Murder by Magic (3 page)

“You mean they hire you even if there’s nothing to read?”

“There’s always something to read.” She gestured to the sofa, then sat down in the easy chair. “But sometimes what I read is merely a dog’s inarticulate longing for food, or a cat’s annoyance with the fly buzzing around its head.” She smoothed the slacks over one knee. “What can I help you with?”

I glanced around. “Where are your dogs?”

“Outside, basking in the sun.” Her eyes were steady. “Well?”

“Can you read something that belonged to an animal?” I asked. “Like a—a food dish or something?”

“Sometimes. Is that what you want me to do?”

I drew in a breath, released it. Then dug down into the pocket of my jeans. I pulled out the collar. “This.”

She looked at it in my hand. A simple braided nylon collar, tan, stained dark in spots, the kind called a slip collar, with a metal ring at each end. You threaded the nylon through to make a loop and slipped it over the dog’s head.

I watched her eyes. The pupils went pinpoint, then spread like ink. Her hand came up, lingered; but she dropped it back to the chair arm. “Wait a moment. Please.”

She pulled a cell phone from her purse. Ten numbers were punched in. In a moment she was explaining quietly that something had come up and she’d have to reschedule; and, likely in answer to what was said, explained it was very important. Then she disconnected, dropped the phone back into her purse, and leaned forward.

Her hand hovered. I pushed the collar into it. Her fingers grasped it, closed tightly—and then spasmed, dropping it.

She was standing. Trembling.
“My God—”

I looked at the collar lying on the carpet. Then at her.

“My God—” she repeated. “Do you know what that is?”

“Do you?”

“
Yes,
I know what that is! But—” She broke it off, bit deeply into her lip, drew in a shuddering breath, then took a visible grip on her emotions. “If I do this—and yes, I know what you want—then you have to come with me. Put yourself behind the dog’s eyes.”

“Me? But I can’t do—”

“Yes, you can.” We stood three feet apart, stiff with emotion. The collar lay between us. “Yes. You can.”

I felt saliva drying in my mouth. “You think I didn’t
try
? Hell, we were all ready to try anything by then! I took that thing home with me, practically
slept
with it, and never saw a single thing. Never felt anything.” I sucked in a breath and admitted it for the first time in thirty years. “Not like with my dog when I was a kid.”

She shook her head. “I can’t do this alone.”

“I don’t know how. I shut it away, just like you said. My parents told me I was imagining things . . . that I’d had a shock, and they understood, but that I couldn’t let it upset me so much.” I made a gesture of futility with empty hands. “I don’t know how to do it.”

“I’ll help you. But you have to agree to come with me. All the way.” Her eyes were unexpectedly compassionate. “You were a cop once. You’ll have to be one again.”

After a moment I nodded. “All right.”

She sat down on the carpet and gestured for me to do the same. The collar lay between us. “We will reach out together, and we will pick it up together.”

“Then what?”

“Hold it,” she said simply.

“How will I know if it’s working?”

“You will.”

“What if it
doesn’t
work?”

“It will.” She saw something in my face. She extended her left hand. After a moment I closed my right around it. “Now,” she said.

I saw our free hands move out, move down, then close upon the collar. I felt the braided nylon, the slightly frayed strands where something had rubbed, the cool metal rings.

And tasted—

—blood in my mouth. Blood everywhere. It splattered my legs, matting fur together; drenched my paws. Leathery pads felt it against the sidewalk, slick and slippery, drying to stickiness. I smelled it everywhere, clogging nostrils, overwhelming my superior canine olfactory sense.

Movement. The scent, the sharp tang of human surprise, fear, panic. Hackles rose from my neck to the base of my curled tail in a ridge of thick, coarse hair. I heard a man’s voice, a blurt, a bleat of sound, shock and outrage. Another man’s breathing, harsh and rasping; smelled the anger, the hatred, the cold fury that overwhelmed any comprehension of what he did beyond stopping it, stopping them; ending it, ending them; ending HER—

—crushed grass, leather, torn flesh, perfume, aftershave—

—aftershave I knew—

—had lived with—

—it was him, HIM, the man, the man I knew—

Knife. Long blade, red and silver in the moonlight. A woman on the ground, slack across the concrete, pale hair a tumbled mass turning red and black and sticky.

—I know the man—

—the man who once fed me, walked me, petted me, praised me—

HIM. But what is he—

So much blood.

Everywhere.

Blood.

—and the other man, falling. Bleeding. Breath running out. Two bodies on the ground.

Blood is everywhere.

I lift my voice in a wailing howl.

In the moonlight, I see him turn. In the streetlights, I see him look at me. Black face. Familiar face.

Knife in his hand.

Blood on the knife.

Blood is everywhere.

He turns. Walks away. Back into the darkness.

I bark.

But he is gone.

Two bodies on the ground.

I bark and bark and bark—

I yanked my hand away from hers, let go of the collar. Felt rage well up. “That son of a bitch!”

She was white-faced and shaking. Like me, she had released the collar. It lay again on the carpet. “That poor woman.”

“And the kid,” I said. “Poor guy, wrong place at the wrong time, like everyone said.” I closed my eyes, then popped them open again as the memory, the
smells,
threatened to overwhelm me. “I was the dog.”

“Yes.”

“We saw what
he
saw. The Akita.”

“He was the only witness,” she said, “except for the murderer.”

“That son of a bitch . . .” I rocked back, clasped hands on top of my head. Breathed noisily. “And it’s not admissible.”

“Double jeopardy,” she murmured.

“But I know now—
we
know . . .” I squeezed my eyes shut.

Her voice was very quiet. “You left the department after the trial. That was the case that went bad.”

I opened my eyes. “After the lawyers got through with us, I had no heart for it anymore. We
knew
we had the evidence. But they played the department. Played the media. And cherry-picked the jury.”

Tears shone in her eyes. “You took the Akita’s collar home. To find out the truth.”

I grimaced. “I was desperate. I knew even if it worked, even if somehow it worked, no one would believe me. Are you kidding? But I thought maybe it would give me a lead if I could put myself there that night, behind the dog’s eyes—find something we missed, something no one could manipulate . . .” I shook my head. “Nothing. I couldn’t do it. I didn’t have the
magic
anymore.”

She smiled. “Is that what you called it?”

“Magic? Yeah, as a kid. Hell, I didn’t know what it was. I
still
don’t. It’s as good a word as any.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

I nodded. “Yeah.” Then the world revolved around me, began to gray out. “Whoa—”

“Lie down. I’ve got some energy bars in my purse. Lie down, Mr. Magnum.”

“Mag—” Then I got the reference. Laughing, I lay down as ordered, sprawled on my back. Heard the rustle of torn paper peeled away. Felt the nubbly surface of a granola bar shoved into my hand.

“Eat it. Then eat another. In a few hours you may feel like getting up. It’s just backlash from the energy expenditure. It’s always best to do this on a full stomach, but, well . . . sometimes it doesn’t work out that way.”

I bit off a hunk of granola bar. “What about you?”

Her words were distorted. “I’m already eating mine.”

I lay there a moment, chewing. Contemplating. “Will my life ever be normal again?”

“Nope.”

“Didn’t think so.” I finished the first bar, accepted a second from her. “It’s a curse, isn’t it?”

“Sometimes. Now you know what happened that night in front of the condo when two people lost their lives because of an ex-husband’s jealousy. You will never be able to forget it. But it’s a gift as well.”

“How is it a
gift,
when you can experience something like that?”

“It’s a gift when you can tell a frail, terrified old woman who’s had nightmares for years that her beloved husband did not die in pain and wasn’t afraid because he was alone. It’s a gift when you offer peace of mind.” Her smile widened. “A
piece
of mind.”

I considered it. “Maybe that’d be all right.” I sat up slowly, steadying myself against the floor. “I need to leave. But I want to come back . . . talk to you more about all of this.”

She watched me stand up, noted my unsteadiness. Refrained from suggesting I wait. “Where are you going?”

“Cemetery,” I said. “There’s someone I need to visit. To tell her I know the truth.” I glanced back. “That
we
know the truth. Finally.”

She nodded. “Peace of mind.”

I paused in the doorway, stretching open the screen door. “Never found a man who could understand you, huh?”

“Not yet.”

“Yeah, well . . . my wife didn’t understand me, either. Maybe it’s better if we stick to our own kind.”

“Maybe,” she said thoughtfully, climbing to her feet. She paused in the doorway, caught the screen door from my hand as I turned to go. “Excuse my bluntness, but, well . . .” She plunged ahead. “You’re bitter and burned-out, and dreadfully out of shape. Now that you know what you are inside, what you can do, you need to clean up your act. It takes every piece of you, the”—she paused, smiling—“magic. You need to be ready for it.”

I grimaced, aware of my crumpled shirt, stubbled face, bloodshot eyes, the beginnings of a potbelly. She wasn’t ultrafit because she was a narcissistic gym rat. It was self-preservation in the eye of the hurricane.

I turned to go, grimacing. “Yeah.”

“My name, by the way, is Sarah. Sarah Connor.”

I stopped short and swung back. “You’re kidding me.”

Color stole into her cheeks. “I take it you saw
The Terminator.
”

“Hell, I
own
the movie. On DVD.”

She thought about it. “I guess if your name isn’t Arnold, we’ll be okay.”

I laughed. “No, not Arnold. That I can promise you.”

“Well?” she asked as I turned away again. “What is it?”

I threw it back over my shoulder as I reached my little sidewalk. “Clint East—”

“No!” she interrupted, wide-eyed. “Really?”

“Just
East,
” I said. “But the guys in the department, well . . .” I grinned. “They called me Woody.”

Sarah laughed aloud.

As she closed her door, still grinning, I stuffed hands in my pockets and went whistling next door to mine, feeling good about myself for the first time in months.

Special Surprise Guest Appearance by . . .

Carole Nelson Douglas

Ex-journalist Carole Nelson Douglas is the award-winning author of forty-some novels, including nine fantasy and science fiction titles. She currently writes two realistic mystery series with light fantasy content.
Good Night, Mr. Holmes
introduced the only woman to outwit Sherlock Holmes, American diva Irene Adler, as a detective, and was a
New York Times
Notable Book of the Year. The series recently resumed with
Chapel Noir
and
Castle Rouge,
a two-book vampirish take on Jack the Ripper. Douglas also created hard-boiled feline P.I. Midnight Louie, whose part-time first-furperson feline narrations appear in sixteen novels set in contemporary Las Vegas.
Cat in a Neon Nightmare
and
Cat in an Orange Twist
are the latest titles. Douglas’s short fiction has appeared in seven
The Year’s Best
collections.

She collects vintage clothing as well as stray cats (and the occasional dog) and lives in Fort Worth, Texas, with her husband, Sam.

M
agic is a man’s game,” he told the reporter for the
Las Vegas Review-Journal
who sat beside him in the audience.   “In this town, for sure,” she answered. “Except for Melinda at the Venetian, a female illusionist has never headlined in Vegas before. That’s why I’m interested in your take on this one.”

His “take” on this one was he could take her or leave her, and she had left him, long ago, not on her terms.

“Even you must admit,” the reporter said, eyeing him slyly, “that her Mirror Image trick is a winner.”

“It’s all mirrors,” he answered, snorting ever so slightly. No sense in demeaning his own act while dismissing that of a rival.

Rival?

Chardonnay LeSeuer was one of those tall black women with a whole lot of cream in their coffee. Looked like a freaking supermodel. Now she was “Majika” and making hay by playing both the sex and the race cards: not just the second woman ever to headline on the Strip but the first black magician.

She was also an ex-assistant he had sent packing years ago for packing on a bit too much poundage. Sure, she looked pretty sleek now, but usually it was all downhill with women once the weight started piling up. How was he to know she’d get over putting on fifteen pounds because her kid had gotten that annoying disease? She’d missed a lot of rehearsals with that, too.

Time had added assorted swags and sags to his six-foot frame as well, as if he were an outmoded set of draperies, but his magician’s costume could be designed to hide it, as did the ignominy of a custom corset that doubled as a handy storage device for assorted paraphernalia that shall remain nameless, at least to readers of the
Review-Journal.

“Actually,” he added, trying to sound affable, “I haven’t seen this infamous Mirror Image trick yet.”