"You know, when I first woke up this morning something occurred to me," I began as we drove off. "About Phil Cosgrove."
"Hmm?"
"Your dad seem to have a specific kind of client, based off of what we saw in those files of his. Rich, with plenty of money to potentially be their downfall in a divorce case. Hence, all the shady tactics with that Swiss bank. But I sort of get the feeling that Phil Cosgrove wasn't his usual type."
Karen glanced at me from the corner of her eye. "What do you mean?"
"Well, think about it: how would he have been able to afford property or the kind of assets to even bother hiding on a community college professor’s salary? I'm no education expert or anything, but it's sort of common knowledge that teachers don't get paid nearly enough across the board. Right?"
Karen nodded slowly, pulling onto the main road that led back home. "Yeah, I guess I never thought about that. Not to mention, he doesn't seem to own any property at all. He lived in an apartment when he first set up his country club membership, at least based off of what his membership file said. Why would Henry decide to work with him if he didn't have any money to really work with?"
I shrugged my shoulders, feeling even more confused than before.
Chapter 17
Karen had finally broken me. There I was, standing in front of the county clerk's office, doing the exact thing I had promised myself I would not be doing. At least I was invisible.
"Ugh, my stomach is all tied up in knots," I whined, clutching at it. "Are you sure this is necessary?"
I couldn't see her face, but I could picture the irritation crossing it.
"Yes," she hissed. "Now stop whining like a baby and help me get this door open!"
Karen had muttered another one of her 'we break into places but we're the good guys so it doesn't matter' spells, but even with the lock undone the door was still jammed against something, so I leaned my shoulder against it and pushed with Karen before it slowly swung open, letting us in.
I was starting to develop a new phobia from all the running around with Karen — a phobia of creepy, dark offices late at night.
"Where to now?"
"This way," she whispered, her footsteps heading off to the left.
The door creaked creepily as she slowly pulled it open, reminding me way too much of the opening scenes of horror movies where someone was inevitably killed, and I could just barely make out the black letters on the frosted glass that read 'Michelle Washington, Napa County Clerk.'
The office’s interior wasn't much to look at, with piles of paper stacked all along the front desk, and dozens of photographs tacked up on a corkboard next to it. The little cat bobble-head next to the phone started bobbing up and down after I accidentally stumbled into the corner of the desk.
"For someone who has such a strong healing power, you sure are a clumsy thing," Karen teased me, before flipping on the computer on the desk.
"Hey! I can't even see where my hip ends, much less where the desk begins. Cut me some slack."
"Technically, all of this information is public record. But when you ask for it, sometimes it takes weeks before they get it to you. And why wait, really?" Karen muttered. “This is totally necessary.”
I shook my head, but I was here, wasn’t I?
"All right, time to do another check up on Mr. Cosgrove. Let's start by seeing what exactly he does pay for taxes on here. If he owns a house, it will definitely show up in these records."
I moved around the desk to watch as Karen pulled up Phil Cosgrove's public tax record information. Based on what we saw, he didn't own any actual property, other than an old Chevy Blazer, which matched up with the address information at the apartment.
The next record under his name, however, was an entirely different story.
"Here we go… declaration of Dissolution of Marriage between Lola J. Cosgrove, and Phil M. Cosgrove," she read out loud. "Hmm."
"Hmm... what? What do you see?"
"Not a whole lot. Looks like a basic divorce proceeding to me. I figured there would be some kind of, I don't know, weird reasoning behind it. But they both agreed to the divorce. Oh wait, hold on."
“What is it?”
"Well, it seems Lola was granted full custody of their son, Christopher, in the divorce judgment. That's not all, either. It looks like there's a requirement to pay alimony attached, too, although the amount’s not disclosed. I guess that's probably not available on public record."
I leaned back, fiddling with the hem of my shirt. So that was it? An ugly divorce, and the wife got custody of the kid? Plus, he had to pay her money out of his most likely meager college professor wages? I was beginning to see why Phil Cosgrove may have been a little angry with his lawyer. After the kind of reputation that preceded Henry Mortran, Phil probably figured he had it in the bag with his ex-wife, but boy was he wrong.
"I have to say, I wasn't expecting this," Karen admitted. "It's no wonder Cosgrove sent that email to my dad. Look there, he didn't even show up to the hearing! It says representative counsel not present. Ugh, just when I thought my dad couldn't be more of a scumbag."
"So what do you think? Because if you want to know what I think, I'll tell you. All of the golf club stuff, I think that was a coincidence. Maybe he just likes golfing, I don't know, and I admit it was weird that he was supposedly hanging around the law firm the morning of Henry's death. I'm not saying he didn't do it, I'm just saying that there really isn't anything else here that would prove he did do it, you know I mean? I thought maybe some sort of evidence of domestic abuse or something, I don't know. But nothing. The guy was just screwed over by his lawyer, and was pissed off about it. I think he was probably more angry at his ex-wife, though. Remember the way he was talking about her that day we saw him? He didn’t mention your dad once."
I could hear her sigh. "Yeah, I guess so."
"Hear me out. I think there's something else we should look into while we're here. In fact," I said, suddenly remembering the earlier occurrence at the Mortran’s place, "let me have a quick look at the computer."
"By all means," Karen replied, and I heard her scooting out of the way then settled down in front of the screen myself.
"I don't know why, but I just have a hunch." I typed the name into the database, and waited for what felt like forever before several different property records tied in together flashed up onto the screen in front of me.
"Darren James?" Karen asked. "Why are you looking him up?"
I scrolled down, counting all the records in my head. "Holy crap, Karen. Look at all these! There are seven different property records that have recently been sold under Darren's name."
"What?" she asked, her presence drawing closer. "Seven? I thought he only had one house."
"It appears not. Look, all of these properties have been sold in the last couple of months. How on earth did he manage to pull that off? My parents had one heck of a time trying to sell their old condo in the city." I pulled out my phone, taking a quick screenshot of the monitor, just in case we needed it in the future.
"What, so now we jump from Phil Cosgrove to Darren James? I'm not so sure we should discount everything we learned about Cosgrove, Taylor. And I don't know, maybe it's just because I've known the guy for most of my life, but I find it hard not to trust Darren. I'd hate to think he would have anything to do with all of this. Plus, what would his motive be? Just because we don’t know he owned a bunch of property doesn’t automatically make it suspicious."
I shrugged, even though I knew she couldn't see me. "I don’t know. But I mean, look at all this information we found out about your dad that you had no idea about. I'm just saying. It's worth looking into, don't you think?"
She sighed, turning the computer back off. "I think that we've done enough running around for the day. Let's go home, I'm starving."
I didn't really want to argue with her, especially with how utterly exhausted she really did sound, so I just went along with her. "As long as we order pizza, I'm
down."
But as we left, I found my suspicions of Darren James growing. Why did he sell all those properties? Was it a coincidence that they were all sold just before the murder? Darren James would have been one of the people closest to Henry. Were they so close that he was involved in his murder?
Chapter 18
I woke up the next morning just in time to see Karen heading out the door.
"I'm taking the first shift today at Gilly Mills. Mom came downstairs and mentioned something about taking you into the shop and showing you the ropes some more," she said, throwing her purse over her shoulder. "I'll catch you later, okay?"
"Sure, see you later."
I yawned, shuffling into the kitchen in my favorite pair of fuzzy slippers to make myself some coffee and breakfast. It was the first time I was alone in my own space without Karen around, and I had to admit, it felt a little bit funny. I liked having Karen around.
Soft footsteps descended down the steps a moment later and Barbara appeared, holding her own mug of coffee. "Good morning."
"Morning," I mumbled through a mouthful of oatmeal. "Hey, Barbara. Looks like it's just us today."
She settled onto the stool next to me, slowly sipping her coffee. "Indeed, it does. I was thinking you could come into the shop with me, today. What do you think?"
To be quite honest, all I really wanted to do was relax and not have to do anything for the next few hours, but it made no sense just to sit around when I could be learning, especially since after all I was supposed to be starting work at Creekside Trinkets. "Sounds good to me."
She laughed, patting my hand. "If you'd rather wait-"
"No, no. Seriously, I'll go with you. I'm just not a morning person, that's all."
She arched one delicate eyebrow in my direction. "If you say so. I just wanted to come down and ask you. I'm going to go back upstairs and get ready. I'll let you know once it's time to go," she said, bemused.
It took a little while for the coffee to kick in, but I was finally awake enough to form a complete coherent sentence once I was done getting dressed for the day. However, the last thing I was thinking about was Creekside Trinkets. In the back of my mind, I couldn't keep myself from going over what I knew about Darren James so far. I didn't want to bring it back up with Karen, because she seemed pretty much against the idea of even questioning his loyalty to her father, but from a more objective point of view, I felt had to.
Half an hour later I was following Barbara to the lovely silver Lexus pulled up in the driveway. If I had one silly, materialistic aspiration in life, it was going to be to own a vehicle like that one day.
"First of all," Barbara began as she started up the engine, "I just want to thank you for keeping Karen company. It's been pretty difficult for her this week, even if she won’t show it. She and Henry didn't have a very good relationship, as I'm sure you gathered, but I can feel it. I can feel that hint of pain in losing him coming from her. Of course, she never lets on, so I just keep my mouth shut. But thank you, anyway."
As many times as Karen and I had discussed her father's death, I kept pushing the fact that we were discussing her father's death out of my mind, and I suddenly felt a little twinge of guilt. "It's no problem, really. I feel like she would've done the same for me."
Barbara nodded. "And you! I just feel so bad. Like I'm responsible for uprooting you from your life, and then plopping you down in the middle of all this chaos. It wasn't fair of me. Had I known, I never would have done it."
I shook my head, not wanting her to feel guilty about any of it.
"It's not your fault, Barbara. You had no idea. And it's like you said before, it was time for me to change things up, to learn how to handle myself, I guess. I just wish I knew where to start."
She was quiet for a few minutes, and so was I, pushing back the thoughts of Darren James by wondering whether I really was cut out to be the witch Barbara thought I was.
We turned down the main road, when Barbara spoke back up. "I really would like to teach you, you know. I meant what I said, I want you to learn how to harness your power. I feel like you're probably much more powerful than you realize. In fact, I know you are. I can feel it, remember?" She smiled. "So why don't we do this? I'll teach you how to help run the shop, and in between customers, we can talk magic."
I couldn't help but smile right back at her. "You have yourself a deal."
We settled into the morning by going over inventory first, Barbara showing me the vendor paperwork and the accounting program on the little old PC in the back office that was still running Windows 2000.
"Ever thought about maybe updating to, I dunno, a newer operating system?"
She scoffed, waving her hands around in front of her. "Even if I knew what that was, I'd tell you no. I'm a firm believer in 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it.'"
I helped her sort through a few of the shipments that came in early in the morning, keeping track of everything in the point of sale system, and before I knew it, it was time to officially open for the day.
"Not too bad, right?" she asked, nudging me with a wink.
I tilted my hand this way and that, holding back a smile. "I think I can handle it."
"It'll be nice to have some extra help here, I must admit. Ruthie only works part-time right now, and she has children in school, so we have to work around their schedule. But you're all fresh and without much baggage. Funny how things just land in your lap, isn't it?" Barbara added, pulling on a gold and white apron and tying it around her waist. "Don't worry, you don't have to wear one of these if you don't want to. I'm not picky as long as you look presentable enough."
"Yeah, I wasn't exactly expecting for a woman bleeding out to land in my lap, so you're right on the money there." I looked over the apron, shrugging. “And I don’t mind uniforms if you would prefer it.”
“Nonsense. You look perfectly fine the way you are,” she replied.
I followed her to front of the shop where she asked me to turn over the plastic hanging 'Open' sign and unlock the doors.
"We can go ahead and get started with any questions you might have for me. About your powers, I mean," she told me, flipping the rest of the lights on, flooding the shop with warm light radiating from the Edison bulbs hanging from the ceiling.
"Isn't it going to get pretty busy in here soon?" I asked, remembering how many people had stopped by when Karen and I had taken over for her.
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. Most of our customers don't stop by until well after noon during the week. We have plenty of time, I assure you, dear." She pointed to the small office chair hidden behind the front counter before pulling it out for me. "Here. Why don't you have a seat and we'll try with a couple of basics?"
Anxiety bubbled up under the surface of my skin as I slowly sat down. "Um, ok."
Barbara closed her eyes lightly and took a deep breath. "Phew. There's really nothing to worry about, Taylor. I can feel the apprehension rolling off of you like huge crests of waves. Just take a moment to ground yourself."
I picked at the edge of my shirt, slightly embarrassed. "How do I do that?"
"Well, I always start by paying attention to my breathing. Feeling how my body moves with each breath, in and out," she replied, her tone soft and low. "I close my eyes and let go of all the little thoughts that try and break my concentration, and clear it all out of my head. If it's hard for you to clear your thoughts, then try adjusting them to something else. Envision yourself walking down a quiet path, maybe through the woods, or along the beach. Whichever feels right for you."
Without much prompting, I immediately thought about walking along Venice Beach at night, the bright lights on the Ferris wheel just visible way down at the pier. No one around, no one bugging me about sales quotas or trying too hard to get a date with me, just the wet sand underneath my feet, squishing beneath my toes. I could almost feel it, the water gently lapping up to my ankles, soothing without being cold. All of the usual sounds from the night scene muffled by the
sound of the waves crashing against the shore. I drew in a breath and let it back out, lost to the scene in my head.
“Now, how do you feel?"
It took me a moment to realize that she was really talking to me and wanting an answer. "Oh, um, I feel calm. Better." I opened my eyes to see her standing over me, smiling.
"Good, good. The first step for me when doing any kind of magic outside of my own power, is to ground myself. It's very important when you are reaching in to draw on your magic. I think that if we start small, with the more simple spells first, you'll have most of them down in no time."
It was hard to believe it could be that simple, but I trusted Barbara. If she said I could, then I believed it, too. At least, I hoped I believed it.
The front door chimed, and both of us stopped what we were doing, peeking up to see who it was.
"Yoohoo! Barb, you in here?" a woman's voice called out. "I saw the sign was open, so I thought I'd come in. Hello?"
The corner of Barbara's mouth quirked up. "Stephanie. Come on in, dear."
A woman with frizzy brown hair pulled up into a messy bun and a little bit too much eye-shadow walked over to us, whistling a tuneless ditty.
"There you are! My stars, am I glad to see you back in your shop again."
Barbara smiled sweetly at her. "It's good to be back." Turning to me, she slipped her arm around my shoulders, squeezing. "And with a new employee, to boot! Stephanie, this is Karen's roommate, Taylor. Taylor, this is my friend Stephanie Holmes. She owns the café down the block."
I did remember seeing a cutesy little coffee sign hanging over a shop with red and white checkered curtains in the window. "Hello," I offered, flashing a smile of my own.
Stephanie wasted no time pulling me in for a tight hug, her rather large chest nearly squishing the life out of me until she pulled back. "I heard there was a new girl in town. Wonderful! Any friend of Karen and Barbara's is a friend of mine. Nice to meet you, too."
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