The Hoodoo Detective (28 page)

She'd spent the night researching Jenny and the Hoodoo Queen, supplemented by the background checks provided by the PI firm. Both the women had led public lives, promoting their businesses. Hannah's professional life had been contentious, combating the perception that hoodoo was evil, and there had been some rather nasty online spats with voodoo practitioners. It was sad and strange, Riga thought, the way different magical arts could brawl like competing religions.

But about Hannah's personal life she'd uncovered little. Her social media pages made no mention of her daily life – where she liked to eat, her friends, books she'd read or movies she'd seen.

Jenny had been similarly circumspect, something Riga appreciated since she only used social media to snoop into others' lives.

Donovan rapped lightly on the door and walked inside, frowning.

“Anything?” Riga asked.

“Not on Jenny. The woman is scrupulous with her taxes, and her clients had nothing useful to say. Have you noticed that so far, Jenny's the only person in that occult group with a real job?”

“You’re right. She doesn't fit the idle-rich profile. What about Hannah?”

“Did you know Hannah was married?”

Riga remembered the tan line on her finger. “I wondered, but the PI firm didn't turn that up.”

“Different name, same social security number. She filed a joint return with her husband, Harold Harkness.”

Leaning forward, Riga began typing. “Harkness? Spelled like it sounds?”

“I've got his driver's license, if it helps.” He handed her his tablet computer.

She drew a sharp breath. Freckles, sandy hair, broad grin... “That's Harry Howdini, the hoodoo hit man.” The pieces were falling into place.

“Why did the Old Man point us toward her?”

“Not to do us any favors,” she said, grim.

There was a scratching at the balcony door, and Donovan let Brigitte inside. The dog watched the gargoyle, its gaze intent.

Brigitte hopped along the floor, her stone-feathered head low. “Nothing. I am as useless as that stupid dog.”

Oz raised his head, ears lifting.

“It was a long shot.” Riga bent and ruffled his tawny fur, trying to hide her disappointment.

“A long shot?” Brigitte’s feathers ruffled. “You sent me on a long shot? And why is that dog staring at me?”

Donovan laid a hand on Riga's shoulder. “Pen's alive and that's what counts. Jenny won't harm her as long as she can use Pen to get to you. It was quick thinking, demanding proof of life on Jenny's next call.”

“We need to find Pen before she makes that call.” Riga rose, her knees cracking, and winced. “I thought my aunts would be back by now.”

“They’ll get here soon enough.”

“But not too soon for you?”

He sighed. “They’ve made mistakes in the past, but they’ll do their best for Pen.”

“They are a menace.” Brigitte sniffed. “What else have you learned about our suspects?”

Riga told the gargoyle about Hannah's marriage to the hit man.

Brigitte hopped on the table with a clatter. It creaked beneath her weight. “So. Ze Hoodoo Queen is married to ze hoodoo hit man, who we believe was hired to kill you by someone in ze group of occult losers. But someone killed ze hit man first, and because he failed, ze necromancer who hired him was killed. Ze question is, who killed ze hit man and why? Though I am not sure it matters. We know who has Pen.”

“She's right,” Donovan said. “The mystery of the hit man is secondary. We need to focus on Pen.”

There was a knock at the door. “I'll get it.” Donovan strode from the room. The sound of a door opening and women's excited chatter.

The dog stood and woofed.

“Oh, Riga.” Dot shook her head and collapsed on the couch, her black skirt spreading upon it like a shroud. Soot powdered her cheeks, and she smelled of smoke. “It was an utter failure.”

“What happened?” Riga asked.

Peregrine folded herself onto a lounge chair. “Someone anticipated us.”

“You were attacked?”

“Worse. Defeated,” Peregrine said. “No sooner did we lay a hand on the windowsill when the house...” She looked to her sister.

“They're calling it a gas explosion. The entire thing went up. And then we couldn't leave, because other homes were so close and looked like they might go up. It was all we could do to contain the fire.”

Boneless, Riga sat. Why hadn't she thought to grab something when they'd been there earlier? Fool!

“Was anyone hurt?” Donovan asked.

“Only my ego,” Peregrine said. “I'm afraid there's absolutely nothing left of Miss Wade's house. It was a magical trap.”

“What about her office?” Donovan asked.

Riga ran her palm across the soft fabric of the chair arm. “We can try.”

“We will try,” Dot said. “Do you think she burned her own house?”

“I don’t know,” Riga said. “She might have set the trap for me, thinking I’d be killed. Or maybe she really didn’t want to leave any trace behind for me to use.”

Riga looked more closely at her aunts. Soot wasn't the only thing tingeing their cheeks gray. Their skin sagged with weariness, and their eyes were dull. “Rest first.” She checked her watch. Five A.M. “None of us has slept, and we need to be sharp when Jenny calls.”

Peregrine shook her head. “We haven't time. If we're going to figure out where she's keeping Pen before that call, we've got to get into Jenny’s office before it opens.”

“Rest first.” Riga scrubbed her hand over her face. “Besides, you'll need to wash up if you don't want to leave ashy footprints all over your next crime scene.”

“Ashy...?” Dot craned forward, stared at the trail across the carpet. “Oh, good heavens. How could we be so sloppy?”

“We should all get some sleep,” Donovan said.

“Mm,” Riga said, noncommittal. She had things to do. And though her eyes felt like the butt ends of cigarettes, her blood pumped, energy sparking through her veins.

Donovan gave her a look, one corner of his mouth twisting. She never fooled him.

He called a cab to take the two sisters back to their hotel. Bustling her aunts inside the taxi, Riga assured them of further consultations.

The cab vanished down the street, and Donovan turned to her, arms across his chest. “Jenny’s office?”

“Early morning is the best time for breakins,” Riga said. “Though I may be mixing that up with bank robberies.”

She tucked her arm in his. Lengthening her stride, she hopped over a missing brick in the sidewalk. “But there’s a stop I want to make before we tackle Jenny’s office.”

Turning the corner, she called in the energies, dropping a magical veil over them both.

“Did you just do something?” he asked.

“The cloaking spell.” She shifted her satchel, so that the bag hung at her back. Jenny would keep Pen alive, at least until the next phone call. Riga was racing against an hourglass she couldn't see, and had to force herself not to run down the street.

“You've said that's a fairly basic spell.”

“Yes?”

“Could the person who killed the hoodoo hit man have been cloaked?”

“Possibly. I'd like to think I'd be able to see through it, especially when I was on alert. I did see something at the end of the alley after I discovered the body.”

“Something?”

“It almost looked like one of those Mardi Gras parade figures with the giant heads. It was grotesque, shimmering in the heat.” Ants crawled along her spine at the memory.

They turned another corner. An aproned man emerged from a building, hose in hand. He sprayed the sidewalk.

They sprang out of the way.

Donovan brushed a fleck of water from his black slacks. “What's next? Hannah's shop?”

She stopped in her tracks, turned to him. “How did you know? You've never been there.”

“No, but you're not the only one who’s spent the night running background checks. I recognized this street name.”

“I stand corrected.”

“As long as we stand together.” He ran his hands down her arms. “Do we?”

“How can you even ask? I love you, Donovan. I just can't...” Her throat tightened.

He pulled her against him, and she buried her face against his chest.

“I can barely think straight,” she choked out. “It's all I can do to focus on the next step, the next move on the chessboard. If we don't find her—”

“We will.” He tilted her chin up. “We will get through this.”

She nodded, stepped out of the protective circle of his arms.

They passed a waiter fastening open a restaurant's tall green shutters.

Donovan rubbed the faint, cross-shaped scar on his chin. “I knew you've been tracking the Old Man for months. I should have taken a greater interest.”

“Why? This is my investigation. My fault, from start to finish.”

“I don't know how you figure that.”

Because she'd put Pen in jeopardy. And for that, she’d never forgive herself. “We're here.”

They stopped in front of a darkened window curtained by folds of satiny, purple cloth. Branches painted glittering, forest-green twined in the display, dangling pendants and gris-gris bags and charms.

“No offense to your cloaking spell,” he said, “but I think I'd prefer to tackle this via the rear entrance. Assuming there is one.”

She led him behind the store to an alley just wide enough for a European-sized car. It smelled dank and faintly of garbage.

Donovan surveyed the brick wall, the metal door. “Anyone inside?”

Closing her eyes, she pushed her aura into the store. “No.” Riga channeled the energies, stretched one hand towards the doorknob. She tied the energy to a word and spoke it aloud.

The knob melted, orange-heated metal creeping down the door.

Donovan pushed the door open with his elbow. “You brought gloves?”

“I always bring gloves.” She twisted her satchel around. Pulling out two pairs, she handed one to him.

He snapped them on and stepped inside. “Flashlight?”

She slapped it into his palm.

He clicked it on, and its round beam illuminated rough walls with flaking blue plaster, stacks of boxes, a workbench littered with feathers and jars of herbs and bones.

Donovan examined a chicken claw, his face twisted with distaste. “Someday, you'll have to tell me more about hoodoo.”

“If I ever figure it out, I will.” At the workbench, she picked up a pair of needle-nose pliers. She slipped it in her bag.

His mouth twitched, and he swung the flashlight, illuminating the wall behind her. “What? You don't already have a pair?” His expression shifted. “Riga.”

Muscles tensing, she turned, her gaze following the beam of light. Two initials scratched low into the wall: P
_H
.

Crouching beside it, she ran her finger in the grooves of the initials. White plaster dust coated the tip of her glove. “It's recent. And it's the way Pen writes her initials – a big P and a smaller H, a sort of chemistry joke. She always said she was out of balance.” Riga's voice cracked.

“Can you sense anything magically?”

She centered herself, opening her six senses. Magic surged in, a tidal wave, swamping her. She wobbled, fell.

Donovan caught her, raising her to standing.

“Magic's strong here,” she said. “This was Hannah's workspace, where she made her fetishes, potions and conjure oils. If Pen was here, I can't find a magical trace.”

“If? Those scratched initials look like Pen's work.”

She changed direction mid-stride. “Were Jenny and Hannah partners in crime?”

“That's what the Old Man wants us to think.”

“He's about as trustworthy as Beelzebub.” If he was pointing them toward Jenny and Hannah, it was for his own dark purpose. The Old Man wanted her dead, wanted her to suffer. Helpful wasn't part of his repertoire. “It's too pat. A found matchbook pointing us to Hannah. And now Pen's initials scratched on the wall of Hannah's storeroom. It's like a 1930’s detective movie, though more Abbot and Costello than Sam Spade.”

“And yet you brought us here, to Hannah's shop.” Donovan crossed his arms over his broad chest. “You suspect Hannah's involved. Maybe it's time we talk to her.”

Beside the window they’d just crawled through, Donovan opened a cupboard in Hannah's galley-style kitchen.

“At least it didn't explode.” Riga brushed off her slacks, her heart thudding unpleasantly. Hannah wasn't at her shop, wasn't at her home.

He grunted, closing the cabinet, and prowled into the narrow hallway. “Stay behind me.”

The apartment was small, cramped, and decorated with swirls of hoodoo symbols painted in bold pinks and blues and oranges on the white walls. A living area, bathroom, and bedroom. Boxes, opened and unopened, littered the floors. Riga lifted the lid on one. “Looks like she's in the middle of a move.”

“In or out?”

“Good question. Out? Her husband had a huge house, but there was little sign of someone else living there. Maybe she’s moving in now that he’s gone.”

“Or getting out of town.”

“I wonder why they didn’t live together. Could they have gotten divorced or separated? Or was it all part of the pretense – that he was a lone-wolf hit man and she an innocent hoodoo practitioner?”

“If I were a hit man, I'd think having a family would be a good disguise.”

“Maybe it was a rocky marriage.”

“At least there are no signs of violence in Hannah’s apartment. Why is it every house I break into seems to contain a body or crime scene?”

“Why else would we break in?” Riga thumbed through a book on voodoo, sending up a puff of dust. Were they wasting time? Was the Old Man's clue a diversion to prevent them from finding Pen? She glanced at the cat clock on the wall, its round, white and black eyes swiveling back and forth.

A smile ghosted his lips. “I suppose your investigations do redirect some of my more criminal impulses. But I don't see any sign Pen was here.”

Sitting in front of a battered metal desk, she flipped on the computer. While it booted up, she rifled through papers, envelopes. The computer dinged. She looked at the screen. “Damn. Password protected.”

“You should come up with a spell to crack computer passwords.”