The Sinister Secrets of the Enchanting Blaze Read online

  It was good that she had. A figure in a black robe appeared. Grace suppressed a cry. The figure held out a mug of coffee. “Just regular.”

  Paisley wore a bathrobe with the hood in the shape of raven’s head, eyes, beak and all; triceratops slippers on her feet. Grace tried: “How are you feeling?”

  “Do you smell that horrible smell in the air?” Paisley spoke from deep within the raven head. “That’s me. BRB.”

  Grace watched the triceratopses bounding out of the attic room. She took her coffee, the box and photo back to Paisley’s office. How was she going to relate what she’d learned about Will’s death? Outside, trees stood naked and gray. The storm had stripped them of leaves. Iron clouds vied with blue sky.

  Paisley returned a remarkably short time later. She dressed simply, black velvet dress with long sleeves and a scoop neck, an elaborate choker with a negative-space skull dominating, purple spider web pattern tights, knee-high granny boots. Her pale face was made over into the usual death-like pallor. Greys and blues marked cheekbones grown hollow. Purples and greens over the eyes and blue lipstick completed the corpse look. She furiously ran a brush through long green hair.

  “So my brother was murdered.”

  Grace nodded.

  “By magic.”

  She continued nodding.

  “So, no evidence, no weapon, the perfect crime.”

  Grace had to tell her. “There’s more to it than that.”

  Paisley gave her the eye. “A lot more? Is it bad?”

  “Yes. To both.”

  “Then I better get something to eat. I’m freakin starvated. There’s a couple all-you-can-eat Chinese buffets on Boston Street.”

  “Paisley, it’s just after nine a.m.”

  She shrugged. “It’s okay, they have sushi, too.”

  Chapter 21

  Of course, the buffet was closed, but the owners opened up when they saw Paisley. “I eat here a lot,” she confided.

  “Hello, Paisley. We haven’t seen you in a long time.” An Asian woman led them to a table. Surrounding buffet counters stood empty.

  “Hi, May. This is Grace,” Paisley said. “She saved my life last night, so she’s okay.”

  “Welcome,” the woman said. “What can I get you?”

  Paisley didn’t go for the menu. Instead, she pressed her palms together, rhythmically tapping her fingertips in thought. “Let’s see, some kind of eggs-bacon-ham-cheese-sausage-peppers scramble, fried oyster fried rice, any noodles you have, I don’t care if they’re fresh, fried shrimp, fried lobster, and a cheeseburger. Oh. White toast.”

  The waitress didn’t respond the way Grace thought she would. May scribbled on her pad for a moment before looking up. “Family style?”

  “Oh, sorry, did you want something, Grace?”

  “Um. The egg thing sounds good.”

  “Coffee?”

  “Yes, please. No kopi luwak. I hear the civets are mistreated.”

  Grace held up two fingers. May smiled and disappeared.

  “I knew there was something more about Will’s death than the cops were letting on.” For just a flash, the undead face collapsed in sorrow. After a deep breath, Paisley went on, voice a little tight. “What did you find out?”

  Without knowing a way to soften the news, Grace told her about the suspected rat in the Drug Control Unit.

  “Freakin shart-stains. Will wasn’t a rat. Who told you that? Lt. Riley? I never trusted that guy.”

  Coffee arrived, the mug obviously ones used by the staff, and plates. Grace confirmed. “He’s the one.”

  “Riley was on the scene of the shoot-out, and the one conducting the investigation into Will’s...”

  “Murder,” Grace finished. She no longer had any doubt. “That box of candles in the attic—they’re dressed for a specific spell. They’re called vela sin miedo, and they make you confront your deepest fear.”

  Paisley stared at Grace for a while. “I always thought the drug dealers had gone after Will. Santa Muerte played a part, I figured. But you can’t exactly find a black magic brujo on Yelp.com. I’ve looked. But if the candles aren’t on the evidence list, it had to be the cops.”

  Eggs arrived first on a large oblong platter. Paisley dug in. Grace did as well. Over the past few days, she’d drank a lot of coffee, a little chocolate, and eaten a breakfast sandwich and two Pop-Tarts. As more dishes arrived, Paisley mixed them all together on her plate and shoveled it in. She paused for only a second, head angled to one side.

  “Why is it that I lose weight in my boobs first? Of all the places. This dress feels like a potato sack.”

  She commenced eating before Grace could comment. With nearly all the food demolished, Paisley sat back, waving the cheeseburger around. “Here’s the other thing that bothered me,” she said around a mouthful of food. “How did drug dealers know Will kept a candle burning all the time? Now I get it. The cops were more likely to know.”

  Grace had finished half a plate of the scramble and felt bloated. How could Paisley eat all that? “Except, why would a cop use black magic? Cops have guns, knives, batons.”

  “Because what you said. There was a rat in the DCU. Not Will. But someone cozy with the Santa Muerte crowd. And someone who was investigating both the shootout, and Will’s death. That’s one guy. That’s Lt. Henry Riley. He’s a rat and a murderer.”

  May returned. They both said yes to a coffee refill.

  “You’re thinking that Will knew his lieutenant was working both sides?” Grace picked up the thread. “It’s still impossible to prove. Like you said, it’s a perfect crime. Candles don’t kill people. At least, they don’t in the normal world, where judges and courtrooms exist.”

  “We should confront him.”

  Grace thought about it. They would be confronting a decorated, high ranking Boston Police officer. They would be threatening him with a magic candle. “I don’t think that’s going to play.”

  “Yeah. You’re right. His deepest fears are probably something stupid. Like snakes or rats.” Her eyes went wide. “Patricia!”

  “I think your housekeeper’s kid is feeding her,” Grace said.

  Paisley took a breath, and a bite of the cheeseburger. “That’s good. But Pedro’s small for his age. I think Patricia could take him. She gets a little testy if I don’t let her ‘escape’ once in a while.” Paisley made finger quotes in the air.

  “I’ll bet The Old Lady really loves that.”

  “Are you kidding? Everyone’s afraid of Aunt Vickie. Even Patricia.” Paisley dug through her bag and found a credit card. She set it on the bill. Then, she eyed her iPad. “What the what?”

  Paisley set the device on the table, unlocked it, and swiped around. “Apparently, I’m the administrator of something called Block the Mainline.”

  “That’s why you were on the bridge,” Grace said. “You’re the administrator?”

  The Goth made a face shrug.

  “I wouldn’t mention that fact to anyone who commutes around here.” Grace drained her coffee. “You really don’t remember what you’ve been doing the past two weeks?”

  “No. I do recall being really angry about that judge, Stanton, letting more dealers go free. And then I remembered where I left my car. It needed gas. Where did I leave it this time?”

  Grace pushed back from the table. “Y’know, weird as you are, I really missed you, Paize.”

  “If I’m weird, I don’t wanna know what normal is.” Paisley smiled as May picked up the check. “Y’know what’s great about Chinese food? I’ll be hungry again in half an hour.” She grabbed her boobs and shook. “Gotta plump up the girls again. Put on a fat layer before it gets cold.”

  Grace squinted at her. “If I lost a lot of weight, I’d be doing my best to keep it off.”

  “You? You’re so svelte. I don’t know why you hide it under all those boring outfits. It’s either the Hillary Clinton Collection, or Richdale’s clearance section.”

  Wanting to argue, Grace felt she
had no ammunition. Most of her off-work attire had in fact come from the convenience store that catered to tourists with T-shirts and hats. And most of her power suits came with slacks. “Maybe I didn’t miss you as much as I thought.”

  Chapter 22

  The plan, shaky at best, went into motion. Sick to death of driving to Boston, scooter or otherwise, Grace managed to talk Paisley into finding her own car. Parked three blocks from her house, a beautiful vehicle glistened in the dim sunlight. The Ford Thunderbird was vintage, cherry, immaculate in red, the white convertible top pristine.

  Grace took an astonished breath. “Omigod, Paisley, this car is—”

  “An eyesore, right? It’s totally not my style. I tried to get the guy at Earl Scheib to paint it orange, you know, so other drivers notice it. He refused.” She keyed open the door, and slid over to unlock the passenger side.

  Even the red and white interior was flawless, the broad seats unmarred, the rugs without a speck of dust. Grace slid in. Paisley cranked the engine, which responded with a throaty V8 roar.

  “And that 428 doesn’t exactly sip gas,” Paisley said.

  They took off, backtracking the route Grace had taken the previous night. Paisley’s driving was like watching a driver’s ed video. Her hands rested at ten o’clock and two o’clock, her eyes constantly checking her mirrors, speedometer at exactly the posted limit.

  “Where did you get this car?” Grace asked.

  Paisley didn’t respond until she stopped at a traffic light. “It was my mother’s. I don’t really like cars. They’re death traps.”

  “What, a scooter isn’t?”

  The light turned green, and Paisley accelerated. Without taking her eyes off the road, she put her index finger to her blue lips. “Shh. I’m driving.”

  If nothing else, the long, bridge-free drive to Boston made Grace amazed that the two of them had survived it on a scooter in the rain. Paisley drove without a GPS. To Grace’s surprise, Paisley only took I-95 as far as Route 1 and headed south. At Squire Road, she switched to Route 1A, taking the tunnel into Boston instead of a bridge.

  “Where are we headed?” Grace waited for a red light to ask.

  “District E-5. West Roxbury.”

  “Why there?”

  “The DCU always runs ops out of there.” Paisley took a winding path through downtown Boston, getting on and off I-93, heading through Southie and Dorchester, finally moving west past the zoo. Grace was utterly lost. Soon enough, they rolled up tree-lined West Roxbury Parkway. Paisley navigated the rotary, exited on Center Street, and half-slid into a parking space. Across the street was a large gray building. If not for all the cop cars parked outside, it might have been a big, weird house.

  Three girls in Catholic school uniforms paused on their way to the 7-Eleven down the street.

  “Are you a superhero?” One of them asked as Paisley jumped out of the big red car.

  Another girl slapped the first. “Shut up. She’s not an Avenger.”

  Paisley scowled. “I am, too. I’m... Vampire-Girl. I even have a sidekick. Just Plain Grace.”

  Arms in the air, Paisley jay-walked to the police station.

  “What’s your super power?” The first girl asked Grace.

  Grace hauled her purse up her shoulder and slammed the car door. “Putting up with Vampire-Girl.”

  Cars whizzed off the traffic circle. By the time Grace reached the police station, Paisley was already at the front desk. “Which conference room is Lt. Riley in, Jake?” she asked.

  The uniform looked up, did a double take, and then leaned forward. “Jane?”

  “AKA Vampire-Girl,” Grace said, just loud enough for Paisley to hear.

  “What’s the DCU up to, another Molly buy?”

  “You’re not a cop anymore, Jane,” Jake said. “Why do you want to talk to Riley?”

  “Oh, he knows,” Paisley said. “He’ll definitely want to talk to me.”

  It surprised Grace that a brief phone conversation got them in. Riley sat alone in a small room at a long table, reports and maps spread out on it. The lieutenant’s eyes popped at the sight of Vampire-Girl storming the conference room. They narrowed at Grace.

  “So, you think Will was a rat, huh?” Paisley’s fists fell on her hips.

  Through his teeth, Riley addressed Grace. “You must be Grace Longstreet.”

  “I’m not an idiot, Riley. There had to be some reason you dropped the investigation into Will’s death.”

  The lieutenant slowly and purposefully folded his hands and set them on the table. “I don’t have time for this. The case is closed.”

  Paisley turned to Grace. “Do it.”

  Grace fumbled the candle out of her purse and held it up. Paisley pulled a lighter from her bra.

  “You know what this is, Lieutenant,” Paisley said.

  His eyes shifted from Paisley to the candle to Grace. One brow lifted. “A candle?”

  Paisley shot Grace a look, confidence falling. She went on. “And if we light it?”

  “It’ll burn?” Riley folded his arms. “We don’t allow open flames in the building, but if it’ll get rid of you, have at it.”

  “DAMMIT!” PAISLEY UNLOCKED the car.

  Grace understood her frustration. She’d spent a career trying to convince rational people that the un-rational threatened them. From the lieutenant’s reaction, it was a given that he wasn’t responsible for the black magic candles. She slid in the big convertible when Paisley unlocked the door.

  “I thought for sure it was Riley,” Paisley said. “But he should’ve freaked out at the sight of the vela sin miedo, right?”

  “If we were going to light it in the conference room, yeah, he should’ve been at least a little worried.” Grace buckled up. “Anyone familiar with the power of the spell would be.”

  “Where does this leave us?” Paisley slumped in the driver seat. “Square one?”

  “Not necessarily. I’ve been thinking that whoever cast this spell on you and Will took the candles from the shootout. But if there was a rat in the Drug Control Unit, it could’ve been anyone with access to both the scene and Will’s apartment. Did he have any visitors from the cops at his place?”

  “Well, technically, I lived there, too. If you work for Boston PD, you have to live in Boston. I didn’t really, though, just got my mail there. And Will was a UC guy. You can’t have an undercover cop visited by cops all the time.”

  “But you lived there while you were a cop.”

  Paisley shrugged. “The department probably knew, but didn’t say anything. Sometimes, I had to make an appearance when his partner showed up.”

  “Lisa O’Malley.”

  “That’s right.”

  Grace took a breath. “Who was on the scene of the shootout as well.”

  “Oh, c’mon. She got shot in the storage place. How could she smuggle candles out of there?”

  “I don’t think she needed to. Not if she was already working the other side. If she was a double agent, or whatever you call it, she could’ve had access to a Santa Muerte brujo as well.”

  Paisley rolled her eyes. “That’s a huge stretch, Grace.”

  “Did you know she’s working in Internal Affairs now?”

  Frowning in agreement, Paisley said, “Okay; that moves her into the rat category.”

  Paisley cranked the engine and pointed the car east.

  Chapter 23

  They’d circled the block several times before a car pulled from a spot on Tremont in front of police headquarters. With a squeal of brakes, a lane change, and the honk of a horn, Paisley practically power slid into the parking space. Grace rocked, gripping the seat-belt as the big T-bird shuddered. She stared daggers at Paisley.

  “What? I used my blinker.”

  A little shaken, Grace followed. Instead of entering the lobby, Paisley walked beneath a breezeway and around back. Producing a key card from somewhere, the Goth smiled when the lock beeped. “So much for heightened security.”

/>   In the summer, a man had been shot outside of the Roxbury Crossing headquarters building. It seemed BPD was confident enough not to rekey the locks. Or reset them. Or whatever you did with electronic keys. Of course, the building was populated by people with guns.

  They walked down a hall with locker rooms on each side. Paisley made for a staircase. A uniformed officer coming down stopped them.

  “Can I help you ladies?” The balding man wore short sleeves and the zillion things cops carried. “This isn’t a public area—Jesus, Mary and Joseph, is that you, Jane? Halloween’s a week away.”

  “Hi, Kev. This is Grace. She’s okay. I’m just visiting my brother’s old partner.”

  Kev’s features softened at the mention of Will. “Still, you can’t just wander in here. You’re not a sworn officer anymore. C’mon, I’ll escort you.”

  With Officer Kev’s supervision, they took the elevator instead of sneaking up the stairs. When the elevator doors opened on the Bureau of Professional Standards, the cop held back. “I don’t much like this floor. Just make sure someone walks you out, Jane.” He nodded at Grace. Elevator doors closed on him. The landing stood in a hush.

  Paisley looked both ways. There was no directory of offices. “I’ve never been up here before.”

  “That’s hard to believe,” Grace smirked.

  “Hey, I was a good cop. Sure, it was only for six months. Still—”

  Two men, one black and balding, one white and thin, both in suit separates and loose ties walked to the landing. Conversation halted at the sight of Grace and the Goth. Before they could question why the two women were standing there, Paisley piped up.

  “Our escort said he didn’t like this floor. We have an appointment with Lt. O’Malley.”

  The black cop snickered. “Doesn’t like this floor.”

  The skinny white cop directed. “Go to the right, end of the hall, RIU. You police recruits?”

  Again, the black cop snickered.

  “No thanks, I’ve had enough police work,” Paisley said. “Thank you.”