“So that leaves…” I started, trying and failing to do the math in my head. Math had never been my strong suit.
“Twenty-five,” Jack finished. “Most of them were let out years ago, but two were released in the last three months, and those are the ones we want to focus on.”
“So who are they?”
“Both wolf shifters. Adolpho and Raoul Lupo,” Jack said.
“Are they from here?”
“No. They live in a paranormal town in Arizona. I’m going to head down there now to try and interview them and see if either one of them could have done it.”
“Should be pretty easy. The portal guards will probably recognize them if it was them,” I replied.
“Exactly what I was thinking. It’s like I do this for a living,” Jack said. “I’ll be back later. What have you got?”
“Files on all the open permit applications here in town,” I replied. “Honestly, significantly more boring than getting to go interview two ex-Spellcatraz prisoners. What were they in for, anyway?”
“Robbing a bank.”
I let out a low whistle. “Why don’t you take the files on the boring people here in town and I can go to Arizona? I want to get some sun on my face, anyway.”
Jack glared at me. “Absolutely not. Do you know how much trouble I would get into if anything happened to you? You can stay here with Andy and look through the safe files. Trust me, it’ll be good for you.”
“Who made you my boss? I can go to Arizona if I want.”
“You are not coming, and that’s final. Besides, you don’t know where in Arizona, so I’m leaving now, and you can’t follow.”
Jack pulled out his wand and cast a quick invisibility spell before I had a chance to stop him, and I knew he would have run out of the room to get away from me.
I sighed, and Andy laughed. “Looks like you’re stuck with me today.”
Ok, things could have been worse.
Chapter 9
“Alright, so we have to go through these files,” I told Andy, splitting the pile into two and handing him around half of them. “They’re all the open permits. Apparently, if there were any disagreements, Rudoldir was the one who would sort them out.”
“Ok,” Andy replied. The two of us opened our files on the top. Mine was for the local bowling alley that wanted to get a liquor license.
“Oh yeah, I totally want to rubber-stamp this one,” I said.
“What is it?”
“The bowling alley wants to serve beer and hard liquor.”
“How does that relate to the case?”
“It doesn’t, but it would personally make me very happy.”
Andy laughed good-naturedly. “Alright, well, put that one in the pile for later.”
The more of these applications I read, the more I started to sympathize with Jundordir. This stuff was boring. How on earth Rudoldir loved this sort of thing and read up about the rules for fun was beyond me.
“Ugh. There are so many acronyms and minute laws being referenced here that I have no idea about,” I muttered after a couple of minutes of trying to make sense of one of the applications.
“You don’t strike me as a student of bureaucracy,” Andy replied with a wink.
“You’re right, there,” I answered. “I mean, William explained to me the importance of what they do, but you couldn’t pay me to deal with it. It’s just so boring. Plus, all of these seem pretty simple. How about you? Do you have anything interesting?”
“Well, there’s one application here that already has six complaints on file from people who want the application to be denied.”
“That could be interesting, what is it?”
“An application to open a warehouse and factory on the outskirts of town. They want to build it on what’s currently an empty parcel of land.”
“Really?” I asked, grabbing the file out of Andy’s hands to have a look. “That’s definitely weird. There hasn’t been a real industrial area in town in years. The old ones all shut down. The closest thing we have to manufacturing here right now is Spells and Smells where they make the product on the upper floors of the building.”
But sure enough, the application was for an industrial building to be built on a plot of land that was currently vacant. I pulled out my phone and punched in the address: it was right next to the old warehouse that Vernon Montgomery wanted to turn into condos.
The listed owner of the property was a shifter, Daniel Lions. “I think Grandma Rosie actually dated this guy,” I said to Andy, who smiled.
“Small towns, hey?”
“Well yeah, and Grandma Rosie is a bit special.”
“Do you know anything about him?”
“No. I know when they dated it caused a huge scandal, what with a witch dating a shifter. It would be frowned upon now, but this was back in the sixties or seventies when it would have caused an even bigger uproar. I’m pretty sure that was the whole reason Grandma Rosie dated him.”
“Your grandmother sounds like a character.”
“That’s one way of putting it. Listen, why don’t we go have a chat with Andrei? He should be up and about since he’s trying to get his restaurant open.”
“Sure,” Andy replied. “That sounds good. You can tell me what you know about him on the way.”
By the time we walked to what would be Nueva Trattoria, I had told Andy everything I knew about the vampire, including what I had learned from Ilona.
“So he’s a piece of work,” Andy replied.
“That’s the impression I get. I guess we’re about to find out.”
Nueva Trattoria was located in a small shop near the lake that had formerly been the home of a witch’s supply shop that had closed down a couple of years ago and had laid empty ever since.
The German-style building, white with stunning black shutters that made it stand out on the street, already had a sign hanging in a gorgeous coral-colored script on a black background stating the name of the new business.
It was gorgeous and classy, and I was very disappointed that the owner was
