A Grizzly Discovery

9

“You know, what you’ve discovered is so frigging unbelievable I can’t even be mad at you guys for breaking into a police sealed hotel room.”

“So that’s the line, is it?” I replied. “We just have to find proof that the murder victim was part of a gang of thieves that stole a multi-million-dollar diamond, and then we’re free to commit as many felonies as we want?”

“Shut up, Angie,” Sophie said. “She’s actually not nagging us for going out and doing something for once, just leave it alone.”

“Good point,” I replied, and waited for Charlotte to continue.

“I actually think you’re both correct. I think they did steal the diamond. After all, 415 is a San Francisco area code.”

“Who even knows that sort of thing?” Sophie muttered quietly, and I let out a giggle while Charlotte glared at her.

“So what do we know about the thieves then?”

“Well, there were five of them,” I said. “Jeremy and the four people who sent him texts.”

“Also, he was working alone in stealing the diamond from the thieves. All four of the people sent him threats about what they’d do to him if he didn’t give them back the diamond.”

“The two men who also broke into the hotel room—Jack and Andrew—they were almost certainly two of the thieves. And the other two were mentioned by name. Keith and Claire.”

“Good,” Charlotte said. “That’s a lot of information to start off with.”

“Plus I bet you that answers the question of where Jeremy Wallace went in the middle of the night the day before he was killed,” I continued. “He probably went and hid the diamond somewhere, since it seems like none of the others have it, and if the police had found it when they initially searched his room they would have announced it for sure.”

“So that means that hidden somewhere in Willow Bay is a stolen diamond worth tens of millions of dollars,” Sophie said, letting out a low whistle. The three of us looked at each other. This was serious.

“Obviously we have to go give Chief Gary the cell phone,” Charlotte said.

“Uh, absolutely not,” I replied.

“Why not? It has evidence that Jeremy Wallace was involved in the diamond theft, and gives a ton of motives for his murder.”

“And in doing so, Sophie and I have to admit that we committed a felony. I want justice for Jeremy Wallace, but I don’t want to go to jail over it.”

“Well maybe you should think about that before committing crimes,” Charlotte shot back.

“Hey, if I didn’t do this, then we wouldn’t know Jeremy Wallace was one of the diamond thieves anyway.”

“Angie’s right,” Sophie said. “We can’t go to Chief Gary. We can’t admit we were in that hotel room. Besides, he thinks it was a bear attack anyway.”

“And he might change his mind if he knew that there were four people out there with a perfect motive to kill someone,” Charlotte argued. I would never admit it, but she had a point.

“We have to find a different way to let Chief Gary know what happened,” I said.

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not exactly helpful.”

“I’ve only had like, thirty seconds to think of a solution. I don’t see you coming up with anything, either.”

“I have come up with a solution. Tell Chief Gary what you did. He’s not going to throw you in jail.”

“You don’t know that. And I’m not admitting to him that I committed a crime. Not a chance. Give me like, at least a few hours to come up with something.”

“Fine,” Charlotte said.

I texted Jason to see if he wanted to grab some dinner. He texted back that he was, so I left Sophie and Charlotte and made my way to the Ship’s Anchor, the local pub in Willow Bay. The music there was loud enough, and the booths private enough, that I could tell Jason everything I’d learned without fear of being overheard by anyone.

Rather than drive down, I decided to walk to the pub to give myself a little bit of time to gather my thoughts and think about everything I’d learned today. Even though the sky was overcast, it didn’t look like it was going to rain, but I grabbed an umbrella just in case. I could always get Jason to drive me home if the weather changed over dinner.

As I made my way down the streets of Willow Bay, the sky darkening just enough to cause the streetlights to turn on automatically as I walked beneath them, I considered everything Sophie and I had discovered that afternoon.

Jason Wallace had been a diamond thief. There were four others in the group with him. He stole the diamond, hid it somewhere, then was killed. Presumably all four of the others were in Willow Bay.

But there were questions. Most pressingly: why did the killer murder Wallace without finding the location of the diamond? If Jason Wallace had died without telling them the diamond’s location, then they had no way of finding it. He couldn’t have told the killer; the others were still in Willow Bay looking for the stone. Unless one of them already had it in their possession and was only pretending to still be looking. That didn’t make any sense either though; whoever had the diamond would probably leave straight away to avoid detection.

This flurry of thoughts sped through my brain as I headed down Main Street toward the pub. Suddenly, I heard a noise to my left. I looked over and saw a black and an orange cat darting away from me and behind Betty’s Café at top speed.

“Bee? Buster?” I asked, confused. The cats certainly looked like mine. And now that I thought about it, when we’d gotten home I hadn’t seen Bee at all. The cats were gone so fast, a part of me wondered if my mind was just playing tricks on me. It certainly looked like Bee, but Bee wasn’t the kind of cat to wander off and get into trouble on her own. She was just far too apathetic for that.

I shook my head. It must have been a couple of other cats. The fact that they were black and orange was just a coincidence; I must have made myself think it was them because of the colors.

Putting the cats out of my head, three minutes later I walked into the Ship’s Anchor. Sure enough, Livin’ on a Prayer was blasting out of the speakers. I saw Jason already sitting in a corner booth, so I made my way over to him. The Ship’s Anchor was modeled after the kind of bar you’d expect to see in Pirates of the Caribbean, but without the dive-bar clientele. The provincial furniture, corner fireplace and dim lighting certainly gave a rustic impression, but the clientele was definitely not the type to toast each other at two in the morning. I walked past Betty having dinner with a friend, and Leanne Chu sitting at a corner table by herself with her laptop and a beer.

I slipped into the booth next to Jason and leaned my head on his shoulder.

“Hey,” he told me, kissing me on top of the head. I closed my eyes and enjoyed his closeness for a minute until the waitress came by with a menu. She was noticeably cool toward me, and incredibly warm toward Jason. I was used to that by now. I ordered a vodka and orange juice—I figured after the day I’d had I deserved a stiff drink—and began to speak.

“So,” I said, perusing the menu even though I already knew I was going to get the black bean quesadilla with tortilla chips on the side. It was my usual here. “I actually do have a reason for this last-minute dinner.”

“You mean you didn’t miss me so much that you couldn’t stand going another minute without having me in your presence?” Jason asked with a grin.

“Well, there is that,” I conceded. “But also, I have a huge scoop for you.”

“Ooooh, do tell!” Jason said, his eyes twinkling.

“Seriously, you’ve never had a scoop this big,” I told him.

“I’m not going to have it at all if you don’t tell me what it is.”

“Fine,” I said, sticking my tongue out at him. “Jeremy Wallace was one of five people involved in stealing the Helena diamond. He stole it from the rest of the thieves and hid it somewhere in Willow Bay before he was killed.”

I didn’t think I’d ever seen Jason actually look surprised before. He was the least flappable person I’d ever met; Willow Bay probably didn’t come close to what he’d seen in New York, even with all the crazy events of the last few months. But this time, his mouth dropped open and his eyes widened.

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m one-hundred-percent serious.”

He let out a low whistle and closed his eyes. “You know, Willow Bay was advertised to me as a small, seaside resort where nothing interesting ever happens. And now you’re telling me on top of four, probably five murders since I’ve arrived here, a band of criminals are searching for one of the most famous diamonds in the world that’s hidden here somewhere?”

“Technically Caroline Gibson was murdered in Wawnee, and Jessica Oliver’s body was just dumped here,” I replied with a shrug. “But yeah. If it helps, apart from the group of thieves, I’m pretty sure the four of us are the only people who know about this.”

“So you think one of the four thieves killed Jeremy Wallace?”

“Yup.”

“How did you find this out, anyway?”

I lowered my voice to barely more than a whisper; Jason had to lean in to hear me.

“Sophie and I broke into Jeremy Wallace’s hotel room; we found a hidden burner phone and then two of the other thieves broke in as well.”

“And they didn’t see you?”

“We hid in the bathroom,” I replied, inwardly cursing myself for forgetting about the magic part. At least it wasn’t a total lie.

“That’s crazy,” Jason told me. “You two realize you could have been seriously hurt, or killed, if they’d found you? One of them could be the murderer.”

“I know, but we couldn’t know that two of the other thieves were going to break in at the exact same time we did,” I argued, although secretly it warmed my heart that Jason cared so much about my safety.

Jason shook his head. “I’m glad you’re safe. And I’m glad you found that information. Can I have a look at the phone?”

I nodded and pulled it out of my purse, handing it over to Jason. Suddenly, I had an idea.

“You could actually solve one of our problems!” I exclaimed.

“Oh?”

“We want to get the phone to Chief Gary. After all, we want him to know that Jeremy Wallace was one of the diamond thieves, and that there are people out there with reason to kill him. But we didn’t know how to do it without admitting that Sophie and I broke into his hotel room where there was a police seal.”

A small smile crept up Jason’s face. “And here when I first met you I thought you were a goody two shoes. So you want me to take the phone and tell Chief Gary a source gave it to me?”

“Exactly!” I replied.

“I can do that,” Jason said. “He’ll probably know where it came from though. There aren’t a lot of people around who have been digging into Jeremy Wallace’s life. Everyone seems to have accepted that he was killed by a bear. By the way, I’ve been reading the letters to the editor. At least four of them have called for a bear cull. I recommend that you write one for the bears; I’ll make sure it gets top billing.”

“Thanks,” I replied with a sigh. People were just so scared of bears. I mentally added writing a letter to the editor to my to-do list for the next day. “I’ll email it over to you in the next day or so.”

“Sounds good,” Jason said. “I’ll copy the messages on the phone and send them to you before giving this to Chief Gary.”

“Thanks,” I replied with a smile. This was good. This way Chief Gary would have to admit there were people out there willing to kill Jeremy Wallace, and he might give the case another look.

“I’m impressed that you found this out,” Jason told me after the waitress came by to take our orders then left. “Seriously. If you ever decide that veterinary medicine isn’t for you, please take up investigative journalism.”

“Thanks,” I told Jason, shooting him a smile.

“And if you’re going to be committing any crimes with Sophie in the future, please remember that I make a pretty good bodyguard.”

“I figured that you aren’t really supposed to commit crimes to get a story.”

“It only counts as a crime if you get caught,” he replied with a wink, and I laughed.

“So how are you going to figure out which of the four people killed Jeremy Wallace?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” I replied. “We only found out about it a couple of hours ago. Luckily, Sophie and I now know what two of them look like. We snuck a look at them while we were hiding.” I winced inwardly at the lie. What did the Witches’ Council know, anyway? Who were they to decide who was allowed to know about magic and who wasn’t?

“So you could draw a picture of them?”

“Well, Sophie and I both have the artistry skills of an uncoordinated elephant, so that’s probably not the best idea. If Chief Gary wants to match us up with a sketch artist—if he even has access to a sketch artist—we can probably do a pretty good mock-up. I know I’d recognize them if I saw them again, though.”

“So now you have to figure out who the other two—Keith and Claire—are.”

“Yeah, find the two people who don’t belong in a town full of tourists. Piece of cake.”

“Look on the bright side, a week ago there were about a hundred times the number of tourists than are here now.”

“That’s true,” I conceded. “Well, I look forward to looking at everyone who’s not from Willow Bay as being suspicious from now on.”

“You’ve never sounded more like a small-town person,” Jason joked, and I punched him lightly in the arm.

“Not everyone from a small town is suspicious of outsiders,” I replied.

“Yesterday Elise Grobin spent fifteen minutes asking me about every member of my extended family, and wrote down all their names so she could look them up on Facebook.”

I laughed. “I’m surprised Elise Grobin even owns a computer.”

“Yeah, her daughter was there. When she was finished Elle apologized to me and told me her mom doesn’t even own a computer, she just heard Rose from the library telling someone you could look people up on Facebook.”

I laughed even harder. “That sounds about right.”

Just then the waitress came by with our food, and I dug into the quesadilla as Jason and I continued to share our stories from this small town I was very proud to call home.