A Bloodhound to Die for
Page 21
“It was bewildering. Sara had been in my store before, but she’d never wanted help in finding anything, barely said more than hello and good-bye to me on previous visits. But something about that baby-naming book made her open up. No one else was in the store, so I just listened and gave her tissues. When we heard the bell over the door tinkle, she suddenly got quiet and left without ever getting anything for Leon. It was like I’d dreamed it.
“Maybe that’s what made me talk about it later—it was just so weird, totally unlike Sara. She was always so withdrawn, so tense. Anyway, I found myself telling someone about the incident—I don’t even remember who now. I just—I just wasn’t thinking. And then from there, all the rumors grew, and—and, oh, Jo Beth, I can’t help but think that it was hearing all the talk that pushed Sara over the edge, that if she hadn’t heard the talk, which I started, then maybe she wouldn’t have, wouldn’t have …”
I put my now-empty glass on the small side table, then stood up, pausing for a moment to stretch. I’d been sitting too long. Then I caught Susan in midpace and pulled her to me. She leaned into me, crying openly now.
“What did Lee say when you told him this?”
Susan sniffled. “That there’s no denying that betraying Sara’s confidence in me was wrong. But that there was also no way to know if the talk was what sent her over the edge—or if something else would have sent her over anyway. He—he forgave me, Jo Beth.”
I patted her back. “I do too.”
“Thank you,” she said.
We sat back down. “Lee told me that Leon had confided in him about the affair, so Sara’s suspicions were right. Sara had had trouble trying to get pregnant, and she was getting obsessive about it, to the point that their marriage was falling apart.”
“I reckon that explains why seeing the baby-naming book made her break down and confide her worries to you,” I said.
“Yes,” Susan agreed. “Lee also said he didn’t think Leon was justified in using his marriage troubles as an excuse for an affair,” she added quietly.
“Lee’s right,” I said. Then I added, with a grin, “See, Lee is a good man … and a good man is hard to find.”
“And a hard man’s even better to find,” Susan returned, not even sniffling.
We laughed again, and this time our laughter lasted until Jasmine came up the porch steps. The heavenly scent of sausage, onion, and banana pepper pizza settled us down, although we were still giggling as we followed Jasmine into the house.
We ate in the kitchen, getting serious about the pizza and the cold beers. When there was nothing left but a few crusts and the take-out box, we had another round of beer. This silence was easy and satisfied, the kind that can only be shared by good, longtime friends.
I broke the silence first, looking at Jasmine and asking quietly, “How’s your mama?”
I’d learned that Jasmine’s mama had relented on the same night I’d found Bobby Lee, and had agreed to a long talk with her daughter. Jasmine hadn’t shared any of the details, but I knew that since then she’d been visiting with her mama about twice a week, and that she’d been over at her mama’s house before picking up the pizza for our girls’ night.
“She’s fine,” Jasmine said, then grinned. “We’re never going to be buddies. But we’ve at least made our peace.”
Susan glanced over at me, then held up her beer bottle. “To making peace.”
We all clinked our bottles together, then took a swig.
“Now,” said Jasmine, “maybe one or the other of you can tell me what you were hooting and hollering about when I came up the steps.”
I let Susan do the talking, telling as much as she was comfortable with, and I was glad that she cut out the part about her having started the talk about Leon and Norma Jean, and just stuck to gabbing happily about Lee and their blooming romance. We’d just toasted to making peace, after all.
When Susan finally took a break from talking, Jasmine held her beer bottle aloft again. “Here’s to good men. And hard men!”
We clinked bottles, laughing. Then, midswig, Jasmine pointed at my left hand, and sputtered, “Oh, my God, Jo Beth. What’s that? What’s that?”
You’d have thought she’d spotted a snake curled around the ring finger of my left hand.
But it was just a simple ring, with a single emerald-cut diamond. I had kept the diamond turned palm-side down, until Jasmine had proposed her toast, and then had turned the diamond around so it could be seen more easily. Now seemed as good a time as any to share my—and Hank’s—news.
“That, ladies,” I said with more bravado than I actually felt, “is an engagement ring. Hank and I are getting married next month.”
I tried to stay cool, I really did. I tried to let the nervous twitchiness that arose every so often ever since I’d said yes to his proposal a week before serve as the counterweight of reason to the giddiness Jasmine and Susan were displaying shamelessly at my news. I knew, after all, that ours would not always be a comfortable, easy marriage. We weren’t suited for that kind of life. But, as Hank had put it when he proposed, we were better suited for rocky times together than smooth—but dull—times alone.
Jasmine and Susan got to me, though, and soon enough, I found myself laughing and giggling and jesting just as shamelessly as they were, while trying to explain that, no, the particulars of our wedding hadn’t been worked out, and yes, they’d be very much in on the planning.
After a while, into the middle of our girls’ night, Bobby Lee ambled in. We started cooing and fussing over him and minutes passed before I realized that I was actually interacting with Bobby Lee without getting teary eyed, for the first time since I’d reclaimed him.
As Susan and Jasmine went to get more beers, I stayed down on the floor, staring into Bobby Lee’s big soulful eyes. And in his eyes I think I saw that all along I had been as much a searcher as he. For a sense of meaning, perhaps, or a sense of peace. And I realized that I’d finally found those things … with my bloodhounds, with my friends, with Hank, and within.
It had just taken a bloodhound to die for to show me the way.
The World of Virginia Lanier
Look for these doggone good mysteries by
Virginia Lanier,
starring dog trainer and amateur
sleuth extraordinaire
Jo Beth Sidden
Ten Little Bloodhounds
Blind Bloodhound Justice
A Brace of Bloodhounds
The House on Bloodhound Lane
Death in Bloodhound Red
“Virginia Lanier’s Southern mysteries have one irresistibly appealing ingredient: dogs … Jo Beth deserves a good scratch behind the ears for running a crackerjack operation.”
New York Times Book Review
DEATH IN BLOODHOUND RED
Anthony Award Winner
Agatha Award Nominee
Jo Beth Sidden is a bloodhound trainer with a special talent for harrowing search-and-rescue missions, and a bad habit of mouthing off to deputies who refuse to take orders from a woman.
She has seen her share of trouble: moonshiners poking guns at her head, crooked cops, and an abusive ex-husband.
Then she’s suspected of murder and finds herself treading a quagmire as thick and treacherous as the Okefenokee Swamp. If she can’t prove her innocence, she might lose not only the thriving business she loves, but the freedom and independence she’s fought for all her life.
“It is rare when a writer can truly transport the reader, and this is just what Virginia Lanier has managed … every time her sleuth, Jo Beth Sidden, a chain-smoking good old girl, took her beloved bloodhounds and me into the swamps of Georgia, I smelled every drop of sweat, felt every mosquito bite.”
Nevada Barr
THE HOUSE ON BLOODHOUND LANE
As her thirtieth birthday looms closer, Jo Beth Sidden doesn’t think her resolution to give up smoking is such a good idea. Especially since she’s in the middle of expanding her bloodhound tracking
business, and six law enforcement officers are about to show up for a week-long course, using the dogs she has been training.
Of course, things can only get worse. But Jo Beth won’t let herself panic—until she learns that not only is her violent ex-husband out on parole, but a high-profile kidnapping may be too cold to track. Fearing the worst, Jo Beth is drawn into the rescue attempt of her career. As always, her secret weapon is to depend on the best friend any woman could have: a droopy-eared, drooling, one-year-old, blind-from-birth bloodhound, the only creature smart enough to save her life and the day.
“Exciting and entertaining … You won’t be able to put it down.”
Valdosta Daily Times
A BRACE OF BLOODHOUNDS
When Gilly Ainsley shows up on Jo Beth Sidden’s doorstep, the smart and feisty bloodhound trainer and tracker is stunned by the woman’s bizarre tale of deception and manslaughter. Gilly’s mother wrote a letter before she died, a letter claiming that she would be murdered by the man for whom she kept house—a superior court judge—and Gilly wants Jo Beth to bring the murderer to justice, at last.
Gilly’s mother saw something she shouldn’t have in the wood near the Okefenokee Swamp. Gilly and Jo Beth are in danger, too, and Jo Beth knows that the swamp guards its secrets well. To topple this fat cat judge will take someone who can see inside the criminal mind, train a pack of dogs to hunt out evil, and pursue an enemy until there is nothing left but the sweat of his palms.
“Murder, corruption, mystery, action, friendship, humor, a bit of sorrow, and some splendid dogs … I love these books!”
Mysterious Women
BLIND BLOODHOUND JUSTICE
This isn’t the first time that Jo Beth Sidden’s life has gone to the dogs. But the bloodhound trainer-turned-sleuth’s latest case has a trail so cold there isn’t a scent for her trusty canines to trace. Thirty years ago, two baby girls were kidnapped and their nanny murdered. The estate owner’s daughter turned up safe in a nearby church. The other, the gardener’s child, was never found. The man convicted of the two crimes was a vagrant who insisted he was innocent throughout the three decades he served of a life sentence.
Now, he’s being paroled for health reasons, and Sheriff Hank Cribbs is worried his return will stir up bad blood. Turning to his best friend, Jo Beth, Hank asks for help. With her beloved blind bloodhound, the two-year-old Bobby Lee, Jo Beth must sniff out the ghosts of the past and find the truth buried deep in a swamp of cunning deceit and murderous secrets.
“Jo Beth and her dogs are barking up the right tree … Readers … will be amply satisfied.”
Atlanta Journal Constitution
TEN LITTLE BLOODHOUNDS
There’s a lot of excitement down at Jo Beth Sidden’s kennel. A full litter of ten baby bloodhounds is due any day. Though pressed for time, Jo Beth still agrees to do a favor for a friend—finding a reclusive, wealthy matriarch’s missing cat. But soon afterward, her client is murdered.
Now, Jo Beth is looking for a killer. There’s a slew of suspects to choose from, too—all potential heirs to the matriarch’s fortune. The quicker Jo Beth can solve this case, the sooner she can get home to her dogs and get her life in order. But she’s in for a surprise, and a fight she’ll never forget.
“An engrossing story set in the wilds of rural Georgia … Characters to care about…I fervently want to know what happens to them next.”
Greensboro News & Record
About the Author
VIRGINIA LANIER is the award-winning author of Ten Little Bloodhounds, Blind Bloodhound Justice, A Brace Of Bloodhounds, The House on Bloodhound Lane, and Death in Bloodhound Red.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Praise for
A BLOODHOUND TO DIE FOR
and VIRGINIA LANIER’S
other award-winning Bloodhound novels
“It is rare when a writer can truly transport the reader, and this is just what Virginia Lanier has managed … Every time her sleuth, Jo Beth Sidden, a chain-smoking good old girl, took her beloved bloodhounds and me into the swamps of Georgia, I smelled every drop of sweat, felt every mosquito bite.”
Nevada Barr
“[A] warmly entertaining concoction.”
Publishers Weekly
“Should satisfy both whodunit fans and dog lovers as well … The pace is smooth and brisk. The author clearly knows and loves bloodhounds well; she also produces believable, three-dimensional sketches of rural South Georgia humans.”
Wilmington Star-News
“Irresistibly appealing … Jo Beth deserves a good scratch behind the ears.”
New York Times Book Review
“Lanier has created a heroine every bit as memorable as Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone and Sara Paretsky’s V. I. Warshawski.”
Florida Times-Union
“Jo Beth and her dogs are barking up the right tree.”
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Also by Virginia Lanier
TEN LITTLE BLOODHOUNDS
BLIND BLOODHOUND JUSTICE
A BRACE OF BLOODHOUNDS
THE HOUSE ON BLOODHOUND LANE
DEATH IN BLOODHOUND RED
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2003 by Virginia Lanier
ISBN: 0-06-109840-X
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © JULY 2010 ISBN: 978-0-062-03003-0
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