Murder, Money, and Moving On

by Stacey Alabaster

  Ryan put the spoon down. “Well, did you talk to her about it?”

  I shook my head. “I just told her to get out.” I glared up at the ceiling. I’d been too angry, too shocked, to say anything to Alice other than, “Get out.” All she had said to me was that she was the one who had owned Jasper before me. Before he had gone to the shelter. And that now she had found him, she wanted him back. Was this what adopted parents felt like when their children wanted to find their birth parents? Except that Jasper hadn’t ‘wanted’ anything. He was happy with me. More than happy. He was a bright, healthy, energetic and—let’s face it—spoiled dog. Why would he want to go back to anything else?

  “Did you get a number from her?” Ryan placed the lid back on the melting ice cream. “Then you could at least call her and speak to her reasonably.”

  Maybe Ryan was right. Perhaps if I’d gotten at least a few details from her, I would know what I was dealing with. I could look up her past, get Ryan to do a criminal check. Prove that she was an unfit dog owner. Or maybe I could have negotiated with her. Arranged to share custody of Jasper. I gulped. Somehow, that didn’t seem like a good arrangement. Who would win out of that?

  “So what did she actually say?” Ryan asked, now that I had calmed down a little.

  I took a deep breath before I explained everything to him. “She said that Jasper had lived with her since he was a pup. That he had been an expensive dog, a purebred, and that she had bought him from a breeder after a long search for a purebred Border Collie. She claims that she loved Jasper very much and that he had been happy living up on her property near Mornington in the mountains, and that Jasper just ran away one day,” I said, unable to speak for a moment. I was wondering if I actually did need that oxygen mask. “She claims to have been looking for him ever since.”

  Ryan frowned. “I always thought that Jasper was just abandoned at the shelter.”

  “So did I,” I said. “He certainly acts like it.” He’d always had huge abandonment issues. He didn’t even like it when I left him at the house while I went to work, which was why I usually brought him with me. He didn’t act like a dog that had just run away. He acted like a dog who had been left by an owner who just never came back. Always worried that it was going to happen again.

  I looked to Ryan for hope. “She has no claim to him, right?”

  Ryan shrugged a little and didn’t quite meet my eyes. The ice cream was starting to melt over the side of the bowl.

  “If Jasper really did run away and she can produce proof that she is his owner, then, well, she might very well be able to claim that she is his rightful owner.”

  I felt the tears sting my eyes. No. No, it just couldn’t be. There was no way that horrible woman was taking Jasper from me.

  Ryan got a phone call and sighed.

  “I have to go, but I promise I’ll come back later,” he said before he left. “In the meantime, try not to worry about all this. There’s nothing you can do while you are here, so there’s no sense in placing stress on yourself.”

  I acted like I agreed. But as soon as he was out of the room, I sat up and reached for the phone. I pressed the button to make an external call and dialed Brenda’s number. “If a woman comes by claiming to be Jasper’s owner, do not let her inside the house.”

  “Well, well, you are a popular patient,” Cathy had said to me ten minutes earlier. I was sure she hadn’t meant it sarcastically, but the tone she used was just always a little patronizing. “You’ve gotten more visitors today than most patients on this ward get in a week.” She had smiled at me, but her words were a little sad. I hoped that wasn’t true; I hoped that the people I was sharing a ward with got more than three visitors a week. Anyway. I was sitting there waiting to see who would pop out behind the curtain next. The suspense wasn’t quite killing me. I figured that no surprise visitor I got now could ever give me worse news than the last one.

  It was a male visitor this time. Just not the one I wanted to see. “I kept telling you that roof is a hazard,” Les grumbled as he awkwardly tried to make small talk.

  I stared at the flowers he had sat beside my bed in vase. Azaleas. My least favorite. Which he knew. It was one of the few topics between us that had come up. The previous Valentine’s Day, he had tried to increase his business by selling flowers in front of his store. I had made a comment that no one wanted to buy flowers from a place that also sold fish bait. Especially not azaleas, which were the only kind he was selling. Presumably from his own back yard.

  “Are you here to rub it in or to give me your sympathies?” I asked, slightly amused. I was surprised that Les would even come and visit me at all. I could tell the awkwardness was killing him. I wondered if someone had put him up to it. Apparently, Brenda had told him where I was and what had happened.

  Les sat down beside me. “How are you doing, anyway?” He frowned at me like he was genuinely concerned.

  I shrugged a little. “Can’t complain.” I let out a little laugh. “That’s not true actually,” I said with a hearty sigh. “I have done very little except complain since I have been in here. It’s been fairly trying.”

  “And how’s your memory going?” he said. “Your head, I mean?”

  I shrugged a little. “I’m still having trouble remembering anything about the fall I apparently had,” I said.

  He nodded. “Brenda is taking good care of your dogs.” Then he added quickly, “I mean. I’m sure she is.”

  I nodded a little. The painkillers that Cathy had given me for my arm were making me feel a little drowsy.

  “What did you know about Lleyton?” I asked sleepily, trying to keep my eyes open.

  “Huh?” Les looked uncomfortable.

  “Do you know if there was anyone out there trying to hurt him?” I asked. I may not have been so blatant if it wasn’t for the pain relief.

  Les’s back stiffened. “Now why would I know anything like that?” he asked gruffly. “Lleyton and I barely spoke except when we absolutely had to, at the meetings and the like.”

  Yes, I remembered. There was always a bit of tension between them. The two alpha males of the central business strip, I supposed. Both around the same age. Both grumpy and set in their ways. But whereas Les was tall and burly with red hair, Lleyton had been bald and short. And Lleyton had been the more outgoing and charismatic of the two. To an extent.

  “So you and Lleyton weren’t exactly pals then, were you?” I asked, sitting up. I cringed when the drip moved in my arm and twisted in my vein a little.

  Les turned a little beetroot. “Of course we were good friends!” he said, spluttering a little in his haste to defend himself. “We played golf together every Sunday.”

  And yet he didn’t seem particularly sad to see him go. He’d been quiet at the meeting where I’d been interrogated, yes, but now I was starting to think that maybe that quietness had been due to guilt, rather than to grief.

  My short-term memory was coming back. “I seem to recall that at the last owner’s meeting you were angry at him for always parking in your spot,” I said.

  “That was a minor annoyance, George. Not something I held a grudge about.” He held my gaze for a long time. “Now just be careful what you’re getting at.”

  I glanced up at him. “Why are you really here to see me, Les? You and I are not really friends, are we?”

  “I was trying to do the neighborly thing!”

  Something wasn’t adding up with this guy. “More like trying to see how good my memory was,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “What is it that you don’t want me to remember, Les?”

  “I think I need to go now George,” he said, grabbing his hat. “I trust that you will have a speedy recovery.”

  I wasn’t used to having nothing to do. There was a small TV hung very high above my bed, but I was never really one to watch TV. There was one other bed in the room that was taken by an elderly woman who slept all day and thus wasn’t the best company. I’m not often bored. I can always easily find so
mething to do or a way to entertain myself. Usually I’d sketch, or make jewelry, or take one of the dogs for a walk. But I couldn’t do any of those things stuck in a hospital bed.

  At least my purse was there. My cell was tucked away in a side pocket. I unzipped it and pulled it out, about to switch it straight to airplane mode, when I saw that I’d actually received a text that morning. And it was from someone who knew that I was in hospital, as well. Someone who should have known better; someone who should have phoned me on the hospital line if they’d really wanted me to know.

  It was a text from Brenda. Alice was at her house. “I’m sorry Georgina,” she said. “But as a good Christian woman I could hardly just turn her away from my front door, could I?”

  I quickly started to type out a response and prayed that Brenda was reading it on the other side. “Brenda, don’t do anything. Tell her to leave. Please.”

  I waited for a response to come back. Please, please, please. Finally, after a few minutes, it did. “I need to at least hear her out. Decide for myself who is telling the truth.”

  My heart was racing. I didn’t trust Brenda not to hand Jasper over right then and there.

  I stared at the arm still hooked up to the sling. One way or another, I was getting out of the hospital that night.

  I had to save my dog.

  6

  It was already dark and I was struggling to find my way up the hill without any street lights. Brenda lived on a road on the edge of town that was not well-lit. It was cold with only my hospital gown and a light cardigan—one that had been stuffed in my purse—for protection against the elements. I couldn’t have asked Cathy for help finding my real clothes and belongings—she would never have let me leave. She’d told me the doctors still had to do tests on my cognition to clear me of any damage to the skull before I could leave. But this was a real emergency. Far more dire than any they had in the hospital.

  I stepped on a twig and it snapped up and stuck into my leg. “Ouch!” I cried out. If I only I had Jasper with me for help.

  But he was in the house in front of me. At least, I hoped he was still there.

  There was a blue car in the driveway, newish looking, that I did not recognize. That was a good thing, though. At least Alice was still there. I wasn’t too late. There were lights on and I could see two figures moving around. I wasn’t sure whether that was a good sign or not. Was it Brenda and her husband? Or was it Brenda and Alice? Maybe the blue car was Brenda’s after all.

  I banged on the door and demanded to be let in.

  “Georgina, you should not be out of the hospital in such a state!” Brenda exclaimed before she stepped aside and helped me in before I collapsed. Alice came running into the hallway to see what all the drama was about and also gasped when she saw me.

  “Georgina…” she said. “You are still wearing your hospital gown!”

  “I want to see Jasper,” I said once I had drunk some of the water that Brenda had fetched for me. “Where is he?”

  Brenda crossed her arms. “I have decided to keep Jasper in the shed for this discussion. I figured it was for the best until emotions have calmed down.”

  I stood up. “We need to get him!” I said. “Jasper will be able to show us which one of us he belongs to.” I looked over at Alice. I had a perfectly reasonable plan. Alice and I would each sit on one side of the room. Brenda would fetch Jasper and put him in the center. Then we would each call to him. There could be no cheating with treats or food. Jasper would simply look at us each and decide which one of us was his true owner.

  There was not a doubt in my mind that he would choose me.

  Alice shook her head and told me to sit down. “Please, Georgina, we can talk about this rationally.” I had to laugh a little. She was scared that if we tried my idea, she would lose. That had to be the only reason she wasn’t agreeing to it.

  I stubbornly refused to talk about it. “I am Jasper’s rightful owner,” I said, keeping my head up. “And I have actual proof. Everyone in this town knows he is my dog. I have the adoption papers. I have photos of us together. He has lived with me for two years. What do you have?”

  Alice took this in for a few moments and nodded a little. She reached into her purse and pulled out what looked to be a batch of photos. I stood, very still, with my heart in my chest while she told me to sit down at the dining table. “You wanted proof,” she said gently as she pushed the photographs across the table to me. “Well, here it is.”

  My fingers reached out for the photos as though my hands were possessed, not really part of my body. I didn’t want to look. But I needed to. I couldn’t stop myself. “What are these?” I whispered.

  Alice leaned back. She seemed a little nervous. Whether it was because of my reaction or something else, I wasn’t sure. “These are photos of Jasper,” she said. “From the day I got him from the breeder to the day he ran away.”

  The photos seemed sticky. I realized, now that we mostly view photos on screens, that I hadn’t held an actual printed one in my hands for years, possibly. I made a thumb print on the edge of the first one. The most recent. A black and white Border Collie who only looked slightly younger than Jasper was now. My breath caught in my throat when I saw the ones that went back to when Jasper was just a pup. So tiny that I would have been able to pick him up and carry him around like he was a newborn baby. “I always wondered what he looked like when he was so young,” I murmured. I felt a stab of jealousy that this woman had a relationship with my dog that I had never been able to have. And there were other things in the photo that made me feel strangely sad as well. Beds that Jasper was curled up on that he clearly loved, but that looked unfamiliar to me, chew toys and dog bowls that I had never seen but which were clearly a big part of his life.

  I stared at the photos. Was Alice telling the truth? The photos were too realistic to be Photoshopped. And if the dog in them wasn’t Jasper, it was a very good copy of him. When I saw a clear photo of his back, I knew it was him. The zig zag of the black and white up his spine.

  He looked happy. I glanced away. Handed the photos back to Alice.

  “What I don’t understand is how you could have let such a good dog as Jasper run away.”

  She paused for a moment and then laughed gently.

  “He has a mind of his own, George, as I am sure you know. He likes to do naughty things like run away. I always had to be careful of leaving any doors open in case he bolted. The house, the car…”

  I didn’t want to admit that it was true. He’d tried such a stunt on me just a few days earlier, running from the car when I had parked at the base of the mountains. The memory had been fuzzy until then, but now it came back to me. I still couldn’t remember the night on the roof, though. I was getting more and more frustrated about it. Just a blank wall in my mind that I couldn’t put any color or shape to.

  I wasn’t going to let Alice get away with such a light explanation, though. Sure, Jasper liked to run away. Yes, he could misbehave a lot. But whose fault was that? “Well, maybe if you had trained him better…” I said. I didn’t like how scolding, how heavy with blame my voice was. I was starting to sound like the people at the business owners’ meeting who had all blamed me for Lleyton’s death.

  Alice, to her credit, remained cool. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, she wasn’t quite the monster I had made her out to be. Or hoped she would be. “I tried all the schools,” she explained patiently. “I did the right things. Took him to puppy school. Got him socialized with other dogs. Called in the dog obedience experts. Nothing could tame his determined nature.”

  I nodded at her. I even let out a reluctant smile. “It’s not like he’s a bad dog, is it?” I asked. “It’s more that he just has a mind of his own.” I mused on it for a moment. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I would have him any other way.” I stopped talking when I realized that I might not be able to have him at all. The photos were still on the table—the photos that proved that Jasper wasn’t really mine at
all. That I had only been looking after him for a short time.

  “And how did you find me?” I asked Alice.

  She shot a look at Brenda and Brenda looked away with a guilty expression. “Pure luck,” Alice explained. “I was in town yesterday, shopping for a party I’m having this weekend. I saw Brenda—" She nodded in Brenda’s direction “—walking Jasper down the street. I was overjoyed. I ran up to them and asked, was it really true, was this really my dog I was seeing? Brenda told me that she was only taking care of the dog while the owner was in hospital. So…”

  She stopped speaking, while I shot Brenda a glare that could have cut ice. So that morning when Brenda had phoned me in the hospital, telling me not to worry because Jasper was okay, had been total fiction. When really, behind my back, she was helping Alice to take Jasper from me. I was fuming. But in reality, it wasn’t Brenda’s fault. If Alice really wanted Jasper back, then nothing was going to stop her.

  “I’m sorry to have to do this, Georgina,” Alice said, looking at her hands. “I know it is hard. Part of me was hoping that you wouldn’t be so lovely.” She finally looked up at me. “But Jasper is my dog.”

  “That doesn’t change the fact that I have been looking after him for the last two years” I said, feeling my eyes welling up.

  “Of course it doesn’t,” Alice said kindly. “And I thank you so, so much for that, Georgina.” She held her hand to her heart and looked like she was praying. “I will never be able to thank you enough or repay you for what you have done. Keeping Jasper fed and happy and most of all, loved…”

  “But you want him back,” I whispered.

  Cathy didn’t look happy. She was standing near my bed, her arms crossed and her lipsticked mouth in a thin, shiny line. It was the first time I had seen her not even attempt a smile.

  “What? I came back, didn’t I?” I said, climbing back into the bed. At least it was warm inside the hospital. Brenda had given me a ride back and had offered me a coat, but she’s about a foot shorter than I am and all her sleeves only come up to my elbows.