Crimes of Magic: The Witch's Artifact

  Chapter 3

  The next morning at ten o’clock, I made a pot of East African coffee and toasted a couple of bagels. I put out some cream cheese and got a couple of mugs and plates and spreaders. Coffee and bagels is low-key but tasty—just what the situation warranted.

  At five past ten, Rachel knocked on my door, and I let her in. We walked back to the kitchen table and took our seats.

  “So this is second breakfast,” Rachel said. What was first breakfast?”

  “Cottage cheese,” I replied.

  “Cottage cheese, cream cheese, that’s a lot of cheese.”

  “I’m a cheesy guy.”

  I’m usually an early riser, and I like to have first breakfast around six-thirty in the morning. This consists of coffee and usually cottage cheese. About three hours later, I’m ready for second breakfast, which is often one egg and a slice of cheese on toast with more coffee. By one o’clock, it’s time for lunch, which varies with where I am and what is at hand. Four o’clock is time for tea, and dinner is around eight.

  “You know,” Rachel said as she spread cream cheese on her bagel, “There’s a place on Broadway that makes real bagels.”

  “These are real bagels,” I said.

  “If you think these are real bagels, then you haven’t had a real bagel. These are doughnut-shaped rolls.”

  “What’s a real bagel then?” I asked.

  “A real bagel takes time and effort to make. You have to use special flour and let the bagels sit for twenty-four to forty-eight hours in the fridge. Then you have to boil them before you bake them. It’s an art.”

  “What makes you such a bagel expert?” I asked.

  “I’m a Jersey girl. We know bagels.”

  “You don’t sound like a Jersey girl. I thought you were from Atlanta.”

  “I was born in Jersey, but I went to high school in Atlanta. You can’t get real bagels in Atlanta, either.”

  “You don’t sound like you’re from New Jersey or Georgia.”

  “I can do accents,” Rachel said. “This is my Portland accent. It’s just one of my many skills.”

  I was beginning wonder what her other skills were. I had heard her lapse into a slight Southern drawl when she got relaxed and was in a story-telling mood. I didn’t realize that her ‘Portland accent’ was an intentional affectation.

  “I didn’t know that there was a Portland accent,” I said.

  “Sure there is. I can do San Diego, too.”

  “Fascinating,” was all I could say.

  “My guy at the DMV identified Witchy Wanda as Catherine Crenshaw. She lives in the Hawthorne District.”

  “Of course, the Hawthorne,” I said. “This case is chock full of clichés.”

  “I did a search on her,” Rachel continued. “She goes by ‘Caite,’ that’s spelled ‘C-a-i-t-e’. She does consultations and readings at a crystal and herb shop in the Hawthorne. She has a page on the shop’s website. I’m sending you a link to the page now,” Rachel said as she pulled out her phone.

  “I don’t see how Nick could have met Caite, though,” Rachel said. “Nick wouldn’t be wandering into a crystal and herb shop. And if Caite is a lesbian, and if she went to a gym, she would probably go to a women’s gym in Southeast, not a Northwest fitness place.”

  “Maybe Nick did an internet search,” I posited. “Let me do a keyword analysis of that web page. I’ll get my laptop.”

  I retrieved my laptop from my home office, and I clicked the link Rachel had sent me. ‘Sister Caite,’ as she called herself, had a web page complete with a photo of Caite herself. Although it was just a snapshot of her sitting at a table with a crystal ball, mortar and pestle, Caite was much more attractive in this photo than she was in the security cam screen shot.

  “She looks very much like a Gypsy in this photo,” I remarked

  “Just your type, eh Professor?”

  “If you mean dark and mysterious, maybe,” I responded. “Let me do that keyword analysis.”

  I had a toolbox of useful programs left over from my days in the software business, and keyword analysis was one of the simpler ones.

  “If Nick searched for potions, love potions, or palm readings, he might have landed on this page. Let me google ‘love potions in Portland Oregon’,” I said.

  “Here you go, on the first page of results, Caite’s page,” I exclaimed. “She has a good marketing niche.”

  “I think that the crystal and herb shop should be our first stop this morning,” Rachel decreed. “We’ll put this case to bed in no time. Are you ready to cross the river?”

  The Willamette River, unlike most rivers in the United States, runs from south to north and bisects Portland before dumping into the Columbia River which then flows west to the Pacific Ocean. We live on the west side of the Willamette in Northwest Portland. The Hawthorne District is on the east side of the river in Southeast Portland.

  By the way, in Oregon, “Willamette” is pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable, not the last. As long as we’re into pronunciation, “Oregon” is pronounced “ORYgun” not “Ory-GON.”

  There are eight bridges across the Willamette in downtown Portland. Rachel drove Fred across the Hawthorne Bridge, and we navigated the few blocks to the Moonstone Crystal & Herb Shop. We had to drive half a block past the shop to find parking, and we noticed a Portland Police car parked in front of the store.

  “Looks like trouble in potion land,” Rachel said as she pulled to the curb. “I don’t want to walk into trouble. Let’s wait here and wait for the police to leave.”

  Soon, two officers, a man and a woman, came out of the shop, got into their cruiser, and drove away.

  “Let’s go,” Rachel said, and we climbed out of her CR-V and walked back to the shop.

  A bell tinkled as we opened the shop door, and we saw Caite and another, shorter, plumper, bespectacled woman standing behind the counter. Shelves behind the women held pint-sized Mason jars with hand-written labels. Presumably, they contained herbs. A quick glance around the shop revealed displays of crystals, tarot cards, brass bowls, incense and other New Age accoutrements. A doorway in the wall opposite the counter, and to the right of the entrance, led to a small room packed with bookshelves filled with books. A door in the wall opposite the entrance led to some other room or rooms in the back. There was no one else in the main room but the four of us.

  “Hello, how can I help you?” the smaller woman asked.

  “Hi,” Rachel said. “I noticed a couple of cops coming out of your store. They don’t look like typical customers.”

  “Oh no, they’re not customers. We had a theft, and they came to take our statement. They didn’t seem too interested, though. I don’t think we’ll hear from them again.”

  “Maybe I can help. I’m a private investigator. My name is Rachel Chase,” Rachel said as she whipped a business card out of her pocket and placed it on the counter.”

  “Maybe she can help us, Beth,” Caite said to her shorter friend.”

  “I’ll be glad to listen to your problem, no charge,” Rachel said. “Any help I can give just by listening and chatting is yours for free. The Professor here may be able to help, too.”

  Both women looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. I was glad to hang back a little behind Rachel while she was questioning the parties of interest. This was her area of expertise, and if she needed my input, she would be good at subtly giving me a cue to jump in, which I realized she had just done.

  “Yes, absolutely,” I chimed in, “Anything I can do to help. My name is Robert Walker. May I ask your names?”

  “I’m Beth Kimmel, and this is Caite Crenshaw,” the shorter woman said.

  “I’m pleased to meet you both,” I responded. “Rachel here is the finest private detective in Portland. I’m sure that she can shed a little light on your problem.”

  “I hope so,” Beth said. “I don’t think the police
took us seriously. Only one thing was stolen, and there’s no sign of breaking and entering. It was here last night when we closed up, and this morning it was gone.”

  “What was gone?” Rachel asked, taking back the conversational lead.

  “It’s an artifact, a spiritual talisman, that belonged to my mother,” Beth said. “My mother was also a witch, a powerful witch.”

  “So you’re a witch?” Rachel asked.

  “We both are,” Beth said. Caite is an herbalist, and I’m a Wiccan priestess, but my mother had remarkable powers. She wasn’t religious; didn’t call herself Wiccan, but she knew the Craft. I wish I had her talent, but she wouldn’t teach me. She was a single mom and just wanted me to have a normal life.”

  “Is your mother nearby?” asked Rachel.

  “Not in the flesh,” replied Beth. “She was killed when I was eighteen.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Rachel said consolingly. “Was it an accident?”

  “Everybody said it was an accident, but I’m not so sure.”

  Caite, who had been mostly silent since we entered the store, now volunteered, “That was years ago, Beth, and it won’t help us find the artifact now.”

  “She’s right,” Rachel said. “Let me get some more details. What kind of artifact is it?”

  “We don’t exactly know,” Beth said. “I found it among mother’s things after she made the transition.”

  “Transition?” Rachel asked.

  “After she died,” Beth explained. “I never saw mother use it, and she never mentioned it, but it’s an awesome piece. I keep it in the back of the store. None of our customers have ever seen it.”

  “What does it look like? Do you have a photo?” questioned Rachel.

  “Yes, the police at least did ask for a picture. Here, I printed out an extra copy,” Beth said as she produced a color printout from beneath the counter.

  The photo showed a roughly cylindrical rod that appeared to be made of bone or ivory. One end tapered to a smooth point, and the other end was rounded into a sort of knob with a slightly larger diameter than the rest of the rod. Into the rod were carved glyphs or symbols that had some sort of black paint or dye rubbed into the carvings so that they stood out starkly against the off-white of the rod.

  “I can’t tell the scale from this photo,” Rachel said. “How long is it?”

  “It’s twenty and one-half inches long,” Beth said, “and it weighs twelve ounces.”

  “The length is a cubit,” I said.

  “A what?” Rachel asked.

  “A cubit,” I repeated. “A cubit is an ancient unit of measurement equal to the distance from a man’s elbow to the tip of his index finger. Forearms aren’t all the same size, of course, but a cubit is usually between twenty and twenty-one inches long. A cubit is divided into seven palms, like a yard is divided into three feet.”

  “Wow,” said Beth, “I didn’t know that. You’re pretty smart, Professor.”

  “That’s why I keep him around,” Rachel said.

  First of all, I didn’t know that I was “kept around,” but being “kept” had a sort of possessive semi-permanence that made me think that maybe Rachel liked my company. She keeps me around because I’m smart. Well, I guess that’s the best I can hope for. Being kept around because of my scholarly good looks might be preferable, but maybe Rachel prefers rugged good looks or dreamy good looks; who knows. Who indeed does know? I’ve never heard her talk about anyone’s good looks. Who knows what her “type” is.

  “What do those symbols mean?” Rachel asked.

  “We don’t know,” Beth replied.

  “We’ve tried to research them,” Caite chimed in, “but no luck.”

  Do you have photos that show all the symbols?” I asked.

  “Yes we do,” Beth said. “The police didn’t ask about that. Let me get them printed out.”

  “Could you just copy them digitally onto this thumb drive?” I said as I handed her a flash drive. “All the photos you have would be appreciated.”

  “Sure, I can do that,” Beth said as she disappeared with my thumb drive into the book room.

  “While she’s doing that,” Rachel said, “I wonder if you can help me out with something, Caite.”

  “Sure, if I can.”

  “The reason we came in here is to see if either of you knows this man,” Rachel said as she handed over Nick Jackson’s picture.

  “Sure,” Caite said, “That’s Nick. I don’t know his last name, but I made him a love potion and did an energy cleanse of his house. He’s nice enough, but he doesn’t know much.”

  “How often have you seen him?” asked Rachel.

  “Just twice. The first time he came in asking for a love potion, and then he asked if I could do anything else to help his love life. Evidently, his wife doesn’t love him anymore, and he wants to get her back. I told him that maybe his house had too much negative energy, so he hired me to cleanse the energy of his house. I drove over there once and did the process. It took about an hour. I also made him a love charm. I got some of his wife’s hair off of a brush and some of Nick’s hair, and I put that with some herbs and a crystal in a silk bag, and we put it under his bed.”

  “Those are the only times you’ve met him?”

  “Yes, just twice. I didn’t hear how well the potion and charm worked. Is he all right?”

  “Yes, he’s fine,” Rachel said. “Nick’s wife thinks you’re having an affair with him.”

  “What? That’s ridiculous. I’m a lesbian, and even if I weren’t, I wouldn’t have anything to do with Nick. He’s a jock. I’d rather hang out with the Professor here.”

  Me? At least I know I’m somebody’s type, but is being attractive to a lesbian a compliment? Is not being a jock a compliment? I suppose so, and after all, Rachel thinks Caite is my type. She’s a little tall and gangly for me though.

  “Well, Professor, your fan club is growing,” Rachel said.

  Does my fan club include you, Rachel? I wondered to myself.

  Beth re-emerged from the book room and handed back my thumb drive.

  “Rachel thinks I’m having an affair with one of my male customers,” Caite said to Beth.

  That caused Beth to go into a giggling fit.

  “I didn’t think that,” Rachel said, “I was just asking.”

  “Really, Ms. Chase,” Beth said as she regained some of her composure, “Caite and I are partners. Caite is through with men. She’s come to her senses.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rachel said. “I’m a private investigator; I’m nosy. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “That’s OK,” Caite said. “I guess it is kind of funny, isn’t it Beth. We’ll have to share this with the coven.”

  “Can you help us find my mother’s artifact, Ms. Chase?” Beth asked.

  “Let me get a few more details,” Rachel said. “You say this is the only thing that went missing, and it happened last night?”

  “Yes,” they both nodded.

  “And there was no sign of a break-in?”

  “No. We have extra strong locks on the doors and no windows were broken or forced open. The police checked, too.”

  “I wonder if magic was involved,” Rachel said to me. “Do you have your Coriolis?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Let’s give it try.”

  I pulled the Coriolis Disruption Detector, which Rachel had dubbed “the Coriolis,” out of my jacket pocket along with a charcoal pencil.

  The Coriolis, as Rachel calls it, is a wooden plumb bob about the length of a man’s thumb and shaped somewhat like a teardrop. Around its circumference, two glyphs are carved, and there is space for a third symbol to be written. The Coriolis has more than one function, depending on the symbol written in the blank space.

  A wizard had taught Ward Thompson how to make the Coriolis, and Ward had made one for me. It was quite a complicated process, the way he explained it, but it was strictly procedu
ral. There were no sacrificial lambs or prayers to Odin involved.

  Using the charcoal pencil, I drew the symbol that turned the Coriolis into a detector of magic.

  The Coriolis is a very sensitive detector of the Coriolis effect. The rotation of the earth causes this effect that can be observed in the direction water rotates down a drain. In the northern hemisphere, this rotation is counter-clockwise. In the southern hemisphere, it is clockwise. The Coriolis effect is what causes hurricanes in the northern hemisphere to spin counter-clockwise.

  This effect is weak in the small scale, whereas on the large scale, as with hurricanes, it is very powerful. It takes a very sensitive instrument to measure the Coriolis effect in the small scale, and this is where the Coriolis Disruption Detector comes in. It is a magical device.

  The use of magic causes disturbances in the natural world. This is because the rules of the universe are being hacked for a short time in a defined place. The disturbances persist for some time after the use of magic has stopped. The greater the magic, the longer the disturbances persist until the hack has decayed.

  One of these disturbances is a disruption of the Coriolis force. The use of magic causes the Coriolis force to reverse, and possibly even strengthen in the wrong direction in the physical area where the magic is used. After the magic has ended, the reversed Coriolis effect diminishes and pauses and eventually returns to its normal direction and gradually increases to its previous strength.

  By drawing the third symbol on the Coriolis, I activated it to detect the use of magic. The fat end of the Coriolis has a small protuberance with a hole drilled through it. Through this hole, I had attached a string. It doesn’t matter what the string is made of as long as there is no iron in it. The string is used to suspend the Coriolis like a pendulum. Because the Coriolis is so sensitive, it works much better to attach the string to a stable point rather than holding it in your hand.

  “You have a pendulum,” Caite observed.

  “A special one,” I said. “It detects the use of magic. Do you have something I can hang it from?”

  “I have a ring stand in the back that I use for making potions,” Caite said.

  “Too much iron,” I replied as I scanned the store.

  “I have a display rack of pendulums over there,” Beth said. “I’ll just take off the pendulums, and bring the display over here.”

  “Good idea,” I said. “That’s a wooden display case and the hooks are made of brass. That’ll work.”

  I hung the Coriolis on the center pendulum hook, held the Coriolis still and then gently released it as we all watched it hang there.

  Slowly, the Coriolis began to swing in small, slow clockwise circles.

  “Clockwise,” I said. “Magic has been worked here.”

  “When?” asked Beth.

  “It’s hard to say for sure,” I replied. “But my guess is more than a few hours and less than two days ago. Last night is a plausible estimate.”

  “So what does that mean?” asked Caite.

  “It means,” Rachel said, “that some person or persons used magic last night to enter the store and steal the artifact without leaving a trace.”

  “Who could that be?” asked Caite.

  “It would have to be a magician of some sort,” Rachel replied.

  “Can you get it back?” asked Beth.

  “That’s a hard job,” Rachel admitted. “I said we were glad to give you all the help we could here, today, on the spot, at no charge. Finding and retrieving a possibly magical artifact that’s been stolen by a possibly powerful sorcerer would be huge and costly not to mention very dangerous.”

  “We don’t have much money,” Beth admitted. “We’re just barely making ends meet.”

  Rachel and I looked at each other. I knew this wouldn’t get resolved on the scene. I untied the Coriolis, wiped the third symbol off with a little spit and a tissue, and put it back in my jacket pocket.

  “I’m sorry,” Rachel told them, “I don’t think we’ll be able to help. We’ll go back to the office and talk this over, but don’t get your hopes up.”

  “I understand,” Beth said. “Anything you can do will be appreciated.”

  With that, we left the store, walked back to the car, and drove away.