Whole Latte Magic

by Samantha Silver

  “Alright,” Kaillie said finally. “We make no promises about what we’re going to do with the information, but we appreciate you being straight with us.”

  “Seriously, if there was anything – anything at all I could do to prove that I hadn’t stabbed Karen, I would do it. I’m telling you, it wasn’t me.”

  The three of us headed out of the office and back into the street.

  Chapter 23

  “What do you think?” Leanne asked as soon as we burst out of the recreation center and back into the daylight. “Was he being straight with us?”

  “I think so,” Kaillie replied. “Everything he said to us matched up with what we overheard in the conversation with his brother, and he had no way of knowing we were listening in on that.”

  “I agree,” I said. “Plus, he even admitted that he broke into Karen’s home. He seems to me like a guy who got in way over his head, did some bad things, and wants to have to pay for them. You know how some killers end up having the guilt gnaw away at them so badly they turn themselves in? That was the impression I got from Andrew. And despite all of that, he still didn’t admit that he’d stabbed Karen. I think more than anything, that’s what makes me believe him.”

  “Alright, so he’s not our killer after all. Who does that leave us with?”

  “Kyle,” Kaillie said. “Since Gary was apparently at that conference. He didn’t have the opportunity to do it.”

  “It’s always the husband,” Leanne replied. “He must have found out that Karen was going to divorce him, and decided that he’d rather she be dead. We can go in and see him later. Eliza and I are going to yoga class.”

  I groaned. “I was really hoping you’d forgotten about that.”

  Leanne pouted at me. “You said you were going to give it another shot.”

  “No, you said that I should give it another shot. There’s a big difference.”

  “Come on,” Leanne whined. “I promise it’s not going to be as bad as last time. And besides, I’m not going to stop pestering you, ever, so you might as well get it over with.”

  I sighed. “Fine. I guess I’ll go. But if I die there tonight, let it be known that I didn’t want to.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll spread the word that you were murdered by a yoga practice,” Kaillie said.

  “Thank you. Alright, let’s head home and grab a change of clothes, then we can go.”

  Twenty minutes later I was standing in front of Janice’s yoga studio on Main Street, looking at the door, willing the ground to open up and swallow me.

  “Come on, stop being a baby and come inside,” Leanne said, opening the door and motioning for me to follow. I supposed the longer I put this off, the more painful it was going to be, so I sighed and followed her in.

  I dawdled as much as I could in the change room, with Leanne glaring at me the whole time. “I know what you’re doing. You’re acting like a child. No one is fooled by you.”

  “If we’re late, then that’s one less minute of yoga I need to do today.”

  “If we’re late I’m going to make you come another time to make up for it,” Leanne replied, and I scowled.

  “Oh come on, that’s not fair.”

  “Hey, if you’re going to act like a child, I’m going to treat you like one. Yoga is good for you. You look like you haven’t exercised in years. Your arms are as toned as a pool noodle.”

  “I happen to like my pool noodle arms, thank you very much.” Still, as much as I liked to complain to Leanne about how much the last yoga class I had taken felt like death, I knew she was right. I had nothing remotely resembling muscle tone, and my exercise regimen could kindly be described as “inspired by a Sloth”. So if it meant actually being vaguely in shape for the first time in my life maybe I could struggle through a second class, in the hopes that it wouldn’t hurt as much as the first class.

  Besides, yoga had the advantage of being done indoors. I had a sneaking suspicion that in the winter I’d consider that a huge advantage.

  I trudged towards the studio, grabbed one of the mats available for those who didn’t have their own, and set myself up among all the strong, lithe people in the room and prepared for another hour of torture that I was going to have to pay for.

  An hour later I had collapsed back onto my mat, but while I felt like I wasn’t going to be able to move for the next day, that was a significant improvement over the previous class, when I strongly contemplated throwing myself out the window, except that I didn’t have the strength.

  “So what’s the verdict?” Leanne asked, standing over me. I groaned and sat up. “You’re moving on your own this time, so that’s an improvement.”

  “I guess it was a little bit easier.”

  “See?” Janice said, coming over with a knowing smile. “The practice of yoga can be difficult for beginners, but once you get used to the movements, your body gets used to the exercise and the poses, and you will begin to feel more in tune with your body. I do hope you’ll continue to join us in future sessions. Namaste.”

  “See?” Leanne said as she led me back to the change rooms. “It wasn’t that bad. Besides, yoga opens your mind and your body. Don’t you feel more relaxed, and like your brain has just taken a break?”

  “That’s because it’s taken off and run down the road as fast as it possibly can to get away from this body,” I replied. Deep down, however, I had to admit that Leanne was right. I felt refreshed, energized, and limber, like one of those inflatable men in front of car dealerships.

  Maybe there really was something to this whole yoga thing.

  “Fine, I admit it, maybe this isn’t as bad as I made it out to be last time. But I still reserve the right to complain.”

  “Works for me,” Leanne said, laughing. “I’m thinking of starting a new Twitter account that just records the things you complain about when you come to yoga. I’ll probably be a celebrity within a few months.”

  “Sure,” I said, laughing. Suddenly, I paused.

  “What is it?” Leanne asked.

  I looked at her and grinned. “I know who stabbed Karen and tried to kill us.”

  “What? That came to you, just now?”

  “Hey, you’re the one who said yoga clears your head. Maybe that’s what did it. I was finally able to think clearly for a second, and it just came to me.”

  “Well, who is it?”

  I looked around the change room. It was totally empty. “Gary Vanderchuk, the school principal.”

  Leanne shook her head. “No way. He was in Seattle for a conference.”

  “He could have easily snuck back into town. The ferry leaves every hour. He could have come back here, stabbed her, then gone back across to Seattle, then left his car at a shop to get the blood out of it.”

  “Yeah, that’s the other thing. We looked at his car.”

  “No, we didn’t.”

  Leanne tilted her head towards me in question.

  “We saw the car he was driving in the parking lot. A car that had a sticker on the back saying ‘meat is murder’. And yet, when Gary was making his way to the gym, Kaillie said he was eating some beef jerky.”

  Leanne gasped. “Oh Saturn, you’re right!”

  “So he wasn’t driving his own car. Probably because his own car was in the shop getting the blood taken out of it.”

  “And he wouldn’t have had it fixed here in town, where it would have been obvious where that much blood would have come from. However, he could have gone to some shady place in the city that wouldn’t ask any questions, and still shown up to the conference.”

  “So who does the car belong to?” Leanne asked, and I shrugged.

  “His sister? She seemed like the sort of person who would have a bunch of hippie bumper stickers on the back of her car.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “I’m pretty sure I am. So what do you say, should we go give Detective Andrews what we have?”

  “You’re joking, right? He’s going to laugh us ou
t of there if we tell him all we have to go on is a bumper sticker and a hunch. We need more. We need actual proof.”

  I groaned. “Don’t tell me you think your plan is to go and confront him.”

  “That’s exactly my plan. Come on, it went really well last time.”

  “You had to save my life when a gun was pulled on me.”

  “Yeah, almost being the key there. Besides, if the two of us had gone together in the first place things would have gone very differently, since it’s harder to shoot two people than just one.”

  “I’m not one hundred percent sure that logic is sound,” I said slowly.

  “Oh come on. Gary is a school principal. What’s he going to do?”

  “Well, he’s already stabbed one woman and broken into the coffee shop to try and kill us. I’m pretty sure he’s proven that he’s willing to resort to violence to get what he wants.”

  “Fine,” Leanne said. “Let’s just break into his office and see if there’s any proof. Everyone will be gone from the school now, and I know how we can get in without triggering the alarm system.”

  “How on earth would you know that?”

  Leanne shrugged. “This is a small town. There’s not a lot to do, so we’ve all climbed up onto the roof of the school at some point or another. There’s a skylight up there that we can go through that isn’t alarmed. At least, it was still there a couple of years ago.”

  “Seriously? And no one has thrown paint or anything down it?”

  “Oh, that definitely happened. So it’s locked now, but you know the spell for unlocking things, right? And we’ll be in private, so it’s not like there will be anyone around to see us.”

  I nodded. “I think I can do that.” Leanne and Kaillie had been making me use magic to unlock the front door of the house for weeks now, so this was actually one of the spells I was most adept at using. I wasn’t worried about messing it up, and I was confident that as long as there was no one else around I’d be fine.

  “Cool, let’s go,” Leanne said. We were going to find proof Gary was the killer.

  Chapter 24

  Fifteen minutes later we’d gotten up onto the roof of the school, with a little bit of help from Leanne for me.

  “You know, if you did more yoga you’d have an easier time getting up here,” Leanne commented after practically effortlessly making her way onto the roof.

  “I’m sure that’s a real selling point on the brochure. Break into schools more easily,” I puffed, trying to swing my leg over onto the roof while I clutched a pipe attached to the outside wall. Eventually, Leanne was able to grab my leg and pulled it over, and I rolled the rest of my body onto the top of the building. I felt like a seal trying to get onto a rock from the water.

  Scratch that. I’d seen seals do that; they were far more elegant than I’d just been.

  “Alright,” Leanne said, jumping to her feet and making her way to the center of the roof while I got to my feet. She was standing in front of a large skylight that led down into what appeared to be a school hallway. “This is it? Ready?”

  I nodded and pulled my wand out from my pocket. I pointed it at the skylight, focused all of my energy on my wand, and thought as hard as I could about the skylight unlocking.

  “Saturn, god of freedom, unlock this skylight so that we are welcome.”

  I grinned as there was an audible click, and a second later Leanne was prying it open. I peered down into the hole. “Well, that looks high.”

  “It’s only like, ten feet or so. Just absorb the landing.”

  “Easy for you to say,” I muttered. “You go first.”

  “No, you go first. If I go first, you still have the option of wimping out. You could also cast a spell to make a mattress or something down there. Even if things go wrong, we can always text Kaillie to come and fix it.”

  I strongly considered it. After all, I had learned a basic conjuring spell, and I was fairly certain if I dropped into that hole I was going to break both my legs. On the other hand, if things went horribly wrong here and I somehow summoned some demon from the underworld or something, there was no other witch nearby to fix my mistake. It would all be on me.

  I thought about what Tina had said, about only doing magic when I was comfortable. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized I was comfortable with this. I had some apprehensions, sure. But I also did know how to cast this spell, there was no risk of any non-magical people seeing it – well, apart from Leanne, but she was allowed to know about magic – and frankly, if I waited until I was perfectly comfortable to cast every spell, I’d probably never cast another one in my life.

  “Alright,” I said, taking a deep breath and stepping forward, staring into the hole. “Here goes nothing. Saturn, god of renewal, generate a mattress, that would be super cool.”

  My wand was pointing down into the hole, and a moment later a queen-size mattress appeared, complete with plain white sheets.

  “Those are a nice touch, you don’t know where the weird magic mattress has been,” Leanne said with a grin. “Alright, you’re still going first.”

  I sighed. “Fine. If I die, please give all my stuff to Kaillie.”

  “Hey,” Leanne argued. I grinned at her, held my breath and carefully began lowering myself down the skylight. Eventually I was hanging by my fingertips, I closed my eyes and I let go, squealing the whole way. A second later I landed on the mattress with a soft thud, and rolled off it. I moved all my limbs, and sure enough, there was no pain anywhere.

  “All good, your turn,” I called up to Leanne, who did the same as I had. She dropped to the mattress and rolled off elegantly, popping back up to her feet.

  “Awesome,” she said. “We’re in.”

  I pointed my wand at the mattress. “Saturn, we’re done with this mattress, please return.”

  The conjured item immediately disappeared, and I smiled. Magic was still a novelty, and I enjoyed it every time I managed to cast a spell, no matter how simple.

  “Alright, let’s go,” I said, and Leanne led me down the hall toward the principal’s office. I had a sneaking suspicion she had been here a few times in her day.

  The door was locked, but a quick spell was all that was needed to take care of that, and Leanne and I quickly found ourselves in a room that looked like every other school administrator’s office. Cabinets along the wall, a plain desk with a computer, a simple office chair. I imagined there were thousands of offices exactly like this one around the country.

  “I’ll take the computer, you start looking through the files,” Leanne said. “We’re looking for anything that might prove he stabbed her, especially letters from Karen telling him she was going to go above his head, or something like that. After all, their dispute was professional.”

  “Right,” I said, nodding. I immediately opened the top part of the file cabinet and began looking through everything Gary had. Most of it was pretty boring, and completely irrelevant to my search, but that was to be expected. After all, as a school principal, he would have had a lot more on his plate than just a dispute with one teacher.

  “Find anything?” I asked Leanne after a couple of minutes.

  “Not yet. I’m just looking through the email now. Maybe there’s something there.”

  After a couple of minutes, Leanne let out an exclamation. “Here we go!”

  I dropped the files I was looking at right back where they belonged – I didn’t want Gary to suspect we had been here when he next came in, after all – and headed over to the computer, peering over Leanne’s shoulder. She had opened an email from Karen to Gary, dated the morning she was stabbed.

  My eyes skimmed over the contents.

  Gary,

  I’m afraid you’re leaving me with no choice but to go to the superintendent in this situation. I respect that our opinions differ, but because this will directly affect the future performance of our students not necessarily on exams but in life, I feel I need to go over your head on this. I can’t have my
students falling this far behind this early in their education. It’s not fair to them, and it’s not fair to prevent me from telling their parents the exact nature of the situation. I think we both know the superintendent will be on my side on this, so I urge you to reconsider before I’m forced to take this action. I don’t want to take this step, but I strongly believe it is in the best interest of the children I teach, who are my priority.

  Regards,

  Karen Johnson

  “Well, that’s a motive if I’ve ever heard one,” I replied.

  “There’s more, he replied to this,” Leanne said, scrolling down. Sure enough, there was a reply from Gary, sent a couple of minutes later.

  Karen,

  I’m very disappointed to hear you’re taking this next step. Could we have a conversation about it? I’m in Seattle for the conference all day, but I can meet you at six, if you’d be willing to come back to the school around then.

  Gary

  “There’s another reply from Karen a few minutes later confirming the appointment,” Leanne added. “So they had a meeting scheduled for about an hour before she was stabbed.”

  “That’s crazy!” I said. “Were the emails just sitting there in the account?”

  “No,” Leanne said, shaking her head. “Gary had deleted all of them. Only, I think he forgot the first rule of the internet: nothing is ever permanently gone. I had to do a bit of tech wizardry, but I got them back.”

  “I knew you were good with computers, I didn’t know you were this good.”

  Leanne smiled at me. “Kaillie grew up getting to do real magic, so I had to find my own magic to do. I pretty quickly realized grown-ups had no idea how computers worked, so I focused a lot of my efforts there. I’m not some Lisbeth Salander-like super hacker, but I know my way around a computer better than most.”

  “That’s cool,” I replied, in awe of my cousin. She might have been sensitive about the fact that she had no magical powers, but as far as I was concerned, being able to manipulate computers and find deleted emails like that was just as magical as being able to conjure up a mattress out of nowhere.