Magic Nation Thing (6 page)

“Get where?” Paige sounded slightly frantic now. “What dog?”

“That old lady with the dog,” Abby said, pointing.

Looking in the direction Abby was pointing, Paige said, “Oh, her. But how can she help? How can one old bag lady…?” She glanced over her shoulder to where at least a half dozen guys were moving toward them, their slow, swaggering saunter becoming faster and more purposeful.

“No. Not a bag lady,” Abby told her. “It’s Tree.”

“Tree?” Paige stared and then delightedly started to wave. “Tree…,” she was shouting when Abby grabbed her arm and whispered fiercely, “Shhh.” There was a creak to Abby’s voice as she said, “We have to act like we don’t know her. So we don’t give away her disguise.”

Paige nodded uncertainly. “But what…? How can she make those guys leave us alone if they think she’s just an old homeless woman?”

“I don’t know,” Abby said desperately. “But remember, don’t act like you know her. Just pretend we want to pet her dog. If we’re lucky maybe those guys won’t bother us with somebody right there watching.”

But then Tree raised her head and saw Abby and Paige walking toward her, and just behind them a circle of teenage guys. A threatening circle that got tighter and louder until suddenly Tree stood up straight, snatched off her gray wig, and, reaching into her bag lady-type canvas purse, pulled out a pen and a small black notebook.

“All right,” she said in a sharp, official-sounding tone of voice. “You boys want to give me your names?” Pointing at the nearest kid, a big overgrown hulk with a lot of gold chains around his neck, she demanded, “You first. Your name and address?” The kid stared goggle-eyed. “Why? Who…,” he stammered. “Who’re you?”

“You want to see my badge?” Tree’s voice snapped angrily. The kid shrugged, turned, and walked away. And the others did too, scattering in every direction.

On the walk to Tree’s car, Paige talked a lot, telling Tree how they had been planning to help her, and how grateful they were that she’d been able to scare off the gang of toughs by pretending she was an undercover policewoman. Tree didn’t say much and Abby could guess how she felt about having to blow her disguise to rescue them.

“I guess your disguise won’t work anymore,” Abby said ruefully.

Tree shrugged, raising her wing-shaped eyebrows. “I don’t suppose so,” she said. “It will probably take about ten minutes for it to be all over the neighborhood that the old bag lady with the dog is really some sort of undercover police.”

Paige gasped and said, “Oh, I didn’t think about that. I’m sorry. We just wanted to help and instead we messed everything up.” Grimacing, she turned to look at Abby and then looked quickly away. “It was my fault,” she told Tree. “Abby said we shouldn’t come down here but I wouldn’t listen to her.”

One of the things Abby liked about Paige was that when one of her ideas didn’t work too well, which happened quite a lot, she never tried to put the blame on someone else. And what she had said was true. It hadn’t been Abby’s fault. Except in a way it was. She should have tried harder to talk Paige out of doing such a crazy thing. The rest of the walk to the parking garage and the ride to the Bordens’ house in Tree’s car was pretty uncomfortable, and Paige was still apologizing when she got out of the car.

Back at the agency Tree went to get cleaned up and Abby sat in the office feeling bad and wishing there was some way she could make it up to Tree. But then Tree came back dressed in her own clothes and looking a little tired, but otherwise as gorgeous as ever.

“Look,” she said. “It’s okay. I don’t blame you. I probably couldn’t have used the bag lady disguise much longer anyway. So don’t feel bad about it. Oh, yes. There’s a message on the phone from your mother. She says she won’t be home until eight and you should go ahead and heat up the leftovers from last night and have your dinner.” She looked at her watch. “So how about we go down to the kitchen and see what we can find. Okay? What kind of leftovers are we talking about? I’m hungry.”

Of course Tree was just hanging around to be with Abby until Dorcas showed up, instead of starting the long drive home to her apartment in Berkeley. Which made Abby feel even more guilty about how she and Paige had ruined Tree’s disguise and her chance to solve her first case.

But Tree didn’t bring the subject up again. And a few minutes later the two of them were sitting in the breakfast nook, eating microwaved tamale pie and carrots and peas, and Abby was appreciating how Tree was finding other things to talk about besides what a mess she and Paige had made of everything.

They’d been over all the subjects people talk about when they’re trying not to mention something in particular. Things like the weather, and how Abby was doing in her classes, and how many games the 49ers had won. It was Abby who finally brought up the subject they’d been avoiding.

“Well,” she said, “other than having a couple of dumb kids blow your disguise, how was your day? Did you find anything out before we showed up?”

Tree’s smile was, as usual, wide and uncomplicated, saying just what a smile was supposed to say, instead of slipping into a put-down as Dorcas’s often did. “Nothing for sure,” she said. “I went past the latest burn site a couple of times, and I did see some people hanging around. There wasn’t much to see because the building was unoccupied when it caught fire. Most of the sightseers were staying outside the police tape, but a couple of guys in suits were poking around in what was left of the building. One of them was the owner of the building. I met him when he came to the office to ask Dorcas to take the case, and he would be hard to forget. He must weigh three hundred pounds and he has this huge hooked nose. I’ve never seen the other man before but he was probably the insurance company’s arson investigator. The rest of them, the crowd outside the barrier, were probably just local rubberneckers.”

“Or maybe the criminals returning to the scene of their crime,” Abby said. “Aren’t criminals supposed to do that? What did they look like?”

Tree thought a minute before she said, “Nothing you wouldn’t expect. Most of them looked like curious neighbors. But then later some kids showed up—all ages. The older ones looked pretty tough. A lot like the ones who were getting ready to give you and Paige a bad time when I showed up. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them were involved in the arson. I described them all in my report. That’s about all I was able to come up with. Except for an empty matchbook I found under a bush.”

A sound echoed somewhere in the back of Abby’s mind. A faint reverberation like the distant ringing of a gong. “A matchbook?” she asked.

“Yes. But there’re very long odds against its having anything to do with the fire. Anyone could have thrown it down there. And I don’t think it has the kind of surface that could carry much in the way of fingerprints.”

Abby nodded. “Yeah, you’re right,” she said. “Anyone could have thrown it down.” But the faint shiver of sound was still there, even when Dorcas called on her cell phone to say she had crossed the Bay Bridge and would be home in a few minutes, and it continued after Tree went to her car, calling back over her shoulder, “Just tell Dorcas my report is on her desk.”

It wouldn’t be long before Dorcas’s Honda pulled into the driveway, but in that few minutes Abby could…

No. No. She couldn’t and wouldn’t.

Except that it had been at least partly her fault that Tree had lost her chance to solve the arsonist mystery and maybe be promoted to a real licensed private investigator. And Tree had always been such a good friend. A friend who, just tonight when she was probably tired and eager to get home, had stayed around just so Abby wouldn’t be alone. So if there was any way to help Tree solve the mystery…

Abby was still shaking her head and arguing with herself as she went into the office, found the folder that held Tree’s report, and took out several typed pages. At the back of the folder was an empty matchbook. Abby stared at the matchbook for several seconds before she reached out slowly and picked it up. She was holding it tightly in the palm of her right hand when it began to feel warm. Slowly at first, and then faster and stronger, everything began to spin.

A
S THE DIZZYING SPIN
got stronger, the feeling of heat in Abby’s palm became more distinct. It was a deepening warmth that soon began to leap and flare as if she were holding a handful of fire, a painless burning that surged up her arm, through her body, and into her brain. The rest of the Magic Nation craziness was there too, with spinning shreds and pieces coming together in a way that gradually blocked out the view of Dorcas’s desk and the familiar office wall. And then suddenly everything went black. Complete and utter darkness—except for a tiny flicker of light.

The fire leapt up, died down, and grew again until its light began to illuminate the walls of a room—a dark, barren room where torn wallpaper dangled and where the paint on the walls and ledges was chipped and stained. The room seemed almost empty, except for the source of the mysterious flame. Flickering firelight was leaping from something shaped like a large bucket. The window curtains were flaming too, and the air was becoming heavy with smoke.

Then the pieces were breaking apart and spinning again, and the scene was changing. Now the light was cool and dim. Streetlights shining through heavy fog faintly illuminated an empty street where darkened windows gave a middle-of-the-night feeling. As the scene narrowed to the exterior of a large three-story apartment house, a man emerged from a doorway, looked carefully in every direction, hurried down the steps, and walked quickly away. As he approached the street, Abby could see him more clearly. Could see his huge bulky shape and his big shiny nose. He was wearing heavy gloves and carrying a large object in one hand. Just before he reached the sidewalk, he stopped long enough to throw something into a clump of bushes.

And then there was the familiar sound of a car in the driveway, followed by a click as Dorcas’s key turned in the lock, and Abby came spinning back to the reality of the O’Malley Detective Agency office. Abby quickly put the matchbook back where she’d found it and slammed the folder shut, pushing it away from her across the desk. “No,” she whispered. “No. I don’t believe it. It doesn’t mean anything.” Turning away, she hurried to the kitchen in time to see her mother coming in the back door.

“Sorry to be so late.” Dorcas took off her jacket as she looked around the kitchen. She was wearing her gray-green pantsuit and a turtleneck that Abby’s dad had given her a long time ago, along with a bunch of jangly jewelry. “Have you eaten?” she asked.

“Yes,” Abby said. “Tree helped me heat up some stuff and she ate some too. She stayed until you called. There’s some of the tamale pie left. Are you hungry?”

Dorcas shook her head. “I ate at a deli while I was waiting to interview a woman who claims she could be a witness in the Anderson case. But I might have a cup of coffee.”

While Dorcas made her coffee and took her cup to the breakfast nook table, Abby hung around drinking a glass of water and arguing with herself about what she should tell Dorcas and when she should do it. She knew all the facts would be in Tree’s long, carefully written report. Including the facts about what she and Paige had done. All about how they had been stupid enough to go downtown without asking and had wound up blowing Tree’s disguise. At last Abby took a deep breath and began. “I guess I have something to tell you, Mom.”

“Yes? What is it then?” Dorcas looked up quickly and motioned for Abby to join her at the table. “Sit down. Tell me.”

So Abby pulled out a chair and sat—and went on sitting while her mother’s stare sharpened. “It’s about a dumb thing that Paige and I did today.” She paused, sighed, and went on. “It was Paige’s idea but I went along with it, so it’s my fault too.”

“For heaven’s sake, Abby. What happened? What did you do?”

“Well, my first mistake was telling Paige about the disguise I’d come up with for Tree, and Paige was… Well, you know how crazy she is about anything like that. She got so excited and she wanted to see if we could do something to help Tree catch the arsonist.”

Abby told about how Paige kept them on the bus until they got nearly down to Van Ness. And about how the gang of boys had started after them and Tree had had to blow her disguise to come to their rescue. As Abby talked, Dorcas’s eyes narrowed and her lips got tighter. It wasn’t until Abby stopped that Dorcas started, but she had a lot to say.

When Dorcas was finished Abby’s allowance was gone for two weeks, and Dorcas was going to call Daphne Borden in the morning, and after that, “Who knows? Daphne and I will have to come to a decision. Perhaps we’ll have to arrange for you and Paige to see less of each other for a while. At least until both of you are able to behave in a more responsible manner.”

Abby was shocked speechless. Not to see Paige? For how long? Dorcas hadn’t said. Abby was fighting tears as she left the kitchen and went up to bed feeling so guilty, and at the same time so angry, that it was hard for her to think of anything else. Hard even to get back to what had happened, or had seemed to be happening, in the agency office when she’d picked up the matchbook. But once she started thinking about it, she couldn’t stop.

What had she seen, really seen, when she’d held the matchbook in her hand? Where had the images come from and what did they mean? Wasn’t it possible that she’d imagined a fat man with a big shiny nose simply because Tree had described such a person as the owner of the building?

It didn’t make any sense. Why would anyone want to burn down his own apartment building? As she changed into her pajamas and got into bed, Abby went over all of it again and again. She went over exactly what she’d seen, or thought she’d seen, perhaps a dozen times while she tried and failed to go to sleep.

The questions she kept asking herself were what she had seen, and what did it mean, and hardest of all, what should she do about it? Should she go to Dorcas and tell her that she thought the man who owned the apartment building had set fire to it himself—and why she thought so?

And then… either it would turn out that she was right and Dorcas would say that her theory about Abby’s supernatural abilities was absolutely true. Or else it would turn out that what she thought she’d seen was a bunch of nonsense, and that the owner of a building wouldn’t be stupid enough to burn down his own property. And then Abby O’Malley wouldn’t have to worry about being some kind of weird throwback to the days of witches and wizards. But what she
would
have to worry about was being even deeper in the doghouse than she already was, for making up a wild story to try to get herself and Paige out of trouble.