Barking Up The Wrong Tree

Chapter 13

“You did what, exactly?” Charlotte asked when we told her all about our little adventure at the police station.

“Relax, it wasn’t like it was dangerous or anything.”

“You broke into a police station, looked through the police chief’s office, and then spied on an interrogation. There are like, at least six laws you broke today.”

“Yeah, but no one would believe you if you went and tattled anyway,” I replied. “This is why we don’t tell you we’re doing things.”

“Oh, yeah, because it’s so inconvenient to have one person in the group who doesn’t believe in blatantly breaking a ton of laws.”

“Fine,” Sophie said with a grin. “I guess we just won’t tell you what we found out, seeing as you think it was so wrong that we got the info.”

Charlotte’s face fell. “Well, now that it’s done, I want to know what you got. I just don’t think you should have done it in the first place,” she added, crossing her arms.

Sophie passed her the phone. We’d looked at the photo of the police report from 1989 while we were still at the vet clinic. And it was juicy.

“Wow,” Charlotte said breathlessly as she read through it. “Is this real?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “I mean, as far as we know. It was on Chief Gary’s desk.” Charlotte shot me a dirty look, obviously still not agreeing with what we did, then went back to the report.

“So if I’m reading this right, it looks like back in ’89 they were all in Vegas, along with Antonia’s husband, and a fight broke out and Antonia was arrested for breaking Andrea’s husband’s nose?”

“That’s definitely what it says,” Sophie replied. “Can you believe it?”

“And it looks like what happened in Vegas stayed in Vegas,” I replied. “I’d never, ever heard about that at all. And I mean, this is Willow Bay! It must have been about something important if everyone kept it a secret for so long.”

“We should ask my mom,” Sophie said. “She was around then, if anything was mentioned she might remember it.”

“Your mom will want to know how we got the information though,” Charlotte argued. “And obviously we can’t tell her. That information just cannot leave this room at all.”

“We just have to tell her we heard something happened between them in the late 80s and ask if she knows anything about it. We’re the only people other than Chief Gary who know about that police report, so she won’t know why we care.”

“Ok. Definitely. But you said she has an alibi?”

“Apparently when Andrea Dottory was killed Antonia was at Betty’s,” Sophie told her.

“She must have left, found the crime scene and then come back,” I mused. “She wasn’t there when I got there, but she came in a little bit after to tell everyone about the body.”

“Well if she was there, then there was no way she could have killed Andrea,” Charlotte said. “So we have to find out from Betty if her alibi is real. And while you guys were out breaking the law, I did some cyber stalking and got some info about Andrew Powers.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked with interest.

“He lives in Portland, so he could have easily come back to Willow Bay to take out Andrea Dottory. Plus, I called his work and found out that he wasn’t actually at work that day, he had decided to take a personal day.”

Charlotte looked at us proudly, and I had to admit, I was impressed.

“How did you manage that, Char?” I asked.

“I called up the office where he’s working and asked the receptionist if she could remind me what time my appointment with him was, for my records. When I told her the date, she told me it couldn’t have been that day as he’d taken a personal day, and I apologized and told her I must have gotten myself confused and that I’d call back.”

“Wow,” Sophie said, looking at Charlotte appraisingly. “I didn’t think you actually had the ability to lie in you.”

Charlotte blushed. The funny thing was, even though she absolutely hated lying, Charlotte was actually very, very good at it.

“So how do we figure out how to tell if Andrew Powers was in Willow Bay a few days ago?” I asked. The silence I received in response made it obvious neither one of the other two had any idea yet either.

Suddenly, Sprinkles walked into the room, looking warily at Bee, but luckily my cat had fallen asleep on top of her scratcher, where the sunshine poured in. He settled down next to Sophie and let her pat him.

“Are you talking about Andrea?” Sprinkles asked.

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Have you found out who hurt her yet?” he asked, his big eyes looking sadly at me.

I had to shake my head. “No. No, I don’t know. The police think it was Antonia deLucca.

Sprinkles let out a low growl, the first time I’d ever heard him do that. He was normally so polite.

“Antonia is not a good person,” Sprinkles told us. Suddenly it hit me. Sprinkles was too young to have been alive back when Andrea and Antonia were friends, but maybe he knew what had happened between them!

“Why not, Sprinkles?” I asked. “Why isn’t Antonia a good person?”

“Antonia made Andrea’s daughter go away.”

I looked up at the other two in shock.

“You can look at us like that, but we don’t know what he just said,” Sophie said.

“Oops,” I replied sheepishly, then quickly caught them up on the conversation.

“Hey Sprinkles,” Sophie asked him kindly. “Where did Antonia make Andrea’s daughter go away to?”

Could it possibly be true? Had Antonia deLucca killed Andrea’s daughter? I didn’t know she even had a daughter.

“To London,” Sprinkles replied.

“Wait, like, England?” I asked, surprised. That wasn’t exactly the answer I’d been expecting.

“Yes. England. Janice got mad at Andrea when Antonia told her the truth, and she moved to England.”

“But what did Antonia tell Janice to make her so mad?”

“She told her the truth: that her parents weren’t her real parents, that they stole her.”

My mouth dropped open at that revelation.

“Stole her?” I noticed Charlotte and Sophie looking both confused and expectant. They could only understand my half of the conversation, but my God was it ever something!

“Andrea told me the whole story one day, after Antonia visited her. She was crying. When she and her husband were young they found out they couldn’t have children. One day Andrea saw a girl at the mall when they were on holiday in Arizona. Her mom was hitting her. She told the woman to stop, and the woman told her to mind her own business. Andrea followed them. The mom kept hitting the poor little girl, and eventually Andrea decided the girl would have a better life with them. She took the little girl, admitted what she’d done to her husband, and they immediately drove back to Willow Bay with her. They told everyone that they had adopted her from a destitute cousin, and no one questioned it. Only Antonia knew the truth, because she was Andrea’s best friend. Andrea never told me why Antonia told her daughter the truth. But it was a long time ago. And Janice said she was leaving, and never coming back. And Andrea never saw her again, and it broke her heart. Andrea’s husband died about two months later.”

My mouth was completely agape when Sprinkles finished telling me this story. I passed it on to Charlotte and Sophie, and their reactions mirrored mine.

“I wonder if Antonia deciding to tell the truth had anything to do with what happened in Las Vegas?” Charlotte mused.

“Maybe. Or maybe Las Vegas was after Antonia told Janice,” Sophie offered, but Charlotte shook her head.

“No way. There’s no way Andrea would go to Vegas with Antonia after her daughter left. Definitely not. She would have hated Antonia then.” Charlotte had a good point.

“You know what? This is a problem that needs to be tackled with the help of some white cheddar popcorn,” I announced, getting up and making my way to the kitchen to grab the bag I’d bought the other day.

I was thankful that Sprinkles was finally starting to open up to us. Maybe with his help we’d have an easier time breaking this case open. But oh man, was that ever a bombshell of a revelation.

“But wait,” I realized after a minute. “I mean, this doesn’t mean Antonia had any reason to kill Andrea. In fact, it’s more the other way around. This gives Andrea a motive to kill Antonia, which she obviously didn’t do.”

“That’s true,” Charlotte said, slowly. “It’s not like Antonia would have been likely to grow a conscience and decide to do away with her former best friend over this, randomly, now, years and years after Janice left anyway.”

“Oh hell,” Sophie spat, crossing her arms. “I was really hoping that would have been a huge breakthrough for us.”

I sighed. To be honest, I’d been hoping for that as well. The deeper we delved, the more frustrating this case got.