A Grizzly Discovery

16

I caught Sophie up on the events of the day and dealt with my three appointments for the morning. It turned out afterwards I had a four-hour break—a local schoolteacher was coming in with her new puppy at four that afternoon for spaying, and because of the school day she couldn’t make it in earlier.

“I’m going to go see if I can find Claire and get an alibi out of her,” I told Sophie, who nodded. “Good plan. I’ll see if I can do the same with one of the other guys.”

“Right, you’re probably best at randomly picking up dudes and questioning them.”

“Hey, I’ve been with Taylor longer than you’ve been with Jason.”

“Barely,” I pointed out.

“Still counts,” Sophie said, sticking her tongue out at me. “Anyway, yes, I am better at this because I don’t bluster around like a hippo trying to be sexy when I flirt with men.”

“I’m not that bad,” I argued.

“I once saw you try and seductively lick an ice cream cone while looking at Corey Johnson back in high school, and the whole thing fell off the cone and went down the inside of your shirt.”

“Hey, at least it got him looking at my boobs,” I said, a small blush creeping up my face as I remembered that especially embarrassing incident back in the tenth grade.

“If he could see them through the tears he was crying from laughing at you so hard,” Sophie grinned, and I glared at her in reply.

“Fine. I’m going to find Claire. I’ll see you here at four?”

“For sure. Then we’ll get pizza for dinner after we’ve done the surgery.”

“Awesome.”

Five minutes later I was walking down the street toward Betty’s. I wasn’t going to have time for a sandwich, but I figured ordering a coffee could possibly get me the information I needed. Slipping into Betty’s café, I made my way to the counter. Going by the conversation in the corner, everyone seemed to have found out that it wasn’t Elizabeth Armstrong who’d been killed after all.

“Two tourists in under a week, dead. This isn’t good.”

“And one of them murdered, no less!”

“Well, if you ask me, I’m still more afraid of bears than a random freak.”

I put the random strings of conversations out of my head and made my way up to the counter.

“Hey, Betty,” I greeted her as she slipped a thick slice of blueberry peach pie onto a plate and added a dollop of whipped cream to it before handing it over to a worker to take to a table.

“Hi Angela,” she said with a smile. “How are you doing?”

“Great, thanks to you,” I told her. “Thank you again for everything you did with my office. I heard from Jason that you really galvanized the community to bring them together.”

“It was nothing. You deserved it.”

“Well I want you to know what it means to me. You’re amazing. Hey, have you heard anything from that girl from Montana that was in here the other day?”

Betty looked at me curiously. “She was in here earlier. Said she was going to spend the day in the library. Why?”

“Oh, just wondering if she eventually got out to do her hikes,” I replied, ordering my coffee.

“I don’t know; she didn’t mention it this morning. She seemed a bit pre-occupied. Not that I blame her, what with the whole situation at the inn and all,” Betty continued. I frowned.

“Yeah. That really sucks.”

“Hopefully Chief Gary will find out who did it as quickly as possible and we can advertise Willow Bay as being a safe place again.”

“Absolutely, I hope so. I’m sure he will. Chief Gary’s done a lot of good work over the last few months with the other murders we’ve had.”

“You’re completely correct, Angela. I’m sure he will.” Betty smiled as she handed me the coffee. Thanking her, I made my way down the street toward the library. I had an alibi to find out about!

Five minutes later I was in the library. I smiled at Rose, the librarian who had worked at the Willow Bay library for longer than I’d been alive, then started making my way through the racks, looking for Claire while at the same time trying to look like I was interested in the books, and not the people that were in here.

Failing to find her on the ground floor, I really hoped that I hadn’t missed her. I climbed the stairs to the second floor, however, and saw her almost immediately. Claire was seated at one of the tables, poring over maps of Willow Bay. I supposed she must have been looking for something that might tell her where someone might hide a multi-million-dollar diamond.

“Oh, hi!” I said to Claire, feigning surprise, and she looked up with a start.

“Hi… you’re the woman I met at the coffee shop that day, right?” she asked, and I nodded.

“Yeah. I own the vet clinic in town. My great-aunt just died though, and I’m trying to find some stuff for the estate, trying to take some of the pressure off my mom,” I lied.

“I’m sorry about your great-aunt.”

“Thanks. She had a good life, at least. How are you liking Willow Bay? Did you get a chance to do those hikes I showed you the other day?”

“I love it here,” Claire gushed. “And I did! I loved it! Actually, that’s why I’m here, I’m trying to see if I can find some others. I’ve done the ones you suggested, and a few others from the tourist office.”

“Nice! I’m glad you’re enjoying it, despite the tragedy yesterday,” I said, making my face sombre. “I hope you’re not scared of being here.”

“No, of course not! I heard about what happened to that poor man, of course. My bet is it was probably an ex-wife or something; nothing to worry about.”

“I’m glad you’re being practical about it. Still, you must be staying at the Willow Bay Inn, since it’s the only local hotel open in September. Were you in the hotel when it happened?”

Claire nodded. “Yes, but I didn’t see anything. I was in my room, having a nap when it all happened. I woke up an hour later and there were cops everywhere.”

“I guess you didn’t know the guy, either.”

“No. I mean, I passed him the lobby once or twice, I think, but that was about it.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re taking such a good stance about it. I know people in town are panicking about all the tourism drying up because of this, it’s good to see someone taking a logical approach.”

Claire smiled at me. “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere. Not for a little bit, at least. I’m thinking I might stay another week or so. But the murder hasn’t changed anything for me. Not at all.”

“Cool. Well hey, I’ll leave you to your maps,” I told her, pulling my phone from my pocket then getting up. “I just got a text, there’s an emergency at the vet clinic.”

“Good luck!” Claire told me, flashing me a smile as I left.

I made my way back to the street. So Claire admitted she was in the hotel, but said she was having a nap. That wasn’t much of an alibi. I wasn’t surprised she denied knowing Jack; she wasn’t exactly going to admit to me that she knew him as a master thief. But her saying that the murder hadn’t changed anything for her was telling. I bet it meant that she was looking for the diamond herself, and that if she found it, she was going to keep it. Jack had said he had a plan to find it. The group was going to meet up later on the day he was killed and Jack was going to give them more details. Claire had gotten into an argument with him, and she didn’t have an alibi for his time of death. As far as I was concerned, Claire was now suspect number one.