Death on Torrid Ave.

by Patricia McLinn

  Whoa. Bob threatened to sue Berrie? What on earth was that about?

  The woman at the door pivoted and walked out. There probably wasn’t room for her in here, anyway.

  I suppose some people respond that way to conflict. Aunt Kit had taught me conflict was the grist for fiction’s mill. It can be a lot more subtle than these harsh words and cross-accusations, but these work fine, too.

  Berrie’s face turned darker red. She turned, blundered into a display of mailing boxes, then rocked the other way, before grabbing the door, which hadn’t closed quite all the way yet, and followed the cloche-hatted woman.

  Not wanting the others to get their equilibrium — and discretion — locked into place, I asked, “What was Berrie talking about, when she said lies were told about Bob?”

  I was being tactful, leaving out the part about Ruby and Amy being among the liars according to Berrie.

  Ruby and Amy looked at each other. As fast as I’d asked my question, it was already too late. I wasn’t going to get an answer.

  “It’s all ancient, ancient history,” Ruby said. “Now, what can I do for you, Amy? Let’s get you taken care of so you can get back to work at the library.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Even without caller ID, I’d have known it was Clara by the way she barely waited for my hello.

  “Sheila, did you sign your statement? Did Deputy Eckles tell you anything? Did you learn anything at the sheriff’s department? I didn’t pick up anything while I was there. I guess I got there right after you’d left because the clerk told Eckles on the phone that he had another one. I went by the dog park first. It’s still all wrapped in police tape. The whole thing and there’s a sign that it’s closed until further notice. I wonder how long they can keep it closed. LuLu is going to go nuts if she can’t run off some of her energy.”

  It sounded like LuLu wasn’t the only one.

  “Anything about Dwight?”

  “No, nobody’s seen him and no activity at his house. My gran used to live near there and I talked to her old neighbor.”

  I told Clara about the scene in the post office.

  “Oh, the lawsuits. That’s good. That’s really good. I’ve heard Donna say something about Bob threatening people with lawsuits. So, what do we do next?”

  “I’m going to eat dinner then take Gracie to her class at Zepke’s.” I liked that the local pet store skipped any cutesy names and used the owner’s name. It looked more dignified on my credit card statement when I bought an outrageous volume of food, treats, furnishings, and courses for Gracie.

  “But we have a murder to solve.”

  “It’s not going to get solved tonight, Clara. We have a long way to go. I don’t want to risk Gracie backsliding.”

  “She has been making progress,” she allowed. “What about tomorrow?”

  “I have to stick around here. Assuming Teague O’Donnell shows up to build those shelves.”

  “He will, but why do you have to be there? Although I understand, what with him being so attractive and—”

  “That has nothing to do with it. I am not leaving a strange man alone in my house.”

  Especially not one inclined to ask nosy questions.

  Was I being paranoid about Teague? Maybe. But why did he ask so many questions about me? True, they started before the murder. A hopeful sign he didn’t think I murdered Bob Coble.

  That still left the major concern about preserving my distance from the author of Abandon All.

  I wanted to stay here in Haines Tavern. If I were outed as the author of Abandon All, would I be able to? Probably not.

  So, yeah, possibly paranoid, but some paranoia was justified.

  Even if Clara was right that he was quite attractive. Those eyes…

  * * * *

  I called my great-aunt again, before she dove deep into her evening writing session.

  I was eating dinner — a salad and scrambled eggs — she was gearing up for work.

  After filling her in on the day’s scant news, I asked the question I’d called to ask. “Kit, how can you tell if someone is — or was — a cop?”

  I’d had the thought at the sheriff’s department. It might explain a lot. But it also raised the question: Could he possibly have been planted at the Torrid Avenue before the murder? What would have interested anybody then?

  The stomach-sinking answer was me.

  There’d been short speculative articles about the disappearance of Abandon All’s author from the literary scene. Would someone hire an investigator for a scoop?

  “Check his or her badge.”

  Kit being a smart ass was too familiar to slow me. “When they’re possibly acting in an unofficial capacity and they haven’t identified themselves as law enforcement.”

  “That dog park of yours? Surely, not your friend Clara.”

  “No. Why would it have to be at the dog park?”

  “Because that appears to be your only social outlet at this point. That is certainly what your mother tells me. She is worried you’re isolating yourself and going to turn out to be an old maid like your great-aunt.”

  “I wouldn’t mind in the least turning out to be like my great-aunt.”

  “Flattery will get you nowhere. Besides you’ve already got all the money you need. You don’t need to be in my will.” Abandon All had been very good to both of us.

  I laughed. “But, seriously, how would you tell if someone was a cop? I have a feeling about this Teague guy. He’s always asking questions and it’s like he doesn’t take things at face value. He doesn’t take me at face value. Everybody else has. It’s not a situation to ask to see his badge. So how could I — we — know?”

  “It’s not sure-fire, but start with how he watches what’s around him. What and who.”

  “Yeah. That fits, along with his question-asking.”

  “There’s also a way a lot of them stand. Men and women. I suppose it’s from carrying all the equipment. It’s a wider stance than normal. Seem more rooted in the ground. Don’t shift their feet around as much as most people. Start there.”

  “Hmmm.” I’d have to think about that.

  “What kind of questions does he ask?”

  I told her.

  “You’re worrying about being unmasked as the author of Abandon All. You could be reading more into it than is there. Besides, does it matter if he’s a cop?” she asked.

  “It might.”

  “Because you’re interested in him? Because he’s interested in you?”

  “Not the way you mean. What matters is whether he can be trusted or not.”

  Clara kept drawing him in deeper and deeper, making us a circle instead of a pair … with the dogs as accessories.

  “You think if he was a cop you can’t trust him? That sounds backward.”

  “I certainly don’t think it’s wise to spend a lot of time around somebody who was a cop.”

  “This is the guy who is now substitute teaching high school history, right? If he was a cop, it would be interesting to know why he left law enforcement. That’s a strange career path.”

  “The safest path for me seems to be to stay away from him. Trouble is, he’s going to build shelves for me.”

  “Oh, he is, is he?”

  “Don’t get any ideas, Kit. Are you writing a romance?”

  “Even if I am, that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

  “There’s nothing to be right or wrong about. He’s just a new guy at the dog park who knows how to build shelves.”

  “Who might be an ex-cop, which makes you nervous about whether he might try to find out about your past. There is one good thing, Sheila.”

  “What?”

  “You don’t have to worry about if he’s interested in you for who you are — or were — the way you always were with men in New York. The fact that he showed interest in you from the start proves his interest has nothing to do with your secret.”

  Unless he’d been hired to investigate me.

&
nbsp; “I told you, he’s not interested in me at all and I’m not interested in him.”

  “The man is building you shelves.”

  “I’m paying him.”

  “Probably not enough to make that worthwhile unless he’s interested in other things.”

  “Good-bye, Kit. I have to take Gracie to class now.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Adopting Gracie was more work and in some ways more stressful than buying the house. After all, the house was an investment of money. Finding the right dog was an investment of the heart. I could sell the house and move. The dog was with me for the duration.

  When I realized I wanted a dog, big and fluffy immediately came to mind. Perhaps this was from a childhood of golden retrievers. And that’s where I started. With so many dogs needing homes, I knew I wanted a rescue. I saw four other breeds and innumerable mixes.

  None connected with me the way I would have hoped. Maybe I was expecting too much. Maybe I should stop hoping for violins and get a dog I’d grow to love.

  And then I saw a picture of Gracie.

  What can I say?

  It was her expression. A combination of assurance, mischief, sweetness, and a flicker of heart tugging uncertainty.

  That began a process I swear was more rigorous and nerve-wracking than college admission. I gathered materials to prove my worthiness including family photos of interacting with our dogs, guarantees that I could support a dog financially, including medical care, and finally a home visit.

  If I had realized what was ahead of me qualifying to adopt a rescue collie, my house-hunting would have been more rigorous.

  A house that needed all sorts of work? All the construction projects, all the strangers, all the upset? What had I been thinking?

  That clearly was the opinion of the collie rescue volunteer who visited my home.

  But I was fortunate. Gracie’s foster family took to me when I drove the one-hundred-plus miles to meet her. The foster mother went to bat for me with the coordinator and all I had to do was pledge to take Gracie for a walk or to the dog park every day for the rest of her life. With a few get out of jail free days for emergencies — Gracie’s emergencies, not mine.

  Before I picked up Gracie from the foster family, I read everything I could get my hands on about adopting a dog, especially a rescue dog. I was going to be the best rescue dog owner ever.

  Within twelve hours, Gracie had me in tears.

  Yes, she had chewed on a shoe, but it wasn’t even my favorite shoe, so, really, who cares. And she hardly peed inside at all, plus it was on the hardwood floor so, again, really, who cares.

  What had me in tears was that she seemed entirely uninterested in my existence.

  That was rather a trick because I’d followed the instructions from several sources that said to keep the dog in a small area with you at the beginning. She had to work at not paying any attention to me.

  Once my self-indulgent tears ended and I thought about it from her point of view, I suspected a lot of it had to do with her experiences before I adopted her.

  She’d shown up at a shelter at about seven months old. The people there said she’d been abused.

  A family adopted her, perhaps with good intentions, but after only a few months they gave her up to collie rescue. It was greatly to their credit that they found the rescue rather than returning her to a shelter. What was not to their credit was that their reason for giving her up was complaining about the dog hair.

  They looked at a collie and were surprised there was dog hair?

  You have to wonder about some people’s good sense.

  Gracie’s foster mother suspected the family expected Gracie to be Lassie straight out of the gate.

  Gracie was not Lassie. For one thing she’s female and all the Lassies were male. For another she had a lot of things to do and if Timmy’s in the well, he better get himself out, because chances were she’d be busy. For a third thing, she had trust issues.

  I didn’t know any of this at the beginning. Those first days, sliding into weeks, were definitely a period of adjustment for both of us.

  Our family golden retrievers when I was growing up loved being hugged. Heck, they loved being used as pillows.

  Gracie backed off from attempts to hug her, or squirmed out of them. But she loved having her chest, belly, and butt rubbed. The more vigorously the better.

  Who was training whom?

  Still, I could see progress.

  I was getting better at reading her body language.

  She was tolerating more petting.

  The first day she came into the office on her own and settled by my feet with a deep, contented sigh, was another teary one. For totally different reasons.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I got to Zepke’s early on purpose.

  It was in a hundred-year-old brick building a block off the square and across the street from the back of the hardware store, with hardwood floors, a resident giant turtle and parrot — who sometimes hitched rides on the turtle, making for a strange double-decker — and an event room in the back where they held classes.

  It tells you a lot that, other than dinner at the Historic Haines Tavern, this was one of the happening spots on Friday nights.

  Between the front door and the event room came a thousand temptations to the pet owner. At least I wasn’t tempted by the racks of sweaters, coats, rain gear, and costumes. I couldn’t imagine Gracie taking them with … well, good grace.

  Leo, the instructor, looked up at our arrival.

  “Hi, Gracie!” She sashayed over to him at that enthusiastic greeting. “Sheila, how’s it going?”

  He meant the training, not my life, so I said, “Pretty good.”

  I had a question about Gracie I wanted to ask, but that would wait. I’d seen other class members parking as we walked in, so I didn’t have long before we’d have an audience.

  “You’ve heard what happened at the dog park, Leo?”

  “Yeah. Couldn’t believe it. Shocked the hell out of me.”

  “Horrible,” I agreed. “Did you know Bob Coble?”

  “Not really.”

  “I thought he might be a customer here.”

  “Are you kidding?” he scoffed mildly. “He got it all imported.”

  Of course, he did. “Including that tweed leash? Excuse me — lead.”

  His mouth quirked at my self-correction. “Yup. I’d offered to special order for him at one point, but then he found out I was special ordering for Dwight, too, and he said he’d take his business elsewhere. Hurt for a bit, because some folks followed him. But I’m glad to say they’re almost all back.”

  “I’m glad, too.”

  “Now I wish I hadn’t. Special ordered for Dwight, I mean.” His face darkened. It made me wonder if Dwight was Leo’s prime suspect. “I even joked to him in the bank yesterday getting a wad of cash from the teller that he could pay off his bill right on the spot and I’d write him a receipt. He blew me off. I thought he was having a bad day. But now…”

  “Have you seen Dwight since then?

  “No. Wouldn’t have believed it, but…”

  “Have you told the sheriff’s department about seeing Dwight with all that cash?”

  “No. You think I should?”

  “Yes.”

  “Damn.”

  That’s all there was time for, because a basset named Basil came in with his owner then, quickly followed by more. Including additions to the class, taking advantage of Zepke’s offer to alums to return for refreshers for free whenever they liked.

  They included Donna with her gray-muzzled golden retriever named Hattie. She came and sat next to me, saying, “We’re all here pretending it’s because the dog park’s closed, but it’s really to hear the gossip. Well?”

  “Me? I’m the total newcomer. I don’t have any gossip.”

  “You found him, didn’t you? Horrible for you and Clara.”

  “It was. But we don’t know anything more than was in th
e paper.”

  She patted my leg. “Not true, I’m sure, but you’re right to tell an old lady to mind her own business. Just—”

  “I’m not. I didn’t—”

  “—watch your back with Berrie. This business has truly unsettled her foundations. Never the firmest in the first place.” She sighed. “They had a lot of history. But that’s beside the point. She needs to get a grip. If she gets too much for you, ask her if her dogs are French bulldogs. She’ll go so far off the deep end, nobody will give credence to anything else she says.”

  Ah. Another confirmation that Berrie had been saying nasty things about me.

  I decided to plow ahead, especially with the circled chairs rapidly filling. “I’ve heard her say there was some problem between Bob and Ruby?

  “Oh, yes. Among other things, Bob wrote a letter to the editor in which he said the post office must have decided people were getting out of there too fast, so they asked the DMV how to keep customers around longer, presumably in the hope that we would be overcome by a lust for stamps or overpriced shipping boxes. Whatever the postal service’s motivation, the DMV came through by recommending putting Ruby Zweydorf in charge.”

  “He wrote that in the newspaper? Named her? And signed it?”

  “He did. And she had worked for the DMV before moving to the post office. He didn’t stop there, either. She aroused his ire some way or another and he began filing complaints with the post office. Caused her no end of headaches. It let up for a while, but I understand it’s renewed lately.”

  As much as I wanted to pursue this, I also wanted to open a couple other doors.

  “Was there also something with Amy and maybe some other folks?”

  She looked around. “We’ll talk again later.”

  Class began then.

  * * * *

  After class, I had to wait my turn to consult Leo with my question about Gracie.

  “Why is Gracie slow in responding to the sit command?”

  “She’s processing. When a dog learns a new command, it needs to process.”

  I didn’t think so. But rather than argue, I gave Gracie the sit command. She looked around. Backed up half a step. Wiggled her bottom. Finally began to fold her back legs. Then slowly, slowly lowered her bottom to the floor, wiggling a bit there, too, like a chicken settling onto its eggs.