Sleeping with the Fishes (A Paranormal Cozy Mystery) (Willow Bay Witches Book 6)

by Samantha Silver

  “Well, what else am I supposed to do?” I replied with a casual shrug?

  “Oh I don’t know,” Charlotte replied, “Maybe leave it to the professionals?”

  “They’re just going to take her back to Africa and dump her anywhere. Lucy’s too young for that. She doesn’t know how to survive in the wild. She needs to be taken back to her mother, and if she’s rejected, to a sanctuary where she can be taught how to be wild, or live out her days in peace.”

  Charlotte shook her head. “Fine, but I’m not bailing you out if you get put in jail for harboring an exotic animal.”

  “That’s why Sophie’s my best friend and not you,” I replied, sticking my tongue out at her.

  “Yes,” Sophie fist pumped. “Now, how are we going to find those smugglers?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure yet. I wish that girl that dropped her off had given us more information.”

  “She was obviously terrified,” Sophie nodded. “My bet is she didn’t want her dad to find out she was the one who took his giraffe.”

  “Yeah, if he was willing to play fast and loose with animal smuggling, my bet is he’s the kind of guy who’s willing to play fast and loose with other kinds of laws, too,” I replied darkly. “That poor girl.”

  “What do we know?”

  “Well, we know she’s not from around here, but she must live a few hours away at most, since I don’t think she would have driven multiple days just to drop the giraffe off right here. So, let’s say she lives no more than four hours away from here.”

  Sophie nodded. “I think that’s a good assumption.”

  “Great, that only narrows our search down to one of a few million people,” I muttered, dejectedly.

  “It depends,” Charlotte said. “Where did she park?”

  “Right out in front of the clinic,” I replied. “I guess she didn’t want to walk a giraffe around town, either.”

  “Had Jason already been by to install the new security cameras he bought last night?” she asked, and my eyes widened.

  “Of course! Charlotte, you’re a genius!” I exclaimed, grabbing my phone and asking Jason to come over as soon as he could, and to bring his laptop or whatever he needed to see the security footage from my store.

  Chapter 6

  While I waited for Jason to show up I took over Sophie’s role of chopping up vegetables while she went to the bathroom. A moment later, I heard a small meow coming from my feet.

  Looking down, I saw a little cream kitten with gorgeous, deep blue eyes staring back up at me. It was Butters, one of the kittens Bee had rescued a few weeks earlier. She meowed at me again, this time raising a little paw and placing it back down on the floor. My heart melted as I looked at those adorable kitty cat eyes, looking up at me with such sadness, like I could make her the happiest cat in the world if only I’d just feed her something.

  “Awwww, you’re so cute!” I told Butters, eliciting another little meow from her. “I bet you want a treat, don’t you? Come on, let’s go over here and get you a little something.”

  I made my way to the cupboard where I kept the cat treats, when suddenly I noticed a flash of black disappearing down the hallway. Everything suddenly clicked.

  “Bee,” I said threateningly. “Come here, I saw you.”

  I stood there with my arms crossed for a full ninety seconds before my cat slowly sauntered into the kitchen. Of course she was going to take her time obeying me. “Yes? You wanted something?” Bee asked casually.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Do you want to explain to me why you were watching Butters trying to beg a treat out of me?”

  “Oh, I wasn’t doing that at all,” Bee told me, licking her paw.

  “Gee, that’s funny, because I could have sworn I saw you watching us, then as soon as you noticed me coming toward the hallway you ran off as fast as you could. You’re training your minions to get treats out of the humans, aren’t you?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

  “I’m teaching them essential life skills. I know you. You’re going to take my children from me. I’m going to make sure the Bee-hive knows how to survive without me when you finally take them.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You do realize Beyoncé has already claimed the name Bee-hive for her fans, right?”

  “Yes, and everyone believes Edison invented the lightbulb. History will show that it is the one with the greater marketing strategy who will go down as the most famous user of the name.”

  “And that’s definitely going to be you, not Beyoncé, right?”

  “Seeing as I don’t even know who that is, yes.”

  I laughed to myself. Bee was so haughtily confident, so perfectly certain of her own role as the queen of this household.

  “Well, tell the Bee-hive that they had better start Bee-having so I can find homes for them in a few weeks. Besides, you should be glad. They’re cute and cuddly now, but soon the kittens are going to be the cat equivalent of teenagers: moody and annoying. You get to skip that phase entirely.”

  “I don’t want them taken from me. You’re a thief. I haven’t yet had the time to teach them everything I know, to show them how to be cats in this human-run world. They need more time under my tutelage before I can send them out into the world and have them begin my plan to… never mind.”

  “Your plan to what?” I asked in my ‘warning voice’.

  “Nothing,” Bee replied, casually flicking her tail from side to side.

  I rolled my eyes. Knowing Bee, her plan was to get the kittens to take over the homes they were adopted into, and to wreak as much havoc as possible. I made a mental note to make sure the cats got adopted into homes who had experience with cats before, and preferably even already had adult cats.

  Just then, Jason walked through the front door.

  “What about Butters’ treat?” Bee called out to me as I made my way over there to greet him. Butters’ treat could wait, especially since I was now well aware that the attempt at manipulation had been a test from Bee. Jason leaned down and gave me a quick kiss before pulling his laptop from his bag.

  “What happened today that you needed the security footage for?” he asked. “I figured Matt Smith was killed before I installed it.”

  “Oh yeah, he probably was,” I replied. “It’s not for anything like that. Someone brought in a juvenile giraffe that was smuggled to the states from Tanzania and I’m trying to find the smugglers, but I need to find out where her dad lives before I can do that.”

  Jason’s eyebrows rose. “You know, for someone who keeps telling me how nothing interesting ever happens in this town, you certainly have your share of adventures.”

  “Well, it’s not like she was from Willow Bay. She just drove here so that the local vets couldn’t track her down.” I felt a pang of guilt at not being able to tell Jason everything. We were so close, and I loved him. I wanted to be able to tell him about my magic, which was such a major part of my life, but I knew I couldn’t. That fact had been gnawing away at me for a few months now.

  “Ok, so you’re thinking that there will be something on the security footage that will show her?” Jason asked as he opened his laptop on the dining table.

  “Exactly,” I nodded as Sophie, Charlotte and I all huddled around him to have a look.

  Jason logged into an online portal that immediately showed the footage from the three cameras. “I’ll give you a better lesson on how this works later. But basically, the website stores seven days’ worth of data; after that if you don’t save it, it automatically deletes it. What time do you want to look at?”

  “How about just before ten? That had to be around when she came in. And we need the camera looking out the front of the clinic.”

  Jason tapped a few things on the screen and the three cameras’ footage was replaced with a single screen showing the outside of the vet clinic. The timestamp on the bottom showed that it was taken at 9:55. Tapping the fast forward button, the time-stamp changed as the people on the screen began walking in fast-m
otion. Then suddenly, at 10:08, a truck stopped directly in front of the clinic.

  “There!” I exclaimed as the camera showed the girl getting out of the driver’s seat, looking around furtively, then taking Lucy out of the back trailer and making her way into the clinic.”

  “Shoot, you can’t see the license plate from this angle,” Sophie complained.

  “What about when she leaves?” Charlotte asks. “The back of the truck should be in the camera’s frame then.”

  Jason did some more manoeuvring with the mouse and we waited for the ten minutes to pass before the girl came back out. As soon as the truck drove away, Jason paused the video. Sure enough, we had the perfect view of the license plate.

  “Those are definitely Oregon plates,” Sophie said.

  “Agreed,” I nodded. “You can make out the tree in the middle.”

  “And there’s the number,” Charlotte said, writing it out on a post-it note. “Now we just need to find out who the car is registered to, and we can find out where the girl’s father lives and go from there.”

  “I thought you didn’t approve,” Sophie told Charlotte.

  “I don’t approve. I never approve of these schemes you hatch up. But since you and Angela are obviously going to do them anyway, and Jason isn’t on my side in these things either, I figure I might as well do what I can to stop you all from getting arrested.”

  I grinned to myself. “And it definitely has nothing to do with the fact that you want this giraffe to be sent back home to be with her mother,” I said.

  “Well, if our actions just so happen to help reunite them, then all the better. I think the odds are quite low, though.”

  “So how are we going to find out who the car is registered to? I mean, we can’t exactly go break into the DMV and login to their computers to find out,” I said.

  “That one is easy,” Jason said. “Chief Gary will have access to the same software. And if he’s good at his job–which he is–he has to at least question both of us about Matt Smith’s murder.”

  I nodded. “Yes. So we just have to come up with a distraction while one of us is being interviewed, and then quickly type in the license plate number into his computer and remember the address.”

  “See, this is why I need to be involved in this,” Charlotte said. “Your plan involves committing like, at least three crimes.”

  “They’re only crimes if you get caught,” Sophie said to Charlotte with a wink.

  “That is absolutely not how the law works,” Charlotte replied haughtily.

  “Well, unless you have a better plan, this is what we’ve got to go with. We’ll have a really good opportunity to access Chief Gary’s computer, and that’s basically our only chance of finding out the information we need.”

  Charlotte sighed. “Fine. But I’m not bailing you out when you get arrested.”

  “Which one of us should do it, though?” Jason asked.

  “Why don’t we just decide that whoever gets called for their interview first has a try. If it fails, the other person can give it a second attempt,” I suggested, and Jason nodded.

  “Good plan, I like it.”

  “Awesome, now stay here and have dinner with us,” I invited.

  “Well, I’m certainly not going to say no to enchiladas,” Jason grinned. “And I’m definitely not going to say no to whatever you have in mind for dessert.”

  “That part of the meal’s not going to be in the kitchen,” I winked.

  “Gross,” Sophie blurted out, ruining the moment, making Charlotte giggle while I glared at her.

  I tossed the vegetables I’d been chopping into the frying pan and grinned. There were worse ways to spend the night than with these three people.

  Chapter 7

  The next day dawned and it being Sunday, the vet clinic was closed, except for any emergency calls that came in. The phone call from Chief Gary came in just after nine. Luckily, since I had to be up early during the week, it meant that even “sleeping in” meant I’d been up for half an hour already.

  “Hello,” I answered the phone, Jason sleepily grabbing at my waist as I sat up in bed.

  “Hi, Angela. Sorry for calling so early, it’s Chief Gary.”

  “Hi Chief, what can I do for you?”

  “I was wondering if you could come in and have a chat with me, I need to talk to you about Matt Smith’s death.”

  “Sure, no problem. When would you like me to come in?”

  “Does eleven o’clock work for you?”

  “Of course, I’ll see you then.”

  “Great, thanks Angela.”

  I hung up the phone then gave Jason a kiss and dragged myself out of bed. Making my way to the kitchen, I threw some pancake mix into a bowl and added water, and started to make my favorite Sunday morning breakfast. Bee wound her way around my legs in a figure eight as she always did when I made pancakes–her way of going ‘hey just in case you forgot, I exist and I also like pancakes’–and I smiled down at her.

  “Good morning, Bee,” I said.

  “And what a lovely morning it is,” Bee replied. “Oh, you wouldn’t happen to be making pancakes, would you? Well, that’s lucky. Although I am giving you this affection simply because I adore you.”

  “Of course you are,” I smiled. Suddenly, from the hallway, four little kittens–Boo, Bilbo, Butters and Boop–all pounced into the kitchen and formed a line behind Bee, joining her in her affectionate walk around my legs. I couldn’t help but smile, even though I knew Bee was teaching them to beg; it was really cute, seeing my black cat leading the little cream ones, with the little ones following like little ducklings after their mother.

  Ok, they were adorable. Maybe I could wait another week or so before starting the search for their new homes.

  A few hours later, after everyone was up, showered and full of pancakes, Charlotte headed down to Portland for her classes, Sophie took Sprinkles out for a walk, Bee and Bee-hive disappeared to do whatever it was Bee was teaching them to do, and I headed downtown to go chat to Chief Gary. Jason got his phone call during breakfast; his appointment to chat with Chief Gary was at one that afternoon. Which meant, I was in charge of trying to get into Chief Gary’s computer and finding the address of the truck’s owner. I had memorized the license plate number over breakfast, and I was ready.

  I also knew that I wanted to get as much information about Matt Smith’s death as I could. After all, I was all too aware that Jason and I were the most likely suspects, and I wanted to see if I could dig up anything that could lead to the real killer.

  I decided to walk down to the police station; after all it was still a gorgeous day out and I wanted to enjoy the late summer for as long as possible before winter set in. With the sun’s soft rays on my skin and a gentle breeze keeping me cool, I made my way to the police station and greeted the receptionist who led me to Chief Gary’s office.

  The local police chief looked less stressed than he had during previous murder investigations; it seemed even he was getting used to the bodies that had been cropping up in the area recently. Still, his face was sombre as he greeted me and motioned for me to sit down, and on top of the full mug of coffee on the table he also had two take-away containers in the little garbage can next to his desk.

  “Thanks for coming in, Angela. You understand that I have to ask you a few questions, I hope.”

  “Of course,” I replied. I didn’t want to make this harder for Chief Gary than it had to be, and besides, I was innocent.

  “Good, I’m glad you get it, that this is nothing personal. I need to ask you where you were between the hours of eleven o’clock Friday and eight in the morning Saturday.”

  “I was in bed by ten thirty,” I replied. “My alarm went off at six-thirty, and I got up, made breakfast, then went down to the vet clinic to get ready for the day. I was at the hardware shop at eight, and I bought a cheap rug to cover up the damage.”

  Chief Gary jotted down my words while nodding. “Ok, thanks. Can anyone
really confirm that you were asleep?”

  “Well, Sophie and Charlotte were in the house, but they were in different rooms. So, not really.”

  “Ok,” Chief Gary said, his face frowning. “Can you confirm that you didn’t see Matt Smith again after our conversation?”

  “That’s correct,” I said. “I went back to the clinic, looked at the damage, chatted with Jason, Sophie and Charlotte then went home.”

  “Great. Well, thanks for coming in,” Chief Gary said, and I inwardly started to panic. I had honestly expected the conversation to last a little bit longer. Not only had I gathered absolutely no information about the murder, but I also had no idea how I was going to get Chief Gary out of his chair so that I could get access to his computer.

  “So it’s true he was murdered?” I asked. “Since you’re asking all these questions.”

  “Yes,” Chief Gary nodded. “He was murdered.”

  “Do you have any idea who could have done it?” I asked, as I suddenly came up with a plan. I just needed to keep Chief Gary talking for long enough that he’d take a sip of his coffee.

  He chucked in reply. “You know I can’t talk to you about an open investigation. But don’t you go sticking your nose in this one please, Angela. I know you’ve got a penchant for finding out who the murderers in town are, but I’d rather you stay safe.”

  “Don’t worry, I don’t plan on looking into this at all,” I replied with a smile. “I have a lot on my plate as well.”

  “Yes, I heard you were walking a giraffe through town yesterday,” he said, raising an eyebrow, and I let out a nervous peal of laughter.

  “I did, yeah. She was brought to the clinic by someone who didn’t leave her name. She wanted me to save her, though, since her father kept her.”