Саманта Сильвер - Busy As A Beaver

“Your reasoning might be sound, but there’s absolutely no proof. I need probable cause before I can get a warrant to search Charles Green’s home.”

My heart sunk in my chest. “So this is all for nothing?”

“Not at all,” Chief Gary replied. “You’ve certainly given those of us investigating these two incidents a lot to think about. And if you are right about all of this, well, it gives us an edge, because we know what to look for.”

“But you can’t do anything now,” Sophie finished.

“No,” Chief Gary said, shaking his head. “There’s just not enough hard evidence that Charles Green had anything to do with these murders yet. But thank you for bringing him to my attention.”

Sophie and I left a few minutes after, and I couldn’t help but feel a bit dejected at that reception.

“You know this means we have to go back and see Chuck tomorrow,” Sophie said as I drove her back home.

“I was worried you were going to say that,” I said with a small smile.

Chapter 17

The following day I told Karen to move all of my morning appointments to the afternoon if possible, and luckily all of my clients were more than accommodating. That gave Sophie and me the opportunity to drive back to Two Sweets Bakery in Portland in the hopes of coming across Chuck.

“Invisibility spell again?” Sophie asked when we were in the car. I nodded. It was definitely going to be the most handy of all the spells I knew when it came to following someone.

This time, we parked in front of the bakery and waited for Chuck to come by.

“Can’t we go in and get a slice of bourbon pecan pie?” Sophie complained. “I mean, it’s not like he suspects us or anything.”

“We told him we don’t live here, we were looking into a friend of his that we think he committed a bank robbery with, and now we show up out of the blue with no real reason to be here? No, if he sees us again he’s going to think it’s suspicious, and he might run off before we have a chance to see him. Is a slice of pie really worth the risk?”

Sophie muttered something under her breath that I was pretty sure was along the lines of well, I hadn’t tasted that particular pie, so I didn’t know what I was missing out on. I ignored her and looked at the inviting interior, even as the inside of the car got colder and colder.

“Fine,” I said eventually, with a dramatic sigh. “Let’s go in and get some pie. But we have to sit as far away from the door as possible, and we have to be subtle about it.”

“I thought you’d never come to your senses,” Sophie said, practically diving out of the car and making her way towards the shop’s entrance.

I, on the other hand, looked around carefully before I crossed the street to make sure I couldn’t see Chuck coming from anywhere. It was still a little bit earlier than the girl told us he usually arrived, so I figured the odds were pretty good he wasn’t going to be here straightaway, but still. I didn’t want to scare him off and lose our one chance of finding the person who might have been responsible for the attack on Gloria and for killing Michael Carlton.

Slipping into the bakery behind Sophie, I inhaled deeply to take in the delightful scent of cooked sugar and joined the other people in line with Sophie. Five minutes later we had ordered a couple of lattes, along with a slice of that pie for Sophie and a salted caramel bar for me. We made our way towards the very back of the shop and found a spare table in the corner. Luckily for us, the tables all around it had already been taken, so we were able to mostly stay out of sight. If Chuck came in right now, we would almost certainly notice him before he noticed us.

A couple of minutes later the waitress came by with our food and drinks and placed them in front of us.

“Did you hear that Charlotte is moving?” I asked Sophie as I took a scrumptious bite from the caramel slice.

“Really? Where to?”

“San Francisco. Probably early next year.”

“That’s awesome, good for her,” Sophie said. “I love your sister and all, but I feel like keeping her cooped up here in the Pacific Northwest is almost a waste of her talent. Like, if I knew anybody who would do really well as part of Doctors Without Borders or something, it’s her.”

“I agree.” I nodded. “I think it’ll be good for her. Hopefully she’ll like it.”

“Have you ever been there?”

I shook my head. “No. I’d like to; now at least I have a really good excuse to finally check it out.”

Suddenly, Sophie grabbed me by the arm and ducked her head slightly. “Don’t look now, but Chuck just came in.”

I nodded and buried my face in the last couple bites of my salted caramel bar. It took every ounce of my being not to look, but I knew it was important. If Chuck saw us, he might bolt, and if we lost him, there was no way for us to find him again.

Not easily, anyway.

“He’s in the line,” Sophie whispered. “What do we do?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t use magic right now. There are too many people around. We’re just going to have to hope he doesn’t see us.”

“Ok,” Sophie said, turning her head away from him slightly. I took out my phone and used the dark screen as a bit of a mirror. Sure enough, I could just make out Chuck’s form in front of the counter. Suddenly, he turned and left.

“Shoot, he’s leaving,” I muttered.

“We have to go after him!”

“He’s a murderer.”

“Exactly, and Chief Gary isn’t going to do anything about it!” Sophie said. “This is our chance to get the evidence the Chief needs to put him away, but we have to go now.”

“Fine,” I said, stuffing the last piece of salted caramel bar into my mouth and getting up while chewing rather inelegantly.

The two of us basically ran out of the store and stopped outside, looking around. Chuck was just rounding the corner to our left, and we took off after him. When we reached the corner, I peered around it; Chuck was walking down the street. He looked behind him, and I pulled my head back, hoping he hadn’t seen us.

“He knows we’re onto him,” I said. “Should we go invisible?”

“No,” Sophie said, shaking her head. “Let’s confront him. He’s an old guy, I’m pretty sure we can outrun him.”

With that decision made, the two of us took off after Chuck.

“Hey! Chuck!” Sophie called out when we found ourselves only about fifty feet behind the man. He turned to see us, looked away as if he considered making a run for it, then gave up and stopped as Sophie and I caught up to him.

I had to admit, I was embarrassingly out of breath. How many times had I sworn I was going to start going to the gym again and then never done it?

Looking around, we were definitely in a small residential neighborhood. I couldn’t see anyone else around. This wasn’t a perfect situation; I would have much preferred an encounter in the middle of a busy, public place.

Sophie already had her phone out, and I knew she was recording what was about to go down. After all, Oregon was a one-party state, so even if we didn’t tell Chuck that we were recording the conversation, it could still be used against him if he admitted to what he did.

“Why, hello there,” Chuck said with a smile as he moved towards us. “Fancy seeing you two again.”

Right. His innocence ploy wasn’t fooling either one of us. I was all too aware that this man had murdered Michael Carlton, and I had a sneaking suspicion he still had the gun somewhere.

“You stop right there,” Sophie said. “We figured it all out.”

“Oh, you did, did you?” Chuck asked.

“Yes. We know you’re actually Charles Green, the man who robbed that bank all those years ago along with Francis Romano and Michael Carlton.”