Death and a Dog

by Fiona Grace

  “So?” Daisy demanded of Karl. “What have you got to say for yourself?”

  From the back room, Lacey heard the sound of Chester scrabbling at the door. She’d shut him in so as to avoid any more of Superintendent Turner’s snide comments regarding him, and the commotion must have roused him. He probably thought she was in danger, with all that shrieking going on.

  “Perhaps you should come to the station for us to talk about it,” Superintendent Turner said.

  He attempted to steer Daisy toward the door with an outstretched arm, but the woman was not about to comply. She sidestepped him, contorting her body as she moved out of his reach. And that was when it happened.

  Daisy saw the sextant.

  Her expression turned to horror, like she’d just seen someone coming back from the dead.

  “What is that doing here!” she screeched. “That’s mine! That’s the item that was stolen! That’s the reason Buck was killed!”

  She totally lost it then. She fell to her knees and dissolved into a puddle of tears.

  Lacey could bear it no longer. Neither of the detectives was doing anything to comfort the grieving woman. Leaving her to cry alone in a heap on the floor like that just didn’t feel right to Lacey. She stood from the swanky Nordic armchair and paced over to Daisy.

  “Let me help you up,” she said.

  But the second she laid a hand on the woman’s shoulder, Daisy turned her head sharply up to Lacey and glared at her.

  “Don’t you touch me! You… you… murderer!”

  She screamed so loudly the sound carried into the street, and a bunch of people walking by turned to look. A small huddle started to form at the window. DCI Lewis strode over, waving her arms as if to shoo them away. At the sight of a police officer, the curious crowd scurried away.

  “Why aren’t you arresting her?” Daisy wailed. “Don’t you see? She killed my Bucky. She’s a crook. He paid her fair and square for the sextant and she killed him to get it back!”

  Just then, the back door that led into the auction room opened and in flew Chester. He’d managed to leap up and pull down the handle!

  He tore like a furry bullet across the shop floor toward Daisy.

  Time seemed to slow down for Lacey. She could see every moment with crystal clear precision.

  “CHESTER!” Lacey bellowed, suddenly afraid he might bite the woman, just as he had done with Nigel when he’d broken in.

  There was hesitation in Chester’s movements. He knew well enough he was supposed to obey Lacey when she used her stern voice, but he’d pushed the boundary of her tolerance once before in order to get to the island and had gotten away with it, then, so why not try again. Lacey worried that he might do the same again, only with far worse consequences. Biting a grieving widow, even if she’d accused Lacey of murder, was no okay! And doing it in front of a police officer, well, he’d end up on his way to the vet to be put down!

  “Chester,” she said again, deeper, even more sternly.

  Finally, the dog skidded to a halt.

  Everyone stared at him, stunned into silence.

  Daisy scrabbled to her feet. DCI Lewis sprang into action, clasping her elbow to help her up. “Come on, let’s go back to the station and talk you through everything we’ve been doing with the investigation so far.”

  The two women left—one every inch the dignified model of composure, the other a gibbering wreck—and Lacey was left alone with Superintendent Turner.

  “Your dog,” he said, looking at Chester. “Is he trained properly?”

  “Yes,” Lacey said, quickly. “He follows my commands. Apart from that one time on the island but I guess he must’ve… smelled the body.” Her voice trailed sadly away, as she recalled once more the horrifying sight of the deceased Buck.

  “Did he used to be a police dog?” Superintendent Turner asked.

  It was the first time he’d shown an actual interest in him, rather than making jokes about him.

  “I don’t know,” Lacey said. “He sort of came with the store. I adopted him because the old tenants are deceased.” She paused. “Why do you ask?”

  “The way he acted just then. It looked exactly like our canine units when they’re about to take down a suspect.”

  Lacey regarded the detective. He was usually quite good at hiding his true emotions, and hiding the inner most workings of his mind, but this time it was obvious. He suspected Daisy.

  “It couldn't have been her,” Lacey said. “It just couldn’t. She was half Buck’s size. There’s no way she’d be able to overpower him.”

  “No. Definitely not. But maybe there was an opportunity and she took it. I mean, the man suffocated on sand. He wasn’t strangled. There was distance between him and the murderer. It was cold. They didn’t want to get their hands dirty. Didn’t want to chip a nail. If he fell—a heart problem, possibly, a big man like him was bound to have one—and rather than help him up, she pushed her stiletto into his back. When he’s already vulnerable, unable to fight back, in the middle of a medical emergency, she made certain he wouldn’t wake back up.”

  Lacey realized he was now musing aloud, as if he’d entirely forgotten she was there. She stayed silent, curious to hear his theory play out.

  “But why? Was there abuse? Was she set to inherit money? It wouldn’t be the first time a pretty young woman married an older man for his money...” Suddenly, his head snapped up and he stared at Lacey as if seeing her for the first time. It almost looked like he’d come out of a trance and was shocked to discover he wasn’t in the station theorizing with DCI Lewis, but standing in an antiques furniture store talking to a woman he seemed to despite.

  “Don’t repeat what I just said to anyone,” he said, abruptly.

  “Of course I won’t,” Lacey said. She mimed zipping her lips. “Do you really think it might’ve been Daisy? But what about the sextant? Why would she claim it had been stolen, only to then return it?”

  “To frame you,” he said, simply. “Just like you said. You’re the easiest person to blame.”

  “Huh,” Lacey said.

  For what felt like the first time ever, she and Superintendent Turner saw eye to eye on something.

  The man glanced over his shoulder at the waiting police cruiser, DCI Lewis watching him impatiently from the front, Daisy hunched over in the back, her shoulders shaking from evident tears.

  He looked back at Lacey. “Don’t leave town, okay?”

  “I don’t plan on it,” Lacey replied.

  And with that, he left.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Lacey already knew what would happen next. Gossip. She braced herself. It would take all of ten minutes for each store owner on the high street to pass on the news to the next along, and the next after that, like a game of Telephone. It wouldn’t take long before everyone in town knew that the sextant had been discovered in Lacey’s store, propelling her right into the center of a murderer investigation. A second murder investigation, no less.

  Lacey knew how it worked. The fact she had nothing to do with the slaying of Iris—something the police themselves had declared—would count for nothing. People would still think it was too remarkable a concurrence of events to be mere coincidence. She was going to become a suspect again, if not in the police, then in the minds of everyone in Wilfordshire. And she didn’t know if she had the strength to go through all that for a second time.

  It took less than an hour for people to stop coming into her store. Her usual flow of customers dwindled to a trickle, before drying up entirely. This was another outcome that Lacey had anticipated. Last time, she’d almost lost her business over the lack of trade. She’d been exceptionally lucky to recover, and that was in large part due to Nigel choosing her to auction Iris’s entire estate. Without the commission she’d earned, she’d have gone bankrupt. But that was a one off. Now she relied on the income from sales to stay afloat and she was not going to be getting anything resembling a steady trade as long as Buck’s murder was hanging
over her head.

  She had no choice. She would have to find out what happened and clear her name.

  Good thing I’ve got so much free time now, she thought dryly.

  There was no point standing around hoping someone would come in, so she closed up shop and headed across the street to Tom’s to fill him in on everything that had transpired with the cops, and get some much needed TLC.

  As she entered the patisserie, she discovered he was swamped with customers. They all seemed to sidestep as she entered, and she noticed people whispering behind their hands. She kept her chin up high and edged her way to the counter.

  “Tom,” she said, trying to get his attention. He seemed extremely focused on boxing up a slice of gooey chocolate cream cake.

  He looked up, the business in his eyes evident. “Lacey? What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”

  “Not really,” she said.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “It’s the sextant,” Lacey said, having to project her voice over the thrum of noise in the patisserie.” It turned up at my store.”

  “The what?” Tom asked, straining as if he’d been unable to hear her over the noisy customers.

  “The antique! Someone put it in my store. Gina left the door unlocked.” She squeezed her hand into a fist, and muttered to herself, “I am going to kill her.”

  A woman standing beside Lacey looked suddenly perturbed. She took a big step back.

  “I don’t mean literally,” Lacey began. “It’s just a figure of speech.”

  But her explanation fell on deaf ears. The woman was looking away and ignoring her.

  There’ll be more of this to come, Lacey thought. This is just the beginning.

  She turned back to Tom. A girl was blocking her view of him. But then she moved away, a prettily decorated pink cupcake in her hands.

  Lacey beelined for her usual stool at the counter and slunk onto it before any other customers came in and interrupted them.

  “What am I going to do?” she asked Tom. “Superintendent Turner let slip that Daisy’s their prime suspect, but that doesn’t mean I’m not one as well.” She let her head drop into her hands. “I can’t believe this is happening to me,” she lamented. “Again. It was bad enough last time. I don’t know if I have the energy to go through it all over again.”

  She got no response from Tom and raised her head up from her hands. He’d disappeared into the kitchen while she was talking. Lacey felt a stab of disappointment in her chest.

  A moment later, he reemerged with a huge tub filled with chocolate marzipan.

  “Sorry, Lacey. Paul was meant to help me today but he called in sick. Now I have fifteen marzipan ferrets to make for a wedding this afternoon. Apparently, the bride and groom are avid ferret breeders. I wouldn’t want rodents on my wedding cake, no matter how much I loved them, but there you go. Each to their own.”

  Lacey stood motionless, unable to do anything but blink at him. “Tom. I’m being scapegoated for a murder. And you’re worrying about ferrets?”

  He frowned. “This is my job.”

  “This is my life!”

  “I know, I didn’t mean that. I’m not trying to compete with you. I’m just saying it’s important. I can’t just let the ball drop because of some silly rumors. We’ve been through this before. It will blow over once the police solve everything.”

  “Once the police solve everything? I’m sorry, but don’t you remember how much effort we had to go through last time? How much of the investigation we had to do ourselves? The police are blinkered when it comes to these matters. They’ve already proven as much. I’ve been set up and if I don’t clear my name, then they’ll just take the easy route and blame me.”

  As she spoke, Tom had begun working on the ferrets. She realized his attention had cut out somewhere before the end of her monologue.

  She stood. “I’ll go.”

  “No. Stay with me. You hate it when the town’s whispering about you, so you may as well stay in here and not listen.”

  But Lacey was too irritated. She had to leave. “I’ll speak to you later. Good luck with the ferrets.”

  She swirled out of the patisserie, feeling completely alone. But more than that, she felt determined. She was going to have to work out what happened and clear her name. She’d done it before, she could do it again.

  She crossed the cobblestone streets and went back inside her customerless store. She sat down at the counter and retrieved her notebook from the drawer beneath the old bronze register, and turned to a blank page. She drew a Venn diagram—a circle on one half of the page, and another on the other half, the two shapes overlapping in the middle. Above the left circle, she wrote, “MO for murder,” and above the right circle she wrote, “MO for theft.” Then she began to fill the circles with everyone and anyone she could think of who might fit into either of the circles, or, more importantly, the overlapping section in the middle.

  Daisy went straight into the “MO for murder” circle. She was swiftly followed by Ed, Brenda’s boyfriend who’d squared up to him in the pub. Of all the suspects he had a clear and obvious motive but he had literally no connection to the sextant.

  Over on the “MO for theft” side, she wrote Stephen (has keys), even though she couldn’t think of any actual possible reason he’d be involved. Then she added another name: mysterious Spanish man.

  She sat back and stared at the right hand circle. The handsome man who’d come to her auction—no, flown specifically to her auction—had wanted the sextant very badly, but was beaten by Buck. Could he have had something to do with its theft? But then why return it to her? Why not just steal it and fly back to Spain while everyone was distracted with the murder?

  She turned to a fresh, blank paper, and began scrawling different scenarios that might explain the foreigner’s behavior, if there was a chance he’d been involved.

  Killed Buck because he beat him in the auction? Killed Buck to cause distraction in order to steal the sextant? Returned the sextant to my store because…

  She stopped writing. It made no sense. The Spanish man might have had an MO to steal the sextant, but not to return it to her store. Then she clicked her fingers, as a memory from the auction came to her mind’s eye; the Spanish man checking his watch, leaving early, his comment that he had a plane to catch, the mix-up over the time zone difference which led to his being in a rush in the first place.

  “He wasn’t even in the country,” Lacey said, thinking aloud.

  She screwed up the second page and threw it in her wastepaper basket, scoring a perfect 3-pointer, then turned back to the Venn diagram and drew a neat line through the words mysterious Spanish man. Instead, she added his name to the left-hand column, because there was still a possibility he killed Buck because the man had beaten him in the auction.

  But then she crossed him out again. The Spanish man was flying out of England straight after the auction! He’d been anxious about missing his flight home, and kept looking at his watch. There would’ve been no time at all for him to kill Buck. Lacey let out a breath of relief to know there was at least one person she could rule off the list. That just left her with every woman and shop owner in Wilfordshire to work through!

  “What a mess,” Lacey said, sighing.

  Chester raised his head from his paws and let out his own whistling sigh, as if mirroring her. She couldn’t help but feel thankful for her furry companion. At least Chester was always on her side.

  She looked back down at her circles. They’d become kind of messy. Her attention fell to Daisy. Lacey was still convinced that a woman could not have killed Buck, especially one as small as Daisy. She was about to put a line through harassed women when she recalled what Superintendent Turner had accidentally revealed to her while he’d been musing aloud. If Buck had been in the middle of a medical emergency, perhaps someone smaller than him could have been able to overpower him?

  She turned to a new blank page, and repeated the same process sh
e had with the mystery Spanish man with Daisy.

  Daisy killed Buck because of a lovers’ quarrel. She returned the sextant to my store to throw the investigation, and make it look like the two events were connected. She came in and accused me of murder in front of the police. Was she trying to control the narrative? She’d have to be an amazing actress to pull off that grief routine. Although… she did seem more angry than grief-stricken.

  She sat back, pondering. Daisy did seem like a viable suspect after all. And Lacey had been able to find an MO for the sextant as well. She turned back to her circles, and moved Daisy into the central overlapping section.

  “Am I giving her too much credit, Chester?” she asked the dog. “I mean, she didn’t seem smart enough to pull off something elaborate like that.”

  Chester whined. Lacey decided to leave Daisy in the central position for now. She was the only name that could possibly overlap. And that was the most likely person to be the murderer, wasn’t it? Someone who killed Buck and planted the sextant to frame her.

  “Unless…” Lacey said, tapping her pen on the paper.

  What if she’d been going about this the wrong way, by assuming the two events were even related? She remembered Superintendent Turner’s warning, about making assumptions and guesses. There was nothing concrete that proved the two events were connected, and though Occam's razor would suggest they were, it wouldn’t hurt to consider the possibility they weren’t. Besides, she’d thought Iris’s murderer had burgled her store, and that had turned out to be incorrect. Maybe the sextant and the murder were unconnected?

  “Let’s say, for argument’s sake,” Lacey said aloud, “that the sextant wasn’t stolen from Buck at all. Rather he dropped it on the floor in the hotel lobby, and Roger from the English Antiques Society found it and returned it to me via my open back door.” It was far-fetched, but she was only spit-balling. “Who would that open up the suspect pool to include? I’m sure Brenda’s wasn’t the only butt Buck smacked, so there’d be some other women on the list.”