Wicked Business

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Midway through the morning, the bell over the bakery’s front door jingled and Hatchet walked in. I was filling one of the large wire breadbaskets in the front of the shop, and Glo was helping a woman select several meat pies. We all gave a start when we saw Hatchet. His face and hands were dabbed with calamine lotion, his scraggly hair was greasy, and he was scratching like a dog with a flea infestation.

“You,” he said, pointing to the woman buying meat pies. “Step aside. I need to speak to the witch.”

The woman looked at Glo. “Are you a witch?”

“Not exactly,” Glo said. “I think I might have some latent wizard abilities, and there’s a good possibility my broom is enchanted, but I’m pretty sure I’m not a witch.”

Hatchet narrowed his eyes. “What part of step aside did thee not hear?” he said to the woman.

“I was here first,” the woman said.

Hatchet drew his sword. “Madam, I have hives in dark places, my balls are on fire, and I have little patience. Wouldst you die for your place in line?”

“Hey,” Glo said. “You can’t talk to our customers like that.”

“Do something, witch. Relieve this itch or I will smite thee down. I will cleave thee in two.”

The woman turned and ran out of the store.

Clara was in the doorway. “What’s going on out here?”

“Hatchet threw a hissy fit and chased Glo’s customer away,” I said.

Clara squinted at Hatchet. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Hives,” I said. “The farting stopped, but now he has hives.”

“Omigosh,” Glo said. “Do you suppose it could be the ground salamander tail?”

“Do you have any with you?” I asked.

“No,” Glo said. “I would have to go to the Exotica Shoppe to get some.”

Hatchet was clawing at his crotch. “Maybe if I take my clothes off,” he said.

“No!” Clara said. “You can’t take your clothes off in my bakery. It’s not done. There’s an ordinance.” She turned to Glo. “Get him out of here. Take him to Exotica before he ruins me. Take Lizzy with you.”

“I haven’t finished my cupcakes,” I said to Clara.

“I’ll finish the cupcakes. Go with Glo, and make sure he doesn’t come back here. Do whatever you have to do.” Clara looked me straight in the eye. “Do anything.”

Glo took Broom and her messenger bag, and we walked Hatchet out of the bakery.

“It’s just a couple blocks,” Glo said to Hatchet. “Try to look normal and not scare anyone on the way.”

“My cheeks are chafing, and I have hives in my nose, creeping to my brain,” Hatchet said.

“Nobody likes a whiner,” Glo told him.

“Sorry,” Hatchet said. “Wouldst thou like to beat me?”

Glo declined, but I swear I saw Broom twitch toward Hatchet and Glo take a more firm grip.

Nina waved to us from the back of the store when we entered. She was a puff of lavender cotton candy in a gauzy fluffy gown that Cinderella might have worn to a ball, complete with a froth of lavender tulle perched on her head.

“I just got a shipment of Bavarian elf eyelashes,” she said. “Very special. Excellent for constipation and removing spells having Irish pixie dust as their main ingredient.”

“I’m looking for ground salamander,” Glo said. “I did an undo spell yesterday, and it undid what it was supposed to but it might have produced hives. I thought it could have happened because I didn’t use the ground salamander.”

Nina shook her finger at Glo. “It’s very naughty to cast spells with incomplete ingredients.”

Glo pulled Ripple’s out of her bag. “I thought I’d just do the spell over with the salamander.”

“That probably will work, since it was an undo spell,” Nina said, turning to a cabinet filled top to bottom with glass jars labeled Dandelion Fluff, Pickled Pigeon Feet, Scented Toadstool, Green M &Ms, Petrified Danish Quail Eggs. “Here it is,” Nina said. “Ground salamander. I sell a lot of this. It’s useful in so many spells.” She measured a small amount out, sealed it in a snack-size plastic bag, and passed it over to Glo.

Glo had Ripple’s open on the counter. “Here goes,” she said.

Hatchet stood in front of her, trying hard not to scratch.

“Begone, begone all manner of enchanted suggestion,” Glo read. “Evil eye and witches brew, charmed touch, tainted blood.” She took a pinch of salamander out of the bag and threw it at Hatchet. “Foul drugged sleep forever leave this vessel, this Hatchet.” She snapped her fingers twice. “Turn around three times and clap your hands once,” she said to Hatchet.

Hatchet turned around and clapped his hands.

“Do you still itch?” Glo asked.

“Yes!” Hatchet said.

“The spell might take a while to kick in,” Nina said. She took another jar off the shelf and gave two capsules to Hatchet. “Take this in the meantime.”

Hatchet swallowed the capsules. “What manner of magic was this?”

“Benadryl,” Nina said.

“Has the frickberry come in yet?” Glo asked.

“Not yet,” Nina said. “I’m hoping Monday.”

We all walked back to the bakery, and Hatchet stopped at a purple-and-yellow VW Beetle parked at the curb.

“I will take my leave of thee here,” he said.

“Omigosh, is this your car?” Glo asked Hatchet. “This is so cool. This looks like a big Easter egg.”

Hatchet sighed and slumped a little. “My sword doth barely fit in this vehicle.”

“That’s because you have such a big manly sword,” Glo said.

Hatchet perked up at that. “’Tis true. My sword is big and manly.”

I left on that note, not really wanting to dwell on Hatchet’s sword.

Diesel was waiting for me in the bakery. “We need to go back to Cambridge,” he said. “I think I know what we were doing wrong.”

“I have to work. I have cupcakes to frost.”

“Not anymore,” Clara said. “He ate them.”

“All of them?”

“No. His monkey ate some.”

I glanced over at Carl, sitting in the corner with his eyes half closed. “Looks like he overdid it.”

“He has no control,” Diesel said.

“And you?” I asked him.

“I have control in spades.”

“Go,” Clara said. “Take the monkey. Save the world.”

We all went out to the SUV, buckled ourselves in, and Diesel headed for the 1A.

“What’s the big revelation?” I asked him.

“I think we were investigating the wrong Tichy. I went back to Reedy’s papers and found a letter to Lovey from someone named Monroe. Monroe was thanking Lovey for introducing him to his one true love, the woman he was about to marry. And there’s a brief mention of Monroe in the Goodfellow diary. Lovey felt that Monroe had a pure and innocent soul. Monroe’s last name is never given, but Peder Tichy’s headstone said he was survived by his wife, Mary, and his children, Catherine and Monroe.”

“Monroe would be more of a contemporary with Lovey. He’d fit the profile better.”

“When I started to research Tichy, it was Peder who kept coming up. Not a lot is out there about Monroe, other than his connection to the Boston Society of Natural History. At the time, the Society’s museum was located in Back Bay and was known as the New England Museum of Natural History. In 1951, it moved to its present location on the Charles River and became the Boston Museum of Science.”

“The history of Tichy.”

“Exactly. When we were at the cemetery, we only looked at Peder Tichy’s headstone. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to look at Monroe’s.”

Almost an hour later, we were on Mount Auburn Street and Carl was asleep in the backseat. We entered the cemetery and saw lights flashing on the road ahead near the area where Tichy was buried. We got closer and realized that the road was clogged with police cars, cemetery maintenance vehicles, and satellite news trucks. Diesel pulled onto a cross street and parked, and we went on foot to the grave site.

We moved through the crush of people and stopped a short distance from what used to be Peder Tichy’s last resting place. From my vantage point, it looked to me like Tichy was missing. His headstone was tipped over, and there was a big, messy hole in the ground where grass had grown yesterday.

“What’s going on?” Diesel asked one of the cops.

“A groundskeeper discovered this when he came to work this morning. Probably some fraternity had a scavenger hunt and it called for a body. You can’t imagine the stuff these kids do.”

I supposed it was possible, but I was going to look for dirt under Hatchet’s fingernails next time I ran into him.

“Look toward the top of the hill,” Diesel said.

It was Wulf, standing alone as usual, dressed in black slacks and a black leather jacket. He was unsmiling, watching the scene at the grave site. He didn’t look like he’d been digging. He seemed lost in thought, not looking our way, although I was sure he knew we were there.

Diesel leaned close to me. “Monroe’s buried one headstone over from Peder. I can read part of the inscription from here. I don’t want to tip our hand to Wulf, so casually walk over as if you wanted a closer look at the crime scene, touch the headstone, and see if there’s anything unusual about it.”

I followed Diesel’s instructions and moved closer to the excavation, resting my hand on Monroe’s headstone while I stood on tiptoe to better see over the people. I dropped my gaze and studied the stone. It was engraved with his name and the dates of his birth and death. Nothing more. No secret message. No weird vibrations. I returned to Diesel.

“Nothing,” I said.

We walked back to the car and left the cemetery.

“Sometimes I get the feeling Wulf is more of an observer than a participant in this search,” I said to Diesel.

“Wulf is like a cat, stalking his prey. He watches, he creeps closer, and he pounces.”

“I bet he was a sneaky little kid.”

“He was strange. Quiet. Competitive. Brilliant.”

“How about you? What were you like as a kid?”

“I was a total screwup.”

“But you’re not a screwup now.”

“Honey, I’m one step away from a bounty hunter. I believe in the value of my job, but not everyone is impressed. I’m sure my parents wish I was in banking like the rest of my relatives.”

“Are your parents special?”

“My mother is normal. My dad has unique abilities.”

“And Wulf?”

“His mother is my father’s sister, and she’s the high priestess of the family. Very powerful. Not all her abilities have been recorded. I suspect some of them are dark.”

“Does she give you a migraine?”

“No, but she makes me uncomfortable.”

I checked Carl, still sleeping in the backseat. “I hope he’s not dead.”

Diesel looked at him in the rearview mirror. “Too many cupcakes.”

“Do you think Wulf is the one who dug up Tichy?”

“No. I think someone followed Hatchet, pried information out of him, and then came back at night and went after Tichy.”

“Going on the assumption that something was buried with him. Like the bell with Duane.”

“Yes, but the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced the clue was referring to Monroe and his association with what is now the Science Museum.”

“Maybe we should visit the original museum.”

“I checked on it. The building was on the corner of Berkeley and Boylston. It’s been sold and renovated, and everything’s been moved to the new location.”

“The Science Museum! Are we going to the Science Museum? I’ve never been there. It’s got an IMAX, and a planetarium, and a machine that makes your hair stand on end. Glo was there last month on a date. She said it was awesome.”

“You get turned on by science?”

“I got second prize in the science fair when I was in third grade. I made a volcano.”

A half hour later, Diesel pulled in to the museum parking garage. He found a space next to the elevator, and Carl sat up.

“Eeep?”

“We’re at the Science Museum,” Diesel said to Carl. “You can’t go in. They don’t allow monkeys. You have to wait here.”

Carl gave him the finger.

Diesel and I got out, Diesel locked the SUV, and we crossed the short distance to the elevator. We got into the elevator and Carl scampered in after us.

“I thought you locked the car,” I said to Diesel.

“I did. He knows how to open the door.”

“Okay, how about if you put him in your backpack.”

Diesel jogged back to the SUV, got his backpack, and stuffed Carl in.

“You have to be quiet until we get into the museum,” I told Carl.

Carl nodded his head and made the sign of a zipper across his mouth.

“Are we sure he’s a monkey?” I asked Diesel.

“What else would he be?”

“I don’t know, but he’s not normal.”