All the Wicked Ways

by E. M. Moore

  “So…” Mrs. Ward started, breaking my happy bubble. Oh no. Whenever Mrs. Ward started a sentence like that, I knew it couldn’t be good.

  “Jackson wants you to call him. He’s been calling all morning.”

  “Really? I wonder what that’s about.”

  Mrs. Ward nodded, a self-satisfied smile filling her face. “You can go call from your office if you want.”

  If I wasn’t mistaken, there was another twinkle in her eye. That whole minding her own business thing only lasted a whole day. I shook my head and laughed. “No need. I’ll just call from here.” I picked up the phone and dialed his office number.

  “Detective Ward,” he answered.

  “Hey, it’s Maddie. I heard you called?”

  “Yes. Thanks for calling me back. I don’t want to bother you at work, but I just have a question. I was doing some follow-up from the information we found out last night. Do not tell anyone this information and if my mother’s next to you, disguise your answers as much as you can. Okay?”

  I peeked over at Mrs. Ward who didn’t even try to hide the fact that she was listening in on the conversation. I turned my chair away from her and gave her my back. No doubt this would solidify what she thought was going on between her son and I, but oh well. “I understand.”

  “I wouldn’t be asking this except I’m not sure if it means anything and I hate to leave any stone unturned. There’s a file here for Katrina Danvers, however, it’s a juvenile file. If I want to look at it, I’d have to petition the courts. I don’t really want to do that since I don’t even really know if it matters. Anyway, I’m just wondering if you remember any rumors about anything she might have done when she was younger?”

  “Oh, you’re looking into—.” My back straightened. I had to keep this as vague as possible for Mrs. Ward’s eager interest. “We’re looking at her?” I asked, hoping that was vague enough.

  “Among the others. We really don’t have much to go on, do we?”

  “No, I guess that’s true.” I thought about what I knew about Katrina. Those teenage years seemed like so long ago. She was a popular girl, pretty. Basically, everything that I wasn’t at the time. She liked to shop. I remember always seeing her at the mall with her friends and her then boyfriend. She always had super nice clothes. I gasped. Wait a minute. “Yes,” I practically shouted into the phone. I remembered something. It was really something my sister had told me. Although how was I going to say it so that Jackson could understand but his mother couldn’t?

  “Hey, did you hear about that person who shoplifted the other day at the T-shirt store in the mall?”

  “Maddie, I’m asking about Katrina. Is Mrs. Paladino right there bothering you again?”

  I dug my fingernails into my thigh. “No, you know the T-shirt store in the mall. Someone shoplifted there,” I said, emphasizing the word shoplifted. “I guess they got away with like $100 worth of stuff.”

  Jackson sucked in a breath. Hopefully, it was because he understood what I was trying to do. “Maddie, you’re a genius. Sorry I didn’t get it the first time. My mom’s sitting right next to you, isn’t she?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Jackson laughed over the phone, a big laugh that made me smile. Soon, though, his laugh was cut short. The door opened on his end of the line, his ever-present blinds bouncing against the wood. Then, I heard Dezi. “I’m glad you’re laughing because Hannah and her lawyer are out here. They want to sue the Salem Police Department for delaying the cause of death.”

  “You’re kidding?” Jackson asked. He barely told me goodbye, then hung up.

  I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it. This was nonsense. Didn’t she know what this was making her look like? A money-depraved, upstart girl who was using an older man for his wealth? Maybe crazy Mrs. Paladino was right from the beginning and Hannah killed him for his money.

  Chapter 11

  After work, I decided to drive by Mr. Paladino’s flower shop at the suggestion of Mrs. Ward. She said Daisy Lambert had put a nice memorial in the window for him. Since it was only a couple blocks from my house, I’d just stop by on my way home.

  Mrs. Ward was right. The memorial was absolutely stunning. I pulled over and parked. In the window, I could see Daisy on a small ladder touching up some of the flowers.

  Before I knew it, I was out of the car and headed toward the shop. Even though the sign on the door read closed, I knocked on the glass door anyway. Daisy pulled back one of the flowers to peek out at me. I gave her a small wave. She stepped down from the ladder and opened the door. “Hi, Miss Styles, how are you?”

  “Hi, Daisy. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  She gave me a wobbly smile. “It’s just so sad. Mr. Paladino was such a nice man. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt him,” she said as she moved away from the door allowing me space to move into the center of the floral shop.

  I hadn’t been in here in a long time. I rarely had a need for flowers and when I did, like for George Sanders’ Memorial, Mrs. Ward had ordered them. It was a nice little shop, immaculately taken care of, proving the love that Mr. Paladino had for his job.

  Daisy observed my scrutinizing and smiled. “Victor just loved it here. He’d tell me all the time to find something I loved to do and keep doing it. He said there was no sense in wasting away at a soul-sucking job when there was something in front of you that you wanted. All I had to do was reach out and grasp it in my hand and never let it go.” Tears filled her eyes and she swiped at them. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know why I keep getting like this. It’s been a few days now and it’s not like I was his daughter or anything, but it makes my heart heavy, you know? I saw him every day. He became like a father figure to me. He was always giving me advice and I loved helping him here at the shop.”

  I took all this in. If Daisy had ever been a suspect, she certainly wasn’t in my eyes anymore. Her emotion was real. “It must’ve been a shock for you to find the email sent to Mr. Paladino.”

  Her eyes grew. “My goodness, yes. I didn’t know anyone who wanted to hurt Victor. I told Detective Ward about it right away just in case it meant something. He called me yesterday to tell me that they tried to track the IP address the email came from, but it was somehow blocked. I’m pretty good at tech, but I’m not like an IT person,” she said, sighing. “I wish I was. I wish I was really good so I could figure out who sent that email. It was so awful. I think Detective Ward thinks whoever sent it was the one to hurt Mr. Paladino.”

  “None of the police personnel could figure it out either?”

  Daisy lifted her tiny shoulders. “At least not in their initial review, I guess. They said it was really well concealed, a professional job. So, so sad. How could a professional want to hurt Mr. Paladino? The whole idea of him even getting the attention of some sick person is just ridiculous to me.”

  “I know what you mean. There’s been a lot of that going on recently.”

  She shook her head slowly, lost in her own thoughts. I glanced around the small shop some more, taking it all in. I wished I’d come here more when he was alive. He sounded like a really good person to know. I turned back to Daisy and rubbed her shoulder. I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. “Thank you for letting me come in, Daisy.”

  “Do you think you could look at the email, Miss Styles? Or maybe you know someone who could? Do you know any IT professionals?”

  “The only person I knew of was Rich…” I let my voice trail off since we definitely couldn’t contact the person who’d tried to kill me and my sister. Then there was, of course, Kevin.

  I gasped. Kevin.

  “Okay,” she muttered. “It was worth a shot. I’d just like to figure it out. Now, I’ve got the Danvers over here sending me an invoice that doesn’t match again. No wonder why Victor wanted to stop doing business with them. They made him so angry, always sending the wrong invoices even after he paid…” She lowered her voice. “I even heard him fighting with Mr. and Mrs. Danvers
daughter before, Katrina? Clearly she does all their business affairs over there, but she’s not very good at it. I know this isn’t the only time she sent us an invoice marked paid for far more money than they should’ve charged us and more money than what we paid. It’s just so weird. It makes double the work on our end because the invoices need to match the bills and the money paid out. I’m not surprised he yelled at her anymore. The whole thing’s a mess.”

  Daisy continued to talk about the work she had to do around the shop now that Mr. Paladino had passed, but my mind was reeling. “That’s t-terrible,” I started. “Maybe Mr. Paladino’s lawyers could help you with all this. Surely, Mr. Paladino wouldn’t want you to have to deal with all this by yourself now that he’s gone.”

  “I really don’t mind. Just the principle of the matter.”

  I could definitely understand that. The only thing I ever wanted from the library was for people to just do their job. How hard was that? I supposed it could be very hard if you were trying to skim money off the top and hiding your tracks. I didn’t know much about laundering money, but it did make sense that if you were trying to take money from a business you would send false invoices for much more money that was owed, right?

  First thing I did when I got in the car was Google how to launder money. I didn’t have time to section out the reliable resources and Wikipedia was the first thing that came up, I clicked on the link. Sure enough, one of the ways people did this was to make up fake documents for their employers at a much higher price. Then they would put the money left over after the correct balance was paid into a separate account of their own. Could Katrina really be doing this to her parents? Or was this a ruse between all of them?

  I picked up the phone and called Jackson. I’d just found our motive.

  Chapter 12

  I threw my cell phone down on the passenger seat. Putting the car in drive, I sped off toward the Danvers Hotel. Dezi had just told me Jackson was already at the Danvers, interrogating. I didn’t trust any of them. If they’d killed Mr. Paladino to shut him up about the money laundering, they’d do it again. Jackson was in trouble.

  If I was right, and Mr. Paladino had somehow found out that one or all of the Danvers were laundering money, that’s how he ended up in that freezer. The reason for the cryptic email that told him to shut up or he was going to die. Jackson didn’t have all the information I had.

  I skidded around corners and blew through stop signs. Usually I was a poster child for authority, but desperate times called for desperate measures. Finally, I pulled into a parking space in front of the hotel and jumped out of the car. I couldn’t even remember if I shut the door let alone locked it when I burst into the front entrance. The foyer was in disarray. People shouted, guests were standing by, their mouth agape. I yelled out for Jackson and then someone plowed into me from the side.

  I went flying, cracking my head against the wall. I blinked, looked up, and saw Katrina and her boyfriend Kevin running out of the Danvers. Someone shouted, “Call 911.” While someone else yelled, “We need an ambulance.” An older couple came up to me and helped me to my feet. My head pounded and if I looked up, I could see the beginning of a goose egg on my forehead. “Detective Ward?” I asked.

  The gentleman frowned. “We’re not from town, honey. Why don’t you sit down? You took a good spill.”

  I pushed at his arms as he tried to put me in a chair. Breaking free, I ran down the hall. I could hear Jackson talking the further I got, but I still couldn’t find him. I followed the voice until Mrs. Paladino popped in front of me. “Hurry! They’re in the freezer!”

  Startled, I jumped in the air, clutching at my chest. After regaining my composure, I ran toward the direction she pointed, accidentally running through Mrs. Paladino who I thought would move or poof out again. She didn’t. A cold chill ran over my entire body and for a moment, dread consumed me until I ended up on the other side of her. It was only a split second, but for that brief moment in time, I’d felt like I’d never have anything good in my life again. I was lifeless, dead.

  As soon as I was all the way through her, though, my mind and body went right back into panic mode. I took off toward the back where the freezer was. Metallic bangs rang through the air. I skidded to a stop, watching Jackson hit the freezer lock with a wooden chair.

  “What’s going on?”

  Jackson turned his head, briefly, his face a determined mask. “Mr. and Mrs. Danvers are in this freezer. I need to get them out now.”

  Sirens wailed in the distance as I stepped up to the freezer. Nothing Jackson was doing was helping at all. We needed something heavier than wood. “Your gun?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I don’t want to risk it.”

  Shouts came from inside the freezer. It was Mr. Danvers. Shuffling closer, I heard the low cries of Mrs. Danvers in the background. Just then, Mrs. Paladino popped in next to me. “You need to help them!”

  “What do you think we’re trying to do?” I asked the empty air.

  Jackson, understanding what was going on, ushered everyone else out of the room stating police business. He told one kitchen worker to point the police in the right direction when they got there. Then, when they left, Jackson looked at me and asked, “What’s Mrs. Paladino saying?”

  “She says they need help.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Well, that’s nothing new. I thought it was something important.”

  “Like I can control what she tells me and doesn’t tell me.”

  He picked up the chair again and slammed it against the metal handle. The chair splintered into pieces. He threw the remnants down and screamed in frustration.

  “Help is coming,” I yelled to the Danvers on the other side.

  “Hurry!” Mr. Danvers yelled between the thick door. “It’s so cold in here and I think my wife is having a panic attack.”

  “Can’t you do something?” Mrs. Paladino asked. “You’re a witch, right? Don’t you have powers? You can hear me, but you can’t open the door?”

  That was an interesting thought. I didn’t know if I could, but I could certainly try.

  I closed my eyes and breathed in slowly. Focusing all my energy into opening the door, I grasped the metal handle in my hands. It had dings and scratches from when Jackson had tried to man-handle it. Still, it hadn’t yielded. “Open, open, open,” I muttered over and over and over again. I didn’t know what I expected to happen. Whether the door would just spring free or if we’d hear the click of the lock releasing. None of that happened. Instead, my palm started burning and the metal melted underneath the intense heat. I continued with my chant. “Open, open, open.”

  “Jackson?” I called out, certain that something was happening to help us.

  He came right over. After he noticed what I was doing, he started kicking at the lock just below where my hands were still there melting away the metal. He gave about three good kicks until the door finally gave way. Mr. Danvers stumbled out, falling to the floor. Behind him, Mrs. Danvers, the poor thing, was on the floor, her hand clutched against herself. Each of them cried out in relief.

  Jackson went inside the freezer, scooped up Mrs. Danvers, and brought her outside with her husband. Just then, Dezi and the rest of the police force ran through the back entrance. As soon as Jackson saw Dezi, he shouted out, “Katrina Danvers.”

  Dezi gave him a thumbs up. “We got them.”

  Jackson sighed in relief. He looked over at me and I offered him a small smile. “You okay?” I asked.

  He nodded, his gaze moving up my forehead to the growing bump. I moved my hands up my skin and then cringed when I hit it. Ow.

  Jackson pulled me to the side of the room, and sat me down. “What happened?” he asked.

  “Either Katrina or Kevin. They pushed me into a wall.”

  He blew out a breath. “That’s not the only thing they did.” He checked out my forehead. Once he was satisfied I was okay, he said, “I came over here to surprise interrogate the Danvers family. I
got here and they were all in a big family fight. Mr. Danvers was yelling at Katrina about fake invoices. Apparently, Daisy from the floral shop had called him and told him she’d received a weird invoice for more money than they owed and more money than they paid originally. Mr. Danvers must have been suspicious because he’d gotten several examples from Katrina’s files and had strewn them all over the desk in front of her. When she saw me come in, she threw a stapler at my head,” he said, motioning to the huge red mark I hadn’t noticed before.

  “I’m fine,” he assured me. “I guess after I was knocked out, she’d taken her parents and forced them into the freezer. I woke up, trying to find them all, and she and Kevin ran past me out the door.”

  That must have been when I first got here. I’d heard yelling, then all of a sudden, I was sprawled out on the rug. “So, Katrina was stealing money from her parents’ hotel?”

  “Yes. I’m sure they’re getting the scoop from them right now.”

  Jackson inclined his head toward the busy side of the room. Mr. and Mrs. Danvers were wrapped in blankets and the paramedics had just come in and were taking Mrs. Danvers’ blood pressure. Dezi came up to us then. “I just got word over the radio, Detective. Katrina admitted to the whole thing. She locked Mr. Paladino into the freezer because he found out she’d been laundering money from the hotel. She said she didn’t mean to hurt him, she just wanted to scare him to shut him up. She never expected him to die from it.”

  Jackson shook his head. “Thank God we got that confession. What did she say about her parents?”

  “She just wanted to keep them away so she could escape with her boyfriend. They have quite a bit of money saved up in an account somewhere. They wanted to go to Mexico.”

  Jackson smiled at Dezi. “Good work.”

  Dezi smiled back. “I’ll settle everything here. Why don’t you go home?” he said. Then, pointing to the same spot on his forehead that Jackson had the red mark, he said, “Looks like you have a little something there.”