Саманта Сильвер - Just Horsing Around

“My money’s on that Susan girl, if it has to be one of them. She was so shaken up when we flew over to see them, I feel like it wasn’t natural,” Sophie volunteered.

“Maybe. She’s only been working there for a little while. Maybe she was a plant.”

“Well speaking of plants, how about Philippe? After all, you did say that the owner of Touch of Midnight was a reclusive Swiss billionaire, right?”

“Oh my God,” Charlotte said from her spot on the kitchen. “Please do not tell me that I have to explain to you that France and Switzerland are two different countries.”

“Well duh, but they’re right next to each other. And they speak the same language.”

“They do not. In Switzerland they speak German, French, Italian and Romansh.”

“I’m pretty sure I heard French in there.”

“You did, but you also heard the names of three other languages, smart-ass.”

Something in that conversation triggered the memory of Betty not understanding the Swedish couple in my brain. It was like my brain was trying to tell me something. Like it was this close to figuring out something that would break the whole case for me, but there was a single missing link.

Suddenly, I figured it out.

“Genf!” I cried out.

“What?” Charlotte and Sophie both asked at once.

“She’s lost it! She’s finally lost it completely!” Bee announced from where she’d been idly watching us, sitting on the back of the couch. “The idiot who didn’t realize Switzerland and France spoke different languages has finally broken her!”

“Quiet Bee,” I snapped at the cat. “I haven’t lost it. In fact, I’ve just got it.”

I jumped up and ran to my purse that I’d left by the door and grabbed my phone. Quickly opening up Google, I typed in “Genf”, hoping my memory wasn’t failing me.

As soon as I hit enter, I knew I had it.

“Nailed it!” I announced, fist bumping the air.

“Nailed what?” Charlotte asked. I took the phone over to her and showed her the results. The top result for Genf: Geneva – Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.

Genf was the German word for the Swiss city of Geneva.

“When I was listening in on Tony and Philippe’s conversation, he mentioned that he had a bad job in Genf. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, since there are a thousand cities in the world, and being French it wouldn’t be super weird for him to be working in Germany or Austria or somewhere, especially with the EU making that stuff so easy,” I said. Then I explained to them the conversation with the Swedish couple at the restaurant.

“That, combined with your talking about the one country having multiple languages made me think. Shouldn’t I at least look it up? What if Genf was a German name for another city. And of course it is.”

“But why is Genf important? As you say, he could be French and work in Geneva,” Sophie said, confused. Charlotte rolled her eyes.

“You know, for someone who was smart enough to be a vet tech, you sure can be dumb sometimes,” she shot at Sophie.

“Hey!” Sophie retorted back, but not before Charlotte continued.

“No French person would ever refer to Geneva by its German name. Especially since Geneva is in the French speaking part of Switzerland. If he really was French, he would have said Genève. So Philippe is lying about his nationality. If I had to guess, he’s Swiss German, working for the billionaire, and the man responsible for the deaths.”

“Exactly!” I said to Charlotte, who walked over and high-fived me.

“Great. So you guys solved the case. Now what do we do?”

“We have to call Chief Hawthorne,” I said. “We have to tell him straight away.”

“Yeah, you can call him. I’m not talking to that dude again ever, if I have my way,” Sophie said.

“Fine. I’ll call him and let him know.”

I took my phone into the other room. My heart was racing with adrenaline. We knew who the murderer was! Now the police could go over there and stop him. I dug the card with Chief Hawthorne’s number out of my purse. I was lucky; it had his cell phone number on it. I dialled and I recognized that wheezy, disgusting voice pick up on the third ring.

“Yeah?” came his greeting. I was fairly certain he was talking with his mouth full, and I cringed, despite not being able to see the man.

“Chief Hawthorne, it’s Angela Martin here.”

“Uhhhh ok.”

“You know? From the Caroline Gibson case?”

“Ah yeah. The vet or whatever. Sure missy, what do you want?”

“I know who the murder is.”

I spent five minutes explaining as succinctly and easily as possible exactly what Charlotte, Sophie and I had been discussing. I laid it all out for him, and when I was finally finished, there was silence on the line for about ten seconds. I expected him to thank me for helping out and telling me he’d go get a warrant or something to pick up Philippe straight away. I certainly didn’t expect what he replied with.

“Well girlie, that’s an awful nice theory and all, but why don’t you let the real detectives do this job?”

“What?” I practically shrieked into the phone. “I just told you exactly how and why he did it. How is that not enough for you?”

“Why don’t you let us policemen do our jobs. I promise you, we’re going to catch this killer.”

“You can catch the killer. I just told you who it is, and why he did it.”

“I’m sure you think that, but just because you watch a lot of CSI and think you know how crime works, doesn’t mean you’re going to be right about it. There’s a lot you don’t understand about things.”

“Oh what, you think my lady brain is going to get confused about all the things you big strong men have to think about?” I snapped, channelling my inner Sophie for a minute. This guy was infuriating.

“Now this is why girls don’t make good cops, you’re getting emotional here,” Chief Hawthorne told me.

“I’m going to emotional my foot up your ass,” I muttered to myself, realizing this conversation was getting nowhere. “That’s because I just handed you a murderer on a platter and you don’t believe me because I happened to be born with a vagina,” I replied.

“That’s not true at all. I don’t believe you because your theory doesn’t tie all the dots together.”

“Oh, really? What about it wasn’t clear?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you. You obviously don’t understand how police work works. I promise you, you don’t need to worry about more murders. We hope to have this case solved soon.”

It took every ounce of willpower in my soul not to throw the phone at the wall as hard as I could as soon as I hung up. How could one man be so pig-headed?

“What a fricking imbecile,” Sophie said when I went back out and told them what happened.

“So what do we do now?” Charlotte asked. “I mean, what do you do when you know there’s a murderer out there, and you know who it is, but the police don’t believe you?”

That was a really, really good question.

Chapter 18

“So, uh, what are we supposed to do now?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Sophie said. “Do we go and confront Philippe, like we were going to with Corey?”

I shook my head. “If he’s really close to that Swiss billionaire it won’t be easy to find out where he lives like it was with Corey. But I think you’re right, of course. We have to get him to admit it. That’s how it works in books, isn’t it? You confront the murderer with all the facts, and they admit to everything.”

“I have a feeling that just because that’s how it works in books doesn’t necessarily mean that’s how it works in real life,” Charlotte said, giving me a you-should-totally-know-better look.