Witch Boots on the Ground

by Constance Barker

  “Coffee,” the bird said without missing a beat. I didn’t know anything about bird nutrition, but he couldn’t have the proper diet with all this caffiene.

  “Me too,” I agreed. My night was restless, and full of nightmares. No matter how many times I saw a dead body or dealt with gruesome crimes they still gave me bad dreams. I liked to think it was a good thing. “Did you sleep alright?”

  “Can’t complain,” Alan said. He looked well-rested, better than he was the other day even. I thought it might be because my trip was postponed. Regrettably, I told Alan that he wasn’t going to come with me. It felt like too much all at once for my grandparents to deal with. They probably thought I was dead or never coming back, so to show up on their doorstep was a lot. Add a talking bird into the mix and it was too much. He wasn’t happy about the idea to say the least. “A murder, in Nikatomia of all places.”

  “I know,” I shook my head disbelieving. It felt impossible. Though one thing about Nikatomia was that everything was possible, and I guess that included the bad things too. “I hope this gets resolved quickly.”

  “I don’t know,” Alan mused. “Maybe it’s better that we stay here anyways.” I took in his feeble attempt to cover his excitement at the idea of my trip being delayed.

  “It’s only delayed. I’m going to visit my grandparents, and I’m going alone,” I reiterated, pouring a cup of coffee for myself and a smaller one for him.

  “Yeah, yeah.” He pecked at his coffee taking small sips and looking something like a cuckoo clock as he did so. “So who do you think did it?”

  “I’m beginning to suspect you, if it meant keeping me here,” I teased. The image of the dead man floated back into my mind making me put down the cereal I had planned on pouring for myself. “Really, though, I don’t think I can make any guesses until they identify the poor guy.”

  My nightmares had featured the large gashes that presumably killed the man. But in the dream, it was me being attacked. My face felt hot all of a sudden as though I could feel the slashes carving across my cheek. An unseen force had lashed out and cut me. I felt along my scar, in my dream it had reopened that old wound and made it even worse. Nausea sat in the pit of my stomach as I remembered both my dream and the reality of the dead man.

  “No I don’t suppose we can,” Alan said staring at me intently. He was concerned, could probably feel inklings of my own panic. There’s an animal or a creature out there meant for every witch – one that becomes their companion that they are bonded to. Many witches never met the right one, but I was lucky enough to have found Alan. Our bond meant he could pick up on my emotions when they were strong enough and I his.

  “I’m fine,” I assured him, though I didn’t feel it. My stomach heaved and I wanted to gag or even be sick, but I pushed the feeling down. “I’m fine,” I repeated more for my sake than for his. It had been such a sudden and strange onset of emotion, usually things didn’t get to me this much. I felt like an exposed nerve but with a few deep breaths it passed. Had Alan not known me so well, he might have pressed the issue. He did know me though and so he said nothing.

  The phone rang...it was getting more use in the last couple days than it had since I bought it a few years ago.

  “Hello?” I said into the receiver.

  “Vanna,” Henry replied. “They’ve been able to identify the body, and the patrols we had knocking on doors were able to find a couple witnesses.”

  “Did they get statements?” I wound the cord around my finger and then unwound it. I should have just given him my mobile number. I would have to remember to do that later today. I didn’t want to keep getting stuck. I liked to pace when I was on a call and when your phone was attached to a two-foot cord you couldn’t really do that.

  “Preliminary, but I thought we might bring them in to question them.” It wasn’t that I didn’t trust his officers, but I would have wanted to question the witnesses myself regardless. I was glad that Detective Henry thought the same.

  “And the body? Who is it?” I asked, feeling like I probably should have led with that. My fingers unconsciously traced the scar on my cheek, remembering my nightmare.

  “A man named Horace Bugglebee.” It sounded familiar to me, but I couldn’t tell where I had heard it. Like the piece of fabric we had found at the crime scene.

  “I think I know that name from somewhere,” I said half to Henry and half to myself.

  “We’re still looking into his background, maybe you can make the connection when we find out more.” I liked Henry, he was to the point and didn’t speculate too much. It was a bit of a nice contrast to Winnie, who was dramatic and tended to wildly speculate without much evidence. As much as I love working with her and she balanced me out, it was nice to work with someone on the same page as me.

  “We’ll be in soon,” I ended the call. “Does the name Horace Bugglebee ring any bells?” I shouted up the stairs for Alan. He flew down instead of shouting back.

  “What was it?” He asked to make sure he had heard it correctly.

  “Horace Bugglebee?” I repeated.

  “Isn’t he the owner of the coffee shop? Barry’s boss?” He said, making everything click for me. The fabric I recognized was the apron they wore at the coffee shop for their uniforms.

  “Oh damn,” I said with a sigh.

  “What?” Alan asked, sitting on my shoulder. “Is that who the victim was?”

  “Yes, Henry just called. They have some witnesses and the identified the body, as Horace Bugglebee. And if he’s been killed by a werewolf, then we know who the first suspect is going to be,” I said with an even heavier sigh.

  “Oh,” Alan said, understanding who I meant. Barry, our favorite barista and Winnie’s crush of the month, was also a werewolf. If I didn’t know him, then he’d be first on my list of suspects. He knew the victim and he had the means of murder, but I did know him. Barry couldn’t hurt a fly.

  I was about to dial to call Winnie when she flew into the house. “Come in,” I said even though she had let herself in already.

  “Did you hear?” She asked breathing heavily. She must have used a transportation spell to get here so quickly.

  “About Horace Bugglebee?” I asked, even though I was sure that the only thing that would make her use a transportation spell would be that.

  “Yes!” She shouted. Even early in the morning and in a rush, she was incredibly well put together. As per usual, my drab clothes paled in comparison from her bright green pant suit. I didn’t know how she could pull it off, but she did every time. “Barry is going to be a suspect.” Winnie sounded actually scared.

  “I know, but we know he didn’t do it.” I tried to be reassuring, but failed.

  “Like that’ll help,” she scoffed.

  “Let’s get down to the station and see what they have to say before we jump to conclusions.” Winnie was worried for Barry, more than I would have expected. It was hard to know with her what was just a passing flirtation and who she genuinely cared for.

  “They did say they have witnesses,” Alan pointed out. “They might have seen what really happened and they can clear Barry.”

  “Yeah, that’s true,” Winnie said, she had caught her breath now.

  “Let’s go,” I said again, leading the way to the police station.

  Chapter Four

  THE STATION WAS A DISASTER when we got there, I doubted any of the officers had gotten the luxury of even a nightmare filled sleep. They weren’t prepared for a murder. Most of the time they weren’t even equipped to deal with what little crime Nikatomia did have.

  “Hey, glad to have you back,” Henry said with a smile and a grateful sigh.

  “Did any of you get sleep last night?” I asked looking at the tired faces all around the station. My philosophy was that it was always better to work on some sleep than none. People get stupid when they're tired.

  “No, not much.” Henry sounded almost proud, but then at the look on my face it changed to embarrassment. “Sh
ould I have sent everyone home?” he asked.

  “You might want to make sure some of the officers who were stuck staying late get home today,” I suggested in what I hoped was a polite way. I didn’t want to offend him, I actually thought he was doing a good job. Just his inexperience shone through in some of his decisions. Winnie was surprisingly quiet after having been so certain that they were going to target Barry, she hadn’t said anything about it yet. That was probably for the best.

  “I’ll let them head home after you get the chance to talk to the officers who spoke with the witnesses last night.” Henry recovered quickly from being embarrassed and made an executive decision. I appreciated that he was deferring to me, considering I did have more experience than he did.

  “That should be good...I do want the chance to talk to them,” I nodded. As if on cue a couple officers appeared in front of us.

  “Officer Callaghan.”

  “Officer Callaghan.” They introduced themselves simultaneously, making it difficult to discern exactly which was which. They were identical, making me wonder if they might be doppelgangers, or something of that sort. I hadn’t met many but they always kind of freaked me out. It made it all the more difficult that they hadn’t exactly spoken aloud. They were communicating with their minds only.

  “Good to meet you,” I said, not really caring which was which or what their names were. Winnie looked startled by the sudden intrusion into our minds. It wasn’t pleasant to speak with a telepath. It felt like a hot poker going directly to your brain and there was never any telling exactly how much or how little information they gleaned without meaning to. “Were you the officers who spoke to a witness last night?”

  “Yes, we were.” They spoke again in unison. “The witness said she saw a great big wolf come down on the man, and the man screamed but then stopped screaming. They called it in as soon as they could. Scared for their own lives, they were.” I had to keep myself from grimacing. Winnie and even Henry weren’t doing a great job of hiding their discomfort.

  “I thought it was an anonymous tip?” Winnie shook her head for a moment before speaking. Clearing them from her mind.

  “There was an anonymous tip, that was the first call in we received but not the only one,” Henry explained quickly. I presumed to avoid the telepaths being the ones to answer.

  “It was not a quiet attack,” the Callaghan’s shook their heads in sync. “No, not quiet at all. The man screamed and the animal attacked. But then there was quiet.”

  “Did they see anything?” Alan asked. I didn’t really consider them witnesses if they hadn’t seen anything. It also wouldn’t help clear Barry’s name, even if they had seen the attack. In werewolf form it was difficult to tell one from the other.

  “It was dark, they saw little,” The officers answered. “The witness saw none of the attack, only heard, but after the noise stopped, they looked out their window and then they saw a man running away.” I couldn’t stop myself from shivering this time. Alan was the only one who didn’t seem touched by them speaking directly into his mind.

  “Any description?” he asked them. The rest of us were too distracted by the telepathy to ask a coherent question. I couldn’t imagine how difficult it must have been for the witnesses to have answered their questions. Even more so, how Henry was able to deal with them on a day to day basis.

  “Too dark to be sure. Witness thinks that it was a man, tall, with lighter hair. Didn’t see his face though,” they finished. Clearly, they didn’t think they had anything else to say because they turned on their heels and walked away. I wondered if the Callaghan’s had seen in Henry’s mind that he was going to send them home once they were done speaking with us. That must be the case as they walked clear out of the station. Even for Nikatomia these guys weirded me out.

  “And the witness?” I asked after a moment. I had a bit of a headache from the intrusion, and one look at Winnie and Henry told me they did too. All three of us were squinting and rubbing some part of our foreheads as though that would erase the pain. “Can we talk to them?”

  “Yes, we can,” Henry assured us. “It’s a vague description, but we’ve tried to create something usable from it. That plus being able to narrow it down to a werewolf gives us something.” It hadn’t escaped me that the description could have been Barry. It could have been a dozen different people, but it could have been him.

  We spoke with the witness, but they gave us even less than the brief statement for the Callaghan’s. It was underwhelming at best.

  “So, what about the victim?” I asked finally. “Are there any signs of motive? Anyone out there who would have wanted to kill him?” Winnie shot me a look, no doubt thinking of the many times Barry had complained to us about his boss not paying him on time, calling him in last minute and generally being difficult to work for.

  “The list keeps growing,” Henry said.

  “Oh, really?” Winnie sounded a little too excited.

  “Yeah, Horace was by no means a good guy,” Henry explained. He offered me his desk chair, which I accepted. He didn’t have an office, so Winnie sat in a folding chair next to the desk. Alan and Henry perched themselves on the edge of the desk. “He owned that coffee shop but got a lot of complaints from employees and customers alike. Not only that, he was all caught up in organized crime. Owed a lot of money to the fairy mafia and was behind in his debts.”

  “So we’re looking into the fairy mafia, then?” Winnie asked.

  “It’s one possibility we’re looking at.” Alan pushed around some of the papers on Henry’s desk, trying to clear off a spot so he could get comfortable.

  “What are the other possibilities?” Alan cawed.

  “Well, we know that the killer is a werewolf, so we’re playing that angle first and foremost. There’s no record of the fairy mafia associating with any werewolves.”

  “That you all know of,” I said, hopefully gently. “It’s possible that they hired someone to do the job for them.”

  “It certainly is,” Henry agreed. Winnie nodded enthusiastically. “I’ve got some officers ready for a witch hunt – sorry,” he said eyeing Winnie and me. “They want to round up all the werewolves in the area and question each of them.”

  “That can’t happen,” I said with a sigh. It was the way of people though, even people in Nikatomia.

  “I agree,” Henry nodded. I sensed a but coming though. “But, even people in town are calling for it. As soon as the news got out that there was a murder and a werewolf did it there's been panic. I want to try to get this solved as fast as possible.”

  “Same here,” Winnie and I said at the same time.

  “Are there any solid suspects?” I asked, from the way he was talking, I already had a feeling they had one. And it was the one we were worried about.

  “There’s one,” Henry nodded. “He’s got means, and motive.”

  “Who?” Winnie asked. I was annoyed with his secrecy. He was treading carefully. He knew that we were regulars at the coffee shop. It was right by our office and I had explained to him that was how I recognized the name of the victim.

  “Barry Berry, he’s an employee at the coffee shop that Horace owned,” Henry looked at us to see our reactions. Winnie giggled slightly, which she did every time she heard Barry’s full name. Alan squawked a little laugh out as well. For detectives, these two had unusual nervous tics. Laughing at inopportune times was one of them.

  “You can bring them in,” I said. “But there’s no way that he’s guilty. Barry is a friend, and he never would have done anything like this.”

  “I hope you’re right about that,” Henry sighed.

  “I am,” I said with confidence.

  Chapter Five

  “WE NEED YOU TO WORK the mob angle,” I said to Alan. It felt like we were working against the police force since they decided to bring in Barry. I didn’t want that to be the case, but they were barking up the wrong tree and wouldn’t listen to reason.

  “Listen in and see
if they say anything about Horace at all,” Winnie told him. Alan nodded dramatically. He already knew everything we were saying and was annoyed that we kept going on about what he should do. Of the three of us, he was probably the most trained as it was. It was a little offensive that we were over explaining to him.

  “I know,” Alan groaned. “I know.”

  “Be careful, please,” I said meaningfully.

  The fairy mafia was nothing to mess with. In the normal realm, fairies are thought of as delicate creatures. Really, they were the coldest of us all. Every gift they gave, or spell they granted came with a heavy and a hefty price. The interest on that price only went up and up, making it impossible to ever pay it off. Essentially, they were creating an army of slaves. They made those indebted to them do their dirty work for them. Horace would have been the first they killed for not repaying their debt.

  “Are you sure about this?” Henry asked me and Alan. Despite the popular theory of Barry being the werewolf who killed Horace, Henry was still with us. So, I guess we weren’t working against the entire police force.

  “If this will help prove that Barry is innocent, then I’ll do it,” Alan nodded. “I know how to get in and out of a place undetected.” I squinted at him, thinking of the multiple times he had been seen while listening in on suspects. He did always manage to get away unscathed, but undetected – no way.

  “We appreciate it,” Winnie said. She was serious too. I could tell she was worried about Barry because in the short few hours since we confirmed that he was a suspect she had bitten her normally perfect nails down to the quick.

  “It’s nothing,” Alan said and with one more nod he flew off.

  ***Alan***

  THE POLICE HAD DONE a good job of uncovering where the fairy mafia had their headquarters. I was flying right towards it but still couldn’t see it. Even with my training their magic shrouded their hideout well. With the general ineffectiveness that I had seen at the station, I was impressed that they even knew there was a mafia.