“Yes, I heard you were walking a giraffe through town yesterday,” he said, raising an eyebrow, and I let out a nervous peal of laughter.
“I did, yeah. She was brought to the clinic by someone who didn’t leave her name. She wanted me to save her, though, since her father kept her.”
Chief Gary’s face darkened. “You realize smuggling animals into this country is illegal, right?”
“Of course,” I said. “I took the giraffe, and I’m hunting down where she came from so that she can be released. As soon as I track down where her mother came from, I’ll be contacting the proper authorities to have her taken back there. I’m pretty sure the actual owner of the giraffe isn’t from here though; the owner’s daughter said she drove away from her home so that it couldn’t be traced back to her father.”
Chief Gary nodded. “Ok, so not part of my jurisdiction, then.”
“No,” I replied, shaking my head. “I’m pretty sure not.” That was when Chief Gary finally reached for his cup of coffee. As soon as he took a sip, I pointed behind me randomly and whispered “Speculum quassoroa.”
There was a sound of shattering glass from behind me, and I looked around as Chief Gary immediately stood up, drawing his weapon, but keeping it against his leg.
“Stay here,” he ordered as he went out into the main part of the police station. Looking behind him, I noticed my spell had broken the main window at the front of the police station. The one other officer in the station was also on alert, while the receptionist ran toward a back room at the insistence of Chief Gary.
I felt a bit bad for making them panic over something that I’d done, but I really, really needed this information. I ran over and sat down in Chief Gary’s chair, my eyes flittering up every few minutes to make sure that he didn’t look this way and see me.
Before I opened the program to check a license plate number, however, my eyes were drawn toward the manila file with the label ‘HOMICIDE–SMITH, MATTHEW’ on the side. I couldn’t resist; after all, I needed this information too. I slipped open the file, which was still pretty thin.
The first page was just basic information about Matt Smith, and I skimmed it quickly, making a mental note of his home address in Portland. The second page, however, showed that Matt had been a defendant in a lawsuit brought forth by a company called Peacock Hills Property Investments. I made a mental note of the company name; I’d look them up later. I imagined that one was a business dispute. The third page, however, was even more interesting.
It was an arrest record for Matt Smith in Washington state; he’d been charged with assault, although the charges were dropped. I checked the date; he’d been arrested a little over two weeks ago. The victim’s name was Sean Dressler. There wasn’t much more information than that in the file.
Still, it was enough to go on to start. It seemed Jason and I weren’t the only people who’d gotten on Matt Smith’s bad side. Glancing out the door I realized Chief Gary had now gone outside to assess the damage. I looked at his computer screen, but to my dismay, it was a lot more complicated looking than I thought. I chewed my lip, clicking a few things trying to find where I could type in a license plate number and find out who owned it, but it must have been in a different program. Before I got a chance to figure it out, I noticed Chief Gary coming back. I quickly put the program that had been open back up onto the screen and slipped back into my seat on the other side of the table before Chief Gary came back. My heart was pounding with adrenaline as he came back into the room.
“Sorry about that. I think it was a false alarm. Seems the glass in front of the station just randomly burst. A few people nearby said nobody was around when it happened, so I don’t think it was vandalism.”
“Hmm, weird,” I replied. “Maybe an air pressure change? I heard it’s supposed to rain tonight.”
“Could be. Anyway, thanks for coming in.”
“No problem,” I said, standing up. “Anything I can do to help, please let me know.”
“Will do, thanks Angela.”
I left the police station, feeling a bit bad about the repair bill I’d just stuck them with, but at least I had all the information about Matt Smith that I needed. The lawsuit, being public record, we possibly could have found out about on our own, but I never would have thought to check Washington State arrest records.
Taking out my phone I sent Jason a text.
I failed at getting the license plate info
His reply came back a minute later. No problem, I’ll be down there in about an hour anyway, I’ll give it a shot.
Thanks. I did get to look at the file on Matt Smith though. Some company was suing him, and he was arrested two weeks ago in Washington for assault.
Interesting. Chat about it over dinner tonight?
Sure, see you then!
I smiled to myself as I texted Sophie, asking if she was up for a road trip. Her reply of ‘of course’ came by a minute later and I started to walk home. I figured we had time to drive to Portland and see if there was anything interesting in Matt Smith’s home that could tell us why he was killed, and by who.
Chapter 8
“This is nice,” Sophie said. “I feel like we haven’t broken into someone’s place in ages.”
“I’m really not sure that’s a feeling you should be craving,” I replied. “Plus, the last time we did it we almost got caught, remember? We had to put a guy on his ass and make him think he was super uncoordinated, since we were invisible.”
Sophie laughed. “Yeah, I remember. It was fine, though. You sound like Charlotte.”
“I’m the sane middle ground between your crazy desire to do literally everything and Charlotte’s good-girl scaredy-cat feelings that make her think everything’s a bad idea,” I replied.
“Nothing about you is sane, or middle ground,” Sophie replied, and I stuck my tongue out at her as I got onto the Interstate heading north toward Portland.
We spent the rest of the trip chatting casually about Lucy, about the murder and about life in general, and a quick forty-five minutes later–well, it didn’t exactly feel quick when Sophie screwed up the Google Maps directions and we had to change our route–we found ourselves driving down a small one-lane road in the suburb of Lake Oswego. Matt Smith lived in what I had to admit was a cute little bungalow, new-looking and painted a nice, deep blue-grey color with white trim. I parked the car about thirty feet away from the house as Sophie and I came up with a plan.
“Should we just go invisible and break in?” Sophie asked.
“Yeah, I think so. I can do the spell in the car. Maybe we should park it a few blocks away, just in case.”
I put the car back into drive and got ready to head off when suddenly Sophie grabbed my arm. “Wait!” she exclaimed. “Look.”
Following Sophie’s finger, I noticed a man exiting the house. He was on the taller side, with blonde hair, dressed in jeans and a polo shirt. He looked completely average in every way; the kind of person you never thought twice about if you passed them on the street.
“Do you think he’s a robber?” Sophie asked. “Or someone doing the same as us?”
I shook my head. “No. He just took some mail from the mailbox, and is now bringing it inside.” We watched for another minute as he came back out. “And now he’s locking the front door, with a key.”
If there was any doubt that the man absolutely lived in that home, it vanished when the man waved at a neighbor driving by.
“Do you think Matt Smith was gay? Or did he have a roommate?” I asked.
“Roommate for sure,” Sophie said. “If he was Matt’s boyfriend he’d be a lot more shaken up about the death. He’s acting completely normally here, and smiled as he waved to the neighbor.”