Chapter 22 #2
“Oh, no. My mistake! Anyway, thanks for your time!”
I hung up and took another bite of my cereal.
I cleared Isaiah for the murders, and I had a few pages of notes on the course itself.
Other than Tim, Isaiah hadn’t been able to single anyone else out who’d been acting weird.
Certainly no one who’d had too many questions about the details of spells from the book.
“You did great!” Shannon’s head was close to mine where she’d been listening to the call. “I don’t know about the lying, but I’m very impressed. Marco would have been, too.”
I raised my eyebrows and sighed. “Should I just turn on the speaker? This is kind of creeping me out.”
“Only if you want.” Shannon raised her hands. “You’re the PI, here.”
The next few phone calls were much the same.
My image of the class became clearer. It was just esoteric enough that only magical-studies majors and minors wanted to take it.
Dr. Adelaide Woolworth, recently deceased, was a passionate, dedicated educator who wanted her students to be as invested in her subject as she was.
She brought actual artifacts to class, including ones bearing symbols similar to the one drawn on the incubus.
Her son, Dr. Mark Woolworth, was not as invested in the course or his students. He read lectures directly from PowerPoints and spent most of the time focusing on the ascendency of alchemy, his focus of study. Under him, Tim’s aggressive HAH tirades had gotten more frequent and less coded.
Acacia had been the student most likely to stand up to him. Everyone seemed to suspect she was the one who’d filed the complaint.
Unlike Isaiah, most students could name a couple of others who were very interested in studying the original spells Dr. Adelaide had brought into class. Unfortunately for me, none of them overlapped in their suspicions. Still, after talking to nine of the students, I could clear all of them.
That left only three I couldn’t get a hold of: Acacia, Tim, and Charlotte Evans.
“I liked him,” Shannon said, after I hung up on the last student. “Seems like a nice boy. He should go into research.”
I rolled my eyes up and shook my head. Shannon had labeled almost all the students “a nice kid.” The exceptions were a student who swore while on the phone with us and another one who made it clear she agreed with Tim’s HAH views, even though she was too polite to say it outright.
While thinking of my next steps, I entered a grocery order in on my phone, adding some vegetables at Shannon’s pointed, “A lot of carbs on your list, aren’t there?” Just after I pressed confirm, my phone rang, and I saw it was Charlotte Evans, my missing student.
“Zachary Byrd,” I said. “Office of Student Conduct.”
“Mister Byrd? This is Charlotte Evans. I got your voicemail.”
“Miss Evans!” I said. “I just had a few questions about a course you’re currently taking, Comparative Magical Practice and Cross-Cultural Roots of Power?”
“Is this about Acacia’s complaint?” Charlotte asked. “I’m pre-law and I helped her draft it.”
“Yes. We’re just hoping to get information from multiple sources.”
“I’m not sure my statement will be any different from the complaint,” she said. “I had the same experience she did. Although I thought she should include Professor Woolworth in it, too.”
“Adelaide Woolworth?” I clarified.
“Mark Woolworth. My family is mostly witches and warlocks, and he’s said enough derogatory things about witchcraft I thought... That is, I think he’s discriminating based on magical practice, which is illegal.”
“Did he do anything specific?” I asked. “Give you a worse grade?”
“No, it was just... when we were discussing witchcraft during the Roman Empire, he kept repeating if the Romans had practiced alchemy, a lot of the underlying problems wouldn't have occurred. He didn’t outright say witches were weak, but he said the coven power structure allowed for corruption and was equivalent to building a house on sand.”
“Huh.” I frowned. “No one else mentioned that.”
“They probably didn’t notice. It’s the sort of thing that sticks with me, I guess because I thought the microaggressions would end at college.” She paused. “I mean, it wasn’t just the Roman Empire stuff. It was any time he had a chance to, he was talking about the failings in witchcraft.”
I paused, but she didn’t give any more examples. “Did you want to file a report against him?”
She huffed and said nothing. After another long pause, I said, “Listen, how about I give you my fax number and if you want, you can send me anything else you think I should see.”
“A fax?” she asked, clearly puzzled.
I’d chosen a fax because I didn’t have time to create a fake UCSA email, but I had a quick answer for her, anyway. “Faxes are confidential. No chance of someone hacking it.”
“Fine,” she sighed. “I’ll fax you.”
“Thanks.” I listened for her to hang up.
When I put down the phone, I looked around, expecting to see Shannon cooing about what a fine young witch Charlotte was. But the apartment was empty.
“Shannon?” I called.
Someone pounded on the door. Jumping up, I checked the peephole and rolled my eyes. At least now I’d have groceries, I groused, opening the door for the delivery guy.