by Mara Webb
The police rolled to a stop and jumped out of their car as if their speedy exit would make a difference to how dead Joanne was. I recognized one of the officers as a woman that had responded to my call last night, this would make things worse for me. I had called about a woman stalking me, hiding outside my home and making me feel threatened, then within twelve hours the police were attending reports of a dead woman in my front yard.
The man who had called the police ran over to talk to one officer while the other circled my car like a shark. I knew that there was no way that she could ascertain what had happened from one lap of the crime scene but as she had an audience, she clearly needed to make it look like she was doing something useful.
The man that had caught me snatching something from Joanne’s hand was lurking amongst the expanding crowd on the street, I could see him out of the corner of my eye watching me. He was trying to see if I would tell the police that I had tampered with potentially vital evidence or if he was going to have to involve himself. I didn’t know what I should do.
The female police officer completed one full circle around the body and approached me on the steps. “Could we please speak with you inside?” she asked. I nodded and began to walk up towards the front door, I saw that the other police officer was still talking with the crowd and frantically scribbling down notes into a small pad.
I guided Officer Sallow through to the lounge, but she clearly remembered the layout from her visit last night. I sat down on the couch and she remained stood, I suspected that this was a power play.
“Do you recognize the woman outside your home Ms. Wildes?” she asked. Her notepad was open, and she clicked her pen at the end of her question so that she was ready to record my responses.
“She is the woman that was outside my house last night. I don’t know much about her really, just the things I told you when you responded to my call. I suspect that she is my boyfriend’s ex-fiancé but as I haven’t seen a photo of her, I can’t confirm that.”
“And your boyfriend is Officer Brent Murphy, is that correct?” she said. She was writing down a lot, even if she had written down word for word what I had just said, she would have stopped writing by now. I really wanted to see that notepad.
“Yeah. He works for the-”
“I know where he works,” she interrupted. “What can you tell me about the body on the roof of your car Ms. Wildes?” As I was answering with an explanation of my morning so far, minus the part about researching a magic spell to repair a car tire, the other police officer walked through the front door.
I could see through into the kitchen from my seat and ‘Meddling with your motor’ vanished out of sight. The attic was probably sealing itself off in case a bunch of humans started hunting around the house for clues.
The man that had just entered, Officer Fryxell, walked over to Officer Sallow and whispered something into her ear. I suspected that this was all leading up to something bad for me, but I couldn’t guess as to the outcome just yet.
“Could we see the item in your pocket, Ms. Wildes?” Officer Sallow said. She reached out a hand to collect whatever it was that I was hiding. The neighbor had snitched on me, ratted me out to the police without a moment’s hesitation.
I mean, of course he did, he was trying to do the right thing. I know that I didn’t kill anybody, but he didn’t. I wished that I had a way to sneak the paper somewhere so that I could look at it myself, but if I withheld this item from the police then it would look worse for me.
I reached into my pocket and handed over the screwed-up paper ball. If I was lucky then neither of them caught the sound of me gulping nervously as the female officer snatched it from my hand.
I watched as she pulled at the corners of the note until it was taut between her fingers, her eyes flicking to the left and right as she read whatever was written on it. Officer Fryxell leaned over her shoulder to get a better look at it also and they exchanged something silently, a glance between them seemed to communicate a shared opinion. I was in trouble.
“Why do you have this Ms. Wildes? We have a witness outside that says you took this out of the victim’s hand and tried to hide it. Did you have any intention of providing this to us if I hadn’t requested it?” she said.
My brain was starting multiple sentences all at once and I couldn’t focus enough to stitch the right words together, which cause me to stammer nervously.
“Well it, I wanted to…I don’t even…what does it…”
They both looked sterner now, more severe. When Officer Sallow had arrived late last night she had seemed slightly more sympathetic to the situation I had found myself in. She demonstrated an empathy that, while not resulting in her providing overnight protection for me, made me feel a little safer.
Now I was experiencing the suspicion by law enforcement that was intimidating. There were two authority figures inside my home that had every reason to think that I had eliminated the threat, taken the law into my own hands and tried to hide the evidence.
The blood in my body was pumping faster than normal, I was in fight or flight mode, but there was nothing to fight against. I tried to take a deep breath to steady myself before responding again, but in my panic, I seemed to have used my magic. Everything around me slowed down, the pencil that Officer Sallow was using in her notepad was almost at a standstill, it was only after watching for a second or two that I realized it was in fact still moving. I didn’t have much experience with freeze spells, but I seemed to have been trying to give myself more time out of panic.
I looked up at the two officers and tried to remember that they were just doing their job, they have to work with the information in front of them and at this point the information was telling them that I was the prime suspect.
Officer Sallow had her hair in a low ponytail beneath her hat, the logo of the Sucré police department was stitched onto her left sleeve and a walkie talkie hung from her right shoulder strap.
They both wore belts around their waist that held a lot of leather pouches and a flashlight. They were here to do a job; I had to cooperate and have faith that the truth would become evident and I would soon be free of suspicion.
I willed for time to proceed normally and everything seemed to speed back up. There was no awareness that anything strange had happened at all and both officers were still waiting for me to justify my actions with the paper.
“I worried that it would slip from her hand and roll underneath the car. Of course, you arrived a few moments later so you likely would have found it yourselves, I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t lost,” I rambled.
I was a bad liar and everyone in the room knew it. It would be easier to lie if I knew what was written on the paper, something about it seemed to have triggered a different attitude from Officer Sallow and I didn’t like it.
“Okay, I think it is probably easiest if we have this conversation down at the station. Would you please accompany us for further questioning?” she asked. It didn’t feel optional.
“Am I being arrested?” I asked, nervous laughter escaped my mouth.
“You would know if you were being arrested, cooperating with our investigation will assist us in making sure only the correct individual is apprehended, ma’am,” she replied.
What was I supposed to do? If I refused to go down to the station then that looked worse for me, right? Should I call a lawyer? Did I even know a lawyer in this town? If I called Brent it would look like I was trying to use him to get me out of trouble, but surely as he is my emergency contact it would be fine.
As I worked through a million questions, my legs had brought me up onto my feet and my body was following them out of the door without thinking.
I had no experience of being in trouble like this. Even though I had been caught up in several murder investigations since I arrived in Sucré, it had largely been obvious that I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I had never really been a suspect in an official capacity. I shuffled down the steps outside
the house and was silently walking towards the police car when a voice snapped me out of my trance.
“Joanne? Joanne!” Brent shouted. I turned to see him run towards her body as Officer Fryxell chase him and grabbed his arms to stop him interfering with the crime scene. “What have you done?” Brent shouted towards me.
6
I ducked my head down so that I could lower myself into the back seat of the police car. Brent was looking at the car in disbelief and I mirrored the expression back towards him. As I clicked my harness into place, Officer Fryxell closed the door and the two policer officers took their seat in the front before driving away.
Had Brent just accused me of Joanne’s murder in front of my entire street? It had felt like a simple misunderstanding when the police had asked me to come with them to the station but having my boyfriend shout that to me made it all seem very real.
Was I naive to think that he would assume my innocence? I appreciated that they had been engaged, so she was obviously important to him at some point, but he said they broke up a long time ago under difficult circumstances, right? He literally told me yesterday that he thought she was under a curse.
I could appreciate it would be hard for Brent to hear that an ex had died. Seeing it in person was a different story altogether. It was hard to stomach the mental image of his despair. I could still hear his voice calling through my head, singling me out, accusing me.
Nothing about this situation was normal, but why would Brent just straight up accuse me like that? Was it guilt from thinking he might have cursed her? She would never have been on my drive in the first place if not for this supposed cursed ring.
All I knew is that his opinion of me had flipped on its head in a few short hours. I, for some reason, was undeniably guilty in his eyes. He hadn’t presumed my innocence even for a second.
Grief could overwhelm people in the strangest of ways. I couldn’t pretend to understand what Brent was feeling right now. All I knew is that he thought I was guilty, and it felt like something had been irrevocably severed between us.
I felt utterly alone.
The car ride into town felt much slower than usual. Every agonizing second that I was sat in the back of the police vehicle felt like an eternity. It wouldn’t matter to the people in this town whether I’d done anything or not, they had seen enough evidence to make their own assessment and they would pass a sentence that would last far longer than anything the legal system would dish out. Every bump in the road reminded me that I wasn’t dreaming, this nightmare was real.
As the car turned onto the main high street, I saw The Catmosphere Café, it wasn’t open yet and I wondered if Quin would still go to work today. Would he be okay? Maybe I could call someone to look after the cats if I was going to be away for a while.
Of course, they all had magic but they got so incredibly lonely when I would head out into the back yard to throw food scraps into the compost heap so I could only imagine how bad it would get if I never came back. Wait, was I actually thinking that I wasn’t going to be making a return journey? Tears prickled in my eyes, threatening to fall.
The car rolled passed the electronics store where I had bought the remote control for Quin with the large buttons so he could change the channel by himself, we drove passed the small bakery where Brent sometimes went to buy me a donut or a scone and just a little further down the street I could see the office building that housed The Sucré Sun, our local newspaper.
I had broken into that building with one of my friends from the high council, a group of powerful witches and wizards that took care of local magic disputes and protected the area. I had been given my place on that council by my aunt Edith as part of my inheritance. As I thought of the life I had built here the tears rolled down my cheek.
As I released my harness, Officer Fryxell opened the door and guided me into the police station. To my amazement, my fellow council member, Ryan, was standing in the waiting area. Ryan Hughes stood at six foot seven and towered above most people, but his warm smile usually invited people in. Although he wasn’t smiling now, at least not at the other people in the room.
His lips had twitched slightly when he locked eyes with me, but his expression was otherwise severe.
“I hope that you haven’t been speaking to my client before she was accompanied by her lawyer, because that would have been a huge mistake,” Ryan said. His client? Ryan wasn’t a lawyer, right? Had I ever locked down what exactly Ryan did for a living? I knew he had good money because of the number of classic cars he owned.
In all the conversations we had shared, the council meetings we had sat through, and the game nights we had enjoyed at his sister’s house, had I seriously never asked him what his job was? Why did he have such a huge crush on me? I’m so inattentive and oblivious to the world around me.
I opened my mouth a little to begin to ask a question, but Ryan raised one finger in my direction to shush me. “We request to speak in private, I’ll take room two,” he commanded. There was no argument from either of the police officers standing at my side, he seemed to have established some authority with these people and they gave in to his instructions without challenge. “Everything is okay,” he whispered as I followed him through a set of doors into a short corridor.
He closed the door behind him as we entered room two and threw his arms around me. “Nora, Quin called. I actually ignored his first five calls because, well you know, it’s Quin. But he finally left a voicemail and he told me what had happened. He also said to tell you that he is watching ‘The Masked Singer’ without you as he wasn’t sure how long you would be gone.”
“I’ve barely been gone for twenty minutes, that cat is ridiculous,” I said. My voice was muffled slightly by Ryan’s grip, but I wriggled my arms loose just enough so that I could hug him back.
Ryan had declared that he was in love with me several months back and I had rejected it, it wasn’t that I didn’t have feelings for him, but I was already committed to someone else. Someone that had just accused me of murder on my own driveway.
The smell of Ryan’s skin brought back the memories of the conversation in his car where he had held my hands, looked into my eyes and confessed everything. “It’s so good to see you,” I said into his shirt. I wasn’t sure if he even heard me say it, but I meant it sincerely.
He released me and gestured for me to take a seat at the table in the center of the room. “You can tell me the truth, no matter what. I am here to defend you, so I need to know all of the facts.”
He sat down opposite me and produced a legal pad from a briefcase. I hadn’t even notice him carrying that in. Hearing him say he was here to defend me made my heart swell, even though he was referring to the legal protection that was part of his job.
“There isn’t much to say, Ryan. I…you know I didn’t kill anyone right?” I said.
“Of course, I do, I just have to piece it together for everyone else.” He didn’t even hesitate; Brent had been screaming at me in the street and Ryan was working to clear my name. “Quin said something about a stalker on the roof of your car, is that right?”
I filled him in on everything I knew so far, the only flinch I saw on his face was when I mentioned that Brent had neglected to tell me about the existence of an ex-fiancé before last night.
“Do you trust him?” he asked. He looked up from his notes and his eyes met mine. The longer I stared in silence, the more convinced I became that his eyes were changing color. I could have sworn they were deep blue, but they looked brown in this light.
“I think so, I mean…yes?” I heard myself say it, I had my doubts clearly. A knock on the door was instantly followed by it swinging wide open and Brent striding into the room. He looked at me and then at Ryan, he was trying to work out what was going on. “He’s my lawyer,” I said, answering a question that hadn’t been asked. There was a lump in my throat as I fought back the tears that were fighting to escape, I wanted to appear unphased by what had transpired on Charm Close,
but sitting in a police interrogation room in my pajamas didn’t make me look like I was in control of the situation.
“Ms. Wildes, you are free to leave. I…please make sure that we are able to contact you with further questions, but you may return to your home at this time,” Brent said. He left the door open and walked away. He had been in his own clothes, not his uniform.
He must have gone home after the break in last night and slept at his place, which saddened me further as I had been waiting for a phone call or a text. He had come to my house to discuss getting engaged and within a day he was acting so cold. What went wrong? How had I become the bad guy?
Ryan dropped his notepad into his briefcase and stood up. “He has obviously pulled a few strings to make this happen, it isn’t easy to let go of feelings you have had for someone in the past, Nora. No matter how hard you try.” I felt a rush of heat emanate from my chest, spreading around my throat and down into my arms.
It wasn’t the most ‘in your face’ flirting I had ever experienced but given the circumstances, it was pretty smooth. I trudged back out into the corridor with Ryan behind me. When we got to the front of the station, his car was idling on the street waiting for us to get in.
“You’ve been practicing!” I said with a hint of delight. I had demonstrated an ability to control cars that had become quite enviable within my friendship group. I could start the engine and navigate them towards us like a remote-control car, all with my magic.
Ryan had expressed his jealousy at my skill as he had never successfully pulled it off, but as his car had not been here when I climbed out of the police vehicle half an hour ago, he must have been successful.
“I couldn’t have you out-doing me now, could I?” he said. The rumbling of the engine gave a satisfying sound to the quiet street. It was still early, and staff were only now arriving at their businesses to open up for the day.
I imagined that Quin was still at home, slowly working his way through all of the bacon. Ryan opened the door for me, and I lowered myself in, he waited for me to be safely inside and closed the door behind me. I watched him jog around the front of the car and jump into the driver’s seat, throwing his briefcase into the back. “Legal advice and a taxi service, what don’t’ I do.”
