“Thank you, Angela. Do you think you can find my mom?”
“I hope so, Lucy. I really hope so.”
Luckily for me, Jason had dropped me off at work this morning, so my car was still sitting in the driveway and I could just drive back to the clinic.
In the backyard was a small stable that I used as an occasional wild animal care center. It wasn’t official or anything, just a place where I took care of any animals that really needed help. Right now, luckily, there were no animals to take care of, as the owl with the injured wing I’d recently taken in had just been re-released into the wild two days earlier.
“You can stay here,” I said to Lucy. I gave her a quick physical exam, and didn’t see anything immediately wrong with her. She seemed in pretty good health. “I’m going to get you a trough of water,” I told her, and filled one up for her.
I didn’t have any acacia trees around, obviously. This being coastal Oregon, most of the trees around were pines, and I didn’t know if Lucy would like the leaves from the trees around here. I went back into the house for a minute and came back with some carrots and a whole head of romaine lettuce. Leaning a ladder against the wall, I climbed up and put the food on a small ledge. It was too high for a human to reach, but Lucy would be able to eat the food from there without bending over.
“I’ll come back with some better food for you later,” I told Lucy. “I promise, I’m going to take care of you.”
“I believe you, Angela.”
As I left the docile giraffe I had to fight back tears. She’d been taken from her mother in Africa, and smuggled to the United States to be someone’s pet. I wished the girl had stayed and given me more information, so I could track down her father. The smuggling made me angry, if I knew who her father was maybe I could track down who had sold him the giraffe.
Chapter 4
When I got back to the vet clinic, I was so close to my next appointment that I didn’t have any opportunity to talk to Sophie. A couple hours later we had our lunch break, which was our first chance to chat.
“Let’s go to Betty’s,” Sophie suggested. “This is a BLT kind of day for you, isn’t it?”
I smiled at Sophie. She knew me too well. “Any day is a BLT kind of day, if it’s at Betty’s.” Betty always made mine with special vegetarian bacon, and it was my favorite lunch treat. Grabbing my purse from behind the counter and telling Karen we’d see her soon, Sophie and I made our way out onto the street. I told her what I found out about Lucy.
“That’s awful,” Sophie said, shaking her head. “You realize we have to find the people who smuggled her, right?”
“Of course,” I said, nodding vehemently. “I was thinking of going and asking her more questions when we get back. I don’t want to overwhelm her, but she seems to be happy to answer my questions for now.”
“Good, let me know what I can do to help. We need to hunt down the scum that separated this poor giraffe from her mother and left her here in Willow Bay.”
“Agreed,” I said. “We’re not going to let this go.”
“Hey, by the way, have you noticed Bee and her kittens lately?” Sophie asked. A few weeks ago Bee had found an abandoned litter of kittens and taken them in as her own. She had declared that she was training them to be soldiers in the war against the humans, although so far the only thing I’d seen any of them kill was little bits of lint they managed to spot on the floor. I had to admit, the kittens were pretty adorable. However, I realized when Sophie mentioned it that I hadn’t really noticed Bee the night before.
“No, I didn’t notice them last night,” I said. “And we were making a lot of noise. Normally, she’d be around complaining.”
“Exactly. I was thinking about that this morning. I think she and the kittens are up to something.”
“Great. With that cat, it’s never anything good,” I said. I loved Bee, but she was an absolute drama queen. “I bet she’s realized the kittens are getting old enough that I’ll be looking for adopters for them soon.”
Sophie nodded. “That could be it. Maybe she’s hoping if they hide you’ll forget they exist.”
“But then who will complain that I let a dog live in her house?” I replied with a smile. Bee still hadn’t forgiven me for allowing Sophie to adopt Sprinkles, who was the absolute nicest dog alive and the complete opposite of Bee in every way.
“Ooooh, look, Betty got a new sign,” I noted, pointing out the chalk A-frame at the front of the store. The writing was extremely pretty, advertising half price slices of pie with a nice picture of a slice done in chak as well.
“Well, I know what I’m going to order to take-away and have for desert tonight,” Sophie joked.
“As long as she still has peach-blueberry, I’m in,” I replied, my mouth already watering.
Sophie opened the door to Betty’s Café and walked in, with me following behind her. All of a sudden, every head in the café turned to stare at us. The murmurs of conversation–mostly gossip from around town–that the dozen or so people in the café had been partaking in suddenly stopped. Betty’s new employee, a teenager named Carson, was standing behind the counter. As soon as he saw us, his eyes widened and he zipped back into the kitchen.
“Was it something I said?” Sophie mumbled to me. We quickly made our way to the counter.
“I know I walked a giraffe through downtown but I didn’t think it would warrant this kind of reaction,” I said to Sophie in reply. The slow murmurs began once more, and I overheard snippets.
“They don’t know, it’s obvious they don’t know.”
“Maybe that’s just what they want us to think.”
“Or she just doesn’t have anything to do with it. It could be that boy of hers, the one from New York City. That’s how they solve their problems over there, right?”
I had a feeling whatever had happened, it wasn’t good. Just then Betty, the café owner, came out from the kitchen. As soon as she saw Sophie and I she rushed over.
“You’ve obviously not heard the news if you’re here,” she said in a whisper.
“What news?” Sophie asked.
“Someone found Matt Smith’s body washed up on the beach this morning,” she said. “He’d been shot.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered. “We had no idea.”
“And of course, the whole town heard that you chased him down after he set your vet clinic on fire last night,” Betty said.
“Ohhhh,” I said with a groan, realizing why everyone was staring at us. They weren’t staring at Sophie and me, they were just staring at me. I was definitely the prime suspect in this murder.
“I think we’re going to get two BLTs to go, one with real bacon please,” Sophie said. “And two hazelnut lattes.”
“Coming right up,” Betty said. “If you’d rather sit in the back room to avoid everyone while you wait, I have a nice little seating area there for when I eat my lunch.”
“Thanks, Betty,” I told her with a smile. “But I think we’ll hang out here. After all, I didn’t do it. I have nothing to hide.”
“Of course you didn’t, dear,” Betty told me. “And shame on anyone who thinks you did.”
Sophie and I took a small two-seater table by the wall while we waited for our food and drinks.
“I can’t believe he’s dead!” Sophie whispered to me when we sat down.
“I know! And of course with the timing, everyone thinks I did it, or Jason,” I replied, remembering the conversation. I glared at the woman who had made the comment about Jason; she was facing away from me so it wasn’t exactly threatening, but it made me feel better.
“Everyone who actually knows you will immediately know that’s bull,” Sophie said.
“I know, but still. Chief Gary’s going to have to investigate me. He wouldn’t be doing his job, otherwise. Same with Jason. And people here don’t know him as well as they know me.”