Barking up the Wrong Tree: Willow Bay Witches #2

by Silver, Samantha

  The promise of her favourite treat placated Bee enough that she allowed herself to move to the kitchen.

  “I’m not coming to the office today,” Bee announced as I was getting the sushi out of the fridge.

  “You absolutely are.”

  “No. I need to protect my territory.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Bee, you’re coming to work today. You don’t need to protect your territory. Sprinkles knows this is your place. And I’m not giving you sushi if you’re going to be difficult.”

  “Fine,” my cat muttered. I really, really hoped Bee would never get tired of sushi.

  When we got to the vet clinic Karen told me I had a free half hour to start off the day. I thanked her, asked her how she was feeling after her fall (she was fine), and rushed out of the office to get to talk to Chief Gary before I had to start seeing patients.

  I found him just leaving the police station, and walking towards his old Crown Victoria. It wasn’t decorated in Willow Bay Police decals, but you could still tell it was a cop car from a mile away.

  “Chief Gary!” I called out, jogging towards him and waving my arms.

  “Angela!” he greeted me with a smile. “How are you?”

  “I’m good, thanks. I just wanted to chat to you about Andrea Dottory.”

  Chief Gary’s smile fell. “Of course. It’s so incredibly sad. It took a while, but I finally tracked down her closest living relative, a niece in Seattle.”

  “Oh, well I’m glad she had someone, at least.” Chief Gary made an unscrutable sound in his throat, but I didn’t have time to ask what he meant by it.

  “I just wanted you to know, I found Sprinkles last night out behind the diner. I don’t know if he’s important to your investigation or not, but he seems pretty shaken up. I was wondering if you’d mind if I took care of him for a while? Until we can find him a suitable home?”

  “Of course. Thanks, Angela. You’re so good with animals, you always were. His face clouded over with pain.

  “You know, one of those times when I first saw you after the accident, I found you in your room, telling your pet hamsters what had happened.”

  “I did have a pretty active imagination back then,” I said, laughing it off, although the memory of my parents dying still did bring a tinge of sadness to my heart.

  “So yes, I’m glad to know Sprinkles is safe, you can definitely take care of him.”

  “So… was it murder, like everyone is saying?” I asked in a conspiratorial whisper. Chief Gary sighed.

  “Yes. It’s murder. It seems as if someone hit her in the back of the head to make it look like she just fell and hit her head on the pavement. They might have gotten away with it too if it wasn’t for the flecks of a metal crowbar the medical examiner found lodged in her skull.”

  “Wow,” I muttered. “Two murders in two months here. That’s unheard of!”

  “I know. I’m not looking forward to going through another murder investigation,” Chief Gary couldn’t help but mutter, and I gave him a sympathetic look. I knew he really wasn’t a fan of his newfound fame. “Now, you girls aren’t going to go around trying to find the murderer this time, are you?”

  “No, no, of course not,” I reassured him. “I just wanted to make sure you knew Sprinkles was ok, and to let you know I’d take care of him until we can find him a suitable owner.” Of course, if Sprinkles led us straight to the murderer, that wasn’t my fault. And seeing as I was the only person in town who could do it, there was no way Chief Gary could find out the information from Sprinkles himself. So that was totally fine.

  “Good. Because I know we caught Zoe Wright thanks to you last time, but you were almost killed. I don’t want that happening again.”

  “It won’t, Chief. I promise.”

  Chief Gary smiled at me. “Thanks, Angela. I just don’t want to have to worry about you too much.”

  “You don’t need to worry about me, Chief. Now I’ll let you get back to work, I have an angry cat with an infection who needs to be seen, anyway.”

  * * *

  The day passed relatively uneventfully, and when the three of us were home I caught Charlotte up on the fact that it turned out to have been a murder after all, having told Sophie earlier in the day at the clinic.

  “I can’t believe it! And so soon after Nyman’s murder. This is insane. Who could have done this?”

  I looked toward Sprinkles, who was lying down in the corner with his face in between his paws, getting stared down by Bee from her spot on top of the bookcase.

  “I was thinking of maybe trying to ask him again tonight,” I said. “After all, it’s important. There is a murderer out there, and Sprinkles might know who it is.”

  Sophie nodded. “Yeah. I agree. He’s such a little sweetie though, it’s so sad to think about what he’s gone through.”

  It was funny, most of the town, it turned out, liked Sprinkles more than his owner. A few people in the clinic who found out I was taking care of him mentioned what a tragedy it was that he lost his owner, but nothing about the tragedy of a woman losing her life to a murderer who was out on the loose. Although, to be fair, that list bit was still just idle town gossip; I was fairly certain there were only a handful of people who actually knew it was murder.

  I brought Sprinkles over a bowl of food, and put Bee’s dinner on the other side of the room, along with half a sushi roll as a bribe.

  I sat next to Sprinkles as he ate his food. Most dogs disliked humans being nearby when they ate, but Sprinkles didn’t seem to mind at all. When he was finished, I patted him as he lay back down on the ground.

  “Hey Sprinkles,” I told him, gently stroking his soft fur. I spoke softly, knowing how he reacted the night before to this kind of questioning. “Are you up for answering a few questions? It’s important.”

  “If it’s important, I’ll try,” Sprinkles told me. “Of course.”

  “Thank you,” I told him, smiling. “What can you tell me about when Andrea was… hurt?”

  Sprinkles suddenly began to shake violently.

  “No. No, no. No. I can’t. I can’t. I don’t know. I don’t remember. I can’t.”

  “Ok, ok,” I told him, patting him again. “It’s ok, you don’t have to say anything. It’s ok.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sprinkles told me, looking up at me with his big brown eyes. “I can’t. I can’t remember. All I remember is fear.”

  “Ok, that’s alright. Don’t worry about it,” I told him with a smile. I looked up to where Sophie and Charlotte were working on dinner and shook my head. Sophie came over and started patting Sprinkles as well.

  “You’re a good boy, aren’t you,” she asked him, earning a hiss from Bee on the other side of the room.

  “You don’t even like Sophie,” I shot at my cat.

  “Well that doesn’t mean she’s allowed to like dogs,” Bee replied, and I rolled my eyes.

  “Angela?” Sprinkles asked, and I looked over at him. At least now he was calling me by my first name instead of ‘ma’am’.

  “Yes, Sprinkles?”

  “Would it be alright if I went to bed now? I’m still quite tired.”

  “Of course!” I told him, and led him back into my room, settled him in on his temporary bed – I made a mental note to go to the pet shop a few towns over and get him a bed on my next day off – and told him to sleep tight as I closed the door behind him.

  “He’s a little sweetie, isn’t he?” Sophie asked me as I came back into the kitchen and washed my hands before grabbing plates for the homemade veggie supreme pizza she and Charlotte had just made.

  “I’m a little sweetie,” Bee complained as she jumped onto the counter, walking along the ledge.

  “You are not in any way a little sweetie,” I replied, picking her up off the counter and setting her back down on the ground. “For one thing, you’ve known for years you’re not allowed up on the counter.”

  “I’m acting out because I’m being replaced.”

  �
��You are not being replaced. I love you, Bee. But I need to take care of Sprinkles too for a little while. Plus, Sprinkles might have information to help us catch a murderer. It’s important that he feel comfortable here.”

  I turned to Sophie and Charlotte.

  “I asked him, but he’s too scared. He says he doesn’t remember anything, only being scared. My guess is he’s repressed whatever happened.”

  “Awwww, poor thing,” Sophie muttered. “Do you think he’ll remember with time?”

  I shrugged. “I hope so. It certainly would help. I also think possibly telling him that whoever killed his owner has been arrested might help.”

  “Oh no,” Charlotte said. “Absolutely not. The last time you decided to hunt down a murderer yourself you almost died.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t?” I replied, shrugging my shoulders. “And we did catch the murderer. Zoe Wright’s going to be spending the next 30 years in jail thanks to us.”

  “Was it really worth it though? What if this time we do die? What then?”

  “Oh my God Charlotte, you’re such a baby,” Sophie chimed in.

  “Of course you agree with her,” Charlotte said, crossing her arms. “You’re both insane.”

  “Fine, well, you don’t have to have anything to do with it,” I told her.

  “That’s ridiculous. If you’re doing this, I’m in too. One of us has to be smart enough to keep you from killing yourselves.”

  “Well, we’re doing it. For Sprinkles,” Sophie said. “I don’t want that poor dog being so scared anymore. If we can use him to find the killer, great. If we can’t, well, we’ll find the killer on our own and hopefully that will help him heal. He’s too sweet a dog to go through this.”

  Charlotte sighed. “I hate both of you.”

  I supposed that meant she was in!

  Chapter 9

  The three of us were so busy the next couple of days that it wasn’t until Sunday, when the vet clinic was closed and Charlotte had no classes, that we really managed to start trying to figure out who could have killed Andrea Dottory.

  It was a beautiful, sunny mid-June day, so we decided to settle ourselves on the deck overlooking the backyard. Sophie made fresh squeezed apple juice while I worked on some French toast and maple syrup while Charlotte attended to Bee and our canine visitor.

  “You can come outside, Bee, but you have to promise you’re not going to catch any birds, mice, or any other living creatures. If you do, no more sushi, EVER.”

  “Fine,” Bee muttered, and I opened the balcony door. She found a nice spot on the deck and curled up into a little ball, letting the rays of sunshine heat up her body.

  Sprinkles, on the other hand, was almost afraid of the backyard. I supposed after his time in the woods, the backyard must have been a bit intimidating.

  “You don’t have to come out,” I told him gently. “You can stay in the house if you feel more comfortable.”

  “I think I might, thank you,” he replied, and walked back towards my bedroom.

  “Such a sweetie,” Sophie said, a smile on her face as she piled maple syrup on her pancakes, then covered them with whipped cream and fresh strawberries I’d bought at the farmers market the previous afternoon.

  “I’m like eighty percent sure you’re going to get diabetes from eating that,” Charlotte observed.

  “Whatever, science will have cured that by the time I get it,” Sophie replied, and Charlotte just shook her head, looking exasperated.

  I grabbed a couple slices of French toast myself, added the toppings, and dug in. It was a heavenly treat after what had been a pretty stressful week. So stressful that we hadn’t even really had an opportunity to complain about Lisa’s new boyfriend together; everything was about Sprinkles and the murder.

  I took a long sip of the fresh squeezed orange juice and let the sun’s rays warm and heal my bones. No wonder Bee loved doing this so much. It felt like I was a character in a video game who’d just hit the magic potion to re-energize them completely. A couple squirrels were calling to each other in the trees, and birds sang in the woods around our property. This was truly the kind of Sunday morning I loved.

  When we’d finally eaten all the French toast, Charlotte pulled out a notebook and pen, and opened it to the first page.

  “Ok. Since we’re apparently doing this, I figured we should start off with a list of people who should be mad at Andrea Dottory. Anyone who might have a reason to kill her. Then we can organize it by likelihood of wanting to murder the woman, and then we can see if any of those people have alibis.”

  “Leave it to Charlotte to do everything by the book and super logically,” Sophie teased.

  “Do you have a better idea?” Charlotte asked, and Sophie was forced to admit she didn’t.

  “Good. Then we’re going with this. Who had a reason to hate Andrea?”

  I closed my eyes for a second. Was “virtually everyone in town” a good answer?

  “Antonia deLucca, for one,” Sophie replied. “She and Andrea were really good friends for ages, and then they had that falling out and pretty much hated each other for years.”

  “That’s right,” I said, remembering back. “And it wasn’t like either one of them were prone to keeping things a secret, so it must have been something big between them to never tell anyone. Plus Antonia didn’t exactly look upset when she came to Bella’s and announced that Andrea had been murdered.”

  “Good. Antonia is the first on the list. Who else?”

  “What about Andrew Powers?” I asked.

  “Ohhh good one, I forgot about him,” Charlotte said. Andrew had been a professional here in town, he ran a small bookkeeping business, and Lisa had actually used him once or twice to do some work for her. When Andrea was audited by the IRS she blamed him, and spread a rumour around town that he was stealing from his clients. The rumour had no legs at all, but Andrew famously had a meltdown in the middle of Bella’s Café one day when someone asked about it, then moved out of town the next day and was never seen again, although it had been strongly suggested that he simply moved to Portland. Definitely close enough to drive back and murder someone.

  Once the list began, the names kept flowing.

  “Betty MacMahon, Andrea started that rumour her bakery was poisoning people.”

  “Patricia Wilson, she told everyone her son was a drug addict.”

  “Carson Summers, too.”

  “And Henry Wright.”

  “Don’t forget Kelsey Kolakawa.”

  “And Sophie,” I added.

  “Wait what? Why should I hate her?”

  “Remember when she told everyone your dad was a spy for the Japanese in World War 2?”

  “Ohhhh yeah! And I had to tell everyone my dad wasn’t even alive in World War 2.” That had happened when we were still in elementary school

  “See? So you should go on the list.”

  “Oh come on, I didn’t kill her.”

  “We only have your word for that,” I teased, sticking my tongue out at Sophie, who reached over and hit me on the arm.

  “Owwwwww. See? Propensity for violence!”

  “I’m not putting Sophie’s name down on the list,” Charlotte finally said. “Do you have any more useful names to add?”

  Charlotte scribbled down the names as quickly as we could come up with them, and when we were running out of names to add to the list fifteen minutes later, Charlotte threw down her pen and sighed.

  “Who knew one person could make so many enemies?” she asked. “It’s going to take us weeks to get through this list.”

  “Yeah, that’s a ridiculous number of people to make enemies of,” I said, looking at the list. There had to be fifty names on there, at least.

  “So now we figure out who had the most reason to kill Andrea,” Charlotte said, ripping out the piece of paper with the names on it and putting it on the table in front of us. She sat, poised, pen at the ready with another sheet.

  “I think it’s Andrew Pow
ers, by a mile,” I said, scanning through the list. “Some of the other stuff is possibly worse – like whatever happened between her and Antonia deLucca, but most of the worse stuff seemed to have happened a long time ago. Like when she told Caroline Prust her husband was cheating on her and it broke up their marriage. That was over ten years ago now. But Andrew Powers… that was only what? Six months ago? And she fully drove him out of town. Six months isn’t a long time to get over something that big, especially since it was his business and his livelihood.”

  “I agree,” Sophie replied. “Powers first for sure. You weren’t at the café when he had his meltdown like I was. He was full on insane. Like, I legitimately thought he was going to have an aneurism or something.”

  “Wow, this is off to a good start, we all agree on something for once!” Charlotte joked. “I think Andrew Powers should be at the top of the list as well.”

  “And Antonia deLucca should be second,” I added. “I don’t know why she and Andrea hated each other so much, but it was obviously something big.”

  “Good. Let’s focus on them for now. We don’t want to make our list of suspects too big to be manageable,” Charlotte said.

  “Maybe if Andrea Dottory had been a little bit more likeable, we wouldn’t have to,” Sophie muttered. I couldn’t disagree with her there.

  “So who’s going to do the online stalking thing to try and find out where Andrew Powers lives now?” I asked. “After all, if it turns out he moved to London, there’s not really any point in considering him a suspect, is there?”

  “I’ll do it,” Charlotte said. “I’m going to be spending most of the day on my computer anyway, I have an essay to write for a class.”

  “Good. I’ll see if I can wrangle an alibi out of Antonia deLucca,” Sophie said.

  “And I guess I’ll go down to Betty’s for lunch and see if I can get any more gossip that can help us out,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. To be honest, I was pretty glad to have a job without a set goal. I was feeling a little bit tired, and getting to enjoy one of Betty’s BLTs for lunch while idly gossiping with Willow Bay residents had just the right amount of eating and lack of movement I was hoping for in my role today.