They parked the car and began to wander around the campus. Following the map, they were able to see notable buildings and areas around the campus. Mira led the way, directing them towards the side of the campus that housed the engineering department.
“Jeez, Mira, slow down. Wait for us,” Pippa called out to her as she and Thea jogged after the younger girl. “She’s so excited to be here. I’m happy for her.”
“Me too. Has she already started the application process?” Thea asked.
“I’m pretty sure she has. I think she already started asking her teachers for recommendations. She’s on top of everything–”
Suddenly, Mira let out a gasp that jolted Pippa and Thea simultaneously. The girl froze in her tracks, staring ahead at a man heading their way.
“Professor Kendrick Potter.” Mira exclaimed, waving her arm to catch his attention. She hurried forward, offering her hand to shake. “My name is Mira Paulson and I’ll be attending Ardensville college after I graduate. I’m interested in majoring in engineering and I know that you’re one of the best engineering professors on campus.”
The professor let out an impressed laugh as he shook her hand. “It’s such a welcoming sight to see someone so invested in their education.” He glanced up at Thea and Pippa, who approached behind her. “Are these your sisters?”
“I am. I’m Pippa Paulson,” she said, stepping forward.
“And I’m Thea Beal. I’m just a close family friend of theirs, I’m not related.”
He raised a brow, meeting Thea’s gaze directly. “Beal? Are you related to Selena Beal, by any chance?”
“S-She’s my mother...” Thea whispered out, stunned by the fact that he even mentioned her. “How do you know her?”
“I met her while I was in college myself. We both studied here, as a matter of fact.”
“How’s that possible? My mother went to university in Chicago, not Ardensville.”
“If you’d like to continue this conversation, you can always set up an appointment with me in my office,” he suggested, taking a brief glance at his watch. “I really have to get going. I’m running late for a meeting–”
“Hold on,” Thea interjected, stepping in front of him. “Do you know where I could speak to Nichole Hewitt or Shawn Morgan? It’s a bit of an emergency.”
Professor Potter let out a dry laugh. “I never know the whereabouts of that girl, Nichole. But Shawn is a bookworm. You could probably find him in the library right now.”
“Of course. And that appointment with you... Can we talk tomorrow, then?”
“That sounds perfect. You girls take care now.”
While Pippa and Mira continued with the campus tour, Thea decided to head off towards the library to talk to Shawn. One of the underlying reasons why she wanted to visit the university campus was the opportunity to find and talk to him about Rhianna. She was fortunate that she got her chance.
When she entered the building, she was impressed by its size and grandeur. There weren’t many students in the library to begin with, so it was easy to find Shawn settled at one of the tables with his laptop and his books. Interrupting him earned her a dark look.
“You again? Why are you here–”
“I need to talk to you about Rhianna’s case. I already talked to Kim about it and I wanted to hear your side of the story.”
Shawn sighed, placing his pencil in his book and shutting it. “If you want to know why I had an issue with Rhianna, okay. I’ll tell you. I’m pretty sure that she was cheating her way through her courses, either by paying off the teachers or sleeping with them. I could never find proof of this happening, but I can guarantee that it was.”
“But you have no proof,” Thea reminded him, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Yet,” he countered. “Whenever I tried to bring this up to the administration, it always turned into a he-said, she-said bout and I always lost. It was frustrating.”
It was clear to Thea that Rhianna must have used her latent siren abilities to her advantage to snake around Shawn’s accusations. She didn’t think there was anything malicious about that. Probably.
“I’ve also heard that you hated Nichole Hewitt,” she brought up, which made him roll his eyes.
“If you want to talk to someone who really hated Rhianna, talk to Leroy Bird. He’s the custodian at Ardensville High. Either him or Gage, who was dumped by Rhianna. He’s a theater major, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he came up with a sob story on the spot about how heartbroken he was about her.”
Unconvinced that Shawn was completely innocent, Thea decided to leave that matter for another day. Leaving the boy alone to continue studying, she exited the library and immediately called Blaine.
“Do you want to meet me at that little café near the university? We can get lunch together if you want,” she told him over the phone.
As she stood in the middle of campus, she looked around to see if she could catch sight of Mira and Pippa.
“Of course. Anything new about the case so far?”
She grimaced. “Not really. I’ve been talking with people, but they haven’t revealed anything new.”
“I haven’t had any luck with the case, either,” Blaine said, with a bit of exasperation lining his words. “I’ve been needing something to pick up my mood. I’ll see you soon.”
Chapter 10
Thea walked into A Brew-tiful Day, a coffee shop next to the university. The inside of the shop was warm and welcoming. Even though she hadn’t had any of the coffee yet, the smell was enough to perk her up.
There were a handful of college students seated around the coffee shop. Most of them sat around the tables, either alone with a laptop or book, or in a group chatting. There was also a group sitting on the bench of the large bay window in the front of the shop.
Thea scanned the crowd. Her eyes landed on Blaine. He waved at her and held up two mugs, showing her that he had already ordered for them.
Thea smiled and walked over. She put her purse down and took off her jacket and draped it across the back of the chair.
“Two coffees?” She joked. “You have a worse caffeine addiction than I thought.”
“Very funny,” Blaine responded. He pushed one of the mugs towards her. She went to grab the cream and sugar on the table but he held up a hand to stop her.
“Two creams and a sugar, right? It’s already in there.”
Thea looked impressed. “How did you know my order?”
Blaine shrugged and smiled as he took a sip of his own black coffee. “It’s my job to notice these things.”
“How is your job going? Besides knowing my coffee order, that is.”
Blaine let out a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. “If only all of it were that easy.”
“What do you mean?” Thea asked, taking a sip of her coffee.
“We just don’t have a lot of evidence in the Stewart case.”
“Well, what do you have? Maybe you should focus on that.”
Blaine took a deep breath. “We know that Rhianna died from a blow to the head. She was either pushed off of or fell from a high point on the parade float.”
“So, a cause of death so far. What else?”
“There was the fight at the sorority house. That seemed ripe at first for a potential motive. But Nichole Hewitt immediately lawyered up and refused to talk to us. It seems a little suspicious, but with how little evidence we have, it also seems smart.”
“Do you have any other suspects?” Thea asked.
Blaine shook his head. “Everyone we’ve talked to so far thought the world of her. It seems like everyone on campus did. Even the fight seems like an anomaly rather than probable cause. To be honest, if the security camera footage wasn’t missing, this would have been written off as an accident.”
Thea thought about all of the evidence as she drank her coffee. Blaine looked at her. “Do you have any?” He asked. “Hopefully we aren’t both coming up with nothing.”
“I was
n’t able to talk to Nichole either,” Thea admitted. “I stopped by the sorority house to ask about the fight, but she drove off once I started asking questions. Kim told me that Nichole was mad that Rhianna was still talking to Gage.”
“For some, that would be enough to kill over.”
“I also heard about someone else. Has a Leroy Bird come up in your investigation?”
“Leroy Bird?”
“He was a custodian at Rhianna’s high school. Supposedly he hated Rhianna.”
Blaine pulled out his phone and made a note of it. “I’ll be sure to check that out. I think our next step here is to pay Gage a visit though. I heard he likes to hang out by the university theater. Care to accompany me?”
BLAINE AND THEA QUICKLY drained their coffees before heading over to the university theater. It was inside the arts college. They pushed the doors to the theater open and saw Gage standing up on stage, lit up by the house and stage lights.
Gage was on stage with another student actor. Each had a book in their hand. An older woman sat in the front of the theater, watching them carefully and taking notes. Blaine and Thea sat down towards the back of the theater, waiting for the rehearsal to conclude..
“With love’s light wings did I o’er perch these walls, for stony limits cannot hold love out,” Gage recited, reading from his script.
Thea had to admit that Gage was a good actor. He had a strong stage presence, and he was able to read Shakespeare with a natural ease, as if that was how he always spoke.
Not long into the rehearsal, Gage noticed Blaine and Thea. When the scene concluded and he was given a break, he came over to the two of them.
“Thea? I didn’t expect to see you around here,” Gage said, sitting on the back of the theater chairs in the row in front of them. “What can I do for you? And your friend here?”
Blaine stood up and flashed his badge. “My name is Detective Blaine Coburn. Mind if we ask you a few questions.”
If Gage was intimidated, it was impossible to tell by his expression. “Not at all. I’m sure this is about Rhianna, right?”
“That’s right. You two had a breakup shortly before her death. Is that correct?”
“We did break up, but honestly, there were no hard feelings. She’s great and all, but honestly we just weren’t compatible. If she didn’t break up with me, I probably would have broken up with her around the same time.”
“So no hard feelings there?”
Gage shook his head. “No, of course not. I wasn’t angry at her or anything. That’s just how those things go sometimes. If I may ask, have you talked to Nichole Hewitt or have her parents blocked everything already?”
Blaine and Thea exchanged a look. “What makes you ask that?” He said.
“Just wondering I guess.”
The director called the end of the break. Gage looked over his shoulder and stood up. “Hey, so I have to go now, but I’ll be in the wood shop lab later tonight if you have any more questions. Also, you might want to look into Shawn Morgan. He was always super weird to Rhianna.”
Gage saluted Blaine and Thea with his script before rushing back to the stage.
Blaine and Thea exited the theater. Thea’s mind was buzzing with possibilities and motives. Though their conversation with Gage had been short, it may have been the spark the case needed to solve the mystery.
Chapter 11
Granny came out of Thea’s kitchen smiling and carrying a pot roast.
“Who’s hungry?” she asked happily as she set it down in the middle of the dining room table.
“Thank you so much for this, Granny,” Thea said. “I’m exhausted. I was running all over the place today.”
“Oh, don’t you worry your pretty little head,” Granny said, going over to Thea’s seat to give her a kiss on the top of her head. “It was no trouble at all. Just a bit of this a little bit of that.”
Granny waved her fingers in the air. Thea could feel the magic radiating off the impressive spread that Granny had set out. “Kitchen magic is just too fun, and it’s delicious to boot.”
Granny went to her seat and Thea started to make herself a plate. She deeply inhaled the unusual herbs and spices Granny used on the dishes. Granny knew a bit about the magic properties of plants, and it meant that every meal Granny made had her feeling full and content.
Granny started to make herself a plate as well. Sybil jumped into one of the chairs, just barely seeing over the tabletop when standing on her hind legs. She jumped onto the table and flicked her orange tail back and forth.
“Someone make me a plate,” Sybil demanded. “I’m starving.”
“Oh, now, hush you,” Granny said, making up a small plate of meat for Sybil. Sybil immediately began to devour the food.
Thea began to eat her food. It was delicious, but she still felt distracted and tired. Granny, a keen observer, almost immediately took notice.
“Tell me what’s on your mind,” Granny prompted. “Something is eating you up. I can tell.”
“I guess I’m just thinking about the case,” Thea admitted.
“Have you run into a snag?”
“We have a suspect. Nichole Hewitt. Her name has been coming up a lot, but her parents immediately had her lawyer up and stay quiet. We haven’t been able to pin her down.”
“Oh I see,” Granny said. “I think Tiegen and I would do the same for you, truthfully.”
“I know you would,” Thea said. “But it doesn’t make this case any easier.”
“Well then why don’t you think of something else for a while. You’ve been thinking about the case so much. Poor dear, you’re going to run yourself ragged.”
“I don’t know what else to think about. A murderer on the loose is pretty pressing.”
“Yes, and I think you just need to see it with fresh eyes. Now, where does your mind wander if you can’t think about the case and murders and all that other nasty business?”
Thea sat back in her chair and tried to think about something that wasn’t the case. It was a harder task than she realized. Her mind wandered back to the case often.
However, she was able to land on a question adjacent to the case, but, thankfully, separate from the murder.
“Granny?” Thea began.
“Yes, dear?”
“I have a question about Selena. Didn’t she graduate from Chicago.”
“Oh, very nearly, but she didn’t in truth. She did most of her studies in Chicago, but for her last semester, she came home to Ardensville.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes. She didn’t say why, but shortly after she graduated, she and Alistair were engaged. The rest of us figured things out,” she said with a chuckle.
“But they never said exactly why?” Thea asked.
“I don’t think they needed to. Imagine if you were hours and hours away from Blaine. It would make your heart ache to not be able to see him for lunch or to stop by whenever you wanted.”
Thea nodded in agreement. It was hard to imagine. Not being able to spontaneously be close to Blaine sounded difficult. If he was still in Chicago, she knew they wouldn’t have gotten this far in their relationship.
“You’re thinking of him. I can tell,” Granny asserted. “I can always tell when you get that look. You know who else has that look? Jesse.”
Thea laughed. “I guess you don’t need physical distance to have something be so delayed like that.”
“Does she realize how crazy he is about her?”
“I don’t know,” Thea said. “I don’t think so. He just needs a little nudge to get things started.”
“They would be cute together, wouldn’t they?” Granny said. “Doesn’t she see him follow her around like a lost puppy?”
“Pippa isn’t always the most observant in that regard. I think she just thinks he’s being friendly.”
“Then like you said, he needs a nudge in the right direction,” Granny said. “You could, ah, help that along.”
“Granny, I can
’t do that. What if it messes everything up?”
“Oh, Thea, you know he won’t do anything on his own. You’d be doing the two of them a favor.”
Thea considered this. While she was initially adverse to meddling, she did think that a small nudge in the right direction would be good for Pippa and Jesse. After all, like Granny said, he was crazy about her.
“I don’t think you should meddle,” Sybil said, as if reading Thea’s mind. Remnants of the dinner hung from her whiskers. “I think this is one that you need to stay out of.”
“Oh, just eat your dinner,” Granny said to Sybil. “It’s not meddling. She’s helping them.”
“I don’t know. It sounds like getting involved in something that’s a whole lotta not-your-business.”
“Well, I think we can all agree that they’d make a cute couple,” Granny said. “He’d move heaven and earth for that foxy lady. What more could she ever want?”
Sybil shook her head. “I don’t know. It seems like it could end up being an awful lot of trouble.”
“Everyone is an adult. They’re mature and can handle their emotions. They just need Thea’s help to get the ball rolling.”
Sybil looked skeptically at Granny. She clearly didn’t believe that getting involved was the best option for Thea. “Whatever you say, Granny. Whatever you say.”
Chapter 12
Sybil swished her tail back and forth as she watched Granny set up the spell in the living room.
“I always said Tiegen shouldn’t be the only one teaching you magic,” Granny said as she poured water into a large, shallow casserole dish.
Thea was busying herself around the room, lighting candles. After dinner, Granny was struck with an epiphany. If Nichole refused to talk to anyone, then some spying would be in order.
And, because Thea wasn’t a part of the police force, she didn’t need to worry about making sure Nichole had access to her lawyer.
“So how does this spell go?” Thea asked, blowing out the match in her hand.
Spooky Magic (Tabby Kitten Mystery Book 4) Page 4
