Kneading to Die

by Liz Mugavero

  Char sighed and threw her cucumbers into the bowl. “I know. Carole is her own worst enemy these days. She’s campaigning for her own business, but she’s overdoing it a tad. She’s really bordering on obsessive. And Betty isn’t helping, either. She’s angry and can’t resist telling everyone about it.”

  “Who’s Betty?”

  “Betty Meany. She’s the town librarian. A bit nosy. You’ll see.”

  That Char called someone “nosy” with a straight face made Stan smile.

  “She lost her best friend a couple of weeks ago—Snickers, her cat.” Char shook her head sadly, measured out two teaspoons of olive oil and added salt. “She’s convinced the lymphoma came from all the vaccines over the years. Told Carole to stop, but Carole insisted Snickers needed them.”

  “My goodness, that’s awful,” Stan said. “I’d be upset, too. Maybe I should just call her and cancel. Nutty’s doing fine right now.”

  “Well, you know, I’m not sure Snickers’ dying was Carole’s fault. People can’t see reality when they’re that upset. I don’t know, honey.” Char added lemon juice and some other seasonings, which Stan lost track of in the blur of her hands, then threw the whole concoction into the food processor and turned it on. “Y’all should keep the appointment,” Char shouted over the roar of the machine. “What’s the harm?”

  “‘What’s the harm?’ she asks. It’s the hours of mea culpa and baking that I’m going to have to do to get you to talk to me again,” Stan said to Nutty the next morning. They were having their usual cat carrier standoff in the bathroom. It was seven-forty. Stan knew she would eventually win, but she’d lose a few battles first. And some skin. And probably be late. Why had she let this woman badger her into an appointment, anyway?

  Theme song: “Mission: Impossible.” Nutty waited behind the toilet, watching her every move, tail flicking in displeasure like a possessed dust mop. Stan crouched down, attempting to talk sense into him. “Come on, Nutty. Let’s do it the easy way.”

  Nutty never saw the value in the easy way. After a session of fake-outs, scratches and some hissing, Stan scruffed him and dropped him into the upright carrier.

  Nutty gave her a dirty look as she locked him in. “Hey,” she said. “I warned you.”

  She carried him outside to the garage and loaded him into her Audi. They drove the mile and a quarter down the road. Past the green, across from the library, next to the town hall. As promised, a small house-turned-business with a hand-carved wooden sign in the shape of a cat and dog, tails entwined, came into view as she rounded the corner. A frog sat about the FROG LEDGE piece of the name. The cheery yellow color of the building seemed out of character for the serious vet. And the sign was amazing. Stan knew next to nothing about woodworking, but even from the street she could tell the detail was painstaking.

  Stan parked on the street in front of the clinic. The same green SUV that had roared away from Amara’s house the other night was parked in the tiny lot.

  Inside the carrier, Nutty had resigned himself to the trip and was curled in a ball. “It’ll be short, I promise,” she said. “No shots. No meds. Pinky swear.” He ignored her. She glanced at her watch. Five to eight. I might as well get it over with.

  She got out and hefted the carrier. They walked up to the front door. It stood slightly ajar. Stan pushed it open and called out, “Hello? Carole?”

  No answer. The lights were on, so Stan stepped in. The waiting room felt comfy. A sign tacked up to the counter read: PETS WELCOME. Chairs were set up in twos and threes around the room, next to coffee tables stacked with piles of Dog Fancy and Cat Fancy. A computer hummed on a desk behind the counter. No receptionist or tech in sight. The room was cold, like someone had cranked the air-conditioning before the heat set in.

  Stan set Nutty down on a chair and strolled around the room, checking out posters on the wall for packaged dog and cat food, a schedule of pet-friendly events in town, a bulletin board with ads offering pet-sitting services and showcasing lost pets. The lost pet ads always made her sad, but she felt compelled to look in case she ran into the missing animal somewhere.

  Her watch read two minutes to eight. Stan glanced down the hall where the exam rooms waited. Somewhere in the clinic she heard a door quietly close. Maybe Carole had gone out back and was returning. She should let her know she was here.

  Stan took a few steps, listened. Quiet. “Hello?”

  Nothing. The first door on the left was closed. The one next to it was a bathroom, its door open, the room empty. Across the hall, another exam room, but this door stood ajar. Stan walked over, pushed it wider and peeked in.

  “Carole? Nutty and I are he—” And stopped. On the floor, just visible behind the exam table, was a Merrell clog. With a foot inside it. Stan took another tentative step and saw a leg. Horizontal. “Oh, my gosh, Carole! Did you fall?” She rushed around the table and gasped, recoiling, slamming her hip in her haste to get away. A horrified scream worked its way up her throat.

  The vet lay on the floor, unseeing eyes staring up at the ceiling. A needle protruded from her neck, her still body and long white hair covered in kibble.

  Chapter 3

  “I’ve told you three times already. I had an appointment. A new patient appointment for Nutty. My cat.” Stan pointed to the carrier, where Nutty frantically rubbed against the wire door. “I got here and found her on the floor.” Stan swallowed, remembering how Carole Morganwick looked, still and unmoving, covered in kibble. Once the police had gotten photos and collected their evidence, they’d taken her body away, but Stan figured she’d see it in her mind for the next few years.

  “You’re right. That’s what you told me three times already.” The resident state trooper leaned against Carole’s reception counter, intense green eyes drilling a hole through Stan’s head. “But what I want you to tell me is what you were really doing here.”

  Stan had a few choice words about what she was doing here right now, but she didn’t think it wise to opine. Especially to a state trooper. Stan had learned during this morning’s course of events that a trooper was the responding officer in towns of this size with no local police force, something she still could barely comprehend. No police. At all. Except for this woman, who looked like she was barely out of her twenties and didn’t need makeup, both of which counted against her in Stan’s mind. She knew it made her an awful person—a stereotypical, awful person—but she’d been expecting a middle-aged, donut-eating male, not this redhead with the perfect skin and thick hair. Not one of those pale, pasty-looking redheads, either, or an orangey redhead like Char. The cop had some good genes. Or her coppery hair was straight from a bottle.

  And this whole concept of resident state troopers who kept office hours in town was crazy to a city girl. On a better day she would be curious about how that worked, but it was not a better day. Stan had a blazing headache; it was freezing in this office; the vet was dead. And not by natural causes. Maybe she’d committed suicide and stabbed herself with some drug, but Stan figured that was unlikely. This cop—TROOPER PASQUALE, according to her badge—apparently felt the same way.

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” Stan said, rubbing her shoulders to try to chase the goose bumps away.

  “There was nothing in her appointment book with your name on it. And the practice doesn’t open until eight-thirty.”

  Stan sat up straighter. The trooper’s insinuation was not lost on her. Theme song: “The Twilight Zone.” She mentally prepped herself, as she would one of her executives before they faced a difficult question from the media. Just the facts. “Dr. Morganwick came over yesterday to introduce herself. She was eager to take my cat on as a patient and told me to come in today before her first appointment.”

  “Then why isn’t it in her appointment book?”

  “I have no idea why. She probably forgot to write it in. We spoke in my kitchen. I didn’t call and talk to a receptionist or anything. But I did talk to Char Mackey about it. Whether or not I should come.
You can ask her.”

  “What’s wrong with your cat?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with him.” Stan glanced inside the carrier. Nutty had been clawing frantically at the wire door until a few minutes ago. He’d since given up and gone to sleep.

  “Nothing’s wrong with your cat, but you came in before Dr. Morganwick’s regular appointments.” Pasquale’s dry delivery had Stan’s hackles rising.

  “She asked if I had a vet. Being new in town, I don’t. She insisted I bring Nutty in to see her. Said it was an introductory visit so she could meet him in case there was an emergency. I thought it was weird, but I didn’t want to make her mad or anything. Being new and all.”

  “Ah, yes. You’re new in town.” Pasquale’s tone indicated being new was right up there with having genital herpes. “Where are you from?”

  “I just moved here from West Hartford.”

  “What do you do for work?”

  She met Pasquale’s gaze steadily. “I’m in between jobs right now.”

  “What do you do when you’re not in between jobs?”

  “Public relations.”

  Pasquale did not look impressed. “Did you see or hear anything odd when you got here?”

  “Just the back door closing.”

  Pasquale’s eyes narrowed at that. “Walk me through what happened.”

  “The door was open, so I walked in. I put Nutty’s carrier on that chair.” Stan pointed to where he sat now. “No one was around. I thought I heard a door close out back, so I figured the doctor had gone outside for something and hadn’t heard me come in. When no one came out, I called for her. Then I walked out back.” She shivered, more from the memory now than the cold. “I saw her and thought she had fallen, but when I went around the table, I realized she … I ran out and called for help.”

  Pasquale opened her mouth again, but the door banged open and another trooper came in. Male, also young, a little pudgy, eager-looking. TROOPER STURGIS, his badge said. He glanced at Stan, curious, then turned his attention to his counterpart. “Jessie, I canvassed the area, but it was pretty early. No one saw anything. Not even Oliver, and he’s always out riding that bike around.” He had a patch of hair on his chin, which he kept rubbing, clearly proud of it. Probably his first.

  “Where was he today?” Pasquale asked.

  “He’d gone out to your brother’s place last night. Had a few too many. Slept in.”

  Pasquale didn’t like that. Stan could tell by her pursed lips and the way her eyes shifted away from Trooper Sturgis. She wondered who her brother was and what kind of place he had. And what he was serving. She might need some.

  “You hit everyone?” Pasquale asked.

  “Everyone nearby.” He smirked a little. “Didn’t bother asking the Hoffmans’ cows. They usually mind their own business.”

  Pasquale turned the death stare on him and his smile faltered. “You check around out back, Lou?”

  Lou hadn’t. He left pretty quickly. Stan thought it was about time to do the same. She got up, picked up Nutty’s carrier. He opened one eye and glared at her. “Are we done, Trooper Pasquale? I’d like to get my cat home.”

  Pasquale looked like she was not done, but she didn’t have a good reason to detain her. She flipped through her notebook one more time. “You’re out by the green. In the Victorian.”

  Stan nodded, and Pasquale read off Stan’s cell number to confirm. “If I have any other questions, I’ll follow up with you,” she said. “In the meantime, be careful. There’s a murderer out there.”

  Chapter 4

  News traveled fast in small towns. When Stan exited the vet clinic carrying Nutty, Pasquale hovering behind her, half the town had gathered across the street behind the newly positioned police barriers.

  A man with thick white hair and an old yellow Lab stood at the front of one of the barriers. He looked like one of those people the newspaper always honed in on after a tragedy—a shocked onlooker with no idea he was being photographed for posterity.

  “But I have an appointment,” Stan heard him say, and Lou leaned over and said something in a low voice. She couldn’t see the older man’s face, but she could tell from the hunch of his shoulders he was upset.

  Stan could hear the buzz of conversation, speculation, in the larger crowd. A white van marked FROG LEDGE ANIMAL CONTROL was parked haphazardly outside the clinic. A woman leaned against it, one hand shielding her eyes from the sun, the other covering her face. Stan hurried past her. Frantically pushing her unlock button as she approached her car, she finally heard the locks release. She loaded Nutty into the passenger seat and went around to the driver’s side. Jammed the key into the ignition, missing a few times, and willed her hands to stop shaking so she could drive without running anyone over.

  She kept it together until she pulled out of the parking lot, away from the crowd of eyes staring at her as she drove away, wondering what the new chick had to do with whatever was going on. God, she hated being speculated about.

  When she reached her driveway, she lost it. She jammed her car into park in front of the garage. Overcome with an insane urge to sob, she closed her eyes and bit down hard on her bottom lip until she tasted blood. The pain helped her force the tears back, and she folded her arms and laid her head down on the steering wheel. Even more than she hated being speculated about, Stan hated to cry.

  But holy crap, she’d just seen a dead person. Her first un–funeral-homed dead person. And even more disturbing than that, it was a murdered dead person. Because that needle didn’t just fall out of a cabinet into Carole’s neck.

  She had almost been in the same room as a murderer. She checked to see if her car doors were locked. It seemed ridiculous on this bright sunny day in a town where cows outnumbered people. And why was she sitting in her car, anyway? She should go inside. Or back to West Hartford. Call Richard. But he was in Chicago. Who else could she call? Her mother? No. Death was too scandalous for her mother’s sensitive disposition. Nikki. She should call Nikki. But Nikki hated getting phone calls during a transport. Understandable, when she had a van full of barking dogs, trying to listen to a GPS navigate her home.

  Was there really no one to call? That was pathetic. As a fresh bout of tears threatened to overwhelm her, she realized that’s the way it was. She had spent so much time at work, where people pretended to be friends but didn’t trust each other, and hadn’t spent enough time cultivating other relationships. If not for Nikki, she’d be friendless right now.

  It was a crappy feeling, but not the time to tackle that, too. Get a grip, get out of the car and go inside.

  Really, she wanted her dad. More than she’d allowed herself to want him since he died nine years ago. He’d know exactly what to say right now to make her feel better, to help her keep a good perspective. But she couldn’t talk to him, so it was a moot point. Maybe she’d try some of her all-natural stress reliever. If Nikki were here, she would tell her to take a damn Xanax, then dig one out of her purse.

  Stan sucked some air into her lungs and pushed her car door open. The heat slammed into her, like hitting a brick wall. Grabbing Nutty’s carrier, she hurried inside and locked the door behind her.

  She took Nutty’s chicken and rice out of the refrigerator and spooned some into a bowl. She was so frazzled that she forgot to heat it up, but he immediately attacked it. Already feeling sick to her stomach, Stan turned away from the food. She poured a glass of iced water and headed for the stairs. A long, hot bath would make her feel better. Then she could figure out what to do. She hoped the police found clues. She shivered. They would move fast on this. It was a small town. They wouldn’t want a murder hanging over their heads—unless they had no idea how to solve it.

  Her doorbell rang before she made it to the bathroom. Maybe this was what Richard meant about her getting sick of the small-town scene. She would give anything to be left alone right now.

  Leaving her glass on the hall table, she went back downstairs and peeked out the hall window. The
re was no mistaking Char’s flaming hair. No sooner had Stan opened the door, she found herself wrapped in a huge bear hug, her face pressed against Char’s generous bosom, ensconced today in a bright yellow sundress.

  “Oh, baby doll, are you all right?” Char exclaimed. “I heard all about what happened—you poor thing! We’re all so torn up about it, but you—my goodness, finding her like that. Raymond, bring that soup in here right now.”

  As Char released her grip, Stan could see the other woman’s red-rimmed eyes were slightly puffy, despite the silver eye shadow that remained still firmly in place. Ray stood behind his wife, looking equally somber, and holding a Crock-Pot.

  “You are both too sweet, but that’s really not necessary,” Stan began, but Char pooh-poohed her and stepped inside, dragging Stan by the wrist. Her yellow wedge sandals had to be at least four inches high.

  “Come sit down and tell me all about what happened. What a terrible, terrible tragedy! Y’all need a good old-fashioned Southern meal to heal this trauma.” Char dragged Stan to the kitchen and nearly shoved her into a chair, waiting for Ray to set the soup down.

  “Char, really, I’m not hungry,” Stan said, but Char wouldn’t hear it.

  “Where are your bowls, honey? Ray, find the bowls.” Char lifted the lid off the soup and inhaled deeply. “This is just what you need. Gumbo. My specialty.” She turned and winked, fanning herself with her hand. “My goodness, it’s hot in here.”

  “I can turn the air-conditioning up.”

  “I’ll fix myself a drink. I needed one, anyway. I think we all do, after today. I just can’t believe—” Char broke off, sniffling, and turned away, reaching for her ginormous purse. Fishing inside, she came up with a bottle of vodka.

  “How you holding up, Stan?” Ray said, bending down to buss her cheek.