Murder at the Pet Spa Page 3

  “I know what you mean. We could inquire if there are temporary jobs here and get a realistic feel of day-to-day work. That way we can find out for sure if this is for us. If not we'll explore other business ventures with pets. Take a cue from Loretta Gumble, she's been doing this for a long time and I don't get the impression it's as involved as this. I bet you if we talked to her, she might suggest different types of businesses that revolve around pets.” Mandy said.

  “Yes, not only that, if we go that route, that's another way of promoting Roger. He'll be the model for the products.” Jill said.

  “Hey, that's not such a bad idea. You can do the videos with Roger. Now what we have to do is discover what it is we can sell to a willing and demanding public which is always the problem, what to sell.” Mandy said.

  “This place reminds me of the animal shelter, except that this is spiffier. Not only that, I'm sure many of the owners of these animals are prima donnas. You have to tread carefully if you're taking care of somebody's pooch or cat that's being spoilt rotten. And if you tell these people that their animal is a brat, they get an attitude towards you, as in, where do you come off telling them their pet is not the most special in the world, and it's actually a spoilt brat.” Jill said.

  Mandy and Jill both laughed at the image of these snooty people. Suddenly, out of nowhere, they both heard terrible screams. They were coming from Cynthia.

  “Help! Help! Something terrible has happened. Call the police! Help!”

  Mandy and Jill went running back to the area where they first came in. They found Cynthia crying and screaming, “No, no, no, no, this can't be.”

  Mandy said, “What's the matter Cynthia, what happened?”

  Cynthia pointed at the main office. Inside, on the floor, Karen's lifeless body lay face down, with a huge army knife sticking out of her back, bleeding profusely.

  Chapter Three

  Cynthia was beside herself upon discovering the body of her friend and business colleague. She kept crying while pleading 'Karen, please don't die.' Meanwhile, Mandy got on the phone calling Fred Stone, captain of the local police department and Mandy's friend. She didn't get directly through to him, but got the receptionist.

  “Hi, this is Mandy Cummings, is Fred there? I'm calling with an extreme police emergency, a murder has been committed.” The operator put Mandy right through.

  “Mandy this is Fred. What do you mean that you're calling in a murder. Is this true?”

  “I'm afraid so Fred. I'm at the Pampered Pets Spa and the manager has been murdered with a knife. You need to get down here and send an ambulance, perhaps she can still be saved.”

  “I'm on my way, but don't touch anything, stay away from the body and tell everybody else to stay away as well. I'm calling an ambulance too.”

  Mandy hung up and spoke to Cynthia “I spoke to Fred and he's coming over right away and they're sending an ambulance. It's possible they'll save her. Meantime, we have to step away from the office and the body.”

  “But it seems so cruel, I can't leave her there by herself.” Cynthia said sobbing.

  “Well, sit by her. Maybe she's still alive and can sense your presence. But don't handle anything around you, or touch the body.” Mandy said.

  Cynthia sat next to Karen, crying silent tears while closing her eyes, not wanting to believe that someone had murdered Karen. Who wanted to kill Karen? Cynthia asked herself. She couldn't believe that Allen had done it. He had always been so nice, but the army knife that stuck out of Karen's back spoke volumes. Cynthia turned her head away from Karen's body.

  Mandy and Jill stood out in the lobby, trying to process what had just happened.

  “Wow, we certainly walked into a horrible situation.” Mandy said.

  “We sure did, first the amazing argument and now this. Do you think he killed her?” Jill asked.

  “There are many possibilities here, but I ask myself, why not walk away, if the girl doesn't work out for you, just walk away and get a new girl. Why kill her? It makes no sense.” Mandy said.

  “That's why they call these kinds of crimes, crimes of passion. People get caught in the grip of very strong emotions and they flip out. After everything has happened, they become aware of the damage they caused and can't believe they did such a thing, but they did. And now, poor Karen's dead as a result.” Jill explained.

  “Cynthia seems very convinced he didn't do it, but possibly it's wishful thinking.” Mandy said.

  “Well, I guess we'll eventually discover what happened.” Jill said.

  In the distance, you heard the police sirens as they approached the building. As the police parked their cars, a crowd of people started to gather in front of the spa. Fred and Jimmy showed up.

  “Mandy, where's the murder victim?”

  “In that office Fred. The woman next to her is the co-manager, Cynthia, I couldn't get her to leave her alone.”

  Fred walked into the spa office and spoke with Cynthia “Hi Cynthia, my name is Fred Stone, I'm the captain of the police department of Pleasant Falls. I understand this is a difficult time for you but can you please step away from the body so that we can examine it and the ambulance people can take her to the hospital.”

  “Ok” Cynthia sobbed softly.

  Fred entered the office and examined the area. Nothing seemed to be amiss. The surfaces were spotless, he figured the lab guys would be able to do their jobs with ease in an environment such as this. He scouted the area around for anything of value that lurked about but he saw nothing, a computer and notebooks and basically, what a business office should look like. He examined the body and saw that the murder had been performed with a large knife, the type usually used by the armed forces. Fred noticed that Cynthia continued to stay in the office, in spite of the fact that Karen lied dead on the floor. She probably was in shock, in her own world, caught up in her grief, standing by crying and having a difficult time with the events that just transpired. Fred led her out of the office and into the main lobby and sat her down. He realized that trying to get information from her was not the best way to proceed, so he turned to Mandy and Jill to find out what they knew.

  “Hi Mandy, hi Jill. I'm not even going to ask what both of you are doing here. Did you happen to be present when it happened? Anything unusual, anything going on that looked suspicious?”

  Mandy spoke first. “Well, when we got here, Karen and Allen, her boyfriend, were having a heated argument. They argued because Karen has a flirting problem and he became very upset at how many times she does this. Watching Karen in action yesterday we can tell you that Allen is not imagining things.”

  “Could it be he killed her in a fit of jealousy? Have you met him?” Fred asked.

  Jill chimed in “The only information we have thus far is that he appears to be amazingly muscular and strong and that he's in the National Guard. He's a professional soldier. However Cynthia told us he's a super nice guy.”

  “So Cynthia is friendly with him. From everything that's happened thus far, this doesn't look good for him. That's an army knife stuck in her back and you tell me he's in the armed forces and he's very strong, that knife looks as though it went clear through her.” Fred said.

  During this time the ambulance arrived and the paramedics took stock of Karen's condition.

  Fred asked the ambulance driver “Can you tell me if there's a chance she can make it.?

  “I've felt her pulse and I'm not getting a thing and she's lost quite a bit of blood. We can rush her to the hospital and hope for a miracle, but she seems very much gone.”

  In the middle of this the lab guys arrived. Fred said. “Ok, we're going to try to save this woman. One of you guys go with the ambulance and check her for any prints or any clue that you can find on her body. Paramedics, please wear these gloves and put her in the gurney in the same position facing down. We need to keep the body as intact as possible while the lab guy examines her. Meanwhile, take her to the hospital as quickly as possible and let's hope she can be saved.�
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  Cynthia said “Can I accompany her to the hospital?” She remained quite visibly upset.

  Fred said “I'm sorry Cynthia, I need you here to answer questions about things. Were you friendly with the boyfriend, what's his name?”

  “Allen Smith.”

  “Can you call him, do you have a number for him?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Please ring him and tell him the police would like to speak with him. If he answers, let me speak to him, otherwise, leave him a message.”

  “Yes, I can do that.” Cynthia proceeded to dial Allen's number. She hoped he'd pick up, that this was a misunderstanding and that he had nothing to do with it. The phone rang its customary four rings and the voicemail came on. Cynthia left a message.

  “Hi Allen, it's Cynthia. Allen, something terrible has happened. Karen is dead, somebody killed her. The police are interested in asking you some questions, can you please go by the police station and speak to them?”

  Cynthia ended the call and started crying again. Fred knew right now would not be the time for getting information out of her, his best bet was to Mandy and Jill again.

  “About what time did this happen?”

  “Probably five minutes before I called you. We heard Cynthia screaming and ran out from the back.” Mandy said.

  “Ok, at least that gives me a time when she discovered the body. By now Mandy, you know the drill. Nobody leaves here till we're finished and I'm going to need you both to give a statement at the station.”

  “No problem Fred. We're going to wait in the back, there are rooms back there with animals and a small sitting area.

  While Mandy and Jill walked towards the back, the paramedics took Karen's body out the front door. The ambulance was waiting with lights flashing and Jimmy, Fred's deputy stood outside keeping out people who were milling about.

  Mandy had left Roger in the room that resembled a kennel with a couple of animals in cages. Roger seemed to have struck up a “friendship” with a cat in one of the cages. He sat right in front of the cage and the cat inside came as close as possible to the grill, checking each other out as much as possible.

  Mandy said “I see you made a little friend. I wondered what you'd do if I left you alone. Well, now you're in a place that has animals that live in houses as pets, the same way you do.”

  Mandy and Jill's minds were abuzz with thoughts regarding the current state of affairs.

  “Jill, I can't believe we're in the middle of yet another murder.” Mandy said, freaked out by what had happened.

  “I know what you're saying, this is beginning to get cyclical. It could be some hypothetical law of the universe that if you get involved with one murder, others will follow. And we came here for a totally unrelated business matter.”

  Jill said “I'm going to explore this place and find out how big it is and if there are any other aspects to this business. Also I'll try finding any clues as to why this happened. This can't be a random event, something had to be brewing for a while.”

  While Jill explored the spa, Mandy performed her own exploration of the room where the animals stayed. They also kept towels in there. Apparently, you needed quite a bit of towels in this place to do whatever it was they did. She saw one pile that needed straightening out. Mandy, being the neat freak she is, decided to straighten them out. As she picked up a pile of towels, a notebook fell out of the bottom of the pile. It was a black and white mottled cover notebook, the same as the ones kids use in grade school. She thumbed through the pages and saw that it was a collection numbers in columns and listing of months and years. She had no idea what it could be, but she put it in her bag and figured she'd give it to Cynthia later.

  Seeing that Roger had a playmate, she picked up the animal carrier and put it on the table where Roger sat so that they could be closer together. The carrier held a white cat with blue eyes, a very pretty cat.

  “Well, now there's no need to be two feet apart. Now you can engage in a more intimate conversation.” Mandy said this mostly to amuse herself. She figured Roger had no idea what she was talking about.

  Jill came back and she gave Mandy a description and her impression of the place.

  “The place is not that big, and I'm noticing that there's not a lot of business. It's pretty empty. I guess once things settle down we can ask Cynthia if this is their normal or are things busier usually.”

  They moved to a little sitting area outside the kennel room.

  “Yeah, I feel terrible for her right now. From the way she's acting, it looks as though she and Karen had gotten very close. I guess we'll learn at sooner or later how close they had become.” Mandy said.

  “Getting back to the murder, right now, from everything we've seen, it appears that the most likely candidate is Allen. He got very upset with Karen and the way she carried on. Perhaps his problems ran deeper than anyone knew. Karen's behavior triggered this immense anger, and it's possible he went home, got his knife and came back with the express purpose of killing her. Considering that someone stabbed her from the back, he probably snuck up on her and with no time to respond. No chance of seeing who stabbed her.” Mandy conjectured.

  “Right now, there aren't any other suspects to speak of.” Added Jill. “When you consider the possibilities, if Allen didn't kill her, who else wanted to kill Karen? Did she have other lovers in the past looking for revenge? Did she get involved with someone who had it in for her a long while now and today everything came to a head? Or could there be there another lover, in addition to Allen? Cynthia mentioned she had dated the owner of the spa. Possibly she still had a relationship going with the owner?” Jill shrugged as though saying it could be anyone.

  Mandy also realized that she approached this situation like a detective. “Jill, we've now been involved with a couple of murders and scams, and now here we're involved in yet another one. I really didn't want this, I just wanted to observe what happens at a pet spa. Meeting Karen anew opened up the opportunity to develop a new friendship. Such a waste, in spite of whatever flaws she may or may not possess, Karen had turned her life around and seemed to show good business acumen. We'll never discover how far she may have gone had she been alive. I guess that will always remain a mystery.”

  “I completely agree. Probably if we sat and socialized with Karen without any male distractions, we'd find she was a good person to have as a friend. We would have taken her to Joanie's. She could have filled in gaps between the girl we remembered from high school and the woman she had become. Truly a crying shame.” Jill said.

  “Well, I don't think we're going to be the ones to solve this case. We sort of stumbled into this, trying to get information about a possible business.” Mandy said.

  “Yeah, we found the right place at the wrong time. Again.”

  *****

  Back at the spa office, Fred and his lab guys continued to comb the scene of the crime for clues as to who the murderer could be. Cynthia had called the owner, Jeffrey Warner, and he came over as soon as possible. Fred started to ask questions of Jeffrey.

  “Mr. Warner, is there any possibility you know why anybody wanted to kill Ms. Whitford?”

  “You can call me Jeffrey. I'm completely flabbergasted at this, Karen was a regular person, she'd come in, do her job. I'm not aware of her socializing with any bad people. She and her boyfriend had fights now and then, but I don't know the boyfriend well enough to make an assumption. He definitely had the skills to kill someone, being a trained soldier and built like a Mr. Universe. But I wouldn't venture a guess.”

  Fred said “Well, considering the murder weapon was an army knife, he is missing in action and not responding to telephone calls, he is definitely a strong person of interest right now. As you look around the office, can you tell if you're missing something of value, could this have been a robbery?”

  Jeffrey checked out the room trying to see if he'd been robbed.

  “I don't see anything out of place. I could examine the safe, but I'd have t
o turn the dial using the combination and turn the handle. Am I allowed to touch the safe handle?”

  Fred asked one of the lab guys “Will, are you finished checking the safe for prints?”

  “We're finished examining that area. Just use a cloth so as not to add any new prints.”

  Jeffrey approached the safe, making sure not to disturb any of the work that the lab guys had performed, and turned the handle. He opened it up and looked inside. He turned to Fred “No, nothing is missing here, not that we keep any substantial money in here at any point. By the way, where's Karen now?”

  “They took her to the hospital right away to try to save her. But she had no pulse over here and knife went straight through her heart. She bled a lot and we don't know how long she laid there. There's been no communication from the hospital, but I'd be very surprised if we heard that somehow she had survived. My lab guy accompanied the paramedics in the ambulance to test for prints and any evidence that may be on her body.”

  “This is a terrible tragedy. She's a great employee and our business is a pet spa, certainly not a place that inspires a murder. If we had been robbed I could understand it, but nothing is missing. The only other thing I could think of is someone from her past, but I'm not aware of any acquaintances or friends that have an interest in killing her. Cynthia, do you know if she had any friends other than her boyfriend?”

  Cynthia answered a little more coherently, she had time to compose herself “No, unfortunately. As far as I knew, her life revolved around her job, going to the gym, going out with Allen. Recently she attended that business fair at the mall to promote the spa, but nothing much came out of that.”

  Fred asked “Did anybody see her there, someone she met at the event?”

  Cynthia replied “Well, the only people she met there that mattered were Mandy and Jill. They came over to visit today and they were in the back when I discovered the body and they were with me when the murder took place.”

  “Well, I'll talk to them later and find out if they saw observed strange behavior while at the mall at that event.” Fred said.