by Ellen Riggs
“Don’t you see it was all for nothing?” I said. “It was already over with Mandy. She would never have betrayed you like that, Myrtle.”
Her jaw worked and she looked away. For a few seconds, I thought she might change her mind. Give this up. But she turned back with a look of resignation.
“Thanks for that, Ivy. You were always a kind girl. Too soft, like most of your family. But you were good to Mandy and I appreciate that now.”
“Then let me go, Myrtle.”
“Can’t do that. The horse has left the barn. You know too much and I’m not going to jail. Mandy’s not ready to stand on her own just yet. Poor thing’s even softer than you.”
“I don’t deserve this. Like you said, I’ve always been kind to Mandy. Gave her a job, even.”
“Kind and stupid. You just had to keep poking around. I gave you a little rope, but you kept on sniffing. You’re always going to be like that, thinking you know better than everyone else. It’s better to choke you off like a weed, while I can. We were all watching, you know.”
“The good ladies of herding?”
She snorted. “I wouldn’t call us ladies, exactly. But yeah. Gwen helped me distract you by releasing your pig and getting Charlie out of the way. She even disposed of the evidence, which you clearly uncovered today. Honestly, I’ve smelled some terrible things in my life, but you’re the worst. Edna kept a good eye on your comings and goings for me. And Dottie Bridges from the library let me know about your sudden interest in history today.”
“I found out that you dated John Overlea, who owned the property fifty years ago. That’s how you knew about the old well, and the original dump.”
“He was a good man and he’d be horrified to see the spectacle it became in Hannah Pemberton’s time. That ridiculous online TV show. Mandy loved it.” She grunted in disgust and started pulling again. “People nowadays are idiots.”
“Myrtle, please! There’s still time to make this right. Mandy will run the store and work with me here at the inn.”
“Sorry, love. All I can do is promise to give Keats a good home when you’re gone. I owe that to you.”
“Won’t happen,” I said fiercely. “I’d die before—”
“Exactly. Now you’re getting it.” We were at the back door, near the old tractor. “You’ve got two choices, chatterbox. Do you want me to knock you out before I drag you to the dump or do you want to enjoy the ride for a bit before a rock does it for me?”
“I’ll enjoy the ride,” I said.
She shook her head and smiled. “You’re braver than I thought.”
“Believe it or not, I’ve been through worse.”
“It ain’t over yet.”
“Wait, wait,” I said. “Would you please cover my head with a sack? I don’t want to see Keats as I go. It’ll break my heart.” I gave a weak smile. “I figure you owe me that.”
Sighing, she left me and went back into the barn to find a sack. That gave Keats a chance to come out of the shadows where he’d been lurking for a few minutes. I used my eyes and head to signal what I needed from him and, as always, he understood without words.
Myrtle clomped back, grumbling, and knelt over me with a burlap sack. When she was in exactly the right position, I yelled, “Now.”
I jerked my head up suddenly, hitting her as hard in the forehead as I could. Meanwhile Keats leapt off the top of the hay pile and landed on her back. He climbed to her shoulders, grabbed her by the ear and pulled, snarling. She swatted at him but was so stunned by my headbutt she was awkward and clumsy. Finally she tipped onto her back.
Keats wasn’t big enough to hold her down, but he was fast enough to keep her guessing. He leapt from one side to the other, nipping and worrying her hands, her arms, her face, her head. She jerked around as if being swarmed by wasps.
I rolled as far away as I could, dragging the catchpole behind me.
Finally Myrtle sat up and brought her fisted hand back, yelling in rage and ready to deliver a hard blow.
“Keats, off!” I yelled. “Run!”
Another yell, far louder than either of ours, echoed through the barn.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I congratulated myself for not fainting a second time in one day. Turned out I could handle being choked and trussed up better than the heat and stench of the old dump. Just the same, I was happy to rest for a while with my head in Jilly’s lap.
“Lotus position,” I said. “Good thing you do all that yoga.”
“Yeah. Hayden’s going to be seeing plenty of me. I need to stay fit to keep up with you, Ivy.”
“Where’s Keats?”
“Same place as last time you asked,” she said.
I raised my head and saw him reclining full-length from my chest to my legs. It was like he’d spread himself as far as possible to make the overall load light. I appreciated it, because I already ached and it was going to get worse before it got better.
“You okay?” Jilly asked. “I’m assuming so since you can still joke.”
“I’m good.” I tried to sit up but she pressed me down. Keats crawled up a little to anchor me. “Where is she?”
“Outside with Kellan. I think he hoped to take her down himself but Keats had done the heavy lifting. Asher picked me up in town and we all got here in time to see Keats jump off the haystack like a superhero.” She reached out and stroked Keats’ ears. “You are something else. I’m so glad I saved you.”
“You?” I said. “Pretty sure I took the hard knocks in that rescue.”
“Yeah, but we’d never have found him in the first place if not for me. Remember? You were running like a chicken with your head cut off and— Oops, bad analogy. I had this strong intuition to yell, stop! And there you were, standing in front of Keats and the sunflowers. I’m not taking the credit, though, because it was divine intervention.”
I nodded and the movement made my head pound. “It was. Full agreement there.” I tried to coordinate my right hand to pat the dog but couldn’t quite manage it. He rested his muzzle on my hand, instead. A couple of tears leaked out of my eyes and ran down my cheeks.
“She caught him with the noose and threw him in with the llamas. He managed to climb the fence.”
“Actually, he dug under. Or so Asher said, before he left to find the cows.”
“The cows are gone?”
“And the goats. But the boys in blue will find them.”
I sighed. “I left the gates unlatched so that Keats could bring them in but Myrtle had other plans.”
I tried to sit up again but she held me down. “Relax. It’s going to be fine, now. The inn can open. The cloud has lifted.”
“Edna Evans will be thrilled she gets to hear the news first from Asher when he shows up in her garden with a flashlight. She’s one of them, you know. The Herding Harpies who covered for Myrtle.”
“Kellan will get to the bottom of it. Just rest now. You and Keats made his job easy.”
“Excuse me?” Kellan loomed over us. “That woman fought like a wolverine.” He raised his arm to show us double red semicircles. “She bit me.”
“Seriously?” I said, and sat up suddenly. Fireworks detonated behind my eyes and I almost fell back, but Jilly propped me up. Keats shifted to my lap, and curled up with his white-tipped tail wrapped neatly around him. “Is she tied up?”
“Handcuffed to the tractor,” he said. “She’s not going anywhere for a long time.”
I held out my hands. “Help, please. I need to see it with my own eyes, Kellan.”
“You should rest a little longer.” He gestured to my nose and forehead, which were no doubt showing signs of my struggle. “You’ve been through a lot.”
Keats unfurled his tail and got off my lap with a resigned mumble.
“Just follow Keats’ lead,” Jilly said. “He knows what Ivy’s going to do before she does.”
Kellan pulled me to my feet with Jilly pushing from behind. When I was upright, he supported me with one arm across
my shoulder and looped under my other arm. I had to admit, it felt nice to lean on someone other than a 40-pound dog.
Lights flashed in the darkness out in front of the barn as we walked out the back door. I heard a woman’s voice calling, “Grandma? Grandma!”
“Oh for pity’s sake,” Myrtle said as we joined her. “You didn’t bring Mandy here.”
“Grapevine,” Kellan said. “Edna, probably.”
“Send her away. I don’t want to upset her.”
“It’s a little late for that,” he said. “You murdered Lloyd Boyce and were about to do the same to Ivy.”
“Doesn’t make me a bad grandmother. I’ve always looked after her. That’s what I was doing then, too.”
“Except she’d already looked after herself,” I said. “She doesn’t need you to look after her anymore, Myrtle. You can rot in jail without worrying.”
She gave me a baleful look. “So the little puppy can bite after all.”
“Yeah, I can bite, Myrtle,” I said. “Not literally like you, though. Kellan will need rabies shots.”
“You bit the police chief?” The voice was soft, but incredulous. Mandy had come into the circle cast by half a dozen high-powered police lights. Officers had swarmed the place, including my brother. I guess my attempted murder got him an automatic reassignment from highway patrol.
Myrtle looked down, momentarily chastened. “I did it for you.”
“You bit Chief Harper for me?” Mandy said.
“I did everything for you. You weren’t built for life out here, Mandy. People took advantage of you. Like Lloyd. That sly snake-lover saw a sucker and went for it.”
“I’m not a sucker,” Mandy said, glancing at me. “At least, not anymore. I can take care of myself. And I guess I’m going to have to.”
“Mandy. Honey. Please don’t sell the store. It’s been in the family for—”
“I would never sell the store, Grandma. You should have trusted me more. In fact, I’ll expand it.”
“I don’t want to change a thing.”
“You don’t get a vote anymore,” Mandy said, more crisply than I thought she could. “You gave that up when you lured Lloyd out here and choked him to death. All you had to do was talk to me and I’d have told you.”
“All you had to do was tell me first,” Myrtle said. “Then I’d never have needed to kill him.”
Mandy walked over to her grandmother and stared her down with blue eyes that had once been mild. Now they were harder, colder. “Don’t you put this on me. None of it. I couldn’t tell you about Lloyd because you always disapproved of my dating. You kept me penned up like an orphaned lamb. So when a man actually got around you and pursued me, I enjoyed it for a minute. Is it any wonder? But this lamb had horse sense. All it took was one look at those illicit reptiles to know. When Ivy told me what he had in mind about the store, I got rid of him myself. Without choking him to death, mind you.”
“Your grandmother had been poisoning him, too,” Kellan said. “Every morning he stopped at the store for his oatmeal to go, which she’d spiked with rat poison. She’d been at it for weeks, judging from the takeout containers in his trash and the truck. It was wearing him down.”
“Easier to kill a sick animal,” Myrtle said, shrugging.
“So you were after him even before you knew about the store,” Mandy said.
“I knew about the snakes though. Tried poisoning them first by spiking the mouse food a little. Didn’t work, though.”
Mandy shook her head sadly. “I don’t even know you anymore.”
“I did this for you,” Myrtle said. “Don’t—don’t…” Her voice cracked and tears flowed down her tanned, wrinkled face.
“I don’t hate you, Grandma,” Mandy said. “You murdered a man. You tried to murder Ivy. And you bit a cop. You’ve clearly lost your faculties. So no, I don’t hate you.” She turned and looked at Kellan. “I leave you to deal with this.”
She came over to me and took both my hands. My left was still covered in a filthy rubber glove. “Thank you. You’ve been a good friend to me, Ivy. I’m sorry about what happened and I promise I’ll do whatever I can to make this up to you.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Just bake for me. Rock the taste buds of all my guests.”
She forced a small smile. “You got it.”
I felt a nose poking my thigh and realized that my strength was waning. Mandy released my hands and I leaned heavily on Kellan.
In one sweep, he picked me up and carried me out of the barn and up the path to the house.
“I had her, you know,” he said. “The poisoned oatmeal, the prints in Lloyd’s truck. If you’d given me one more day…”
“I know. Impatience bit me in the butt again. Or in this case, grabbed me by the neck. Thank goodness you got there in time to spare me the bumpy ride out to the dump.” I looked up at him. “Don’t leave Myrtle with my livestock for long. She might hex them.”
He tipped his head toward the driveway, where a flashlight bobbed along. Soon the two cows came into view with my brother jogging along behind. He was using a garden rake to herd them, swishing it from one side to the other.
“This is fun,” he called out. “I’m starting to get the attraction, now, sis.”
“Keats,” I said wearily. “Help him with the cows. Then find the goats. They’re probably in the new orchard eating apples.” I leaned back in Kellan’s arms. “Gas guaranteed for tomorrow.”
“Goat gas,” he said. “Sounds lovely. Maybe I’ll give it a day before I come for your official statement.”
“Nothing could be worse than how I smell now, right?”
He fought a smile and failed. “I’ve been mouth-breathing. Won’t do either of us any good if I pass out.”
“This is so romantic,” Jilly said, coming up behind us. “Ivy promised me a lot of things when she asked me to visit.” She stopped on the stairs to watch Asher chase the cows into the barn. “I never imagined how thrilling it would be. I can’t tear myself away now.”
I leaned my head back over Kellan’s arm to look at her and groaned at the pain in my neck. “You’re staying?” I asked.
“Of course. No way I’d leave you in paradise alone. Keats, Kellan and Asher are worthy protectors, but a gal needs her best friend.”
“I don’t have enough eyes to manage her alone, that’s for sure,” Kellan said. He lifted his knee to support me while he opened the door, and then carried me inside.
“Could you cook me something, Jilly?” I asked. “Fighting for my life left me famished.”
“You got it. And a couple of ice packs, too.”
I gently patted my face, where I could feel dried blood. “Do you think my nose is broken?”
“Nope. Yours will still be prettier than mine, my friend. But you do need a shower. Or three.”
Kellan set me on my feet outside the bathroom. “You okay from here?”
I nodded. Looking up at him, my eyes filled. “Sorry, Kellan. For everything.”
He shook his head. “Never mind that now. I’m sorry for scaring you about Keats. He’s a remarkable dog.”
“He is. When I look back, I realize he signaled a change in Myrtle right after the murder. He’d liked her before, but the next day he jammed himself under my feet to get away from her. And he never wagged for her again.”
“Good judge of character,” Kellan said. “Hers had corroded.”
“Yeah, and sadly, you were right: people who love dogs can commit murder.”
“I hate being right about that.” He sighed, and then glanced at Jilly. “I’ll be back up to collect the evidence later.”
“Good,” Jilly said. “Wait till you taste my basil chicken.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Exactly one week later, Jilly and I put the leaf in the oak table so that it could seat more people comfortably. We’d recruited the Hodgsons, Teri Mason and Mabel Halliday, along with Daisy and her family, Asher and Kellan. I’d even invited Mandy, but she dec
lined, sending along a couple of delicious apple coffee cakes to kick off harvest season.
“Isn’t this exciting?” Jilly said, as we peeked through the kitchen door and watched everyone taking their places for our trial run for dinner at Runaway Inn. “The table setting and decorations are perfect, and I’m quite sure dinner will be a home run.”
“You’ve worked so hard that I know it will be,” I said, backing away from the door. “But with all the chicken dishes you’ve tried, I don’t enjoy morning egg collection anymore. I feel so guilty.”
“Me too,” she said, going back to the counter to sprinkle fresh basil onto the serving platter. “That’s why I made a couple of vegetarian dishes as well. I have the feeling you and I, at least, will be eating a lot less meat.”
“I used to laugh when the vegans at work refused to eat ‘anything with a face.’ Now that I personally know some farm faces, it’s different.”
I paced nervously across the tile floor until Jilly told me to go into the dining room and sit down. “These are your guests. You need to socialize.”
“I’d rather help you out here,” I said.
“That’s why we’ve hired Joel for the grand opening. He’ll serve and you’ll circulate. Your job is to make sure each and every person feels special and welcome. It needs to be a magical experience for people to spread the word and keep coming back.”
I looked down at Keats. “I didn’t think about this part of it when I decided to open an inn. We’re aiming for magical.”
“It’ll get easier,” she said, herding me to the dining room like a human sheepdog. “Would you trade this for your old life in Boston?”
“Let me get back to you with my answer,” I said, pushing through the door.
I took my seat at the head of the table. Facing me at the other end sat Kellan, which couldn’t have been an accident because Jilly left nothing to chance. There were place cards, and hers sat right beside Asher’s.
