Barking Up The Wrong Tree

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 Powers, 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.

“So now we have a game plan! Good work, team!” Charlotte exclaimed, and Sophie and I burst into giggles. Sometimes my sister could be the lamest person ever.