Once Upon A Murder

by D E Dennis

  Monica picked it up and laughed. “It’s the number of the burner phone.” She turned and lifted a brow at Michael. “That Mira is one of a kind. You never should have let her go.”

  Michael reached over and plucked the paper from her hand ignoring her knowing look. “This just confirms it. Why text from a burner phone if you didn’t want that text traced back to you? The killer planned to get him out of the house and kill him.”

  Monica inclined her head. “Yes, but that doesn’t explain why Preston went along with it. He must have known who was on the other end and thought nothing of them texting him from a strange number. Why?”

  He sighed. “It seems like every question we—” Michael frowned, cutting himself off. A memory tickled at the back of his mind, dancing at the edge of recognition, but he couldn’t quite—

  “Every question we what?” Monica prompted, interrupting his train of thought. “What were you saying?”

  He shook himself. “Every question we answer comes with a half dozen more questions.” Michael turned back to their whiteboard and removed the blanket. “So, if we find out that one of these suspects has a second secret phone...”

  “...we find our killer,” she finished. “Except we’re not allowed to speak to Lance and Auggie let alone snoop through their things, the rest of our suspects all have alibis and asking the Charmings to let us search their house is a sure way to get us fired.”

  “There is one suspect who has yet to give us an alibi, has a motive to hate Preston, and has reason to hide her number and their meeting.”

  Monica’s eyes narrowed. “Who?”

  Michael squared his shoulders. “Peyton Dunn.”

  Groaning, Monica threw her hand in the air. “I told you! A heavily pregnant teenager isn’t going to—”

  And their argument began anew.

  MICHAEL WAS WORN OUT by the time he pulled up in front of the doctor’s office. He loved his sister, but sometimes he wondered what kind of fool he was to sign up to work with her every day. Every. Single. Day.

  Michael sighed and rested his head against the steering wheel. The headache he felt coming on was going to be a whopper and all he wanted was to get back to his apartment, draw the shades, and lie down.

  A firm tap on his window made him lift his head. His mother beamed down at him waving happily. “Hello, baby.”

  Michael smiled and unlocked his car door. “Hi, Mom.” He gave her a firm hug and led her around to the passenger side. “How did your check-up go?”

  “Doctor says I’m doing just fine,” she said as she slid into the passenger seat. Michael hurried around the car and retook his seat before picking up their conversation.

  “That’s great, Mom, but did you tell him about the bad reaction you had to the medicine?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “What about when you fainted at Monica’s gig last month?”

  “I had just gotten over the flu and had nothing to eat that day. That was nothing, Michael.”

  “So, you didn’t tell him?”

  Michael removed his key from the ignition and made to exit the car. “We should go back and talk to him about—”

  “Michael Cornelius Grimm, you take your hand off that handle and stop your fussing,” she said sternly. “I told you I am fine and I am. I can look after my own health.”

  Michael wanted to argue but a stubborn glint in her eye showed she was ready to argue him into submission and he wasn’t up for fighting with another Grimm woman today. “I’m sorry, Mom. It’s just... I only get one of you. I want to know you’re okay.”

  Kimona’s gaze softened. “I know, baby, but everything’s going to be fine. I promise.” She reached out and gently stroked his cheek. “Why don’t we have dinner tonight? It’s been so long since we spent time together just you and me.”

  “That would be nice.” Michael started the car and pulled out of the lot.

  “Where is your sister anyway?”

  “She stayed behind at the office. It’s only five and we don’t close for another hour. She’s going to band practice right after.”

  She hummed. “And how is this case of yours going? You don’t have much more time to solve it.”

  “I want to believe we’re on the right track, but the truth is we are no closer to finding the killer than we were a few days ago. Half of our suspects won’t speak to us and the other half have alibis. If all that wasn’t enough, the cops won’t work with us anymore.”

  Michael caught her frown out of the corner of his eye. “What? Why? Surely, Samira will help you.”

  He shook his head. “Chief’s orders. She can’t give us any information or assistance on this case.”

  “Well, you don’t need help, baby. You and your sister can figure this out on your own. You’ve solved all your other cases.”

  “Those cases were on this side, Mom,” he said lightly. “It’s a whole different world over there.”

  “Nonsense. They are no different from us. They love and laugh just like us, and they hide and lie just like us too. Them having money doesn’t change the reasons why people kill. Revenge, money, love, or desperation.”

  Michael inclined his head. “There’s no shortage of all of the above when it comes to the murder of Preston Charming, but the longer this goes on the more people are clamming up.”

  “Have you talked to your father? Maybe he can—”

  Michael’s face shuttered closed. “No.”

  “But, Michael, he may be able to—”

  “I said no, Mom. I don’t need his help.” He caught her frowning again and softened his tone. “Look, you were right. I’m just getting frustrated because the clock is running out for us to find the killer. Monica and I will solve this soon. I just need to put my head down, do good detective work, and fit the pieces together. We’ll find who did this.”

  “I know you will, love.” She patted his shoulder fondly. “I know.”

  They switched to lighter topics and spent the rest of the ride chatting about how things were going on in their lives. Although since they had seen each other only a few days ago there wasn’t a lot to share. Michael said as much to his mother.

  “You must get sick of us, Mom,” he teased. “Monica and I are always popping into your house, raiding your kitchen, and swinging by on our lunch breaks. All the books and movies said we would be out of your hair by eighteen.”

  His mother popped him over the head but she was laughing all the same. “I’m glad those books and movies were wrong, silly. I love that the three of us are so close. I see my friends who all have grown children that never visit or call. They can’t even be bothered to send Christmas cards during the holidays. I see the pain underneath their blusters and complaints and it makes me thankful every day that I was blessed with the two of you. Some would say the people on the other side of that gate are living the fairy-tale life, but if you ask me, I’m the luckiest woman in Castle Rock.”

  Michael turned into the driveway of her little two-bedroom house and killed the engine just as he was hit with a wave of sadness. Michael thought of Penelope Charming crying her eyes out over the loss of her only child. He thought of Peyton Dunn forced to raise a baby on her own. He thought of Ella, her family gone, and living with cruel foster sisters and a foster mother that wasn’t always there even when she was in the room.

  And he said, “We are lucky too, Mom. I wouldn’t give up our lives or our family for anything.”

  “Really?” she asked softly. “You never wished you grew up on the other side?”

  Michael’s pocket suddenly buzzed with a message but he ignored it and he looked his mother straight in the eye. “Never.”

  She smiled and patted his cheek once more. “Come inside, love. I have leftover dumplings and soup. I’ll heat it up for us.”

  “Sounds good, Mom. I’ll be right behind you.”

  She nodded and stepped out of the car while Michael took out his phone and checked the screen. Ella.

  Michael opened i
t right away and read.

  Ella: Hi, Michael. I know you might be upset with me for keeping things from you but I wanted to say thanks for the other day and for helping me talk to Adalynn. She’s been really great since she found out. She’s gotten off the couch, talked with me about counseling, and said she would be there for me, whatever I need.

  She even went off on Abigail when she called me Cinderella. Told her that she would ground her for a month if she didn’t stop acting like a brat. I can’t believe how supportive she’s been, or even how supportive you and Monica have been even though you both barely know me. So I just wanted to say thanks to both of you.

  Pass this on to Monica too. Or just give me her number so I can tell her. Thanks. (I’ve said that like three time now, haven’t I? Lol)

  Michael chuckled, his heart warming. Truthfully, he hadn’t felt like he had done much at all to help her even though he desperately wanted to. No one should go through all the things Eleanor Glass had endured.

  Michael: I appreciate all three of your thanks but you don’t have to—

  Michael stopped dead. His eyes having drifted up to read the number written under Ella’s name.

  He went cold. He knew that number. He had seen it before earlier that day.

  “No,” he whispered shakily. “No, it can’t be.”

  He fumbled in his pockets, almost dropping his phone twice, he yanked out his wallet and feverishly looked through it.

  He ripped out the scrap of paper, almost tearing it in half, and squinted at it in the dim light. Michael read it once, twice, three times but the numbers stubbornly remained the same.

  It was Ella’s phone number.

  Sweet, kind, funny Ella texted Preston Charming and told him to meet her in the woods. She was the killer.

  “BUT IF SHE WAS HERE then...” Michael mumbled to himself, erasing and writing, and then erasing some more. “But the alibi and the...”

  Monica found him like that, harassed and agitated, when she strolled through the door the next morning.

  “Hey, bro.”

  Michael grunted in greeting.

  “What are you doing?”

  He suddenly pitched the marker across the room. “I’m trying to prove she didn’t do it. She couldn’t have!”

  Monica took his outburst in stride. Taking a seat on the couch, she patted the cushion next to her. “Mom said you were ranting about proving someone innocent last night. Care to fill your partner in?”

  He sighed, scrubbing his face. “It’s Ella. She’s the owner of the burner phone, Mo. She lured Preston out into the woods.”

  Her eyes went wide. “What? No! That’s impossible.”

  “That is what I’m saying. There has to be another explanation.”

  “Have you told Samira about this?”

  He shook his head. “So she can show up with handcuffs and toss Ella in prison? We’ve been saying all along that the texter must be the killer. I have to prove that wrong, before I get Ella into trouble.”

  “But... what if she did—”

  “She didn’t,” he said, the finality in his voice making her blink. “I know we’ve only known her for a few days, but it’s not possible.”

  Monica lurched forward and grabbed his arm. She dragged him down next to her. “Sit. Relax. Breathe. We’ll figure this out, okay.”

  Michael sank into the couch and took a deep breath. Then another. The tension slowly drained from his body. “Sorry,” he mumbled when his mind was a bit clearer. “I just can’t believe that she is capable of this.”

  Monica squeezed his shoulder. “Michael, I know that you like her.” She chewed her lips, a bad habit they shared. “I do too, but Preston Charming did try to assault her, and since he could have dropped by the house whenever he wanted, she may have feared he would try something again. If that is not motive, then I don’t know what is.”

  “I’m not saying she doesn’t have a motive. It’s just... Monica, I pride myself on my ability to read people. If she was capable of this, I would have seen it. She’s not a killer, Mo.”

  “Michael, she asked a guy, who she had every reason to hate, to meet her alone at night in Siren Woods. If she didn’t attack him then who did?”

  Michael sat up, looking her square in the eye. “I don’t know but we’re going to find out. We’ll talk to Ella after school and get her side of the story. I know it wasn’t her. It can’t be.”

  DESPITE MICHAEL’S VOICED certainty, inside he was churning with doubt. Who would believe that Ella invited Preston into the woods to have a nice chat with him, then skipped along her merry way, while someone else came up and killed him?

  Samira might respect his gut, but she was a cop first and foremost, she couldn’t ignore evidence, especially not with how much pressure she was under to solve this case quickly. And when the wealthy and powerful Charmings found out a lowly servant took their precious prince from them, they would want to crush her under the full weight of the law. No one would believe her. No one would listen to her.

  That left Michael and Monica to fight for her because their mission wasn’t to put someone away just to tie a bow on this crime, they were tasked with finding Preston’s killer. His real killer. And that could not be Ella... right?

  Michael’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. They were once again parked outside the Ino residence waiting for school to let out and for Ella to arrive home.

  “Calm down, big brother,” Monica said. “We’ll figure this out, okay? If she didn’t do it, we’ll fight for her. Find out who did.”

  He nodded and relaxed his grip. He glanced at the rearview window and spotted a familiar figure walking up the sidewalk. “She’s here.”

  They climbed out of the car and stood next to it, waiting for Ella to notice their presence.

  She waved quickening her pace to reach them. “Hey, guys. What are you doing here? Is this about my text?”

  “It’s about a text,” Michael said gravely. “Ella, I think we should talk inside.”

  Her smile dimmed. “Is everything okay?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he said honestly.

  “Um... alright. Let’s go in.”

  They followed her inside and through to the living room. Adalynn wasn’t there.

  “Ella, do you know where your foster mother is?”

  She shrugged, taking up her place on the arm of the couch. “She’s probably upstairs in bed.”

  “You may want to get her up and have her here for this.”

  She frowned. “What? Why? Just tell me what this is about.”

  Michael took a deep breath and began. “Ella, we want you to know that we are here to get your side of the story. We haven’t come to any conclusions yet.”

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  “Alright, well here goes. The night Preston Charming was killed, someone sent him a text message telling him to meet them in Siren Woods. The message was sent from a burner phone. The police have had trouble tracing the sender, but they are working under the theory that whoever sent that message is the killer. Ella, I know that text came from your phone.”

  Michael studied every inch of her face, waiting for a reaction, but she didn’t twitch. He paused for her to say something, but Ella kept staring at him, face impassive.

  “Ella, this looks bad,” Monica piped up. “But we know there could be many explanations. Someone else could have used the phone without your knowledge. Or—”

  “No,” Ella said calmly, finally finding her voice. “No one took my phone. It was me. I sent the text.”

  Shocked, Michael and Monica shared their signature reading-each-other’s-minds look. “Ella,” Michael began cautiously, “why would you text Preston Charming to meet you in Siren Woods?”

  She lowered her eyes. “I had to.”

  “Why, Ella?” Monica pressed. “Just tell us what’s going on, so we can help you.”

  “You can’t help me,” she whispered, her face crumpling, “because I did it. I killed him!”
/>   Chapter Nine

  The room spun and Michael sat down hard. How could he have been so wrong about her? The killer had been staring him in the face, writing him funny text messages for days, and he had no idea. What kind of blasted private investigator was he?

  “Ella,” he gasped. “Why?!”

  She sobbed covering her face with her hands. “I didn’t want to hurt him!” Her exclamation was a bit muffled, but he could still make it out. “That is not why I asked him to meet me.”

  Monica stood and grasped Ella’s hands gently pulling them away from her face. “Just take a minute and then tell us what happened.”

  After a few more hiccupping sobs, Ella took a shuddering breath and tried again. “I clean houses in Fairy Tails.”

  Michael blinked at this non sequitur but he trusted she had a point.

  “All I do is work and clean and study and kill myself trying to get into CRU. I don’t get to hang out with my friends at the mall or go to parties like Abby and Delilah do. I don’t get to be a normal teenager. So, when Preston invited me to be a guest at a Fairy Tails mansion instead of just one of the invisible servants, I was so excited.”

  She swiped her hand across her eyes. “The only problem was I had nothing to wear. The twins would never let me borrow their clothes and Adalynn doesn’t give me an allowance so I was stuck... until I found myself cleaning out Mrs. Gudmor’s closet and I realized—”

  “—that she was your size,” Michael finished. “Oh, Ella.” Too little, too late. The pieces were finally starting to form. “You didn’t buy those Geppetto original shoes. You stole them.”

  “I was going to bring them right back! She’s young and always staying out late with her friends and boyfriends so I figured as long as I brought the dress and the shoes back before midnight, she would never know they were gone. Everything would have been fine if Preston hadn’t...” She trailed off. They all knew what he did.

  “Anyway,” she continued sadly. “I knew I had to get them back somehow. If Gudmor found out I took them, she would call the police and my future, everything I had worked for, would go down the toilet. I didn’t want anyone to know what I had done, so I couldn’t go to Abby or show up on Preston’s doorstep. All I knew was that I had to get the other shoe back fast, before their loss was noticed.