by Judi McCoy
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Teaser chapter
“A star on the rise!”—Teresa Medeiros
Praise for the Novels of Judi McCoy
“Judi McCoy dazzles!”—Rachel Gibson
“Judi McCoy writes with heart and humor. Anyone who loves dogs or books will have a howling good time.”
—Lois Greiman
“Hounding the Pavement, the first book in the Dog Walker mystery series, is a treat for everyone, whether a dog lover or not. . . . Ms. McCoy has written a cozy mystery sure to please.”—Fresh Fiction
“McCoy fills this delightful story with humor, quirky characters, and delicious hints of romance.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“The crisp writing, humorous dialogue, and delightful characters—both human and canine—all make this book a winner.” —Romantic Times
“Fabulous . . . lighthearted whimsical romantic fantasy.”
—Midwest Book Review
“An overall lighthearted whimsical romance.”
—The Best Reviews
“Fast-paced adventure, skillfully interspersed with moments of great humor and tenderness.”—Booklist
“Refreshing and entertaining, Judi McCoy’s debut novel promises great things of this tremendously talented author.”—WordWeaving
“This was a totally delightful fantasy tale that had a little bit of everything tossed into the mix—fantasy, humor, sensuality, and a bit of a heart-wrenching tearjerker ending. . . . Couple this along with a well-defined set of secondary characters, a couple of cute kids, and you’re in for a very entertaining read.”—Romance Designs
“Thoroughly enjoyable. . . . I found myself captivated. . . . McCoy weaves a wonderful little contemporary romance with just a touch of myth and magic [and] a great mix of humor and love.”—Wild on Books
“Judi McCoy’s stories are always fun to read and One Night with a Goddess is no exception. . . . Sparks fly . . . a lighthearted story with some very tender moments . . . pure entertainment.”—Kwips and Kritiques
Also in Judi McCoy’s Dogwalker Mystery Series
HOUNDING THE PAVEMENT
OBSIDIAN
Published by New American Library, a division of
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First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,
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First Printing, October 2009
Copyright © Judi McCoy, 2009
All rights reserved
OBSIDIAN and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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eISBN : 978-1-101-14533-3
http://us.penguingroup.com
This book is dedicated to the angels of the animal
rescue world, the amazing team of veterinarians, aides,
trainers, and volunteers at Best Friends in Kanab, Utah.
And to the members of Chesapeake Romance
Writers in Chesapeake, Virginia. Your support has
carried me through many difficult times and writing
disasters. Thank you all for being kind, giving, and
understanding.
Acknowledgments
A huge thank-you to attorney Lewis H. Fishlin, who phoned me from his home on a snowy day in New York City and answered all my questions on wills, estates, and inheritance law.
Without his kind assistance, Rudy wouldn’t have been able to inherit a fortune, and I wouldn’t have had a story to tell.
Chapter 1
Ellie and her dog Rudy stood next to a uniformed officer, staring in mute horror at the red sneakers pointing skyward from a pile of leaves scattered on the forest floor. Though she didn’t want to believe it, she’d know those toes . . . er . . . feet . . . er . . . shoes, anywhere.
She glanced around the clearing, noting it crawled with patrolmen, suited detectives, crime scene investigators, people carting video cams, news vans, and reporters, along with the usual flotilla of gawkers who sensed something newsworthy was going down in Central Park.
Apparently, the Big Apple was so proud of the way it had cleaned up one of the most isolated areas of the city, the fact that a lone homeless person had died in the Ramble under suspicious circumstances was cause for a media circus.
When a suited official caught her eye through the gloom, she cringed inside. The detective, part of the mob circling the cardboard box that made up Gary’s home, appeared to be in charge, which she hoped would be a blessing in disguise. There was a better chance she could maintain her dignity and self-control with this officer than she would if on the hot seat with her single-fling lover, the dastardly Detective Sam Ryder.
“Miss Engleman?” The short, stocky man stood in front of her and flashed his badge. “Detective Art Gruning. I understand you found the body and called it in.”
Ellie knew better than to offer her hand in greeting. “Ac
tually, my dog did.”
Gruning raised a brow.
“I don’t mean ‘called it in.’ I called it in, but Rudy is the one who found Gary’s body.” Great. She sounded like an idiot. “What I’m trying to say is my dog and I were taking a stroll, and he sort of dragged me in here. Since we’d visited Gary before, I figured Rudy wanted to stop and say hello. When I saw feet sticking out from the leaves in front of his shelter, I knew right away who it was.”
“You recognized the guy by his feet?”
She peered over his shoulder and got a view of Gary’s red, size sixteen or better high-top Nikes. “Well, sure. How could anyone miss those shoes? They’re huge.”
“You saw a pair of oversized athletic shoes and figured out who was lying there, just like that?” Gruning retorted, his voice nasal, flat, and pure New York.
“Gary’s not a big man, so his shoe size always amazed me. I suspected it was him, but I stooped down and brushed the leaves off to be sure. When I saw he was dead—”
“How did you know he was dead?”
Was that a trick question? She opened and closed her mouth before stuttering, “Uh . . . by the bullet hole in his chest?”
“So you disturbed the scene?”
“I checked to see if there was anything I could do to help, as I assume any normal human being would. When I realized there wasn’t, I sort of lost it—”
“That would be your vomit next to the shelter, then?”
Sniffing back a tear, she wiped her nose with the used tissue. “Afraid so. Then I called 911.”
Gruning scribbled in his notebook. “You say you’ve been here before.” He gazed at a rocky hillside against which Gary had established his cardboard home. “This is a fairly isolated area for someone to visit on a regular basis.”
“We didn’t stop often. Just when Gary invited us.”
His eyes narrowed at the word “invited.” “How well did you know the victim?”
Striving for composure, she took a deep breath. “Not very. But Gary is . . . was a really nice guy. Harmless. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to kill him.”
Gruning’s expression held a nasty edge, as if he didn’t believe a word she said. “So you were more than acquaintances?”
“Not really. He was just someone I talked to once in a while when I walked my dogs.”
“That dog?” he asked, pointing to Rudy, her gray-and-white Yorkiepoo.
“This one and others. I’m a professional dog walker.”
He consulted his palm-sized spiral pad, a must-have, it seemed, for all detectives in the city, and again raised a brow. “Hold on a second. Engleman . . . Engleman . . . Are you the woman who was involved in that dognap ping homicide a couple of months back? The one Sam Ryder worked on?”
“That would be me.” She blew her nose, then dabbed the crumbling tissues over her damp forehead. Though it was cooler here in the shade of the park, mid-July in Manhattan was brutal, especially since temperatures had hovered in the midnineties for the past week. “I discovered the professor’s body.”
“Appears as if discovering dead bodies is becoming a habit of yours. Why do you think that is?”
It was obvious from his memory of Buddy’s disappearance that she would never live down her involvement with Sam. Now, here she was again, innocently finding a body, and this guy was rubbing it in. “I have no idea, but Detective Ryder took me off his list of suspects after his first round of questioning.”
“But you knew who did it?”
“I figured out who did it. I didn’t actually know the man.”
“The way I heard it, you did,” he insisted, loosening his garishly patterned tie. Rivulets of sweat trickled down his ruddy cheeks and disappeared under the collar of his shirt.
“I only knew him to see him,” she went on. “What does this have to do with Gary?”
Detective Gruning proceeded to take her elbow and lead her farther from the scene. Situating her in front of a stand of trees, he folded his arms and glared. “You look nervous, Ms. Engleman. Any particular reason why?”
“I’m not nervous, just upset. It happens when you lose a friend.”
“You just said the victim was an acquaintance. Someone you barely knew.”
“I still considered Gary a friend. We spoke several times a week when I walked my dogs.”
“How often did you come here, to his hole?”
“Not often.”
The detective ran a hand over his face, then wiped the sweaty palm on his suit coat. “Let me put it this way—when was the last time you were here?”
“Before Rudy and I got here tonight?”
“Yes.”
“About two weeks ago.”
“And why was that?”
“Gary wanted to show me something he’d found . . . a treasure, he called it.”
“And what exactly was this treasure?”
“A dog dish. He was proud of the fact that it only had a single chip along the edge. He found it in an alley where he did a lot of Dumpster shopping and brought it to his shelter so Rudy could have a drink of water when we stopped to see him.”
“Rudy, as in your dog?”
“Yes.”
“So Gary liked your dog?”
Ellie remembered how the homeless man and Rudy had bonded on their second or third meeting. For some unexplainable reason, Gary had picked up on their unique manner of communication and was able to speak with Rudy exactly as she did. “He told me he’d always wanted a dog, but his mother wouldn’t allow it.”
An officer walked over and handed Ellie her tote bag. “It’s clean, sir.”
“Hey, Gruning, I think you should see this,” a man’s voice called from the scene.
The detective nodded at the purse-toting patrolman, who moved to Ellie’s side. She waited until Gruning plodded to the cardboard shelter, then accepted her bag and asked her guard, “What’s happening?”
“Don’t know, and I couldn’t tell you if I did.”
“I don’t like the look of that detective, Triple E.” Sounding unsure and a bit frightened, Rudy’s voice invaded her mind. Karma had brought her and the spirit of her first dog together at the ASPCA shelter, where she’d gone to celebrate her divorce. Still, hearing his thoughts continued to surprise her when she was stressed—like now. “I get the feeling he’s gonna make trouble for us.”
“He’s just doing his duty. Gary is dead, remember.”
The officer sneered. “Funny you should notice.”
Ellie squatted on the pretext of brushing off her buddy’s fur. She didn’t mind being thought of as eccentric, but being labeled “crazy” by the cops was something else. “How about you take a walk over there, scope out the site, and report back?” she whispered. “Just don’t let anyone see you.”
“Like I would.”
The terrier mix took off at a trot, his leash trailing in the underbrush. The interior of the park was dank, alive with the scent of decaying leaves, vegetable matter, and putrefying flesh. How long had Gary lain there, bleeding and alone? Standing, she turned her back on the officer and moved to block her dog’s disappearance.
“Hey, Ellie?”
“This is a crime scene,” the officer said at the same time.
She shifted her stance and spotted her favorite hot dog vendor standing a few feet away. “He’s a friend,” she said to the patrolman.
“Hurry up,” he responded. “This isn’t a tea party.”
Pops edged closer, his nut-brown face set in a frown. “Heard it was Gary, so I came running. Had to leave the cart chained to a lamppost or I’d’a been here sooner.”
She gave him a watery smile. “He was shot. Can you believe it? Why would anyone shoot a nice guy like Gary?”
“Beats me, but um . . .” He glanced over his shoulder, then reached in his pocket and passed her a grimy envelope. “This is for you. Gary told me to give it to you if anything ever happened to him.”
She stared at the gift. �
�To me? What’s in it?”
“Beats me, but there’s weight to it. Feels like it might be a key of some kind,” said the vendor, taking a step in retreat. “Just said he wanted you to have it. I gotta be going. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” He ambled off with a wave of his hand.
Trying for casual, she stuffed the envelope in her tote bag. She’d take a peek as soon as the coast was clear. “So, what happens next?” she asked, turning back to the guard, though she had a good idea. The last time she’d found a body, she was immediately labeled the prime suspect and hauled in for questioning. She’d been fingerprinted and had her hair and clothes checked for fibers and whatever else the authorities considered necessary to implicate her in the crime.
“What did that old guy just give you?”
“Something personal. When will I be able to go home?”
“When Gruning gives the okay. Why?”
“Because it’s getting late.”
At the sound of a commotion, they focused on Gary’s home. An officer walked from behind the shelter with what appeared to be an empty plastic soda bottle on the end of a pencil. Gruning scanned the item, then glanced at her while more pictures were taken.
“What’s going on?”
“Looks like they found something,” said the officer, without volunteering a thought on what it might be.
“They got part of the murder weapon.” Rudy’s voice came from below.
“What?”
“No idea. Too soon to tell,” the officer added, unaware he was participating in a verbal ping-pong match with a canine.
“A plastic bottle. They think it was used as a silencer for the gunshot that killed Gary.”
“A soda bottle as a silencer?”
The officer folded his arms across his protruding belly. “If you know what they found, why are you asking me?”
