The Sinister Secrets of the Enchanting Blaze Read online

  After backup arrived, the manager of the storage unit identified the ones rented by the dealers. Nearly a thousand grams of heroin were uncovered, some of it in six hundred bags, ready to sell. They also uncovered handguns, assault rifles, $50,000 cash, and, though mentioned only peripherally in the reports, objects of worship.

  It was this that had been highlighted in yellow, most likely by Paisley. A statue of a woman dressed as the Grim Reaper, surrounded by flowers, candles, cigars, whiskey, candy and $100 bills stood in the middle of the storage space amid the shelves filled with drugs and guns and money. A note was scrawled in the margin:

  La Santa Muerte.

  Chapter 6

  The scrapbooks were more of the same, local coverage of the bust. Paisley had clipped many copies of the Santa Muerte photos. Some she had enlarged on a scanner and printed out. Grace marveled at the altar. Cops in the foreground gave one picture some scale. The statue was around six feet tall, with two-dollar bills attached to a gold robe. An owl rested on her right arm, a scythe held in her left. Mounds of offerings obscured the bottom of the statue.

  “Wow,” Grace said aloud.

  However, the names of the shooters did not sound Latino at all. Frank Hammock and Zander Fields were the two waiting in ambush. Later reports said that evidence led to the arrest of seven other people. Grace noted Irish and Polish names, one German, but none that sounded Mexican. She didn’t know a whole lot about Santa Muerte, but she did know the skeletal saint was big in Mexico. The patron saint of criminals, she thought.

  Not one to discriminate against personal spirituality, she thought it made a kind of sense for Roxbury drug dealers to worship the same saint as drug dealers south of the border. But if that was the case, then why was Paisley so obsessed about it? There were three blow-ups of the owl. It looked like a real owl, wings outstretched. Grace looked at the taxidermy raccoon guarding the lamp. “Friend of yours?”

  After a few hours, she had read through everything. There was no mention of ties to a Mexican cartel. Maybe, even with all the shooting, the bust was too low-level to reach the suppliers at the top of the chain. Lisa’s injury was a flesh wound and she was only in New England Baptist Hospital overnight. Grace still had no leads. She flipped back through the printed photos. She’d seen an owl someplace recently, but couldn’t remember where.

  A photo of Lisa O’Malley at a press conference caught her eye. What had Pete said? She was now Lt. O’Malley of Boston PD’s Internal Affairs Division. Grace put the files and scrapbooks away. Like it or not, it was time for a trip to the big city. She reached between the raccoon’s paws and pulled off the light. She wanted to give it a pat on the head. It was too icky.

  Taking her cell phone out on the way to the car, she was rewarded with Lt. O’Malley picking up her own phone. She agreed to meet at a café a block or so from Police headquarters.

  Grace drove back to the highway, following 95 to Suntaug Lake before making a big loop onto Route 1. After winding through Massachusetts for nearly an hour, she crossed the Tobin Bridge over the Mystic River. She was surprised to see a big loop ahead of her. It turned out to lead onto I-93 and the Tip O’Neil Tunnel. Grace was going the wrong way.

  After some tense minutes of Mass-hole drivers in a four-lane tunnel, she found her way out of what used to be called the Big Dig and exited onto the Mass Ave. Connector, which she followed past Mass Ave. to Melnea Cass Boulevard. Melnea Cass crossed Tremont just a short ways from BPD headquarters. Maybe she hadn’t gone the wrong way, after all. Driving to the curved headwaters of Columbus Avenue, she found parking just outside the café.

  The day was becoming unseasonably warm as the past week had been. Time on her phone said she was early. But a glance at the outdoor seating revealed that O’Malley was earlier. Grace went in, grabbed herself a cup of house coffee to go. A few minutes later, she sat in front of the lieutenant.

  Lisa O’Malley had shoulder length blonde hair framing a long face, grey eyes and a disarming smile. “What’s an insurance investigator doing looking for a missing person? Let me guess. A favor for the boss.”

  Grace didn’t put on any pretenses. “I’m out of my depth here, but Paisley’s a friend.”

  “I didn’t think she had any.” O’Malley spun the paper take out cup between her hands. “Not close ones anyway.”

  “You’ve talked to her.”

  O’Malley nodded. “Usually about once a week for the past few months. She stopped calling about two, three weeks ago.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Will’s death. How it wasn’t looked into the way it should’ve been. The fact that Will was a terrible acrophobe. The man could barely climb a ladder. And yet he climbed up and leapt off a two hundred foot building. Paisley asked if we would ever reconsider opening the case. The sad truth is, there’s no compelling evidence to reopen it.”

  Grace considered the stack of reports about the drug shooting, but held back. “Why did you go from Narcotics to Internal Affairs?”

  Lisa laughed. “You’re a mystery fan? Wondering why I’d become a department rat. Well, it isn’t like you see in the movies or read in books. My primary job is back-grounding recruits. We don’t want to invite the wrong element onto the force. I’m the one who makes sure our fresh-faced candidates don’t have a history of wrongdoing, whether they have a jacket or not.”

  Grace sipped her coffee. “Sounds a lot less exciting than shoot-outs with drug dealers.”

  “Less exciting was what I was looking for after I got shot.” Her words turned hard. A hand strayed to her shoulder. “I dealt with AI more than any cop should, both with the OIS and the suicide. But it turned out I liked the guys from the division, and I applied for a transfer.”

  “You’re the one who found the suicide note?”

  She shook her head. “No, but I was at the apartment when it was found. I knew something was eating at him. I thought it was the IA investigation into the shooting. But he was still behaving strangely after we were cleared. Maybe there was more I could’ve done. He didn’t even finish the note. There was no big ‘screw you, cruel world,’ no ‘tell my family I love them.’ Just...”

  Grace knew what the suicide note said. I can no longer live with the fear of knowing what... And that was all.

  O’Malley seemed to hide behind her cup. “Funny, even two years later, it’s hard to talk about. Will saved my life in that shooting. I owed him. I’ll never get the chance to repay him.”

  “Well, I get why Paisley wouldn’t let it go. Based on that obscure note, the department closed the case on one of its own?”

  Lisa closed her eyes. “There were other mitigating circumstances...evidence that came up. There was nothing concrete, but there was enough suspicion that suicide made sense. Even if I were allowed to talk about it, I don’t think I could.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “Yes you did,” Lisa smiled, though her eyes looked a little teary. “You wouldn’t be a good investigator if you didn’t.”

  “I’ve never been accused of being a good investigator. I’m just trying to find a friend. Paisley might be in a dangerous emotional state. You know what that’s like.”

  The lieutenant looked down at the mosaic tile of the table. “Indeed I do. It would’ve been nice to toss Jane a bone. To tell her that this was a revenge killing, made to look like a suicide. The facts just don’t bear it out.”

  “Jane?”

  O’Malley’s face brightened. “I don’t know how long you’ve known Paisley, but I’m guessing you wouldn’t even recognize Officer Jane P. Cartwright. She was a completely different person when she was on the force. White Gloves, we call the rookies who are gung-ho, by the book, wanting to make a difference. She made the number one spot on the Civil Service exam, and while she was waiting, earned a degree in criminal science before we called her to the academy. First in her class there, too. William’s death took more than one good cop off the force.”

  Chapter 7


  Grace remained at the café table after Lisa O’Malley left to pursue four hundred complaints of misconduct against police officers, and two hundred potential recruits. But Grace had driven nearly an hour to Boston. She might as well talk to more BPD cops while she was here. Grace, however, was a small town girl, not a Bostonian. Other than Pete Willoughby, she wasn’t friends with any cops.

  Paisley had friends on the force, though. Grace sat for a while, trying to come up with a name. By the time she finished her coffee, she had one. Bob Beaumont’s name came up during a case. Grace had no idea where he worked, BPD being spread out all over the city. Headquarters was just down the street. All she could do was ask.

  Inside the dark glass building were various colored lines on the floor. Grace didn’t know what they meant, so she stood in line in front of a desk. A group of women staffers directed people to the various lines. “Help you?” a gray-haired woman in a rose-print blouse asked when it was her turn.

  “I’m trying to locate an officer, Bob Beaumont.”

  “Orange line. Next.”

  Grace quickly figured out that the orange line led to a fingerprint station. There were two people ahead of her. A man in uniform sat at a window, inking prints old-style, with actual black ink instead of the new electronic gizmos she’d seen.

  As she waited, two more people showed up behind her. Grace was going to have to make this faster than she wanted. She stepped up to the window.

  “Where’s your documents?” A pudgy, sandy-haired officer with a heavy accent gave her hard eyes.

  “I’m actually not here to get printed. I’m a friend of Paisley. She’s missing. She mentioned your name as a friend”

  “Some friend! Because I ran some prints for her on the QT, I ended up with this shit assignment. I work crime scenes. Not with the public.”

  Grace recalled a discussion between Paisley and Pete Willoughby and decided not to bring his name into it. “So you haven’t spoken to her recently?”

  Beaumont looked over her shoulder. “The natives are getting restless. Give me your hand.”

  “What?” She reached in, and Beaumont started printing her.

  “She called me. Paisley’s got that kinda nerve. Wanted me to go over the crime scene with her again. This is the OIS with her brother. I worked that scene. Prints went to a bunch of scumbags that got picked up. Just relax your hand.”

  Her fingers were rolled on a card. “Paisley do that a lot?”

  “Every week or so for the past year. But it’s been a while. Last time, she wanted to know more about the contents of the locker. Don’t ask me why. I guess the anniversary of his death.”

  “The Santa Muerte stuff?”

  “Yep.” He rolled her middle finger. “I processed the scene. It was an obvious set-up. Neither one of those cops should’ve walked out alive. Really, it made no sense to hit them there, where they kept drugs and money and the creepy stuff. Life sized Grim Reaper statue buried in flowers, money taped to the robe, candy and booze and bullets, that crazy owl, candles...”

  Crazy owl and candles struck a chord in her head. She went on. “Maybe it wasn’t a set-up?”

  Beaumont shook his head. He looked at the line behind her. Grace heard murmuring. “Left hand. Cartwright and O’Malley were UC, undercover, and they finally hooked a bigger deal than a street buy. Somehow, before the deal went down, the scumbags figured out they were cops. Maybe it was too late to change locations for the buy. That storage place is in an industrial area. Maybe they intended to move the merchandise and the bodies. But the UCs had backup. This wasn’t a typical Narcotics cowboy play. This was a legit bust.”

  “So why not just shine the undercover cops on? Make them get a warrant. They wouldn’t have probable cause if the dealers didn’t open the drug locker. Why shoot them?”

  Beaumont handed her a packaged towelette. He turned to his computer. After a quick search, he wrote something on a slip of paper. “I don’t know the ins and outs. Talk to this guy. He’s a lieutenant in Narcotics. If anyone knows what went down, he does.”

  “Thanks.” Fingers inky, she delicately placed the slip in her jacket pocket.

  “You find Paisley, you tell her she still owes me one.”

  Grace opened the foil envelope and swiped at the ink. “If I find Paisley, she’s going to owe you two.”

  The man behind her in line made an exasperated noise as he walked up to the window. Grace focused on cleaning her hands. After a few moments’ work, she figured she was ink-free enough to reach in her purse. Back out on Tremont, she dialed the number Beaumont gave her.

  “This is Lt. Henry Riley of the Boston Police Drug Control Unit. If this is an emergency, hang up, and dial 9-1-1. If you need to leave a message for me, leave your name, number and a detailed message after the beep.”

  Grace waited for the beep, wondering what she was going to say. She walked toward the Prius. The phone beeped, and she gave her name and number. As for a detailed message? “I’m looking into the disappearance of a woman, Jane Paisley Cartwright, that may involve a narcotics case from a few years ago. The Santa Muerte drug bust with the officer-involved shooting. Please call me back.”

  How lame did that sound?

  She walked past the café to her Prius, and was happy to see no ticket. Grace never could figure out parking rules in Boston. For a while, she waited for the lieutenant to call back. She put the radio on. A traffic report said that Block the Mainline was working up to another bridge blockage.

  Grace only knew one route out of Boston. Well, two now that she’d gotten lost. Still, driving in Boston even without the threat of a closed bridge was never a picnic. Deciding she could answer with the Bluetooth, she pulled out of her space.

  Beaumont’s words still weighed in her mind. Crazy owl, candle. Salem was on the way home. As she navigated, her GPS of little use, she thought that Paisley might be on to something after all.

  It was before the rush hour, but traffic was bad in the city. Traffic was always bad in the city. She finally found Route 1 and aimed the Prius at Salem. Less than an hour later, she parked in front of Paisley’s house.

  The Old Lady would still be at work. Grace let herself in. Upstairs, she entered Paisley’s frilly pink room. Crazy owl, candle. She lifted the half-burned candle from the window sill and tipped it upside down. The bird she had glimpsed when she first looked was definitely an owl. Grace gave the candle a cursory sniff, and jerked it away from her face. Eew. Definitely something wrong there.

  She looked more closely at the curled black wick, the wax. Tiny red particles dotted the wax. A shadow lurked beneath the surface. Grace wasn’t familiar with black magic or Santa Muerte. She was an antiques expert, and while yes, she was experienced with cursed and powerful objects, this was out of her wheelhouse.

  Candle in her purse, she walked downstairs. So who’s wheelhouse would this be in? At first, she thought about Jack Stoughton. He owned a mystical shop full of New Age and magical ingredients. Grace was also pretty sure he was a black market dealer in magic objects, although she had never found any evidence. Still, the shop, L’objets de L’occulte, would be closed until dark.

  Santa Muerte, as little as she knew about it, was a religion. With that in mind, she put the Prius in drive and headed for New Carfax.

  Chapter 8

  She parked on the town square and stood looking up at the looming spire of St. Paul’s. Though the building had stood for more than a century, the current United Church of Christ had purchased it from First Presbyterian before she was born. Locals referred to it as the New Church. Her mother’s funeral service had been held here. Grace clenched her teeth, feeling a stirring in her gut. Anger and grief felt like a physical barrier, keeping her from entering. But the pastor, Rob Swift, had been a friend of her mother’s. Recently, they had acquainted themselves over a matter of weirdness Grace and Paisley were looking into. It seemed Rev. Swift had some knowledge of the dark side.

  Making an effort, she pushed into the
church. Empty aisles greeted her. She listened to her footsteps echo. Swift’s office was in the basement. She walked the aisle to a door beside the altar and headed downstairs. Rev. Swift’s door stood open. He sat at his desk, typing on a computer. At her light knock, he looked up.

  “Hey, Grace.” His features lit up. “C’mon in. I’m just working on Sunday’s sermon.”

  She took the visitor’s chair. “How’s it coming?”

  He made a face. “I’m feeling uninspired. What can I do for you?”

  “Um.” How to broach the subject? It seemed profane to bring a black magic article onto sanctified ground. With a shrug, she took it out of her purse and set it on his desk.

  Swift’s brows rose. He surprised her. “Santa Muerte?” He tipped the jar candle and nodded at the label on the bottom.

  “How could you know that?”

  Swift shrugged. “My brother is a pastor in El Paso. We talk a lot about this kind of thing.” He took a sniff, wrinkled his nose, and pushed it away. “Oh yeah, I think this is the real deal.”

  “Real deal what?”

  “The kind of thing you’d use in a magic ritual. Do you mind if I shoot a picture of this to my brother? No promises. He’s not the hands-on preacher that I am.”

  Grace couldn’t see a problem with it. “I feel bad bringing it into the church, but I didn’t know who else to ask about it.”