“You mean to tell me that Gloria’s husband was the one that found the old railcars in the forest?” I asked. I had never heard this story; there was a trail leading to the railcars now which was super popular among both tourists and locals, as the route was only about a mile long one way, fairly easy, and extremely scenic.
“Oh yes,” Betty said, nodding enthusiastically. “The day when it was officially announced that they were building a trail there was one of the best days of his life, I think. We were still in high school; it was about three years after he had initially discovered the cars. He was extremely excited, I think because it led everyone to believe that some of his other ridiculous adventures had actually happened as well.”
“Did they?” I asked with a smile. I was genuinely curious now. After all, I’d taken the trail to the railcars multiple times in my life.
Betty shrugged. “Who on earth knows? I suspect a lot of them were made up; why on earth would there be underground bunkers outside of Willow Bay? It just makes no sense. He claimed to have found a lot of things in the forest that simply should not have been there.”
“Did you know any of his friends as an adult?”
Betty shook her head no. “I’m afraid not. We lost touch completely after he moved out of town; we had never been close, so when he left I almost never saw him again. He did come back to town a few times, but not often. Last time I saw him would’ve been, oh, around twelve years ago. It was a few months after that woman up in the city strangled the hitman her husband hired to kill her. It was during the school year; I remember thinking that of course Francis couldn’t even take his holidays at the same time as normal people.”
“Right,” I said, nodding. “I’d forgotten about that.”
“That was the last time I saw him.” Betty shrugged. “Then a few years ago I found out he had died.”
“Do you know how it happened?”
“Heart attack,” Betty said. “Quite a sudden one, as well. Apparently, he just collapsed and never regained consciousness afterwards.”
I nodded. “So you’ve never heard the name Michael Carlton before?”
Betty shook her head. “Not in the context of anything to do with Francis. The first time I heard that name was a couple of days ago when it popped up in the papers.”
I frowned. While it was interesting to know Francis Romano’s background, it didn’t seem to be getting me anywhere when it came to a link between him and Michael Carlton. Another dead end. It seemed this case was full of them.
Betty came back with my sandwich and brownie a couple of minutes later, and I thanked her as I left, mulling over everything she’d told me.
Nope, for the life of me I couldn’t see how this could help me solve the case.
Chapter 15
Still, I knew that there was one case that I could solve right now. I dropped my food off at the vet clinic without eating it and made my way towards Sequoia Street. Looking at Google Maps, this was the street whose houses on the left-hand side backed onto the creek where the beavers lived.
The fact that the beavers had heard the man complaining that their dam was flooding his yard made me think that he almost certainly lived along here somewhere. Now all I had to do was start knocking on doors and hope that I recognized the man when he answered.
As I stood staring at the first house, I wondered if maybe I shouldn’t have brought Jason along with me. After all, whoever had done this to the beavers was obviously violent. Still, I didn’t intend to be super aggressive or anything like that; I just wanted to talk to the person who had done this and see if we couldn’t sort something out.
Of course, there was always my magic as well. Because I wasn’t allowed to use magic in front of regular humans, I pointed at myself and whispered the same spell that I had used to protect the beavers’ lodge.
“Praesidioroa.”
With a spell in place, I knew that even if the person who attacked the beavers came after me, I was still going to be safe.
I made my way towards the first house on the street, a slightly run-down rancher with an overgrown front lawn. A couple of moments after I knocked on the front door, an older woman who I didn’t recognize answered the door.
“I’m sorry, I’m not interested in buying anything,” she told me as soon as she saw me.
“Wait, I’m not selling—” I tried to reply, but before I got the words out she’d already slammed the door in my face. “Anything,” I finished saying to the large wooden door now only a few inches from my face.
I briefly considered trying again, then decided against it. I could try the rest of the houses on the street first, after all.
The next house looked quite a bit like the previous rancher, but at least this one looked like somebody had mowed the front lawn at some point in the last year. I made my way up to the house and knocked, smiling as I heard the bark of a dog. I knew exactly who lived here.
“Dr. Wilson!” a man in his thirties exclaimed when he came to the door, holding back a big yellow lab by the collar. “Is there something wrong with Eddie?”
“No.” I shook my head. “Sorry to bother you, Casey. I actually didn’t realize you lived here. Someone on your side of the street has been destroying the beavers’ dam further down the creek that runs behind your place, and I’m trying to figure out who it is. I’ve just been knocking on doors, hoping to find the person.”
“Oh, try two doors down from here. The man who lives there, Brett Jones, has a little bit of a temper, and he was complaining to me the other day about the extra water in his yard.”
“Has it been especially bad?” I asked.
Casey shrugged. “I dunno. Sure, the water level is a little bit higher than it normally is, but I figured it was just because of the extra snow in the mountains melting into the creek or something. I didn’t realize it was beavers. But you can’t buy a house that backs onto a creek and expect the water level to stay constant all the time.”
I nodded. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
“No problem. Let me know if Brett gives you a hard time. I’ll keep an ear out just in case.”
“Thanks, Casey,” I said with a smile, and he nodded as he made his way back into his house.
I left and made my way towards the house Casey had directed me to. The exterior had been painted white with gray trimming that gave the whole place a nice, modern look. A fancy sports car out the front was obviously his pride and joy. I made my way up to the front door and knocked, not knowing exactly what to expect.
The man who answered the door was one hundred percent the man who had been destroying the beavers’ dam and lodge. As soon as I saw him, I knew. He had the same frame, the same dark hair, and the same way of moving.
“Yes?” he asked, his face a mixture of idle curiosity and light annoyance.
“Hi, I’m Angela Wilson, the local vet in town. I’m wondering if you have a few minutes to chat.”
“What about? I don’t have any pets,” the man said, crossing his arms.
“It’s actually about the beavers that live downstream from the creek that runs behind your house,” I said.
“Is the city finally going to get rid of those pieces of crap? Good. Let them go mess up someone else’s property.”
“Actually,” I said, “I was hoping that we could somehow come to an agreement that would result in you and the beavers being able to live peacefully together.”
“Not a chance in hell, lady. Thanks to them, the creek behind my place is flooding, and it’s messing with my lawn. I want them gone, and I don’t care what it takes.”
“Would it be alright if I come have a look?” I asked, and the man looked like he wanted to say no for a minute. Then, he changed his mind.
“Sure, let me just grab a jacket,” he said, reaching to the side and grabbing a small coat. He threw it on and came out the front with me and led me around the side of the house, through a large gate, and into the backyard.
The backyard was immaculately taken
care of. The lawn was obviously healthy, and a shed along the other side of the yard was full of gardening equipment. Along the house were multiple flower and vegetable beds, and I imagined this man must live pretty well during the summer when they bore fruit.
“This is a really nice yard,” I commented, and for the first time, the man smiled.
“Thanks,” he said. “If only those bloody beavers weren’t ruining it for me.”
“Can you show me where it’s flooding?” I asked. He nodded briskly and led me towards the creek at the far end of the backyard. To be totally honest, when I saw it, I had no idea what the problem was. Sure, the water level had risen a bit, and I could see about a foot of manicured grass underneath the water, but that was it. As far as I could tell, there was nothing here to actually be angry about.
“That’s what’s been going on,” the man said. “Their stupid dam is flooding onto my yard, and I need it to stop.”
“I’m sorry for being dense,” I said cautiously, “but it looks to me as though the flooding is really quite minimal.”
“Yes, but the point is, it’s my land. Those stupid beavers have no right to block up the flow of water and have the creek level rise onto my property.”
Oh boy. This was definitely not going to be easy.
“Don’t you think the beavers have a right to live as well? Without the dam, they can’t get the water level high enough for their lodge, and it leaves them vulnerable to attacks from predators like coyotes.”
“Good—the sooner the coyotes get at them, the better. As far as I’m concerned, the beavers have no right to anything. They didn’t pay for the land that their lodge is sitting on like I did, and their actions are coming onto my property.”
“How about this? Why don’t I pay you for the portion of your property that’s covered by the extra water brought on by the beavers’ dam existing?” I offered. If all it took to end this dispute was me paying a little bit of money to allow the beavers to live comfortably where they wanted to, I was fully willing and able to do that. This guy might’ve been a bit crazy, but I really just wanted this fight to be over.
“Absolutely not,” the man said, crossing his arms. “I bought this house because of the property backing up onto the creek, and that’s that. Why do you care about the stupid beavers anyway?”
“I care about them because, like us, they’re animals just trying to do their best in this world. There is no reason to destroy their home just because it made the water creep up onto your property by an extra foot.”
“Spoken like somebody who isn’t inconvenienced by it herself,” the man said. “Now, I think I’ve shown you enough. I want you to leave now.”
Not wanting to cause a scene, I headed back towards the gate and the road. As the man headed back towards the front of his house, I stopped. “I do implore you to please just let the beavers be,” I called out after him.
“Not until they stop ruining my land,” the man shouted after me. I let out a sigh. This had definitely not gone nearly as well as I had hoped.
Chapter 16
That afternoon I only had a couple of patients, which were relatively painless to deal with. Just a couple of checkups of happy and healthy animals.
My mind was still preoccupied with the beaver problem. Beavers were important in Oregon, and they were actually somewhat protected by the law. If they caused significant issues, it was possible to trap and relocate them—some beavers had chosen unfortunate locations that led to houses being fully flooded by their dams—but that was definitely not the case here. This was a case of a man being angry that the size of his already large backyard had been reduced by a single foot, and he seemingly wasn’t willing to make any concessions.
By the end of the day, I knew what I was going to do.
In Oregon, the beaver was actually an important and celebrated animal. They were not only the official state animal, but in 1849, when the Oregon territory defied the federal government and created its own mint, the coins created by Oregon had featured a beaver on them. To this day, the state of Oregon still has a beaver on the state flag.
I was very aware that at the moment the US Wildlife Services was in the midst of a legal battle with a number of environmental protection groups when it came to what had to be done about beavers. However, I also knew someone at the Wildlife Services that I thought could help.
I gave her a call, and a few minutes later, I had a solution to my problem. One that was going to make everybody happy, I hoped.
I had received a text from Jason telling me that he was going to attend the local council meeting that night and asking me not to wait up for him. Sophie decided to come over for dinner once more, and as the two of us ate leftover pasta with some wine, we began to complain about just how hard it really was to solve this crime.
“I just don’t know where we can go from here,” I said, taking a big gulp of Chardonnay.
“I totally hear you,” Sophie said. “I spent half the day today when I was in the back trying to think about what we have to be missing, and I can’t think of anything.”
“I did speak to Betty at lunch,” I said. “She told me a lot about Francis as a boy, but I don’t think it’s anything that we can use, and she had definitely never heard the name Michael Carlton before he was killed.”
“Well, personally, I’m extremely disappointed in the both of you,” Bee said from her spot on top of the couch. “Buster is the world’s most important cat—well, next to me, of course—and I take your inability to find the person who attacked him as an immense failure in both your personalities.”
“Thanks for your input, Bee,” I said, giving my cat a sly glance. “I haven’t seen you throw out any miraculous suggestions.”
“Unlike you, I realize that my position as a cat means that detective work isn’t in the cards for me. My role is that of a motivator.”
“Yes, the promise that this is a failure of my personality is just super inspiring.”
“We all have our methods. I assume that you will be so devastated in failing me that you will redouble your efforts to find the person who attacked Buster.”
Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I turned back to Sophie. “Betty says she hasn’t seen Francis Romano in about a dozen years. She says he was a bit of a troublemaker back when they were in school, but she thinks he would’ve been a good teacher.”
“That sucks,” Sophie said. “I seriously wish we knew why the killer thought Gloria, and presumably Michael, had any money. I think that’s the link we’re missing right now. Why would two retired public servants, a group of people known for being underpaid and overworked, have so much money?”
Suddenly, my eyes widened. Everything clicked. It all made sense.
“Hand me my iPad,” I said to Sophie, holding my hand out. She passed it over to me.
“What is it?”
I ignored her as I opened the screen and tapped away. “You know how Jason said the building underneath the school district workers’ building was a bank?”
“Yeah, Oregon People’s Credit Union,” Sophie nodded. “What about it?”
“Remember twelve years ago? What happened there?”
Sophie frowned. “Not really. But twelve years ago, we were in high school.”
“Right. And while you were busy partying every weekend and hooking up with the worst guys, I actually kept up with the news.”
“This story isn’t exactly making you out to be the coolest person ever.”
“Maybe not, but one of us remembers exactly what happened twelve years ago,” I said triumphantly as I opened up a news article from back then and handed the iPad over to Sophie.
“Arrest Made in Biggest Bank Robbery in Oregon History,” she read from the headline before scrolling down and continuing. “The Portland County District Attorney’s Office has released a statement confirming the arrest of Charles Green in the robbery of the Oregon People’s Credit Union two weeks ago. The brazen middle-of-the-night robbery allegedly co
mmitted by Mr. Green, a longtime resident of Portland, ended with the Oregon People’s Credit Union vault being robbed of over $5 million worth of cash.”
Sophie looked up at me and raised her eyebrows. “That’s not a small figure.”
“That’s for sure,” I nodded.
“What does that have to do with Michael Carlton, though? I mean, yeah, he worked above where that robbery took place, but presumably so did hundreds of other people. And how would Gloria’s husband have been involved?”
“If you keep reading, it says the police suspect Charles Green wasn’t working alone, but that he won’t tell police who his accomplices were.”
“Did Michael Carlton know Charles Green?”
“I think he did. And I think we do, too.”
Sophie’s eyes widened as she realized what I was talking about. “Chuck, the guy from the coffee shop who said he had moved away from Portland for a while.”
“Exactly. Who came back to town right when Charles Green was released from prison.”
“So he didn’t meet Michael Carlton while playing golf.”
“No, he didn’t. Thinking about it, there wasn’t anything in Michael Carlton’s house that indicated he played any sports at all. There certainly wasn’t any golf gear there.”
“Agreed,” Sophie said. “So Michael Carlton was Charles Green’s partner in crime.”
“And Francis Romano,” I added. “The three of them must have gotten together and committed the crime somehow.”
“We need to tell Chief Gary,” Sophie said, and I nodded in agreement.
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