Cheep Shot Murder (Pet Shop Cozy Mysteries Book 11)

by Susie Gayle

  “Hey, buddy.” I pet his head and then join Sarah on the deck overlooking the backyard. She sits on the wooden steps, staring out toward the back fence.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey,” she says softly.

  “Can I sit here?” I ask, motioning toward the empty spot next to her.

  “Sure.” As I sit, she adds, “I don’t have a key yet, so we’ve just been sitting here in the yard.”

  “He sure does seem to like it.” I smile as Rowdy jams his snout into a patch of wildflowers.

  “There’s nothing you can say to talk me out of it,” she tells me.

  I shrug. “Can I at least try?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “It’s not just you that might get hurt. It could be Mr. Casey, or Holly.”

  “I know. They know, too.”

  “Whatever you’re going to propose, I asked them not to let it pass.”

  “I knew you would,” she says simply. “And that’s okay. I think the proposition itself will stir them into action.”

  “And what if they call your bluff?” I ask her. “What if they realize what you’re up to and decide not to do anything about it?”

  She looks over at me for the first time since I’ve arrived and smiles, just a little. “Then I guess you’ll have nothing to worry about, right?”

  “I guess not.”

  We sit there in silence for a little while before she asks, “How are things going with the bakery mystery?”

  “Oh, boy. That’s…” I let out a long sigh. “That’s quite a story. How about you come back to the Pet Shop Stop with me and I’ll tell you all about it?”

  “Maybe we can just sit here a little while longer?”

  “Sure.” I put my arm around her and she leans into me, and we just sit there, enjoying the spring breeze on the air in the yard of the house that’ll soon be ours… assuming we’re both still around in two weeks.

  CHAPTER 12

  * * *

  Back at the pet shop, I make some more calls and ask everyone to convene here when they’re done with their respective tasks. As we wait, I tell Sarah everything I learned so far about Buddy’s Bakery, including Patty’s suspicions that this sort of thing has been secretly happening in Seaview Rock for years, if not decades.

  When I’m done, her eyes are wide and she blinks several times as she says, “You weren’t kidding. That’s quite a story.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re going to find out how it ends real soon.”

  Karen, having not been delegated a duty, arrives first. She enters and, by way of greeting, lets off a tirade directed at Sarah. “What are you thinking? These people are lunatics, and you’re just going to lure them in and hope they do something so you can try to catch them in the act? That has got to be the dumbest—”

  “Karen,” I say sharply. “That’s not necessary.”

  “Not necessary? You two might be just as nuts as they are.”

  “Hey, that’s hurtful,” I tell her. She backs off a bit as Mr. Casey and Holly come into the pet shop.

  Next, Dennis emerges from our small back storage room. “Well, it only took about twenty-five calls, but I found Buddy Valencia’s sister. You’re not going to believe what she had to say.”

  “Save it for now,” I tell him. “Let’s wait for Sam.”

  A few minutes later, Sammy joins us from his trip to town hall. He shakes his head in dismay. “I don’t believe it,” he tells me. “I’m no saint, but this…”

  I flip the sign on the door to “closed” and lock the seven of us inside. “Alright. Some of you may be a bit fuzzy on the details, so I’m going to recap real quick. I have reason to believe that what happened to Logan Morse was not the first occurrence in Seaview Rock history—or even the second. About eighteen years ago, there was a man named Buddy who owned a bakery right next door.”

  “Who made really good scones,” Sammy adds.

  “…Right. So good, in fact, that some investors offered to help him create a franchise. The residents here didn’t like it, and they made Buddy an outcast. So one day, Buddy packed up the essentials and left town. Or so it would seem. Dennis? You’re up.”

  “Um, okay. It turns out that Buddy Valencia has a sister in Long Island. She’s in her sixties, and she was pretty shocked to hear his name over the phone; it’s been a long time since she’s heard anything about him. The chief of police here at the time told her that Buddy had gone missing. He also told her that he’d filed a report, and that there was a full-scale manhunt underway to look for him.”

  “Sammy?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “There was no report. Patty searched the police database pretty thoroughly.”

  “Mr. Casey?” I ask. “Do you recall any search efforts for Buddy?”

  “I assure you,” the old man replies, “there was no such manhunt. The papers didn’t report it; nobody even really talked about it.”

  “That’s not all,” Dennis says. “A few weeks after he went missing, the sister came here and collected the rest of his belongings. She met with the mayor at the time, and he convinced her that Buddy was in deep debt and had skipped town to avoid paying his bills. She said that everyone was very nice to her and spoke highly of Buddy. She had him declared legally dead after seven years; that’s the minimum for the state. Never heard anything about him again, until today.”

  “Sammy? What else did you find?” I ask him.

  He waves a sheaf of papers in his hand. “This is a copy of the minutes of a town council meeting that convened only a few days after Buddy disappeared. In it, there’s an approval for a budget item to pay off the rest of the lease at 63 Center Street—where the bakery was. But it doesn’t mention Buddy’s name anywhere.”

  “So the council at the time paid off the rest of his lease using town funds?” Sarah chimes in. “And they did that before they would even know for sure if he was coming back?”

  “Exactly,” I say. “They knew he wasn’t. Sammy, what else did you find?”

  “Nothing,” he tells us. “And I mean nothing. There’s no mention anywhere in Seaview Rock’s records of a Robert Valencia ever living here or of a business called Buddy’s Bakery.”

  “And who was on the council at the time?” I ask.

  Sammy reads from the minutes in his hand. “There were five. It was a Tammy Weis, Julian Thomas, Glenn Richter…” He looks up at me. “John Blumberg.”

  “So,” I say loudly, starting to pace, “Buddy threatened to bring something to town that people didn’t like. I think it’s pretty obvious that he was killed, that someone made it look like he left town overnight, and any record of him was stricken.”

  “Wait,” Holly interjects, rubbing her temples. “The former council, the former mayor, the former police chief… Are you telling me there was some kind of Seaview Rock ‘old guard’?”

  I nod. “I think that once upon a time, there were a lot more like-minded people in town than there are now, working to keep things on their idea of an even keel. I think that over time, they either died or grew senile or whatever, but there are still a few—namely, the Blumbergs. If I recall, they closed their store, what, almost ten years ago now?”

  “Yes, but John Blumberg was still on the town council until about six years ago,” Mr. Casey tells me.

  “Which is right around the time that David Sturgess was running for mayor, before his first term,” Sarah says.

  “Do you think they have some kind of influence over him?” Karen asks.

  “I don’t know,” I reply. “Of course, now we run into the same problem we had before. We can’t prove any of this.”

  “Without records,” Sammy says, “there’s nothing admissible in court. I mean, there’s not even a way to definitively prove that Buddy was ever really here.”

  “That’s true,” I admit. “But as Patty once told me, you don’t have a case without evidence… or a confession.”

  “I can help with that.” Karen cracks her knuckles, tryin
g to appear menacing.

  “We’re not hurting anyone,” I insist. “I can’t believe how many times I have to tell you that.”

  “I guess we’ll just do what you want to do,” she mutters.

  “Look, let me worry about that part.” I glance at my watch. “It’s just about time to head down to the meeting. Sarah is going to make a proposition tonight that may prompt them into some sort of action. What that might look like, I don’t know, so for the foreseeable future, we’re using the buddy system; no one should go anywhere alone. Don’t accept anything—food, gifts—from anyone, friend or not. And I guess we’ll see what happens.”

  “I’ll ride with you,” Holly says to Mr. Casey.

  “Be my buddy?” Sammy asks Karen sheepishly. I can’t help but wince a little.

  “What about me?” Dennis asks. “There’s an odd number. I have no buddy.”

  I let out a whistle and Rowdy comes running over, his tail moving in a helicopter spin. “Rowdy can be a buddy. Everyone ready? Let’s go to a town council meeting.”

  CHAPTER 13

  * * *

  On the short drive to town hall, with Dennis and Rowdy in the backseat behind us, Sarah tells me, “You understand I’m going to say some crazy things tonight, right?”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  “I, uh… I changed my original idea,” she admits.

  “Oh, so you’re not going to hit them with a contemporary art gallery?”

  “Not quite.”

  “Then what?” I ask.

  “You’ll see.”

  The council chamber isn’t as packed as I’ve seen it on past occasions, but I’m still pretty surprised by how many people turned out for a last-minute meeting like this one. Of course, all the usual suspects are there: Mayor Sturgess sits in the very front row, looking smug and self-satisfied; a few rows behind him, Sylvia Garner sits beside Joe Miller, each of them looking a bit nervous; near the entrance at the end of a row of metal chairs is old John Blumberg, his wife Mrs. Blumberg noticeably absent.

  Patty Mayhew stands just inside the double-doors leading in. She nods to me and Sarah as we enter.

  A woman nearby us looks at me and scoffs. “You can’t bring a dog in here!” she exclaims.

  I glance down at Rowdy, who wags his tail a little. “Why not?”

  “Well… because!”

  I look over my shoulder at Patty and ask, “Can I bring a dog in here?”

  Patty looks around and shrugs. “I don’t see any signs saying you can’t.”

  I smirk at the woman and take a seat in the back row, Dennis on one side of me and Rowdy sitting on the floor at my feet. Karen and Sammy sit in front of us, and then Mr. Casey and Holly enter, taking their place at the elevated dais facing the congregation.

  After a few minutes, Sarah calls the meeting to order and initiates the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by a moment of silence for Logan Morse. After about ten seconds or so, she clears her throat.

  “Many of you, if not all of you, are aware that Mr. Morse had planned to sell his land to Sprawl-Mart,” she says. “And I know there’s a lot of speculation around town that it was the reason for his demise. Now, I can’t say anything about that for certain, but I can say that Mr. Morse was able to make that deal because of the new zoning regulations—which were part of a proposal that I wrote, and that this council passed.”

  She pauses and scans the room, narrowing her eyes slightly as her gaze hovers over Mayor Sturgess. “Since that tragedy, my email inbox has been flooded with inquiries about whether or not we are going to overturn that ruling. The reason I called this council meeting tonight is to tell you all, publicly… that we are not.”

  A few people murmur. I lean forward in my seat, both anxious and terrified to hear what she’s going to say next.

  “In fact,” she says loudly over the hushed whispers of the congregation, “I believe that that type of progressive action might be precisely what this town needs.” She glances over at Holly and Mr. Casey beside her, both of whom appear thoroughly confused. “As a lot of you know, I am co-owner of the Pet Shop Stop, along with Mr. Will Sullivan. Together, we have agreed to sell our location. As of tomorrow, we will be the newest store of the Pet Emporium franchise.”

  Oh, no.

  “Thank you for your time,” she says quickly as whispers rise to chatter. “We’ll now open the floor to questions.”

  About ten people either stand up or raise their hands. A few shout randomly. Me, I’m just sitting there in disbelief.

  “Is that true?” Dennis whispers to me.

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then… why would she say that?”

  “She’s trying to stir the pot,” I whisper back. Correction: she has stirred the pot, quite effectively, it would seem.

  From somewhere in the chamber, a man shouts, “Can you do that?”

  Sarah shrugs. “Sure. We own the building and we own the store,” she says, blasé.

  Of course we’re not actually selling to Pet Emporium, but I understand exactly what she’s doing. She knew that I would talk Mr. Casey and Holly into voting against her, so she came up with a way to anger our opposition without needing to put anything to a vote—while at the same time making herself the sole target.

  Someone else shouts, “Why would you do this?”

  “Look,” she says loudly, “places like Sprawl-Mart and Pet Emporium aren’t evil. They started out much the same way most of us have; as a single store that did well enough to warrant another one, and then another, until they evolved into a corporate chain. Obviously that means they were successful, and we want to bring that success—and revenue—into Seaview Rock.”

  Oh my god, she’s really digging her heels in.

  John Blumberg stands up and points a crooked, gnarled finger at her. “You know, some of us have worked very hard to keep this town the way it is.”

  Sarah smirks—she actually smirks—and says, “Oh, I think I know just how hard you’ve worked, John.”

  I balk. This isn’t her painting a bulls-eye on her back; this is putting an apple in her mouth and climbing onto a platter.

  Mr. Casey stands up and puts his hands in the air, palms out, and announces, “Alright folks, that’s all the questions we’re going to take. This meeting is adjourned.”

  More people shout to counter the shouting of the others, so Patty makes her way to the front of the chamber. “You heard the man, people. Meeting is over.”

  “Come on,” I tell Dennis. “We need to get your sister out of here.”

  CHAPTER 14

  * * *

  The ride home is silent. We drop Dennis off at his apartment and, sensing the tension, he gets out of the car with only a murmur of “Good night.” Then the three of us, me, Sarah and Rowdy, make our way home to Saltwater Drive.

  I pull into the driveway and park in front of the garage door, since the inside is full of packed boxes at the moment. When I cut the engine, we both sit there in silence for a long moment before Sarah says, “You understand why I had to do it that way, right?”

  “I understand why you did it,” I tell her, “but I don’t understand why you felt you had to. And then, to take it further… that’s just asking for more trouble.”

  “I know. I wanted to make sure I only had to do this once.”

  “Well, if they have their way, you won’t be around much longer to do it again.”

  She gets out of the car and heads inside without another word.

  “Come on, Ro.” Rowdy jumps out of the car and follows me into the house.

  ***

  I have some trouble falling asleep, my mind racing with possibilities and all the ways I could fail to keep Sarah safe from those people. Finally I drift off, and even then my slumber is plagued by nightmarish situations that involve creepy old people and a smarmy mayor.

  It’s still dark out when I feel a wet, cold nose on my cheek as Rowdy nudges my face.

  “No, Rowdy,” I
mutter, “we’re not going outside.”

  He nudges me again, more forcefully this time.

  “Come on, man, let me sleep.”

  Then he barks right in my ear, loud enough to be a gunshot, startling me awake. “Jeez!” I exclaim as my eyes adjust to the darkness. His panting doggie face is right over mine. “What’s your deal, Rowdy?”

  “What’s he want?” Sarah murmurs, half-asleep.

  “I don’t know. He’s never done this before.”

  Sarah opens her eyes, and then a moment later suddenly sits upright in alarm. “Will,” she says, “do you smell smoke?”

  I sit up too and sniff the air a few times. It’s faint—but it’s there. And where’s there’s smoke…

  “Get the boys. Let’s go.” I leap out of bed and dash for the door. We normally sleep with the bedroom door closed, but as I try to yank it open, it doesn’t budge. I try again, tugging the knob with both hands. “It’s jammed!” I shout. “It won’t move!”

  “The window!” Sarah jumps out of bed too, searching around frantically.

  I throw the window open and the cool night air rushes in—and with it, an even stronger odor of something burning. I hear the screech of tires, and far down the block I see a car speeding away. I quickly grab Dennis’s binoculars, which I had stuck in a half-packed box on the floor, and peer out. I see just a glimpse of the car as it speeds around the corner, tires still screaming, and off into the night.

  A red coupe.

  “Will!” Sarah shouts behind me. “Where’s Basket?!”

  “He’s here. I know he’s here.” I get down on my hands and knees and check under the bed, then I reach in and unceremoniously pull out our three-legged cat, Basket, who yowls in protest, none too happy to be roused from sleep by a grasping hand. “Come on, get the boys. I’ll go first.”

  Lucky for us, our bedroom window looks out over the garage, so I climb out onto the gently sloping garage roof. From there it’s about an eight-foot drop to the driveway, but I parked close enough that I can hop down onto the hood of my car—denting it significantly in the process, but that’s the last thing on my mind right now.