Mahogany entered the kitchen and took the second port-o-hole from the envelope. She slapped the small circular black object onto the kitchen island, and a small hole appeared in the granite countertop.
She reached into the hole, which expanded to accommodate her arm, and felt around. Frowning, she pulled her arm from the port-o-hole, holding an object sealed in a clear plastic evidence bag.
"A wallet?" Mahogany turned the bag over in her hands to read the label. "Guy Miller? Crap. Bazgul placed the port-o-hole on your box instead of Magic Mike's."
Mahogany turned to Guy, who gazed at the wallet in her hands. His wide, dazed eyes stared unblinkingly.
"Were both of your boxes next to each other?" A ball of irritation formed in Mahogany's chest.
Guy shook his head, bringing himself back to the present. "Oh, yeah, I guess so. I was distracted at having my life reduced to a single box in a police station basement."
"Perfect. This day keeps getting better," Mahogany tossed the wallet back into the port-o-hole. A distant thud echoed through the hole as the wallet joined whatever else was in Guy's evidence box.
Neema breezed into the kitchen from the apothecary and headed straight for the steaming coffeepot on the counter. "Oh, I see you made it into the evidence locker." She glanced at the six-inch black hole in the countertop. She filled her mug and took a much-needed sip, eying Mahogany. "Isn't this a good thing? Why do you look as if someone just danced over your grave?"
Mahogany sighed, narrowing her eyes at Guy. "The port-o-hole is on Guy's box, not Mike's."
"So flip the hole over and pull Mike's box through," Neema said with a shrug. "You've been using port-o-holes since you were a kid. Flipping one reverses the other. Instead of reaching into Guy's box, you'll be reaching out of it."
"Oh, that is clever," Guy moved to stand beside Mahogany as she scratched at the edge of the magical portal with her index finger. She peeled it off the counter, flipped it with an irritated flourish, and slapped it back onto the granite.
Mahogany released a sigh that made Bazgul retreat to his cat tree and shoved both arms up her shoulders into the stretchy port-o-hole.
If anyone had been present in the evidence locker, they would have seen two knit-covered arms appear from a small black dot, no larger than a nickel, on the side of a white document box. The arms fumbled unseeing until they located another box, grabbed hold of it, and pulled it through the hole. Once through, the gap shrank to its original size, appearing as a small mark on the container's side. But no one was in the evidence locker to see this strange, magical occurrence.
Mahogany, Guy, and Neema stared at the box. Bazgul, having lost interest, gazed through the kitchen window as he perched on his cat tree, hungrily eying the neighbor cat as it sunned in a patch of morning light near Mahogany's Vespa.
"Now what?" Guy said, eying the red evidence tape securing the lid to the body of the box.
"Hang on," Neema said. She hurried from the kitchen to the living room. She returned and held out a short, bone-handled knife with an onyx blade.
"Oh, I know what that is!" Guy said. "It's a spectare, which is Latin for peek. It allows you to open all sorts of items and then reseal them without detection." Guy puffed himself up as if he'd just answered the winning question on Jeopardy. "Historically, spectare was a favorite object of fraudulent businessmen and suspicious housewives."
Mahogany took the spectare. "I was beginning to wonder what Magic Mike had taught you." She sliced through the tape and peered into the box. The bagged anelace lay across the top of the other items collected from the brownstone's crime scene.
"Oh, that was easy." Mahogany lifted the jeweled dagger from the box. A chill from the cold blade seeped through the bag and into Mahogany's hand, and it ran up her arm, lodging in her heart. She gasped and dropped the anelace where it clattered to the counter.
Next to Mahogany, Guy swooned before his knees buckled.
"What's wrong?" Neema set her coffee on the counter and studied Mahogany, her eyes filled with concern.
"Something's wrong with the anelace." Mahogany shook her head as if clearing a fog. The ache in her heart slowly dissipated. "Are you all right?" Mahogany raised an eyebrow at Guy's fallen form.
"I guess being so close to the murder weapon triggered my memory from that night." Guy got to his feet, gently placed his hand through the evidence bag, and closed his eyes. "The murderer's rage left a curse in the blade. It's filled with their rage and hatred."
"Guy says the murder tainted the anelace with their murdery rage." Mahogany said. "That's a lot of bad juju. Let's hope they've left town."
"Did Guy sense that? Poor lamb." Neema removed a small brown vial from one of the kitchen cupboards. "Maybe the scent of chamomile will help calm his nerves." She opened the vial and placed it on the counter. "Inhale deeply," she said to the kitchen. "Wait, he can inhale, can't he?" she inquired, turning to Mahogany.
"Seems to," Mahogany said, watching as Guy stooped over the vile, puffing like a runner after a marathon.
Neema smiled at the space over the vial and turned to Mahogany. "We need to get started on the replica before anyone notices the box is missing."
"Gods, this is so much more work than just collecting relics from dead Folk. Where's the clay?" Mahogany eyed the anelace with suspicion.
"I have some in the storeroom," Neema said, heading back into the Haughty Hemlock. "Back in two shakes."
Beside her, Guy continued to huff the chamomile fumes.
"Better?" Mahogany asked, a speculative eyebrow raised.
"Much," Guy said. "I don't know if it's placebo or if I can smell it, but I feel much more centered."
"Fantastic," Mahogany said, rolling her eyes. She peered back into the box so she wouldn't have to look at Guy. A flat, yellow envelope caught her attention. Curious, she read the label, "One photograph?"
"Photograph? What kind of photograph?" Guy stopped huffing and peered over Mahogany's shoulder. "Maybe it's a clue to solving my murder."
"The description says it was in Magic Mike's hand when the police found his body." Mahogany slit the envelope's seal with the spectare and slid out a glossy 4x6 black and white photograph of four individuals. Two had black x's marking out their faces, while a third had their face circled. The last person's image was untouched.
Mahogany frowned and moved the image to catch the light, hoping to reveal the faces beneath the x's. She could just make out a woman with long dark hair adorned with a crown of roses. The other was a young man wearing tea shade spectacles and a short beard.
"That looks like Magic Mike," Guy said, pointing to the x'd out face of the bespectacled man with the beard.
"How do you know?" Mahogany said, her gaze glued to the woman with her face circled. A white patch sprouted from the young woman's hairline despite her youthful appearance.
"Those are the same round glasses he wore. It was his signature look." Guy shrugged. "His beard is shorter, about fifty pounds lighter, and twenty years younger, but that's Mike, all right."
Mahogany had a similar notion about the woman with the patch of white hair. She was younger and thinner, but without a doubt, the woman was Neema.
Guy shifted his pointing finger from Mike. "She looks a lot like Neema. Except for the poliosis, it could be her twin."
"She dyes it," Mahogany said. "It's even in her eyebrow now."
"Wait, so that is Neema? If that circle means what I think it means, she's in danger."
"That's just what I was imagining. Whoever killed you and Magic Mike is after the people in his photograph."
"What about her?" Guy pointed to the woman with the flower crown and the x. "Is she a murder victim too? And her?" Guy jabbed a finger through the woman whose image was unmarred.
"Maybe she's the murderer," Mahogany said.
"What do you think that says?" Guy pointed to the wall behind the figures.
Mahogany brought the photo close to her face and squinted. The letters H, S, and O, peeked from between their shoulders and heads. "No idea. It could be anything."
Neema's footsteps echoed over the Haughty Hemlock's hardwood floor as she returned to the kitchen. "Sorry, that took so long. I had quite forgotten where I put the clay."
Mahogany slipped the photo under the envelope and smiled. "That's all right."
Neema stopped in her tracks and squinted. "What's wrong with your face?" In front of her, Neema held a black trash bag in both hands. A clump of something heavy strained against the plastic.
"What do you mean," Mahogany asked.
"You smiled. You never smile," Neema said.
"I do too," Mahogany said, an edge in her voice.
Guy snorted. "No, you don't. You are the most unsmiling person I've ever met, and I'm from Columbus, Ohio."
Mahogany glared at Guy, "I am not 'unsmiling.'"
Neema hefted the trash bag on the counter with a grunt. "Gloves!" She snapped her fingers. "I nearly forgot. Be right back."
As Neema's ample rear disappeared through the doorway, Mahogany slid the photo out from under the envelope and snapped a picture with her phone. She shoved the image back into the envelope with shaking hands, resealed the tape with the spectare, and tossed it into the evidence box.
"Here we go," Neema said, reemerging from the apothecary. She handed Mahogany a pair of surgical gloves. "Let's get started before it gets late." She put on the gloves and opened the garbage bag. Neema ripped off a sizable chunk of the gray clay. "That ought to be enough." She held the gray clump out to Mahogany.
Mahogany took the clay and began kneading it on the countertop while she studied the shape of the anelace.
"I don't get it," Guy said. "It's just clay."
"It's replica clay. It has the magical ability to create exact replicas. A replica created with this clay could be carbon dated and match the real object." Mahogany rolled the clay into a cylinder, matching the anelace's length.
The bell over the door in the shop jangled. "Duty calls," Neema said, snapping off her gloves and tossing them on the kitchen island. "Oh, and use tongs to get that thing out of the bag." She motioned to the murder weapon. "It's far too nasty to touch." Neema disappeared into the apothecary. "Welcome to the Haughty Hemlock. How can I help you?"
Mahogany grabbed the silicone-tipped tongs from an earthenware jar near the stove and used them to pull the dagger from the evidence baggie.
She began with the hilt, sculpting each jewel until the clay anelace matched the original in shape and size.
"Impressive," Guy said, admiring the sculpture.
"I got an A in art."
Guy smirked, but Mahogany's stony visage remained deadpan. He rolled his eyes. "Now what?"
"We wait," Mahogany said. "It takes a few hours for the clay to set. It'll take on all the properties of the original – color, texture, weight."
The bell over the apothecary door jingled again. "Mahogany, dear, can you please come and assist me?" Neema called through the doorway.
"Coming." Mahogany pulled off the gloves, and as she did, the latex brushed over the blade of the clay anelace, snagging on the tip. The force pulled the drying clay toward the edge of the counter, where it started to fall.
Instinctively, Mahogany caught the clay dagger and carefully placed it back on the counter."That was close," Guy said.
Mahogany nodded, her heart hammering in her chest. "Too close." She tossed the used gloves into the garbage and headed into the Haughty Hemlock.
An hour later, Mahogany admired her handy work. The replica clay had set and was the exact likeness of the medieval anelace.
"Fascinating," Guy said. "If it weren't for the blood lust singing from the real blade, I wouldn't be able to tell them apart."
"That's the plan." Mahogany picked up the replica, sealed it in the evidence bag, and placed it back in the document box.
Across town, Pandemonium's newest detective, Teresa Sawyer, entered the evidence locker and approached the spot where she had personally placed the evidence boxes connected to the brownstone murders. However, the one she needed wasn't there.
The detective gave a deep sigh and headed back to the clerk who was sure to get a royal ass-chewing, muttering under her breath about the lax procedure of small-town police.
In the cozy kitchen connected to the Haughty Hemlock, Mahogany maneuvered the sealed document box back through the port-o-hole. A heartbeat later, a small, unassuming blotch on the box labeled Guy Miller stretched wide, and Magic Mike's missing evidence appeared through the growing hole. Two hands gripped the handholds on either side and placed it blindly on the shelf just as the clerk and the detective returned.
"Do you mean this box?" the clerk asked, pointing to a container set askew with the others.
"Are we the only two people in here?" Detective Sawyer gave the locker a scrutinizing glance.
The clerk nodded, one eyebrow cocked high on his forehead. "Yes, Detective."
Sawyer frowned. "I'm sorry for the mistake."
The clerk took his leave, and the detective cut the tape and placed a bagged SLR camera into the box.
_____
A/N: That was a close one! Mahogany could have been caught with her unorthodox method of breaking and entering. Makes me sweat just thinking about it. Also, that photo is pretty creepy. I wonder what will come of it?
I've dedicated this chapter to annkreeves. Her short story Adam is out of this world great. It's got sci-fi, a lovely character arch, romance, and sex. What's not to love?