No Filter

by Heather Day Gilbert

  Meanwhile, the stay back vibe I was trying to project didn't seem to be working, since every time I went to the grocery store or Walmart, random people struck up conversations with me. I wished I could be a little more oblivious.

  My brother and I were like the walking wounded, and anyone who dared to attempt a relationship with either of us was likely to get burned.

  Summer Adkins was not really what I expected from our phone conversation. I'd anticipated meeting an uptight, older sourpuss. But Summer was my age, had pale violet hair, and wore flowy pants and a leather vest-shirt that looked straight out of the Sixties.

  As she took me on a tour of the facility, she asked, "What kinds of dogs do you want? Big, small, fluffy?"

  "As long as they're not aggressive, we'll take any kind." I slowed by a kennel with a tiny dog that was jumping to get my attention. "We'll probably need four to five dogs a day, depending on what you have."

  She gestured around the kennel area with her numerous turquoise rings. "As you can see, we have lots to choose from. Take your pick. The only one with behavior issues is that old Husky mix over there."

  I peered in at the Husky mix and he gave a low growl. It was sad that his distrust of people would inevitably hinder his chances of being adopted.

  Summer must've read the look on my face. "Tough cases, like this one, do sometimes get adopted. It just takes a lot of rehab type work. I'm surprised he's not barking at you." She came over and dropped a dog treat in his kennel, which he snapped up. He sniffed at the fencing, but I knew better than to try to pet him.

  I chose six dogs to come in for our grand opening the next day. Summer agreed to transport them over early in the morning, then I'd take them back at the end of the day with Bo's heavy duty truck.

  Cute as the dogs were, none of them really appealed to me, which was unfortunate. I'd been eagerly anticipating finding a doggie companion to share Auntie A's home with, since her old golden retriever Jasper had died just a month after she had. Dogs had always clattered up Auntie A's wooden stairs or woofed at strangers in her kitchen. The place seemed empty without one.

  After reiterating that cafe customers who wanted to adopt would have to go directly to the shelter to fill out paperwork, Summer asked if I had any questions.

  "Not really," I said. "Are you from around here? I don't think I went to school with you, did I?"

  "No, I'm from Pennsylvania," she said. "I actually grew up Mennonite, if you can believe it." She pointed to her colorful hair and clinked her rings together. "I'm not anymore."

  She walked me out to my red car and I shook her hand. "I'm looking forward to seeing you tomorrow," I said. "This is going to be fun."

  To my surprise, she smiled. "You know what, Macy Hatfield? I actually believe it is."

  When Summer dropped the dogs off at five thirty in the morning, she was able to meet Kylie as well as Jimmy, an older high school bus driver who'd wanted a change of pace. Kylie and Jimmy were covering the early shift. Bo was planning to come in when the place opened at six and supervise.

  Summer seemed genuinely impressed with our petting room. She helped me walk the dogs around their play area and outside run, then she bought a coffee and headed out before the doors opened.

  And once the doors opened, customers began to steadily trickle in. Bo was thrilled when he arrived and found we were already on the second box of pastries from Charity, our older baker who was raising her four year old grandson on her own.

  The dogs were lapping up the attention and behaving themselves fairly well—Summer seemed to have chosen them carefully. There was a golden retriever mix that reminded me of Jasper. He must've sensed I liked him, because he stayed right around me.

  By lunchtime, all the dogs were getting antsy, so Bo and I took turns taking them out to their run. Two tiny dogs started nipping at each other, but I was able to distract them and get them inside unscathed.

  A couple of women in fashionable heels sat on a bench in the doggie room. The younger blonde woman squealed when I brought the little dogs in and surprised me by sweeping up the Chihuahua mix and plopping him onto her expensive skirt. She began to vigorously scratch behind his ears, and instead of nipping at her, as I'd fully expected, he rolled over and seemed to pant with delight.

  "Oh, look, Mary Anne," she gushed to her friend. "Isn't he just the sweetest little thing?"

  I was curious as to how this obviously high maintenance woman had such a rapport with dogs. She began speaking and didn't make any attempt to modulate her voice for the enclosed space, so her every word was loud and clear.

  "Let me tell you, I've found a gem." Apparently I'd walked into the middle of an ongoing conversation, since her next words made it clear she wasn't talking about the dog in her lap. "A golf instructor who can explain how to play without sounding condescending, can you imagine? The last club we belonged to, I swear the instructor did nothing but talk down to me, like I was brainless."

  Mary Anne murmured, "Oh, Isabella. It happens all the time, doesn't it?" She blew air kisses to the little mutt she'd awkwardly positioned on her lap.

  Isabella continued. "Yes! Now listen, you've got to visit this place—the Ivy Hill Spiritual Center for Healing, that's the one. I know the name sounds kooky, but the golf course is gorgeous. It's not as large as The Greenbrier of course, but I know you and Darren were looking for a more private place..."

  Conversation trailed off as Kylie delivered coffee to the women, which was an event in and of itself. The posh socialites eyed Kylie's tight leather pants, leopard-print shirt, and combat boots. Then they looked down at their wide coffee cups, which bore delicate foam art representations of a peacock and a panda bear, respectively.

  Isabella gushed over Kylie's work, and Mary Anne swore she'd never seen a more beautiful coffee, even in Italy. Kylie walked away with a wide smile on her ruby red lips.

  Something good was happening at Barks & Beans—people from very different walks of life were bonding over coffee and dogs. A sense of pride washed over me to be a part of this business. There might be some good left in my life, after all.

  As the women sipped their coffee, Isabella piped up again, and I realized she was still talking about her golf instructor. "His name is Gerard Fontaine, so be sure to ask for him. He's wonderful. Although he had an off day yesterday—he kept glancing around while I was practicing my swing. But I saw this tall woman walk by on the hill and that seemed to be what he was looking at. I think she's the masseuse there? Anyway, he got the strangest look on his face when he spotted her and really lost focus." She giggled, giving her pup's tummy a rub. "Of course, it wasn't hard for me to pull his attention back with my many charms."

  Mary Anne laughed. I tossed a ball to the golden retriever mix like I wasn't listening, but now I was fully engaged in this conversation I wasn't even a part of.

  "Although, come to think of it," Isabella continued, "Gerard was distracted the whole time I was there. When he took me to the director's office to pay, there was this weird tension between the two of them. I didn't know if it was attraction or dislike, you know?" She set the dog on the floor and took a long, thoughtful sip of coffee. "She had all this natural decor in the office—a bit gauche, you know? Like dried wood and seed pods and wooden vases."

  Mary Anne made a face as the dog in her lap stood and started circling. After setting the pooch on the floor, she leaned in closer.

  Isabella was on a roll. "You know what? When I got home, I realized one of those vases was carved—and it wasn't wood. Remember that glossy carved horn-looking thing at Christa Bell's art exhibition? They said it was a rhino horn. I could swear that's what the director had sitting on her desk, pretty as you please. That thing would be worth a fortune!"

  Mary Anne gasped and began talking in a low tone, but another customer entered, so I introduced him to a friendly Sheltie mix that seemed to strike his fancy. The rest of the day seemed to pass quickly, and when Jimmy and I returned the dogs to the shelter at five, I was overjoyed to h
ear that one of them was going to be adopted the next day.

  Two days later, Charity and I were arranging baked goods on paper doilies in the glass case when she jabbed her finger at the local paper.

  "Did you see the paper? Someone got killed not far from here—whacked on the head with a golf club and found face down in a shallow pond. Can you believe that? Drugs, most likely."

  Everything was drugs in Charity's book, and I didn't blame her for thinking that way. Her son and daughter-in-law were users, which is how she'd wound up fostering her grandson.

  As I skimmed over the story, Charity was still talking. "Spiritual Healing Center, my foot," she said. "They're saying that golf instructor got killed with one of his own clubs. That's just flat-out cold, you know?"

  My eyes caught on the name of the murdered golf instructor—none other than Gerard Fontaine, the man Mary Anne and Isabella were discussing here just a couple days ago. Did his death have something to do with the masseuse he couldn't stop looking at? Or maybe the center's director was somehow involved...didn't Isabella say things were tense between her and Gerard?

  I shoved my suspicions aside and refocused on my work. The police would be looking into things, and Charity was right—it probably was a cut-and-dried murder involving drugs. Our state seemed helplessly trapped in a raging opioid and crystal meth epidemic.

  The day seemed to pass quickly. My phone rang around two in the afternoon, and Summer was on the other end. "I have a dog I need you to pick up," she said. "We just got him. He's a purebred Great Dane, but I can't fit him in my car. I think he'd be perfect for Barks & Beans—he'll probably get adopted quickly. Could you come over today?"

  I asked Bo to keep an eye on the dogs while I drove over to pick up the Great Dane. Summer was right—a purebred would likely be easy to place. I wondered how he'd wound up in the shelter.

  Summer ushered me into the building and began to explain. "I have his purebred registration papers," she said. "He's a gorgeous dog—well-groomed and well-behaved. Given his clipped ears, I think his owner was going to breed or show him, but he also appears to have been fixed, so maybe that didn't work out."

  I took one look at the huge black animal in the kennel. His mournful brown eyes, which were the color of light maple syrup, met and held my gaze. Although the other dogs were yipping away, he kept quiet. His glossy black ears stood at permanent attention, accenting the strong lines of his head.

  "Why on earth would someone get rid of him?" I asked. "He seems so gentle, and he must be worth a lot."

  "Oh, he is." Summer seemed to pause for dramatic effect. "His owner died." She leaned in closer and dropped her voice. "Murdered, in fact. Can you imagine? He was a golf instructor at that fancy spiritual center across town."

  My skin prickled with goose bumps. "You mean the Ivy Hill Spiritual Center?"

  "That's the one. A guy named Gerard Fontaine."

  3

  I didn't have time to ponder the irony that a murdered man's dog had wound up in the shelter. Summer and I had to fashion a makeshift ramp with a large piece of plywood, but we managed to get the huge dog into the back of Bo's white truck. I offered to sit with him and hold his leash while Summer drove us the short distance to Barks & Beans.

  As the warm late-summer air swirled around us, the dog pressed his entire weight against me as if his life depended on our connection. I gave his enormous, sleek head a pat, and he nudged into my palm with his eyes closed, as if he could finally relax.

  I considered what Summer had told me about the dog. Some guy had showed up last night saying he worked at Ivy Hill with Gerard. He said that since the Great Dane was an indoor dog, no one was willing to take him in because they didn't feel they had room in their homes.

  Summer thought it was strange that the dog had been parceled out when they probably hadn't even read Gerard's will yet, but it made sense to me—dogs were the kind of property that needed immediate care.

  By the time we reached the cafe, I had my arm firmly wrapped around the dog and he was looking at me like I was his rightful owner. As we helped him climb down, I asked Summer what his name was and she said "Coal." It was a perfect West Virginia name, and it suited the shiny black dog perfectly.

  Since Coal seemed loath to leave my side, I reluctantly walked him directly into the petting section. I'd already made up my mind—this was the dog I was going to adopt, and I didn't really want to show him off to the world. Call it a coincidence or some kind of divine perfect timing, but Coal had instantly bonded with me, and I wasn't about to let him go.

  Bo's eyes followed me as I entered with Coal, but he didn't say a word. I knew my brother recognized my possessive look and he wasn't about to ask why I'd brought this gigantic dog in.

  Bo's gaze shifted to Summer as she strolled in, and it lingered on her a moment too long.

  No way. Did my brother find Summer attractive? She was a far cry from the bossy, career-driven women he tended to favor.

  Bo walked over and introduced himself, then asked Summer if she was a volunteer at the shelter. It was actually a compliment, because he obviously assumed she was younger.

  She didn't take it that way.

  "I happen to be the owner, Mr. Hatfield," she snapped. When she whirled back to me, her eyes were flashing. "My coworker texted that he's here to pick me up. I hope you'll be able to get Coal back to the shelter tonight, Macy. Let me know if you need help." She stalked toward the door.

  I rushed over and grabbed her elbow. "Actually, I've decided to adopt Coal," I said. "I'll do the paperwork when I drop the other dogs off tonight."

  Bo stared at the dog, who had plopped down at my feet and was giving him a dubious look. "You're—"

  I cut him off. "We'll talk in a minute." I turned back to Summer. "I'll see you later."

  Summer gave a short nod and headed out. Bo came over to my side and looked at Coal. "So you're really going to adopt this big guy? Is he trained? He's huge, sis. If he stood on his hind legs he'd be taller than you."

  I ignored Bo's jab at my height—he was six foot one and, at my diminutive five foot three, I always felt a bit shrimpy standing next to him. Apparently, I took after my mom's long-distant Inuit side, although I looked anything but with my pale skin, light eyes, and fair hair.

  "I can handle a big dog, Bo. Don't you remember Caesar? He was at least eighty pounds."

  "I think this one far exceeds that weight class." Bo leaned down and gave Coal a once-over. Coal didn't budge from my feet, but he did give Bo's hand a cursory sniff. He then proceeded to give a broken-up growl that sounded less like a threat and more like he was trying to speak. He shoved his head up against Bo's palm and held it there, waiting to be petted.

  Bo laughed. "Okay, sis. I can't argue with that. This dog is practically human, and he's obviously attached to you."

  I hadn't told Bo that Coal had belonged to a murdered man, and I didn't intend to. Some things were better kept to oneself.

  I took Coal around to my section of the house so he could settle in before I had to head out again. Once I opened my door, he hesitantly stepped inside, then proceeded to give everything a good sniffing. I placed some dog treats in a bowl and set out a water dish. Coal seemed to find the place to his liking, plopping down near the couch with what sounded like a contented sigh.

  As quickly as possible, I locked up the house, then went around and loaded the shelter dogs in Bo's truck. When I dropped them off, Summer helped me fill out the paperwork for Coal, making me his proper owner for an astoundingly low price.

  Flooded with excitement that I finally had a dog to call my own again, I ran into Dollar General to pick up dog food. I got a little distracted by the dog toys and treats and purchased several for Coal, then I managed to snag the last oversized dog pillow from the top shelf.

  By the time I got home, Coal was no longer in the living room. When I gave a shout, he trudged down from upstairs, looking sleepy. I jogged up to make sure he hadn't made a mess, only to find a warm area on my be
d where he must've burrowed under the quilt I hadn't smoothed out this morning. He'd made himself at home, alright. Had Gerard let the huge dog sleep in his bed? That wouldn't work in my full-sized bed—Coal would take up the majority of it.

  I placed his new pillow next to the bed, patting it so he'd come over and try it out. He seemed to consider it a moment, then gave me a look that was so pathetic I couldn't possibly stick to my guns. Instead, I walked downstairs, found my funky orange rubber boots, and called for him so we could take a walk in the garden. We'd figure out the sleeping arrangements later.

  Auntie A always prided herself in her perennial flowerbeds, and with good reason. Over the years, she'd accumulated cast-off plants from neighbors and arranged them in ways that made the large back yard look like a paradise. Although the dry grass was blanched now at the end of summer, Bo had kept it mowed down so it formed soft pathways between the flowerbeds.

  Coal tumbled out the door after me, anxious to explore the enclosed garden. I pulled a few weeds near the last of the purple phlox of the season, then, just because I could, I plunged my fingers into the rich dirt Auntie A had amended over the years. It felt good to be home.

  After nosing into every corner of the garden, Coal tripped his way back to me and sat at my feet, anxious for some attention. I patted his head, then rubbed his chest and neck. He wore a brown leather collar that was quite stylish and, I imagined, quite expensive. How did a humble golf instructor afford such a collar, not to mention purchase a purebred dog like Coal?

  I scratched the silky fur under the wide leather band and my finger caught on something protruding from the back of his collar. I unbuckled it and slipped it off his neck for closer inspection.