Furbidden Fatality

by Deborah Blake

  “Any death is a big deal,” she said, as calmly as possible. “Even the death of someone I didn’t like, although I have to admit, I barely knew the man. But just because I told him off when he tried to threaten me doesn’t mean I killed him. Which, just for the record, I didn’t.”

  She didn’t add that if she for some reason decided to murder someone, she wouldn’t do it on her own property and then call the cops about it. Pointing that out probably wouldn’t help her case.

  “Hmph,” Richardson said, which could have meant anything from That makes sense to I still think you’re as guilty as sin and you’re going to rot in jail if I have anything to say about it.

  Behind him, two men who had arrived in an ambulance loaded the body onto a stretcher, and the younger cop was putting up crime scene tape in a wide swath around the edges of the fence. The coroner strode over to where she and the sheriff were standing, a large evidence bag in his hand. The doctor was a short, slightly pudgy man with thinning brown hair and eyebrows that seemed to be trying to make up for the shortage of hair elsewhere.

  “What have you got?” Richardson demanded.

  “Well, he’s definitely dead,” Doc Phelps said. The eyebrows waggled up and down.

  Richardson rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I kind of figured that part out on my own. How about a cause and time of death?”

  “Recent,” the doctor said. “Body’s still warm. Probably not more than half an hour before Ms. Stuart called us. Maybe less. As for the cause, I won’t know for certain until I do an autopsy, but I’m guessing the noose around his neck had something to do with it.”

  “It’s called a snare pole,” Kari said. “It’s used to capture wild animals, or those you can’t be sure are safe. They use them for dogs, cats, even alligators.” When the sheriff gave her a dubious look, she added, “Not around here, of course.”

  “So that thing probably belongs to Myers?” the doctor asked, looking interested. “Something he’d carry to catch an escaped dog, for instance?

  Kari nodded. “Yes, although as I told the sheriff, all our dogs are accounted for. The rope is threaded through the pole and is looped over the animal’s head. We have one at the shelter, although apparently it isn’t used much. Mr. Myers would have had one as part of his job.”

  “Interesting,” Richardson said. “So you’re saying he was actually strangled with his own snare pole?”

  The coroner nodded. “Well, he definitely shows signs of strangulation, and the thing was pulled tight around his throat, so barring any surprises, I’d say that was the most likely scenario.”

  Richardson stared pointedly at Kari. “Could a woman have done it, would you say?”

  Phelps shrugged. “It looks like he was on his knees, bending down by that hole. Which, by the way, it looks like he was digging, which seems a bit strange to me, but I’m just the coroner, not a detective, so I’ll leave you to figure out what the heck he was doing. So yeah, he would have been vulnerable and off balance, and if he was caught by surprise, I see no reason why a strong woman couldn’t have pulled the snare tight enough to cut off his oxygen before he could get to his feet to fight back.”

  Kari didn’t know whether to be shocked or furious over the idea that the dog warden had apparently been messing around with her fence in the middle of the night. For the moment, though, she had bigger problems.

  “Sheriff, you don’t seriously think I did this, do you?”

  He looked her in the eyes. “What I think, Ms. Stuart, is that you had the means, the motive, and the opportunity. I’m not a man who jumps to conclusions, and I’m not about to start now. Myers had plenty of people with good cause not to like him, and his reasons for being out here certainly raise some questions. So I will be doing what any good lawman would do, and investigating. But in the meantime, I also think you shouldn’t make any plans to leave town. Is that clear?”

  What was clear, Kari thought, was that buying this sanctuary had just gotten a lot more complicated.

  * * *

  * * *

  Between waiting for the cops to leave, trying to get the dogs calmed down after they were gone, and not being able to get back to sleep from all the excitement, Kari was late getting to the shelter in the morning. She was grateful she didn’t have to walk far, because a dismal drizzle blanketed the landscape and the sky felt soggy and low.

  Thankfully, Sara, Bryn, and two of the part-time paid employees were already there and hard at work. The cats had been fed and their litter boxes changed, and Jim and Emma were busy cleaning out the kennels. Kari had left a note at the desk telling everyone that the dogs would have to be walked in the area in front of the shelter—the police had instructed her that the entire fenced-in back area was considered a crime scene until they released it.

  Sara and Bryn were in the main room, hanging some new curtains, when Kari finally got there around ten, Queenie sitting on her usual perch on Kari’s shoulder.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “It’s a long story.”

  “Did you really find Bill Myers’s body out by our yard?” Bryn asked, her brown eyes wide. She looked adorable in denim overalls and a pink tank top, and Kari suddenly felt self-conscious in the jeans and slightly ragged old concert tee she’d thrown on when she’d finally rolled out of bed.

  Okay, maybe it wasn’t that long a story. Small towns—at least they saved you the trouble of telling everyone when something went wrong.

  “I did,” Kari said.

  She was glad that Bryn seemed to be getting more comfortable around her. The young woman was better with animals than she was with people, but it had helped when she discovered that Kari was friends with Izzy, Bryn’s aunt and the town librarian.

  “The dogs started barking in the middle of the night, and Queenie woke me up in time to get a call from Mr. Lee complaining about it. When I went out to investigate, she led me to the body.” Kari placed Queenie on the floor and helped herself to a cup of coffee from the machine by the desk. Her coffeemaker was still sitting in a box on the floor of her new kitchen, so even the so-so coffee at the shelter smelled like ambrosia.

  “That’s one smart kitten,” Bryn said in an admiring tone. She produced a treat out of one pocket and the cat in question walked over to accept it.

  “Did you stick a stake through his heart to make sure he was really dead?” Sara asked dryly.

  “Sara!” Bryn gasped. “You can’t say something like that!”

  “I think I just did,” Sara said, helping herself to a donut from a box someone—probably Sara herself—had brought in for anyone who showed up to help. Powdered sugar feathered down to join the cat fur on her flowered shirt. “I’m not going to pretend to like the man just because he had the bad fortune to get killed on our property. I wouldn’t have wished him dead, but I can’t say I’m sorry he’s going to be out of our hair now.” She patted the turquoise streak in hers.

  “I don’t know that he will be,” Kari said. “If anything, his death is just causing us new problems. We can’t use the yard for now, and we also can’t have the new fence put up, which isn’t going to make the judge happy.”

  “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” Sara said. Her face fell. “Darn.”

  “Is it true that they found him digging a hole under our fence?” Bryn asked. She wore her hair in many tiny braids, which she said kept it out of her way while she was working, and had a small jeweled stud in her nose. She fiddled with a braid now.

  Kari shrugged. “Well, he was already dead by the time I got there, but there was a shovel right next to him and a pile of dirt to show he’d been working on it. One of the deputies, a guy named Carter, actually tried to suggest that I might have been digging there for some reason and Myers caught me at it, but obviously that’s not true. All I can think is that Myers was trying to make it look like one of the dogs had dug his way out, and then he was planning to go through the g
ate, break into one of the kennels, and use the snare pole to take a dog out and say it escaped. Although why he’d do that, I don’t know. It’s nuts.”

  “Not when you think about how he was trying to get Daisy to sell him the property for pennies, it isn’t,” Sara said with all the cynicism of a woman who had spent forty years seeing kids trying to get away with just about everything. “If he was after Buster, and made it look as though we’d let the dog get out after all our promises to the judge, she might have actually shut the place down. Maybe he figured if that happened, you’d just give up and sell him the place after all.”

  Kari felt her jaw drop. “Was he really that underhanded?”

  Sara shrugged. “I guess we’ll never know, now that he’s dead. But I can’t think of any other reason why he’d have been out there in the middle of the night with a shovel and a snare pole.”

  “The deputy implied that the dog warden might have been called out because someone reported a loose dog,” Kari said. “And I should warn you, the sheriff considers me to be the prime suspect.”

  “What?” Bryn covered her full lips with one hand. “Why would he think that?”

  “I found the body,” Kari said. “He was killed on my property in the middle of the night, I had gloves in my back pocket, and I’d been seen having a very public argument with him three nights before he died. Apparently that makes me suspect number one.”

  “At least I’m in good company,” Daisy said from over by the front door. Now that the hinges had been oiled, it opened so quietly that none of them had heard her come in. “It looks like I’m suspect number two.”

  * * *

  * * *

  What? You’re kidding,” Bryn said. “But you don’t even own the sanctuary anymore.”

  “That’s true,” Sara said in a thoughtful tone. She grabbed a napkin and got Daisy a donut with multicolored sprinkles. “And Bill Myers is part of the reason. Are they saying you killed him for revenge because he ruined your dreams?”

  “Something like that,” Daisy said, her lip curled in disgust. She walked over and poured herself a cup of coffee and joined them where they were standing around the desk. “Although if you ask me, if I had been going to do it, wouldn’t it have made more sense for me to kill him before I lost the sanctuary, and not after?”

  She sighed and rested one hip on the corner of the desk. “Now I can’t leave town until they solve the crime or eliminate me as a suspect. I’m stuck here.” Like the others, she was casually dressed in jeans and a well-worn shirt, perfect for cleaning cages and walking dogs. No one dressed up at the shelter, especially since it wasn’t even open to the public yet.

  “Do you have an alibi?” Bryn asked. “Maybe the friend you’re staying with?”

  “I was out in the guest room over the garage by myself,” Daisy said. “So no, no alibi. Unless you count my cats and dogs, which I don’t think they do.”

  “I have the same problem,” Kari said glumly. “I tried using the phone call from Mr. Lee to prove that I was home in bed, but the sheriff said I could have been standing over the dead body talking on my cell phone and Mr. Lee never would have known the difference.”

  Sara shook her head. “I like Dan Richardson. He’s a smart man. But he’s also stubborn as all get-out and likes to look at things from every angle. When his son was in my class, parents’ night always took twice as long because of all his questions.” A smile tugged at her lips. “On the bright side, he does have a soft spot for dogs. He has a golden retriever named Duke—after John Wayne—who goes in to the office with him sometimes.”

  “Do you think that means he’ll cut us a break?” Kari asked, sipping her coffee. “Because he seemed pretty sure that I was guilty. That Deputy Carter all but read me my rights.”

  “He’ll be fair, but if Carter is in charge of the investigation, we might not be so lucky with him. He’s a year away from retirement and is going to want to wrap this up as quickly and easily as possible. Carter, from what I know of him, is not a fan of complicated or difficult,” Sara said. “Plus, there’s still the problem of Buster.”

  Kari felt her heart skip a beat. “But, now that Myers is dead, won’t the case against Buster be dismissed?”

  “Oh, no,” Sara said. “Not once it has gone before the judge. The town board will appoint a new dog warden and there’s no way of telling what he or she will do. Buster is still very much at risk.”

  “This is crazy,” Bryn said, blinking back tears. “The man is dead, and he is still messing with Kari and Daisy and Buster. And all we can do is sit around and wait for the cops to either find the real killer or blame one of you guys. And hope that the new dog warden isn’t as nasty as the old one.”

  Kari put her coffee mug down on the desk with a thump. “No, it isn’t.”

  “Huh?” Daisy said. Bryn looked confused.

  Sara raised one gray eyebrow in question. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

  “I am not going to just sit here and wait for some over-the-hill cop to decide I killed Bill Myers, or let Daisy be stuck here in town when she deserves to go start her new life. And I’m definitely not going to let poor Buster get put to sleep when it is clear that he didn’t do what he was accused of either.”

  Kari put her hands on her hips. “I have spent my whole life being pushed around by bullies, and I’m not going to sit here and let a dead one ruin our lives. I’m not saying we can do the cops’ job for them, but I’ll bet we could at least dig up a few more suspects, so they’ll have to look further than just the two of us.”

  “Huh,” Daisy said. “You know, that’s not the worst idea I ever heard. There are plenty of people in this town who hated Bill Myers. It shouldn’t be hard to find out who he upset lately.”

  “Any tickets or summons he issued would be a matter of public record,” Sara said thoughtfully. She pulled a small notebook out of her oversized hand-painted leather purse and started jotting down notes. “As would any court cases in which he was involved. The information might be a bit tricky to find, but one of my former students works in the town hall. I could get her to do a little digging for me.”

  “That’s great,” Bryn said, her brow furrowed. “But what about Buster?”

  “We’re going to have to find that dog bite victim, if there is one,” Kari said firmly. “Or any witnesses that saw Buster during the time he was loose.” She chewed on her lip absently. “Plus I guess we hope that the new dog warden is more reasonable.”

  Queenie strolled across the desk and pushed at a folder until it fell on the floor and papers went spilling out everywhere.

  “That’s not helpful,” Kari scolded her, bending down to pick them all up and shove them back together. “Huh.”

  “Huh?” Daisy said. “Did you think of something?”

  Kari narrowed her eyes suspiciously at the little black ball of fur. It had to be a coincidence. “This is the paperwork for the sale of the sanctuary. It just occurred to me that you said Myers had been trying to buy the property. He obviously didn’t want it for an animal shelter, so why did he want it?”

  “Another good question,” Sara said. “I guess we’ve got our work cut out for us.”

  “It beats sitting around waiting for a stubborn sheriff and a lazy deputy to decide to put me in jail,” Kari said. “I wouldn’t look good in orange, and my animals need me.”

  She glanced at her watch, which featured Winnie the Pooh and had a second hand that was a bee that moved around the edges of the watch face. “But my part of the mission is going to have to wait for now. I have an even more important one to accomplish first. I have an appointment for Queenie at the V-E—” Before she could get out the third letter, the kitten had scooted under a cabinet. “T.”

  Bryn just laughed. “I hate to break it to you, but I think that cat can spell.”

  It wouldn’t have surprised Kari at all.

&
nbsp; Five

  Seriously, you’re fine,” Kari said to Queenie, who was expressing her displeasure loudly. “I swear, I’m not taking you to another shelter. You’re stuck with me. We’re just going to the vet so you can get a checkup and your shots. Stop making such a fuss.”

  The black kitten subsided as if she understood every word, although she still glared at Kari through the front of the carrier. Kari sighed and got out of the car, slinging her purse over one shoulder and grabbing the cat carrier with the other hand. This wasn’t exactly a good time to be away from the shelter, but there was no way Kari was going to run the risk of getting called out for having an animal without the proper vaccinations or paperwork.

  The veterinary office was on a county highway just outside of town and shared a parking lot with the feed store next door, which conveniently also sold pet food and supplies alongside cattle fencing and tractor parts. It overlooked fields full of hay and orderly rows of young corn plants, but the building itself was thoroughly modern and surrounded by neat landscaping and areas set aside for dogs to be walked before or after going inside.

  The building was one story high and had a clean-looking exterior of white siding under a black shingled roof. There were two wings coming off the main section, with exam rooms to the right and a boarding kennel to the left. A narrow walkway led to the entrance, which opened into a wide reception room that smelled like bleach mixed with some kind of lemon cleanser, and only a hint of dog. An older couple with an equally elderly hound sat in one corner, chatting amicably with a young woman with a cat carrier at her feet. The carrier emitted the occasional unhappy-sounding yowl. On a bench across the room, a hyperactive black Labrador puppy strained at the end of its leash, clearly wanting to go make friends, while its owner, a local business owner Kari knew vaguely, scolded him halfheartedly while also slipping him treats.