by Rae Davies
Another half an hour passed before the door rattled again. This time it was Betty, unlocking the door and slipping past it before slamming it shut behind her. She stood with her back against the wood, panting, her feather boa spread out behind her like a cat bristling its coat.
I sat up.
She squealed.
“Sorry—”
She waved her boa at me to be quiet and wandered to the front window to look out.
Intrigued enough to give up on my self–indulgence, I wrapped the blanket around me and followed. Kiska stayed on the loveseat.
“Two of them!” Betty declared, clucking her tongue in disapproval. “What did Helena do to deserve that?”
“Two what?” I couldn’t see anything past her feathers.
“Daniels,” she declared. “The new one is even younger, and female, but still a Daniel.”
“Oh, her.” I hobbled back to the loveseat and plopped down. Kiska, who had taken my momentary absence as surrender of the space to him, grumbled. He didn’t, however, move. I shoved him to the side as best I could and worked my body back into position, this time with his head on my lap.
Betty turned to look at me, boa swishing. “What do you mean, ‘Oh, her?’ And why was she so interested in where you were?”
I grimaced. “Well, you see... There was an incident this morning and I found—”
Betty fell back against the wall and her hand flew to her forehead.
A bit over the top dramatic if you asked me.
“You didn’t!” She narrowed her eyes at me. “You did! You found another body.”
Her judgment did nothing to lighten my mood. It did, though, break through the shock fog or whatever it was that had enveloped me.
“It isn’t like I was looking for one,” I retorted.
“Of course not.” She tossed her boa into its place over her shoulder and sighed. “Who was it this time?”
“A Cutie.”
“As in Patootie?”
My mind stuttered for a minute. “As in coffee. You know, the kiosk.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, one of the coffee girls.” Her mouth twisted. I couldn’t tell what she was thinking, but I could see that she was weighing this information. “That’s not good. That’s not good at all.”
Of course it wasn’t good. Someone dying was never good, but something about her tone told me she meant more than that.
She reached under her arm and pulled out that morning’s Helena Daily News. “Apparently this happened Sunday night. After church, I’m sure which means before our chat with a certain Texan yesterday. I don’t know how I hadn’t heard about it before or why the News waited until today to run the story.”
On the front page was the headline: Caffeine Cuties Too Cute For Some?
I glanced at Betty. “It’s a feature story. Daniel’s probably been working on this for a week or more.” Feature stories didn’t have to be tied to some big event, but Betty seemed to think this one was. I raised a brow in question. She motioned for me to unfold the paper.
Below the fold was a photo of ten well–dressed women lined up in front of the Caffeine Cartel’s kiosk, apparently blocking traffic to its window. The woman front and center, holding a sign that read James 1:15, looked horribly familiar.
“Phyllis?” I asked, surprised, and then again, not so much. The former Texan was always pushing me to get involved. I just hadn’t realized her idea of involvement included picketing coffee stands with Bible quotes.
I frowned. “What’s in James 1:15 anyway?” I’d spent my time in Sunday School, but a biblical scholar I wasn’t.
Betty it seemed was, or maybe she’d just already looked up the quote. “Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”
I could feel all the blood in my body swirling down to my feet. “Death?”
Grim, but not exactly distressed, Betty replied, “Yep, death.”
“Maybe they’ll think she has ESP,” I offered. Daniel too. He’d scored big with the morbid timing of this piece.
My employee hmphed.
Looking back at the paper, I asked, “What is WIL?”
“Women’s Improvement League. Non–denominational, I think, but all about stomping out fun... I mean sin.” She fluttered her feathers in disgust and trotted behind the counter to turn on the computer and check voice mails.
“So, Phyllis is like what? Carrie Nation?”
Betty hmphed again. “I haven’t noticed her turning down a glass of wine.”
Okay, so maybe temperance wasn’t Phyllis’ thing, but there were still similarities. I glanced at the picture again. A woman standing to the right of Phyllis caught my eye. “Who’s that?” I asked, pointing at the middle–aged blonde.
Betty shrugged. “I don’t know her. The WILers aren’t exactly my crowd.”
I peered at the woman again. She was missing the cheese shirt, but she was definitely the woman I’d seen at the kiosk a couple of days earlier. “She might not be one,” I murmured. Her interest in the cause might be a whole lot more personal.
The front door rattled again. Betty looked at me and shook her head. Then she strode to the door and shouted through it. “Go away! I already told you Lucy doesn’t come in until the afternoon, if then.”
Not sure whether to be thankful that she was covering for me or insulted that she was painting me as a slouch, I raised a brow.
A gruff voice with a Midwestern accent called back. “Ken Klein, detective with the Helena P.D.”
Betty turned to me, eyes wide in question.
“He’s new. Taking over for Stone until they get a replacement.” I waved my hand, telling her to let the detective in.
He stepped inside, nonchalant and completely unsurprised at my presence. “Ms. Mathews,” he acknowledged with a nod. He shifted his attention to Betty. “Ms....?”
“Broward,” Betty responded. Then she twittered.
I tilted my head and gave her a “what are you doing?” glare. She didn’t seem to notice. She was too busy flipping her boa over her shoulder and looking up coyly at the Chicago import.
“I’m looking for a Phyllis Cox.”
Someone else would have at least pretended to have to search for Phyllis’ name, but not Detective Klein. He said it with the total confidence of someone who already knew more about Phyllis than Betty and I put together.
“I understand she works here.”
“When she feels like it,” Betty blurted.
I gave her a shushing stare, only to look up and see Klein watching me with his steady gaze.
“Phyllis,” I explained. “Doesn’t have a set schedule unless Betty or I are going to be gone.”
“Was she here yesterday?”
“We saw her yesterday morning, next door at Spirit Books. I don’t know if she worked after that. She has a key and I wasn’t here all day.” If Phyllis had told the police she was at the shop, I didn’t want to be the one contradicting that, at least not until I’d talked to her myself.
Betty, however, had no such concerns. “She wasn’t. I got here at eight and left at eight. My...” She seemed to reconsider what she’d been about to say. “I didn’t have any other plans, so I stayed to do some work on the computer. I’m an artist.” The last was unnecessary. As was the flutter of her boa.
“And neither of you have seen her today, or heard from her?”
I started to shake my head no, but then realized what his question indicated. “Is she missing? Have you been to her townhouse? Talked to her son?”
I would have blathered on more, but Detective Klein cut me off with a curt nod. “Thanks for your help.” He turned and walked toward the door, but stopped about two feet short of it. “If you do see Ms. Cox, tell her I’m looking for her. You have my card.”
After the door had closed behind him, Betty relocked the door. Then the two of us shared a look. Mine must have been unsure. Betty shook her head. “She wouldn’t. Killing someone’s w
ay too close to real work.”
She left to turn on the lights in the back, leaving Kiska and me alone.
Kiska. I stared down at him. Still sound asleep.
He never slept this deeply.
o0o
An hour later, I was sitting in the vet’s waiting room, trembling and trying not to break down. Betty had helped me carry Kiska to my Jeep. A veterinary assistant had carried him inside the clinic. I’d followed along feeling helpless and sick and on the verge of losing it. This was obvious enough that after the initial exam, the vet had herded me out of the exam room and told me to wait.
And so I had. Was.
I glanced at the receptionist. She avoided my eyes. Through tears, I looked back at my phone. I’d texted Peter, but gotten no response. Rhonda too. Betty was at the shop and no one seemed to know where Phyllis was, not that I would have called her, but it seemed everyone was out of reach, just when I needed them most.
My finger hovered over my mother’s avatar. She’d be sympathetic, but she’d ask questions too. Questions I couldn’t answer and that would make me, despite her good intentions, feel all that much worse.
If Kiska wasn’t okay, I’d...
“Lucy?”
The vet stood in the doorway, looking grim.
I swallowed hard and put down my phone.
He looked around. The waiting room was empty except for the receptionist and us, and on seeing his face, she’d made a quick exit.
He sat down next to me on the bench.
“First, you need to know—”
My heart pounded and my head swirled. If I’d been standing, I’d have landed on the ground. As it was, there was still a good chance that I would. My distress was so complete, I barely heard the rest of his sentence.
“... he’s going to be fine. I’d like to keep him the rest of the day, maybe overnight, but he’ll be fine.”
I blinked. “Fine? Really?” The way the vet had acted, the way Kiska had acted...
He nodded. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just... What did you say he ate?”
I told him the ugly tale, leaving out the part where I’d been so angry. “It’s my fault. I should have known. He eats everything, even wood pellets. How could he resist all those cupcakes?”
The vet shook his head. “He couldn’t, and you should have, but I don’t think the cupcakes were the problem.”
“You don’t?”
“No.” He shook his head again, looking even more serious this time. “I think someone poisoned him.”
o0o
An hour later, I was back in my Jeep sans malamute. The vet had assured me that Kiska was fine, but he’d still insisted on keeping him overnight for observation.
A night alone with the knowledge that someone had tried to kill my dog was more than I could face.
I did something that I didn’t do too often. I headed to Peter’s unannounced.
He lived out of town on about fifteen acres of mainly grass. He had a barn and corral and kept a couple of horses. The views from the back porch of the three–bedroom ranch were pleasant enough, but the lack of trees always made me feel exposed.
It was yet another difference between Peter and me. He was a “big sky, open spaces” type. I was a “snuggled into the mountains with a view of trees” type.
Still, exposed and not alone was a lot better than snuggled in and missing my dog.
When I arrived, Peter was walking Tweety, his son’s sorrel, into the barn. I leaned against the front of my Jeep and waited for him to do whatever horse care duties he had to do. Less than five minutes later, he was back.
I glanced around him at the barn, surprised. “That was fast.”
He held out his arms. “What’s wrong?”
I both loved and hated that I was that easy to read. Of course, he was a professional detective.
I walked into his embrace and began blubbering.
Patient as always, he stroked my hair and listened. Until I got to the part about the vet saying someone had poisoned Kiska. He took a step back then and frowned.
“Did he say with what?”
I shook my head. “He didn’t seem to know. He said it wasn’t serious, just...” I searched for the right word. “...disturbing.”
“What about timing? Did he have an idea how much time would have passed since Kiska got the substance?”
I hadn’t asked, but it was a good question. I told Peter I’d ask the next morning when I picked Kiska up.
“Most poisons are pretty quick. Did you see him eat anything else strange in the past day?”
I gave him a look. He knew Kiska. Then I remembered. “The Caffeine Cutie! She gave him a cookie.”
His face turned grim. “Which Caffeine Cutie?”
“The one who—” I bit off my reply. I’d been through the whole “first person on the scene thing” enough times to know that what I’d been about to say wasn’t going to sound good for me.
“The owner? The one you found?”
I nodded. I could see that he was thinking the same thing I was.
“But you didn’t know that Kiska had been poisoned until after that.”
He wasn’t exactly leading me, but... I nodded.
“Anything else?”
I thought. Hard. “Before that, when we were walking down the Gulch, he ate something he found outside the toy store.”
“Something?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t see it. You know how he is. It was gone before I could stop him.”
“And you let him outside last night, probably this morning?”
Of course I had. When a malamute had to go... plus there’d been the cupcake massacre element. Kiska had been outside for a good deal of the time that I’d been dealing with that.
“So, it could have come from your yard.”
I didn’t like the sound of that any better. “You think one of my neighbors might have poisoned him?”
He tilted his head. “More likely poisoned something else that crawled into your yard to die.”
I curled my nose in disbelief. It was possible, but as undiscerning a gourmand as Kiska was, he wasn’t much for carrion... unless, of course, as a personal hygiene application.
Still, it was possible and a whole lot less disturbing than the other prospects.
“I’ll come by tomorrow before you take him home and look around.”
I nodded, grateful for his concern and help. Although, if his suggestion was right, the evidence would have gone the way of the cupcakes by now.
I sniffed.
Peter muttered something I couldn’t make out and pulled me back against his chest.
CHAPTER FIVE
The next morning at 8 a.m., I was back at the vet’s office. My nose wasn’t quite pressed to the glass as the receptionist unlocked the door, but it was close enough she had to step back to keep my eager body from knocking into hers as I fell inside.
“I’m here for Kiska,” I chirped, trying to cover my impatience with cheerfulness.
Giving me a sideways look, she headed back behind the desk. “I’ll page someone.”
Fine. Just fine. I raised up onto my toes and then back down onto flat feet. After about ten of those, I upgraded to little bounces.
She looked at me again. “Uh, they’ll bring him out.”
“Great!” I glanced toward the back. I could just go get him myself.
“Owners aren’t allowed back there,” she announced, in a tone I hadn’t heard since my first grade teacher caught me eating the glue fingernails I’d crafted in the ridge of my wooden ruler.
I lowered myself to flat feet and stared at her shamefaced. At least for a few seconds. Then Kiska came plodding through the door and all thoughts of shame flew away. At least shame for being so eager to see him. The guilt for allowing him to get poisoned was still mighty thick.
I pushed it aside so I could grab him in a hug.
He looked the other direction.
I sighed.
The vet, who’d led Kiska out, cleared his throat. “He’s doing fine. His stomach may still be a bit sensitive, but aside from that there’s not much you need to watch out for.”
I nodded and pulled the leash from his hand.
Kiska, sensing the transfer, turned more fully away.
I twisted my lips, wondering how long this punishment would last.
“I had a call from the police. I take it you reported the poisoning?”
I hadn’t, but I guessed that Peter had.
“They had some questions. Unfortunately, I can’t really tell them or you many details. I could tell what Kiska was going through was something beyond a sugar crash, but it wasn’t severe enough for me to suspect the usual things you see if a dog has been intentionally or accidentally poisoned.” He smoothed his face so that it was completely devoid of expression or judgment. “He hasn’t been around anyone who is on anti–depressants, has he?”
I scrolled through the list of people that I knew Kiska had been in contact with in the last few days. I didn’t know that any of them were taking antidepressants, but that wasn’t something most people lead with.
“It’s a common cause of poisoning with dogs. People leave their pills out...”
He let the suggestion hang there until finally I caught it.
“Oh, no.” I shook my head. “Not me. I’m fine. Not that people who take anti–depressants aren’t fine but—” Feeling a ramble starting, I snapped my mouth closed.
He nodded. In that slow understanding way that meant he didn’t buy a word that I had just spewed. “Of course not, but just know it does happen and they are dangerous to dogs. If you do know someone taking them, make sure they are more careful in the future.” An empathetic, but forceful stare followed.
I nodded back, just as slowly. Then I backed away until the distance between us felt great enough that I could take my malamute and sprint for the door. After paying my bill, of course. There was no way the hawk–eyed receptionist was letting me past without doing that.
o0o
After a spin through the drive thru to fortify myself for the day to come and to bribe my way back into my malamute’s good graces, I walked into Dusty Deals feeling full, but still defeated.
