Deadly Magic (5 page)

“
No.”

“
You said she does some aerial acrobatics. I’ve seen that done before. They twist and contort their way around—”

Dragovich shook his head.
“Lily has done this a thousand times. There is no way this was an accident.”

“
Was anyone up there with her?”

“
No. She was alone.”

“
How do you know?”

“
I could see her from the stage, sitting on the platform, waiting for her cue. There wasn’t anyone else up there with her.”

“
Were you watching her the whole time?”

“
No, but I saw her sitting there when the chest rose to the top. I didn’t see anyone else.”

“
Was Mrs. Straker depressed?”

The magician stood there a second before crossing his arms.

“Mr. Dragovich,” the detective prompted.

“
No. Not at all.”

“
You hesitated.”

“
Lily’s been under a lot of stress lately, but I don’t think she would have killed herself. Not this way.”

“
What sort of stress.”

“
I don’t know. She wouldn’t say.”

Reaching down
, the detective looked around the inside of the chest. “Why do you have a chest inside a chest here?”

“
Ms. Holliday was in the inner chest. The inner chest is lowered to the lower level, while the outer chest rises to the ceiling.”

“
I have several witnesses that say they could see Ms. Holliday in the chest as it was raised to the ceiling.”

“
Yes, of course. That’s part of the illusion. I use a little trick of technology to make it seem like our guest is in the chest the entire time.”

The detective sat back on his heels.
“That doesn’t sound very magical.”

Ilya gave him a
withering look. “What? Did you really think I levitated a two hundred pound box and a one hundred and thirty pound woman in the air with my mind?”

“
One hundred and fifteen,” Grace whispered to her companion.

“
They’re called illusions for a reason.”

“
Uh huh. How was Mrs. Straker’s relationship with her husband?”

Unable to stop himself, Ethan
sneezed, causing everyone on the stage to look over to the side where they were sitting.

“
Oh, Ms. Holliday.” The detective said standing up. “You’re still here. Good. I have a few more questions for you, too.”

Friday
, December 2nd

CHAPTER
FIVE

Grace
stood in
the center of her new office and smiled. An office with a view. No longer was she expected to work in a small little cubicle. She reached out and touched the large drafting table, set in the corner, and facing the window.

“
Ms. Holliday? Is there anything else you need?”

With her new position came several new perks.
One of which was an assistant. Grace smiled at the friendly older woman. “No thank you, Ellen.”

Standing in front of her desk, she dug through the boxes on the floor until she found a brightly cloth
ed doll with long wavy pink hair and big purple eyes. Her favorite design and part of the interstellar space series, which had just started taking off. It was also the doll that finally convinced Straker to promote her. Picking up the doll, she walked over to the bookshelves next to her desk. Smiling, she arranged the doll on the shelf. In a few minutes she had ten such dolls displayed. Each with big bright eyes, pastel colored hair and dressed in bright colorful outfits.

She walk
ed over to her drafting table, once again checking her supplies. There had been quite the turnaround at the Straker Toy Company since Lily Straker’s death the month before. More so than usual. The staff was deserting the failing business, like rats on the proverbial sinking ship. One of the benefits of a high turnaround was the sudden advancement that usually followed. When the product manager, she worked under, was fired two weeks ago, Grace quickly moved up into his position. As far as she was concerned, it was only fitting, since he had spent more time playing with the toys—and most of the female staff—than actually designing toys.

Picking up another
box, she rummaged around until she found some sketches of previous designs. She looked at the plain vanilla walls, wondering if Straker would let her repaint. Holding up the colorful designs, she tried to picture which color would complement her designs. She was almost sold on lilac when Valerie walked in.

“
What do you think, Val? Lilac walls or a pastel peach?”

“
I’d forget the walls right now. I just caught Allen trying to bribe your assistant.”

Grace groan
ed. One of the cons to high turnaround was that others might take advantage of the situation as well. Grace’s happiness at her sudden promotion was somewhat dampened by the fact that Allen had been promoted along with her.

“
Ellen told him off, didn’t she?”

“
Yes, but I’d keep an eye on him if I were you. He’s out to get you.”

“
I’m not worried. What can he do? It’s not like we’re vying for the same job anymore.”

“
He can still cause trouble. The man is so sleazy I'm surprised I haven't dated him yet.”

“
Don’t worry. I have all the faith in the world in Ellen. She is a veritable dynamo. Anything I want she delivers in seconds. She’s so efficient.” Grace pointed to her supply desk. “Look, she even organized my desk supplies by alphabet. I’ve messed them up dozens of times and each time I come back, they’re back in order. It’s amazing. No wonder Will panicked when she went on maternity leave last year.” She picked up a sheet of paper from her desk printer. “Look at this spreadsheet she created. I’m so lucky she’s staying. I don’t know what I would do without her. Will never taught me about the marketing part of this job.”

“
Did he teach you anything about advertising?”

“
No, why?”

“
Oh, I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise. Straker has a big announcement this afternoon.”

“
Really? What?”

“
He fired our advertising agency this morning.”

Grace mull
ed over this bit of information. “Well, that’s not exactly unexpected. He’s been complaining about them for over a year now.” Grace dropped the spreadsheet onto the desk. “What else?”

“
Oh no, don't even waste your time. Do you think I would know? Come on, I’ll walk with you to the conference room.” Valerie turned around and walked out into the hallway. Grace followed close behind. “Have you found a new roommate yet?”

“
No. Not yet. I’m kind of enjoying the peace and quiet.”

“
Peace and quiet is nice. Paying your rent is even better.”

“
Now don’t change the subject. What’s Straker up to?”

“
Honestly, I don’t know.”

“
You type up the agenda.”

“
There isn’t one for today. I promise you, I have no idea. I only found out about the advertising agency because they called to complain. Straker’s been very secretive lately.”

“
How's he doing? Since . . .” Grace trailed off. It wasn’t necessary to mention Lily’s name. Outside of the massive amount of layoffs the company had gone through in the last month, the only other topic of conversation had been Lily’s dramatic death.

Valerie shrugg
ed. “He's been acting very mysterious. He’s planning something big.”

“
And you have no idea what?”

“
No. To be honest, I’m rather worried about him; he’s taken Lily’s suicide very hard. I’ve been staying late the last few weeks just to make sure he’s all right. I wish I knew what was going on, he’s even stopped confiding in me.”

“
I can’t believe they think it was a suicide. She was obviously murdered.”

Valerie’s eyes widen
ed. Turning to Grace, she said incredulously. “Of course, it was a suicide. She left a note.”

“
I wish we knew what that note actually said.”

“
You think she was murdered?” Valerie whispered.

“
Yes. I do.”

“
But the detective—”

“
Think about it. Doesn’t it seem somewhat strange that she would commit suicide like that? On the night of her husband’s big birthday party? And the one night she performs on stage again? In front of such a large crowd? I love a good coincidence as much as the next girl, but that’s kind of pushing it.”

“
I don’t think she could have accidently wrapped that curtain or whatever you call it around her neck.”

“
Neither do I.”

“
Who would want to kill Lily?”

Grace shrugg
ed. “I don’t know. They seemed to think Ilya Dragovich might have been involved.”

“
Come on, be serious. There was an investigation. They found a suicide note. If it wasn’t a suicide, I’m pretty sure the police would have been all over this place by now.”

“
I guess so,” Grace shrugged. “You’re probably right. You know, I took a criminal justice class in college my sophomore year. My professor told us that there’s only one reason—”

“
You studied criminal justice,” Straker said, walking up behind her. “I thought you had a degree in toy design.”

Grace, seiz
ed with a sudden panic, quickly stammered out, “No. I have a degree in business. Remember?”

Straker stalk
ed past them on the way to his office. “Criminal Justice, huh?” he asked, turning the corner. They could still hear him muttering, “Who gets a degree in criminal justice and comes work at a toy company?” before the sound of a door slamming.

Valerie smil
ed and shook her head. “You should never share personal details like that around here. You know that. There’s no telling what he’ll do with that information now.”

“
Do you think he heard us talking about Lily?” she asked worriedly.

“
You’re doomed,” Valerie predicted less than helpfully.

♣ ♦ ♥ ♠

Grace sank into the chair closest to the door. She smiled at the rest of the design team as they entered the conference room. Straker was the last to enter. He closed the door and sat down at the end of the table.

Everyone at the table look
ed at him in confusion. Design meetings usually consisted of Straker, his daughter Louisa, who acted as vice president when sober, three brand managers, one of which included his wife, Lily and son-in-law, Daniel and five product managers, Grace, Maria Jansen, Bianca Thorp, Allen Madison and Sidney Harcourt. Grace and Maria were in charge of dolls. Baby dolls, fashion dolls, and various stuffed toys. Bianca and Allen were in charge mechanical toys, including cars, trucks, puppets and electronic toys, as well as action figures. Harcourt was in charge of their newest addition, the Magic Shoppe. Under the product managers were a dozen or so toy designers.

They all met at least once a month to discuss the current and future lines of toys that each section was working on.
Today’s meeting was noticeably different. They all looked from Straker to the more than half a dozen empty seats in the room. The toy designers were missing.

Everyone’s palms began sweating at once.

Straker star
ed at everyone at the table one by one. He didn’t say a word. He just stared for a full minute. Even Louisa must have been feeling the heat. She nervously looked around the room and at her husband. The silence finally became too much for her. “Dad, I have an appointment.”

“
There’s nowhere else you need to be.” Addressing the rest of the table he said, “I’m sure all of you have noticed the changes that have been going on in our happy little family. I’ve decided to streamline my business. We were a little too top heavy. There were far too many people doing a job one person could do easily.”

It began to occur to everyone that their duties were about to be increas
ed.

“
First of all, I’ve eliminated several positions. Namely the designers.”

They all sank into their chairs.

“We don’t need them. Everyone here started out as a designer. There’s no reason why you can’t handle all aspects of design. From start to finish.” He looked around the room. Eyes began dropping to the top of the table in an attempt to avoid eye contact. The only one that didn’t seem nervous was Sidney Harcourt, sitting at the other end of the table. For some reason he seemed quite pleased.

One of the braver and more experienc
ed product managers spoke up. “How are we going to do this?” Bianca asked. “I have five designers under me. You want me to handle all the design, research, safety inspection, and marketing all on my own. Right before Christmas? How are we going to do that without help? You complained about our output at the last meeting. I have ten new designs for our newest action figure line—”

“
You don’t have to worry about that. Allen is taking over action figures and we’re shutting down the rest of your department.”

Bianca sat back, stunn
ed.

“
We’re completely reorganizing the Straker Toy Company and as a result, we’re going to eliminate some toys that we used to sell. Everyone here has gotten complacent. It’s time to switch things up. Only Grace has been successful with her new hippie, psycadelic alien doll line. Look at her. She doesn’t have a fancy degree in toy design like Maria here or a degree in industrial design like Bianca.”

Grace tri
ed not to notice how Maria and Bianca glared at her.

“
But she’s plugging along. No, she wasted four years majoring in Criminal Justice.”

“
Business,” Grace corrected softly.

“
But despite that she created something children actually want to play with. Imagine that.”

“
So, what do I do here?” Bianca asked, angrily.

Straker shrugg
ed. “I don’t know. What do you do here?”

Bianca stood up.
“I’ve worked here for over fifteen years, but that’s it. I can’t take it anymore. I quit.” Everyone watched as she stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

Grace glanc
ed at her watch. A new record. Usually it took people a good half hour at these meetings before suddenly declaring they were quitting and stomping off.

“All right. Now, that it’s just us, we can get down to business.
Allen will keep action figures and pick up dolls. They’re basically the same thing. Those are our backbones. They’ve been our backbone and our biggest sellers since my great grandfather established this company in 1902.”

Grace lift
ed her eyes off the table. Surely, he didn’t say that Allen would be taking dolls. She glanced over at Allen who was smiling at her, mouthing, ‘I’ll need your files.’

Grace and Maria exchang
ed glances.

Shaking
, Maria interrupted. “They are not the same thing. I’ve had dolls for over the last ten years. What am I going to do?”

“
We’re going to specialize in just a few types of toys. Mainly dolls. We cannot afford to have two people working on the same type of product anymore, so I’m going to put Allen in charge of that line.”