The Purr-fect Crime

Chapter 10

The next day I had a half hour break between appointments, and I wandered down the street to Betty’s Café once again. Not only because I absolutely wanted to enjoy a vanilla latte and a slice of pie, but also because I wanted to hear if there was any new gossip in town about Nyman’s death.

Luckily, in a place like Willow Bay, you don’t exactly have to subtly hint that you want information about things. You bring up a topic even vaguely, especially such a major shocker like a murder in town, and people will spill everything they know – or think they know – without even blinking.

“Hey Betty, how are things?” I asked as I walked in and went straight to the counter. A handful of tables were full of people chatting, but they all stopped to look at me when I walked in. Obviously, they had almost certainly been talking about the murder, and I had been the one to find the body.

“Oh you know,” Betty told me, a small smile on her face. “Things are pretty busy here. Tongues are wagging.” She winked at me, and I smiled at her as she took my money and moved over to the coffee machine.

“That sounds about right. Must be good for business.”

“It’s amazing for business, I must admit. Though it would be quite morbid for me to hope for more murder to improve my bottom line.”

“Careful saying things like that, if another body shows up Chief Gary might set his sights on you,” I joked, and Betty laughed.

“Yes, I’ve often thought of myself as the serial killer type,” she told me as she handed me my coffee. I laughed. I’d seen Betty coax spiders into glasses and take them outside so she didn’t have to squash them. The woman had a bigger heart than almost anyone else in Willow Bay. Except maybe Sophie’s mom, Lisa.

“Thanks, Betty,” I told her, sitting down on a stool at the bar. I figured if anyone knew the biggest secrets, it would be Betty. After all, she would have heard all of the biggest secrets from her customers.

“I wonder how Chief Gary is doing with this, though,” I told her. “After all, he told me he’s never had to work a murder before.”

Betty pursed her lips. “I know. He’s been coming in here for coffee more often than usual, and he looks a little bit more… ragged… than before. Poor man. He’s doing his best, and he’s a wonderful small town cop, I hope this doesn’t take it all out of him. But if you ask me, there’s something weird about this murder.”

“Oh, yeah?” I asked, taking a sip of my coffee, trying not to seem overly eager, but still interested.

“I think he was into something he shouldn’t have been. Yesterday, this boy came in, about your age. Said his name was Jason. I’d never seen him before. He sat around, innocently enough, but then he started trying to get into the conversations about Tony. I knew Tony, you know.”

“I didn’t know that, no. What was he like?” I was torn between getting more info about Tony and trying to find out what this Jason wanted to know.

“He was the quiet type. Not a big talker. Very good looking boy though, dark hair, dark eyes and a smile that would have most of the girls in town fawning over him. I know he wasn’t from around here at all, originally. He had more of an east coast way about him, but he wasn’t the type to open up. I asked him once, if he was from out east. He shook his head and said no, but I’m almost certain he was lying to me. I had a feeling he wanted to forget about what he’d been through before, so I dropped the topic.”

“Did he have any friends in town?”

“Not that I knew of. He always came in here alone. And he never really joined in the gossip mill,” Betty added, glancing over at the table in the corner that were busily talking among themselves. I knew from her description that it had to be the same guy I’d seen outside the police station.

“Weird. I wonder why this Jason guy keeps asking about him. I saw him outside the police station when I went and gave my statement that day. He was asking me about the body and stuff. I told him off, and that was that.”

Betty’s eyes narrowed.

“He came in here yesterday, asking for information about Tony. He wanted to know how long he’d lived here for, if he’d ever mentioned having any family, if he had a family now, that sort of thing. I didn’t really tell him anything, told him I didn’t know Nyman. Going by the reactions of other people in here, I don’t think he got what he was after.”

“Strange,” I muttered.

“You know what’s even stranger? It turns out someone broke into Tony’s house yesterday?”

“Really?” I asked, feigning surprise, my eyes widening.

“Yes. Patricia Wilson came back from work yesterday and saw his door was wide open. She called Chief Gary and he told her it was good she called, that someone had been in the place. Apparently it was completely ransacked. If you ask me, I think it was that Jason boy. He’s up to no good, that one. He’s not from here, and he keeps asking about our murder victim. I think he did it,” she added at the end in a conspiratorial whisper.

I mulled over her words as I took another sip of coffee.

Of course, Betty thinking Jason Black was guilty wasn’t exactly catching him red-handed, but I thought it was interesting that he was hanging around and asking questions. After all, where did he come from? Why was he hanging around asking about Tony? And if he did really kill him, why was he hanging around town now?

As I left the coffee shop and went back to work, it felt like I had more questions than when I walked in.