Chapter 10 - The Chief

Since Autumn had already talked to the police, we decided to find out anything we could from them—or her, rather. Ansel was the one and only police officer for the whole town of Craftborough. Olivia wasn’t sure if “chief” was her real title or a joke.

“If it is a joke,” she said, “it’s not meant to make fun of her. Everyone called Spearing ‘chief’ too.”

“Hey, Olivia,” I said, “why does this place have a police officer?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why don’t they rely on the sheriff’s department, like Quicholt?”

Quicholt was our hometown—if you could call it that. The most accurate way to describe it would be “the town closest to the Noctis mansion.” And I said that we “rely on the sheriff” but the place was so small, what we mostly got was one of his deputies.

“The sheriff is a county-wide elected position,” Olivia said. “The coven can’t guarantee the person who wins will be a witch.”

“Does the police officer have to be a witch?”

“In this town? Yes.”

We asked if Autumn wanted to come along, but she excused herself. When Olivia asked her why, she forced a smile and said, “I think that the chief has seen enough of me recently.”

As we drove to the police station, I told Olivia and Big Jacky about my vision.

Olivia was leaning forward from the backseat so she could hear me. Her hands were clutching the top edges of Jacky’s and my seat, and when I told them about the arm choking off my airway, her hands tightened until her knuckles went white.

“Now we know for sure something happened to him,” she said.

Jacky tapped his finger bone on the steering wheel, then said, “While I agree that the evidence demands action, I have to correct you, Olivia. We don’t know anything.”

“How can you possibly say that?”

“Because visions are limited—and that one is more limited than most. They only show fragments of a scene, usually without the vital context. You must be careful not to assume more than it represents.”

“Should we tell Ansel about it?”

“She’s already been notified that there’s a potential problem. Telling her about the vision would make no difference.”

Olivia slammed back into her seat, crossed her arms, and glared out the car window.

Of course, Big Jacky was right. The Torr had a lot of laws and standards around how a seer’s powers were allowed to be used in their courts, and I was familiar with most of them, thanks to my involvement in the Frost-Aubert case. A vision or dream could be used to help find evidence, but it could never be used as direct evidence that a crime had been committed, and Darius Vasil had always cautioned me about being too open about what my powers were. I wasn’t supposed to talk about them if it wouldn’t do any good.

“Your privacy is a form of protection.”

I always thought that line sounded slightly paranoid, but I knew two things: the vampire cared about me, and he knew the world we lived in a lot better than I did. I trusted him, so I’d keep my mouth shut, no matter how frustrated and useless it made me feel.

A dismal silence filled the car.

When it had mellowed to the point I thought I could break it without incurring Olivia’s wrath, I said, “Hey, Olivia, do you know Officer Ansel?”

She was still staring out the window when she answered. “Yes.”

A slow smile spread over my face, despite my good intentions. Olivia didn't seem to mind the question, but I was pretty sure she'd get mad if she thought I was laughing at her.

“Huh,” I said, trying to sound casual. “I never figured you for a delinquent.”

Olivia looked at me. “What the hell are you going on about?”

I shrugged. “I’ve been told that you were a cute little thing—”

“Who told you that?”

I didn’t want to get Autumn in trouble, so I conveniently failed to hear the question. “Why would a cute little thing like you know the police? No! Wait! Let me guess.” I put a finger on my lips for a moment, then moved them to say, “It can’t be ferret smuggling. That one’s taken.”

“What?”

“I know!” I turned around to point at her. “You stole a book from the library!”

She rolled her eyes so far back that it moved her head.

Maybe not.

“It can’t be truancy,” I mused. “You graduated at the top of your class. Was your heavy-metal band too loud during practice?”

“Tarah Ansel knows my mother,” Olivia said.

My mouth clamped shut. Yeah, that would explain it.

I leaned back in my seat. “Olivia, is your mom the mayor or something?”

“Why would someone like my mother bother with such a lowly position?”

Further down the street, the small buildings around us were interrupted by an open space. In the spring, it might have been a green space, with lovely walks and trees full of welcoming shade, but since it was only February, it felt more like a dramatic pause meant to mark the difference between the larger, more eminent buildings and the rest of the town.

The building where Olivia had given her report that morning was the Town Hall, and it deserved the capital letters. It was the oldest public building in an ancient town. As the town grew, other official buildings had sprung up around it, but no matter what era the new buildings were erected in, the town went out of its way to find architects and builders that could copy the look of ye-olden times. The only way to guess their relative ages was by examining how sharp the corners of the bricks were or if the windows were made with real wood or faux wood.

I had to admire such devotion to an aesthetic.

As we drove by the largest of the buildings—a five-story edifice that had to be new enough to enjoy air-conditioning—I said, “What building is that?”

Olivia started to say, “That’s—” but stopped herself. She started again: “It’s technically the town center, but everyone calls it coven headquarters.”

It’s possible my recent mention of the position brought the fact to Olivia’s mind; she added, “The mayor has an office there.”

“Is it the biggest office?”

“Guess.”

We pulled in behind the town center. The police station was a tiny place—only one story tall and maybe a few rooms long. It hunkered in shame behind the statelier buildings around it. The entrance was off its back parking lot. When we pulled in, the only other car parked there was the patrol car.

Big Jacky led me and Olivia to the door and held it open, allowing us to go through first. The door closed behind us, trapping us in a tiny, barren entryway. There was another door at the far end, and a glass-covered opening in the wall to our left that gave us a modest view of the police station beyond it. Most of the view was dominated by a cluttered desk. There was a small arched hole at the bottom of the glass in case we wanted to talk to the person on the other side. A silver call bell was perched on the ledge by the hole.

Olivia slapped the call bell.

Ding!

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“Coming!” a distant voice called.

Officer Ansel walked around the cluttered desk and into view.

She was average height with a solid build. The muscle definition on her arms made me think that being thin wasn’t on her priority list. She wore a standard policeman’s uniform, and her long blond hair was pulled away from her blocky face, making her look blunt and straightforward, but before she’d stepped into view, she’d tried to arrange her expression into something friendly.

That lasted right up until her eyes fell on Olivia.

Her smile vanished. She took one last step toward us and crossed her arms.

“Miss Oliversen,” she said. “I didn’t know you were back in town.”

“Good afternoon, Ansel,” Olivia said. “Congratulations on your promotion.”

The world’s greatest surgeon, equipped with the world’s finest scalpel, wouldn’t have been able to shave off a nanogram of emotion from that exchange.

“If your mother sent you,” Ansel said, “please tell her that I’ve already made arrangements for the extra security.”

Oh! There was some emotion. That one was “irritation.”

“My mother didn’t send me,” Olivia said.

“Then why are you here?”

“I want to ask about Nolan Kirby.”

The chief’s shoulders slumped at an angle. One hand went to her hip while the other hand went to her forehead. She rubbed her brow with the side of her index finger and said to the floor, “So Langley sent you.”

Beside me, I felt Olivia bristle. It was like she was covered in invisible hedgehogs.

“No one sent me,” she said. “I came here on my own.”

“And why would an Oliversen care about someone like Nolan Kirby?”

The hedgehogs turned into porcupines.

“I care.” Olivia glared at Ansel. “Do you?”

Ansel stiffened, locking her shoulders and freezing the frown to her face. Even her eyes looked like stones. She broke the pose by leaning over the desk, reaching for something we couldn’t see.

“Go stand by the door,” she said. “I’ll buzz you through.”

While I was crowded up against Olivia, I muttered under my breath. “Not exactly your friendly neighborhood officer, is she?”

Olivia made a face and did a quick head shake. “She’s fine.”

“What!” I said, completely forgetting to whisper.

We heard the door unlock. Olivia opened it and repeated, “She’s fine. Leave her to me.”

We went inside. I thought the chief was coming around the corner to meet us, but she was actually making a beeline for the mug of coffee sitting on the desk beside us. Except for the coffee mug, the desk was empty.

The chief took a long swig before turning to us. “All right, Miss Oliversen, I don’t have a lot of time, but I’ll give you what I can.” We followed her to an office at the back of the room. Her name, in vinyl, was on the pebbled glass of the door. “You want to know about Kirby, right?”

“Yes.”

Ansel opened the door and held it wide so we could all pass through. Her office was small, but there was enough room for her desk, a bookshelf, and two other chairs. Olivia and I claimed the extra chairs. Jacky stood behind us.

Ansel crossed over to the chair behind her desk and sat down. “If you’re hoping I can tell you where Kirby is, I’m afraid I can’t.”

“Have you been looking for him?” Olivia asked.

I could only tell Ansel had frowned because of how the lines around her mouth deepened. Her lips had barely moved. She watched Olivia for a few seconds before answering.

“I’ve done as much as I can, considering the circumstances.”

“What does that mean?” Olivia asked.

“That means I’m a busy woman and the situation makes things difficult.”

“How so?”

The chief took a long breath in. It appeared to be one of the “calming” kinds. Then she said, “How much do you know about police procedures regarding missing persons, Miss Oliversen?”

Olivia hesitated, then admitted, “Nothing.”

“You have to understand, it isn’t illegal for an adult to leave without telling someone where they’re going. Kirby left a note—”

“A note? You mean the handwritten one up on his shop door?”

“Yes.”

“Kirby’s been blind since birth. How did he write it?”

There was a tiny hitch in Ansel’s movements. It was gone almost the moment it appeared. She shrugged. “He could’ve had one of his customer’s write it before they left.”

Olivia’s face filled with scorn. “Does that seem likely to you?”

“It seems more likely to me than the idea that someone would hurt Kirby or steal him away. There’s nothing in Kirby’s background to suggest that he’d be in any kind of trouble.”

“You’ve checked his background?” Jacky asked.

Ansel blinked and looked at Big Jacky as if it was the first time she’d seen him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “who are you?”

Olivia answered. “This is my master, Jack Noctis.”

“How do you do,” Jacky said.

The officer nodded to him, then turned her eyes to me. “And her?”

“This is Emerra,” Olivia said. “She came to hear my report.”

Ansel looked back up at Jacky. “Yes, I looked into his background. I talked to his neighbors and his landlord. I managed to contact his family, and that took some doing. Kirby is a more common name than you might think. I should mention that when I told them what was happening, they weren’t unduly concerned. Despite his blindness, Kirby’s an independent man. They said it was normal for them to only learn he’d gone on a vacation after he came home and told them about it.”

Olivia scowled.

Ansel went on, “Given all that, Kirby was filed as a missing person, not-at-risk adult. I’ve informed the sheriff’s department and the state police to be on the lookout for him.”

“Does Kirby have a cell phone?” I asked.

Ansel turned her attention to me.

I squirmed under her gaze. “I’m curious if he’s been answering his phone. People on vacation do that, don’t they?”

“I don’t.” Ansel took another swig of coffee. “But on the off-chance that Kirby is the kind of man to do that, I’ve left two messages for him.”

Jacky said in a soft, musing voice, “Kirby has a landlord.”

The chief’s brows pulled together. “Yes.”

“He’s renting both the shop…and the apartment above it?”

“Yes.”

“Did the landlord let you in, by any chance?” When Ansel didn’t answer, Jacky said, “I understand that a landlord normally has the right to do that.”

The chief put her mug down and sat forward in her chair. “She does, and this time, she did. Before you ask, the place was clean, and there were no obvious signs of any struggle.”

“I understand from Olivia that Autumn reported Kirby missing last Thursday. Did you get in that day?”

“I did.”

“Did you sense any magic?”

Ansel’s mouth clamped shut hard enough I saw the muscles in her neck stand out.

Jacky waved a hand. “Forgive me—that was abrupt. I understood from Olivia that you were a witch. To be a police officer in Craftborough, I would assume that you have to be a good one.”

After a second, Ansel said, “I’m no Ellis Oliversen, but I’m decent. There was no magic at the scene—not even trace magic—and there was no sign of a break in. Given that, and the fact that some of his personal effects were missing, it seemed reasonable to assume that he left under his own volition.”

Olivia bounced to the front of her chair. “What kind of personal effects are we talking about?”

“His toothbrush was the main one I noticed. Also his cell phone, his charging cord, and presumably some clothes, but since neither Mrs. Gilbert nor I had ever counted his underwear, we couldn’t be sure on that one. We aren’t talking about anything important, Miss Oliversen. It was the kind of things a man would take if he went on a trip.”

“So that’s it then?” Olivia’s face couldn’t have been more twisted if she’d eaten a whole lemon. “You’ve decided that he’s gone on a trip—case closed?”

The edge of Ansel’s lips ticked down. “The case isn’t closed until someone can confirm that Nolan Kirby is found. If he shows up tomorrow with some souvenirs and a good story about how warm Miami is in February, I’ll have to make a lot of calls and notify the right networks. In the meantime, we have every law enforcement officer in this county keeping their eyes out for him. I’m not sure what more you expect us to do.”

“Don’t you canvass the neighborhood or something?”

A sarcastic smile appeared on Ansel’s face. “Ah, TV policing at its finest. I wish I had their budget. No, Miss Oliversen, we don’t—not for a capable adult when we don’t have any evidence of wrongdoing. As time goes on, the case will become more urgent, but I already have too much to do, considering the celebration starts in two days. That being said…”

She stood up, in case we’d missed the invitation to leave.

Before we could take the hint, Jacky said, “Do you mind if we look into the disappearance?”

Ansel shrugged. “I can’t stop you from asking questions.”

As we rose from our chairs, Olivia said, “Will you tell us if you learn anything?”

“That depends on what I learn,” Ansel said. “If you want to give me your phone number, I can pass it along to Kirby if I hear from him. I’ll let him know that you’re worried.”

“I’ll do that.”

Ansel pulled a notebook and pen out of her pocket and copied down Olivia’s number, then politely but firmly escorted us out of the building. After the sound of the door closing behind us, there was nothing. Everything was quiet. A cold wind blew through the nearly empty parking lot. I half expected a tumble weed to make an appearance for dramatic emphasis, but maybe it was too cold for tumbleweeds.

“Fat lot of good that was,” Olivia grumbled.

Noctis hummed his agreement. I figured there was a fifty-percent chance he hadn’t caught on that it was sarcasm.

“And that’s the person you said was fine?” I asked.

“Do you have a problem with her?” Olivia said.

“Me? No. But then again, I’m not the one that as good as accused her of doing nothing. The mixed messages are confusing me.”

“I like Ansel as a person, but it doesn’t sound like she’s taking this seriously.”

Jacky said, “Was that your impression?”

Noctis headed toward the car. We followed.

He said over his shoulder, “She took the report, informed all the correct channels, went to investigate the scene, took time to check for relevant details, talked to his neighbors, looked up his background to see if there was anything suspicious—and the way she talked made it sound as if she had to hunt down his family without having their contact information. You may not consider it serious, but it certainly isn’t funny.”

“Olivia meant a different kind of serious,” I explained. “Not the not-funny kind of serious.”

Big Jacky stopped and looked at me. “What other kind of serious is there?”

I had to think about that.

Jacky unlocked the doors, and we all piled in. Olivia claimed the front this time.

“Ansel has put in due effort,” Jacky said. “It isn’t her fault there was nothing for her to find.”

“We should have told her about Emerra’s vision,” Olivia said. “She doesn’t think there’s anything wrong!”

Jacky started the car. “You’re forgetting the ‘obvious.’”

“What obvious?”

“She said there were no ‘obvious’ signs of a struggle. Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but it sounded to me like she wasn’t convinced either way.”

“Then what can we do to convince her?”

“We’ll have to ask around and see if there’s anything she missed.”

“You think we could find something the police couldn’t?”

“I think that by showing up, we’ve quadrupled the number of people actively working on the case.”

As Jacky pulled out of the parking lot, I heard a quiet woof coming from my pocket. Conrad was texting me.

His notification sound used to be a howl, but then he’d sent me a link while we were in the same room, and when he heard it, he made me change it.

I pulled out my phone.

Igor wants to know if you’re going to be home in time for dinner.

I sighed as I typed: Fraid not. It looks like we’re going to be here for a few days.

K.

“K,” he says. Hardly.