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But for the moment...
“It was a dream, and rather a cool one. I was walking around Baltimore...”
“We’re in Baltimore, so that seems...normal, maybe?”
She grinned, rolling onto an elbow to better face him—he’d already gotten up and showered and dressed for the day. He was an early riser—alert and ready to face the world as soon as he opened his eyes.
Vickie...not so much! But she was getting used to early mornings.
“Perfectly normal,” she told him. “It wasn’t a nightmare. It was just a dream. About beautiful old Baltimore—hey, it’s an important city, right? And we are going to go and do some cool things today, aren’t we?”
“Absolutely,” he promised. “Fort McHenry, the Inner Harbor, Federal Hill—”
“Don’t forget the aquarium!” she said.
“I wouldn’t dream of it. But I thought we might want a full day for that. We can do whatever you choose, my love. Anything you would like.”
“You’ve done it all too many times before?” she asked him.
He laughed. “No. I mean, I have done it all before, but not with you, so it’s as if it’s the first time, right?”
“That is an incredibly good suck-up line if I have ever heard one!” she assured him.
She thought that the line might take them somewhere, but he smiled and stepped away from the bed.
“I just have a couple of hours of work first,” he said.
“What?”
“Work. But there’s not much involved at the moment, and not much I can do.” He added quietly, “Franklin Verne—you know who he is?”
“Yep. I’m living and breathing and have ears and eyes. You can’t miss him. What about him?”
“He died last night.”
“Oh, that’s too bad—terribly sad! I’ve seen him speak. I mean, I write nonfiction and he writes fiction, but I’ve been at a number of conferences where he’s been a speaker on a panel. He was charming and very funny...helpful, giving. He’s actually written some historical fiction, and while Verne tended toward horror—some action, some sci-fi and some mystery—he was a wonderful researcher as well.”
“Always the writer!” he teased.
“That’s not going to be a problem, is it?” She’d spoken with other agents and she believed that—assuming she did make it through the academy—she’d still be welcome to write on her own time. It seemed that Krewe agents were, in fact, encouraged to keep up with any previous pursuits.
“It’s fine!” he assured her quickly.
“So what happened to Franklin Verne? I know that he was ill a few years ago—in fact, he joked about it sometimes when he spoke, saying that his wife taught him how to have fun and not be totally boring without a dip in a whiskey vat.”
“Yes, I had heard that he was supposedly as clean as a newborn babe.”
“Supposedly?”
“He was found dead in a wine cellar.”
“In a wine cellar—he didn’t have a wine cellar. I don’t think he even drank wine. When he did drink.”
“Not his wine cellar. But how do you know he didn’t have a wine cellar?”
“He was very open about his health problems, about his wild days—and his love for his wife,” Vickie said. “So, if not his own wine cellar—where then?”
“The Black Bird.”
“What?”
“Amazing. That was my exact reaction when Jackson told me. Want to come with me? I’m on my way there now. Heading off to kowtow to a local cop named Carl Morris.”
Vickie rolled out of bed. “Ten minutes,” she told him.
He nodded; he knew she was telling the truth.
* * *
Vickie and Griffin had both thoroughly enjoyed the Black Bird the night before; the service had been wonderful and the food had been delicious.
Vickie had especially like the decor; the building was 1820s Federal style, and the restaurant had the first two floors and the basement of the building while the remaining three floors above were given over to office space. Upon entering a long hall of a foyer with exposed brick walls and plush red carpeting, you came to the hostess stand. From there it went through to the bar area.
The bar was lined with portraits of Poe and his family; there were framed posters of quotations and more, all having to do with Edgar Allan Poe.
Stairs led from behind the bar to several sections of seats and a few party rooms of various sizes. The main dining room was the first floor, and tables and booths were surrounded by bookshelves.
Of course, not even the master could have written enough to fill the restaurant’s shelves; it was an eclectic mix of secondhand novels. The venue had charmingly been planned on the concept that every diner was welcome to take a book, and, naturally, you were welcome to leave a book or books as well.
New editions of Poe books were sold in the gift shop, which was conveniently on the way out, at the back of the restaurant. Of course, one could leave through the front door, but the bookshop was like a minimuseum, and Vickie sincerely doubted that many people ignored it. Their waiter—he’d introduced himself as Jon—told them that though the restaurant was comparatively new, they attracted a lot of local, repeat clientele, for which they were very grateful. But locals didn’t tend to shop for souvenirs, unless they were entertaining out-of-town friends. Since they were happily playing tourist, Vickie and Griffin made sure to visit the shop. Lacey Shaw, the woman working the little boutique, was a bit of a Poe aficionado, and she assured them that even the locals loved to come in and chat.
And their waiter was also quite the enthusiast. “Seriously, poor Poe was much maligned in life, but most of the time, the people who wrote about him were seriously jealous competitors, so of course they tried to make him out to be nothing but a drunk with delusions of grandeur. In truth? He was brilliant. You do know that we credit him with the creation of the modern detective novel? ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’! What an imagination the man had!” Jon had told them, eyes bright with his admiration. He might be a waiter there, but he truly loved the works of the man and had studied his life.
“I promise you, we’ll not argue Poe’s brilliance,” Griffin had assured him.
Jon had gone on, “But people love the restaurant because of the library. It’s not a new idea but what a great one—bring a book, take a book! Or just take a book. Well, okay—buy a shiny new one in the gift shop, too. I love working here! Gary Frampton—the owner—is a wonderful man. I’m crazy about him. Alice—the lovely girl with the long blond hair who greeted you as a hostess tonight—is his daughter.”
It wasn’t “lovely Alice” who met them then, though, by light of the next day.
It was an officer in uniform.
Griffin produced his credentials, and the officer gruffly told him to go on downstairs to the wine cellar.
The stairs were brick, as old as the building, but well maintained. As they descended, the air got cooler. The cellar was climate controlled but obviously didn’t need much help. It was stone, deep in the ground near the harbor, and naturally protected from the heat of a mid-Atlantic summer.
A tall, slim man who somewhat reminded Vickie of Lurch from The Addams Family was standing quietly in the center of the main room. Crime-scene techs—easily identifiable by their jackets—were moving about, collecting what evidence could be found.
The body of Franklin Verne remained, giving Vickie a moment’s pause.
She had known him in life. She had seen him when he had smiled, gestured, moved and laughed.
And now, of course, the man she had known—if only casually—was gone. What remained, she felt, was a shell.
She glanced at Griffin. They both felt it.
Yes, Franklin Verne was definitely gone. Nothing of his soul lingered.
At least, not here.
The dead man was seated in a chair near a desk; it was a period piece, Victorian era, she thought. Fitting for the place, but it had a modern computer with a nice monitor, along with a printer/scanner, and baskets most probably from Office Depot that held papers and mail and more.
The desk, however, was next to an old potbellied stove. In winter, it might have warmed up the place a bit, for those condemned to keep the wine company on a cold night.
Franklin Verne had died slumped back in the chair. His eyes were eerily open. A man in scrubs and a mask worked over him—the ME, Vickie assumed.
“Detective Morris?” Griffin asked, stepping forward to introduce himself. Vickie knew that Griffin would follow every courtesy, thanking the detective first and then speaking with the ME.
The Lurch-like man turned toward him, nodding, studying him and then offering him a hand.
“Special Agent Pryce?” Morris asked.
“Yes, sir. Thank you for the courtesy. Our supervising director is friends with Mrs. Verne, as I suppose you’ve heard.”
“Yes,” Morris said, looking at Vickie.
“Ms. Victoria Preston,” Griffin said, introducing her. “Vickie is heading down to start at the academy in a few weeks.”
“Excellent,” Morris said, nodding. He lifted his hands. “Sad thing. I’ve been standing here, looking around, hoping that something brilliant might come to me. I can’t say I knew Mr. Verne—he was local, but he and Mrs. Verne were only in residence part of the year these days. He’s a popular personage around here. There are wild tales of him back in the day, but he never stopped giving to the city police, and he was involved in a number of charitable enterprises.”
“I’ve heard he was a very good man,” Griffin said. “Vickie knew him.”
“I didn’t exactly know him,” she corrected. “We met several times at conferences. I write nonfiction books,” she explained.
It was certainly not something that was at all impressive to Detective Morris. “Perhaps this is uncomfortable for you,” he said, “being in here. Since you know the victim. And you are a civilian.”
“Accepted into the academy,” Griffin said.
“I’m fine,” she assured Morris, glad that Griffin had so quickly—and indignantly—come to her defense.
Morris turned to the man working with the corpse. “Dr. Myron Hatfield, Special Agent Pryce, Ms. Preston. Dr. Hatfield is, in my opinion, one of the finest medical examiners to ever grace the Eastern coast,” he said.
Hatfield straightened. He was tall, too, probably about fifty, with steel-gray hair and a good-sized frame; he was built like a linebacker or a fighter. But he had a quick—if slightly grim—smile. “Nice to meet you. Sorry about the circumstances. I’d met Mr. Verne, too, at a fund-raiser for a local children’s hospital. He seemed a good man. And...well, the night I met him, he looked great.” He looked as if he was about to say more. He shrugged. “I really won’t know much of anything until I get him into the morgue.”
“Doctor,” Griffin said. “My field supervisor suggested that he died of a mix of alcohol and drugs.”
Hatfield hesitated. “His mouth... Well, a layman could smell the alcohol. The condition of the body suggests a catastrophic shutdown of organs. But we need tests. I need to complete an autopsy. I hope that my words haven’t gone any further.”
“No, sir,” Griffin assured him. He turned back to Morris. “No one saw him come down here—they’ve spoken to all the employees?” he asked.
“It was a late night. The manager didn’t close up until almost three in the morning,” Morris said. “The place was, according to him, completely empty. We’re still trying to contact all the night staff, but the last thing the manager does is check the basement—the wine cellar here—and see that the shelves are locked for the night.” He pointed. “Master switch there. You can see that most of the shelves have cages. Some of these wines are worth thousands of dollars.”
“And there’s no other way in than by the stairs? What about cameras?” Griffin asked.
“None down here, but there are cameras at the front door and the back door, which is really more of a side door, by the gift shop.”
“We were here last night,” Vickie said.
“Oh?” Morris asked, a brow politely raised a half notch.
“Yes, but we were early birds, comparatively. We were gone by eleven,” Griffin said. “Ironic—our waiter was wishing that Franklin Verne would pay a visit and endorse the restaurant.”
“He’s endorsed it now, all right,” Hatfield said.
“So tragically!” Vickie said.
Morris grunted. “Yes, but people are ghouls. The place will be booked for years to come now—it’s where Franklin Verne mysteriously died!”
None of them could argue that. “Detective, may I walk around?” Griffin asked.
Detective Morris nodded. “I’ve been here almost two hours. Can’t figure it myself, but I don’t believe he vaporized or said, ‘Beam me up, Scotty!’ There’s something here. I’m mulling. You knock yourself out.”
“We’re about to take the body,” Hatfield said quietly.
“Thank you,” Griffin said. Vickie kept her distance. She was startled when she heard Griffin ask Hatfield, “I heard he was holding a raven?”
“The kind they sell in the gift shop, right upstairs,” Hatfield said.
“Bagged it as evidence,” Morris said. He pointed to the desk, where the raven lay in a clear plastic evidence bag.
“Thanks,” Griffin said. He lifted the bag. He and Vickie both studied it.
Vickie had noted other ravens just like it at the gift shop the night before; they were cheap plastic, cost no more than a cup of coffee—perfect little souvenirs that brought back a memory and made you smile.
“There were three dead blackbirds by the body?” Griffin asked.
Morris lowered his head in acknowledgment. “They’re in the evidence bags at the end of the desk. Take a look—knock yourself out. I guess what’s going to matter is how they died, and that falls in Dr. Hatfield’s territory.”
“Actually, it’s a necropsy—but we have a fellow on staff who deals with all animals that aren’t of the human variety,” Hatfield said. “And we’ll keep you apprised every step of the way.”
“Thanks,” Griffin said. “They are blackbirds, right? Not young crows or ravens?”
“Blackbirds,” Hatfield agreed. “The size alone gives us that.”
Vickie held where she was, watching Griffin’s broad back as he headed down the rows of carefully shelved wine.
After all, he was an agent; she wasn’t sure what procedure would be. It was best in this situation to let Griffin move forward without her.
And...
