“I mean, I was just joking… but if you’re going to be hanging around, I could use the help.”
“I’m supposed to be working at the newspaper,” he stated.
“And yet, here you are,” I said and waved around the room. “It’s good people watching, and you can write in between customers.”
“You’re serious?”
“Well, I wasn’t, but I am now,” I said with a chuckle.
“I have my laptop with me,” Dorian looked like he was actually thinking about it. “Isaac is still trying to figure out what he’s going to do here. A little money would be nice until I sell the first papers.”
“I haven’t met your husband yet. He’s never around.”
“He hasn’t actually moved here yet. Like I said, he’s trying to figure out what he’s going to do here. He’s been here a couple of times, but Isaac is still living in our old town.”
“What does he do?” I asked.
“He’s a chef,” Dorian said. “Which is why there’s a bit of a problem with him working here. None of the restaurants need a chef right now, and we don’t have the money to start our own place.”
“Oh, yeah. I can see that being a problem,” I said.
“But that’s not why I wanted to talk to you,” Dorian said. “I wanted to tell you that I really think that Paul’s death had something to do with Bella Vita.”
“I mean, yeah. That’s where he got sick the first time,” I said.
“I think it’s more than that. I tracked down one of Paul’s nurses and she told me that she found a menu from this restaurant called Jack Rabbits in Chicago.”
“Oh, okay,” I said. “You know his day job was as a food purchaser for restaurants. Maybe that has something to do with it.”
“Well, the problem is that Jack Rabbits is closed, and it closed down like twenty or thirty years ago. It went out in the early days of the internet, so I can’t really find much of a trail about what happened. People didn’t put everything online back then. I’m going to have to go through archives of physical newspapers to see if I can find anything, and I’m willing to do that, but it’s going to take a while. I’m also looking through the Wayback Machine to find old websites, but again, it’s a painful process.”
“Hollie would have been a baby or not even born yet when Jack Rabbits closed. Leo could have possibly been a teenager.”
“Maybe it has something to do with their parents?” Dorian offered with a shrug.
“Let’s just get through this day. You do your research, and after I close for the day, we can go talk to Leo. I’ll try to track down Hollie too. Might be worth trying to find out what her parents do for a living.”
Leo was sitting out on the front steps of his trailer smoking a cigarette when we arrived. When Dorian got out of the car, I could have sworn that I saw Leo sneer at him, but the look vanished so fast that I convinced myself I’d imagined it.
“What do you want?” Leo asked as he kicked a rock off the step with the toe of his beat-up boots. He spit on the ground. “I need a ride to work. I’m probably already fired, but maybe not if that fruity chef can’t replace me.”
“I wanted to ask you if you remembered anything else about the night Paul got sick at the restaurant. Or maybe if you’d heard anything.”
“We already had this discussion. I don’t see why you’re comin’ around here askin’ again.”
Leo dropped his cigarette butt on the step and ground it out. He pulled a crumpled pack out of his shirt pocket and grabbed another with his grungy fingernails. Dorian and I stood there patiently as he lit it and inhaled deeply.
“Sometimes people remember things later,” I said as Leo exhaled the smoke through his nose. He looked sort of like a bull ready to charge.
“Look, I need that job. I got debts that didn’t get squared when Azriel and his boys left town, and I gotta find a new place to live. Y’all saw the sign, right? Where else in this town am I going to find a place to live on a dishwasher’s wages?. And if I lose this job, then what? My best bet will be making minimum wage at one of the gas stations.”
“You want a ride to work?” Dorian asked pleasantly.
“I wasn’t talkin’ to you,” Leo said and pointed his cigarette at Dorian. “We don’t need your kind around here.”
“Hey,” I practically shouted. It made both Dorian and Leo jump a little. “You need to shut your mouth. Don’t say things like that to my friend.”
“Yeah, you’re too soft,” Leo said, but he was backing up his steps. “That’s why you ended up tangled up with the likes of Azriel.”
“So did you,” I said. “Come on, Dorian. This one’s not smart enough to have pulled it off.”
“Can I get a ride to work or not?” Leo asked desperately.
“Go to hell,” I said over my shoulder. “And good luck with your life goals.”
Dorian and I slipped back into the car, but I kept my eye on Leo. He didn’t make a move toward us, but he sure did look like he wanted to come after me. I wasn’t too worried. He knew what Azriel and his crew were, so he probably knew that I was a witch. At the very least, he knew to be wary of me. I didn’t know who the heck he thought he was saying that we didn’t need Dorian’s “kind” around Coventry, but I would have put him on the ground if he tried to hurt him.
“He could have come after us,” Dorian said as I pulled out of the driveway.
“He’s a little coward. He wouldn’t have made a move because we weren’t afraid of him,” I said.
“I was a little afraid of him,” Dorian admitted. “Guys like that tend to want to beat the crap out of guys like me.”
“I’ve got your back,” I said.
“No offense, Kinsley, but I’m not sure how much better that makes me feel.”
“I’m tougher than I look,” I retorted.
“Plus, you’ve got that cat. I’m sure he’s pretty fierce,” Dorian said as Meri’s head popped out of my bag.
“You don’t know the half of it.”
Chapter Eleven
I was at home cooking dinner for myself and Thorn when I got the text.
I’m going to be late. Rebecca Fraser is dead. Love you.
It was hard for me not to respond, but I knew what he said meant he was dealing with a crime scene. Otherwise, why else would he be involved at all? And why would he be late?
Love you too. Dinner will be here whenever you can get here.
For some reason, my first instinct was to call Bella Vita. “Hello, can I speak to Leo?” I asked when a woman picked up. “Leo the dishwasher.”
“Hold, please,” she said, and elevator music started.
It was a good five minutes before anyone came back, but I held on. “Yeah?” Leo’s gruff voice spat into the phone.
“Leo, this is Kinsley Skeenbauer. I just wanted to see if you were at work.”
“Why?” he hissed.
“Rebecca Fraser is dead. What time did you get to work?”
“No thanks to you, I was close enough to on time. My buddy Hank came by five minutes after you left and gave me a ride. I had to give him half my smokes. You satisfied it wasn’t me now?”
“I never…”
“Yeah, ya did. I’m not stupid,” he said and hung up the phone.
It didn’t matter. If he was at work right after Dorian and I left, it meant he was in the clear. It also meant he was never going to tell me anything. I had to move on.
That meant Hollie.
Could she really have killed Paul over the photos and then Rebecca because of the stalking? I supposed it was possible I didn’t know Hollie at all. She was a driven young woman, but perhaps everything that had happened had driven her right over the edge.
What I needed to do was get into Rebecca’s house and see what I could find. If she and Paul had hidden secrets, I bet I could find them there. I would track down Hollie after that, but first I needed to get inside the Fraser house.
The problem was that I didn’t know if Rebecca had
been found dead at home or somewhere else. If she was at home, I’d have to wait. If she’d died somewhere else, then that moment was the perfect time to search the Frasers’ place.
I decided to call Reggie. Jeremy would most likely know what was going on, and with Thorn being so busy, it would take a while for it to get back to him that I was asking around about Rebecca’s death. If I called Thorn and asked him directly, not only would he know right away what I was up to, but I’d be bothering him while he was working.
“Hey, Kinsley. Sorry I hadn’t called yet, but I am planning on coming into work tomorrow. Thank you for being so understanding,” Reggie said as soon as she picked up.
“You’re most welcome, but that’s not why I’m calling. Did you hear that Rebecca Fraser is dead?” I asked.
“I did. What does that have to do with me?” she asked. “Oh, you want details. Gotcha. Man, I wish I could get into shenanigans with you tonight… but Jeremy…”
“It’s okay. We can get into tons of shenanigans when everything goes back to normal. I promise, but do you have any details on Rebecca’s death?”
“I don’t but give me five minutes. I’ll call you back.”
We hung up, and I waited for her to call back with my phone in my hand.
“You are going to drive that man up the wall,” Meri said as he sauntered out from the kitchen. “Does he even know what he’s getting himself into? Whatever. I don’t actually care.”
“If you don’t care, then why are you hassling me about it?” I asked and stuck my tongue out at him.
“I just don’t understand why you don’t get a job working as a deputy. You’re always up to your eyeballs in their business anyway.”
“I… I mean, I didn’t go to school for it. And I’m just too old. Most people start doing a job like that in their late teens or early twenties,” I said.
“If you were too old for it, you wouldn’t be doing what you’re doing right now. Plus, you’re in your thirties, Kinsley. You say you’re too old, but that’s almost hilarious. It’s not like you’ve got one foot in the grave or something.”
“I’ve got the shop,” I said.
“Yeah, you’ve got the shop, but you’re always involving yourself in these investigations. You started the shop because you needed something to do, but is it really what you want?”
Before I could answer him, my phone rang. “Hey, Reggie, what did you find out?”
“She dropped dead in the line at the grocery store,” Reggie said. “It’s a big mess over there. I thought Jeremy was going to go help out, but Thorn told him to sit tight. There’s some paperwork he has to fill out before he’s officially back on duty.”
“I’m sorry. I promise you can be involved in my next tomfoolery,” I said. “Thank you for the information.”
“At least let me know what you find out,” Reggie said.
“I will. Hey, did Jeremy mention why they thought it was a murder? You said she dropped dead in the store, so I assume she wasn’t shot or stabbed.”
“Yeah, he said that people thought maybe she had a heart attack or something, but then Thorn saw what looked like a tiny needle stick on her neck.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll call you later.”
After we hung up, I considered going to get Dorian. He would probably want to come along with me, but I wasn’t sure how much time I had. Thorn would come over as soon as he was done with the crime scene at the grocery store, and what I was about to do was, as usual, highly illegal.
“You want to come with me to break into Rebecca and Paul’s house?” I asked Meri.
“Do I really have a choice?”
“No.”
“Whatever,” he said. “Let’s roll.”
“That’s the spirit!” I said as I put on my shoes. “A little breaking and entering, and then we’re back in time for dinner.”
“I’d rather just have dinner,” Meri groused.
“You already had dinner,” I said.
“Well, you had lunch twice,” he countered.
“I’m not saying you can’t have dinner again.”
“Maybe there will be some good food at the house we’re breaking into,” Meri said as I scooped him up and put him in my bag.
“We’re not stealing their food,” I said.
“Says who? Speak for yourself, lady. This guy was some sort of gourmet, organic food buyer, right? I bet their fridge is full of good things. If they happen to have some of that maple bacon, then I don’t see the harm in me trying it.”
“You know that jalapeno bacon is the thing now, right?” I asked as we got into the car.
“Eww.”
I parked two blocks away from the Frasers’ house and we walked the rest of the way. It was a swanky neighborhood just before you reached the really rich part of Coventry. The houses were impressive and there were only three per block.
There were no alleys behind the sprawling lots, but I wanted to go through the back door of the house. Once we arrived at the huge three-story colonial, I hurried up the driveway, making sure to cling to the perfectly manicured bushes that hid me from at least some of the neighbors.
After scurrying through the portico, I ran around the rear of the house and found the back door.
“Hey,” Meri protested as my bag hit my hip.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
The backyard of their estate was so lushly landscaped that there was no way any of the neighbors on either side could see me, but I still hurried through the back door into a large mudroom off the kitchen. Meri hopped out of the bag as soon as I set it down.
I was halfway through the kitchen when Rebecca’s spirit appeared. She was more transparent that the usual spirits that came through. It almost looked like she was some sort of hologram or projection, but I could feel her in the room. I could feel the looming nature of the other side.
She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Rebecca didn’t have the power to appear from the other side. She just hadn’t moved on entirely yet.
Realizing that she would not be able to speak to me, Rebecca beckoned me with her hand. “Okay, I’ll follow you,” I said.
She nodded her head and led me out of the kitchen. As I followed her down the hall and then up the stairs, I could swear she grew fainter every moment.
“Rebecca, if there is something you want to show me, you have to hurry. You’re going to cross over soon, and you probably won’t be able to come back.”
She looked over her shoulder at me, and gave me a nod. We went up to the third floor and then down the hall all the way to the other end of the house.
Rebecca stopped in front of a narrow door that I would have assumed was an old linen closet or something like that. When I opened it, I found a narrow staircase that went up to an attic.
The wood was unfinished and made a dry scratching sound under my feet as I ascended the steps behind Rebecca. The light was at the top of the stairs, and I was in near darkness before I flipped the ancient switch Rebecca pointed out.
When the lights came on, it was still dim, but at least I could see. It was hard to tell if the vast open area was supposed to be some sort of living space or if the furniture stored up there just happened to be arranged like a seating area.
The antique couches and chairs were arranged in a circle so that it appeared to be a parlor. Maybe. It was dusty and dark up there, and given the enormity of the rest of the house, I had a hard time imaging the Frasers would really need to use the partially unfinished space at all.
Around the edges of the room were rows of dressers and armoires. The Frasers had enough furniture stored up there to outfit three more houses.
Rebecca’s spirit drifted across the attic to the other side of the house. By the time she got to a small exposed section of wall, she was nothing more than the notion of an apparition. Before she disappeared completely, Rebecca extended one finger and pointed at the section of wall between two large, black armoires.
That particula
r section of wall was actually finished with drywall as if at some point, the Frasers had attempted to turn the attic into fully finished living space. All you had to do was look around to see that the project never completed.
There was nothing remarkable about the wall, and I wondered why Rebecca had led me to it until I saw the line running across the drywall about two feet up from the floor.
I got down on my knees and looked closer. In the dim light of the attic, you’d never see it unless someone pointed it out to you. The drywall was cut.
A Taste for Magic (Familiar Kitten Mysteries Book 5) Page 11