Bell(e)s in the Woods - 1. Tuesday, April 22, 2025 (I)

~The Detective~

A satisfied smile crept onto my lips as I closed the case file, stuck a “Case Closed” post-it note on it, and set it aside to take to Staff Sergeant Winter later.

Harry wiped the notes from that very case off the whiteboard, his movements almost meditative, as if he wanted to put away the mental file at the same time. At least until we had to testify about the case in court.

The thought made my smile disappear. “What about our statements for the Peterson case?”

Harry paused, then removed the last few letters before turning to me and shrugging. “When I asked, Brick couldn't tell me anything more than that the start of the trial had been postponed indefinitely.”

As I nodded, there was a knock at the half-open door and Simon entered, waving a few papers. Although it wasn't even nine in the morning, his man bun was already quite disheveled. “The deep tox screen is done. Nothing. Nada. Niente. Just as expected.”

My partner and I sighed in unison. “Then the case will probably fizzle out,” Harry muttered, taking the documents from Simon.

“We didn’t expect anything else,” I replied. It was frustrating nonetheless.

Simon lifted the corners of his mouth in an apologetic smile, but his eyes remained cold. “I'm just playing by the rules.”

“Better that way.” I nodded to him while Harry snorted amusedly.

"That would be something, if we started manipulating data just to increase our success rate. Ah, excuse me." He fished his ringing phone out of his pocket.

Simon nodded to me and disappeared.

“Dad?” Surprised and frowning, Harry lifted the phone to his ear, and I couldn't help but mirror his frown, because Harry's father, himself a former cop, usually strictly adhered to only texting during official working hours.

“No, wait, Dad, slow down, what happened?” Harry's face changed from confusion to deep concern, and just watching him made my shoulders tense up. “Okay, stay calm, I'm on my way. Yes, I'm practically already there, don't worry.” Before he even hung up, Harry started to move. “Sorry, Violet, but my mom is in the hospital. I have to—”

“Don't worry, go and take care of them,” I interrupted him calmly as he became slightly frantic. Since he was usually such a deeply relaxed person, this was proof of how serious the situation was. “We have tomorrow off anyway.” We had been on duty for the entire Easter holiday period, so we were now entitled to some days off.

“I know. And today is really just paperwork, but—you know me. Oh, damn.” Something clattered to the floor on his side of the desk as his jacket sleeve swept across the tabletop.

“Take care of your parents,” I said as I stood up. “I’ll hold down the fort and let Winter know.”

“Okay, good, thanks.” His smile was shaky and he almost bumped into the doorframe, then I heard him running down the hall.

Slowly and deliberately, I exhaled. Sometimes, when we immersed ourselves so deeply in other people's dramas, we forgot we were human beings too, that we had families too. Therefore, it was quite startling when our humanity reminded us of itself in this manner.

I picked up the fallen pens, straightened the stack of files, and shut down Harry's computer.

Someone hurried past the office, uttering sounds of agreement and most likely carrying coffee, because the aroma wafted into my nose.

Coffee didn't sound bad, but first I had to let Winter know. But before I could take more than two steps toward the door, it swung open.

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

Staff Sergeant Florence Winter rushed in, a file pressed to her chest and an intimidated-looking Warren Ingram in tow. “Where's Gregory?” She didn't snap, but she was close. Our staff sergeant certainly lived up to her surname. In her late fifties, she was still a gorgeous woman, especially when she smiled, but just as snowy landscapes can be beautiful, up close they are one thing above all else: cold. Winter was cold, aloof, and often enough she let you know how frustrated she was to be stuck in a place like Quincefield.

“I was just on my way to tell you he left because of a family emergency,” I replied, feeling like a child under her stern gaze.

“Fantastic!” This time she really snapped, then shoved the file she had brought with her halfway into my face. “Here, a new case.”

“Um, excuse me, ma'am, but I have several days off starting tomorrow...” That's exactly why I refused to take the file.

“We'll postpone that,” Winter declared promptly. “All the other detectives have their hands full, but you don't, DeLaney. And before you protest about Gregory, I'm officially assigning Ingram to your office. The case is delicate, so bring in the cursebreaker.”

Her hand jerked, and this time I had no choice but to take the file. “Yes, ma'am.” I nodded obediently.

She gave me a scowl, then disappeared as quickly as she had come, her heels clicking an angry staccato.

Warren stayed behind and allowed himself a small sigh of relief. “What a dragon,” he whispered.

I nodded in agreement, then opened the file. “What do we have here?”

“A young woman has reported her roommate missing, Kate Bell,” Warren replied immediately.

“And? What's so delicate about that?”

“Um... She's the daughter of Councilman Bell. Green's best friend...”

“Oh, politician bullshit. Great, Harry's much better at this than I am.” I sighed in annoyance, but before I could turn away and go to my desk, Warren said hurriedly:

“The roommate is still there. I took her statement and, considering the family relationship, I thought I'd better let Winter know right away...” He bit his lower lip.

After another sigh, I nodded. “All right, bring her in.” It saved us the trouble of going to her.

Warren hurried away.

Each detective pair had access to the pool of officers when in need, but normally each team also had two or three officers who were exclusively assigned to them. In Harry's case, that was John Franks, but the others had dissolved their association when his old partner took early retirement. And I simply couldn't stand any of the officers who had approached me about working more closely together—or vice versa—for various reasons.

Warren Ingram was the pleasant exception. He had helped with my move, which I had organized out of nowhere just under four weeks ago, and then hung onto my coattails, but in a comfortable way. At just 25 years old, he didn't have the most experience, but he was a promising bright young thing who may have lacked manners at times, but that could be worked on.

The report he had written was short and not very exciting. Kate Bell, 23, third-year nursing student, witch, residing in one of the hospital's residential towers. Last contact Monday morning, or about 24 hours ago.

The fact that she was the daughter of Councilman Bell meant nothing to me; I didn't follow local politics that closely, but Warren's remark that he was BFF with Mayor Antonia Green was unpleasant. Green was far too fond of interfering in police work. And missing persons cases weren't my favorite anyway.

I re-tied my ponytail—cursing the hair tie, which was already worn out—and looked up when there was a knock and the door opened.

Warren was back, with a young woman in tow who was limping slightly. “Detective, this is Marian Abbott.”

“Good morning, Miss Abbott. I'm Violet DeLaney, detective here at the QFPD. Please, have a seat.” Smiling politely, I pointed to the chair in front of my desk.

“Thank you,” she murmured and sat down carefully, her face twitching briefly as if in pain. “Marian is fine,” she added.

“Okay, Marian. You reported your roommate missing. I know Officer Ingram has already taken a statement, but please tell me everything about it again. Who is your roommate and why do you think she’s disappeared?”

Warren, who had taken the second chair, pulled out his notepad and seemed more than ready.

“Yes, well...” With a nervous smile, Marian brushed her reddish-brown hair behind her ears, which obviously didn't want to be tamed by the eye-catching white hair clips. “My roommate is Kate, Kate Bell. She's twenty-three, a witch, and like me, in her third year at nursing school. We're in the same class.”

I nodded encouragingly when she paused.

“I last saw her on Thursday evening before Easter when she drove me to the train station. In her car, I don't have one. We last spoke yesterday morning. We texted.” Marian fumbled her phone out of the pocket of her jacket, which she had slung over her arm, tapped on it briefly, and then handed it to me.

It was the WhatsApp chat between the two of them.

Marian: Please remember to pick me up. Today, 9:34 pm I'll let you know if anything changes.

Kate: Sure thing.

Marian: I'm on the train now, everything's on time so far.

Kate's 'last online' was dated 9:03 a.m., Marian's last message shortly after 7 p.m. had not been delivered.

“When I saw that the message hadn't arrived, I called her, but her phone was off. I tried several times, but it was always off, so I ended up taking a taxi. I sprained my ankle at my mom's house, so walking was definitely not an option.” Marian said as I handed her back her phone.

“Did she have plans for Monday?”

“Not as far as I know.” She hesitated. “I mean, we've known each other for two and a half years, we live together, we study together, but we're not really friends. When she goes out, she says she's leaving, but not necessarily what she's doing.”

I nodded. “Okay. So she wasn't home when you arrived.”

"No. We have one of those daily tear-off calendars, and it's set to the twenty-first, which was yesterday. And on the table is her favorite cornflakes bowl, used, I mean. She forgot to put the milk back. Her door isn't locked, which is unusual because she always does that when she leaves the apartment. I looked into the room“ — Marian looked guilty — ”but I can't say if anything is different than usual. Her go-to shoes are gone, her shoulder bag, keys, and car keys. When she wasn't back by this morning and still wouldn't answer her phone, I thought I should do something."

I nodded slowly. Before I could formulate my next question, however, Marian continued:

“Kate doesn't have a boyfriend and doesn't have a particularly good relationship with her parents, her brother doesn't live in Quincefield, and her best friend wasn't around over Easter, so I don't know where she could have gone. She's not the type of person to just forget commitments like picking someone up or anything like that.”

“Kate's a witch, what about her coven?” I wanted to know.

Marian shrugged. “They're terribly secretive. I don't even know which one she belongs to. Admittedly, they have to turn off their cell phones when they enter the coven grounds, but her bag with all her witch stuff is in her room.”

“Okay.” I nodded again. “You're saying she doesn't have a good relationship with her family?”

“No. Her father is a councilman, apparently very close to the mayor. I'm not interested in politics, to be honest, and Kate doesn't want to talk about it either. She sometimes complains about her mother when she starts with the Native American stuff again.”

“Meaning?”

“Oh, um...” Marian looked embarrassed. “Kate's mother is originally from one of the reservations. But Kate isn't really interested in her roots. Anyway, her family is kind of taboo.”

“I see. Do you know her best friend?”

“Helen. I've seen her a few times, but we haven't really interacted. I don't know her last name or anything.”

“Does Kate have problems at school, with teachers or classmates? Do you know of any problems in the coven?”

“There's a girl in the coven named Madeleine who she has problems with. Some kind of rivalry? I'm not sure. And at school...” Marian shrugged. “She really wanted to do her ward rotations at the MID, but she was never accepted. She harbors a silly grudge against everyone who was or is there. But other than that, I don't know anything else.” For a moment, it seemed as if she wanted to say more, but then she refrained.

“What kind of person is Kate? Open, reserved, helpful...?”

Marian snorted in response. “Helpful, yes, reserved definitely, serious. Reliable, I would say. I don't know why she would just ditch me.”

I asked a few more questions, Warren chimed in with a few questions and ideas, then I accompanied Marian to the lobby. Back in the office, the smell of coffee greeted me – Warren was holding a cup and there was a second one on my desk.

“Thanks.” I plopped down in my chair and brushed my hair out of my forehead before stirring with one of those awful biodegradable pseudo-plastic spoons which weren't designed for heat and had already lost half their shape in the cup.

We sipped in unison, then Warren cleared his throat. “What do we do now? Sending out a search party sounds ridiculous when we don't even know where to start.”

“It is,” I confirmed. “On TV and in books, missing persons cases are usually highly dramatic, but as long as the missing person isn't in a high-risk group, there's not much we can do right away.”

“So young women aren't a vulnerable category?” Warren raised an eyebrow skeptically, and I couldn't help but grin.

“Well, in a way, yes. But not according to protocol.” I let the grin fade. “Kate is neither physically nor mentally impaired, has no addiction problems, no obvious enemies or stalkers... She is neither a minor nor elderly. She is a completely normal young woman.”

“Who has disappeared.” Warren frowned and I gave him a helpless gesture.

“That's how it looks from the outside. What does the protocol say we should do now? Or what would you do now?” The opportunity seemed favorable to help him grow as a cop, so I took advantage of it. Maybe it would help me overcome the frustration slowly but surely building up inside me because Winter had just dumped this case on me when I was already mentally enjoying my days off.

Warren took a long moment to gather his thoughts, and I let him, sipping more coffee. Finally, he took a breath. “Inform the parents. The Bell family is well known in town. I went to school with the older son, Jacob, but Marian's right, he lives in Billings now and has completely disengaged. But the parents are going to make a big deal out of this.”

“Great,” I muttered.

Warren raised one corner of his mouth. “Um, Marian mentioned there are no classes today, but maybe someone from the administration is at the school. But—no, we don't need the administration, we need the teachers. Tomorrow, then, I guess?” He looked at me questioningly.

“We can still call and ask if any of the teachers are there.”

He nodded eagerly. “The coven. We need to find out which coven she belongs to. At twenty-three, she’s probably still a novice, so we could talk to her mentor. See what the rivalry is all about. And we should find her best friend Helen. Either through her parents or social media or something.”

I nodded encouragingly.

“Traffic surveillance is terrible in Quincefield, but we can have them look for the car. The dorm parking lot has cameras, so we can definitely tell when she left the premises. We'll have the IT guys search for all the information there is on her. In the apartment and her room, we could look around, but don't touch anything without a warrant. And then, um...”

I nodded and finished my coffee.

Warren searched for more ideas, chewing on his lip. In the role of student, he seemed far less confident than his usual self as an officer.

“Winter said we should bring in the cursebreaker, so we have to call him too.”

“What does the cursebreaker have to do with it?” Warren asked, frowning. “Just because she's a witch?”

“Prestige? PR? What do I know.” I shrugged; it was a good question. “But if Winter says to, we’d better do it.” Dust had good connections to the Watermill Coven, but as long as we didn’t know which of the two covens in town Kate belonged to, that didn’t help us.

Warren nodded hesitantly.

“First, I'll ask the parents for a meeting, and you can start the IT search. Then we'll see.” I sighed inwardly. Missing persons cases are better than murders, but just as often as the missing person simply reappears by themselves or is found alive, it ends with a dead body. And I could really do without that.

~The Lawyer~

My office felt wrong. Probably because it had been my grandfather's office. The heavy, bulky furniture alone made me feel like an impostor or someone in trouble. But I didn't want to just order new furniture either; it seemed disrespectful.

With a sigh, I leaned back in my desk chair and closed my eyes for a moment. The rest of the courtroom adrenaline was still rushing through my veins, even though it had only been a lengthy opening hearing; courtrooms simply had that effect on me—they weren't my favorite playground.

Angry voices drifted in from the office next door, disturbing the inner calm I tried to find.

With another sigh, I turned my attention back to the reality in front of me. While the computer booted up, I unbuttoned my shirt cuffs and took off my gloves, wiggling my fingers and rubbing the imprint of a seam.

Something on the computer pinged—the calendar with updates, or the email program—but my stomach growled louder. It was only eleven, so there was still time until lunchtime, but the adrenaline was burning my energy.

Without energy, no good work; without good work, no money; without money, no life. So I leaned to the side to open my snack drawer and paused when my love handles stretched my shirt. I just couldn't get rid of them, and snacking on cookies now wouldn't make it any better, but my stomach was damn loud.

Warren asked you out on a date even though you have a few extra pounds.

My fingers brushed the cookie package, I hesitated, my guilty conscience nagging at my sugar craving. A buzzing sound made me flinch.

The buzzing came from the internal phone, and half relieved, half caught, I stared at the flashing red light for a few seconds before picking up the receiver. “Yes?”

“Hey, Nathan.” Rosie, the younger, nicer, and above all more competent of our two secretaries, sounded stressed. “Sorry to bother you, but when you came in, I was on the phone. Mrs. Bell asked for a call back, it's urgent.”

I blinked at the keyboard. “Which Mrs. Bell?”

Rosie hesitated with her answer long enough for me to wonder how big my name memory gap was once again. “Susannah Bell, the councilman’s wife.”

“Should that mean something to me?” I asked cautiously. “Have I forgotten something?”

“No, I don't think so...” Well, now Rosie had obviously remembered that I hadn't grown up here and therefore didn't know everyone who thought I, as an Upfield, should know them. "Michael Bell is one of the city councilmen, Mayor Green's right-hand man. His wife asked me to call her back, it's urgent. But she wouldn't tell me what it was about. Should I call and connect?"

Sighing, I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “Sure...”

“All right.” And then a soft classical melody trickled through the receiver.

I sighed again. Any bets someone wanted an Upfield and then looked unpleasantly surprised when I showed up?

“Bell.”

I flinched when the name shot through the line. “Good morning, Mrs. Bell, Nathan Upfield here, you asked for a call back—”

“Yes. My daughter is missing. We are requesting a strategic consultation before we speak to the police.” Mrs. Bell’s rough, deep voice scratched in my ears.

Then I realized what she had said, and I shuddered. This didn't sound like it was going to be a relaxed chat. “Have you—”

“My husband is in a meeting right now. Can you be here at 2 p.m., Mr. Upfield?”

Taken aback, I reached for the computer mouse. “Just a moment, I've just come back from court and I'm not sure what the rest of my day looks like.” Of course, I clicked next to the icon first. When the calendar finally opened, fortunately there was only one other appointment scheduled for early evening. “Yes, Mrs. Bell, 2 p.m. is feasible.”

The last syllables had not yet left my mouth when she said, “Thank you very much,” and hung up.

Rolling my eyes, I pressed the button on the phone connecting me back to Rosie. “Hey, did Mrs. Bell give you her address?”

“Yes, she did. I’ll send her contact details to your phone. Should I reschedule any appointments?”

“Thanks. And no, not for now. But if her requested strategic consultation drags on, I'll let you know.”

“Sure thing.”

I hung up, my phone vibrating cheerfully on the polished tabletop under an incoming message.

A strategic consultation about a missing daughter before talking to the police...?

Somehow, this left a very unpleasant taste in my mouth, enough that I closed the snack drawer without another glance. And no less unpleasant was the dull feeling spreading inside me that the call had the potential to ruin more than just today.