“How are we going to get in?” Sophie whispered as we got near. “It’s not like we can just walk over and open the door.”
“Shoot, I don’t know,” I replied. “Wait for someone to come in or leave?”
“Hold on, I got an idea,” Sophie whispered. A moment later, she dragged me right next to the front door of the police station. We waited there with bated breath for what felt like twenty minutes, but in reality was more like 45 seconds, when suddenly the front door opened. Taylor, Sophie’s boyfriend and a police officer here in Willow Bay, stood in the doorway and looked around for a minute, confused. Sophie dragged me into the police station behind him, both of us making sure not to brush past him by accident.
We stood in the corner and watched as Taylor eventually shrugged his shoulders and went back into the station. Sophie must have texted him to come out to the front of the station. That girl could be a genius sometimes, when she wanted to be.
Behind the receptionist’s desk was an open space for all the regular officers to work from. Taylor moved past us and sat down at one of the tables, and there was one other officer on duty as well. At the back of the room was Chief Gary’s office. The door was open, but there was no sign of him.
Sophie dragged me to the right, past the desks and past Chief Gary’s office. It seemed she knew the lay of the land here in the police station, much better than I did. I let her take me out to an area behind the offices. There was no one here, but there was a holding cell on the right and two doors on the left that I assumed led to interrogation rooms. I could tell from where she was that Sophie was peering into the interrogation rooms.
“She’s not here yet,” Sophie finally whispered.
“That must be where Chief Gary’s gone,” I replied.
“Let’s go look in his office, see what info he has,” Sophie said. I paused for a second. It felt like such a huge invasion of privacy to go wandering into Chief Gary’s office and looking at his things, but at the same time I also knew we had to find out as much as we could about the case. This was our chance.
“Ok,” I whispered. “But be careful! No one can know we’re here.”
Sophie and I raced back towards the office. Luckily, we didn’t see anyone, and in a minute we were in! Success!
Chief Gary’s desk was covered in papers. Seriously, I thought I was messy. I had nothing on Chief Gary. Sophie carefully shifted some papers around, looking for information, while I kept a lookout to make sure Chief Gary wasn’t on his way.
“Do you have to move the papers so much?” I asked at one point. “If anyone looks over here they’re going to know something’s up, and then we’re screwed.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not exactly the world’s most organized desk,” Sophie replied. “Hold up. There’s something here.”
“What is it?”
“An old arrest record. Wow! Antonia deLucca was arrested in 1989!”
“What for?”
“Ummm…” Sophie started, obviously scanning the old police report. Suddenly, I saw Chief Gary come in through the front door with Antonia.
“Shoot, they’re here.”
“Hold on,” Sophie hissed, and a second later I heard the snap of her phone camera. She had obviously just taken a picture of the report. I had to hand it to Sophie, she could think quickly on her feet sometimes.
“Come on,” I told Sophie. I kind of pulled her towards the door, and her hip hit the edge of the table. A whole bunch of papers went sliding off it and onto the floor.
“Shoot,” I muttered, looking around quickly. How on earth was this going to be explained away? I saw Chief Gary looking towards his office. He turned to tell Antonia to stay there, and that was when I saw my chance. I yanked Sophie towards me as I lunged towards the closed window and opened it. As I looked back, Chief Gary was turning and coming this way.
“Damn, why’d I leave my window open. Rebecca?” he called out to the receptionist when he saw what had happened to all his papers. “I have to interview Antonia here, do you mind picking these papers up and putting them back on my desk? I’ll organize them again later.”
Yeah, right. Those papers had never been organized in the first place.
We slipped out of Chief Gary’s office and followed him as he brought Antonia down to the area at the back and opened the door to one of the interview rooms. I sucked in my stomach as best I could as I slipped past Chief Gary, not daring to breathe.
Antonia sat down on a hard metal chair at the table, which was also made of metal, and bolted to the floor. This seemed excessive; after all, this was Willow Bay, not central Los Angeles. The walls were brick, painted in a blue-ish gray that I can only assume the police department got at a huge discount, because there was no reason anything should ever be painted in that color. It was fading and chipping away in parts; obviously it had been a long time since the room had been painted.
Sophie and I stood against the far wall as Chief Gary sat down in the chair across from Antonia and pulled out a notepad. What I wouldn’t give to see what he had written about this case! Still, I knew that literally reading over his shoulder was too big a risk. Way too big a risk.
Antonia had the look of someone who was absolutely not going to talk. With her head held high, she crossed her arms across her chest and glared at Chief Gary.
“So what was so important that you had to interrupt an old woman while she did her grocery shopping?” Antonia asked. She was spiteful and rude, but if I wasn’t mistaken, I did hear a little tinge of fear in her voice.
“I’m sorry, Antonia,” Chief Gary told her. “But we’ve come across some new information, and so I have some more questions for you.”
He waited for a minute, scribbling in his notepad, as if waiting for Antonia to give something up.
“Well?” she finally asked. I didn’t like Antonia deLucca, but I had to smile to myself. The old lady was the biggest gossip in town, especially with Andrea gone, but she was pretty good at keeping her mouth shut when the cops were around.
“We’ve come across an old police report from Las Vegas, from 1989.”
“Oh. Well, it took you long enough.”
“Would you like to explain what happened?”
“Not especially.” Antonia was making a show of looking bored, but I hadn’t missed that her eyes had widened slightly when Chief Gary mentioned the police report. She wasn’t expecting that.
“I have the police’s side of things. Would you like to tell me yours?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Well in that case,” Chief Gary sighed, “I have to ask you for an alibi for the morning Andrea Dottory was murdered. Where were you that day at 11:30am?”
“Picking on an old woman like this. I’m in my seventies! It’s indecent,” she muttered.
“Antonia, I need an alibi, please.”
She stayed silent for so long that I wasn’t sure she was going to answer Chief Gary at all. Finally, she spoke.
“I was at Betty’s,” Antonia said. “Enjoying a cup of tea. Which is what I should be doing now. You can check with Betty. Now, if I’m not under arrest, I’m leaving.”
“Fine. But please, stay in town.”
Antonia laughed a shrill laugh as she left the room and I instinctively looked over at where Sophie was, even though we couldn’t see each other. If Antonia really was at Betty’s, then she had a rock solid alibi for the time of the murder.
We slipped back out through the door, and five minutes later were back in the empty vet clinic.
“Videroa,” I said, focusing on Sophie, and in an instant she reappeared in front of me. She looked at her hands, amazed, as I did the same for myself.
“That was so cool. We need to do that again sometime. Remind me to yell at my mom for not giving me the witch gene.”