The Purr-fect Crime

Chapter 6

After an hour long nap and a long bath with a glass of white wine and the latest James Patterson book that I hadn’t gotten around to reading yet, I felt a lot better by the time Sophie and Charlotte came home. I texted Sophie, telling her to pick up the pizza on the way, and when she came back with two large veggie supremes just as Charlotte walked through the door, I was so happy I didn’t even make fun of her for going out with Taylor.

“This isn’t something I say often, so enjoy it, but good thinking, Angie,” Sophie told me as she happily put the pizzas down on the counter while I grabbed plates.

“What’s the special occasion?” Charlotte called out from the hall. Sophie and I looked at each other.

“Haven’t you heard?” I called back.

“Heard what?”

“You’re such a city slicker,” Sophie teased. “They should take away your right to live here if you’re not as privy to local gossip as you should be.”

Charlotte came into the kitchen, looking a little bit huffy.

“Well I sure won’t know what’s happened if everyone just spends the whole time making fun of me for not knowing instead of, you know, actually telling me.”

“We found a dead body in the vet’s office today,” Sophie told her.

I’d never seen Charlotte’s face go from red with anger to pure white so fast before.

“What?”

“Technically I found the body,” I corrected. “But yeah, Sophie has the gist of it right.”

“You’re lying to me. This is some kind of dumb practical joke.”

I handed a couple plates to Sophie and Charlotte, who still looked like she’d just seen a ghost.

“Humans. You’re so dramatic,” Bee announced from her perch on top of the cupboards, looking down on us.

“Oh yeah Bee, you’re just the perfect image of rationality,” I snapped back at her, rolling my eyes. My cat was the most dramatic animal I knew.

“Seriously though. Did that actually happen?” Charlotte asked, and I nodded.

“Yeah, when I got to the vet clinic he was just lying there. Chief Gary thinks he was shot somewhere else and tried to stitch himself up in the clinic.”

“Why on earth didn’t anyone tell me?” Charlotte practically shrieked. “Why did I have to wait until I got home to find out?”

“Because we knew you’d have that reaction, and we didn’t want you missing any classes to come back,” I replied. “Besides, we kind of assumed you’d find out about it before you got home some other way. Like, surely there have to be other people from Willow Bay at the college in Portland?”

“Maybe, but it’s not like we walk around with signs around our necks announcing where we’re from. I don’t hang out with anyone from here when I’m at school.”

I grabbed a couple of slices of pizza, inhaling the intoxicating aroma as I opened the box. Sophie grabbed a couple slices as well and went to the couch, where I followed.

“Well, this has been crazy enough of a day that I don’t want to have to deal with even more crazy,” she announced. “So I’m going to sit here and eat some pizza and try and forget about the dead guy I saw a few hours ago.”

I followed suit. “Same. And I’m not even going to make fun of Sophie for going out with that hot cop, Taylor.”

Sophie turned to me, glaring as Charlotte’s eyes lit up.

“Really? Sophie has a booooooyfriend?” she teased, and Sophie grabbed a small piece of tomato off her pizza and threw it at my sister. Charlotte had never been the co-ordinated one; it landed right on her cheek and stuck there. I couldn’t help myself, I burst out laughing.

“That’s not funny!” Charlotte hissed at me as she grabbed the tomato off her cheek and threw it back at Sophie. Unfortunately, Sophie actually was pretty athletic, she ducked out of the way easily and the tomato landed on the wall, the force of the impact making it break up into a few pieces before it fell on the floor, leaking goo onto the hardwood.

Bee watched us haughtily from her position up above us.

“You’re all as immature as each other,” she scolded, standing up and leaving us, presumably to go poop in a box. I rolled my eyes as she left the room.

Sitting down on the couch, I took a bit of pizza while Sophie and Charlotte still glared at each other. Eventually, though, things settled down and we all started eating without simultaneously trying to hate on each other.

“So who was the victim, anyway?”

“Someone named Tony Nyman,” I replied through a giant bite of pizza. “He’s lived here for ten years apparently, but I didn’t know him.”

“I think he might have done some work for Lisa a couple years ago,” Charlotte replied thoughtfully as she chewed a slice herself. “When she was getting the roof redone.”

“How do you even remember that sort of thing?” Sophie asked. Charlotte shrugged.

“I dunno. I just do.”

My sister was so smart sometimes it was scary.

“We saw Antonia deLucca in the coffee shop today, too,” I told Charlotte. “She says people are taking, since the body was found in the vet clinic and all.”

Sophie rolled her eyes.

“You can’t seriously be taking what that crazy old bat was saying seriously, can you? Like, she lives for gossip and rumours. I guarantee you no one actually said that about the vet clinic, she just wants to stir some stuff up.”

I shrugged.

“I mean yeah, I guess. But I can’t help but thinking what if she’s right? Even if people aren’t actually telling her that, what if they still believe it?”

Sophie leaned back against the couch.

“So what if they are? What are you going to do about it?”

I stayed silent for a minute, and Charlotte realized what I was thinking.

“No. No, absolutely not,” she told me. “There is no way you’re going to try and figure out who killed Tony on your own.”

Sophie sat up on the chair and grinned.

“Yes! You absolutely should! It’ll be like a real life Nancy Drew mystery.”

“Oh and I bet you think you’re Bess then, don’t you?” Charlotte replied, rolling her eyes.

“Please. You are so Bess. I’m way more of a George.”

I held my hands up in the air to stop them both.

“Woah, woah, woah. You guys are getting way too far in front of yourselves, here. I’m not going around playing Nancy Drew here. I just don’t think it’s a bad idea for me to maybe look into the murder a little bit and see if I can’t dig out a bit of info that might help Chief Gary figure things out. You know?”

Sophie nodded enthusiastically.

“Yeah, for sure. I mean, I still think Antonia’s a terrible human being who just made that stuff up to create drama, but I don’t think digging around is a bad idea at all. After all, we found the body, that’s pretty much the universe telling us it’s fine to start investigating things.”

“Oh my God, no, that is absolutely not what the universe is telling you,” Charlotte practically shrieked. “You guys are crazy. We are not going after a murderer. This is how horror movies start.”

“Oh you’re such a baby,” Sophie muttered.

“I am not!”

“You are though,” I followed up. “I mean, it’s not like we’re going to find the murderer and confront him or anything like that. We’re just going to see if we can dig anything up ourselves.”

“I can’t believe this is a conversation we’re actually having.”

“Well, you don’t have to help,” I told her. “It’s not like we’re forcing you into this.”

“Of course I have to help. You guys are going to get into so much trouble without me there.”

I grinned. “Fine. But you have to stop complaining about it.”

“I do not,” Charlotte grumbled.

I couldn’t help it. I had to admit, I was actually… excited. Nothing interesting ever happened in Willow Bay. The closest thing I had to excitement in my life was getting puked on by angry cats. They do it on purpose, too. I have that on good authority from Bee.

“If a cat is going to throw up, we will do everything in our power to make a human feel as miserable as we do,” she told me once after I found a “present” in my shoe.

Now Charlotte, Sophie and I were going to find out who stabbed Tony Nyman so he ended up dying trying to patch himself up in my vet clinic.