Bell(e)s in the Woods - 2. Tuesday, April 22, 2025 (II)

~The Lawyer~

After only a few months, I still didn't really know my way around Quincefield, but Grandpa had said at lunch the Bells lived in a good neighborhood. However, looking at the wild mix of freshly renovated and shabby facades of the tall apartment buildings in this street, I couldn't agree with him.

The house where the Bells had their apartment was a dreary beige, but the balconies facing the street were decorated with a brightly colored mosaic pattern. The building entrance had a large dirty glass front behind which stood a few plant pots—I hoped for the plants' sake they were plastic—and the elevator appeared as if it had already lived through World War II; fittingly, a swastika was scratched into one corner.

At least I arrived safely on the sixth floor, even if the squeaking had been worrying. Opposite the elevator, an apartment door opened directly, flooding the gloomy hallway with bright light.

“Mr. Upfield?”

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Bell.” I stepped closer and, as expected, Mrs. Bell seemed surprised at my sight before she regained her composure and gave me a stiff smile.

“Please, come in.” She stepped back, making a welcoming gesture under which her beige oversized cardigan swung open, revealing a pale green ensemble made of fluttery fabric; it didn’t necessarily look suitable for the street.

“Thank you.” Two steps and I was standing in a strange T-shaped room with dark, heavy furniture which seemed to grow out of the dark floor of the same color; they gave the space something oppressive, suffocating. Bright light reflected off the white walls, flashing in every possible corner where glass and chrome elements sat awkwardly out of place.

Mrs. Bell was barefoot, her black hair tied in a messy bun, and she wore plain glasses on her beak-like nose, which she slightly adjusted stepping next to me. She pointed to the round, massive dining table at the foot of the T, decorated with a - by comparison tiny - Easter arrangement. “Please, have a seat. Coffee? Tea?” Her voice wasn't as scratchy as it had been on the phone, but it was still unpleasant to the ear.

“Still water, thank you.” Hesitantly, I placed my briefcase on a chair and watched her hurry into the kitchen off to the right.

On the other side, a door opened and a man in an elegant dark gray suit stepped out. The epitome of a blond surfer boy, even if he had outgrown his wild years. Fanboy squeals rang in my head until I remembered Grandpa saying that Michael Bell had gone to school with my Uncle George. Uncle George was older than my father, but my goodness, this man explained without words why Daddy kinks existed.

“Mr. Upfield...” Mr. Bell's voice was warm and soft, his smile charming, and I shook his hand while my stomach did a backflip.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Bell.”

His smile faded the moment I heard Mrs. Bell coming out of the kitchen. The couple exchanged a cold glance before Mrs. Bell set down a tray with glasses and a sophisticated carafe filled with still water.

For a moment, there was a tense, almost frosty silence, and I felt incredibly out of place until Mr. Bell pulled out a chair—it screeched across the floor, and Mrs. Bell and I flinched.

Reaching for my bag to take out a notepad and pen, I said, “Perhaps we should—”

“Mr. Upfield,” Mrs. Bell interrupted me directly, “this morning we were informed by the police that our daughter Kate's roommate has reported her missing.”

I sat down—or rather, plopped down on the chair, almost losing my grip on the briefcase—and swallowed. “I'm sorry to hear that. But the police—”

“The police are doing what they can, of course,” Mr. Bell interrupted me from the other side. He waved his hand dismissively. “The problem is something else.”

“The problem is that our daughter is missing,” Mrs. Bell said harshly.

“The problem is,” Mr. Bell said uncomfortably loudly, clearly to silence his wife, “that the police are giving far too much information to the public.”

Inwardly, I rolled my eyes. There sat this politician, a small fish in a big pond, with only his own public image in mind. “The public is usually the best source of information,” I pointed out, but again he dismissed my words.

“You see, Mr. Upfield, it's different for someone in the public eye.” With a forced smile, he pointed to himself, which Mrs. Bell commented on with a quiet snort. “Who's to say that somebody who wants to harm us didn't kidnap Kate? My political opponents? Racists? The anti-magic faction? Hm?”

l opened my mouth, but didn't get a chance to answer.

“No, Mr. Upfield, the public mustn't hear about this. No AMBER Alert, no press conference, no calls for cooperation—”

“What my husband is trying to say in far too many words,” Mrs. Bell interrupted coolly, “is that we ask you to cooperate closely with the police and control what is released to the public. For the safety of our daughter.”

“Control the narrative.” Mr. Bell smiled again, and suddenly I was reminded of Homelander from The Boys.

The tip of my tongue twitched over my dry lips, and I noticed the tray with glasses and carafe had been left untouched. “Mr. Bell, the police have protocols they must follow,” I said seriously but carefully. “I can’t go and tell them—”

“We can’t let my political opponents take advantage of the situation!”

“You only ever think of yourself!” Mrs. Bell exploded from one second to the next, and I winced. “Our daughter is missing! In danger! And all you can think about is your career!”

“If you could just stop for a second trumpeting how wonderful your Native American daughter is as a witch—”

Before I could blink twice, I sat in the middle of a shouting match between the spouses. Either they had forgotten about me or they didn't care, but if one of them wanted to file for divorce despite the potential damage to their image, I would not make myself available.

~The Detective~

The QFPD had a handful of unmarked chargers they made available to the detectives, and because Harry found my driving style too aggressive, he almost always drove. Accordingly, I was kind of looking forward to driving now, but just as Warren and I entered the parking lot, my phone buzzed.

I glanced at it—a message from Jonah referring to data in the cloud—and handed the car keys to Warren with a sigh.

He grinned like a cheeky schoolboy before clearing his throat and deciding better. “Anything helpful?”

“I'll see in a minute...” But first, I got in and buckled up.

While Warren drove across the parking lot and entered the streets, I checked what Jonah had sent me. He and Nico—though mainly Nico—were up to their ears in a complicated fraud case from Massaro and Johnson, so detailed analysis was definitely not to be expected.

“Jonah has some initial results from the street surveillance. Kate left the hospital residential tower parking lot at 9:17 a.m., and the image is clear enough to identify her.”

“So she left the apartment alone and most likely voluntarily,” Warren remarked. “Although, of course, someone could be lurking in the back seat.”

I snorted with amusement. “Are you sure you have a realistic idea of your own job?”

“Expect the unexpected.”

“That's not how it works. You rarely have to think outside the box; it's more like a puzzle. Anyway, the license plate recognition system yelled hello twice more, both at central intersections, so you can't really tell which direction she went.” Well, we could rule out anything northbound, since the hospital itself was already on the northern edge of town.

“Do the times match an uninterrupted route?”

“I would say yes, she didn't take long. Otherwise, they located the phone, but the last registered ping came from her home address shortly after nine on Monday morning. She turned it off before she left.”

Warren made a strange sound. “Why would anyone turn off their phone or put it in airplane mode these days unless they had to?”

“Marian mentioned it's mandatory in the coven.”

“But Kate's witch stuff is still there. Would she just show up without it?” A valid point.

I put the phone away and sighed. “Since you went to school with the son, how well do you know the Bells?”

Warren snorted. “Jacob and I were friends, but it was more limited to school, projects and stuff. He was the intellectual type with the philosophy club and I was the jock.”

“But you hear things, especially in a small town like Quincefield.”

"Sure. But what can I say? The father, Michael, is a politics and geography teacher for high school, kind of an unpleasant personality, all fake friendly and stuff. And he's not a good teacher either. He put a lot of pressure on Jacob to go into politics too. The grandmother, Amanda, was the first female mayor of Quincefield, in the 90s I think, and the great-grandfather was governor of Montana."

“Of course that's supposed to be a family legacy,” I muttered.

“The mother, Susannah, is strict, but seemed to be very supportive. I think she's involved in pretty much everything that has to do with Native Americans in Montana. And Kate... well, I only knew her as a teenager, but I'd say back then she was... fickle.” Warren grimaced a little, but that could have been due to the traffic.

“Meaning what?”

“Oh, generally speaking, one day she wanted to learn how to crochet and open a shop. The next week it was pottery. Stuff like that. When the magic came through, she wanted to drop out of school and become a shaman in her mother’s reservation. I don’t know how they handled it, but she’s obviously not a shaman.”

His dry tone at the end made me snort.

"After high school, Jacob grabbed his college fund and went to Billings. Studied something social. We're still friends on Facebook, but that's more of a digital remnant. I have no idea if he's still in touch with anyone from back then, if he's in touch with Kate. But I can write him after we've talked to his parents."

“Keep that in mind.”

The elevator in the Bells' apartment building creaked and groaned enough to make me decide to take the way down on foot. Before I could read the nameplates next to the doors, one of them opened.

“Detective DeLaney? Please come in.” Mrs. Bell’s sharply cut Native face held the expression of someone who had bitten into a very sour and bitter lemon.

Stepping over the threshold, I held out my hand. “Detective Violet DeLaney and Officer Warren Ingram from QFPD.”

Her handshake was almost aggressively firm. “Susannah Bell.” She gestured into the oddly shaped room. “My husband Michael and our lawyer, Mr. Upfield.”

My eyebrow rose of its own accord, and along with the tight smile on Nathan's face, my gut feeling changed from “Kate will show up all right” to “something's wrong here.”

Michael Bell reminded me unpleasantly of Homelander from The Boys, and I was sure he wouldn't get my vote in the next election. “Detective. Officer. Please.” With the fake friendliness Warren had mentioned, he offered us seats at the large round table, which held a tray with unused glasses and a water carafe.

Whatever Nathan and the Bells had discussed, it couldn't have been pleasant.

“Water? Coffee?” Mrs. Bell sounded tense, but the lemon expression had disappeared from her face at least.

“No, thank you,” I replied politely, and Warren shook his head, his notepad already ready for action.

And then there was an awkward pause. Having directly a lawyer present was unusual, and I wasn't sure whether to address it or not—I missed Harry—, the Bells exchanged strange glances with each other and then with Nathan, and somewhere something beeped, probably a dishwasher or washing machine.

“Mr. and Mrs. Bell, I would like to start by saying that most people who are reported missing turn up again on their own,” I finally said. “Apart from being a young woman, Kate does not belong to a vulnerable group—”

“She is not pure white and she is a witch, Detective,” Mrs. Bell interrupted me coolly.

“She comes from an important family,” Mr. Bell added.

Oh yes, Harry could do this better.

“I just wanted to explain why we’re not issuing an AMBER Alert.” A frown crept onto my forehead.

Nathan cleared his throat, his gloved fingers clutching his pen. “No AMBER Alert, no press conferences, no public missing person reports, detective.”

“May I ask why we should refrain from cooperating with the public?”

“To ensure the privacy and safety of the family.” I had seen Nathan in private, how shy and insecure he could be, but his professional side was something else entirely.

“We'll see how far we can stick to that without hindering the search for Kate,” I said after a pointed pause. “The safety of the missing person must be our top priority.”

Nathan tipped his head in agreement, his face stern.

Warren shifted slightly in his chair.

“When was the last time you saw or spoke to Kate?”

Silence. Frosty glances between the spouses.

“Sunday,” Mrs. Bell finally said tersely. “At my in-laws’ Easter lunch. Kate left early in the evening because she wanted to take care of some housework.”

“You haven’t spoken since then?”

“No. We don’t have much contact.”

“Do you know if Kate has a boyfriend, a best friend? Any problems at school or in her coven? Which coven does she belong to?”

Again, silence, until Mrs. Bell finally answered, as if I were ripping every word out of her mouth. “The Watermill Coven. Her mentor is Phoebe, a nice woman, as far as I can tell. I don’t know anything about a boyfriend, her best friend is Helen. Or at least I think so. Kate hardly talks about herself anymore. Helen O’something. O’Donnell or O’Connor.”

“So she doesn’t talk about problems either?”

Her parents shook their heads.

That didn't help at all.

“What kind of person is Kate? Would she drop everything to help someone?”

Mr. Bell snorted. "Kate is fickle and hardly capable of sticking to a plan. It's a miracle she lasted so long in nursing school. However, I don't know if anyone has ever been important enough to her to make her rush into anything."

I raised a brow. “Do you mean in the sense of selfish, or simply that she doesn't let anyone get close to her?”

“Both,” said Mr. and Mrs. Bell in unison.

“Her brother Jacob, perhaps, in the past,” Mrs. Bell then said. “But since Jacob moved to Billings, none of us have had any contact with him, not even Kate, and she tried a lot. Helen was the new girl at school in her senior year and, surprisingly, became friends with Kate. Before that, Kate had driven everyone away with her constantly changing ideas and a certain...”— she hesitated— “arrogance about her magic.”

That was all we got from the parents apart dancing around empty phrases. I couldn't tell if they really didn't know any more, or if they were trying to hide something, but my gut feeling told me it was the latter.

As Warren and I finally walked down the stairs side by side, he asked, “What do you think, is there any truth to Michael's concern that this is—how do you say it—a profile crime?”

“Hmm. We can't rule it out. There are enough racists, magic haters, and sexists out there. But so far, it looks like Kate left the apartment with the intention of returning soon.”

“She left the milk out and didn't lock her bedroom door, even though Marian says she always does.”

“She may have simply forgotten about the milk, engrossed in her phone or something. And why lock the door when her roommate isn't there anyway and she plans to be back before she returns, right?”

“Hmm.” Warren pulled out his phone.

Slowing my pace to match his, we continued down the stairs. A strong smell of cleaning products wafted toward us and stung my nose.

Warren finally paused on a landing between the third and second floor. “Kate was in a hurry. Look here. I would have estimated the time needed to be ten minutes, Google Maps says thirteen. If the surveillance time stamps are correct, she only took seven minutes.”

“She was fast. If this doesn’t get her a ticket...” I quipped, then added, “I agree with you, it supports your idea that she left unplanned.”

With an approving hum, Warren put his phone away. “But if her parents are right... who would Kate just leave her breakfast for?”

~The Cursebreaker~

Staff Sergeant Winter had regularly called me in to assist with various cases over the past few years, and so far only one of them had been worth my time. My silver lining until now was that this was Vee's case.

In a foul mood, I trudged through the police station to her office, plopped down on one of the visitor chairs, and gave her a grim smile. “The last forty-eight hours have been extremely unpleasant, so tell me what I need to know about your missing witch so I can finally get some sleep.” Then I turned to greet Harry, but paused with my mouth open, the words of greeting shattering unspoken.

Warren Ingram was sitting in Harry's seat. Blushing fiercely, he raised his hand in an awkward gesture of hello.

“Nice to see you, Dust,” Vee said dryly. “Thank Winter. Do I want to know what's going on for you?”

Pointing my thumb at Warren, I turned to her. “Where's Harry?”

“Family emergency.”

“Oh. Send him my regards. And no, you don't want to know.” Easter, like so many opportunities for family gatherings, had its downsides. “So?” I rubbed my face, my stubble scratching my fingers.

Vee sighed. “The missing witch is Kate Bell, daughter of Councilman Michael Bell.”

“Oh, great,” I blurted out. “Sounds like Green will be showing up any minute to keep an eye on you.”

Vee and Warren snorted simultaneously, causing me to raise an eyebrow. “The Bells hired Nathan and are insisting on absolute secrecy.”

My second eyebrow went up. “Seriously?” That sounded suspicious or paranoid.

“Seriously.” Vee made a gesture half helpless, half frustrated. “At least we know that Kate belongs to the Watermill Coven and her mentor is named Phoebe. We'll talk to her next, at least if the coven representative lets us.”

“Is her name really Maggie Moon?” Warren asked, even though Vee clearly wasn't finished. “Like, is that some kind of coven name? Because, honestly, it sounds more like a porn star name for anal games…”

“Don’t you have anything else to worry about?” Vee wanted to know.

It really was just a kind of stage name—most witches were very protective of their privacy—but somehow I couldn't help putting Warren in the category of men who read the absolutely ridiculous titles of porn clips and had favorite actors.

“Of course, but come on. Moon—ass?”

“I get the connection, Warren, thanks, but please keep comments like that as internal monologues.”

Warren started to reply, but then looked down sheepishly.

“Thanks for the images I can't get out of my head now,” I remarked dryly, rubbing my eyes. Without knowing anything about straight porn, I would still say Maggie was definitely not a first-choice actress. “But to comfort you: it's not her real name.”

“How reassuring,” Vee said sarcastically. “We have almost nothing so far, so I'm hoping Kate's mentor knows more than her parents. We're looking for her best friend online. And otherwise...” She shrugged.

I returned the gesture. “I don't know Kate, but Phoebe is solid, as far as I can tell. Still young, the same age as us, I guess. But I can't say to what extent Maggie is willing to cooperate without concrete clues, grounds for suspicion, or the like. I sometimes get the feeling she decides that spontaneously.”

“Great.” Sighing, Vee ran her fingers through her hair, which fell unusually open onto her shoulders. “How about you take over the topic as our witch whisperer?”

Warren snorted amusedly, I indignantly. “Listen, Vee, I have family connections to the coven, but I still have nothing to do with women in general. Parker witches founded the coven and there is always at least one Parker witch, but they only let me play in the game because it’s advantageous for them to have the cursebreaker on their side. I'm definitely not a witch whisperer."

“You still know more about witches than everyone at the QFPD put together,” Vee retorted. “You know many of them personally. You can walk in there and chat with them. I have to deal with representatives.”

“And she's a magically gifted woman,” Warren interjected.

“When the cake speaks, the crumb is silent.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Winter certainly had something else in mind for you, but I have to use the resources I have.”

“So I'm just a resource?” I raised a brow skeptically, and Vee sighed in annoyance.

"Dust, please. Can we please remain professional?"

“Then I insist on Cursebreaker Percival.” Her dark glare made me chuckle. “No? Then as your gay best friend, I insist on being more than just a resource.”

Her right eye twitched before she threw her head back and muttered, “I want Harry back.”