Саманта Сильвер - Sleeping With The Fishes

“Do you want to tell us what happened?” Betty asked him softly, and he nodded.

“My parents got divorced five years ago,” he said. “My dad had been cheating on my mom with a lady from his work in Portland, and then one day he just left. Never came back. My mom worked really hard to keep everything the same for my sister and me, but last year she said that she couldn’t keep up with the payments on our house by herself and that we had to move.”

Carson bit his lip and stopped for a moment before continuing.

“So my mom sold the house that I’d grown up in. It was ok. I knew that we couldn’t stay there, and we moved to one of the small duplexes on Fir Street. But then a few months after my mom sold the place, to this Matt Smith guy, a big sign showed up in the middle of it, with some kind of development application.”

“Matt Smith wanted to change the house?” Betty asked, and Carson shook his head.

“No. I asked around to find out what it meant. He wanted to demolish the house completely and put some apartments on the land. I was so mad. I grew up in that house! He couldn’t just destroy it completely. I went and found him one day, when he was in Willow Bay. I asked him to keep the house, to rent it out to someone, or to flip it like they show on all those shows on HGTV. Those make money, right? Anyway, he laughed at me. He told me I was just a little boy who didn’t understand business, and what did I care what happened to a place I didn’t live in anymore anyway? He told me the apartments would be a lot nicer than the ugly house that was there now anyway.”

Carson stopped to wipe a tear from his eye. Matt Smith had obviously completely humiliated him. I found myself feeling really badly for the poor kid.

“So I found out where he lived and I wrote him the letters. I was never going to do anything about it, but I wanted him to feel as bad as I did about what he was doing. Plus, a little part of me thought that maybe if he got scared by my letters, he might change his mind about tearing down my old home.”

Carson looked up at us for the first time during this monologue. “But I swear, I had nothing to do with him dying! Ever since it turned out someone killed him I’ve been scared that someone would find the letter and figure out I sent it and think I did it!”

“Ok, thanks Carson,” Betty told him. “You can go back to work now. I don’t think either one of us believe you killed Matt Smith,” she said, looking at me and I shook my head to agree.

“I think you should bring the sign in, and maybe write the daily specials on it yourself, though,” I suggested. “That way Chief Gary or anyone else from around here who might have seen that letter as they investigated the death won’t recognize the writing.”

Betty nodded. “Good idea.”

Carson’s eyes widened. “You mean, you’re not going to turn me in to the police?”

Betty looked at him with the look she would have given her students during the forty or so years that she was a schoolteacher. “No, I’m not going to turn you in. However, I need you to understand that what you did was wrong, and that you cannot simply send people threats when they do something you disagree with.”

“Yes ma’am,” Carson replied, hanging his head. “Believe me, I’ve realized it. As soon as I found out about his death, I’ve been worried sick that people will think I did it. I understand, I won’t do it again.”

“Because I believe you, I won’t turn you in. Keep working, you’re not in trouble. But if I do catch you doing that sort of thing again, I will report you to Chief Gary.”

“Thank you, Mrs. MacMahon,” Carson replied, before scurrying back off to the bowl where he’d been making cream cheese icing. Betty and I looked at each other after he left.

“I really don’t think he would have hurt anyone,” Betty told me.

“Me neither. I don’t get that vibe from him at all. He seems like a good kid who made a bad decision. I think the call to change the sign is a good one, and we can simply hope that the threatening letter leads to a dead end.”

Unfortunately for me, the dead end meant that I was quickly running out of suspects in Matt Smith’s murder. After all, if Tony Fanchini hadn’t done it, and the letter writer hadn’t done it, that really only left someone linked to Matt Smith’s arrest in Washington.

I sighed. My plan had been to figure out who the murderer was so it could eliminate Jason and I as suspects. Instead, I was eliminating everyone else who could have done it.

I hoped that Jason was about to find out that the person Matt Smith was arrested for assaulting in Washington had a record that involved a penchant for shooting people and then dumping their bodies in the ocean, but I didn’t have high hopes.

Making my way back out to the main eating area, I drank my coffee and ate my BLT completely lost in thought, trying to figure out the case, before I grabbed a slice of chocolate pecan cheesecake to go. After all, it was a pretty good price.

As I got back to the vet clinic and settled in for an afternoon of chaos with the animals I cared for, I wondered if I was ever going to figure out who killed Matt Smith.

Chapter 16

As soon as I had a minute, I took care of Hehu, who I had left inside one of the kennels during the day. The painkillers I’d given him were making him sleepy, and he snoozed away through most of the day, until I finally managed to put his wing in a bit of a sling, and bandaged up the wound along with giving him antibiotics to prevent infection.

“I feel so castrated,” he complained as he tried–and failed–to flap his injured wing.

“Well, at least it’s not permanent, so long as you don’t keep trying to do that,” I replied. “It will heal, it’s just going to take some time.”

“I know, but complaining makes me feel slightly better,” Hehu said sadly.

“Well in that case, complain away,” I told him. I knew what he meant, I wanted to complain about my wrist hurting constantly. Although, I had to admit, my wrist was definitely healing faster than I’d expected it to. If this kept up, I wouldn’t have been surprised if I could start using magic again in just a couple of days.

A few hours later it was time to go home; I gave Hehu some more food and decided to let him sleep in the vet clinic overnight; it would be safer for him than even inside the stables at the property.

Before heading home, however, I stopped by the police station to see if Chief Gary was in. I was in luck; the receptionist had gone home but he was in his office, and as soon as he saw me in the reception area he waved me over.

“Angela, come on in,” he told me. “I’ve been meaning to come and see you.”

“Oh yeah?” I asked, trying to act casually. After all, I was well aware that I still had to be a suspect in a murder investigation he was conducting.

“Yes. See, this morning I was going through the daily bulletins that we get from other police stations across the state. It appears that yesterday in Sisters there was a car chase between a local resident named Richard Steele and a blue Mazda 3.”

He peered at me above his reading glasses. “I think it would be quite a coincidence for Richard Steele to be involved in an incident involving a car similar to yours, less than twenty-four hours after I gave your boyfriend the man’s information.”

I fidgeted in the chair. I hated lying to Chief Gary, so I opted for something different. “How about, um, you give me a few days and then ask me again,” I answered. “I’m really close to getting all of the answers I need.”

“You’re not going to get the answers you need if you’re maimed–or worse–in a car crash,” Chief Gary replied.