Dark Magic (Harbinger P.I. Book 3) Read online

  “I have to ask,” I said, “why are you hiring me, Sheriff? You don’t like me, that much is obvious. So why come to me with this?”

  “You’re right, I don’t like you. And after the events of last night, I like you even less.” He leaned across the desk slightly, his weight pushing it across the floor toward me. “But I can rise above my personal feelings to do my job. Deirdre Summers was a respected member of this community and she left behind a daughter who has no idea what happened to her mother. I owe it to that young lady to solve the case of her mother’s death, even if it means working with people like you.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. We were obviously never going to be friends but if he was willing to put our differences aside and work with me on a professional level, then I would do the same. “I have another case I’m working on, so I’ll add the Deirdre Summers case to my workload just as soon as I can take a look at that case file.” I didn’t mention that the other case I was working on was an investigation into the church his wife had attended. Nor did I tell him that his daughter had hired me to look into the church and his wife’s death.

  “I assume I’m being paid by the Sheriff’s Department for this investigation?” I said.

  Cantrell nodded. “You’ll be paid as a consultant. That means I want to see detailed breakdowns of your time and expenses.”

  “Of course. Felicity will handle that. Am I to report any developments in the case to you?”

  He grinned at me like a wolf looking at a trapped rabbit. “You won’t be reporting to me, Harbinger, I’ll be working the case with you.”

  The shock I felt must have registered on my face because Cantrell’s grin widened.

  “No,” I said. “I work with Felicity.”

  “Not on this case.” He pointed at me with a huge finger. “You think I’m going to let you handle police business on your own? I’m going to be keeping a close eye on you every step of the way.”

  This was going to be a nightmare. I would be working with Cantrell on the Deirdre Summers case while also investigating the death of his wife without his knowledge. I wanted to say no and send him on his way but what choice did I have? If I declined the case, he was going to start getting pissy about last night’s zombie attack and I’d probably end up in jail.

  I sighed. “Okay, I’ll work the case with you,” I said, my voice sounding even more resigned than I’d intended. I’d wanted to suggest that I wasn’t happy about the arrangement but my tone made it sound like I was a condemned man about to leave his cell for the final time.

  “Don’t think I’m looking forward to this any more than you are,” he said. “But Deirdre died on my watch and I will not allow the case to remain unsolved, even if it means working with the likes of you.”

  I wasn’t in the mood to take a barrage of insults. I wanted Cantrell out of my office so I would have time to think without him looming over me. I stood up. “I’ll need to read the case file before we get started.”

  He stood too and gave me a curt nod. “I’ll send someone over with it this morning.” He offered his hand reluctantly, as if he were about to place it in something nasty. I shook it, making sure to grip his hand tightly and look into his eyes. The fact that he’d offered his hand despite his dislike of me told me that he’d been brought up with traditional values and that meant he would respect a strong handshake with eye contact.

  He released my hand and nodded to Felicity. “Miss Lake, thank you for the coffee.” He turned and left. I heard the stairs groan beneath his weight as he went downstairs. Then the main door opened and closed and I watched him through the window as he went to his patrol car and put his box of donuts into the passenger side before climbing into the driver’s seat and starting the engine. He drove south along Main Street toward the police station.

  “Well, I wasn’t expecting that,” I told Felicity.

  “No, neither was I. At least we have more work. There’s always room for another case.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “Except I have to work it with Sheriff Cantrell.”

  “Maybe that’s a good thing. This could be an opportunity for you to earn his trust. He might give you more consultancy jobs if you bond with him.”

  “Bond with him? We’re not going on a boys’ night out, we’re investigating a woman’s death. Besides, he hates me and that isn’t going to change any time soon.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe he’ll learn to trust you.”

  “Trust me? While I’m working with him on the Deirdre Summers case, I’ll be investigating his wife’s death behind his back. That isn’t the foundation of a trusting relationship.”

  “Well I think it’s good that he already trusts you enough to bring you this case.”

  “It isn’t that he trusts me,” I told her. “He wants to keep an eye on me. He said so himself. I wonder what he’s up to.”

  Felicity stood up and smoothed her skirt before picking up her notebook. “I’m sure you boys will stop fighting one day and play nice. I’ll be in my office if you need me.”

  “I need you now,” I said, then realized how that sounded and added, “We should drive over to Clara and take a look at that church.”

  “We have to wait for the sheriff to send the Deirdre Summers case file over,” she reminded me.

  “Nah, we can collect it on the way. No point sitting around in the office waiting for it to arrive. Let’s go.” I picked up my keys and headed for the door. I was eager to get started on a case and give my mind something to occupy itself with that didn’t involve cursed friends or mysterious powers. I wanted to lose myself in the investigations of the church and Deirdre Summers’ disappearance.

  “I’ll need to change first,” she said. “I’m not rummaging around an old abandoned church in heels.”

  “Okay, should we drop by your place so you can grab something?”

  “No need. I’ll be back in a minute.” She left the room and a couple of seconds later I heard her office door close. When she reappeared a few minutes later, she was wearing sneakers, jeans, and a light green, tight T-shirt.

  I got up and grabbed my car keys again before it became too obvious that I was staring at her. But damn, she looked hot.

  “Shouldn’t we take my car?” Felicity asked. “Your Land Rover is smashed up, remember?”

  “It isn’t that bad. I drove it here.”

  “Still, you really should get it repaired.”

  I sighed. She was right. “Okay, I’ll find a mechanic.”

  “There’s a place on the highway called Earl’s Autos. It’s in the direction we’re going.”

  “Okay, we’ll drop the Land Rover there on the way to Clara.” I went downstairs and out onto Main Street, Felicity close behind me. I locked up and we walked around the building to the parking spaces at the rear.

  Felicity held up her key fob and pressed it. The lights on the blue Mini flashed once and the locks clicked open. “We should put the weapons in my car before we take yours to the garage,” she said. “We wouldn’t want a mechanic finding your enchanted sword.”

  I pointed at her little blue car. “Is everything going to fit inside there?”

  Felicity shot me an exasperated look. “It’s not that small, Alec. The earlier models were much smaller than this.”

  I shrugged and opened up the back of the Land Rover. There was no way the weapons and tools of the trade that I carried around were all going to fit in Felicity’s Mini. I took out the daggers and sword and transferred them to her trunk, along with a couple of bags of salt, my Victorian vampire hunter’s kit, my shotgun, and a shovel. I had no idea how long the Land Rover would be in the shop, so I had to make sure I was covered for every eventuality. For all I knew, the church at Clara could house a nest of vampires and the innocent-looking Dearmont Lake might be the lair of a lake monster. I added my fishing tackle box to the stuff in the Mini. The box held chalk, candles, and a few herbal potions that were mostly just glass jars of mold now. I also threw my portable GPS in with everyt
hing else.

  When the Mini’s trunk was full, Felicity said, “See? I told you it would all fit.”

  “Yeah, that’s great,” I said, climbing into the Land Rover. I just hoped I wouldn’t need to find something fast in that chaotic jumble. I didn’t want to be searching through a mess of stuff, trying to find a dagger, while a troll was gnawing on my leg. “I’ll meet you at the police station,” I said.

  Felicity followed me south along Main Street to the low building that served as the police station. There were four police cruisers in the parking lot, which I guessed was the sum total of Dearmont’s Sheriff’s Department. A small town like this didn’t require much policing, as long as you didn’t count the time zombies burst out of their graves and came shambling down Main Street.

  Felicity waited in her car while I went inside the station. I pushed through a set of large glass doors that led into a reception area manned by a young deputy. He was tapping away on a computer keyboard. Behind him, three other deputies, including Amy Cantrell, were sitting at desks in the bullpen.

  Amy saw me and came over. “Hey,” she said. “What are you doing here?” She looked tired, as if she hadn’t slept last night. With all the chaos in town, she probably hadn’t. In fact, all the deputies had the same tired look. They’d probably spent all night cleaning up Main Street, taking skeletons back to South Cemetery, where they would have found even more skeletons and open graves.

  “I came by to collect a case file. The Deirdre Summers case. The sheriff wanted me to take a look at it.”

  Her face brightened. “Yeah, he said he was going to get you to work with him and look into it. That’s real good progress for him, to hire you after what happened to my mom.”

  “You don’t find it strange?”

  She frowned. “No, what do you mean?”

  “Your dad hates me. And last night, the town was attacked by zombies, which he blames me for. You don’t think it’s weird that the next morning, he’s in my office offering me a job?”

  Amy shrugged. “Maybe it means he’s finally dealing with the death of my mom. It’s a step forward. When the massacre at the church happened and all clues pointed to Sherry Westlake, my dad went a little crazy trying to find her. He pulled in favors from every law enforcement department in the area.

  “When it was obvious that the trail was cold, he fell into a deep depression. I wasn’t sure he was ever going to shake it off. But gradually, he did. And now he’s willing to work with you on the Deirdre Summers case. Maybe he’ll put aside his hatred for preternatural investigators and learn to trust you.”

  “Yeah, everyone keeps saying that,” I said.

  “Oh? Who else said it?”

  “Felicity.”

  “Well, we’re right.”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, I’m not so sure.”

  Amy shook her head at me. “You don’t need to be so suspicious.”

  “Being suspicious has kept me alive this long.”

  “Wait here.” She went over to her desk and picked up a slim manila folder. She came back and handed it to me over the counter. “That’s the Summers file. There isn’t much in there.”

  I held it up “The sheriff said there was something in here that might suggest a preternatural angle.”

  “Yeah, there is. You’ll know it when you see it.” She shrugged again. “It might mean nothing but I’m glad you’re taking a look anyway. Natalie deserves to know what happened to her mother. And if there’s a bad guy involved, he needs to be brought to justice.”

  “Natalie,” I said. “Where can I find her if I need to speak with her?”

  “She works at the library, same as her mom did. They used to work there together before Deirdre disappeared.”

  “Okay, thanks. I’ll let you know if I find anything useful.” I lowered my voice and said, “I’m heading over to Clara to take a look at that church.”

  “Just make sure my dad doesn’t find out about that.”

  “I’ll keep it from him as if my life depended on it.” I went back out to the parking lot and held up the case file to show Felicity. She gave me a thumbs-up from inside her car and rolled down the window.

  “Follow me to Earl’s. I know the way.”

  I nodded and passed her the case file through the open window. “I guess we should put this in your car.” She placed it on her back seat. Her little car was much tidier than the Land Rover, that was for sure.

  I got into the Land Rover and followed Felicity south along Main Street. A few minutes later, we were on the highway and I could see Dearmont Lake through the trees. It looked peaceful enough, its surface shimmering brightly in the late morning sunlight. There were boats out on the water, mainly fishermen trolling for black bass, and a couple of pleasure craft.

  A densely-wooded island sat out near the middle of the lake. I wondered if the police had searched it after Deirdre Summers’ disappearance and immediately knew that they must have. Sheriff Cantrell might be a pain in the ass but he was thorough. The fact that he was still investigating Deirdre Summers’ disappearance, long after many other sheriffs might have forgotten about it, told me he how tenacious he was. He’d gone as far as sending divers into the lake to look for the librarian’s body, so he would definitely have had the island searched too.

  As I drove on, the trees obscured my view of the shimmering water and I turned my attention back to the road.

  Up ahead, I could see a sign that said Earl’s Autos and an assortment of old cars in a dusty-looking parking lot. Felicity turned into the lot and I followed, parking by a long building that served as an office at one end and a workshop at the other. The cars in the lot were a variety of models, and some of them looked like they dated back to the seventies, but all of them looked lovingly maintained and cared-for, polished paintwork and chrome gleaming in the sunlight.

  In the workshop, a white Honda Civic was up on a ramp and there was a guy in dark blue coveralls beneath it, draining oil from the engine into a pan on the floor.

  The office door bore a sticker that read WELCOME. Felicity and I went inside, into a small room with an old leather sofa and a wooden coffee table weighed down by stacks of car magazines.

  A window on the back wall looked out to a junkyard full of wrecked cars and trucks. Some of the automobile remains looked like they’d been rotting out there since the sixties.

  Containers of anti-freeze, oil, and windshield washer fluid sat on a wire rack running along one wall. There was a counter at the far end of the room with a door behind it that I assumed led to the workshop. The reception area smelled of rubber, grease, and cigarette smoke. A lemon-scented car air freshener had been hung over the counter but its scent was lost among the other, stronger smells.

  The door opened and a large lady in her fifties came to the counter. She had short blond hair and wore dark blue coveralls that matched the ones worn by the mechanic beneath the Civic. Her name, June, was embroidered on the left breast in white script. Her brown eyes flickered from me to Felicity and back to me again. “What can I do for you folks today?”

  “I’ve got a beat-up Land Rover that needs fixing,” I said.

  “Sure, let’s take a look.” She came around the counter and followed us out to the dusty parking lot. Standing with her hands on her hips, she inspected the damage on the vehicle. “Looks like you drove it into a brick wall.”

  “Not me,” I said. “Someone else.”

  June’s eyes fixed on Felicity accusingly.

  “Not me either,” Felicity said defensively.

  “Well, I’m sure we can fix it for you,” June said. She turned toward the workshop and shouted, “Earl!”

  The guy who had been draining the Civic came over, wiping his hands on an oily cloth. He had close-cropped gray hair and a matching beard. His frame was wiry beneath the coveralls. “Morning,” he said, nodding at us.

  “What do you think of this?” June asked him.

  “Looks like it’s been driven into a wall.”

&nbs
p; “That’s what I said,” she told him.

  “Can you fix it?” I asked.

  He nodded, eyes fixed on the crumpled bodywork. “Yeah, I can fix it but I may have to order a new light. Unless I can find a Land Rover in the yard with a light that isn’t busted up.”

  “How long will it take?” I asked.

  “If I order a new light, it’ll be a couple of days. If I go searching in the yard, maybe less. Depends if I find a suitable replacement or not. If not, then I’ll need to order a new one anyway.”

  “A couple of days is fine,” I said. “Just order a new light.”

  Earl nodded. “And while we’re waiting for that to arrive, I’ll get the bodywork fixed.” He looked at me closely. “Say, ain’t you that supernatural investigator fella from town?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I am.” I had no idea how he’d recognized me. Maybe there were so few new people in Dearmont that he was able to guess who I must be.

  “I saw your picture in the paper,” he said.

  “The paper?”

  “Yeah, it was in yesterday’s Observer. There’s an article in there with a picture of both of you. How else did you think I recognized you? I’m not psychic, I leave that to June. She has a touch of psychic power now and then.”

  “It’s a gift,” June said. “I sometimes do tarot readings for the ladies at the hair salon. I told Mary Lou Robinson that her husband was going to be in an accident and two weeks later, he’d left her for another woman. Isn’t that uncanny?”

  I wasn’t sure how she equated being in an accident with being unfaithful so I just shrugged. “Anyway, I need to be somewhere, so if I leave the Land Rover here, will you call me when it’s ready to be collected? My number’s on here.” I handed her one of my business cards.

  “Of course,” she said, taking the card and reading it.