The Sinister Secrets of the Enchanting Blaze Read online

  The door to the Recruit Investigations Unit stood open, three uniformed officers sat at desks on the phones, typing at computers. Paisley strode in. She whispered to the nearest cop, “O’Malley?”

  He pointed his chin at a door across the room without stopping his conversation. They crossed the office. “Do we knock?” Grace asked.

  “Of course.” Paisley opened the door wide and knocked on the frame. Lisa O’Malley squinted at them. She scowled at Grace. She cocked her head at Paisley.

  “I got something going on, let me call you back.” The lieutenant hung up the phone. Her stare turned hard. “How you got in here, I have no idea. But I don’t appreciate unannounced visitors. Now, I took time out of my day to speak with you already, Miss Longstreet. And Jane, if that is you under the Joker makeup, you should know better.”

  “Joker makeup?”

  “White face, green hair,” Grace explained.

  Paisley’s brows rose. “Oh, yeah.”

  The lieutenant stood, face flushing. “I’m finding an escort for you two right now.”

  “First, we have a question,” Paisley said. “Why was evidence taken from the scene of the OIS with you and Will?”

  “If you want to discuss that, you can make an appointment. Come on, Jane, we can sit down and talk. Have dinner. Why are you doing me like this?”

  “That evidence showed up in Will’s apartment,” Paisley went on. “It never made it on the custody report.”

  “Fine.” Lisa placed her palms on the desk and leaned forward. “What evidence?”

  Paisley smiled. “Show her, Grace.”

  Playing along, Grace took the candle from her bag. She held it out, as if confronting a vampire with a crucifix. Lisa did not hiss and shy away.

  “Seriously? A candle? Will always had a candle burning. You know that, Jane. I’m sure he had a dozen in his place.”

  “But not like this one. This is a Santa Muerte candle—black magic. In the crime scene photos, there are a bunch around that statue. None of them made it into evidence. Considering this was two BPD officers shooting drug dealers, there’s no way it was an oversight. Someone took those candles on purpose.” Paisley took the candle from Grace and thumped it on O’Malley’s desk. “Who would do that?”

  Still, O’Malley showed only irritation at the interruption. She barely gave the candle a glance. “You said they were in Will’s apartment. Maybe Will took them. And as far as black magic goes, Santa Muerte, all that, it’s a bunch of B.S.

  “I mean, is this some kind of accusation? At the time, I was a little busy bleeding to death to be taking evidence from a scene. Your brother had just shot two men to death. He was shaken up. We could’ve died. But, hell, maybe he was short a few candles that day.”

  Paisley’s features belied a loss of confidence. “Can we light it?”

  “If we do, will you get out of my freaking office? I’m at work, here. There are two hundred recruits to vet. We’re hiring soon. And you bring me some fairy tale about missing candles and voodoo?” She pulled a lighter out of her desk drawer. “Here, I’ll light it myself. We’ll say a prayer, and then you can get the hell out.”

  Grace snatched the candle away and stowed it in her purse. “That’s okay, Lieutenant. We’re going.”

  “Jackson!” O’Malley shouted at the closed door. A moment later, a uniform opened it. “Show these ladies out.”

  “You got it, Lieutenant.”

  Back on the street, Paisley shuffled to the car, head hung in defeat. “Maybe it was the drug dealers after all. How the hell are we going to find those guys?”

  “Sorry, Paize. I don’t know why I was so sure these candles came from the crime scene. Maybe it was just wishful thinking. If the candles came from someplace else...”

  Paisley unlocked the door. “Then we don’t really have a lead.”

  Minutes later, they headed for the financial district and the tunnel that led out of Boston. Grace’s cell phone rang. She took it from her purse.

  “Hey, no using cell phones in a moving car. It’s illegal.”

  Grace saw the number—it was Pete Willoughby. “It’s illegal for the driver to use a cell phone, not passengers. Hey, Pete.”

  “Distracted driver!” Paisley shouted, stamping a foot on the floor.

  She put her finger over the microphone. “You aren’t even driving yet!”

  “I hear you found Paisley, Grace. Good work.” Pete said.

  That was weird. “How did you hear that?”

  “From Hank Riley. He seems to think you and Paisley are on something. And he’s an expert.”

  Chapter 24

  “We’re not on drugs, Pete.”

  Paisley’s eyes bugged. She nearly lost control of the convertible.

  “I didn’t think so. Here’s the thing. When you use my name, and do something... weird,” he put a lot of emphasis on the word. “I hear about it.”

  Dammit, she probably had used his name to try to get Riley to talk in the first place. “Sorry. I thought we had something.”

  “Something on a DCU lieutenant? You’re not pinning Will’s death on a decorated officer, are you? For God’s sake, Grace.”

  “Um. Maybe two?”

  “Speaker,” Paisley pointed at the phone, “speaker.”

  Grace turned the speaker on.

  “He was our best suspect, Pete,” Paisley said too loud. “He was at both the shootout, and led the initial into Will’s death. It had to be Riley. Or O’Malley.”

  “It didn’t have to be—” Pete shouted. Then he took a breath. “Lisa O’Malley? Look, I can’t have you harassing BPD cops with this. If you have evidence, turn it over to me. I promise, I’ll have it seriously looked into. Okay? So what do you have?”

  A magic candle that aggressively takes away your fears, Grace thought. A black magic spell that can force you to face those fears in a very final fashion is what we have. Dammit. She decided to change topic. “That crime scene guy, Bob Beaumont, is really unhappy with you, by the way.”

  Silence followed. “Who?” Pete finally asked.

  “Remember, the guy who ran some prints for Paisley a few months ago? He’s stuck at a desk now.”

  “I kinda remember that. But what’s riding the bench have to do with me?”

  It was Grace’s turn for silence. “You didn’t—you said you were going to call his supervisor.”

  “For helping out a friend? I’m not a rat. If he’s doing things off the books, it’ll catch up to him without my help. Do me a favor, and stop accusing BPD, okay?”

  Pete disconnected.

  “Well, that’s a bunch of B.S.” Paisley navigated into the dark tunnel.

  Grace smirked. “What , that we’re on drugs? We did bust into a police station and wave a candle at a cop. Twice. I get how he made a connection to us being high.”

  “No, not that. Freakin Bob Beaumont. He’s been riding the bench for a long time. He didn’t get put out to pasture because of me.”

  An idea flared in Grace’s head. It was small, but intense. She tried to think back to all the reports she’d read. “So why is he riding a desk, then?”

  Paisley merged to the left. “You don’t know this story? It was all over the news back then.”

  They briefly emerged in sunlight. Paisley drove the car into the next tunnel, and stopped talking.

  “What was all over the news?”

  “Shh. I’m driving.”

  “No, Paisley, this could be important. Why is Bob Beaumont at a desk?”

  Paisley scowled. But she went on. “He used to be a regular FTD field agent. That’s Forensic Technology Division. One night, he was working a burglary scene that the cops thought had been cleared. The suspect returned—this whacked-out guy on bath salts—and stuck a butter knife through Bob’s shoulder blade. I mean, through, all the way, like any lower, right through the lung.”

  Grace remembered the fingerprint cop wincing at an old war wound. “So he’s disabled?”

  “Oh, no
. He recovered okay. Nothing major damaged. Except he got hooked on pain pills. Opiates. Turns out, he was running a scam. He would arrive at a recently deceased senior’s home and volunteer to take any dangerous meds in for destruction. Except he wasn’t destroying them. At least, not the pain pills.”

  “He didn’t get fired for that?”

  “No, he got rehab. And a permanent desk job.”

  “Holy shitballs,” Grace said.

  “I know, right?”

  “No, no. Not that.” Grace saw the light at the end of the tunnel. They emerged in East Boston, heading north on 1A. Carefully, she examined the thought. “I’m not absolutely certain about this.”

  Paisley’s eyes did not leave the road. Still, her features compacted in suspicion. “What?”

  “I’ll have to check it out first.”

  “Oh, c’mon, what?” Paisley’s knuckles whitened on the wheel. “I’m already distracted enough.”

  “How long has Bob been benched?”

  “Less than a year, I think. What? Why? Grace!”

  “Do you know if he processed your brother’s apartment after Will died?”

  “Well, there wasn’t much processing done. Yeah, he was the print guy. He didn’t find any prints other than Will’s, mine and Lisa’s. You don’t think Bob—boring, chubby, balding, sandy-haired ol’ Bob Beaumont is casting spells? No freakin way, G.”

  “He was at both scenes. He was an opiate addict, a junkie. He scammed the survivors of a deceased loved one out of their pain pills. You don’t think an addict might sell information to drug dealers? You don’t think he could’ve gotten more than drugs from those guys?”

  Paisley shook her head. “It’s too crazy. It’s too much of a stretch.”

  “But not for Lt. Riley? Lisa O’Malley?” They passed the exit for Logan International, Revere a few miles ahead. “It’s always too crazy, Paize, always too much of a stretch with this stuff.”

  “Okay, fine. Bob pals up with cartel guys, a Santa Muerte witch. What’s his motive for making Will...”

  The Goth couldn’t finish the sentence.

  They drove in silence for a while. Paisley navigated around a rotary that changed Route 60 into Squire Road.

  Grace finally spoke. “I don’t know what his motive was. When we find him, we’ll have to ask. Let me call him. Maybe we can meet up before we get too far out of Boston.”

  But Beaumont wasn’t at HQ. None of the civilian employees knew where he was, other than he hadn’t shown up for work. As far as they knew, he hadn’t called in sick, either.

  “Coincidence?” Grace asked.

  “I sure hope so. I kinda like Bob.”

  “Kinda? I thought he was your friend.”

  Paisley shrugged. “He was more Will’s friend. They went through the academy together.”

  “He was Will’s friend?” Thoughts tumbled around in her head. “Did he ever hang out with Will off duty?”

  “Once in a while,” Paisley remembered. “But not too much. The undercover thing.”

  They wound around on Route 1, past the Walmart Supercenter, the Walnut Street exit, and Walden Pond, before catching I-95. Would Bob know about Will’s penchant for keeping a lit memorial candle? Paisley took exit 26, driving past well maintained old houses. Near the Salem Border, Paisley sat up straighter.

  “Oo, Dairy Witch!” Paisley said. “You wanna get some ice cream?”

  Grace wasn’t in the mood. “Not really.”

  “C’mon. We need ice cream. Ice cream is brain food. Besides, my boobs are shriveling. My boobs cry out for crunch-coated chocolate and vanilla soft-serve.” Moments later, she pulled the T-bird into an empty lot. A big sign hung on the tiny shop. “Closed for the season? Ice cream has a season? Whatever. I think there’s peanut butter cup ice cream at home.”

  “Do you know anything about Bob? Where he lives? Where he hangs out?”

  Paisley made an unexpected turn on Bridge Street. “Not a clue. But I’ve got a friend who can get me his address.” Signaling, she pulled into the lot of an auto repair shop.

  “Something wrong with the car?”

  “No, they like me to park it here. They say it brings in business, God knows why. But they like to wash it and stuff. It works out.” She shrugged and led the way down an alley that turned into Beckford Street. They walked along, houses shoved right up to the brick sidewalks.

  “There’s plenty of parking in front of your house, Paize.”

  “I don’t want to bring down the property values.”

  “What are you talking about? That car is—”

  “Embarrassing? I know. But compared to your Prius, the thing is made of battleship steel. Cars are total deathtraps. I hate driving them. But you can’t drive a scooter in the winter. Oh, you know what would be really good? Pizza!”

  They made a left on Chestnut. “I think we should focus on finding Bob Beaumont.”

  “It’s been two years already. What’s the rush? I mean, I’m really grateful that you solved this. It’s like a huge weight has been lifted off me. I was always so afraid that one day, I’d just have to accept that Will wasn’t the big brother I thought he was.”

  For a moment, Grace thought her friend was going to break down into tears. They walked up the drive toward the narrow porch. Paisley unlocked the front door. She stopped suddenly, and turned toward Grace. “Oh! Steak bombs! That would be so good! I really need to put some meat on my boobs. My bones, I mean.”

  So engrossed with food was Paisley that she nearly walked into the gun pointed at her.

  Chapter 25

  “I want those candles.”

  The chubby cop who printed Grace spoke through bared teeth. His face glowed red. Sweat trickled from his temples. She only noticed this for a moment. Then, her full attention fell on the black eye of the weapon.

  “Aw, Bob. I was hoping it wasn’t you.” When Paisley spoke, the gun turned on her.

  “Don’t jerk me around.” The gun moved back on Grace. “Or I’ll shoot your friend.”

  Grace tried very hard not to pee her pants. Her voice came out choking. “She’s been under your spell for two weeks, Bob. She doesn’t know where I hid them.”

  “I’m really serious here!”

  His finger tightened on the trigger. Or was that just her imagination? Breath hitching, Grace got out, “I can show you.”

  “Then show me!” The gun quivered with Bob’s words.

  “Upstairs,” Grace squeaked.

  “What’s the big deal, Bob? Who’s gonna believe in magic candles? It’s the perfect crime.” Paisley shut up when the pistol swerved at her.

  “Right now,” Bob said. “Show me. Or I shoot Paisley. I don’t wanna shoot Paisley. I kinda have a crush on you, y’know. I don’t get the witch costume.”

  “You would, if my boobs hadn’t gone on a diet.”

  Bob took a deep breath. And took aim at Paisley’s thinned boobs.

  “In her room,” Grace said.

  Paisley didn’t react. Her face was perfectly still, eyes locked on the gun. Adrenalin had fully kicked in, and Grace’s thoughts raced. She had a plan. Not a perfect one, but hopefully she and Paisley could survive a junkie cop in desperate need of a fix. Grace slowly raised her hands. “Let’s go. Okay?”

  Grace could feel a tingle in the middle of her back as she walked toward the stairs. She was certain that that was where Bob aimed the gun. Paisley walked behind her.

  “Make a run for it, and I’ll shoot you both.” Even a few steps winded the overweight cop. Grace thought the injury made it painful for him to hold up the pistol. She moved slowly, both to avoid being shot, and to prolong the fingerprint cop’s agony.

  At the end of the hall, the door to Paisley’s girly-pink room stood open. Patricia’s cage remained covered. Grace eyed the window sill. The pink Bic lighter still rested there. But how could she get to it without getting killed?

  “The box of candles is in the display case,” Grace said.

  She took two
steps toward the cage before Bob stopped her. “No. Against the wall. Assume the position. Both of you. Either of you so much as twitches...”

  Grace nodded and moved to the wall next to the window. Her eyes were on Bob and the gun. She put her hands against the wall. Paisley moved to the other side of the window. Instead of throwing the black silk cover off the cage, Bob opened the nightstand drawer.

  He pulled out Paisley’s gun. “Is this what you were going for, Grace? You think I’m an idiot?”

  Seething, Bob pocketed the holstered weapon. He gestured with his own. “Face the wall! Spread your legs!”

  “I want to know why you did it, Bob. Please?” Paisley asked. “Why did Will have to die?”

  “It’s not on me. Blame the department. I got stabbed with a butter knife. In the back. Do you know how hard you have to stab someone with a butter knife? It hurts. To this day, it hurts. I can’t sleep, it hurts so much. I was processing a scene, the unis watching the place decided it was time to hit the Dunks, and left me there. Then, the doctors said I was healed. Full range of motion and all that B.S. It hurt, don’t you get it?”

  Paisley sympathized. “Well, yeah, it almost hit your lung, I heard.”

  “I know, right? Still, the docs took me off the oxy, off the Fentanyl. Said I should take Motrin if I experienced any pain. Motrin, right, for a perforated scapula and thorax. I got screws holding my freakin shoulder together!”

  “Will caught you buying on the street.” Paisley said, not a question.

  “Yeah, well, he hung out with scumbag drug dealers for a living. I suppose it was inevitable. But I didn’t sell Will out. They already knew he and Lisa were UC. The shootout was intended as a human sacrifice. The dealers were really into Santa Muerte. This would give them a lot of power, was the idea. At first, I thought it was all bull.”

  “What made you a believer?” Grace asked, voice hoarse.

  “They always got away with it. Oh, sure, we recovered evidence to arrest a bunch of them. But the top guys? They just skated. Released on probation, evidence gone missing, witnesses recanting—they operated without fear. Hell, they’re still out there. They have the power, don’t you see?”