Candy cane conspiracy, p.6
Candy Cane Conspiracy, page 6
“To be fair, I’m guessing a bit about Scott and Devon’s places.” I frowned. “And like you mentioned earlier, we need to check out Devon’s apartment at some point.”
“We could stop by before we hit the funeral home.”
I laughed. “You’re really not worried about poor Miles, are you?”
“Not a bit.”
Sylvester was right. Miles was probably toiling away on his laptop and hadn’t given two thoughts to our arrival time. Especially if there was a printer there for him to use. He really was weird about having everything on paper. As bad as my great-aunt Griselda, who was several generations removed from Miles.
“Let’s get this over with, and then we can check out Devon.” A thought occurred. A very obvious one, now that I’d spent several hours in Sylvester’s company. “You’ve been putting off the funeral home visit, because you thought I’d freak out over a dead body.”
“Not exactly.”
I almost laughed when he didn’t elaborate, but I was too annoyed. Using that overbright tone that he had to be getting tired of, I said, “What exactly where you thinking, Sylvester?”
His lips twitched, but he was smart enough not to laugh. Not that I’d tried hard to mask my annoyance. “I thought that Miles had an office, the body wasn’t going anywhere, a small delay wouldn’t affect any evidence on the body, and you’d benefit from a brief period of acclimation.”
“Acclimation,” I repeated, confused.
“Unless you’ve got a secret identity hidden from Bastian, I understand that you’ve spent the months since we last met conducting research for All Things Magical and Bumpy Things in the Night, and then working for Bastian as a barista.”
“You asked Bastian about me.”
“Of course.”
Of course? Of course why?
Because he wanted to know what happened to that weird carrot-headed witch who’d interviewed him over a year ago?
Or because what I’d perceived as flirtation at the time actually had been, and he was interested?
But this time I didn’t ask him to clarify.
I wasn’t so sure I really wanted to know.
Instead, I just said, “Thank you. I’m good now.”
And I was. I had acclimated, oddly enough. I’d spent the last few hours shifting my mindset. A murder investigation had become a murder investigation. All of my emotional energy had initially been focused on the death of a local witch, and now I was focused on solving the puzzle that was his murder. And not just the whodunit aspect, but why? Why Devon? Why a candy cane murder weapon? Why now? Why murder?
Those questions consumed the bulk of my mental resources, so there wasn’t time to mourn the death of a man I hadn’t known or to despair over the brutality of the act.
And if I was honest with myself—which I tried to be…most of the time—my thoughts were also occupied with Sylvester.
I’d volunteered to assist with the investigation because of him. Because I wanted to know more about him. What he’d been doing the last few months (other than developing an exchange program for investigators), and why he was here of all places (though apparently, that had something to do with me).
Also, I just wanted to spend time with him. I’d thought about him and his interview several times in the intervening months.
Did I use the remainder of the drive to quiz him on those burning questions? What had he been up to? Why had he come here? What did I have to do with his choice?
No, I did not.
I sat next to him in silence.
There’d been a time when I hadn’t suffered so much doubt. I’d have taken half so much encouragement as Sylvester had given me and I’d have run with it.
I would have absolutely assumed that he was minimally interested in pursuing a friendship, probably more—but that was then.
Now… Now was different.
I’d lost some friends. Lost what I used to believe was my family’s unconditional support—except for Aunt Griselda. She was always there for me. Been slowly but surely shunted to the periphery of Austin’s witch community.
In summary, I’d let the people around me impact how I saw myself. I hadn’t realized how much until now.
Maybe I hadn’t just been running from the critters camped on my doorstep in Austin. Maybe I’d been running from myself a little bit, too. The person I’d let myself become in reaction to the poor behavior of those around me.
What was the saying? Recognizing the problem was half the battle?
I hoped so, because right now, I was feeling a little ashamed.
I could do better. Be truer to myself. Trust in my choices. Trust in my magic.
I’d spent all of a few hours with Sylvester, and yet, I couldn’t help but think he had something to do with my desire to rediscover my former confidence.
He also made me long for that spark of joy I’d found in my magic. I’d let that joy be crushed by others’ opinions and actions.
The magic hadn’t changed. It was still alive and sparkling inside me.
“Are you okay?” Sylvester asked after my silence stretched into several minutes.
I’d wanted to hug him earlier but had held back. So now, in lieu of that hug, I patted his shoulder. “I think so. Thanks for asking.”
9
The funeral home was just a funeral home.
The regular, nonmagical variety. I forgot how small Boise was in comparison to Austin. Austin had a large enough magical population to have dedicated facilities for burying magical folk.
Not so Boise. There were apparently a few funeral homes in the area run by magical people, but their clientele was of the magical and nonmagical variety. How stressful for the funeral directors. Not only did they need to understand and comply with every magical creature’s preferred sort of service but they had to learn all the human varieties as well.
And no wonder Miles had been tasked with babysitting the body, what with nonmagical folk wandering through the facility. Although, I suppose supervision of the corpse would have been necessary in a dedicated magical funeral home, too, because this was a criminal case.
Honestly, it was all new. It wasn’t as if I’d been involved in a murder investigation when I’d lived in Austin. The most daring thing I’d done there had been to interview Sylvester and a few other “bumpy things” for Magical and Bumpy.
“How are you doing?” Sylvester asked.
I’d stopped to allow a small group of people, all humans, to walk ahead of us and enter the funeral home first. Sylvester was patiently holding the door while I hovered on the threshold.
I flashed him a reassuring smile, because I wasn’t freaking out. Not at all. It was more a question of processing the experience. I entered the building. “You ask me that a lot, you know.”
As he drew level with me, he said, “My poor attempt at good communication.”
His arm brushed mine as we both stopped at the reception desk.
“I really am okay.” I bumped against him in what I hoped was a companionable way. “But thanks for asking.”
A young woman joined us after ushering the group ahead of us to another funeral home staff member. She wasn’t a witch. Actually, I wasn’t sure what she was, other than magical.
“You’re here for Mr. Simms?” She smiled, dimples popping in her cheeks. “And Miles.”
“Yes. Sylvester Wendell. I’m afraid I haven’t received my credentials yet,” Sylvester offered this information in an apologetic tone. “But Miles will vouch for me.”
Her glance slid to me.
“Oh, I’m just helping. I don’t think I get credentials.” The thought of me carrying a badge, an ICWP badge, was just too bizarre for words. “I’m Trixie,” I added.
She gave me an odd look.
“I’m Felicity.” She motioned for us to precede her through a door marked private. “Miles has been an excellent guest, and of course we’re happy to have been chosen to help Mr. Simms and his family in this difficult time.”
Someone had funeral home etiquette down pat.
I couldn’t help wondering if Felicity was an elf. It was an elvish sort of name. Charity, Prosperity, Patience—the few elves I’d met all had that sort of name. Come to think of it, I’d never met a male elf. What was the masculine version of Charity or Felicity?
I didn’t even know we had elves living in the area. Then again, Seattle and Portland were just around the corner. Cities of that size typically housed all variety of magical folk. Not too much of a stretch that we’d get some transplants here.
Felicity gestured to another door, also marked private. I opened it, expecting Miles and an office and the piles of paper that Miles was sure to have generated in the last few hours.
What I found was… “Devon Simms. Miles is sharing an office with Devon.”
Felicity looked confused. “We did exactly as instructed. Have we offended—”
She stopped when Sylvester lifted his hand. He assured her that she’d done exactly as she ought and ushered her out the door.
I, on the other hand, stood gobsmacked in the middle of the room. There was Devon, just like the enhanced memory I’d interrupted, except the real version was solid.
I stepped forward as I catalogued his appearance. Pale underneath his tan, which was likely due to his being dead and all. Expensive slacks, even more expensive shoes. A shirt that looked like it had been tailored to fit him, but likely was just the result of high-quality fabric and a muscular physique.
And the candy cane.
It was still in his chest. It was evidence, so not appropriate for Felicity to remove, but surely Miles could have. It made Devon’s form, laid out on a gurney, situated in a spare office next to an empty desk and a futon…grotesque.
And I realized Felicity was right. I was offended. Deeply offended. For Devon.
The indignity of it all was appalling.
I felt the warmth of Sylvester’s hand on my back before I realized that he’d come to stand next to me. His hand dropped away, but the warmth lingered.
Miles was watching from across the room with a concerned look. I stared back. “Don’t ask if I’m okay.”
He raised his hands defensively. “I wouldn’t. I work with you. You’re basically as okay as okay gets.”
As okay as okay gets? Not how I saw myself, but I’d worked with Miles regularly for weeks now. That opinion wasn’t coming from nowhere.
“Are you saying I’m unflappable?” I so wasn’t. Obviously. My life was a mess, so I had plenty of opportunity to flap, so to speak, and I did—even if it didn’t show.
“Pretty much. A person’s first body can take a second to process.” He scratched the scruff on his jaw that he claimed was a beard. “I still remember mine. It’s disconcerting.”
I sighed and took a step closer to Devon. “It’s not the dead body in the room. It’s the room. And the…” I waved my hand in the direction of the striped protrusion in Devon’s chest, but then paused. The candy cane was faintly glowing.
I knew it was enchanted, but that was odd. Enchantments weren’t just hanging out for all the world to see. But this glowing business? It was just there. Any human strolling by would be able to spot it.
That wasn’t how magic worked. If it was, then every human on the planet would know about it. There would be no cover-up, no great secret. We would all be revealed, living out in the open. And that simply wasn’t reality.
Seeing magic was its own sort of magic, and yet…the candy cane continued to glow in direct contradiction of that fact.
I stepped closer. It glowed brighter.
Or did it? I blinked. I inched closer, and—yes, yes it did glow brighter. With every single step closer to Devon I went, the brighter it glowed.
By the time I was standing next to the gurney, it was bright enough that it was mostly a silvery white light. I could barely make out the red strips.
I reached out my hand, because how could I not? It was just so tempting in all its glowing magic, and it was right there. I wanted to touch it.
Sylvester’s larger hand clasped mine. I hadn’t even realized he’d shadowed my advance. “Not a good idea.”
He urged me back a few steps, and suddenly I realized I’d almost contaminated evidence.
“Oh, gosh. I’m really sorry.” I bit my lip. “And this is what makes me the backup and you guys the investigators.”
Miles and Sylvester were both giving me odd looks. Odd worried looks.
“What? I didn’t touch it. No harm, no foul, right?”
Sylvester pulled me farther away, but it was Miles who stated the obvious. “Trixie, that was weird. You get that, right? The murder weapon just lit up like a party favor. It was reacting to you.”
“More specifically, your magic. Your demon hunter magic,” Sylvester added when I didn’t react.
“Creature whisperer,” I corrected him.
Then I did a little back (cha-cha-cha), forward (cha-cha-cha), back (cha-cha-cha), forward (cha-cha-cha)…
Okay, I wasn’t actually dancing, but I was doing a lot of to’ing and fro’ing trying to prove the investigators in the room wrong.
Because if they were right… What the heck?
Finally, I was convinced that they were right and stopped moving around in front of the body like a demented ballroom dancer. “Just to clarify, I didn’t murder Devon Simms.”
“No one thinks you murdered anyone.” Sylvester, who’d retired to a safe distance as I’d danced my way to a conclusion, returned to my side.
Miles joined us. “Not that I don’t have an inherent belief in your innocence, but I actually know you didn’t do it. You have an alibi.”
I perked up at that. “We have a time of death! How’d you get that? Oh, uh, and that’s awesome that I have an alibi.”
“Did you just pooh-pooh the fact that you’re alibied?”
I winced. “I love puzzles. Not the ‘why am I making a murder weapon glow’ sort of puzzle, but definitely the puzzle of who killed Devon. It was what I loved about being in IT…back when I still loved it, anyway. Also, why should I be excited about an alibi? I know I didn’t do it.” Then I smiled sweetly at him.
As for my IT career, that was no lie. I had loved it. Right up until the few complex problems I’d been assigned had faded amidst the dreary drudge of telling people to turn off their computer, turn on their computer, followed by a standard, “I’m so glad I could solve your problem.”
And, look at that. If I could stand in a room, next to a dead man, a murdered man, and reminisce about my former career, then I was calling myself acclimated.
“Time of death was yesterday evening. Sometime after seven and before eleven, so whether you want it or not, you’re alibied.” Miles gave me an encouraging smile. “You were working the late shift at Magic Beans. Would have been hard to commit murder when you were mopping floors, counting out the till, and doing all the other things closing requires.”
Since Magic Beans was open till ten on Friday and Saturday evenings and closing took at least forty minutes—assuming our patrons left promptly at ten, which they hadn’t Saturday night—and the drive out to Silver Stripe was a solid twenty minutes…
Yep, I was in the clear.
As I’d been doing the mental gymnastics of matching my schedule to the killer’s murder window, Sylvester had walked to Devon’s head. He whispered a few quiet words that I couldn’t hear, then touch his shoulder.
Eyes closed, he started to breathe more intentionally. Not that I could hear his breath, but his chest rose and fell noticeably.
At least a minute passed as Miles and I waited to find out what exactly he was doing. Clearly, there was some daimon magic happening here.
Sylvester opened his eyes and announced, “Time of death was near eight in the evening.”
“You have a time of death spell?” No wonder he’d been a detective in his world. That was some seriously handy magic, and not anything I’d ever heard of before.
“Spell?” His frown cleared. “Ah. You’re referring to the conversation I had with Devon.”
That comment begged questions, but Miles beat me to the punch. “You can talk to the dead?”
The now familiar amused twitch of Sylvester’s lips was back. “Anyone can talk to the dead. If you’re asking me if Devon replied, then the answer is no. It’s a matter of respect to address him before placing my hands on his body.”
And this was why we had a cultural exchange. I’m not sure that would occur to me, but it made a sort of sense given the fact that there was no ability to convey consent. Sure, the soul or consciousness was gone, but if a person (or a culture) viewed the body as more than a shell after death, it made a sort of sense.
“If you weren’t asking him when he died, how did you figure it out?” I asked.
“Magical decay and math. The decay of a person’s magic happens at a consistent rate, at least it does in a daimon. If you can determine the rate of decay, then it’s merely a matter of finding a compatible being—” He looked at Miles, then me. “Thank you for your assistance in that matter. Then evaluating the remaining magic in the deceased’s body, and applying the rate of decay.”
“You can do that?” Miles looked like someone had just offered him a mocha with extra whip and chocolate sprinkles…and a puppy.
“I can do that.”
“But…” Miles’s mouth was open, but no words were coming out. Eventually he snapped out of it. “But, I just don’t see how you can place a mathematical value on the quantity of a person’s magic. How you can quantify magic in any specific way at all.”
It was fascinating. But mostly I was just happy to have a narrower time of death.
Taking a page from Sylvester’s book, I stepped a little closer to Devon and whispered to him, “We’ll find who did this. I’m so sorry this happened to you. So, so sorry.”
He’d been a man full of energy and life and fun. He’d been well-loved by his family. And now he was a pale, still, lifeless version of himself.
With a damn candy cane sticking out of chest.
“Can we remove this thing? Give the man a little dignity?”
