Prague Murder (5 page)

He headed towards the Presidium room and waited for the next person to leave and then he spoke to the cops for a minute. They nodded, eyes on the ghost who was hovering near the tree in the courtyard, and then nodded again.

Igor disappeared and returned a few minutes later. He set up a coffee pot and told her, “Good luck.”

He didn’t think that she’d have much luck in making excellent coffee with that ancient thing, but magic was
magical.

She pulled out the coffee and smelled it. At least the beans were good. Ingrid was the one who filled the water pot. That way the serum could be easily placed in it before it was run through the coffee pot. She started mixing coffee for people, eyeing them for a moment, adding sugar or cream as they would best enjoy and added a zip of magic. She wasn’t really that sure what the magic would do, but she was sure that those inclined to turn the coffee down would find it a bit harder.

Emily handed the coffee around according to Ingrid’s instructions.

“Divide and conquer?” Emily asked.

Ingrid nodded, eyes scanning the group. Everyone had taken coffee except the two sisters, Cathy and Carol. Ingrid had made it perfect to what they’d like, but neither took a cup. She was frowning at the sisters when Emily said, “You take the creepy old-young one. I can’t talk to her.”

Ingrid considered, but she saw that Emily was serious and the odd dove didn’t bug Ingrid like she seemed to bug Emily.

Ingrid approached the woman in tweed and orthopedics while Emily scanned the crowd and took the young couple with the incredibly attractive man. Ingrid’s eyes narrowed as she headed towards the woman who dressed so old but looked so young. At least in her face.

“Hi,” Ingrid said.

The girl-crone-dove jumped.

“I’m Ingrid, I saw you were alone, and worried that you were feeling scared by yourself,” Ingrid lied.
She
hadn’t had the truth serum.

“Oh, kind of,” the girl-crone replied.

“What’s your name?”

“Gwennie.”

She was not forthcoming. Ingrid had to wonder if she had recognized the truth serum in the coffee or if she’d not just had enough.

“Dream trip?”

“Yes,” Gwennie said scrunching her nose in irritation, “for my
mother
. She wants me to be more adventurous than I am.”

Gwennie looked a little uncomfortable that she had confessed that last tidbit and Ingrid and to refrained from a victory fist pump. Truth serum strikes again!

“Oh,” Ingrid said. “Moms are experts at baggage and manipulation aren’t they? I just barely escaped my mom’s last round.”

“Hecate yes,” Gwennie replied. She nodded frantically and let loose a high-pitched giggle that she cut short as if someone had hit the mute button.

“You a witch too?” Ingrid asked, hiding the shiver at that weird reaction. Had this dove ever talked to another human before?

“Yes,” Gwennie said, “My mom is not a fan of witchcraft. She thinks I should be an accountant.”

“And you don’t want to?”

“Oh…I don’t want much of anything since my boyfriend left.”

Ingrid’s eyes glazed. This was not the confession she was after. “Did you know Joe?”

“I seem to be confessing just everything, don’t I,” Gwennie said. “With the ghost and the body, it’s not that surprising.”

Ingrid just prevented another fist pump at the dove’s completely wrong conclusion. She was confessing due to Ingrid’s heavy hand with the truth serum. Ingrid’s phone buzzed, and she saw Gabe’s name. She sent him a quick text that she was investigating and then turned back to Gwennie.

“I did know, Joe,” Gwennie said. “He’s my cousin. Or Katie is.”

“Are you a shifter too?”

“Oh no, that’s on the other side of her family. She’s a hummingbird you know? But Joe was a dog. And even though dogs are domesticated, it was always just weird. I mean..she’s a vegetarian and prey. And he was at least approaching a predator. I always thought it was…a weird match.”

“Do you think she killed him?”

“Oh who can tell? It’s weird what people will do. I mean…I would probably kill my ex given the chance. He avoids me. Maybe he realizes what I’ve been thinking. But I can’t help but think that if I could just get him alone and
make
him
listen
he’d see that no one can love him like I do.”

Ingrid paused. She wanted to shudder a bit at the bald confession of a willingness to murder. Would Ingrid murder someone? Probably. But not for
leaving
her. The appropriate response to that was a good hex that would fade and moving on.

“Surely you’re too good for that?” Ingrid said it, hoping it was true despite the confession under truth serum.

“Oh I don’t think so. He ruined me.
Ruined
me.”

“But you didn’t kill Joe?” Ingrid demanded the answer, Emily was right, this chick was a freaky weirdo.

“Not on purpose,” Gwennie said.

Ingrid’s eyes narrowed at that answer. What in the seven hells? But she just asked, “Did you kill him on accident?”

“What? No,” Gwennie’s gaze narrowed on Ingrid and the crazy dove seemed to be putting the pieces together, but then she said, “I suppose that was a weird way to answer. Joe was all right. Weird and weirder still for Katie but all right.”

“Okay, bye then,” Ingrid said, walking away and shaking her head. That dove needed help. And medication. And perhaps her mother wasn’t so wrong. The crazy dove needed to be out among the living. Probably the Haunted Prague tour hadn’t been the best choice for this one.

Too late now though.

Ingrid turned back, “You should probably get out more, and not be an accountant, but maybe spend less time out of a magic lab and more walking in the woods. You are a crazy dove, but surely you can be better than this?”

Gwennie’s face flushed and she shook her head in denial.

What kind of answer was that? No? No I can’t be better than this?

Ingrid frowned and then baldly said, “Then you should really consider some meds that aren’t just magic. Doctors can do wonderful things these days. You should see one. You are a creepy, crazy dove right now. Get help. Or you’ll end up in prison.”

* * * * * * * *

“Whacked?” Emily asked looking at the old-young lady. Emily didn’t really need the answer. Not when Ingrid looked as if someone had walked over her grave.

“That’s one crazy dove,” she told Emily. Ingrid shivered and rubbed her arms as if trying to get the feel of the chick’s aura off.

“Yeah, clearly,” Emily said. “I ruled out the young couple and the old couple. I assume that the crazy one didn’t do it based on the fact that you’re scanning for another victim?”

“
Don’t
meet her in a dark alley, my best dove,” Ingrid said. “But she didn’t kill this one.”

“So…” Emily turned in a circle. “Do you see how the vampire disappeared? I wasn’t sure there
really
were vampires. How old do you think he is? Do you think they really drink blood? Even with potion stuff in it, that’s gross. How are they made? I have so many questions. I want to truth serum him, but you have to wonder…does truth serum work on vampires?”

“What I want to know,” Ingrid said as her phone rang again, “Is what he eats and does he sparkle in the sun?”

“You know you liked those books,” Emily said. “Don’t mock.”

“They give good angst,” Ingrid replied with the same answer she had given every single time. Her phone rang again, and she said, “I have to answer this. Be right back.”

Emily assumed that Ingrid would be getting in trouble shortly with Gabe or at least long-distance worried over. It was sort of adorable. Emily wondered if she should text her sort-of-boyfriend and see if he could get them out of this.

Emily scanned again for the hot vampire, but he was gone. That made her feel like he was probably the killer, and the Presidium folks should get their head out of their dank little room and come and figure that out. Hopefully before Ingrid went hangry-crazy and started making herself look more and more like the killer. Emily didn’t want to slap her friend into unconsciousness—at least very much—but Emily would do what was necessary to get them out of this.

It was time, Emily realized, to stop avoiding the wife crying in the corner and put on her sympathetic face. Maybe she could dredge up the one she’d used for Ingrid when her a-hole of a husband had died.

* * * * * * * *

“Hey,” Ingrid said as she answered Gabe’s fourth call.

“Are you all right?” He demanded. His worry and the love she felt through it hit her right in the center of her chest.

“Yes,” she said, glancing around. “They’re keeping us here while they get a handle on things, I guess.”

“Here, where?”

“We were touring a convent where some poor witch nun was murdered.”

“Did the ghost do it?”

“Oh, I don’t think so. But she is creeping me out right now. She’s all bloody-eyed and wailing. Thank goodness I am not a necromancer. I bet those doves could hear the crying.”

The sound of his voice made her feel better. He made her feel all warm and loved. There was nothing she wanted more than to return to her hotel room and find him in that massive bed. But he wouldn’t be there. And Emily had talked Ingrid into Paris at least.

“I miss you,” she said, and it was true. And it didn’t freak her out to say it. And she didn’t want to be a flighty dove who took off for places unknown and avoided him. She wanted to go home. Home to him. On the island or in Prague, or Paris or even…Pittsburgh.

Holy Mary Mother of Pearl, she thought, I am drowning in love.

Chapter 5

Emily crossed the room once and then twice as if she were just stretching her legs looking for the hot vampire. He was nowhere to be found. Should she feel guilty for thinking he was attractive when she had
something
with Dean?

No, she decided. Definitely not.

She had eyes. Dean wasn’t here. They weren’t committed. Did she think he was the
one
? Maybe. Maybe she did.

It made her feel both happy and a little bit jealous that Ingrid had found her
one.
Emily hadn’t seen Ingrid admit to that for a very long time, but Ingrid and Gabe were both pretty much aware that they were it for each other and stumbling ever closer to actually full-time admitting it.

First things first though, time to find the killer, end the case, get on with the trip, and maybe send sexier pics of herself to Dean than Ingrid did to Gabe. That whole foot pic thing had been funny. Now it had some sort of weird couple-hood to it that no one else could get. Emily did
not
want to know if Gabe kissed Ingrid’s toes or if the pics were as far as it went.

* * * * * * * *

“Ms, Brown,” the Presidium guy with the weird name said just as Emily was gearing up to harass the wife. Alice? Alons? Alois? “We’d like to speak with you again.”

Emily licked her lips and wondered if they realized she and Ingrid had truth serumed everyone. And if they did realize that—just how much trouble were they in?

Emily went back into the room and sat across the Presidium cops. Last time they had just been getting a feel for what happened. This time, they seemed to have real questions.

“You’re from near Gresham, Oregon?”

“If you call being like 300 miles away being close by,” Emily said sarcastically not liking that opening question one bit.

“But you told Carol Lyman that you were there recently,” Igor said.

Emily’s face froze and then she said, “I was in Portland. Which I believe is near Gresham. And when I was in Portland, I got on the freeway going the wrong way. It took me a while to figure it out. I think that happened in Gresham. Or near there. I don’t know for sure.”

Igor cleared his throat and the scritch-scratch of his pencil on the paper was a little too loud for what seemed normal.

Emily tried to remain calm, but the feeling of being a suspect again was making her angry. She could feel her face getting flushed and her exhaustion combined with her anger was a bad thing. Now that she’d been practicing magic she was setting things on fire accidentally almost as often as Ingrid. So, Emily took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

She took another breath in and then Alois asked, “Are you upset?”

“You seem to be insinuating that I had something to do with what is happening out there.”

Yes. Obviously. She was upset. She wasn’t stupid. These questions weren’t being asked to pass the time.

“Your best friend was just a suspect in a murder in Sage Island.”

“So that means I killed that guy?”

“We’re just trying to get a handle on what is happening,” Igor lied.

Emily cleared her throat and refused to reply to that baiting comment.

“Did you know Joe Laszlo before today,” Alois asked.