Divination and rot, p.1
Divination and Rot, page 1
Divination and Rot
A Penelope Phair Mystery
Alex P. Berg
Divination and Rot, Penelope Phair #3
Copyright © 2021 by Alex P. Berg
All rights reserved. Published by Batdog Press.
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No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, except by an authorized retailer or with written permission from the author. For permission requests, please visit: www.alexpberg.com
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents portrayed in this novel are a product of the author’s imagination.
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Cover Art by: Ravven (www.ravven.com)
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If you’d like to be notified when more Penelope Phair novels are released, please sign up for the author’s mailing list at: www.alexpberg.com/mailing-list/.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
About the Author
Chapter One
A persistent trickle of sunlight filtered through my eyelids, pestering me and refusing to leave, like a mosquito several hours removed from its last meal. I blinked a few times and turned toward the source of the light, an east-facing window whose blinds hadn’t been totally cinched. I could blame Moss for the oversight—it was her guest bedroom I was sleeping in after all—but that would be a gross absolution of personal responsibility and an ungrateful snub of my host, neither of which was my style. Besides, I’d slept through worse: heavy rain, mid-day sun, howling winds a few knots shy of hurricane status, so I couldn’t exactly blame dawn’s first stretch for waking me.
I was honestly surprised I’d slept at all.
With a groan I rolled off the mattress and sat up. A debilitating yawn nearly inflicted upon me a case of lockjaw, but eventually it passed and my cheek muscles unclenched. I stood and crossed to the suitcase I’d left on the floor next to an empty dresser. Moss had told me I could unpack my things, but I hadn’t wanted to take her offer. I figured the longer I forced myself to live out of the suitcase, the greater my motivation for finding an apartment of my own.
I plucked a knee-length nightgown from the pile of personal belongings in my already too messy suitcase and threw it on before heading into the remainder of the apartment. A twinge of jealousy crept up my neck as I passed through the living room en route to the kitchen, but I swatted it away with practiced ease. Growing up, I’d never lived in the lap of luxury. My parents had made ends meet, but there hadn’t been a lot of slack in the cord, if you catch my drift, and that was before they divorced and my father turned into a hopeless drunk. When I’d ventured out on my own, I’d gotten by on restaurant tips and the occasional bonus check from the roller derby league, which was enough to buy a cup of coffee and maybe a little sugar to go in it. Thanks to my meager earnings and New Welwic’s absurd housing costs, I was accustomed to living in a closet that I shared with whatever boyfriend I was seeing at the time. That made Moss’s abode all the more shocking.
Technically, it wasn’t an apartment. It was one of those newfangled condos. There were a total of three bedrooms—three!—in addition to two bathrooms and separate kitchen, dining, and living rooms, the latter of which was big enough to house a three piece sofa and a grand piano. There weren’t actually any instruments in the living room, but there was a three piece sofa set, leather-upholstered with glossy lacquered legs, as well as one of those huge department store radios that was more furniture than electronic device. I wasn’t entirely sure how Moss afforded it all, but unless there was an orders of magnitude salary difference between patrol officers and detectives, it wasn’t from her work at the department.
Once in the kitchen, I scanned the countertops in search of the coffee maker. I found numerous appliances off the bat: a toaster, a blender, even a stand mixer, but the percolator eluded me, as did the ground beans I’d need to make the drink. As I fought off another yawn, I delved into the cabinets underneath the counter, but the shelves played a practical joke on me. Row after row of pots and pans laughed at me, hiding their earthy counterpart behind their backs while they mocked me for my early morning chemical dependance.
“Need something?” said a mellow voice at my back.
I startled, banging my head on the underside of the counter. I pulled back, grimacing as I rubbed the back of my skull. “Just looking for the coffee.”
Ginger Moss was everything I wasn’t, at least physically. Whereas I was tall and powerfully built, with a wide frame and a little extra weight in places I wished it wasn’t, she was five foot three in shoes, with a slim physique and an angular face. Unlike my giant mass of dark, frizzy hair, which was particularly voluminous first thing in the morning, Ginger’s blonde locks were long and flowing, like delicate silks blown by a gentle breeze. Though I had her beat on bust size, hers nonetheless looked bigger thanks to her smaller ribcage. At least I could claim the superior derriere.
Ginger wore a similar gown to mine, though hers was made of black satin rather than navy jersey. She pointed to one of the cabinets I’d already gone through. “I use a press. Top shelf, to the right.”
“A press?”
“Yeah. A press pot?” Ginger lifted one of her thin eyebrows. “Don’t tell me you’ve never used one? I thought you used to work at a diner.”
“Maybe that’s the problem,” I said. “I’m looking for something big enough to steep two gallons at a time, not some bourgeois personal brewing contraption.”
Moss scoffed as she slid by me. “There’s nothing ostentatious about a press pot, I guarantee you. It just makes good coffee.”
Moss pulled a chrome and glass pot from the cabinet behind me. She pointed to the teakettle on the stove as she opened another cabinet and pulled out a bag of ground beans. “Can you turn that on? There should be water in the kettle.”
I checked to make sure before lighting the stove while Moss measured out a few scoops of grounds into the pot. Even from a few feet away, I could smell the rich, earthy scent of the beans. She set the filled pot next to the stove and nodded toward her pastel blue refrigerator, one with a chromed handle and a gleaming Sherman Industries logo across the front. “I think I have some leftover brew in a mason jar if you’re desperate.”
I snorted. “Sorry. I probably looked like I was going to bite your head off. I’m not much of a morning person.”
“So I’d gathered,” said Moss with a smile. “Which is why I offered the reserves.”
I held up a hand. “I appreciate the offer, but I’ll wait. I like it hot. And I didn’t mean to disparage your coffee pot. Mornings minus caffeine equals cranky Nell.”
“All is forgiven,” said Moss. “And I don’t blame you for not knowing what it was. I’ve been trying to convince the bean-counters at the precinct to buy one for the break room for ages, but I’d have more luck convincing a tree to dance. I’d bring one in and leave it there, but you know nobody’s going to clean it, and that’s if some butter-fingered jerk doesn’t break it and slink out without saying anything.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “I didn’t realize you’re so particular about your coffee.”
Moss shrugged. “Some things in life aren’t worth getting your britches in a bunch about. Other things, I’m particular about.”
I looked around the rest of the condo, at the sofas and the dining table that could seat eight and the grandfather clock that looked as if it had been hewn by an elven master-craftsman who might’ve employed a puppet turned real boy in his workshop. “I can tell.”
Given how late we’d arrived from work the evening prior, we hadn’t had much of a chance to discuss Moss’s living situation. I think she got the gist of my thoughts off my face.
“I’m blessed, I’ll admit,” she said. “My father set up a trust fund for me when I was a teen. It’s how I afford these creature comforts. And I know what you’re thinking. If I have enough money to afford a place like this, what am I doing working my ass off as a detective? Well, Dad, it’s because there’s more to life than money. There are things in life that can’t be bought and ways to get them without feeling skeezy.”
I recalled one of our first meetings, where Moss and I dropped by a rich divorcee’s mansion in Brentford. She’d made an offhand comment about rich folks cheating and stealin g their way to their fortunes. I’d assumed it was the idle musings of a jaded detective, but I hadn’t considered she might be speaking from experience. “You don’t have to explain anything to me. I’m just grateful you’re willing to let me stay with you until I find a new apartment. Making things work at my old place with my ex-boyfriend would’ve been awkward to say the least, and I didn’t want to impose on my nana again. Not to mention she doesn’t live anywhere close to the precinct.”
“It’s all good.” Moss leaned against the counter. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you need, even if that ends up being longer than you want it to be.”
I smiled. “Thanks. At least tomorrow I won’t wake you up banging around the kitchen at the crack of dawn.”
Moss shrugged. “You didn’t wake me. I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t turn my brain off.”
I snorted. “You, too, huh?”
Moss nodded. Neither one of us had to go into detail as to what kept us up. The afternoon prior as I’d been getting ready to leave the police station, Detective Alton Dean, for whom we worked, had received a call. The person on the other end of the line had muffled his or her voice to keep their identity secret, but their claim had been enough to chill anyone’s blood: they were the Tarot Card Killer, and they intended to strike again overnight. We’d stayed by Dean’s side until late in the evening, but without anything to go on other than the call, there was nothing we could do but head home and wait for the inevitable.
Moss shook her head, chewing on her lip as she did so. “I feel for Dean. He’s shouldered that case as a personal responsibility, but to get a direct call from TCK? It’s going to make it that much worse, especially if TCK followed through on his threat.”
I felt a pang in my chest, the sort of hollow emptiness associated with losing a loved one. “I know how he feels. I’ve only been working with you guys a few weeks, and I already feel responsible for the murders. It’s eating at me.”
Moss stood a little straighter and gave me a stern glance. “Don’t do that, Nell.”
“Do what?”
“Blame yourself for a perpetrator’s actions,” said Ginger. “It serves no purpose. You didn’t murder anyone. You’re not at fault. Not in any way, shape, or form. I know you might feel a connection to this case because you happen to be the closest thing to a witness we have to any of the murders, but that doesn’t mean you’re at fault. None of us are, Dean included. He knows that, much as he might still shoulder the responsibility for not catching the killer.”
I put up my hands. “Fair enough. Perhaps I used a poor choice of words. I simply meant…” I sighed. “I feel like I should’ve made more of a contribution. Dean’s been working his butt off, investigating TCK even while the rest of us have focused on other cases, and what have I done?”
“You’ve cracked the only two cases you’ve assisted us with, is what,” said Moss. “One of them you weren’t even a member of our team yet.”
“But I could be doing more,” I said. “I should be doing more, and… I don’t know if I’m ready to.”
Moss reached out and grasped my upper arm, squeezing the muscle. “Phair, we’ve been over this. You have all the tools you need to be a good investigator, and you’re only starting to learn how to use them. All you need is experience, same as anyone else in your shoes would. There’s no need for a crisis of confidence. Trust in yourself for once.”
I nodded as Moss took her hand back. “Thanks, but that’s not what’s bothering me. I actually do believe I can do this job. Investigation comes naturally to me, it seems. But TCK? This is a different ordeal. We’re not just solving a mystery. We’re trying to stop someone. Someone who tortures and murders innocent women. He’s proven he’ll kill again and again if we don’t stop him. This isn’t a puzzle to solve. People’s lives are on the line.”
Moss gave me a sideways look. “Now you know why Dean’s been so invested in this for the last two months.”
“So you’re saying I’m right and I should deal with it?”
The teakettle started to whistle. Ginger lifted it off the heat and turned off the gas. “You could suck it up and deal with it. That’s how some members of the force handle the weight of responsibility. Others self medicate with alcohol, but there’s a better option.”
“Being?”
Moss poured hot water into the press pot until it reached a line near the top. “To trust in your team. Yes, we’ve all been pulled in different directions. That’s the nature of the job. There’s never enough time and always too many cases, but when it matters, we pull together. We support each other, and we work as a team. We’ve done it before, and it’s what we’re going to do to find and stop TCK.”
Apparently, Moss had a knack for unprompted inspiring speeches, even ones delivered at six in the morning. I gave a halfhearted smile. “You really think so?”
Moss plucked a couple mugs from a shelf and handed me the press pot. “I know so. No case falls on any one of us alone. We shoulder the responsibility together. My shoulders may not be as broad as yours, but trust me. It lightens the load.”
I snorted as I followed Ginger into the dining room. I’d seen too much inter-department politics to totally buy into Moss’s all-for-one, one-for-all ethos. From what I’d seen, success in the NWPD was more of a free-for-all, but perhaps she was right about our investigative team. About Dean, Justice, her, and me. I hoped she was, anyway. Because as much as my confidence in my investigative abilities had grown, I knew there was no way I was going to break the tarot card murders by myself.
We’d be lucky if all of us put together could.
Chapter Two
Ginger drove us to the Fifth Street Precinct in her glossy black Howardson Hornet, the presence of which I would’ve attributed to her wealthy parents if I wasn’t familiar with the cars Detectives Dean and Justice drove. Apparently, while the department’s accountants wouldn’t pony up for fancy coffee makers, they were willing to spring for decent cars for their detectives.
Ginger parked in the adjoining garage and we walked into the Fifth through the side entrance. As seemed to happen every few days, the lobby was a hive of activity, and it buzzed almost as loudly. I counted at least a dozen punks, all male but of every race, color, and size, split between the chairs in the pit and those in the lobby, all of them handcuffed, sullen-looking, and with officers standing watch over them. None of them had the scarred cheeks, broken noses, and bloodied knuckles of your average street tough, but they shouted curses like sailors. More than one had ink stains upon his shirt and fingers.
Moss waved to the officer at the reception desk, a clean-cut half-elf who seemed to get more than his fair share of the duty. Maybe he had a bum leg. “Morgan! What’s all this?”
The young half-elf nodded as we walked up. “Morning, Detective Moss. Officer Phair. As I understand it, this is the better part of the Willow Creek gang. Some of them are still in the wind, but there can’t be more than three or four we didn’t catch.”
I snuck another look at the apprehended lot. “These guys are in a gang?”
“They’re forgers and counterfeiters, not gun-runners or drug dealers,” said Morgan. “Detective Wallace in financial crimes said they could be responsible for up to five million crowns a year of fake currency. Not only have we brought in most of them, but we seized their presses and their stock. Should be a big win for the department.”
