The Pomeranian Always Barks Twice

by Alex Erickson

  “Yes, he does,” Amelia said. “He’s a private investigator.”

  That stopped me short. “He’s a what?”

  “A private investigator,” Amelia repeated. “He was a guest speaker in one of my classes a few months ago. I enjoyed his talk so much, I stayed after to talk to him about it. We’ve kept in touch since.”

  The worry that his motives weren’t pure was back, but it was overwhelmed by my confusion. “You hired a private investigator for Ben?”

  “No,” Amelia said, sounding frustrated. She lifted both hands, dropped them heavily onto the table, before picking at her fingernails. “He’s sort of my mentor.”

  “Mentor?” The confusion kept growing and growing. “What are you talking about, Amelia?”

  She bit her lower lip, glanced up at me, looked away, and then looked up again. She was more than nervous; I could see the fear in her eyes, like she thought I was going to explode when she finally told me what was going on.

  “Amelia,” I said, keeping my voice level. “I’m not going to be mad.” Or at least, I hoped not. “Just tell me why you’re talking to a private investigator.”

  She took a few moments more to collect her thoughts. She licked her lips, rose, and grabbed a water from the fridge, before returning to her seat.

  “Chester is a nice guy,” she said, speaking slowly, and carefully, as if she was thinking through each word before she said it. “He’s been in the business for a long time. I guess he’s helped the police solve a few big cases in his time, though these days, he mostly does small-time stuff, like checking on cheating husbands and things like that.”

  I could imagine. There really wasn’t a lot of major crime happening in Grey Falls. I was surprised we even had a private investigator at all, to be honest.

  “So, he gave that talk I mentioned, telling us about some of his cases, how he worked them, what went wrong. Stuff like that. It was in my criminal justice class.”

  “You take criminal justice?”

  She smiled. “I did. It was a really neat presentation and it sounded exciting, so I asked if we could talk about it some more sometime. We’d occasionally get together after class, but yesterday, we met early because he had somewhere to be that evening.”

  Which was why she’d left so early. There was nothing nefarious in it.

  “But, why?” I asked, still confused.

  “I like it,” she said, growing excited as she spoke. “To piece things together, to find the clues, the patterns. It drew me the moment he started speaking. I’d been taking classes like that for a while, but it wasn’t until he gave his talk that I realized it was what I wanted to do.”

  It took me a moment to realize what she meant. “You want to be a private investigator?”

  She lowered her gaze, appeared embarrassed, or perhaps, ashamed. “That or a police detective.”

  I sat there, dumbly, for a good couple of minutes as I thought it through. This seemed to have come out of nowhere, yet it sounded as if she’d been thinking about it for a long time. Not only that, but she was passionate about it. I could see it in her eyes, by the sound of her voice. This was what she wanted to do with her life.

  How could I have not known?

  Because she never talked about it, that’s why.

  “Why didn’t you tell me before now?” I asked.

  “Because I thought you and Dad might be mad at me.”

  “Mad at you? Why would we be mad at you?”

  She refused to look up as she spoke. “You and Dad and Ben are all involved with animals. You have the rescue. Dad’s a veterinarian. Ben’s probably going to be a vet too. I felt like I was letting you down by not following in your footsteps. You always ask me if I want to help out. Dad asks if I want to come in and help sometimes. I was afraid that saying no would make you hate me.”

  “Oh, honey, you aren’t letting us down. And we definitely don’t hate you. Actually, I’m proud of you.”

  “You are?” she asked, skeptically.

  “I am.” I stood and rounded the table to wrap her in a hug. She squirmed briefly before giving in and accepting it. “You’ve found your calling,” I said, releasing her. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

  “Even if it means I don’t help out much with the animals?”

  “Even then,” I said. “I’m happy if you’re happy.”

  “I am.”

  “Then there’s nothing to be angry about.”

  She didn’t look entirely convinced, and we still had to break the news to Manny, but I was pretty sure he would be just as thrilled about her finally finding a direction for her life as I was.

  Of course, there was one caveat.

  “As happy as I am for you, Amelia, I don’t think you should be looking into Ben’s case.”

  “Why not?” she asked, stubbornly crossing her arms.

  “Because you are related to him. The police won’t be able to use whatever you bring them.” Well, I’m sure they could, but it would be with a healthy dose of skepticism.

  “If it’s true, then they’d have to.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But it’s risky.”

  She pouted, and I knew that no matter what I said, she was going to do whatever she could to help Ben. A warm, fuzzy feeling filled me then because I knew I’d raised both my children right.

  “What do you know about the case?” I asked, partially giving in. I had to admit, I was curious as to what she’d uncovered. And while I didn’t want her going to Detective Cavanaugh with anything she discovered, I had no problem doing it for her.

  Amelia sat up, entire demeanor brightening. “Not much, yet,” she said. “But I’ve been working on it. Chester says that these things take time sometimes, and that you just have to keep pressing. I’ve only got bits and pieces right now, but I’m sure I’ll be able to use them to get to the truth.”

  “Okay, tell me what you have.”

  “You know about the Ms. Hopewell thing. She’s short on cash, and might lose her house. If the rumors of Mr. Fuller’s money are true, then she had every motive in the world to go after it.”

  “But to kill him?”

  “If he refused to give it to her, she might have gotten angry. Or she thought she could find the money before the house was sold. She just needed the old man out of the way, and opportunity to search the place. If she was the one who broke in, she could have done it last night, and then faked everything we saw today.”

  “And then there’s Junior,” I said. “When he showed up to care for his dad, he could have messed up her plans.”

  “Exactly,” Amelia said. “And Timothy Jr. isn’t exactly rolling in dough either.”

  “He’s broke?”

  “Mostly.” She gave me a satisfied smile. “Apparently, his wife, Alexis, came from a rich family, who disowned her for marrying a man they believed beneath her. She has expensive tastes, and expects him to support her. Junior doesn’t have that kind of money coming in.”

  “So, he thinks he can get his sick, dying dad to give it to him.”

  “But when he tries . . .”

  “The old man says no.”

  “And with Ms. Hopewell already trying to find the money, Daddy would only get in the way.”

  I thought about it. Both of them were likely suspects, and if both of them were hurting for cash, it could very easily motivate them both. Meredith feels she’s owed, as does Junior. They clash. And they’re both on a time limit. Once Timothy is sent to the home, the house would go up for sale, and if it sold before they found the money, it might be lost forever. If he died, then the house would be stuck in limbo until everything was sorted out.

  But in that scenario, Timothy’s death benefited Junior the most. Once Timothy was gone, Meredith wouldn’t have a reason to go back to the house. Junior could go through it at his leisure.

  Did he hasten his father’s demise along, just to be rid of Meredith? And was that why the murder took place in the barn? If it happened in the house, then the pla
ce would be locked up as a crime scene, not to mention searched. He couldn’t afford to let anyone else find the money, not with the stipulation in Timothy’s will that everything should go to Stewie.

  “Then, who went through the house?” I asked, thinking we might be on to something. “The place was trashed and Junior seemed pretty upset about it.”

  “Both Ms. Hopewell and Tim Jr. had reason to,” Amelia said. “Though, at this point, I think Tim Jr. is the more likely suspect.”

  “Junior called the cops,” I said. “Why would he do that if he was the one who wrecked the place?”

  “Maybe he was trying to scare someone else off ?”

  Yeah, but who?

  Amelia didn’t know much else, but swore to me she was on it. When she went to her room, presumably to make a call to Chester Chudzinski, I let her go with a warning to be careful. I wasn’t going to stop her from doing what she loved, but I also didn’t want her getting hurt.

  But she had given me something to think about. It was sounding more and more like Timothy had died because of his secret stash—if it even existed. And if it did, was it now currently in possession of the man or woman who killed him? Or was it still tucked away, hidden in a house that would soon pass on to someone else who didn’t even know it existed?

  17

  I spent the next hour waiting for a call that never came. I wasn’t sure what I expected. It wasn’t like Detective Cavanaugh had promised to tell me if he learned anything about who had broken into Timothy Fuller’s house, yet a part of me hoped he would.

  Amelia left thirty minutes into my wait, promising she wasn’t going to get herself into any trouble, and that all she was going to do was study with a friend. I had a feeling that wasn’t the entire truth, but I let it slide. If she was to somehow come up with Timothy’s killer, it would save Ben. I was okay with that.

  Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore. I gathered my purse, made sure my phone was charged and tucked away, and then headed out the door to do a little shopping.

  Pets on Main was a locally owned pet store where I shopped for both Wheels, and the rescues, exclusively. Their prices were sometimes higher than what I could get at one of the chains, but I preferred to support smaller, locally owned businesses. And some of the local products they carried couldn’t be found anywhere else.

  As per its name, the pet store was located on Main Street, which ironically enough, wasn’t actually downtown, or a main road. It was situated on the north end of town, in a shopping district that was beginning to bloom as more and more businesses came into Grey Falls. It was where the mall, and many of the restaurants—locally owned and chains—were located.

  I pulled into the lot, which was shared with a car dealership. Most of the spaces were taken up by cars with price stickers in them. Before long, there wouldn’t be anywhere for Pets on Main customers to park. Eventually, I feared it would force the owner, Jamison Crowley, to close up, or move. If he left, I didn’t know where I’d get Wheels her food.

  Pets on Main was a small, squat building that looked more like an old grocery store than a pet store. In fact, I believe it was once an Aldi that had moved to the other side of town. Only the name out front, and the dog houses that lined the sidewalk, indicated that it was, indeed, a pet store.

  I parked close to the doors and went inside. Jamison wasn’t at the counter, but I could see him stocking one of the shelves farther to the back. He often worked alone. Unmarried, and uninterested in relationships, he’d made Pets on Main his life’s work. When he wasn’t in, his only employee, Zack Traylor, was.

  He looked up as I entered, and waved. I returned the gesture, and then picked up a basket. Jamison was in his early sixties, but looked far older. He’d survived a house fire when he was little, but he hadn’t gotten out unscathed. Half of his body had been severely burnt, giving him a perpetually wrinkled appearance. Some found him frightening, but there was nothing scary about Jamison Crowley.

  I went down the cat food aisle and filled up on Wheels’s favorites. She got canned cat food twice a day, dry as a snack. I would have cut down on the canned, but due to health issues resulting from her deformity, she needed the extra moisture in her food. It would probably eventually cause her weight problems, but for now, it kept her flowing regularly, and that was what was important.

  A meow from the end of the aisle caught my attention. Jamison kept six cages at the back of his store where he kept rescues or shelter animals. Today, three of the cages held kittens. The other three were empty, which I took as a good sign.

  I took a moment to reach through the cages to pet the kittens. They mewled and batted at my fingers playfully, looking as cute as could be. They wouldn’t last long. White, with black around their eyes, they looked like cute little bandits. I’d be surprised if they weren’t gone by the end of the week.

  Telling the kitties goodbye—and forcing myself to walk away lest I buy one of them myself—I started to head for the checkout, when I changed my mind and veered off toward the dog food aisle.

  I still had some food left over from when I took care of Toby and Leroy, but thought it might be a good idea to get something special for Stewie after he’d suffered such a harrowing couple of days. I was positive I’d eventually gain possession of the Pomeranian, and I wanted to ease the transition as much as possible.

  I need to find out what he usually eats, I thought. The best way to ensure the smoothest transition would be to make sure he got the same food, was fed at about the same time. And with a dog Stewie’s age, his system was likely sensitive to anything new, so changing it up on him could have negative consequences.

  Still, I could splurge and get him something, perhaps one of the expensive brands, just enough to make him feel wanted. Once I got the chance, I’d have to ask Meredith what Timothy usually fed the Pomeranian and pick some up for him.

  I turned the corner, mind elsewhere, so I didn’t see someone coming down the aisle until our baskets collided.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, hurriedly grabbing at a display I very nearly knocked over. “I didn’t see you.”

  “Liz?” Courtney’s hand fluttered near her mouth, before settling back onto the handle of her basket. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  “Courtney.” Of all the people to run into, it had to be her. “It’s a pet store. I practically live here.”

  Her basket was filled with tiny little cans of dog food, the kind meant for smaller dogs. You know, like Pomeranians. She noticed me looking and waved it off.

  “I’m stocking up for an influx of puppies,” she said. “Cute little things. Momma was a bad doggie and got out one day, and well, here they are.”

  “I see.” Someone hadn’t gotten the memo about spaying and neutering your pets. Even inside dogs should be fixed, lest something like this happen. “Given up on Stewie?”

  “You can have your old dog,” she said, making a face like the idea of the elderly Pomeranian sickened her. “I’m not interested in that anymore.”

  I couldn’t help myself. “That’s not what Duke said.”

  She froze. “Duke? What does he have to do with anything?”

  “I talked to him earlier today,” I said. “It was quite interesting.” I stared at her, waiting for her to react, but she merely stared at me, so I continued. “He said you told him to sneak Stewie away from Timothy Fuller while you and I talked.”

  “Really?” The shock in her voice was clearly faked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Her eyes darted around the room, as if seeking an escape.

  I wouldn’t let her get away that easily. “He said you let him out just down the street. He never got the chance, though, did he? Murder kind of puts a kink in plans like that.” Of course, the way Duke told it, he was walking away when Timothy Fuller died, so he hadn’t seen or heard it happen. Still, it sounded better the way I said it.

  Courtney laughed, though it was a nervous sound. “You can’t really blame me for trying, now can you?” she said, surpris
ing me by not denying it. “I mean, you butted in on my pickup, so it wasn’t like I did something you wouldn’t have done.”

  I bit back a protest. Arguing with Courtney about it again would be as helpful as a pooper scooper without a handle.

  Besides, I believed her when she said she was no longer interested in the older dog. Puppies were definitely more her speed.

  But it did make me wonder; why was she so interested in Stewie in the first place? I’d never known her to be interested in an animal she couldn’t make a profit off of. An old dog, one who might have health issues, was definitely not easy to move.

  “I’ve heard a rumor,” I said, fishing. “About Timothy Fuller and a possible secret stash of money. Do you know anything about that?”

  Her eyes widened briefly, before she looked away. “Really? I hadn’t heard.”

  Really, indeed.

  It kind of made sense. Courtney was always all about the money. She liked animals, sure, but wouldn’t do anything that would cost her too much cash. If she heard about Stewie, and Timothy’s money, maybe she thought she could get her hands on the cash at the same time as the dog.

  It would also explain why Duke was so nervous about going back to the house. Was he told to not just get Stewie, but to find the money as well? Had he tried? Could he have gone in after Junior left, looked for the hidden stash, but was caught by an already upset Timothy? I didn’t see Duke as a murderer, but if he panicked, who knew what could happen?

  “Are you feeling all right, Liz? You look funny.”

  “Hmm?” I came back to the here and now. “I was just thinking.”

  She raised her eyebrows at me as if she was shocked I even knew how to think. Like she’s one to talk.

  “Are you sure you knew nothing about the money?” I asked, pressing her because I knew she was lying. The question was, why lie? Why not admit it and move on? At this point, it wasn’t like she could get her hands on it.

  “I’m sure.” She stepped past me, though her basket jammed me hard in the ribs as she passed. I had a feeling it was on purpose. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get home to prepare for the little guys.”