A Witch Called Wanda (iWitch Mystery Book 1) Page 7

  “I appreciate the reassurance, but I’d still like to get some information if you are willing to talk,” she says.

  The man leans back in his chair, and I watch him carefully. He seems to be debating with himself. After a moment, he asks, “What do you want to know exactly?”

  “Could you tell me what happened? I know you were with Nadine when she collapsed. Maybe you saw something?”

  The mayor thinks for a moment. “Yes. Nadine went to get drinks for both of us–sodas, nothing alcoholic, of course. She went to the table that was set up with all the teas and pop drinks. She came and sat down by me at one of the picnic tables, and a few sips into her drink, she started convulsing. The next thing I knew, she was dead.”

  The man seems pretty aggrieved, and I can tell Maeve is picking up on that.

  “Did you see who gave Nadine the drinks?” Maeve asks.

  Good question.

  The mayor stiffens. “That Donnie Jacobs punk was manning the drink station. I mean, he’s a punk, but I doubt he’d want to hurt Nadine for no reason. Then again, he does have a pretty colorful record.”

  I don’t like the vibe I’m getting from the mayor. In fact, I think he’s trying to divert Maeve’s attention onto Donnie. I wonder if she’s picking up on it? They talk for a while longer, but eventually Mayor James shoos us out of his office. Evidently, he has a more important meeting coming up that he needs to prepare for.

  Maeve and I see ourselves out, and she closes the door behind her. Maeve crosses her arms and pouts—clearly not pleased at what little information she managed to get.

  “Come on, girl,” she says as she begins to walk. Far down the hall, we both spot Rodney speaking with a group of women who apparently work in the courthouse. They’re all laughing at something Rodney is saying, and I get the impression that this is also not normal around here.

  Jeez, Maeve, you really did a number on this guy.

  Maeve, realizing Rodney is distracted and that we are alone in the hall, slips into Nadine’s office. “Come here, Wanda,” she whispers and waves me over. She quickly closes the door behind us and puts a finger to her lips. “Be quiet, okay?” she heads over to the desktop computer and powers it on.

  I wag my tail. I love it.

  Sneaky little witch!

  Chapter Seven

  Maeve

  After double checking that no one else apart from Rodney and his fawning fans, were in the hallway, Maeve slipped into Nadine’s unlocked office. “Come here, Wanda,” she called for her faithful companion, and the dog slipped into the office with her. Maeve quickly closed the door behind them and held her finger up to her lip. “Be quiet, okay?”

  This is probably illegal, Maeve thought.

  But she dismissed the thought as soon as it occurred to her, after all, she was feeling a bit desperate. The interview with Mayor James Wayne hadn’t exactly been as informative as she’d hoped. And the way the man had thrown in Donnie Jacob’s name had seemed desperate –like the mayor was trying to pin something on a kid with a rap sheet. It had set off an alarm in her head, and it had angered her.

  “All righty,” Maeve said, sinking into the chair behind the desk. “What are you hiding, Mr. Mayor?”

  Before she had a chance to start up Nadine’s desktop computer, she noticed a framed picture sitting in a box on the woman’s desk. She picked it up to examine it. It was of a younger Nadine standing beside an older boy in a navy uniform –both of them with giant smiles. In the background of the photo were red, white, and blue streamers all over the falls –clearly some sort of patriotic celebration like the 4th of July or Patriots Day. Maybe a coming home party for the man in the white uniform? Upon further inspection, Maeve realized how similar the young man looked to Nadine. They were likely siblings, in fact. Maeve went to return to picture to the box, only to find herself looking through Nadine’s personal files.

  There were letters from the soldier, and after a little bit of snooping, she confirmed the navy boy was indeed her brother. She found a few other photos of friends and family –a lot of pictures of local kid shelters with Nadine smiling at the camera with the children. Evidently, Nadine really was as much of a sweetheart as everyone made her out to be.

  She found volunteer forms that Nadine had been in the process of filling out as well as a letter she’d typed and scribbled over with red ink, probably a hundred times, that had been intended for the mayor as a call to bring additional funding to some of the local charities where she volunteered.

  I’m starting to feel bad about snatching Gracie’s rental building out from under her, Maeve thought.

  Although, she justified, she hadn’t really stolen the rental from Nadine ... someone had killed her first, but who?

  Maeve slipped the letter into her pocket and turned on the computer. At the door Wanda sat with her ears up, leaning against the frame.

  Maeve giggled quietly. “Are you listening for Rodney for me, Wanda?” she asked, and she could have sworn the dog nodded at her.

  Once the computer had booted up, she stared at the login and password screen.

  “Now what?” she asked herself.

  Wanda trotted over and looked at the screen with interest.

  “Are you a hacker, Wanda?” Maeve smiled.

  Wanda nudged the mouse with her nose and the screen flickered. Maeve laughed and petted the dog’s head, but when she glanced back at the screen, she was astonished to see the computer email system open.

  “What?” Maeve asked. “How’d you do that?” she asked the dog.

  Wanda settled down next to Maeve’s feet, as Maeve hurried to sifting through the files. She started with the one that Nadine had looked at recently, but as the mayor’s personal assistant –there were a lot of them. The more time she spent digging through emails, the more nervous she got about staying in that tiny little office.

  She was certain if Rodney caught her, his pleasant demeanor would disappear, and he would likely call security. “Ugh, there’s too much to go through,” she said. “I guess we should go before Rodney gets back.”

  Wanda sat up and put her paws on Maeve’s lap, as if holding Maeve to her seat.

  “You want me to keep snooping and get in trouble?” Maeve asked.

  The dog rubbed up against the computer, and the monitor went dark. “Wanda, what did you do?” Maeve asked in a panic.

  If the dog had messed up the computer, they’d be caught for certain.

  But suddenly the monitor lit up again, and a folder labeled “Farley, Bobby –evidence,” appeared. When Maeve clicked on it, she found an abundance of saved documentation that Nadine had found important enough to put in a restricted folder.

  “How did you get that folder to open?” Maeve asked, glancing down at Wanda.

  The dog padded over to the door, with her ears perked up. Maeve panicked and whipped out her keys, accessing the thumb drive she kept attached. She usually used the drive to share some of her songs with Hollywood elites, whenever the moment presented itself; she never wanted to be caught unprepared, but now she prayed there was enough space on the small drive to copy the folder.

  She muttered, “No time to read all this now.” She downloaded the file and shut down the computer. “Let’s get out of here before we get busted.”

  Maeve tip-toed toward the door. Very slowly, she cracked open the door and peered out into the hall. She could hear laughter coming from down the hall.

  Good! Rodney’s still talking to his gal-pals.

  “Come on, girl,” she said to Wanda as they slipped out of the room.

  They headed down the hall toward the elevators, but as they were passing by Rodney and the group of women, he stopped her.

  “Maeve!” he chirped. “Come here for a second.” He waved her over.

  Nervously, Maeve made her way to Rodney with Wanda on her heels. The ladies–all holding cups of coffee that Rodney had bought for them—beamed at her.

  “Hello,” Maeve said.

  Rodney introduced
her to the three women since, “you’re new in town, and I want to make sure you make friends” as he put it.

  Maeve made small talk with the ladies, all the while with the jump drive burning a hole through her pocket. As far as she could tell, Nadine was well liked at work. After speaking with the women for a few minutes, she hurried out of the building, and breathed a sigh of relief. At least no one had demanded, “What the heck were you doing in Nadine’s old office?”

  Maeve and Wanda loaded into her car. Fortunately, the local library wasn’t far, and Maeve headed straight there to read the files she’d copied from Nadine’s computer.

  Once again, for some unexplained reason, no one seemed to have a problem with Maeve bringing Wanda into the library.

  Everyone in this town is so laid back, she thought as she sat down at a computer, and plugged in the jump drive.

  Wanda settled down next to her on the floor, rested her head on her paws and fell into an immediate doggie nap.

  “I wish I could fall asleep so fast. Girl, you must have one clean conscience!” Maeve said, pulling up the restricted file on the computer.

  “Who doesn’t?” a familiar voice asked.

  Maeve startled and quickly minimized the file on the screen; before her stood Donnie Jacobs.

  Maeve clamped a hand over her racing heart. “Man! Donnie, you scared the bejesus out of me.”

  He grinned. “I’m sorry, Ms. O’Dare. I saw you come in and I wanted to say hi, then I heard the crack about the clean conscience. Sorry, bad joke.”

  Maeve waved away his concern. It was she who was now operating with a guilty conscience; unnecessarily jumpy over having stolen Nadine’s files. After all, Nadine didn’t need them now, and certainly working toward justice was a legitimate excuse for stealing, wasn’t it?

  Donnie had removed all his piercings since Maeve had last seen him, and she noted that he was wearing a name tag.

  “Do you work here at the library, Donnie?” she asked him.

  He laughed as though this was a hilarious assumption. “No. This is part of my state mandated community service. I clean ...” He cleared his throat and mumbled under his breath, “the toilets. And I re-shelve books.”

  Despite his background, Maeve didn’t get the same unsettling vibe from him that she had from Mayor James. Truthfully, Donnie just seemed like a bratty teenager who was acting out.

  Even I did a few questionable things at that age, she thought.

  “Donnie, were you manning the drink station at the Lunch on the Lawn event?” Maeve asked. “Was that part of your community service?”

  Donnie looked at her with a very confused gaze. “Um ... I wasn’t working at the event. I just went because my brother’s band was playing.”

  “So you didn’t give Nadine anything to drink at the event?” Maeve questioned, and the blood drained out of Donnie’s face.

  “No. Where did you hear that? Is someone accusing me of something?” he asked. Donnie appeared terrified, and Maeve suddenly felt sorry for him.

  “No, nothing like that,” Maeve assured him. “Someone said they thought you might have been working the event, but they weren’t sure. Don’t worry about it.”

  The fear in Donnie’s eyes faded a bit and he mumbled, “Okay, good. I don’t need anything getting back to my parole officer.”

  “I won’t say a word,” Maeve promised. “So long as you stay out of trouble, okay?”

  Donnie nodded and headed toward the front desk of the library. As soon as he was out of sight, Maeve pulled up the file again and began reading.

  It didn’t take her long to get a foul taste in her mouth about the supposedly good-natured rich man, Bobby Farley. Nadine had saved a number of rather threatening emails that had been sent by Mr. Farley to Mayor James Wayne as well as emails the mayor had returned to Mr. Farley. Turns out, Farley was not quite as well off as he liked people to believe. According to one email from Mayor James, the mayor and Nadine had gathered enough information to expose Farley’s crooked practices to the public. Nadine had saved several files proving that Farley’s bank was rapidly losing money, his real estate business was secretly going under, and yet, he was still taking in a large number of local investors—and from the look of things, he would be filing for bankruptcy before too long.

  Before Nadine’s death, Farley’s emails had gotten aggressive in nature, though he never threatened Mayor James or Nadine outright. No, he was too smart for that.

  “The sneaky little con-artist,” Maeve grumbled under her breath.

  Clearly, the mayor and Nadine had worked together to build up a good case against Farley before bringing it to the authorities. With Nadine’s sudden death, Mayor James had probably put this case on the back burner until he could return to it.

  Could Farley have killed Nadine to try to buy himself some time? What about the Mayor? Was he in danger?

  Maeve shuddered. Bobby Farley had seemed like such a nice man, and he was loved by the locals –was he really this crooked?

  Maeve’s phone vibrated in her pocket as a text message came through. Maeve glanced down at the screen to see a message from Gracie.

  You available to sign the lease? If so, meet me at the space. I’m doing clean up!

  Maeve fired off a response.

  Be right there.

  Then she pulled her thumb drive out of the computer and said, “Come on, Wanda. We’ve got business.” She rose and exited the library with Wanda sleepily trailing behind her.

  <><><>

  When Maeve arrived at the rental space, she saw Gracie’s truck already in the parking lot. A flutter of excitement danced in Maeve’s belly.

  It’s really happening! My own café.

  Maeve climbed out of her purple Volkswagen, and with Wanda trailing, headed toward the shop. Suddenly, Wanda started growling and sniffing around. Her growl was loud and threatening.

  “Everything okay, girl?”

  Wanda stopped at the front door and snarled.

  Anxiety bubbled up in Maeve’s chest.

  What in the world could Wanda be spooked about?

  She tried the door and found it unlocked. She pushed it open, stepped inside and called out, “Hello? Gracie?”

  When no answer came, Maeve glanced nervously at Wanda. Wanda raced inside and barked. The air in the shop seemed different now, from the first time Maeve had visited and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

  She called out again, this time louder, “Gracie?”

  From one of the back rooms came a crash, followed by a piercing scream.

  Fear gripped at Maeve’s heart, as Wanda darted toward the sound. Maeve dashed after her, pulling out her cell phone, ready to call the authorities.

  Please God, let Gracie be alright! Maeve prayed.

  Wanda stopped at the open door of the back room and howled her head off.

  Maeve swallowed the dread in her throat. What was Wanda seeing? Why hadn’t she gone into the room?

  A muffled shuffling sound escaped from the room.

  Is someone back there with Gracie?

  Keeping her silent?

  Wanda disappeared into the room and Maeve froze, her heart pounded wildly against her ribcage.

  I have to call the police! Maeve thought.

  She backed away silently from the room. It wouldn’t do to be caught by whoever had Gracie. Her hands shook as she pressed on the keys, then a shrill scream emanated from the room ... followed by laughter.

  “Wanda! What are you doing here?” Gracie asked, and then called, “Maeve?”

  Relief flooded Maeve making her knees weak. She rushed into the room to find Gracie scratching Wanda’s ears. Gracie had a kerchief tied over her head and soot covered her cheeks. Around her neck was a pair of headphones, with the music blaring so loudly that Maeve could hear it while standing in the doorway. Strewn across the floor were boxes upon boxes of random knick-knacks and glassware. At Gracie’s feet was a broken dusty vase; that had obviously been the crash Maeve heard. />
  Maeve clamped a hand over her chest. “You scared the daylights out of me.”

  Gracie laughed. “I did? Sorry, how?”

  “I heard you scream, and when I called out your name you didn’t answer. I thought someone was back here holding you hostage, getting ready to murder you or something!”

  A look of sympathy crossed Gracie’s face. “Aw honey!” She stepped over Wanda and came to the doorway to hug Maeve. “Ordinarily, I’d say you have an over-active imagination, but given the circumstances, I totally understand.” She released Maeve and motioned to the room. “I wanted to clear the place of my granddad’s junk so you could get your café up and running fast.”

  Maeve smiled. “Thank you.”

  Gracie pulled out her phone and killed the music app. “I was listening to Spotify because music always makes cleaning go faster, right?”

  Together the woman moved to the front of the store. Gracie had left a leather briefcase of one of the café tables and that sat down to sign the paperwork.

  As Maeve initialed the pages, Gracie asked, “Did you talk to Rodney? Did you get an appointment with the mayor?”

  Maeve brought Gracie up to speed on her day, leaving out the part about the electric purple rays shooting out from her and Rodney’s subsequent change of attitude. She didn’t need any strange rumors around town about her dubious abilities.

  Then she told her about Nadine’s files and Bobby Farley.

  “How did you get Nadine’s files? The mayor gave you access?” Gracie asked.

  Maeve didn’t want to admit to hacking Nadine’s computer. After all, what kind of reputation would she get? She waved her around and gave a vague sigh, “Oh ... I got lucky.”

  Gracie laughed.

  Maeve brushed her laughter off and said, “Listen, do you know where I might bump into Bobby Farley? I want to talk to him and I kind of want to catch him off guard.”

  “He seems to always be at the tavern on Main Street, usually with the other suits who work at his bank.”

  “Thanks Gracie,” Maeve said.

  “Be careful, though,” Gracie warned. “Bobby Farley is a good guy and all, but he’s got some pull around here. He’s not someone whose bad side you want to get on.”