Pawsitively Dead (A Wonder Cats Mystery Book 2) (10 page)

A
slim waxing
crescent moon shone over Wonder Falls.

In the cellar of the Brew-Ha-Ha, Aunt Astrid, Bea, Jake, and I met to compare notes. I’d bought a large whiteboard and was struggling to open a pack of markers.

“We found Alice,” Jake said.

Bea pulled out a photocopy of a newspaper obituary. “Topher and Dolly’s daughter. Tommy’s mother. Died in childbirth at the age of sixteen.”

Jake added, “Of course she was unmarried. The identity of Tommy’s father remains a mystery though.”

I said, “People around here must’ve known who she was. I suppose we could’ve easily asked around.”

“Hmm,” Astrid said, looking as though she was trying to remember Alice. “I didn’t know the Thompsons well then. Maybe I saw her around and I just didn’t pay attention. I certainly didn’t hear about her death.”

“They probably didn’t want to announce it,” I said. “Kept it hush-hush. She did give birth out of wedlock. To Topher and Dolores, that must’ve been scandalous.”

“We think she’ll be the next to rise from her grave,” Bea finished.

Aunt Astrid pondered that. “That’s Topher’s motive, isn’t it? He doesn’t want to be alone anymore, having outlived his whole family.”

“He’s not so careful about not outliving his friends,” I said sadly, remembering Old Murray. That wasn’t fair of me to say though. The Unfamiliar had made Topher desperate. At last, I got the markers out of their package and got one uncapped. “Let’s go over what we know.” I scribbled a word on the whiteboard, near the top: Resurrection. “That’s what this Unfamiliar always does, because that’s what Topher wants to do. The cost for a life is a life. Two full moons ago, for Shelley Marina”—I wrote her name under Resurrection then drew a sideways arrow—“the cost was Samantha.” I wrote Samantha Perry next to the arrow. Beside that, I drew an equal sign and the word FAILED.

“They had no blood relation,” Bea said. “In a town this small, it’s unlikely to not have any blood relation. Samantha was a fairly new resident and didn’t grow up here at all.”

“The sacrifice for a resurrection,” Jake offered, “won’t be a random unlucky person again.”

I nodded. “They’ll still be awfully unlucky, but whoever it is will be more carefully chosen. Not only that, but who is resurrected will be carefully chosen.” Shelley Marina’s only descendant was Rosemary Marina. Below the previous line, I drew a question mark and the names Rosemary Marina Thompson and Basil Thompson. “Rosemary and Basil were cremated and their ashes scattered over the falls. Why didn’t we have ash golems wandering around town in the last full moon?”

Bea riffled through Jake’s report. “No living relations on the Marina side still reside in Wonder Falls. Rosemary Marina’s father was apparently an Italian celebrity who never set foot in the Americas, or so Shelley said. The townsfolk believed her. Rosemary grew up in unstigmatized illegitimacy.”

“In this town?” The disbelief in my tone made the question rhetorical. “Now I’m really sorry to have missed the good old days!”

Aunt Astrid suggested, “It might be because the ashes were washed outside of the Wonder Falls boundaries.”

Bea explained to Jake, “The Maid of the Mist claimed the land on which this town was built. Anything beyond that boundary that comes in gets checked or interfered with by the Familiars, same as anything from inside the boundary going out. Anything within is the responsibility of witches to police.”

“Then why don’t the Familiars stop the Unfamiliars before the Unfamiliars do anything?” Jake wondered.

We all had our own answers that we said at almost the same time.

“Familiars and Unfamiliars are only our words for them,” I said. “We don’t know which one they are until they do something good or bad, and even then we don’t know until the next time they decide to do anything.”

“Most magic, whether those are magic spells or magic beings, must follow the rules of space and time,” Bea said, “or else it couldn’t exist and affect itself here. The Unfamiliar transcend those.”

“The Familiars are scared of this one,” Aunt Astrid said. “I’ve gone all over. If worse comes to worst, they won’t help us. They really feel that they can’t.”

“All right. So… the rules of this magic spell are that you can’t resurrect your parents or ancestors, but only your descendants?” Jake asked.

“That’s a good question. We do know that it resurrects siblings.” I drew another moon and the name Dolores Willis Thompson, an arrow, Murray Willis, an equal sign, and the word INTERRUPTED.

Aunt Astrid stood and pointed at the names of the resurrected. “Shelley Marina was first; Dolores Thompson was second. Why this order? Was Topher more eager to have his grandmother back in his life than his wife?”

We thought about it.

“No,” I decided. “The boundary of Wonder Falls again. The fact that spells have to follow the rules of time if they’re going to have an effect on the temporal world… the Unfamiliar started with resurrecting the oldest body that still remained in town. Topher and the Unfamiliar didn’t trade Samantha’s life for Tommy’s, even though Topher must have missed Tommy more than Shelley.”

“So,” Bea concluded, “after Dolores, the next to rise would be Alice Thompson. She wasn’t cremated, and she was the next generation.”

Jake asked, “If Alice Thompson is the next to be resurrected, would the victim be Murray Willis again?”

I quickly scribbled a family tree then changed marker colors to highlight the connection between Murray Willis and Alice Thompson.

“That’s possible,” Aunt Astrid remarked.

“But it’s usually not possible because the sacrificial human didn’t survive,” Bea added. “And therefore ran out of life force to sacrifice.”

“We have a new Plan A then,” I said. “We protect Old Murray.”

Jake frowned. “What was the old Plan A?”

I sighed. “To convince Topher not to keep using the power of the Unfamiliar.”

Unfamiliars confused people. They fed desperations, obfuscated other options, and all the while could only work with what the hosts gave them. Give them nothing—so simple, yet it always proved impossible.

L
ater that night
, after I’d gone home and gone to bed, I stared at the moon through my window from where I was tucked in and trying to sleep.

Renovations at the Brew-Ha-Ha were complete. With Aunt Astrid doing the baking and cooking—and some of the brewing and mixing—we’d still be understaffed. I’d submitted an ad to the Wonder Falls newspaper. Over the next week, hopefully, there would be applicants to vet and interviews to process.

We didn’t have time for that. The moon shone through my window to remind me that we were running out of time.

Treacle had curled up on top of the quilt, over my stomach. He stretched a paw out to try to calm me down.

“No. I feel like we’re missing something,” I told him. The feeling nagged at me. “We Greenstones have generations of records to study about the way magic works. This Unfamiliar works by trial and error. As Aunt Astrid said, it learns. It’s learning its limits. What if the decisions we’ve decided they’re most likely to make turn out to not be the decisions they actually do make?”

“Life is full of surprises,”
Treacle told me.

“Life is full of fatality,” I said.

Treacle yawned. “
We can only do what we do.”

And what did any of this have to do with Min Park and his family?

A wide waxing crescent moon shone over Wonder Falls.

F
or the next
couple of days, I went about my daily routine feeling as if I’d left my wallet somewhere or forgotten to turn off the iron in the house. Nothing regarding Samantha’s murder, the unnatural exhumation of not just one but two of the local residents of Wonder Falls Cemetery, the close call Old Murray had escaped thanks to Bea, or the weird behavior of the Parks family seemed to fit together.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t help but worry it all like an annoying hangnail. It didn’t help that while I was waiting at the animal shelter for Min, Blake showed up. He yanked the door open and stopped for a second, looking at me.

“What are you doing here?” he snapped, sounding a lot like the dogs in the back kennel as they demanded their food.

“I’m waiting on Min. And good morning to you, too.”

Blake looked at me then at his watch as if to confirm it was morning. The sun was coming up in the east like usual. I wasn’t trying to pull a fast one on him.

He nodded and pulled Dixie cup from the side of the water cooler across from the waiting room seat I was sitting in. After filling the cup with water, Blake tossed it back quickly. He looked tired. Another sleepless night for him too, I thought.

“I don’t get this.” He flopped down in the seat next to me. “I have turned this thing over and over in my mind a million times. Nothing has clicked, fallen into place, revealed itself, or even seemed to give me a nudge in the right direction. I’ve never had a case go cold and…” He stared into the space in front of him.

As much as I hated to admit it, I knew how he felt. “I’ve been trying to put the whole thing out of my mind so maybe I could look at it later with a fresh perspective, you know?”

“That’s easy for you to do. You work at the coffee shop,” he said, not even looking at me.

I let out a loud sigh, reminding myself Blake was no monument to social graces. Someday he was going to really push the wrong button, and I would not be responsible for my actions. Until then, I focused on the sound of the dogs barking. It was breakfast time. Cody was entering the kennel with their dog food and a watering can of fresh water. All the furry four-legged beasts were happy to see him.

Before Blake arrived to spread his cheer, I’d tried to talk with Burger again for a little more information. He wouldn’t say a word, at least not to me. The pack mentality was nearly impossible to crack through, so even if he had told the other dogs something about his human or that night, they weren’t talking to me either.

When Cody appeared again, the bag of dog food in his hand was visibly lighter. No sounds but happy crunching came from the kennel. Cody walked into the waiting room with us and set down the bag.

“So what is Min meeting you here for?” he asked in his usually awkward way, shifting from left foot to right then back again, looking at the ground before letting his eyes meet ours.

“Well, he was thinking of making a little investment in your animal shelter,” I said.

“Do we need that? I mean, I think Old Murray and I are doing pretty well on our own, right? Would he be working here too, then?”

I saw Cody was a little nervous about a stranger coming in and up-turning the apple cart. He was comfortable with Old Murray. They were close, and I could understand how a kid like him would prefer things not change.

“He just wants to help, you know, if you guys need more room or repairs. He’s looking to give assistance.”

“Will he be my new boss?”

“Oh, no. Nothing like that. He’d invest some of his money, but you and Old Murray would still manage the place like you have been.”

Cody’s face visibly relaxed. That made me relax. Until I saw Blake’s face twisted in a scowl of deep thought. He aggravated me by just sitting there. I was about to say something rude to him when my phone rang and cut me off. It was Min.

“Hey, Min. Where are you?”

“You won’t believe this, but I got lost.”

“How do you get lost in Wonder Falls? You’ve just lived here your whole life.” I couldn’t help but tease him.

The truth was if you weren’t from Wonder Falls, it was quite easy to get lost. Most towns were planned around a grid pattern with the majority of the streets running north, south, east, and west. Wonder Falls was designed like a snake pit with dozens of windy roads that changed name and direction without warning. One-way streets and dead ends could make a tourist feel as if they are trying to maneuver through a maze. Min had grown up here, but he had been gone for years, and a lot had changed since he was a teenager.

“Where are you now? I’ll talk you through it.”

“No, no. I’ve found something interesting.” Min’s voice was excited.

“Yeah? What is it?”

“The Wonder Falls Orphanage.”

I swallowed hard and pursed my eyebrows. Blake looked at me as if he thought he saw a clue on my face. I turned my back to him. It was childish, but the truth was my conversation didn’t include him.

“Orphanage? Where? Are you sure you’re in Wonder Falls?” I asked. “Maybe you stumbled into unincorporated Frankfort. I didn’t know there was an orphanage here. Is it even open?”

“Yes, it’s open. There are no children here, if that’s what you mean. But it’s still open. You’ve got to see this place. It’s exactly what I’m looking for.”

“Well, give me the address, and I’ll be right there.”

Blake’s head looked in my direction, but I didn’t acknowledge him. Instead I stood and headed out the door to my car, giving Cody a wave and smile good-bye.

As I got the address from Min, I tried hard to remember it without writing it down, and I noticed a shadow following me. At first I thought I had to break out magic in full view of anyone who might be innocently walking by, but then I realized it was nothing magic could ever make go away. It was Blake.

I hung up with Min and stood at my car with my hand on the door handle. “Yes?” I snapped.

“I’m going with you,” Blake said.

“What for?”

“Call it a hunch. A detective never ignores a hunch.”

I rolled my eyes.

“You don’t even know where I’m going.”

“You said the orphanage.”

“Yes, but I didn’t say what orphanage or where. I could taking you on a wild goose chase to parts unknown,” I said, hoping he’d reconsider.

“It’s the Wonder Falls Orphanage on County Road 57 and Cline, right?” he said as if that was the hottest spot in town and everyone who was anyone knew about that orphanage. The twinkle in his tired eyes also let me know he was enjoying this a little.

I opened the driver’s door. “How did you know?”

“I’m a detective. It’s my job to know things.”

I could have sworn he was trying to tell me he knew a few things about yours truly as well. I gave him a scowl and got in behind the wheel. Leaning over, I unlocked the passenger side door, and Blake climbed in. I couldn’t be sure because I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of looking in his direction, but I thought he was smiling.