by Nina Wright
“He said I could call him today, and of course I will,” she said. “I expect him to request a complete tour.”
“I wonder how much notice Felicia will need for that,” I said.
My direct line rang again, and I froze. What if that was Jenx calling to report more bodies along the shore? Spotting my hesitation, Odette scooped the receiver for me.
“Whiskey Mattimoe’s office.”
I watched her listening to a voice I couldn’t hear. A voice belonging to someone who had called to talk specifically to me. It was an odd sensation, like watching a movie about your life with the volume dialed down.
Her face expressionless, Odette grunted a few times, then said, “All right,” and hung up.
“Well?” I asked. “Was that Jenx?”
She nodded.
I said, “How bad is it?”
“Bad. But not horrific.”
When the implied subject is unnatural death, how much difference is there between “bad” and “not horrific”?
I demanded details.
“I don’t have any,” Odette replied. “Jenx said to meet her at the police station. And bring a leash for your dog.”
Abra’s leash, the last time I’d seen it, had been hanging from a peg in the kitchen at Vestige. But I wasn’t sure when that was, or if I even still owned a leash. Abra had a maddening tendency to run off whether tethered or not. Although she always turned up again, sometimes the leash didn’t.
I called Deely. If we still had a leash, she could grab it, meet me at the MSPD, and haul Abra home. If we didn’t, she could buy one en route. I needed the Coast Guard nanny by my side when I faced that demon dog. There was strength in numbers as well as restraining devices. Ever efficient, Deely located a leash while we were still on the phone.
“Excellent.” I felt stronger already. “Put the twins in their stroller and come on downtown.”
“I won’t need to bring the twins, ma’am. Avery took them with her again today. It’s just Velcro and me here at Vestige.”
“Don’t bring him,” I said quickly.
Deely assured me that she would put Animal Lullabies on repeat-play and head straight out the door.
Two days in a row of independent Avery? Where was she off to with the twins? Maybe she really had found herself a new boyfriend, and he liked her kids, too. Of course, he would like the kids. It was the Avery attraction that mystified me.
Like the rest of downtown Magnet Springs, our local police station could have been lifted directly from the set of a TV series about a quaint bayside village. It was a small white clapboard building sandwiched between two gift shops. In fact, the police station could have been mistaken for a gift shop, too, if not for the vertical bars on one window. The window belonged to one of two holding cells.
Officer Brady Swancott was manning the reception desk; I didn’t immediately spot the other officer on site because he was under the desk. Who could blame Canine Officer Roscoe for hiding from Abra? Although she had been locked in the rear holding cell, the one deemed more secure, Roscoe wasn’t taking any chances. Deely and leash had not yet arrived.
When I arrived, Brady was busily typing on his computer.
“Are you writing up your report on the crime scene?” I said.
“I’m forwarding a joke I just found in my email,” Brady said. “Wait till you read it.”
“About the crime scene . . . “ I reminded him.
“Technically, it’s not a crime scene. Twyla’s death looks like a drowning. Unless the coroner rules otherwise.”
“But what about the missing kids?” I demanded. “Their stuff was all over the beach.”
“As far as we know, that’s just debris that washed up with the riptide. We haven’t yet linked it to Twyla.”
Brady explained that Jenx was at Thornton Pointe now, combing the beach with a sheriff’s deputy and a couple DNR officers. I told him he needed to talk with Yolanda and Roy.
“It’s like Twyla wanted to remove all evidence of children from that house.” I said. “Something was very wrong.”
I added that I was pretty sure I’d spotted her turning off Amity Avenue toward the lake, her tires squealing.
“What time was that?” Brady asked, finally picking up a pen to take notes.
“A little after 8:30. What else do you need to know?”
“Are you ready to accept custody of Abra? Jenx wants me to get her out of here.”
The mere mention of my dog’s name elicited a whimper from under Brady’s desk.
“Easy, boy,” the human officer said. “She can’t hurt you anymore.”
“What did she do?” I said.
Brady lowered his voice. “She was probably still in a heightened state of arousal from being with Norman—who we haven’t found yet. The minute Abra saw Roscoe, she dropped the shoe she was carrying and started humping him. I think she threw his back out.”
The unseen canine officer moaned again.
“Sorry, Roscoe,” I said.
“If he’s still crying after you get her out of here, I’ll call Dr. David,” Brady assured me.
Deely arrived then with the very necessary leash, as well as grooming equipment.
“I’m going to transition her back to Vestige,” she explained. “After a traumatic capture, re-entry should be accomplished in stages.”
That made sense except that the only traumatized creature in this scenario seemed to be Roscoe. When I accompanied Brady and Deely back to the holding cell, we found Abra fast asleep on the cot. Her blonde coat was matted and littered with evidence of a wild night spent under the stars.
Deely whispered, “I expect her to wake up hyperactive, ma’am. First, we’ll go to Vanderzee Park, where I’ll help her run off some energy. Then I’ll remove the debris from her coat.”
“Better bag it,” Brady said, producing a plastic evidence holder. “In case we find a crime.”
Abra woke when Brady jangled the key in her cell lock. She lazily blinked and yawned as if expecting room service rather than parole. My presence barely warranted a tail wag. That was typical. Never mind that I was her legal guardian and also the sole financial provider for the myriad pricey services she required. I asked Brady if I should hire a lawyer.
“Not unless she’s committed a crime we don’t know about. In that case, you’d need the lawyer.”
I failed to see the fairness of my being charged with crimes committed by a creature I could not control. Call me speciesist.
Brady suggested that Deely take Abra out the back way to spare Roscoe the trauma of seeing her again so soon after the sexual assault. Deely agreed although Abra fiercely resisted. Her refined nose told her that a male dog was in the building, and she wanted a(nother) piece of him. I was glad Deely regularly worked out; she needed all the upper body strength she could muster to drag my horny fifty-pound hound out into the alley.
“She ran off with Norman. Shouldn’t she have gotten this out of her system?” I asked the Coast Guard nanny.
“Hard to say, ma’am. They may have suffered coitus interruptus. Perhaps they witnessed something shocking out there.”
“Maybe something involving Twyla—or her kids. Too bad we have no way of knowing what happened.”
Except that wasn’t necessarily true, and the other humans in the room knew it. Sometimes Chester could communicate with Abra in ways that confounded logic. It wasn’t pretty, but I’d seen those two share pre-chewed food and bark at each other like littermates. Following my thoughts, Deely said she would invite Chester to come by and “have a chat with Abra.” Brady liked that idea. It seemed our best option in the circumstances. After all, a young woman had died, children were missing, and a valuable dog was still AWOL. Abra might know exactly what had happened to all those creatures.
Still, asking an eight-year-old boy to interrogate a dog famous for her sexual escapades didn’t feel quite kosher. Should Cassina happen to hear about it on a day when she felt like suing, I would be well-advised t
o have Velcro as insurance.
Deely had just dragged Abra out the back door when Jenx marched in the front door. Officer Roscoe slunk to her side, apparently seeking the protection of her steel-toed boots. It was sad to see the stately German shepherd reduced to quaking. Jenx herself seemed uncharacteristically weary for eleven in the morning. She frowned at her only full-time employee.
“He looks pussy-whipped. What the hell happened to him?”
When she glared at me, I did my best impression of “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.” After all, I hadn’t been there. That left Brady to explain.
“Actually, Chief, Abra’s libido might be the key to our whole case,” Brady said. He outlined Deely’s coitus interruptus theory, concluding with the hopeful notion that Chester the canine translator would soon be on duty to relay Abra’s story.
“I don’t know,” Jenx sighed. Her super-short light brown hair, which usually looked GI neat, didn’t. I noticed that her nails were dirty, her shirt was rumpled, and even her steel-toed boots were scuffed. The chief was overworked.
“Damn riptides,” she muttered. “Damn Gil Gruen. I’ve had a dozen calls about him this morning. One of them from your office manager. She’s now on her way to Coastal Med with a severe case of heebie-jeebies.”
“Heebie-jeebies?” I repeated. “Is that a medical term?”
“All I know is Tina’s messed up. She saw Gil put the whammy on Twyla.”
Okay, now I needed to sit down. In a world-weary voice, Jenx told me what had happened: Tina took her morning coffee break at the beach near Vanderzee Park. She said Noonan, her guru, had urged her to get more fresh air. While at the park, Tina saw a man and woman arguing. Although they were a ways down the beach, the man looked disturbingly familiar. Tina was so distressed by her vague sense of recognition that she went straight to Noonan’s studio to request an emergency session. Noonan facilitated a “healing meditative trance,” during which Tina realized that the man she’d seen was none other than Gil Gruen.
“Then Tina called the cops,” Jenx said. “When Brady told her we’d just found Twyla’s body, she realized that Twyla was the woman she’d seen with Gil.”
Brady picked up the story. “All of a sudden, Tina screamed. Noonan got on the phone to say that Tina had just spilled scalding hot herbal tea all over herself.”
“So the medical crisis wasn’t heebie-jeebies,” I said. “It was second-degree burns.”
“Tina’s lucky Noonan was there,” Brady said, and Jenx nodded.
I thought Tina’s problems were Noonan’s fault, but I kept my mouth shut. When you’re in as much trouble as I seemed to be, the less said, the better.
The door to the police station swung open, admitting someone destined never to be a member of the Whiskey Mattimoe Fan Club. Mr. Gamby, the fisherman who’d scooped Chester and Prince Harry out of the surf, stopped in his tracks when he spotted me.
“You again!” To Brady and Jenx, he said, “What’s she in for? Don’t tell me she let those babies die.”
“What babies?” the human officers asked. The canine officer scooted back under Brady’s desk.
This being a small town, Jenx and Brady already knew about my negligence with Chester, Prince Harry, and the riptide. The fisherman was concerned about my fitness to care for Avery’s twins.
“It’s okay,” Jenx told him. “Whiskey hires people to do the hard stuff.”
The fisherman signaled that he wanted a private word with her. She said she was too tired to walk all the way back to her office, and if he wanted to say something confidential, he could whisper it in her ear. Gamby leaned over and hissed loudly: “Keep that woman away from children.”
Jenx promised she’d do her best. Brady asked what had brought Mr. Gamby into the station.
“It’s about the drowning this morning,” he said.
“I had nothing to do with that.” I declared and hoped it was true.
“While I was fishing, I think I saw that girl,” Gamby said. “She was arguing with a man on the beach by Vanderzee Park.”
Jenx flipped open her notepad and clicked her pen. “What time was that?”
“I don’t wear a watch when I fish. That’s the point of fishing, to enjoy time instead of keeping track of it.”
Jenx asked why Gamby thought the woman he saw was the woman who drowned.
“I was listening to the police scanner when I brought my boat in. I heard a description of the body: Caucasian female, early twenties, brown hair. Wearing jean shorts and a yellow top. The girl I saw looked like that. And she was right by the water.”
Jenx nodded as she wrote everything down. Then she asked Gamby to describe the man he’d seen. That gave him pause.
“Hmmm. Well. Now.” After a few moments’ concentration during which Gamby squeezed his eyes shut as if trying to summon back the scene, he shook his head. “Sorry. I don’t look at men like I look at girls. Why would I? Not being a fruit, I mean.” As soon as he’d said that, he glanced at Brady and muttered, “Sorry.”
“No offense taken here,” the junior officer said with a smile.
“No? I hear you like art.”
“I do,” Brady said. “I’m doing my master’s in art history, but I’m as straight as you are.”
Gamby flinched.
“Maybe straighter,” I said. “Brady’s wife’s pregnant. Is yours?”
Jenx said, “Since when does liking art mean you’re gay? I don’t know a thing about art, and I’m gay.”
Then the police department door opened again, and in walked the gayest person in town.
“I haven’t seen this much action at the local PD since I can’t remember when.” exclaimed Rico Anuncio, fluttering his bejeweled hands. “Somebody threw a party and forgot to invite me!”
“And yet here you are,” I said.
Rico was wearing one of his signature cropped, scoop-necked silk shirts, but instead of skintight low-riding pants, he was wearing skintight low-riding shorts; they were extremely if not obscenely short. I for one thought I saw something I shouldn’t have. Quickly turning back to Gamby, I said, “He likes art. Maybe you should tell him your theory.”
Rico appraised the stunned fisherman, raking his long-lashed eyes up and down the man’s stocky body. “What theory is that?”
Speechless and rapidly reddening, Gamby looked to Jenx for support. Then he must have recalled that she was gay, too, and felt surrounded.
To Brady he said, “I . . . uh . . . didn’t notice much about the guy with the girl. If something comes to mind later, I’ll call ya.” Deliberately avoiding eye contact with Rico, he lurched toward the door.
“One more question, Mr. Gamby,” Jenx called out. “Assuming the girl was five-foot-six—would you say the guy you saw her with was more or less than six feet tall?”
I can’t speak for Rico, and would never want to, but I could feel Brady and Jenx holding their breaths right along with me. We were all thinking that Gil Gruen had been well under six feet tall.
“That’s easy,” the fisherman said, sounding relieved. I noticed he had cocked his head at an odd angle, no doubt to exclude Rico from his field of vision. The gallery owner was sitting on the corner of the reception desk, his long hairless legs crossed like a glamour queen’s.
“The guy and girl were standing close to each other,” Gamby said. “I could see he was taller than she was.”
Jenx said, “Like a couple inches taller . . . or more than that?”
“More than that. The guy was tall. Over six feet, for sure. With dark hair. Like yours.”
Gamby nodded at Brady, whose well-groomed hair was black. Gil Gruen’s hair had been the color of sand, the last time we saw it. Our late mayor wore a Stetson most of the time.
Then Gamby was gone, and I sighed. “Well, that wasn’t Gil Gruen. So we can forget about him.”
“Not so fast, Whiskey,” Rico said. “You know Odette saw him this morning. I did too. I was putting out my trash in the alley, and she nearly
ran me down. Good thing I saw what she saw, or I’d have thought Mattimoe Realty was trying to kill me.”
Chapter Thirteen
“That’s why I’m here,” Rico told Jenx. “To file a report about seeing Gil. Or whatever it is you have people do when things like this happen.”
“Things like this don’t happen.” I exclaimed. “Dead men don’t crawl out of Lake Michigan and walk around town five months later.”
“And yet it’s happening.” Rico looked smug sitting on the desk in his little summer sex-ensemble, swinging his legs, which were shapelier than mine.
Brady mused, “Which form would that be, Chief? We can’t use a Missing Person Report because the point is . . . Gil’s no longer missing.”
“Yes he is!” I shouted. Then I corrected myself. “No he’s not! He was never missing. He was always dead. Gil was dead, and he is still dead!”
Jenx suggested I join her in the kitchenette for a cup of coffee.
“Do I look like someone who needs caffeine?” I said.
“You look like someone who needs a smack in the face. Don’t make me do that, Whiskey. Shut up and come along.”
When I hesitated, Jenx broke out her handcuffs. I assumed she wasn’t serious, but I’d already been wrong a couple times today, and it didn’t feel like my luck was changing. So I followed her to the kitchenette.
She closed the door and motioned for me to sit at the stained pink Formica table that couldn’t have been any police department’s notion of “standard issue.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she demanded.
“Well, for starters, this chair wobbles.” To prove my point, I rocked it back and forth. Jenx manually stopped the wobbling by locking an iron grip on my shoulder.
“I’m going to ask you one more time,” she said in a monotone. “What the hell’s your problem today? Don’t make me call you Whitney.”
I cringed. One common bond that endured from our days together at Magnet Springs Middle School was a deep dislike of our own first names. I was no more a Whitney than she was a Judith.
