by Betty Webb
“When are you going to be our new mommy?” the little girl asked.
“New mommy?”
Stumped as to where I was and what I was doing there, I looked around and saw beige walls, thick black-and-beige curtains, and a framed, signed poster of Alexander Rossi winning the Indy 500 hanging opposite the bed. I was in Joe’s bedroom. How…?
As the children continued staring at me, my shoulder began to throb. Then I remembered.
The gunshot.
Bonz’s cries.
The hospital.
“Of course I’m going to be your new mommy—we’ll have such fun,” I told the children, who my clearing brain now recognized as Bridget, four, known as Bridie; and Antonio, nine, known as Tonio. “But first I have to find out about my dog.”
“Grandma already called the vet,” Tonio informed me. “The person she talked to said he broke a rib in an extra-bad place but it’s fixed now.”
Bridie looked at me with pleading in her blue eyes. “Can you bring him here? I really, really, really love puppies.”
“Bonz isn’t a puppy anymore,” I told her, forcing myself to smile at her even though it probably came across as a grimace. “He’s a grown-up dog, just a bit on the small side. And he only has three legs.”
I checked to see if I was wearing any clothes under the black-and-beige duvet covering me. Yep, I was wearing a Kelly green nightgown covered with bright yellow daisies. Colleen’s. Being first-generation Irish, Joe’s mother was partial to green.
“Only three legs? What happened to the other one?” Tonio asked.
“A car hit him years ago. He…”
The bedroom door opened slowly and Joe’s mother tiptoed in. Although almost sixty, Colleen’s naturally red hair and round, unlined face made her appear much younger. An acclaimed cook, she wore a well-used green apron over a paler green housedress. “You two aren’t supposed to be in here,” she whispered to the children, her brogue almost undetectable. “Teddy needs her sleep.” Finally noticing that my eyes were open, she said, “Ah, you’re up! How do you feel?”
“I was thinking about taking a pain pill.”
Worry lines appeared between her blue eyes. “How bad is it?”
“Only a five or six out of ten, so on second thought, I’ll hold off.”
Bridie clambered onto the bed and patted my bandaged shoulder. I managed not to scream.
Colleen pried the little girl away from me. “Bridie, I need you and Tonio to help make breakfast.” To me, she mouthed “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize,” I told her. “You’ve been wonderful. So have the kids. Bridie even made me smile. Um, has Joe already left for work?”
“Liquor store holdup on the west side. Clerk shot in the leg.”
I winced on the clerk’s behalf.
A half hour later I had washed myself as best I could in the bathroom sink, dressed in an assortment of Colleen’s mostly green clothes—thankfully we were about the same size—and was sitting at the dining room table, feasting on chorizo, eggs scrambled with cheddar and scallions, a large helping of cottage fries, and homemade biscuits. Good thing eating only requires one hand.
“You look really, really, really white,” Bridie said, studying me. “I can’t even see your freckles anymore.”
Bridie, Irish first name or no, had black hair and warm brown skin inherited from her father. Yet she had wound up with her grandmother’s Irish blue eyes, creating a startling and beautiful contrast. Tonio, with his red hair, pale skin, and blue eyes, looked one-hundred percent Irish. His mother, Sonia—dead now for almost four years—had been a redhead, too. I’d seen pictures of her, and she and I could have passed for sisters. Who knows? Perhaps if I ran the same DNA tests that the zoo runs on its animals, I would find that Sonia and I shared the same long-ago Irish ancestor.
Thinking of the zoo made me drop my fork and jerk upright so suddenly it hurt my shoulder all over again. A glance at the old schoolhouse clock on the wall revealed that it was just past eight-thirty. I was two-and-a-half hours late for work.
“My animals! I have to call the zoo and tell them I won’t be there!”
“I called for you,” Colleen reassured me. “The zoo director, I think Zorah’s her name, was dismayed by what happened. She’d already heard about it on the morning news and shifted everyone’s schedule around so that your animals are covered. By the way, when you’re done eating you need to look at the flowers you’ve received.”
Even over the chorizo’s powerful scent, I could make out the mixture of carnations, roses, and lilies emanating from the living room. “From the zoo?”
“Them, too. You sure have a lot of friends. Even that old bi… uh, witch Aster Edwina sent you a lovely bouquet.”
“Witch! Witch! Witch!” Bridie chanted.
“Guilt makes witches do strange things,” I said, remembering how Aster Edwina had near-twisted my arm to keep her informed about the investigation. Maybe she blamed herself for my getting shot. “By the way, Colleen, wasn’t that Joe’s room I slept in last night?”
“Joe thought you’d be more comfortable there than on the sofa.” A smile.
“Then where did he sleep?” The adobe house, originally built by Joe’s grandfather and added onto in later years, had only three bedrooms: Joe’s room, the kids’ room—they double-bunked—and Colleen’s.
“He slept on the porch.”
The “porch” was a glass-enclosed sunroom overlooking the wooded hillside at the rear of the property. It contained a long, L-shaped settee that had often served as a guest room. Not appropriate sleeping quarters for a too-busy sheriff. Joe needed his rest.
“But Colleen, you two are doing so much! I should be the one out…”
From somewhere I heard wind chimes.
“That’s the doorbell,” Colleen said, rising from her chair. “Probably more flowers for you.”
No such luck.
It was Caro.
With suitcases.
“Oooh, those are nice!” Colleen said, ogling the Louis Vuittons.
“I brought Theodora some clothes.”
“Theo… Oh, you mean Teddy. Well, come in, come in. Want some coffee? There’s half a pot left. You take cream? Sugar?”
“Black. How’s she doing?”
I poked my head around Colleen’s shoulders. “I’m doing fine.”
Caro’s eyebrows weren’t quite as perfect as usual, but they still managed to express surprise. “Up and around already?”
I started to reach for a suitcase, then changed my mind when the floor tilted under me. “Yep, I’m up and around.”
“But you’re so pale.” One side of her hastily lipsticked mouth began to tremble.
I remembered not to shrug my shoulders. “Just lost a little blood, that’s all. Nothing major.”
Caro’s face twisted.
“Oh, get in here,” Colleen insisted, holding a Louis Vuitton by one hand, Caro’s arm by the other. But once she’d pulled her inside the flower-filled living room, my mother burst into tears, something I had only seen her do twice before: the day my father was arrested for embezzlement, and the day he skipped bail and fled the country.
As she sobbed against Colleen’s bosom, Tonio dashed out the door and grabbed the remaining Vuitton. Ignoring the sob-fest, he dragged it into the house. “Bet these things cost a million bucks,” he puffed, taking the other suitcase from Colleen, who now needed both hands to comfort my mother.
Belatedly, I moved forward, and with my good arm hugged Caro. “There, there,” I said. “There, there.”
An hour later I was finally able to peel Caro off me by telling her Miss Priss would be pining for her. As if cats ever pine.
Caro’s exit accomplished, I talked Colleen into taking me to the vet hospital to visit Bonz.
The poor mutt was still stoned out of his doggy mind when we arrived, sporting a bandage that wrapped around his entire torso. Nevertheless, the loyal little thing summoned up enough energy to lick my hand.
<
br /> “Saved my life, didn’t you?” I murmured into his ear. “Wouldn’t let Bad Man finish me off, would you?”
More licking.
“Gramma, I want a puppy!” Bridie demanded.
“Me, too,” Tonio.
Colleen put a finger to her lips. “Shhh. Let Bonz go back to sleep.”
“Want puppy.” This time in a whisper.
A conference with Dr. Hope Givens, a cool blonde, reaffirmed what I already knew, that the shooter had kicked Bonz in the side, fracturing two ribs, splintering another. “But the surgery went well, and he’ll be fine.”
I swallowed, afraid I’d start bawling like my mother. “Yes, that’s what you told me over the phone, but…”
Some of Givens’ frost disappeared. “It’s still true, so please relax. He’s in no danger.”
“When can he come home?” By that, I meant to the Merilee, of course. There was no way I’d let some killer disrupt my life. Then again…
I remembered Bonz’s yelps when the killer kicked him.
I remembered his limp body lying on the grass.
“What did you say?” I asked the vet. “I, uh, wasn’t listening.”
“We’ll release him in a couple of days, but don’t hold me to it. It all depends on whether…”
“Whether or not there are complications. In cases like this, how often are there complications?”
“Not often. Any other questions?”
I shook my head. If more questions arose, I would check with her, although not as often as Caro and Joe had been checking on me. They had called time and time again that morning to make certain I was still alive.
As if reading my mind, Dr. Givens said, “You’re welcome to call me anytime.”
“Oh, I will.”
Joe managed to make it home for lunch. He refused to allow me to move into the sunroom, saying he was perfectly comfortable out there. After delivering that refusal, he added, “You’re not going back to the Merilee, either. In fact, you’re not leaving this house again.”
“But I have to check on Bonz.”
“Believe it or not, we do have a telephone here. A landline and a plethora of cells.”
“Plethoras are not the same thing as seeing for yourself.”
He turned to his mother. “Make sure she doesn’t stick her nose outside.”
With perfect equanimity, Colleen replied, “Dear, I’m your mother, not your deputy.”
“You understand what I just said?”
“I learned English even before I learned Gaelic.”
“Daddy, I want a puppy.” Bridie had a one track mind.
“You’ll be getting one soon,” Joe said. “His name is Bonz. A cat, too. Her name is Miss Priss.” He gave me that name-the-date look I knew so well.
I smiled at Bridie. “Miss Priss is with my mother right now, but I’m sure you’ll love her, too. The cat, I mean.”
Joe’s face turned thoughtful for a moment, then he grinned. “To clarify, kids, you’ll also be getting a new grandma. Her name is Caro.”
Tonio frowned. “I hope she doesn’t cry all the time.”
I waited for fifteen minutes after Joe left the house, then, as Colleen was holed up in the kitchen studying some recipe she intended to make for dinner, I wobbled two blocks down the tree-lined street to Bucky Snow’s house.
Many of the lots in Joe’s semi-rural neighborhood had acreage, but Bucky wasn’t as fortunate. Still, his place was an improvement on his former digs. Since serving his time in prison for grand theft auto, the new Bucky Goes Hollywood TV star had moved up in the world, taking his wife and twins from a single-wide trailer to a two-bedroom adobe fixer-upper. And he also, for once in his life, drove a car he had actually purchased, not swiped. Like his house, the Honda Odyssey appeared aged, but was in tip-top condition. So was the yard Bucky was watering when I approached.
“You free this morning, Bucky?”
He turned off the water. “Hey, girl! Saw you on the news this morning. Did you see the flowers I took over? Grew them in my own yard.”
I vaguely remembered seeing a bunch of black-eyed Susans sitting in a milk carton vase near the huge pile of roses the zoo sent me. “Thank you, they’re lovely.”
Then something alarming occurred to me. “Bucky, how did you know I was staying at Joe’s?”
“It’s what the news announcer said, that—I’m trying to quote here and I’m sorry if I’m getting it wrong—that ‘Fortunately the victim is engaged to the county sheriff, and is recuperating at his house in San Sebastian.’ There. I’m pretty sure that’s word for word. I’ve been doing exercises to help me memorize my scripts. Doing a TV show is rougher than I guessed.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Who was it?”
“Who was who?”
“The news announcer.”
“Oh, her. It was that woman you’re always talking to on your animal program. I forget her name.”
“Ariel Gonzales?”
“Yeah, her.”
I didn’t like this at all. According to Joe, Ariel had been helping me when the Montinis showed up and called 9-1-1. Or at least “helping” was what it looked like. Yet Ariel was savvy enough to know the harm it could do to release my current whereabouts, so why had she done it? Orders from her producers again? Or something else?
“Bucky, I need a ride.”
Bucky dropped me off at the harbor’s parking lot. After asking him for a final favor, which he was happy to grant, I wobbled to the Merilee and found what I needed: my car keys. I also grabbed my laptop, because you never know, do you?
While I was loading up other necessities into a plastic garbage bag, a thud against the Merilee’s hull alerted me I had a visitor.
Maureen.
The otter was back again, demanding a treat. Fortunately there was still some herring in the galley’s tiny refrigerator, and it still smelled okay.
I took two of them topside and dropped one into her waiting paws.
“Ngh!” Otter-speak for Thank you!
“Want another?”
“Nee-nee!” Otter speak for Hurry up, I’m starving down here!
As I tossed her the other herring, a crowd of liveaboarders came clattering along the dock to inquire about my health. The noise chased Maureen away.
“The doctor says it’s merely a flesh wound,” I assured Kenny Norgaard, Ruth Donohue, Dee Dee Pascal, Lila Conyers, and Darleene Bauer, after thanking them for the flowers they’d sent me. “I’m perfectly fine.”
A bit of a stretch there. After my walk to Bucky’s, the ride to the harbor, and packing things up to take to Joe’s, I wasn’t feeling all that great. In fact, I felt downright light-headed, but that didn’t stop me from asking, “Do any of you know which boat Frank Owens is staying on?”
“The new member of the Otter Conservancy? Sure, he’s on Ring of Bright Water,” Darleene said. “It’s been temporarily berthed at the far south end of the harbor for three months, waiting for a slip to open up near the yacht club. With you working at the zoo and running into him every day, I’m surprised you didn’t know that.”
I could have kicked myself for not making the connection since I had passed the splendid Beneteau Oceanis sloop several times on the way to the park and smiled at her name. Ring of Bright Water was the classic wildlife book by Gavin Maxwell which described the wild otters near his home in western Scotland. Could there possibly be a more perfect name for an otter keeper’s boat?
“If you’re thinking about exchanging the handsome sheriff for Owens, dear heart, be warned that Ariel Gonzales, that TV person, has a thing with him.” This, from Kenny. “They even get quite loud at times.”
He was eager to tell me more, Kenny always was, but I held up a restraining hand.
“Don’t need to know. Well, it’s been nice chatting with you all, and thanks again for the beautiful flowers. Peonies and lilacs are among my favorites.”
“I picked them out,” Lila said. Her smile, along with the pink tint to her cheeks, mad
e me believe she was finally recovering from her stint in the San Sebastian County Jail. “One of the dresses you gave me has a peony and lilac print, and I’ve been wearing it to job interviews.”
Interviews? Plural? “Hasn’t Preston Morrell called you yet?”
The smile faded. “His secretary did, but she didn’t sound hopeful when I told her I don’t have a degree.”
“Hmm.” I needed to do more work on Preston.
And I would, just as soon as I tracked down Ariel. First, to thank her for saving my life, and second, to see if she actually had.
By the time I had driven my pickup over to the veterinarian hospital to visit Bonz again, and then hidden my truck in Bucky’s garage, it became clear that I had overtaxed myself, so I asked Bucky to drive me the measly two blocks back to Joe’s house. When I arrived, I was so pale that Colleen hustled me straight to bed. Oddly enough, she didn’t question me about my hours-long disappearance. Maybe she understood.
Whatever the reason, I fell asleep, and dreamt that I was running through a nightmare forest with a three-legged dog in my arms.
Chapter Seventeen
Monday being my usual day off, there was no need to call in sick. After last night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast cooked by my future mother-in-law, I felt relatively strong. There might have been the occasional twinge from my injured shoulder, but nothing serious enough to keep me from tracking down the home address of Ariel Gonzales.
“Promise you’ll take it easy today,” Joe said, taking the dish towel away from me and using it himself. Colleen had raised him to be an accomplished drier.
“I promise.”
“Leave the detecting to me.”
“Of course.”
Colleen, who was scrubbing the cast-iron skillet she had used to fry the breakfast sausage, said, “Stop fussing at the woman, Joe.”
“You don’t know her like I do,” he grumbled.
He looked so handsome in his sheriff’s uniform that I had a hard time keeping my hands off him, so I grabbed another dish towel and started to work on a serving platter.
“In fact,” Colleen continued, “the most physical thing Teddy will do all day is check out that nice granny cottage you’re building.” She was wearing a different green dress, protected by the same green apron. Come to think of it, even the laptop she kept in the kitchen’s tiny office nook had a green cover.
