Fatal fog, p.9
Fatal Fog, page 9
“Take good care of my brother,” she snapped. “He isn’t a murderer and I’m counting on the two of you to figure that out soon.”
She turned and flew toward Dan’s chest where he wrapped his giant arms around her. Her arms didn’t even make it around his front half while his arms wrapped around her and came back to hug himself. It was almost comical and if Maggie had seen it in another context, she might have laughed. But with everything going on, it was a touching gesture.
Dan went out the door first but as Maggie and Esmeralda started out, Maggie heard JIll call after them.
“I hope you get your life together soon,” Jill called, loud enough that everyone could hear. “You don’t want to end up an old maid like your mother!”
Maggie could feel the anger rising up in her and a part of her wanted to go back and punch Jill, but Esmeralda spirited her out the door as tears started streaming down her face. Whatever had been holding the tears back was useless now.
Chapter Thirteen
The fog was thick as Esmeralda guided Maggie behind Dan. The ogre had taken one look at Maggie’s crumpled, red, tear-streaked face and had taken the lead, somehow understanding that she needed space. The three of them walked together silently toward the police station, an ogre murder suspect, an old maid witch, and her anxious, crying daughter who was a witch scared to do magic. If Maggie had been in the mood, she might have laughed at what a sight they were.
After a bit, Maggie felt her sobs start to die down. There were still tears falling, but they were falling slower and she could actually breathe now. Whereas before the anxious tears had been coming in waves, crashing down on her so that she could feel it in her entire body, now they were coming more like cars on an abandoned highway. Every once in awhile another would pass by.
Once Esmeralda could sense that things were a bit better, she gave Maggie a squeeze and a smile. Maggie smiled back, the biggest smile she could muster through the tears. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Her mother walked up next to Dan and seemed to be giving him a few directions about what would happen. Maggie had to appreciate that while her mother might solve murders and other crimes, she seemed to do it with compassion. Esmeralda described to Dan all of the rights he had and how to ask for them. As she explained, Maggie tuned out of the conversation and tuned in to the thoughts in her head.
Jill’s words were still running back and forth in her head. It seemed like the werewolf had been inside her brain, picking through all of the worries and anxieties and bringing them out into the daylight for everyone to see. It felt like Jill could read her very soul. The hardest part was that Maggie was pretty sure Jill meant no harm. She was genuinely trying to help, although if the werewolf had any sort of plan, it was convoluted at best.
Snippets of Jill’s words kept echoing, intruding on her ability to think of anything else.
“…thirty years old is just a touch too old to be floating aimlessly without direction…soon you’re going to need to pull yourself up by the bootstraps and stop being scared all of the time…get your life together soon…You don’t want to end up an old maid like your mother…”
The same phrases kept rolling around in Maggie’s head until it felt like Jill was right next to her yelling them into her ear. In that moment, the fog felt comforting. Before it had felt like something that wrapped around, concealing murderers and other bad guys, but now it almost felt like a blanket that separated Maggie from the world. It held her tight and kept her and her emotions safe.
“Are you okay?”
Dan’s voice boomed through the safety of the fog, startling her out of her thoughts. He had paused, waiting for Maggie to catch up to him as Esmeralda continued to lead the way. His own tear-streaked face looked at her with concern and for a moment, he didn’t look like a murderer. For a moment, he looked like good old Dan who had been cooking at the Syrup Pot for as long as Maggie could remember. Maggie shrugged at him and wrapped her arms around herself.
“That werewolf lady doesn’t seem very nice,” Dan said.
Maggie looked at his face and saw that he was nodding a bit at her, his eyes wide as he tried to make her feel better. The ogre was trying to connect with her. They probably had the most in common right now after both having a bit of a breakdown.
“Jill’s nice, she just doesn’t really think through what she is saying before she says it,” Maggie said with a shrug. “She says she wants to help and I think that deep down, she does want to help. But she just doesn’t understand.”
“I get it,” Dan said. “Evelyn says I do the same thing. I’m always trying to find a way for us to get ahead in life, but I always end up screwing up. Like this whole thing. I just wanted to make us a little money and Rodney assured me that it was a safe bet when I gave him the deed. He said it was such a sure thing that I could just come back in two days and he’d hand me the deed and a big stack of money. But when I went back, he told me that it was a fluke and that it was just business, that I wasn't getting the deed or the money. That’s what started the whole trouble.”
Dan sighed and looked at his feet as he shuffled along. Maggie took the chance to look at him again. Before, the fact that he was an ogre made him seem scary, but now Maggie could look past the green skin and warty face. Now she could see his personality and the fact that he was a creature who was just trying to help his sister.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Maggie said. “Although you should have known better than to deal with Rodney the Rat. From what I hear, this was a typical dealing with him.”
“I know, but I thought it would be different,” Dan said. “I’d done some smaller bets that he said were sure things and I had doubled my money on all of those. But they had been small potatoes compared to the bet that he offered me. He told me I could make fifty thousand dollars if I put up the deed. How was I supposed to pass that up?”
Dan sniffled again and used his big hand to wipe his nose. Maggie watched her mother’s back, far enough away that she was almost disappearing into the fog as she walked, but Maggie knew that she was close enough to hear every word that they said.
“Evelyn works so hard,” Dan said. He slowed down until he was almost creeping along. Maggie slowed her pace to match his. “She puts everything she has into the diner and still has time to do all sorts of things around town. Me, on the other hand, I try but I just can’t get anything right. We never change the menu because I can’t cook anything else. It took me a decade just to be able to cook everything we offer right now. I’m a screw-up, but Evelyn tries her hardest never to make me feel like that. She always tells me that I do a good job and she wouldn't be able to find a better cook. And now I’ve let her down.”
Dan stopped and covered his face with his hands, letting out a big wail. Maggie reached out to put her hand on his arm but stopped short. She wanted to connect and show Dan that he wasn’t alone, but she was never sure how to do that. Esmeralda was the one who was good at that. She closed her eyes quickly, wondering what her mother would do in this situation. Esmeralda would probably give some sort of hug, but Maggie wasn’t going to go quite that far. Her eyes popped open and she tried again. Reaching out, she put her hand on Dan’s green arm. It was just enough to let him know that she was there.
“Everything will get figured out,” Maggie said.
She felt like her words were empty like they didn’t mean anything. She snapped her mouth shut, vowing not to say anything else unless it sounded really, really good. Instead, she was just going to be a comforting physical presence so that Dan knew that he wasn’t alone.
Cocking her head back and looking at Dan’s face, she wondered how she had ever assumed that he was the murderer. Sure, he was gigantic and he looked intimidating. But that didn’t mean he was angry or vicious or tough. Maggie felt bad for judging him simply because of what he looked like. She should have known better. He was still Dan, even if the fog made him an ogre for three days every month.
Esmeralda appeared out of the fog in front of them. She had a slight smile on her face as she watched her daughter try to comfort an ogre. Maggie gave a small smile back. She was feeling better after talking to Dan a bit. It was a good reminder that the things she was struggling with were a different sort of hard than what Dan was going through.
“We’re here,” Esmeralda said, sweeping her arm in front of them.
The fog seemed to dissipate a bit and the front of a building appeared. Unlike the large brick building that normally housed the police station, this was another building that looked like a stone hut. It had a piece of wood tacked over the door that said POLICE. If Maggie had more time, she would have marveled at just how much the fog changed things every month, but she was a bit preoccupied at the moment.
“Now remember what I said,” Esmeralda said. “You have rights and you need to make sure the police respect them. After we drop you off, Maggie and I will leave. But I will come back to check on you at some point.”
Dan nodded, wiping a tear from his eye with one large, lumpy finger. He sniffed a few times, his head nodding so much that he looked like a bobblehead doll. He reached down and wrapped Esmeralda in a hug, trying hard not to squeeze her too tight.
As he stood back up, something fell out of the pocket of his apron. Maggie bent down to pick it up for him. She was closer to the ground after all. It was a small notebook and wallet.
“Here, you dropped this,” Maggie said.
She held it out to Dan, who stared at it. Esmeralda’s eyes widened a bit and noticing Dan’s hesitation, she reached out and took them instead.
“Those aren’t mine,” Dan said. “I don’t know where they came from.”
“I just watched them fall out of your apron,” Maggie said.
Esmeralda opened the notebook and flipped through a few pages before shutting it. She glanced from Maggie to Dan, her eyes clouded with worry. She gingerly opened the wallet and peeked inside before slapping it shut. Dan glanced at Maggie, who was just as confused as the ogre at what was happening. She waited for her mother to explain the theatrics.
“You’re right Dan, these aren’t yours,” Esmeralda said after a moment. “They are Rodney’s wallet and notebook.”
Esmeralda held up the cheap pleather wallet and it flopped open, revealing Rodney’s driver’s license inside. Dan’s eyes widened as his jaw fell open. Maggie was just as stunned. She had finally been starting to believe that Dan was innocent, but this evidence was pretty damning.
Chapter Fourteen
Before Dan could launch into another emotional breakdown, Esmeralda put her hand up. Her face was serious but peaceful. She didn’t look upset, just puzzled. Dan started to softly cry again as Maggie looked back and forth between the two.
“I know this doesn’t look good, but I still believe you didn’t do it,” Esmeralda said. “I’m still going to have to turn you over to the police because you are the main suspect, but I’m going to hold onto these. I think Officer Chris and Officer Wes would be too blinded by this evidence to actually further the investigation.”
Maggie was dumbfounded. Her mother was going to withhold evidence from the police? It was something that Maggie would never have considered. She had to admit that her mother was right about the police officers. They would see the wallet and notebook as evidence of an open and shut case. But Esmeralda was convinced Dan hadn’t done it.
At this point, Maggie wasn’t sure what she believed. She was still reeling from everything she had been through in the last twenty-four hours. Her entire world had shifted and Maggie felt like she didn’t know up from down at this point. She knew that right now, she needed to do what she had always done in a crisis: follow her mother.
Dan was sniffling and furiously wiping his nose on his sleeve. Esmeralda had already tucked the wallet and notebook away into her cloak, holding onto them until some future time. Maggie was beyond curious to have a look at them, but she knew this was not the time.
“I would love to help you more, but I need you to give me something to corroborate your alibi,” Esmeralda said. “If the only thing people can say is that you definitely weren't at the tavern, that isn’t going to go over well. When you left the tavern, did you see anyone? Or talk to anyone?”
Dan shuffled his giant feet around, kicking up little dirt clouds. Maggie watched him, scrutinizing his expression. He seemed resigned to his fate, but Maggie wasn’t sure if that was because he was guilty or because he didn’t see a way out of this situation.
“I was tryna be sneaky,” the ogre said. “I didn’t want no one to see me because I was going to deal with Rodney. And if I’m being honest, I was considering roughing him up a little, just enough to get the deed back. I didn’t even care about the money at that point. But we couldn’t lose the tavern.”
Dan talked quietly, almost to the point of muttering. Maggie actually had to lean in so that she could understand what he was saying. Esmeralda moved so close to him that she was almost touching him, her entire body only inches away from him.
“So you were going to see Rodney, but did you do anything else while you were out?” Esmeralda asked. She kept her tone even, a better investigator than both of the police officers in town.
Dan avoided Esmeralda’s gaze, staring at the ground instead as he dug a hole in the ground with his toe. He was hiding something, but Maggie wasn’t sure what it was. He mumbled something that neither of the witches could hear.
“If there is anything that might help, you need to tell me,” Esmeralda said.
“I did go somewhere else, but I don't want to tell anyone,” Dan said.
“This might be the thing that helps your case and shows you didn’t do it,” Esmeralda said. “You have to tell us.”
Dan looked like he wanted to cry even more, but he was all out of tears. He hiccuped a few times and stuck his bulbous lips out into a pout as he thought about it. After a moment, he dropped his gaze to the ground again, shaking his head.
“I can’t,” he said. “I can’t tell anyone.”
Esmeralda sighed and Maggie realized that she had been holding her breath as she waited for Dan to reveal something else, anything else really. But whatever it was, Dan was not going to tell. As conflicted as Maggie was about Dan, she hoped that if it was anything helpful, he would eventually tell Esmeralda. She was probably the only person in the world who could help him right now.
“I understand that things are very confusing right now,” Esmeralda said. “I hope you’ll reconsider that. But for now, I need to bring you to the police. They’ll question you, but I will be back to check on you and maybe by then you will have changed your mind.”
Dan nodded one curt nod before Esmeralda turned and opened the door to the police station. Walking in, it looked almost like a jail from an old western movie. There were two desks, one for each police officer, and then a single jail cell with bars that ran along the back of the small building, separating off an area for the prisoner. The jail cell was big enough for a bucket, a cot, and a small table. The only thing Maggie could think was that the poor ogre was not going to be comfortable in that small space.
Officer Wes and Officer Chris were each sitting behind their desks, one on each side of the door. As the trio entered, both officers jumped up from their desks and scurried around to the front side. Maggie had forgotten that they were gnomes now and she tried not to laugh at them in their tiny uniforms. They both had tough guy expressions on their faces as if to make up for their size.
“Hello, how can I help you?” they both said, a touch too loudly as they ran around their desks, glaring at each other as they jostled to be the one in front.
“I saw them first,” Officer Wes said, trying to elbow Officer Chris while still being professional.
“We saw them at the same time,” Officer Chris said, adjusting his hat which had fallen over his eyes with all of the jostling. “But I got around the desk first.”
“Oh, you did not.”
“I did so. Anyway, it’s my turn.”
The two gnomes turned toward each other and started to yell back and forth. Esmeralda sighed and rolled her eyes. Dan stared at the two gnomes and Maggie realized that he couldn’t see anything that was happening because he towered over them. Maggie had known that the two officers were mediocre at best, but this was ridiculous.
“Boys, I will do it,” Esmeralda said. She gently moved toward them, walking through what was quickly devolving into a slap fight. “Dan here is the prime suspect in Rodney’s murder and he needs to be questioned. I’ll bring him to the jail cell, but the two of you can question him.”
Esmeralda was standing next to the door of the jail cell. As she opened the barred door, she beckoned Dan to follow her. He walked over and stood inside the cell, looking around at the cramped conditions. Esmeralda grabbed a large metal chair that sat next to one of the desks and brought it to Dan.
“I’m sure you don't mind if Dan borrows this chair,” Esmeralda said. “He needs someplace comfortable to sit. Also, you should call to have someone reinforce the cot so he can sleep tonight. I will be back to check on him and if the two of you aren’t treating him well, I will not be happy.”
She sternly pointed her finger at each of the gnome police officers in turn. Officer Chris snapped to attention like Esmeralda was his commanding officer and seeing that, Officer Wes did the same. Maggie had to suppress a laugh at them. In the normal world, their ridiculousness was often masked by their uniforms. But here in the paranormal world, it was on display for everyone to see.
“I also have the murder weapon here,” Esmeralda said, pulling the bag with the knife out of her cloak. “Somehow the two of you missed it while you were investigating the scene. I found it and bagged it. As you can see, it came from the Slinky Possum. I’m going to leave it here on the desk before we go.”
Setting down the knife, Esmeralda motioned toward the door and Maggie led the way out. It was still strange to exit a building and never see the sun, just overwhelming fog. Maggie pulled the door open with her mother close behind her. Looking back, Dan sat sadly in the jail cell, his giant shoulders hunched over. He gave the smallest smile and a tiny wave at the two witches as they left.
