Twistchapel Witch Cozy Mystery Box Set: Books 1-4 plus Christmas Short Page 9

  “Must be at the cemetery. Drat, this is probably a dead end,” said Bart, sniffing around. “I was hoping we’d have a body or something to identify her. Anyone could’ve died here. For all we know, she didn’t even work here.”

  Something clicked in my head, and I looked back at the ghost to study her.

  “Actually…” I said, looking over the ghost a few times. “I think I might know who this is…”

  “Really? Who?”

  “Hold on, I need to make a call,” I said, pulling out my cell phone. “If I’m right about this, then we’re going to need some extra help giving the ghost her justice.”

  I waited as the phone rang a few times. Finally, someone picked up.

  “Well hello, Zoey,” said a happier than usual Detective Drake on the other side of the line. “How are you doing?”

  “Drake, I need you to look up an old case revolving around Jenny Fairfox,” I said, getting to the point.

  I heard some shuffling from his end, along with some typing. “Who?”

  “Jenny Fairfox,” I said, this time more pronounced. “She died in a fire at a warehouse about a decade ago. It was all that was on the local news for the longest time.”

  “Are you saying the police department arrested the wrong person, again?”

  “No. There were never any arrests.”

  “So there were never any arrests, the fire happened 10 years ago, and you think you want to learn more about this case right this minute… why?”

  I hesitated and looked at Bart.

  “I don’t think telling him you’ve got a ghost anchored on you, and you need to solve her death before she’ll leave you alone will work,” he purred.

  He was unfortunately right. The pains of dealing with the paranormal in a normal world.

  “Let’s just call it a hunch,” I said.

  “Zoey, this is confidential information,” said the detective. “I can’t just go around giving out old case data to anyone that asks about it.”

  “Please, Drake. Consider it a favor for figuring out Mr. Spinner’s killer. Without my help, you might have accidentally locked an innocent man up for an awfully long time.”

  Drake paused.

  “Okay,” he sighed. “Come to the office tomorrow.”

  “Thank you!”

  “No more mentioning the fact that you helped out with Mr. Spinner’s murder.”

  “I won’t, I promise,” I said.

  “Good. Come in around 10 am tomorrow, and I’ll show you what I can find.”

  “See you then,” I said, hanging up the phone.

  “How’s the detective?” asked Bart.

  “Not sure, didn’t ask him.”

  “Well, thats a bit rude.”

  I winced. He was probably right.

  “I’m meeting with a detective tomorrow,” I said to the ghost of Jenny Fairfox. “I can’t really do anything until then. Is it okay with you if I head back to work in the meantime and get some stuff done?”

  Jenny nodded, then disappeared into a gust of wind.

  “Wonder when we’ll see her again,” I said. Bart shrugged in reply.

  I heard the sound of heavy footsteps as a man wearing a security outfit came around the corner. With his sunglasses and hat, I couldn’t see his face very well.

  “Ma’am, you can’t be in here,” said the guard.

  “Oh, sorry about that,” I said, taking in the place one final time. “I thought this place was abandoned.”

  “It is. However, it still has an owner, who doesn’t want trespassers messing around in the warehouse. Where’s your friend?”

  “My friend?”

  “I heard you talking to someone else,” he said, walking past me and looking in the destroyed office. “Where are they?”

  “I’m alone,” I said. “I was just talking to myself earlier.”

  “Why would you come out here by yourself?” asked the guard.

  “I… I just saw it from the road and wanted to check it out,” I lied.

  The guard watched me suspiciously. “Ma’am, I know that teenagers like to sneak in here to rendezvous, but I would hope you are past that.”

  “Hahah, he thinks you are meeting a guy here!” cackled Bart.

  “I assure you that isn’t happening, sir,” I said. I could feel my face turning red. “I’ll go ahead and leave. Sorry again.”

  I quickly left, too embarrassed to look back at the guard. Bart laughed the whole way to the car, while we backed out, and as we drove back to the store.

  “Where are we going?” asked Bart, finally losing his case of the giggle.

  “Foster’s Market,” I said. “I really do have a lot of work to get done. I can’t just keep missing whole days to run around town, chasing ghosts.”

  “Boo, back to a boring day,” moaned Bart.

  How strange that the burned down building still had an owner. It has been destroyed for a decade now, yet hasn’t been rebuilt. It is still left exactly as it was. If you owned the building, why wouldn’t you repair it? And if there was nothing in there, why would you pay a security company to look after it?

  “Don’t worry. I’m sure things are just beginning to get interesting,” I said.

  I wasn’t sure if that excited or worried me.

  Chapter 5

  The next morning, I walked into the police station, Bart by my side. This was just the second time I’ve been here in my life, and it also happened to be the second time I’ve been here in a week. We walked by the waiting room, and a made a point to look around it. There were a few people waiting, playing on their phones. The last time we were here was when we first saw Mr. Ponytail. Looks like he wasn’t hanging around here today.

  I walked up to the front desk, where a familiar looking police officer sat facing a computer screen.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hello, Miss,” he said, not looking up from the screen. “How can we help you today?”

  “Detective Drake is expecting me,” I said.

  The policeman continued typing, not acknowledging that he heard me.

  “Again,” I added.

  “Sure,” said the policeman, still typing. “He’s down the hall on the left in room 107. You can just head there now.”

  “Do you think that guys the best to have at the front?” asked Bart as we walked down the hall. “He’d never be able to recognize if someone dangerous came in.”

  “Why would someone dangerous stroll into the police station?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, Zoey. I’m not a dangerous criminal.”

  “I see what you mean, though,” I laughed. “It is kind of strange to have someone so distracted to be the face of the police department.”

  I knocked a couple of times on the door marked 107.

  “Come in,” came a voice from the other side.

  Walking in, I found Detective Drake Robinson leaning against his desk, looking down at a file in his hands. He was wearing his usual t-shirt and jeans, with his badge hanging around his neck. He looked up and smiled as I closed the door.

  “Morning, Zoey,” he said.

  “Detective,” I nodded. “Were you able to find anything on Jenny?”

  “I was!” he said, patting one of the chairs next to him. “Come take a seat.”

  I sat down as he laid out the file in front of me, spreading out several pages. There were newspaper clippings from a decade ago, along with some pictures and police notes. Memories of the news of the fire came flooding back to me as I skimmed through the documents.

  “So this is what I’ve found out so far. A company in Twistchapel called Thompson and Thompson Industries manufactured chairs and other office equipment, shipping not just around the region, but all around the world. The very chair you’re sitting on right now was made by them,” he added.

  “Bet he’s really proud of that one,” said Bart. “Probably brought that chair in just to say that.”

  I gave Bart a quick look and went back to staring at the pa
pers.

  “They were founded about 40 years ago, and quickly had to expand to bigger and bigger manufacturing facilities,” said Drake.

  “Thompson and Thompson Industries… who founded the company?” I asked. I had a suspicion I knew one of them.

  “A pair of brothers, Darren and Travis Thompson,” said Drake, pulling out an older newspaper clipping that showed the young brothers. I focused on Travis, who I had bumped into at the graveyard just two days earlier. He had a full head of hair in the picture, with a wide smile. I noticed he had on his beautiful watch, even all the way back then.

  “The company was beginning to have financial trouble about fifteen years ago,” continued Drake. “A few years later, the whole thing went up in flames. Literally.”

  “Is that too soon to make a joke?” asked Bart. “I know you humans have shorter life spans, but that still seems a tad too soon to me.”

  “When it was beginning to look like Thompson and Thompson Industries was going to go bankrupt, the fire took out their factory. Tragically, a woman named Jenny Fairfox was inside during the fire, and passed away,” said Drake, pulling out a picture of Jenny. It was a splitting image of the ghost, even down to her outfit. There was no mistaking it now.

  “Who did the police question about the fire?” I asked.

  “Obviously, we questioned the two brothers. They both made quite a bit of money from the insurance they had on the factory. They had been paying for insurance since before they started having business troubles, but they still had the most to gain out of the loss.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “And nothing. The lead detective at the time determined they had nothing to do with it.”

  “Who else was interviewed?”

  “No one. There wasn’t enough motive or reports of disgruntled employees to really look deeper into it.”

  “What about the fire marshal? Did they say if this was an intentionally lit fire, or did it seem like an accident?”

  “Bizarrely, his report is missing.”

  “What?!” said Bart and I at the same time.

  “It’s disappointing, but somehow there is no mention of the fire marshal’s report,” said Drake, shaking his head. “I have no idea why that would be the case. Just bad police work, to be honest.”

  “Why didn’t Jenny just walk out?” I asked. “It must’ve taken some time for the fire to spread all across the warehouse.”

  “The doors they had in the office would lock automatically when closed. In order to get out or in, you’d need to use a key.”

  “That doesn’t seem very safe,” I said.

  “It’s not. I’m not totally sure why the doors were setup that way, but that’s why she was locked in and couldn’t escape.”

  “She didn’t have a key?”

  “Jenny wasn’t actually an employee there, but a consultant,” explained Drake. “She was also new. Unluckily, she had only been there for a little over a month before the fire happened. She either didn’t have a key assigned to her, or if she did, she probably forgot it. It’s not uncommon for people to be locked in on accident when doors are setup like that.”

  Was it possible Jenny died on accident, and she just thought that justice hadn’t been reached? Maybe the fire wasn’t set intentionally, and she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was possible, but a lot of things weren’t adding up.

  “Did she have any enemies? Maybe coworkers that she didn’t get along with?” I asked.

  “According to the reports, while Miss Fairfox was a bit on the terse side, she didn’t have any issues with the other employees. Most said they didn’t even recognize her, or had only spoken to her in passing. Again, not something too uncommon for a new consultant in a big company.”

  “Is there any way to find out who worked there at the time?” I asked.

  Drake pulled out a piece of paper with a list of names, handing it over to me. “Here’s a list of the people that were employed there at the time. Normally, I wouldn’t give you this. However, it is on public record who worked there, so you’d have eventually found it anyway.”

  “Thanks,” I smiled, opening up the paper. Perfect. A list of suspects.

  My smile sank. There looked to be over a hundred people employed when the fire happened. I ran down the list of names, seeing if there were any I recognized. Aside from Darren and Travis, I also recognized Sebastian Swanson, Maggie Davis, and Tom Filmark. I should probably start with people that I knew, at least in passing. Would probably be easier than just knocking on some stranger’s door, asking if I could grill them on a potential crime from ten years earlier.

  “What do you think about all this?” I asked, folding the paper back up and putting it in my bag. “Do you think there might be more to this than the report shows?”

  Drake slowly nodded as he looked through the pictures and documentation again. “I think you may be right. It does all seem very suspicious. It hardly looks like anyone looked into the possibility of it being a homicide.”

  “So you guys will look into this?”

  Drake sighed. “Unfortunately, all of this happened so long ago, that I’m afraid no one will want to pick this one up. Besides, it is already considered a cold case. While I find it suspicious, it’s not enough to get us to look around.”

  Dang.

  “Oh… okay,” I said. Looked like I was going to have to do this one on my own.

  “At least, not unless you have some new evidence that we don’t have,” he said, staring at me.

  Why, yes Detective. I’ve found the ghost of the victim. Will that work?

  “No new evidence,” I shrugged.

  “Why are you so interested in this case all of the sudden then?”

  I looked down at Bart for help. The cat was busy licking his paws, not listening to us.

  “Like I said earlier, just a hunch,” I smiled. “Can I count on you if I find anything?”

  “If you find anything?” he raised his eyebrows.

  “If the police won’t give Jenny justice, then it looks like I’ll have to,” I said.

  Drake shook his head, walking around his desk and taking a seat in his chair.

  “If you think you find something, feel free to call me. In the mean time, why don’t we plan to meet for coffee at the end of the week?”

  “Coffee?” I asked, taken aback.

  “Yeah, to, you know,” he looked down and shuffled some of the papers on the desk. “Discuss the case.”

  “It’s a date,” I smiled, getting up and heading for the door.

  “Zoey.”

  I turned around at the door. Drake’s face was serious as he stared back at me.

  “Promise me you’ll be careful. If someone did get away with murder, they’ll do whatever it takes to keep it that way.”

  I fiddled with the door knob. I hadn’t really thought about it, but he was right. If someone did kill Jenny, which is what her ghost seems to think, then I was trying to track down a murderer.

  “Promise,” I said, opening the door.

  Drake nodded and turned to his computer. “Good. Call me if you find anything, and I’ll be there.”

  I closed the door and left.

  “That was sweet,” said Bart, looking up at me.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, brushing some hair behind my ear.

  “The little promise thing you guys did there. Very adorable.”

  “Shut it.”

  “So, what’s the next step?” asked Bart. “Seems like we’re on our own for this one.”

  “I’ve got to try and talk with someone who used to work there,” I said, digging around in my bag.

  “Why would any of them talk to you? And where would you even start?”

  I pulled out the card I was looking for.

  “I know just the person,” I said, punching the number into my phone.

  Chapter 6

  A few hours later, and we pulled up to Maggie Davis’ home.

  It was quite the si
ght. I figured she had some money since she was retired, but was caught off guard by her, for lack of a better term, mansion.

  “Is this the right place?” asked Bart.

  “It’s the address she texted me,” I said, double checking my phone and the house number.

  “So, she’s rich?”

  “I guess so. I knew she was retired, and is maybe in her early fifties, but I didn’t think she was doing this well for herself,” I said, getting out of my car and walking up to the front door. I was about to knock, but hesitated. It looked like it came from an expensive kind of tree, with designs of woodland creatures etched into it. Seemed a shame to hit it with my fist.

  I opted for the doorbell instead.

  Classical music rang out in chimes, notifying Maggie of our arrival. The song must have been Beethoven or Mozart, but I didn’t pay enough attention in music class to know which one it was.

  The door opened and there stood Maggie, a wide smile.

  “Miss Foster! I’m so delighted that you gave me a ring, and so soon!” she squealed. “Please, please! Come in!”

  “Thank you, Maggie,” I said, walking in and taking in the anteroom. The walls were pearl white, decorated with expensive looking paintings. The kind that looked like a five year old had too many sugary drinks before being given a paint brush. “You have such a beautiful home.”

  “Oh, this old thing?” asked Maggie, waving a hand as she closed the door. “There’s a lot I would’ve done differently given another chance.”

  “Why don’t you have a nice place?” asked Bart, looking around the house. “Your house is so tiny. Maggie’s could fit several Zoey-sized homes inside of it.”

  I shot a quick glare at Bart.

  “Is something the matter?” asked Maggie.

  “No, I’ve just got a crick in my neck,” I lied, grabbing the back of my neck. I needed to do a better job remembering people could see me even if they couldn’t see Bart.

  “Ah, how annoying,” said Maggie. “Please, let’s take a seat in the guest’s living room, then.”

  “She has a guest’s living room?” asked an astonished Bart.

  I followed Maggie into the next room. The walls maintained their pearl white color, along with a few more spattered paintings. Around the room were uncomfortable looking pieces of furniture, several statues of baby angels, and a cabinet in the back, which held several bottles of wine on top.