Sophie turned to me, glaring as Charlotte’s eyes lit up.
“Really? Sophie has a booooooyfriend?” she teased, and Sophie grabbed a small piece of tomato off her pizza and threw it at my sister. Charlotte had never been the co-ordinated one; it landed right on her cheek and stuck there. I couldn’t help myself, I burst out laughing.
“That’s not funny!” Charlotte hissed at me as she grabbed the tomato off her cheek and threw it back at Sophie. Unfortunately, Sophie actually was pretty athletic, she ducked out of the way easily and the tomato landed on the wall, the force of the impact making it break up into a few pieces before it fell on the floor, leaking goo onto the hardwood.
Bee watched us haughtily from her position up above us.
“You’re all as immature as each other,” she scolded, standing up and leaving us, presumably to go poop in a box. I rolled my eyes as she left the room.
Sitting down on the couch, I took a bit of pizza while Sophie and Charlotte still glared at each other. Eventually, though, things settled down and we all started eating without simultaneously trying to hate on each other.
“So who was the victim, anyway?”
“Someone named Tony Nyman,” I replied through a giant bite of pizza. “He’s lived here for ten years apparently, but I didn’t know him.”
“I think he might have done some work for Lisa a couple years ago,” Charlotte replied thoughtfully as she chewed a slice herself. “When she was getting the roof redone.”
“How do you even remember that sort of thing?” Sophie asked. Charlotte shrugged.
“I dunno. I just do.”
My sister was so smart sometimes it was scary.
“We saw Antonia deLucca in the coffee shop today, too,” I told Charlotte. “She says people are taking, since the body was found in the vet clinic and all.”
Sophie rolled her eyes.
“You can’t seriously be taking what that crazy old bat was saying seriously, can you? Like, she lives for gossip and rumours. I guarantee you no one actually said that about the vet clinic, she just wants to stir some stuff up.”
I shrugged.
“I mean yeah, I guess. But I can’t help but thinking what if she’s right? Even if people aren’t actually telling her that, what if they still believe it?”
Sophie leaned back against the couch.
“So what if they are? What are you going to do about it?”
I stayed silent for a minute, and Charlotte realized what I was thinking.
“No. No, absolutely not,” she told me. “There is no way you’re going to try and figure out who killed Tony on your own.”
Sophie sat up on the chair and grinned.
“Yes! You absolutely should! It’ll be like a real life Nancy Drew mystery.”
“Oh and I bet you think you’re Bess then, don’t you?” Charlotte replied, rolling her eyes.
“Please. You are so Bess. I’m way more of a George.”
I held my hands up in the air to stop them both.
“Woah, woah, woah. You guys are getting way too far in front of yourselves, here. I’m not going around playing Nancy Drew here. I just don’t think it’s a bad idea for me to maybe look into the murder a little bit and see if I can’t dig out a bit of info that might help Chief Gary figure things out. You know?”
Sophie nodded enthusiastically.
“Yeah, for sure. I mean, I still think Antonia’s a terrible human being who just made that stuff up to create drama, but I don’t think digging around is a bad idea at all. After all, we found the body, that’s pretty much the universe telling us it’s fine to start investigating things.”
“Oh my God, no, that is absolutely not what the universe is telling you,” Charlotte practically shrieked. “You guys are crazy. We are not going after a murderer. This is how horror movies start.”
“Oh you’re such a baby,” Sophie muttered.
“I am not!”
“You are though,” I followed up. “I mean, it’s not like we’re going to find the murderer and confront him or anything like that. We’re just going to see if we can dig anything up ourselves.”
“I can’t believe this is a conversation we’re actually having.”
“Well, you don’t have to help,” I told her. “It’s not like we’re forcing you into this.”
“Of course I have to help. You guys are going to get into so much trouble without me there.”
I grinned. “Fine. But you have to stop complaining about it.”
“I do not,” Charlotte grumbled.
I couldn’t help it. I had to admit, I was actually… excited. Nothing interesting ever happened in Willow Bay. The closest thing I had to excitement in my life was getting puked on by angry cats. They do it on purpose, too. I have that on good authority from Bee.
“If a cat is going to throw up, we will do everything in our power to make a human feel as miserable as we do,” she told me once after I found a “present” in my shoe.
Now Charlotte, Sophie and I were going to find out who stabbed Tony Nyman so he ended up dying trying to patch himself up in my vet clinic.
Chapter 7
“So what seems to be the problem here today, Strawberry?” I asked the white Schnauzer/Poodle cross sitting on my exam table first thing the next morning.
“You mean apart from the fact that my owners let a five year old pick my name? Not very much. I wish I wasn’t here.” the dog replied. I had to hide my smile.
“He’s been a little bit lethargic the last few days, and I found a little bump on his leg, right here,” Annalise told me, prying away a bit of his fur and exposing a little lump the size of a pin head on his right hind leg. Annalise Thompson was in her 30s, with two kids. She had babysat us a few times growing up when she was a teenager, and now as far as I was aware she lived the life of a typical housewife: husband working in the city, kids at school, white picket fence and the family dog, who was now getting up there in years. Strawberry was ten years old now, and had been named by Annalise’s half sister, who was now fifteen. Strawberry had, unfortunately, never gotten over the shame of his name.
“I’m only tired because we went for like a five hour hike yesterday, since her damn husband’s decided he wants to lose weight. Just because he wants to get fitter doesn’t mean I want to.”
I smiled into Strawberry’s fur as I leaned over to get a better look at the lump. Schnauzers were quite prone to getting lumps later in life, and this one looked completely benign.
When I was done I took Strawberry’s heart rate and asked a few questions.
“Has he been more lethargic than usual, other than over the last few days?”
“No,” Annalise replied.
“Any diahrea or vomiting?”
She shook her head.
“Is he eating and drinking ok?”
“Yes, nothing strange there.”
I did a little bit more of a checkup over Strawberry, then looked up at Annalise.
“Well, I’m honestly not too worried about the lump. I can do a biopsy of it and send it away for testing, but it feels like a fat lump to me, which in a Schnauzer isn’t a rare thing.”
“Who are you calling fat?” Strawberry muttered, but I ignored him and continued talking.
“He also seems to be in good shape, especially for a dog his age. I wouldn’t worry too much about the lethargy just yet, but if it keeps up for another few days please come in again. He’s getting older, and sometimes just having a big day can take it out of him for a few days now. I’d recommend not taking him on extensively long walks.”
“Thank you, you’re a goddess among humans!” Strawberry praised, and it took everything I had not to laugh at how enthusiastic he was.
“Thanks Strawberry,” I told him, giving him one last set of pats before motioning to Annalise that she could take him off the exam table.
“And thank you for bringing him in,” I told Annalise. “Even though I don’t think there’s anything wrong with him, it’s alw
ays better to be safe than sorry.”
“So we just leave the lump?” she asked, and I nodded.
“Yes. I mean, we could put him under and cut it out, but the older dogs get the greater the risk of complications with the anesthetic, and to be honest if he’s got one lump, others are probably going to show up. If he ever needs surgery for something else separately we can always cut them out then, but I wouldn’t recommend putting him under just to get rid of his lump.”
“Ok, thanks so much, Angela,” Annalise told me.
“No problem, have a great day!” I told her as she left with Strawberry, the little white dog leading her out of the room as fast as possible. I smiled to myself as I watched them leave; I liked Strawberry. He was a funny little dog.
When they left, Sophie popped her head in while I was finishing up the paperwork on Strawberry.
“Hey, so I have just had an awesome idea!”
“Cool, what is it?”
“So you know how we’re totally going to find out why Tony Nyman died?”
“Yes…” I started.
“Well, I found out where he lives. And I think we should go there and look for clues!”
A part of me, the sensible part of me probably, instantly rejected this idea as pure folly. Stupidity, even. But my mouth didn’t get the message.
“Yeah, we totally should!”
“I know, right? Look, you don’t have appointments for another hour and a half. We can go now and be back in time for the next appointment.”
“Wait, what am I saying?” I added, the reasonable part of me finally making itself heard. “Why is this a good idea again?”
“Because we need to figure out who would have a reason to kill him, and what better place to go that to check out his house? The dude was single, there won’t be anyone else there.”
“Except maybe the cops.”
“Well they’ll be obvious. If they’re there, we won’t go in. God, you sound like Charlotte.”
“Speaking of Charlotte, did you invite her?”
Sophie snorted.
“Are you kidding? Not only does she have class so she would never, ever skip a lesson for something like this, but she’d probably call the cops on us herself.”
It was true that Charlotte wasn’t exactly the brave, adventurous one of the three of us.
“Fine. How did you find out where he lived, anyway?”
“Facebook. I was stalking his page, seeing who left condolences and stuff. You know what’s weird? The dude never posted any selfies or anything on his page.”
“Well duh, he was like, fifty-something, right? They’re not exactly the selfie taking generation. Like, your mom doesn’t have any selfies on her Facebook page either, she just shares motivational pictures and videos for recipes for food she’s never going to make.”
“Yeah, but at least my mom has pictures of her up on her Facebook. Even if it’s just a couple from her childhood and one or two that I’ve taken of her. Tony Nyman doesn’t have any pictures of him on his profile at all. I only figured out it was his account since he lives in Willow Bay and posted a bunch of pictures from around here. Including his house, which I recognize.”
“Well, who knows. Some people are more private than others. Maybe he’s one of those people that think the NSA are reading his Facebook posts or something.”
“Maybe,” Sophie shrugged. “Either way, I want to go check out where he lives.”
“Fine. We’ll go over there and see what’s up. But we’re leaving right away if we see any sign of the cops. I don’t want to get in trouble with Chief Gary.”
“Deal. Now come on, let’s go tell Karen she can take an extra long lunch break.”
Chapter 8
Twenty minutes later Sophie and I had pulled up in front of Tony Nyman’s place, on the eastern side of town. If anyone asked, we were going to say that I got an anonymous tip about a loose dog out here, that I couldn’t get in touch with animal control, and didn’t want the dog getting in trouble.
“So are we just going to sit here and watch, or are we going to go in there and get some actual info?” Sophie asked as I scanned the area.
“Haven’t you ever seen like any detective show ever? We’re staking the place out. We have ninety minutes, we might as well see if anything strange is going on around here.”
“You’re just too much of a baby to come into the house,” Sophie accused me, opening the driver’s side door and getting out. I did the same. Bee jumped out after me. She’d been very quiet in the ride over, insisting on coming after she realized Sophie and I were going somewhere “interesting”.
“That’s so untrue. I just don’t feel the need to rush in there as fast as possible without seeing if maybe we can get a clue as to who murdered him out here.”
“Oh what, because you think the murderer’s just going to come back here and check out the place, just for kicks? Yeah, right.”
“You never know,” I replied, crossing my arms as we made it to the front door. Sophie tried the handle, but it was locked.
“Damn it,” she muttered.
“Really? What else were you expecting?” I asked. “Move your butt over,” I ordered, nudging her out of the way with my hip.
“Recludaro,” I muttered quietly, focusing all of my brain’s power on the door’s lock. I felt an energy seeping from my fingers, and a second later, heard the latch moving. Being a witch made breaking and entering a lot easier.
“That’s so unfair,” Sophie muttered. “I can’t believe I lost out on the genetic lottery.”
We stepped inside quickly and closed the door behind us. Even though there wasn’t anyone else in here, we were both super quiet. It was creepy in here.
“I feel like we just stepped into a horror movie,” I whispered. For the first time, Sophie didn’t look completely confident about what we were doing, either.
The house was a decent size for a single guy on his own. It was two stories tall, with an entrance hall and what looked like a living room next to us. I could see the kitchen cupboards in the room at the back. I supposed that meant the bedrooms were upstairs. It was probably a two bedroom place, given the size of it.
I was the first one of Sophie and I to move forward. At the end of the entrance hall were the stairs leading upstairs, but I walked past them and into the living room. I could hear Sophie following me. The place was dark, especially considering the bright sunshine outside, but I didn’t dare turn on a light.
Everything in the room was so… quiet. There was a stillness, an eeriness to the house that I understood, but was still incredibly unnerving. It felt like there was someone here, someone watching us, even though I knew that was impossible.
The whole house was also incredibly impersonal. There wasn’t a single photo of Tony Nyman, or of any old family members. No pictures of him with a buddy or a brother, no pictures of his mom or dad. It was like he didn’t have anyone on the planet that he cared about.
Bee slinked along past me and I jumped at least two feet high when I felt her furry leg rubbing against mine.
“Oh for God’s sake,” I muttered, trying to get my heart rate back down to something reasonable. Sophie’s shoulders shook with silent laughter behind me, and I hit her before continuing on.
“That’s so not funny,” I added, but her snickering didn’t stop.
When we were finally in the back of the house, in the kitchen, I turned to Sophie. Bee had jumped up on top of the refrigerator.
“Is this the creepiest place you’ve ever been to, or what?”
Sophie nodded.
“Yeah. Definitely. It’s such a weird house. It’s like a robot lived here.”
Suddenly, we heard an unmistakable sound. Footsteps. Footsteps, coming down the stairs. And quickly. Sophie and I looked at each other. We both froze.
What do we do?
There was someone in the house with us!
Was it a ghost?
No, of course not. It couldn’t be. Ghosts weren�
�t real. And even if they were, they certainly wouldn’t be loudly thudding down the stairs.
Sophie screamed, and at the sound, I screamed too.
Before we knew it, though, whoever it was had made it to the front door and run out.
I finally gathered my courage and ran to the front door. I looked out, but could only see a vague shape making its way down the street. I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman. The only thing I knew is that they were wearing blue jeans and a red shirt.
“Oh man,” I muttered to myself as Sophie came and stood next to me. I turned to look at her. Her face was white, looking even paler against her mostly black hair.
“I can’t believe that happened. What was that?” Sophie asked. “Was it a ghost?”
I shook my head.
“No. Ghosts aren’t real, dummy. It was a person, I saw them running down the street. I don’t know anything else though. I couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman.”
“So that means there was someone up there. Someone in the house.”
“And maybe if we’d stayed in the car and staked out the place for a while they would have come out the front door and we’d know who it was.” I couldn’t help but be a little bit snarky about the fact that my idea was the better one.
“Fine. You were right, I was wrong, blah blah blah now let’s go upstairs and see what that person was after.”
“Uh, don’t you think we should call the cops first?”
“What? And tell them we were breaking and entering and caught someone else breaking and entering?”
“Fine. Maybe that’s not the best idea,” I conceded. “We’ll go upstairs, see what the person was after and see if we find anything else, then when we leave we’ll leave the door open and someone will call the cops. But make sure not to touch anything, we don’t want to leave our fingerprints anywhere.”
“You two are just a pair of criminal masterminds, aren’t you?” Bee asked as she darted past us and up the stairs.
“Oh be quiet, you. I didn’t see you helping when that guy was running out the door.”
“And what exactly did you want me to do if I did stop him?”
The Purr-fect Crime: Willow Bay Witches #1 Page 4