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

by Samantha Silver

  Chief Gary’s face darkened. “You realize smuggling animals into this country is illegal, right?”

  “Of course,” I said. “I took the giraffe, and I’m hunting down where she came from so that she can be released. As soon as I track down where her mother came from, I’ll be contacting the proper authorities to have her taken back there. I’m pretty sure the actual owner of the giraffe isn’t from here though; the owner’s daughter said she drove away from her home so that it couldn’t be traced back to her father.”

  Chief Gary nodded. “Ok, so not part of my jurisdiction, then.”

  “No,” I replied, shaking my head. “I’m pretty sure not.” That was when Chief Gary finally reached for his cup of coffee. As soon as he took a sip, I pointed behind me randomly and whispered “Speculum quassoroa.”

  There was a sound of shattering glass from behind me, and I looked around as Chief Gary immediately stood up, drawing his weapon, but keeping it against his leg.

  “Stay here,” he ordered as he went out into the main part of the police station. Looking behind him, I noticed my spell had broken the main window at the front of the police station. The one other officer in the station was also on alert, while the receptionist ran toward a back room at the insistence of Chief Gary.

  I felt a bit bad for making them panic over something that I’d done, but I really, really needed this information. I ran over and sat down in Chief Gary’s chair, my eyes flittering up every few minutes to make sure that he didn’t look this way and see me.

  Before I opened the program to check a license plate number, however, my eyes were drawn toward the manila file with the label ‘HOMICIDE–SMITH, MATTHEW’ on the side. I couldn’t resist; after all, I needed this information too. I slipped open the file, which was still pretty thin.

  The first page was just basic information about Matt Smith, and I skimmed it quickly, making a mental note of his home address in Portland. The second page, however, showed that Matt had been a defendant in a lawsuit brought forth by a company called Peacock Hills Property Investments. I made a mental note of the company name; I’d look them up later. I imagined that one was a business dispute. The third page, however, was even more interesting.

  It was an arrest record for Matt Smith in Washington state; he’d been charged with assault, although the charges were dropped. I checked the date; he’d been arrested a little over two weeks ago. The victim’s name was Sean Dressler. There wasn’t much more information than that in the file.

  Still, it was enough to go on to start. It seemed Jason and I weren’t the only people who’d gotten on Matt Smith’s bad side. Glancing out the door I realized Chief Gary had now gone outside to assess the damage. I looked at his computer screen, but to my dismay, it was a lot more complicated looking than I thought. I chewed my lip, clicking a few things trying to find where I could type in a license plate number and find out who owned it, but it must have been in a different program. Before I got a chance to figure it out, I noticed Chief Gary coming back. I quickly put the program that had been open back up onto the screen and slipped back into my seat on the other side of the table before Chief Gary came back. My heart was pounding with adrenaline as he came back into the room.

  “Sorry about that. I think it was a false alarm. Seems the glass in front of the station just randomly burst. A few people nearby said nobody was around when it happened, so I don’t think it was vandalism.”

  “Hmm, weird,” I replied. “Maybe an air pressure change? I heard it’s supposed to rain tonight.”

  “Could be. Anyway, thanks for coming in.”

  “No problem,” I said, standing up. “Anything I can do to help, please let me know.”

  “Will do, thanks Angela.”

  I left the police station, feeling a bit bad about the repair bill I’d just stuck them with, but at least I had all the information about Matt Smith that I needed. The lawsuit, being public record, we possibly could have found out about on our own, but I never would have thought to check Washington State arrest records.

  Taking out my phone I sent Jason a text.

  I failed at getting the license plate info

  His reply came back a minute later. No problem, I’ll be down there in about an hour anyway, I’ll give it a shot.

  Thanks. I did get to look at the file on Matt Smith though. Some company was suing him, and he was arrested two weeks ago in Washington for assault.

  Interesting. Chat about it over dinner tonight?

  Sure, see you then!

  I smiled to myself as I texted Sophie, asking if she was up for a road trip. Her reply of ‘of course’ came by a minute later and I started to walk home. I figured we had time to drive to Portland and see if there was anything interesting in Matt Smith’s home that could tell us why he was killed, and by who.

  Chapter 8

  “This is nice,” Sophie said. “I feel like we haven’t broken into someone’s place in ages.”

  “I’m really not sure that’s a feeling you should be craving,” I replied. “Plus, the last time we did it we almost got caught, remember? We had to put a guy on his ass and make him think he was super uncoordinated, since we were invisible.”

  Sophie laughed. “Yeah, I remember. It was fine, though. You sound like Charlotte.”

  “I’m the sane middle ground between your crazy desire to do literally everything and Charlotte’s good-girl scaredy-cat feelings that make her think everything’s a bad idea,” I replied.

  “Nothing about you is sane, or middle ground,” Sophie replied, and I stuck my tongue out at her as I got onto the Interstate heading north toward Portland.

  We spent the rest of the trip chatting casually about Lucy, about the murder and about life in general, and a quick forty-five minutes later–well, it didn’t exactly feel quick when Sophie screwed up the Google Maps directions and we had to change our route–we found ourselves driving down a small one-lane road in the suburb of Lake Oswego. Matt Smith lived in what I had to admit was a cute little bungalow, new-looking and painted a nice, deep blue-grey color with white trim. I parked the car about thirty feet away from the house as Sophie and I came up with a plan.

  “Should we just go invisible and break in?” Sophie asked.

  “Yeah, I think so. I can do the spell in the car. Maybe we should park it a few blocks away, just in case.”

  I put the car back into drive and got ready to head off when suddenly Sophie grabbed my arm. “Wait!” she exclaimed. “Look.”

  Following Sophie’s finger, I noticed a man exiting the house. He was on the taller side, with blonde hair, dressed in jeans and a polo shirt. He looked completely average in every way; the kind of person you never thought twice about if you passed them on the street.

  “Do you think he’s a robber?” Sophie asked. “Or someone doing the same as us?”

  I shook my head. “No. He just took some mail from the mailbox, and is now bringing it inside.” We watched for another minute as he came back out. “And now he’s locking the front door, with a key.”

  If there was any doubt that the man absolutely lived in that home, it vanished when the man waved at a neighbor driving by.

  “Do you think Matt Smith was gay? Or did he have a roommate?” I asked.

  “Roommate for sure,” Sophie said. “If he was Matt’s boyfriend he’d be a lot more shaken up about the death. He’s acting completely normally here, and smiled as he waved to the neighbor.”

  “Ok, we’ll wait for him to leave, and then go inside.”

  “Why don’t we follow him instead? Maybe we can casually talk to him and find out about Matt. We might get more information from talking to him than we would from searching the house,” Sophie suggested.

  “Good call,” I said, putting the car into drive as the man stepped into a silver Prius in the driveway and headed toward downtown Portland. About twenty minutes later the Prius parked on the street near a coffee shop. I found a parking spot myself about a block further down, and we found the man s
etting up a laptop computer inside the coffee shop.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked. “We can’t just go in there and be like hey, we know you’re Matt Smith’s roommate, do you want to tell us everything you know about who might have wanted him dead?.”

  Sophie rolled her eyes. “For someone with unlimited witch powers, you have no creativity whatsoever,” she said. “Let’s go in there and order coffee, first.”

  We made our way into the shop, which was cute and homely, with dark wood panels everywhere and a guy with a hipster beard behind the coffee machine, which whirred away. It was basically exactly what you’d expect a hipster coffee shop in Portland to look like.

  Sophie and I ordered a couple of lattes–mine with a shop of vanilla–and I followed Sophie as she made her way toward Matt Smith’s presumed roommate. I couldn’t help but notice her undoing an extra two buttons of her top on the way over.

  We sat down at the table next to his, finding ourselves only a couple of feet away from the man. I took a sip of my coffee as Sophie leaned toward me in a conspiratorial whisper.

  “Did you hear about that man who was killed in Willow Bay yesterday?” she asked. “I heard he was shot!” Her eyes were wide and her face pouty. I had to stop from laughing when I realized what she was doing, and as I glanced around I realized it was working! The man was looking at Sophie. Of course, he was looking down her top more than anything else, but it was something, right?

  And I had to admit, Sophie was definitely the right person to be doing this. With her almond-shaped eyes from her half-Japanese heritage, and the single streak of bright purple weaving its way through her black hair, she was absolutely gorgeous. I wasn’t bad looking, for sure, but Sophie was just straight up model-beautiful. And this man had obviously noticed that. If there was still any doubt that he was a roommate and not a lover, it was quashed.

  “I heard,” I replied. “That’s so scary!”

  Sophie nodded. “I heard the man was a really big businessman in town, who wanted to redevelop the whole place. He probably made a lot of enemies down there. But still, it’s scary knowing we live near a murderer! I don’t feel safe anymore.”

  The man leaned toward us. “I don’t think you have anything to worry about, ladies,” he told us.

  Sophie looked at him. “But how do you know?” she asked, giving him her best wide-eyed worried look.

  The guy gave her a smug look that I assumed was him flirting. “I’m the murder victim’s roommate. My name’s Jake.”

  Sophie’s mouth dropped open. “You knew him?” she asked in an awed whisper. I had to hand it to her. She knew exactly how to handle this guy.

  “I did. And while Matt was a good guy, there were lots of people out there who wanted him dead. I’d be very surprised if this turned out to be the work of a random wacko.”

  “People wanted him dead?” Sophie asked, and Jake nodded enthusiastically, his eyes never leaving Sophie’s cleavage.

  “I never realized how serious it was, obviously, or I would have said something. But Matt was a guy with a lot of friends, me among them, but a lot of enemies as well. We weren’t just roommates, we were business partners in some of his ventures, and let me tell you, when you have ambition, you have enemies. But no risk, no reward, right?” he said, flashing Sophie a creepy grin.

  “Ohhh, so you’re going to be a super-rich developer too?” Sophie asked. “But what kind of person would kill someone else?”

  “Well, Matt had been getting threats lately,” Jake said. “He was being sued by another developer, for one thing. Tony Fanchini. Tony thought Matt had screwed him out of a deal here in Portland for land that Tony wanted to build a high-rise on. He showed up outside the house the other day yelling about how he was going to kill him. And you know how those Italians always know people.”

  I had to resist the urge to roll my eyes at that comment, but it wouldn’t have mattered either way. Matt was talking to Sophie like I didn’t exist, and she was pretending to eat it up.

  “Oh wow,” she replied. “That’s scary!”

  “And that’s not the only thing. He’s been getting threatening letters from the former tenant of a property he bought a few weeks ago. I told him the tenant was crazy; anyone who has over two hundred clown dolls all around their home isn’t right in the head. But Matt didn’t listen.”

  Jake shook his head. “It’s sad, really. Matt was a good guy. He was a good business partner, and I’m going to miss him.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Sophie cooed. “This must be really hard for you.”

  Thinking I’d rather puke than listen to any more of this, I excused myself quickly and went to the bathroom. As I turned around I noticed that Jake had already slipped into my seat, and was now holding Sophie’s hand as he told her presumably about how good a person he was. Gross.

  It had definitely been worth it–easy for me to say, Sophie might have had a different opinion–since we found out about the threatening letters, and the name of the man behind the lawsuit against Matt Smith. I texted Sophie that I was going to head back out to their home to see if I could find any of the threatening letters, and I drove back down to Lake Oswego.

  Thanks to the sleepy suburb, it was pretty easy to park the car on the street next to Millennium Plaza Park, make myself invisible, walk a couple hundred feet to Matt Smith’s home and use my magic to break into the back door without being detected. I was careful when I first went in, in case there happened to be another roommate, a girlfriend, or anyone else in the house, but it quickly became evident that it was empty.

  Feeling a little bit more relaxed, I made my way through the house. It was surprisingly tastefully decorated. I wasn’t sure what I expected, maybe because of the kind of person Matt Smith was I sort of imagined his home would be one of those overdone places with fake gold all over the walls and statues of money all around. I made my way past the kitchen at the back of the house and down a hallway that led to the bedrooms. The first bedroom was obviously used as an office by both Matt and Jake; two desks against opposite sides of the walls made that apparent. Looking at the desk on the right, I determined from the numerous printouts of sale properties in Willow Bay that it was Matt Smith’s side.

  Making my way over to it, I glanced at the papers just as my phone buzzed. Sophie was letting me know that Jake had left, and she had no way of following him since I’d taken the car. I figured it was safe to assume I had fifteen minutes before I had to get out of there.

  Looking through the papers on Matt’s desk I found a few letters from a lawyer about the lawsuit, some notarized documents regarding land purchases in Willow Bay, but no threatening letters. Turning my attention to the garbage can, I finally found one of them. It had been completely scrunched up, and I carefully laid it flat on the desk—holding it with a tissue so I didn’t leave any fingerprints on it–and took a picture of it. Knowing this was a murder investigation, I figured Chief Gary would eventually make his way here, and I was definitely not about to take potential evidence from a murderer’s home.

  Keep your scummy hands out of Willow Bay, you disgusting piece of crap, or I’ll make sure you leave this town in a body bag.

  Yikes, that was definitely a threat. Looking at my phone, I realized I really had to get out of there, my time was almost up. I scrunched the note up and put it back in the garbage can, then wiped my fingerprints off everything I touched and headed back to the car.

  Half an hour later I’d reversed my invisibility spell and driven back into Portland to pick up Sophie, who was waiting for me in front of a Sephora nearby, where she’d evidently refreshed her makeup stash.

  “Did you find anything? Please tell me you found something, so I feel less dirty about talking to that creep.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, I did. I found one of those threatening letters Jake mentioned.” Pulling out my phone, I handed it to Sophie, who opened up the photos file.

  “Yeah, I’d say whoever wrote this should be pretty high on our list of suspec
ts,” Sophie said, her eyebrows rising.

  “It’s going to be tough to find out who wrote it, though,” I said as I pulled back onto the interstate to go back home.

  “For sure.”

  “So, are you going to go out with that guy?” I asked Sophie with a grin, who punched me lightly on the arm.

  “Gross. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to pick my face out of a lineup if it came to that,” she said. “My boobs, on the other hand…”

  “Yeah, he was pretty blatant about it.”

  “He did ask to take me out for a drink later, but I told him I had to work. I gave him a fake number. Hopefully we never need to see him again.”

  “Agreed. Thanks for sacrificing your dignity for the greater good.”

  “Anything for my best friend, right?” she replied with a grin.

  Chapter 9

  As soon as we got back home I started getting ready for my date with Jason that night; we’d planned on going out to dinner at a local Italian place that was quickly becoming our favorite hangout.

  After doing my hair and makeup, and deciding that I looked pretty good, I made my way down the hallway and back toward the kitchen. As I passed the laundry room, however, I heard Bee’s voice coming from inside, and I couldn’t help but take a peek.

  She was sitting on top of the washing machine, with the four kittens sitting on the ground below. Her back was straight, her eyes boring into her subjects, who were all sitting in a line, all giving their adoptive mother all of their attention.

  “I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of cats fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of dogs and shattered bits of kibble, when the age of cats comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good Earth, I bid you stand, Cats of the West!” Bee announced with passion.

  I figured this was a sign I’d watched the Lord of the Rings movies a few times too many. Bee could recite Aragorn’s speech by heart, and yet she didn’t know who Beyoncé was.