Саманта Сильвер - The Purr-fect Crime

There was a moment’s silence.

“Fine,” came the eventual mutter from my cat.

“Good,” I huffed, then turned to Karen, who had an amused smile on her face.

“I think it’s adorable how you have conversations with her like she can hear you,” she told me, and I smiled back at her.

“It makes taking care of the little ingrate easier to handle,” I replied, handing her a prescription form to put into the computer. Luckily, Disco being a very energetic Jack Russell Terrier, he’d avoided Bee’s claws fairly easily. But that didn’t make her any less annoying.

“I hope you realize that if you drive away my customers, you don’t get to eat anymore,” I continued scolding her. She replied with silence.

“Fine. I’m going to go eat lunch somewhere where you can’t get to it,” I told her, winking at Karen, who laughed.

“I’ll be back in about an hour,” I told her.

“Sure thing. You don’t have another appointment until two, and Sophie’s in the back taking care of Skittles and the little ones.”

“It’s amazing how popular our guests get when they have kittens,” I laughed. Skittles had come in that morning. Her owner, a nice old lady named Judith, had somehow not realized that her cat was pregnant, she thought she was just getting fat. Really, really quickly. When she woke up and found Skittles straining, she panicked and brought her over here. Judith sat in a room with Skittles and watched her cat give birth to five little kittens. She asked if she could leave them here while she went home and prepared an area for the kittens to live, and we happily agreed. After all, it’s not every day you get to hang around with little squirmy hours-old kittens.

Luckily, Skittles was quite calm for a new mother, especially after I explained to her that we really just wanted to look at her beautiful kittens, and let us watch her and the kittens interact without seeming stressed out, so I knew that was what Sophie was out doing now.

While I wished I could join in, I had already made plans for my lunch break. I drove the fifteen miles to the county courthouse in Wawnee, one town over and made my way to the records area.

The lady running the records room was exactly what you would expect: in her 60s, a little bit on the chubby side with greying hair and glasses on a string so she didn’t lose them, she had her face buried in the computer when I got there.

“Can I help you?” she asked, looking up with a bored expression on her face.

“Yes please,” I asked. “I’d like to look up the land ownership records for a person in this county.

“Name?”

“Anthony Nyman.”

“No, your name.”

“Oh, sorry,” I said, blushing. “Angela Martin.”

“Just a minute please.” She typed some stuff into her computer, and I heard it make a little bing sound. “Alright. Mr. Nyman owns seven properties in Wawnee County, mostly around Willow Bay. Would you like me to print you out a list?”

“Yes, please!” I asked, putting away the pen and paper I’d gotten out to scribble them down.

“That’ll be fifteen cents, please.”

I reached into my purse to grab the coins. Because of course you couldn’t get a single sheet of paper from the county without paying for it.

A minute later, the lady came back with the sheet, and I handed her the coins.

“Isn’t Anthony Nyman the man who got killed up in Willow Bay?” she asked, and I nodded.

“Yes, that’s him.”

“Funny thing, that. You’re not actually the first person to come in asking about his property this week. The computer says there was another request here yesterday from someone else, also looking into his property.

“Really?” I knew Chief Gary would have his own access to those kinds of records, so it had to be someone else not associated with the case.

“Yes. And it doesn’t seem to be a lawyer, either, which is normal in these kinds of cases.”

“Well Mr. Nyman didn’t have a will,” I offered. “At least, if there was one, no one has found it.” I knew that news had already been spreading around Willow Bay like wildfire, so there was no harm in passing it on here. I also knew that women like this one tended to thrive on gossip, and the more info I gave out, the more I was likely to receive in return.

“That’s so sad. Everyone should have a will, otherwise his family might not get anything.”

“He had no family either. As far as anyone can tell, he barely knew anyone in Willow Bay, despite having lived here for ten years,” I told her, and she clucked her tongue.

“That’s even sadder. I wonder who the young man who came in to look at his records is then.”

Realization dawned upon me.

“Let me guess… his name is Jason Black?” I asked her, and she looked at me in surprise.

“How did you know?”

“Let’s just say Jason and I have had a few run-ins since Mr. Nyman’s death,” I told her cryptically.

“Oooooooh,” she replied, shocked. “What if he did it? My goodness, he was just in here yesterday. I’ll have to tell Gertrude, she was the one on the desk here then. I’ll have to let her know that she may have served a murderer!”

“Well, there’s no proof of that,” I told her. “After all, that’s the police’s job.”

“Yes, and a mighty fine job the boys in blue always do. I know Chief Gary Wells over your way and he’s an excellent man, unlike our local chief. I’m sure he’ll find the evidence he needs to put that Jason Black boy behind bars.”

I smiled at the lady’s newfound insistence that Jason was the criminal. I was sure that no matter what I said now, an hour from now everyone in the building would know this lady’s opinion on the matter.

“Chief Wells absolutely does a great job,” I told her. “Although if he does come by, perhaps avoid mentioning my name? I don’t want him worrying about me.”

“Of course, darling,” she replied. “He won’t hear anything from me. Except about how he should be looking at that Jason Black fellow.”

“Thanks,” I told her, shooting her a friendly smile. “Have a great day!”

“You too,” she replied, and I made my way back into the sun, once again feeling like I’d gotten more information, but also a lot more questions. One thing was for sure – Jason Black was up to something. And I was going to find out what.

Two minutes later I was sitting in my car with the air conditioning on low, reading over the list of addresses the lady had given me. And to be honest, it was pretty disappointing. I knew Chief Gary had told me that Nyman’s property was pretty rural, but I had kind of expected something that would jump out at me, or like, some huge parcel of land, or something.

Instead, it seemed what Chief Gary had told me was right: most of the land Tony Nyman owned were plots randomly spaced on the outskirts of town. The only reason I even recognized the street names was because I’d lived in Willow Bay nearly my whole life.

I hit the steering wheel in frustration. When were the questions going to stop and start actually being replaced by answers? It seemed the more I looked into Tony Nyman’s death, the more confused I got. Looking at the time, I had to get back to the vet clinic, so I put the sheet of paper aside, put the car back into drive and started heading back to work.

“Aw man, I was sure it was going to turn out that Tony Nyman owned like, half the state or something,” Sophie complained when we finally got a moment alone, taking care to prep a six month old puppy named Tinsel for spaying. She had already been put under and I was getting ready to start the operation.

“I know,” I replied. “I feel like every turn we make we’re getting stonewalled.”

Chapter 16