Pawsitively Dead (A Wonder Cats Mystery Book 2) Page 3

  As mourners milled about on the lawn in front of the church, I went up to Jake and said, “You’re all in black. This isn’t official duty then?”

  “Yes and no,” he answered. “Plainclothes should still be appropriate for the occasion.”

  “I thought Bea would be with you.”

  Jake looked surprised. “She couldn’t come with me. She had…” He looked around at the mourners, as if to check that nobody was listening, then added in a low voice, “Some investigating to do with this case.”

  “It’s so obvious what you’re doing.” I shook my head. “Jake, investigating this case is why I’m here. I checked the guest book, and nobody has the surname of Marina or Perry.”

  He cleared his throat and walked, signaling me to follow. I did.

  Jake asked, “You tried to find a connection that way?”

  “We’re out of options on the magic investigation side. We really have no clue.”

  “Don’t say that, please.”

  “But it’s true.”

  “You can tell me the truth, just don’t use the M-word.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  Oblivious, Jake continued, “How can you be out of options and not have a clue? Don’t you have—”

  “The thing I’m not even supposed to say that we have?” I asked. “Does Bea have to talk around this, just like what we’re doing now? Never mind answering that. I know the answer. The point is, it’s more complicated than that, but we’ve done our best and turned up with nothing.”

  “You weren’t going to find Marina on the guest book,” Jake muttered. “If she had a daughter, Marina would have become a maiden name. In some places, the government still uses the mother’s maiden name as a special evaluator for sensitive information.”

  “I know that,” I said crossly.

  “I thought you might, but I wasn’t sure. Changing last names doesn’t seem to be Greenstone tradition.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “So did Bea get in trouble with your aunt when she wanted to become Bea Williams?”

  “You could ask her yourself,” I answered primly.

  Jake’s shoulders slumped. “Right.”

  I felt sorry enough for him that I added, “Aunt Astrid and I support Bea with everything, but the Greenstones have a legacy tied to the name. Bea gave that up for you.”

  “I don’t want anything done for me,” Jake grumbled. “I wish this was a part of her life that she could do with me, both of us together.”

  “Magic—”

  “Ugh!”

  “The thing,” I said, “doesn’t work like that, especially if you don’t even want to use the word! It’s usually bad news when people who aren’t witches try to do the thing.”

  “Can we not use the W-word either?”

  “I don’t need to use the W-word if I turn you into a toad for being annoying and hurtful.” I did not have the ability to do that, but Jake’s expression looked cautious.

  He said, “I’m not hurtful. I’m just overwhelmed by things too strange to handle.”

  “Welcome to the witch world. Peanut Butter thinks you’re getting a divorce, and it’s making him more anxious than usual. I share a heart and mind sometimes with animals, so that’s been making me more anxious than usual. Also, Bea’s been getting depressed, and I care. So should you! So I’m sorry that you’re overwhelmed, but you can’t honestly tell me that you’re not also being hurtful.” I realized that we were getting close to the low stone wall that was the other entrance to the graveyard. “Where are we going?”

  “Blake found Samantha Perry’s dog when we got here, and he ran into the woods after the dog. I’ll call him to say that the wake’s about to start.” Jake got his phone out and dialed. He paused. “Why do we call it a wake?”

  I assured him, “It has nothing to do with Samantha waking up after being dead.” The poor dog had been without Samantha to take care of it for days, I thought.

  “Blake,” Jake spoke into his phone, “I’m with Cath Greenstone. We’re waiting for you at the back entrance.” He paused. “You took the dog to the animal shelter? All right.” He ended the call. “It sounds like we have our first witness in custody.”

  I blinked. “I thought you were talking to Blake about a dog.”

  “Cath,” Jake said, “I’m trying to be more open about this. Didn’t you just say that you could talk to animals?”

  The realization dawned on me. “I don’t speak Dog very well, but it’s worth a try.”

  Burger

  Jake drove us to the animal shelter. The place was comprised of mostly chicken-wire enclosures with corrugated tin roofs where animals of the same species could run free. There was one tiny tiled room that served as a vet’s office and was also where the mammals could be bathed. In the lobby was a long sofa of scratched-up, worn leather. I knew the place well, since I volunteered there a couple of times a month. Old Murray waited in the lobby with an unconscious Blake Samberg stretched out on the sofa.

  “How did you get him to sleep?” Jake asked Old Murray.

  Murray mustered up a sad smile. “I’ve had a lot of practice. You get as old as me, with friends who are as old as I am, and you’ve got to learn to handle them when their minds start going.”

  I peered at the gray half circles under Blake’s eyes. I whispered, “Has he really not slept since Samantha’s murder?”

  “Of course he has,” Jake whispered. “It would kill him otherwise. But every time he wakes up, Blake gets angry with himself for taking that time out of the case to sleep. He’ll keep working until he faints. Then he technically sleeps, once he’s fainted, but he has nightmares that he’s solved the case, and the nightmares wake him up, and his epiphany makes no sense. He just won’t accept that the Perry case could remain unsolved.”

  “He rambles a lot,” Old Murray agreed. “He said the dog was evidence, but he couldn’t take it to the police station because of conspirators.”

  “Conspirators? Blake must be paranoid…” I sighed then turned to Old Murray. “Can we see the dog that Blake brought in?”

  Old Murray looked from me to Jake. “I told Cody to give the dog a bath.” Murray looked worried. “Could the dog really have evidence on her? I kept the collar, if you want to look at it.”

  “I’ll examine the collar,” Jake said decisively.

  “And I’ll help Cody bathe the dog,” I said. “I mean, she’s a big dog.”

  As Old Murray wandered off to get the dog collar, Jake went with me to the tiled room. Old Murray had told me before that Blake volunteered frequently when there wasn’t a case going on. I’d never run into Blake at the animal shelter though.

  All of the veterinary equipment had been moved into the hall, on top of the stainless steel examiner’s table. I knocked on the door to the tiled room and waved through the square window at Cody, who strained to reach over and turn off the faucet.

  “Can I help?” I called through the window.

  Cody looked me up and down—of course, I’d dressed for Samantha’s memorial service, not for this—and said, “Nah, I’m fine. There isn’t room.”

  The dog began to growl.

  Jake asked, “Cath, what’s happening?”

  “I don’t need to get in there to ask what’s so wrong,” I answered. “I can do it from here—”

  That was a mistake. I reached out with my mind and got a single terrified and angry idea shot back at me. The dog lunged at the door, knocking Cody to the ground, its teeth bared in a snarl.

  “Cody!” I shouted.

  Jake threw himself between the door and me. His body slammed the door shut as the dog’s muzzle tried to pry it open. “Cath, get out of here!”

  I stood there, stunned.

  “It’s you!” Jake shouted. “Whatever you tried to do made the dog go wild! Just get out of here!”

  I backed away and ran down the hall, out of the animal shelter, and into the driveway, where I caught my breath and tried to make sense of what had just happe
ned. Jake followed a few minutes later, carrying the dog’s collar. Old Murray and a limping, suds-covered Cody waved him farewell.

  “We’re not taking Blake with us?” I asked.

  “He needs his rest,” Jake answered. “Can you explain to me what just happened?”

  I already knew some of the basics from experience and intuition. I would need to catch Jake up on that first. The truth was, I couldn’t make complete sense of what had happened at the animal shelter. I took the collar, got in the car’s front passenger seat, and Jake started driving. I saw from the tag that Samantha’s dog was named Burger.

  “It was like Burger was afraid of magic,” I told Jake. “Most animals I talk to don’t notice that what I’m doing is magic at all, because the mind and heart are part of instincts—senses that animals use all the time. They might be surprised that a human can talk to them the way that I do, but they don’t think so much about it that they can’t believe it while it’s happening. That’s a human thing. Some creatures, like fish or something, I can take over their minds completely because their minds are simple enough. People are too complicated, especially the ones that think about thinking. Domestic animals can be somewhere in between, and I guess Burger had a viewpoint that recognized magic and rejected it.”

  “Because Burger saw the magic happening,” Jake concluded.

  “It must have been the darkest magic, and it took Burger’s only companion away from her. But it makes no sense! Aunt Astrid did a search for natural witches who didn’t know that they were witches, and that turned up nothing. So that means that whatever happened to Samantha didn’t come from a witch’s talent. Burger shouldn’t have recognized it as the same kind of magic.”

  “But it’s both magic,” Jake pointed out.

  “There’s a difference between music and noise, but both are sounds,” I explained. “A ritual from a non-witch or wizard would have a specific feel. Magic that comes from a talent has a more natural feel, closer to reality.”

  “But it’s all magic,” Jake repeated. “It killed someone who’s supposed to be alive, brought someone back to life who was supposed to be dead, and influenced a giant dog to attack you. Is there anything else I should know about how dangerous this is?”

  There was a lot more to magic than what Jake knew, and they weren’t all bad things. I wasn’t in a mood to reassure him anymore though. “Magic killed my parents. It opened a portal to another dimension, and something unfriendly that had never been human came through. My dad was a non-witch who didn’t stand a chance, and my mom was a witch who could only just manage to save me.” That was all true, but I went on sarcastically. “Magic is barely a solution to the problems that we only have because of magic.”

  Jake drove on in silence and dropped me off at my house, where Treacle was waiting for once. I changed out of my black dress and into something more casual for the rest of the day, and I caught Treacle up on what I’d discovered.

  Treacle had a lot of disdain for dogs and informed me that Marshmallow wanted the both of us to stay over at Aunt Astrid’s place. I gave Aunt Astrid a call, and she told me to come right on over.

  Unfamiliars

  “An animal afraid of your magic?” Aunt Astrid pondered that as she set the dining table for three. In the kitchen was enough macaroni and cheese—more like penne and fondue cheese with cayenne pepper—for five people. “Our whole lives dedicated to witchcraft, and we’re still learning something new every day.”

  I gave a humorless laugh as I set down water dishes for Marshmallow and Treacle. “If you think that’s bad, I should tell you that Jake learned more about magic today than he ever wanted to know. I wonder if whoever—whatever—tried to do the resurrection might not even have been a person.”

  I went to the kitchen to wash my hands. When I came back into the dining room, Aunt Astrid was still thinking about it.

  “The Unfamiliar,” she said, which was what we called the beings from the other worlds who weren’t helpful.

  That was also what we called beings that we hadn’t decided would be helpful or unhelpful. When it came to Unfamiliars, we witches were kind of like kids who are taught not to talk to strangers. We just didn’t know how dangerous an Unfamiliar could be, and the safest thing to do was to not have any association with them.

  “The worst ones would know how to get past the notice of the Maid of the Mist,” Astrid said. “They would be a pure expression of talent, enough to spook poor dear Burger. To do that kind of thing, they would need the vessel of a human.”

  I nodded. “Would an Unfamiliar really risk getting Samantha killed? Especially for a human that was definitely dead?”

  “We would have noticed if Samantha was being used as a vessel.”

  That was true. Unfamiliars needed to familiarize themselves with their targets so that they could move from their world and into ours. Their attempts would be like hauntings, possessions—something that witches couldn’t miss, even if the unfamiliar could get past great beings like the Maid of the Mist.

  “Maybe this Unfamiliar made a grave mistake—literally,” I suggested. “Maybe it did make Samantha its vessel but got her to do something that accidentally killed her. The Unfamiliar probably got kicked out of Samantha’s body after that happened.”

  “We need to make sure of that before we relax and mourn the unlucky Samantha Perry,” Aunt Astrid told me. “But I think of the timing and the act—it’s too human. It was as if it were motivated.”

  “The Unfamiliar have motivations too, I’m sure,” I said. “It’s just that they never explain or express themselves properly.”

  “Understatement of a lifetime!” Aunt Astrid exclaimed.

  “The Unfamiliars just aren’t reasonable,” I concluded.

  Aunt Astrid set out the bottle of chilled white wine and said, “Won’t you get the door?”

  I had already made my way to the front door and turned the doorknob before I realized that there had been no knock, no doorbell ring. Bea stood at the doorstep with Peanut Butter in one arm and a trolley-bag in the other. She looked as if she’d been crying.

  “Jake did not just kick my cousin and soul-sister out of her own home,” I said, mostly to myself.

  Bea shook her head and sniffled. “Jake said that he needed some time apart to think about things. I needed to leave. This is my home, with you and Mom and all of our cats.”

  I let her in, and we all dined on Bea’s favorite comfort food and got slightly drunk on her favorite wine. Even though Bea insisted that Jake’s need to take a breather was not my fault at all, I volunteered to make a run for the chocolates and DVD rentals Bea loved.

  * * *

  Change is another part of life. Life itself goes on, even when we feel like it shouldn’t. Some things are so awful that the whole planet should stop and turn its face back to just notice. It never does, not even for witches.

  I wanted to contact the spirit of Shelley Marina, but Aunt Astrid informed me that it would do no good, since Shelley was so old. Contacting Samantha Perry, Aunt Astrid was certain, wouldn’t go well either, since Samantha would be too confused and upset this soon after death to be a good witness. Contacting the dead was no easy feat.

  During the day, the three of us continued to work on the Brew-Ha-Ha. We moved in new tables and chairs, stocked up on new cups and glasses and saucers. While we were restocking, Min came back.

  “The place looks great!” he said as he shook his umbrella dry and left it open on the patio. He stomped his shoes dry on the doormat.

  Aunt Astrid laughed. “Welcome back. You’ve missed a lot.”

  “So have we, by the looks of it. You’re back to wearing business suits, Min,” I remarked.

  “I’m a producer now, for the Curtains’ next show. I wanted to personally issue my favorite family in town…” He gave a dramatic pause and drew a stack of cards from his pocket before finishing. “Their complimentary tickets!”

  “Four of them,” Bea observed, with a little smile that I knew
was hiding a pang.

  “For Jake, of course.” In the silence that followed, Min’s joy visibly wilted. “What did I say?”

  “Excuse me,” Bea said softly, heading behind the bar and into the bunker.

  Even Aunt Astrid didn’t know what to say.

  “Nothing wrong, it was really thoughtful,” I said to Min and flinched. “It’s just that, as Aunt Astrid said, you’ve really missed a lot.”

  “What’s wrong with Bea and Jake?” Min asked, sitting at one of our new tables.

  I couldn’t tell him the truth. “That’s between them.”

  “We just support Bea emotionally through it all,” Aunt Astrid agreed. “Want a cup of hot tea or coffee?”

  “This might be hot chocolate weather,” Min said hopefully.

  “I’ll get right to that,” Aunt Astrid said with a smile and flicked her gaze from me to the table.

  I sat down.

  Min spoke first. “If you don’t know what’s going on between them, then why do you look like you blame yourself for it?”

  “I’ve got resting guilt face. It doesn’t mean anything,” I lied.

  “Cath!” Min exclaimed. “What happened to us?”

  “Us?”

  “You, me, and Bea. We were like the three Musketeers, except that we actually used muskets.”

  “Those were toys,” I pointed out, but I understood what he was saying. “Bea and Jake have a problem that they don’t even want to talk to each other about. If they don’t catch each other up on everything after making one of the most binding commitments of adult life, then what chance does a cousin have?”

  “Cousin and soul-sister,” Min reminded me.

  I’d use that phrase so many times for Bea and myself that it had become second nature.

  “Marriage,” I mused. “Apparently it’s complicated.”

  “My parents never talked as much to each other as I’ve heard was recommended,” Min remarked. “I don’t know if that’s an Asian thing or a generational thing.”