The police station hadn’t changed much. Not that I spent any amount of time here when I was a kid. I’d been on a tour once during a scared-straight seminar that was all the rage when we were in high school.
Mostly, the lesson was don’t end up like Old Man Cletus, who drank a little at this old bar where fishermen hung out and ended up in the drunk tank from time to time. He was the best Ebenezer Falls had to offer in the way of hardened criminals, and the program scared absolutely no one straight.
The brick structure still lacked the intimidation factor. In fact, it looked more like a long, flat house, with its arched windows and winding cobblestone pathway lined with short box-hedges.
Sandwich put his hands on the steering wheel and caught my gaze from the rearview mirror. “We’re here.”
I blew out a breath and waited for him to open the door before I slid out and followed him across the parking lot and toward the glass front door. “Hey, thanks, Sandwich. It’s been fun remembering old times.”
Pulling at the door, he drove his free hand inside his pocket, his round cheeks turning red at their crests. “Maybe you could just call me Lyn inside around the other guys? Professional and all.”
Winterbottom snarfed a laugh in my ear. “This from the man who vomited his dare sandwich all over your principal. The ultimate professional really does exist.”
I bit my tongue. Winterbottom and whatever his problem was would have to wait.
As I let Sandwich, er, Lyn guide me to the front desk, I tried to maintain my cool. I was innocent of any wrongdoing. And I’d better be good at proving it because I couldn’t afford a taco, let alone a lawyer.
An hour later and I was a free woman, with the warning I shouldn’t leave town just yet. I waved to Sandwich and a couple of other people I’d become reacquainted with during the course of my questioning as I made my way out of the police station, fighting the urge to stick my tongue out at Officer Nelson and yell something childish like, “Neener, neener, neener! You blew any future appearances on To Catch A Killer.”
Speaking of killers, I had to wonder what led them to believe Madam Zoltar had been killed—or if they even thought she’d been murdered at all. I had, after all, been the only living person to find Madam Zoltar. It made sense they’d want to ask me questions about what I’d witnessed, but they could have asked me those questions at her store.
Maybe this wasn’t a murder investigation at all. Maybe it was nothing more than an inquiry and I was jumping to conclusions. I’d let too much television crime drama and that rigid Officer Nelson of the granite jaw and imposing stance get up in my head.
One narrow-eyed gaze from him, and I almost felt like I had committed a crime.
“Stevieeee!” Belfry sounded on the verge of death.
But I wasn’t done being angry with him for dragging me into Madam Zoltar’s. I’d had a gut feeling I ignored and now I was involved in something I wanted nothing to do with.
“I’m going to kill you.”
“Fair enough, but could you do it after you feed me? I’m bottom of the barrel here.”
I had to give it to him, he’d stayed quiet as a mouse all while they’d asked me about finding Madam Z and how the store had been torn apart. But part of that was most certainly guilt. I knew quiet remorse from Belfry, even if I couldn’t exactly feel his vibration of life thrumming through my veins anymore.
“I told you we shouldn’t go in, Bel. Why don’t you ever listen?”
“Oh, c’mon. Be fair. Have you heard Mr. Accent? Who can resist a guy who sounds like Benedict Cumberbatch and Jon Snow all in one tally-ho?”
“Yeah. Who can resist an accent from over the pond, Stevie?”
My eyes rolled. “You’re still here? I’ll tell you who. Me. That’s who. I didn’t resist and now look. I’m a suspect in a murder investigation.”
“That’s very dramatic, Stevie. They’re not calling it murder yet, but they will be. Or should I say, they should be—and you’re going to help me prove it.”
I stopped walking and scooted into an alleyway so no one would see what looked like me essentially talking to myself. “Listen up, Winterbourne—”
“You’re just being facetious now, Stevie,” he teased. “It’s Winterbottom and you know it. But most everyone calls me Win. That’ll do for now.”
I narrowed my eyes at the empty space in front of me. “Oh, will it? Thanks for giving me permission, Win. Which, by the by, is the least of what I want to call you. You knew I was going in there blind. You knew I’m not a witch anymore. That I can’t defend myself the way I used to. Under normal circumstances, I’d have snapped my fingers and we’d have been out of there in a puff of my signature smoke and no one would have ever been the wiser.”
“How was I to know you’d actually show up? I spent a bloody torturous hour trying to get through to Belfry here, and even then he only caught bits and pieces of what I was attempting to communicate. But you did show up, Stevie. That means the experiment worked and we were fated to meet.”