My mother wagged a finger at me. “Keep reading.”
“Okay,” I said scanning the newsy message for salient details. “So, Annette’s worried about her daughter giving birth the same weekend as some wedding she’s traveling to.” I looked up from the tiny text that was straining my eyes. “Is that it, or is there some hidden meaning lurking between the lines?”
Marietta snatched her phone back. “Don’t be obtuse. You know what wedding she’s referring to, Gina Campanella’s.”
Egads. It was about that stupid wedding again. “I take it she received an invitation?”
“Her husband was a producer on Chad’s last movie, so Gina was probably obligated to include them.”
“Okay,” I said, hating that my mother kept plunking me down in the middle of this wedding invitation drama. “Hopefully her daughter can wait until after Gina and Chad’s big day.”
Pursing her mouth, my mother leaned back in her chair. “Of course, that would be ideal. But that’s not why I wanted you to read Annette’s email.”
Of course not.
“Her daughter’s due date is June sixth, so it’s safe to assume that the wedding is that same weekend.”
I leaned back, adopting Marietta’s posture. “Probably.”
“So? Has Steve said anything about it, because I need to make plans if I’m going.”
Enough. “I wouldn’t plan on going.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Because he doesn’t want me to go with you, or—”
“Jeez, Mom. It’s not always about you.” I stood up to get some water. “I’m not going, either.”
She trotted after me in her stilettos. “What do you mean you’re not going? It’s going to be the event of the summer.”
“I know you think it’s a big deal,” I said, filling a tumbler at the tap. “But these aren’t friends of mine, so I’m just fine with staying home.”
Gram turned from the carrot she had been peeling. “Are you saying Stevie’s going by himself?”
I didn’t have the answer to that question. “Maybe.”
“Maybe!” Marietta spun me around to face her, splashing water on my khakis. “Is he going or isn’t he?”
“I don’t know. He hasn’t told me.”
“Chah-maine, it’s been a week and you still haven’t talked to him about this?”
I slammed the tumbler down on the counter, sloshing more water on myself. “I’ve been busy, okay?”
“Well, you don’t need to get all huffy about it.” My mother aimed a tapered index finger at me. “What you need to do is clear the air with that man.”
I’d had all the air clearing I could stomach in a twenty-four hour period. “Right.”
“Speaking of which,” Gram said to her daughter, “how did it go last night with Barry and Renee?”
Marietta’s blood red lips curled. “Like a champ. Renee now has some closure, and Barry can be a little more comfortable in her presence. And maybe someday the three of us could be friends.”
“Friends, right.” She needed to become a better actress if she expected us to believe that she had suddenly developed some empathy about the broken heart of an ex-girlfriend.
No, what my image-conscious mother had conducted was a two-pronged attack for personal and professional damage control.
Are you that desperate for good press or that afraid of suffering the same humiliation as Renee?
As if reading my mind, Gram gave me a parental glare. “That’s actually very good news since you’re all going to be living here. Although I was a little worried about you springing that meetup on him.”
Smiling with satisfaction at her reflection in the window, Marietta tucked back a stray wisp of hair. “No need to worry, Mama. Everything’s been smoothed over.”
And just in time for the feature article Renee was supposed to write for tomorrow’s Gazette.
The end might justify the means in the world of Marietta Moreau, but that didn’t mean I had to hang with her there tonight.
“Oh, look at the time. Sorry about dinner, Gram, but I should probably go pack Fozzie’s things.”
“Somebody called, huh?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m meeting her and, I’m assuming, a kid or two at the park. If everyone gets along, I probably won’t have a dog after tonight.”
Marietta took a sip from my water glass. “That’s good news, right?”
“Yep, I’ve been trying to find him a permanent home for over a week.”
Gram touched the sleeve of my sweater. “I worry about you living alone in that apartment, so are you absolutely sure that you want to do that?”
I patted her hand. “I’m sure.” At least I thought I was until I received that call.
Chapter Thirty
WALKING WITH FOZZIE around the kiosk at the dog park, I took another glance at the time on my phone. Seven thirty-seven.
“I don’t know what this says about your prospective mom, but she’s late,” I told him.
Fozzie tugged at the leash, pulling me away from the circular path we’d been beating into the grass, and promptly watered a spindly bush.
“Yes, I know. You have places to go and bushes to pee on, but we need to wait here for a few more minutes.”
While he sniffed his way around the head of the trail that led to the parking lot, I searched the grounds for a family who looked like they needed a dog and came up empty.
Just when I started to think the woman who called me was going to be a no-show, my phone rang.
“Hey,” I said after I saw it was Steve.
“Hey, yourself. You home?”
“No, I’m at the dog park, waiting for someone who called me about Fozzie.”
“A little late to be there, isn’t it? It’s gonna close soon.”
“And it’s getting dark.” I looked up as the light attached to the shingled roof over the kiosk turned on as if by power of suggestion. “So, I’m about ready to consider myself stood up.”
“Did you have dinner?”
“Not really, I…” Seeing movement in front of a thicket of Douglas fir near the western fence line, I shielded my eyes from the overhead light. “Wait a minute. Someone’s coming.”
Unfortunately, not a woman. “Never mind. It’s not her.”
“Do you recognize who it is?” Steve said, his voice shifting into cop-mode.
“He’s wearing a hooded sweatshirt, so I can’t make out his face.”
“Char, I want you to go to your car right now and lock the doors.”
“There are other people around.” At least there were a few minutes ago. “But I agree, it’s time to go.” I gave Fozzie’s leash a tug. “Come on, you can pee some more when we get home.”
Only Fozzie wasn’t showing any interest in any of the nearby foliage. Standing alert like a well-trained guard dog, he growled low in his throat.
“Char, tell me what’s happening,” Steve demanded.
I tried to catch a glimpse of the man’s face so I could convince myself that Steve and Fozzie were just being alarmists. “Not much, but we definitely need to go.”
Just as I thought my thudding heart couldn’t beat any faster, Fozzie started barking, and I dropped my phone into my jacket pocket so that I could use both hands to control him. “Come on. Fozzie, let’s go.”
I looked back at the guy and could see he was now jogging toward me. “Dog, let’s go!” I yelled, sounding my own alarm.
Defiantly standing his ground, Fozzie turned up the volume of his barking.
“Criminy!” This was not the time to act macho. “Come! Now!” I grabbed Fozzie by the collar and dragged him forward with all my might.
Once I got him moving toward the safe haven of my car, the fight or flight hormones coursing through his quivering body must have dialed up a new appropriate physiological response: Run.
With my dial already at that setting, my job was clear: Get us into the car.
But first, hold on and haul ass.
Easier said
than done with sixty pounds of muscle propelling me down an uneven dirt slope in a dead run.
My lungs straining for oxygen, I willed my rubbery legs to keep pace with Fozzie’s four-legged sprint. But I only had two legs and none of his raw power.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t realized how impossible my task was before I coiled his leash around my other hand so that I couldn’t lose him. Because now that Fozzie’s nylon collar was slipping through my aching fingers, I had virtually guaranteed myself the fate of being dragged into a face-plant on the trail.
Fozzie had run off before. He could be found again.
I needed to make sure I could be found, uninjured, and preferably by Steve inside my apartment in the next ten minutes. So I twisted off two of the loops of nylon around my hand and let go of his collar, but not before an unencumbered Fozzie bounded forward and jerked me to my knees.
“Char!” a male voice behind me called out. “Are you okay?”
Ignoring the sting of my abraded knees, I wobbled to my feet like a colt walking for the first time. “I’m okay.” And since this guy knew my name, I had some hope that I’d remain okay.
A muscular arm wrapped around me, holding me close to a solid torso. With my heart battering my ribcage, I twisted around so that I could look into the face of my would-be assailant.
Son of a… “Eric!”
I jabbed my elbow into Eric Caldwell’s side so that he’d release me. “What the heck are you doing, running after me? You scared me half to death.”
“Sorry. I was just jogging back to my car. You know, getting in a little workout while the wife and kids walk the dog.”
He was wearing the sweatshirt hoodie of a typical jogger, but he had dress slacks on and wingtips, which didn’t lend an iota of believability.
“Are they here? I should introduce Fozzie to Bodie.”
“Yeah, they’re coming.”
No, they weren’t. And I didn’t see anyone moving in the dusky shadows of the park. Not good.
“Speaking of Fozzie,” Eric said, scanning the parking lot. “Where is he?”
“I’m sure he’s waiting for me at the car.”
“I don’t know. I don’t see him.” Eric took me by the elbow as if I needed an escort. “Maybe we should go look for him.”
“Thanks. I’d hate to think that he’s run off again. ‘Cause I’ve got someone interested in taking him off my hands.” Someone I had a feeling Eric had cajoled into making that call for him.
Crap. Crap. Crap. I’d walked right into a setup.
He flashed me a fake smile while negotiating us past the boulder that marked the start of the trail. “Hey, that’s good news.”
“Something that we haven’t had much of since your cousin was killed,” I said, praying that Steve was still listening.
Eric nodded as we approached our vehicles. “It’s been a rough week.”
I heard crying coming from inside his wife’s SUV, dishearteningly the only other car in the lot. “Sounds like someone’s having a rough time in there right now.”
“You’re okay,” Eric said, opening the rear passenger door, revealing his toddler strapped into a well-padded car seat. “We’re going through the terrible twos, and there’s more crying than sleeping going on right now, especially while he’s getting over a cold.”
“I know a guy who takes his kid on long drives at night just to lull him to sleep.” At least I guessed as much about the one I was looking at.
“Yeah, the motion of the car works like a charm.”
I shuddered with the certainty that Eric hadn’t stayed home Sunday night with a sick kid, like Bethany had told me. He slipped out when she was asleep and took the kid with him.
“Oops,” Eric said, shaking his head while a hiss of air escaped from his lips. “He was supposed to be on a walk with my wife, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah, you blew that. But the story you were trying so hard to sell was already blown because you’re not that good of a liar. Or human being.”
I smacked him in the shoulder. “Really? You leave your baby to sleep in the car while you beat your cousin to death?”
Eric sneered at me while sirens blared in the distance. “It was an accident. He hit his head on something when he fell.”
“But you left him there to die. I bet that wasn’t an accident.”
“You don’t know anything, and certainly can’t prove anything.”
“Yeah? I know that Colt’s death had everything to do with the jewelry that Rusty Naylor stashed in that limo.”
Eric’s gaze sharpened, his eyes gleaming in the low light like a predator’s. “Rusty said you were on to him. I thought he was just being paranoid, but now that we’ve had an opportunity to clear the air, I guess I should’ve taken him a little more seriously.”
Jeez. Now, this jerk was making air-clearing references.
Hurry up, Steve!
Eric pointed at the empty seat next to his squalling son. “Get in.”
“I’m not getting in there.”
“This isn’t optional. You have become another loose end, and I can’t afford any right now.”
“Is that what this is about? What you can or can’t afford?” I asked, trying to buy time.
“Never mind that. Get in.”
I racked my brain for what I could remember about Eric in high school. “You couldn’t afford much growing up, so you’re gonna make sure that never becomes an issue again?”
“You make it sound like money’s a bad thing. It makes life a heckuva lot easier, Charmaine. You should recognize that. I checked your credit. You can barely afford to buy a car.”
I wasn’t about to let Eric make this about me. “And you’ve got rich in-laws that are helping you. What do you need to do this for?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Shut up and get in.”
“What’d you do? Blow your money on something and you’re afraid Bethany’s going to crawl to Daddy and embarrass you?”
Eric clamped his mouth shut, filling his jaw with so much iron that it looked like he wanted to snap me like a twig.
You did. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
“This conversation is over.” He pointed at the back seat. “In the car. Now.”
“If you want me in there, you’re going to have to pick me up and throw me in there.”
“If you insist,” he said, digging his fingernails into my flabby biceps.
But despite the fact that he could easily shove me in next to his son, Eric froze, uttering a string of obscenities.
Craning my neck to see what had this big man scared stiff, I saw a long shadow move in front of my car. But it wasn’t until Fozzie crept closer that I could hear him growling over the ragged breathing blasting my eardrum.
“Everything’s okay,” Eric said in the singsong voice he had used to soothe his little boy, but Fozzie didn’t sound the least bit convinced.
Good boy. “The only way that you’re going to get out of this in one piece is for you to let go of me and step away. Now.”
“I—”
“You don’t think he remembers you? Think again.”
Eric’s hands came off me as if they had been spring-loaded. “I’m not touching her. See?”
When he inched back, I scampered to close the car door so that no matter what transpired over the next few seconds outside of the SUV, the little guy inside wouldn’t be harmed.
With me out of the way, Eric must have sensed that Fozzie had a straight shot to the tender appendage of his choosing. But the moment Eric reached for the passenger door, Fozzie lunged, sinking his teeth into the closest ankle.
While the bigger Caldwell male howled like the smaller one sitting in safety, an unmarked cruiser with flashing lights pulled up behind the SUV and Steve jumped out.
“Char,” he shouted, drawing his revolver. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I stepped between him and the snarling dog pulling the pants off of Eric Caldwell. “Please don’t shoot F
ozzie. He was trying to protect me.”
“I’m not going to shoot him. Now, get out of the way. And Caldwell, stay down.”
“Get him away from me,” Eric cried out, writhing on the asphalt.
Steve’s mouth flatlined while he watched Fozzie toss a pant leg in the air. “Yeah, I’ll get right on that.”
I turned at the sound of the patrol car rounding the corner into the parking lot. “Let me grab Fozzie’s leash before somebody in the posse you’ve assembled thinks this is a dog attack.”
“He won’t,” Steve said, handing me the loop end of the leash. “I heard pretty much everything you two said and briefed Howie on the way.”
“So you know that Eric is responsible for his cousin’s death, not Little Dog.”
With his revolver trained on the guy being pantsed, Steve nodded. “Just needed some evidence to convince your boss. Now, will you please call off your dog so that I can make an arrest and we can get out of here?”
Since I wasn’t the alpha dog here, I didn’t know if I was capable of calling Fozzie off. “I can try, but he doesn’t look like he’s in the mood to listen.”
“Hey, if you can’t—”
“Someone hurry up and get this dog off me!” Eric screamed, dialing up the threat level at his ankles.
Not helpful. “Shut up or I’ll have him bite you again.”
Steve gave me a sideways glance like he might have to start shooting to get my feet moving.
“Everyone just calm down.” Including me. “And give me a minute.”
I slowly approached so that Fozzie could see me and gave his leash a tug. “Come.”
Still tearing at the pants of the man who must have abused him the night of the accident, Fozzie ignored me.
I pulled on the leash with more force. “Fozzie, come!”
With fight-mode fully engaged, he growled at me.
“Want me to call animal control?” Howie asked, stepping up behind me.
“No. Just stay back and let me handle this.”
“Will you hurry up?” Eric whined, cursing at me while he struggled to squirm out of his pants.
I’d heard more than enough from this ass-wipe. “Eric, why don’t you finally do something smart. Shut your mouth and don’t move.”
When he finally stilled, I gave the leash another tug. “You ready to go home, boy?”
Dogs, Lies, and Alibis: A Humorous Cozy Mystery (A Workings Stiffs Mystery Book 5) Page 21
