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“But the incident at the bridal sale involved one of your employees.”
“Yeah, but our person didn’t start it. At any rate, Palmer was only at one of these events, so you can’t pin that one on him. Katie can’t do magic at all, so the best she could manage is being the mastermind.”
“Hmmm. Well. I do see your point, and it’s admirable how you defend your friend, but you’re hardly objective.”
“I am, however, being logical,” Sam said, his voice even harder than his stony skin.
I thought that the fact that someone involved with a magic watchdog blog had been present for the incidents I’d witnessed was interesting. There couldn’t be that many people in the city who believed magic was real and who were looking out for it, so what were the odds that they managed to be there when something magical happened? That suggested to me that there was some kind of setup going on here, someone using magic so it could be seen by them. But was someone wanting to make magic public using the watchdog people and deliberately staging events while they were present, or were the watchdogs actually magical, themselves, and staging the events so they could report on them? I was leaning toward the former, since I’d expect there to be better proof than they’d produced so far if they’d set it up themselves.
Then again, that’s what they’d expect us to suspect. Perfect video and photos of magical events would look like they’d been staged. If I were running some kind of campaign to make people aware of magic, I’d probably do it with out-of-focus photos and grainy video that just barely missed being clear evidence. Only when I knew I was getting a lot of attention would I come up with something that might be seen as absolute proof.
I guess I was still thinking like I worked in marketing, but it was nice knowing that I wasn’t wasting my skills. I was just applying them differently.
Sam tilted his head like he was listening to something, then said, “My people have come up with some surveillance video that might shed a little light on this.”
Merlin waved a hand, and a set of cabinet doors on the wall opened to reveal a flat-screen television. Another wave of the hand, and a picture came up, grainy security footage from behind where Owen and I had been standing. In fact, we were at the lower right corner of the picture.
The jaywalker started into the street, and the bus approached. Just as the bus left the ground, the picture froze. Sam flew across the room and tapped the screen with a talon. “See this guy here?” The image was indistinct, but it looked like a figure on the sidewalk was standing with one arm out in front of him, like he was doing a spell. “That may be our rogue wizard.”
“Hmmm, there’s nothing to indicate that he’s doing magic,” Jones pointed out. “You can’t tell whether he’s using a hand gesture or just pointing at the phenomenon.”
“But we can tell that Owen, here, isn’t doing anything,” Sam said, pointing to the right of the screen.
“Can you back up the video a few frames?” Owen asked.
Sam waved a hand, and we watched the whole incident move incrementally backward, to the point where the bus was still on the ground. “Ah, yeah, there it is,” he said.
“He’s got his hand outstretched even before the bus takes off,” Owen said. “He might be pointing out the jaywalker who’s in peril, but my guess is, this is our wizard. No one else shown on this video is doing anything, so unless there’s someone else who’s out of the shot, like maybe on the bus, I think this is the one we should focus on. Is there any way to clean up that video and identify the person?”
“We can only work with what we’ve got,” Sam said. “This is a bad camera. I’m not sure what good they think it does because you’d never be able to identify a person from what it records. We’re still looking for other footage, and we may find something better. If he just happens to be a bystander who took action, he may regularly be in that place at that time, so we’ll stake out the plaza for a few days and see what happens, maybe stage a potential accident and see if it’s just a guy with a superhero complex. If he’s going public on purpose, he may be harder to find again.”
“Thank you, Sam,” Merlin said. He turned to Jones. “Was there anything else you needed? As you can see, my people are well aware of the seriousness of these incidents and are engaged in an active investigation.”
“I’ll need formal statements from our eyewitnesses,” Jones said, shuffling through his paperwork. “Separately. Mr. Palmer first.”
I left the office and hung out by Trix’s desk. “That guy was Council, right?” she said, keeping her voice low.
“Afraid so.”
“Owen’s not in trouble again, is he?”
“Hard to say. It sounded like they want him to be.”
She shook her head. “Will they never leave him alone? You two might be happier if you move to your hometown after you’re married. They won’t care who he is there.”
I laughed at the thought. “You’ve obviously never met my mother. Besides, there’s not much magic there. He’d be miserable.” Actually, Owen was pretty mellow. He’d probably be happy wherever he was. But I’d spent a few months back home last year, and I knew I didn’t want to live there again, even with Owen.
The office door opened, and Owen came out. I couldn’t read his face, but when he smiled at me, I noticed that the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “That bad, huh?” I said.
“What? No. They’re ready for you.”
I didn’t think his denial sounded very convincing, which gave me a tense, queasy feeling in my stomach as I entered the office. I wasn’t worried about being accused of anything. I was more concerned with stopping myself from throttling Jones.
“Hmmm, Miss Chandler,” the bureaucrat said as I entered and shut the door behind me. “Please, have a seat.”
I was glad to see that Merlin and Sam were still there, so there were friendly witnesses. Then again, there would be witnesses if his “hmmm” made me snap and throttle Jones.
He rifled through his papers, came up with a form, and carefully wrote my name in the “witness” blank. His handwriting looked like something that would come out of a typewriter, complete with serifs. When he finally finished that, I braced myself for a question, but he moved on to write out the title of the incident and a case number. I readied myself for questioning again, but he filled in the blanks for Sam and Merlin as witnesses, his name as interviewer, and the date.
