“No time like the present,” I said.
Goldie clucked and got into Tom’s van, and I crossed the stretch of lawn between me and Mr. Martin and said, “Hi there. I’m Janet MacPhail. Welcome to the neighborhood.”
“You live right there,” he said, gesturing toward my house with his chin. He didn’t smile, and he didn’t tell me his name.
And that pushed my pushy button. I held out my hand to force the issue, and said, “Yes, right there.”
He was tall, close to six feet, and had a long, jowly face. He slowly shifted his writing tools to his left hand and offered me his limp right one. “Phil Martin,” he said. His voice seemed familiar, but of course it would. He was in the news from time to time.
My skin was in contact with his for only a second, but that was enough. His hand was cold and clammy and shot me straight back to those god-awful square dancing sessions in fifth-grade gym class. With boys. And I always seemed to get matched with Herbie MacFadden. He had limp, clammy hands like that.
“We’re just on our way out, but I hope we’ll have a chance to chat soon.”
I was turning away when he said, “Understand you have a lot of pets.”
“A dog and two indoor cats,” I said.
Martin shoved his clammy hands into his pockets, rocked his shoulders back and his belt buckle forward, and narrowed his eyes at me. “I saw two dogs out there just a little bit ago.”
I almost answered, but a little voice whispered that I didn’t have to defend myself or our dogs to him. Actually, the little voice wasn’t that polite, but I decided to keep what I really wanted to say to myself. I found a smile somewhere in my over-taxed resources, pasted it on, and said, “We’ll talk soon.” I rejoined Tom and Goldie.
Tom winked at me and drawled, “That looked right friendly, pardner.”
“Nice crotch thrust.” Goldie patted my shoulder. “Good for you not to engage.”
I cranked my head around to look at Goldie and echoed her opinion of Phil Martin. “He’s a jerk.”
“Unfortunately,” said Tom, backing out of the driveway, “he’s a jerk with some juice, so proceed with caution.”
seventeen
A cold front swept in during the night, and Monday morning brought us a vicious wind and glowering sky. April is, as T.S. Eliot said, “the cruellest month,” or at least it can be in northern Indiana when you think spring has sprung and suddenly there’s ice on the birdbath and you need fleece and Gore-Tex. The eastern sky was bleeding a narrow slash of crimson light beneath a dark bank of clouds when I went out with Jay to police the backyard. I was wearing a long-sleeved T and the light jacket I’d worn over the weekend, and by the time I went back in I had my jaws clamped tight to silence my chattering teeth. Weather that made me want to crawl back into a warm bed turned Jay into a bouncing bundle of enthusiasm for, well, anything more fun than crawling back into bed, so we played an indoor game of “find the toy” to take the edge off. It warmed me up a bit, too.
Goldie was usually up early, but her windows were dark, so after I changed into warmer clothes I wrote a note to remind her about our shopping trip and stuck it on the window of her back door where I knew she’d see it. I found one leather glove and, after rifling through all my dresser drawers with no results, I gave up and took a pair of fleece mittens instead. They’d make handling Jay’s longline more difficult, but I could always defy my own advice and wrap the nylon line around my hand for control. Just don’t break your hand for the wedding, said that annoying voice of caution. I would have traded a broken hand, though, for finding Bonnie safe and sound.
The six-thirty news led off with a story about yet another insane cut to school funding, followed by one about a proposed new tax break for corporations choosing to set up shop in Indiana. Because they’ll want to come here for the uneducated work force. I was about to turn the radio off when the next story made me turn the volume up instead.
“A Nevada man, Ray Turnbull, was found dead at a property belonging to Collin Lahmeyer of Fort Wayne on Sunday morning.” I registered the owner’s name even as I listened to the rest of the story. Collin was a member of Tom’s retriever training club, and his family owned another property where the group trained frequently. It was also a property where a murder had occurred the previous August. Collin couldn’t be happy about having another man die violently on his property.
The announcer’s words brought my wandering thoughts to heel. A Nevada man? Until that moment, I’d had no idea where Ray was from, but that seemed odd since he had been working on and off for Evan and Summer for at least a couple of years. Surely he had a house or apartment or something near the Winslows’ farm. Wouldn’t that make him an Indiana man by now? “Police say that preliminary evidence suggests that Mr. Turnbull died of asphyxiation, and suicide is suspected.” The reporter, who sounded very young, went on. “Some sheep also disappeared earlier from the same location, but police wouldn’t say whether the two incidents were related.”
I turned the radio off and thought about what I knew and didn’t know. Ray was from Nevada. Some faint memory made me think that Summer was from somewhere out west, but I wasn’t sure where, or even why I thought I knew that. I did know that she came to Indiana originally to go to Purdue, where she had earned a degree in animal sciences. Her diploma, issued four years earlier, hung in her office at the farm. Evan was a Hoosier, born and bred. He grew up on a farm near Bluffton, about thirty miles south of Fort Wayne. Had Ray and Summer known each other before they landed in the Midwest? And who were the two goons in the sloppy suits who were hanging around on Sunday? They didn’t fit in at a dog event, and the encounters I saw between them and Evan and Ray didn’t exactly smack of friendships.
My thoughts were spinning like circus Poodles by the time I pulled into the field and parked my van near the arena, now free of ropes and tents and dogmobiles. So this is Collin Lahmeyer’s property. I wondered whether Tom knew that. Surely he would have told me if he did. A black sedan and small red Honda sat side by side at the end of the arena, but no one seemed to be around. I got Jay out and attached the longline we use for tracking to his collar. No point using his tracking harness, which is designed to allow the dog to pull when he’s following a scent. We would be searching, not tracking, because I had nothing with Bonnie’s scent to get Jay started. If Drake or Leo or Pixel went missing, I could tell him to find them by name and he would track the familiar scent, but he knew Bonnie only for quick doggy hellos. I would have to trust that if he sensed her where I couldn’t see her, he’d let me know, as he would with any animal. I shut the van, buttoned the top button on my jacket, and wished I’d brought a hat or earmuffs to cut the wind.
“Okay, Bub, let’s see if we have any better luck today.” Jay bounced up and down a couple of times, and then trotted about twenty feet ahead of me, keeping the line loose. He had his nose to the ground and began weaving left and right and back again across the roadway, pausing to check occasional clumps of grass before moving on. He took his time with a large rock, hiked his leg on it, and moved on.
As we proceeded, I watched for places where a smallish dog might hide, but I didn’t see any likely spots. If Bonnie were injured, she would probably try to hole up somewhere. If she were frightened, there was no telling how far she might have run. She could be in the next county by now. And if someone had picked her up, she could be anywhere. Jay rounded the end of the long pole building several strides ahead of me. He stopped, hair poofed away from his neck as his hackles rose, and scared me back to the moment with a loud woof.
eighteen
Jay stopped barking and his whole body started to vibrate. About halfway down, outside the fatal storage room, Hutch was talking to a woman. At her side stood a dog wearing a harness over a blue-and-gold vest that said Marion Co. Search & Rescue K9. The dog’s shoulder came to the woman’s knee, and his medium-length coat was a bright yellow-gold, but unlike a Golden Re
triever, he had four white stockings and a collar of white fur. He was angled away from me so I couldn’t see it, but I knew he had a white muzzle and heavy white ruff as well. It was Hutch’s former partner, Jo Stevens, and her young search-and-rescue dog, a Golden Retriever x Australian Shepherd cross named Shamus.
“What are you doing here?” I asked when I reached them.
Jo hugged me and Shamus poked me with his nose, wagging and grinning, while Jay shared his joy with all three of them. When she let go, Jo said, “I was here for the weekend, visiting family. Hutch called and told me what happened.”
When I first met him, Hutchinson hadn’t cared a bit about animals in peril. Now, a year later, he said, “I thought Shamus might track the missing dog.”
Even if they had a way to give Shamus the scent, tracking Bonnie in the sea of olfactory input around this place was going to be challenging, to say the least. Judging by the look on Jo’s face, she knew it, too. I said, “I wish we had something with Bonnie’s scent.” I thought for a moment, and an image came to mind of Ray’s rattletrap old pickup pulling into the Winslows’ place, Bonnie riding shotgun. “Hutch, is Ray’s truck still here? Bonnie always rode beside him on the front seat.”
“It’s parked at the far end of the building,” he said. “I don’t think it’s locked. It wasn’t yesterday.”
“Let’s do it,” said Jo as she gathered Shamus’s leash.
As she and Hutch turned away, I asked, “How long are you going to be in town?” Jo had moved to Indianapolis to join an inter-agency canine search team. It was a great opportunity, but I missed her.
“I work tonight,” she said, shrugging at me. “I’ve got about an hour, then I need to hit the road.”
I thought about taking Jay to the truck to get the scent, but decided a general search would probably be as effective. If Jay sensed Bonnie hiding somewhere or … I wouldn’t let my thoughts go there. In any case, Jay would let me know if Bonnie was nearby.
We began with the overgrown lane I had found on Saturday. Jay ranged back and forth across the grassy stretch and into the corn stubble, tangling the longline twice on the remains of last year’s crop. I unclipped him and let him move freely, knowing he’d be at my side in a snap if I called. About halfway along the lane, he veered into the field and ran between the rows, not chasing, but determined to reach something. My heart took a little leap and I jogged to where he had entered the cornfield, hoping to see Bonnie hiding there. The field rolled just enough that all I could see was Jay’s back, but I could tell that he was sniffing something. I walked into the stubble, afraid to breathe.
Fur. I let my breath go. Gray fur, and a few bones. The remains of a rabbit dinner, and they had been there awhile.
“Jay, come.” He took one last sniff and followed me out of the corn. We spent another forty minutes or so, walking to the end of the lane before cutting across the back edge of the big field and returning to the buildings by way of the tree and fence line. There was no sign of the dog, at least nothing I could see. I would swing by to check the animal shelter when I went to see my mom. And go shopping, whispered that nag in my head. You need a dress for the wedding.
Yeah, yeah.
The red Honda—Jo’s car—was gone when we got back to the arena. Hutch’s car was still there, but he was nowhere in sight. I grabbed a bottle of water from my van and poured some into a stainless steel bowl. Jay drank enough to be polite, and I took a swig from the bottle.
“Okay, Bub, let’s think about this a little,” I said, pulling my phone out to check the time. “We’ll give it half an hour, and then we’ll have to go home.” Jay cocked his head, letting his tongue dangle out the side of his mouth, and looked at me as if to say, “Sure! Whatever you say!”
We strolled to a stump and I sat on it. The charcoal clouds had thickened, and the place felt spooky. I glanced at the door to the storage room and flashed on the way Ray had looked. I closed my eyes, forced myself to breathe, forced other images to the top. A blue jay was screeching somewhere behind me, and a pair of mourning doves cooed from the corner of the building.
There are no ghosts here. I shivered. You’re alone with your dog, and safe.
And then I wasn’t.
nineteen
An almost slim young woman in pressed jeans, blue cowgirl boots, and a fitted denim jacket over a red sweater was coming my way from the far end of the pole barn. I could hardly believe how much she had changed in the past year. Apparently trauma can have positive effects on some people.
She bent to pet Jay and said, “Hi, Janet. How are you?”
“Giselle! What are you doing here?”
Giselle Swann trains at Dog Dayz, as do Tom and I, but since Precious, her Maltese, weighs about six pounds, collar and all, Giselle wasn’t one of the sheep-herding crowd. Not that Precious wouldn’t have been willing—he’s a gung-ho agility and obedience dog, and Giselle had recently started tracking with him. He might control the sheep by sheer will.
“I heard about the missing dog, the Sheltie, and I had a little time between classes, so …” She smiled at me, and I realized that she was wearing lipstick and eye makeup, all very subtle and becoming. And I would bet a morning’s photo shoot that she weighed at least eighty pounds less than she had a year earlier.
“Giselle, you look fantastic.”
Color rose in her cheeks and I expected her to deflect the compliment, which had always been typical Giselle, but she fooled me.
“Thanks, Janet.” The smile expanded. “I’m pretty excited to be able to wear jeans that don’t have an elastic waist.”
I resisted the urge to pull my comfort-waist pants a little higher.
Giselle leaned in and lowered her voice. “What’s going on? I heard that some sheep went missing on Saturday, and a man committed suicide?”
“I don’t think we know that it’s suicide.”
“That’s what the radio said.” Giselle looked thoughtful. “I’m not really sure which is better.”
She had a point. In case she had heard a different newscast than I had, I asked, “What did the news story say about the sheep?”
“Just that they were missing and police were investigating. They said it might just be a case of negligence, that maybe someone didn’t latch the gate.”
“I really don’t think so. Summer and Evan are obsessively careful about their animals.”
Giselle narrowed her eyes at me. “Maybe you should do some sleuthing. You’re pretty good at it.”
I was about to decline when Hutch came around the far end of the long building. I pointed with my chin and said, “I think I’ll let him take care of it.”
Giselle turned around and gasped. “Is that …?” Her voice drifted off, and I wondered whether Hutchinson made Giselle nervous. He had interrogated her during a murder investigation a year earlier, and he may have been in on her arrest for vandalism last November, although I couldn’t remember for sure. But when she spoke again, it wasn’t fear I heard in her voice. “It is. It’s that handsome cop.”
Handsome? Hutchinson?
Giselle seemed to stand a little straighter and I could swear she thrust her breasts out and sucked in her belly. She smiled and cocked her head the tiniest bit as Hutchinson closed in on us.
Hutch handed me a bottle of water. “I thought you could use this.” He turned to Giselle and froze for a heartbeat or two before he said, “Miss … Miss Swann?”
I was amazed that he recognized her, she had changed so much. Then again, he was a trained observer.
Giselle held out her hand, the picture of poise. “Officer Hutchinson. It’s lovely to see you again. And please, it’s Giselle.” He took her hand and they looked at one another and I swear I felt the tiniest shift in … I don’t know what. I half expected sparks to fly into the air. Holy jumpin’ agility cats.
Giselle broke the spell. “Are you the inv
estigator on these cases?”
“Uh, yeah.” Hutchinson retrieved his hand and looked at me, then back at Giselle. “I’m, uh, just starting …” His voice trailed off as he stared at her.
I decided to help him. I didn’t have a bucket of cold water handy, so I asked, “What happens now?”
Before he could reply, Giselle said, “If you’ll excuse me, I just came to see if I could help look for the missing dog. Bonnie, right?”
“Right,” I said.
“You seem to have things covered here, so I’m going to drive around the back roads and alert the neighbors. Then I have to get to class.” Giselle barely glanced at me, but she threw Hutchinson another big smile and said, “I hope I’ll see you again.”
My jaw felt a bit slack as I watched her walk away. Hutchinson watched as well, and didn’t turn back to me until Giselle disappeared around the end of the building. When he did look at me, his cheeks went as red as a police cruiser’s turret lights.
twenty
Hutchinson seemed flustered, but he finally grinned and said, “Giselle’s not, you know, involved with this investigation, is she?”
“Not yet.” I waited, but Hutchinson didn’t seem to know what to say, so I tried again. “She wasn’t around yesterday, and doesn’t do any herding, if that’s what you mean. And I don’t think she knew Ray, or Summer and Evan for that matter.”
He grinned but said nothing.
“Go for it,” I said, play punching his arm. My own feelings made me pretty goofy when I was first getting to know Tom. To be honest, I still feel gooey-kneed when he looks at me a certain way.
Hutchinson nodded and cleared his throat, and then pulled a Moleskine notebook from his pocket and flipped through to about the middle. He was forty-four going on fourteen when it came to girls, apparently, and I decided to give him a break and follow his change of direction.
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