Charms & Clouds

by Emilia Spring

  I had to give her that. “So he was cheating on her, does that make his lover a suspect?”

  And more importantly, did Riley know about it? I kind of imagined that Amber wouldn’t have skipped it when talking to her, but maybe she had. I didn’t know much about the town, but I had worked with low-income people or people who didn’t trust authorities. I didn’t know her background. Maybe Riley came across as unapproachable. Generalizations were useless.

  “Let's go talk to the engineer,” I said decisively.

  Oscar had been cheating on Tiernan with Clara, maybe Tiernan had killed the other man cheating on his wife? It was one link between the human homicide and the magical one. It wasn't much, but it was something.

  The engineer’s boss directed us towards a small house, on the outskirts of town. It looked almost depressingly like Emmaline’s house. I tried not to let it get to me.

  A woman with two small children on her hips opened the door. “We don't want anything,” she said, moving to shut the door.

  “We’re here to talk about Richard Nathaniels,” I said as respectfully as I could.

  She winced, glancing at her children. “Give me a few minutes.” She shut the door with her hip, leaving us standing there.

  “Those kids are young,” Sam said with a grimace.

  “Yeah,” I said finally, not sure what else to say. I had seen kids in situations worse than that, but I didn't really want to think about it. “Kids are resilient.” That was probably the nicest thing to say, and the truest too.

  A few minutes later the door opened, the woman looking slightly less harried. She had her hair up in a ponytail, yoga pants on, and there was some toddler cereal sticking to her shirt. “Come in,” she said. “I'm sorry for the mess.”

  I shook my head. “I can only imagine what you’ve been going through.”

  She gave me a faint smile. “Can I ask who you are?” She nodded towards the couch. “You don’t look like media, or I wouldn’t have let you in.” There was something sharp to her eyes as she sank into the armchair opposite the couch. I moved a couple of kids’ toys, and then sank down. There was enough room for Sam and Avery on either side.

  “I'm Natalie Ethridge, and I'm working with Detective Riley on these cases,” I said.

  At Riley’s name, she relaxed. “I’m Melanie,” she said, extending her hand.

  I smiled at her faintly. “I was hoping you could tell me a bit more about Richard,” I said.

  She looked at me, and blinked. “He was a good man,” she said, eyes fond. She looked back towards the bedroom, then down at her hands.

  I wasn't going to ask if those kids were his, as I felt that was somewhat rude. Instead I nodded, sympathetic. “He was an engineer?”

  She nodded. “He'd been working with that company for three years now,” she said, pride in her voice. “He works hard and it’s long hours.”

  “I can imagine that's hard as a mother with two young kids,” I said.

  “I have a third one in elementary school,” Melanie said, shrugging. “It could be worse.”

  I nodded, although inwardly I wasn’t entirely certain how much worse it could get.

  “He often went out to the bar with boys,” she said afterwards.

  “The boys?”

  She nodded. “The engineering departments tend to be a boys’ club,” she said with a glint her eyes. “Richard was forever trying to keep up with them.”

  “Any idea what bar they went to?” I tried to sound casual.

  She nodded. “It's Dive Rank, off of 72nd.” She frowned at me. “Why?”

  “One of the other men who disappeared, he worked there.” I wondered if Riley had put that together. She probably had, which meant the clue was probably useless, but I was going to check it out anyway.

  “I'm sorry for your loss,” I told her finally.

  She smiled faintly at me. The peace was shattered by one of the kids crying.

  “If there's nothing else?” she asked, glancing from me to the others.

  I shook my head and stood, Sam and Avery following me. “I'm sorry for your loss,” Sam said first, then Avery.

  Melanie led us to the front door and let us out. We were down the street, heading in the direction of the bar before I realized it.

  “What if they were all cheating on their wives?” Sam said slowly.

  “Like Oscar was cheating on Tiernan?” I said.

  Avery shot me a look, and then nodded. “Would the motives be the same?” She sounded doubtful. “And that the methods of death are different.”

  “It could be Tiernan and Oscar working together?” I frowned at my feet.

  We made it to the bar, and I was still lost in thought. We had about 45 minutes before I had to be at Gianna’s school, which meant I had to make this quick.

  The bartender was behind the bar, cleaning some glasses.

  “We'd like to talk to you about Jonathan,” I walked up to the bar and tried to look professional.

  The man raised his head, not looking impressed. “Who are you?”

  I heard Sam sigh, heard Avery snicker. “My name is Natalie Ethridge and I work with Detective Riley.”

  He studied me for a few seconds longer, and didn’t relax. “What you want to know about him?” he asked, finishing polishing a glass and picking up another one.

  “We also want to know about a regular customer named Richard?” Two birds, one stone. “His wife said he came here a lot?”

  “Wife’s a redhead, about yea tall?” He held his hand up about 5 foot 2.

  “Not quite,” I said. We had just been there, and she was definitely not a redhead.

  He shrugged. “That wasn't the girl he met here,” he said.

  “What about Jonathan?” I asked. “Did he meet anyone here?”

  He nodded. “Didn’t serve them,” he said, “Except when Jonathan was off.”

  “Did any of them come with a woman?” This seemed like probably the easiest place to hide in plain sight.

  He laughed. “Those who didn't come with a woman, left with a woman.”

  “Even Richard?” I asked.

  The bartender nodded. “I’m busy,” he said. “Is there anything else you need to know?”

  “I was wondering if you could identify Richard’s most frequent drinking partner.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, she's over there.”

  I turned to look, seeing a waitress cleaning a stool. “Her?”

  His face was sour. “If Lauren wasn't my best waitress, I would've fired her ages ago. Caught them having sex in the bathroom once.”

  I winced at the mental image.

  “What about Jonathan?” If Lauren was Richard’s mistress and worked at the bar, maybe she could identify who Jonathan met with.

  The bartender shrugged. “He was quiet about what he did,” he said. “If he had a side piece, he didn't talk about her.”

  I heard Avery make a noise, and this time Sam stomped on her foot. The bartender eyed them over my shoulder, suspicious. “Those two okay?”

  I nodded. “Their uncle was one of the victims,” I came up with on the spot. “They're helping me as investigators.”

  He made a skeptical noise and shrugged. “Her name is Lauren,” he said with a nod in her direction. “You could probably ask her some questions.”

  “Thank you,” I said sincerely. He looked at me suspiciously for a few seconds, and then went back to whatever he was doing.

  I headed over to Lauren. I wasn’t surprised when Sam and Avery stayed behind. “You wouldn't happen to be willing to answer a few questions, would you?”

  She looked at me, her eyes dark and hair short and black. It wasn't quite goth, but it wasn't not goth either. Still, it worked for her. “Depends what the questions are,” she said, grabbing her rag and working on next table. “I can't stop working.”

  “That's fine,” I said, moving to stay with her. I looked at Sam and Avery, and nodded towards the door. Getting the message, Avery grabbed Sam's hand a
nd dragged her out of there. I would have preferred to have them as backup, but this way Lauren didn't feel overwhelmed, and we didn't get in the way when she was working.

  “What do you want to know?” she asked, looking out of the corner of her eyes. “Heard you asking about Richard, about Jonathan. Why are you asking me?”

  “Because you were sleeping with him.” I tried not to sound rude, but I didn’t want to do the “no I’m not” if I didn’t have to.

  She rolled her eyes. “I have a thing for married guys. And Richard’s hot.”

  Well, there was that answer. “How often did you see Richard?”

  She stretched, looking thoughtful, and then attacked a different table. “At least three times a week,” she said. “He’d come here for drinks with the guys, get a certain drink, and we’d meet up.”

  “I understand one of the bartenders caught you engaging –”

  “Having sex, yes.” Lauren rolled her eyes. “He's never let that go.”

  I mean, to be fair, I couldn't really blame him. “Is there anything else that you could think of that would help us?”

  Lauren looked at her feet, and then back at me. “He was a good man,” she said softly. “He didn't deserve the end he got. His wife though? His wife was a shrew.” She narrowed her eyes. “Look into her.”

  “What about Jonathan?” I asked, trying to sound unassuming.

  She snorted. “His affair was the worst kept secret at the bar.” There was something dark to her eyes, and I wondered if he had rebuffed her at some point. “Never met her, though. She tended to stay in the shadows, and he never introduced us.”

  “Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions,” I said.

  She shrugged and went back to cleaning, and if her movements were a bit fiercer than they had been before, I wasn’t going to say anything. When I got outside, Sam was leaning against the wall down the block, Avery standing next to her. “Well that was interesting,” I said. “She has a thing for married men.”

  “Do you think she has a thing for killing married men?”

  I shrugged. “The murders were physical,” I said. “Most women choose nonphysical means. They were stabbed to death.”

  Sam winced. Avery looked slightly ill. “People are horrible,” Sam muttered.

  “Did we learn anything useful?” Avery asked, following me as we headed back towards Ruth. The human part of town was apparently small enough that you could walk to everything, or at least the main bits of it. We were in the main part of town.

  It was kind of nice.

  It was also nice to not have anybody staring at me, or whispering behind my back about me being the new witch. Because yeah, that still happened. Apparently, brand new witches of my age didn't come here very often.

  Well, and then, I’d taken the child of a supposed murderer, and yeah, the town liked to gossip. Even though I’d cleared her of all charges.

  “It sounds like all the husbands were cheating on their wives,” I said slowly. I grabbed my phone, texting the information to Riley just in case she didn't have it.

  “We managed to find two of the lovers,” Avery said with a shrug. “Surely that's a record of some sort.”

  I stared at her, incredulous.

  “That’s a sixty-six percent success rate,” she pointed out.

  “You guys are ridiculous.” I shook my head at them.

  She winked at me, and then laughed. My phone buzzed in my hand. My heart skipped a beat when I saw it was Riley’s number. Holding a hand up in a stop gesture, I took a few steps away. “Hello?”

  “I knew two of them were cheating,” Riley said slowly. “How did you find out about Jonathan?”

  “The bar,” I said. “One of the waitresses.”

  She sounded thoughtful, considered. “Did you manage to find any of the lovers?”

  I winced. “You didn't?”

  Riley sighed. “The moment I appeared, everybody clammed up.”

  “Not everyone likes talking to cops,” I said, rational. “Maybe you scared them.”

  “I’m not scary.” She frowned, then exhaled in a rush. “Well, let me know if you find anything. Or if there's anything they say that's relevant.”

  “Are you giving me permission to investigate, Detective?” I couldn’t help the sappy smile that spread across my face. Oh God, I definitely had a crush.

  “Don’t let it go to your head,” Riley said dryly. “And don’t get in trouble.”

  I rolled my eyes at my phone. “Same for you.”

  “Stop by the police department on your way home,” Riley suggested.

  “I have to get Gianna first.”

  “You can bring her with,” Riley said. Then she paused. “If she wants to come.”

  I bit my lower lip. “Okay. Bye.” I hung up the phone before I could say anything else. I would think about it later, once I’d picked Gianna up.

  I shook my head at myself and headed to catch up with Sam and Avery.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I got out of my car and headed straight inside the police station. Melody got a cupcake, and Riley, as expected, was sitting in her office.

  She leaned back in her chair when I entered without knocking. “Didn't I just see you a couple hours ago?”

  “You can’t get rid of me that easily.” I sank into what I was now considering my chair. “Besides, I come with information.”

  “And what would that be?” She glanced at her computer and frowned, then turned back to me.

  “If all of them were cheating, is that what connects them?” I glanced down at my notes. “They didn’t describe the same woman, though.” When a description was given. “And they’re tied to the Dive Rank bar.”

  She made a thoughtful noise. “How did you find that out?” she asked.

  I crossed one leg over the other. “If you were less intimidatingly pretty, they might talk to you.”

  Riley stared at me as if trying to decide whether or not I was joking. “How do you think this is relevant?” she asked instead, shifting to find a comfortable spot in the awful chair.

  “Isn't that your job?” I asked.

  She rolled her eyes. “Humor me.”

  “You like me, you know it,” I said, my heart rudely skipping a beat when I said that.

  She grunted. “Don't let it get around.” It was starting to become a default exchange. “But you didn't answer my question.”

  “Could the human murders have been committed by a supernatural?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I mean, it's possible.” She looked thoughtful. “I mean, anybody can stab. You don't have to be one or the other to stab people.”

  “Is there a situation where witches wouldn't use their magic to kill?” Maybe some magic did it messier than others.

  “If they didn't want to get caught,” she said wryly. “The magical signature can be fairly distinctive.”

  “You can still catch them, though.” I thought of Sage.

  Riley looked distant. “Sometimes depending on the magic it’s easier to catch them. Sometimes it’s harder. That’s the downside with the variety.”

  “Oscar was sleeping with Clara,” I said slowly. “And the men were all cheating on their wives. It has to be related somehow.”

  She looked at me intently. “What do you mean?”

  I sighed. “I mean, it wasn't really a coincidence that Tiernan was being cheated on, and that the men were cheating on their wives?“ It could've been a coincidence, but I didn't really believe in them. Too much in life was considered coincidental when it wasn’t.

  “Stabbing would usually indicate a male perpetrator,” she said slowly. She straightened up and started typing, pulling up something she wanted to reference. “But these men were isolated, apparently meeting up with somebody. Given what the rest of their friends said, they probably weren’t meeting up with another man.” She frowned. “What if the killer is a woman?”

  “Why would a woman kill Clara?” I frowned. “Unless Oscar wa
s sleeping with her, too.”

  She looked at me. “You're assuming that the cases are related.”

  “I think it's something we should consider,” I said with a shrug.

  Riley scrolled through whatever she was looking at on her computer. She apparently found what she was looking for, because she turned the monitor to face me. “Have you seen any of these rings before?”

  The jewelry was plain, but well-crafted. They were almost like platinum bands, but more discreet. Thinner, so that they could go with a wedding band.

  “What are those?” I put my arms on her desk to get closer.

  Riley shrugged. “Each victim had a second ring on under their wedding ring.”

  “Magical craftsmanship?” I could easily imagine Avery being able to make something like that.

  “We can’t say for sure.” She sighed, turning the monitor back to face her. “A human could have done it, it just would have been slower.”

  “This is easier on TV,” I complained.

  “Welcome to the life of a police detective,” Riley said wryly. “We haven't been able to tie anybody to all of the cases, and if there really is a connection between the human murders and Clara's, we have no evidence as to what it is.”

  My breath whistled out between my teeth. “That's frustrating.”

  Her eyes flickered to me. “You're telling me.”

  I glanced at the clock and winced.

  “Running late?” Riley asked, grinning.

  “Have to pick up Gianna from home, and then I have lesson with Marguerite.” I made a face, glancing out her window. “It is supposed to rain, so we’re working with that.” Gianna had wanted to stay home and do her homework. Mabel had agreed to supervise.

  “I don't envy you,” she said.

  I looked at her, quizzical. “What do you mean?”

  “Weather magic can be quite messy.” Riley looked amused.

  I arched an eyebrow. “More difficult than yours?” I pretended to gasp. “Where did your ego go?”

  She grinned. “Ego doesn’t have a place in magic.”

  I was doubtful. “The only time you don't have an ego is when you're dead.”

  She put a hand over her heart. “I am fatally wounded that you think that.”