The Milburn Big Box Set

by Nancy McGovern

  “The investigations are still on, so you’ll have to talk to Sheriff Niles soon,” Jill said, putting a glass of milk and a plate of pie in front of Bluebell. “Eat up, I know you haven’t since yesterday.”

  “What a miserable way to spend your 21st,” her father said with a sigh.

  A knock on the door distracted them.

  “If it’s reporters again, I’m getting my gun,” Andrew said, standing up.

  “It’s only Nolan,” Jill said.

  Nolan entered with a bunch of flowers in his hand, and gave them to Jill. “I know it’s hardly appropriate, but I thought Bluebell should have at least one bouquet on her birthday.”

  “That’s very sweet of you,” Jill said with a smile. She’d always liked Nolan. He was one of the sweetest young men she’d met. When Bluebell had entered her teens, she’d been worried that their friendship would develop into something more, and eventually break off. But instead, they’d always managed to remain just friends. No one was more loyal than Nolan.

  He stomped into the kitchen now, drew up a chair and said, “Cheer up, Blue. We’ll fight this, and we’ll find whoever is responsible. I know we will.”

  “Thanks.” She gave him a weak smile. “Right now, I’m pretty clueless how to proceed.”

  “You’re just exhausted,” Nolan said. “It’s tough to think critically when you’re exhausted. Jill, Andrew, why don’t you go up and take a nap? You’ve got a matching set of Samsonite bags under your eyes right now.”

  “Thanks,” Andrew said. “I guess we do need it. Bluebell, you should take one too.”

  “Absolutely,” Nolan said. “Soon as we’re done talking.” He waited till they’d left, then turned to Bluebell. “I thought hard,” he said, bringing out a notebook. “I know Catherine Niles is a great Sheriff, but right now, all the evidence points to you. Now, we know you didn’t do it, right Blue?”

  Blue didn’t answer.

  Nolan frowned at her. “That’s no way to react. The right way to react is to say, ‘Right Nolan!’”

  “Nolan, I really don’t know if I did it,” Bluebell said. “I have no memory of last night.”

  “So? That just means someone slipped a pill or something into your drink,” Nolan said.

  Bluebell felt warmth as she looked at his stubborn round face. Good old Nolan. He believed in her even when she didn’t believe in herself.

  “I know my best friend inside out,” Nolan said. “There’s no way you did this.”

  Bluebell nodded, feeling her confidence return.

  “I mean, if you’d killed Steve, it wouldn’t be by bashing his brains in. It would be a gunshot or poison,” Nolan said. “Something far more creative.”

  “Well… thanks,” she said.

  “So look, I spoke to Deputy Salverson, tried to gather details about the case,” Nolan said. “Here’s what we know so far. Steve’s body was found in his office at 7 am by a cleaner. The keys were locked inside with the body. He was killed by a blow to the back of his head. So now we need to ask ourselves, who had opportunity and motive to do this? That’s where I need your help. Can you think of anybody who might have wanted to hurt Steve?”

  “Apart from me?” Bluebell shook her head. “No one that I know of. I mean, I know Blake Dowell wasn’t too pleased when Steve quit his job at Dowell Industries, but by and large, everyone loved my Steve.”

  “Right.” Nolan wrote down, Blake Dowell in capital letters. “So here’s what we’re going to do, Blue. We’re going to go talk to the cleaner, and then we’re going to go talk to Blake. Try and figure out what’s going on.”

  “Why?” she asked. “What good could we possibly do?”

  “Blue, I saw your face when you were arrested. You’re one inch away from breaking down. I can feel it.” Nolan’s eyes searched her face. “But you’re my best friend, and you’re in a pile of trouble. Right now, the last thing we need is for you to break down.

  “I see the shadows in your eyes, Blue. I see all that grief you’re just barely holding in, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry this happened to you. But if you sit here at home and brood about what happened, it’s going to destroy you. So we have to be proactive. We have to go out and figure out who did this and why. Maybe then… well, maybe then you’ll be able to make sense of it all.”

  He was right, Bluebell realized. It would be a little too easy to sit back and self-destruct. She knew she was on the edge of it anyway. Her emotions were still completely clouded, as was her mind. But if she focussed on the small things, the details, slowly she’d be able to come out. Absurdly, she thought about Oliver and his cufflinks. Focussing on that single detail had made her feel better.

  “You’re right,” she said, standing up. “Let’s go, Nolan. Let’s try and find out who did this. It’s the best bet we have of getting closure.”

  “Awesome.” Nolan gave her a high-five. “Now there’s the Bluebell we all know and love. Let’s go.”

  “...and Nolan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t insult me with your thanks.” He winked. “Buy me coffee when it’s all over. Let’s go.”

  *****

  Chapter 6

  Blake Dowell

  Steve’s office was little more than a two room deal on the fourth floor of one of the buildings downtown. The cleaner who had found him was a lady who’d worked there for twenty years.

  Camilla Smith smiled and welcomed them into her little cottage.

  “Nolan,” she said. “Right on time. I have coffee ready, and maybe some nachos if you’d like.”

  “Sounds delicious. Thanks for agreeing to see us, Mrs. Smith. I know you’ve had a terrible day.”

  “Terrible doesn’t begin to cover it,” Camilla said with a shudder. “I moved here from Milwaukee a long time ago, you know. Back then, we’d find a body every once in a while. Sometimes a suicide, sometimes a murder. Cleaners, we see it all. But I moved here thinking I’d never have to go through that horror again.” She looked at Bluebell’s pale face. “Of course, he wasn’t a body to you. He was your boyfriend.”

  “Was,” Bluebell agreed. “Poor Steve.”

  “I heard the Sheriff had arrested you, and I said to my son that there’s no way you could have done it. I’ve seen you at the office once or twice, and you always seemed so deeply in love with Steve.”

  “I.. was. Am.” Bluebell kept herself from tearing up by pinching her wrist under the table. “Mrs. Smith, I just wanted to know… did you see anything funny? I mean...”

  “I know.” Mrs. Smith nodded. “Well I’ve told the police and I don’t mind telling you. I started my shift at 5 am. The fourth floor has four offices, one in each corner. I was done with the Dowell Ad Services office, which is diagonally across from Steve’s, and moved on to Steve’s last. You’ve seen the place, right? A main door of wood, then as you walk in, there’s a few cubicles and an inner office with a glass door.”

  Bluebell nodded.

  “I vacuumed up a bit outside, and then, as soon as I went inside, I knew something was wrong. Through the glass door, I could see a trail of blood. When I went up to the door, it was locked. I could see Steve inside, lying next to his desk. It was horrible.”

  With effort, Bluebell contained herself. “Poor Steve,” she said.

  “Poor Steve indeed.” Camilla sighed. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Was he facing the desk or away from it?” Nolan asked.

  Camilla frowned. “I suppose he was looking toward the desk. If I had to guess, he was walking toward his chair to sit down when he was struck. But I’m just a cleaner. It’s up to the police to find out. The weird thing is, I had one set of keys, the landlord’s office at Madison had the second set, and Steve had the third on him.

  “Those keys are expensive too. I’m sure he didn’t have any copies. So I just don’t understand how it happened. The windows are all sealed because they have the AC on 24/7. The doors were very definitely locked, I know, because my fi
rst instinct was to try and open them. Then I realized… it would be better to call 911.”

  Nolan nodded. Bluebell asked, “Did you… when you arrived at five, did you notice anyone else in the building?”

  “Oh no. Just me,” Camilla said. “I’m sure of that because the doors downstairs were locked too.”

  “And there’s nothing else? No other way someone could have gotten in?” Bluebell asked. “The air vents, for example?”

  “Not that I can think of,” Camilla said. “The air vents are too small for someone to venture in. They’d barely fit my fist, much less an entire person. There was something weird about them, though.”

  “What?” Nolan looked excited.

  “Well, there was a long scratch along the wall. I’m sure it wasn’t there last week,” Camilla said.

  “Was it made by a hand?” Nolan asked. “Or a heavy object?”

  “No. A blade of some kind, maybe,” Camilla said. She shrugged. “Or maybe just a plumbing fault or something. It’s probably totally unimportant.”

  “Right.” Nolan scribbled it down. “I hope you told the sheriff about it anyway.”

  “Oh, I did. I didn’t leave out a single detail,” Camilla said. “I really hope she catches whoever did it soon.”

  “To tell you the truth,” Nolan said, “I think the sheriff’s got it all wrong. She arrested Bluebell here, but there’s no way Bluebell could have moved through two locked doors, right? First the entrance of the building, and second Steve’s office. For that matter, no killer could have done it.”

  Bluebell stayed quiet. Knowing what she did about magic existing, she wondered if it could be done. Magic had to be involved, didn’t it?

  “So what I think is, it’s all a big accident,” Nolan continued. “Steve probably slipped and hit his head, and that’s all there is to it. The Sheriff just overreacted when she took Blue into custody.”

  “That’s true,” Camilla said. “Hopefully the forensics department will confirm it soon.”

  “They have to,” Nolan said earnestly. “They just have to.”

  Feeling sick, Bluebell realized that they just might. Unless the Sheriff could come up with a logical way the murderer could have gotten out, Steve’s killing might get dismissed as an accident. Oliver might even be happy if it did - after all, he’d said that his main job was to make sure magical secrets weren’t spilled out in the process of the investigation. But what if a murderer were to go unpunished?

  Nolan had pushed her in the right direction, Bluebell realized. If Steve had indeed been murdered, she was probably the only one who both cared enough to find out why, and had the means to detect if magic was involved. Maybe later, once she was done, she’d have time to grieve, but right now, it was imperative that she figured out who’d killed him, and why, before authorities on both sides of the magical line mismanaged the case.

  They thanked Camilla Smith for her time, and got into Nolan’s old red BMW.

  “Well this was promising,” Nolan said. “If that Oliver fellow is a good lawyer, he’ll be able to get you out of this. Besides, you probably feel better yourself, don’t you Blue? You can’t have done it. You can’t have walked through walls.” He gave a laugh.

  “I’m not worried about getting out of this,” Bluebell said. “I’m worrying about catching whoever did this.”

  “Right.” Nolan nodded seriously. “But the thing is, either way, one thing is clear - it isn’t you. It could be an accident, or it could be a very well thought out, premeditated crime. You were worried that you’d gotten drunk and committed a crime in the heat of passion and then blacked out the memories. I’m telling you right now, there’s no way it could be you. If this was a murder, we have a mastermind behind it.”

  Bluebell wasn’t very sure. For all she knew, she might be able to walk through walls. She needed to talk to Oliver again, and soon. But first, they had to meet Blake Dowell.

  Blake Dowell was one of Lledrith’s richest men. He’d had a lot of help from his family, who’d been among Lledrith’s rich and powerful for three generations. After twenty years of growing the family business, Blake’s tenure as CEO of Dowell Industries had taken the company from a small but successful state firm to a nationally known company with three branches across America and one in China.

  Blake was everything that a CEO should be - a lean marathon runner with a shiny bald head and a sparkling white smile, two kids, and a supermodel ex-wife. None of it hinted at what he’d once been. Around the time he was 17, Blake had decided to run away from home and live as a surfer in California. He’d spent the next two years, as he told interviewers, “mostly high and seldom sensible.” He’d let his hair grow to his shoulders, and cultivated a massive beard.

  His disapproving parents had written him off, refusing to send him any money, so he’d started a T-shirt company to support himself. To his surprise, business soon appealed to him far more than surfing did. He sold off his first business for a tidy sum in two years, and then found his second love - technology. After selling off a second company for a million dollars five years later, Blake was back in Lledrith, asking his father for a job. The rest was history.

  Dowell Industries now had a massive complex full of glass buildings five miles away from Lledrith’s main town square. It was often jokingly said that half the town worked for Dowell, and the other half worked for the people who worked for him.

  So Bluebell couldn’t expect to just march into his office and demand an interview.

  “But that’s our only choice, right?” Nolan asked. “Who knows, he might actually be willing to talk.”

  As it turns out, he wasn’t. The receptionist looked them over, Nolan in his sweats and a graphic T-shirt, Bluebell in a blouse and jeans that still had grass-stains on it. She suppressed a smile as they asked to talk to Blake.

  “Sure,” she said. “Do you have an appointment?”

  Nolan shifted. “No. But we think he’d like to see us. This is about Steve Talzer’s death.”

  At the mention of Steve, the receptionist sat up straight. “One minute,” she said, and rang someone. Two minutes later, a tall goateed man strode up the hall.

  “I’m chief of security here,” he said, introducing himself. “Curtis Stern. I’m here to escort you off the premises.”

  “Hey, man, we just want to talk,” Nolan said.

  “Blake hasn’t got the time,” Curtis said. “Out now.”

  “Hang on… I know you, don’t I?” Nolan asked. “You’re in the tournament too, right? You came in third last time. Curtis Stern. You got a beautiful black and yellow drone? A dragonfly model x-13?”

  Curtis seemed pleased. “Well, it is a beauty.” He frowned. “But who are you and what do you want with Blake?”

  “We’re just nobodies who think we have information about Steve that could interest Blake,” Nolan said.

  Curtis sighed, and escorted them to a room nearby. “Blake’s a CEO, buddy,” the man said, as soon as they were out of earshot of the receptionist. “You can’t just waltz in here and meet him. You can tell me what you have to say, and I’ll make sure to pass it along.” He placed a business card on the table. Bluebell picked it up, and ran a finger along its embossed edges.

  “No deal,” Nolan said. “We either talk to Blake, or not at all.”

  “How about the sheriff?” Curtis smiled. “Do you want to talk to her instead?”

  “I already have,” Bluebell said. “I’m Bluebell Knopps. I was Steve’s girlfriend.”

  “Bluebell? Sure, I know you. Steve talked about you.” Curtis looked at her, and nodded. “I heard that the Sheriff had arrested you?”

  “She had, but I’m out for now,” Bluebell said. “I just wanted to talk to Blake for five minutes. I know he collaborated with Steve on a lot of things.”

  “Collaborated? Steve was an employee, and Blake was our boss.” Curtis laughed. “Is my boss.”

  “Steve always made it sound like he was a scientist and Blake was just his sponsor,�
�� Bluebell said. “I know he had a few troubles with Blake when he quit Dowell to start his own company.”

  Curtis’ eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to blackmail us? Because I’m smelling a whiff of blackmail here.”

  “What? No! We just want to talk.”

  “Sure. Talk,” Curtis said. “I just can’t guarantee that I’ll reply. You have to understand, if I said something to you, and the next day it was all over the press, well, it’d be my job on the line.”

  “Steve’s dead,” Bluebell said angrily. “If he was your friend, that should be worth the five minutes we need with Blake, shouldn’t it?”

  “I wish the world were that simple. But I’ve got a wife and three kids to feed. That’s all I really care about,” Curtis said, standing up. “Still, I’ll talk to Blake, try and figure out when he can see you, but I can’t guarantee anything. Specially since you haven’t told me what you want to talk about.”

  “We’re just trying to see if Blake has a perspective to offer,” Nolan said.

  “Sure he does. I’m just not sure he has the time to offer it to two young kids when he’s already spoken to the Sheriff,” Curtis said. “Now I’d advise you both to go home. Goodbye.”

  “Now hold on a second, Curtis,” a voice said. The door opened, and a bald man with a sharp smile walked in. “That’s not way to treat guests.”

  “Boss.” Curtis stood at once.

  “Sit, sit.” With the lazy arrogance of a royal, Blake Dowell swept into the room, and pulled up a chair for himself. “So what do we have here? I know you, don’t I? Bluebell Knopps? Your father’s done some good work for me over the years. A good lawyer, that man.”

  “Thank you,” Bluebell said, wondering if that were just small talk, or a way for Blake to warn her - be nice to me because I employ your father.

  “Tragic, that Steve Talzer is dead,” Blake said. “He was a man after my own heart. I don’t believe in college degrees, you know. I believe in men who are passionate about their work, and Steve was very much so. A pity we lost him.”