Death on Torrid Ave.

by Patricia McLinn

  “I’ll say it right out, Sheila. He could be mean, real mean.”

  “To dogs? I never saw—”

  “Oh, no. Not dogs. Never, even with the ones he thought were too rough or too … common to be around Trevalyn. But if you’d told me someone I knew was going to be murdered, I’d’ve said Bob. And if you’d told me someone I knew was going to commit murder … Well, I’d’ve said Bob for that, too. Though I probably wouldn’t have said anything because I wouldn’t have believed it. I know what I said about Bob, but I wouldn’t have really believed it. Not Bob a murder victim. Not Dwight a murder suspect.”

  I agreed.

  Watching those two men argue over the past month gave me the feeling the same conversation had been going on for ages and would go on forever.

  “But there was a murder,” she added, sounding lost. Then she perked up. “It’s a good thing you’re here to help.”

  “I’m sure Deputy Eckles will be thrilled.”

  “He doesn’t understand how the dog park operates,” Clara said. “Once he gets more background, he’ll understand that what might look suspicious to him isn’t suspicious at all.”

  “Speaking of suspicious, what did you think of how Teague O’Donnell reacted?”

  “Teague? You’re not thinking he…? But he’s so nice. I mean I suppose a murderer can be nice but he never even talked with Bob or Dwight that I know of, did he?”

  “Since we’re nearly always at the dog park together, if you didn’t see him talking to one or both of them, I didn’t either. But there was something about his reactions today that made me wonder. Did you notice, he essentially closed off the entrance to the parking lot to regular folks?”

  “I thought that was smart.”

  Maybe I was reading too much into Teague’s actions. He could be one of those people who reacted well under pressure. I don’t fall apart either. At least not on the outside. Inside I might have some crumbling going on, but I don’t let it out.

  “Tell me about Berrie and her Boston terriers.”

  “Berrie? You can’t possibly think Berrie is the killer.”

  “I’m curious about her. Just curious.”

  “Besides, how could she kill somebody with those dogs barking all around her? I can’t imagine them being quiet if there was any activity.”

  “I don’t know, but…”

  “You’re right, you’re right. I want to investigate, then when you start doing it, I shoot down your questions. I’m sorry, Sheila. Real sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Gracie stood up, staring intently again.

  “Good. Berrie. She’s been coming to the dog park longer than I have. When I started coming, she had three Boston terriers already. She’s adopted at least one more. Plus, she does rescue. So, yeah, she’s a pain, but…” Clara’s tone said that anyone who did dog rescue could not possibly be a bad person.

  That might pose a problem, since everyone I knew of who’d had contact with Bob Coble was good to dogs. If we had to go beyond the dog park to look into Bob’s life, we’d be starting from scratch.

  “Clara—?” Gracie barked. Short, commanding, precise. I knew that bark. To ignore it was to face unpleasant consequences. “I’ve gotta go. Gracie has to go out. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I took the calculated risk of calling Kit the next morning before Teague O’Donnell was scheduled to arrive … assuming he didn’t go by contractors’ time, which had no relation to the clock or calendar.

  I’d considered calling Kit last night, to tell her about the murder. After bunco and talking with Clara, though, it was too late.

  For me. Not for Kit.

  My great-aunt kept the hours of a teenage gamer.

  Which is why calling her now was a risk.

  “What?” she answered.

  “It’s Sheila, Kit. Nothing’s wrong with anybody in the family.” I had to get that in fast, because she’d assume the worst would be the only reason I’d call at this hour.

  The silence said her morning brain was processing. “Why are you whispering?”

  “A workman’s supposed to come soon and I don’t want him to hear.”

  “Hear what? He’d have to have the world’s best hearing, especially from outside your house. Not to mention you haven’t said anything yet. You’re acting like there’s something big, like — No.”

  I suspected I was going to get that same response — the disbelieving no — if my parents found out. But the tenor of the word and the emotion behind it would be totally different.

  I kept going.

  “I’ve told you, about taking my dog, Gracie, to the dog park, right? Well, when we got there — with Clara. I’ve told you about her too, right? — and her dog, LuLu. Well, we were almost the first ones at the dog park, which doesn’t happen often because—”

  “Murder. You’re involved in another murder.”

  “How can you possibly know that?”

  “I can’t imagine anything else you would be this reluctant to tell me. All those years of us living together and not a single murder came across our path. Now you’ve had two — two — in just a few months. If you had a magnetism for murders, why did you wait until now to display it?”

  “It’s not like this is something I’m doing, Kit,” I protested. “I have nothing to do with these murders happening.”

  “So you say.”

  I groaned. “You sound like the North Bend County deputy who kept questioning me yesterday.”

  “Yesterday! This murder happened yesterday and you waited until now to call me?”

  “Questioned by deputies. Did you hear that part? Over and over and over. At the scene and then at the sheriff’s department. I swear, Kit, they consider me a suspect. Can we focus on that?”

  “I’ll console myself that you called me about this before your mother.”

  “How do you know I haven’t called Mom?”

  “Because she would have already been on the phone to me, terrified that you are tied up in a murder case.” Tied up. The phrase brought an image … that leash around Bob’s neck. “Okay, let’s back up. You and your dog were at the dog park yesterday.”

  “Yes. And my friend, Clara, and I found the body. Well, our dogs did, but we were the first humans on the scene.”

  I heard a rustle, like someone sitting up in bed. Kit said briskly, “Tell me precisely what happened.”

  I did. Straight through the interrogations to going to bunco last night and quickly filling her in on the little bit I learned there.

  She grumbled something about whether phones worked after ten p.m. in Kentucky, but I figured I got off light.

  I could have called her after talking with Clara. My night owl great-aunt certainly would have been awake. But I’d been exhausted. Too much had happened, too much was in my head to present it even half coherently.

  And I must have been at least half coherent now or I would have heard about it from Kit.

  “Give me the character sketch.”

  I knew she meant the victim. “White male, near retirement age. Apparently financially comfortable. Very emotionally invested in his dog to the—”

  “And you’re not?” She snorted. “All I hear is Gracie this and Gracie that.”

  “—point that he doesn’t recognize reality.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I love Gracie, but I don’t think that not only is she the best-trained dog ever, but that I am the best trainer, following the convoluted specious argument that I must be because she’s the best dog ever and I trained her.”

  This snort acknowledged I might have a point.

  “He had a dispute with former neighbors. They called animal control on Trevalyn — that’s his dog.”

  “What for?”

  “I don’t know for sure. I’d guess probably noise.” Rosie hadn’t made it clear, and I might be sensitized to the noise issue, because Gracie tended to bark. I brought her inside the second she started, though.
So someone living in my house could complain, but not the neighbors.

  “Don’t guess. Find out. Neighbor disputes stir a lot of emotions and can get nasty.”

  “Fine, fine. We’ll check it out.”

  “We?”

  “Clara and I.”

  I tried for casual. Kit’s reaction said I didn’t succeed. “Clara, the woman from the dog park?” She didn’t wait for confirmation, she already knew the answer. “Why are you involving someone else? Petronella was one thing, but someone outside the family…”

  Petronella, a relative only according to the way my great-aunt figured family, had been with me on the cruise. My brothers described her as several sandwiches short of a picnic. Which could be annoying, but she had turned out to be oddly helpful in sorting out the murder onboard.

  “Clara knows the area. The history, the ins and outs, the people. Besides, I told you how talking things over with Petronella helped me figure out what happened on the cruise last fall.”

  An abbreviated huh scoffed at my statement.

  “It did,” I argued with that huh. “And Petronella started standing up for herself more by the end of that trip.”

  “The trip did Petronella good. Still needs something resembling a backbone, but she’s definitely better. That doesn’t change that I know what you did, Sheila. You gave her all the credit for figuring out what happened in that murder case. Petronella didn’t — wouldn’t — have a clue. Literally. And I suspect I know why you did it. Didn’t want the author of Abandon All in the spotlight.”

  “It would be awkward.”

  “It would.” She sounded thoughtful. That could be dangerous. “You’re planning on putting this Clara in the same role as Petronella? You solve it, then give her the credit, so you can melt into the background?”

  My chuckle was about as long as her abbreviated huh. “You’re giving me way too much credit for being as Machiavellian as you are. But I might have met someone who is.”

  I told her about Teague O’Donnell and what he said about the demonstration of Marcus’ reaction to me.

  “He said all that with a deputy there in the room?” Kit asked at the end.

  “I know. The jerk.”

  “He did you a favor.”

  “What?” That was reflexive. My brain was already grappling with it. “Okay, I can see he didn’t actually hurt me by pointing out the test was flawed, because anyone would eventually see the same flaws, though I’m not entirely convinced Eckles — But Deputy Hensen would have spotted the flaws without O’Donnell’s help soon if he hadn’t already. But then O’Donnell went ahead and said how I could have done it another way by coming over the outside fence and that — Oh.”

  “Finally. I was beginning to wonder where your brain had gone to.”

  “He pointed out the field of suspects could be wide open. Not limited to the people at the dog park yesterday morning.”

  “Precisely. Now, sounds to me like you have a lot to find out. You’ve barely scratched the surface. And you didn’t know this victim well, losing your opportunity to get an inside track.”

  “If I’d known he was going to be murdered,” I said dryly, “I would not have been so careless.”

  “Maybe you’ll be better next time.”

  “Next time?”

  But Kit was going on, “You need a lot more background information on this Bob Coble. All you seem to know about him concerns dogs. Find out about his life. His personal life. His work life. His love life. All of it. You need to know all of it. Anything you can find out about him.”

  “Isn’t the first question if he had any enemies? He did. Dwight from the dog park I told you about.”

  “Are you saying dog park disputes are a motive for murder?”

  “The passions do run high,” I muttered. It had been a lot funnier when Clara, Teague, and I joked about it two days ago. “Besides, there have been murders about making cheerleading squads and even less. Why not dog training? What it comes down to is their position in the pack. At least that’s how they both seemed to see it. And they both wanted to be the leader, not noticing or caring that most of us didn’t follow either one of them.”

  “Okay, that’s an angle, but don’t let it be your only angle. There are too many other possible aspects. You don’t want to trip during a rush to judgment.”

  “I wouldn’t mind Deputy Eckles tripping, since he appears to be rushing to a judgment about me.”

  “Idiot.” For some reason, that made me feel better. “But that security chief on the ship considered you the prime suspect and that turned out fine.”

  “I’ve thought about that. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d let me think he thought that to motivate me to snoop. Besides, I was a lot more optimistic about his ability to come to the right conclusion in the end than I am about Deputy Eckles.”

  “Don’t sell law enforcement short.”

  “I have as much respect for law enforcement as you do, Kit, but with this guy, it’s like we found this body to annoy him and he’s looking for the fastest, easiest way to deal with it.”

  She clicked her tongue. “I’ve seen a few like that — in law enforcement and everywhere else. Now, send me the full names and addresses and any other background information of everyone you can think of who’s involved. I’ll see what I can find out. At least this time we have normal communication, instead of you being out in the middle of the ocean somewhere.”

  “Hey, who sent me out in the middle of the ocean somewhere? Wasn’t my idea.”

  “It was for your own good.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. At least I wouldn’t.

  I promised to email her all the official information I had on Bob Coble. Some from the dog park, some from a quick Google search of my own, some from an article in this morning’s paper.

  I heard a vehicle pulling up outside and said I had to go.

  “Your workman?”

  “Maybe.”

  She snort-laughed. “Not your workman. But I won’t ask what you’re up to. I’m going back to sleep now so I can think about your problem and get some writing done later.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “…And what about that woman saying something about Berrie being a woman scorned?” I said to Clara as I opened the door fifteen minutes later to Teague and Murphy.

  His brows rose when LuLu bounded toward the door with Gracie in pursuit. “Dog sitting?”

  He’d unhooked Murphy’s leash as he asked the question and now his dog scooted past us to the joy of the two others.

  All three careened through the dining room, into the small kitchen, found the connecting back hall that brought them around to the relative openness of the living room, allowing them to gather steam before plowing into Teague and me, still standing at the door.

  “Woohoo,” Clara exclaimed from her safe seat in the living room. “That must have been an express train.”

  Now Teague’s eyebrows really popped up. I shrugged. “I figured it would be more fun for the dogs with all of us here, since the park’s closed.”

  That’s what I’d told Clara, too, when I’d invited her to come over a quarter of an hour before Teague was supposed to arrive.

  “Yeah, they’ll enjoy me taking measurements of where you want these shelves and discussing design decisions.”

  “Design?” Clara repeated. “What we need to talk about is the murder. Sheila found out all sorts of interesting things last night at bunco.”

  Teague’s eyebrows should give up and stay in the raised position or the muscles doing the hiking and dropping were going to get worn out.

  “A little background information,” I said.

  “Is that the same as gossip?”

  “Close,” Clara said. “But with a purpose. It’s like on those TV shows, you’ve got to find out about the victim. We’re trying to remember everything we know, but after all that time spent avoiding Bob — Dwight, too — we don’t know as much as you might think.”

  “I wouldn’t
expect to know much about him at all, considering I’ve only been here a month. Gracie, no! Sit!”

  The dogs’ second go-around, which left rugs flung wild behind them, had brought them back into the living room where Teague and I stood talking to Clara. Gracie apparently felt she had been losing ground so she took a shortcut by jumping onto, then over the back of an upholstered chair. I had to give her credit, it put her right at Murphy’s shoulder. Perfect positioning for a little friendly neck chewing to herd him toward the stairs.

  With a vision of the open boxes spread in the upstairs hallway, I leapt to the bottom stair and spread-eagled across the opening to block the dogs.

  The others called to their dogs and, more effectively, grabbed their collars.

  Belatedly, Gracie sat, now that there was no one to chase.

  “Nice place,” Teague said.

  It was. Both years ago and before this dog invasion.

  It had a square floor plan, with the dining room to the left of the front door, connecting to the kitchen behind it, which connected to the living room with a classic brick fireplace, then back to the compact foyer, with the stairs heading up from there. A powder room was tucked in back by the stairs down to the basement. A screened-in porch started off the living room, then wrapped around the back.

  Upstairs, three bedrooms echoed the rooms downstairs, with the master bedroom, with its own compact bathroom, plus the main bath serving the other two bedrooms. The most compact of those rooms now served as my office.

  Have you noticed compact as a theme of this house?

  “That must have been some inheritance.” He looked around while bent over holding Murphy’s collar.

  “Real estate isn’t that expensive around here.”

  “Not Chicago prices, but more than a substitute teacher could swing without investments.”

  That jangled something in my brain. “But you’re supporting yourself by subbing?”

  “Reminds me what you said the day we met, Teague,” Clara said with a bright smile before he could answer. “About how teaching is investing in the next generation, remember?”

  And darned if Mr. Unflappable didn’t look irked. “That’s—”