Emma Shipler’s house in Ravenswood had two stories and an attic, along with a small front lawn and a narrow porch. Vivian was waiting on a bench when Rachel and I came up the steps.
“Thanks for coming,” I said. “This is Rachel, my associate. She’s here because she’s psychic.”
“A little,” Rachel said.
Vivian nodded absently, then took out her keys and opened the front door. We followed her inside.
On the right side of the foyer a living room extended halfway through the house, with two sofas, several armchairs, several tall bookcases, and a vast Persian rug. It smelled of dust and cat litter. A staircase pointed the way up to the second floor.
Vivian stood in front of the staircase, staring at a small table. “There was a vase. It’s gone.”
A cat marched across the living and made a demanding meow. Vivian scowled. “I have to come over every few days to feed him. I don’t even know its name. Give me a second.”
She walked across the living room to the kitchen. Rachel and I checked out the bookshelves. We found books on yoga, stamp collecting, art, health and nutrition, ancient history, and cat care. No witchcraft.
Vivian came back. “There are some cookbooks missing. And a painted teapot. She’s been here. Mina. Like I said, she’s mad that I got the house. I mean, I would have given her whatever she wanted if she asked, but now—” She shook her head.
I looked at Rachel. “Anything?”
She closed her eyes for a moment. “Not here. But upstairs.”
We climbed the stairs. The second floor had two bedrooms, a linen closet, and an office. It was small for the three of us—a desk, bookshelves, books on the floor, a desk lamp that provided the only light, and a small rug under our feet.
“The notebook was right there.” Vivian pointed to the top of the desk, which was covered with yellow legal pads, pens, and loose sheets of paper.
The desk chair tilted unsteadily when Rachel sat down. She picked up a legal pad and flipped the pages up, looking at sketches of yoga poses, flowers, birds, and faces.
“I can feel . . . . something. Around me.” She picked up a drawing of a penguin. “Not dark magic, just the light, frothy kind.” She swiveled in the chair to look at the nearest shelves. There were books on Tarot, astral projection, reincarnation, genealogy, ancient history, and lots more.
She found a gap on the shelf and tapped her finger between two books. “It was here. Something important. It was there for a long time, so it left a—an impression.”
“What does she mean?” Vivian asked me.
“Maybe a book of spells?” I asked Rachel.
She shrugged. “Maybe. I can’t—”
“What’s that?” Vivian lifted an arm.
The house was quiet. The air was still. But we all heard the sound of a door downstairs closing, and then a meow from the cat.
Vivian darted through the office door. I followed. Footsteps were coming up the stairs. I reached into my jacket for my pepper spray. Rachel was behind me.
“Who’s there?” Vivian called.
A woman’s head rose into view. “Vivian? Oh, hello. I didn’t think anyone would be here—”
“What the hell, Mina?” Vivian took a step forward. “This is my house now! You can’t just come in here and walk around as you please!”
“This is my sister’s house, and I’ll—” She stopped and looked at me, then Rachel. “Who’s this?”
“This is a private detective who works for me. Tom Jurgen. And Rachel—I didn’t catch your last name.” She gestured. “This is my other aunt, Mina Hamilton. I told you about her.”
I handed Mina a card. “That’s me.”
She stared at the card. “A private detective?” In her 70s, she was slim and fit, with silvery hair. She wore a dark blue pantsuit with a large purse slung over one shoulder.
Vivian shifted on her feet. “Emma was—I wanted to know how she was getting money from people, she had this whole list of people, so I—” She stopped. “Did you take that vase from downstairs? And that teapot?”
Before she could answer I asked a question of my own: “Did you take anything from inside that office?”
Mina blinked. “Emma’s my sister. I took her in when she didn’t have anyone. Do you know how she got this house? The man she married—”
“The book,” Vivian cut in. “Did you take a book?”
Mina glared at the three of us. “I don’t have to answer your questions. Emma’s my sister. I still can’t believe she’s dead. I still don’t—”
She glared at the three of us, then whirled around and stalked down the stairs.
“I want that vase back!” Vivian shouted just before the door slammed.
Rachel and I looked at each other. Domestic squabbles are always uncomfortable to witness.
“Did she take the book?” I asked.
Rachel snorted. “Of course. You don’t need psychic powers for that.”
The question was, what book? Vivian was still glaring at the stairway. I went back into the office.
There was no technology anywhere, no computer or printer. Sitting down, I started opening desk drawers. I found decks of Tarot cards and regular playing cards, a half-empty pack of cigarettes, Post-it note pads in various colors, boxes of paperclips and staples, and a roll of stamps—the usual desk clutter.
In the bottom drawer I found some photocopied pages stapled together. They were lists of phrases in a language I didn’t recognize, with brief translations: cure toothache, crack in road, falling pot, itchy balls . . . I showed it to Rachel.
She shrugged. “List of spells? I don’t feel anything supernatural about it.” She held it up. “Let me try this one for itchy balls.”
I yanked it back and swiveled the chair to the bookcase. From one side of the gap where the missing book had rested I pulled a slim volume with the title LOVE SPELLS FOR THE LOVELORN running down the spine. It contained pages of spells for making people fall in love, interspersed with what looked like typical Dear Abby-style advice for finding love.
The book on the other side of the gap was thick, with Roman numeral II embossed on the cover. On the second page inside I found the full title: CURSES SIMPLE TO SINISTER: II.
I handed it to Rachel. She smiled. “Yeah. This is the real deal.”
She opened it to a random page. “Hair: Make your enemy’s hair fall out. Turn your enemy’s hair gray. Twist your enemy’s hair in knots. Make your enemy’s hair grow uncontrollably.” She flipped through the pages. “Pretty handy for the everyday prankster. I wonder how sinister it really gets.”
“It’s book two,” I said. “And book one is gone.” I looked at Vivian. “We need to find out for sure if your aunt took book one. Along with the vase and the teapot and whatever else is missing.”
She leaned back against the doorway. “Whatever she has of Emma’s is mine. But—well, I should probably be a little nicer to her. Emma didn’t treat her very good.”
“But the book in the wrong hands could be dangerous,” I said.
“I definitely wouldn’t put it in the estate sale,” Rachel said. “I mean, I might buy it. For a reasonable price. Just to keep Tom in line.”
Vivian smiled for the first time since I’d met her. “I’ll give Mina a call.”
Vivian called me the next morning. “There’s, uh, a problem.”
“What kind of problem?” I put my coffee down to listen.
“We’re done with what I hired you for, so this—I don’t know. I guess it’s a new case. The thing is, Mina doesn’t have the book anymore. A friend of hers stole it.”
Uh-oh. “What friend?”
“Maybe you’d better call her. I talked to her for a long time last night. She’s—Emma could be difficult to deal with. I kind of see that now. Maybe she has a right to some of what’s in the house. But we really need to get that book back from—from the guy who has it. He sounds like bad news.”
Great. “I’ll see what I can do. Can you give me Mina’s number?”
Rachel came in a few minutes later. “No class until three. No hard deadlines. It’s not a day off, but I’ll take it.” She sank down into her chair. “What’s up?”
“The book of curses was stolen.” I was in the middle of tapping out Mina’s number. “More bulletins as they come in.” The phone buzzed.
“Hello?”
“Mina Hamilton? This is Tom Jurgen. I just spoke with your niece.”
“Oh. Yes. Just a second.” I heard movement, then, “Yes. I took the book from Emma’s house. I thought—well, I knew how she was using it. I just thought I could do the same thing.”
“How did that work for you?”
A bitter laugh. “My sister was—she had a way about her. She made friends instantly. Not friends, exactly. I don’t think she had any real friends, not even the men she married. She liked people, she enjoyed having a wide circle of people around her, but what she really wanted was people she could depend on to help her when she needed it. People to use. She wasn’t a bad person, really. We didn’t—well, she didn’t leave me anything in her estate, but you don’t want to hear how I let her live with me and supported her when she couldn’t find anyone else to put up with her or lend her money, but that’s why I felt like I had a right to some things.”
“Like the book.”
“And the vase. I’ll give that back. And I just don’t know that many people I could—even if I could really do those curses or spells or whatever they are, I don’t have enough friends that I could do that to, or get away with it. But Jonah—he’s my boyfriend—I think Jonah took it, and I’m a little afraid of what he’s going to do with it.”
That didn’t sound good. “Maybe we should talk in person, Ms. Hamilton. Could I meet you somewhere?”
“Well, I suppose you could come here. Where are you now?”
She gave me her address, a condo near the Gold Coast. I promised to be there in an hour.
“Book of curses gone?” Rachel said when I hung up. “Sounds like bad news.”
“Could be. She doesn’t trust her boyfriend.”
“I know the feeling.” She smirked. “Kidding! I trust you as far as I can throw you, and I think I could throw you pretty far.”
“If you had to, yes.” I sent an email to Vivian Vogel, sent a few other emails dealing with different cases, and finished my coffee. “Not much work today?”
“No homework. I’ve got a website redesign coming up, but nothing urgent. That doesn’t mean I’m available for another road trip with you—I want to have at least part of a day for just me and my stuff.”
“That’s fair.” She’s been working hard for close to two years. “I’ll let you know if I’m going anywhere else.” I stood up. “Enjoy your day.”
“Toodles.” She was already at her keyboard.
I could see the highway in the distance through the west-looking window of Mina Hamilton’’s condo. We sat with coffee in her living room, which was dominated by a huge sectional sofa, an avant-garde painting on one wall, and a rubber plant almost as tall as me.
“I met Jonah at a dinner party with some other friends, about six months ago.” She crossed her ankles. Today she was wearing dark slacks and a gray silk blouse. “I don’t date, just so you understand. I’ve been single, I was married, and then my husband died, and I’ve been basically happy on my own ever since. But Jonah was, well . . .”
She looked away from me, embarrassed, and picked up her phone. “Here’s a picture. He’s handsome, a little younger than me, and flirty—not raunchy or anything. There was just something different about him.”
I looked at her phone. Jonah had black hair, receding just a little on the top, and dark eyes and a firm chin. In his 40s, like me. Attractive, in a polo shirt and a smirk on his face.
“We dated, and it—progressed. It wasn’t very serious at first, but as time went on we got comfortable with each other. When Emma died and I didn’t get anything, I was upset, and I told him about it. I mean, Emma was always on some new scheme to make money, never sticking with anything because things didn’t work out and it was never her fault, and if she hadn’t met her third husband and gotten that house after he died she would have—”
Mina’s voice had been rising. She stopped, took a deep breath, and shook her head. “I apologize. The point is, yes, I had some resentment for her, and I told Jonah about it, and he, well, encouraged me to make it right.”
“Did he push you to do it?”
“He knew that Emma practiced witchcraft. I never took it seriously, but our grandmother, she could do things like make people sick if they annoyed her, or help someone who needed a little bit of luck. And Emma was fascinated. She was devastated when she died, and then she went on a genealogy kick to find out everything she could about that side of the family. I don’t know what she found. But I did know a little about what she was doing to make money the last few years. And I told him.”
She sighed. “Yeah. He pushed me. Nothing obvious. I swear he didn’t know anything about Emma when we met, that’s not what this is about. Maybe he just thought I was loaded and he could get some money out of being nice to me. I’m not a kid, Mr. Jurgen.” She glared, not exactly at me, but in my direction. “I stopped looking for true love after my second husband divorced me. Ever since, I look out for me, and I don’t make a secret out of it. Does that offend you?”
I shook my head. “I can’t afford to judge anyone in this job, not if I want to keep working. Right now I’m just working for your niece. Where does Jonah live?”
“He’s got an apartment up north. I know the address, but I’ve never been there. We mostly came here.” She waved a hand around. “I got the feeling he liked it here, and not just for me.”
“When could he have taken the book?”
“I took it a week ago. He was here Saturday night. I haven’t seen him since, so he must have taken it then.”
Today was Wednesday. “No calls or texts? Is that unusual?”
“We usually text every other day. We’re not very lovey-dovey.” She rolled her eyes.
I had finally reached the question I’d come here to ask. I looked her in the eyes. “Would you feel comfortable calling and asking Jonah about the book?”
Her phone sat on a table next to her. She looked at it for a moment, looked at me, and grimaced. She picked it up. “Let’s see.”
She tapped a few keys and waited. After a moment she frowned. “Voicemail.” She hung up.
I thought for a minute. “Send him a text.”
Mina hesitated. “I suppose. I can’t have him stealing things from me. Especially my sister’s things. If I’m wrong—well, I guess I’ve already decided I don’t trust him. All right.”
She tapped on her phone, hit send, then showed me the text: Do you have that book from my sister’s house? I need it back.
“Let’s wait and see,” I said.
She finished off her coffee, nervous, then took our cups into the kitchen for more. She came back with a plate of cookies too.
We waited for 15 minutes. I ate two cookies, just to be polite. And because I was hungry. Okay, mostly because I was hungry.
Mina picked up her phone one last time. “How long do you want to wait?” She obviously didn’t want me hanging around all day.
I couldn’t blame her, so I stood up. “Could I have his address?”
Her eyes narrowed. “What are you going to do?”
“Just check it out. I won’t go pounding on his door.” Although if I spotted Jonah, I might tail him. “Can you let me know if he contacts you?”
She gave me the address. I thanked her, and went back to my car.
Jonah’s apartment was in the Lakeview neighborhood. I found the building and sat in my car watching the front door. People came in and out: a UPS delivery, a woman walking her dog, a couple arguing. I turned on the radio.
The building didn’t have a doorman, just a vestibule with an intercom. A mail carrier went in and started stuffing mailboxes. The woman came back with her dog. I changed the radio station. I was getting hungry.
After an hour I decided I was wasting my time and my client’s money. I called her to see if she’d heard anything, and what she wanted me to do. Then maybe I could get lunch. I found her number on my phone. One buzz. Two—
“Where are you? I can’t talk right now. Mina’s in the hospital.” She sounded out of breath.
What the hell? “What happened?”
“She fell. She was just talking down the street, and suddenly she fell, and there are fractures in her pelvis and she might have a concussion, I’m waiting for the doctors—”
“She just fell? No one pushed her? Just out of nowhere?”
“That’s what she said. She was just done talking to Jonah, and—”
“Wait, she was talking to Jonsh?”
“Yeah, after you left he called her, and—oh, no. Do you think . . . ?”
I definitely did think. “What hospital?”
