“There ain’t nothing wrong with being a religious nut! God loves religious nuts!”
“Then go whack God with your magazine!” Marvin yelled. “Zeddie. Help me!”
There followed loud accusations from Sandra and Dani, and Zeddie spoke into his small radio. Moments later, they were graced with an appearance by the warden, Margorie Devoe. Devoe was tall, a pale-skinned magic user in her forties, a former model with a master’s in business, and the patter of a snake oil salesman. She wore her hair long, dyed a metallic red, and still walked as if she owned the runway. Her word was law.
Holding up her pants, Dani waded up to Devoe and demanded that Marvin be gagged. Marvin cussed and blustered. Dani glared. Sandra prayed for them all at the top of her lungs, one hand in the air, the other holding up her clothes. Mable simpered.
It was a good act. The warden fell for it and placated them all with promises of ice-cream tomorrow night, especially Marvin, heaping attention on him, though remembering to offer commiserating glances at the rest of them.
Marvin’s “talent was a cash cow,” if Devoe and her staff could, “teach him how to harness his power.” Devoe’s words. She gave him special attention in magic classes. He was teacher’s pet, through and through. Even after the Bentley incident.
When the kerfuffle was over, Tridevi’s team all stomped silently to their rooms.
That was the only moment of unobserved conversation they would have until they all joined up for pre-breakfast tea and coffee in Marvin’s room. There was nothing else Dani could do tonight.
When Mable originally hacked into The Sevens’ security system, she had created a one hour window when the dorm’s internal security system wouldn’t work. It was driving the IT team nuts. Mable was wonderfully evil. But an hour was all they had each day for a debrief.
Until morning, Dani had a spell she needed to pretend to work on and a lot of thinking to do. And she fervently hoped that the laptop had been smuggled into the school at last.
Sandra
Just before eight a.m.,Sandra returned from checking on her emu husband. Harold looked better today and had eaten a nice breakfast of eighty percent emu ratite pellets, with the balance being a sliced apple, alfalfa pellets, and beets. She tried to switch it up every day with seasonally available veggies because human-Harold had been a food-loving man with a craving for soul food cooked the way her mama taught her. Emu-Harold was less particular. One day she saw him snatch up a mouse and swallow it whole. The sight had made her sick to her stomach. But that day … That had been the day she realized she might never get Harold back. That had been her first day of real grief.
After the mouse-eating-day, she had let Dani persuade her to join Tridevi to take her mind off her woes. Though younger than the others in the firm, she had trained as a forensic accountant—someone who tracked down missing money—back before she and Harold were called by God to start the church. Doing Tridevi’s books, working with people who weren’t afraid of her, had been a spiritual lift. Even with Marvin’s mouth.
The elevator opened on the fourth floor of the dormitory building, Dorm Hall Delta. Sandra stepped out, caught a glimpse of the camera in the corner and checked her watch. Instead of going briskly to her room, she slowed as she walked the hallway toward her room at the end.
Dorm Delta was the hallway of suites where they had all been placed, having arrived within seven days of each other. The clock passed eight, the cameras went dead, she stopped, tapped on Marvin’s door, and he let her in. Mable tucked in behind her.
Marvin had tea and coffee waiting for each of them. Despite his spell-cussing mouth, he was a good host. If Sandra had allowed herself the sin of hard liquor, she had no doubt that Marvin would share his stash with her.
Sandra took the hot tea he offered and sipped with pleasure. It was the good stuff, not the cheap teabag fannings and dusts offered by The Sevens’ management. “Thank you,” she murmured to Jesus, her eyes closed. And because Marvin had finally figured that out, he waited until she opened her eyes and said, “And thank you, Marvin.”
“You’re welcome.”
In minutes, Dani joined them, shutting the door quietly. She took her place beside Sandra and drained half her coffee in a big gulp. “Thank God,” she said, breathing in the steam. “Decaf is not cutting it.” She opened her eyes and said, “I need to tell you more about the truck yesterday and the two guys in hazmat suits.” She added details about the suits and the truck and descriptions of the men—height, weight, and their hair color, which she noted when they removed the suits. “The truck might actually have something to do with our case. Or not. But it’s all we have and right now anything is better than nothing.
Before anyone could reply she asked, “How’s Harold?”
Dani always remembered to ask about Harold, and it made Sandra’s heart happy. She smiled gently and said, “Better. And I have news too. The head keeper at the barnyard told me they had a former human—currently a two hundred pound boa constrictor—who is now a widow.” Sandra had everyone’s attention for the moment. She wasn’t often the center of attention anymore, having lost her congregation when she magicked-out. And people who could turn others into emus had a hard time making friends. “Buck Hackenmeister supposedly passed away yesterday. Eloise is now permanently a snake.”
Dani nodded thoughtfully and shoved a strand of steel gray hair back behind her ear. “Buck used to sit at table J. Him being dead is a different story from the one concocted by the school, about J all getting a contract together. And yesterday at supper is when I saw all the transfers of the white truck, and not a sign of the coroner’s van.”
“You think they lied about Buck and moved him to Building Z?” Sandra asked.
“I think someone messed up on the story they told, so yes, I think Buck was moved yesterday,” Dani said.
“I got an email from the office on that useless tablet. They noticed a sudden increase in The Sevens’ special account,” Mable said, “to the tune of seven hundred, fifty-two thousand dollars, and change. It coincides with Buck’s mostly liquid assets.”
“We need to find a way over there,” Dani said, not for the first time.
“Mable and I have news too,” Marvin said. “My darlin’ love was able to create a short term glitch in the camera system that let us finally get out. We went for a little walk last night to pick up the laptop.” He sipped his coffee, making them wait for the rest.
“And?” Dani asked.
Marvin was a controlling, manipulative, godless man, and if he wasn’t also kind, from the top of his white hair to his toes, Sandra would have hated him. But he was. Kind, that is. He did a lot of good with his fortune, posting checks with significant numbers of zeros to the homeless shelter where Sandra volunteered.
“And?” Dani demanded, louder.
