The Enchanter Heir

Chapter Nineteen

Kinlocks on the Case

Late that night, Jonah went to see his brother. He often went to see Kenzie after the bars were closed and most of the stragglers had straggled off the street. When day-shift therapies were less likely to interfere.

The air was crisp and cold, and Jonah was glad he’d worn a hoodie under his leather jacket. Close to his destination, he stopped in at an all-night pizzeria he knew. He ordered a large deluxe pie with extra cheese and hoped it would stay warm until he got to Safe Harbor.

As usual, Kenzie heard him coming long before Jonah knocked.

“Hey, bro,” Kenzie said. “Come on in.”

When Jonah opened the door, Kenzie was sitting up in his wheelchair next to the window, his hands fluttering in his lap like panicked birds. He wore a red concert T-shirt, the only spot of color in the otherwise white-and-beige room.

Jonah set the pizza box on the broad window ledge. “I was afraid you might be in bed already.”

“Nah. Just trying to outlast the white coats, as always,”

Kenzie said.

Jonah looked around the room. “So they’re actually doing the minimal stimulation thing?”

“Yeah. They’re trying to do me in—killing me with boredom. And all because I keep driving off my tutors.”

“Well, if you’d stop setting things on fire,” Jonah said.

“They seem to find it off-putting.”

“Wimps,” Kenzie said.

Jonah plucked at Kenzie’s brilliant T-shirt. “This your idea?”

Kenzie nodded. “Can we go out?”

“It’s cold out,” Jonah warned him, shedding his leather jacket.

“I don’t care. I’m tired of being in a sensory-controlled environment. I really need some sensory input.”

“Maybe after you eat.”

Kenzie scowled. “There’s no maybe. Only yes or no.”

“Yes or no, then.”

“Asshole,” Kenzie said affectionately. “What’d you bring?”

“Deluxe from Bernini’s.”

“Did you bring me some lyrics?” Kenzie asked. “What do you think? Got any tunes for me?”

“What do you think?” Kenzie said with breezy confidence. “I’ve got tunes that will rip your skin off.” Jonah dropped his backpack on Kenzie’s bed and unzipped it. Pulling his MP3 player from the front pocket, he plugged in Kenzie’s headphones. It took Kenzie a couple of tries to get them settled properly over his ears and find the play button.

Jonah clenched his fists, resisting the temptation to help. “Here’s what I did with the last tab you sent me. If you like what you hear, I’ll copy the files for you,” Jonah said. It was a recording of Jonah singing, accompanying himself on the guitar.

Kenzie nodded, closing his eyes, losing himself in the music. Gradually, the frenetic movements slowed, then stopped entirely. His flexed muscles relaxed, his head dropped back, and he smiled dreamily.

That was how the music thing had started. Right after Thorn Hill, Kenzie had been severely psychotic—plagued with hallucinations, voices, seizures, and other kinds of brain misfires. The healers caring for him worried that the repeated seizures would damage his brain beyond repair.

Jonah had discovered that he could calm Kenzie’s demons with music, especially when accompanied by Jonah’s voice. He wished he could embrace his brother, wished they could share the comfort of touch. But he could only touch him through his voice and his presence. He didn’t dare do more. Jonah had killed his sister with his terrible gift. He hoped he could somehow save his brother.

He rooted around in the small refrigerator, pulled out bottles of water, twisted free the caps, and set them on the window ledge next to the pizza. He dug two plates from the cabinet. Kenzie always ate more when Jonah joined him.

Setting his plate aside, Jonah sat down at Kenzie’s workstation, bypassed the voice-recognition software, and opened the music folder. He moved two new poems into their shared folder. Once Kenzie read them, he’d scarcely need to look at them again. He had a photographic memory.

Jonah moved back to the window ledge, watching Kenzie, eyes closed, chewing thoughtfully. Kenzie opened his eyes and grinned at Jonah. “Good shit,” he said, cheerfully profane. Yanking off the headphones, he reached out, grabbed another piece of pizza, and devoured half of it in one bite.

“Mose is here,” Kenzie said. “Did you know?”

“He is?” Worry rippled through Jonah as he realized that he hadn’t seen Mose Butterfield since the gig at Club Catastrophe. “Since when?”

“Yesterday. He’s on five, back of the building. Natalie stopped in to see me after handling his admission.”

“I need to go see him,” Jonah said, recalling that Mose had wanted him to come over the night of the show at Club Catastrophe. One more item to add to the guilt list.

Jonah and Kenzie sat companionably, downing pizza, licking their fingers, and chugging water until the pizza was gone.

“Too bad,” Jonah said, pulling a long face. “No leftovers.” He stuffed the empty box into the wastebasket and cleared away the plates.

Kenzie blotted at his lips with his napkin. “I ate too much,” he said.

“Maybe you should wear the headphones whenever you eat,” Jonah said. “It might make it easier.”

“How was the show?” Kenzie asked.

Jonah relayed what had happened at the club, and afterward, in the Flats.

“So you don’t know what this Lilith has in mind?”

Jonah shook his head. “I’d like to know more about it, but Gabriel isn’t interested.” He paused, took a deep breath. “I have some good news. I should be around a lot more than before. I’m out of Nightshade.”

“What?” Kenzie yanked the headphones away from his ears. “When did that happen?”

“A week ago.”

Kenzie eyed him shrewdly. “Whose idea was it? Yours or Gabriel’s?”

“Gabriel’s, I guess,” Jonah replied. “He wants me to spend more time with him. Learn the business.”

“Which business? Music or medicine or mayhem?”

Jonah snorted. “Anyway, I should have more time to research on my own. I’d like to find out more about Lilith. She claims she was a sorcerer who died at Thorn Hill. I’d like to verify that, somehow, and also identify anyone who either left Thorn Hill right before the massacre or was there and survived it.”

“Adults, you mean,” Kenzie said.

“Right,” Jonah said. “Sorcerers, especially. Gabriel thinks that someone at Thorn Hill collaborated with the Black Rose to poison the wells. It’s a long shot, but I have to start somewhere. I want to generate a short list of suspects.”

“I thought there were no adult survivors,” Kenzie said.

“Yeah. That’s what we’ve been told.”

“Did you ask Gabriel?”

“He says there aren’t any records from Thorn Hill here at school, but I’m not so sure. Would there be a way to check?”

“I don’t have to check. There are all kinds of databases from the commune. Sorcerers are natural geeks. I used some of that info to track down Jeanette. Now, whether it will help us here, I don’t know.”

Kenzie frowned, thinking. He swiveled back toward his keyboard and slid his headset back into place. “Harry. Search THLIS databases,” he said into the mouthpiece. He scanned the screen, then turned to Jonah. “Hmm. ‘File not found.’ It was just there a few weeks ago. Let me dig deeper. Nothing is ever totally deleted, know what I mean?”

“What site are you accessing?” Jonah asked. “How did you get into it?”

“The server is located somewhere here on campus. I can give you the IP address if you want, but it likely won’t do you any good. Gabriel has a kick-ass data security system. I have to keep running to stay ahead of this one.” Kenzie continued to murmur commands into the headset.

“Is there anything I can do?” Jonah asked.

“Get me a pop from the fridge,” Kenzie said.

When Jonah returned with cans of pop, Kenzie was moving files around. “Got it. I’m going to copy all this over to a safe place so we make sure they don’t disappear again.”

“Can you tell when the files were removed?”

“Harry. Show info.” Kenzie’s eyes scanned over lines of data. “Looks like it was in the last couple weeks. I guess I could’ve compromised something when I was looking for Jeanette.”

“Maybe,” Jonah said.

Once he had the files where he wanted them, Kenzie rummaged through them.

“Harry. Scroll down. Search Thorn Hill work-share logs. Scroll down. Select October twenty-third week.” He paused and, when the record came up, said, “Open spreadsheet, data entry view.”

“What are the work-share logs?” Jonah whispered so Harry wouldn’t overhear.

Kenzie hit mute on his second try. “Everyone at Thorn Hill was required to contribute work to the commune every week,” he said. “They didn’t tolerate slackers. They weren’t good about keeping track of comings and goings, but they were sticklers about work records. These are the last sets before the massacre. By comparing the work schedule with the casualty lists, we should be able to identify anyone who was at Thorn Hill immediately prior to the massacre, but who doesn’t show up on either the casualty or survivor lists. Now, what’s this sorcerer’s name?”

“Lilith Greaves.”

Kenzie turned back to his screen. “Harry. Search THLIS databases. Scroll down. Select casualty lists. Select survivor lists. Open work sheet. Data sort on last name.”

Through this process, Kenzie verified that a sorcerer named Lilith Greaves was at Thorn Hill immediately prior to the massacre, and showed up on the dead list after.

“Can you tell what kind of work she did for the commune?”

“She worked in the compounding labs, apparently. Making either weapons or health and beauty aids, depending on who you ask.” He paused. “Here’s another Greaves. A sixyear-old girl who worked in the vegetable garden.”

“Lilith said she lost a daughter in the massacre,” Jonah said. So far, this all seemed to verify what Lilith had said.

Now Kenzie generated a list of four adults who were on the work-share lists immediately before the massacre who didn’t appear on either the survivor or casualty list.

Jonah scanned the list. None of the names was familiar.

Then they worked their way through the four names, three men and a woman. Three were repeatedly honored in subsequent memorial services at the Anchorage and elsewhere. The fourth, Tyler Greenwood, a sorcerer, was not. Three of the names continued to appear for a time in legal and probate records, child custody proceedings, obituary listings, and cemetery records. Then they dwindled away. The fourth, Tyler Greenwood, did not appear at all. He vanished, digitally speaking, after the massacre. His name didn’t appear in Social Security death records, online obituaries, any of that.

“Well,” Jonah said. “It was a major disaster. Maybe he just got overlooked somehow.”

Kenzie frowned. “People don’t just vanish. These days they live on, digitally, anyway. As you can see, there’s always a bit of a backwash, even if they’re dead.” He flipped back to the work-share records. “He was a musician,” Kenzie said. “Some of his work shares had to do with that. He also did general maintenance and worked in the labs and the gardens. From what I can tell, he wasn’t at Thorn Hill very long.” He narrowed his eyes, a predator on the hunt. “I’ll just go backward in time until I find him.”

Jonah’s mind drifted, his brother’s voice a reassuring buzz in his ears.

“Search Google for Tyler Greenwood. . . . Scroll down. . . . Search Google for music and Tyler Greenwood.”

When had he last slept well? Jonah wondered. He couldn’t remember. . . .

“Jonah.”

Jonah startled awake. “What?”

“I’m finding a Tyler Greenwood, a musician who was in and out of a number of rock-and-roll and blues bands,” Kenzie said. “He was based in Memphis. Here’s a photo from, um, fifteen years ago.”

Jonah leaned toward the screen. It was a promotional photo for a rock-and-roll band. Tyler Greenwood had a bass guitar resting on his hip, the head pointed toward the floor. He looked to be twenty-something, handsome. Probably biracial.

“He continued to show up in records here in the States until about ten years ago. He must have gone back and forth to the commune, if it’s the same man.”

“Nothing since the massacre, then,” Jonah said, his heart sinking.

“Don’t give up yet,” Kenzie said. “Harry. Search Tennessee vital records.”

The next thing Jonah knew, Kenzie was crowing.

“What?” Jonah rubbed his eyes.

“Tyler Greenwood was married to someone named Gwyneth Hart,” Kenzie said. “What do you think of that?”

“Really? How do you know?”

“It was in the vital records. Here’s a newspaper article.” Kenzie turned the display so Jonah could see it.

It was from the society pages of a community newspaper. Garrett and Samantha Hart of Shaker Heights and Miami Beach held a reception to celebrate the marriage of their daughter, Gwyneth Marie, to Tyler Greenwood, of Memphis. The couple married in a private ceremony. Ms. Hart coordinates humanitarian projects. Mr. Greenwood is a professional musician.

And there they were—the handsome young musician from the band photo and the tawny-haired beauty from the party. The photo was taken at a club in Memphis.

“Search the work records for Gwyneth Hart and Gwyneth Greenwood,” Jonah suggested.

Kenzie did as asked. She wasn’t there.

“So Tyler Greenwood went to Thorn Hill. But Gwyneth Hart didn’t,” Kenzie concluded. “Maybe Tyler Greenwood is our man. But he’s disappeared.”

“If he was involved in the poisoning, then he had a reason to disappear,” Jonah said. He yawned and stretched. Kenzie didn’t reply. He was frowning at the display.

“I have a Tyler Greenwood, listed as a son of a Sonny Lee Greenwood, recently deceased in Memphis.”

That brought Jonah sharply awake. “What? Let me see that.”

It was a newspaper story, dated mid-July, headlined Beale Street mourns Local Luthier. Displayed beneath the head line was an undated photograph of four musicians jamming at what was identified as a local blues club.

According to the article, Sonny Lee Greenwood, musician and builder of custom guitars, had died from a fall in his shop. Some of his friends suspected foul play, but the police had found no proof of that. His only son, Tyler Greenwood, was listed in the death notice as having predeceased Sonny Lee. One unnamed granddaughter survived.

“I guess that settles that,” Jonah said.

Kenzie shook his head. “It doesn’t smell right. If Tyler Greenwood had a surviving father and a daughter, he wouldn’t have just disappeared from the records when he died. There’d be an obituary, and paperwork. If there’s a daughter, she’d be getting Social Security death benefits, and like that.”

“How do you know this stuff ?” Jonah asked.

Kenzie flashed him a smile. “Mind if I dig deeper on this?” he asked. “I’ve got time.”

“Be my guest,” Jonah said, trying to keep a spark of hope alive.

Kenzie found a handful of other news stories, mostly summaries of the elder Greenwood’s life and contribution to the music scene. Kenzie surfaced a bit of video from a Memphis television station, apparently taken at Greenwood’s funeral. The reporter spoke with several blues musicians who had attended the wake. No family was mentioned.

Kenzie searched for the Harts, and found that they’d been killed in a private plane crash in Belize years ago.

“People around Tyler Greenwood are dropping like flies,” Jonah murmured.

“Here’s something,” Kenzie said. “Somebody put up a tribute site for Sonny Lee Greenwood and posted a message saying that his business, Studio Greenwood, had relocated out of state. There’s a link to a Web page . . . see?”

It was a simple page with a few images of gorgeous custom guitars and testimonials from customers.

There was an e-mail address but no street address.

“How could his business have relocated if he’s dead?” Jonah said.

“Maybe he had a partner.” Kenzie scooted back in his chair. “Here, send an e-mail.”

Jonah bypassed Harry, clicked on the link, and typed, What would it cost to reset the frets on a vintage Yamaha acoustic? Where are you located? Can you send me your street address so I can map it? Do you have standard hours?

Though it was four in the morning, the answer came back promptly, listing the price estimate (subject to change) I’m in Cleveland Heights. We can meet at the Innovation Center at the Library. Evenings and weekends are best. Give me at least a day’s notice and bring the guitar with you. And it listed the address of the library.

“Cleveland Heights!” Jonah swiveled to look at Kenzie. “It’s moved to Cleveland Heights?” Cleveland Heights was just a few miles to the east.

He turned back to the keyboard. I’ll need a business address, too. I can’t just hand off my guitar at a library.

There was a longer wait this time, and then Studio Greenwood replied with an address, also in Cleveland Heights.

“Let me search on that address and see what’s there,” Kenzie said. “Harry . . . search white pages for this address.” When the result came up, he looked over at Jonah. “This house is owned by someone named Tyler Boykin. Coincidence? I think not.”

“You think Tyler Boykin and Tyler Greenwood are the same person?”

“Let’s make sure. Harry . . . search images for Tyler Boykin,” Kenzie said.

Several photos came up, most taken at one club venue or another. They were all of the man they already knew as Tyler Greenwood. Only older.

Jonah and Kenzie stared at the screen for a long moment.

“That’s him,” Jonah said. “That’s Tyler Greenwood. Only now his name is Boykin. Wonder why he’d change his name.”

“There are lots of reasons somebody might do that,” Kenzie said. “Boykin could be a professional name.”

“Why did the obit list him as dead?” Jonah said. “If he’d been a partner in his father’s shop, I’d think people would know better.”

“Or . . . he could have something to hide,” Kenzie speculated. “Do you think this might be the person we want?” He lifted his eyebrows inquiringly.

Jonah felt hope flare brighter. “Maybe,” he said.

“Harry. Web search on Tyler Boykin,” Kenzie said. Compared with “Tyler Greenwood,”

“Tyler Boykin” was easy to find. Kenzie found him on music sites, in concert listings, on a listing of session musicians. He even found a photograph of him, onstage in Memphis three years ago, sitting in with a blues band. When he and Jonah compared the photographs of the two men, there could be no doubt. They were the same person.

Tyler Greenwood had transformed into Tyler Boykin, right after Thorn Hill.

“What are you going to do?” Kenzie asked.

“I haven’t quite decided,” Jonah said. “I’ll go have a talk with Boykin, I guess.” He paused. “If you see Gabriel, don’t mention anything about our little project.”

“Going rogue, are you?” Kenzie cocked his head. “Just be careful. If Tyler Boykin is our man, he doesn’t want to be found.”

“I’m always careful,” Jonah said. Light was leaking in through the windows, and the racket now emanating from the hallway told them that the day shift was coming on.

“I have to go,” Jonah said, packing up. “I’ll see if I can work up some lyrics for the new tunes.”

“So we’re not going out?” Kenzie said, unable to hide his disappointment.

“Not today. Soon. Right now I’ve got classes.”

“You know, big brother, you really need to start setting things on fire,” Kenzie said. “Nobody makes you go to class. People tend to leave you alone.” He smiled wistfully, and Jonah felt a twinge of guilt.