Deadly Dog Days

by Jamie M. Blair

  “I do like the sound of that,” she said. “And being single and somewhat frugal, I have a bit of money saved up to put into a business. Mom can help with advertising and PR.”

  “Between the three Cripps women, we can make Dog Diggity the biggest dog treat supplier in the state.”

  “I thought you were going to say in the world.” She pretended to give me a dirty look.

  “I didn’t want to overreach. And you can stay here. There’s plenty of room. Think about it.”

  Monica drummed her fingers on the table. “Would I get to fight with Irene?”

  “Yes! If she tries to take the doorknobs off, I want you to tackle her. Take her down in the flower bed.”

  “Done,” she laughed.

  “Speaking of Irene, she should be dropping Mia off soon. Ben’s taking her to dinner later.”

  “Mia’s trouble, you know. I was trouble at her age, so I know trouble when I see it.”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” I said. “Ben won’t believe it, but I have a feeling he’ll learn the hard way.”

  Gus tromped over and dropped a tennis ball dripping with dog spit in my lap. “Thanks,” I told him, tossing it into the yard. He loped off after it.

  “Would you mind staying with the Action Agency team again tomorrow?” I asked Monica. “I have to run to Connersville.”

  “What’s in Connersville?”

  “Possibly a murderer, but we’ll see.” Gus brought the ball back again, and I threw it.

  “Cam, I don’t think this is a good idea. Why don’t you tell Ben and—”

  “And have it be nothing? And have him lecture me? I don’t think so. I’d rather go check it out myself. It’s not a big deal. Jenn Berg owed this guy, Cory, five hundred bucks for her puppy. I’ll say I’m there to pay the debt. I doubt he’ll bash someone over the head if they’re offering him money.”

  “Why don’t I come with you?”

  “I really need someone to stay with the gang. They need to start calling again. We’re putting on the play after all.”

  She looked skeptical. I didn’t need my sister giving me a hard time. “How about I take Andy with me?” I said.

  “If you have to go at all, I guess that sounds better than you going alone.”

  The dogs started barking and running toward the gate at the side of the house. “It’s just me, you dummies!” Mia shouted.

  “Shoo!” Irene yelled. “Get back!”

  Monica nudged me with her knee. “Are you going to go hold your beasts back?”

  “I don’t know. I’m kind of wondering where this might go.”

  “Umm, another lawsuit, if I had to guess.”

  “You’re probably right.” I got up and strode across the yard. Monica followed, calling to Isobel.

  I held the twins by their collars and was figuring out what to do about Gus when Mia opened the gate and he charged toward Irene, tongue flapping in the wind with a giant doggy grin on his face. “Oh my!” she cried, stumbling backward as he jumped on her, leaving two big, muddy paw prints in two very strategic locations on her chest. It looked like she was wearing a paw print bikini top.

  “That’s it!” she yelled. “I want these dogs—” Gus licked the words right out of her mouth. Sputtering, Irene stormed back through the gate and slammed it shut. “I’ll be sending you my dry cleaning bill!”

  “I’ll put it in the pile,” I called. Paying for her dry cleaning wasn’t going to happen.

  Then a police siren blared out on Route 52, and the dogs began to howl. It wasn’t often that a siren was heard, and this made two Tuesdays in a row. I couldn’t stop the goose bumps from popping up on my arms. Living in this small of a town, it was likely I knew whoever was having an emergency.

  Good gravy, not another body.

  At least I had witnesses this time. I was nowhere near wherever that siren was headed.

  Ben was late. He hadn’t given Mia or me a time, but he liked to eat dinner around six in the evening. It was a quarter till eight and we hadn’t heard from him. “I’m calling him,” I said, grabbing my cell phone from the kitchen counter.

  It rang three times, and his voicemail picked up. “Ben, Mia and I are wondering where you are. Please call us.”

  “You sound worried,” Mia said, picking at her cuticle. “My dad’s a cop. He carries a gun.”

  “So, nothing ever happens to police officers because they carry guns?”

  She gave me an eye roll and walked down the hall. A second later, I heard her stomping up the stairs to her bedroom.

  “I’m sure he’s fine,” Monica said, unloading the dishwasher.

  “I know. It’s just not like him.” I plucked a few sweetie chips out of a plastic container and the dogs came running. “I think they can smell these a mile away.”

  “Those are their favorite! I improved the recipe from Professor Hudgeons and glued a thin slice of sweet potato to a thin slice of apple with a little egg white then baked them.”

  “You came up with that?”

  “I did,” she said, lifting her chin and smiling with pride.

  “I think you’ve found your calling.”

  “We’ll see.”

  The twins gobbled their chips down, and I gave Gus extra for being a good boy and defending me from Irene. Monica fed one to Isobel, who took dainty bites like she was a princess and not an old crab who could separate you from a limb.

  The knock on the door came as I was sealing the treats back up. “Ben,” I breathed, rushing down the hall to the foyer with barking dogs racing around my feet. I whipped the door open to find him standing there with his arm still up, hand in a fist from knocking.

  “Where have you been? We were worried.”

  He dropped his arm. His shoulders slumped. “The police station. The gatehouse got broken into.”

  “That’s what the police siren was about,” I mused, pushing dogs back to let Ben inside. “You weren’t there when it happened, were you? Was anything stolen?”

  “No, I was up at the castle talking to Finch and Andy. They were getting ready to film, waiting for Stoddard. I was helping Andy with his audio, changing the batteries in his microphones. Brutus was caged and started going ballistic. It’s a long way to the castle from the gatehouse at the bottom of the hill, and I could hear him all the way up there. By the time I got to down to the house, the door was standing open and whoever broke in was gone. There was no sign of forced entry, but I usually lock the door. I guess I must’ve forgotten to.”

  “And they didn’t take anything?”

  “Not that I could tell. There isn’t much to take in the first place, though. I had my wallet on me. The TV is an old one not worth much. My laptop was locked in my truck. I left it in there after working in Brookville this morning. Living in that gatehouse is a step above camping.”

  Mia jogged down the stairs. “Daddy!” She rushed into his arms. “Can we go somewhere vegetarian?”

  “Sure we can.”

  “Good luck with that,” I said.

  “Stephanie said there’s a Chinese restaurant in Brookville,” Mia said.

  I held back a laugh as the day with the Action Agency at Stature and Wok and Roll sprang to mind. It was good to know I could look back and laugh at my disasters.

  “Chinese it is,” Ben said. “Cam, would you like us to bring you back anything?”

  “No thanks. Have a good time.”

  I watched them go, reminiscing about the early days of my relationship with Ben. Mia had been twelve, and while she’d always had an attitude, it was cute for a girl her age to act so grown up. Now, it was irritating. But there was still a bit of that little girl inside her. She loved her dad, that much was true. Sure, she knew how to play him to get whatever she wanted, but there was no lack of real affection between them. I was sorry Mia and I hadn’t been
able to grow close. Maybe if she’d spent more time with us, we would have. Maybe it wasn’t too late.

  The next morning, Andy and I left behind the cacophony of the Action Agency and the pack of dogs in my kitchen. I owed Monica an expensive purse or shoes or something for this.

  “Cass got the lead in the new musical,” Andy said, sitting in my passenger seat eating an Egg McMuffin. There would be no road trip without stopping at the golden arches, even if said trip was only ten minutes up the road.

  “That’s great! Is she excited?”

  “They’re all excited. Nobody wanted to cancel the play.”

  “As soon as we get back, I’m going to be the bossiest boss on the planet and get every ticket reserved.”

  “Put me down for four. I’m making Finch go, and Stoddard will bring his wife.”

  “Four tickets it is. How’s the documentary going?”

  “Really well. I’ve got the footage I need to get started editing, but the project is going to be bigger in scope than I thought.”

  “How’s that?” I asked.

  “I’m going to bring the town into it more. If this is where the Arc of the Covenant is buried, I want to dig into the town and its history, answer the question: Why here?”

  “Sounds like you need—cue the horror music—the Daughters of Metamora.”

  “It’s in the works. Irene cornered Stoddard coming out of Odd and Strange. She made him a deal. She’ll give him information—on camera—in exchange for an appraisal of two antique wall sconces.”

  “Those are my sconces!” I said, turning to him in astonishment. “She can’t keep taking parts of my house, Andy!”

  “Eyes on the road, Cam!” He reached over and jerked the wheel to the right.

  “Sorry.” I settled down and made sure my hands were at ten and two on the wheel, eyes locked on the road. “Good gravy, that woman makes me mad.”

  “Look,” he said, pointing up ahead on the left. “Bantum Kennels.”

  I signaled and turned into the parking lot. It didn’t look open. “Maybe we’re too early.”

  “There has to be someone here to let the dogs out and feed them, right?”

  We got out of Monica’s car and walked through the empty lot. “I don’t hear any dogs,” I said. The quiet was almost eerie.

  Andy tried the door. “Locked.”

  I cupped my hands and peered in the window. There was a front desk bare of any office equipment other than a few scattered pens. A chair was turned over in the waiting area. “I’m not sure they’re still in business.” I dug around in my handbag looking for the metal dog tag with the kennel’s phone number on it. “Hang on. I’m going to call and see if there’s a phone inside that rings. Maybe there’s a message that will give us a clue.”

  House keys, reading glasses, paperback—where was that little stinking tag?

  Andy tapped his foot, waiting impatiently. “I’m going to run around back while you search the small universe living in your purse.”

  “I need to downsize.”

  “You need a yard sale,” he said, taking off around the side of the kennel.

  My fingertips identified something cool, smooth, and bone-shaped. “Gotcha,” I said to myself, pulling the tag out. I dialed the number and put my ear to the window. Inside, a phone rang. Maybe they were still in business if the phone line was still active. I peered inside again as another ring echoed through the window. That’s when I saw a computer monitor lying on the floor beside the desk.

  Something strange was going on here.

  “Cam!” Andy shouted. “Call 911!” He came sprinting back around to the front of the building. “There’s a man back there lying on the ground, unconscious. I can’t get past the fence to see if he’s breathing.”

  Was it Cory Bantum? I hung up on the phone inside then dialed and reported the incident to the operator. Two minutes later, a squad car and an ambulance sped into the parking lot.

  “Back here,” Andy said, running to show them where the man was.

  Alone, I walked to Monica’s car and sat in the driver’s seat. If the man was Cory, who did this? And where had Nick been the past couple days? Was he involved? Did he do this?

  I dialed Nick’s number, ready to ask him straight out if he knew what was going on here, but his voicemail picked up. “Nick, it’s Cameron. Call me.” It’s not like I could go into details on a phone message. Most of me hoped he’d call back, and I could get to the bottom of this. Another part of me wanted to drive far and fast and never look back. They found the men’s shoe prints at Jenn Berg’s crime scene. Obviously, it wasn’t me who killed her and everyone would know that soon enough. I could stop all of my detective work now. I wasn’t even very good at it.

  “Cam?” I turned in my seat to see Andy walking up to the car. “Look who was inside the fence.” In his hands was the smallest ball of white fur I’d ever seen. “He has a tag.” He held up the heart-shaped dog tag attached to a red collar. “It says Marshmallow on one side, and on the other there’s Jenn Berg’s name and a phone number.”

  “He was there that night,” I whispered. “Cory Bantum. He took the puppy back.”

  “Someone was there. This is the only dog she was missing, and she had that red leash around her wrist.”

  “Was that him back there? Cory Bantum? The owner of the kennel?” I reached up for the puppy. He had to weigh all of two pounds. His fur was thin, still growing in.

  “I didn’t hear anyone talking about his name.”

  I looked away from the puppy up to Andy. “Is he dead?”

  He lifted his shoulders and winced. “It didn’t look good. I don’t know.”

  “Do we need to stick around? I want to get this guy home.” Translation: I wanted to get myself home. My crazy kitchen sounded pretty appealing at the moment.

  “Let me go talk to the police officer and find out.”

  While he was gone, I snuggled the micro-puppy, wondering how long he’d been without food or water. When did Cory—if that’s who it was—get attacked? It must have started inside since the reception area showed signs of a confrontation.

  I debated calling Ben. Even if this was Connersville and out of his jurisdiction, we found Jenn Berg’s puppy on the property. Cory, whether he was the unconscious man or not, should be questioned. Someone had to answer for how her puppy got here when she was walking it at the time of her murder.

  My cell phone rang. The caller ID read Nick. I hurried and answered. “Nick!” I said. “Where are you? We need to talk. I’m at—”

  “I didn’t do it,” he said. “And neither did Cory.”

  • Twenty •

  Nick was panicked. I could hear it in his voice. “Neither one of us killed that girl,” he said. “I swear.”

  The puppy whined and licked my hand. “How did Jenn Berg’s puppy—I’m guessing the one she owed your friend Cory five hundred dollars for—end up back at his kennel?”

  He didn’t answer me.

  “Nick, I’m sitting in the parking lot at the kennel right now with the puppy on my lap. Andy and I came to talk to Cory. We found a man lying on the ground unconscious when we got here and the police and paramedics are here now. I don’t know if it’s your friend or not, but something went on here. What do you know about it?”

  He swore and groaned. “Listen, I don’t know if it’s him you found or not. I’ll tell you what happened the night that girl was killed, though. Cory asked me to come with him to get the dog back since she didn’t pay him for it. When we got to the gatehouse, she wasn’t home. It was late and dark, but we heard the pup yip from about fifty yards away, she was walking him down 52. We followed her around the corner and down the road toward the canal. That’s when Cory called out to her. We jogged to catch up. She said she didn’t have the money, he said he wanted the dog back. They argued, but I swear, he didn’t touc
h her. He grabbed the dog and jerked the leash off. Then we left. That’s it. She was alive, and we weren’t at the canal yet. We were still on the side of the road.”

  “There’s only one problem, Nick, and it’s the same problem I’ve got: nobody else saw you two that night.”

  “No! Someone did. There was a man there in his car when we got back with the pup. He was looking for someone to open the gate and let him through. He was an older guy. Said Carl Finch was expecting him. We told him the gatekeeper girl would be right back.”

  “That doesn’t mean you didn’t kill her, though. You could’ve killed her and walked back with the puppy and told him that.”

  “But we didn’t!”

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a second. I couldn’t think straight. “All I know is that there are signs of a struggle inside the kennel and a man, who I’m not sure is alive, was outside in the yard. I don’t know how close you are with your friend, but you might want to find out if this man is him.”

  In the side mirror, I saw Andy approaching. “I’m going to hang up now,” I said. “Find out if it’s him. I’ll call you back later.”

  Andy climbed in the passenger side. “I gave the police a statement and our phone numbers in case they need to ask anything else. I told the guy Ben was your husband. He knows him, of course.”

  “Of course. It’s not like any of these little towns are really separate from the others.” I started the car with the puppy snoozing on my lap. “Maybe I should look into buying my own kennel since I seem to be running one. Did you find out anything about the man? Was he alive?”

  “Barely. They think he was out there for a couple days.”

  I headed down 52 back toward Metamora. “They didn’t say who it was?”

  He shook his head.

  If it was Cory Bantum, he was too close to too many bad things happening, and I was going to find out why.