by Tracy Weber
Bella looked confused, but she plopped her rear on the ground and waited for me to give her a cookie. Blackie dive-bombed me again.
“Knock it off!” I yelled.
The poorly trained crow landed on the ground next to me and stared. He had Blackie’s unmistakable bald spot.
I pulled on Bella’s leash. “Come on, you guys, let’s go.”
We took several steps forward. Blackie hopped the same number, tracking me.
“Okay, fine then,” I grumbled. I pulled out a cookie and broke it in half. I fed one part to Bella and tossed the remainder to Blackie.
A smaller, more timid crow landed next to him. I smiled at Rene. “Isn’t that cute? I think Blackie has a girlfriend.” I broke another cookie in two and tossed half to each bird.
The man behind us shook his head. “You’re going to regret that someday.”
Evidently, someday was today.
Three loud caws later, the corvid volcano erupted. It was like a scene from an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Crows converged on us from all directions. They swooped overhead. They dive-bombed. They landed inches from our feet.
Bella glared at me, clearly saying, Now look what you’ve done.
Rene covered her head with her forearms and yelled, “Kate, get them away from me.”
“They’re not dangerous,” I yelled back over the clamor. “They’re hungry. Ignore them. They’ll eventually give up.”
I might as well have remained silent. Rene was overcome with bird-induced panic. She plunged her hand deeply into my pocket, grabbed everything inside of it, and threw.
I could see what was about to happen, but I was powerless to stop it. My house keys flew through the air, traveling farther and with much greater velocity than the cookies. Blackie’s eyes seemed to sparkle. I would have sworn that he flashed me a feather-faced grin. He abandoned the cookies and took flight.
“Nooooo!” I yelled helplessly.
Blackie landed beside his new treasure, cocked his head to examine it, and picked it up in his beak. About a millisecond later, he’d transported it to its new home—fifteen feet off the ground, deep in the branches of a cedar tree.
His head—and my keys—disappeared into a hole inside the tree’s trunk.
The rest of the murder—which, by the way, was the exact crime I planned to commit against my best friend—gathered their plunder and flew off to consume it.
Rene cringed and flashed her teeth in a submissive grin. “Oops.”
“That’s all you’ve got to say?”
She widened her eyes and held up her keys. “At least I drove.”
“Lot of good that does us. My spare keys are jangling around in Michael’s pocket somewhere in Oregon.”
“Look on the bright side,” she teased. “Maybe the contractors will leave the kitchen door open again.”
“Cute, Rene. I’ll bet it won’t be so funny when Sam gets home. His car keys are on that ring, too.”
Rene wasn’t smiling anymore. She grabbed my arm. “Kate, we have to get them back. Sam will lop off my head if he finds out that I lent you his car.”
I frowned up at the tree. Blackie cawed at me from the security of his bark-covered refuge.
“Don’t look so smug.” I pointed to Rene. “She’s coming up there to get them.”
Rene looked down at her belly. “Are you kidding me?”
Evidently, regaining access to Bella’s and my abode would be up to me.
Between a feeble boost from Rene and the upper body strength born of hundreds of Sun Salutations, I managed to hoist myself up onto the lowest branch. From there, level by careful level, I climbed upward until I reached a branch one level below Blackie’s. I glanced down.
Big mistake.
People didn’t die from twelve-foot falls, did they?
Rene waved. “Hey up there. Good thing you’re not afraid of heights.”
I hadn’t been, until now. Was that my imagination, or did I just hear a branch crack? I scooted closer to the trunk and wrapped my arm around it for balance.
Blackie cawed, clearly warning me away from his territory.
“Sorry, buddy, those keys are mine.”
Rene yelled from below. “Do you see them?”
“Not yet.”
Blackie’s vocalizations became louder and more insistent.
“Oh, go caw yourself,” I replied irritably. “I’ll put everything except my keys back.”
I tentatively reached my hand into the hollow, hoping that whatever lurked inside it wouldn’t bite back. My fingers felt …
Lots of things.
At least my keys haven’t been lonely.
Blackie had either been very busy since his return to Green Lake, or he’d started his collection long before he was injured. One by one, I pulled out a treasure trove of shiny corvid booty: a nail file, a metal barrette, two crumpled pieces of tinfoil, and enough quarters for bus fare to visit Judith on multiple occasions.
So far, no keys.
“Okay, buddy. Where did you put them?”
Blackie inched closer, as if he realized the significance of the final few objects. I reached my arm deeper into the hollow and felt around in the back, where Blackie obviously stored his most prized possessions. I pulled out keys.
Four sets of them.
I tucked my own keys inside my pocket, put sets two and three back in Blackie’s hiding place, and examined the fourth set.
I glanced over at the curious corvid. “Sorry, bud. I lied. I’m keeping these, too.”
Maggie’s keys.
The same ones that Blackie had stolen on Saturday.
The same ones that opened the doors to DogMa.
The same ones I’d use for my next recon mission.
Blackie hopped on my shoulder and nuzzled my earlobe, as if asking, Did I do good?
“Yes, buddy. You did great. Gooooood bird.”
Twenty-Three
I parked Sam’s Camaro in a residential area a few blocks away from DogMa, pulled his recovered car keys out of the ignition, and cracked the windows and sun roof. Rene’s grin was so wide I could see her back molars.
“Hey Kate, get this. We’re about to break into an animal shelter.”
“Hush, Rene. I know that.” I glanced around to make sure no one was listening. “Do you have to alert the entire neighborhood?”
She burst into giggles. “But that makes us cat burglars!”
I slapped her arm. “Take this seriously, Rene, and keep your voice down. I know it’s after ten, but people might still be up.” I gave Bella a quick scratch behind the ears, opened my door, and then immediately closed it again. “Maybe this isn’t such a great idea. Breaking and entering? If we get caught, we could be in serious trouble. Dale might get so mad that he won’t bail us out.”
Rene replied with her inimitable form of logic. “We’re not really breaking, just entering. We have a set of keys, after all. Besides, we’re not going to take anything—unless we have to, that is—so no one will even know that we’ve been there.” She opened her door and heaved her body out of the seat. “Get off your butt and let’s get going. It’s past the twins’ bedtime.” She leaned inside and kissed Bella on the nose. “Don’t worry, sweetie, we won’t be gone long.”
Bella sprawled on her side across the entire back seat, stretched out her legs, and closed her eyes for a late-evening nap. She showed no interest in joining our criminal excursion, which proved once again that Bella was significantly smarter than me.
I joined Rene on the sidewalk and checked my cell phone for the three-hundredth time since leaving a message for Dale two hours earlier. Still no return messages. “I wish I’d been able to talk to Dale. I’m not so sure he’d be happy with us if he knew what we were about to do.”
“You know he won’t be happy. Why did you even ca
ll him?”
“I was hoping he’d talk me out of this stupid idea. Besides, someone should know what we’re up to.” I pointed to the street sign near Sam’s car. “Which reminds me, write down this address, just in case. If we get arrested, Dale will have to come and rescue Bella.” As Rene rummaged in her purse, I frowned at my watch. “I thought he’d be packing to head back to Orcas by now, but maybe he decided to meet with Dharma. I left a message on his voicemail.”
“You left a voicemail saying we were about to break and enter?”
“Not exactly. I said we were making an after-hours inspection of DogMa’s facilities, and if we got detained, we might need his assistance. He’ll figure it out.”
“I’m glad he didn’t answer the phone. He would have stopped us.” Rene bounced on her heels in anticipation. “And that would have sucked, because we’re going to have so much fun!”
At least someone was having a good time.
“Well, if he wanted to stop us, he missed his chance.” I turned off my phone and slid it back into my pocket. “The last thing I need is for my phone to ring while we’re prowling around trying to be inconspicuous.”
Rene ripped off a page with the address and handed it to me. Then she put her notepad and phone in her purse, tossed it in the trunk, and started walking. “Come on, it’s this way.”
I pressed the lock button on the car’s remote and followed her down the dimly lit sidewalk until we reached the rescue. Compared to Betty’s place, DogMa looked like a professionally run paradise. The paved parking lot was lined with freshly cut grass, and each building’s new-looking siding was decorated by colorful cutouts of playful-looking animals. A covered walkway between the two structures protected animals and their would-be owners from Seattle’s infamous rain, should they be forced to walk from one space to the other.
Not that a homeless animal would care about any of that.
“This place is a lot nicer than Betty’s,” Rene said. “I could hardly tell that they have animals here until that woman took me into the cat dungeon.” She pointed to the left. “That building is where they keep the cats and dogs—in separate rooms, of course. The building we want is the one on the right. That’s where they have the office and all of the paperwork.”
“What are we going to do if someone’s inside?”
“Where would they be? The parking lot is completely empty and all of the windows are dark. Besides, when I was here earlier, that Sally chick claimed she was closing up shop for the rest of the day.”
We slinked—well, I slinked, Rene plodded—across the darkened parking lot up to the door.
“Are you sure about this?” I whispered.
Rene snatched the key ring out of my hand and bumped me aside. “Oh, for goodness sake, Kate. What kind of lame super sleuth are you? Of course I’m sure.”
“Wait.” I pulled two pairs of rubber gloves out of my pocket. “Put these on.”
Rene gave me an odd look. “Exam gloves? What are we, heart surgeons?”
“I learned my lesson on Orcas. This time, we’re not leaving any fingerprints.”
Rene sighed a bit more dramatically than was strictly necessary, but she put on the gloves. The second key she tried slid smoothly into the lock. She winked and elbowed me in the rib cage. “Here’s hoping they don’t have an alarm system.”
The lock clicked open. Rene slowly opened the door.
Silence. No alarm. No animal sounds, either.
“Don’t they have dogs here?” I asked. “Where’s all of the barking? Bella would be having a fit.”
“I told you. They keep the animals in the other building.” Rene grabbed my gloved hand and pulled me through the door. “The Cat Nazi gave me a tour before she figured out that she hated me. This building houses the office, an exam room, and the training center. The room we’re looking for is to the left.”
We bumped our way through the darkened reception area to a small office. Rene opened the door and flipped on the lights.
“Rene, turn those off! Someone will see us!”
“We can’t read paperwork in the dark, dummy.”
“I know. That’s why we brought flashlights.”
Rene rolled her eyes. “Amateur. Flashlight beams will look suspicious from the outside. If we turn on the overhead lights, people in the neighborhood will assume someone is working late.”
She had a point.
While Rene closed the blinds, I assessed the room’s layout. A cluttered metal desk faced the back wall. A writing table and three chairs occupied the southwest corner. A four-drawer filing cabinet and a shelf containing a printer/fax/copier combination rounded out the rest of the office’s decor.
“You take the desk,” Rene said. “I’ve got the filing cabinet.”
The desktop was covered with a large collection of notepads and pens, a computer monitor, and a towering stack of papers weighted down by a paperweight shaped like a golden retriever. I set the glass dog to the side and sorted through the papers, all of which were adoption applications in various stages of completion, including initial paperwork, home evaluations, and happily-ever-after reports of animals who had found their forever homes.
While Rene started on the second drawer of the filing cabinet, I tackled the desk drawers. The top one contained more pens, a dozen or so of the spay-and-neuter flyers that Sally had given Rene, and a smattering of stale-looking dog cookies. I was about to open the bottom drawer when Rene interrupted.
“Kate, I found a file with invoices here. Maggie said that DogMa’s expenses have gone up recently, right?”
“Yes.”
“Take a look at this.” She handed me a thick folder. “Does anything stand out to you?”
I shuffled through the papers, looking for something out of the ordinary. I found receipts for a variety of animal-related expenditures: food, beds, toys, medications, and veterinarian fees. One of the receipts was an itemized record of pet foods purchased over the past three months from Pete’s Pets.
“I’m a little surprised at the prices. I thought Michael was selling food to DogMa at cost. They’re paying a lot more per bag than I used to pay for Bella’s kibble. Is that what you mean?”
“No, but it makes me even more suspicious.” She pointed to the bottom of the page. “Look at the signature line. “
“Sally signed for it. So?”
“Look at the rest. They were all signed by the Cat Nazi. Maggie doesn’t seem to buy anything.”
“That’s not unusual. Sally is DogMa’s office manager and bookkeeper. Lots of businesses have an employee handle the day-to-day finances. I should do the same thing, but I’m afraid I’ll lose track of my money. It’s not like I have enough for anyone to steal, but … ”
That’s when it hit me. I hated doing Serenity Yoga’s bookkeeping. The only reason I hadn’t hired it out was because I was a financial control freak. Maggie, however, had never been forced to clip coupons. It was natural for her to delegate DogMa’s bookkeeping—like almost everything else—to Sally.
So when Maggie claimed that DogMa’s expenses had skyrocketed, how would she know? She’d never been in charge of the rescue’s day-to-day operations. That was Raven’s job. Raven’s job that Sally had been forced to assume more than a year ago.
Sally wrote the checks. Sally made the deposits. Sally was the person in charge of the money.
Sally also had a husband in an undoubtedly expensive rehab facility. If Raven had somehow found out that Sally was embezzling money from DogMa …
“Rene, I think we might have found our murderer.”
“Maybe, but none of this proves anything.”
“No, but it might point Dale in the right direction.” I handed the file back to Rene. “Make a copy of this. Start with the receipts labeled as Pete’s Pets. Michael will know if those have been forged. I’ll see if I can get into the boo
kkeeping software. If Sally’s been embezzling funds, she must have left a trail there somewhere.”
I fired up the computer. Rene turned on the fax machine/copier, laid the file on the table next to it, and waddled to the door.
“Where are you going?”
It’ll take a minute for everything to power up. I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Now?”
“Yes, now. Unless you want me to piddle like a puppy in the middle of the floor. I’ll be back before you know it.” She took off her gloves.
“Hey, keep those on.”
“They’re making my hands sweat. My fingerprints are all over the bathroom from this afternoon, anyway. I’ll put them on before I come back.”
“Hurry up. This all makes me very nervous. Let’s get what we need and get out of here.”
While the copier warmed up and Rene emptied her bladder, I sat at the keyboard and tried to guess the computer’s password. DogMa, HEAT, PuppyLove, password1, and PasswordsSuck all netted nothing. I picked up the dog-shaped paperweight and absently tossed it back and forth between my hands. Its eyes seemed to glitter.
Look at me, dummy!
Could it be that obvious?
I set the fake dog next to the keyboard and typed in several iterations of the words “golden retriever.”
Nothing.
Well, it was worth a try.
I was trying various combinations of the names Maggie and Sally when the floor boards behind me creaked. I would have sworn that Rene had been gone less than two minutes.
“Wow, that was quick. You do have a small bladder.”
Rene replied with a high-pitched squeak. The door clicked shut behind her.
“Raise your hands and don’t make any fast moves.”
Adrenaline jolted down my spine.
The voice didn’t belong to Rene.
I slowly pushed back from the desk, lifted my fingers into the air, and tried to sound innocent.
“Sally, I’m glad you’re—”
“Save it, Kate.”
I turned around. Sally was holding a gun to Rene’s temple.
