by Iris Kincaid
“You say that she did an outstanding job. And that she had noteworthy leadership qualities? But I checked with your Human Resources department. Would it surprise you to know that in the five years that she’s been supervisor, they had received over fifty complaints about her behavior?”
“Well, I can’t say that I knew they were two hundred. Of course, I was aware of a few.”
“You are aware, because many employees came directly to you with their concerns?”
“I did have some private meetings with people in her department about issues that they’d had with her.”
“For the record, there are only eight people working underneath her. Fifty complaints from those eight people. Did you feel that their complaints had any merit?”
“Not really. People always believe that they are being treated unfairly. She was fair and she was firm. She was no-nonsense and she always kept the bottom line in mind.”
“You gave her three raises inside of two years. Apparently, that is unprecedented in your company. By the time she died, she was the second-highest-paid employee in your company. Isn’t that correct?”
“She received a large number of merit-based considerations. So, yes, that was reflected in her salary.”
“I have a very important question for you, Mr. Pearce. It’s a very private question. It’s a very interesting question. Before you answer it, I have to remind you that you are under oath. Were you ever intimately involved with Heather Kelton?”
“That’s the most preposterous thing I ever heard of. Of course not. Our relationship was strictly professional. We didn’t even conduct a friendship outside of work.”
“Forgive the question, Mr. Pearce,” Jeremy apologized. “But can you give us a good reason as to why the complaints of employees who should have been under your protection fell on deaf ears? Why you were so accommodating and rewarding to one employee who was so widely disliked, so widely considered abusive, and who had all the leadership qualities of a prison guard?”
The most noteworthy thing about Mr. Pearce’s response was that he couldn’t sustain his righteous indignation.
“I may have dropped the ball,” he admitted hesitantly.
But there seemed to be so much that he wasn’t saying, Wanda noted. And whatever the truth, it was going to have to be pried out of him with a crowbar. Perhaps he’d had an affair with Heather Kelton. If it were true, there’s not a chance he would admit to it. And if it were true, it might’ve been conducted so carefully that no other living soul could confirm it.
What’s the best way to conduct a clandestine affair in Oyster Cove? Not many options. Most of the hotels were right on the Promenade for convenient appeal to the tourists in the beach action. There were only two that were a bit out of the way. What they lacked in convenience, they made up for with other amenities—some by design, some inherent.
There was a swanky hotel filled with spa treatments, a complimentary champagne welcome, and three-thousand-thread-count sheets. Room service was inclusive, with a personal trainer, a personal shopper, and a glam squad on call.
The other accommodation was several notches down the scale of classiness. It was the cheekily named Notel Motel. It was a very logical place to conduct an affair. One party could wait in the car. There was no lobby that had to be passed through. The desk attendant need never see the second party. And everyone minded their own business.
Of course, affairs weren’t the only clandestine activity being conducted on the premises. It was a good place to engage in anything that had to be hidden from prying eyes. But for affairs, it was notorious.
Wanda and Jeremy met in the parking lot of the law library to draw up the next step in the battle plan.
“What do you think about paying a visit to the Notel?” Wanda suggested.
Jeremy’s eyes widened as he tried to maintain his cool. All right, he had already broken every rule in the book on this case. Spending some private time at the Notel Motel with a juror was beyond the pale. And yet, turning her down wasn’t even a remote possibility.
“Sure . . . or if you’d like, we could just go over to my place. You know, Jonathan is gone, so I have the place all to myself right now—”
Wanda had to giggle. It was low and throaty, but a giggle nonetheless. Not only at the fact that she had inadvertently propositioned someone, but that if she had actually wanted to do that, apparently, it would have been very successful. And it hadn’t even been a command.
“Actually, I thought that you and I should drop by the Notel and look at the check-in records to figure out whether Adam Pearce has been a regular visitor. I got a copy of his signature when I was at the call center.”
Boy, could Jeremy blush! He turned three different shades of red as he tried to recover his composure and divert attention away from his misunderstanding.
“The Notel. Excellent idea. Handwriting sample, you say? Good thinking. He’s definitely hiding something. We are most definitely on the same page here.”
Wanda tried to keep a poker face as she pulled out the handwriting sample. It was time to let the poor guy off the hook.
*****
Jeremy and Wanda stopped for a moment before entering the tiny Notel check-in center.
“How, exactly, are we going to get a look at their check-in records?” Jeremy wondered. “I know you have a plan. And that it’s going to be completely illegal. Should I stay outside?”
“Don’t worry. They have to bend a few rules for us. I’m sure they’ll be happy to do it.”
Although Jeremy often had his moments of being a worrier, Wanda had told him not to worry, and all of a sudden, he didn’t have to.
The bored, world-weary night attendant looked up with a bit of surprise at the attractive couple. Normally, only the men would come in while their companions stayed in the car. They were such a young, well-matched pair, they almost looked legit. In which case, he really should’ve sprung for one of those nice hotels on the Promenade.
“Show us your check-in records for the past two months,” Wanda demanded.
The attendant immediately handed Wanda the registry in front of her, as well as unlocking a desk drawer and pulling out additional records.
“We’re just going to have a seat and take a look. Don’t call anyone or tell your boss. We’ll get these back to you as quickly as we can, no harm done.”
Jeremy watched with amazement, although he realized that he really needed to stop being surprised at the multitude of surprising developments involving Wanda. He had kind of suspected that she was going to be pretty terrific. But she was unbelievably awesome. Tenacious, determined, fearless, and mesmerizing.
With Adam Pearce’s handwriting in front of them, his nom de plume was quickly identified—Benjamin Franklin.
“Is he kidding? That’s just as bad as John Doe,” Jeremy said. “It really does scream, ‘I’m here for an affair.’ ”
“There’s quite a few founding fathers on this list. Oh, no. John Hancock. Seriously?”
They chuckled. “Hey. I don’t think he was having an affair with Heather Kelton,” Jeremy noticed. “A lot of these dates happened after her death. Let me see . . . Mondays and Thursdays. So, today. He should be coming tonight—always around ten PM.”
“That’s about an hour from now. Why don’t we move the car to a good spot where we can see who he’s with, and see if he shows?” Wanda suggested.
The returned the records to the confused employee and went back to the car.
“This is like a real stakeout, huh?” Wanda said excitedly.
Jeremy’s work didn’t normally involve this much cloak and dagger, and he had to admit, he was thoroughly enjoying himself. Maybe it was just the company.
“Why should the cops have all the fun?” he agreed. Spending time with Wanda still had a somewhat surreal quality to it. After all these years, he was finally talking to the girl who couldn’t talk. The girl from Holloways.
“So, working at the store… that can’t be… oh, ma
n, I don’t mean to put words in your mouth. But I don’t think that’s what you wanted to do. Is it?”
No. Not even close. I thought about that all the time when I was stocking the cereal boxes, and the tuna cans, and the pickle jars. How can it be that this is what my life is going to be about? Next week, more pickle jars, and fifteen years from now, still more pickle jars. And then I thought, I’m just to be sitting on my stool one day in front of the pickle jars and just like that last seen in the final Godfather, I’m just going to keel right over.”
It was a grim image, but also so melodramatic that they both had to laugh.
“So, what's the new plan? What is your great pickle free destiny going to be?”
“I’ve been offered a position as a shift supervisor at the store. It’s a pretty big promotion. It was really nice of them to think of me for it.”
“But, that’s not it. That’s not the right thing, is it? I know you’re about to do some extraordinary things. But I couldn’t even begin to guess. I think you’re going to surprise us all.”
“As a matter of fact, I do have a few ideas about that.”
“Ideas that came from… The Godfather?”
A parked car is a great place for a second date. Wanda and Jeremy were so engrossed in their banter that they almost didn’t notice when Adam Pearce’s car drove up. He entered the motel room alone, and it was another twenty minutes before his companion entered separately. Wanda recognized her as an employee from the call center. Bianca Hewitt.
CHAPTER TEN
It seemed to involve too much maneuvering for Wanda to go back inside the call center. She waited outside in the parking lot for Bianca, who was in her late thirties, with warm brown ringlets framing a generally sunny expression.
“Hi. I’m investigating the Heather Kelton murder. Tell me—how long have you been sleeping with Adam Pearce?”
Bianca bristled, her whole body tensing. “Six years.”
“Wow. Long time.”
“And what, exactly, is your name?” Bianca demanded.
“You will be answering my questions,” Wanda explained to the irate woman. “What was your relationship with Heather Kelton?”
“She knew about us. She treated me like trash. I didn’t even tell Adam about half the things that she called me. Even though I wanted so badly for him to fire her. But she had him over a barrel, you see.
“It would’ve been a disaster if she told everyone about us. His family would’ve been broken up. And everyone in town would be thinking terrible things about me. I wouldn’t even have been able to leave my house. You probably agree with her. That I’m just a trashy homewrecker. Except, I don’t really want him to leave his family. It was just something good in our lives that we didn’t want to affect anything else.”
“Do you think Adam Pearce is capable of murder?”
Bianca hesitated. “I wish I could say no. But it’s really hard to live with the blackmail hanging over you. Knowing this woman could ruin his life, he might have been feeling really desperate, so . . . I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
“If you can’t answer that question,” Wanda said pointedly, “Maybe you should be spending your Monday and Thursday nights with someone else.”
Bianca sighed pensively. Maybe she should.
*****
After Wanda reported the findings from her conversation with Bianca to Jeremy, there was a big decision to be made. Should Adam Pearce be brought back to the witness stand and be grilled about the truth behind why he’d favored Heather Kelton so heavily? The right to run his company in an ethical manner and according to his own best judgment had been stripped from him by the threat of Heather revealing his secret affair.
“It’s a big motive. And another suspect. When it comes to suspects, the more the merrier,” Jeremy noted.
“It sounds as if Heather had been squeezing favors out of Pearce for a few years now. But what would cause him to snap after all this time? What made it unbearable? I don’t think that Heather Kelton would ever actually have squealed on him. If she did, then the game would be over and all the favors would be over.”
“I wouldn’t put money on him. But sex, secrets, and blackmail might be enough to get the jury to envision a different scenario.”
“It also might be enough to break apart Adam Pearce’s marriage. Maybe that’s a necessary thing. Maybe it’s a catastrophe. And Bianca really wouldn’t be able to show her face at that job anymore. She’s also going to have a rough time with all the gossip. I mean, I suppose that’s unavoidable if Adam Pearce is the killer. But if he’s not, their secret will have come out, and it won’t really have helped Harley, would it?”
Jeremy shook his head. “That’s something you always have to wrestle with. Sometimes, smearing someone takes the heat off your client. And afterward, everyone is left to pick up their own pieces.”
“This is already a pretty tragic case. I know you gotta do what you gotta do, but . . .”
“Are you encouraging me to grow a conscience?”
“I think the one you already have will serve you just fine,” Wanda said confidently.
The next day in court, there was no mention of Adam Pearce. Wanda was relieved. She had uncovered Adam and Bianca’s affair through her powers of compulsion, and no, she didn’t really approve of it. But whether they continued it or broke up, whether Adam divorced his wife or wanted to keep his family together—those decisions should not be in her hands. That was not the way her power should be used.
*****
It had been a while since Wanda had last talked to Delphine. The elder witch knew that the demands of jury duty and the pressure that Wanda was putting on herself to find the truth would probably be all that was required to hone her newfound skills.
“I think you’d be lovely with almost any style, my dear, but I’m not really sure that’s your shade,” Delphine noted.
Wanda had completely forgotten that she still had her wig on. She pulled it off sheepishly. “I didn’t think being a juror normally required this much undercover work. But it’s mostly to protect Jeremy Todd, the public defender. I would hate to have him disbarred or punished in any way because we keep seeing each other.”
“You keep seeing each other? And why is that?” Delphine asked, knowing the answer.
If there were anyone in Oyster Cove that she couldn’t keep secrets from and didn’t want to, it was Delphine. “We met so many years ago, back when I couldn’t speak. I never thought there was any possibility that he and I could ever . . . but he still likes me.
“And now, I can finally, finally speak to him. And we both wanted to do the right thing with this trial. Even though we’ve managed to break a bucketload of rules. It’s become very confusing, knowing when to use this power and when it’s just flat-out wrong.”
“I have kept an eye on you. And you certainly have been a busy little bee. Commoners have their laws. We transgress them all the time. Why should we be limited by laws written for those without our capabilities?
“Not that we are without morality. All right, some of us are definitely without morality. But justice and goodness and truth transcend the bureaucracies of humans. A woman was killed. Her murderer absolutely should be behind bars. Find justice, by any means at your disposal.”
Wanda brightened up, comforted.
“Now let me show you what you can do with your hair,” Delphine continued. “The wig is unnecessary. Once the witch’s powers are in you, you will have certain strengths and specialties. But the powers spread, and there are many things that we are all able to do.”
She pulled Wanda in front of the mirror, and running her fingers along Wanda’s scalp, she pulled her hands through Wanda’s hair, leaving every inch that she passed a new shade of ash blonde. Wanda gasped.
“That’s actually quite an easy one. And it can be any color you please.” Delphine repeated the trick, this time turning the color to the deep black shade of Wanda’s wig.
“It can also use a l
ittle shaping, don’t you think? With absolutely no need for scissors, Delphine sculpted a flattering cut with her hands. “Hmm. I may have taken a little too much off the sides. Let’s put about an inch or so of that back.” And so she did.
Wanda was delighted to find such a wonderfully frivolous use of witch powers. She also enjoyed being fussed over by Delphine. It was a tiny glimpse of the mother figure that had always been absent in her life.
Not surprisingly, Lilith looked on with unabated disgust. Hair color. Haircuts. Does he like me? Doesn’t he like me? Oh, what drivel! And what a poor mentor Delphine was turning out to be.
Wanda had what was potentially the most fearsome power that Lilith had in her arsenal. The power to bend all around her to her will. Even if Lilith’s killer had the advantage of strength over Wanda, the young fledgling’s abilities should still be able to help uncover the identity of the evil foe. Instead, Wanda’s energies were focused on avenging the odious Heather Kelton.
It would not have been appreciated to point out to Lilith that her own selfishness, disdain for the well-being of others, and boundless ego gave her a great deal of similarities with the murdered commoner.
*****
Of all the people that Wanda would expect to be waiting at her front gate, her last guess would have been Fiona Skretting. Yet there she stood.
“Come closer, child. I have no immediate plans to harm you.”
What about future plans? “What do you want?”
The sound of Lilith’s voice was a constant affront to Fiona. One shouldn’t have to constantly contend with one’s rival for so long after they had been dead and buried.
“Can you see her?”
“Who?”
“Lilith.”
“What you mean?”
“She lingers. She schemes. I’m certain of it. But she no longer has teeth. Tell me what you know of her plans.”
Fiona’s powers of compulsion were undoubtedly stronger than her own, but Wanda could truthfully profess ignorance.
“She has not made use of you yet. But she will. I don’t see how she could resist. But her power is fractured and diluted by the weakness of commoners while mine grows stronger without being stifled by her shadow. Do not entertain the thought of challenging me.”
