Thinking she might need a doggy bathroom, I looked for one along the grassy strip, and sure enough, there were areas marked for that purpose. I led her over to one. She sniffed but showed no signs of needing to relieve herself.
“We’re going back to that store because you deserve a real collar with your name on it.” The inn collar was fine, although it clearly wasn’t meant to replace a regular collar. But she didn’t have a name yet. “What was your old name? Spot? Snowflake? Spunky? Maggie? Lulu? Zola?” She listened to me very politely but didn’t react to any of them. “We’ll get you a collar, and add your name later on. For now, we’ll just make sure my name and number are on the tag, in case you get lost. Okay?”
I took her wagging tail to mean she was in agreement. But when we neared the store, she balked and planted her feet firmly.
I tugged gently, “Come on, sweetie.”
Nothing doing. I picked her up and carried her into the store. Collars and leashes in every imaginable color lined a wall. Perfect. “A white dog can wear any color. What do you think?” I shifted her so I could reach the collars with my right hand. “Something pink and girlie? A bold red? Or would you prefer sky blue with daisies on it?”
She didn’t wriggle or move. In fact, she seemed scared, like she had in the bathtub the night before. I set her on the floor and stroked her head. “It’s all right, sweetie pie.”
A pair of truly large feet clad in silver sequined sneakers came to a halt at the dog’s nose. I stood up, but still had to look up to the woman’s face. She towered over me. I was used to everyone being taller than me, but this woman had to be well over six feet tall.
She’d pulled her light brown hair into a ponytail and wore no makeup at all. Large eyes and a voluptuous mouth filled her broad face. She was stunning.
My dog didn’t seem to like her, though. She backed away.
“You need a collar?” She plucked a hideously ugly gray and black one off the wall. “Let’s try this on for size.”
Scooping the dog up in her arms, she walked over to the open door, set the dog down, removed the inn collar and pinched the dog’s behind!
The dog and I yelped simultaneously. My dog took off running as fast as she could.
“Whoops!” The woman turned to me with a smile that put dimples into her cheeks. “Sorry.” She shrugged.
I dashed out of the store after the dog. Ack! She didn’t have a name. “Doggie! Little one. Here, sweetie!”
The man who had bought medicine for his child spied me. “Looking for a Jack Russell?”
“Yes!”
“She went thataway.” He pointed down the side street.
My heels weren’t made for running. I would never catch up to her. Taking a chance with rocks and heaven knows what, I removed my shoes and ran down the street, calling, “Sweetie! Puppy!” Six blocks later, I was forced to acknowledge that she could be anywhere—behind a fence, in a garden, under a bush, or still running like the wind to get away.
I’d spent less than twenty-four hours with her, yet I felt her loss like a death. The last couple of weeks had been nothing but a slew of problems—first the nightmare at work, then Kim chasing Ben, now Oma and her mysterious illness, and the attack on Mr. Luciano—but this was the catalyst that made me want to melt down and cry. My poor little dog, lost and alone again.
Across the road, in a farm field, a young rabbit watched me without moving. She folded her ears flat against her back. Did that mean a wild little dog had zoomed by her recently or that she was afraid of me? Beyond the farmhouse in the distance, the woods held dark secrets. If my dog had run that way, she could be lost forever.
Sucking it up and trying hard to hold myself together, I trudged back to the pedestrian area of town reminding myself that I had to be upbeat for Oma. She had enough problems without me moping around. But it wouldn’t be the same without that sweet little girl.
I blamed myself. She hadn’t wanted to go into that particular store but I didn’t pay attention. Why had I forced her? Why didn’t I see that something bad would happen? The rational part of me knew I couldn’t have predicted that from her behavior. There had probably been a scent she didn’t like. Maybe there was a big dog in the back that scared her or . . . or maybe she was just being ornery.
Anger welled in me, fighting my heartbreak. What was wrong with that woman? You’d think a person who owned a store that sold dog gear would like dogs.
I returned to the scary store, fuming. Oma’s lessons did battle within me. Never burn bridges. The way you call into the woods is the way it will come back to you. I knew I shouldn’t confront the evil woman, but . . . but I wanted to!
The tall woman leered at me. “What now?”
She had her nerve. She ought to be contrite. Apologetic, at least. “The Sugar Maple Inn collar, please.”
“I threw it out.”
“What?” Why would anyone do that? I tried to keep my irritation out of my tone. “I feel I’m safe in guessing that no one picked up your trash in the few minutes I’ve been gone.”
The dimples made an appearance even though the corners of her mouth turned down. She held out a trash can to me, and I plucked the collar out of it. “Thank you.”
I walked toward the door, doing my level best to get out of there before I said something I would regret.
“You have your nerve coming in here.”
Clearly I had missed something. I turned around. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, puleeze! Don’t pretend like you don’t know who I am.”
Eleven
I didn’t have to pretend. I truly didn’t have the first clue who she was. The woman obviously didn’t like me for some reason. If I said I didn’t know her she would surely perceive it as an insult, and her ire would escalate. She’d already wounded me in the worst possible way, though, by causing me to lose my darling dog.
And who would have a reason to be angry with me?
Not a single wrinkle or errant gray hair marred her appearance. Late twenties? Large rings encrusted with stones sparkled on her fingers but I didn’t see a wedding band. I sighed. I was at a complete loss. Of course, if I had known her when I was fifteen and she was eight or ten, I probably wouldn’t have paid much attention to her. Even one or two years made such a big difference at that age.
“Don’t you have caller ID?” She said it in a prissy, flippant way.
Aha. She had to be the woman who’d answered my call about the explosion and fire the night before. Perhaps I had offended her when she asked for my phone number and I impatiently asked if she had caller ID.
“I didn’t mean anything by that. The situation put me on edge.” But as soon as I said it, I wondered why I was apologizing to this horrible woman who intentionally caused my cute dog to run away and hadn’t been in the least bit remorseful other than an amused sorry. “You did that on purpose! You took her to the door and pinched her so she would run out. What is wrong with you?”
She leveled a torturous gaze at me. “They run away when they don’t love you.”
The nerve! This woman had some serious issues. I didn’t need that kind of nonsense. I left the store in a huff. My adorable dog was lost because of her. I couldn’t even put the dog’s picture on a flier because I didn’t have any photos of her.
Still barefoot, I hobbled over to a shoe store.
A painfully thin woman about my age admired a pair of pink ballet slippers. Her clothes hung on her, a couple of sizes too large.
I browsed in the sale section of the store and found a pair of black leather thong sandals on sale.
When I bent over to try one on, I saw the thin woman deftly slip a ballet slipper into a deep pocket on each side of her voluminous skirt.
I looked around for the sales clerk. A portly woman pushed back graying hair. She caught my glance, frowned, and shook her head horizontally ever so slightly. The thief paused on her way out of the store and gazed longingly at a pair of four-inch heels with a leopard pattern before moseying out.
The much more sedate and boring sandals I had found fit me perfectly. It was too late in the season for them, which was undoubtedly the reason they’d been marked down so much, but I wanted to go back to the road where my dog had last been seen before more time passed. They were practical and inexpensive.
I took them to the cash register. “What was that with the ballet slippers?”
“Hazel Mae? She and her husband, Del, have a passel of kids. I’d have given them to her for free but she’s too proud to ask.”
Somehow I didn’t think allowing her to steal was sending the right message. There must be a better way. Leaving the ballet slippers on their doorstep during the night? But what did I know?
When I left the store, I watched Hazel Mae amble along, window-shopping. Carrying my bag from the drugstore, I ventured back to Oak Street, hoping against all reason or logic that the dog might show up. She didn’t. The rabbit had left, too.
I whistled and called until every dog in the neighborhood barked. Did I hear high-pitched yapping? Somewhere, one howled, long and sad.
I listened, not daring to breathe. Dogs barked all around me. It was probably wishful thinking to imagine I had heard my dog. I had to pull myself together. Okay, so I didn’t have a photo of her. I could still put up lost fliers. Maybe Wagtail had a community website or a little newspaper where I could place an ad.
My teeth clenched, I tried to focus. Buy clothes, work up fliers, find out about newspapers and web communications, and, in between all that, trick Oma into revealing what was wrong with her.
Relieved to have a plan, I returned to the walking zone and found a store called Houndstooth. My temporarily unemployed budget weighed on me, but I found some summer items that had been marked way down. Three cotton tops, a pair of jeans, khakis, and two summery dresses that I couldn’t pass up at the drastically reduced prices. Remembering my mom’s travel advice, one to wash, one to wear, and one to spare, I added two lacy bras and a couple pair of panties and was set.
I’d just stepped out of the store, bags in hand, when I heard my name. My heart thudded like a drum in my chest at that voice—deep and masculine, yet as soft and comforting as a cuddle.
Holmes Richardson loped in my direction. All I could think was why hadn’t I worn one of the new outfits out of the store?
I hadn’t seen Holmes in ages. Not since he went to college. Summers at Wagtail hadn’t been the same after Holmes and my cousin, Josh, graduated from high school and pursued other interests. Although I was a couple of years younger, the three of us had spent countless hours together working at the Sugar Maple Inn.
Oma had always hired Holmes, Rose’s grandson, to work with Josh and me. She hadn’t differentiated between sexes, either. We all did the same tasks, whether it was carrying luggage to rooms, washing dishes, weeding, clearing trails, or doing laundry and making up the beds. We’d had a lot of fun, though. Taller than Josh, sandy-haired Holmes had always pulled the role of Han Solo to espresso-haired Josh’s Luke Skywalker. As Princess Leia, I had wielded my share of fallen branches as light sabers.
At the end of each summer, Josh and I had been shipped back to our parents, while Holmes remained in Wagtail and rode the bus down the mountain to school. But I never forgot about the first boy I had ever kissed. I’d written Mrs. Holmes Richardson in my grade-school notebooks over and over again.
I straightened my blouse, painfully self-conscious.
An ever-so-slightly-crooked smile spread across his face. “Holly?”
A good foot taller than me, he had no problem literally sweeping me off my feet in a bear hug.
He set me down, beaming at me. “What are you doing here? I can’t believe it’s really you.”
“I came to check on Oma.” He looked great. A little bit older and more polished, but the smiling blue eyes and genuinely happy grin were as inviting as ever.
“I heard what happened to her. How’s she doing?”
“Stubbornly pretends nothing is wrong.”
Holmes laughed. “That’s probably a good sign. I’d like to stop by to see her while I’m here.” He glanced around. “Is Josh here, too?”
That sucked the wind out of my sails. For a few seconds, romantic notions had danced in my head. With a huge sigh, my lofty visions crashed back down to earth. Holmes lived in Chicago, and he was engaged to be married. We weren’t in grade school anymore. I consoled myself with the fact that my cousin Josh had been Holmes’s best friend growing up, so it was only natural that Holmes would ask about him. “No. Just me.”
Holmes glanced at a gold watch on his wrist that exposed the works underneath the crystal. “I’m on my way to a meeting. Walk with me so we can catch up?”
“Pretty snazzy watch, sir,” I teased.
“A gift from my fiancé. My folks warned me that some chump is stealing gold over at Snowball and thought I should leave it at their place. But I feel naked without a watch and this is Wagtail, you know? That incident with Oma last night has to be a fluke.”
He held his hands out for my bags. “They don’t have stores in Washington?”
I explained my haste to come to Wagtail while we walked. “And now I don’t know if Oma is sick or not. I asked your grandmother this morning, but she wouldn’t tell me.”
“That’s strange. If she called because of the accident, then it seems like she would have said so.” Two worry wrinkles appeared between his eyebrows. “I don’t like the sound of that. Will you let me know what you find out?”
I nodded. We strolled along Pine Street, where elegant white Victorian-style houses nestled under towering trees. Whitewashed fences surrounded cute bungalows. It seemed each house had a front porch.
“You have a meeting in Wagtail?” That was odd for someone who lived in Chicago. “Are you planning to move here?”
Holmes stopped dead in his tracks. He winced. “Not really.” He scuffed the toe of his elegant brown loafer against the sidewalk. “My fiancé would never move here. I . . . I can’t.”
It was totally inappropriate, and I never would have asked if I hadn’t known him and his family so well. “Then why the meeting?”
“My family owns a piece of property that they want to develop as rental cabins, but Jerry Pierce, the mayor, is blocking them.”
“And they brought you in to find out why?”
“We think we know why. Jerry is a real estate agent who rents out his own properties in and around Wagtail. He doesn’t want the competition.”
“So you’re supposed to be big, bad Holmes and beat him up a little bit?” I suppressed the urge to giggle. Holmes might have the physical size to appear imposing, but he didn’t have a mean or vicious bone in his body.
“Something like that. He doesn’t have a leg to stand on. He’s just being a bully and throwing his weight around by refusing to give them the permit. You know my family—they don’t want to make a fuss or go to court over it.”
I did know. My family was much the same way. And from what I’d seen of Jerry that morning, he could be obnoxious. We walked on, and Holmes stopped in front of an old white house with a turret. I couldn’t determine the style. A cross between Victorian and Italianate? Most likely the original architecture was hidden under layers of modifications, but the turret certainly made it stand out among the other more modest homes.
“Your meeting is in his house?”
“I’m told he has an office on the first floor where he entertains his subjects. Rose calls him King Jerry, but he sounds more like a dictator to me.” Holmes grinned at me when he handed over my purchases. “Wish me luck with the curmudgeon.”
With a light, agile gait, he jogged up the stairs and onto the front porch. I watched him, still engulfed in the warmth of a Holmes-induced euphoria.
I turned away. What was wrong with me? I had a perfectly nice boyfriend. Just yesterday I had been worried about Kim making moves on him. Yet it had taken me only seconds to fall back into a childish crush. I wasn’t usually so . . . fickle. That’
s what I was! Fickle. And silly.
I hadn’t taken two steps when I heard a stifled yelp and the screen door slam shut. Had Jerry already thrown him out? I looked over my shoulder. Holmes stood on the porch, his back to the door, his face ashen.
“Holmes? Are you all right?”
Twelve
Holmes stepped forward, grabbed the porch railing, and gasped for breath.
I hurried up the steps. “What is it?”
He held out a long arm meant to prevent me from going inside. “Holly, don’t . . .”
I dropped my shopping bags and threw open the screen door. Jerry Pierce sprawled on his stomach near the bottom of the stairs as though he had fallen but hadn’t slid all the way down. His right arm stretched out toward me in a horrifyingly sad effort to crawl or grasp something. Blood matted his hair and stained his argyle vest. Around his neck hung the silver chain of a dog choke collar.
In spite of myself, I screamed and slapped my hand over my mouth. I trembled when I asked, “Have you checked for a pulse?”
“Not yet. See if you can find a phone to call 911.”
Holmes knelt on the floor in front of Jerry.
Gulping air through my mouth as though I couldn’t get enough oxygen, I raced into a dark room that appeared to be Jerry’s office. A dense white curtain hung over the front window, blocking light. Jerry’s massive desk with gargoyle legs dominated the room. Thankfully, a phone rested on it.
I picked it up and dialed 911, hoping the big, evil woman wouldn’t answer. This time the call was handled professionally. Assured an ambulance was on the way, I hung up and returned to what I feared was a corpse.
Holmes moved his fingers under Jerry’s jawline. “I think it’s too late for an ambulance. He’s cold.”
“Cold? You mean cold because he’s dead or that he needs a blanket?”
Murder, She Barked: A Paws & Claws Mystery (A Paws and Claws Mystery) Page 7
