Mabel was livid and ready to strangle Riordan, but I explained he was long gone. I had a lot of explaining to do, but first had her give me the location of the fuse box so I could get the lights working. She was none too pleased at the state of the dining room, appalled and aghast at the sight of Clive and Taylor literally asleep on their feet, and furious with me on general principles. She visibly fumed as I eased each man flat on the floor. They were breathing okay, hearts pumping steadily, so they didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger.
“Some kind of curare?” Escott ventured, studying them with his own brand of cold-blooded curiosity. “If so, they might well be aware of everything we’re saying.”
I shrugged. “Just don’t touch the sherry. It might be a good idea to empty all the open bottles into the drain. Agnes could have left a booby trap behind.”
Mabel was ready to explode. “What happened?”
I sat down because I was damned tired. Before dawn, rain or no, I’d have to stop at the Stockyards and have a long drink. With the promise of fresh beef blood in my near future, I told them everything that happened, including Riordan’s badly timed interruption and the fight, leaving out the part about my injuries. I’d tell Escott later. He’d need to know just how violent his acquaintance had gotten.
“You let her go?” Mabel’s throaty voice rose. I held up a hand.
“She didn’t get away with anything.”
“Only with Hecate’s Eye and all that money. She’ll never come back.”
I took the pendant—the real one—from my pocket and held it out to her.
Mabel gaped, then reached for it, fingers shaking. “You switched them!”
“Said I would. It took long enough, what with Agnes fighting me every inch of the way.”
“You mustn’t touch it. My God, put it down before something horrible happens.”
I put it into her hand and told her how I’d played pickpocket during the tussle. Agnes must have thought I was some kind of masher since I’d had to keep my hands moving. No wonder she’d shot at me.
“She still got away with the payment—Taylor will set the police on her.”
“No, he won’t. He brought a case full of funny money to buy the gem. It’s as counterfeit as the pendant he got. Agnes had two fakes made. Maybe the jeweler cut her a deal for making two.”
That took them both a moment to digest. I used the pause to take the little box from Taylor’s coat pocket and spilled his fake pendant onto the table.
“But how did you know about the money?” Escott asked. “You couldn’t have gotten a close look at it.”
“It was the smell. Ever smell uncirculated cash straight from the bank? Nothing like that fresh ink, only this was just too fresh. It was strong enough that I picked up on it in the next room, but its importance didn’t click until Riordan showed up wanting to talk with Clive. When he hired Riordan to follow Mabel, he paid with counterfeit bills.”
“How did he get them?” she asked. “Oh—oh, it couldn’t be.”
“It could. He and Taylor are partners, working a long confidence game. Clive the gigolo marries an heiress with expectations. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s left a number of wives in his wake.”
“A bigamist?” Mabel stared at Clive as though he were an exotic zoo specimen.
“It’s likely. Marriage is a tool of the trade. I bet this time the deal wasn’t as sweet as he’d hoped. Agnes got the house, but it was worthless to him. A family heirloom like a rare diamond was much better. He probably put a few words in her ear about how unfair it was that you got it, unless it was her idea to start with. When the time was right, he called in Taylor to pose as a wealthy gem collector. The hard part for them was probably finding really good counterfeit cash. The printer should have let it dry longer.”
More gaping from Mabel; then she began to hoot with laughter. There was no love lost between her and her cousin. That Agnes had married a confidence man and possible bigamist bothered Mabel not at all. Tears ran down her face, and she had to blow her nose.
When she got her breath, I continued. “Neither of them knew that Agnes had her own angle, which was to drug them, switch the gems, and drive off with both brass rings. Clive would wake in the morning with no wife and no cash. Maybe Taylor would crash his car in the rain or not, but . . . ” I let it hang.
That sobered Mabel up. “I can’t believe she’d have gone that far.”
“She might have planned to delay him long enough for the mickey she slipped to put them out. Riordan interrupted when he tried to crack my skull open.”
“You’re sure you’re not hurt?”
“It’ll take more than a crazy Irishman with a stick to do that.” I turned to Escott. “You’re going to tell me more about him, right?”
He looked pained. “Not just now.”
“I suppose I’ll have to call the police,” said Mabel about the supine mannequins on the parlor floor.
“Don’t worry about it. I’ve a friend who will want to meet these jokers.” My friend was a gang boss of no small influence who owed me a favor or three. Northside Gordy would be very interested in hearing Taylor and Clive’s life stories and why they were operating in his city without his permission, thus denying him his cut of their deal. If they were lucky, he might let them go with most of their body parts intact.
“Poor Agnes.” Mabel snickered. “When she starts spending that fake money . . . ”
“She could go to jail,” Escott completed for her.
“It’d serve her right, but I better let the police know that she stole a car.”
Mabel put Hecate’s Eye in its little box and went to the kitchen to make the call.
Escott and I looked at the gem, neither of us disposed to get closer.
A last bit of lightning from the fading storm played hob once more with the house lights. They flickered, leaving the one candle to take up the slack for an instant before brightening again.
“Did you see that?” I asked. “Tell me you saw that.”
“Trick of the light, old man, nothing more.” But Escott looked strangely pale. “It absolutely did not wink at us.”
P. N. Elrod is best known for her Vampire Files series featuring wiseacre undead gumshoe, Jack Fleming. She’s the prize-winning editor of several successful anthology collections for St. Martin’s Griffin and is branching into steampunk with a new series for Tor Books. More info on her toothy titles may be found at vampwriter.com.
The Case: The lower half of a woman’s body is found standing in a shed. There is no sign of the upper half, and no further clues.
The Investigator: Detective Jessi Hardin, the only officer currently assigned to the new Denver PD Paranatural Unit (one of the first in the country). Her experience with the magical is minimal, but it is more than the other cops have.
DEFINING SHADOWS
Carrie Vaughn
The windowless outbuilding near the property’s back fence wasn’t big enough to be a garage or even a shed. Painted the same pale green as the house twenty feet away, the mere closet was a place for garden tools and snow shovels, one of a thousand just like it in a neighborhood north of downtown Denver. But among the rakes and pruning shears, this one had a body.
Half a body, rather.