Death at the Dog Wedding

by Stacey Alabaster

But I thought I might be able to pull a little bit of info out of him, if I was just charming enough. “Come on, just a tidbit,” I said with a flirtatious wink. My ratty hair may have undermined my charms that morning however. I leaned in and touched his arm a little, to see if that would work. “What about that info I gave you? Did you chase that up? Have you spoken to Felicity?”

  “George,” he said, pulling away. “You know I can’t tell you anything. Even if I wanted to.”

  Huh. That meant he had nothing. At least I was going to walk away from the conversation with that. Maybe the Pottsville police were just as much in the dark as I was. I glanced at the floor where Massie was sulking, looking up at me with sad eyes. No wonder. She missed Maxine. If no one else was going to help solve her owner’s murder, it was going to have to fall on my shoulders. I couldn’t let Massie down.

  “Brenda, I’m taking Massie for a walk!” I called out, grabbing the leash. Brenda would just need to make do.

  I wasn’t used to walking such a well-behaved dog. My mouth practically dropped open when we arrived at a set of traffic lights and Massie sat down to patiently wait for the traffic to pass. She didn’t even make a single move to start walking again until every car was gone and the road was clear, and even then she waited for my command. She walked along side me in a nice little canter, never pulling on the leash and always staying exactly a foot beside me. When I spotted another dog on the other side of the road, I braced myself to get pulled across as she tried to get to the other dog to make friends. Just as Jasper had done a hundred times, almost pulling my shoulder out of its socket each time. But instead, Massie barely even acknowledged the other dog—who was barking at her—and instead trotted along happily with her nose in the air.

  Maybe I am giving the wrong dog up for adoption, I thought jokingly. If Jasper knew what I was thinking, he would be jealous…. Well, if he was capable of feeling any emotion at that point, he would be.

  When another human passed us, I braced for Massie to jump onto the man and embarrass me, but she just glanced at him and kept on walking. I almost—almost—didn’t want to find another home for Massie. But, that was what I had come out to do. I just figured her new owners, whoever they were, were going to be very lucky people.

  There was a man—young, about twenty-four or so—jogging toward us. Massie’s ears pricked up and she got excited as the man approached. Hmm, this was the first time I had seen her acknowledge another person or dog with any interest. I got a little worried. Maybe her good behavior up until that point had only been a fluke.

  The man—sweaty and slightly out of breath—stopped and took out his earphones, glancing at Massie in surprise.

  “Hey, I recognize that dog,” he said, taking a step backward almost like he was frightened.

  “Don’t worry, she isn’t going to hurt you,” I said. Massie sat down patiently and didn’t make a move. “She’s just about the most well-behaved, gentle dog you’ve ever met in your life.”

  “I know who she is. She was always hanging around the yoga studio. I hate when people bring their dogs to work and make you interact with them,” he said with derision.

  I tried to ignore that comment, but in the end, I couldn’t bite my tongue. “Well, I think dogs can really brighten up a work place. Act as stress relief even! Plus, when they are a very social dog, like my dog Jasper, it doesn’t seem right to leave them at home all day when he could be…” I caught the look on the guy’s face and realized I’d been rambling. “Ahem.” I pulled my thoughts together. “So you say you recognize this dog, from where you work?” That was interesting.

  “The place I used to work,” he said bitterly, staring down at Massie with suspicious eyes. “She belonged to the owner.”

  “You worked for Maxine?” I asked, standing up straight. Whoa. I’d just about hit the jackpot. I’d only come out to find a new owner for Massie—now, I might be about to find out the identity of her old owner’s killer.

  “What’s your name?” I asked as the man started to walk away from us, down the sidewalk toward the front door of a house. I frowned. “Is this where you live?”

  “Ollie. And yes,” he said bluntly as I started to follow him.

  “Come on, Massie,” I whispered, pulling her back to her feet. I couldn’t let this guy get away so easily.

  “Where do you work? With Maxine?” I asked, trying to get in through the front door.

  “Like I said, I used to,” he mumbled, making a move like he was about to close the door on us. “I used to.”

  “Why did you leave?” I called out frantically, hoping that Massie might pull a Jasper and run into the house without permission, causing a scene and thus an excuse to stay a little longer. But she was far too well-behaved for that. I guess you can’t have everything you want.

  “I’d had enough of that joint,” he said, pushing on the door so that I couldn’t even see inside. It looked like he had expensive furniture though, and the house looked newly renovated. “Like I said, having a dog around didn’t help.”

  “So you quit?”

  “Yes,” he said, finally shutting the door on me.

  “Well, Massie,” I said once we’d been thrown out onto the street. “Looks like not everyone loves you quite as much as I do.” What had Ollie’s problem been, though? I knelt down to pet her, to reassure her that she was still a good girl. “If only you could talk to me, hey, girl? Tell me what you really think of that guy.”

  “Where to now?” I asked her as we wandered back onto the street. “We still need to find a home for you, and I think Ollie’s house was a definite no.”

  She just wagged her tail at me. But then she did something I wasn’t expecting. I watched in horror while she spun around a few times to find the right spot, and then started to squat.

  “No, Massie, don’t!” I gasped. We were still in the front of Ollie’s house and I didn’t have a baggie with me. I just stood there and watched in horror as she unleashed her business right on Ollie’s lawn.

  The front door opened and a sweaty head peeked out. “What the…”

  “Come on, Massie, let’s go!”

  Well. Maybe not so well behaved after all.

  Adam was waiting for me on my front lawn when I got home. An exhausted looking Jasper was laying before him on his belly, his ears and eyes still droopy but this time, he looked tired from exercise, not just depression, which was something. “Surprised you managed to get him to go for a walk,” I commented. It must have been a long one too, by the looks of it.

  Adam shook his head. “He didn’t go for a walk,” he said, tossing the leash in the air and catching it again.

  Right. So that was just Jasper’s natural state these days. He didn’t even leap up to greet me. No jumping up onto my chest, slobbering against my cheek. I never thought I’d miss it.

  “Even Felicity had no suggestions,” Adam commented offhandedly.

  I took the leash off Massie and sat a bowl of water in front of her. “Wait a minute—you spoke to Felicity?”

  Once Massie had finished drinking, she walked over to Jasper, giving him a little sniff before she tried to nudge his head with hers. She wanted to play; he was having none of it.

  Adam shrugged. “Sure. Why is that so surprising to you?”

  “Well, she’s ignoring all my calls,” I said, placing my hands on my hips.

  Adam’s eyebrows shot up. “You’ve tried to call Felicity? What for?”

  I shifted from one foot to the next. “To prove to you that you were wrong about the source of Jasper’s depression. Anyway, that’s not the point. The point is that Felicity is ignoring everyone’s calls—even the police, so I’ve heard!” I mean, I hadn’t heard that precisely, but Ryan had made it clear that the police knew nothing so I had to assume that they hadn’t been in contact with Felicity either. She was only making herself look guiltier.

  And yet, she was talking to Adam. They were keeping something from me. I just needed to find out what it was.

 
; Chapter 5

  I paced back and forth, in front of my audience, tapping the marker against the palm of my hand while I formed my hypothesis.

  “There can be only one reason why Felicity is hiding from me, unwilling to take any of my calls—or those of the police. She is guilty. Of murder.”

  I turned back to the dry erase board and finished my sketch of Felicity. It was all done except for the tiny beauty mark on her chin, which I added. “There. The perfect suspect, don’t you agree?”

  I spun around to receive my answer.

  The three dogs sitting before me were unable to give an opinion on this important matter, nor where they able to critique my artwork. Instead, I just got a little whimper and the smallest little yap from my smallest dog, before Casper flopped back down and shut her eyes again. “Well, you’ll see in the end,” I said, quickly putting the marker away and pulling a sheet over the dry erase board when I heard Adam’s truck pull up into the driveway.

  “I’ve got a half-hour before work,” Adam said, letting himself in. Technically, we did not live together. He had an apartment of his own on the other side of town. But he had a key and spent about as much time at my house as he had when we were married. “So I thought I’d come by and help you with the dogs.”

  Uh-oh. This was not going to work. I had a plan and Adam coming along would only ruin it. I caught the sheet slipping off the board out of the corner of my eye. Time to get him out of there.

  “It’s okay,” I said, backing him down the hallway in the direction he had come. Massie and Jasper both chased after us, not wanting Adam to go by the looks of it, and I ended up tripping over Massie, who then leapt up onto my chest. “I don’t need your help this afternoon.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure? Because you look like you’re struggling there.” He reached out to help me to my feet, and since I was wearing heels, I reluctantly took it.

  But it was time to cut the cord, so to speak. It was clear what Adam’s motives were for always being at my house, offering to help out—he wanted to show me that he could be a good husband to me again—but I needed to set boundaries. Besides, I was going somewhere that I really didn’t want him to know about. “I can take care of them myself.”

  “Suit yourself then.”

  Casper was already sleeping in her little dog bed so I decided just to take the other two with me. Massie and Jasper would be more than enough to handle on their own and I’d struggle to control them both. Not that I would ever admit that to Adam. At least he’d be at work all evening so there would be no chance of us running into each other.

  I was hoping that Massie might be a good influence on Jasper—that he’d see how good she was on the leash and fall into line behind her. But if anything, Jasper was a bad influence on Massie. She saw the way he pulled on the leash and controlled me and seemed to find it amusing. She then decided to join in, almost as though she was trying to impress Jasper—or at least, outdo him.

  Great. Now I had two misbehaving dogs to try and cross the busy roads with. Maybe I should have accepted that offer of help from Adam.

  At least Jasper had a bit more energy about him. I had to try and find the positives. He finally seemed to have warmed to Massie.

  A passerby looked at me in pity. “I used to be a professional dog walker,” she said, shaking her head. “It can be rough trying to walk strangers’ dogs. They have no respect for you, do they?”

  I didn’t bother to mention that one of the dogs was in fact mine and the other one was in my care. I decided that there must be something about me—a failing in my character?—that was just unable to install a sense of authority. These dogs were walking all over me. I had the same problem at work, I realized, thinking about how little respect Brenda had for my authority. And I have the same problem at home…I really need to ask Adam to give back his key. But where would he go? He was a poor bachelor and there was no chance of him remarrying any time soon. He would miss the creature comforts of a real house and the warmth if I told him to stop coming over.

  Somehow, we had wandered toward the supermarket where Adam worked. Massie pulled on the leash and started to eat an abandoned bagel off the pavement. I tried to stop her but she had already gulped it down, cream cheese and all. Was that good for dogs? Jasper looked at the ground with annoyance that he had missed out on this delicious piece of street bread. I tried to pull them both away from the crumbs and back onto the sidewalk before they found any more trash to eat and hoped that Adam was too busy bagging groceries to notice us.

  I spotted Adam’s truck outside—large and green and banged up on the side. Not a new truck by any stretch. In fact, it had a bad habit of breaking down right when you needed it to work the most. “Now that would be handy right now,” I said, gazing down at the two dogs. Instead of trying to wrangle them the rest of the way to Felicity’s house, I could just pop them in the back of the truck and drive over.

  Adam had been working at the supermarket for about five months. Ever since he’d turned up out of the blue and made himself a fixture in my life again after a long absence. He was forty, which was on the old side for a supermarket bagger, but Adam had always had a transient nature about him, and he’d never really held down the sort of job that you needed to commit to. So it didn’t surprise me that he had found himself a job that he could literally walk out on at any time. That also meant he could walk out of our lives again. I tried not to think about that fact too much, but I also tried not to grow too attached to having him around. I knew that any day, he could disappear again, just as quickly as he had appeared in the first place.

  I figured his shift wouldn’t end until 8pm so it wouldn’t be a problem if I borrowed the car for an hour or so and then returned it. I could even offer to pick him up when he was finished and drop him home. Make up for the awkwardness between us earlier.

  Massie had sniffed something in the air and was frantically trying to figure out where the item was hiding, pulling on the leash. Oh no. There was another abandoned bagel. She dragged me to another discarded piece of bread. What was going on there that day? Had someone just decided that they’d bought too many bagels and so would throw them onto the side of the road? They could have at least popped them into the trash.

  “Oh darn,” I said, stomping my feet. Adam had left the supermarket and climbed into his truck and I was too late to stop him. I jumped up and down and flailed my arms to see if I could stop him, but it was too late. What was he doing leaving work so early? He’d told me that he was going to be there all night.

  Ah well. Maybe the supermarket was just quiet so they let him go home early. Or maybe he got his schedule mixed up.

  “I guess we are walking to Felicity’s then,” I said with a sigh, dragging the two dogs away from the sidewalk. But they ended up walking me in the end—they seemed to have teamed up against me and now I was being overpowered.

  Jasper knew the way well, seeing as it was the site of all his playdates with Flora. I didn’t know how he was going to react to being so close to Flora again—maybe seeing her would only make him fall into a deep depression again.

  But he seemed more than eager to get to her house, almost pulling me face-first onto the concrete as I struggled to keep up. Massie was running as well as we sprinted up the hill to Felicity’s house. I’d broken out in a sweat by the time I got close to the top. I cursed the fact that Adam had driven off and left us stranded in the parking lot.

  Jasper began to bark at a familiar sight. At first, I thought he was just pleased to be close to Flora again. But that wasn’t it. It was the vehicle that he was barking at.

  Hang on. This couldn’t be right.

  There was a truck, large and green, sitting outside Felicity’s house.

  Maybe there were two of them. But two trucks the same model, the same color, with the same scratch and rust stains down the side?

  I started to stomp up the driveway to the door, intending to confront them and ask what was going on, and then thought better of
it.

  I hung back and huddled down in the bushes a little, staying far enough away from the windows so that we wouldn’t be spotted.

  Massie was tugging on the leash to pull me away, as though she was saying, you shouldn’t spy. You might see something you really don’t want to see.

  But I ignored Massie. I should have known that I only ever ignore a dog’s instincts at my own peril.

  And soon I did see something I didn’t want to see. It was dark, and the lights weren’t on inside. But I saw a little spark through the windows and suddenly there were two small lights bobbing just above the kitchen table.

  A romantic dinner. Two candles in the middle of the table.

  I made a few justifications in my head. Maybe Adam was just visiting before whatever date it was that Felicity has planned. Maybe he was just making a grocery delivery. After all, it was too early for a date, wasn’t it? It was only 5pm.

  But then Adam leaned forward and kissed her on the lips. I gasped. There was a stabbing in my stomach like I was about to be sick.

  “Come on, Massie. Come on, Jasper,” I shouted, dragging them away

  Jasper howled.

  I was folding sheets of tissue paper when a sad sight walked into the craft store.

  He looked like he hadn’t slept since the wedding reception. I frowned. Was he wearing the same shirt he’d been in the last time I’d seen him?

  Elliot leaned in and lowered his voice. “Sorry for dropping in like this. I didn’t know where else to turn, George. It’s just that…I heard that you were the person to ask about this kind of thing,” he said, giving me a meaningful glance. It was also full of hope. Hope that said, tell me you know what happened to my friend, tell me that you can help me.

  I knew firsthand that the police wouldn’t be giving him any info.

  “Look,” I said gently, folding up my last sheet. “I am looking into it, okay? But you can’t tell everyone. Especially not the police,” I said pointedly.