Lipstick on a Pig (A Paranormal Cozy Mystery) (Willow Bay Witches Book 4) Read online

  The three of us gave our statements, and then realizing there was really nothing else we could do there, we headed back to the car.

  “What’s going on?” Bee asked from her carrier, not happy to have been left in it.

  “They found a body in the petting zoo,” I replied. “Remember that lady from yesterday? Someone murdered her.”

  “Oh, the poor woman,” Sprinkles said sadly. I gave him a quick scratch behind the ear.

  “Good, she was annoying,” Bee replied. “Can I go see?”

  “No, you can’t.”

  “Why not?” Bee whined.

  “Because the police are there now, taking care of things.”

  “So we’re not going to be on display for the humans to pet us in exchange for money?”

  “Not today, no.”

  “Well I still better get my sushi roll.”

  That was Bee. Always thinking about the important things in life.

  “Fine,” I replied, too tired to argue with my cat. At least this meant that by going home I could get in a bit of extra sleep.

  “Do you know if she had a pet? The woman who was killed?” Sprinkles asked.

  “We don’t know, buddy. We don’t know much about her at all,” Sophie replied. “I’ll find out for you though, if you’d like.”

  “That would be nice, thank you Sophie.”

  Sophie leaned over from her spot in the driver’s seat and ruffled Sprinkles’ head. “You’re a good doggie, you know that. You’re a very good doggie!”

  “Thank you,” Sprinkles replied, and I hid a smile. Sprinkles was just the most polite, well-behaved dog I’d ever met.

  When we got back to the apartment I threw myself down onto the couch.

  “I wonder how long the park’s going to be closed for,” Charlotte said to no one in particular.

  Sophie shrugged. “Who knows? My bet is the whole park is closed for a day or two, but they won’t re-open the petting zoo.”

  “I think you’re probably right,” I replied. “It would be too macabre.”

  “Which means that for the next eleven days, we’re on vacation!” Sophie said, throwing her hands up into the air. I closed my eyes and leaned back. I hadn’t even realized it, but Sophie was probably right. As the vet tech at my clinic, she didn’t have to work until the clinic re-opened after the festival, same as me.

  “The first thing I’m doing as part of my new vacation is having a nap,” I announced, but every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was Jessica Oliver lying in the pig pen, her eyes staring into nothingness. I wondered who had hated her enough to kill her. And whether or not that person was still in Willow Bay.

  Chapter 4

  Charlotte sighed. “I knew you guys were going to want to do this.”

  “What? It makes sense. You knew her. She went to your college. If anyone in Willow Bay has an advantage here, it’s you. And don’t you think it’s your civic duty to do what you can if you can help find a murderer?” I pulled out all the stops.

  “And here I thought we might be able to go two whole months without finding ourselves sucked into another murder investigation,” Charlotte replied. “Fine. I’ll do it. But only because of that whole civic duty thing. And I absolutely refuse to do anything dangerous.”

  “Deal,” I lied, knowing full well that we’d be able to lure Charlotte into doing anything Sophie and I deemed necessary, no matter how dangerous. It was just after noon; I’d had a long nap, and Chief Gary had told me that the petting zoo would be closed for good this year. I could come pick up the animals and take them back to Joe’s farm later that afternoon, but it wouldn’t be until the crime scene guys were done so he’d let me know when. That gave us at least a good four, maybe five hours of investigating.

  “Good. Start by telling us everything you know about her,” Sophie said, plopping herself down on the couch next to me and looking eagerly at Charlotte, who shrugged.

  “I mean, I don’t know that much about her. Her name was Jessica Oliver. She was a law student. Well, pre-law when we knew each other. I don’t know if she made it into law school or not. I haven’t seen her around the last year or so, but the medical building and the law building are on opposite sides of campus from each other. She had a, well, let’s say, a reputation,” Charlotte continued, trailing off.

  “Oh my God, what are you, eighty years old? What kind of ‘reputation’?” Sophie asked, doing air quotes for emphasis.

  “Well,” Charlotte squirmed. “I don’t like to spread rumors about people I don’t know, but apparently she would have affairs with married men so they would pay for her lifestyle.”

  “The lifestyle of Louis Vuitton handbags and Hermes scarves that we saw yesterday?” I asked, my eyebrows raising, and Charlotte nodded.

  “I don’t know how true those rumors were. I honestly thought she had family money, and that people were making up the rumors because they didn’t like her. Which, it sounds like yesterday you found out why.”

  “Was there anyone who did like her?” I asked, and Charlotte nodded slowly.

  “Yeah. She had a sister. A twin sister, actually, although they were fraternal twins and not identical. I guess sisterly bonds are like that though.”

  “Please, if you ever start acting like that, I’m disowning you so fast your head will spin,” I joked, and Sophie laughed next to me.

  “Absolutely. I mean, I know Angela’s really annoying—pretty much all the time, but I can still love her. This Jessica chick took things to a whole new level.”

  “Hey!” I replied, insulted.

  “Awwww, you know I love you,” Sophie told me, reaching over and giving me a big bear hug that I purposely resisted just a little bit.

  “I love you too, I guess,” I grumbled back, eventually letting myself get absorbed into the hug.

  “Anyway,” Charlotte continued pointedly, “I know her sister was also in pre-law. From what I saw they got along pretty well. But maybe today isn’t exactly the best day to go and see her.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I said. I could see Sophie kind of wanted to argue the point, but even she realized that we couldn’t go barging in asking the sister questions the very day that she found out her twin had been murdered.

  “Fine, so we aren’t going to do that. Is there anyone else she would have been close to, but not that close to?” Sophie asked. Charlotte shrugged. “I’m really not sure.”

  “Well why don’t we try and figure it out the new-fashioned way?” I asked. “Surely she has Facebook and Instagram accounts.”

  “Good plan,” Sophie said, getting up and grabbing her iPad off the kitchen counter. The three of us scootched together to pore over the screen as Sophie opened up her Facebook app.

  Sophie typed “Jessica Oliver” into the search bar, and pretty quickly we recognized her profile picture. It was Jessica, doing a duck face pose, while lying in what looked like a random hotel room bed. It wasn’t exactly subtle, but hey, to each their own.

  “Is all her stuff set to private?” Charlotte asked, and Sophie started scrolling through the profile.

  “Nope,” she grinned. “All available for the whole world to see.”

  The three of us were silent while Sophie scrolled through post after post of Jessica bragging about her life.

  “#thatfeelingwhen you’re at a new salon and the stylist says there’s no way your hair color can come from a bottle #blessed #bottleblonde #butisodontlookit #lookssonatural”

  Of course, all these posts were accompanied by selfies taken by Jessica, and despite the fact my one experience with the girl was a little bit less than friendly, I couldn’t help but feel a bit sad that most of her pictures only garnered one or two likes. The girl obviously wanted attention, and she certainly wasn’t getting it from her social media.

  We scrolled through post after post of tedious nothingness, and I started to think that maybe we weren’t going to get anywhere this way.

  “Hold on,” Charlotte finally said. “There’
s one person that she keeps tagging in a bunch of her stuff. Click on Laura Walczyk there.”

  Sophie did as ordered and up popped the profile of a girl in law school, who posted on social media quite a bit less than Jessica did. Her profile said she went to the University of Oregon, same as Charlotte and Jessica.

  “Hmmmm,” Charlotte said thoughtfully. “I’m like, 99 percent sure I know her. A friend of mine, Kelsey, is friends with her, I’ve seen them hanging out before.”

  “Wait, you have friends?” Sophie teased, earning herself a light punch in the arm from Charlotte. “Hold on, let me text her. I’ll be right back.”

  Charlotte got up off the couch while Sophie and I continued stalking Jessica’s Facebook account. When we got back to Christmas of last year, we found a number of photos that she had been tagged in, taken at an Oregon law firm’s staff Christmas party, going by the number of people dressed in suits. The name Forrester, Forrester and Smith was visible on the back wall.

  “Do you think she worked there?” I asked. “Maybe she still does.”

  Sophie scrolled back up to the top of the page and over to the About section of Sophie’s profile. Sure enough, she had listed that she worked as an intern at Forrester, Forrester and Smith.

  “Yup, you nailed it,” Sophie replied.

  “Of course, I can guarantee you that we’re not going to be able to go to a lawyer’s office and just start asking them questions. If TV has taught me anything, it’s that they’re totally not going to talk to us,” I said.

  “The lawyers might not, but Jessica wasn’t a lawyer. She was an intern. And there’s bound to be other interns working there.” Sophie closed the app and turned to me. “We’re going to Portland!”

  “Is there a plan involved in all of this?” I asked warily. I already knew the answer to this. It was Sophie, of course there was no plan.

  “Of course there’s a plan! We go to her work, and then we come up with a reason to be there and befriend one of the interns. Then she’ll tell us everything we need to know.”

  “So you basically have step one, and then steps two, three and four are question marks, and then step five is we find out who killed Jessica?”

  “Exactly,” Sophie beamed. “If you plan it out too carefully, it never works.”

  “Yeah, this way sounds much better,” I replied sarcastically.

  “Do you have a better idea?” Sophie asked.

  “Anything else,” I replied. “Literally, anything else.”

  But in all seriousness I didn’t have a better plan. Five minutes later, Charlotte came out of the bedroom. “Kelsey set up coffee with Laura tomorrow, so I’ll see what I can find out then.”

  “Cool,” Sophie replied. “Angela and I are going to Portland. We figured out what law firm Jessica Oliver interned at, so we’re going to see if we can dig up some info there.”

  “That sounds good, what’s your plan?”

  “There isn’t one,” I replied. “We’re just going to wing it.”

  Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Of course you are. Well, seeing as you don’t actually have any idea what you’re going to do, I’m going to stay here and study—if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure thing, nerd,” I teased. I took ten minutes to go feed the one animal currently in our care in the backyard stables—a doe with a broken leg who’d be able to be re-released into the wild in a few weeks—and then Sophie and I headed down to Portland with absolutely nothing that even remotely resembled a plan. That was okay though, after all, how badly could it possibly go?

  Chapter 5

  As it turned out, the answer to that was “very badly”.

  Fifty minutes after leaving Willow Bay, we pulled into the parking lot at Forrester, Forrester and Smith.

  “Just follow my lead,” Sophie said as we walked through the glass doors at the front of the building and took the elevator to the third floor, where the company’s offices were.

  The offices were exactly what you expect from an expensive, modern law firm. Everything was white, gray or black, with that super modern, minimalistic, square look. A couple of super colorful art pieces on the wall gave the room that splash of color that it really desperately needed. When we got off the elevator we were looking directly at the receptionist’s desk, manned by a gorgeous looking girl in her late twenties with perfectly straight, almost-black hair tied back into a high ponytail, almond shaped eyes and olive skin. On either side of her, was a clear glass door leading down two hallways toward what I assumed were all the lawyers’ offices. A few people rushed through the doors, one person came out and handed the receptionist something, and left without saying a word. On the other side of the room, the side where the elevators were, were some plush leather chairs, all of which were currently empty.

  “Can I help you?” the receptionist asked in a not-unfriendly, but not overly cheerful way either.

  “Hi, yes, I… uh, need to speak to a lawyer, and I don’t know who I should talk to,” Sophie said, throwing out a nervous smile.

  “All right, what sort of situation is it relating to?” the girl asked.

  “Well, see, my aunt just died, and I think the person who’s dealing with all the will stuff is doing it wrong, and I wanted to see if there was something I could do about it.”

  I tried to avoid openly gaping at Sophie. Seriously? That was the story she was going for?

  “And who is the executor of the will?”

  “Uh, my mom,” Sophie replied. “This is my sister. We both want to make sure that my bitch of a mom doesn’t steal everything my aunt worked for her whole life.”

  Ok, Sophie was definitely going all-in on this lie. I tried to keep my face impassive. For one thing, even though Sophie was only half Japanese, there was literally no way we could be confused as siblings. We looked absolutely nothing alike. I mean, for one thing, Sophie was half-Japanese!

  The receptionist raised an eyebrow sceptically, and told us she could make us an appointment.

  “Oh, is there no way to see anyone now?” Sophie asked, and I had to resist the urge to roll my eyes. What did Sophie think, that lawyers just sat around waiting for people like us to show up? This was her plan?

  “No, I’m afraid there isn’t,” the receptionist replied, her manner beginning to cool. I was starting to think this was really not going well when it suddenly got worse.

  Austin Stark, Lisa’s boyfriend, suddenly came out of one of the offices, followed by a middle-aged man with brown Conan O’Brien style hair. The men shook hands, and Austin thanked him for his help. The lawyer turned and went back to his office, just as Austin turned and saw Sophie and I standing there.

  “Oh, hey, Sophie! Angela!” he said brightly, coming toward us. “What are you two doing here?”

  “Hi Austin, just making an appointment,” I replied nicely. I still wasn’t quite sure what to make of Austin. He seemed like he tried to be a nice guy, and he’d helped me out a couple times, but at the same time he sort of rubbed me the wrong way. Right now, the jury was out on him. Sophie, on the other hand, had absolutely hated him from the start. Not that there was any real reason for it, apart from the fact that he was dating her mother. Apparently, that was all the reason Sophie needed.

  “Hi Austin,” Sophie said in a voice I knew was fake cheery. “How are you today?” I glared at her. Right now, the last thing we needed was for her to fight with her mom’s boyfriend.

  “I’m good, thanks Sophie. I’m a little confused as to why you guys are here though. You don’t need a lawyer for anything, do you? If so, I can recommend you mine.”

  “Oh no, we’re just making an appointment for a quick consultation,” I told him. “Then we’re heading back home. We’re in a bit of a rush actually.”

  The rush was to get Sophie and Austin out of the same room.

  “Sounds good. Hey, your mom wanted to know if you’re still working the petting zoo, she wants to bring by some food so you don’t have to cook all week. She landed herself a big new client, so
she’s super happy right now. You might want to call her if you need anything, with the mood she’s in, she’ll probably give it to you,” he added with a wink. I knew he was trying to get onto our good sides, but oh boy was this a bad time and place.

  I could feel the receptionist’s glare from here, even though I wasn’t looking at her.

  “Oh really Austin? My mom’s really happy right now? Thank you Austin for not totally ruining everything,” Sophie spat before turning on her heel and heading back to the elevators. Her dramatic exit was stifled somewhat by the twenty second wait for one to arrive, but she continued to glare at Austin as she headed back down.

  “Sorry, I don’t think we need that appointment after all,” I said to the receptionist, who was pretty much openly glaring at me now. I motioned to Austin that I’d call him, and mouthed “sorry” as I saw his completely bewildered look, then I headed down the stairs to meet Sophie in the lobby.

  “Are you really surprised that went badly? Like, honestly?” I asked Sophie when we finally got outside. “We weren’t going to get an appointment for today anyway.”

  “I know, but did he really have to ruin it?” Sophie had never quite gotten over the fact that her mom was dating again. She had never approved of Austin, but to be fair to him, she had never actually given him a chance, either. She had just straight up decided she hated the guy.

  “Yeah, that sucked,” I told her as we got back into the car. “But I think we can say pretty confidently that overall, our plan to try and get any information like this was flawed.”

  “Admit it, you think it was stupid to even try.” Sophie was sulking now.

  “I did. But to be fair to me, I told you that before we came here, and I still came.” Just then, my phone rang. I picked up and heard Chief Gary’s voice on the other end.

  “Hey, Angela,” he told me. “We’re ready for you to take the animals back to Joe’s if you want. We’ll be here for another few hours at least, so feel free to stop by anytime before it gets dark.”

  “Awesome, thanks Chief Gary!” I replied. “I’ve just spent the day in Portland with Sophie, we’re heading back now and can be there in a little over an hour.”