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Adam jutted his jaw forward and shook his head. “You’re right, Iris. I can think of no good motive the demon could have for dropping this thing off and tempting me to have y’all use it.” For a moment his eyes softened. “But y’all have to appreciate that I have an unsolved murder or three hanging over my head.” I mentally tabulated the body count: Tucker, of course; then there was Ryder, whose corpse my mother had dumped in the Tillandsia house. Had Oliver told him about Ryder’s woman, Birdy? “If I blow this investigation too, my career is going to be over.”
“Oh,” Oliver said, his eyes open wide. “I thought this was about finding justice for the poor woman Wren and associates have been hacking up.”
Adam’s head jerked back. He blinked. “That’s unfair—”
“Damn right it’s unfair.” The words were out of my mouth before I even realized I was going to say them. I might as well finish the thought. “Adam has bent over backward to protect our family.” My index finger was up, and it was pointing. “You reel that smart mouth of yours back in, or I will smack it for you myself.”
“There will be no smacking anybody.” Iris did some finger pointing of her own, this time in my direction.
“I didn’t mean it,” I said, feeling like a chastised six-year-old. “I just mean we owe it to Adam to deal with this in a way that doesn’t leave him hanging.”
“Damn,” Oliver said, his chest puffed out and a lopsided grin on his face, delighted I had stood up for Adam, even if it meant standing up to him. “I’m really starting to miss the days when Mercy didn’t like you so much.”
We were all struck silent when the pendulum stopped dead and pulled toward the map like it had been magnetized. With his free hand Adam patted the pocket of his suit coat and retrieved a ballpoint pen. He clicked it and made an X on the map at a point near Columbia Square. He’d evidently been satisfied with the preliminary result of his experiment. He looked up at us. “It’s a hit.”
He lifted the pendulum and it instantly began swinging again. It fell with a thump on a second point. Adam had no sooner inked a mark near the cartoonish representation of Christ Church than the pendulum’s weight bounced back into the air. It landed again on East Bay Street, near the point where it crosses Whitaker. Before Adam could mark the map, the pendulum bounced across the river and landed on Hutchison Island, right where the Talmadge Bridge crosses over the parkway. Adam seemed shocked by his own success, so much so that he didn’t even bother trying to mark the spot.
The weight jumped back up and began to spin again, but this time instead of widdershins it moved clockwise. It dove again with such force the weight punched a hole through the caricature of a spitting lion that marked the location of the Cotton Exchange fountain. We’d find a permanent divot in the tabletop once the map was moved, of that much I was sure.
“Dang!” Adam exclaimed and dropped the chain. He hopped up and ran to the sink, turning on the cold-water tap and putting his hand under the stream. “The damned thing burned me.”
“Let me see.” Iris rose and joined him at the sink. “Just a burn. Magical in origin, but natural in effect. Let me get some ice for that.”
Adam shook his hand once, twice. “No. That’s okay. It’ll be fine.”
“Tough guy,” Oliver said as he took hold of Adam’s pen and marked the locations Adam had missed. Adam and Iris returned and studied the defaced map. “All right, does anyone see a pattern?”
“Four of the five are hits for where we’ve found body parts.” Adam swiped the pen from Oliver’s grasp and drew somewhat shaky lines between the points. He tapped at the map with his finger, pointing to the scrawls he had made. “There. Is that witch writing? What does that symbol mean to y’all?”
“It means you are grasping at straws,” Iris answered shaking her head. “I’m sorry, Adam, I can discern no pattern in the markings.”
I leaned in and picked up the pendulum. It still felt warm to the touch. “I don’t see any pattern in the markings, but the pendulum spun left when it hit on places where you have found remains. It spun right before hitting on the fountain. I suspect that’s where the next part is gonna turn up.”
I no sooner got the words out than Adam’s cell rang. He swiped it off the table and looked at the caller ID. “Cook,” he answered before it had the chance to ring a third time. His eyes locked on to mine. “Yes. I understand. Cordon it off. Keep the tourists back. I’ll be right there.” He hung up and dropped his phone into his pocket.
“Her torso—headless—has turned up at the fountain.” His face fell. He looked suddenly older, defeated. I realized he really had been holding out hope he’d somehow save this woman. I didn’t know whether to think of it as optimism or denial, but I liked him even more for it. “I gotta get back to work.” He focused on me. “You keep close to your family for now, okay? No more sauntering around on your own.”
“Okay.”
He looked at Oliver. “Walk me out?”
“Yeah.” Oliver went to the sink and rinsed out the dirty pie tin. “I should get going too,” he said and turned to give Iris a kiss on the cheek.
“Thanksgiving. Two p.m. Thursday, you two,” she called out after the men. “Don’t be late.”
“I’ll do my best.” Adam opened the door to the garden.
“Which means keep a plate in the oven, but don’t wait up.” Oliver pushed Adam out the door.
Iris turned to me. “I should have let you smack him.”
“Yes, ma’am, you should have.”
THREE
“I just caught the menfolk smooching in the driveway.” Ellen came in and sat her purse on the table next to the map. “Adam informed me that we delicate ladies are no longer to be wandering the streets of the wicked city of Savannah by ourselves.”
“The poor man’s ego has suffered enough.” Iris went to the cupboard and pulled down three mugs. “Let him believe he is protecting us, rather than the other way around. I’m not sure how he’d react if he knew we three fainting flowers have woven a cage of protective magic around him.”
