“Oh?” I asked. “What was Gloria asking about?” It wasn’t that this was part of the investigation. Gloria Melrose and Grandma Rosie had been mortal enemies since, well, a long time ago. Their rivalry had gotten even more heated when Grandma Rosie recently won the pie-baking competition for a record-breaking eighth time in a row, and Gloria had not been happy.
To be honest, I was just curious about what she was getting into next.
“She wants to start a familiar grooming company for witches and wizards and their familiars,” William replied. “She’s even bought a property to do it at, a small cottage a few blocks away from the lake. But the zoning on that space is residential right now, so she has to get the zoning changed.”
“Will she be able to?” I asked. “After all, will any of the residents nearby like having a bunch of dogs and cats around at all hours?”
“Well, she’ll have to make an application, during which time any of her neighbors will be allowed to dispute the plan,” William said. “Anyone in town is allowed to petition a grievance against it. She hasn’t officially filed her request; I think she said she was going to stop by today or tomorrow to do that. Then, anyone who has a problem has thirty days to file a dispute. Any permit requirements with a dispute would then go to an arbitrator, which was Rudoldir. I don’t know who’s going to do it now,” he added quietly.
“Wow, that’s quite the process.”
“Well, it is, but it also has to be fair to everyone. These aren’t just things we can change willy-nilly. Rudoldir understood that very well. He wanted to make sure that the town ran as well as it could and that everyone was as happy as possible under his purview. I liked him. It’s really too bad that he was killed.”
“Who do you think did it?” I asked, expecting to get the same answer as everyone else had given me, but William shrugged.
“Wouldn’t have a clue. It has to be work related for sure. If you want, I can make you copies of all the open permit applications that had been made. My guess is your killer is somewhere on that list.”
“That would be great actually, thanks,” I said.
“Sure. I don’t exactly have a lot of work to do here most of the time, so I’m always happy to get a bit of time away.”
William got up, and I stepped out of the office to let him pass – there wasn’t enough space for him to get past me since I was still basically standing in the door frame – and he went to another large cabinet. He pulled out a bunch of files, pointed his wand at them, and muttered a spell.
Straight away, the files flew into the air and split into two, like some sort of weird giant cell mutation. Then, they fluttered back onto the ground in two identical piles. William reached over and grabbed a bundle, handing it to me.
“Here you go,” he said. “These are all the currently open permit applications for both zoning and alcohol.”
“Thanks,” I said, and William nodded.
“Just do your best to find the psycho who did this, hey? Rudoldir was cool, as far as elves go. He didn’t deserve to die just because he was a bit of a strange cat.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said as I left the office. I had a lot of names to go through now, and as my phone binged in my pocket, I suspected I was going to be adding even more to the list. Sure enough, it was a text from Jack. He had gotten the list of prisoners who Rudoldir had sentenced and wanted to look it over with me. That was handy; I was sure he was going to want to look at these files, too.
The Enforcer’s office was just a couple of floors up in the building, so I took the stairs and headed to Jack’s desk. I was pleased to see Andy had joined him, and my heart skipped a beat as soon as my eyes landed on the Australian Enforcer. He was new in town, and while he was sexy as anything, I kept reminding myself that the last time I had given my heart to someone, I had been betrayed in the worst possible way. I wasn’t going to let that happen again.
“Hey,” I said, plonking my files down on the desk. “What did you find out?”
“We called Spellcatraz and they sent over the records,” Andy replied without skipping a beat. “It turns out Rudoldir presided over seven hundred and twenty-two appeals.”
I let out a groan. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“Unfortunately not,” Andy replied. “The bloke was bloody efficient, I’ll tell you that much.”
“No kidding. Please tell me most of them died in prison.”
“Well, that’s the good part. In fact, three hundred and seven passed away before being freed – most of them were witches, wizards, and shifters who were in Spellcatraz for murders and had been facing life sentences – and another three hundred and ninety are still rotting away while paying their debt to
