Саманта Сильвер: Lipstick On A Pig

My alarm went off way too early the next morning. It was Saturday, and Charlotte had no classes on Saturdays this semester, so she promised to come help. We were also going to have a couple of students from the high school—looking for some volunteer hours to look good on college applications—coming by, so we were definitely well staffed for the day. I just kept reminding myself about my lunch with Jason, and that kept me going pretty well.

Thirty minutes later the three of us, Bee and Sprinkles had all piled into the car. Sprinkles had wanted to spend the day at the petting zoo, saying that Andrea, his old owner, had always taken him to the festival, so we decided he could come and spend the day in the park as well.

When we finally arrived, we were about five minutes late. I could see Emily in the animal control’s truck, but I also heard enough of a ruckus in the back that it was obvious she hadn’t unloaded the animals yet. As soon as she saw our car, she came over, and I noticed immediately that something was wrong. Her face was white, and strained. My heart leapt into my throat. The animals! There was a large fence blocking off the park that was locked at night during the festival, so we had always assumed it was safe to keep the farm animals there for the twelve days of the festival. It had never been a problem before.

“Emily, what’s wrong?” I asked her, getting out of the car and looking at her. She didn’t say anything, just pointed to the petting zoo. I sprinted through the open fencing and over to where the animals were. When I saw what had happened, I froze.

All the animals were fine. In fact, they were happily snoozing away. But in the pen with the pigs was a body. A human body. I didn’t need to go over there to see that she was dead; she’d obviously been stabbed a few times. There were cuts all around her torso, although there was a lot less blood than I would have expected. And I immediately recognized her. It was the woman from the day before, the one that Bee had peed on.

“Oh my God,” Sophie said, coming up to my shoulder.

“Stop Charlotte!” I ordered, and Sophie immediately went back to prevent my sister from seeing the body. I mean, of the three of us, Charlotte had probably seen the most dead bodies, being a medical school student and all. But sometimes being a big sister comes in front of thinking logically. I took my phone out and scrolled down to Chief Gary’s number. I was having to call him way too much these days, I thought to myself as I pressed the call button.

“Hello?” Chief Gary answered the phone.

“Hi, Chief Gary, it’s Angela Martin.”

“Oh, hi Angela. Not getting into any trouble are you?”

“Well, ummm, actually,” I started, and I could practically hear Chief Gary sighing on the other end of the line. “There’s a body at the petting zoo.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” he muttered. “Another one?”

“I’m afraid so.” On top of all the usual reasons Chief Gary didn’t like having to investigate murders, he’d become a little bit of a celebrity after solving a couple of murders in quick succession. He’d gotten invitations to speak at nationwide events, had articles written about him in The New York Times and The Washington Post, and I knew he’d been invited to take on a larger role at bigger police stations around the country. Roles he’d politely turned down. All Chief Gary wanted to do was be in charge of his little police station here in his little town.

“All right, I’ll have a crew down there in a few minutes. You know the drill by now. Don’t touch anything.”

“Yes, sir,” I replied, hanging up the phone. I made my way over and found that Emily had thrown up behind the animal control truck.

“Hey, it’s ok,” I told her. “Chief Gary’s going to be here soon. I don’t think we’re going to open today, why don’t you take the dogs back to the shelter, if you feel up to it? Chief Gary will want to ask you what you found, but I’ll let him know where you’ve gone.”

Emily looked up at me. She was a nice looking girl in her early twenties, probably around Charlotte’s age.

“Sure, thanks,” she said, flashing me a small smile. “I appreciate that.”

“No problem,” I told her before heading back to where Sophie and Charlotte were talking.

“Chief Gary’s on his way,” I told them.

“Good. We won’t have to wait long for an ID,” Sophie said. “Charlotte decided to have a look at the body anyway, and it turns out she knows her.”

“Really?” I asked, looking surprised. Charlotte nodded. “Yeah. Her name’s Jessica something. Jessica Oliver, I think. She was in a couple of my classes in undergrad. I remember her because, as bad as it is to speak ill of the dead, she was just as annoying then. I think she was a law student or something? We had some generic classes together, like English, maybe.”

Suddenly, I realized I should probably text Jason the scoop. I grabbed my phone and sent off a quick one.

Body at the petting zoo this morning. Thought you’d want to know.

You know just how to make a guy’s morning Jason replied a minute later. Be there soon.

“Where are Bee and Sprinkles?” I asked Sophie suddenly.

“Oh, I put them back in the car as soon as it was obvious there was a body. Sprinkles definitely didn’t want to see it, but I gathered Bee was incredibly upset she didn’t get to.”

“Oh, good, thanks Sophie,” I told her. “I guess Bee would probably be the prime suspect in this case, if only she had opposable thumbs to be able to stab someone.”

“They were deep stab wounds, too,” Charlotte said. “It wasn’t like the person just barely grazed her. There was anger in that stabbing. And no blood. My guess is she was killed elsewhere, those wound would have bled like crazy.”

Ok, perhaps I shouldn’t have been so quick to try and keep her away from the body.

“Gee, I’m shocked that someone like that would have pissed someone off enough to want her dead,” I replied, rolling my eyes.

“I don’t see you helping dig up clues,” Charlotte shot back.

“Chief Gary said not to touch anything.”

“I didn’t touch anything, I just used my eyes.”

I was trying to think of a smarmy retort when one of the pigs finally woke up.

“All right everyone, that’s enough sleeping! There’s things to root, mud to roll in and food to eat!” he announced, and like magic, all the other pigs were suddenly awake. These guys definitely didn’t need coffee to get started in the morning. I noticed the other animals beginning to stir as well, but I really needed the animals to be good.

“Wait!” I announced to the pigs as they woke up. I couldn’t help but notice just how close they were to all of the evidence. I was going to have to move them.

“Poop on a stick!” one of them exclaimed. “Is that a human? Why is there a human sleeping with us?”

“Maybe she realized the hay is more comfortable than where the humans sleep.”

“That’s so insensitive. Maybe she doesn’t have a home.”

“Maybe she just likes being with us because we’re so amazing.”

“STOP!” I practically shouted.

“Great, the annoying human is back,” I heard one of the goats say, but I didn’t have time to deal with them right now.

“All these lazy animals. I’ve already laid an egg today,” one of the hens said. I put my face in my hands, as I made a mental note to never, ever take up farming.

“All right,” I said, stepping into the pig’s enclosure. I made sure to kneel down in between the body and the pigs, facing them. In part so I could grab anyone who decided to go around and mess with any evidence, and also so I could pretend the body wasn’t there. “Did anyone see how the lady got into the enclosure? Please. It’s important.”