The Malevolent Tree

Glitch

Tavish stumbled back from the bed. The horror of the stalwart old woman lying dead made him shudder. Anger made him determined to—this time—catch the real murderer.

Tavish flipped on his flashlight app for the nth time that night. A quick examination showed that  at least death had come quickly. Most of the blood had flowed into the bed covers snarled around her rather than being propelled outward by a beating heart. Only one of the flurry of stab wounds in her chest had sprayed blood on the floor. 

And I managed to walk in it.

No helping that now. Blood had already soiled his shirt as well. He wiped his hand on it so he wouldn't leave bloody fingerprints anywhere, and he used the sleeve to wipe his shoes. No sense in creating additional confusing prints.

Who could have done this? Since Agneta had given her men-at-arms a sleeping draught, it wasn't a surprise they hadn't heard her scream. But surely no assailant could have opened the locked door without an extra key. Housekeeper Broca surely had one. If a key had been used, then likely it had been stolen from her.

I can't rule out a demon-possessed patsy climbing in the open window.

Tavish gathered candles from around the room and crouched beside the fireplace to light them with the embers. As he placed them back in their various holders, turning the gray-and-white of moonlight into color, he saw more curiosities to examine. Every possible hiding place had been ransacked. Books had been knocked off shelves, the bowl of hawthorns overturned, the pigeon cage opened. One wide-eyed bird was roosting on one of the wreaths Agneta had hung for protection. The rest had flown.

So... the murderer hadn't been seeking treasure in general. Strands of pearls, gold chains, viking brooches and a myriad of marble statuettes lay scattered and smashed across the floor. No. The villain had wanted one item in particular. The portal key. 

Tavish stiffened his back to stiffen his resolve and walked back to the bed, careful not to tread on the blood. Agneta's right hand was raised against her face. Gashes on the palm showed she'd warded off the knife before it found her torso. Her left hand was tangled up behind her in her nightdress. Possibly, she hadn't been able to free it during the attack.

Or maybe she was hiding it.

Slowly, carefully, Tavish peeled the bloody coverings back and dislodged her arm from behind her back. Luckily, enough time hadn't passed for rigor mortis to set in. When he uncurled the fingers, he found it—the gold disk holding the two pieces of the portal key that had belonged to the deceased princesses. He snapped a picture of the coveted treasure in Agneta's hand. Then he pocketed it for safekeeping.

He took pictures from every angle of every detail that could possibly be of use in figuring out what had happened. Without the ability to do advanced crime lab analyses, what could be seen with the naked eye was nearly all the evidence they would have to consider. Sure, he might make use of flies again—but only in the privacy of his wizard's quarters. No fanfare this time. Strictly serious.

Tavish took one more look around the room. What a sad irony that both its guests were still here and both were dead—Hextilda in her coffin and Agneta on the bed.

There's nothing more I can do for the sisters—except figure out who killed them.

Tavish was about to wake up Agneta's men-at-arms when he glanced at his jeans. They would think his clothing strange. Even more so the smears of blood on his sleeves and shirt front. They would know he had been with the princess in the wee hours of the night. They wouldn't wonder why he was with her dead body now. Instead of analyzing all his systematically collected evidence, they would take one look at him and come to their own conclusion.