Wow, that definitely was low.
“Well, I certainly wouldn’t blame you if you wanted him dead,” Andrea said.
“I’m not gonna lie to you, I’m glad he’s dead, but I swear I didn’t do it. Now there’s no chance I’m going to get that money back, but as long as he’s rotting away somewhere before he gets cremated, I suppose that’s a decent consolation prize.”
“If you didn’t do it, who do you think might have killed him?” I asked. “We heard he’s been in a fight with his brother?”
“That sounds about right,” Peggy laughed dryly. “If you want the list of people who wanted Charles dead, you have to compile a list of people who had any sort of close dealings with him. The man was good at making enemies. I don’t know what the fight between him and his brother might have been about, but it doesn’t surprise me in the least.”
“Okay, thanks,” I said. I didn’t think we were going to get any more useful information out of Peggy, and Andrea jumped up as well, obviously agreeing. As the two of us were walking off, however, Peggy called out to us.
“You’re better off letting whoever did this get away with it. As far as I’m concerned, murdering Charles Perkins was a public service.”
“Do you think she did it?” Andrea asked me, and I shrugged.
“I have no idea. I mean, she obviously had motive, and absolutely no alibi, but I feel like if she had done it maybe she would have pretended that she didn’t hate him quite as much.”
“Maybe, but at the same time if she did kill him maybe she thought pretending to be over the fact that Charles stole her entire inheritance would make her look too suspicious. After all, that was a really low thing to do.”
“No kidding,” I replied. “The more I hear about Charles Perkins the less I like him. I’m almost tempted to agree with Peggy and let the murderer get away with it, except for the fact that he was killed in our factory.”
“Agreed,” Andrea said. “Where to next?”
“We could go and say hi to the brother,” I said. “A part of me would like to stop by his place and see what was there, but I imagine the Enforcers are going to be there and the last thing we want to do is get caught trespassing in a murder victim’s home.”
“Yeah, we’ll do that tonight. I agree; let’s go see the brother. He lives in Western Woods, right?”
“I assume so,” I shrugged. “After all, that’s where the coven of Jupiter lives.”
The two of us made our way toward the portal. I still couldn’t help but wonder if we had just interviewed a murderer.
Chapter 9
Western Woods was a cute little town a little bit inland in Washington State. From the portal, it was a pleasant ten-minute walk through a forest along the well-marked trail before we hit the town, made up of cute German-style cottages and buildings. We walked along the cobbled streets, and as we passed face after face, I realized I had no idea what we were going to do.
“How are we going to find Charles’s brother?” I asked Andrea. “It’s not like we can go up to every single person here and ask them if their last name is Perkins.”
“That’s a good point,” Andrea replied. “Luckily for you, one of us is more than just an academic and knows how to get things done in the real world.”
I rolled my eyes as Andrea made her way toward a couple of witches who looked like they were just coming back from an exercise class. “Excuse me,” Andrea said. “I’m wondering if you could direct me toward the coven headquarters, please.”
“Of course,” one of the witches replied with a smile. “Just keep following this street for about another half mile, then turn right to get to the whitewashed building with a green dome on top.”
“Thank you so much,” Andrea replied with a smile, and the two of us continued on.
“You think someone at coven headquarters will know how to find Charles Perkins’s brother,” I said with a slow nod, and I had to admit, it was a good plan.
“Definitely,” Andrea replied. Sure enough, a few minutes later we found the building in question and climbed up the steps to make our way inside. We were immediately greeted by a rather serious-looking witch with black eyes and a black pixie cut.
“Hello, welcome to the coven of Jupiter headquarters. How can I help you today?”
“Hi, we’re from Pacific Cove, and we’re looking for the brother of one of our residents, Charles Perkins.”
I thought I might have been imagining it, but I couldn’t help but think that the witch’s eyebrows rose when Andrea said the name.
“Why? What has Charles done now?”
“Do you know him?” I asked, and the witch nodded.
“Not well, but I do know him a bit.”
“Well, I’m afraid he’s been murdered, and we need to speak to his brother,” Andrea said.
“Murdered?” the witch said, bringing a hand to her mouth. “Well, I suppose that was bound to happen eventually. Which brother do you want to speak to, and why?”
Andrea and I shared a look. Obviously, neither one of us had considered the possibility that Charles Perkins might have had more than one brother. The witch narrowed her eyes at us.
“You didn’t even know he had more than one brother,” she said. “Besides, you’re witches, not Enforcers. What are you doing here? Why are you asking questions about Perkins’s family?”
I figured honesty was the best policy. After all, this witch was obviously pretty smart, and I figured she would probably see straight through any lies we doled out.
“Our family runs Pacific Chocolates,” I explained. “Charles Perkins worked for our company. He was found dead this morning inside our factory, and seeing as a couple of days ago both our parents were wrongly arrested for committing fraud, we think somebody is out to get us somehow. We don’t trust the Chief Enforcer in town, and so Andrea and I thought we would look into Charles Perkins’s death in the hopes that we could at least start to clear our family name. We heard from somebody that Charles had recently gotten into a fight with his brother, but we don’t know about what. We were hoping to be able to speak to him to get more information. But we also didn’t know that Charles had more than one brother.”
The witch looked at us carefully, then after studying both of us for a minute, finally nodded.
“All right, I’ll help you. But only because I know nobody in my family would have ever committed murder, and I can actually empathize with the reasons you have for trying to find the killer yourselves.”
“Your family?” I asked, my mouth dropping open.
“I’m Amy Perkins,” the witch said, extending a hand out, which I shook. She did the same with Andrea.
“Megan Numa,” I replied. “And this is my sister Andrea.”
“Everyone just calls me Andy, though,” Andrea replied.
“I have to work for a few more hours,” Amy said. “But listen, a few of my roommates should be home, so if you want to head over there and hang out with them for a little while, that’s fine with me. I’ll come over when I’m finished and find out what I can from my family.”
“Sure,” I replied. After all, it wasn’t like we had anything better to do.
Amy nodded, pulled out her wand, and pointed it toward us, closing her eyes. A moment later, she opened her eyes once more.
“Did you just cast a spell without using any words?” I asked, extremely impressed.
“That’s right,” Amy said nonchalantly, like it was the most normal thing in the world. I had a few professors who could cast any spells without having to chant the incantation, but it was still exceedingly rare. Amy was a really good witch. “It’s a directional spell. When you leave here, just follow the footsteps that show up in front of you and they’ll lead you straight back to my house.”
“Sweet, thanks,” I said. “We’ll see you soon.”
Amy nodded, and Andrea and I made our way back out of coven headquarters. As soon as we stepped down the stairs, I let out a small exclamation of surprise as, sure en
ough, a couple of light-green footprints appeared on the ground in front of us. They glowed slightly, and as I took a step toward them, they kept moving, constantly one or two steps ahead of Andrea and me.
“Now that’s a cool spell,” Andrea said with a laugh. “Do you know how to do that?”
I shook my head. “Not at all. I wish I did, though. That’s really cool. I’ll have to check out the Mars Book of Spells at the coven library when we get back and see if we have something similar.”
The two of us followed the footsteps until they led us to the front doorstep of a nice-looking house with a couple of brooms propped up against the side and what looked like the world’s largest swimming pool in the backyard. Andrea knocked on the door, and a minute later, a witch with wavy brown hair and a friendly-looking round face opened it.
“Hello, you must be the two sisters from Pacific Cove,” the witch said. “Amy texted to let me know you were coming. Come in, come in. I’m Ellie, by the way.”
“Andy,” my sister replied. “And this is my sister Megan.”
“I hear you’re out investigating a murder. Well, that is very our sort of thing, so come on into the kitchen, grab a cookie—they’ll give you a burst of energy thanks to the potion I snuck into the dough—and then have a seat in the living room and tell us all about it.”
I had to stifle a laugh. Ellie reminded me a lot of Andrea, the way she just completely took charge. The two of us followed after her, the smell of freshly-baked cookies wafting toward my nostrils. In the kitchen, sitting at the breakfast bar and munching away, was another witch with longish brown hair and blue eyes.
“Hi,” she said through a mouthful of cookie. “I’m Tina.”
After introductions were made, Ellie motioned for us to grab a cookie and follow her toward the living room. I did so, taking a bite, and as I did, I let out an involuntary moan of appreciation.
“This is the best cookie I’ve had in, well, ever,” I said. The cookie had practically melted in my mouth, the sweet dough quickly mingling with the melted chocolate chips, giving an extra spark of sweetness.
Tina grinned. “I know, right? Ellie is a magician when it comes to baking. Well, you know. Even more of a magician than she actually is.”
“Yeah, I’m moving in with you so I can eat these every day,” Andrea laughed. “Please tell me I can have more than one cookie.”
“Help yourself, there’s lots there,” Ellie said with a grin. “By the way, you absolutely know how to make yourselves welcome here; complimenting my cooking is basically making a beeline to friendship, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Now, Amy said in her text that you guys are investigating a murder?” Tina said. “Is that right?”
I took another delicious bite of cookie before diving in and telling Ellie and Tina everything that had gone on the last few days.
Chapter 10
“Wow,” was all Ellie managed to say when Andrea and I had finally finished telling our story.
“Wow is right,” Tina replied. “This is the sort of thing you get on bad reality TV.”
“What’s reality TV?” I asked, cocking my head to the side.
“Oh, Tina grew up in the human world, so she makes references from there all the time,” Ellie said, waving a hand.
“Right,” Tina said, a bit of a blush rising up her face. “Sorry. Ignore me.”
“Did you really?” Andrea asked, turning to Tina with interest.
“Not now, Andrea,” I said.
“That’s right, this story is way more interesting than my boring life,” Tina said. “So your parents are in jail for committing fraud with the company, and a couple of mornings after one of the employees is found dead?”
“And you’re convinced your parents are innocent of the fraud?” Ellie asked. “Like, one hundred percent convinced?”
I nodded firmly. “Absolutely. Believe me, I’m a pragmatist. If I thought they were guilty, I would admit it to myself and we could move on from there. But there seriously is no way our parents did this.”
“I agree with Meg,” Andrea replied. “Our parents are innocent of the fraud they’re accused of.”
“Ok, so assuming you’re right, at least there’s no way they can be blamed for the murder, right?” Tina said.
“That’s right. They were in jail that whole night,” I replied.
“That’s something, at least. Do you have any idea why Charles Perkins might have been in the office?” Ellie asked, and both Andrea and I shook our heads.
“No,” I replied. “I was there the previous day, trying to wrap my head around my new role as manager, and I was in the office for a while, but to be honest, I have no idea what he would have been after, and I didn’t even get a chance to read probably ninety percent of the documents that were in there anyway.”
“Do you think he was trying to steal something related to your parents’ case?” Ellie asked.
I shrugged. “Honestly, I have no idea. We haven’t had a chance to speak to our parents since they’ve been arrested. Tomorrow they’re being moved to the main jail at Spellcatraz, and we can go visit them then. But instinctively, I don’t think so. I met him, and he wasn’t a pleasant person, but he also didn’t seem like an incredibly vindictive person either, if you know what I mean. He just seemed kind of angry at life, but the kind that never does anything about it.”
“I know the type,” Ellie nodded. “So you think the murder and your parents’ arrest are unrelated?”
I shrugged. “I have a hard time believing they’re related, but of course, that would be one heck of a coincidence.”
“No kidding,” Tina muttered. “But still, you’re right. We can’t discount that the two things might be completely separate. Anyway, I think you’ve got some good suspects already. That ex-wife certainly sounds bitter as anything and hasn’t got an alibi.”
“And if not, either Amy’s dad or uncle is a suspect, too,” Ellie said. “I wonder what they were fighting over. Amy never talks about her family. I always sort of assume they don’t exist, like she was born out of some sort of egg that hatches robot witches that are perfect at spells.”
Tina laughed. “That actually sounds entirely accurate. You’re right, I’ve never heard Amy talk about her family either. I guess we’ll find out about them soon enough, though.”
Sure enough, about half an hour later, Amy came into the living room, a cookie in her hand.
“Alright,” she said. “I have a bit of information for you, but I think we’re going to have to track down my uncle and ask him what’s going on.”
“Ok,” I nodded.
“So Charles Perkins is one of my uncles. Was one of my uncles, I guess. I never really knew him all that well; he moved away when I was a baby and, to be completely honest, he was kind of shunned by the rest of the family.”
“That fits pretty well with what we’ve heard from Andy and Meg here,” Ellie said with a grin.
“So do you know what he was arguing with your uncle about?” I asked, and Amy nodded.
“Yes. I called my dad, told him what was going on, and he called his brother, then called me back. Apparently, Charles told Carl, my other uncle, that he had this super good business idea, but needed an investor.”
“Why would he need an investor when he’d stolen his ex-wife’s inheritance?” Andrea asked.
“Exactly,” Amy replied dryly. “It turns out the whole thing was a scam, and Charles completely ripped off Carl.”
“Do you think Carl would be capable of murder?” I asked quietly. I knew it was a sensitive question, what with him being Amy’s uncle and all, but I still had to ask it.
Amy shrugged. “If there’s anything I’ve learned over the past few months, it’s that anyone is capable of anything. There have been people here that I never would have dreamed to be murderers who have killed people. Who can know?”
From anyone else, that sentence would have sounded incredibly cold and calculating, but the way Amy said it so casually,
like it was just a matter of fact, made me like her even more.
“Ok, so he’s a maybe,” I said. “Is there any chance we can talk to him?”
Amy nodded. “Yes. He hangs out at The Magic Mule quite a bit, the local bar for witches and wizards. I think all of us might scare him off a bit, though. Megan, why don’t you come with me tonight after he finishes work, and we’ll see what we can find out?”
“That’s not fair, why can’t we come?” Ellie asked.
“Because five witches suddenly coming down on him and asking him for an alibi is a great way to get Uncle Carl to shut down completely,” Amy replied. “Besides, I’m sure you can think of some trouble to get into on your own.”
“Megan and I wanted to search Charles’s home when we got back to Pacific Cove,” Andrea said to Ellie. “You and Tina are welcome to join me and we can do that while Amy and Megan interview Carl.”
“That sounds great,” Ellie grinned. “I’m always up for a good break and enter.”
“Yeah, what’s another felony to add to the list?” Tina mumbled.
“Please don’t feel pressured into coming if you don’t want to,” Andrea said, but Tina shook her head.
“No, it’s fine. I complain about it, but deep down I do enjoy going around sleuthing as well. Besides, I’m not going to lie, your story tugged at the heartstrings, and I want to do whatever I can to help. It’s not like I have anything else to do anyway; I’m not good enough at magic to actually get a proper witch job.”
“How long have you been living in the magical world?” I asked.
“A few months, now,” Tina replied. My eyes widened.
“Seriously? That’s it? You must have some insane stories about the human world.”
Tina laughed. “To be honest, I’m pretty sure most people in the human world would find my magical world stories a lot more interesting than the other way around.”
Dark Chocolate and Death Page 5