by Liz Mugavero
“Exactly!” Dede nearly dropped her purse in the excitement. “She was so pleased with the treat for Lilypad. Even with the unfortunate circumstances of the day. Anyway, I’ve been following your Pawsitively Organic business. My dogs and cats love your treats. I’d like to hire you.”
“You mean you want to order some treats?” Stan asked.
“Well, no. I mean I want to hire you. For an event.”
“Oh, a party. Of course.” She’d been getting requests for parties on and off since her first one last October, a birthday party for Benny, the fox terrier, had been so well received. Stan opened a new document on her iPad and prepared to take notes.
Dede smiled. “It’s a bit more than a simple party, but I know you’ll understand. Animal people always understand. I’d like to have a wedding ceremony for my rescue dogs. They love each other so much, and look out for each other all the time. I think it’s only logical that they should be married. That way, if anything ever happened to me, there would be no question that they would stay together.
“I’d like them to have a beautiful doggie cake,” she continued. “And all their friends as guests. I’d like it on the town green. On Valentine’s Day.” She sat back in her chair, hopeful eyes trained on Stan. “What do you think? Can you do it?”
A doggie wedding? Outside in the New England winter? Stan had heard of a lot of quirky things people did with their pets since starting this business, but this—well, it took the cake. Literally. But who was she to judge this sweet lady who loved her rescue dogs? At least Nikki would approve. And it would be something else to add to her repertoire—doggie wedding cakes. She sent up a silent prayer that the temperatures would begin rising.
“I’d love to,” she said, smiling at Dede. “It sounds fabulous.”
“Oh, thank you!” Dede clapped her hands. “They’ll be so thrilled. I’m going to ask my daughter to help me with their outfits. She’s a seamstress,” she added. “I’m so excited. You’ve made my day, Ms. Connor. Here.” She reached into her purse and pulled out two crisp, new hundred-dollar bills and handed them to Stan. “You’ll need a deposit, I’m sure. Oh, and I nearly forgot. Can you have some nibbles for kitties, too? My two cats, Mittens and Diamond, will attend, of course.”
“Thank you,” Stan said, trying to hide her surprise at the deposit. “This is very helpful. And, of course we can accommodate Mittens and Diamond. We’ll have to put some time on the calendar in the next few days to iron out details.” She handed Dede her business card, a paw-print–shaped creation that Brenna had helped her design. “If you have time on Thursday, I can come by.”
Dede assured her Thursday would be wonderful. After she went back to her own table amid a flurry of hugs and thanks, Stan turned to Amara, who watched the entire proceedings with an amused smile.
“What do you think?” Stan asked her.
“I think,” Amara said, “that you’re definitely going to make a name for yourself around here. One way or another.”
Chapter 9
“You’ll never believe what I got asked to do today.” Stan said to Nikki when her best friend answered the phone. She’d just arrived home and checked on the soup, which had filled her house with the amazing aroma of garlic and veggies. Nutty dozed on the counter next to it, likely dreaming of his next meal.
Nikki sounded like she was hauling dog crates or performing some equally taxing task. She could even be on the road—Stan hadn’t talked to her much lately. “Do I want to know, given your track record?” she said a bit breathlessly. “Does it have to do with cows?”
Nikki wouldn’t let Stan live that one down. Stan decided to ignore the dig. “I got asked to cater a doggie wedding. On Valentine’s Day.”
The guffaw from the other end of the phone wasn’t entirely unexpected. “I guess the better question would be, did you accept the offer?” Nikki asked when she could speak again.
“Of course. It’s good for business,” Stan said. “But I’m a little overwhelmed. There’s a big guest list and I have less than two weeks. And it’s outside. It’s still cold out. I need to make the perfect cake. Heart-shaped. Three layer. Something with strawberries.”
“No offense, but your town is whack,” Nikki said, her tone matter-of-fact. Nikki didn’t mince words.
Stan couldn’t completely disagree. “It’s charming, though.”
“Wait a second,” Nikki said. “This person isn’t doing this weirdo wedding thing because they’re gonna breed the dogs, right? ’Cause I’ve seen that before and I would have to disown you if you contributed to that.”
“Oh, no. They’re two rescue dogs. Fixed. A Shih Tzu and an Irish setter. This lady adopted them separately and they’re really bonded. She wants them to be married. It’s cute, but I felt bad for her. She said if she dies, she doesn’t want anyone to separate them.”
That seemed to pacify Nikki. “At least they’re rescue dogs. Where’d they come from?”
“Someplace up here, I think. Oh, that reminds me—I have to find cake toppers. I need to start making lists. You should come! We can find a way to promote Pets’ Last Chance. You know, adopt a rescue dog, get them transported to you, then marry them off.” She was only half kidding.
“It sounds wacky enough that I might. I’ll be in town that week, I think. Who’s performing the ceremony?”
“That’s a good question.” Did Dede think she was doing that as part of the package? She might have to draw the line at that one. “I’ll have to find out.”
“Are you going to have human cake, too?”
“Shoot. I probably should. Jeez. I better go, Nik. I have a lot to do.”
“Keep me posted,” Nikki said, and disconnected.
Scruffy and Henry were sprawled at her feet. They complemented each other, her silver and black schnoodle and her brown and white pit bull. Stan regarded them curiously. “You hear that, guys? Would you eventually want a wedding?”
Scruffy wagged. Henry dropped his face back onto the floor and closed his eyes.
“I guess he’s not ready to commit yet,” Stan said to Scruffy.
Later, after she had loaded Betty’s portion of the harvest veggie soup into a smaller slow cooker for easy heating, Stan donned her favorite pair of Ugg boots, a fuzzy scarf, and warm parka, and set out to deliver her goodwill gesture.
The Meanys lived two streets behind Stan. It was how they’d met, actually—Houdini, Betty’s cat, had slipped outside and turned up on Stan’s porch her first week in town. He’d been one of the first to hear the rumor that Stan was a whiz with an oven. Luckily, he’d been wearing a collar with Betty’s number, so Stan was able to help reunite them. Betty had been a fan of her treats ever since.
The trip was a three-minute drive through a tree-lined neighborhood filled with well-kept Cape-style homes and yards that were probably pretty in the spring. She parked in Betty’s driveway next to a red Buick. She didn’t see Betty’s little Mazda 6 anywhere, but figured it must be in the garage. She climbed out and went around to the passenger side to grab the soup. Making her way carefully up the front steps around the still-remaining patches of ice, she rang the bell and waited. A few minutes later, a man—presumably the disagreeable husband—answered the door. She thought she remembered Char calling him Burt. He was shorter than Stan’s five foot seven frame by about three inches, bald, and round. He didn’t look incredibly friendly, which jived with the conversation Stan had overheard in the hospital.
“Yes?” he said, opening the door a crack.
Stan smiled her best smile. “Hi. I’m Stan, a friend of Betty’s. I brought her some homemade soup.”
Burt—if that was his name, since he didn’t introduce himself—continued to regard her with a slight frown. “Do you want to come in?” he asked, finally.
That would be helpful if you want the soup. She forced her smile to widen. “Why, sure! That would be lovely. Thank you.”
Without another word, he swung the door open and motioned her in. He walked through
the kitchen and vanished, leaving Stan to figure out where to put the food and, more important, where to find Betty.
“Who was at the door?” she heard a familiar voice ask from a room to the right. A muffled response, then Betty came around the corner. She looked different today—tired, and not dressed to the nines, like Stan was used to seeing her. Her hair wasn’t even spiky, and instead of one of her colorful dresses, she wore a pair of sweatpants and a Frog Ledge Community Theater T-shirt.
“Oh! Stan! What a love you are.” Betty threw her arms around Stan, who had luckily already placed the soup on the counter. “That smells delightful.” Betty took a deep breath. “What is it?”
“It’s a harvest veggie soup. My own creation. It was a good week at the farmers’ market last week.”
“How kind and sweet. I’m very sorry my husband is such a sourpuss.” She glanced behind her and made a face. “I’ll tell you, I don’t know how I’ve made it more than thirty years with that man. Must be because he worked a lot when we were younger. Oh, well. Come sit, please. Would you like some tea?”
When Stan declined, Betty ushered her into the living room. With the exception of the paisley couch, Stan immediately fell in love with the room. It shouted peaceful and cozy. She was a sucker for fireplaces, anyway, but Betty’s was gorgeous—the old-fashioned kind, not gas, with a granite mantel. Houdini, the original escape artist, dozed on the back of the couch, curled up in a blanket. Comfy pillows and throw blankets were strategically positioned on the couch and two chairs. The red carpeting was soft, deep, and immaculate. In true Betty-the-librarian fashion, the walls were nearly all built-in bookshelves, except for the one wall on which the TV was mounted. Stan caught sight of some of the titles—Jane Eyre, Moby Dick. Classics, as she would have expected. But on other shelves, she could see fiction—from Lilian Jackson Braun to Lee Child.
“I read everything,” Betty said, noting Stan’s interest in the books. “I can’t leave my job at work.”
“It’s great,” Stan said. “Somehow, I usually end up too busy to read much, but I do love it. I thought when I left my job I would read all the time, but then I just got busy with other things.”
“Since you have company I’m going out for a bit.” Burt had materialized in the doorway, causing Stan to jump.
“Stan, this is my charming husband, Burt,” Betty said in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’m sure he properly introduced himself to you, but I wanted to make sure.”
Stan smiled weakly at Burt. He nodded at her, then turned and walked out of the room. A minute later, Stan heard the front door quietly close.
“Is he angry that I showed up unannounced?” She didn’t want to cause Betty any problems, especially with everything else going on.
“Oh, heavens, no.” Betty waved Stan’s comment—and her husband’s negative energy—away. “Don’t give him another thought. He’s going to go down to Jake’s and watch sports and have a beer with his old fogey friends. It’s much nicer when he’s doing that, trust me. Sit, honey.”
Stan sank into the comfy couch, thinking that was a crappy way to exist in a thirty-plus-year marriage, but what did she know? She’d never even been engaged. “How are you feeling?” she asked, instead of commenting on Burt’s behavior.
Betty sat down heavily on the couch and tucked one of her blankets around her legs. “Physically, I feel fine. Mentally, well, that’s another story.” She fiddled with a loose thread on the blanket. “I just can’t believe she’s gone. Helga took my own mother’s place—God rest her soul—in my life. She died young, my mother. And Helga—they were friends their whole lives. She stepped right in and treated me like one of her own. It’s so overwhelming.” She sniffled and snagged a tissue from the box on the coffee table next to her.
“I’m sure it is,” Stan said sympathetically. “It sounds like Helga had a lot of surrogate families. Jake and his family are going through the same thing.”
“Oh, my goodness, of course they are.” Betty shook her head. “We all knew she couldn’t live forever, but there was so very little wrong with her that no one ever thought about her not being here. I’m devastated—and angry at the same time.” She glanced at the doorway, as if making sure her husband wasn’t standing there. “I don’t know how the town will ever recover.”
“Is there someone other than Dale Hatmaker who could keep up the work she was doing?”
“Oh, the work will be kept up, honey. It just won’t be kept up the same way. And it won’t be Dale Hatmaker, if I have any say over it. There was only one Helga. No one else will ever carry such a deep connection to this town.”
That sounded a tad dramatic to Stan, but she let it go. And made a mental note to mention these types of concerns if her coaching job with Tony Falco came to fruition. “Will her boyfriend be okay? How’s he doing?” she asked instead.
“Gerry? I honestly don’t know. I lost track of him yesterday. I really should give him a call. But I don’t feel like talking about her yet.” She sighed. “The funeral and the celebration will be difficult enough.”
Stan nodded sympathetically. “Who’s putting the celebration together?”
“We all will have something to do with it. Mostly her fellow volunteers from the War Office, I suspect, but all the historical buildings and, of course, the library will participate. I have a lovely collection of work Helga was part of, including her own book, over at the library that we can put on display.” Talking about it had some of the color returning to Betty’s face, and she reached for a notepad on the table next to her. “I need to get back to work tomorrow. There’s so much to do!”
“Will her family help?” Stan asked.
Betty’s pencil stilled. “Meaning who?”
“Like, her kids. Why, did she have other family?”
“Well, the McGees of course. Gerry’s family. Her own?” She snorted. “I doubt it. Sarah’s just a kook, and Don and Carla are too busy thinking they’re related to the Kennedys or something. Politics have really gone to their heads.”
It was enough of a segue. Stan took the cue. “So, is Sarah a real medium?”
Betty snorted. “Oh, dear Lord. She may as well be one of those TV mediums, from what I can gather. The ones on late-night commercials for all the depressed people to call and find out about their sorry love life and give up their life savings. If she’s a medium, then I’m the Queen of England.”
Stan raised an eyebrow. “So what do you make of her gut feeling, then? Before anyone knew something was wrong with Helga?”
Betty glared at her. “That’s a pile of pure horse pucky.”
“Well, then, she’s a good guesser,” Stan said. “Because something was wrong.”
Betty said nothing.
“Didn’t they get along?” Stan pressed.
Betty sighed. “Not well. Helga often wondered where that girl came from. Crazy as a loon. I shouldn’t be saying that out loud, but it’s true. She wasn’t very good to her mother, and Helga tried so hard for her. It’s just like Sarah to show up and try to capitalize on her mother’s death. Now Don, well, I know how proud she was of him. Her first husband was into politics, you know. She always had a hearty respect for people who give so much back to their town or their state. I shouldn’t be so harsh on him. I’m sure he’s beside himself, too. Don is much more reserved with his emotions. Usually his wife is the one making their feelings known.” She made a face.
Interesting. But family dynamics usually were. Stan finally got to her burning question. “Do you still think someone pushed Helga?”
Betty pulled off her glasses, which were attached to a beaded chain, and let them fall against her chest. She looked around again, as if someone might have materialized out of nowhere to hear her answer. “I do. And remember I said that to you in confidence. It wouldn’t do to have that rumor all over town. At least not before there’s anything to it.”
“I understand it was in confidence,” Stan said. “But if it’s true, you’ll have to talk about it
, Betty. Are you going to tell anyone? Jessie can help. She would want to help. She loved Helga, too.”
“I know that,” Betty said. “But it’s not wise to go to Jessie right now.”
“Why not, though? I don’t understand.”
“Because I don’t have any evidence. Just my hunch.”
“So what are you going to do about it?” Stan asked. “You can’t take it upon yourself to solve the crime, if it was a crime.”
Betty didn’t answer.
Stan sighed. “So who do you think did it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You have to have someone in mind,” Stan said. “Otherwise, why would you think she was pushed at all? Did she have a lot of enemies?”
“Of course not. She was lovely.”
“Did you see someone around the museum that morning? Someone who shouldn’t have been there?”
“No, I wasn’t even at the museum. I was tied up with event details at the church until right before ten, when we started the slide show. We were missing tablecloths, and the microphone at the podium outside wasn’t working. So many logistics to handle.” Betty worked harder at the loose thread .
“Do you think Dale Hatmaker had something to do with her death?” Stan asked. “Would he . . . really kill a person because he wanted her job? That sounds a little extreme, but I guess you just never know.”
Betty was quiet for a long time. Stan decided to take the hint and leave, when Betty spoke. “Stan, you have to understand something about Frog Ledge. A lot of secrets live here. They’ve lived here for a lot of years. And Helga, well, Helga knew most of those secrets.”
Stan felt a sudden chill. She rubbed her arms to get rid of the goose bumps. “What kind of secrets? The kind that could get her killed?”
Betty looked straight at her. “The kind that should be left alone.”
Chapter 10
Betty knew more than she was telling about the Helga situation. Either that, or she’d gone completely off her rocker. Neither of those options sat well in Stan’s gut.
