Groomer Has It

by Katie Hagen

  Gross. But, to each her own. “Alright we’ll be there.”

  “We?”

  “Me and my sister I guess.”

  “Ok! I’ll see you then.” He tripped over his Vans, spun around a little and added, “Oh, and in like two hours.”

  “Right! Crookshanks 2.” The cat meowed at me from the crate. “Better get started then!”

  Vic headed out and I carried Crookshanks 2 to the back. It was actually better that we didn’t have any appointments because I always felt stressed working with cats, especially with a shop full of barking dogs. Picklepuss wouldn’t be too troublesome.

  “What’s with the nerd?” Carlie asked as I had her help me with Crookshanks 2’s nails.

  “You don’t know Vic Perring?”

  “That’s Vic Perring? He’s like a hermit or something. No one ever sees him. Well no one except Frannie because they share a garden.”

  “And people who read?”

  “Yeah, I guess. Anyway, Frannie says he’s awful, but he didn’t look too bad. Just nerdy.”

  “That’s sad. He’s not that bad. A little weird maybe. And I don’t think he’s a hermit. He just plays a lot of video games.”

  “Same thing.”

  We finished the last claw and I carried the slightly less dangerous cat to the bathtub, telling Carlie to stand nearby just in case. He was surprisingly well behaved. He didn’t seem to mind the water or the cat shampoo either. He even tolerated a bit of blow drying before I put him in the kennel with a heat-free fan where he busied himself licking.

  “So, now what?” Carlie leaned on the half wall and filed her nails. Beverly looked at me hopefully from her grooming table.

  How was I going to make this work? I couldn’t just make clients appear out of thin air, even though that seemed to be how they disappeared. One nasty article in the paper and everyone lost their minds.

  “Ok. What’s the best way to generate buzz in this town?”

  “Like advertising? I don’t know, the paper?” Carlie shrugged.

  “I’ve always said that you just do good work and people will tell their friends. You’ve always done a great job Kit, I’m sure they’ll figure it out.’ Beverly smiled.

  “Exactly. Word of mouth is what this town lives and breathes. So, who has the biggest mouth in town? Besides Ashley Troll?”

  “Well I’m not sure about the whole town but Pricilla Thomas has a pretty big mouth,” Beverly suggested.

  “Alright, so how do we find her?”

  “And more importantly, does she have a dog?” Carlie added.

  “A yappy little schnauzer named Buddy. She lives in the villa next door to me at Autumn Oaks,” Beverly rolled her eyes. “Darn dog yaps through Jeopardy every night.”

  “Well then, I guess we need to make a visit to Autumn Oaks.”

  After Vic came by to collect Crookshanks 2, and I gave Picklepuss a quick fluff up, we closed up the shop and I drove the three of us, plus Picklepuss, to the retirement community that Beverly called home.

  Autumn Oaks was nestled in between two of the main streets in downtown Glaney. Only one small driveway led into the community that took over nearly two downtown acres with small cabin like homes they called villas. Each house had its own yard and a community bus chartered the residents to doctor’s appointments, shopping excursions and activities. Beverly had always spoken kindly of the community and I was glad to see that it was still well maintained.

  We pulled up in front of Beverly’s home, a light blue villa with white shutters and rose bushes in the yard. Right away we heard the undeniable bark of a schnauzer.

  Carlie walked Beverly into her home while I took my time letting Picklepuss prance her pretty silver rear end around the yard. The best advertising for dog grooming is always a well-groomed dog.

  I noticed the curtains move in the windows of Pricilla’s little tan-colored house and I knew she was watching me. When I heard her door creak open, I knew we had a chance.

  “Did Beverly style that little dog?” Pricilla’s voice hollered toward me. She came onto her gated porch where Buddy immediately began jumping and barking. Pricilla hushed him, which the little dog of course ignored.

  “Actually, I groomed her myself. Though Beverly does amazing work, doesn’t she?”

  Pricilla nodded in agreement. “I took my dog, Buddy, over there to Kitty’s for years but then after Kitty passed, bless her soul, I could never get in. I had to start taking him up North. It’s such a hassle though,” she said eying my handiwork.

  “Oh no! I’m so sorry that happened to you. He’s a very handsome little man,” I pointed towards Buddy who cocked his head to the side to look at me through the bar like slats of the porch railing. “Looks like he might be about ready for a trim through.”

  “Oh yeah,” she sighed. “But I can’t really get up there for a couple weeks still. I don’t get around too well these days.”

  Pricilla had to be in her eighties but looked to be of sturdy stock. Her red hair nearly touched the top of her awning and she had to be nearing 250lbs which she covered in a large floral muumuu.

  “Oh dear,” I frowned. “Well I’ll tell you what. We were actually just taking a little lunch break from Kitty’s. I feel so bad that you couldn’t get in before. I’d love to take Buddy with me for a groom…”

  I watched as she looked down at Buddy and then at me. “What’s your name, dear?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Umm, Kit Davis. I’m one of Kitty’s nieces.” I saw recognition in her eyes but there was something else too, something like doubt. That story had really done some damage. I tried to brush past it. “So, I’d love to take Buddy with me and bring him back to you this afternoon.”

  “I’ve heard quite a few things about you,” she pointed a chubby finger at me.

  I looked around and noticed that while we were speaking a few of the other residents had ventured out on to their porches as well. Some of them had dogs with them.

  “Listen, I have been grooming dogs for ten years professionally and…”

  “No, you listen,” Pricilla pounded a chubby fist on her railing. “I don’t know what you’re trying to do here but…”

  “Ma’am, I’m just trying to offer you a free grooming!” I smiled broadly as the neighbors began to whisper to each other.

  Pricilla scrunched up her face and shook her head. “Oh, no. I’m not sending my little Buddy with a murderer! That’s probably your whole game, isn’t it? Murdering old ladies and taking their dogs! Shame on you.”

  My jaw dropped.

  Picklepuss whined.

  “That’s not true!” I shouted back at Pricilla. “It’s absolutely not,” I added to the neighbors.

  A woman on the porch opposite us put her hand to her mouth and called out, “My son Geoffrey’s wife, Gina saw her in a police car just last night!”

  “That was a misunderstanding, I…”

  “Terry said she was interrogated for hours at the crime scene. If it wasn’t for that good for nothing sheriff then poor Vicki Perring’s murder would be solved already,” a man yelled across the grassy divide to another resident.

  “Well I can’t argue with that,” I muttered, agreeing with the bit about Sheriff Trull being good for nothing.

  One resident clearly said, “Poor Vicki my butt,” while another said something about how the town should never have hired a woman to do a man’s job. In the chaos I watched as Doc with the feathered cap walked across the lawn toward his home. He tipped his hat to me subtly and I nodded just as discretely. I needed to get this under control.

  I turned my attention back to the residents as they all began to debate whether or not women should be in positions of power, whether Vicki Perring actually deserved what she got, and if Terry could be considered reliable because of his terrible eyesight and the fact that he never actually had that weird thing checked out….and….I…lost it.

  “Hey!” I shouted.

  Every front porch juror turned my direction and su
ddenly I wondered whether calling it back to me was a mistake. Maybe I should have just slipped away. Too late now.

  “How dare you all accuse me of murder after all my Aunt Kitty did for this town! I might not belong here, but I came back because it’s what Kitty wanted, and I’ll be damned if I let her business close because of a bunch of ridiculous rumors. I didn’t have anything to do with Vicky Perring. I never even met her!”

  An elderly man with black rimmed glasses and red suspenders took the three steps from his front porch easily and came barreling toward me.

  Picklepuss yipped and I picked her up defensively as the man towered over us both and pointed his finger.

  “Vicki Perring was an angel!” He shouted.

  “Umm, ok. I never said she…”

  “And if you didn’t kill her then you tell me who did? Huh?”

  I was flabbergasted. “Sir. I’m not sure how you expect me to know that.”

  “Well someone should!” Pricilla yelled from her porch.

  “Right…like the police. Not me.” I looked from face to face, but they all stood their ground.

  “The police aint gonna figure out nothin’!” a small voice called out from the back.

  “And we could be next! Vicki and I are the same age!” A little old lady cried out.

  “Well, I mean, I doubt the killer is age specific,” I crinkled my nose awkwardly.

  The man in the suspenders eyed me intensely. “Kitty was a good woman. But we don’t know anything about you except you were a troublemaker when you were a kid and you’ve been all mixed up with nothing but trouble since you been back.” He backed up and crossed his arms. “You want us to trust you?”

  “Yes,” I answered sheepishly and glanced at Beverly’s house. Chickens. I could see them both peeking from behind the curtains but neither budged.

  “When you figure out who killed Vicki Perring then we’ll come back to Kitty’s.” He nodded and one by one the rest of the residents did the same.

  “But that’s crazy! I’m not a detective!”

  The man leaned in closer. “Well neither is that Sheriff Trull if you ask me.”

  He turned around and I let out the breath I was holding before he snapped back around causing me to bite my tongue.

  “And you might want to,” he whispered. “ask me that is.”

  He walked away and slowly the residents began to disperse. I felt like I’d been thrown into the colosseum without a sword and came out in pieces. With the taste of iron in my mouth I stomped up the steps to the Beverly’s house to cry.

  Chapter 8

  “No, no, no, no, no, no, no!” I screamed into an embroidered pillow on Beverly’s couch that so cruelly read, Home is Where the Heart Is.

  Beverly set a cup of tea on the little white coffee table and sat herself in a leather wingback chair. Carlie sprawled on a chaise lounge by a huge bookcase and looked straight out of Gone with the Wind.

  “Did that just happen?” I groaned from beneath my pillow fortress.

  “Oh, was that not what you had planned?” Carlie quipped.

  I threw the pillow at her head.

  “Where were you chickens anyway? I was eaten alive out there!”

  Carlie picked up the pillow and traced the embroidery with her finger. “Old people scare me.”

  Beverly huffed and crossed her arms.

  “Not you Bev! Like angry ones. They remind me of Grandma.” She shivered.

  “Grandma was nice,” I said defensively. “At least to me.”

  “Exactly. Those vultures out there were wrong. You were the good one. You didn’t take her hand knit toilet paper cozy doll out to make mud pies.”

  “Oh, right. That was funny.”

  Carlie shivered again. “I was gonna save you but then that big guy in the overalls came over.”

  “Henry,” Beverly sighed.

  “That’s Henry! He’s the boyfriend that Vicki Perring stole?”

  Beverly nodded sadly.

  “Well good riddance Bev, seriously,” Carlie said, casually tossing the pillow back onto the couch.

  “Oh, you only saw him all worked up. He’s actually very sweet,” she said wistfully.

  Carlie and I rolled our eyes in unison.

  I finally sat up and took a drink of the tea Beverly made. Picklepuss stretched out on the couch next to me and snored.

  “Bev, what did Henry do for work?”

  “He was a police officer. But for the last ten years or so he worked part-time as a security officer at the high school.”

  “Oh yeah! I remember him!” Carlie laughed.

  “I don’t.”

  “Once again, you were the good one,” she winked.

  “He must have started right after you graduated,” Beverly added.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” I set my cup on the table. “Something Henry said is bugging me though.”

  Carlie and Beverly both leaned in.

  “He said that I should ask him about Ashley Trull.”

  “Like ask him what?” Carlie asked.

  I slumped back against the couch cushions and rubbed my temples. “I have no idea.”

  Absentmindedly, I began to scratch Picklepuss on the hip. It was true that petting an animal lowered stress because I instantly felt a little bit better. I could have used her in L.A. when I was reeling from my many encounters with frou-frou doggy mommies.

  Though there was still something that was threatening to raise my blood pressure that even a poodle couldn’t ease.

  “Bev, you might as well take the rest of the day off. I don’t think we’re going to get any other appointments today.”

  Bev took a sip of tea and then set it on the table. “I can’t see as we’ll have much time anyways.”

  “Oh, was there something else you wanted to do? Because you know, Bev, that you can always take time off whenever you need to,” I smiled. Maybe this was a blessing for poor Bev. She’d finally have an excuse to retire. I couldn’t say that I wouldn’t miss her terribly though. I couldn’t remember a single day at Kitty’s Laundromutt without Beverly’s smiling face.

  “It’s not what I need to do. It’s what you need to do.”

  “Oh, Bev. You can’t really be serious,” I groaned.

  “I can,” she replied seriously. “You have a murder to solve, dear, and I’m going to help. We both are,” she nodded toward Carlie who suddenly found her fingernails very interesting.

  “Carlie?” I looked at my sister. Beverly was right. By now the town would be buzzing with negative opinions of me and Kitty’s if Pricilla had as big of a mouth as Bev said she did. If I was going to save Kitty’s, then I needed to solve this murder and clear my name. The community had deemed it so, and if I was going to solve a murder then I was definitely going to need help doing it.

  Finally, Carlie gave in to my glare. “Fine! Ugh. You’re so needy.”

  “Thanks, Carlie. I knew I could count on you,” I said dryly.

  I stood up then realized that I didn’t have a plan and slumped immediately back to the couch. “Anyone know how to solve a murder?”

  Carlie shrugged but Bev looked excited. “Oh, I’ve solved plenty!” She looked at her wall clock then nodded. “Sometimes I even get it before she does.” Beverly grabbed her remote and flipped on the television. After scrolling through a couple channels, she landed on a grainy image of Angela Lansbury.

  “Murder She Wrote?” I smiled. “Ok, I guess she’s as good a mentor as any. So…what would Jessica Fletcher do?” I said, referring to Lansbury’s character in the long running series about a widowed mystery writer who solved murders in her small town. Seemed fitting enough though I could hardly write an email. I was really more of a Veronica Mars sort of girl myself.

  “Well, the first thing Jessica always does is she figures out who might have had a reason to commit the murder.” Bev looked at me expectantly.

  “Well jeez, Bev. How would I know that? I’ve been gone for ten years!”

  “But I’m gue
ssing you’ve been hearing things since you got back, right? Gossip? Whispers?”

  I thought for a second then shook my head. “I guess I have. There’s always gossip. I just try to ignore it.”

  “Well stop. You need to listen to the gossip. There might be a clue!”

  “Oh yeah!” Carlie added, “Clues! Did you see any in the house?”

  “There was a lot of dog hair, but that really only implicates us…”

  “What else?” Beverly grabbed a little pad of paper and began jotting things down.

  “There were flowers on the table, and a glass of water, and a plate of brownies,” I shrugged.

  “That’s it?” Carlie huffed.

  “What did you expect? A signed confession? I’m sure the police would have noticed that.”

  Carlie smirked. “Would they though? This is the Glaney police we’re talking about.”

  “I’m sure even they wouldn’t miss that. Ok,” I sighed, “we need a list of suspects and apparently, we need gossip. It’s a Tuesday afternoon in Glaney so…”

  Carlie and I smiled at each other before I spoke. “Spa day?”

  “Oh, heck yeah,” she grinned back.

  Bev tapped the pen on the pad.

  “Aren’t you coming?”

  “Well, I believe someone needs to talk to Henry…right?” She looked so hopeful that I had to let her do it. Maybe she’d get some information from him and maybe she’d get her flirt on. Either way, it seemed like a win. I told her to call me if she learned anything.

  Carlie and I scooped up Picklepuss and headed back toward town where we found Gypsy’s House of Beauty on Second Street.

  Gypsy, fitting to her name, had left town years before, leaving the salon to a few local girls. Before going in we walked Picklepuss and parked in a shady spot where she could see into the salon through the big picture windows in front and glare at us whenever she wanted.

  We decided that splitting up was the best option. Carlie wanted to get a mani pedi so I decided that a hot oil treatment and a blowout couldn’t hurt. The damp Washington weather had already done a number on my hair which felt heavy and lackluster.