The Sinister Secrets of the Deadly Summoner Page 8

  “Tastes change.” Grace shrugged. “Grunge happened. And then… I’m not sure.”

  The sounds of Aerosmith filled the car. Paisley switched to Boston’s Alternative, 92.9. She listened for a minute. “What is Coldplay an alternative to? Nails on a chalkboard? A car that needs brakes? Cats having sex?”

  Grace shut the car down, killing the radio. “There’s a book in back. Maybe you should read.”

  Paisley put on a British accent. “Or maybe I could roll a big hoop down the street with a stick, governor, or, if you fancy it, a stimulating game of jackstraws?” She rolled her eyes. “People don’t read anymore, Grace.”

  “Your scooter’s right down the street.”

  “What are we looking for, anyway? What did Barb at the ME’s office say? Weird fish or something? Is that what we’re after? I gotta say, it doesn’t seem likely on Hale Street.”

  Grace studied the dark street. Sal’s Strings was flanked by a reputable Early American furniture dealer on the left, a junk store on the right. While the furniture store had a good reputation, Grace had evaluated a number of finds from the junk store and pronounced them just that—junk. “I don’t know what we’re looking for. We’ll know it if we see it.”

  Paisley grumbled and reached into the back seat. For a while, she fumbled through Legends and Lore of the North Shore. A couple minutes later, she stopped paging and started reading. “Here’s something interesting.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Dirty fingerprints.”

  “Ha ha.” Grace sighed. “I get it. Nobody reads anymore.”

  “No. Listen to this. Kalupalquee was a spirit of the sea—a walrus goddess, apparently.”

  “Funny. I associate walruses with men. Whiskers and all that.”

  “Whatev. One day a squaw, that’s what it says, I’m not being politically incorrect, who lived where the people fished for eels found no eels left on the shore, no fish, no nothing. This Pawtucket chick begged the sea people for fish to feed her starving village.

  “So Kalupalquee shows up. She’s a walrus goddess, so she’s not attractive. But she gives this squaw a horn and, here’s the important part, instructions. The squaw has to play three notes at every sunset, and only three notes, and the eels will return. If she broke the rules, Kalupalquee would not only revoke the returning eels thing, but take all the children from the village.”

  Grace listened more intently. “Sounds like a classic fairy tale with a Native American twist.”

  “So you know how the rest goes. The eels return, the village is happy, they give up farming to fish. But after a while, the village grows and there’s not enough eels. Yadda, yadda, yadda. So the squaw plays ‘In a Gadda Da Vida’ or something on the walrus horn.”

  “The eels vanish,” Grace guessed.

  “Heck no. Fifty gazillion fish show up, so many that the Indians can barely lift their nets. However,” Paisley raised a finger, “these delicious fish were filled with bad medicine. Apparently, some kind of toxin or disease. It took out all the babies in the village, of course, including our heroine’s offspring. She grabs her horn and throws herself into the sea. The village moves elsewhere. Probably somewhere the eel fishing was better. Hashtag: sad ending.”

  “Well, the stick/horn and the walrus and the specific instructions seem to fit our Objet de Puissance,” Grace agreed.

  “More important than that, the grimy fingerprints. Would you read an expensive book with dirty hands?”

  “Junior or Marc,” Grace mused. “I’ve never heard of Kalupalquee.”

  “What, you didn’t read this fascinating book?” Paisley took the iPad out of the bag at her feet and Googled. “Okay, here’s something, but it’s an Inuit legend. A child-stealing monster called—Queue—Quluk—called Q-U-L-U-P-L-I-K. It’s the Eskimo boogieman, apparently, boogiewoman, pardon me. Some of the stories have flutes and horns.” She shrugged.

  They sat for a while in silence, watching nothing happen. Not even the cat returned. Paisley put the iPad away.

  “Why aren’t you constantly staring at that thing like everyone else your age?” Grace asked. “That might keep you occupied.”

  “I hate computer games. I hate social media. If there’s anything more boring than reading a book, it’s looking at pictures of some douche canoe’s lunch. Or matching up a line of same-colored candies so they explode or whatev. I swear, the more technology advances, the stupider people get.”

  Grace kept her gaze on the street. “Did you cyber-stalk Jack Stoughton?”

  “Of course I did. He’s old school. Got a Facebook page. But it’s all about the shop. Not even a picture of him. Or his lunch.”

  “Y’know, I think Sal’s really into you. He was flirting up a storm.”

  “Eew, that old guy? Perv City.”

  “Old guy? Sal’s a couple years younger than me. He started going gray in high school. But he keeps it that way. You might buy your first electric guitar from a wanna-be rock star at the music store, but if you’re buying a ten thousand dollar Martin guitar, you want the proprietor to at least appear mature. That’s his theory, anyway.”

  “He didn’t have the turd weasel vibe,” Paisley admitted. After a thoughtful glance at the shop, she retrieved her iPad again. “Beverly High School—go Panthers. Oh, yeah, he’s a lot younger than you.”

  Grace pulled the iPad from her hands. “Two years younger,” she growled and handed it back.

  “Oops!” Paisley continued her cyber stalk. “Sorry. It’s just, your clothes, your hair. What do you call that color?”

  “Brunette?”

  “It’s brown, Grace. Like, Crayola could rename their brown crayon ‘Grace’s Hair.’ And your clothes. You wear slacks, for God’s sake. And flats. And those 1985-style power suits with the knee-length skirts. And your dress-down clothes. Bag ladies dress better. I mean, come on. You’re like a childless soccer mom.” Her features turned down in sorrow. “Oh. That sounds so sad…”

  Grace gripped the steering wheel. “Let’s just sit quietly, shall we?”

  The night passed slowly. No sign of a walrus goddess waddled around the shop. Around three a.m., the cat made a return trip from the alley. Rain fell at intervals. Otherwise, nothing moved the whole night on Hale Street.

  Chapter 22

  “It’s seven thirty, Grace. You’ll get sick.” Judy didn’t bother with a bee hive, or a bun. She had her hair tucked under a New England Patriots ball cap. Her eyes looked blurred and red.

  “Are you serving fried clams and onion rings tomorrow?”

  “Hell no!”

  “Then I’ll have the fried clams and onion rings.”

  Judy shook her head and turned to Paisley. “The usual?”

  “I’ve been sitting in a Prius all night. I need calories to jump start my metabolism. You got emu egg omelets or something?”

  Judy closed her eyes. After a moment of gathering strength, she shouted, “Medieval some pissers, bride crying in an alley, barnyard in a bigtop.”

  A voice issued from the pass through. “Seriously?”

  Judy slapped her hands on the counter and rose. “Just cook it, Marv!”

  “Judy’s in a mood.” Paisley watched her breaking out another packet of kopi luwak and brightened up. “Still, you can’t beat the service.”

  When the food arrived, Grace started scarfing. Paisley gazed at an omelet that threatened to overflow the plate. “Is this really ostrich eggs?”

  “No. It’s a six-egg omelet full of everything,” Judy said. “I thought you were hungry.”

  “No hash browns?”

  Judy nodded at the eggs. “They’re in there.”

  “Toast?”

  “It’s in there.”

  “Savage.” Paisley dug in.

  Customers filed in. Judy walked around to take orders and shout them to Marv.

  “Maybe it’s not about who has the stick,” Grace mused. “Maybe it’s about the last person who played the thing.”

  “Played the
wrong notes,” Paisley nodded. “There really is toast in here.”

  “Maybe Kalupalquee is a bigger music critic than you.”

  “Except I never killed anyone. I have thought about taking out Pink a few times.” She sang, “Na-na-na-nah-na-na-na, na-na-na-na-na-nah. I mean, what the hell is that? We used to sing that in nursery school.”

  Grace pushed the plate away, pulled out her cell phone. “Let’s go see Sal.”

  “You think he’s open today? It’s Labor Day. And it isn’t even eight o’clock yet.”

  “He better be.”

  As Grace convinced Sal to drive up from Boston, she watched as Paisley put the entire omelet away.

  She sat back with a groan. “I probably look like I have that helmet stuck under my dress again.”

  “Sal isn’t open today, but he’ll let us in around noon.” She raised her brows. “But only if I bring you along.”

  “Noon is good,” Paisley said. “I gotta go home and change. This outfit’s giving me monkey butt.”

  Grace, while not having monkey butt, was feeling a little stale herself. After dropping Paisley at her scooter, she drove home. With hours to kill, she took a long route. Her mother’s house still stood at the end of Brackenbury Lane, although a development had swallowed the empty fields and woods that used to surround it.

  She fingered the cameo, trying not to remember the last day she lived here. From the outside, the place looked pristine. Although the lawn could use a mow, the hedges a trim. Instead of going in, she texted that neighbor kid, what was his name? She found him at the end of her contacts. Zale. He did the upkeep on the yard and what remained of the garden for cheap. Mom wouldn’t like unmowed grass and bushy bushes.

  Grace felt a hot stab in her mind. The anger was still there, an anchor chain in a depth of sorrow. Did she really care what her mom would want after what she did? What she did to Grace? To herself? To everything?

  After a few moments, she got a hold of herself. Lack of sleep, Grace thought, putting her on edge. She sent the text, and was surprised by a prompt response. Zale probably needed a payday for online game money, or comics, or whatever it was that kids did these days.

  At her little Cape Cod, she showered and stared into her closet. Slacks. Power suits. Weekend clothes apparently a bum wouldn’t wear. Hardly anything in between. Dammit. Grace took a sniff of yesterday’s jeans, and decided she’d been sitting in a car too long. They went in the hamper.

  To hell with Paisley. The day was already heating up. She grabbed a pair of khaki cargo shorts and a dark blue Red Sox T-shirt. Clunky hiking boots and socks finished the ensemble. After dumping the important contents of her purse into her cargo pockets, she headed out.

  It was still early. She parked in front of her own shop. While the front was decorated to impress, the workshop in back was not. Her workbench was parked in front of a bookcase. An alabaster statue sat atop the case, an image of Bastet, Egyptian cat goddess. “Hey, Kitty.” She brushed the statue a few times with a feather duster. Then, she grabbed down the tall, green ledgers and set them on the bench.

  She’d purchased her Cape Cod from her Uncle Dave, who let it go with the promise that the shop remain open. Grace had kept that promise—though barely. Still, the shop she inherited from Uncle Dave had been inherited from Dave’s uncle, who inherited it from his father, and so on back to the early 1700s. Longstreet Green Ledgers recorded every cursed, sacred, powerful or otherwise strange assessment for nearly three centuries. Donning cotton gloves, she delved into the prizes captured by explorers, privateers, Yankee traders, and down through the years.

  Finally, she reached the last entries, the few made by Grace herself. There was no mention of a stick/horn of any kind, nor an object made of walrus ivory. So George Ryan had never brought his powerful, clam-summoning instrument for a Longstreet to examine. But of course he didn’t, Grace thought. He knew what it was; he knew how to use it.

  The bell above the shop door jangled. Grace hurried into the front of the shop. Paisley closed the door behind her. “New locks, remember?”

  She had changed into Super-Goth. Her top was a front-lacing corset in purple with a leopard print. Her skirt was studded black leather, micro mini. Beneath that were the tops of purple fence net stockings. Below that, stiletto heeled boots that rose above her knees. Green hair hung loose. Purple lipstick and eye shadow popped on an otherwise blank white face.

  “Wow, look at you,” Paisley said. “Shorts! You got nice stems, Grace. You gotta flaunt it.”

  “Um. Look at you!” Grace didn’t know how to go on.

  Paisley sighed. “Well, I can’t afford a hobby. Kopi luwak is breaking the bank. Jack never called to thank me…” It was hard to tell beneath the pallor of her makeup, but Grace was pretty sure Paisley was blushing. “So let’s go see Sal.”

  Chapter 23

  Sal wasn’t in the shop. They hung around outside, tourists gawking at Paisley in full aggressive Goth mode. A family of four timidly approached. The dad looked Paisley up and down. Sweat trickled from his temples. It was the two daughters that approached. “Can we take a picture with you? We’re from Kansas. We don’t have witches in Kansas.”

  “Like ‘Wicked,’” the younger girl said.

  “Elpahba had green skin and black hair. I have white skin and green hair. Go away.” Paisley waved them off with her fingers. When the dad raised his camera anyway, Paisley flipped him off.

  A rusty blue Dodge van pulled to the curb.

  “You see this van? This is the kind of van that creeps use to abduct annoying little girls!” Paisley shouted.

  Sal got out of the van. “What?”

  “Oops! Sorry, Sal.”

  “That was… inappropriate.”

  “Yes. It was.” Paisley failed to look ashamed. Instead, she struck a pose. “I am available for abduction, by the way.”

  Sal ran his hand through his hair. He rattled his keys. “Let’s get inside.”

  When he turned to unlock the door, Paisley made an exaggerated grimace at Grace, brows raised in worry. Grace lifted her palms. It was tough to unsay words.

  “I’m really sorry. It’s just that those girls called me a witch. And that dad, he was just all, all—sweaty at me! I didn’t know you drove a creep van. I figured you for a Honda Accord kinda guy. Maybe a CRV.”

  Sal looked bemused as he let them in. “That outfit is going to attract attention.” He shrugged and beeped off the alarm. After turning on the lights, he walked behind the counter. “I’m assuming you contacted the owner?”

  Grace watched as he placed the huge stick/horn on top of the counter. “Actually, no.”

  Sal gave Grace the hairy eyeball. “Because…?”

  She bit her lower lip.

  Sal’s eyes went wide. “It’s worse than the lute, isn’t it?”

  Grace nodded.

  “Much worse,” Paisley added.

  “Much worse? How could it be—holy shit. Those guys, the one from the flats, the skinny one—I saw it on the news, but I didn’t… Holy shit.”

  “It’s okay, Sal. We staked out your shop last night. Whatever this thing does, it only does it to someone who actually played the thing.” Grace tried to calm him down.

  His hands rose to his hair, gripping. “Holy shit!”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I have a PhD in musicology. I’ve worked as an orchestra conductor. I’ve played bass in a crappy cover band to get chicks. Of course I played it!”

  “Holy shit,” Paisley said.

  Grace waved her hands around. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, can we all stop saying ‘holy shit’ for a second? Let’s keep calm. You played it. Nothing happened. We’re cool for the moment, so let’s just take a freakin breath.”

  All of them jumped at a loud beep! Sal’s jaw fell open, his hands again clutching his hair. Then, he chuckled. “Sorry. That’s the alarm setting. Don’t let me forget to shut if off before we leave. It’s just on the doors. You two want a drink? I could use a drink. Le
t’s have a drink.”

  He moved toward the back door, and left down a hallway. In a moment, he returned with a bottle of Scotch and three little paper cups.

  “None for me, thanks. I don’t drink.”

  Sal nodded as he poured two. “I don’t have anything else. Wait, I have some coffee. I gotta warn you, it’s pretty unusual.”

  Paisley leaned closer to Grace and whispered, “If he says it comes out of a cat’s butt, I think I’m going to fall in love.”

  “There’s an animal in southern Asia—”

  Paisley sobbed. “Please tell me you’re not married!”

  Sal’s confused eyes moved between the women. “What?”

  “Yes, please, coffee.”

  “The stick horn,” Grace pointed, voice raised. She took the small cup and threw it back. It burned. Her voice turned hoarse. “What else can you tell us?”

  Sal downed his shot, cleared his throat, and moved back down the hall. His voice still carried. “Well, like I told you, it’s a tri-tone, ascending and descending finger holes. If you just finger the middle hole, it doesn’t make a note. Must be in the chambering. This is really unusual in a Native instrument. Most Indians used a pentatonic scale, five notes, not three.”

  The scent of coffee drifted to them. Paisley closed her eyes, bared her teeth. She squeaked out two words. “Soul mate.”

  “You just leap from obsession to obsession!”

  She covered her eyes with her hands. “It’s my thing.”

  “We’ll give that five minutes to brew.” Sal reappeared. He stared at Paisley. “Is something wrong?”

  Grace shook her head. “Nothing you won’t find out soon enough.”

  “Anyway,” he continued across the shop, walking energetically. Sal opened the lid of the harpsichord. “The flute/horn isn’t tuned to a 440A or anything, but the tones are close to these.”

  He played three notes. The scale sounded incomplete, as if wanting one more note.

  Paisley’s mouth flew open. “That’s ‘Black Sabbath’ by Black Sabbath.” She stood close to Sal at the keyboard and played the notes in a different order.