Death at the Dog Wedding

by Stacey Alabaster

  “Adam. I don’t want you to marry Felicity.”

  Chapter 12

  So that’s it, I thought, staring up at the bedroom ceiling bleakly. Adam really is engaged to someone else.

  When I’d called out to him the night before, he had simply stared back at me for a few moments, looking sad, before he’d left, not saying a single thing.

  “Did any of that really happen?” I thought. Then I decided firmly that no, it had not.

  I shut my eyes and tried not to think about it. Adam was in the past, after all. Why couldn’t I just let it go? We hadn’t been married for over ten years.

  Why did he have to turn back up in my life after all these years? I thought angrily. I was better off without him.

  I closed my eyes and hoped I’d fall back asleep. It sounded like there were trucks outside. There was a grinding noise and the beeping sound of a truck backing up. But I didn’t pay too much attention to it.

  Jasper licked my hand to let me know he was hungry and that I’d stayed in bed too long. I cracked open the can of dog food and emptied it into his bowl. “You’ve got your appetite back?” I asked in surprise as he started to gobble it up. “I take it you are over Flora then, boy?”

  Jasper’s ears perked up at the name “Flora.” He sat down and ignored his food for a moment, excitedly casting a look at his leash hanging over the door handle.

  “Really?” I asked, looking down at him. Seemed as though he wasn’t as over his lost love as I had assumed. “At least eat your food first before I take you outside.”

  I waited for the bowl to be clean before I fetched the leash and opened the back door, telling him to do his business first before we started out on our walk. Did he really want to go and visit Flora?

  My stomach turned a little as I thought about what the future might entail. If Adam and Felicity married, did that mean he would move into her house? Would Jasper go to visit them—the happy little family of Adam, Felicity, and Flora? He might never want to come home again. He might want to live with them full-time.

  “George?” I heard a voice calling out from the road nearby my house. I spun around in surprise and squinted to see who it was.

  “Ollie?” I asked in surprise, making sure Jasper was all right before I walked over to him. “What are you doing here?”

  I stopped when I saw that he was the source of the noise that had woken me up that morning. He was wearing a hard hat and directing the road workers.

  There was a truck, backed up, pouring cement into the hole

  “Told you we would get this taken care of,” Ollie said with a bright smile.

  “Sure,” I said in disbelief. “I just didn’t think that you actually meant it. I thought it took months for the local government to get anything sorted out.”

  “Well, when you told me that your dogs might get hurt, that made me move things along a lot more swiftly,” Ollie said with a shrug.

  “Really? I-I didn’t think that you were the biggest fan of dogs,” I said.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “The way you reacted to Massie that day we ran into you,” I said.

  Ollie sighed. “I guess I should apologize for that,” he said. “To be fair, I was only going off secondhand info about that dog.”

  I remembered that he worked at the yoga studio where Felicity had been a regular at one point. She must have told him that Massie was a dangerous dog as well.

  “We’re going to need access to your property for the day,” Ollie said, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Yeah, that’s fine.”

  “I just need you to sign something, giving us permission,” Ollie said, passing me a form. “I need to sign it as well.”

  I watched him print his own name. It was such neat writing, it could have been a font generated by a computer.

  “I need your help, okay? I didn’t know who else to turn to.”

  Brenda shoved the cash register shut and shook her head. “No. No way.”

  “I promise this will not involve going outside or swallowing any bugs,” I said, pacing across the front of the shop. “It’s just that my head has been a little foggy lately. I need some extra assistance. I can’t trust my own judgement lately.” I filled her in on everything that had happened, up to Ollie arriving at my house that morning, and me seeing his handwriting.

  “So Ollie’s name was not on the list,” Brenda asked, musing it over as she leaned forward on the counter.

  I shook my head. “That’s right. But why would he write Maxine’s name in?” That was the part I couldn’t figure out.

  Brenda was tapping the tips of her fingers against the glass. “He must have gotten to the ceremony early. Then written in Maxine’s name, and ticked it off, so that it looked as though she was there…”

  “But why would he do that?”

  “Because he wanted it to look like Maxine checked in on the day. So that everyone would think she was at the ceremony.”

  “But she wasn’t,” I whispered.

  And neither was Ollie.

  I walked through the parking lot expecting to find a happy man at the end of his shift. But he was sitting on the stoop of the market, looking a little downtrodden.

  Adam barely even raised his head as I approached.

  “You don’t look too happy for a recently engaged man,” I said, kicking the ground a little, trying to lighten the mood. “Don’t tell me there is trouble in paradise already?”

  He barely lifted his head. “Felicity said no.”

  He’d said it so quietly that I wasn’t even sure I had heard him correctly, but it seemed in very bad taste to ask him to repeat it. I just stood there in silence for what felt like hours until it got too awkward.

  “I—um, I don’t know if this is going to help at all, but I have something to tell you,” I said.

  Adam didn’t seem that interested in listening to what I had to say.

  “I know that Felicity is innocent.”

  He peered up at me. “So, you’re here to tell me that I was right all along? Are you going to apologize for all the trouble you caused? Thanks to you, Felicity turned down my proposal. She said that there is too much drama going on with my ex-wife and she didn’t want to get in the middle of anything.”

  I gulped. That seemed a little unfair, to blame me for the engagement not going ahead. If they truly loved each other, surely I wouldn’t be able to stop them.

  I waited for a moment before I replied. “Some new information has come to light.”

  Adam finally stood up. “I’m not sure I want to hear it, George.”

  “I think I know who killed Maxine,” I said, standing in front of him so that he couldn’t get to his truck. Not without pushing me over, anyway.

  “And what does that have to do with me?” he said. Geez, it looked like all the light had gone out of his eyes. It seemed like it wasn’t only Jasper who was dealing with love sickness. I was suddenly flooded with guilt. Was I really the reason that Adam looked this sad? I’d never meant for him to get hurt. I’d only been trying to help him in my own stupid way. I’d thought I was saving him.

  “Adam. It was Elliot.”

  “Elliot was at the wedding,” Adam said flatly. “So, it couldn’t have been him. We never heard the gunshot, remember?”

  But maybe I had been right all along. And it was Adam who was wrong?

  “There might be something YOU are missing, Adam,” I said, feeling a little cocky. “Think about it, Adam. Elliot is the one who caused all that chaos on the day. He had the German Shepard that started the barking. Remember when all the dogs went crazy and started barking at each other and it was so noisy that we couldn’t hear anything? That was when the birds flew out of the trees. And why did they fly out of the trees? Because there was a gunshot in the woods.”

  Adam mulled it over for a moment. “You’re right,” he finally replied, though it looked like it physically pained him to admit it.

  “What if Ollie and Elliot were working
together?”

  Adam stood up quickly. “What about Massie?”

  I took a step back. “I— He wouldn’t do anything to hurt Massie, would he?”

  But all of a sudden, I wasn’t so sure. “Adam, please. I know you don’t want to help me right now. Or even look at me or talk to me, by the looks of things. But this is important. Massie could be in trouble. We need to rescue her.”

  Chapter 13

  “I can’t believe he doesn’t even let Massie indoors at night!” I whispered frantically when I saw her huddling in her kennel, trying to get warm. I knew that Elliot kept her outside during the day, but I had assumed he let her in at night.

  “Not all dogs are as pampered as yours,” Adam said. “Massie has a thick coat. Collies are built for the outdoors.”

  “I would still let her sleep inside,” I said, unimpressed as we approached Massie.

  Adam put a hand over her mouth so that she wouldn’t make a noise.

  “You stay out here with Massie,” I said, moving toward the door. “Take her back to the truck with you. I am just going to make sure the coast is clear.”

  The lights were off so all I needed to do was double-check that Elliot wasn’t home and that we hadn’t been spotted. I never could have guessed what was waiting for me at the side of the house.

  Elliot. Holding the same weapon he had used to kill Maxine.

  He was pointing the gun right at my chest. “Hello, George,” he said. “Why don’t you come with me?”

  I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. They were the one part of my body that could still move, considering I was tied to a chair. I glanced at the sign that said “Be Alive Yoga,” and hoped it wouldn’t prove to be ironic. If I did survive, I was going to have to tell Meg that my answer to her offer of employment was a fat ’no.’

  “So, when did your ‘good friend’ Maxine fire you?” I asked Elliot. “Was it when she found you stealing from the till? Or was it after you blamed Ollie for it and got him fired as well?”

  Elliot looked incensed. “Hey. I fixed Ollie up with a sweet job at the roads department, okay?”

  I rolled my eyes again. “That hardly came for free,” I said. “That was on the condition that he write Maxine’s name on the registry. And that he take the fall for the whole thing. Made it look like she was shot at the wedding when it really happened before. Just tell me, Elliot—why did you want Maxine killed so badly? Was it because she discovered that it was really you who stole the money? And she was about to bring your comfortable life crashing down?”

  Elliot snickered a little. “She had no right to fire me,” he said. “She only did it because I didn’t like her stupid dog being here every day. She was the worst boss to work for. She had it coming.”

  “No one deserves to die for bringing their dog to work, Elliot,” I said.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Let me guess, you’re one of those bosses who does that?”

  I certainly hoped Brenda wasn’t going to snap and murder me any time soon.

  “And here I was thinking that you were flirting with me.” I shook my head, the only part of my body that was still able to move. “When all along, you were only trying to keep me off the scent.”

  But it had been Elliot who had warned me to be on the look out for someone who worked for Maxine.

  Elliot smiled a little and then peered at me. “Who said I couldn’t be doing both?” he asked. He shrugged a little and this time, he didn’t seem so scary. “It’s a shame things had to turn out this way, George. I never wanted you to wind up getting hurt.” He picked up the gun again. Right. Back to being scary then.

  “People will be searching for me,” I said.

  “Why?” Elliot snapped and cocked the gun at me again. “Who knows you’re here?”

  I gulped. I didn’t want him to know that Adam had been with me at the house. That would give away the fact that other people knew about his guilt. I had to convince him that I was the only one who knew. That was my only way of escaping with my life.

  “No one,” I said, lying but acting contrite, like I was admitting defeat. “You are right, Elliot. No one knows I am here.”

  “So you never told anyone else what you discovered?”

  I shook my head. “You saw me the other day, Elliot. You saw how convinced I was that Felicity was guilty. As far as everyone else is concerned, that’s still the truth…” I certainly knew how much he enjoyed framing people for his crimes.

  I saw the look come over his face—he was considering something. I wasted no time jumping on it, deciding to use it to my advantage while he was still in a state of confusion.

  “Elliot. I can help you,” I said, trying my best not to sound too desperate. I needed to sound calm, competent, like somebody he could trust.

  “Help me how?” he asked slowly.

  “We can convince everyone that Felicity is guilty. No one ever needs to know that it was really you,” I said.

  “How?” He was paying full attention now.

  “You saw the evidence I had,” I said with confidence.

  “Yes, I did,” he said with a low laugh. “It was hardly comprehensive, was it? You couldn’t even convince your ex-husband that she was guilty.”

  I bit my lip and struggled to think for a moment.

  “I have an in,” I said, as an idea suddenly came to me.

  “An in with who?”

  “With the police department,” I said. “Ryan trusts me,” I said as I carefully watched Elliot’s face. He wanted to trust me. He was eager to believe whatever could help him get off the hook. I just had to sell it convincingly enough. My life was at stake.

  “He will believe what I tell him. Trust me.”

  “Are the two of you…?” Elliot didn’t quite finish his sentence.

  I nodded. “Yes. We are very close. Like that,” I added, to make sure he knew what I meant. “Believe me, Ryan does not want to upset or disappoint me…” But he still didn’t seem completely convinced. I decided to try a different tactic.

  “Hey, you know I want to see Felicity go down for this as much as you do,” I said, a little surprised at the conviction in my voice. Now I really was selling it.

  And this time, Elliot believed me.

  He nodded. “I saw you the other day. Crazed with jealousy,” he said, putting the gun down. “We can help each other, George. But you have to prove something to me right now…”

  The door to the studio burst open.

  Adam was breathless. Before Elliot even had time to react, Adam had pushed him over and pinned him to the ground, tying Elliot’s hands behind his back before he untied mine. Within a few moments, the studio was full of people and dogs I knew—Brenda, Felicity, Flora, Massie, Jasper, and Ryan—all looking for me. I couldn’t help but tear up a little.

  I stood up and rubbed my wrists. “I never thought you’d send a full search party out for me like this.”

  “I was worried,” Adam said, pulling me in for a hug.

  But there was something I needed to tell him. Before things got even more confusing and messed up.

  “Adam, if you really want to marry Felicity, then I think you should.” He nodded and then gave me a small peck on the forehead, like it was a kiss good-bye.

  He left, the ring in his pocket.

  Epilogue

  One Month Later

  Last time we had been in this park, it had been for a dog wedding. This time, we were celebrating a human engagement.

  “Are you sure you actually want to be here?” Ryan asked as he opened the car door for me and waited as I climbed out.

  I nodded but I took my time as I walked toward the picnic area in the center, where the human couple were waiting. I slipped my arm through his. “It’s a lot easier with you here by my side for moral support anyway.”

  “Any time,” he said, placing his hand over mine and shooting me a grin. I took a deep breath. It still felt surreal, and even looking and seeing the banner which read “Congratulations to Felicity and A
dam” didn’t make it seem any more real.

  Felicity came up and cleared her throat. “It is good to see you here, George.”

  “I was surprised to be invited,” I said as I checked off my name on the register.

  “Yes, well, you are important to Adam,” Felicity said tensely.

  She was trying though, I had to at least give her that.

  “I want to do the right thing as well,” I said. “I think that Jasper and Flora should get back together. Maybe we should even think about rescheduling the wedding.”

  Felicity looked as though I was playing a prank on her. “Why would you want that?” she asked suspiciously. “You know that would mean that Jasper would spend more time at our house?”

  I gulped and nodded. “Sure,” I said, exhaling deeply. “But I want Jasper to be happy. That is more important than my sense of pride.” I waited to see if Flora’s happiness was more important to Felicity than her own sense of pride.

  “Is Jasper here?” Felicity asked, surprised.

  I nodded and whistled for him to join me. Massie came along as well. Until I could find a proper, loving home for her, she was going to be living with me.

  But something strange happened. Flora took one look at Jasper and then ran off in the opposite direction. I shrugged at Ryan. “Oh well, I tried.”

  However, when I turned my head to stare into the sunset, I noticed that Jasper was cuddling up to a new love—Massie. I couldn’t help but laugh. I reached over and gently took Ryan’s hand. He was surprised at first, then smiled. If Jasper could move on, I could too.

  Thanks for reading Death at a Dog Wedding. I hope you enjoyed the story. If you did, it would be awesome if you left a review for me on Amazon and/or Goodreads.

  At the end of the book, I have included a preview of the next book in the series, Crafts, Crimes, and Country Clubs. After you read the preview, you can download the book on Amazon.

  Crafts, Crimes, and Country Clubs here: