Just Horsing Around (Willow Bay Witches 3)

by Silver, Samantha

  Suddenly, Sophie let out a yell. “Bee!”

  I ran up past her, looking to what Sophie was looking at. Sure enough, sitting on the mat in front of the door was my little black cat, all curled up in a ball.

  “Oh, Bee!” I said, running up and picking up the cat, and holding her close.

  “What is it? What are you doing to me? Why are you holding me like that?” Bee asked grumpily.

  “It’s called a hug, Bee. I’m so glad you’re ok!”

  “Of course I’m ok. Why wouldn’t I be? Except you idiots closed the window so I couldn’t get inside.”

  “Because the world is dangerous for a little kitty like you. Where were you, anyway?”

  “What, a girl can’t go for a stroll without getting the third degree?”

  “Not when that girl is a cat who’s never done it before!” My relief was turning into a motherly need to know exactly what my cat had snuck out to do.

  “I wanted to just see the neighbourhood, since you wouldn’t take me for a walk earlier. Don’t worry, I didn’t kill anything. I just walked around.”

  I narrowed my eyes at Bee, who jumped up onto the back of the couch as I opened the front door and started innocently licking her paw. Of course, the idea that she would sneak out just to get back at me for not taking her out earlier did in fact sound exactly like something Bee would do.

  “Well, don’t do it again,” I warned, mentally thinking to myself that I was absolutely going to make sure my cat had zero ways to get out of the house without permission in the future. The kitty door she had installed and only ever used to get into the house when we came back from work was so getting taken out.

  “Sure, whatever. Now where’s my dinner, I’m hungry.”

  I rolled my eyes as I went to the cupboard and grabbed a tin of food.

  “Well now that that emergency’s over, what did you guys find out at the farm?” I asked Sophie and Charlotte, who had settled themselves down on the couch. I put out Bee’s food, did the same for Sprinkles, then grabbed a bag of white cheddar popcorn and put it in between us as I joined the others on the couch.

  “Honestly, I didn’t really find out a lot,” Charlotte said, sounding disappointed. “I saw Corey. He did a bunch of work, he was pretty rushed today. Apparently he spent the day at another farm, he was talking to Touch of Frost and told him that his son was doing really well. It was obvious he loves the horses. And then he went and saw Ellie. He kissed her, and told her that they could be together now. She told him that she wanted to wait a little while before they made their relationship public, to keep people from thinking he could have killed Caroline so they could be together. He said fine, but insinuated that they could keep meeting secretly. He also said he didn’t want to wait that long, that he had waited long enough to be able to be with her. So really, nothing we didn’t know.”

  “I saw Susan, she looked strained. It seemed like every time there was the tiniest little sound she jumped about three feet. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she thought she was going to be murdered any second as well,” Sophie added. “I didn’t see her do anything incriminating though, I left just as she went up the stairs to do something to get back here in time.”

  “Well I can tell you what she did do,” I added, and with that, I told Sophie and Charlotte about the letter I’d found, threatening Caroline.

  “Wow,” Sophie whispered. “So that pretty much seals it. He had means, motive and opportunity. More than anyone else, at any rate.”

  “But what can we do about it?” Charlotte asked. “I don’t trust that moron of a policeman to get there on his own.”

  “We need to go over to see him and tell him we know,” I finally answered. “What I don’t understand is why do it when literally everyone knows about their relationship. I mean, Philippe and Tony were talking about it, too.”

  “Sometimes love makes people do crazy things,” Sophie replied.

  “I guess the girl who got arrested on a date for having sex at the top of the water tower would know,” I replied, and Sophie stuck her tongue out at me.

  “That was a long time ago.”

  Before I had a chance to retort, however, I got a text. I checked my phone and saw it was from Jason.

  How about we try again for tomorrow night? He asked.

  Sure, I replied. I knew if I didn’t agree soon, I was definitely going to get cold feet about the whole date thing. I still wasn’t sure it was a good idea.

  “Ok. So we’re sure that Corey killed Caroline Gibson. Now, we have to go convince him to turn himself in.”

  “What if he’s dangerous?” Charlotte asked, looking worried.

  “There are three of us to one of him,” Sophie replied. “Besides, I’ll bring a knife.”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s illegal,” Charlotte replied.

  “Would you rather be a dead law-abiding citizen, or a living lawbreaker?” Sophie asked, and for a moment I wasn’t actually sure what Charlotte was going to reply.

  “Fine,” she finally said. “When do you guys want to go?”

  “Definitely tonight,” I replied. “It’s still going to be light for a few hours, and since he works with horses Corey will be up super early tomorrow, and I have no intention of getting up at 4 on my day off.”

  “Do you know where he lives?” Sophie asked, and I shook my head.

  “Well that’s easily taken care of, I’ll be back in a minute,” Charlotte replied. She grabbed her phone and went into her room, and came back less than five minutes later.

  “He lives in Wawnee, I have the address here,” she said when she came back out, waving a piece of paper in her hand.

  “How on earth did you find that out so fast?” I asked, impressed.

  “This is Willow Bay. You call the right people, you can get any information you want.”

  That was true, I had to say. “Ok, let’s get going,” I encouraged, grabbing a jacket off the back of a chair and my phone. I got another text from Jason.

  The pub, tomorrow at 7?

  Sounds good, I replied as the three of us ran out the door. I briefly considered texting Jason where we were going just in case anything did happen to us, then figured I was overreacting. Nothing was going to happen, we were just going to talk to Corey and convince him to turn himself in. Or at least, get him to admit what he’d done.

  As Sophie drove to his address I installed an app to record conversations on my phone. If at the very least we could get him to admit to us that he’d killed Caroline Gibson, the police could use that as evidence.

  About fifteen minutes later – Sophie wasn’t a big fan of obeying things like speed limits – we pulled up in front of Corey’s home. It was a small, slightly run-down bungalow, a pretty decent bachelor pad. I had to admit, as the three of us started towards the front door, my heart began to pound in my chest. We were about to confront a murderer!

  I had a feeling, given how slowly we were walking towards his door, that I wasn’t the only one who was suddenly riddled with doubts about what we were doing. Maybe we should just leave and call the police? Maybe we should wait for them to find the note and then let them come to this same conclusion?

  Before I had a chance to back out, however, Sophie took a step forward and knocked confidently on the door.

  As soon as her knuckle hit the wood, however, the door creaked open. The three of us looked at each other.

  “What should we do?” Sophie hissed.

  “Obviously we should go inside and make sure everything’s ok,” I said. “What if he’s hurt, or his place has been robbed, or something?”

  “What if the robbers are still in there though?” Charlotte hissed.

  “Does it look like anyone’s in there to you?” I asked, motioning at the still darkness inside.

  “You never know! Why don’t we just leave and call the police?”

  “Oh you’re such a baby,” Sophie said, pushing the door open and going in. “There. Now you can stay out here and call the cops,
or you can come in too.”

  I stepped over the doorway after Sophie and followed her in. I heard Charlotte sigh and follow in after me.

  This was hands down the creepiest place I’d ever been to. It wasn’t that there was anything weird about it; actually it looked exactly how you’d expect the home of a single man in his early 30s to look. But it was just so dark and still. Something about it gave me the creeps.

  Sophie quickly took out her phone and turned on the flashlight app. A blaze of light suddenly illuminated the room, which showed itself to be just an entry leading to a hallway up the end that went to the kitchen, and a living room to the right. We poked our heads into the living room and saw it was empty, other than a giant flat screen TV, an Xbox One and a handful of games to go with it.

  The three of us made our way down the hallway, silently, huddled together. This place was Creepy with a capital ‘C’. As soon as we reached the kitchen, Sophie let out a small gasp. I looked past her and saw Corey lying on the ground, completely still.

  Before I had a chance to do anything, Charlotte’s training as a doctor kicked in. She pushed her way past the two of us and immediately made her way to his body, while I grabbed my phone and dialled 9-1-1 for the second time in three days. While I was on the phone with the operator, Charlotte shook her head, her fingers on Corey’s neck, checking for a pulse. He was dead.

  Chapter 11

  When I got off the phone, the three of us stood there in silence. We knew not to touch anything.

  “Do you think he was murdered?” Sophie finally asked. I nodded, motioning to where a tiny bit of blood had pooled behind his head.

  “Yeah, look at that. Something hit him in the head, and if he just passed out and hit his head on the counter or something, that would be covered in blood. I’ve watched enough CSI to know that’s a murder.”

  “Well I guess we can rule him out as Caroline Gibson’s murderer then,” Sophie said, slowly. “Although I’ll still wait for the actual professionals to declare it a murder, as much as I trust your credentials as a person who watches a lot of CSI.”

  “I think we should go wait for the cops outside,” Charlotte finally said, and the three of us made our way onto the front porch. It was strange, going back out into the sunny world, knowing there was a dead body only a few feet away. And unlike when I’d found Tony Nyman’s body in my vet clinic a few months earlier, I had known Corey. I’d spent some time with him, and he was a nice guy, even though up until a few minutes ago I also thought he was a murderer.

  I found myself strangely moved by his death, and I sat down on the porch steps to collect my thoughts while I waited for the cops to arrive. Sophie, noticing my melancholy, sat down next to me and draped her arm over my shoulder while we waited.

  About ten minutes later an ambulance arrived, as did the coroner and Chief Hawthorne.

  “Seems every time a body pops up around here you’re involved,” he said as he waddled up to where I was sitting.

  “Yeah, she’s a master criminal who murdered a guy then called the cops herself. Great deduction there, Sherlock,” Sophie snapped at him, the filter on her mouth decidedly turned to “off” today.

  “It’s ok, Sophie, relax,” I murmured as Hawthorne looked her up and down, leering at her in a way that made me want to throw up. Sophie, to her credit, just glared a look at Hawthorne that I didn’t want to be on the other end of.

  “You better watch your mouth, girlie,” he told her, “Or I’m gonna have to arrest you, and believe me, I’d really enjoy putting handcuffs on you.”

  Sophie shuddered in disgust. “I guess unwillingly is the only way you get girls to touch you,” she replied, and I closed my eyes and shook my head. Sophie really didn’t know when to stop.

  Hawthorne grunted and looked like he was about to arrest her when one of his cops came running out of the house.

  “Chief, where are you? We need you in here, this is almost certainly another murder.”

  “I’ll be back, don’t you move from here,” Hawthorne grunted before following the other cop into the house.

  “I knew you said he was disgusting, but boy was that a whole other level,” Sophie said, shaking her head.

  “Seriously, you’re going to get arrested if you keep mouthing off to him,” I told her. “Just say as little to him as possible, I find that’s the best way to get away from him quickly.”

  We looked over to where Charlotte was talking to one of the other officers. “Let’s go over there,” I continued. “If we can get someone else to take our statements, maybe we can get out of here before we have to see him again.”

  Sure enough, the other police officer was taking Charlotte’s statement. “If the two of you want to speak to those two officers over there, they’ll be happy to take your statements as well,” he told us, motioning to two men who were busy setting up the yellow police tape cordon along the edge of the property.

  “I get the one on the left,” Sophie said. “He’s hotter.”

  “You have a boyfriend!” I reminded her.

  “I’m just going to look at the goods, not sample them,” she replied, rolling her eyes. I sighed and went over to the other guy, one of those men that you just know coaches both his kids’ soccer teams, whose wife volunteers for everything, and whose kids are straight A students who play soccer, do gymnastics and swimming. He was in his late 30s, maybe early 40s, with just a sliver of grey beginning to show at his temples, and that authoritarian look that said he was stern, but also approachable. When he saw Sophie and I coming, he quickly finished up what he was doing and gave us his full attention.

  “What can I help you with, ladies?” he asked.

  “That man over there,” I said, motioning to the cop talking to Charlotte, “told us to come here and that you and your colleague could take our statements.”

  “Of course,” he said. “Let me get out my notebook and I’ll be right with you.”

  Sophie hung around the other guy, so that I ended up speaking with the firm but fair parent type.

  We went through the usual introductions, I found out his name was Officer Lindmark, and he began to take down my account of what had happened that night.

  About ten minutes in, however, a late-model white Lexus SUV pulled up in front of the house, tires squealing. I looked up in surprise and saw Ellie jump out of the drivers’ seat, practically screaming.

  “No! No, you arrested him, didn’t you? You animals, Corey’s innocent! Corey! I love you! I know you didn’t do it!” she screamed as two other officers grabbed her before she reached the yellow cordon and took her aside. I didn’t hear them say the words, but I knew what she’d been told as soon as the wailing began.

  “No! Corey! No, no, no! This can’t be happening. Corey, I love you so much! Come out here and see me, Corey! Come on out! Please! Come out and see your Ellie! Please!”

  She broke down into incoherent sobbing and my heart went out to the poor girl who’d lost her mother and her boyfriend over the course of just a few days. Eventually the paramedics who had shown up took care of her, giving Ellie a sedative and loading her up into the ambulance; I figured she’d be spending the night at the hospital. Poor girl.

  As we drove home, Charlotte said what I knew we were all thinking.

  “So if Corey wasn’t the murderer, who was?”

  Wasn’t that the million dollar question?

  “I have no idea,” Sophie replied. “We’re really back to step one.”

  “I agree,” I said. “I’d have to say Tony is the only other person who obviously had problems with Caroline Gibson, and seemed vocal about it.”

  “Can we eliminate Ellie from suspicion now?” Sophie asked. “After all, I could see her wanting to whack her mom for stopping her from being with her boyfriend, but she had no reason to kill Corey whatsoever.”

  I nodded. “For sure. I never liked Ellie as a suspect to begin with. She’s a very sweet girl. A little bit naïve, and immature for her age, but definitely a goo
d kid. Plus, we all saw what she was like over there. She was totally distraught.”

  “It could all be acting,” Charlotte offered, “but I tend to agree. I don’t think she’s the one who killed Corey, or her mother. For the same reason Sophie thinks. She might have had a motive to kill her mom, but now that motive has turned up dead. No, she wouldn’t have killed them both.”

  “Who else are the suspects again?” Sophie asked. I rattled them off on my fingers.

  “There’s Susan, the housekeeper. I honestly didn’t really think of her as a suspect. She seemed like just an efficient woman, but she definitely was different after Caroline Gibson was killed. I don’t know if she’s just sensitive or what, but she didn’t really give off that impression. So who knows. Then there’s Philippe, the trainer. He seems to really not care about Caroline Gibson one way or the other. Said he’s had way worse bosses than her, and given what I’ve heard about horse racing people, I can definitely believe it. There’s also Tony, the jockey. He definitely hated Caroline. Granted, I haven’t exactly seen a lot of murder victims, but he was downright mean to her while standing over her corpse. It takes a certain kind of person to do that; I didn’t like her at all but even I would have never, ever said anything like what he did, especially not while standing over her body. And then there’s Polly, Caroline Gibson’s best friend. I get the feeling she’s the type who’s always happy playing second fiddle to the star, who in this case was Caroline. The type of friend whose generosity is taken advantage of, but who doesn’t really mind. I can’t really see her killing Caroline, to be honest. It was obvious when I met her that they were really good friends, and as far as I know she was in the house when Caroline was killed.”

  “I think we should focus on Tony,” Sophie announced. “None of the others seem to really have anything against Caroline. That’s what made me so sure it had been Corey; he really had a reason to dislike her.”

  “Agreed,” I replied as we pulled into our home back in Willow Bay. “I think he’s now the strongest suspect.”