The Masquerading Magician (19 page)

The sun was beginning to set when Dorian turned off the stove and declared dinner was served. We were eating an early dinner because Brixton had to help his mom clean up at Blue Sky Teas after it closed for the day. Before we sat down at the dining table, I triple-checked that the house was securely locked up and all the curtains drawn.

I was the last one to sit down at the table. I noticed Brixton had taken large helpings of everything except for the nettle mélange.

“You missed this one of the serving dishes,” I said.

“They stung me when I picked them. You guys are crazy to eat those weeds.”

I was reminded of a story about Frederick the Great, the King of Prussia in the mid-1700s. Many of the poor were starving, but they wouldn't eat a plentiful new food: the potato. Using reverse psychology, the king placed armed guards around the royal potato field. Sure enough, the peasants snuck into the field to steal the potatoes. The French had been similarly tricked into realizing the goodness of the potato by Antoine Parmentier earlier in the century, which is why potato dishes in France often contain the world “Parmentier” in the title.

“I'll fight you for the rest of the Parmentier nettles, Dorian,” I said.

“There is no potat—ah!
Oui
. I mean
non.
This is my celebratory dinner, so I wish to eat all of the nettles. You understand, of course,
mon amie.
”

“Just a little bit. The curry won't be the same without them.”

“Hmm,” Dorian grumbled. He wasn't a bad actor. “I am feeling magnanimous this evening. Please, take the nettles.”

I served a scoop to both myself and Brixton. He didn't say a word, but he ate every bite.

When Brixton reached across the table to collect our empty plates at the end of the meal, Tobias noticed the callouses on his fingertips.

“You must play that guitar a lot.” Tobias nodded toward the guitar case backpack Brixton had left in the corner.

Brixton shrugged.

“It looks like you've got some time before you've gotta get back to help your mom. How about we make some music?”

As Tobias sang “Accidental Life”
and taught Brixton how to play it on the guitar I almost started to feel optimistic. Dorian clapped along until the claw of his left pinky finger broke off.

“
Merde
,” he whispered. He scampered after the claw.

Brixton ceased his strumming and Tobias stopped singing. The sound of Dorian's claws on the hardwood floors echoed through the house.

“You said you were doing better,” Brixton said.

“I am,” Dorian said, holding the broken claw in his hand.

“I'm old enough you don't all have to lie to me,” Brixton said.

“We're not—” I began.

A brisk knock sounded at the front door.

“Dorian,” I whispered, “go up to the attic. If you hear
anyone
coming up besides me, crawl onto the roof. And don't forget to take the knife with you.”

Thirty-Eight

As Dorian limped up
the stairs, I caught snatches of the words he mumbled under his breath, but chose to ignore them.

After I heard the attic door squeak shut, I opened the front door to a familiar face.

“Yo, Max,” Brixton said. He gave the detective a fist bump.

“Sorry to interrupt your … dinner party?” Max said, his gaze floating to the dining table in the open living/dining area.

“This is my old friend, Tobias,” I said. The two men silently appraised each other and shook hands.

“Can I talk to you in private?” Max asked. He was speaking to me, but he kept glancing at Tobias. Was he
jealous
?

I already had a good idea that Max was here to tell me that my gargoyle statue had been stolen from the evidence lock-up. But I hated how we'd left things, so I invited him in rather than stepping outside for a brief chat. I left Brixton and Tobias playing music in the living room, and took Max through to the kitchen.

“What's up?” I asked. I crossed my arms and leaned against the counter.

“I wanted to give you the bad news in person.” Max stood awkwardly, unsure of what to do with his hands and equally unsure how close to stand to me. He shook his head. “It'll keep. I shouldn't have come in person. I didn't think you'd be entertaining. Stupid of me. I'm intruding—”

“You're not intruding, Max.”

“It's not a date?”

“With Tobias?” I laughed. He
was
jealous. “Brixton is here, too, in case you've already forgotten.”

“Right. So you and Tobias—”

“He's a dear old friend. Just like I said. And he's only in town for a couple of days.”

Max stepped closer and lowered his voice. “I'm here about what you told me the other day.”

Panic seized me. He couldn't be here to have me committed, could he? Had my own past deeds come back to haunt me, because I'd once helped institutionalize the man I loved?

“I wasn't myself that day,” I said. “I mean, I don't mean I have psychotic breaks and become another person.” I was making this worse. “Let me start over—”

“We all get tired sometimes, Zoe. It's okay. I know you're into this New Age stuff.”

I swallowed a nervous laugh threatening to surface. The term “New Age” was entirely backward. Being in touch with nature and our own bodies was as old as the world. It was only in recent times that we'd forgotten about it. But Max's words knocked me back to my senses. “I get carried away sometimes.”

“I know you're attached to that statue. That's what I meant about why I'm here. It was stolen, Zoe. The statue was taken from evidence. That's what I wanted to tell you. You must've been right that it's more valuable than we thought.”

I kept my mouth shut, the easiest way to avoid lying about what I already knew. I should have known it wouldn't take long for the police to realize their evidence was missing.

“You're in shock,” Max said, his voice full of concern. “Can I make you some tea? Or should I get your friend? I'd understand if you wanted me to leave. I told you that you could trust me with your valuable possession, but I was wrong. I hope you can forgive me. But really, I'd understand if you simply want me to go.”

When I heard the tenderness in his voice, I knew what I wanted. And it wasn't for him to leave. “Please stay.”

“You sure?”

“Very. But you don't look so sure yourself. What is it, Max?”

“I can't let it go. I just—I don't understand what happened.”

My heart beat in my throat. “You didn't see the thief, did you?”

Max rubbed his brow. “No. We didn't see them. It was a professional operation.”

My body was now completely tense. “Why do you say that?”

“Someone hacked into the security system.”

That wasn't what I'd expected him to say. “Really? How do you know?”

“The video only shows a figure
removing
the statue from the evidence locker. They had a blanket draped over themselves so as not to be seen by the cameras. At the door, they picked the lock, again under the blanket. But none of the cameras caught him
entering
.”

People only see what they want to see.
It never occurred to the police that a piece of evidence could have walked out on his own, so they assumed it was a much more complicated operation than it was.

“Am I under suspicion?” I asked.

“No. I showed the detective your website. He knows you couldn't have pulled this off.”

“Thanks. I think.”

“I can't figure out why it was taken.” Max paced the length of the small kitchen, from the window box herb garden to the off-kilter back door. “There were no fingerprints or trace evidence on the statue.”

“I could have told you that. I keep him—it—well cleaned.”

Max stopped pacing and took my hands in his. They were warm and comforting. “I don't like this, Zoe. I don't like it at all. We don't know what we're up against.”

“I'll be careful, Max. I promise.”

The sound of Tobias's sonorous voice and Brixton's guitar sounded through the door.

“Brixton has gotten really good at the guitar,” Max said with a smile that reminded me why I loved having him in my life. “Your friend has a great voice too. He a musician?”

“Not professionally. He's singing to cheer me up. That's why he came to visit. It's been a rough couple of days. I feel like I've aged two years in the last two days.”

“I know you've been through a lot, Zoe. Losing your little brother when you were young, and now encountering two violent deaths this year.”

I felt my locket against my skin, keeping my brother close to me. “This might sound silly,” I began hesitantly, “but one of the things that helps me deal with death is to embrace it. The Victorians, and other cultures, had a custom of having picnics in cemeteries. Would you like to join me for a picnic at River View Cemetery? It helps me clear my head—”

“Have you been going back there again, Zoe?” Max snapped, anger flashing in his eyes.

His outburst was so unexpected that I jerked backward and bumped into the swinging kitchen door. “What's the matter with you, Max? Ever since you got back from China—”

“I'm sorry, Zoe. I shouldn't have snapped at you. I've been thinking about a lot of things differently since that trip to my grandfather's 100th birthday party. I don't want to lose you.”

“Why would you lose me? We're just getting to know each other. Why are you being so cryptic?”

Max gave a long sigh. “You know I lost my wife, Chadna, not long after we were married. You asked me before what happened to her, but I didn't want to talk about it.”

I thought back to the times I'd been to Max's sparse house. There were only two photographs. A black-and-white one of his grandmother, and one of his wife in vibrant color. His grandmother was photographed inside her apothecary shop in China, her lips unsmiling but her eyes alive. The photograph of Chadna was taken in a field of tulips. Her long black hair flowed almost to her waist, and the loving smile on her face told me Max had taken the photo.

“You weren't ready to tell me,” I said. “That's okay, Max.”

“That wasn't it. It's not about you. It's that I've always wanted to think about the future, not the past.”

That was one of the great things about Max. He didn't press me to tell him about my own past.

I waited for him to go on, but instead he said, “I should go. I'm interrupting your party.”

“They seem perfectly happy without me. Is that the Spinners they're singing now? I'd say you've got quite a while before they even realize I'm not in the room. You were talking about not living in the past.”

“And I was completely wrong. Grandfather had the traditional big sixtieth birthday party when I was a toddler, here in Portland, but this one was different. He's going to die soon, but he was the happiest I've ever seen him. Family and friends from across the world and from every stage of his life visited over the course of a week. They spoke of being helped by him and my grandmother in ways that couldn't possibly be true. The transformations Grandmother made out of herbs weren't magic. She was an apothecary—just a precursor to a pharmacist. But two of Grandfather's guests in particular made it sound as if my grandparents had transformed their lives with magic. And people Grandfather hadn't seen in seventy years made the trip, so he'd truly touched their lives.” He paused. “Looking back
was
looking forward.”

“That sounds beautiful.”

“It also sounds crazy. What's crazier is that I was starting to believe it.”

I squeezed his hand, feeling hope rise within me. Was he closer to understanding than I thought? “It doesn't sound crazy, Max.”

“If you really mean that, then I know you're ready to hear the reason why I became so overprotective when you've mentioned going up to the mudslide area. It's about Chadna.” A sad smile consumed his face. “I should start at the beginning. Her older sister died of cancer when she was young. It's why she wanted to become a doctor in the first place. She thought she could channel her grief into something concrete. She was so driven. I met her during her fourth year of med school. In the ER.”

“She was your doctor?”

“That would have made a nice story, right? But that's not what happened. A friend of mine called me in the middle of the night, needing to go to the emergency room. I drove him, but I'm no good in the middle of the night, and you know I hate coffee, so I promptly fell asleep. She woke me up.” He cringed.

“What's so bad about that?”

“She woke me up with smelling salts. She thought I must have come into the ER for myself and been in such bad shape that I'd passed out. She was brand-new to the ER so she didn't know about proper procedures or anything. She broke the smelling salts right under my nose, and I head-butted her nose. There was blood everywhere.”

My hand flew to my mouth and I tried to stop laughing, but my efforts were in vain.

“It's okay,” he said. “It's impossible not to laugh at that story.”

“It's a wonderful story, Max. That's the kind of thing that keeps a memory alive.”

“It's definitely unforgettable.”

“Was your friend you took to the ER injured on the job?”

“No, he wasn't a cop. I hadn't yet joined the police force. I was aimless until I met Chadna. She was the exact opposite of my woo-woo family.” He laughed sadly. “I told you my grandmother taught me a lot about herbs when I was kid. She and my grandfather lived here with my family until she died, and then my grandfather returned to China. It was my grandmother who was passionate about herbal medicines, talking about the energy of plants and the intent that goes into creating herbal remedies. I always regretted that, shortly before she died, I told her how stupid it all was.” He ran a hand through his thick black hair. “Chadna was nearly finished with her residency when she received her own cancer diagnosis.”

“How long did you have left with her?” I asked, wondering if he was acting so strangely because of how sick I looked. Did he think he'd lose me to cancer too?

“She had a year of cancer treatments. She never lost her smile through the whole thing, but it was even brighter when she beat it.”

“Wait, she was
cured
?”

He nodded. Tears welled in his eyes. “Two weeks after she received the news that she was cancer-free, we were on a weekend getaway to celebrate. We were hiking. We came across a boulder that looked like it would give us a gorgeous view. We climbed up it, and the stone shifted.”

My breath caught.

“She fell,” Max said. “We were supposed to have our whole lives together, but in that moment, it was all taken away.”

“I'm so sorry, Max. That's why you don't want me trekking around that unstable ground above the river.”

“I don't want the same thing to happen to you.” He stepped closer and ran his fingers through my white hair that he, like everyone else, thought was dyed. “There was nothing I could do, but I still blame myself, you know?”

“I know. I—” I broke off. Should I try telling Max the truth again? What would he do if he saw Dorian?

“I should go,” Max said. “You should get back to your friends.”

“Don't go.” I put my hand on his arm and took a deep breath.