Саманта Сильвер: The Purr-fect Crime

My thoughts were quickly broken when I noticed dark spots on the floor.

Was that blood?

A cold shiver ran down my spine, and the rational part of my brain tried convincing me that I should just leave and call the cops. But a part of me was just too curious now. What had happened here?

I followed the trail of blood – at first just a couple of tiny dots, that slowly grew to the size of a quarter. They led towards the examination rooms in the back of the clinic. Every step I took, I took with extreme caution. I had never noticed how quiet it was in here before. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, going at a thousand beats per minute.

When I reached the exam room the blood trail led to, I instinctively reached for the light switch on the wall and turned it on. What I saw lying there made me gasp.

Lying on the exam table was a man, and I was pretty sure he was dead. The room had been ransacked; it was obvious the man had tried to fix himself up, but didn’t manage it. He had wrapped a bandage around his midsection, and his hands were bloody. He had eventually collapsed on the floor where he lay now, surrounded by a small pool of blood.

I don’t know how long I stood there staring at him, but eventually I heard a voice call out “Angie? Are you ok?” and it snapped me back to reality.

“Stay there, Sophie,” I called out. “Don’t touch anything.”

“Why? What’s going on?” Sophie replied as she turned the corner and saw me staring at the body.

“Oh my God!” she exclaimed. “Is that guy dead?”

“What part of ‘stay there’ sounded like ‘come see this’ to you?” I asked her crabbily as I grabbed my phone out of my purse. Now I was going to call Chief Gary.

“You sounded weird, I wanted to make sure you were ok.”

“Don’t lie, you wanted to see if anything interesting was happening.”

“Maybe that too.”

I rolled my eyes as Chief Gary picked up the phone. How the hell do you tell someone there’s a body in your vet clinic?

“Hi, Chief Gary?”

“Hi Angela, how are you?”

“Umm… ok.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Yes.”

“What is it? Where are you?”

“I’m at the vet clinic.” I took a deep breath. “I came in to work today, and there’s, uh, a dead body here.”

Chief Gary didn’t say anything for a minute.

“A dead body?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure he’s dead?”

“I might usually work on animals, but the crossover between animals and humans when it comes to life and death is a pretty common one,” I replied.

“Fair enough. Listen, don’t touch anything. Get out of the building. Wait there for me. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

“Ok, thanks Gary,” I told him.

“Oh, and Angela?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t tell anyone what’s happened, ok?”

“Sure.”

I hung up the phone, a wry smile on my face. This was Willow Bay. I didn’t have to tell anyone, and half the town would still know what had just happened within about an hour or so.

“What did he say?” Sophie asked, still staring at the body.

“We’re supposed to go outside and wait.”

“Do you recognize him?” Sophie asked, and I shook my head.

“No. Like, he looks vaguely familiar, like maybe I’ve seen him around town a few times, but I don’t know who he is.”

Sophie nodded. “Same. I’d bet he’s a local. I wonder if he came in here himself, or if he was killed here.”

“Ok, well before you start going off playing Law and Order let’s get out of here before Chief Gary comes and finds us gawking over the body like a couple crazy people,” I told Sophie, dragging her back to the entrance, both of us being careful to avoid stepping on the blood.

We headed back out into the sunshine, and I squinted at the bright light. It seemed like such inappropriate weather considering the situation. Bee, for her part, was happily enjoying her spot on the pavement.

“So why have I been banished from my work home like some kind of animal?” Bee asked, not even bothering to open her eyes.

“Because you are an animal,” I grumbled. “And because I pay the rent, so I can banish you from it whenever I want. But more importantly, there’s a dead body in there today.”

Bee’s head perked up at that.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Can I go see?”

“Absolutely not. You can stay in your warm spot until Chief Gary gets here.”

“Fine,” my cat huffed, and I rolled my eyes at Sophie, who was looking at the two of us with amusement. I knew she could only hear one half of the conversation, but she seemed to have gotten the gist of it.

Luckily it was still early and we were the only people on the street. I could see Betty McMahon way down the other side of the street getting ready to open her little bakery and coffee shop, but apart from that the whole of Main Street was deserted.

Two minutes later, however, Chief Gary pulled up in his dark green four-door sedan that I was pretty sure was older than I was. He stepped out, grim faced. I bet this wasn’t the phone call he wanted to get this morning.

Chief Gary was in his early 50s, with a tiny bit of a potbelly and brown hair that was starting to grey around the edges. He was pretty much the stereotypical small town police chief type, but without the power complex. He was good at his job, and everyone in town liked him well enough. When our parents had been hit by a car he was just an officer then, and had been the one called out to the scene. Ever since then he’d always held a bit of a soft spot for Charlotte and myself.

“Good morning, ladies,” Chief Gary said, tipping his hat towards us. “Thanks for calling me. I’ve two more guys coming, and a crime scene crew from Portland on their way, but it’ll take them a little bit to get here. If you don’t mind waiting out here, we’re going to have a look at the scene then come back to take your statements.”

Sure enough, a minute later another car pulled up to the curb and two guys in police uniforms got out. I recognized them both; one was Taylor Shaw, who had been a football star back in high school, and to be honest still had the looks of a star athlete, with ragged blonde hair, blue eyes and a smile that I was pretty sure had melted quite a few hearts around here. The other was the slightly older, slightly pudgier Don Morrison, whose family had been in the police force in Willow Bay since pretty much the beginning of time, as far as I was aware.

They nodded at us both and the three cops went into the clinic.

Sophie and I sat down on the sidewalk and leaned against the wall. Bee came and snuggled up next to me, and I unconsciously started scratching her, making her purr contentedly.

A body. In the vet clinic. Never in a million years could I have imagined that.

Chapter 4

An hour later Chief Gary had come out, told Sophie and I that we could leave and go down to the station later to give our statements rather than hang around, and the crime scene unit had arrived from Portland, in a big truck filled with guys in official-looking uniforms with impressive-looking toolboxes.

Willow Bay being what it was, by the time I’d been allowed to go in to get my appointment book for the day and call the people scheduled to cancel – nobody had a big enough emergency that they wanted a home visit – half the people I’d called had already heard about that a body had been found at Healthy Paws’, and everyone wanted to know all the details. I had to apologize and tell them Chief Gary has told me I can’t comment due to the ongoing investigation, and I knew I was leaving a whole bunch of people disappointed that they didn’t get all the best gossip from the biggest thing to happen in Willow Bay in decades straight away.