Dark Chocolate and Death

by Samantha Silver

  “Fair enough,” I said with a smile. “Still, if you’re ever up for it, I’d love to hear some stories. I’ve never met anybody who lived in the human world for most of their life.”

  “Of course,” Tina said. “Once the two of you have solved this case, we’ll go out for a drink, and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  It was nice to have a couple of new friends. Suddenly, the front door slammed shut once more, and a moment later another witch came into the living room, this one with frizzy red hair that surrounded her face like a halo. She looked familiar somehow, but I wasn’t sure from where.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” the witch asked.

  “Sara, come meet our new friends, Megan and Andrea. They’re trying to solve a murder that might have been committed by Amy’s uncle,” Ellie explained.

  “And here I thought I was going to get a nice evening in front of the TV instead of being thrown into another one of your murder investigations,” Sara said, darting into the kitchen and grabbing a cookie.

  “You should definitely know us better than that by now,” Tina teased. “A few of us are going to go over to Pacific Cove to check out the victim’s home. Are you in?”

  “Of course I’m in. I’ve had the most stressful day working on some acrobatic moves on my broom; this sounds like the perfect way to get my mind off it.”

  My eyes widened as I realized where I had seen Sara before. “You’re from the broom riding competition, aren’t you?” I asked.

  “Of course she is, but I’m sure she doesn’t love people pointing that out all the time,” Andrea said.

  A blush rose up my face. “Sorry, Andy’s right. I’m sure you’re sick and tired of people recognizing you all the time.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s fine,” Sara said with a smile. “Honestly, it is definitely weird having random people recognize me in the street now, but I’m getting used to it.”

  “Well, now you definitely have to come with us. If we get caught, you can drive the getaway broom,” Andy said with a wink.

  “So it’s settled,” Ellie said. “It’s getting late. Carl should be at the bar so Amy and Megan can go talk to him, and we should get going back over to Pacific Cove.”

  Chapter 11

  The Magic Mule looked like any other magical town’s bar that was predominantly visited by witches and wizards. Dark wood was the main feature, with small tables and chairs set up haphazardly that could easily be put together for larger groups.

  My eyes adjusted to the room’s dark lighting and quickly scanned the faces around. There were a few couples and some groups of friends, but sitting at the bar by himself was an older man, a little bit on the chubby side, who kept running his hand through his black hair.

  “That’s my uncle,” Amy said, making her way toward the man. I followed after her and, as he saw us coming toward him, the man started off by looking a little bit wary, until he realized it was just his niece.

  “Amy, how nice to see you,” Carl said. “What are you doing here? And you’ve brought a friend?”

  “That’s right, Uncle Carl,” Amy replied. “This is my friend Megan. Listen, can we move to one of the tables? I have a couple of questions to ask you about Uncle Charles.”

  “Did you hear he’s been murdered?” Carl asked, and Amy nodded sadly.

  “I did, yeah,” she said. “Now come on, we need to talk to you.”

  Carl didn’t bother asking what we were going to talk about; he simply followed after us as Amy led the two of us to a corner table, about as far as we could get from anyone else, and motioned to the bartender to bring us over three drinks.

  “What’s this all about, Amy?” Carl asked, looking from one of us to the other.

  “Dad tells me that you and Charles were in business together,” Amy said. “Is that right?”

  For the first time, I noticed that Carl’s eyes were a little bit glassy, and that he was sweating just a little bit. I wondered how many drinks he had already had before we got here. I had a sneaking suspicion it was more than just a few.

  Carl snorted in reply. “If you can call giving him half my life savings so that he could go ahead and steal all of it ‘being in business together,’ then yeah, we were.”

  “Why don’t you tell us all about it,” Amy suggested kindly. “Start at the beginning. Please, Uncle Carl, it’s really important.”

  “Why not? You always were the smart one in the family. Sure, your mom is pretty smart and your dad’s no dummy either, but how you ended up easily being the smartest witch in the coven of Jupiter I’ll never know. If anyone can get me out of this mess, though, it’s you.”

  Amy and I shared a quick look. What mess was he talking about? Did he simply mean the fact that half of his life savings were gone? Or did he mean the mess of having killed Charles?

  “I’ll do what I can, Uncle Carl, but you have to tell me what happened first.”

  Carl nodded glumly, took a sip of the new drink that had just been put in front of him, and started telling us his story.

  “It started about six months ago. Charles had just gotten divorced, or it was close to being finalized, something like that. Either way, he and Peggy definitely weren’t together anymore. We were having a drink, and he was complaining about his ex-wife, and how she had poisoned all of the employers in town against him. Nobody would give him a job, and he was feeling pretty bummed out about it.”

  “Did you know that he stole his ex-wife’s inheritance, which is what caused her to divorce him in the first place?” I asked softly, and Carl shook his head, staring down at the table.

  “No, I had no idea. So he didn’t need the money, did he?”

  “He didn’t, no,” Amy replied.

  “That figures. He took me for a fool, and I suppose I should have seen it coming. Charles always had played a little bit fast and loose with the truth, and he was always willing to do virtually anything to get ahead. But I never thought that he would really take advantage of someone who’s family like that. I mean, he might have crossed a line a few times, but this was something else entirely. I’m his brother, for Pete’s sake.”

  “So he told you that he couldn’t get a job in Pacific Cove,” I prompted, and Carl nodded, getting his story back on track.

  “That’s right, he did. So he came to me, telling me he had this idea for a new business. He was going to work as an exporter, moving goods between different paranormal towns. But he needed a license to do it, and the license was expensive. He told me he didn’t have the money to pay for it, and that if I helped him out, he would give me forty percent of the profits until I was paid back, and then twenty percent of the profit in perpetuity. It sounded like a good plan, and he seemed to have everything sorted out. He even told me he knew the owners of Pacific Chocolates, which everyone has heard of. He was sure he could get the contract with them to move their chocolates from town to town.”

  “That’s my family’s company,” I said. “Last year we invested in some new technology that allowed us to put in a portal in the factory so that we didn’t have to pay contractors to manually move chocolate around anymore.”

  Carl nodded. “I know, that’s when I found out everything Charles had told me was a scam. After all, I gave him the money, and months had passed without hearing anything. So eventually I went to him, and I asked him what was going on. He kept making excuse after excuse, telling me that the paperwork had come in and that any day now he was going to be able to start drumming up business.”

  “But he never did?” I asked.

  “Oh, he never got the license, but eventually I suppose he ran out of excuses and he told me he had finally gotten it. So at that point, I figured the money was going to start coming in at any minute. After all, all he had to do now was get the contracts that he told me were virtually guaranteed. So when a couple more months passed and I didn’t hear anything once again, I started to get a little bit suspicious. I went to Pacific Cove myself, without telling Charles, and went and
spoke with the owner of Pacific Chocolates, which had been one of the major companies that Charles told me was going to basically guarantee an income.”

  “And that’s when you found out it was all a scam,” I nodded.

  “That’s right,” Carl replied. “I set up a meeting with the owner, and that was when I found out that Charles worked for them in the factory. He had lied about everything. He did have a job, he was never going to get a license to start his own business, and he definitely wasn’t going to get the business of Pacific Chocolates, since Anthony Numa showed me the portal they had installed himself. Your father?” he asked me, and I nodded.

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, as you can imagine, I was upset. I went to see Charles that night, and I’m not proud to say that things between us went downhill pretty quickly. Words turned to fists, Enforcers were called, and luckily I wasn’t charged, but they did send me back to Western Woods with the promise that I wasn’t going to come back to Pacific Cove.”

  “Did you keep that promise?” I asked, and Carl nodded.

  “Yes. I haven’t been back. I swore to my brother that I was never going to speak to him again, and I didn’t realize that I was going to keep that promise. After all, he’s dead now.”

  “How do you feel about that?” Amy asked. “After all, Uncle Charles definitely did badly by you, but he was still your brother.”

  “I wish I knew,” Carl replied. “Because frankly, you’re right. I want to hate him. I want to be glad he’s dead, and I want to be able to dance on his grave. But at the same time, I can’t help but think of the little boy who cast a spell on one of my professors at the Academy when he was giving me a hard time that made bubbles come out of his nose whenever he breathed, or the little boy who used to try and stand on his broom while flying it, flew directly into a tree, and then convinced me to lie to our mother so she would never know what had really happened.”

  To my surprise, tears welled up in Carl’s eyes. “As much as I hated that he cheated me out of half of my life savings, he was still my brother, so yeah, a part of me is sad. But a part of me also hopes that I’m going to get my money back now.”

  “You know that Charles was murdered, right?” Amy asked, and Carl nodded. “Alright, I’m going to ask you this now, because Enforcers are going to come and ask you this later. So you need to be prepared for the question: where were you this morning between five and seven?”

  Carl looked up at Amy, and I could tell he was definitely drunk now. He had completely finished the drink that had been brought to him since we sat down, and it had only been a few minutes.

  “This morning?” he asked.

  “That’s right, this morning,” Amy specified. “Where were you?”

  “At home,” Carl replied. “I was definitely at home.”

  “Was there anyone there with you? Anyone who can vouch for you?” I asked.

  “No. I’m alone all the time now. After all, who would want to be with someone like me, someone who lets their brother take them for everything they have?”

  Amy and I shared a look. That wasn’t a good alibi at all.

  “Wait,” Carl said after a minute. “No, that’s not where I was this morning. This is an alibi for the murder, right?”

  “That’s right,” Amy said. “We need to know where you were so we can rule you out. The Enforcers will also want to know.”

  “I was with your father,” Carl replied. “He needed a hand at his place to get some repairs done, and he needed two wands to do it.”

  “And that was at five in the morning?” Amy asked. Carl nodded.

  “That’s right. You can ask him; he’ll tell you that I was there with him.”

  “Okay,” Amy said. “Thank you, Uncle Carl.”

  “Can you think of anybody else who might have wanted to hurt Charles?” I asked as the two of us got ready to leave. Carl thought for a minute, and then nodded.

  “I think so, yeah. When I was at the factory, I saw one of the witches working there threaten him with her wand. I don’t know what had happened, but she seemed angry.”

  “Can you describe her for me?” I asked, and Carl nodded.

  “Yes. She had blonde hair, kind of curly, like it had been wrapped around a straw or something.”

  “Ringlets?” I asked, and Carl nodded.

  “Ringlets. Yes, that’s what they’re called.”

  I knew exactly who he was talking about. “Thank you so much for your help, Carl,” I said.

  “Thanks, Uncle Carl,” Amy said. “I’ll see you in a few days, okay?”

  Carl nodded glumly as Amy and I got up and made our way back toward the entrance, with Amy stopping by the bar quickly to pay for her uncle’s drinks. I could already see him getting started on the drink that had been brought to Amy, which she hadn’t touched at all.

  That was definitely not a happy man. However, he was an unhappy man with an alibi for the time of the murder. Carl Perkins was not our killer.

  Chapter 12

  “What do you think about his alibi?” I asked Amy when we left. “It sounds like he didn’t do it.”

  “I want to confirm with my dad first that he actually does have an alibi,” Amy replied, pulling out her phone and writing out a text. “I do trust Uncle Carl to tell me the truth, most of the time. When he’s being investigated for murder is definitely an exception.”

  “Ok, thanks,” I said. “Can you let me know when your father replies? I’m going to head back to Pacific Cove and try to get some sleep, then tomorrow I’m going to have a chat with the employee Charles had a run-in with.”

  “Will do,” Amy said as we swapped numbers. “Let me know how your investigation turns out.”

  “I will,” I said with a smile before the two of us split up and I headed back to the forest to take the portal back to Pacific Cove.

  When I got home, Ashley was sitting at the kitchen counter, eating some leftover soup from the fridge. She had obviously been crying.

  “Hey, Ash, what’s wrong?” I asked, immediately making my way over to my sister and taking her in a big bear hug. Ashley looked up at me, her big, brown eyes welling with tears once more.

  “I just hate how people look at me. How people treat me now.”

  “Why? What’s happened?” I asked quietly.

  “Just walking down the street, it’s like I caught one of those strange human-world diseases that makes your skin look weird. Everyone stares at me. And I can practically feel them all whispering behind my back as soon as I pass. That’s Ashley Numa. Did you hear her parents are in jail? And they found a body at the factory they own? What’s wrong with that family? Are they all criminals? You should stay away from them, little Timmy. That whole family is bad news.”

  “Oh, Ash,” I said sadly. Even though Ashley was the oldest of the three of us, and she worked in a wizard-dominated industry, in some ways she was the most sensitive and I couldn’t help but feel for her. “I’m sure it’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be.”

  “It really is that bad. I’m not making it up. Mars above, you’d think my own family would understand.”

  With that, she stood up abruptly, stormed off to her room, and slammed the door shut behind her. I sighed as I realized I had probably been a little bit too dismissive of Ashley’s feelings. And to be completely honest, the entire day—the entire last few days—were really catching up to me.

  While other people might have reacted, well, like an adult and gone to apologize to their sister, I suddenly felt a huge wave of emotions coming over me. It was like a tsunami that I had absolutely no chance of stopping, and before I knew it, tears welled down my face.

  I ran outside and into the backyard so Ashley wouldn’t see me and Andrea wouldn’t walk in on me ugly crying as sobs racked my body. It was one of those deep, shake-you-to-the-core kinds of cries that felt oddly cleaning when it was finished. Fifteen full minutes later, when my body was completely exhausted of tears and energy, I found myself sitting on th
e grass in the yard, surrounded by a damp spot made by my own tears, but I also felt refreshed. It was like I had cried out all of the stress and emotions from the last few days that I had so far kept pent up inside, and my head was clear and ready to tackle the challenges ahead.

  Sometimes all my body needed for a full reset was a really, really good cry.

  I cast a quick spell on my face to hide my red eyes, since I didn’t want anyone else to know I’d been crying, and when I made my way through the front door, Ashley had come out of her room.

  “Listen, I’m sorry,” I said to her straightaway.

  “I’m sorry too,” she replied, but I shook my head.

  “I shouldn’t have dismissed your feelings. It’s been a rough couple of days for all of us, and I should have listened to you better. I’m sorry you feel like everyone is staring at you. I can’t make it better, but I think with time it will all go away.”

  “I hope so,” Ashley sighed, sipping another spoonful of soup. “I don’t want to have to live here as a pariah for the rest of my life. If things stay the same, I’m going to move somewhere else and start over, somewhere people don’t think our whole family is made up of criminals.”

  “Well, before you go ahead and do that, you should give Andrea and I a chance to actually solve the murder.”

  Ashley groaned. “Don’t tell me I was gone for one day and the two of you are already getting into trouble.”

  “Technically we haven’t gotten into any trouble at all. Well, I haven’t. I can’t speak for Andrea. She’s checking out Charles Perkins’s home along with a couple witches we met from Western Woods.”

  “Oh, great, that’s what we need. More members of our family being arrested and thrown in jail.”

  “I doubt that’s going to happen,” I replied, but as I said the words, I realized my stomach was tying up in knots just a little bit. What if Ashely was right? What if Andrea was caught and arrested? It wouldn’t exactly be a great look right about now.