Witches and Wine

by Samantha Silver

  Eliza stood her ground, carefully folding her thin arms across her not so thin chest. "I'm sorry ladies, but I'm going to have to insist. The files are strictly confidential, and I can't leave anyone in the room alone with them. Company rules."

  I could almost read the thoughts running through Karen's mind as she looked around the room. Great. Now what?

  Chapter 7

  As much as I felt like the odd one out right now, I had to pipe up.

  "You're Mr. Mortran's secretary?"

  Eliza studied something on the desk, before spreading out the cluster of fountain pens in the black marble square behind his laptop. "Yes, I am."

  "I'm Taylor, Karen's new roommate," I explained, catching a glimpse of a rather enormous red rock on her finger. Either secretaries made a lot more money than I thought, or Eliza definitely had a generous boyfriend.

  She didn't seem all that interested, but at least had the decency to smile sadly at me, turning her attention to Karen.

  "I heard what happened to Barbara." She shook her head. "I can't imagine they'd be able to detain her for very long."

  I was confused about where exactly Eliza fell on the B.S. meter of mine, having fine-tuned it pretty well after working at the car lot. She was definitely upset, but without a flair for the dramatic.

  "Sydney seems to think otherwise," Karen replied, testing the waters in her own way.

  But Eliza snorted. "Sydney is a, well, a delicate creature. I wouldn't really listen to anything she's saying right now. Not while everything's so fresh."

  Eliza pulled open one of the desk drawers, looking for something, but as soon as she wasn't looking, Karen tilted her pointy chin toward the doorway and winked at me. Evidently, she’d come up with yet another plan. I had no idea what she meant until she let out a strangled noise—something halfway between a sob and a shriek.

  Eliza's eyes went wide in confusion as Karen clutched her own chest, big, fat tears rolling down her face screwed up in such effort that it should've won her some sort of award.

  "Being here... it's like it's all hitting me at once," Karen groaned, shaking her head as I finally caught on and pretended to console her. "No, no. I'm okay. I'm fine. Really I'm..." She let out another wail, banging her small fist on the wall, and drawing attention from not only Eliza, but a couple of other staff members as they peeked in to see what all the commotion was about.

  "Karen, it’s going to be okay," I told her, putting on a brave face over the death of someone I didn't know. "Your dad wouldn't want you to feel this way."

  Eliza took a few steps closer, extremely wary of Karen. "Is she going to be okay?" she asked me.

  I put my arms around Karen, sighing heavily, "I don't know. I just don't know."

  I could tell by the way she was eyeing the desk that she didn't want to leave the room, but her concern for Karen seemed to finally win out.

  "Maybe I could talk to her? I've worked for Henry for a long time now and I’ve heard all about his daughter. He was very fond of her." She flipped her blonde hair back over her shoulder. "I have one of his photo albums in my office. Maybe I could show it to her?"

  Karen only got louder, and this time, she turned and crashed against Eliza's chest, sobbing openly. "I don't have very many pictures of him!"

  Eliza’s wide eyes betrayed how bewildered she was, but she gently guided Karen out of Henry's office, not even noticing me hanging back.

  I knew I only had a minute or so before Eliza noticed that I hadn’t followed after them, and my eyes darted around the room as I tried to figure out where the best information would most likely be. The laptop was off, and there wasn't enough time to really go looking through it, and the room was pretty much devoid of any papers lying around. Except for the printer.

  I snatched up the handful of papers, and a quick glance told me they were all from yesterday. If Henry had been found yesterday morning, then who was printing things off in his office?

  I quickly scanned the first few sheets, but they didn't seem too out of the ordinary - just some statements from a bank account. I was just about to move on when I saw the very last sheet was a printout of an email; short and to the point, the author was a man named Phil Cosgrove. It looked like it was the tail-end of an ongoing conversation between him and Henry, and judging by the colorful language, he wasn't a happy camper.

  One word stood out among the rest, though, and I had to wonder how the police hadn't managed to notice it. "After all the money I dumped into hiring you, and you couldn't deliver? I ought to kill you for what you've done to my family."

  Hearing footsteps coming down the narrow hall, I pulled out my phone and snapped a quick picture of the email, making sure to get the name and email address. I strolled back out the office without anyone noticing my absence, my heart racing. I was basically James Bond right now. Ok, minus the bespoke suit or any sort of actual spying skills. But I felt pretty cool for not having been caught.

  In the lobby, Karen was starting to calm herself down, and a minute or so after she caught sight of me, she seemed to make a miraculous and total recovery.

  "Thank you all for your well wishes. They truly mean so much to me," she sniffled, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a tissue one of the ladies had provided her.

  Eliza gave Karen an awkward pat on the shoulder before turning to walk back toward the office, brushing past me without giving me a second look. Evidently, my absence from the front of the room hadn’t been noticed.

  I beckoned to Karen, who made her way over to me.

  "Did you find anything?" she whispered to me as soon as the crowd started to disperse. "I know you didn't have that much time."

  Nodding, I pulled her even further away from everyone. "Yeah. And it's a doozy."

  "A doozy? What are you, my mom's age?"

  I chuckled, and continued anyway. "I took a picture with my phone, actually."

  "Karen. I'm so very sorry about your father," a deep voice interrupted. I looked up to see a tall man in his late forties with a sympathetic smile on his face making his way towards us, his hands clasped behind his back. "He really helped put this place on the map."

  I looked around, wondering what Henry Mortran could have possible done to put a place like this on the map, with its old, dusty furniture and the various brooding faces staring back at me from outdated portraits.

  “I know others had their opinion about Henry, but he was my partner. And it’s still hard to believe he’s gone,” The man sighed, casting a lonely look down the hallway. At least from what I could tell, the man seemed genuinely concerned.

  "Thank you, Mr. James. I really appreciate it,” Karen sniffled, making sure to carefully dab at the corners of her eyes. She turned and caught my eye, then looked toward the front door, waggling one of her thin eyebrows at me.

  “It’s been a long day for her,” I said, taking Karen’s cue and putting my arm around her as if to guide her away. “I’m going to take her home to get some rest.”

  Bowing his head at us, Mr. James moved to the side. “Of course. And Karen, if there’s anything I can do to help you, please let me know. I heard about Barbara.”

  Karen stiffened. “Well, if there’s anything you could do that might get my mother out of jail for a crime she most certainly did not commit, I’m all ears, Mr. James.”

  The look on his face was plain as day, but even I could hear the discomfort in his tone. “I’m sorry, Karen. I’ve already been asked to stay outside of the investigation by the police department. I can’t represent Barbara in any matter pertaining to your father’s ongoing case. I would if I could, though, Karen. As much as they had their issues, I don’t think anyone truly believes your mother would harm Henry,” he replied, looking around the rest of the small lobby. Giving Karen one more pitying smile, he turned and walked back toward the end of the hall.

  “Who was that?” I asked once we made it back outside.

  “Darren James. He’s the other managing partner here. His grandfather was the foun
ding partner of James & Sons. He’s a nice enough guy.” She clicked her seatbelt in place and turned to face me, her expression urgent. “Now, what were you saying you found in my dad’s office?”

  “Well, I didn’t have much time, but I did find this,” I told her, handing over my phone. “It’s an email from some guy named Phil Cosgrove, and he does not seem very pleased with your father. I think he might have been a client, but that’s just a guess.”

  Karen’s mouth twisted to the side as she glanced over the photo. “Right. Yeah, he was, I think. Phil Cosgrove. I think I may know who he is. If I remember correctly, he’s a professor at Brambleton College. It’s a local community college in the next town over. I don’t really know him that well, but he lives here in Rosemary Creek.”

  “He’s a professor? You don’t think there’s a chance that he’s teaching there right now, do you?” I asked, taking the phone back.

  Karen squinted and adjusted her visor as the mid-morning sun hit her square in the face. “Ten o’clock on a weekday? Yeah, it’s definitely a possibility. Maybe we could check the college’s website and see if they have any posted class times.”

  I waved my phone around. “Already on it. Looks like Professor P. Cosgrove is teaching his Macro Economics class in the Citizen’s Building from nine-thirty to eleven. We should have enough time to get there if it’s not too far from here,” I said, pulling up the campus directory for a better idea of where to park. “What do you think?”

  Karen threw the car into drive and zipped out of the parking space, looking even more determined than before. “I think we have a pop quiz to give Mr. Cosgrove.”

  I snorted, unable to help myself. “Oh my god, you did not just say that,” I muttered through my hand.

  Even Karen giggled. “What, aren’t you supposed to throw out some super cheesy line like that before you go interrogate someone?”

  “Only if you’re on a terrible sitcom. Let’s just worry about getting the guy alone in the first place. Then you can search Professor Plum for the revolver,” I said, shaking my head as I grinned, looking out the window as the hills in the distance rose up higher the further we went.

  Chapter 8

  Brambleton College was much smaller than I’d imagined, even with the campus map on my screen. It consisted of three separate buildings cramped together on a single piece of land, with a tiny parking lot on the one side, and an even smaller parking lot still on the other. The grass around the buildings was a dingy green and slightly overgrown with weeds poking through here and there, while the college had a dull look to it that reminded me of a warehouse trying to blend in among other businesses, instead of standing out as a place of higher education. If there was ever a cheap ‘get your degree in three simple months and owe us your kidneys’ kind of place, it was this one.

  “Wow, not much to look at is it?” Karen voiced my exact thoughts. “Where to?”

  I pointed to the building on the right. “Citizen’s Building, right there. He’s down Hall B. Room 203.”

  We followed the little map on my phone until we stood outside the propped-open door to Room 203. I gave Karen a quick nod and we both hurried inside as if we were students just late to the lecture, and grabbing two unoccupied desks in the back.

  Already I could tell that the reason the door was open was to help air out the stifling heat inside. While some students were lazily fanning themselves with notebooks—their eyes completed glazed over—a few were even passed out with their heads down on their desks.

  But the man up front either didn’t notice, or didn’t care. He was a short, thin man, his pale-yellow button-up shirt showing signs of the heat each time he lifted his arm and pointed at a corresponding bullet point on the projector screen above him.

  His lecture was the very definition of monotonous and boring, especially to someone like me who shuddered at just the thought of the word “economics”. At least it wasn’t the sort of thing I was going to have to worry about taking in veterinary school.

  Phil Cosgrove leaned haphazardly against the podium, his face flushed. “Every single person has an impact on this economy. From the youngest baby all the way up to the oldest person living. And these factors here are just from a nuclear family of four. A prime example of a husband and wife and their two children. Statistically, the wife makes the majority of the family purchasing decisions. Maybe this guy’s wife was happy with him. She certainly didn’t pretend to love the husband. And there’s no way she took her husband’s whole life away from him when she cheated and went after his money and their kid. This was just a happy, normal family in America. Don’t we all wish we could have something like that?” he finished more to himself than to the classroom, angrily loosening up his blue tie.

  The class was so silent, you could’ve heard a pin drop. Out of the corner of my eye I could just make out the weird expression on Karen’s face. This guy had evidently never heard about leaving your personal issues at the door when you got to work, geez.

  Someone in the front row cleared their throat uncomfortably, and it seemed to snap Phil Cosgrove back into the present. He narrowed his eyes at the class for a moment, then smacked his hand down on the podium, jarring all four of the sleeping students awake from their heat-induced naps.

  “Homework is in the Blackboard tab on the class page. Read pages 314 to 325, and answer the questions on page 326. Due by Thursday. Class dismissed.”

  Everyone seemed to move at once, dozens of feet quickly shuffling down the rows of desks and out the door without another look backward.

  “Holy crap,” I whispered to Karen from the back row, my eyes wide. “I think we know why he was mad at your dad. His wife cheats on him and leaves with all the money and their kid? Yikes.”

  She let out a low whistle that only we could hear. “Yeah, no kidding,” she replied, nudging me. “Come on, Taylor. Now’s our only chance.”

  Just as the last person filed out the open door, we stopped in front of the podium.

  “I didn’t think you two were part of my class,” he mumbled, bending down to shuffle papers together. When he stood back up he gave Karen another once-over. “Do I know you?”

  “I’m Karen Mortran, Henry Mortran’s daughter. I believe my father represented you in a case?”

  His demeanor changed in an instant. There was something almost cartoonish about the scowl that flashed across his face. “Mortran, huh? Yeah, he was my scummy lawyer, all right. If you want to call him that. It’s not like he actually completed his end of the bargain. Got the judge to award my ex life-ruining alimony. Not to mention custody of my kid. He probably hates me now, my son. All thanks to your dirt-bag father. If you’ll excuse me, I have to prepare for my next class.”

  “Wait,” I sputtered as he turned away, not wanting to waste our chance. “So you’re angry at him. That makes sense, I’d probably be, too. You must have heard about his death, though? It wouldn’t have any effect on your case, would it?”

  Phil paused, looking confused “Death? What are you talking about?”

  “My father is dead, didn’t you hear? They found him yesterday in his office. Police are saying there’s foul play involved.” Karen let her voice trail off as she waited for the words sink in.

  Phil moved around the podium, wiping his dark blonde hair from his forehead. I was surprised he didn’t have some makeshift fan plugged in somewhere up front with him. I was absolutely sweltering too, and it was only hotter by the projector.

  “No, I didn’t know about that. But it wouldn’t affect me one way or the other. And sorry to say Ms. Mortran, but I don’t really give a rat’s tail what happened to him. Henry and I didn’t exactly see eye to eye. I haven’t spoken with him since the case was closed.”

  “So, you threatening to kill him was just what, a fluke?” Karen questioned. “Because last time I checked, that kind of threat is frowned upon in the law enforcement community.”

  I fully expected him to look surprised, but instead, Phil took a step back and star
ed Karen down.

  “Oh, is that so? And what makes you think that I threatened him?” he retaliated, his tone suddenly mocking.

  “We have proof. It was in an email you sent to him, and it’ll be on his computer servers, and yours,” I replied, feeling bold. I didn’t like the way this was going, not with Phil Cosgrove’s suddenly snarky attitude.

  He switched tracks, this time waving us off. “I was just pissed off at him about the way things went down in my case. Just blowing off some steam. No big deal.”

  I looked at Karen for a moment, and knew she wasn’t happy just yet.

  “Where were you yesterday morning?” she asked him simply. “Say, around eight?”

  He went back behind his desk, grabbing a briefcase that popped open, spilling its contents all over the white linoleum floor. I raised my hand to my mouth in mock surprise, but hiding a smile. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

  He cursed quietly to himself and jerked his neck back up at us as he collected the paperwork, shoving it all back into the briefcase. “I was here, at the school. Not to mention, I don’t have to sit here and answer to you two. You’re not cops, and I don’t have time for this. I’m getting out of here,” he growled as he stood back up, snapped his briefcase closed and walked out the door.

  Chapter 9

  "Can you believe that guy? I mean, I know my dad was a jerk, and not even close to being the best kind of person, but still. Openly admitting to a person’s daughter that you don't care her father died is absolutely insane. I was standing right in front of him!"

  Karen slammed the driver's side door shut behind her, her shoes scraping against the curb as we parked outside the police station.

  "Yeah, even if he does have all these issues, it was really insensitive to say all that in front of you. Sounds like Phil and your dad may have had more in common than he realizes," I replied, quickly following her inside.