Just Horsing Around

Chapter 5

I woke up the next day the way almost all cat owners do: with a pair of fuzzy paws booping my nose.

“Wake up, Angela, there’s an emergency!” Bee was screeching at me.

“Wuh… what?” I asked groggily, pushing the cat off the bed.

“You have to get up, now!”

I reached over for my phone and saw it was quarter to six. “What’s going on Bee?” I asked, my heart starting to pound in my chest as Bee’s calls for help started to make their way to my brain.

“I’m hungry, and no one’s awake to feed me!” my cat howled. I groaned, grabbed my pillow and threw it over my head.

“Bee, it’s not even six o’clock in the morning. I’ll feed you when I wake up.”

“But you’re awake now! I made sure of that,” Bee replied.

I closed my eyes in a desperate attempt to go back to sleep, but as soon as I felt the four little paws crawling up my back, I knew it was hopeless. Bee wasn’t going to let me sleep until she got fed.

Throwing the covers off me, I forced myself out of bed. “I hate you so much,” I muttered at my ingrate of a cat, who happily jumped off the bed and began pacing the floor as she waited for me to throw on some clothes and go to the kitchen.

Bee began to purr at me while doing figure eights between my legs while I opened the can of cat food, muttering angrily under my breath about being woken up so early just to feed the cat.

I was going to have to start locking my door at night, since Bee had evidently figured out how to open it on her own.

Of course, as soon as there was any kind of movement in the kitchen, Sprinkles was up too. Being a dog, his sixth sense was knowing instinctively whenever anything remotely relating to food was happening in the house. So I grabbed his food bowl off the ground and filled it up as well.

Just as I grabbed my phone to check the time, wondering if I could possibly grab a little bit more of a snooze before I actually had to get up and go to work, it buzzed with a text from a number I didn’t recognize.

Wawnee police chief here. Be at Wawnee Police Station 8am. More questions.

I sighed. This meant I was going to have to reschedule the first few appointments for the day, at the very least. Crawling back to bed I threw the covers over my head and went back to sleep, trying not to think about the nightmare of a day I was about to have.

When my alarm went off what felt like 30 seconds later, I already had the first inklings of a headache. I asked Sophie if she could go to work and deal with helping Karen reschedule appointments, and to my relief, she did.

“Take care of yourself, ok? You should probably get a lawyer.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s ok. I don’t think I need one, yet. I won’t answer anything I’m not comfortable answering, don’t worry. Besides, I didn’t do anything, remember?”

“Yeah, but people like that don’t always care about the truth,” Sophie told me, concern in her eyes. I smiled. Sophie and I might fight like children about 99 percent of the time, but it was when things got tough that I knew she always had my back. I reassured her that I’d be fine, and headed out the door to drive to Wawnee.

On the way I stopped by Betty’s Café to grab a vanilla latte to go. I was definitely going to need the energy today. I parked the car in front of the store, and as I opened the door I just about ran into a guy leaving.

“Oh!” I exclaimed. “I’m so sorry!”

The guy managed to keep the two coffees and bag of cookies he was holding upright, then smiled at me. He was tall, with light brown hair and a clean shaven face, and strangely for Willow Bay, was wearing a full suit in the middle of summer. Willow Bay as a whole had a business-casual-at-most kind of dress code, even among professionals. This guy must have come down from Portland.

“No problem,” he told me, flashing me a smile. “Always good to get run into by a pretty lady first thing in the morning.”

Maybe it was because I was already in a bad mood, but I had absolutely no desire to be hit on by a random stranger this early in the morning, so I just smiled blankly back at him and went into the café.

“Hi, Angela,” Betty greeted me, far too cheerfully for this early in the morning. “What can I get you?”

“The biggest vanilla latte you can make me to go, please,” I ordered.

“That kind of day, is it?” Betty asked, stepping over to the coffee machine while I grabbed some cash out of my wallet.

“Definitely that kind of day.”

“Well, I hope it gets better for you,” Betty told me as I traded her my cash for the coffee. She handed me back my change and I said goodbye, heading back to my car, ready for the twenty minute drive to Wawnee for another interrogation.

When I got to the police station, I introduced myself to the bored-looking receptionist, who motioned for me to sit down on one of the plastic chairs on the other side of the room. I saw Ellie there, her eyes red, and her hand being held by someone I didn’t recognize. As soon as Ellie saw me, though, she gave me a small smile, motioning for me to come sit with her.

“How are you holding up?” I asked her. “I’m so sorry about your mom.”

“Thanks,” Ellie replied. “I’m doing ok. It’s hard though, you know? I mean, I knew her health wasn’t great, and I knew the doctor didn’t want her to keep eating the way she did, but at the same time, you’re never really prepared for this sort of thing.”

“I know,” I told her softly. “Believe me, I understand completely.” I was very young when my parents died, but the knowledge that they were ripped away from Charlotte and I so suddenly still stayed with me to this day.

“I just don’t know how to go on,” Ellie continued. “Mom did everything for me. I know it’s embarrassing to admit. After all, I’m nineteen years old. But she wouldn’t let me do a lot of things. I don’t even know how to do a load of laundry, for God’s sake, how am I supposed to go on?” Ellie started to cry, and the woman next to her stroked her hand while making soft, comforting noises.

“It’s ok Ellie, it’s going to be ok. I’ll help you get through this.”

“Thanks, Polly,” Ellie told the woman. Suddenly, she realized the two of us didn’t know each other.

“Oh, Angela, this is Polly. She was my mom’s best friend. She was at the house yesterday, too, but she stayed inside the whole time.”

I shook the lady’s hand. It was a soft handshake. Polly had a nice, slightly haggard face; she had obviously led a life of hard work with more than her fair share of disappointment, but I felt like despite all that she was still a happy person.

“It’s nice to meet you, Angela. You must be the vet that Caroline called in when Touch of Frost became ill.”

I nodded. “Yes, that was me. I came by yesterday afternoon. I met Caroline briefly. I never would have guessed…” my voice trailed off into nothingness.

“I know. It was such a shock. I know a lot of people didn’t get along with Caroline. She could be a tough one sometimes. But murder!” Polly shivered. “I’ve known Caroline since we were fourteen years old. Of course, she came from a line of horse racing royalty, essentially, whereas my father was a stablehand who had to beg his boss to let me keep a horse in the stables for free. But despite all that, we met at a riding meet, and we’ve been friends ever since.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I told Polly, feeling sorry for her. I might have thought Caroline Gibson was despicable, but it was obvious that there were at least two people in this world who cared for her.

“Thank you, dear,” Polly told me. “That’s nice of you to say. Listen, I imagine you don’t know very much about horse racing?”

I shook my head no.

“Well why don’t you come by my farm and I’ll show you around? I don’t have any horses as famous as Touch of Frost, obviously, but I can tell you all about it myself. I just love the sport, and the animals, so much. I’m sure as a vet you can understand the love for the animals, of course.”

I smiled. “I’d love to, thank you for the invitation,” I told Polly. It was true; I didn’t really know very much about horse racing at all. I knew about Touch of Frost, of course, but that was only really because everyone in the country had heard of the famous horse. And while to be honest, the idea of horse racing wasn’t my favourite (I was all too aware that a lot of horses in the industry were abused and mistreated), I thought that perhaps accepting the invitation might allow me to get a better insight into Caroline Gibson’s life, and help me discover who might have wanted her dead.

Just then, the receptionist called for Ellie to go in and see the police chief. Polly gave her hand another squeeze. “It’ll be fine, Ellie. Just tell the truth.” Ellie gave us both a small smile and went in. As soon as she left, Polly sighed.

“That poor girl. It’s so hard for her right now! She was never an independent spirit, and her mother’s sudden death has been so hard on her. I think Ellie just doesn’t know what she’s doing right now,” Polly said, shaking her head.

“Well, I’m sure she’ll figure it out,” I said encouragingly. “I can only imagine what she’s going through right now, but I’m sure she’ll get there.”

“Oh yes, absolutely,” Polly replied. “Especially with Corey around. He’ll take good care of her.”

“Was there something between the two of them?” I asked, remembering suddenly the way Ellie blushed whenever Corey looked at her when we were at the farm and putting that up to shyness.

Polly gave me a small smile. “Well, I think they would have liked for there to have been. Unfortunately, Caroline didn’t think Corey was good enough for her daughter, so it never developed into anything.”

“But Ellie’s a full grown woman!” I protested.

“You saw Caroline and Ellie together, right? Ellie would have never gone against her mother’s wishes, no matter how much she liked Corey. But I suppose if there’s one good thing to come of this it’s that now the two of them can be together.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, my mind whirring to life as it tried to absorb all this new information. While my brain was processing all of this, Polly got a text, her brow furrowing as she read it.

“Listen,” she asked me a moment later. “Something’s come up and I have to be back at my farm as soon as possible. Would it be alright if you drove Ellie home? I could order a taxi for her if you can’t, but I think right now someone she knows, even if she only met you once, would be better than a total stranger.”

“Sure, no problem,” I replied. After all, the more time I spent with Ellie, the more opportunity I had to learn about her and Corey.

“Thank you so much,” Polly replied, getting up. “I just came here today with Ellie, they didn’t want to talk to me.” She handed me a card. “Call me sometime, I’ll make sure to organize a tour for you around my stables.”

“Thanks,” I replied.

“No, thank you,” she replied, and with another sweet smile, Polly was gone.

I barely had a chance to think over what I’d just learned before I was called in to see Hawthorne. I told the receptionist to ask Ellie to stay there when she came out as I was driving her home, and then followed her into Hawthorne’s office.