Just Horsing Around

Chapter 18

“So, uh, what are we supposed to do now?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Sophie said. “Do we go and confront Philippe, like we were going to with Corey?”

I shook my head. “If he’s really close to that Swiss billionaire it won’t be easy to find out where he lives like it was with Corey. But I think you’re right, of course. We have to get him to admit it. That’s how it works in books, isn’t it? You confront the murderer with all the facts, and they admit to everything.”

“I have a feeling that just because that’s how it works in books doesn’t necessarily mean that’s how it works in real life,” Charlotte said, giving me a you-should-totally-know-better look.

“Yeah, well, have you got any better ideas?” I shot back.

“Why don’t you ask Chief Gary what you should do? If you lay it all out for him, I’m sure he’ll give you his honest opinion.”

Shoot. Of course Charlotte would end up having a perfectly reasonable idea, instead of Sophie and my plan to find out where Philippe lived and convince him to confess to two murders.

“He’ll just tell us the same thing as Chief Hawthorne, or say it’s not his jurisdiction,” I tried to argue, mainly for the sake of arguing. I knew Charlotte was right, and I knew that was what we’d end up doing.

“Maybe, maybe not. And we both know Chief Gary is a lot smarter a man than Hawthorne. It’s at least worth a shot.”

“Fine,” I conceded. “Tomorrow morning, first thing, I’ll go see Chief Gary, before the vet clinic opens.”

“Good,” Charlotte said, walking over and patting Bee, who purred contentedly. “I really think it’s the best thing to do.”

“Me too,” Bee murmured as she rolled over to get her belly scratched. I rolled my eyes at Bee and tried to put the whole murder case out of my head. After all, Charlotte was right. Chief Gary would know what to do. And in twelve hours, I was going to see him, and we’d have our answer.

I woke up the next day to Charlotte standing over my bed.

“Angela! Wake up!” she hissed.

“Wurrghhh?” I asked in reply, the perfect image of elegance. “Wattimeerrrssit?”

“It’s five thirty. Listen, are you awake? It’s important.”

“Sure,” I replied, mostly lying. It turns out when you’re aware of a murderer being on the loose and can’t do anything about it until morning, it’s pretty hard to sleep. I was tossing and turning until well after one in the morning, according to my phone, despite having gone to bed around eleven.

“I was thinking, why doesn’t Philippe just leave?”

“What?” I asked, totally not understanding. Philippe? Leave? What?

“Listen to me. Philippe is not American. He’s not under arrest. He can leave anytime he wants. All he has to do is say he had urgent business back in France, or something. Whatever lie he wants. So why stay here when he could be arrested at any moment?”

“I don’t know Charlotte,” I replied, wanting nothing more than to roll over, cover my face with the blanket and go back to sleep. “Why?”

“Because he’s not done killing people yet,” Charlotte finished. Well that certainly got my attention.

“What do you mean?” I asked, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

“Think about it. He’s obviously not an American, and he’s killed two people. Why not just leave? He killed Corey a few days ago now. If he got on a flight back to Europe and just stayed there, there would be literally no way to build a case against him. There’s no way his fingerprints would be on file, or his DNA, since he’s not American, so even if they found that sort of thing, they’d have no way of confirming its his. And since he’s not under arrest, he can leave the country as he wants.”

“But wouldn’t it look suspicious?” I asked.

“Why would he care? They can’t prove he murdered anyone, especially if he’s not in the country, and Switzerland or France or whatever wouldn’t extradite someone without a warrant, just for questioning. Which means that if he’s stayed here, chances are he’s not done killing yet.”

“But who’s left to kill?” I asked.

“Think about it. He killed Caroline, the owner of the horse that was supposed to give the sperm, and Corey, the stable manager who would have likely collected the sperm and handed it over. Who else that was on the farm that day is likely to know what had happened?”

I gasped. “Ellie! She grew up with Touch of Frost, she would have recognized an impostor immediately! So she would have had to know, her mom would have told her.”

“Exactly! We have to tell Chief Gary, now! Philippe will probably kill her as soon as he gets a chance.”

“We have to tell Ellie first to be careful!” I cried. “You call Chief Gary, I’ll call Ellie.”

I grabbed my phone and realized I didn’t know Ellie’s cell number. I called the home, the number I had as the appointment reference for when I took care of Touch of Frost, but there was no answer. That wasn’t too surprising; it was probably too early for Susan to start work, and I knew horse people always had a ridiculously early start to the day, as did most farmers. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Ellie had already been working outside for half an hour already; she seemed a lot more hands-on than her mother.

Shoot.

I quickly grabbed my purse with my car keys in it and ran to the door. Charlotte came running out after me. “What are you doing?” she asked, putting her mouth over the microphone.

“Ellie’s not answering. I have to go over there to warn her.”

I saw Charlotte wavering for a minute, her need to always be the good girl fighting with her desire to do the right thing. “I’m coming too,” she finally said, following after me.

“Ok, you’ll do what you can? Thanks, Chief Gary,” I heard Charlotte say into the phone as we headed out towards the car. She hung up the phone and got into the passenger seat next to me. Getting a good look at Charlotte for the first time, I realized that while I was wearing black pyjamas with polka dots and an oversized t-shirt with a giant picture of Katy Perry on the front, Charlotte was already dressed in skinny jeans and a Ralph Lauren polo, with her hair tied back in a ponytail while mine stuck out at all angles from the back of my head. Who could possibly look that normal this early in the morning?

I stuck the car into drive and headed out towards Gibson Farms. Luckily it was early enough in the morning that there was no traffic on the roads, and Charlotte caught me up as I channelled my inner Sophie and more or less ignored the speed limits.

“So Chief Gary says that he’ll call up Hawthorne and try to convince him to come by, but he can’t really do more than that. Gibson Farms is out of his jurisdiction, and he’d be stepping on a lot of toes if he just acted rashly like that. But I have a feeling he’s going to get Hawthorne to go out straight away, we know what Chief Gary’s like.”

I nodded. Chief Gary was a good cop, and he could be convincing when he had to be. I had faith in him, but Charlotte and I had a head start. We had to make sure Ellie was safe.

As soon as we reached the front gate, I stopped.

“What do we do?” I asked. “We could just use an unlocking spell, but the cameras are pointed right at the door. It would look weird if no one let us in.”

“The reason you’re not a better witch, Angela, is that you have no creativity. It’s more than just about memorizing spells. You also have to figure out how to use them,” she told me. I rolled my eyes. It was just barely six in the morning, it was way too early for my little sister to be lecturing me about how much better of a witch she was.

“Electrum deficiroa,” Charlotte muttered, pointing at the fence. There was a buzz in the air, and I noticed my phone had turned itself off. Charlotte got out of the car and opened the fence which, thanks to the new power outage, was now easily opened manually. I drove past and stopped again to let her back in. I had to admit, that was good thinking. The power outage would also kill the security cameras, and we could simply say that when we got there the monitor to let us in didn’t work, and we tried the gate and it was open.

I drove up to the house, tires screeching. “Power should be out on the whole property, if I did the spell right,” Charlotte said, and I rolled my eyes. Of course Charlotte did the spell right, she always did. We ran up to the front door, and knocked loudly, thinking the power outage would have killed the doorbell. I hoped against all hope that Ellie was still in there, either sleeping in, or getting ready for the day, maybe just having missed the phone when I called earlier.

The door opened, and I held my breath, but instead of Ellie it was Susan standing there, looking slightly surprised, but ever the professional.

“Oh, hello Angela. I wasn’t expecting you today. What can I do for you?”

“I don’t have time to explain Susan, but you have to tell me where Ellie is. Where is she? Is she in there?”

“No, I’m afraid not. She’s gone out the back, Philippe requested her help with one of the horses; with Corey no longer being with us,” - she closed her eyes and seemed to mumble ‘God rest his soul’ – “he’s been doing a lot of the manager work until Ellie can find a suitable replacement. I believe they went to the stables.”

“We have to get to her!” I cried out. This had to be it, the moment Philippe was waiting for. He was going to kill a third person.