Furbidden Fatality

by Deborah Blake

  Steve’s shoulders relaxed a bit, although he still looked grim. “So, he was doing it to you too, huh.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Letting a dog out so he could claim he found it roaming loose. I’m sure he did that with Ranger, although I never could prove it.” He glanced back over toward the doghouse.

  “I loved that damned dog. Saved up for two years to buy him. Irish wolfhounds don’t come cheap and professors at tiny upstate New York colleges don’t make much money, but I’ve wanted one since I was a kid.” He blinked rapidly a couple of times. “Ranger was a great dog. After the second time he supposedly got loose, I locked the gate when he was outside. He was too big and active a dog to leave stuck in a house all day, although now I wished I’d done it. He might have been miserable, but at least he would still be alive.”

  “You really think Myers let the dog out on purpose?” Kari asked. She was still having a hard time wrapping her head around the idea that a dog warden would so blatantly break the rules.

  “Hey, you said he was digging under your fence. What do you think he was doing?” Steve growled. “Trying to improve your drainage?” He lifted up his glasses so he could wipe at his eyes. “You know, I haven’t had the heart to get rid of Ranger’s stuff. I still miss that dog every day. I didn’t kill Myers, but I’m not going to pretend I’m sorry someone did.”

  Was he protesting too much? Kari wasn’t sure. He certainly wasn’t pretending not to hate the former dog warden.

  Steve went on, still gazing back at the fenced yard with his hands clenched at his side. “It’s just too bad they didn’t do it sooner. Maybe I’d still have Ranger, and that poor woman wouldn’t have lost her dog too.”

  “Poor woman?” Kari asked. “Who do you mean?”

  “Georgia Travis,” he said. “You haven’t heard about her yet? You think I hated Bill Myers, you should talk to Georgia. She used to be a state trooper, but she was forced to retire after she got hurt in the line of duty. Fought like heck to adopt the K-9 dog she worked with, and was finally allowed to keep him. A German shepherd, I think. I never met either of them, but I heard through the grapevine that Myers took her dog away too, not long before he died, and she actually confronted him at the Last Stop bar and threatened to shoot him. You want someone who had a reason to hate Myers, go talk to Georgia Travis.”

  Six

  Georgia Travis,” Sara said, tapping a pencil idly on the desk. “Yes, she was one of my students.”

  Kari and Bryn rolled their eyes at each other, since everyone between the ages of fifteen and fifty who had grown up in Lakeview had probably passed through Sara’s classroom at one time or another. Kari thought this made Sara the perfect secret weapon. If she didn’t know someone, she knew someone who did.

  “Well?” Bryn asked impatiently. “What did you think of her?”

  Sara tossed the pencil down. “I didn’t think, when she was handing in her paper on the subtext in Shakespeare’s sonnets, Gee, I wonder if she’ll grow up and murder a dog warden. If that’s what you were asking.” She took a sip of her tea as she pondered the question.

  “I will say, she’s probably capable of the crime,” the older woman finally said reluctantly. “She was the captain of the girls’ soccer team, and tough as nails. I remember during her senior year they were in the finals and she played with a broken foot rather than sit out the game. Then, of course, she went on to become a state trooper, until she was attacked during a routine traffic stop.

  “Shot, I think, although I don’t remember the specifics. We prayed for her at church, and I heard that she recovered, but her injuries were severe enough to force her into retirement. It’s a pity. I suspect she was very good at the job.” She put the teacup down next to a pile of papers on the desk they all sat around in the front room of the nearly ready shelter. “So she’s capable enough to have done it, and probably not at all squeamish. But that doesn’t make her a murderer.”

  “Did you hear anything about what happened between her and Myers, or about the dog he took from her?” Kari asked. “Steve Clark seemed to think she was pretty furious, although if he were the killer, he’d probably say that to point suspicions in another direction.”

  Sara shook her head, making the turquoise streak in her gray hair swing back and forth. “I don’t think so,” she said. “But we can go to the town hall and talk to Rachel Kertzmann. She’s the former student of mine who works in the main offices. She’s usually on top of all the local gossip. I call her my personal information superhighway. While we’re there, we can ask her to look into the court cases and tickets Myers was involved in, and maybe find out if she knows of anyone else who might have had a beef with him that was bad enough to warrant murder as a solution.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Kari loved Lakeview’s small Main Street. It was really only three blocks long or so; the buildings were old and quaint (although admittedly, in some cases, a bit the worse for wear), and the shops and restaurants were individual and quirky. No big chain stores here. Her favorite was the bookstore, Paging All Readers, but there was also an antiques store aptly named Old Stuff where she planned to get some furniture for the farmhouse as soon as she could find a minute, and a thrift shop called Downtown and Upcycled where she had bought most of her clothes since she’d moved back.

  A small bakery sat next to an Indian restaurant, the Good Karma Deli, and if you weren’t in the mood for either of those, there was a pizza place that was filled with college students during the school year and tourists the rest of the time. The locals tended to prefer the diner Kari used to work in, but there were enough eateries to satisfy almost anyone’s taste.

  For those who were looking for entertainment, there was also an arts and crafts store (which Kari rarely went into, since she had no crafty abilities whatsoever), a shop that featured knitting and sewing supplies, and a single-screen movie theater that doubled as a performance space for local concerts and plays. Like most of the other structures, it was built out of red brick, with odd architectural details like the occasional gargoyle face on the side of a second-floor wall where you’d least expect it.

  And of course, there was Blue Heron Lake, for which the town was named. It sat at the far edge of the main route, just past the ice cream shop. Not a very large lake, as lakes in upstate New York went, but many of the ones in the Catskills were on the smaller side. The residents of Lakeview liked to say that what their lake lacked in size it made up for in beauty, with rocky shorelines and crystal clear water.

  During the summer, the lake was popular with tourists and locals alike for boating, swimming, and fishing. Although, of course, those who lived there year-round never shared the secrets of the very best spots. As far as Kari was concerned, there was no place prettier in the world, and even when she’d been living in a crappy apartment, she had never questioned her decision to return to the place she considered home.

  The town hall looked less intimidating in the daylight, when she wasn’t standing in the courtroom. There were two doors in the front of the building. The one on the right led to the court, and the one on the left opened into a hallway that led to a series of offices. Engraved signs on the wall pointed to the offices of the town clerk, city code enforcement, public works, and other various places responsible for keeping the cogs of a small town working.

  Rachel’s desk was toward the front of a room that housed a variety of basic and sometimes overlapping functions. Three women and one man sat at computers typing furiously, while another woman talked into a phone tucked between her ear and her chin while looking something up in a battered file folder.

  Sara walked decisively through the slightly chaotic room and introduced Kari to a thin woman with shoulder-length light brown hair and the pale skin of someone who rarely made it outside during daylight hours. Wire-rimmed half-glasses perched on a snub nose, and she wore a light blue cardigan against the arcti
c chill of the hyperactive air-conditioning.

  “Hi,” Rachel said, rising briefly to greet them before gesturing them into the two chairs in front of her desk and resuming her seat. “Nice to meet you, Kari. I really admire what you’re doing with the shelter. I’ve been thinking about getting a cat to keep me company, so let me know when you’re open.”

  Kari and Sara looked at each other. “One-Eyed Jack,” they both said, like a slightly demented feline-centric Greek chorus. One-Eyed Jack was one of the cats still left at the shelter. He was only five, and really sweet, but he’d lost an eye to an infection as a kitten, and no one had been interested in adopting him. Bryn called him her pirate kitty. He spent most of his time wandering around looking for a lap to curl up in, and only occasionally walked into the furniture.

  “We’ve got the perfect cat for you,” Sara said confidently. “Stop by any time. But in the meanwhile, as I told you on the phone, we could use your help.”

  “Bill Myers,” Rachel said, screwing up her mouth as though she’d eaten something sour. “He made my first couple of years here really uncomfortable. Kept coming around asking me to help him look things up he could have found perfectly well on his own computer. Inviting me to lunch no matter how many times I said no. Would you believe he actually pinched my bottom once at the office Christmas party?” She shook her head. “He was such a jerk.”

  “That seems to be the general consensus,” Kari said in a grim tone. “Obviously at least one person eventually found him to be unbearable.”

  Rachel grimaced. “I’m sorry. I forgot you were the one who found his body.” She fiddled with a couple of pens, moving them around and then finally plunking them into a cup holding a dozen more. “That was insensitive of me.”

  “Not at all,” Kari said. “I was hardly a fan.”

  “But that’s why we’re here,” Sara said, taking control of the conversation before it could veer further off track. “Believe it or not, the police seem to think that Kari killed Myers. So we’re looking into his professional history, trying to figure out who else might have had a motive. People like Steve Clark and Georgia Travis, whose dogs he seized. We were wondering if you could research some things for us.”

  Rachel opened her mouth, possibly to argue, but Sara never gave her the chance.

  “Just things that are in the public record, of course. We could go digging ourselves, but you would have a much easier time accessing it all.” Sara gestured toward the computer on the desk between them. “And I’m guessing you already know quite a bit off the top of your head.”

  “Well, you’re not wrong there,” Rachel said, plucking a pen back out of the cup and rolling it back and forth across the surface of her desk. “I guess I could probably pull some information for you about things like court appearances and the judge’s decisions. Pretty much everything the dog warden—and most other town employees—does is available to town residents. It’s just that no one ever asks.”

  “We’re asking,” Sara said decisively, but with a smile.

  “Okay,” Rachel said. “I guess it won’t be a problem.” But she hunched her shoulders as another woman walked up to the desk. Kari recognized Marge Farrow, the court clerk who had been in the room when they’d had to appear before the judge.

  In the courtroom, Marge had been nearly invisible. She was one of those women who seemed to hover somewhere in middle age, with graying blond hair twisted into a bun, a few extra pounds padding her hips and waist, and neat but drab clothing that might have been designed to discourage one’s gaze from lingering in her direction. Closer up, Kari could discern piercing blue eyes and a hint of iron backbone in her walk. Interestingly, Rachel appeared to be intimidated by her, for reasons that weren’t immediately obvious. Maybe the court clerk carried more weight in the building’s hierarchy than Kari knew about?

  Marge’s first words were certainly innocuous enough, and her tone was mild and friendly. “Hello, Rachel,” she said. “I was just checking to see if you had the records from last week’s court recording typed up for me yet.” She nodded at Kari and Sara. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your meeting.”

  Rachel’s fingers twitched and the pen she was fiddling with rolled across the desktop. Sara reached out and adroitly stopped it before it could fall over the edge.

  “I’m almost done, Ms. Farrow,” Rachel said. “I should have them to you within the hour.”

  Marge raised an eyebrow, gazing pointedly at the two visitors.

  “Ah, this is Sara Hanover and Kari Stuart. They were just asking me do a public records search.” Rachel bit her lip, smearing the light pink lipstick she wore. “That’s perfectly legal.”

  “Of course it is,” Marge said. If she recognized Kari from the other night at court, she didn’t say so. “As long as you stick to the open records. And don’t let it interfere with the rest of your work.”

  Sara sat up a little straighter in her chair. “It was my understanding that assisting the town’s residents with inquiries is actually part of Ms. Kertzmann’s duties,” she said lightly. “Was I misinformed? We certainly don’t want to cause her any problems.”

  “Not at all,” Marge said, some expression Kari couldn’t quite discern flitting over her otherwise placid face, like a ripple in a clear pond. “You’re quite right.” She turned to Rachel. “Let me know if any of their questions are something I can help with.” Nodding at the other two, she added, “Have a nice day,” before walking away.

  “Is she your boss?” Kari asked Rachel.

  The clerk snorted. “No, she’s not, although you’d never know it from the way she treats me.”

  “She seems nice enough,” Sara said. “Maybe she thought we were bothering you.”

  “Ha,” Rachel said. “She’s just nosy. Marge is one of those people who always seem to know everything that’s going on in the whole building. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she listens in on phone conversations and eavesdrops in the bathrooms. I swear, it’s like she can see into my head to what I’m thinking. It kind of freaks me out.”

  She took the pen Sara handed back to her. “Marge is okay, I guess. I just always feel like I’m doing something wrong when she’s around.”

  “And she’s going to report you to the principal,” Sara said, nodding. “There was a teacher like that at the school for a while. People fell all over themselves trying not to get on her bad side, and they were never really sure why.”

  “Yes, exactly like that,” the younger woman said. “She never quite comes out and criticizes you, but still . . .” She looked at Sara curiously. “What happened with the teacher? Did she turn out to be okay after all?”

  “Oh goodness, no,” Sara said with a laugh. “It turned out she was carrying on a torrid affair with the janitor after hours and they were both fired. Last I heard she was working up at the assisted living facility in Riverton and intimidating a lot of old folks.”

  “Wow,” Rachel said. “I guess you just never know about people, do you?”

  “No,” Sara said in a thoughtful tone, gazing in the direction Marge had gone. “You never do.”

  * * *

  * * *

  A soft paw tapped Kari’s cheek. This was followed by a more insistent meow.

  “Oh, no,” Kari moaned, hiding her head under her pillow. “Not again.”

  After their visit to the town hall, she’d worked at the shelter until after nine, helping with the cleaning and then plowing through the paperwork for grant applications that Daisy had handed over with a sigh of relief. Dinner had been a peanut butter and jelly sandwich eaten in front of the television, to the palpable disgust of the orange cats and Fred, who had clearly been hoping for something more appetizing. Queenie, who still got the yummy special food for kittens, didn’t seem to care.

  Queenie meowed again and Kari shifted the pillow to look at the clock on the bedside table. Two a.m. Great. She’d
had a whole three hours of sleep. Once she rolled over, she could hear the faint sound of dogs barking from the direction of the shelter.

  “One . . . two . . .” The phone rang, right on cue. “Hello, Mr. Lee. Yes, I hear them. Yes, I’m very sorry. I’m going to go out and check right now.” She held the phone farther away from her ear but she could still make out irritated squawking. “It really isn’t necessary to call the police, Mr. Lee. I’m sure it’s just a bear trying to get into the garbage again. I’m sorry they woke you up.” He hung up, after a few choice words.

  “Well, that was rude,” Kari said to Queenie. “I guess I’d better get dressed and see what has them all riled up.” She grabbed her pants off the back of the overstuffed chair she’d thrown them onto when she’d finally crawled into bed, and tried to pull them on without falling over. “It better not be another dead body, that’s all I’m saying.” Kari shook her head. “You know your life is messed up when you’re actively hoping for a bear.”

  She grabbed the big flashlight on her way out the door, feeling an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu. At least this time she was able to close the door behind her before the kitten could get out, although the echo of disgruntled meows followed her up the path to the sanctuary.

  The night air was warm and redolent with the sweet scent of the wild roses that grew to one side, sprawling in thorny splendor and occasionally reaching out to snag an unsuspecting passerby. Kari was wise to their tricks, though, and dodged them without thinking, her attention focused on the barking dogs and whatever it was that had set them off this time.

  It occurred to her that wandering around in the dark in a place where a man had been murdered might not be the smartest move ever, but it wasn’t as though she could just ignore the barking, and she wasn’t about to call the police to come hold her hand. Sheriff Richardson would just love that. And if she called one of the other volunteers and waited for them to show up, Mr. Lee would probably have filed a complaint before they could even get there.