Dogs, Lies, and Alibis

by Wendy Delaney

  “Rufus here started barking—something he never does unless there’s someone on the lot who shouldn’t be. That’s when Junior grabbed his baseball bat and ran down from his apartment to chase him off.”

  My breath caught in my throat. “So he hit him with the bat?”

  Senior scowled. “He barely touched that punk. Gave him a good shove out the front gate and that’s pretty much it.”

  I didn’t want to make a worried father’s morning worse by pressing the point, but that couldn’t have been it. Steve wouldn’t have made an arrest, and there would have been one more Bassett to help with the backlog around here.

  “Where’s the bat?” I glanced over at Georgie’s second-floor apartment above the office, hoping against hope that it was mounted on some wall up there.

  George Senior heaved a sigh. “Steve has it.”

  I was afraid he was going to say that.

  * * *

  “I didn’t think it was raining that hard,” Patsy Faraday said, raking her disparaging gaze over my brown mop of rapidly frizzing hair as I passed her desk.

  “It’s not.” But when one of my friends could be facing some serious jail time, getting rained on is the least of my concerns.

  I looked past her at the empty office of the boss we shared. “Is Frankie in yet? I need to speak with her.”

  The County Prosecutor’s legal assistant arched an eyebrow. “She’s in a meeting. What exactly do you need?”

  The name of an attorney for Little Dog. And in no way, shape, or form was I going to get that from Patsy without having to first choke down a big slice of condescension pie. “Never mind. I’ll catch her later.”

  I headed down the hall, following the worn-down path in the carpeting to the break room, where I was relieved to see an almost full pot of coffee.

  After I poured a cup, I dropped my tote off at my desk and then marched straight to Ben Santiago’s office.

  I knocked and waited for the Deputy Criminal Prosecutor to wave me in. He did without hesitation, but the crinkle of irritation between his thick black eyebrows told me that it would be advisable to make this impromptu visit a short one.

  “Good morning,” I said, placing the coffee mug well away from the red file folder open in front of him.

  Peering over his horn-rimmed glasses, his hooded dark eyes narrowed as they swept over my hair. “Get caught in the rain this morning?”

  More than once. “Yeah, I ran into George Bassett this morning.” Sort of. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but his son has been arrested and—”

  “I know. I’m reviewing the case right now.”

  That explained the red file folder—red being the color that distinguished the criminal cases handled by Ben’s department.

  I swallowed the lump forming in my throat. “Unless you plan to tell Detective Sixkiller to drop the charges and release George Junior, he’s gonna need a lawyer.”

  Ben slowly nodded. “He’s definitely going to need a lawyer.”

  Criminy. “Then could you recommend a good defense attorney?”

  He reached into his top drawer and pulled out a short stack of business cards. “This is a little unorthodox since I’m the one who’ll be prosecuting this case,” he said, removing a rubber band and thumbing through the cards. “But these two are probably the best in the tri-county area.”

  I quickly scanned the cards he’d handed me. It didn’t surprise me that both attorneys had offices in Seattle and Port Townsend, a popular tourist destination a half-hour north of town. A lot of the more high-powered professionals in the region extended their reach by hopping on a Seattle-bound ferry a couple of times a week. And most of us who might need to avail ourselves of their services recognized those services would come at a premium cost.

  It was another lesson this former pastry chef repeatedly learned in culinary school. If you want the best outcome, you have to invest in the best.

  I just hoped Little Dog and his father would feel the same way.

  Chapter Three

  WITH THE SEALED subpoena that Patsy had just handed me to deliver, I felt like I was holding a permission slip. Maybe not to loiter outside of Judge Witten’s courtroom, but at least I had been granted a temporary reprieve from refreshing the county’s webpage for an update on Little Dog’s bail hearing like I’d been doing for the last two hours.

  I put my ear up to the door and heard nothing but muffled voices. That gave me a decision to make. I could go in and risk incurring Frankie’s wrath if any of her subordinates tattled on me poking my nose where it didn’t belong, or I could brave some more rain and go deliver a subpoena. Neither option felt like the right choice.

  “If you have no business inside, step away please,” said Sheriff’s Deputy Mankowitz, the buzz-cut human security system, standing guard between the two courtrooms.

  With no desire to invite any trouble with Deputy Mankowitz, I smiled as I closed the distance between us. “Have you seen George Bassett come out of the courtroom?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “I have something for him.” Not that I needed to explain myself, but I didn’t want the next two words out of his mouth to be Move along.

  He glanced down at the envelope I was holding, and I covered the name with my thumb.

  The deputy shifted his gaze to the big brass clock mounted over the main entrance, one of several original nineteenth-century courthouse artifacts still in use. “Shouldn’t be much longer.”

  That’s what I’d wanted to believe most of the morning, but at least I’d finally received confirmation from a reliable source.

  After almost five minutes of pacing the length of the gold and black checkerboard hallway outside the courtrooms, my cell phone chirped with a text message from Lucille. Like me, she wanted a news update.

  “Get in line,” I muttered, tucking my cell back in the tote slung over my shoulder.

  Just as I thought about cooling my jets on the wooden bench opposite the courtroom, a bailiff opened the door, and a small, somber-looking crowd filed out. Many I knew as long-time residents of Port Merritt.

  None of them made eye contact with me, including the large man at the back of the pack heading for the stairs.

  “Mr. Bassett,” I called out, hurrying to catch up with him just as my phone started ringing. Give me a break, Lucille. “May I speak with you for a moment?”

  He turned to me and blinked, slightly unfocused.

  Since he looked as if he could take a header down the stairs, I took his elbow to lead him back to that bench. “How’d it go in there?”

  Easing himself onto the edge of the seat, George Senior shook his head. “Junior’s in a heap of trouble.”

  “What’s he being charged with?”

  “Second-degree murder.”

  “Holy moly!”

  He took a deep breath and slowly released it. “Yeah.”

  “Will he be released on bail?” Georgie had no criminal history and had been an active member of this community, coaching the peewee football team with Steve. That had to count for something, no matter how strong the evidence appeared to be against him.

  Senior nodded. “I might have to take out a loan, but I’m getting him out of there today.”

  I handed him the two business cards Ben gave me. “These two attorneys came highly recommended.”

  He fingered the embossed cards. “Port Townsend and Seattle, huh?”

  “They’re supposed to be the best.”

  “Looks like I’m gonna need a bigger loan.”

  * * *

  After I drove to the south end of town and slapped the subpoena into the hand of a disgruntled tax attorney, I stopped at Duke’s to get Lucille to stop calling me every ten minutes.

  “About dang time,” she grumbled the moment the silver bell over the front door jingled to announce my arrival.

  I sighed. “Hello to you, too.”

  Quickly splashing some coffee into the two empty cups at the counter, Lucille squeaked into the kit
chen with the carafe and motioned for me to follow her.

  Duke eyeballed me while a couple of greasy burgers sputtered on the grill. “You here for lunch or to pay me the money you owe me?”

  “Both,” I said, not breaking stride.

  “What’ll you have?”

  “I’ll make myself a salad in a couple of minutes.”

  “Salad! You must be trying to stick to that diet.”

  “Yep.” Despite the fact that I was hankering for one of those burgers. Preferably with some bleu cheese and bacon.

  I grabbed a bottle of water off a storage rack as I went by to try to drown the craving.

  “Sit,” Lucille said, pointing at the pine bar stool across the worktable from my great-aunt.

  Alice knit her brow as she spread fluffy meringue over the lemon filling of her last pie for the day. “Good grief, Luce. Can’t you let the girl have some lunch in peace?”

  Lucille glowered at her friend of over fifty years. “Do you want to know what she found out, or not?”

  “Oh, yes!” She settled back on her stool and stared at me expectantly. “So, spill it.”

  “I don’t know a lot of details, but here’s what’s happened so far. As you know, Little Dog was taken into police custody early this morning. He’s now facing some serious charges,” I said, avoiding the word, murder, so that I wouldn’t fan the flames of Gossip Central with a blowtorch. “The good news is that he should be released on bail very soon.” Assuming that the Big Dog’s meeting with his banker went well.

  Lucille leaned in. “Arlene Koker came in for breakfast around seven…”

  As per usual. You could set a watch by the eating habits of the senior center’s activity director.

  “She said that she saw Curtis’s hearse parked next to a cop car outside Bassett’s garage.”

  I must have just missed it.

  Alice reached across the table and wrapped her warm hand over mine. “So, who died?”

  I didn’t know if notification had been made to the Ziegler family, so full disclosure was off the table. “I’m sure more details about what happened will be made available tomorrow.”

  I stepped away from the table to signal the end of today’s briefing.

  Lucille grabbed my arm. “That’s it? Little Dog whacks somebody, and that’s all you’re going to tell us?”

  “That’s all I know.”

  “Hon, you’re not the only one around here who can tell when someone’s lying.”

  Stifling a sigh, I headed for the refrigerator near the grill, where Duke kept the salad fixings.

  Unfortunately, Lucille was in squeaky lockstep with me.

  “That boy’s in some deep doo-doo, isn’t he?” she asked, lowering her voice.

  I nodded as I pulled out a bag of lettuce.

  “Did he lawyer up?”

  “Pretty sure that’ll happen later today.”

  “Order up!” Duke barked in our direction.

  Lucille skulked toward the grill. “Well, this week is off to a sucky bang.”

  I couldn’t agree with her more.

  * * *

  Almost an hour later, I was experiencing my more typical source of aerobic exercise, climbing three flights of stairs, when I heard my name reverberating off the courthouse plaster walls.

  Catching my breath, I turned to see Ben Santiago coming up the marble steps behind me with a plastic Roadkill Grill cup in his hand.

  The Roadkill Grill was a no-frills local dive, but the fries were good, and there was no Lucille there to hang on his every word, so I couldn’t blame him for patronizing Duke’s competition.

  “I’m glad I caught you,” he said.

  He was? I couldn’t imagine why.

  Ben flashed me the breezy smile of a politician courting my vote. “Have a minute?”

  “Sure.”

  He led me to the bench seat, where I’d sat with George Senior after the bail hearing. “I had lunch with Detective Sixkiller today.”

  Okay. It made sense that the criminal prosecutor might want to talk to the arresting officer who just happened to be one of George Bassett Junior’s best friends.

  But why was he telling me about it?

  I nodded, smiling politely.

  “He mentioned that when he went out to do the notification, the victim’s mother had some choice words about a prior incident between her son and Mr. Bassett.”

  “That fight back in high school?” That was old news.

  Ben’s gaze sharpened. “They’d had a previous fight?”

  I was just about to give myself a mental head slap for helping to dig Georgie a deeper hole when the significance of what I’d just heard struck me with a wallop. “Tami Ziegler said there’d been a second fight?”

  “According to Mrs. Ziegler, Bassett broke her son’s nose two years ago.”

  What? “That’s the first I’m hearing about this.”

  “That’s pretty much what Steve said.”

  Not only was no police report filed on the incident, Georgie never mentioned it. Because he had wanted to keep it quiet, or because it never happened?

  That same calculating smile passed over Ben’s lips. “You know Mrs. Ziegler, right?”

  “Yeah?” I also knew that he wanted something beyond some background information from me.

  “Would you have time to speak with her this afternoon and assess the veracity of her claim?”

  Instead of spending the rest of my day filing in the bowels of the third floor? Boy, would I. “No problem. How about the other family members and friends? I probably know most of them.” At least the ones who had lived around here for a while. “Want me to interview them, too?”

  He nodded. “Talk to anyone who might have information on the incident. If there was a conflict that had been escalating between them, I want to know about it.”

  “Got it.”

  Ben pushed off the bench.

  I did the same, and then followed his lead as he headed toward the office to the right of the stairs.

  “One last thing,” he said, opening the door for me. “I know you’re friends with Steve and the Bassetts, but let’s keep this between us for now.”

  This wasn’t the first time that one of the prosecutors had warned me about sharing details of a case beyond our office walls. But never before had the instruction made my skin crawl. “Understood.”

  “Get a copy of the file from my assistant, and reference the case number in all your communications.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  With a nod, Ben headed down the hall, leaving me reeling next to the receptionist’s desk.

  “Char? Are you okay?” she asked.

  No. I had just been enlisted to help convict Little Dog of murder.

  Chapter Four

  AFTER LOOKING UP a few addresses, I set out on my information-gathering mission. My first stop: the Port Merritt Police Department.

  I pulled behind Steve’s Crown Victoria, turned off the ignition, and called him on my cell phone.

  “Let me call you back,” he hurriedly said after several rings.

  “Better yet, come outside.”

  “You’re here?”

  “Parked behind your car.”

  Without responding, Steve disconnected.

  Five minutes later, he opened the passenger door and angled himself in. “What?”

  Okay, I understood the frosty reception. Steve was busy with one of the most important cases of his career. But so was I, and I needed to speak with the great guy I’d been sleeping with for the past seven months, not an impatient clone of my ex.

  I leaned across the center console and kissed his lips. “How’re you doing?”

  Pulling away, he stared out the drizzle-coated windshield. “How do you think?”

  “Me, too.”

  “This is bad, Char.”

  I took his hand in mine. “I know. Ben told me about what happened when you visited Colt’s mother.”

  Steve’s grip tightened as he turned to me
. “That’s not for public consumption at Duke’s.”

  “Give me some credit. I know how serious this is. That’s why I’m here.”

  He pierced me with the intensity of his dark gaze. “Please don’t tell me—”

  “I’m not here to tell you anything,” I said, hoping that he’d get the full measure of my meaning. “I just need to know if she mentioned anyone else who might have been a witness to the fight.”

  “Why?”

  “Trust that I’m asking for a good reason. Did she mention anyone?”

  Wordlessly, Steve leaned closer as if he were challenging me to join him in a staring contest, much like when we were kids. “What are you up to?”

  “Just doing my job.”

  “I don’t like that you’re getting involved in this.”

  “Not my idea, Detective.”

  He opened the door and swung his long legs out of the car. “See you around.”

  “Wait a minute!” I leaned across the console so that I could see his face. “You’re just gonna walk away?”

  A flicker of a smile crossed Steve’s tan lips before he ducked back through the doorway for a kiss. “I meant to do that first, and no.”

  If he was trying to confuse me, he was doing a good job of it. “No, what?”

  “No, Tami Ziegler didn’t mention anyone else, so why don’t you ask her about that.”

  I intended to.

  * * *

  The last time I’d seen Tami Ziegler was three weeks ago at Duke’s, when we’d sat together at the counter during a crowded lunch hour.

  Tami had graduated Port Merritt High in the same class as my actress mother, so I’d anticipated that we’d chat about at least one of the three usual topics: the latest Marietta Moreau teen scream movie, how great my mom looked in her last infomercial, or her engagement to Barry Ferris, my high school biology teacher.

  Tami and I managed to hit all three that afternoon. As a bonus, I got to hear all about how Mr. Ferris used to date her best friend and fellow divorcee, Renee Ireland, a newshound for the weekly Port Merritt Gazette.