Page 70 of Heir of Uncertain Magic

Wade looked him over, brows bent to nearly touching. “You Canadian?”

That gave Merritt pause. “Not the last time I checked.”

Wade shrugged. “Figured only a Canadian would wear his hair like that.”

“Ah, well.” Merritt pulled his hair behind him, as though he could hide it. “My barber died a couple years ago, and I never got over it.”

“Hmm. I got work to do, so what do you want?”

“There was an incident late at night at an abandoned house near the shore—”

“Huh?”

Forbearingly, Merritt repeated, “The abandoned house north of here, by the shore. Adjacent to the canal?”

Wade squinted at him like he were some sort of specter for several seconds before his eyes lit up. “Oh! Right, right. About a month ago.”

“Yes. Were you there? When it happened?”

“Yeah, I was.” He ran a hand back through his hair, absently shaking more bits of sawdust from it. “Least, I remember Harold rounding us up and riding out. The house ... it’s a bit ...” He chuckled. “Not gonna lie, I got drunk as a peahen in heat that night. It’s a blur.”

Merritt’s lips parted, both at the news and at the strange metaphor. “You came out in the middle of the night to a crime scene and then decided to have a drink?”

“I think?” He glanced back at his station, perhaps wondering if he’d get snipped at for leaving it. “I remember the house. Some bloke had died in there. Nice woman took me out ... er, don’t tell my wife that.”

Merritt’s shoulders fell. “Was she Spanish, by chance?”

Wade only shrugged. “She got me the nice stuff. Works real well. Don’t really recall.”

“Try, please.” Merritt’s patience was thinning.

Wade folded his arms and leaned onto one leg. “Me and some guy from ... Plymouth, maybe? ... kept watch outside in case any nosy folk came by.” He snickered. “Heard there was some woman inside in nothing more than her drawers.”

A flicker of heat coursed up Merritt’s torso. It was one thing forhimto tease Hulda about that, but he apparently didnotlike it when another did, especially another man. However, he was distracted by the sudden rattling of a toolbox on a nearby bench, and Merritt forced himself to calm down, just in case it was his doing. He hadn’t been able to replicate any chaocratic spells since Baillie’s intrusion, but Gifford had theorized they were tied to Merritt’s temper.

He refocused on the situation at hand. “So you didn’t go inside?”

“Not till after, no. Charlie did. Must’ve been a real mess—he wasn’t the same after that. Why are you asking?”

“I work for a paper,” he said, which wasn’t entirely false. “What folk from Plymouth?”

“Damned if I can remember.” Wade ran a hand down his face.

Letting out a tight breath, Merritt asked, “Can I talk to Charlie, then?”

But Wade shook his head. “He ain’t here no more. Left around the same time Harold did. Acting real strange. Sorry, that’s all I got.”

“You said someone died. Do you know who?”

Wade shrugged.

“Okay.” Merritt put his hands out and motioned, like he were talking to a child. “If a body is found in Marshfield, what do they do with it?”

Now Wade looked at him likehewas the slow one. “Put it in the cemetery.”

“But if the man isn’t from Marshfield? If he needs to be identified ... or can’t be?” Unlikely anyone around here would lay claim to Silas. None of the locals would have recognized him.

“Go to the coroner, I guess.”

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