“What can I help you out with? Don’t tell me you’re still looking into that home invasion at Gloria’s. She was in here the other day, poor thing. She’s looking a bit better, but that guy sure did a number on her, didn’t he?”
“Absolutely,” I agreed. “And yes, she did ask me to look into it, and I couldn’t say no to her. Not in that state. So I am doing it, but I’m going to tell Chief Gary anything really important that I find out.”
“Alright,” Betty said, a small smile playing on her lips. “What can I tell you, then? I told you, I don’t know Gloria all that well.”
“No, but you said you knew her husband.”
“Sure.” Betty nodded. “I grew up with Francis. He was a year ahead of me in school, but at that point Willow Bay was so small we were in the same class three quarters of the time anyway.”
“What can you tell me about him?”
Betty put a hand on her hip as she thought for a while. “He was always a bit of a troublemaker. To be honest, I was surprised to find out he became a teacher. I suppose we all had to grow up eventually, though. He probably would have actually been quite a good high school teacher. He was always very creative, and I imagine he would have made sure that the kids he taught found school fun for once.”
“What do you mean he was a troublemaker?”
“Well, you know, he was always the class clown. And he was always up for all sorts of adventures. Half the stories he told, I can’t imagine they were even remotely true. There was the time he claimed he came across the old abandoned cars from that train that derailed just outside of town back in the fifties, or when he claimed he found an underground bunker in the woods. There was also the time when he wrapped the school principal’s car in toilet paper during the day, and no one noticed. Yes, he definitely had stories to tell. Of course, the railcar story did end up being true.”
“You mean to tell me that Gloria’s husband was the one that found the old railcars in the forest?” I asked. I had never heard this story; there was a trail leading to the railcars now which was super popular among both tourists and locals, as the route was only about a mile long one way, fairly easy, and extremely scenic.
“Oh yes,” Betty said, nodding enthusiastically. “The day when it was officially announced that they were building a trail there was one of the best days of his life, I think. We were still in high school; it was about three years after he had initially discovered the cars. He was extremely excited, I think because it led everyone to believe that some of his other ridiculous adventures had actually happened as well.”
“Did they?” I asked with a smile. I was genuinely curious now. After all, I’d taken the trail to the railcars multiple times in my life.
Betty shrugged. “Who on earth knows? I suspect a lot of them were made up; why on earth would there be underground bunkers outside of Willow Bay? It just makes no sense. He claimed to have found a lot of things in the forest that simply should not have been there.”
“Did you know any of his friends as an adult?”
Betty shook her head no. “I’m afraid not. We lost touch completely after he moved out of town; we had never been close, so when he left I almost never saw him again. He did come back to town a few times, but not often. Last time I saw him would’ve been, oh, around twelve years ago. It was a few months after that woman up in the city strangled the hitman her husband hired to kill her. It was during the school year; I remember thinking that of course Francis couldn’t even take his holidays at the same time as normal people.”
“Right,” I said, nodding. “I’d forgotten about that.”
“That was the last time I saw him.” Betty shrugged. “Then a few years ago I found out he had died.”
“Do you know how it happened?”
“Heart attack,” Betty said. “Quite a sudden one, as well. Apparently, he just collapsed and never regained consciousness afterwards.”
I nodded. “So you’ve never heard the name Michael Carlton before?”
Betty shook her head. “Not in the context of anything to do with Francis. The first time I heard that name was a couple of days ago when it popped up in the papers.”
I frowned. While it was interesting to know Francis Romano’s background, it didn’t seem to be getting me anywhere when it came to a link between him and Michael Carlton. Another dead end. It seemed this case was full of them.
Betty came back with my sandwich and brownie a couple of minutes later, and I thanked her as I left, mulling over everything she’d told me.
Nope, for the life of me I couldn’t see how this could help me solve the case.
Chapter 15
Still, I knew that there was one case that I could solve right now. I dropped my food off at the vet clinic without eating it and made my way towards Sequoia Street. Looking at Google Maps, this was the street whose houses on the left-hand side backed onto the creek where the beavers lived.
The fact that the beavers had heard the man complaining that their dam was flooding his yard made me think that he almost certainly lived along here somewhere. Now all I had to do was start knocking on doors and hope that I recognized the man when he answered.
As I stood staring at the first house, I wondered if maybe I shouldn’t have brought Jason along with me. After all, whoever had done this to the beavers was obviously violent. Still, I didn’t intend to be super aggressive or anything like that; I just wanted to talk to the person who had done this and see if we couldn’t sort something out.
Of course, there was always my magic as well. Because I wasn’t allowed to use magic in front of regular humans, I pointed at myself and whispered the same spell that I had used to protect the beavers’ lodge.
“Praesidioroa.”
With a spell in place, I knew that even if the person who attacked the beavers came after me, I was still going to be safe.
I made my way towards the first house on the street, a slightly run-down rancher with an overgrown front lawn. A couple of moments after I knocked on the front door, an older woman who I didn’t recognize answered the door.
“I’m sorry, I’m not interested in buying anything,” she told me as soon as she saw me.
“Wait, I’m not selling—” I tried to reply, but before I got the words out she’d already slammed the door in my face. “Anything,” I finished saying to the large wooden door now only a few inches from my face.
I briefly considered trying again, then decided against it. I could try the rest of the houses on the street first, after all.
The next house looked quite a bit like the previous rancher, but at least this one looked like somebody had mowed the front lawn at some point in the last year. I made my way up to the house and knocked, smiling as I heard the bark of a dog. I knew exactly who lived here.
“Dr. Wilson!” a man in his thirties exclaimed when he came to the door, holding back a big yellow lab by the collar. “Is there something wrong with Eddie?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Sorry to bother you, Casey. I actually didn’t realize you lived here. Someone on your side of the street has been destroying the beavers’ dam further down the creek that runs behind your place, and I’m trying to figure out who it is. I’ve just been knocking on doors, hoping to find the person.”
“Oh, try two doors down from here. The man who lives there, Brett Jones, has a little bit of a temper, and he was complaining to me the other day about the extra water in his yard.”
“Has it been especially bad?” I asked.
Casey shrugged. “I dunno. Sure, the water level is a little bit higher than it normally is, but I figured it was just because of the extra snow in the mountains melting into the creek or something. I didn’t realize it was beavers. But you can’t buy a house that backs onto a creek and expect the water level to stay constant all the time.”