“You probably don’t want other hotel guests hearing what I have to say.”
He had Meg there. Reluctantly, she invited him in.
Meg was on edge from the moment he set foot in her room. Her anxiety only got worse when he opened his mouth.
“I know what you’ve been doing.”
He acted like she was doing something terribly wrong. Meg was convinced more than ever that someone had murdered Paige. She was just trying to find the killer. If anything, that should be deserving of kudos, not criticism. That being said, she wasn’t going to tell him that.
The detective did not have the face of a man who wanted to listen to reason. As a matter of fact, the only thing he had open was his mouth, not his ears. Ironically, for a man that was so quick to shut the door on this case earlier, he’d apparently done a lot of checking up on her.
“How do you know what I’ve been doing?” Meg replied.
“I’m a detective. It’s my job to know things.”
She sure walked into that one.
The detective wasn’t done. “Besides, I got a complaint call about you.”
“Who complained?”
“That’s not important.”
She disagreed. Her brand of brash questioning was bound to get under the skin of suspects, but there was also an unexpected side effect to it. She had apparently irked someone so much that they tipped off the police to her actions. What they didn’t realize was how this played into Meg’s hand, not theirs. Maybe this conversation with the detective wouldn’t be such a pain in the neck after all, but rather a much-needed break in the case.
“Actually, that’s very important. The only person that would be really out of shape about me questioning them would be the killer,” Meg said.
Detective Brees shook his head. “That’s not true. No one likes being accused of murder, guilty or otherwise.”
“Detective, you have to admit, it’s still a lead, one that begs following up on.”
“Actually, that’s why I’m here.”
“I’m confused. You’re here to follow up on a lead?” Meg asked.
“No. I’m here to tell you to stop following up on whatever leads you seem to think you have,” he replied.
Brees may have been a bloodhound when it came to detective work, but he was barking up the wrong tree if he thought he was going to get her to drop this case. If anything, she felt more emboldened.
“Who called in the complaint about me?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Detective, they complained about me. It couldn’t be more my business.”
For once, he didn’t disagree. Thankfully, he revealed the name. “Tyler Watson.”
Talk about a lead. Tyler had already spring-boarded to the top of her suspect list. This was just further proof that he might be guilty. “Interesting.”
“Oh, no you don’t. I didn’t come here to give you ideas,” he argued.
“Why did you come here then?” she asked.
“To tell you to stop investigating this case.”
“What do you care? It’s not like I’m interfering with your investigation. You told me yourself that you’d already closed this case.”
“Exactly, and I want this case to stay closed.”
Meg furrowed her brow. “I don’t understand.”
“Ms. Walton, what do you do for a living?”
“I run a donut shop.”
“You just proved my point. I’m the only trained detective here. So go back to baking donuts and leave the investigating to the professionals.”
“I’d be happy to.”
The detective breathed a huge sigh of relief.
“But, the problem is, you’re not investigating.”
“Because, the case is closed.”
“And, as I’ve explained to you, I don’t think it should be.”
He groaned.
Meg considered herself to be a reasonably perceptive person, but she didn’t see why the detective was so bent out of shape about her actions. She couldn’t step on the toes of his investigation if he wasn’t conducting one. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t see what the harm is in me investigating this case? It’s no skin off your teeth.”
He scoffed. “You don’t even realize you’re insulting me.”
“No, I’m not.”
“That’s exactly what you’re doing. By conducting your own murder investigation, you’re implying that I didn’t do my job right by ruling this case a suicide, and let me tell you, I do not appreciate a donut shop owner implying that I don’t know how to do my job.”
Uh oh. She was in deep now. All this time, she had concerned herself with discovering the truth. She hadn’t taken a moment to consider the damage that would do to the detective’s ego. She should have known better. Even a man that was in the business of uncovering facts like Brees had a hard time casting his ego to the side. Pride was a deadly sin, but instead of focusing on the woman that was dead, he was too busy thinking what a crime it was that his ego hadn’t been massaged.
Meg had to find a way to talk herself into the detective’s good graces again. Her mother had once taught her that flattery could get a person anywhere. It was time to test that.
“Detective, I’m sure you’re amazing at your job. I know I could never cut it as a big city detective.”
Brees had cut her off before, but if there was one thought he’d let her express, she figured it would be her complimenting him. She was wrong. That’s how steamed he was.
“Don’t try talking out of both sides of your mouth. Your words may be saying one thing, but your actions have already said another.”
Drats. Meg figured he’d buy that. So much for trying to fluff his ego. “Look, you brought it up yourself before, you have a lot of other cases to juggle. It’s a lot to try and keep track of--”
“And you think I overlooked something with this case.”
Meg was trying to dig herself out of a hole, but only seemed to be tunneling deeper. What she needed most was to find a way out of this. She wanted the detective on her side. It was hard enough solving a murder case as is. The last thing she needed was additional trouble.
She took one last stab at currying his favor. “Detective, have you ever lost a good friend?”
“I’ve been with the force over twenty years. I’ve lost more friends than I ever thought possible.”
“I’m so sorry. I know how heartbreaking it is to lose someone close to you. But if those emotions weren’t enough to grapple with, imagine if your friends died under suspicious circumstances? What if you believed they’d been murdered, and that the killer was still out there? Wouldn’t you want to bring the killer to justice?”
“Only, here’s the problem with your theory. Your friend wasn’t murdered. She killed herself. And as horrible as that is to come to grips with, sometimes you have to face the facts,” he explained.
“We could disagree about this all day, but it wouldn’t do any good,” Meg argued.
“You’re right, which is why I’m done arguing with you. Like I told you, I know what it’s like to lose someone close to you. But there’s nothing you can do to bring them back. My advice to you would be to head back home and let the grieving process begin.”
Meg bit the corner of her lip. They were at an impasse. At the same time, this wasn’t something that was up for debate in the detective’s mind. That was all too clear.
She went to answer with a heartfelt response of her own, but he shut her down before she got any words out.
“Leave this case alone,” he said. He gave her the sternest stare yet. And, if he hadn’t made his point clear enough, he added one last warning. “I’m not asking you; I’m telling you.”
That put Meg squarely between a rock and a hard place, with no way to wriggle out. She lied to the detective and told him she wasn’t going to investigate this case any further, but knew she was making an empty promise just to get him to leave.
The fact was, she
had no intention of letting up. She was hot on the trail of this case, and nothing was going to stop her from finding out the truth. If anything, she’d just have to be more careful and look over her shoulder from here on out.
Chapter Nineteen
When the detective left Meg’s hotel room, she decided to give her investigation a rest until the morning. She needed her rest. It had been a long and emotionally draining day. A recharge was in order, and there was no better way to do that than getting eight hours of shut-eye.
In the morning, she woke up refreshed and ready to take on the world again. After a quick locator spell, Meg tracked Owen Stewart down to a coffee shop off Fairfax Boulevard. Meg grabbed a Danish pastry from the hotel’s continental breakfast buffet and braved L.A. morning traffic.
By the time she arrived at the coffee shop, Owen was just leaving. Meg quietly scorned the gridlock on the roads that had delayed her arrival, then tried to regain her focus. She couldn’t afford a distraction right now, even if the traffic in this city made her beside herself.
Meg took a few deep breaths to re-center, then zeroed in on Owen, who got into his car. She had to act fast. There was no telling where he was headed, and Meg loathed the idea of getting back into bumper to bumper traffic so soon. An idea came to her. She parked in the lot, closed her eyes, and then cast a spell disabling the engine to Owen’s car.
As Owen tried to fire up the ignition, he came up empty-handed. He kept trying and trying, with no result. While he yelled at his car, Meg approached the driver’s side window.
“Hey, you’re Owen Stewart, the former city councilman,” Meg said.
Owen took his frustration from the engine not starting by barking at Meg. “Yeah, who are you?”
She tried to stay unfazed. “My name is Meg Walton.”
He groused at her again in an attempt to get her to go away. “What do you want? Can’t you see, I’m busy here?”
She wouldn’t be deterred. “I need to talk to you about Paige Martin.”
If Owen was upset about his engine before, he completely flew off the handle at the mention of Paige’s name.
He narrowed his eyes and gave her a death stare. “How dare you bring up that name? Who do you think you are?”
Owen’s attempts at intimidation were getting him nowhere. If anything, it played right into Meg’s hand. The general rule was, the more emotional a person got, the more likely they were to let information slip out. Owen seemed to be nearing a tipping point already.
Meg anticipated things could get heated. It was a good thing she’d prepared. Although her plan called for a little lying.
“I’m a detective,” she replied.
He called her bluff. “Yeah? Then let me see your badge.”
What Owen didn’t realize was that she had all manners of spells at her disposal, one of which was an illusion spell that made it look like she had a police badge in her hand, rather than just a common broach.
Owen got wide-eyed.
“I’m going to need you to answer some questions, Mr. Stewart.”
He still remained cantankerous. “What about?”
“Paige’s murder,” Meg replied.
“Murder? I don’t know anything about a murder.”
“We’ll see about that. When was the last time you talked to Paige Martin?”
“I’ve never talked to her. She just ruined my life from afar with her nasty expose.”
“Where were you on Monday night?” Meg asked.
“At work.”
“All night?”
He nodded. “My consultant firm was working on a big project. It was a late night for us all.”
“So then you have people that can verify your story then?”
“I do.”
“I want names and phone numbers.”
Surprisingly, he rattled off half a dozen names and numbers. Meg wrote them all down.
“See, I couldn’t have done it,” he insisted.
“At least, that’s what you say. I still have to verify your story,” Meg said.
“Well, while you’re doing that, I have to call a towing company to get my car taken into the shop. Now, I know my rights, and you have nothing on me, so leave me be.”
Meg hated how defiant he was being. He called her out at every turn. At the same time, seeing as how she wasn’t really a detective and didn’t have any concrete evidence, there wasn’t anything else she could do but let him go. Besides, she had an alibi to verify.
***
Against all odds, Owen’s story checked out. All six of the names he listed verified his story. Meg couldn’t believe it. Of all the people to have an airtight alibi, Owen was the last person she suspected. Still, there was no denying the facts.
That left Meg having to regroup. She decided to stop in and get a cup of coffee herself. A little caffeine would do her mind some good. When she came out of the coffee shop, she was nearly cut off on the sidewalk by a burly, long-haired man in a tank top walking his big dog.
It was then that Meg was reminded of someone else that had a big dog for a pet that she’d forgotten about during the course of this investigation.
Chapter Twenty
Meg didn’t know how, but Paige’s old neighbor, Ben Howard, had slipped her mind until then. Suddenly, he jumped to the front of her mind. She became glad he did. All it took was some quick internet research on Ben Howard with her phone, and she couldn’t believe what she turned up. One thing became abundantly clear; she had to talk to him as soon as possible.
This called for a locator spell. Once the spell had been cast, Meg realized Ben was on the move. She hopped in her car to catch up with him. When she reached his location, she realized why his location kept changing, he’d been out taking his dog for a walk.
He was now in front of his new apartment building. Meg would have to act fast. She didn’t want him to get back into his apartment. It would be too easy for him to slam the door on her then. Luckily, Ben stopped in front of the building and lit up a smoke.
Meg had never been happier to see a cigarette in all her life. That bought her some extra time, which she knew she needed to cast a couple of additional spells in peace. A few moments later, when Ben was taking a puff of his cigarette, Meg approached him.
“Are you liking your new place?” Meg asked.
Ben jumped, in shock that she was able to sneak up on him without his dog barking. He tugged on his German Shephard’s leash.
“Spike, what’s the matter with you?” he said.
Meg held out a dog treat that she’d conjured up via a spell; then hand fed it to Spike. The dog was as calm as could be.
This only shocked Ben more.
Meg cleared up the confusion. “What can I say? Dogs love me.”
That was often true, but in this case, Spike was subdued because of a calming spell Meg had cast before she approached.
Ben gave her a hostile greeting. “I don’t know how you got this address, or what you think you’re doing, but you’re not welcome here.”
Ben then tossed his cigarette on the ground, stepped on it, then tugged at Spike’s leash, before heading to the front door of the building.
“I know a bunch about you, Ben. Like the fact that you work for Trim Metrics,” Meg said.
Ben hesitated, then continued to the front door. He slid his key into the lock of the door, but the door didn’t open. Meg was holding the door closed by a spell.
“What’s the hurry to get away? I just have a few questions for you.”
Ben groaned, then decided to circle around to the back of the building. “I have nothing to say to you.”
Meg didn’t give up. “Fine, then you can just listen to me. Scott Bailey told me he thought it was odd that you spent so much time trying to keep from being evicted, then picked up and moved to a new place so quickly after Paige’s death.”
“Scott Bailey should mind his own business,” Ben snapped.
“The thing is, he was right. There’s only one reason you wo
uld have moved so quickly; because of the Trim Metrics connection. You worked on developing those pills. You must have known Paige was writing an expose trying to bury the company. If that story got out, the company would be in deep trouble. You could have lost your job. People do some crazy things when their livelihood is threatened.”
Surprisingly, Ben stopped and whirled around, narrowing his eyes at Meg.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you’re just wasting your time. None of what you just said matters. Paige killed herself, end of story.”
Meg stood her ground. She stared him down. “Then why do you look so afraid?”
He snapped back. “This isn’t fear. It’s anger.”
She pressed on. “That’s where you’re wrong. Although that isn’t the only thing you’ve mixed up. You didn’t know Paige like I did. She’d never kill herself. This was murder, staged to look like a suicide, and you had a killer motive.”
Ben snarled at her, then turned back around and headed to the back door. “You’re crazy.”
“If I’m wrong, why are you so quick to run away? If you have nothing to hide, then just tell me the truth.”
“I didn’t kill her. She killed herself.”
“Where were you on Monday night?”
“At home.”
“Alone?”
Ben reached the door. “We’re done here.”
He opened the door and went inside.
Meg could have followed after him, but it wouldn’t do any good. She already knew he didn’t have anyone to verify his alibi. What she didn’t know, was whether he’d killed Paige, or just happened to look as guilty as could be. Either way, she wasn’t going to get any more out of him right now. In the meantime, there were more suspects to talk to.
Chapter Twenty-One
Questioning Ben Howard wasn’t nearly as fruitful as Meg thought it would be. Although, talking to one of Paige’s former neighbors did remind her who she needed to follow up with next. Meg made her way back to Paige’s apartment complex and knocked on Scott Bailey’s door.
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