said apologetically. He glanced at his departing colleague.
“I know,” I said. “About that steering fluid—”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s on the house.”
Daley’s SUV spat gravel. The car roared down the highway.
Connor touched the brim of his hat and grinned. “Have a good day, Ms. Bonheim.” He strolled to his SUV.
“But…” My hands throttled the wheel. Never mind. I could ask him later about the steering fluid.
I started my pickup, glancing in the rearview mirror.
Connor’s SUV turned on the highway and vanished in the opposite direction.
Had the accident been mechanical and not magical? The pines blurred, my gaze clouding. But I’d felt the dark magic, that ruthless freezing energy.
If the Lodge could magically give me mechanical problems, they could have somehow damaged John Marsh’s brake line. Was his murder magic, mundane, or both?
I drove on. Slowly.
Oaks dotted the rolling green hills along the highway to Angels Camp. I cruised down its main street, lined with antique shops and frog statues — the latter a tribute to a Mark Twain story. I felt right at home. The town’s Gold Rush history and architecture were a lot like Doyle’s. Minus fairies.
It was still a little early for drinking, but it had to be five o’clock in some part of the world. I parked and walked inside a dimly lit steakhouse.
Hermia slumped at the broad, wooden bar, a polka-dot scarf around her dirty-blond hair. My friend was a more dynamic version of her sister, but her hands were as work roughened, her red nail polish chipped. She’d once told me she wore polish to hide the grease she could never get from beneath her nails. But I suspect she wore it to enhance her fifties pin-up girl vibe.
This Sunday she wore an old-fashioned blue mechanic’s suit. Ignoring the beer in front of her, she fiddled with the remains of a toy truck.
“Hey, girl.” I gave her a quick hug and sat on a red-leather barstool. The steakhouse had a cowboy atmosphere, complete with longhorn horns above the barn. “Another sacrifice to the cause of robotics?” I asked. In her garage at home, Hermia’s shelves were lined with steampunk robots made out of old mechanized toys.
“I can use its engine for something else.” She smiled briefly. “And the kids at that place Gertrude volunteers love them. Thanks for meeting me. I needed to get out of the house.” Her eyes were red, and pink tinged the tip of her nose.
My throat squeezed. She must be worried sick about her sister. Hand hidden at my side, I gestured, flooding my heart with joy. I willed a quick happiness spell toward Hermia, and nothing blocked me, nothing shook. So, my theory was probably right – I was only blocked when I used magic against the Black Lodge.
“What can I do to help?” I asked.
“You’re doing it. I just need to get out of my head.” Hermia unclipped the tiny engine and gave a ragged sigh. “I know the whole alchemical philosopher’s stone and eternal life thing is just a metaphor. But I wish it were true.”
I nodded. Hermia also studied alchemy, a baffling magical science that I didn’t understand at all. I’d spent many an evening in her garage, listening to her expound on the true meaning of turning lead into gold. But alchemy was a branch of magic, one of the many things that had bound our friendship.
“I suspect alchemy’s more than a metaphor,” I said.
“Right. Transformation. Like John has been transformed, the ultimate, final transformation.” She laughed bitterly. “Soon he’ll be worm food. And now…” She stared at her reflection in the mirror behind the bar. “He’s stuck on a coroner’s slab.”
I looked away. “The coroner hasn’t released the body yet?”
She shook her head and blinked rapidly. “No.” She cleared her throat. “Not yet. They told Gertrude his brake lines were cut, but it can’t be true. He would have noticed something was wrong with the brakes as soon as he left his driveway.”
“Maybe he didn’t realize how bad things were?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense.” She bit her plump, bottom lip, scraping off a fleck of carmine lipstick. “Unless...”
I leaned closer. “Unless what?”
An impossibly tall waiter appeared in front of me. “Can I get you anything, or do you need more time to decide?” he asked in a deep baritone.
I ordered a beer, and he ambled to the other end of the bar.
Hermia fiddled with the tiny engine.
“You were saying?” I prompted.
“What? Oh. The brake lines. I guess… Unless whoever did it got really lucky.”
“How so?”
The bartender slid a beer in front of me, and I smiled a thanks.
She pocketed the engine. “If they cut partway through so the lines snapped on the mountain road. But what are the odds of timing that right?”
“If they did cut only partway through, how long would it take for them to snap?”
“Who knows? That’s the thing. It’s not like you see in the movies. The odds of making the brakes go out at just the right time are infinitesimally small.” She picked at her nails.
“But someone cut the line.” And Hermia was a mechanic. I twisted on the barstool, ugly suspicion snaking inside me. Was she telling me this to make herself look like less of a suspect? But was she a suspect? I couldn’t imagine any reason she’d want her brother-in-law dead. Unless what Orlando had said about abuse had been true.
“It doesn’t make sense,” she muttered.
I drew a slow breath. Time to bite the bullet. “I heard there was some trouble between John and Ophelia.”
She turned her head and stared at me.
“That he was abusive.”
“Bull,” she said shortly. “Who told you that?”
“Orlando.”
Red flushed her face. “He’ll say anything, believe anything to make John look bad. This is blaming the victim. John’s dead.”
“I know—”
“And John’s not around to defend himself.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” I paused. “And I’m glad to hear it wasn’t true.”
She looked at the bottles on the glass shelves behind the bar. We sipped our beers.
“Something odd happened to my truck today,” I said conversationally. “It swerved for no reason. I lost control and nearly ended up in a ditch. A cop came to my rescue. Well, two cops, though one wanted to give me a ticket.”
“And the other?” she asked dully.
“He checked under the hood and said the problem was low power steering fluid.”
She frowned. Hermia might still be annoyed with me, but she could never resist a mechanical problem. “Did you refill the reservoir?”
“He did.”
“Of course he did.” She rolled her eyes. “Have you ever done the maintenance on your own truck?”
“Sure I have.” I mean, I must have at some point, though I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been to a garage. But my F-150 worked pretty well.
“But it’s easier if you can get some random hot guy to deal with it for you.”
I tapped my foot on the bar’s brass rest. She knew I was with Brayden. There may have been a time when I’d played the field, but that was over. “No random hot guys, thanks. I’ve got Brayden now.”
“And true love conquers all, yadda yadda yadda.” Her face spasmed with pain. She smiled quickly to cover it. “You should bring your pickup in to my garage.”
“The deputy – my sister’s boyfriend – said much the same thing.”
She had the grace to wince. Accusing me of flirting was one thing, but with my sister’s boyfriend? No way. Uh uh.
“But could low fluid make me lose control like that?” I continued.
“Did you notice the steering wheel stiffening up at all before you lost control?”
“No. It happened suddenly.”
“Let’s take a look.” She slid off the barstool and nodded to the bartender. “We’ll be right back.”
I followed her outside and to my F-150. She unlatched the hood. Standing on the bumper, she peered inside and fiddled around. Hermia pulled a rag from the rear pocket of her overalls and checked the dipstick. She frowned. “You said he put new fluid in this?”
“Yeah.”
“Because it’s still a bit low. You may have a leak.”
She closed the hood. “Bring it in. I’ll give you a discount.”
“I will, but… My truck was all over the road like a cheap suit.”
“Is that a mixed metaphor?”
“I don’t know why everyone is so prejudiced against mixed metaphors.” I tugged down the hem of my ruby tank. “Could low steering fluid cause me to lose control though?”
“Not like you described,” she said. “But if it was that bad, maybe you should just leave your truck here tonight. I can check it out more thoroughly tomorrow.”
“All right. Thanks.” I was ninety-nine percent sure magic had forced me off the road. But there was still that one percent, and nothing was adding up.