“I can do that,” Po protested.
“But so can we,” Maggie said.
Po smiled, and gave up the fight as she had so many times before.
“Would either of you like a cup of coffee?” she asked.
“No, I’ve really got to get running,” Maggie said. “I’m just beat. I haven’t been sleeping well. And now that we found
Fitzgerald, I know I’m going to sleep the sleep of the dead,” She smiled. “I’m due, I think.”
“Maggie,” said Max. “Have you thought any more about calling that consultant I suggested?”
“I have thought about it,” Maggie said. “I have to admit, I’m a little uncomfortable having someone pry through my business affairs.”
Max smiled. “I did think you seemed a little hesitant.” She wrinkled up her face. “Well, what if it’s bad news. Maybe I don’t want to know.”
Po put a hand on her arm. “It’s just the next thing, Maggie. You’ll figure it out.”
“I could give her a call and introduce you,” Max offered. “Would that help?”
“Oh, Max, you’re the best,” Maggie said. “That would be great.”
And with cordial goodnights all around and a roar of her old truck, the good-natured pet doctor was gone.
“You are the best,” Po said with a smile up at Max. “Thank you for helping her.”
“If it makes you happy, it makes me happy,” Max said, giving her a gentle squeeze.
CHAPTER 7
Po went to sleep that night thinking that they’d dodged a bullet. That feeling lasted through most of the day. She drank her coffee and enjoyed the paper. She pulled her new fabric out of the dryer, and spent some time looking at the sketches of tree branches and leaves she’d made over the past couple of months, cutting out bits of fabric, and trying to clarify her vision for the piece she was working on. And after lunch, she worked on researching an article for Fabric Artist, a piece that focused on new techniques for fusing. And all the normalcy of her day disappeared in one instant when she picked up the phone and heard Maggie’s distraught voice.
“Oh, Po,” was all she got out, and Po could tell that she’d celebrated too soon.
“What happened Maggie?”
“The police have been here,” Maggie said in a strangled voice. “Mercedes has disappeared.”
“You’re kidding,” Po said. “How can that be?”
“I don’t know,” Maggie said. “But they found her car, apparently abandoned. It looks like she never came home last night. And she missed her appointments today.”
“Well, that all does seem unlike her,” Po said.
“The worst part is that her family seems to think we had something to do with it. They sent the police to Aaron’s apartment this morning to ask him who was there when he dropped Fitzgerald off. And they just left the clinic. They came to ask me about the dog disappearing.” She trailed off.
“I don’t know what to do, Po. What should I do?”
Po’s mind was whirring. And she knew Maggie’s was, too. So her first bit of advice was really not that helpful. And she knew it.
“Don’t worry, Maggie,” she said. “We’ll figure it out.” But what to do wasn’t coming easily. “You go back to work,” Po said. “Let me think about it. Do you think you can get away early today? We can regroup then.”
Maggie said she’d try to reschedule her last couple of appointments for the day, and that barring that, she’d call the veterinarian who covered for her when she went on vacation. And with that she ran off to adjust her day, leaving Po to adjust her thinking from “all’s well” to “all’s tumbling.” And, of course, to start working on a plan.
Information gathering is always the first step, she decided. So she placed a call to Kate. She felt a little bad, asking Kate to prod P.J. for information. But, she figured, what’s the good of having an in with the Police Department if you can’t use it in an emergency? Po had caught her on her planning period, time she spent grading papers and planning lessons. Kate promised to make the call right away.
With that job assigned, Po called Phoebe. She smiled, as always, to hear the twins in the background. At 4 years old, the identical blond boys showed all the enthusiasm for life that their mother did, which made them tough to keep up with. Despite the challenges of getting a free evening away from her cherubs, Phoebe agreed to go with her mother-in-law to her weekly Women’s Club meeting at the country club on Wednesday night to see whether she could learn anything from Mercedes’ crowd.
Then Po called Maggie back, and left her a message, asking whether she could bring Aaron along. It seems like he might have noticed something that could help.
And then she made a shopping list. “After all,” she thought. “We can’t possibly do any creative problem solving on an empty stomach.” And with that she headed to Elderberry Road.
Her first stop was at Picasso’s restaurant, The French Quarter. It wasn’t the first time the amiable restaurateur had put together a range of hors d’oeuvres to go for Po. Her combined love of company, Picasso’s cooking, and food that comes in bite-sized pieces made it a terrific arrangement.
“My dearest Po,” the round, starched-apron-wearing
French chef said, smiling broadly when he saw her. “What a pleasure, as always. You look as beautiful as ever. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Po smiled. “I’m hoping you can indulge me again, Picasso. Would you be willing to prepare five or six appetizers to go? I’m going to have four or five guests this evening.”
“Of course … having a party?” he inquired jovially.
“Not exactly,” Po said. “Maggie is in some trouble, Picasso. Mercedes Richardson seems to be missing, and the police have questioned Maggie and her team.”
Picasso’s face fell. The year before, he had been suspected of the murder of his wife. So he knew the trauma of being involved in an investigation firsthand.
“That is big trouble,” he said with a frown. “And that Mercedes is not very nice. She is never happy with her food.”
“When was the last time she was in, Picasso?” Po asked.
“It has been a while since I’ve seen her,” Picasso said. “Her husband comes now and then. Like you, he asks for ‘to go.’” He shrugged. “You Americans and this ‘to go’ thing,” he said with a smile and a snap of his thick fingers. “Everything quick.”
Po laughed. “I promise to come back and luxuriate in eating another time,” she said. “There’s nothing better—really. But today, I’m going to be a speed-demon American.”
She arranged to pick up the appetizers in half an hour, and set off for her next stop.
Marla was not at the bakery, so she escaped quickly with a loaf of fresh baked sourdough. Just five minutes after she left Picasso, she was standing at the checkout with Ambrose
Sweet in Brew and Brie with two bottles of her favorite merlot. Ambrose and Jesse co-owned the wine bar, and Po wished it were Jesse working. She knew him better, and enjoyed his dry wit.
Ambrose finished checking out the young woman in front of Po—she’d picked a Chianti—and turned to her with a smile. “Hi, Po,” he said. He looked around quickly to make sure none of the browsers was listening before he dropped his voice and continued. “Hey, I heard that Dr. Maggie found the missing dog, but that now the owner is gone.”
Po nodded. “Yes, I’m afraid that’s true,” she said slowly.
“Well, I got it from a pretty reliable source,” he said. “And nothing about it’s going to be good,” he said, shaking his head. “That family can be dogged,” he half-smiled. “Not a good thing, but punny, given the circumstances.”
“Really,” said Po noncommittally. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, you know Mercedes,” he said. “She gets her way whether she’s bullying the City Council about the ordinance she wants passed or lobbying her local store owner for a better price on brie.” He shrugged. “Blood relative or not, that son-in-law of hers seems to ha
ve inherited the same stubborn streak.”
“I don’t know him well,” said Po.
“Well, I don’t exactly run in his circles,” Ambrose said. “But from what I hear when he hits a fight-or-flight situation, the choice is always fight. He’s a bulldog, whether you’re talking a golf game or a hunting trip, is what I hear. He has to win and has to be right. Too bad that bullheaded approach doesn’t translate to success in business.”
“Is his dealership not doing well?” Po asked.
“It’s not like I see his numbers, or anything,” Ambrose said. “But I sure know he has trouble keeping a sales team. Jesse has some friends at the other dealerships around here who hire the good people away. And when you don’t have team players, you have to watch your back every second. It’s hardly possible to win in the long run.”
He handed Po her receipt. “I’m glad you’re looking out for Dr. Maggie, Po,” he said. “I think someone needs to with that clan in the mix.”
Po knew the store owner meant well and his undercurrent of warning left her with a pit in her stomach that she didn’t think her provisions would fill. Not even the tower of treats that Picasso had ready.
With supplies laid in, Po found herself home, ready for company and with an hour to spare before she could reasonably expect anyone to show up with more information. Unable to focus on anything else, she pulled out the list of people who had the keys or codes to enter Maggie’s clinic.
She was so deep in thought, the ring of the doorbell made her jump. And the normally pleasant sound of visitors arriving sounded somehow discordant.
It was Maggie. “Aaron said he’d come by, too,” she said. “He had class, but it gets out at four. So he should be here in an hour or so.”
Maggie followed Po back to her study, where Po started stacking up the things she’d been working on.
“Oh,” she said. “Wow, I love your other cats.”
Po had the extra cats she’d made sitting out to help her think through her wall quilt. She was assigned the meanest-looking when they divvied them up, and he had quite the snarl, a line of sharp teeth and a scowl that made it clear that this feline was not one that would respond that well to an outstretched hand and a ‘here, sweet kitty kitty.’ Her other cat had been sort of in the middle of the mix, and Po had created an elegant, feminine, sleek cat who seemed to look at you with one eye over one shoulder. She’d made two each of those. One for the group quilt and one for her smaller wall hanging. Then she’d experimented with a couple of other ideas to fill out her little set. One was a bit abstract, with an eye that seemed somehow separate from the rest of his face. The fourth landed securely in the sweet arena, if still somewhat on the artistic side.
“It was so fun to see how you all made my rough idea real,” Maggie said. She turned to Po with the first real smile of the day. “The quilt’s going to be great, isn’t it.”
“Hopefully the auction will earn a lot for the humane society,” Po said as she stacked up her fabrics and picked up thread and scraps from around her sewing table.
“They really do need it,” Maggie said, looking now at Po’s sketches and at the other partly finished pieces of cats she had started cutting out and then discarded. “They desperately need to make some improvements to their facility.”
“There’s just a couple of weeks left now,” Po said. “So good thing we started when we did. We’ll need to really keep moving to get it done on time.”
“Selma’s a gem to work on the piecing this week,” Maggie said. “And then Susan said she’d clear her schedule to do the quilting.” She paused. “Boy, do I owe them.” Then she renewed her tour of Po’s ongoing work.
“Oooo, this is great,” she said, moving to the display wall. Po had felted the longest wall in her studio, which gave her somewhere to hang works in progress—an invaluable solution, Po thought, for her “thinking it through” stage of creation.
The piece that Maggie was looking at clearly arose from a botanical muse—all different kinds of leaves hung from a branch that was made of millions of scraps of fabric, bound together in a swath of silvery gray netting. “I’m experimenting,” Po said with a smile.
“That’s why I love to come by your house,” Maggie said. “You’re always experimenting. It’s so fun to see what you’re working on.”
The sound of the door swinging open and Kate’s cheery call of greeting brought them back to the entry, and after a round of greetings they headed to the heart of Po’s house, the enormous kitchen. Kate stacked some small logs in Po’s fireplace and expertly coaxed a warm flame into being while Maggie poured the wine and Po finished transferring the goodies Picasso had packaged up for her onto a tray.
“Mmm,” Kate said as she peeked around Po’s shoulder to see what she was doing. “Yum and more yum. What all do you have there?”
“Picasso is taking care of us this evening,” Po said. And indeed he had.
She generally asked him to just put together whatever he thought would be good. And her reward today was a package of thinly sliced Genoa salami, shaved prosciutto, sliced Havarti cheese, roasted nuts, and a salad of marinated Roma tomatoes and garlic stuffed green olives. Served up with slices of fresh bread from Marla’s bakery, it was a feast. Given that all three women had been running around preparing for this afternoon discussion, the food was just the fuel they needed.
They sat for a moment and took the first few sips of wine and bites of food in mostly silence, savoring the moment and the respite from the worry and thinking of the day. And then Maggie sighed.
Po turned to her. “So,” she said. “Tell us what exactly happened at the clinic this morning.”
“Well,” Maggie said. “Angela and I were there early. We normally open at 7:30. I was there at 7 to check the pets that had stayed with us overnight. Everything was fine. Ellie Johnson and Max had the first appointment of the day. When I came out of the exam room at about 8 a.m. there were two officers talking to Angela at the front desk.”
“You poor thing,” Kate said. “How stressful.”
“I really couldn’t imagine what they wanted,” Maggie said, inhaling the rich, round smell of her wine. “We went to my office and they started to ask questions. They asked about Fitzgerald disappearing, about how we found him, about whether Mercedes had threatened me or anyone on my staff, about when Aaron returned the dog, about whether he had been behaving oddly. It seemed like 100 questions.”
“Did they explain why they were asking?” Po asked.
“They said that Mercedes was reported missing. And they said they’d found her car abandoned, but they didn’t saywhere,” Maggie said. “They also said that they’d questioned Aaron.”
“How is Aaron doing?” Kate asked, the worry for her former student clear in her voice. “That had to be unnerving for him.”
“I called him right after they left, and he seemed reasonably calm,” Maggie said. “But still, I’d be upset if I were him.”
“He apparently went to class today anyway,” Maggie said, helping herself to a thick slice of bread and a spoonful of the spicy tomato and olive salad. “That seems like a good sign. I just feel bad for him. I don’t think he’s got much of a support group.”
“Really?” Po said.
“Well,” Kate continued. “His mom and dad divorced when he was young, and the dad never seemed to be on the scene. I think the two of them did fine, but she remarried last year and moved to Florida with her new husband. He chose to stay here and start school at Canterbury College.”
“He has been very dependable at the clinic,” Maggie said. “I know he needs the money, but all college students do—but they don’t all show up on time.”
“He was always reliable at school, too,” Kate said. “That’s why I recommended him to you, Maggie. I hate to see him in trouble.”
“You don’t really think anyone would believe he had something to do with Mercedes disappearing, do you?” Po said.
“The police knocking on his door before
7 a.m. is not a good sign, Po,” Kate responded. “And Mercedes was threatening Aaron just last week, remember.”
“Worse yet, lots of people know about it,” Maggie said. “Remember, the reception area was full of people when we had the cat fight and Mercedes melted down and shook her finger in Aaron’s face. That’s one reason he was so desperate to help find Fitzgerald. She was angry with us already, and he felt like it was his fault.”
“He did find the dog,” said Po. “It seems like that should put some points in the plus column for him.”
“Not if the police think he took the dog in the first place,” Kate said grimly. “And right now, no one knows how Fitzgerald got out or where he was for two days. There’s nothing to prove that Aaron didn’t hide him somewhere to get back at Mercedes.”
“She’d have certainly believed that,” Maggie said with a frown.
“And her family has probably had a good week of hearing all about Aaron’s terrible behavior and your carelessness,” Kate said. “So they’re predisposed to think Aaron had something to do with the dog’s hiatus. In their minds, Mercedes’ disappearance could easily be linked.”
“What if it actually is linked?” Po asked.
“It seems like that would be bad news,” Maggie said, looking serious. “Really bad news.”
CHAPTER 8
Maggie and Kate looked at Po wide-eyed.
“Do you think they really could be?” Maggie asked. “I keep thinking that Fitzgerald’s disappearance was just an accident.”
“But if it wasn’t,” Kate picked up. “If it wasn’t, then it would completely make sense that the two were related.”
“And that’s clearly what the police think,” Po said. “Or they wouldn’t be starting their investigation with Maggie and Aaron.”
“I sure wish they’d started somewhere else,” Maggie said.
“Did you get to talk with P.J., Kate?” Po asked.
“Just long enough to ask him to call when he gets off,”
Kate said. “So for now, I don’t know any more.”
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