The local paper was sitting on the table, and I picked it up and began reading as I waited for my friends to order and make their way toward me. I was a little bit surprised that there was nothing in here about Jack’s death. Maybe it had simply taken place after the publishing deadline, but a part of me felt like the magical world wasn’t the sort of place where newspapers had to worry about things like printing deadlines. After all, wouldn’t there just be a simple spell that witches and wizards could use to change the content of a paper?
Still, maybe I was wrong. As I flipped from page to page, there was still no indication whatsoever that there had been a suspicious death—or any death at all—in Desert Plains the night before.
“Have a look at this,” I said to Ellie and Sara when they made their way over to the table after ordering. “This is today’s paper, but there’s nothing about Jack’s death in it. Can magical newspapers change their content at will with a spell?”
“Yeah, they can, so that’s pretty weird,” Ellie said, grabbing the paper off me and flipping through it herself. “I would have definitely thought that Jack’s death would have been reported by now.”
Just then, Sara’s face lit up. “Lisa!” she called out. I turned to the front of the store to see one of the other broom racing competitors walking in. As soon as she saw us, she waved and made her way over to our table.
“Have the three of you heard? Jack was found dead last night.”
Chapter 9
“We heard,” Ellie replied. “In fact, I was the one who found the body.”
Lisa’s hands flew to her mouth. “You’re joking!”
Ellie shook her head sadly. “Unfortunately, no. I found him on the way to the bathroom in the bar last night.”
“That’s absolutely horrible,” Lisa said.
“Is that why you’re back here today?” I asked. “Did you have to speak with Chief Enforcer Hound?”
“That’s right,” Lisa nodded. “I got a message from him early this morning asking me to come by. I had no idea what had happened at all. Then he told me, and, well, I kind of need a stiff drink, but it’s a bit early in the morning for that, so I figured I’d settle on a coffee instead.”
The waitress came by just then, her wings fluttering behind her as she carried over a tray laden with coffee and pastries.
“Here, have mine,” Ellie said, pushing her coffee across the table to Lisa and getting up. “I’ll go order another one.”
“Thanks,” Lisa said gratefully, taking a sip of the warm beverage. The coffees here were a little bit different from the ones at Hexpresso Bean. They weren’t quite as extravagant and extraordinary, but they also weren’t exactly the normal lattes one would expect from a coffee shop in the human world. Instead, the milk in these coffees was multicolored and glittery. Mine was made of different shades of blue and purple, which, combined with the silver glittery parts, gave it a real galaxy look. Sara’s coffee was made with deep reds and black, making it look like some sort of volcano.
“Are these coffees like the ones at home?” I asked Sara, who nodded.
“Yes. They’ll give you a boost of whatever you need right now.”
I quickly took a sip, a little bit worried about the glitter. After all, I didn’t really want to look like I’d just come back from a four-year-old’s birthday party. But the coffee was nice, and as soon as I took a sip, a warm feeling of comfort began to flow through my veins. It was like all the stress I’d been keeping bottled inside from the last couple of days—nerves for Sara’s broom competition debut, questions about my coven and Karen Voda’s reaction, Jack’s murder—slipped away, leaving me with a feeling of comfort and happiness.
Yes, this was definitely a very good coffee. And as I checked my reflection in the window, I was also pleased to find that the glitter that had been in the coffee didn’t appear anywhere on my lips, or elsewhere on my face. It was like as soon as it touched me, it disappeared.
I turned to look at Lisa, who was busy practically chugging her coffee. She definitely had something going on emotionally that she wanted the coffee to take care of.
“Did you know Jack well?” I asked in a soft voice, and she shrugged.
“A little bit, you know. One of my aunts moved to his coven when I was a little girl, so I visited there quite a bit when I was little, and I did know him. I wouldn’t say I knew him well, though. And I also can’t say I really liked him. He used to beat me all the time when we raced on brooms as kids. That was what we most had in common, was enjoying broom riding. And he was never nice about it, either. Always arrogant.”
“That was the feeling I got yesterday,” I said with a soft smile.
“Yeah, that was Jack alright. A part of me thought maybe as we grew up he would have got it together a little bit more, you know? Grown up along with the rest of us. But it looks like he didn’t; last night was the first time I had seen Jack in probably five years, and he was still the same old arrogant Jack that I knew when we were teenagers. Still, he didn’t deserve to die. He might have been a little bit self-important, but he wasn’t a bad person.”
“Well, I’m sure Chief Enforcer Hound will get to the bottom of this,” Sara said. Lisa raised her eyebrows.
“Do you really think he’s up to it?”
“Well, he does seem to be investigating,” Sara said with a shrug. “I mean, sure, there are a few things that he was doing that don’t really make a lot of sense to me, but what do I know about Enforcer work?”
“Perhaps you saw a different side of him, but what I saw from Chief Enforcer Hound did not instill me with confidence that Jack’s killer is going to be found,” Lisa said.
“I have to admit, that’s kind of where my mind is going too,” Ellie said, making her way back to the table. “He seems to be more concerned with preserving the reputation of his town than he does actually finding a killer.”
“That’s right,” Lisa nodded. “That’s exactly the impression I got as well. He kept telling me to make sure that nobody in England got this idea that Desert Plains was a dangerous place to visit, and he barely asked me anything about Jack. He certainly didn’t treat me like a suspect when I really should be one. After all, Jack was probably killed by one of the people at the bar last night, and there weren’t that many of us who knew him.”
“You didn’t kill him, did you?” I asked with a small smile, which Lisa returned.
“No, I didn’t. Although there were times when I was a kid when I kind of wanted to. That said, I’d like the actual killer to be brought to justice, and I sadly have no faith that it’s going to happen at all.”
“You’re right, though,” Sara said with a frown on her face. “It does have to be one of us, doesn’t it?”
“Not exactly,” Ellie said, casting a worried glance between Sara and Lisa. “Think about the timing. Jack was just revealed, along with the rest of you, as one of the new celebrities of the magical world. What if it was just some sort of crazy fan? What if it was just somebody who’s completely deranged, who followed all of you from the stadium, and who decided for whatever reason that they wanted to kill one of the competitors?”
At this, everyone simply stared into their coffees, as if trying to forget what Ellie had just said.
“Do you really think that’s a possibility?” I finally asked. “After all, isn’t it more likely that somebody who knew Jack would have killed him?”
Ellie shrugged. “There are crazy people everywhere, even in the magical world. Honestly, I think we need to investigate this murder ourselves, if only to rule out some sort of random psycho.”
“Usually I think you’re the psycho for suggesting that we get ourselves involved in murder investigations, but in this case, I think I would appreciate it if you did stick your nose in it,” Sara said. Her face had gone white; she obviously had never considered the idea of crazy stalker fans whatsoever.
“I’m not going to get myself involved,” Lisa said. “However, I will help with any information that
I can. After all, if there is some sort of insane person out there, I’d rather they be caught, and I don’t believe the Enforcers here are going to be the ones to do that.”
I had to admit, I thought Ellie had a point. And if there was a chance that there was some sort of psycho out there who was targeting broom competition participants, I was absolutely going to do my best to make sure they were caught.
“I’m in,” I said to Ellie. “We do our best to find out who did this.”
“I’m obviously in too,” Sara said. “I don’t want to get stabbed in a random bathroom for no reason.”
The three of us turned to Lisa. “Do you know who else Jack knew at the party?” I asked. “There was you, and he seemed to know Derek as well. Anyone else?”
“I think he knew Sean,” Lisa said after a moment, with a thoughtful expression on her face. “They didn’t mention anything, but there was something in the way they interacted that made me think it wasn’t the first time they had met. I don’t know any details, though. And in fact, I may actually be wrong.”
“Do you know what things were like between Derek and Jack?” Ellie asked. “After all, from the conversation last night, it seems like there was history between the two of them that may not have been all butterflies and roses.”
“I heard some of it through my aunt,” Lisa said. “I can’t guarantee any of this is true, since it’s entirely small-town rumor and gossip. But according to my aunt, Derek and Jack used to be pretty good friends. I don’t know why Derek was constantly finding himself in the town where Jack lived, but even though they were from different covens, they ended up being friends. I mean, I can understand it. Both of them have that same arrogance of kids who never grew up. Apparently, at some point, there was a fight over a girl, and the two of them really got into it. Spells were flying, and Derek was almost killed. From what I’ve heard, it was all swept under the rug pretty well, and nothing really happened to either Jack or Derek. But I do know that Derek never came back to town after that, and as far as I know, the two of them never saw each other again until last night.”
That was certainly an interesting story. It gave Derek an enormous motive: revenge.
“Did you know Derek at all?” Sara asked. “I feel like I’m the only person in this whole group of competitors who doesn’t know everybody else.”
Lisa shot Sara a friendly smile. “Don’t worry yourself about that at all,” she said. “You know us now, and that’s the important thing. I had met Derek a couple of times, but I knew him very little. In fact, if he hadn’t been introduced to me last night and I simply passed him on the street, I probably wouldn’t have recognized him at all. I was probably twelve, maybe thirteen the last time I saw Derek, so it was over ten years ago now. Anyway, I do need to get going, if the three of you don’t mind I’ll be on my way.”
“Of course, thanks for the info,” Ellie said. “I’m sure we’ll see you again soon.”
Lisa smiled and bussed her dishes before heading out the door and leaving the three of us alone in the coffee shop.
“Well, this has certainly given us a lot to think about,” Ellie said, voicing the thought I was sure all three of us shared.
Chapter 10
“Do you really think it could be some psycho out there who killed Jack just because he was part of this contest?” Sara asked. The color still hadn’t returned to her face.
“I think it’s unlikely, to be honest,” Ellie said. “After all, I’m pretty sure most psycho stalker types usually do some actual stalking first.”
“Got a lot of experience with that sort of thing, do you?” I said with a grin.
“I watch a lot of magical true crime shows, okay?” Ellie replied. “But the thing is, you never know. And by now the four of us have a decent amount of experience in trying to catch murderers. Even if the odds are low, I don’t want Sara to become the victim of some crazy fan. So, even if it’s low odds, I still think we should try to find the killer, if only for Sara’s sake.”
“I agree,” Sara said in a high-pitched voice. “I don’t want to end up stabbed just because I was on TV competing for something.”
“Alright,” I said. “Then we investigate from two angles. First, there’s the chance that whoever did this is some sort of psycho who took the opportunity to kill someone from the competition. Second, there is the chance that whoever did this had a reason to kill Jack and simply took the opportunity as they saw fit.”
“Right,” Ellie said. “I think at the top of the second list should be Derek. We need to look into exactly what it was that happened between him and Jack all those years ago. After all, it sounds like that could’ve been a pretty good motive for murder.”
“And don’t forget, Lisa said Jack and Sean seemed to know each other,” I pointed out. “But we were sitting near Sean, and from what I could tell, he didn’t seem to really openly acknowledge Jack as some sort of old friend. Maybe there was something between the two of them that had gone wrong at some point?”
“Good, we’ll look into that too,” Ellie said.
“I think we need to go back to the bar, though,” Sara said. “After all, that’s where the crime took place, and maybe the waitress saw something or can help us with who was hanging around at the time of the murder.”
I nodded. “Good idea. I’m on board with that.”
The three of us finished our food and drink, then got up and made our way out, ready to start investigating yet another murder. This time, the stakes were pretty high: there was no guarantee, but if there was some sort of psycho out there trying to go after the broom racing competitors, that meant Sara was a potential target. And there was absolutely no way we were going to let that happen.
“Hello again,” the fairy waitress from the night before said to the three of us when we walked through the door. Any sign that this had been a crime scene was gone; there was no yellow tape, no Enforcers walking around everywhere, and if I hadn’t known better, I would have never imagined that twelve hours ago a body had been discovered here. Even the waitress was cheery and peppy, like nothing had happened.
“Hi,” Ellie said with a confident smile, walking up to the bar. “I was wondering if you could answer a few questions for us.”
“Sure thing,” the waitress replied. “Do you mind if I clear some tables and get stuff ready for tonight while I do? With the slight delay caused by, well, last night’s unpleasantness, I’m running a little bit behind.”
“Of course,” Ellie replied. “To be honest, I’m surprised that everything is already cleaned up so quickly.”
“Well, that’s Chief Enforcer Hound for you. He’s very efficient, and this way, nobody needs to know that anything bad happened here and we can keep going on with our lives as normal.”
“We noticed that there was nothing in the local paper about the murder, either,” Sara said.
“Oh, well, that’s because the owner of the local paper understands how important tourism is to Desert Plains, and he knows that if he were to report on every bad thing that ever happened in town, tourism would drop. So he has a tendency to turn a blind eye to some of the nastier things that happen here.”
The more I learned about the way things worked at Desert Plains, the less I liked this place. It sounded like the entire town was built on hiding the fact that bad things happened, rather than actually getting to the truth of things. The more I learned, the more I was convinced that there was no way Chief Enforcer Hound was ever going to find Jack’s killer. After all, finding the killer would involve having to report on it, and it seemed like he was doing his best to hide that anything had happened at all.
“We were wondering if you remembered exactly when Jack went into the bathroom?” Ellie asked, changing the subject. The fairy, who had thrown some dust on the table, which suddenly turned sparkling clean, stopped and gave us a thoughtful look.
“I did see him go down the hallway, yes,” the fairy said. “It wouldn’t have been more than ten minutes before you came
in and found him. Yes, ten minutes sounds about right.”
“Did you see anybody else go down the hallway?” I asked. “Either somebody from our group or someone else who may not have even been at the bar?”
“I think I did, actually, yeah,” the fairy said. “About two minutes after that poor wizard went down the hall, someone else followed after him. Another one of the wizards who was in your group. He looked a little bit upset.”
“Was it one of these?” I asked, handing the fairy my phone. I had opened up the internet browser to the page for the broom riding competition, which now had pictures of all of the competitors up. She scrolled through, then stopped.
“Him. It was definitely him.” I took the phone back and looked at who she was pointing at. It was Derek. The three of us looked at each other; we definitely had a prime suspect now.
“Excellent, thank you,” I said to the fairy. “You didn’t notice anybody else, did you?”
She shook her head. “No, but it’s also unlikely that I would have. After all, you were all leaving around that time, and I was busy going around settling up the bills for multiple people and clearing away dishes. I didn’t notice anybody else, but that doesn’t mean nobody else went through there.”
“Thank you so much for your help,” Sara said with a smile. The three of us made our way down the hall, back to the bathroom where Jack had been killed.
“Well, I think we know who the next person we need to speak to is,” Ellie said. “It sounds like Derek not only had a history with Jack, but that he also had the opportunity to kill him.”
“It’s too bad it looks like everything here has been cleaned up with industrial cleaner,” Sara said with a frown as she looked at the murder scene. “I was hoping we might be able to find a clue or two that could lead us to the killer.”
Five Charm Fire Page 5
