by Annie Knox
“Not true,” I said. “For the love of Mike, don’t go telling people I’m keeping Daisy. I need to find her a forever home ASAP. But Xander and George just aren’t the right family for her.”
She heaved a sigh. “Fine. Xander, let’s go. You can drive me to work.” Clearly Lucy was in full-on princess mode. The courthouse where she worked was only three blocks away, yet she was summoning Xander to be her chauffeur. It would take them longer to get to his car than it would take for her to just walk it.
She handed me the empty wrapper from the strawberry Toasty, turned on her heel, grabbed Xander by the hand, and headed toward the door. Before they left, Xander looked back over his shoulder and mouthed a big “Thank you.”
I’d saved both Daisy and Xander from a horrible fate, and I’d managed to resist my sister’s manipulation, but Lucy was right: I needed to find Daisy her own home, where she would be loved as much as she deserved to be loved. Maybe even with someone who had more time for her than Daniel had. And I needed to do so stat.
* * *
When it came time to go confront Hal, I had to leave Rena in charge of Trendy Tails. I would have loved to have her at my side, but we truly did need to mind the store. Since Dru, Lucy, Taffy, and Sean were all working, I settled on bringing Aunt Dolly with me. Not only was she a foxy old pistol-packin’ mama, but people tended to be truthful in her presence. Especially when she gave them her patented look: a stare so pointed and intense that it actually hurt your eyeballs to meet it.
As we made our way into the showroom of Olson’s Odyssey RV, Hal was right there to greet us. He held out his bear-paw hand to shake ours with a little more vigor than was strictly comfortable. “Good to see you, good to see you. Got a button yet?”
Without waiting for an answer, he reached into his pants pocket and withdrew two three-inch-round buttons. They said MAYOR in a stripe across the middle with VOTE FOR HAL, HE’S YOUR PAL curving around the edges.
Hal and I were a long way from pals, but I dutifully pinned it to the front of my bright pink Trendy Tails button-down.
“Looks good on you,” he said, his smile blinding against the perpetual golf tan that had leathered his face.
“You looking for some camping equipment? I can hook you up with Joel—Joel!—and he can help you find everything you need. Knows all the ins and outs.”
“Actually, Hal, I was hoping we could talk to you.”
Hal’s eyes narrowed. Last time I’d had a chat with Hal, I’d ended up accusing him of murder. Given the information I had at the moment, today might not end much differently.
“As much as I’d like to, Izzy, my schedule is pretty full. You know I’d love to give all my customers the Big Hal treatment, but when you’re the manager, you don’t always get a chance to do the fun stuff.”
He started to pivot and walk away when Aunt Dolly chimed in.
“Not so fast, son.” Her voice wasn’t especially loud or forceful, but it stopped him in his tracks. As underhanded as Hal could be, he’d been raised, like most of us, in the tradition of “Minnesota nice.” People from far and wide talked about the knee-jerk politeness of most Minnesotans, how we’ll smile at you even while you’re serving us with divorce papers. Minnesota nice dictated that you did what your elders told you to do.
“We’re not here for camping equipment. This old gal does not camp.” Dolly spread her arms to draw attention to her low-cut silk blouse, her jeggings, and her short, pointy-heeled black boots. “We just have a couple of questions, and I’m sure you won’t mind answering them.”
Hal blew out a lungful of air, but then ducked his head like a chagrined child and waved at us to follow him back into his office. His office was surprisingly Spartan for a man whose outward persona was so much larger than life. Despite what he’d said about not being able to give personal attention to his customers, Hal actually did spend more of his days walking the lot, shaking hands and kissing babies, than he did in the bare white-walled room.
Dolly and I sat in the wooden chairs set in front of Hal’s desk, while he took the seat behind it. “So. What kind of questions do you ladies have for me?”
“We’re interested in The Woods at Badger Lake,” I said.
“Sorry to tell you, we’re not ready to start selling units yet,” Hal said.
“Honestly, we’re not really in the market,” I said. “We’re more interested in how the development is being built.”
Hal cussed beneath his breath. “Look, if you want to harass me about the house wrap and the siding panels we’re using, you can save your breath. Steve Olmstead has already given me an earful about how RJ’s Construction only outbid him because they’re using substandard materials. I’ve talked to a few other friends I have in the real estate world, and they assure me those products are perfectly adequate.”
“Adequate” sounded like a far cry from good, but I really didn’t care whether the siding would last more than six months or whether the condos would be drafty in the winter.
“That’s not what we were interested in,” I said, trying to slide into our rather inappropriate questions. Dolly had another plan altogether.
“Look, Hal, we know you’re in bed with the mob, and Daniel Colona was on to you, and you killed him to keep his mouth shut.”
I groaned softly. So much for subtlety.
“Mob? Are you kidding me?”
“Not at all,” Dolly responded. “You need capital to complete the Badger Lake development. You need it bad. And Pris said your investors are pretty insistent about remaining behind the scenes. That sounds like the mob to me.”
Hal waved his hands like he was calling a strike. “Good golly, no. I’m not getting wrapped up in any mob business. I saw The Godfather. I’m not waking up to a horse head in my bed. Pris would kill me.”
I made a mental note that Hal was more concerned about Pris’s ire than he was about the actual damage the mob could do him.
“Well, if it’s not the mob, who else would want to keep so quiet?”
“I don’t see that it’s any of your business,” he said.
I made a move like I was about to get up. “I guess I can just call Ama Olmstead and tell her about this secret outside investor. I’ll bet she could get to the bottom of it, and then the whole town would know.”
“Oh, for crying out . . .” Hal craned his head to look behind me, then hunkered down low to his desk. He spoke in a whisper. “It’s the Japanese.”
“The Japanese? Why would they care about keeping their participation secret?”
“Izzy McHale, you should know as well as anyone. Why do people shop in your fancy little boutique—your expensive little boutique—when they can go to Wally World and get all the pet clothes they want?”
“Because my stuff is cuter and better quality?” I proffered.
Hal waved off that answer, making a face like he’d smelled something rotten. “Oh, that’s part of it. But part of it is because it’s homegrown goods. Made in small-town USA, emphasis on the USA. We live in one of the most pro-union, pro-buy-American states in the country. People find out The Woods at Badger Lake is part owned by the Japanese, and there goes the business. I’m a savvy enough businessman to know that.”
“Then why take them on at all?” I asked.
He laughed. “Because I’m also a savvy enough businessman that I don’t turn away money when it walks through my door. This bigwig from a Japanese electronics company, his wife read the Little House on the Prairie books and decided she just had to live in Minnesota. On a lake. In the woods. Frankly, I think she may be getting some of the details wrong. Anyway, that’s what she wants, and he wants to indulge her but wants to make a few bucks in the process, and voilà, our deal was born.”
Ma Pa, Unlimited. It made perfect sense now. Ma and Pa Ingalls. This electronics tycoon sure was one doting husband.
“Still,” I sa
id, “Daniel was clearly doing a story on The Woods at Badger Lake. Unless he had something else to interest him out there . . . ?”
Hal shook his head, his face turning the red of raw steak. “No. Absolutely not. Everything with the development is strictly aboveboard.”
“So the investor angle must have been what Daniel was investigating. Either he thought it was the mob, too, or he knew it was the Japanese and that was his angle. . . . He was threatening to expose a secret you very much want to keep. One that, if spilled, could cost you the thousands of dollars you’ve already sunk into the development and leave you with a half-developed eyesore hanging around your neck like an albatross.”
“What are you implying?” Hal blustered.
Dolly perked up in her seat, sending her blouse swaying precariously close to a wardrobe malfunction. “We’re not implying anything, son. We’re accusing you of killing Daniel Colona.”
I groaned again. I was never ever taking Dolly on one of my little investigative excursions ever again. Ever.
“Well, I never . . . ,” Hal growled, his Minnesota nice melting from the heat of his anger. “I can’t believe you’d accuse me of murder.”
I wasn’t sure why he was that surprised. After all, it hadn’t been even six months since I’d accused him of murder, right here in this very office.
“Look, I don’t know what Daniel Colona was messing around in up here, but I sure as heck didn’t kill him. I had an alibi.”
“An alibi?”
“Yeah.” He paused for a moment. He looked like he wasn’t sure whether he should share his alibi with us. This made me think that Handsy Hal had taken up with another woman. Pris would literally be thrilled.
“Yeah,” he repeated. “I was with Kevin Lahti.”
“Why on earth would you be hanging out with Kevin Lahti?”
“Let’s just say we were doin’ stuff. If you ask him, I’m sure Kevin will confirm that I was with him that night.”
Dolly and I exchanged a look. I, for one, planned to check out Hal’s alibi, but it was starting to look like our grand theory had just crumbled before our very eyes.
CHAPTER
Twelve
When Dolly and I arrived back at Trendy Tails, Packer, Jinx, and Daisy May were lined up staring at the front door just like they knew we would be walking through any minute. Rena stood next to them, holding her ferret, Val, up like a trophy.
“You’ll never guess what happened,” she said.
“Is it something bigger than Dolly here accusing Hal Olson of murder?”
Rena grinned. “You didn’t!”
Aunt Dolly drew herself up and looked down her nose. “I absolutely did. As it happens, he is not connected to the mob”—Rena’s smile slipped—“and he purports to have an alibi for the night of the murder.”
“So he didn’t do it?” Rena asked.
“At the moment, the signs point to no, but we have a few details to follow up on.”
“What’s your big news?” I asked Rena as I fetched treats for Packer, Jinx, and Daisy May.
“Well, it’s a long story.”
“Does it have to be?”
Rena stuck her tongue out at me. “Yes. It started just after you two left. Taffy Nielson stopped by and said she’d lost a gold necklace that had belonged to her mother and that it might have ended up here.”
“Here?” Dolly asked as she made her way to a chair. As perky as she was, Dolly wasn’t a spring chicken anymore.
Rena shrugged and draped Val around her neck. “Who knows? Taffy’s always been a bit daffy. Oh! Daffy Taffy. We should totally start calling her that.”
I rolled my eyes. “We should totally not call her that. She’s our friend, and I would like to keep it that way.”
“Well, whatever, she was looking for her necklace, and so I went to our ‘lost and found.’” She used air quotes as she said it. Our unofficial lost and found is a cranny between Jinx’s armoire and the wall where Val the ferret hides all her ill-gotten loot.
“And?” I started boxing up a few items that I needed to get to Prissy’s Pretty Pets so Pris could work her magic on our four-legged bride, Pearl.
“Turns out she was right. The necklace was there . . . though how that happened and why she thought to ask us is completely beyond me. Anyway, the big news is what else Val appears to have stolen.”
She paused dramatically. “I’ll bite,” Dolly said. “What else did you find?”
“One of Daniel’s pocket journals.” She squeed and did a little jig of pure excitement, sending Val hurtling down her shirt and into her sleeve, where it was safe.
Dolly and I gasped in unison. “Really?” I breathed.
“I kid you not.”
“Well, let’s have a look,” Dolly said.
We gathered around the folk art table, and Rena produced the journal: a trendy little leather-bound book, not much bigger than an index card, held closed by an orange elastic. As though it were a holy book—or a vial of the plague—Rena slid the elastic off and opened the journal.
“I can’t believe you waited for us,” I said.
“I thought it would be more fun if we read it together.”
It was so small, we had to take turns thumbing through the journal. Most of what he’d written appeared to be in some personal shorthand that would require a cryptographer to decipher. And we were all out of cryptographers at the moment.
There were, however, a few things we could make out. The first was near the front of the booklet. He’d written “DNR” and drawn what appeared to be a narrow-necked vase with two big olives in it. Later, about midway through the journal, he’d scratched the date “June 10” with three question marks following it. Finally, on the back cover, he’d written two names and phone numbers: Dee Dee Lahti and Ama Olmstead.
* * *
Prissy’s Pretty Pets Spa and Salon was Pris Olson’s pet project. Hal made a fortune selling RVs and other camping equipment, so Pris certainly didn’t have to work, but I think she was bored just sitting around the house and directing other people to plant flowers in her yard. She owned and doted on a show-quality silver chinchilla Persian named Kiki, and I guess it just seemed natural to pamper other pets the way she pampered her own.
The pet spa boasted the whole array of bathing and grooming services along with animal massage, aromatherapy, and a posh kennel in which all the animals slept on velvet pillows and were fed fresh organic meats and produce. While our businesses didn’t precisely overlap, we were definitely competing for the pet lover’s dollars. What’s more, Pris’s inner mean girl wasn’t quite so “inner.” In her natural habitat, Pris had a nemesis, and since I’d opened Trendy Tails, that nemesis was me.
When I entered her store, a subtle chime sounded somewhere in the back of the building. I was juggling an expandable folder with all of my notes on the Tucker-Collins wedding, a plastic box with a sample of the doggy cake Rena was making, and the rhinestone tiara and veil that Pearl would wear on her special day.
Prissy’s Pretty Pets was not your average dog groomer’s. The waiting room looked like that of a high-end human salon. Gilt-legged purple wing chairs were scattered about the plush chocolate carpeting in intimate conversation groups, and down-filled dog beds were tucked beneath and beside about half the chairs. There was a whole wall of glass shelves filled with the finest pet grooming supplies—shampoos, serums, and clippers—and another wall adorned with arty black-and-white posters of animals in motion. I was fairly sure the trotting Persian in one of the posters was Pris’s Kiki. Finished with soft lighting, new age music, and carefully chosen essential oils wafting through the air, the front part of the store was an oasis of comfort. When the curtain to the back of the spa parted, I could see that the soft lighting continued into the work space, though I knew there had to be more brightly lit rooms for precision hair and nail clipping
s.
Pris emerged from the back of the store like a phantom rising from the mist. I swear the woman’s feet never touched the ground. She glided above the floor like a Macy’s parade balloon, serene and effortless.
“Izzy,” Pris cooed, her lips sliding into the perfect cocktail party smile.
She did not dress like a woman who spent her days with animals—and their fur. That morning, she wore a turquoise shirtdress that made her blue eyes sparkle like the Caribbean, her blond hair pulled into a smooth, low pony, and a matching set of seashell-shaped gold earrings and pendant. All she was missing was the sun hat and the mai tai.
“Hey Pris. I brought Pearl’s headpiece for the wedding so you can attach it after she’s been groomed and clipped. And Rena thought you might want to try the cake.”
“The dog cake?” Pris asked as she took the tiny tiara and lace-trimmed veil from my hands. “I think I’ll pass.”
“Honest, it’s really quite tasty. Not very sweet, but made with bananas and carob with a yogurt-based frosting. Better than those health bars they sell in the supermarket.”
“Hmm. I think I’ll just take your word for it.”
“Are we all set, then? You have everything you need for the big day?”
Pris turned the tiara this way and that, studying the struts that would attach to Pearl’s collar and the elastic that would slide under her chin. She nodded in approval before handing the veil back.
“I think so. I’ll groom both dogs in the morning, and then bring them to Trendy Tails along with my assistant Tammy. With your help, we’ll get both of them dressed in that kitchen of yours. The dress and veil should be a piece of cake, but the tux looks like it’s going to require a bit more wrangling.”
“Mercifully, I think Romeo is okay with clothes. Hetty Tucker has been haunting Trendy Tails for months now, and she always brings him in different outfits. He must be reasonably patient.”
Pris cocked her head. “This is a little bonkers, isn’t it?”
I laughed. “Maybe a little, but Hetty and Louise are over the moon about this event. And now that we’re combining the pupptials with Ingrid and Harvey’s nuptials, I think it’s going to be crazy fun.”
