Witch Is Why The Music Stopped (A Witch P.I. Mystery Book 19)
Page 19
Eureka!
If my hunch was right, Gordon Rice had not been in two places at the same time. When his brother was murdered, Gordon had been in the restaurant with Sandra. Jordan Rice was the one who had gone to the cold storage unit, and was most likely the murderer.
But how to prove it?
I drove straight over to the unit, but parked a couple of streets away. From there I made my way on foot. The door wasn’t locked, so I quietly let myself in. So far, so good, but where was Jordan?
A banging noise led me to him. He was working in the room which contained the large freezer in which Douglas Rice had met his untimely end. This was the ideal place to put my plan into action.
“Doug!” Jordan screamed. “It can’t be you.”
He’d just seen what looked to him like his dead brother. I’d had to rely on the photograph of Douglas Rice when casting the ‘doppelganger’ spell, but judging by Jordan’s reaction, it had worked okay.
“Surprised to see me, Jordan?”
“Leave me alone!” He began to back away.
“I can’t do that. You killed me, so I intend to haunt you for the rest of your life.”
“It’s just my imagination playing tricks on me. You’re not real.”
I reached out, and touched his arm. He flinched and moved away.
“Does that feel real to you, Jordan?”
“Leave me alone!”
“Why did you do it?”
“To get back at Gordon. He stole the only thing that ever mattered to me.”
“Sandra? You had lost her long before she and Gordon got together. Your gambling drove her away.”
“We could have got back together. We could still have made it work. Until Gordon made a move on her.”
“If it was Gordon you wanted to hurt, why kill me?”
“If I’d killed Gordon, they would have known I’d done it. No one would have believed you’d murdered him; you’re too nice. I had no choice. I knew they’d have no trouble believing that Gordon had murdered you.”
“You killed me because I was too nice?” I shook my head in disbelief.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t give me that. You planned all of this. You wore the black T-shirt and jeans so they’d think you were Gordon, and you followed Sandra to the restaurant. You knew about the CCTV, so you parked out of sight, didn’t you?”
“Shut up! Leave me alone! I didn’t know what I was doing. My head was messed up.”
“It wasn’t messed up when you bought a burner phone, called Gordon, and pretended to be me, was it?”
“I’ve said I’m sorry. Won’t you just leave me alone?”
“Were you planning to sell the business, with both of us out of the way? To fund more of your reckless gambling?”
“No! Leave me alone!” He rushed past me and out of the building.
Jordan Rice probably thought he could escape the ghost of his dead brother if he managed to get away from the scene of the murder.
But he was wrong.
I magicked myself over to his bedsit, to ensure that I got there before he did. I made myself invisible, waited for him to arrive, and then sneaked in after him. He headed straight for the kitchen, where he grabbed a half-full bottle of whisky. He didn’t bother with a glass; he just downed a long drink straight from the bottle. When he turned around, he came face-to-face once again with what he assumed was his brother’s ghost.
“No!” the glass dropped from his hand, and smashed on the floor. “Leave me alone!”
“I did warn you. I’ll be with you all the time from now on.”
“Please, no! I’m sorry. I’ll do anything.”
“Anything?”
“Yes. Please just go away!”
“Give me your phone.”
He handed it to me, and I made a call.
“Detective Riley, please. Tell him it’s about the freezer death case. Someone wants to confess to the murder.” While I was waiting to be connected, I turned to Jordan. “If you confess to murdering me, then you won’t see me ever again.”
“You promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
“Riley speaking. What’s this all about?”
I handed the phone to Jordan, who couldn’t wait to make a confession.
***
The next day, Jack was behaving like a cat on hot bricks.
“I wish you’d settle down.” I took a sip of orange juice. “Your pacing up and down is doing my head in.”
“I’m nervous about today.”
“Why are you nervous? I should be the one who’s nervous—meeting your parents for the first time.”
“I just want our families to get on well together.”
“They will. Kathy and Peter can get along with anyone. Aunt Lucy is a love. And the twins might be a bit giddy, but they won’t cause any problems. Just thank your lucky stars that Grandma isn’t coming. That would have been a different kettle of fish altogether.”
“I still don’t understand why she couldn’t make it.”
“I told you. She’s going to a conference. She couldn’t get out of it.”
He began to pace up and down again; it was starting to make me dizzy.
“Why don’t you read your paper?” He’d been out at the crack of dawn to buy a loaf of bread and a newspaper.
“I’ve already read it from cover to cover. I’m so pleased I got transferred out of Washbridge. There’s some weird stuff happening here.”
“Such as?” I grabbed The Bugle. The main headline read: ‘Coma victims disappear’.
I skimmed through the article.
“That is weird,” I said.
“No kidding. It was strange enough that no one knew who they were, but for them to just disappear into thin air? That’s mega weird. And then there’s the guy who was held captive in that factory at Wash Point.”
The second headline in The Bugle was: ‘Missing man claims he was abducted’.
“According to this article, the man didn’t know why he was being held, or even who was holding him,” I said.
“We may never know. By the time the Washbridge police got down there, the place was deserted. Everyone had scarpered.”
“Any idea what was going on inside the factory?”
“No one seems to know.”
The minibus was coming to pick us up just after midday. Aunt Lucy and the twins were the first to arrive. After everyone had said their ‘hellos’, and I’d made us all a drink, Aunt Lucy pulled me to one side.
“Rhoda Riddle called me this morning. Robbie is awake and sitting up in bed.”
“That’s great. Is he still human-shaped?”
“No. They managed to reverse that pretty quickly, apparently. Rhoda asked me to thank you.”
“I’m just glad Robbie is okay. Did she say whether he’d told her anything about what happened to him?”
“Just that he didn’t want anything to do with the human world ever again.”
I laughed. “Probably just as well.”
“The police have arrested the pixie behind it—someone called Frankie Forest.”
“Good. I hope they throw the book at him.”
“They’ve also arrested Barnaby Bandtime from the Human World Society. Apparently, he was getting a kickback for every student he sent to BeHuman.”
“That explains why he was so hostile when I went to see him.”
Kathy and Peter arrived a few minutes later.
“I’m really looking forward to today,” Kathy followed me into the kitchen.
“I’m not. What if his parents don’t like me?”
“He’ll just have to dump you.” She laughed. “Of course they’ll like you.”
“How’s Peter?”
“He’s really pleased with life. Have you heard about that factory at Wash Point?”
“I saw it in The Bugle.”
“Pete reckons they’ll close it down, so he might get his favourite stretch of river back.”
Jus
t then, my phone rang. “Sorry, Kathy. I need to take this.” I went out into the back garden.
“Jill? It’s Amy Rice.”
“Hi, Amy.”
“Have you heard about Jordan?”
“Yeah. I saw it in The Bugle.”
“I can’t believe it. From what the police have told me, Jordan wanted to get back at Gordon for having an affair with Sandra. Why did he have to kill Doug? It doesn’t make any sense. I hope they lock him up and throw away the key.”
“Have you heard what’s happened to Gordon?”
“They’ve released him. He’s going to come over here later this week, so we can discuss what to do with the business. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know, and to ask you to bill me for the time you’ve spent on this.”
“Thanks for calling. I’ll get my invoice out to you.”
***
While we were waiting for the minibus to arrive, everyone was chatting—everyone except me. I’d sneaked upstairs to have another quick look through the journal. Most of it was still fairly routine stuff. I was beginning to wonder why Magna had bothered to ask Imelda to keep it, but then I stumbled across this entry:
Magna says she saw him again. The man with the red hair and beard. She thinks he’s following her.
My blood ran cold as I recalled the man who had followed me. The man with the red hair and beard who I’d found dead in a cupboard close to my office. The man called Damon.
“Jill!” Jack called from downstairs. “The minibus is here.”
“You lot go ahead. I’ll be down in a minute.”
I desperately wanted to read more of the journal, but it would have to wait. I hurried downstairs and out to the bus. Everyone was already on board. The driver, a young woman, greeted me when I boarded.
“Hi, I’m Dee Ryver.”
“Hi. I’m Jill. Sorry to keep you waiting.” I took the seat next to Jack.
We’d only travelled a few hundred metres when the bus came to a halt.
“Is everything okay, Dee?”
“There’s an old woman, flagging us down.”
Oh no!
“Shall I let her on?”
“Yes, you’d better,” Aunt Lucy shouted before I had a chance to yell, ‘drive on!’
“Grandma?” I said. “I didn’t think you were coming.”
“I wasn’t going to, but then I got to thinking. What kind of party would it be if I wasn’t there?”
Oh bum!
More mystery, magic and mayhem from Jill Gooder and a cast of thousands (okay, tens) in the next book:
Witch Is Why A Pin Dropped
(Witch P.I. Mysteries #20)
SEASON THREE
Details of season three of the Witch P.I. Series can now be found on my website, here:
The Witch P.I. Series
ALSO FROM ADELE ABBOTT:
The Susan Hall Mysteries
This new series from Adele Abbott is set in the same world as the Witch P.I. Mysteries (Washbridge/Candlefield)
Investigative reporter, Susan Hall, is out to make her mark in her new job at The Bugle. If she is to succeed, she is going to have bring in the big stories.
Whoops! Our New Flatmate Is A Human
(Susan Hall Mysteries #1)
Charlie (a werewolf), Dorothy (a vampire) and Neil (a wizard) have a new flatmate. The bad news is, she’s a human. The even worse news is, she’s an investigative reporter.
Web Site: http:www.AdeleAbbott.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AdeleAbbottAuthor