Collared For Murder

by Annie Knox

  “Speaking of which,” Dru said, “have you paid her back yet?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but we have a repayment plan and I haven’t missed a single payment. By this time next year, Dolly will have recovered her investment plus a little extra in lieu of interest.”

  At that point, our server came to take our orders. I opted for a Szechuan eggplant while both Lucy and Dru ordered the house special: a stir-fried beef dish covered with the most delicious sauce known to man.

  “Okay, I don’t want to talk about Trendy Tails anymore,” Lucy said. “Boring.”

  “Well, what would you like to discuss, Lucinda?” Dru replied in her most schoolmarmish tone.

  “Boys!”

  “Ugh.” Dru let her fork drop to the table.

  “Yes, sister, I want to talk about boys. Like the boy I saw you having coffee with at Joe Time yesterday.” My ears perked up. This was news to me.

  Dru blushed. “That was Donovan. He works at the credit union. It was just coffee.”

  “This time,” Lucy said. “But what about when Xander saw you with him at Red, White and Bleu?”

  If it were possible, Dru’s hair would have been blushing by this point. Personally, I was stunned. I couldn’t remember the last time my uptight sister had dated.

  “Fess up,” I said.

  Dru closed her eyes and exhaled sharply. “Very well. I guess Merryville’s too small to be discreet. Donovan and I have been seeing each other about a month now.”

  “A month?” Lucy and I cried in unison.

  “Yes. Like I said, we were trying to be discreet. He’s a nice man, goes to church regularly, has a quiet sense of humor . . . and a six-year-old daughter named Naomi.”

  The server dropped our egg rolls at the table, and we all took a few minutes to enjoy the sweet and salt of the roll and its sauce while we let this bit of information sink in.

  “A daughter,” I finally said. “That’s heavy.”

  Dru nodded. “I know. At first I thought it would be a deal breaker. But I’ve met Naomi, and she’s just like her dad. Only shorter and with more hair.” We all chuckled, breaking the tension. “Seriously, she’s a gem. She seems to be okay with me hanging around now and then, and Donovan and I aren’t serious yet.”

  Lucy pounced. “Yet?”

  “Yet. And maybe we never will be. But for now I’m enjoying being an honorary member of this little family.”

  “I think that’s great,” I said. “For what it’s worth, if you do get serious, you’d make a really good mom.”

  Lucy moaned. “That child will need her aunt Lucy to liven up her life a little. You’ll certainly keep her safe and well loved, but a kid’s got to have a little adventure in her life.”

  Dru held up a hand. “No Aunt Lucy yet. Like I said, Donovan and I aren’t serious yet.”

  “Yet,” Lucy repeated.

  Desperate to deflect the attention away from herself, Dru turned to me with wide eyes. “How about you and Jack Collins? Is that serious?”

  “I think so,” I said, dipping my egg roll in the little ramekin of brilliant ruby-colored sauce.

  “You think so?” Lucy held up her hand and started ticking off points on her fingers. “You spend practically every waking minute with the man. He stops by Trendy Tails at least three times a day while he’s supposedly keeping Merryville safe. And he’s become a regular fixture at Sunday dinners at Mom and Dad’s.”

  “I know. I’m pretty sure it’s serious. But just today he agreed to go on a date with another woman.”

  I felt tears welling in my eyes as our server replaced our appetizer plates with platters of savory beef and eggplant.

  “What are you talking about?” Lucy said, her voice as cold and flat as iron. “If he’s toying with you, I’ll kill him.”

  Dru leaned forward. “Tell us exactly what happened.”

  I explained about Marigold Aames being an old college friend of Jack’s, about the implication that their relationship had been more than just friendly, and how he’d agreed to go to lunch with her.

  Dru and Lucy exchanged a glance and then both threw back their heads and laughed.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “Yes, it is,” Dru said.

  Lucy reached across the table to take my hand. “He didn’t say yes to a date. He said yes to lunch. And after she asked him in front of a huge crowd of witnesses, what else could he do? Can you imagine how awkward it would have been if he’d said no? Relax.”

  Dru nodded. “The moral of this story is that you have strong feelings for Jack Collins. It’s making you touchy. Prickly.”

  “Possessive,” Lucy added.

  My sisters were right. I was starting to fall hard for Jack Collins.

  CHAPTER

  Three

  I was so excited about the prospect of big sales at the cat show—and, admittedly, a little anxious about this Marigold Aames and what she could mean for my relationship with Jack—that I had a hard time sleeping that night. I finally gave up around five thirty and crawled out of my bed and into the shower. I cringed when the old pipes began singing. I didn’t want to wake my downstairs neighbors, Ingrid and Harvey Nyquist.

  Ingrid had been my mentor for years, and she owned the building in which I lived and worked. Now in her early eighties, she’d finally gotten around to marrying her high school sweetheart. The two had been separated when Harvey’s parents sent him off to military school, and each had lived a full life complete with other spouses. But in their widowhood, the wonders of social media had brought them back together and their teenage love had been rekindled.

  While Ingrid and Harvey planned to spend much of the year in Harvey’s condo in Boca Raton, they had the apartment on the second floor of 801 Maple in which to spend the dog days of summer. They knew what they were getting into, but I was still self-conscious that they were sandwiched in between the hubbub of the first-floor shop and the noise my animals and I generated in our third-floor apartment. They were retirees, after all.

  Because of my early rise, I was ready for the day at an obscenely early hour. I made my way down to the shop and did a little work rearranging my wares on the shelf. I had just settled down with a cup of coffee and the Merryville Gazette when there was a sharp knock at the front door.

  I looked out, expecting to find Wanda Knight, the Merryville high schooler Rena and I had hired to help out with the business so we would have more time to bake, sew, and market. Wanda would be covering the shop during the cat show, manning the fort while Rena and I were out at the hotel.

  Needless to say, I was startled to find Phillip Denford on my front porch. Given his fight with Pris the night before, I was a bit timid about opening the door, but I was relying on this man’s cat show to bring in enough working capital to expand my online business presence, allowing people to place orders and make payments directly online without having to call the store.

  Xander Stephens owned the Spin Doctor, the record store across the back alley from Trendy Tails. He’d made his store a success by maintaining a thriving online business. He’d offered to do the programming for me, create a shopping cart and secure checkout process, for free, but I couldn’t abuse his good nature like that. I knew the offer came at least in part because he was dating my sister Lucy, and it wouldn’t be right to take advantage of that situation. I would get him to help me, but only when I could afford to pay him what he was worth.

  “Mr. Denford? Please come in.”

  I held the door and he walked in, hands clasped at the small of his back, scanning the inside of my shop with a proprietary air. King of the hill. Cock of the walk.

  His plumage befitted his strut: orange-and-blue plaid pants with a perfectly matched orange golf shirt and blue jacket. Only rich people could get away with that kind of getup. Rich people and my aunt Dolly.

&n
bsp; Phillip’s perusal of Trendy Tails included a leisurely sweep over my breasts. I suppressed a shudder. I’d met some skeevy guys in my day, but he was just so nonchalant about the way he ogled me, confident that I wouldn’t call him out on his bad behavior. As though I might consider it flattering.

  “You keep a tidy shop, Ms. McHale. I respect that.”

  “Thank you?” I was so off-kilter at having Denford in my store—and staring at my bosom—that the words came out as a question.

  “I also admire your, ah, product,” he continued. He chuckled at his own double entendre. “When Pamela Rawlins returned from her first site visit raving about the cute clothes and accessories you were creating, I purchased a huge selection of your stock.”

  Phillip Denford had been one of my customers? I racked my brain, trying to remember all my biggest orders, and then it jumped out at me: an online/over-the-phone purchase made late last spring. The caller had ordered one of each of my handmade products—for both dogs and cats—but hadn’t purchased any of the items I got from wholesalers. I remembered being flattered that the person liked my work so much. But I also remembered that the caller was a woman. Mari Aames? Most likely.

  “Well, thank you for that. I’m honored.”

  “You should be. I admire your concepts so much that I’ve sourced them to a manufacturer in Korea.”

  “What?” It was like his words weren’t even in English.

  “I’ve sourced them to a manufacturer so I can produce them and sell them through my own online retail outlets, the Dapper Dog and the Classy Cat.” He brought his hands around to the front of his body, revealing the cat pajamas he held. He reached out and pressed the garment into my hand and wrapped my numb fingers around it.

  It took only a quick glance for me to recognize the seaming pattern in the pants and the piping detail at the neck, which were a mirror of my own product, but these pajamas were in a flannel pattern I’d never used.

  “I don’t understand. You’re telling me you’re going to sell my designs?”

  “Well, obviously they won’t be exactly your designs. For example, we’ll line the Pooch Parkas with synthetic sherpa, not genuine fleece. And you’ll note that the pajamas you’re holding have a notch at the front of the collar, which your design did not have.”

  “You can’t do this,” I said. “It’s got to be against the law.”

  He held up a hand and waggled it back and forth. “Maybe it’s on the line, but that line is pretty wobbly, Ms. McHale. Fashion law hasn’t really found its stride yet. As I said, we’re making some select design changes, and we’re not planning to sell the items under the Trendy Tails trademark, so I think we’re safe. But even if we’re not, even if we are crossing some vague legal line, what exactly do you plan to do about it?”

  I shook my head in confusion. “Sue!”

  “Mmmm-hmmm. Have you ever been involved in intellectual-property litigation?”

  “No.”

  “Yes, well, it’s a lengthy process. You’d need a lawyer. At least one. Preferably a fashion lawyer, and they don’t come cheap—and I’m not sure they come in ‘Minnesotan’ at all. Not to mention the textile, pet, and apparel experts you’d need. From what Pamela said, you’re doing good business, but you haven’t been open even a full year. There’s no way your business has the sort of reserves to fight an IP battle with an established company. Not to mention that my people inform me that you’re not independently wealthy. I don’t see how you could hold out against someone with my resources.”

  “You’ve been looking into my personal finances? How dare you?”

  “I assure you all of my inquiries have been legal. For example, a simple title search tells me you don’t own this building, that you’re renting both your business space and your home. It was also easy enough to find out about the various complaints your neighbor Richard Greene has filed against your business. Complaints that have surely cost you money to resolve.”

  It was true. Richard Greene owned the Greene Brigade, a shop dedicated to military history and memorabilia. Despite owning a giant German shepherd named MacArthur, Richard was leery of loud and smelly critters possibly running off his clients. He’d tried to oust Trendy Tails from the neighborhood a couple of times. He’d stopped his crusade against us when he decided that it was more fun wooing my aunt Dolly, but his efforts had cost us a pretty penny.

  I was still having trouble wrapping my brain around the disaster that was unfolding before me. “But how can you do something like that? Just stealing someone else’s hard work. How can you sleep at night?”

  “Like a baby, Ms. McHale. A baby who knows that his investment is going to pay off. It’s one of the first things you learn in business school: know your competitors.”

  When I was first opening Trendy Tails, Ingrid told me that the first rule of business was to sell a quality product for a fair price. I liked her school of thought a whole lot better than Denford’s.

  “If you’re dead set on stealing my designs and so certain that you can do so with impunity, why are you bothering to tell me? Is this some sort of negotiation?”

  “No negotiation, I’m afraid. Look, I’m not completely heartless—”

  “Close enough.”

  He tsked at me. “Ms. McHale. I could have done exactly as you suggest and simply allowed you to find out about my business plans through regular channels, but I’m doing you the courtesy of giving you a little warning. You’ll probably turn a tidy profit over the course of the M-CFO’s convention, and what you do with that profit might depend on the future of your business. Do you want to reinvest it in your store and possibly waste it all, or do you want to hold back the profit so you can walk away from your business without going bankrupt?”

  I raised my chin a notch, hands balled into fists at my sides. “What makes you think your knockoffs will hurt my business? People recognize quality when they see it.”

  “They do, indeed. And they’ll pay for it, especially if they have money to burn. But I can offer them a product that is almost exactly the same, very high quality, at a fraction of the price, and even rich people like a good deal. For example, that product you are holding? In my online store, it will retail for eighteen dollars.”

  I studied the pajamas in my hand. He was correct that the quality was high. The seams were reinforced, the piping smooth, the snaps down the back lined up perfectly. If I didn’t know better, I would have thought it had come from my own store, from my own hands. The big difference was that I had to sell the pajamas for twenty-five dollars in order to make a profit.

  “It’s all about mass manufacturing.” He pointed to my worktable, where the pattern pieces for my most recent creation were spread out, each piece of paper pinned to the back of a piece of fabric. “Your prices are incredibly high for what amounts to a novelty item, and still, given your in-house manufacturing, I imagine that your profit margins are slim. You can’t possibly afford to lower your prices to meet mine. Not without a huge infusion of capital that would allow you to follow my manufacturing strategy.”

  He smiled. “Even then, if people can buy the same product for the same price at two locations, they’re going to use the retailer who is most convenient. My Web sites get massive amounts of traffic, and visitors can purchase both the cute duds and all of their grooming supplies, gourmet food, and accessories like crates and bedding. I offer one-stop shopping. You do not.”

  I may not have had a degree in business, but I wasn’t an idiot. Everything Phillip Denford said made intuitive sense. I was turning a profit, but a small one. If he ate into my business even ten percent, it could push me into the red.

  Somewhere outside, a car honked, and Phillip leaned back to glance out Trendy Tails’ front window.

  “That would be for me.” He held out his hand for the pajamas, and I dropped them there, careful not to touch him. I was genuinely repulsed by the man.r />
  He paused in the doorway on his way out. “I will see you later at the show, Ms. McHale. For now, consider yourself warned.”

  CHAPTER

  Four

  Phillip’s visit and the news he brought had thrown me for a vicious loop, a loop that required caffeine to settle, so I’d stopped for a latte on my way to the show. Between that stop and Wanda showing up nearly fifteen minutes after she’d promised to be there, I arrived at the ballroom a few minutes later than expected, fumbling into the room with my arms full. I’d brought Jinx, my black-and-white Norwegian forest cat, to model my wares. She was penned up in a black wire cage to prevent her from slithering off into trouble, but she didn’t seem to mind. She groomed herself vigorously, ignoring the people who stopped to admire her fur-trimmed purple track jacket.

  “Let’s get this party started,” Rena said.

  I knew I needed to tell Rena about Phillip’s threat. Heck, it wasn’t even a threat. . . . It was a plan he’d already put into action, and my business partner had a right to know about it. But the time and place were all wrong. Rena had a good head on her shoulders, but she also had a wicked temper. I was afraid if I told her about Phillip in the midst of the ballroom, she’d storm off to find the man and punch him right in the face. No, it would be better to wait until we were alone and break it to her gently.

  “You betcha,” I replied, trying to muster some enthusiasm for the day.

  Even though the day’s events were all agility-based circuits and would be held out in the tent the hotel had set up in its scenic green space, the ballroom buzzed with excitement as breeders and owners took turns making the rounds, checking out the competition, collecting business cards, inquiring about goods and services on display, and, of course, stopping to admire the grand prize for the entire event.