A Familiar Tail (16 page)

“Tsk, tsk, Robert Sr.!” cried Ginger. “Look what you're teaching your grandchild!”

I was smiling. I couldn't help it. “You guys clearly got it under control,” I said to Bob.

He laughed. “For certain values of control. You sure everything's all right? You sound kinda down.”

“No, no, I'm fine. I just . . . I wanted to check in.”

He was willing to let it go, and, as it turned out, so was I. We would work our way around to touchy subjects later. Right now, we could chat about the usual small family matters; who'd heard from whom most recently, how things were going in preschool and whether Ted was finally going to propose to his girlfriend.

Eventually we ran out of gossip, or Bobby wanted to get back to watching the Red Sox trounce Satan's baseball team (otherwise known as the Yankees), or both. “Good to talk to you, sis,” he told me. “Let us know what your plans are. And hey, you know if there really is anything wrong, me and Ted will be up there in a hot minute, right? Nobody messes with our sister.”

“I know.”
Darn it, big brother, I do not need your protection,
I thought. Except if that was how I really felt, why was I smiling and feeling that odd prickling behind my eyes, not to mention an easing of the tension in my shoulders? “I'll call back soon.”

We said good-bye and I hung up. I was still smiling.
Whatever happened before, whatever happened next, I was still Annabelle Amelia Blessingsound Britton. I had my Yankee pride and my New England stubbornness, and I was a long, long way from being alone. For starters, there was Martine, who would have skewered me for ever doubting she had my back. Behind her, and me, stood the whole Blessingsound Britton clan. No matter what I faced, my family was with me. All of them.

“I needed that,” I told Alistair.

Alistair wasn't paying any attention to me. He was still glowering at the Very Dangerous Scrap. “Merow!” he snapped.

I laughed and rubbed his ears to apologize for not taking his paper-chasing prowess seriously enough. Then I heard footsteps outside and a soft knock on the door. I shot a look of inquiry at the cat, who responded by vigorously cleaning his tail. I went and unlocked the door, but there was no one outside. Somebody had been there, though, and they'd left a small folding table, a tray with a covered dish and a note:

YOU LOOKED HUNGRY.

I bowed my head and started laughing. I couldn't help it. Julia said I had no mystical destiny. She was wrong. I was clearly destined to be fed by compulsive cooks.

I did pick the tray up and carry it inside.

“If it's quiche I really am leaving,” I told the cat as I lifted the cloche. It wasn't quiche, but it was some lovely roast chicken and green salad and new potatoes. And a cup of that amazing blackberry grunt.

“Hungry, Alistair?”

His nose shot up in the air. “Merp!”

I carefully shredded some of the chicken to make sure I didn't get any accidental bones, forked the results onto my napkin, and set it on the sill. The presence of chicken apparently changed Alistair's mind about just how dangerous that paper was, and he leapt up onto the sill. The cat ate. I ate. It was simple and delicious, and I felt better. I was also able to start thinking again. If talking to a cat can be considered a sign of thinking.

“So, did I really screw up today, or what?”

Alistair, however, was too busy nosing the napkin to see if he'd left any shred of chicken to venture an opinion.

I pulled the wand out of my purse and turned it over in my fingers. It was a beautiful thing, and it felt warm and comfortable in my hand. I traced the delicately carved pattern with my fingers, following the branches as they turned from bare to blossoming to full leaf. I circled the tip of my finger around a crescent moon, a half-moon and a full. I peered at the Latin inscription of what Julia had called the threefold law.

Quod ad vos mittere in mundum triplici. What you send into the world comes back threefold.

I closed my fingers around it. What had I sent out into the world when I had tried to use the wand, and the magic, on Brad? I wanted him to calm down. I wanted him to trust me. Talk to me. I wanted him to open up, whether he wanted to or not.

My thoughts skidded to a halt. Wasn't that exactly what Julia had tried to do to me when I first walked into Midnight Reads? And how had I reacted? Angry, hurt, betrayed, because this woman I didn't even know had tried to trick me. And I'd just tried pretty much the same trick on Brad, and it hadn't work any better.

I swore and laid the wand down on the nightstand. In its place, I dug my new sketch pad out of my backpack. I started scribbling down everything I could remember about what Brad had actually said to me. It was me, of course, so there were also plenty of doodles, a caricature of Brad sweating bullets and tearing a piece of bread in two, and stacks of documents with question marks floating in the air around them.

Brad was looking for copies. That implied there were documents of some kind out there. Dorothy had copies of important documents, and Brad knew about them, but he didn't know where she had hidden them. He wanted to find them so badly he broke in to her house, more than once. He'd planned on taking her computer but somebody beat him to it. Which implied that there was at least one other person who found these documents—whatever they were—of vital interest.

“Merow!” Alistair jumped onto the bed and ducked his head under the paper, pushing it up. “Merow!”

“Oh, for Pete's sake.” I picked the scrap up. I intended to roll it into a ball and toss it for him to chase, but I stopped. This was the photo of me I'd found on Dorothy's altar.

My fingers tingled.

“Mrrp,” said Alistair, curling his tail around his feet, like he was satisfied.

I stared at my photo, and my photo stared back. I turned the paper over. On the other side, I saw what had once been part of a car ad. But along one edge there was some very small handwriting that I hadn't noticed before. It was so small, in fact, I had to bring it almost to my nose and squint before I could read it.

“Aka Dorothy Gale.”

“Merow!” announced Alistair proudly.

I stared at the cat. I stared at the piece of paper in my hands. This was a clue. This was absolutely and without a
shadow of a doubt a clue, deliberately left for me by a woman who knew she was in danger.

The problem was, I had no idea what it could possibly mean.

25

THE BUSINESS ADDRESS
of Enoch Gravesend, Esq., LLC, PLLC, and M-O-U-S-E, for all I knew, turned out to be a Federal-style house in Portsmouth's historic district. This basically meant it was a pale yellow box of a building with a peaked roof and shuttered windows. The office was on the left-hand side of a flagstone foyer, and it contained everything you could possibly want from a lawyer's office: wood paneling, overflowing bookcases, solid, comfortable chairs and a broad desk with a green blotter and a green-shaded lamp.

“Ah! Miss Britton! Come in, come in!” The lawyer himself came out from behind that expanse of antique oak to shake my hand and pull back the chair Frank hadn't claimed. “Please, do sit down.”

Like me and Frank, the gray-haired and portly Enoch Gravesend was a card-carrying member of Ye Olde Family Name Society (New England branch). He also had more than enough personality to handle it. Enoch wore a linen suit and bright blue vest with gold buttons. His face was
ruddy and his handshake delicate without being limp. I'm not a fan of the theatrical, especially in a lawyer, but Enoch's smile was instantly charming.

“Now.” Enoch settled himself back in his padded leather chair. “Let's see where we are. Miss Britton, how long were you thinking of staying with us?”

“Errrm . . .” I let my glance slide sideways toward Frank. It felt strange to be sitting in a lawyer's office with someone I'd only just met. Personal somehow.

“I see,” said Enoch gravely. “Perhaps three months, then?”

Frank nodded first, and I nodded back.

Enoch laughed loudly and tossed his pen onto his desk. “Come off it, you two. You are not getting married. At least, if you are, there's nothing about it in the lease. Frank, are you sure you're ready for this?”

Frank took a deep breath. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I am.”

“Fine. Miss Britton, shall we say three months?” I nodded and Frank nodded, and the lawyer nodded. “Now, the rent is, as I understand it, being waived in return for you, Miss Britton, living in the house and keeping the property clean and up to a saleable standard.”

He glanced at Frank, and I wondered what the lawyer was thinking about him, and about me.

“That's right,” said Frank calmly.

“All right. Given the nature of the agreement, and the property, and since Frank does not rent out any other buildings, the law gives us some flexibility here, so we can take advantage of that and keep the process at least somewhat informal.” He said this in a way that indicated informality was not his first choice. “You will, however, need to put down a security deposit.” He wrote down a figure on a piece of paper and pushed it toward me. I read it and I winced.

“That's his idea,” said Frank.

“And it will of course be returned at the end of the lease.”
Enoch folded his hands on his desk and gave me a look of unruffled calm that rivaled one of Alistair's.

“No, that's okay. I mean, I could be anybody, right?”

“Just so,” said the lawyer.

I reminded myself that I had a plan. I'd come up with it last night before I'd fallen asleep over Julia's books, my head full of the cycle of nature, the feminine principle in the divine, the sacredness of the earth and all creation. I'd read about meditations and ceremonies for cleansing the mind and spirit; the symbolic importance of circles, spirals and directions; the four elements of earth, air, fire and water; not to mention several chapters on the threefold law.

Including the fact that I might not want to believe it, but I could be sitting next to the murderer right now.

“There is one more thing,” I said slowly.

“Yes, Miss Britton?”

“I'd like to know if the house is . . . encumbered at all.”

“Encumbered?”

“Are there any outstanding liens or delinquent payments on a second or third mortgage, or anything else that might cause it to be sold or foreclosed, or repossessed, before the lease is up.”

Both men were staring at me. I stared right back. Books about witchcraft, ancient and modern, weren't the only things I'd been reading last night. I'd also spent a large chunk of the evening poring over my notes and surfing the Internet trying to work out what kind of “copies” Brad could have been talking about.

My best guesses included:

1) Something to do with that second mortgage that people kept bringing up, or

2) The house being used as collateral for some kind of deeply subprime loan on the equipment needed to open a newspaper.

Frank was frowning, but Enoch remained cool.

“There's nothing that I know of, and I was Dorothy's lawyer for the last twenty years. Frank?” Enoch swiveled his chair and steepled his fingers. “Has anything changed?”

“Since probate wrapped up? No.”

“Just checking,” I told them.

“It's good to be thorough.” Enoch made another note. “Is there anything else?”

“Not as long as the house is in good repair.” I paused. “And I'm assuming it's okay if I keep a cat?”

Frank chuckled. “If Alistair wants to stay with you, he's more than welcome.”

“We are in agreement, then.” Enoch made a few more notes. “Good for you both, less good for my billing sheet, but we can't have everything. Now . . .” He rifled a stack of papers and extracted one page to hand to me. “This is the results of the inventory and the walk-through that Frank did up for me. It has the details on the condition of the house and so on. You can either do your own walk-through before you rent, Miss Britton, or accept the list and submit any corrections afterward.”

“I'm sure it's all fine.” I skimmed the list. On the inventory, there was a lot of furniture and dishes in the kitchen. As for the condition of the house, there was a loose shutter and some dampness in the basement. Frankly, I would have been shocked if there wasn't some dampness in the basement.

Enoch favored us both with another appraising look. Then he sighed and shook his head. “I am going to have to
assume you two know what you're doing here. But, Frank . . .”

Frank held up his hand. “I know, Enoch. You don't approve, but I'm doing it anyway.”

“Which is your prerogative.” Enoch ran one thick finger down his legal pad. “Miss Britton, you'll want to be sure to note or photograph anything that needs repair so that you are not charged with the damage. That is everything I have here. Is there anything more for either of you? No? Good, better, best. If you two will excuse me, I will type up the remainder of this and we will be finished shortly.”

Enoch rose. He also—I swear I am not making this up—gave me a small bow and disappeared through a side door. A moment later the heavy metallic clatter of actual typewriter keys sounded from the next room.

“Wow,” I said.

Frank chuckled. “I know. But don't let the theatrics fool you. Enoch's the best lawyer in town, especially when it comes to contracts.”

“Sounds like I should read this lease pretty carefully.”

“Do you want to back out?”

“No. But . . . you haven't told him anything about why you're doing this, have you?”

“No more than necessary. Enoch pretty much thinks I'm just trying to get Ellis Maitland off my back.” Frank paused and looked down at his hands. “I was thinking, maybe, would you like to get some lunch?” He glanced toward the side door. The rattle and clatter of typing had stopped. “To talk about . . . things.”

It was a good idea. We did need to talk, and it was probably not smart to be bringing up any amateur investigator stuff in a lawyer's office, even if he was Frank's lawyer.

“Thanks,” I said, and I did mean it. “But I think I need to spend today getting settled, and you never know—I might find . . . something else we need to talk about.”

Our gazes met and locked, and Frank nodded. “Well,
how about dinner tomorrow? Assuming everything goes okay?”

“Sounds great,” I said, just as the door opened.

“And here we are.” Enoch reappeared holding a sheaf of legal-sized pages. “Now, if you will write the check, Miss Britton, and you two will sign here.” He passed the lease across that acre of desk.

I admit, I hesitated. If I signed this, I was finally, truly, legally committed, and not just to the house, but to Portsmouth and all that implied.

It implied a whole heck of a lot right now.

I took a deep breath. I read, and I signed. Frank read and Frank signed. I wrote the check for the deposit with a minimum amount of wincing and handed it to Frank. Frank squinted at the name of the bank. Then he pulled a ring out with three keys on it and handed them over to me.

“Congratulations, Frank.” Enoch held out his hand. “You're a landlord.”

“Ugh. Not sure I like the sound of it.”

Enoch gave him a smile of fatherly tolerance. “You'd like handing over those keys to Ellis Maitland and his mother a lot less, and you can trust me because I'm saying this as your lawyer.” My ears pricked up at the mention of the Maitlands, but Enoch had already moved on. “Now, I must ask you both to excuse me . . .” He pulled out a pocket watch. He actually pulled out a pocket watch. It was big and silver with a complicated pattern etched on the back. I felt the urge to check the calendar to make sure I hadn't accidentally slipped into the wrong century. “I have another client. I wish you both good morning.”

Enoch stood and gave another of those little bows, and we stood, and everybody shook hands, and the lawyer ushered me and Frank out his door.

“So, we're good, then?” said Frank as we walked down the path to the sidewalk.

“I guess so, yeah.”
Except for this whole situation being
more than a little strange, and awkward.
“Do you want to come with me and . . . walk through the house or anything?”

I could tell he wanted to say yes, but his phone beeped in his pocket. He pulled it out and hit the mute button. “Duty calls,” he said. “But I'll see you tomorrow?”

I agreed that he would, and Frank headed up the street toward the square. He did glance back a couple of times. I thought I read a little regret on his face. Was that because he still didn't want to give up his aunt's house, or because he was he afraid of what I'd find in there?

I found myself thinking about the missing computer again. Frank could have taken it, easily.

“But that doesn't make sense,” I said out loud. “Frank was Dorothy's heir. He wouldn't have to steal anything. That computer belonged to him.” After she died, anyway. Now, there was a pleasant thought. I thought about the photo and the clue she'd left me, hidden in the room she'd locked with her magic. That was an awful lot of trouble to take. In fact, it might look like she was hiding it from someone who could easily search the house.

This entirely cheerful thought was followed fast by another. There was somebody else who knew Dorothy was keeping secrets and was interested in them. Angry about them, in fact. Someone who could also have easily searched the house.

Julia Parris.