Саманта Сильвер - Barking Up The Wrong Tree

Could it possibly be true? Had Antonia deLucca killed Andrea’s daughter? I didn’t know she even had a daughter.

“To London,” Sprinkles replied.

“Wait, like, England?” I asked, surprised. That wasn’t exactly the answer I’d been expecting.

“Yes. England. Janice got mad at Andrea when Antonia told her the truth, and she moved to England.”

“But what did Antonia tell Janice to make her so mad?”

“She told her the truth: that her parents weren’t her real parents, that they stole her.”

My mouth dropped open at that revelation.

“Stole her?” I noticed Charlotte and Sophie looking both confused and expectant. They could only understand my half of the conversation, but my God was it ever something!

“Andrea told me the whole story one day, after Antonia visited her. She was crying. When she and her husband were young they found out they couldn’t have children. One day Andrea saw a girl at the mall when they were on holiday in Arizona. Her mom was hitting her. She told the woman to stop, and the woman told her to mind her own business. Andrea followed them. The mom kept hitting the poor little girl, and eventually Andrea decided the girl would have a better life with them. She took the little girl, admitted what she’d done to her husband, and they immediately drove back to Willow Bay with her. They told everyone that they had adopted her from a destitute cousin, and no one questioned it. Only Antonia knew the truth, because she was Andrea’s best friend. Andrea never told me why Antonia told her daughter the truth. But it was a long time ago. And Janice said she was leaving, and never coming back. And Andrea never saw her again, and it broke her heart. Andrea’s husband died about two months later.”

My mouth was completely agape when Sprinkles finished telling me this story. I passed it on to Charlotte and Sophie, and their reactions mirrored mine.

“I wonder if Antonia deciding to tell the truth had anything to do with what happened in Las Vegas?” Charlotte mused.

“Maybe. Or maybe Las Vegas was after Antonia told Janice,” Sophie offered, but Charlotte shook her head.

“No way. There’s no way Andrea would go to Vegas with Antonia after her daughter left. Definitely not. She would have hated Antonia then.” Charlotte had a good point.

“You know what? This is a problem that needs to be tackled with the help of some white cheddar popcorn,” I announced, getting up and making my way to the kitchen to grab the bag I’d bought the other day.

I was thankful that Sprinkles was finally starting to open up to us. Maybe with his help we’d have an easier time breaking this case open. But oh man, was that ever a bombshell of a revelation.

“But wait,” I realized after a minute. “I mean, this doesn’t mean Antonia had any reason to kill Andrea. In fact, it’s more the other way around. This gives Andrea a motive to kill Antonia, which she obviously didn’t do.”

“That’s true,” Charlotte said, slowly. “It’s not like Antonia would have been likely to grow a conscience and decide to do away with her former best friend over this, randomly, now, years and years after Janice left anyway.”

“Oh hell,” Sophie spat, crossing her arms. “I was really hoping that would have been a huge breakthrough for us.”

I sighed. To be honest, I’d been hoping for that as well. The deeper we delved, the more frustrating this case got.

Chapter 14

We continued to chat about the case for two hours, but didn’t come any closer to any solutions. Eventually, we decided to give up for now and see if a good night’s sleep gave any of us any better ideas. Besides, Monday was the day of Andrea’s funeral, and Sprinkles had asked us if we could go. We said yes, obviously. Besides, who knew? Maybe we’d find out something that we didn’t realize was important while we were there.

All dressed in black, we put a black bandana on Sprinkles and loaded him up into Sophie’s car with the three of us. We arrived at the church about twenty minutes before the ceremony was about to start, and as soon as we arrived everyone started fussing over Sprinkles.

“Oh the poor dear.”

“It’s so good of you to bring him here to say goodbye.”

“I hope you find him a good home, there’s no one better in town to take care of him right now.”

“What a sweet little dog.”

As everyone fawned over him, Sophie, who had been holding his leash, eventually got separated from Charlotte and I, and we began to wander through the throngs of people.

“I wonder how many people are here to pay their respects, and how many simply want to gossip?” Charlotte asked, looking around. It seemed as if the whole town had shown up. Andrea Dottory had never really been liked around town; she started too many spiteful rumours about people to really have any friends. And I was sure her popularity levels would drop even further if she’d heard what Sprinkles had told us last night. I figured Charlotte was right, most of the people here must have shown up just to be able to tell their friends that they were at the murdered woman’s funeral.

I sighed, watching from afar as Sprinkles got all the attention in the world. His tail wagged low and slowly as Sophie led him towards the entrance to the church. Hopefully they wouldn’t mind a dog being in there for the service.

Suddenly, I looked over and saw a familiar face coming over.

“Fancy seeing you two here,” Jason Black greeted Charlotte and I with that cocky little grin of his.

“Hi, Jason,” Charlotte said.

“So I guess you’re here covering the funeral?” I asked him. “Still more interesting than the post office’s new paint job?”

“Sure is!” he replied.

“That’s a little bit… macabre, don’t you think?”

“Well, I’m a journalist. Not all news is good news. Also, the post office paint job has been pushed back to being the third biggest news story this week!”

“Behind Betty adding cheesecake to the menu this summer?” I asked.

“Wait, Betty’s making cheesecake this summer?” Charlotte interrupted.

“Apparently,” I replied.

“Score!”

“No, I forgot about that story,” Jason grinned. “I’m also writing a story about catfishing people online. Although the editor told me he might not run it, he likes my enthusiasm for actually coming up with stories. But actually I have a source inside the police station that tells me they suspect a gang is using Willow Bay as a hideout to move drugs.”

“Seriously?”

Jason nodded. “Yes, catfishing is an important issue these days,” he said with a straight face. I could have punched him.

“Not that, no one cares about catfishing. The drug thing!”

Jason grinned. “Don’t tell anyone, it’s supposed to be secret until the new paper comes out on Wednesday. But yeah.”

“Just FYI, a “source inside the police station” in Willow Bay is like four people,” I told him. “Your sources may appreciate a broader description if you expect them to give you more info in the future.”

If I wasn’t mistaken, it looked like Jason’s face began to fall for just a split second before he laughed.

“Well, it looks like I still have a lot to learn about small towns. Good call, Angie, thanks,” he replied, winking at me. I felt a blush crawl up my face and wanted to curl up into a hole and die. Why did my face always have to betray me?

“Why is this gang using Willow Bay though? And is it pot they’re moving?”

Jason shook his head. “No, harder stuff. Although, presumably, they’re probably also moving some pot, since it’s so easy to get in Washington now. But from what I understand it’s mainly cocaine. They’re getting it from California, moving it up here to store it, and then shipping it out east somehow, without anyone noticing. I don’t know why they picked Willow Bay, honestly. It’s kind of far from the interstate, it’s small, but then again maybe that was the point, to get pretty rural. Who knows. Maybe my source will let me know when they catch them.”