The Fairyland Murders (8 page)

T
he sound of a ringing phone woke me an hour later. I yawned and stretched, enjoying the snap, crackle, and pop of my vertebrae, and then reached for my office phone only to find a dial tone when I picked it up.

Frowning, I searched the office for the source of the ringing. Izzy lay on the floor, her legs elevated and feet firmly planted against the wall, as if engrossed in a history lesson. I wasn't buying it for a minute. No one liked history that much.

The ringing continued. “Are you going to answer that?” I motioned toward her cell phone.

She glanced up, seemingly surprised, from the blow-by-blow account of what looked, from the pictures on the page, to be the Blind Mice Movement of 1945. “What?” she asked, blinking.

“Your phone's ringing.”

“Oh,” she said, lifting the mobile from the floor. She glanced at the caller ID, frowned, and then pressed the talk button with more force than necessary. “What?” she snapped. Listening for a moment, she shook her head, sending her flame-colored hair swinging back and forth. “You can't,” she muttered, cupping the phone. “Absolutely not.” Without another word she ended the call and tossed the phone on the floor.

My curiosity, the same one that killed many a cat, kicked in. Was the caller a friend or foe? Perhaps her ex-fiancé? This got me to thinking, something I usually avoided with a vengeance. What did I know about Izzy? Sure, she had the insatiable need for dentin of all other fairies, for without a daily dentin fix a fairy would wither and die, hence the importance of the one and only fairy capable of buying cheap teeth from children. And Izzy did look great in a pair of pink wings, but who was she really?

I leaned forward. “Who was that?”

“Who was what?” she responded, burying her nose back in the book.

“The call,” I said. “Who was on the phone?” My eyes narrowed. “One of the twins?”

“The twins?” She rolled her eyes. “Of course not.”

“Then who was it, Isabella?”

Her lips curled. “My business.”

I slowly shook my head. “Until I catch the bastard who tried to kill you, your business is my business. Now tell me who was on the phone or I'm out,” I lied.

“Fine,” she said. “It was the Fairy Council.”

Not the answer I'd expected, so it took me a few seconds to gather an appropriate response. “What do they want?”

Her wings burst forth, flapped a few times—enough to disrupt every bit of dust in the office—and then vanished in a wink. “What do you think?”

Teeth. The Tooth Fairy had one main job, collecting teeth for the Council, apparently whether she liked it or not. I knew enough about fairy politics to know saying no to the Council was harmful to one's health. Was the Council behind the drive-by shooting, then? Had it been a warning of some sort? Get with the toothy program or else? The else being shot full of holes. “Izzy . . .” I began.

She waved her hand in the air. “I need a break.”

“Okay . . .” I wasn't sure what she wanted, but from the look in her eyes I wasn't going to like it. “What do you have in mind?”

“Let's get out of here.” She jumped to her feet. “I'm going stir-crazy just sitting around.”

I shook my head. “Too bad.”

“What?”

“You can't leave, Izzy.” I slowly rose to my feet, staring down at the top of her head as a means of intimidation. “It's too dangerous for you to be out on the streets. Not until we know who's after you.”

She waved me off. “No one is going to hurt me.”

“Oh yeah?” I rubbed the hairs on my chin. “What makes you so confident?”

“You.”

“What?”

She let out a long drawn-out sigh. “Because of you, Blue. You promised you would never let any harm come to me.”

I frowned, weighing the pros and cons of leaving the safety of my office. I had a feeling the cons would outweigh the pros by plenty. But I couldn't keep Izzy locked down forever either. What was a blue-haired guy to do?

“Please.” Her eyelashes fluttered prettily.

My hand brushed the piece of torn fairy wing in my pocket—the one I'd found at the twins' apartment—and I slowly nodded. As long as she stuck by my side, everything would be fine, I repeated over and over again until I nearly believed it. “Fine, but I choose where we go.”

“You're the boss,” she said.

As much as I appreciated the sentiment, we both knew better. Right now the winged chick and her wannabe assassin held all the cards.

A
fter I scanned the street outside my office for any signs of danger, be they cars with assassins behind the wheel or a gaggle of uncooked geese, I escorted Isabella to a waiting taxi for a ride uptown. The ride took forty minutes in the afternoon traffic, dropping us off in front of Barry's Costume Shop at a little after five. Much to my dismay, Barry's shop was closed, the windows dark.

“What are we doing here?” Izzy asked, glaring at the brick and mortar storefront.

“Damn it,” I said. “The shop's closed.”

She shot me a knowing smirk. “Ruined your weekend plans, huh?”

“What?”

“Since you haven't told me why we're here,” she brushed her finger along the side of her face, “I'm assuming it's in order to pick up a costume for you for this weekend. Something slutty, I bet. Maybe a sexy nurse?”

“Funny.”

She shrugged. “I thought so.”

Ignoring her continued amusement, I rattled the doorknob attached to the sturdy locked door. The sensible thing to do was walk away, returning to investigate another day. Since no one had ever called me especially sensible, I took out my lock picks and went to work.

“What're you doing?” Izzy screeched as I fiddled with the lock. Rather than answer her, I shifted the pick one last time, popping the lock open. Twenty-two seconds flat. A personal best. The doorknob now twisted under my hand with ease.

Pushing open the door, I waved a hand in front of my face to dispel the stale and disturbingly ripe stench, like bananas five days past the sell-by date. I knew that smell. It was one of those scents that once you smelled it, you never forgot it. “Stay here,” I ordered Izzy.

Of course she failed to listen, practically mowing me over in a bid to get inside. “It stinks in here,” she said, pinching her nose. “Barry needs better ventilation.”

I slowly shook my head. “Barry needs a lot more than that.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

Before I could answer she let out a loud shriek, pointing to the back corner. My eyes swung that way and I winced. Poor Barry's feet swung back and forth in the slight breeze drifting through the open doorway of the shop. His eyes bulged from their sockets, giving him a clownish expression.

From the looks of it, Barry had, in a desperate act, taken his own life, looping a piece of long, clear thread around his neck and through the rafter above. A wooden stool lay toppled on the ground beneath his polished loafers. By the purplish hue of his skin, he'd been dead at least eight hours, maybe as much as ten or more. But not much more since rigor hadn't set in quite yet.

I held up a hand urging Izzy to stay put as I searched the rest of the store for murderers or other assorted mayhem. Thankfully, it appeared untouched. Not a costume wrinkled. Not a hair on a mannequin's head out of place.

Too bad I couldn't say the same for Barry, for he looked worse up close. A small streak of blood dripped from his lips. A sprinkle of dandruff sat on the shoulder of his freshly pressed suit jacket. And the sweet scent of mint-flavored dental floss from the clear thread around his neck drifted off him.

I peered closer. Not dandruff. Dust. Of the fairy variety. “Shit,” I said, slowly backing away from Barry's corpse.

“Blue?” Izzy said, her voice barely a whisper. “Is he . . . ?”

“Is he what?” Anger rose in my tone. “Taking a nice vertical nap before dinner?”

“Don't be a smart-ass.”

I took a deep breath, willing away the goose bumps prickling my skin. “Go to the door and wait for me there.”

Her gaze narrowed. “Why? What are you going to do?”

“Remember that little talk we had about you doing what I say without question?” I crossed my hands over my chest. “Now would be a good time to do just that.”

She stared me down for a full minute before shaking her head. “Fine,” she said, heading for the door with a huff. “I'll be out front.”

“Too dangerous.” I pointed to the wall by the door. “I need you to stand where I can see you.”

Her cheeks grew pink enough to match the wings hidden beneath her clothes. “Should I do the Hokey Pokey while I'm at it?”

I ignored her and instead pulled my cell phone from my pocket and dialed. “Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?” a robotic voice answered.

“I'd like to report . . .” I paused, my gaze locking on the next Tooth Fairy, who was glaring at me from the doorway, “a murder.”

W
hile Izzy waited by the door for the cops, her wings safely tucked away, I took the opportunity to do a little investigating. Past experience told me Barry's corpse and the piece of torn fairy wing from the twins' apartment in my pocket were too much of a coincidence to be a coincidence. Barry was dead for a reason and I believed that very reason was sitting in my pocket.

Now I had to prove it.

My first stop was Barry's office. Someone had bought the wings the piece in my pocket came from, and the sooner I found the culprit the better. Thankfully, Barry was old school like me. Instead of computerized records, he kept all of his paper receipts in his top desk drawer. Hell at tax time, but very helpful for this nearly computer illiterate investigator. No Fairybook or Tweety for this guy. I found my dates the old-fashioned way, the back pages of the
PennySaver
.

Quickly, I shifted through a stack of sales receipts from the previous week, finding nothing much of interest. I did see a copy of the receipt for Izzy's costume purchase. The same one Barry had referenced for her address. The copy listed a nun's habit, black in color, among other things that Barry cataloged as “fashion accessories.” A part of me really, really wanted to know what sort of accessories, fashionable or not, Izzy hid beneath her clothes besides those fabulous wings.

Shaking off the sudden swell of heat rising inside me, I focused on Barry's drawer once again. Three stacks of receipts later I found what I was looking for.

One pair of green wings, sold last week for twenty-seven bucks. I looked for a signature or any indication of who had made the purchase. But all I found was an odd string of numbers, numbers too long to be an address or a phone number and too short to be a credit card number. Thirteen numbers in total. Was it some sort of code? None of the other receipts bore any combination of similar numbers. So why code this particular order?

I tapped the paper against my gloved hand. Maybe it was as simple as Barry using a numerical filing system for his regular customers. I glanced about the office, my heart sinking at the thought. At least four file cabinets stood against the office walls, each bursting with files and folders.

Even if I had the time—which I didn't by the sound of approaching police sirens—finding the corresponding folder to go with my mysterious numbers was like searching for Little Bo Peep's sheep. And that hadn't gone very well at all.

Disgusted, I shoved the stack of receipts back into the drawer, with the exception of the one for the green wings. I pocketed it and headed for the front of the store.

Cop cars pulled alongside the storefront, lights flashing, as I arrived at Izzy's side. I took her hand in my gloved one. “Let me do the talking.”

“I live to serve,” she sneered.

“Izzy . . .” I began, but the arrival of two plainclothes detectives stopped my next words. The female cop, her hair the color of a drab mouse with the exception of the roots, which shone like spun gold, held out her hand. “I'm Detective Goldie Locks and this is my partner,” she waved to the taller man, “Detective Peter Rabit.”

Carefully, I took her hand in my gloved one, noting her slender fingers and the overly large engagement ring on her left hand. Her fiancé, whoever he was, was overcompensating in a big way. I wondered if he was a cheater or worse. “Reynolds. Blue Reynolds, PI.” I slipped her my card, in case she decided, at some point, to find out why her fiancé had bought a rock that large.

The detective's welcoming smile slipped a notch, a standard reaction when cop met PI. “I see.” She motioned to Izzy. “And you are?”

I answered for Izzy, my tone as cold as Barry's corpse. “A friend.” The detective's eyebrow raised a half inch, but she didn't press me. Which I appreciated. Lying to the cops, while second nature for a blue-haired PI, wasn't the best idea, especially when a dead body was involved. Not to mention adding a little breaking and entering to the mix.

“Where's the vic?” Locks asked.

I motioned inside the store. “Southwest corner.”

She nodded once and then disappeared inside. The other detective stayed put, pulling a notebook from inside his rumpled jacket pocket. He clicked his pen twice and began to write. “Let's start at the top.” His smile didn't quite reach his unassuming brown eyes, a clear indication that I wasn't going to like the next hour or so of my life. “How well did you know the victim?”

I sighed but answered his question, as well as the next hundred he asked. I tried to stick to the truth as much as possible, yet never once did I mention the soon-to-be Tooth Fairy standing next to me, nor the missing twin fairies, the fairy serial murder, or the fake wings.

“You said the door was open when you arrived?” His eyes watched mine.

I nodded.

“And you didn't touch anything?”

I held up a gloved hand. “I checked Barry for a pulse and when I didn't find one, I called you guys.”

His gaze focused on the glove and then me. “Is that what happened?” he asked, turning to Izzy with far too much interest for my peace of mind.

She bit her bottom lip as tears welled in her eyes. “I think so.”

“But you're not sure?” His gaze focused on her. “Weren't you with Mr. Reynolds when he found the body?”

“Oh yes.”

“Did you see Mr. Reynolds touch anything besides . . .” His words trailed off as he motioned inside the shop to where Barry's body slowly swung back and forth.

Izzy gazed up at the detective from underneath lowered lashes. If I hadn't spent the last twenty-four hours with her, I might've believed her sweet, softly spoken lies. But I knew better. The chick had wings. Big ones. “I was so frightened.... Blue . . . he . . . he told me to wait by the door.”

“For her own safety,” I interrupted before Izzy landed me in the clink. “I didn't know if the killer was still inside. I was only trying to protect her . . . and the crime scene,” I quickly added.

A wrinkle formed over the detective's brow, but he didn't comment further. Instead, he waited for his partner to emerge from the crime scene. Once she returned, he waved her over. “Goldie,” he said, and then started filling her in on our story.

Detective Locks listened to her partner, never interrupting him. When he finished she turned to me. From the crisp, cold look in her gaze, I prepared myself for an onslaught. It wasn't long in coming.

One simple question, spoken in a husky whisper barely loud enough to hear over the buzz of activity on the street, formed on her lips. “How'd you know this was a murder?”