“Sure,” Bellatrix replied. “A few weeks ago there was a wizard who came in who was pretty upset. He was trying to change the zoning on a piece of property he owned from commercial to residential so that he could convert the space into condos.”
“Do you know the wizard’s name?”
“Vernon Montgomery,” Bellatrix replied. “He’s in here a lot.”
“Oh, I know of him,” I said, nodding. Vernon was one of the main property guys in town. He worked as a real estate agent and as a low-volume developer.
“Those are the only two problems I’ve heard of recently,” Bellatrix said.
“Who else works in the office?” I asked, and she looked behind her.
“Well, there’s me, of course. And then there was Rudoldir. Then there are two other elves who work in here. Fjordir has been working in this office for years and years. He and Rudoldir got along just fine. They understood each other super well. And Rudoldir never had a problem with the fact that Fjordir was married to a vampire. Jundordir, on the other hand, is a different story.” Beatrix stole a look backwards to make sure he wasn’t eavesdropping on the conversation, then leaned in and lowered her voice.
“Jundordir hasn’t really fit in here very well. He’s not exactly the hardest worker, and Rudoldir didn’t have a lot of patience for him. I got the impression that Jundordir was tired of constantly having his boss on his back. Of course, if he actually did his job properly, there would have been no reason for Rudoldir to be on his case all the time. But you didn’t hear that from me.”
“Got it.”
“Then there’s a wizard who works here as well, William. He does anything we have that requires magic, just kind of an all-around helper. He seems alright; I’ve never really seen him and Rudoldir butt heads at all. He does his job, and he does it without complaining, which makes him a saint compared to Jundordir.”
“Ok, thanks,” I said. “And that’s everyone?”
“Yes,” Bellatrix replied with a nod. “But no one in here could have done it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Well… they just… they all seem like nice paranormals. I can’t believe any of my coworkers would have actually killed Rudoldir. He was a tough boss, but he was fair, and he always gave you whatever days you wanted off for vacation, even if it made life more difficult for him. I can’t imagine anyone working here would have hated him so much as to kill him!”
I gave Bellatrix a friendly smile. “It’s probably no one who works here. But I have to check out all the avenues.”
“Of course, of course,” she replied, visibly relieved. “Please, go ahead. I’m not sure that anybody here is going to be getting that much work done today.”
I nodded, thanked Bellatrix for the help, and walked past her into the open-plan office, wondering if I was about to talk to a killer.
Chapter 7
Fjordir and Jundordir were the least likely to have killed Rudoldir. He wouldn’t have been able to sense their rage with them being elves. It wasn’t completely outside the realm of possibility that they had hired someone to do it and that the paranormal they employed used rage to convince themselves to murder Rudoldir, but I found it unlikely.
Still, unlikely didn’t mean impossible. I’d certainly been taken aback by the paranormals who had turned out to be killers in the past, and I wasn’t about to let these ones slide simply because the odds were against them.
I made my way to Jundordir first. He was sitting at his desk, but instead of having his face buried in the computer monitor, he was leaning back in his chair, typing away on his phone.
“Having a nice chat with someone?” I asked casually, grabbing a chair from an empty desk and sitting across from him.
“Who are you?” Jundordir said with a scowl. He barely glanced away from the screen for a second to look at me before burying his face back in it.
“I’m the person Rudoldir hired to find his killer,” I replied.
“He can’t have hired you; he’s dead,” Jundordir said matter-of-factly. Obviously he wasn’t especially broken up by his boss’s death.
“He hired me before he was killed, genius. Now, I have some questions for you.”
“I’m busy.”
I pulled out my wand and cast a quick spell, making Jundordir’s phone fly out of his hand and up to the ceiling where it stuck. He looked up at me and scowled.
“What did you do that for?”
“So you’d pay me some actual attention,” I replied. “I’m investigating your boss’s murder, so stop texting whoever you’re texting and answer my questions. The sooner you do that, the sooner you’ll get your phone back.”
“Why should I answer your questions, anyway? You’re not an Enforcer.”
“No, but I’m working with the Enforcers, and if they hear that you’re making my life trouble as I try and solve a murder, they’re not going to look on that too favorably, don’t you think? Personally, I’d rather the Enforcers know I was cooperative.”
Jundordir considered my words for a minute before letting out a grunt that I supposed meant it was fine to ask him questions. He was so immature for an elf; I wondered how old he was.
“What was your impression of Rudoldir?” I asked, and Jundordir shrugged.
“I don’t know. He was my boss, not my best friend.”
“Obviously. Do you know of anyone who would have wanted him dead?”
“Wouldn’t have a clue. It’s not like I spent my time talking to him. He was older than dirt – I’m actually pretty sure that one of the islands in Hawaii is younger than he is – and he acted like it. The only thing that interested the dude was talking about the law. And not like in a cool theoretical sense either, like how the idea of justice has changed over centuries in different civilizations. He just wanted to discuss things like whether or not
