"When Looks Could Kill" (A Trom Girl Mystery)
"When Looks Could Kill"
A Trom Girl Mystery
5/8/2007
I.
At almost four on a warm May afternoon, the sidewalks of Flanders, Long Island were heavy with sight-seers and shoppers. The center of Flanders was known as a bit of a tourist trap with rows of boutiques and used clothing and knick-knack stores lining both sides of the street, very artistic and more than a little pretentious and definitely overpriced. Here, at the end of one block, was a neat one-story white building with a wide picture window which read AUSTEN GALLERY - BY APPOINTMENT ONLY in silver script. That was where the body had been discovered that morning.
Parked in front of the Gallery was a black and white Town Police car, with a uniformed officer sitting behind the wheel and talking on the radio. As he was about to hang up, he saw a cherry red Jeep Wrangler pull up behind him and a small thin woman with a shock of thick black hair vault eagerly out of the driver's seat. "Never mind, Tony," he said into the microphone, "the famous lady genius is here now. Report to you in a minute."
Officer Aldo Caputo got out to meet the civilians he had been ordered to brief on the situation. He didn't like the set-up and saw no reason to pretend he did. An eleven year veteran, Caputo thought the public should answer questions and then stay out of the way. He squeezed his considerable bulk from behind the wheel and stepped out on the sidewalk to meet them.
Megan Salenger was twenty-four, only three inches over five feet in height, slim and fit looking in tight jeans and a red flannel shirt two sizes too large for her. As he saw the inquisitive expression on her face, he grudgingly thought that she looked pretty smart and maybe she was good at investigations. They shook hands amiably enough as she introduced herself. The 'Trom Girl' was a newer member of Manhattan's Kenneth Dred Foundation, which had built a solid reputation over the past two decades under its leader, the notorious Dire Wolf.
Her partner was more obviously impressive as he walked around to loom over her. Archie McAllister was a bearlike hulk well over six feet tall and weighing about two hundred and forty pounds. He needed a shave and a haircut at the moment, wore well-worn work clothes including motorcycle boots, and seemed even bigger than he was. But the blue eyes in the weathered face were gentle and friendly, and that gave his real nature away. "Hello, officer," he said simply.
Megan studied the building next to them. "Six years ago, there was a robbery here. An artifact that was part of the Armor of Hell was stolen. The owners said at the time that they would not longer specialize in items supposedly of an occult or supernatural nature." She turned her large dark eyes on Caputo. "Evidently they did not do so."
"Yeah, yeah, they knew what sold and what paid the bills," he answered. Taking a key from his pants pocket, he said seriously, "Now my orders are to let you take a look inside and answer your questions but you are not to touch anything. Anything at all. Understood?"
"Yes," said the Trom Girl. "Thank you."
Officer Caputo unlocked the front door and ushered her in. Archie followed but stayed back by the door, keeping out of the way. Megan glanced up at a corner of the ceiling and said, "That security camera is a dummy. It is not even hooked up."
"You got good eyes," the LI cop remarked. "Yeah, lots of stores have dummy cameras just to deter shoplifters. Too bad, we could use some footage."
The Trom Girl slowly inspected the gallery, checking the items which sat on clear plexiglass stands or along white porcelain shelves on black walls. Everything seemed spurious to her. The little Tiki statuettes and demonic faces on plaques and dreamcatchers were mere decorations. They had nothing to do with the reality of the Midnight War she knew. The shelfload of books on the occult were familiar froth as well.
There was one exception that gave her a jolt of alarm. A white chest-high pillar stood with nothing on its flat top, but a neat tag read DARTHAN CRYSTAL SKULL- MAROCH 11TH CENTURY $1900. "This is significant," she said, "Not just because it is missing but because of its nature. How did the owners obtain a Darthan talisman? They had decided to avoid genuine mystic artifacts."
"Damn if I know," said Caputo. "There's a picture of it on their online catalog if you want to look."
"Thank you," she answered distractedly. Watching, Archie recognized the distant expression in her eyes that meant she was turning over data at a furious pace. The Trom Girl stepped over to the glass-topped counter in the rear corner which held a small cash register and a few signs. Behind the counter, a swivel chair had been pushed back on its casters against the wall.
"Here is where the body of Meredith Austen was found, I understand. Has the autopsy been performed?" she asked.
"Nope. Probably not until tomorrow, maybe the next day." Caputo shrugged, "The Medical Examiner says their office is swamped with a backlog. Poor old John Austen passed away last winter. Just as well, I'd hate to have him see his wife like this."
"No visible signs of injury, I understand." Megan crouched down and studied the floor without touching it. "No bruises, no scrapes or punctures in the skin. She was lying on her left side with one arm up on this chair."
"Yeah, there is one little thing not mentioned in the report you read," the cop told her. "You ever see the face of a heart attack victim?"
Behind him, the deep voice of Archie McAllister broke in, "They sure show they were in pain. The faces are distorted that way."
"Right. Well, Mrs Austen was seventy, had no history of cardiac problems but her face was all twisted up. She looked like she was terrified when she died... as if the last thing she saw scared her right to death."
II.
After another forty minutes of the Trom Girl inspecting every inch of the gallery in excrutiating detail, Caputo was relieved when she finally said, "I believe I have learned all I can here. Karen Marano, the woman who reported the death, said she entered the gallery at eleven o'clock this morning but saw no one here?"
"That's right."
"She went to a boutique down the street, returned here at eleven-thirty and happened to spot Mrs Austen's foot protruding from behind the counter. This was when she called 911 on her phone, as I understand it." Megan Salenger headed for the door slowly, obviously still processing information in her head. "The person who took the crystal skull left at least a few minutes before eleven, since Karen Marano said she saw no one near the gallery. He or she had at least a half hour to leave the vicinity before the crime was committed." She suddenly turned to give Officer Caputo a dubious look. "Workers in the shops next to this gallery and across the street may have seen whoever entered and left at that time...."
"Ah, give us some credit, miss. Of course we've questioned them. We even tracked down two customers who were next door at that time and gotten nowhere. It was a busy morning."
"I see. I am not being critical of the police, officer, I simply want to gather information." Megan looked up at Archie. "Do you have any comments?"
"Me? No, course not. I'm just here to drive you around and hold your coat while you solve the mystery," he said. "I'd like to know more about what was stolen, of course."
"Yes," she remarked with her usual unhelpful bluntness. "Thank you, officer. We will keep in touch as we investigate. I recommend you tell your colleagues to stay alert. There will almost certainly be more such deaths in the immediate future."
"There will?"
As she stepped out onto the sidewalk, the Trom Girl said, "This is just beginning."
Getting back into the Jeep, Archie said, "Just off the top of your head, what do you know about Darthan crystal skulls anyway?"
"You have heard of the Darthim, hon. They are a Race of powerful sorcerers with sadistic tendencies. According to Tel Shai lore, they once dominated the world in their Darthan Age until Humans became numerous and overthrew them. All the Darthan artifacts I myself have encountered have been both potent and malevolent." Placing her wire-rimmed aviator's sunglasses on, the Trom Girl sighed. "How the Austens obtained a Darthan crystal skull is beyond me but you can see the results."
Easing out into the traffic on the narrow main street, she only drove a few blocks before hitting her turn signal and pulling into the parking lot of a 24-hour laundromat on a side streeet. Megan took out her Link, which looked enough like a particularly elegant smartphone that it would not draw attention. She found the Austen Gallery online catalog and pulled up a photo of the talisman which had been stolen.
Leaning closer, Archie saw a human skull crafted from clear quartz but oddly misshapen in some indefinable way. The most startling detail was that a white glass eye with bright green iris had been inserted into the skull's left socket. It was not a pleasant sight.
"How do they make those things anyway?" he asked.
"The Darthim used fine sandpaper and many hours of work by teams of slaves. What intrigues me is that there is only one glass eye in the artifact." The Trom Girl snapped off her Link and clipped it back onto its holster on her belt. "I do not know all the collectors of occult items who would be interested in such an item. Back at headquarters, I imagine a list is available. If we proceed on the working theory that this robbery was by a person who knew the mystic properties of the Darthim, we may be able to narrow down the suspects considerably."
Archie watched her with fascination. He was both amused and impressed when she got caught up into the chase. "On the other hand, what if it was just some random thief who liked the look of the thing?"
"That would complicate the problem." She opened her door and hopped lightly out onto the asphalt of the parking lot. "Maybe we can walk a bit?"
"Sure. Glad to." Archie followed her out, stretching and yawning. "This sure beats spending today at the shop doing more detail work on that vintage Harley. Being outside on a beautiful Spring day with a beautiful girl...."
Megan rose up on her toes and gave him a soft gentle peck on the lips. "You can refer to me as beautiful as often as you like. I do not mind at all." She started strolling up the street away from where the Austen Gallery was. Taking out her Link again, she patched into the Verizon service quite illegally and called the KDF building on 38th Street in Manhattan.
"Hello? Sable? Hi, captain, we are on the scene and investigating. A Darthan artifact seems to be at the center of it. Would you please check out our files and find what you can on Darthan crystal skulls with inset green eyes? Yes. Thank you. What? No, tell Unicorn we will NOT need her to come rescue us at the last second. I suggest she be given more duties if she feels idle. Thank you, captain, I hope you find some information."
As she broke the connection, Megan allowed a trace of exasperation into her voice. "Ashley will not be content until she accompanies us on our investigations."
"She wants to turn the 'Trom Girl Mysteries' into 'Unicorn and her sidekick Trom Girl,'" Archie laughed. "She does tend to take over."
Megan took his arm and pressed up against him. "You are the only partner I want or need," she said firmly. "Those crystal skulls you may have seen on TV shows are certainly recent fakes made with modern tools. But the Darthan artifacts are genuinely ancient. They date back before recorded history and only a few have ever ever been found." Taking him by the arm, she began strolling past antique shops and shoe stores and a Thai restaurant.
For a few minutes, they walked in silence as her voice trailed off. Archie didn't mind. He had seen that inward look in her eyes before as her mind was racing. Up ahead, he saw an awning that read MILLSTREAM TAVERN, and there were a few wrought-iron chairs on the sidewalk. He wouldn't mind a beer about now. Then he noticed the group gathered at the door of the tavern, chattering and peering inside.
He pointed this out to Megan and she took off as someone had fired the starting gun at a race. She was nimble and quick as a squirrel. By the time he reached the tavern, she had already slid through the crowd and was inside. He had bull his way through the crowd more forcefully.
A bartender and a single waitress were huddled together just out of reach of a dead body. It had been a man in early middle-age, considerably overweight, wearing dress slacks and a pale blue shirt with the cuffs rolled back. The corpse was lying face up next to a round table, with the chair behind it still knocked over on its side.
Crouching over the body, careful not to touch anything, Megan was taking readings with her Link. No one there other than Archie realized it, but the little device in her hand was advanced Trom tech that scanned the corpse more throughly than any CAT scan or MRI available to Humans, as well as instantly recording everything from the relative humidity in that room to any unusual contaminants in the air. The screen flickered as numbers and images flashed across it.
Then she stood up slowly, studying the readings. Looking past her, Archie got his first look at the cadaver and his heart sank. The dead face was frozen into a horrific expression with mouth open and eyes bulging out. The man had been terrified when he had died.
III.
Officer Caputo came in behind them within another minute. He had not gotten far from the Austen Gallery before the call had come through and he had U-turned back. "Chief is sending another car, it should be here in a second." He met Megan's calm stare evenly. "You again, eh? Were you here when this happened?"
"No."
Seeing that she was lost in theories and analysis, and not going to volunteer more information, Archie took over. "We were walking up the street from the laundromat. Everyone outside will testify that we approached and entered from the street after the body was found. In fact, it was seeing the crowd gather that caught my eye."
"Yeah? Okay, for now. You, the bartender. I'm gonna need your full name and address, sir."
Clearing his throat, the man said, "Welch, Patrick Welch. 92 Ryan Court, just outside of town. I didn't see it happen. This gentleman had seated himself and placed an order. Peggy went into the kitchen to see it got started. I was down behind the bar, cleaning up a spill but I did hear another man's voice call out, 'Hey you bastard!' When I stood up, this man was falling to the floor. I never got a look at whoever had yelled to him."
"I didn't see anything either," the waitress said. "I didn't even hear the voice."
"Not much help," Caputo said. A patrol car skidded up with its lightbar flashing, and two more officers hurried in. He explained the situation to them as briefly as he could.
"Oh, I heard about you," one of the officers as he eyed Megan. "Amateur detective, sticking your little nose into crime scenes."
"I am licensed by the State, County and City of New York," she said icily as she held up a leather billfold with her credentials. "And, as an associate of Department 21 Black, I can call the FBI here and they will claim this crime as their priority to take it away from you."
"Whoa, okay, take it easy," the cop said as he backed off. "I guess I got you wrong."
Caputo had put blue latex gloves on and fished the man's wallet out. "Let's see. Giancarlo Battaglia. Driver's license says he's 63, he has a business card here for a Wall Street brokerage. Residence in Flushing. Wonder what he was doing here and what enemy he had that did this to him?"
At her belt, Megan's Link buzzed and she took the call. "Sable? Hi, there's been a development here. Another death. What have you found out?" She stepped off to one side and listened for a minute, then thanked her captain and broke the connection. Returning to where everyone was gathered around the corpse, the Trom Girl said, "Officer Caputo, is there anyone in this town who has an eye missing?"
Stunned at the unexpected question, he floundered. "Uh, well.. not that I know of. What's that got to do with anything?"
Instead of answering, Megan repeated the question to everyone in the tavern and then went to the open door and faced the crowd gathered outside. "Is there anyone in town who has a missing eye?"
Not surprisingly, this set everyone buzzing and muttering to each other. Then a girl about twelve piped up, "Old Man Broughton has a glass eye, lady. He showed me once."
"Hush, Morgan!" said her mother.
"He said he had been in the war and his real eye got infected. He had the glass eye out one day, in a little box."
"Thank you," Megan said with a friendly smile. "I need to talk to him."
"Oh, he lives in that yellow house by the gas station. I see him walking up the outside stairs alla time and we wave to each other. He's okay."
Straightening up, the Trom Girl motioned for Archie to join her. Seeing them starting to leave, Caputo yelled, "Hold on a minute! I may want you as material witnesses."
"We were not here when the murder was committed," Megan replied and led Archie through the staring crowd. One or two people began to follow them, but a stern glance from the big mechanic deterred them. In a minute, the pair were back in the red Wrangler and out on the street.
"You know, if you ever feel like EXPLAINING a little..." Archie began in a polite tone.
"Oh. I am sorry. Sable found information about the Darthan skulls. They were designed to charge those glass eyes with deadly gralic force. The talismans could only be used when in a living eye socket, so the wielder had to sacrifice one of his own eyes first. A high price but reputedly the crystal skull gave the glass eyes a killing power. A stare of more than a few seconds causes painful death in the victim."
"Oh. Gack! That's so gross but you know, Midnight War is usually disgusting. That's why we're looking for a man who is already missing an eye then?"
"Yes." Megan made an abrupt swerve into the lot of a CVS pharmacy and ran in without explanation. She returned a minute later with a small plastic bag and wheeled out onto the road again. Archie naturally was curious but he wanted another answer first.
"A doctor wouldn't remove a healthy eye," he said. "Our bad guy would have to injure his own eye so badly that it would have to be surgically taken out. Not many folks have the badass attitude to do that. So you figure our suspect is someone who is already missing an eye?"
"Exactly," she said. "Your thoughts follow mine closely. My unanswered question is how he knew about the power held in the crystal skull's eye but that we can establish later." Ahead was a gas station, and on the street beyond that was a two story house with canary-yellow aluminum siding. On the outside of the house, a metal staircase led up to a door on the second floor.
"Hopefully we will find him here. Archie my love, this is crucial. If a man flees the house, do not try to stop him. Do not even look directly at him. That is very important."
"Yeah, I think I understand why," he grunted. "But what about you, Meg?"
"I have a plan," she said as she vaulted out of the Jeep and ran over to the house.
"You always have Plan A and Plan B with some contingencies," the big man mumbled to himself as he watched with rising anxiety. His experiences in the Army had left him with a determination not to carry a gun again in this life, but there were times when he wondered about the wisdom of that decision.
Hurtling up the steps more quickly than most people could run on a flat surface, Megan Salenger ripped open the package she had brought and tossed the box aside. When she reached the door, she did not knock but just yanked it open and jumped inside. It was a single room with an old sagging double bed taking up most of the space. A short man in black sweat pants and a baggy white T-shirt swung around. She just got a glimpse of a haggard face with bad teeth and receding hair, with one dark brown eye and one bright green eye before she snapped her head to one side and held up the item she had purchased a few minutes earlier.
The man snorted, then laughed out loud. "Haw! I don't know who you are, missy, but you're in trouble. Appears that trick is not going to work on me."
"Whoops," said the Trom Girl almost inaudibly but even as she spoke, she whipped the four inch square make-up mirror right at where his voice had come from, hurling it like a throwing star. Her aim was impeccable. The mirror smacked hard right at the bridge of his nose and Broughton cried out at the unexpected pain. Eyes closed, head down, Megan rushed forward and tackled him, bringing him down with sheer momentum. Her Kumundu training including fighting in darkness, so once she got her hands on him, she knew where his vital points were. The Trom Girl jumped up and brought a knee down right in the pit of his stomach, then whirled so her back was to him to drive an elbow down at his chin as he gasped when the breath left his lungs. He seemed to be unconscious but she was taking no chances. Without opening her eyes, she pressed down on his carotid artery, counted the correct interval, then took his pulse and found it strong.
Facing away from the stunned man, not looking at him at all, Megan glared quickly around the room. She snatched a thin white towel from where it hung on a doorknob and straightened it out over Broughton's face. She did not enjoy what had to be done next and wished she had brought the latex gloves she sometimes carried. In a few minutes, she had the glass eye out and wrapped in the towel, after which she sat down on the floor unexpectedly as her body realized the stress was over for the moment. Her heart was beating rapidly, which surprised her.
There was a sink in one corner of the rented room, and she scrubbed her hands with hot water and soap gratefully. Where was the complete self-control she had possessed when she had first begun her mission? When she had first joined the KDF and become a Tel Shai knight, nothing had rattled her. She had been unmoved by the most gruesome experiences.
Maybe it was the price for letting her emotions express themselves. She didn't mind. Being in love, feeling friendship and being able to laugh and cry were worth any price. She went to the door and waved for Archie to come up. As he saw she was safe, he caught her up in a swinging hug that lifted her feet off the floor.
"If I don't have grey hair after being with you, I never will," he said.
"I imagine the crystal skull is hidden somewhere in this room," Megan told him. "But it's the glass eye which is the real danger. I will conceal it in the Jeep before calling the police here. Broughton is no threat now."
"I'd love to see what the official report is going to say," chuckled Archie. "That guy Caputo is going to have word things very carefully." He went over to where Broughton was snoring, lost to the world for at least the next few minutes. Archie picked up the little mirror from where it had bounced off the killer's face. "So this is what you bought at the pharamacy? You figured his Evil Eye thingie would be reflected back at him."
For once, Megan Salenger had a sheepish grin. "Welll," she admitted, "Not all of my ideas work."
2/7/2016
A Trom Girl Mystery
5/8/2007
I.
At almost four on a warm May afternoon, the sidewalks of Flanders, Long Island were heavy with sight-seers and shoppers. The center of Flanders was known as a bit of a tourist trap with rows of boutiques and used clothing and knick-knack stores lining both sides of the street, very artistic and more than a little pretentious and definitely overpriced. Here, at the end of one block, was a neat one-story white building with a wide picture window which read AUSTEN GALLERY - BY APPOINTMENT ONLY in silver script. That was where the body had been discovered that morning.
Parked in front of the Gallery was a black and white Town Police car, with a uniformed officer sitting behind the wheel and talking on the radio. As he was about to hang up, he saw a cherry red Jeep Wrangler pull up behind him and a small thin woman with a shock of thick black hair vault eagerly out of the driver's seat. "Never mind, Tony," he said into the microphone, "the famous lady genius is here now. Report to you in a minute."
Officer Aldo Caputo got out to meet the civilians he had been ordered to brief on the situation. He didn't like the set-up and saw no reason to pretend he did. An eleven year veteran, Caputo thought the public should answer questions and then stay out of the way. He squeezed his considerable bulk from behind the wheel and stepped out on the sidewalk to meet them.
Megan Salenger was twenty-four, only three inches over five feet in height, slim and fit looking in tight jeans and a red flannel shirt two sizes too large for her. As he saw the inquisitive expression on her face, he grudgingly thought that she looked pretty smart and maybe she was good at investigations. They shook hands amiably enough as she introduced herself. The 'Trom Girl' was a newer member of Manhattan's Kenneth Dred Foundation, which had built a solid reputation over the past two decades under its leader, the notorious Dire Wolf.
Her partner was more obviously impressive as he walked around to loom over her. Archie McAllister was a bearlike hulk well over six feet tall and weighing about two hundred and forty pounds. He needed a shave and a haircut at the moment, wore well-worn work clothes including motorcycle boots, and seemed even bigger than he was. But the blue eyes in the weathered face were gentle and friendly, and that gave his real nature away. "Hello, officer," he said simply.
Megan studied the building next to them. "Six years ago, there was a robbery here. An artifact that was part of the Armor of Hell was stolen. The owners said at the time that they would not longer specialize in items supposedly of an occult or supernatural nature." She turned her large dark eyes on Caputo. "Evidently they did not do so."
"Yeah, yeah, they knew what sold and what paid the bills," he answered. Taking a key from his pants pocket, he said seriously, "Now my orders are to let you take a look inside and answer your questions but you are not to touch anything. Anything at all. Understood?"
"Yes," said the Trom Girl. "Thank you."
Officer Caputo unlocked the front door and ushered her in. Archie followed but stayed back by the door, keeping out of the way. Megan glanced up at a corner of the ceiling and said, "That security camera is a dummy. It is not even hooked up."
"You got good eyes," the LI cop remarked. "Yeah, lots of stores have dummy cameras just to deter shoplifters. Too bad, we could use some footage."
The Trom Girl slowly inspected the gallery, checking the items which sat on clear plexiglass stands or along white porcelain shelves on black walls. Everything seemed spurious to her. The little Tiki statuettes and demonic faces on plaques and dreamcatchers were mere decorations. They had nothing to do with the reality of the Midnight War she knew. The shelfload of books on the occult were familiar froth as well.
There was one exception that gave her a jolt of alarm. A white chest-high pillar stood with nothing on its flat top, but a neat tag read DARTHAN CRYSTAL SKULL- MAROCH 11TH CENTURY $1900. "This is significant," she said, "Not just because it is missing but because of its nature. How did the owners obtain a Darthan talisman? They had decided to avoid genuine mystic artifacts."
"Damn if I know," said Caputo. "There's a picture of it on their online catalog if you want to look."
"Thank you," she answered distractedly. Watching, Archie recognized the distant expression in her eyes that meant she was turning over data at a furious pace. The Trom Girl stepped over to the glass-topped counter in the rear corner which held a small cash register and a few signs. Behind the counter, a swivel chair had been pushed back on its casters against the wall.
"Here is where the body of Meredith Austen was found, I understand. Has the autopsy been performed?" she asked.
"Nope. Probably not until tomorrow, maybe the next day." Caputo shrugged, "The Medical Examiner says their office is swamped with a backlog. Poor old John Austen passed away last winter. Just as well, I'd hate to have him see his wife like this."
"No visible signs of injury, I understand." Megan crouched down and studied the floor without touching it. "No bruises, no scrapes or punctures in the skin. She was lying on her left side with one arm up on this chair."
"Yeah, there is one little thing not mentioned in the report you read," the cop told her. "You ever see the face of a heart attack victim?"
Behind him, the deep voice of Archie McAllister broke in, "They sure show they were in pain. The faces are distorted that way."
"Right. Well, Mrs Austen was seventy, had no history of cardiac problems but her face was all twisted up. She looked like she was terrified when she died... as if the last thing she saw scared her right to death."
II.
After another forty minutes of the Trom Girl inspecting every inch of the gallery in excrutiating detail, Caputo was relieved when she finally said, "I believe I have learned all I can here. Karen Marano, the woman who reported the death, said she entered the gallery at eleven o'clock this morning but saw no one here?"
"That's right."
"She went to a boutique down the street, returned here at eleven-thirty and happened to spot Mrs Austen's foot protruding from behind the counter. This was when she called 911 on her phone, as I understand it." Megan Salenger headed for the door slowly, obviously still processing information in her head. "The person who took the crystal skull left at least a few minutes before eleven, since Karen Marano said she saw no one near the gallery. He or she had at least a half hour to leave the vicinity before the crime was committed." She suddenly turned to give Officer Caputo a dubious look. "Workers in the shops next to this gallery and across the street may have seen whoever entered and left at that time...."
"Ah, give us some credit, miss. Of course we've questioned them. We even tracked down two customers who were next door at that time and gotten nowhere. It was a busy morning."
"I see. I am not being critical of the police, officer, I simply want to gather information." Megan looked up at Archie. "Do you have any comments?"
"Me? No, course not. I'm just here to drive you around and hold your coat while you solve the mystery," he said. "I'd like to know more about what was stolen, of course."
"Yes," she remarked with her usual unhelpful bluntness. "Thank you, officer. We will keep in touch as we investigate. I recommend you tell your colleagues to stay alert. There will almost certainly be more such deaths in the immediate future."
"There will?"
As she stepped out onto the sidewalk, the Trom Girl said, "This is just beginning."
Getting back into the Jeep, Archie said, "Just off the top of your head, what do you know about Darthan crystal skulls anyway?"
"You have heard of the Darthim, hon. They are a Race of powerful sorcerers with sadistic tendencies. According to Tel Shai lore, they once dominated the world in their Darthan Age until Humans became numerous and overthrew them. All the Darthan artifacts I myself have encountered have been both potent and malevolent." Placing her wire-rimmed aviator's sunglasses on, the Trom Girl sighed. "How the Austens obtained a Darthan crystal skull is beyond me but you can see the results."
Easing out into the traffic on the narrow main street, she only drove a few blocks before hitting her turn signal and pulling into the parking lot of a 24-hour laundromat on a side streeet. Megan took out her Link, which looked enough like a particularly elegant smartphone that it would not draw attention. She found the Austen Gallery online catalog and pulled up a photo of the talisman which had been stolen.
Leaning closer, Archie saw a human skull crafted from clear quartz but oddly misshapen in some indefinable way. The most startling detail was that a white glass eye with bright green iris had been inserted into the skull's left socket. It was not a pleasant sight.
"How do they make those things anyway?" he asked.
"The Darthim used fine sandpaper and many hours of work by teams of slaves. What intrigues me is that there is only one glass eye in the artifact." The Trom Girl snapped off her Link and clipped it back onto its holster on her belt. "I do not know all the collectors of occult items who would be interested in such an item. Back at headquarters, I imagine a list is available. If we proceed on the working theory that this robbery was by a person who knew the mystic properties of the Darthim, we may be able to narrow down the suspects considerably."
Archie watched her with fascination. He was both amused and impressed when she got caught up into the chase. "On the other hand, what if it was just some random thief who liked the look of the thing?"
"That would complicate the problem." She opened her door and hopped lightly out onto the asphalt of the parking lot. "Maybe we can walk a bit?"
"Sure. Glad to." Archie followed her out, stretching and yawning. "This sure beats spending today at the shop doing more detail work on that vintage Harley. Being outside on a beautiful Spring day with a beautiful girl...."
Megan rose up on her toes and gave him a soft gentle peck on the lips. "You can refer to me as beautiful as often as you like. I do not mind at all." She started strolling up the street away from where the Austen Gallery was. Taking out her Link again, she patched into the Verizon service quite illegally and called the KDF building on 38th Street in Manhattan.
"Hello? Sable? Hi, captain, we are on the scene and investigating. A Darthan artifact seems to be at the center of it. Would you please check out our files and find what you can on Darthan crystal skulls with inset green eyes? Yes. Thank you. What? No, tell Unicorn we will NOT need her to come rescue us at the last second. I suggest she be given more duties if she feels idle. Thank you, captain, I hope you find some information."
As she broke the connection, Megan allowed a trace of exasperation into her voice. "Ashley will not be content until she accompanies us on our investigations."
"She wants to turn the 'Trom Girl Mysteries' into 'Unicorn and her sidekick Trom Girl,'" Archie laughed. "She does tend to take over."
Megan took his arm and pressed up against him. "You are the only partner I want or need," she said firmly. "Those crystal skulls you may have seen on TV shows are certainly recent fakes made with modern tools. But the Darthan artifacts are genuinely ancient. They date back before recorded history and only a few have ever ever been found." Taking him by the arm, she began strolling past antique shops and shoe stores and a Thai restaurant.
For a few minutes, they walked in silence as her voice trailed off. Archie didn't mind. He had seen that inward look in her eyes before as her mind was racing. Up ahead, he saw an awning that read MILLSTREAM TAVERN, and there were a few wrought-iron chairs on the sidewalk. He wouldn't mind a beer about now. Then he noticed the group gathered at the door of the tavern, chattering and peering inside.
He pointed this out to Megan and she took off as someone had fired the starting gun at a race. She was nimble and quick as a squirrel. By the time he reached the tavern, she had already slid through the crowd and was inside. He had bull his way through the crowd more forcefully.
A bartender and a single waitress were huddled together just out of reach of a dead body. It had been a man in early middle-age, considerably overweight, wearing dress slacks and a pale blue shirt with the cuffs rolled back. The corpse was lying face up next to a round table, with the chair behind it still knocked over on its side.
Crouching over the body, careful not to touch anything, Megan was taking readings with her Link. No one there other than Archie realized it, but the little device in her hand was advanced Trom tech that scanned the corpse more throughly than any CAT scan or MRI available to Humans, as well as instantly recording everything from the relative humidity in that room to any unusual contaminants in the air. The screen flickered as numbers and images flashed across it.
Then she stood up slowly, studying the readings. Looking past her, Archie got his first look at the cadaver and his heart sank. The dead face was frozen into a horrific expression with mouth open and eyes bulging out. The man had been terrified when he had died.
III.
Officer Caputo came in behind them within another minute. He had not gotten far from the Austen Gallery before the call had come through and he had U-turned back. "Chief is sending another car, it should be here in a second." He met Megan's calm stare evenly. "You again, eh? Were you here when this happened?"
"No."
Seeing that she was lost in theories and analysis, and not going to volunteer more information, Archie took over. "We were walking up the street from the laundromat. Everyone outside will testify that we approached and entered from the street after the body was found. In fact, it was seeing the crowd gather that caught my eye."
"Yeah? Okay, for now. You, the bartender. I'm gonna need your full name and address, sir."
Clearing his throat, the man said, "Welch, Patrick Welch. 92 Ryan Court, just outside of town. I didn't see it happen. This gentleman had seated himself and placed an order. Peggy went into the kitchen to see it got started. I was down behind the bar, cleaning up a spill but I did hear another man's voice call out, 'Hey you bastard!' When I stood up, this man was falling to the floor. I never got a look at whoever had yelled to him."
"I didn't see anything either," the waitress said. "I didn't even hear the voice."
"Not much help," Caputo said. A patrol car skidded up with its lightbar flashing, and two more officers hurried in. He explained the situation to them as briefly as he could.
"Oh, I heard about you," one of the officers as he eyed Megan. "Amateur detective, sticking your little nose into crime scenes."
"I am licensed by the State, County and City of New York," she said icily as she held up a leather billfold with her credentials. "And, as an associate of Department 21 Black, I can call the FBI here and they will claim this crime as their priority to take it away from you."
"Whoa, okay, take it easy," the cop said as he backed off. "I guess I got you wrong."
Caputo had put blue latex gloves on and fished the man's wallet out. "Let's see. Giancarlo Battaglia. Driver's license says he's 63, he has a business card here for a Wall Street brokerage. Residence in Flushing. Wonder what he was doing here and what enemy he had that did this to him?"
At her belt, Megan's Link buzzed and she took the call. "Sable? Hi, there's been a development here. Another death. What have you found out?" She stepped off to one side and listened for a minute, then thanked her captain and broke the connection. Returning to where everyone was gathered around the corpse, the Trom Girl said, "Officer Caputo, is there anyone in this town who has an eye missing?"
Stunned at the unexpected question, he floundered. "Uh, well.. not that I know of. What's that got to do with anything?"
Instead of answering, Megan repeated the question to everyone in the tavern and then went to the open door and faced the crowd gathered outside. "Is there anyone in town who has a missing eye?"
Not surprisingly, this set everyone buzzing and muttering to each other. Then a girl about twelve piped up, "Old Man Broughton has a glass eye, lady. He showed me once."
"Hush, Morgan!" said her mother.
"He said he had been in the war and his real eye got infected. He had the glass eye out one day, in a little box."
"Thank you," Megan said with a friendly smile. "I need to talk to him."
"Oh, he lives in that yellow house by the gas station. I see him walking up the outside stairs alla time and we wave to each other. He's okay."
Straightening up, the Trom Girl motioned for Archie to join her. Seeing them starting to leave, Caputo yelled, "Hold on a minute! I may want you as material witnesses."
"We were not here when the murder was committed," Megan replied and led Archie through the staring crowd. One or two people began to follow them, but a stern glance from the big mechanic deterred them. In a minute, the pair were back in the red Wrangler and out on the street.
"You know, if you ever feel like EXPLAINING a little..." Archie began in a polite tone.
"Oh. I am sorry. Sable found information about the Darthan skulls. They were designed to charge those glass eyes with deadly gralic force. The talismans could only be used when in a living eye socket, so the wielder had to sacrifice one of his own eyes first. A high price but reputedly the crystal skull gave the glass eyes a killing power. A stare of more than a few seconds causes painful death in the victim."
"Oh. Gack! That's so gross but you know, Midnight War is usually disgusting. That's why we're looking for a man who is already missing an eye then?"
"Yes." Megan made an abrupt swerve into the lot of a CVS pharmacy and ran in without explanation. She returned a minute later with a small plastic bag and wheeled out onto the road again. Archie naturally was curious but he wanted another answer first.
"A doctor wouldn't remove a healthy eye," he said. "Our bad guy would have to injure his own eye so badly that it would have to be surgically taken out. Not many folks have the badass attitude to do that. So you figure our suspect is someone who is already missing an eye?"
"Exactly," she said. "Your thoughts follow mine closely. My unanswered question is how he knew about the power held in the crystal skull's eye but that we can establish later." Ahead was a gas station, and on the street beyond that was a two story house with canary-yellow aluminum siding. On the outside of the house, a metal staircase led up to a door on the second floor.
"Hopefully we will find him here. Archie my love, this is crucial. If a man flees the house, do not try to stop him. Do not even look directly at him. That is very important."
"Yeah, I think I understand why," he grunted. "But what about you, Meg?"
"I have a plan," she said as she vaulted out of the Jeep and ran over to the house.
"You always have Plan A and Plan B with some contingencies," the big man mumbled to himself as he watched with rising anxiety. His experiences in the Army had left him with a determination not to carry a gun again in this life, but there were times when he wondered about the wisdom of that decision.
Hurtling up the steps more quickly than most people could run on a flat surface, Megan Salenger ripped open the package she had brought and tossed the box aside. When she reached the door, she did not knock but just yanked it open and jumped inside. It was a single room with an old sagging double bed taking up most of the space. A short man in black sweat pants and a baggy white T-shirt swung around. She just got a glimpse of a haggard face with bad teeth and receding hair, with one dark brown eye and one bright green eye before she snapped her head to one side and held up the item she had purchased a few minutes earlier.
The man snorted, then laughed out loud. "Haw! I don't know who you are, missy, but you're in trouble. Appears that trick is not going to work on me."
"Whoops," said the Trom Girl almost inaudibly but even as she spoke, she whipped the four inch square make-up mirror right at where his voice had come from, hurling it like a throwing star. Her aim was impeccable. The mirror smacked hard right at the bridge of his nose and Broughton cried out at the unexpected pain. Eyes closed, head down, Megan rushed forward and tackled him, bringing him down with sheer momentum. Her Kumundu training including fighting in darkness, so once she got her hands on him, she knew where his vital points were. The Trom Girl jumped up and brought a knee down right in the pit of his stomach, then whirled so her back was to him to drive an elbow down at his chin as he gasped when the breath left his lungs. He seemed to be unconscious but she was taking no chances. Without opening her eyes, she pressed down on his carotid artery, counted the correct interval, then took his pulse and found it strong.
Facing away from the stunned man, not looking at him at all, Megan glared quickly around the room. She snatched a thin white towel from where it hung on a doorknob and straightened it out over Broughton's face. She did not enjoy what had to be done next and wished she had brought the latex gloves she sometimes carried. In a few minutes, she had the glass eye out and wrapped in the towel, after which she sat down on the floor unexpectedly as her body realized the stress was over for the moment. Her heart was beating rapidly, which surprised her.
There was a sink in one corner of the rented room, and she scrubbed her hands with hot water and soap gratefully. Where was the complete self-control she had possessed when she had first begun her mission? When she had first joined the KDF and become a Tel Shai knight, nothing had rattled her. She had been unmoved by the most gruesome experiences.
Maybe it was the price for letting her emotions express themselves. She didn't mind. Being in love, feeling friendship and being able to laugh and cry were worth any price. She went to the door and waved for Archie to come up. As he saw she was safe, he caught her up in a swinging hug that lifted her feet off the floor.
"If I don't have grey hair after being with you, I never will," he said.
"I imagine the crystal skull is hidden somewhere in this room," Megan told him. "But it's the glass eye which is the real danger. I will conceal it in the Jeep before calling the police here. Broughton is no threat now."
"I'd love to see what the official report is going to say," chuckled Archie. "That guy Caputo is going to have word things very carefully." He went over to where Broughton was snoring, lost to the world for at least the next few minutes. Archie picked up the little mirror from where it had bounced off the killer's face. "So this is what you bought at the pharamacy? You figured his Evil Eye thingie would be reflected back at him."
For once, Megan Salenger had a sheepish grin. "Welll," she admitted, "Not all of my ideas work."
2/7/2016