by Susan Union
“Of course you do, and sometimes he obeys your commands without question, right? Other times he decides what’s best for himself, correct?” Dainsworth sat next to her mother on the love seat. He wrapped his fingers around his knee, Italian loafer bouncing.
Her mother used to say expensive shoes were like a drug; they felt so good you’d pay anything to get your hands on a pair.
“No offense, Mr. Dainsworth, but—”
“Dylan,” he interrupted.
“Shane is half shepherd, half husky. His herding dog desire to please is in constant conflict with his sled dog need for independent decision making. What you’ve just described is merely a conflict of his two breeds duking it out in his brain. Anyone with basic canine insight knows that.”
Dainsworth smirked. “Could anyone with only basic canine insight tell you deep in his heart, Shane yearns for stability? For continuity and structure in his life? He needs it.”
Randi felt herself shrinking. One time she’d stayed out all night without coming home to feed him and let him out. Once it had happened, and there had been extenuating circumstances. “This is dumb. I don’t have to sit here defending myself.”
“That stuffed monkey you got him won’t take the place of mature, secure guidance.”
How did he know about Abu?
“Not only that,” Dainsworth went on, “but could anyone with only basic knowledge tell you your beloved companion hopes and prays you’ll realize what you want in life and have the guts to put aside your fears and go for it?”
Damn him. She didn’t dare look at her mother. Maybe it wasn’t too early for tequila after all.
“Get your relationships in order, young lady. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for Shane.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
First thing Randi did was adjust the rearview so she could keep an eye on her brainwashed puppy, sleeping in the back like he’d just walked through the field of poppies in The Wizard of Oz. She wasn’t convinced Dainsworth hadn’t drugged him, though to what end she couldn’t figure. To make it seem like he’d taken her dog on a psychic journey to justify his fee?
She also hadn’t come up with a logical explanation for how he knew things about her and Shane nobody else did. She’d have to think on that. Surely there was a reason. “Mom, did you tell Dainsworth about Abu?”
“Who?”
“Shane’s monkey.”
“No.”
“You sure?”
Her mother flipped the vanity mirror down to apply some lipstick, the one glamorous habit she hadn’t given up. “Smell those corn dogs?” She pressed her lips together and snapped the mirror shut. “I’ve got to have one.”
“Now?”
“That Sub King sandwich I had is gone. What time are we supposed to be at Luke’s for dinner?”
“Seven.”
“A ways off.”
“Will a corn dog cure a bad mood?”
Her mother grabbed the door handle. “Only one way to find out.”
“Okay, but I’m leaving Shane here. The truck’s in the shade, and for some reason he’s exhausted.”
“He’s relaxed honey.”
“That’s an understatement.”
The line for the food cart wrapped halfway around one of the fairground’s admin buildings, but the wait was worth it. The corn dogs were warm, fresh and steaming. Randi’s spirits lifted at first bite. “Good idea, Mom.”
Her mother licked ketchup off her finger. “You should have brought Shane. He’s missing out.”
“I’ll save him the last bite.” She put the remains of the corndog in her napkin and tucked it in her purse.
On the way back to the truck, they met the Dalmatian woman who led them to Steve Copeland in the massage tent Wednesday evening. Another woman/dog combo stood beside her.
Her mother put her hand out to let the Dalmatian sniff it. “I remember Dotty, but I don’t think I got your name the other day. I’m Lee Ann, by the way, and this is my daughter, Randi.”
Dalmatian woman lifted her sunglasses and propped them on top of her head. I’m Carolyn. This is Theresa.”
Theresa had short, curly, salt-and-pepper hair. She wasn’t as tall as Carolyn and had an athletic build and shapely arms that were almost manly. Theresa’s dog, dark faced with a narrow nose, had a long black and tan coat and flowing cream-colored britches.
Her mother cooed. “What a beautiful dog. What kind is he?”
“Bear’s a Belgian Tervuren.”
“A what?”
“Tervuren is a region in Belgium. They’re a herding breed.” Theresa’s face lit up. “Had him since he was a pup.” She stroked Bear’s coat. “He’s five and a half now.”
Carolyn shielded her eyes against the sun, which was making a cameo appearance. “Theresa’s too modest to tell you, but she and Bear were third in points, right behind Gina and Steve.”
Theresa blushed but, in the split second before the red crept over her cheeks, a hard edge flashed in her eyes.
Exactly how competitive are these people? Her mother kept saying agility was their passion, their quest, their world. How far will they go to put a rival out of commission? That ice skater did it, and the attempted maiming worked—at least temporarily. There was always the element of human error, of miscalculation, but Gina’s killer had succeeded.
Maybe they’d only meant for her to get sick enough to not be able to compete; yet something had gone wrong and Gina ended up dead.
“Bear deserves all the credit.” Theresa’s gaze landed on Randi. “Do you do agility?”
“No, but—”
“I do,” Lee Ann interrupted, “Gina got me into it.”
“That reminds me.” Carolyn reached into her bag and whipped out a copy of The North Coast Times. “Did you see her obit?”
Randi shook the newspaper open. Front page of the local section held a photo of Gina standing in front of the Eiffel Tower in a 1998-style jumpsuit. A modeling shot. Dated now, but cutting edge in its time. She skimmed the text. The first paragraph detailed Gina and Zoom’s considerable accomplishments in dog agility, the second paragraph, much shorter, covered her untimely death. The third listed Gina’s survivors. Randi read it a couple times before it sunk in.
“Mom. Listen to this: ‘According to Steven Copeland of Oklahoma City, Gina was at the top of her game, mentally and physically.” She put a finger on the newsprint. “Though adversaries in the agility ring, Copeland said he and Thorton were in love and planned to marry.” Randi glanced up. Her mother’s skin was the color of day-old mayonnaise. “He strongly believes foul play was involved and is urging the police to investigate further.’”
Randi handed the paper back to Carolyn. “I didn’t know Gina and Copeland were getting married. We didn’t even know they were…uh…involved with each other until Earl let it slip a few minutes ago.”
****
In the arena, courses were set with jumps, weave poles, tunnels, and all the rest of the requisite equipment. Outside the ring dogs yipped and played tug with various squeaky toys to get them fired up to run the course. There was a black Lab, a grey and tan cattle dog, a brown standard poodle, a Border collie and a golden retriever. A canine grab bag of all shapes and sizes. “Hold up, Mom. Let’s watch for a minute. I want to see this.”
“Fine.” Her mother stopped at the rail.
About six feet behind the first jump sat a large green tunnel, twenty feet long and two feet in diameter. The tunnel was straddled by two wooden ramps, each about ten feet high and three feet wide that met in an apex to form the A-frame. Each side had been painted blue from the tip of the A to about three-fourths of the way down where it turned yellow.
“The yellow on the A-frame marks the contact points,” her mother pointed out. “The dog has to touch them with his paws.”
“I know.”
If her mother caught her snippy tone, she didn’t let on. Randi made a mental note to stop and take a breath before she reacted. Her mother was a match to
her gasoline these days.
On the far side of the ring sat the teeter, looking like someone had swiped it from a kiddy park, ripped the seats off and given it a fresh coat of paint to disguise its original identity. To the left of the teeter, inside a rectangular frame of PVC, a circle of bright blue and white dryer tubing hung suspended by plastic chains. Next to that was a narrow bridge-like obstacle with slanted ramps for going up and coming down and a level section about a foot wide in the middle. Dog walk.
Closer to the dog walk was another tunnel-like obstacle, this one a bright nylon parachute open on one side with the opposite end collapsed. The chute. The dogs were expected to barrel through the thing with the cloth clinging like a cape as they went.
“If I asked Shane to dive into that thing, he’d tell me to have my head examined.”
“So far Jojo hasn’t had a problem with it. It’s the dog walk that bothers her the most. I think she’s afraid she’ll fall off.”
Randi scanned the competitors. If Copeland was here, she didn’t see him. As for the rest of them, nobody looked like a murderer.
When the agility trial was over Sunday afternoon, the fairgrounds would empty like a broken dam, releasing all of the suspects. They didn’t have much time.
Inside the arena, a brown curly-coated dog leapt over the final obstacle and finished the course to stirring applause as an electronic timer flashed the score. Randi pivoted to face the grandstands behind them. “Mom, isn’t that Gina’s sister-in-law? In the middle? About fifth row up?”
Lee Ann pulled herself away from the ring. “Wide-brimmed hat? Big sunglasses? Yep, looks like Valerie to me.”
“Let’s go talk to her—see if she knew about this supposed engagement between Copeland and Gina. It might add to motive. Either Steve or Mel could’ve been angry at Gina if they felt burned.”
“Good idea.” Her mother started for the stands.
Randi trotted behind. “But no poison talk this time. I’m sure Joe wouldn’t want us blabbing it all over the place.”
She relented with a shrug. “All right. We’ll do it your way. This time.”
The crowd shifted and many people got up and stretched. Valerie stood and waved. She set her oversized tote bag down on the bench. “Hey, you two, have a seat. I’m gonna stand for a spell. Been sitting too long. Nothing like watching these dogs having such a good time to take your mind off your troubles. Very therapeutic, but my bum’s gone numb.”
Randi smiled at her. “Have they finished in this ring for the day?”
“No, just adjusting the jump height for the next class.”
“You must be an expert on all things agility, what with all the traveling you and Andrew do.”
“I should hope so,” her mother said.
“Seen more than my fair share, that’s for sure. I’m going to miss being on the road and hanging out with the same people in different spots. We’re kind of a vagabond family, you know. It won’t be the same without Gina, God rest her soul.”
Randi nodded. “We just met some friends of hers, Carolyn and Theresa, with a Dalmatian and a Belgian something or other.”
Valerie looked like she’d just bitten into something nasty. “Carolyn’s nice, but Theresa’s one of those dog people who has no consideration for humans. She’s always looking for an excuse to start an argument. The more people she can alienate, the better.”
Sounded like a family all right. A feuding one. “What’ll you do with your new free time?”
Valerie shrugged. “Andrew and I haven’t had a chance to talk about it. My guess is we’ll sell the motorhome and go back to Oklahoma City. Dusty’s running the club, so I expect I’ll die of boredom back there.” She picked something from her fingernail.
Randi glanced around. “Where’s Andrew?”
“He went to get Zoom from Copeland.”
“I hope he has better luck than we did. Copeland doesn’t want to give him up.”
“My husband can be pretty persuasive when he wants something.”
Lee Ann leaned in. “If Andrew gets him back, Zoom is welcome to stay with us.”
“Sure.” She wasn’t sure if her mother offered so she could take Zoom to her canine head-shrinker or just to piss Copeland off. “The more the merrier.”
“Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Randi pushed a piece of stray hair from her face. “We’ve looked all over for Gina’s truck, but we couldn’t find it in the parking lot.”
“It’s not there. We sold it yesterday. Andrew wants to throw a big party, kind of like a wake, I guess, in Gina’s honor.”
“What does that have to do with the truck?”
“I think he’s worried about the cost of the memorial.”
“Can he do that?” Randi asked. “What about the pink slip?”
“The truck was in Andrew’s name. He bought it for Gina last year.”
“Oh.”
“He was always doing nice things for her.”
“Carolyn showed us the obit,” her mother said. “We didn’t know Gina and Steve were engaged.”
Valerie’s face grew dark. “Horse puckey. For the first time in a long time Gina was in a good place. She’d gotten rid of that clingy girl and was about to go to Nationals with Zoom. The last thing she needed was a man to bring her down, especially a guy like Copeland.”
“So it wasn’t true?” Lee Ann seemed cheered by the prospect. “No engagement?”
“Not a chance.” Something caught Valerie’s eye and she swiveled on the bench. “Here comes Andrew.”
Red-faced, Andrew puffed up the stairs, clutching something in his fist. For such a large man, he stepped lightly, barely causing a tremor on the metal risers.
When he sat, Valerie put a hand on his thigh. “Did you get the dog?”
“Copeland wasn’t there. Either that or he was hiding from me. I would’ve busted the door down if there weren’t a gathering of people clustered around his trailer like the goddamn paparazzi.” Andrew’s leg bounced.
“I swear, when I find that guy, he’ll wish he never messed with my sister’s dog.”
Randi pointed at his fist. “What you got there?”
Andrew opened his hand and exposed a chunk of rose quartz. “Found this on our doorstep.”
“May I?”
He placed the stone in Randi’s palm. Its edges were sharp, glasslike. The flat area, as smooth as running water, shone like an iridescent fish and felt like silk. “Looks like the one that came through your window.”
“Yep.”
“What was it doing on your doorstep?”
“The witch put it there. Window’s already broken. Can’t re-break it. She thinks she’s going to put a spell on us since she can’t get to Gina anymore. Guess Val and I are the next best thing.”
A spell? The table in Mel’s bedroom. The arrangement of flowers, candles, incense, and an apple. The dagger.
Andrew pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket. Further inspection proved it to be a page torn from a book. “Got this from a witch manual. Read it for me, Valerie. I don’t have my damn glasses.”
Valerie obliged him. “‘Rose quartz can be used in magical work and everyday life. This crystal brings clarity to the heart through ritual work and helps clear negative emotions such as jealousy and anger. It also eases heartache and trauma. It is a valuable tool when doing ritual work that focuses on emotional release. Rose quartz assists in opening the heart chakra to help promote the healing of past emotional hurts and grudges.’”
Valerie passed the page back to Andrew. He crumpled it in his hand. “It’s a crock of crap. What it really means is how to heal past emotional hurts by hurting others, but at least now we know for certain who threw the rock, and I’d bet you anything Mel killed my sister too.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Randi and her mother stood at Luke’s doorstep, serenaded by a chorus of unseen frogs. Randi gripped the neck of a bottle of chardonnay her mother had found at the back of a cabinet and gr
abbed it on their way out the door, saying, “We’re not showing up empty-handed.”
Randi had replied they shouldn’t be socializing in the first place when there was a murderer on the loose, and if they weren’t searching for said killer they should at least being trying to get Gina’s dog back. Anything to avoid this evening. Being Luke’s vet-tech was well within her comfort zone. Purely social visits, especially with her mother present, held a ton of opportunities for awkward moments or the chance Barbra might show up, some silly excuse at the ready.
Her mother pressed the bell. “I can’t believe you’d consider cancelling on such short notice. I may have given birth to you, Miranda, but that doesn’t mean I understand you. It’s just dinner, for God’s sake. Everybody’s got to eat.”
“Come in!” Luke called from inside the house. “It’s unlocked.”
Her mother turned the knob and the door swung open with ease, considering its size. “Holy cow.”
Luke’s great room had floor-to-ceiling windows. Wooden beams and distressed wood floors—supposedly hand-flogged—gave the room an upscale countrified appeal. A limestone hearth and a mesquite mantel framed a grand fireplace, and the artwork adorning the walls was tasteful without being overdone. Regardless, the place was a bit over the top for Luke’s lifestyle; he’d told Randi enough times to make his ambivalence clear, but it was the closest thing he could find to the wilds of Montana in suburban San Diego County.
He’d bought it when his father died and left him the family cattle ranch, as he was the sole surviving heir after losing his mother to stomach cancer and his brother in the car wreck. Luke then sold the Montana place to a high-profile Hollywood couple with a brood of adopted international children and more money than was good for them. They promptly scrapped the old house and erected a fifteen-thousand-square-foot mansion, a barn, an indoor pool and a shooting range—oh yeah, a bowling alley too.
Luke said he heard the couple only used the ranch for the holidays, but at least they helped keep the local economy going by maintaining a full staff year round.
