Саманта Сильвер - The Purr-fect Crime

“Hey, that’s not fair,” I protested. “We weren’t going to make fun of Taylor. After all, unlike your last few boyfriends, he has a job.”

“And doesn’t wear denim vests,” Charlotte added helpfully.

“Or convinces you to dine and dash because he can’t pay for dinner.”

“Or turn out to have a criminal record.”

“Or convinces you to have sex with him dressed up as a Pokemon.”

“I’m not telling you guys anything again, ever,” Sophie grumbled as Charlotte and I cracked up. Sophie was notorious for her bad, bad taste in men. And honestly, compared to the ones she’d dated before, Taylor was easily the cream of the crop. Hell, he could turn out to have a weird fetish and still be ranked higher than all the others. It wasn’t a high bar to clear.

“We’re sorry, Sophie,” Charlotte said, trying to stifle a laugh. “Please, tell us what you found out.”

“Sure, you like this boyfriend because he’s useful for giving you guys information.”

“Oh please, we haven’t said we like him yet,” I told her. “We just think he’s better than the moron procession that makes up your ex-boyfriends.”

“That’s just so much better. At least I get some action. You’re all Mother Theresa up in here,” Sophie retorted, motioning at me.

“Hey, it’s not my fault I have standards,” I replied. What? It was true. Mostly. I just hadn’t found a guy that I wanted to be with in a while. It’s not like Willow Bay had a whole pool of options to pick from.

“Ok, that’s enough,” Charlotte said, raising her hands. “We’re getting off topic.” Sophie and I glared at each other.

“Sophie,” Charlotte ordered. “What did Taylor say about those three guys.”

“So on my lunch break I went out with Taylor. We just went to Subway, and while we were there he told me that he found out who those guys we took a picture of at the funeral were.”

Charlotte and I waited with bated breath for Sophie to continue.

“It turns out they’re mob dudes from New York.”

“Seriously?”

Sophie nodded.

“Yeah. Like straight up gangster dudes. Apparently they’re part of some Italian mob family. I literally thought that stuff was pretty much movies-only, but we had three of them right here in Willow Bay.”

“I wonder what they were doing at the funeral,” Charlotte mused.

“Isn’t it obvious?” I replied. “They had to know Tony Nyman.”

“But how?” Charlotte asked.

“Well,” I said, thinking. “What was it that Chief Gary said when we found out who it was? Nyman had only lived in Willow Bay for ten years. What if he used to be in the mob? What if he moved away for whatever reason, and was lying low here? And then maybe the mob guys found him, and they came and killed him?”

“But then why would they come to the funeral?” Charlotte asked.

“They’re mobsters. They know that they’re not going to get caught. Like, it’s not as if they’re afraid of the cops or anything, they wouldn’t have cared about being seen in public,” Sophie said. “As soon as Taylor told me I couldn’t wait until the three of us were together again so I could tell you. This totally means that my theory was right, and it was those weird guys at the funeral that were responsible.”

“Ok hold up,” I said. “Yeah, those dudes are sketch. Especially given the fact that they’re mobsters. But that doesn’t definitely mean that they were involved in Nyman’s death. Though I agree, it seems pretty likely.”

Charlotte began to pout. “Does that mean you guys don’t want to come to the Ocean Mist rally in a couple hours then?”

“We’ll still go,” I told her, shooting Sophie a look. I knew Sophie wanted to skip out on it, but I thought that was a bad idea. My best friend wisely nodded.

“Yeah, we’ll go.”

Just then Karen popped her head in to tell me that our next patient, a dog suffering from the itchies, was ready to be seen. Spring was allergy season for dogs as much as for humans.

Chapter 20

Ninety quick minutes later – it’s amazing how fast time goes when you love what you do – I was taking off my scrubs and changing back into my jeans and t-shirt, and getting ready to go to the rally. Despite everything, I couldn’t really get any enthusiasm up for it.

After all, this group was trying to push through a project that I was sure was going to change our town for the worse, even if we were going to try and get some more information about who killed Tony Nyman.

I had gotten a text from Sophie; all the top level people from the Ocean Mist project were there. The head of PR, the head of marketing, and Zoe Wright, the head honcho had all made an appearance. Apparently they were extremely invested in keeping what little support they had in Willow Bay on their side.

There’s like 50 people here lol Sophie texted me. I smiled at that. Even in a town as small as Willow Bay, 50 was a pretty low turnout. The last anti-Ocean Mist rally had garnered a crowd of over 300.

I jumped into my car and made my way over to the rally, promising Bee I’d be back in an hour or so to take her home. It was being held at Railworkers Memorial Park, a ten-acre green space just a few minutes from downtown. There were a few picnic tables, lots of trees, a few trails that wandered their way through the woods, tennis courts up one end, and an off leash dog park. Railworkers Memorial Park was pretty much the community gathering spot in Willow Bay – apart from Betty’s Café, of course. It wouldn’t be long before summer weekends led to families coming here for picnics, dog owners filling up the dog park with the happy yelps of playful pets and fitness enthusiasts taking to the trails as they trained for the annual half marathon held every September in Willow Bay.

But for now, the park was home to a rally supporting a project that went against everything Willow Bay stood for. I tried to quell the spark of anger that grew inside of me as I got closer to the open park area. Sure enough, there were about fifty people there. Some of them were holding up homemade signs that said things along the lines of “Ocean Mist – Good For The Community” and “Willow Bay Needs a Future”.

The thing was, I didn’t inherently disagree with all of them. Willow Bay did need a future. We were a tourism-based town, and bringing in more tourists who would otherwise go to some of the flashier places in the state like Mt. Hood, or venture out further to places like Yellowstone, wasn’t a bad thing. I just thought the Ocean Mist resort was the wrong way to do it.

I recognized most of the people at the rally – a few of them had been involved in the argument at Betty’s café the other day. Looking around, I spotted Charlotte and Sophie standing under some trees, about fifteen feet from the majority of the rally attendees. I waved and made my way over to them.

“I feel evil just being here,” Sophie muttered, and I grinned at her. I knew how she felt, that was for sure.

“Oh shut up guys, how do you plan to ever solve a murder if you can’t even be around people who have a different opinion to you?” Charlotte scolded us. She grabbed my arm and started pointing people out to me.

“That’s Michael Kensington. He’s the head of Marketing for Ocean Mist,” she told me, pointing to a man who looked like a stock photo. Seriously, the man encapsulated the idea of the generic businessman absolutely perfectly. He could have been anywhere from 30 to 50 years old, with a plastic smile that didn’t move stamped on his face. His haircut obviously cost hundreds of dollars, while his suit must have cost thousands, and he walked around shaking hands, all the time the smile not moving off his face. It was actually kind of creepy.