Deadly Dog Days

by Jamie M. Blair

  “You know what I mean.”

  He sighed and tipped his Coke back, drinking deep. “The last four years, Cam … has it been terrible for you here?”

  “No,” I said, reaching across and taking his hand. “If it was terrible, I’d leave. Monica is mystified that I want to stay, but there’s something about this town. And you’re here. I don’t want to leave. I want to figure out how to fit in here.”

  He squeezed my hand. “You fit with me, you know.”

  “I hope so,” I said, meaning it.

  Bittersweet emotions constricted my chest, like the corset had the night before. I didn’t want to cry. Crying was for defeat, and I wasn’t defeated. This was a new start. He could get to know the new me, too. I didn’t have to grow and find myself without him. “Ben? Would you like to see a movie with me Wednesday night?”

  His smile made the corners of his dark eyes crinkle. “Like a date?” I nodded. “Only if there’s popcorn and peanut M&M’s involved.”

  “Come on, you know me! Are popcorn and M&M’s ever not involved?”

  He laughed. “So, we’re dating. Should I refer to you as my girlfriend or my wife? Or something else?”

  “Hey now, don’t get ahead of yourself. Just because I have a ring on my finger doesn’t mean you automatically get a second date.”

  We laughed together, and it relieved so much pressure. All the agonizing I’d done over the past six months faded. I didn’t know where we’d be in another six months, but for now, this would work.

  Lianne and Zach huddled in my mind and wouldn’t leave. There was something going on there, and I had to figure out what it was. Were they a couple now? Were they up to something? Did they whack Jenn over the head, despite Zach’s alibi?”

  “Hello? Earth to Cameron,” Monica said, sitting next to me on the couch. We’d hunkered down in the family room all day to watch a marathon of home-improvement shows on HGTV. Somewhere between using chalkboard paint to make fancy jar labels and carving birdhouses from gourds, I had zoned out.

  “Sorry, what did you say?” I asked, shaking my head to get Zach and Lianne to clear out.

  Monica pointed to my lap. “I said, where’d the cat come from?”

  I glanced down to where I mindlessly petted Spook, curled into a tight black ball on my lap. “He shows up sometimes.”

  “From where?” She looked around like she expected a whole clowder of cats to emerge from the air vents.

  “The attic, I think.”

  She threw her hands in the air and jerked her head back. “You think?”

  “I told you the cat was complicated.”

  “How have the dogs not noticed him?” She and I both leaned to look over the back of the couch, where Gus lay snoring on the floor. The twins were chewing on raw hides in the hall. Isobel was where Isobel always was when she wasn’t nuzzling Monica’s leg—the kitchen beside the fridge.

  “I named him Spook for a reason,” I said. “He has a lot of ghostlike qualities.”

  “Let’s hope he keeps them, or it’s going to be pandemonium in here.”

  “Good point. I’ll get him some food and put him back outside just in case.”

  I picked up Spook and tucked him under my arm. Never once had I heard my silent feline specter meow, and I prayed this wasn’t the time he chose to become vocal.

  Out in the kitchen I opened the back door, flipped on the overhead light, and plopped him down on the patio. “Stay here.”

  They say when a cat narrows his eyes at you, it’s a sign of affection, but when Spook did it with his unnatural, alien-emerald eyes, it gave me the willies, like he was cursing me. “I’ll bring you some tuna,” I said, backing slowly into the house.

  Monica filled a plastic dish with water while I scooped tuna out of a can onto a paper plate. “I’m surprised the dogs didn’t scare him away,” she said.

  “Did you see the missing chunk out of his right ear? I think he’s been in some vicious fights. And he has crazy sharp claws. I don’t think there’s much of anything that scares Spook.”

  I’d had the misfortune of meeting Spook’s claws when I tried to bathe him. It was a futile task I gave up before I got one furry paw into the water.

  I served my prowling tomcat his dinner and scratched him behind the ears before going back inside, where Monica was pulling fruit out of the fridge. “Care for a healthy snack?” she asked. “I stopped at a fruit stand off of Route 52 yesterday while you were on your date. I can’t eat one more cookie or I’ll die.”

  “I think one of us was adopted,” I said, picking up a carton of blueberries. “I’ve never eaten one of these that wasn’t in a muffin, pancake, or cobbler.”

  “Don’t forget pie,” she said, poking me in the hip. “You’ll like this. You mix plain yogurt with some oats and blueberries and, let’s see … ” She poked around in my fridge some more and pulled out some strawberries. “This should work.”

  As she spooned all the ingredients into glass juice cups—bemoaning the fact that I didn’t have footed dessert dishes—old, crabby Isobel shuffled over with her nose in the air sniffing. “You want some, too, sweetie?” Monica asked her in a baby talk voice. “Can dogs eat this stuff?”

  “Hang on,” I said, pulling the recipe Betty sent me with the beehive cookie jar. “There’s a list of things dogs can’t eat jotted on the back of this. No garlic, onion, avocado, chocolate, raisins, grapes … ” I read through the list and didn’t see blueberries, yogurt, strawberries or oats listed. “Looks like it would be okay, but it’ll be a mess. She’ll get it all over the fur around her mouth and it’ll get on the floor.”

  Isobel whined, then sat at Monica’s feet, panting. Monica, in turn, shot me her best puppy dog eyes. “Come on, Cam.”

  “What if we freeze it first? At least it’ll be solid then.”

  Monica gazed down at Isobel. “Can you wait for a little while? I promise you’ll get some.”

  Isobel licked Monica’s hand and hobbled back to her spot by the fridge to lie down.

  “Yeah,” I said, “one of us was adopted.” I couldn’t get near that dog without her trying to take my toes off.

  “Where are your ice trays?” she asked, mixing up more of her yogurt-berry mixture.

  “I don’t have any. The freezer has an icemaker. What about a mini-muffin tin?”

  “You don’t have cookie cutters, but you have a muffin tin?”

  “It was a wedding gift with the rolling pin. Never been used.” I slipped it out of a drawer and handed it to her.

  “Let’s line it with plastic wrap so they come out easier.”

  Once she got the pan the way she wanted it, she spooned in the yogurt, oats and berries and popped the pan in the freezer. “Much healthier than bacon and cheese treats.”

  “These dogs are starting to eat better than me,” I said, spooning a bite into my mouth. I wasn’t much of a yogurt fan, but it was pretty good. “You know, I bet we could make these with all kinds of things dogs would like. Bananas, peanut butter, probably even sweet potatoes.”

  “Dogs eat sweet potatoes?” she asked.

  “Well, Betty’s list doesn’t say they can’t. Maybe we should pick some up and try it.”

  “What do you think?” she asked in the baby voice, turning to Isobel, who twitched an ear.

  “I think she says to leave her alone.”

  Monica took her dessert to the table and sat down. “Do you think it’s strange that neither one of us ever had kids? I mean, I’ve never even been married.”

  “I don’t know, Mon,” I said, sitting across from her. “We were kind of brought up to strive for professional success, not to be domestic goddesses.”

  “Millions of women do both, though,” she said.

  “Oh, it can be done. I just think we skipped over the marriage and children part when it came to making go
als for ourselves. I wasn’t thinking of getting married when I met Ben, it just kind of happened.”

  “Why didn’t you two have a baby?”

  “A baby? Well, I didn’t … ” Wait. A baby. Lianne and Zach raced around inside my brain again. Jenn Berg was pregnant. She’d broken up with Zach six months ago. Was the baby his? I had to find out how far along she was, and if Zach knew. Was he angry? Did he think the baby was Ben’s and kill her in a jealous rage?

  His alibi was the only problem with my theory. Who was this mystery girl from his class he spent the night with?

  “Cam, you’re zoning out on me again,” Monica said, dropping her spoon in her empty glass. “What’s your deal?”

  “I need to find out what classes Zach—the bartender at the Cornerstone—is taking. Then I need to find a way into one to see which girl he’s interested in.”

  “Yeah … ” She stood up and rounded the counter, placing her empty dish in the sink. “Good luck with that.”

  “We need to go to the Cornerstone and talk to him. It’s the only way to find out.”

  “When? Not now.”

  “Yes now.”

  “But it’s Sunday night.”

  “Do you have something else to do?” I asked, coming up beside her and rinsing out my glass. “It’s not like you have to work in the morning. We’ll go have one drink. A coffee and liqueur drink. I’ll make small talk with Zach, find out what I need to know, and we’ll be home in an hour.”

  “What if he’s not working tonight?”

  “Then we skip the drink and come back home.” She didn’t look convinced. “By the time we get back, Isobel’s frozen yogurt should be ready.”

  She let out a long sigh. “Fine.”

  “And while we’re there, maybe I’ll fill out an application.”

  “A job application? Why? And to do what? Wash dishes?”

  “No, not wash dishes. Maybe hostess or something. I don’t know. Ben says he can’t afford to buy me a new car, paint the house again, and hire a lawyer to deal with Irene’s lawsuit.”

  “Maybe he should call the old dog off!” she said, laughing. “I can’t believe she’s suing you.”

  “I don’t know if he can call her off. When Irene gets something in her head, she’s like a dog with a bone.”

  “Well, dog gone it!” she said, laughing.

  “Okay! Stop!” I made myself quit laughing and caught my breath. “No more dog quips.”

  “Not even one more?” She held up her index finger, grinning. “One?”

  “No. Not even one. We need to get changed and head to the Cornerstone.”

  “Alright, I’ll save it for later, then.”

  Monica’s dose of goofiness was what I needed to get me energized and in a better frame of mind. Irene could sue me. She could fine me for my paint colors. Mia could total my car. But they couldn’t take away my sister. They couldn’t take away my adopted bark machines or my phantom cat. They couldn’t take away my laughter. Only I could do that, and I chose to keep my sense of humor about the domino effect of crazy situations falling around my life.

  • Sixteen •

  The Cornerstone bar was practically empty. Other than Andy sitting with Carl Finch and Dennis Stoddard, taking notes while they yakked, only one couple sat at a table by the windows drinking wine from a local vineyard. Ben and I had gone there once for a tasting. We ate cheese and crackers and sampled about a dozen different kinds of wine. Well, I sampled about a dozen. He was driving. I passed out in the car on the way home. Who knew a Dixie Cup–sized swallow of wine could go right to your head?

  Ben had carried me in the house and, apparently, upstairs, because I remember him taking my shoes off while I lay on the bed. There’s a foggy memory of him brushing my hair back and kissing my forehead and chuckling about me overdoing it.

  Thinking back on the good times with Ben made me anxious. What if I was doing the wrong thing? What if I should let him move home and forget about finding myself first?

  But there was Wednesday. We’d go to a movie and make a new memory. I still had him, and we’d figure this out. We’d be okay.

  Zach came out of a swinging door behind the bar, carrying a rack of beer mugs. “Be right with you ladies,” he said.

  Monica and I sat at the bar, and I caught my reflection in the mirror behind the bottles of booze. Who was that woman looking back at me? That forty-year-old woman? At a size 16, she was heavier than she’d ever been. She’d found a few rogue strands of gray around her temples. She kept telling herself to get her eyes checked; printed words weren’t supposed to be blurry. And she was obsessed with solving a murder that she should have nothing to do with.

  What was I trying to prove, and who was I trying to prove it to?

  “What can I get you two lovely ladies?” Zach asked, flashing us a million-watt lady-killer smile.

  “I’ll take an Irish coffee, please,” Monica said.

  “Make it two.”

  He knocked on the bar. “Coming right up. I’ll put a fresh pot of coffee on.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  He turned to a coffeepot beside the booze bottles, on the end near the swinging door to the back room. I scrambled, trying to think of what to say. “I was thinking about maybe taking a college class or two,” I said to Monica. “I’m just not sure where to take classes around here.”

  “You have a graduate degree from Ohio State,” she said. “Why would you—”

  I kicked her. Play along, I mouthed, tipping my head toward Zach while eyeing him sidelong.

  Oh! she mouthed back. “I mean, I forgot that you wanted to go back for those, um … real estate classes—”

  “Business!” I said. “Business classes. You know, so I can open my own business here in town.”

  “Right.” She shrugged and widened her eyes, helpless. My sister was terrible at playing along.

  Zach turned around and leaned his hands on the bar. “What kind of business are you wanting to open?”

  I couldn’t believe my awkward attempt to lure him in to our conversation worked. But what kind of business? What kind … what kind … I couldn’t panic.

  “Dog treats,” Monica said.

  “Dog treats?” Zach and I both said at the same time. He looked at me, confused.

  “It’ll be so much more than just treats,” I said. “Eventually. Treats are just the launch pad products.”

  “People around here love their dogs. My ex had five of them.”

  “Wow, five. That’s a lot.” There were graduating classes in high schools with double Metamora’s population. Even if Zach and I had never been formally introduced, with a little under two hundred people in town, everyone knew who everyone else was. I wondered if he’d forgotten the other night when Roy and I questioned Melody. Or was bringing up his ex—Jenn Berg—some kind of test?

  “Not a lot of people buying their dogs fancy things like designer collars and organic treats, though,” he said. “This might not be the best place for a store like that.”

  “She was thinking about a website and catalog for national orders,” Monica said. “Marketing, advertising, PR, we already know how to do all of that. It’s the business side of things—accounting and inventory, that kind of thing—that we need to learn.”

  We? Monica was fully invested in our act now. “I was looking to take a few classes. Is there a community college or somewhere you know of?”

  “I’m taking a couple of classes at Ivy Tech over in Richmond. Business administration and accounting. You should check it out.” Zach turned to get our Irish coffees, and I grabbed Monica’s hand, shaking it before I exploded from excitement that this haphazard plan was working. “Here you go,” he said, setting our mugs in front of us.

  “Ivy Tech, huh?” I took a sip of my coffee, willing myself to sound casual. “Think they’d
let me sit in on a class to see what I think before I sign up?”

  “I don’t see why not,” he said. “My business admin professor is a cool guy. Let me text him and ask.”

  “Really? Thanks!”

  “No problem,” he said, holding up his cell phone.

  Monica tapped me with her foot, both of us wondering at how well this spur-of-the-moment trip to the Cornerstone was working out.

  A minute later, Zach had my answer. “He said it’s okay by him for you to sit in on his class. It’s Mondays and Wednesdays from six forty-five to eight.”

  Since I found Jenn Berg’s body on Tuesday, my goal was to punch holes in Zach’s alibi after eight p.m. last Monday night. “Great!” I said. “I’ll be there tomorrow evening.”

  Monica and I finished our Irish coffee and headed home. With Mia at Irene’s for the night, the dogs were the only ones there to greet us when we walked in the door—the carpenter bees were tucked into their hive inside the porch column for the night. Spook was nowhere to be found. He’d turn back up when I least expected him.

  “You know,” Monica said, popping a frozen yogurt round from the mini-muffin tin, “maybe selling dog treats isn’t a bad idea.”

  I shook my head. “You heard Zach, there isn’t a big enough demand for something like that around here. Maybe if tourism regenerates it would work.”

  “But you could sell them over the phone, distribute them to sell in dog boutiques in big cities, and take Internet orders. It could work.”

  She knelt down and held the yogurt treat out to Isobel, who sniffed it once before snatching it out of Monica’s hand.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It seems risky to invest in a business selling something anyone can make in their kitchen.”

  “But it’s not about being able to, it’s about having the time to. It’s about the pretty packaging and pampering your pet. It’s about buying a special treat for your special friend when you’re out shopping for puppy sweaters.”

  “I see your marketing gears turning, Monica. Don’t get ahead of yourself—or me.”