Tracking Magic Read online

  Then, one fine October day, Robbie was left in the woods behind the house. Safe. The maid was the only viable suspect, but the parents didn’t pursue the case after Robbie was returned.

  Hmm. Had I proved the kid was alive or not?

  I drove back out to Swarsbock’s neighbor, the one with the Swarsbock mailbox. This time, I drove up the long drive all the way to the house. Leaving the folder in the car, I knocked on the front door.

  The real Ms. Swarsbock didn’t have a shotgun. She invited me in, and while not thrilled to talk about the kidnapping years ago, was willing.

  "Did they ever find the kidnapper?" I asked.

  This was a woman whose hair was prematurely grandmotherly white, but she had managed a few laugh lines around her eyes over the years. "No, they didn’t. There are still nights when I wake in a sweat, but I am told mothers have nightmares even when their child didn’t get kidnapped."

  "In some of the news accounts, I read that your neighbor was quite a help to you? Are you still close?"

  "Patty?" Ms. Swarsbock nodded. "She raised so much money. She had a shrine right by the road, between our houses. It started with teddy bears. People left money too so Patty decided we should ask for donations to offer a reward, to pay a ransom, whatever it took." She stood. "She still has a kind of monument from the leftovers in her backyard. I hate the thing." She shivered. "Here wait."

  She disappeared back towards a bedroom to return a few moments later. "See, here it is, the way it was by the road. There were teddy bears and flowers."

  The shrine in the picture bore little resemblance to the gravestone. The giant teddy bear sitting in a wagon wasn’t made of granite. The words "Robert Swarsbock we love you!" were sewn across the bear’s t-shirt. Even in the old holograph, I could see money in the bottom of the wagon.

  "Did you raise enough to pay the ransom?"

  She took the picture back. "There never was a ransom request. We were prepared because Patty raised all kinds of money, but a ransom note never came."

  My blood chilled. "No ransom note? Are you sure?"

  "Of course."

  There was a ransom note in the binder! Wasn’t there? "Then--what happened to the money Patty raised?"

  Ms. Swarsbock smiled. "It went to charity. So many people just threw money into the shrine. How can you give that back? The large donors gave permission to pass it along to charity too."

  "There was never a clue as to who took the baby?"

  She shrugged. "Every now and then a policeman stops by to let us know the case is still open. But what would they find after all this time? Robert was left in the back acres, the same bottle that went missing with him, full of milk."

  "Did Patty find him?" I demanded.

  "My husband," she whispered with a fond smile. "He thought he heard one of the goats bawling. Went to check." She took a deep breath and tears shone in the corners of her eyes. "It was Robert. We couldn’t believe it. Reporters were camped out around the property, and there Robert was, safe and sound."

  I stood. "Thank you. Can I call if I think of anything else?"

  "I suppose." She followed me to the door.

  Halfway down the porch steps, I turned. "Does Patty have any children?"

  Mrs. Swarsbock shook her head. "No, she never married. She lived in that old house taking care of her mother. Her mother was still alive when Robert disappeared."

  I nodded and hopped back into my transporter. At the gate, out of sight from the house, I stopped so quickly, I nearly catapulted myself out of my own transporter.

  Frantically, I turned the pages of the binder. A blank plastic sleeve glared up at me. "No," I whined. "Don’t tell me the goat ate it." But flipping through the rest of the binder, there was no other piece of paper with a ransom demand.

  I resisted throwing the book, but barely. The ransom demand was quite possibly the leverage I needed to get Henderson to admit she was guilty of fraud--just as she had likely been the culprit the last time money was being extorted.

  # # #

  Back at my office, I emptied my solicitor’s sack. I took every page out of the binder and looked at both sides. There was no ransom note.

  Though I didn’t go blast the goats to smithereens, it was tempting.

  It was possible one of the binders left in the barn had another copy. Or not. There was no doubt Henderson had kidnapped the kid. I was equally certain that she had diverted at least part of the charity money into her own pocket.

  I stared at the pictures. In the first three, the kid was red-faced and wrinkly, with a blue bow tied around his head. In the other pictures, the kid was older, likely from the time of the kidnapping. "Proof enough of the kidnapping?"

  More suspicious--how did she get the early hospital pictures of Robbie in the first place?

  He’s got blonde hair!" I shouted. "Light hair!" I put the pictures side by side. The early-looking photo showed a kid with black hair. Kids changed, but these two didn’t even look related. "How many kids did you kidnap?" I muttered.

  When in doubt, bluster. I called Charlinda and filled her in.

  Together, we went out to Henderson’s place.

  I kept a stun gun handy for the goats, but I was worried. The creatures might eat it, stunned or not.

  Almost as bad as the goats, Henderson aimed the shotgun at us from the porch before we even climbed the steps.

  I waved the binder at her. "Recognize this?"

  "Henderson," Charlinda shouted, "You can’t sue me over a kid you kidnapped eighteen years ago that ain’t even dead."

  The gun wavered.

  "We have the ransom note you were going to use. It’s in a safe place." I opened the binder and showed her the empty sleeve. It was in a safe place all right. Safer for her than me.

  The gun lowered. "That’s not mine," she yelled. "You can’t prove that it is!"

  "And you can’t prove you ever had a kid," Charlinda hollered back.

  "I can too," Henderson said stubbornly, the gun back up. "I got the birth certificate!"

  "You asked me to reach Swarsbock," Charlinda said. "That kid ain’t dead." She stabbed at the binder. "The pictures of the other one you kidnapped, maybe he’s dead, but I didn't talk to him."

  Henderson gasped. The barrel of the gun actually hit the porch. "He’s dead? My baby is dead?"

  Charlinda rolled her eyes. "Just how many kids did you kidnap? Which one are you worried died?"

  The air went out of the woman. "Just mine. Is he dead then?"

  Since I knew Robert wasn’t hers, I held up the other picture, the one of the tiny baby in the hospital picture. "Him?"

  She couldn’t see the holograph very well, but she nodded. I edged forward. When she didn’t raise the gun, I made it up the porch. She came forward and snatched the picture.

  "You stole this."

  I didn’t point out that she had denied it was hers a few minutes ago. "Look, you asked Charlinda to talk to Swarsbock, and he isn’t dead. We’re going to have to take this binder to the authorities to prove Swarsbock isn’t dead in order to defend against the lawsuit you filed."

  She raised the shotgun again. "Is he dead?"

  "Swarsbock isn’t dead," I repeated.

  "This one," she yelled. "I want to know about this one."

  "You think that after you sued me, I’m gonna medium for you again?" Charlinda asked. "Are you crazy?"

  I knew the answer to that question, so I asked a different one. "If you wanted to find out if this kid was still alive, why didn’t you hire Charlinda to talk to him or track him down if he wasn't dead?"

  Patty Henderson held the shotgun steady for a heartbeat, but then lowered it in defeat. "If I asked someone to track him down, I’d have to pay for it. This way, I could test her. If she talked to Robert, I’d know she was a fake because Robert is still alive. If she couldn’t talk to him, I wouldn’t have to pay because she failed."

  "How would that tell you if this other kid was alive?" I asked.

  She shrugged
. "Once I knew she was for real, I asked her to talk to my kid. I told her since it didn’t work with Robbie, she owed me another séance!"

  "I don’t fail, human," Charlinda sneered.

  Charlinda hadn’t told me about the second request, but it probably hadn’t been the most pressing matter on her mind at the time. "Let me get this straight," I said. "You tested Charlinda on Robert Swarsbock. When she couldn’t reach him, you knew she was for real."

  "And if she failed with my kid, then I’d know my kid was still alive, but I wouldn’t have to pay her for anything, because she would have failed to talk to him. If he was dead, the séance would work, and I’d get to tell him I was sorry."

  I thought about it, but couldn’t come up with an answer. "Sorry for what?"

  "For giving him up for adoption."

  None of us said anything. We just looked at each other.

  Finally Charlinda said, "You didn’t have to sue me."

  "Or the other medium," I put in.

  "She was a fake," Henderson defended herself.

  "Charlinda isn’t."

  Henderson shrugged. "Yeah. But I need the money. Where else was I gonna get the money to track down my kid?"

  "I suppose you could have kidnapped another child, raised some charity money and kept it," I snapped.

  Tired blue eyes looked away. "I didn’t kidnap Robbie for the money. It’s just…I was sixteen when mom made me give my baby up. Then a couple years later I babysat for Robbie, and he reminded me so much of my little boy." She looked back up. "I only had my baby for a couple of hours, and then they took him away."

  "Drop the lawsuit," Charlinda growled.

  "Are you going to tell?"

  "You took people’s charity money," I pointed out.

  She sagged against the porch support. "I needed it to buy things for Robbie after I took him. I needed more things than I ever thought of caring for that kid. Most of it went to him, I swear!"

  I wasn’t sure I believed her, but Charlinda handed her a phone. "Speed dial one. Make the call. Pull the lawsuit."

  We waited. It didn’t take her long to key in her ID, follow the instructions and cancel the lawsuit.

  When she was done, she handed over the phone and asked, "Can I have the pictures back?"

  "They stay with her." I jerked my head to Charlinda.

  Charlinda gave her an evil smile. "I’ll call you after I decide what I’m going to do. Next week." She shrugged. "Next month."

  Henderson’s mouth thinned. "You--"

  "I think I’ll just wait and see how else you decide to raise money," Charlinda said. She turned and marched back to the transporter.

  I followed, keeping my eye on the shotgun and looking out for goats.

  I was pretty certain Charlinda could have solved this one on her own, but I’d earned my gold. When I got back to the office, I made a note to myself. Anytime that lawyers or goats were involved, charge double.

  Roadkill

  A Max Killian Investigation

  Maria E. Schneider

  Night work is normal for a detective and so are stakeouts, but I don’t usually stand on the side of a country road with a father waiting for the ghost of his son. It wasn’t very cold for a late-February night in the hill country of Texas, but I shivered when a breeze pushed through my brown, would-have-been-a-businessman cut if I trimmed it often enough.

  "Don’t worry, Mr. Killian, he’ll show," the gravelly voice beside me declared. "He always does when there’s roadkill."

  "And you don’t know why?" I tried not to breathe too deeply while speaking. The possum had been run over early in the morning. The smell of it was bad enough, but I had a strange and often useless ability to smell the dead, long buried or not. The extra sense actually applied only to people, but try telling yourself that while you’re watching a carcass in the curve of the road at midnight.

  "Troy comes every time. He escorts their ghosts." My client, Joe Clawson, put his old felt hat back on his head. He took it off again almost immediately.

  I dared to breathe a little deeper. I could smell the possum, but no human remains. I studied the cedar tree next to where we stood. Joe had long ago sawed off the jagged ends that faced the road where the vehicle had hit. Deep gashes remained in the wood. One side of the tree had been split almost completely away from the main trunk, but it must have found enough roots because neither side was dead. Before I could ask again what might keep his son here, I felt the ghost.

  My shoulders stiffened, drawn tight by the presence of the transparent form and the smell of death, this time not from the roadkill. Troy glided from the base of the tree and stopped near the smashed opossum. He turned to stare back in our direction. He didn’t look mischievous or mean; rather solemn and intent. Unlike a lot of ghosts, he was fully formed, down to jeans and a jacket.

  "Can you talk to him?" Joe whispered. "The medium couldn’t, but she said you might be able to help."

  If my competition, Charlinda the elf, couldn’t make contact with someone whose presence was this strong, there was no point in me trying. I didn’t know why she recommended me because I didn’t advertise my ability to smell magical objects or the dead. We had worked together on a case or two so she might have guessed something about me, but the recommendation was still a long shot.

  "No, I can't." I watched as Troy knelt and stretched a hand towards the ugly possum corpse. Even as a ghost, the thing that rose from the grass was ugly with its pointy snout and bald tail.

  Troy slowly edged towards us, hesitant, giving us time to move. I did, but Joe didn’t. He stood, holding his hat between both hands, waiting patiently. Troy followed the path the transporter must have taken, gently edging in a loose circle around his father before disappearing into the tree.

  The tree was obviously a link to a strong magical current, one that Troy had clung to for some reason. It allowed him access back to this realm, and he apparently had taken it upon himself to lead the ghosts of roadkill down into the trunk. I knew little about underground magical streams other than the rumor that trees sometimes tapped into them as a source of water, bringing the magic to the surface.

  "What keeps him here?" I mused. "Was he an animal lover?"

  Joe nodded, then shook his head. "He liked animals well enough. We always had a couple of horses, and he had two dogs. All seventeen year olds like animals. He was just a kid."

  And most of them tried drinking sooner or later, but according to Joe, Troy wasn’t one to get into that kind of trouble. The night of the accident, he wasn't driving, but he probably should have been. The gel-bags in the transporter would have saved his life when the vehicle hit the tree except the windows were opened and Troy wasn't using the restraint.

  "For the last two weeks, his championship ring has been gone from my desk in the morning," Joe said. "When I noticed it missing, I came out here to apologize for losing it. Instead, I found the ring here. I can't imagine what he's trying to tell me, so I figured I better get an expert to tell me what is going on."

  The ring was likely here again, so I started looking. Other marks from the accident were long gone; Troy had died over fifteen years earlier. Still, wary of stepping on too much death, I asked, "The others all lived?"

  "Pam broke her ribs and arm against the steering panel. The way they tell it, the two kids in the back only lived because my son went out the window. Sandy and Albert were on that side. They hit the back gel-bag, and then the seat collapsed. They hit the gel in the front. Not a one of those kids had on restraints. Albert lost his right arm and broke a few other bones."

  From watching the ghost, I knew the path. I walked it, directing the fairy globe first in front of me and then to either side. It would have been easier to come back in the daytime, but I wasn’t sure Joe was ready to leave yet. He wanted action, results--hope. "He ever go across the road?" I headed in that direction.

  "Anything out from the tree, all the way across. There are deer hit twenty yards up the road, but he doesn't show up ther
e. I have never seen him near the house either. I don't know how his football ring could get back here." He pulled his own light out of a jacket pocket and started searching.

  I took another deep breath, but it was hard to smell anything dead or magical with the possum around. On my knees, I shone the light between every scrappy blade of dormant grass and oak twig possible. Had it been anything other than gold and gem, I’m not sure Joe would have found it in the underbrush. It glinted in the fairy globe light.

  "There!" He quickly disentangled the ruby-red gem from a scrub oak branch where it had snagged.

  My hand tingled as I reached towards it. I breathed deep and found a hint of magic…and a hint of death. "He died with it on?"

  Joe’s bushy eyebrows frowned. "Yes, why?"

  I couldn't tell him I was wondering if the magic came from the tree after death or from the magic of winning it in a championship fed by living energy. Maybe it was both. Maybe it didn't matter. "And this has been happening for about two weeks?"

  "Yup. Figured the only way I'd know what was going on was to come here and talk to him. But he still only comes out when there's roadkill. And he does the same thing as before. Collects the ghosts. Takes them to the tree. Nothing has changed except the ring keeps showing up here."

  I stared at the ring. It was obvious that Troy was tied to it and the tree. It allowed him some movement. How he had gotten the ring here wasn't important, but why?

  "Let's follow the route he might take to get the ring."

  "Do you think he wants it buried with him?"

  "After all this time? I doubt it. I don't understand why Charlinda wasn't able to talk to him. He obviously has something he wants to say. Anything else of his gone missing or moved?"

  "Not that I know of. We buried him in his football uniform, along with a football. He had a couple of other footballs and some trophies in his room. I didn't look there. I guess he probably didn't find a way to drag the transporter back out here. Do you think he's trying to tell me something about his death?"

  I shook my head. "If that were it--" I hesitated. "I think he would have figured out how to reach you before this."