"Kenzie always throws the best parties," Freda said, grinning at Howard's side.
Howard nodded absently, glancing around at the dimly lit room as they entered. The place was packed with what appeared to be nearly fifty people. Personally he found it odd that anyone would want to spend a birthday hosting a big party for others, but as he spotted Kenzie gliding through the masses, laughing and hugging all within reach, he noted that she seemed to derive her own sort of pleasure from catering to hordes of her friends and acquaintances.
Then again, Howard had never really liked big parties much. They were always too loud and crowded for any interesting conversation. He supposed he was just being bitter.
"Think I'm gonna go and dance," Freda said, her eye on the purple lights illuminating a patch of the floor across the room. "You want to come, too?"
"I'm good, thanks," Howard said, taking a seat in a chair by an empty table. "You wouldn't want to see me dance, believe me."
With a giggle, Freda disappeared into the crowd. Howard let out a wide yawn and leaned his head back so that his sore neck rested on the back of the chair.
He'd stayed at the office till nearly midnight the night before, poring over files and photographs of the Skull Smasher case to the point where his own skull felt like it was caving in. Ever since the arrest of Platt and his gang for conspiracy to murder, assault on an Auror, and assault on a Muggle, they had failed to acquire any new leads, especially after it was revealed that Platt had a genuine alibi for one of the Skull Smasher murders. Still, Howard had written up a list of possible lines of inquiry he could follow up on first thing Monday, and he now found himself going through it in his head, wondering if there was anything he could have missed.
"Hello, Howard."
Howard looked up, blinking as if dazed. "Oh—hi, Nellie."
Nellie sat down across from Howard. She was accompanied by a straight-backed, well-tailored man who took a seat beside her. "We seem to have derailed your train of thought," the man said with a smile of apology.
"Er, no, it's fine, derail away," Howard said, waving his hand casually in the pair's direction. "Sorry—have we met?" he added, squinting in the man's direction.
"Howard, this is Mark," Nellie informed him, "Mark Peterson. Mark, this is Howard Kruse."
"Pleasure to meet you." Mark Peterson offered Howard his hand.
Howard replied, "Yeah, you—you, too. I've heard loads about you, of course." He was a little surprised; from the way Howard's colleagues spoke of Peterson, Howard had always pictured the ex-Auror to be built like a warrior, sturdy and dense; instead Peterson would not have been out of place as a waiter at an expensive restaurant.
"Nothing too bad, I hope?" Peterson said, shaking Howard's hand with a firm grip. Howard replied with trembling laughter and a shake of his head, recalling that he had never been quite sure why Peterson, who looked no older than Nellie or Tristan, had quit being an Auror in the first place.
"I, uh, heard you were a teacher?" Howard said, recalling a remark Nellie had made a few weeks ago.
"I've only just started," Peterson said, folding his hands in front of him. "Just yesterday, in fact. It's really rather fun—I've always found bright young minds a delight to be around. Speaking of," Peterson opened out his palm in Howard's direction, "I hear you've done some brilliant work yourself. Nellie tells me you're very good at connecting the dots. I imagine that was what you were doing before my unfortunately timed interruption?"
"Oh—yeah, it's kind of a bad habit," Howard said. "I can never stop thinking about cases."
"A most regrettable occupational hazard," Mark said. "I'm afraid I was often guilty of it myself. I imagine they have you assigned to the Skull Smasher case?"
"We can't discuss ongoing cases, you know that, Mark," Nellie said with an amused smile. "But I can tell you Howard's filled your shoes quite nicely."
"No, no, I'm just doing the best I can," Howard said modestly as he glanced over Mark's shoulder, making eye contact with Freda as she gave him a little wave before she disappeared into the crowd once again. When Howard glanced back at Mark, Mark was nodding, and his eyes were staring intensely into Howard's. While this normally would have put Howard slightly on edge, instead he felt strangely calmed. He had Mark's full attention.
It was Monday morning when Scarlett found herself staring at the bright red telephone box standing on the pavement in front of her. Clenching her fist around the strap of her purse and steeling her resolve, she marched towards the phone box and yanked open the door.
"Thought I might find you here."
Scarlett whirled around. Howard was standing just behind her, his hands tucked into his pockets, the corner of his lip curled up a little as if he was trying to hold back a smirk.
"Can't say the same about you," Scarlett said, shutting the door to the phone box again and leaning back against it. "Or have you been waiting for me here every morning?"
"I figured today would be the day you'd show up," Howard said. "You'd take at least a couple of days off, and you wouldn't come over on the weekend, so here we are today."
"And what if I never showed?" said Scarlett, crossing her arms.
"Well, there was something I wanted to follow up on," said Howard, turning around and heading into a nearby alleyway. "Want to join me?"
Scarlett chuckled and followed him down the alleyway. There were no cars in sight; they were alone. "Er, what exactly are we doing here?"
"Watch," said Howard, "and don't be alarmed." He stuck out his right arm over the kerb.
There was a loud BANG as a vividly purple, massive triple-decker bus appeared out of nowhere and turned into the alleyway, screeching to a stop directly in front of them. The words 'The Knight Bus' were written in gold over the windshield. A scrawny man in his forties with large ears and stubble stepped out wearing a matching purple uniform and began to speak.
"Welcome to the Knight Bus, emergency transport for the stranded—"
"Auror Office," said Howard, cutting the man off and showing him his badge. "We have a few questions for you, Stan."
The man fidgeted, looking extremely uncomfortable. "Can't stop. Tight schedule." He stepped back into the bus and called out, "Take it away—"
"You haven't done anything wrong, Stan, there's no need to worry," Howard said, putting his foot against the bus door to keep it from shutting all the way. "Just a quick question—do you recognise this woman?"
"I dunno, we get all sorts on 'ere," Stan said, squinting at Howard's photograph of Carol Blumstein. "Might 'ave—'ang on—Carol, was it? Flagged us down 'bout a week or two ago."
"Where did you pick her up?" Howard asked.
"Didn't, did we?" Stan said with a scowl.
"What do you mean?" said Howard.
"Changed 'er mind, never came on, did she?" Stan said. "Thanked us for the trouble and went on 'er merry way."
"Did you notice anything unusual about her?" Scarlett asked, looking at Stan with renewed interest.
"Now you mention it, she did look all glassy-eyed for a moment before she left," Stan said.
Howard frowned. "Do you think anyone on the bus saw her?"
"Nope, she never came in," Stan answered. "And it was night, see, everyone was sleepin'."
"What time was this?"
"Bit before five in the mornin'."
"And did you see anyone else with her? Anyone nearby?"
"Too dark to see. Can we get a move on, now?" Stan's eyes darted uneasily behind his shoulder.
"Of course, yeah," Howard said. "Thanks for your time."
Howard removed his foot, and with another BANG the bus vanished from sight.
"He seemed nervous," Scarlett remarked as they made their way back to the phone box.
"He was imprisoned on false charges twenty years ago," Howard said. "Then some bad people broke him out, put him under the Imperius curse—"
"What's that?" Scarlett asked.
"Mind control," Howard said, opening the door for the phone box for her. She stepped inside and he followed, shutting the door behind them. "In fact, I have a feeling that might have been what happened to Blumstein. We know she died at ten minutes past five, so the killer must have been extremely quick about dismembering her. That would have been much easier if she'd been entirely complacent." He picked up the phone dialled six two four four two.
"Welcome to the Ministry of Magic," said a cool female voice. "Please state your name and business."
"Howard Kruse, Auror Office, Homicide Division," Howard spoke in a loud, clear voice. "I'm here with Scarlett Brewster, Special Consultant."
"Thank you. Visitor, please take the badge and attach it to the front of your robes."
Scarlett extracted a silver badge from the coin return and pinned it to the front of her shirt. "'Special Consultant'?" she repeated, glancing down at the badge's text.
"You know, like in the detective stories," Howard said.
"You know there's no such thing as consultant detectives in real life?" Scarlett said with a smile.
"You know there's no such thing as magic in real life?" Howard said, matching her smile with one of his own as the floor of the telephone box began to sink into the ground.
"The Ministry of Magic wishes you a pleasant day," said the woman's voice.
An inordinate amount of being an Auror was paperwork. Nellie found herself sorting through files once again when Scarlett and Howard made their way into the office.
"I see you're well-rested, Scarlett," Nellie said, glancing up with a quick smile at them both before returning to her work. "Welcome back."
"Did your boss change your mind about me?" Scarlett asked, taking a seat beside Nellie and glancing over at the files dangling in the air in front of them.
"Not exactly," Nellie admitted. "I went over his head. Our Office Head's much less prejudiced against Muggles."
"Oh," said Scarlett, "is that the one who's a celeb—"
"Hey," Kenzie said, striding in with a clipboard in hand. "Take a look at what Toby found." He passed the clipboard over to Nellie, who accepted it with a careful glance.
"Sylvester Waterford?" Nellie said, frowning at the name she'd read aloud from the clipboard. "Wasn't that Hal Ward's business partner?"
"Hal Ward?" repeated Scarlett.
"Victim number two," Kenzie explained. "I don't think we've met! I'm Kenzie Birch, I'm the Necropser."
"Like a medical examiner," Howard added for Scarlett's benefit.
"Scarlett Brewster," said Scarlett Brewster. "Private—er, Special Consultant. What's on the clipboard?"
"Waterford was indicted by the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office ten months ago for—well, misusing a Muggle artefact," Nellie said, returning the clipboard to Kenzie. "Several, actually. Medieval torture devices."
"What?" Howard said, snatching the clipboard from Kenzie and scanning over it himself. "Like racks, iron maidens, that sort of thing?"
"He'd been collecting them in his basement," said Kenzie, a shade of marvel in her voice. "But they had to let him off after they couldn't prove he'd ever actually intended to use them on anyone. Say, you don't think…?"
"Why don't you go and check it out?" Nellie said, knowing when Kenzie was intrigued. "Take Toby with you."
Kenzie beamed back at her. "I'm on it," she said and bounded off.
"You're sending your medical examiner into the field?" Scarlett said, watching Kenzie go. "You are desperate."
Howard glared at Scarlett, but Nellie merely shrugged. "It's worth a shot," she said. "First we've heard of any relation to a victim with a criminal record. And wouldn't enchanted torture devices explain the dismemberings?"
"But there weren't any signs of a struggle," Howard said. "If you wanted to torture someone, you'd do it nice and slow. Our killer was quick and brutal."
"Didn't say it wasn't a long shot," Nellie said. "Still, we might as well—"
"Hi Nellie, Howard," Freda said, joining the three of them in the cubicle with yet another file in her hands and looking rather out of breath. "Oh—hi, Scarlett. The news just came in: there's been another Smasher murder."
"Victim's name, Kenneth Lyons, twenty-four," Tristan said, leaning over the mangled, broken corpse. "Cause of death, decapitation. Time of death, four-forty this morning."
"How do you get such a precise time of death?" Scarlett asked.
"Magic," Tristan said.
"But you can't just tell who killed him?"
"Magic works in strange ways."
Howard stared at the image before him. Lyons's limbs were positioned next to their joints as if someone had attempted to glue him back together. His clothes were strewn in a messy pile beside him, with the exception of a few stray buttons scattered atop his body and a torn bit of fabric beneath his shoulder.
"There was pressure applied to the shoulder and forearm," Freda said. "It looks like our killer was kneeling on them in order to saw the arms off."
"Look at those wrists," Nellie said, gesturing at them, where the skin had been rubbed red and raw. "We've never had signs of a struggle like this before."
"Yeah, it's not the Smasher," Howard said.
Tristan, Freda, Nellie, and Scarlett all turned to stare at him. Howard cleared his throat a little.
"The way he died is practically identical to the way I found Blumstein," Scarlett said. "Are you saying this was a copycat?"
"I—maybe," Howard said, frowning slightly and crouching down beside the body. "Do any of you have a photograph of the previous crime scene?"
Scarlett brought out a phone from her purse, tapped through it, and handed it over to Howard. Freda looked particularly intrigued by the Muggle contraption.
"Look, it's all backwards," Howard said, pointing from the phone's screen to the actual body. "With Blumstein the body parts look like they were just randomly scattered, but her clothes are quite orderly. Maybe they're not folded or anything, but they're almost like someone was laying them out to wear. But here, the body looks like it was just pinned down and chopped up, none of the body parts have been moved from their original positions. Meanwhile the clothes were torn off hastily and tossed into a heap."
"But we've kept most of the details of Skull Smasher murders out of the press," Nellie said. "The public doesn't know the latest victim was dismembered."
"Yeah, well, someone found out, there are too many similarities as well," Howard said, rising again and glancing about the room. "Abandoned building, nobody living within miles of the place, victim stripped naked, bones crushed, skull crushed, dismembered and decapitated. But it's just an imitation."
For a few moments, there was silence. Howard turned his back on his colleagues, staring at the walls, lost in thought.
"Well, we might be able to get a better picture of what happened here once Toby and Kenzie get back from Waterford's," Nellie finally said. "Shall we send the body back to the Ministry, then?"
Tristan murmured something in assent, but Howard wasn't paying attention.
"Howard?" Freda asked. "Howard, did you hear us?"
"The copycat had to pin down the victim to saw off his limbs," Howard said, turning back slowly to look at the body. He began to walk alongside it, circling it, his hands tucked in his pockets, his head cocked to one side. "It would have required effort, time. How come the Skull Smasher was able to accomplish it all in the span of ten, fifteen minutes? Stan Shunpike last saw Blumstein just before five, and she died at five-ten."
"You said you thought somebody was controlling her mind," Scarlett recalled.
"You mean, the Imperius Curse?" Tristan said. "There would have been traces left on the body if she'd died while under that. As far as I recall, there weren't any."
"No, no, even if Blumstein was Imperiused, it still doesn't explain how quickly the Smasher managed to dismember her," Howard said. "Sure, there wouldn't have been a struggle, but we're talking about four limbs and a head in the span of ten minutes—and we know the head came off last."
"And it wasn't directly by magic," Freda said, recalling Kenzie's words. "So it must have taken some effort."
Howard's eyes lingered for a moment on the pile of clothes at his feet. "And the clothes," he said, glancing back at Scarlett's phone. "The way they were lain out—why would someone so quick about the murder take the time to do that? Unless…"
"Unless?" Scarlett repeated, looking at Howard. "Come on, don't leave us hanging like that—"
"Unless they just…naturally ended up that way," Howard said. "The Smasher shrunk them."
"The clothes?" Freda said, frowning.
"No, the victims," Howard said. "You know, like, Reducio. The clothes didn't shrink with them, so they merely fell to the floor, which is why they looked like they'd been placed that way. The Smasher didn't strip the victims, they just ended up out of their clothes after they'd been shrunk."
"You're right, that would have made tearing off the limbs a piece of cake," Nellie said, slowly nodding. "You'd be able to do it with your bare hands."
"The Smasher lifts the Imperius Curse and lets the victim run amok, entirely helpless," Howard said. "The rest of it's like torturing an insect—the limbs are torn off one by one, the head is removed, the pieces are scattered. The charm wears off and the body parts return to their usual size. And it explains why the killer's method apparently changed so drastically—it's not actually that big of a leap from crushing to dismemberment if you can do it all with a pinch of your fingers."
"Why go to all that trouble?" said Tristan.
"Superiority complex, expression of dominance, the usual," Howard said with a shrug. "Serial killers are psychos. What bothers me is our copycat."
"It is kind of weird, isn't it?" said Scarlett. "Whoever killed Lyons knew most of the details but not all of them. Who'd fit that description?"
"Or the killer did know all the details and deliberately did the opposite," Howard said.
"What?" Scarlett said, but Howard merely shrugged faintly and shook his head.
"It's definitely a copycat, then?" Freda said, glancing down at the corpse.
"Believe so," Tristan said, pointing at the victim's left forearm. "I've only just noticed, a chunk of his shoulder is missing. The Skull Smasher's never kept parts of the victims before."
Mark glanced over the slice of burnt shoulder, twirling it between his fingertips. Giving it a sniff, he nodded in approval before dropping it into the mortar.
Tobias took a large breath of air, basking in the sunlight shining down upon his face. Though he didn't get out much, he was nevertheless appreciative of a warm summer day, especially as the days closed in on the fall.
Thus, when he shivered, it was less to do with the weather and much more to do with the sign he had just walked past.
KNOCKTURN ALLEY
On the contrary, Kenzie was in her element. Her eyes widened as a pair of tall women emerged from a nearby shop, one carrying an enormous rusty iron music box, the other wearing what resembled a fat, dead eel.
Tobias scratched at his chin and looked around in an attempt to calm his nerves. "Which way are we headed, might I ask?"
Kenzie pointed directly ahead of them at a black sign that read WARD & WATERFORD in terse gold lettering. "Right there."
"Ah. I'm afraid my eyesight isn't how it once was," Tobias said with a wry smile.
They made their way over to the sign just as the door swung open. A small, bald man squeezed past them, carrying a box labelled EXPLODING SNAP CHIPS: 7977 GALLEON SET.
"Excuse me, are you Mr. Waterford?"
Kenzie had walked up to the front counter and was now addressing the man standing behind it. Meanwhile, Tobias hung back at the door, surveying the shop's contents.
Ward & Waterford sold gambling equipment. This had been briefly mentioned on the report from the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, and Tobias was now reminded of the note in full force as he examined the roulette wheels that never ceased to revolve, the decks of Exploding Snap, the dice that morphed from cubes to octahedrons and back again. There was not an instrument of persuasion in sight.
The large, burly man behind the counter remained silent. He merely shook his head.
"Well, then, could you please tell me where I could find him?" Kenzie asked patiently.
The man stared at her wordlessly, unblinking.
"I'm with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, you see," Kenzie explained calmly, smiling warmly at the man as she pulled out a card identifying her as such.
The man narrowed her eyes at her. For a long moment, Tobias wondered if perhaps he did not know English, but then the man turned around and ambled through a doorway behind him into the back of the store.
A much slimmer man in bright blue robes returned with him, wearing a jovial smile. "Welcome, welcome! How may I help you, Miss...?"
"Kenzie Birch, Department of Magical Law Enforcement," Kenzie said. People tended to become uncomfortable when Kenzie announced her specific occupation in public, but the name of the largest Ministry department was easily recognisable. "This is my colleague, Tobias Klavan. Mind if we ask you a few questions?"
"Be my guest," said Mr. Waterford. "In fact, come inside so we can all sit down, won't you?" He tapped his wand on the countertop, and it split into two, half of it receding into the wall.
Kenzie followed Mr. Waterford behind the counter and through the doorway while Tobias trailed after them. Expecting the large, silent man to stay at the counter, Tobias was surprised to hear the man's heavy footsteps close behind.
They entered a small, bright room with a single red sofa upon which Mr. Waterford took a seat, while Kenzie sat down beside him. Tobias sat down gingerly next to her, rather unnerved by the big man, who remained by the doorway like a sentry.
"Ask me anything," said Mr. Waterford, relaxing into his seat on the couch.
"We'll get right to it, then," said Kenzie. "We're here about the murder of your business partner, Hal Ward."
"Most tragic," said Mr. Waterford, his smile finally vanishing as he replaced it with a look of immense sorrow. "But I was under the impression that I had already answered any questions the Aurors had for me, hadn't I?"
"And now we have more!" Kenzie replied brightly. "On October nineteenth of last year you were discovered to be in possession of certain Muggle artefacts. Do you mind telling us about them?"
"Every man needs a hobby," said Mr. Waterford. "Muggles are such imaginative creatures, don't you think? That's why their methods are so absolutely fascinating."
Suddenly Mr. Waterford stood up. "Ultimately, they let me keep them. After all, they're merely for show; it would be preposterous to suggest that I would ever use them on anybody, much less my friend! Would you like to see them?"
"Yes, please," Kenzie said, standing up as well and glancing around the room as if she expected a torture device to pop out of a wall at that instant.
Tobias was rather more reluctant. "Forgive me, but I don't believe Miss Birch mentioned that we intended to suggest that you had done anything to Mr. Ward," he said, rising and bowing his head in Mr. Waterford's direction. "What put that notion into your head?"
"Come, now, you couldn't be more transparent," said Mr. Waterford. "But I wish to be transparent as well. Come this way, if you will."
With a jerk of his wand, Mr. Waterford opened what appeared to be a trapdoor at the edge of the room before descending into it, beckoning the others to follow.
"I believe I would rather stay behind," Tobias said with a wave. If anything were to happen, he figured, someone had to be able to alert the Auror Office.
"As you wish," Mr. Waterford called, his voice echoing up from below. Kenzie gave Tobias a reassuring smile before following Mr. Waterford down the trapdoor, which closed behind her with a slam.
Then there was silence.
Tobias turned to the large man at the doorway and spoke politely, "Fine weather we are having, no?"
Back at the Auror Office, Scarlett sat beside Howard, watching as he sifted through stacks of papers by hand. "What exactly are you looking for?"
"A connection," he said without looking up. His hand hovered over a leaflet for a moment, but then he apparently changed his mind as he brushed it aside.
"Look, I'm just a private detective," Scarlett said, leaning back in her seat, "But isn't that the first thing you're supposed to do when you're hunting serial killers?"
"Of course," Howard said a little impatiently as he crumpled one sheet into a ball and tossed it in a wastebasket, where it promptly vanished. "You can guess how well that went. But now we have a fresh perspective."
"Yeah, so we know the killer's going all Gulliver's Travels on these poor bastards," Scarlett said. "How exactly does that give us a fresh perspective?"
"Our killer feels compelled to crush victims the way you'd crush an insect," Howard said. "There are two ways one could interpret that. Either our killer is disgusted by these people and believes them to be worthless pests, or our killer is the one who feels unworthy compared to these victims and needs to use physical size to compensate for the difference in status."
"So you're trying to decide whether they're the pests, or they look at others that way," Scarlett said, looking up at the photographs of the three victims pinned up next to Howard on the wall. "How's that going for you?"
"Well, so far, it appears to be the latter case," Howard said. "Victim number one, Melanie Goldwater, was a reporter for the Daily Prophet—that's a newspaper," he added. "By all accounts she wasn't a very pleasant person to work with; her colleagues didn't seem to have anything against speaking ill of the dead when it came to her. She would badger her assistants and make impossible demands of them, like keeping her tea at exactly the right temperature and that sort of thing. She'd steal others' scoops and publish them as her own, and she wasn't above rubbing it in their faces afterwards. She—"
"Yeah, an all-around bitch, I get the gist," Scarlett said. "What about Ward?"
"Unfortunately, there's very little we know about Ward," Howard admitted. "Waterford told us he was a pleasant enough person to work with, but otherwise Ward didn't seem to be attached to anyone at all. He was an only child raised by a single mother who died four years ago with no remaining relations, and we couldn't find anyone who knew him as a friend, either."
"Well, that's that," Scarlett said. "And Blumstein?"
"Her sister was your client, you probably know her better than we do," Howard pointed out.
"Yeah, but she thinks her sister was a perfect angel," Scarlett said. "Though now that you mention it, I did talk to her PA, he hated her guts. And I spoke to her boyfriend, too, the one who ditched her at the campsite—he told me he was fed up with her trying to control every aspect of his life or something."
"Second option's seeming a bit more likely, then," Howard said. "Our serial killer targets the controlling, the domineering, those who prey on the weak so that they can get a taste of their own medicine."
"But that raises the question," Scarlett said with a frown. "What was it that Ward did that got the killer's knickers in a twist, and how the hell did the killer find out about it if you couldn't?"
The horrid cast-iron face towered over Kenzie, its face locked in an eternal unheard scream above the spiked sarcophagus.
"Careful with that," said Mr. Waterford, who stood just behind her, his hands clasped in front of him.
Kenzie raised an eyebrow at him before extracting her wand from the pocket of her robes. Biting the corner of her lip, she touched its tip to the side of the iron maiden.
"YAAAAAAAAAH!"