Furbidden Fatality

by Deborah Blake

  “A bribe, Ms. Stuart?” Richardson asked. He looked as though he had been up all night. Dark circles ringed his eyes and an electric razor sticking out of a partially closed drawer suggested that he had just finished shaving here instead of at home.

  “Only if you think that would work, Sheriff,” Kari said, placing two containers of coffee and a container of muffins on the desk between them. “I wasn’t sure how you took your coffee, but I didn’t want to get one and drink it in front of you, so I took a chance on a latte. The muffins are blueberry, bran, and chocolate with chocolate chips, and I made them fresh this morning. Well, last night. Never mind, it doesn’t matter.” She realized she was babbling and shut her mouth with a snap. No wonder Carter had talked so much last night. Richardson seemed to have that effect on people.

  “A latte is great,” Richardson said gratefully. “The station coffee is just as bad as you hear about on television.” He hovered over the bran muffins for a moment before giving in and taking one of the chocolate ones instead. “But I’m afraid that bringing me treats doesn’t change anything.”

  “I didn’t really think it would,” Kari said. She handed over a thumb drive. “This is the video footage you asked for. It shows Carter and Overton quite clearly, I’m afraid.”

  Richardson sighed. “I didn’t expect anything else. On behalf of the Lakeview Sheriff’s Department, I would like to apologize for the criminal actions of my officers and all the difficulty they caused you.” He paused and winced. “You can send the bills for all the previous vandalism incidents here as well as the one for last night’s broken window.”

  “That’s not necessary, Sheriff,” Kari said. “I assume that if they are found guilty in court, they’ll have to pay for the damages. I can wait for that.”

  “Overton has already pleaded guilty and spilled his guts about Carter,” Richardson said, shaking his head. A few stray muffin crumbs scattered over the paperwork on his desk. “I expect Carter will do the same once we show him that we have him on film. Either way, both deputies have been fired and Overton is being charged with criminal mischief, which is a misdemeanor. Carter, as the ringleader, will face charges of vandalism, harassment, and a few other things.”

  “But not murder?” Kari said.

  Richardson looked, if possible, even more disgusted. “No. Not murder. His original alibi didn’t hold up—apparently he left the poker game earlier than he said. But when he realized he was going to be arrested for murder, he admitted he’d actually been with his mistress, who is one of the hairdressers at the Bashful Beauty Boutique. She corroborated his story. He was with her until right before he and Overton went on duty. So he’s now out a job and a wife, but he can’t have killed Myers.”

  “Drat,” Kari said. “I’d really hoped he was the one and this would be over.”

  The sheriff raised an eyebrow at her over his coffee. “Carter accused you of trying to pin the crime on him because you had done it yourself or were covering for Daisy.”

  “Really?” Kari said. She had a muffin in front of her but she was mostly just playing with it. There was too big a lump in her throat to be able to swallow anything more than a latte. “I’d like to point out that I only met Daisy when I bought the shelter. I barely know her. Certainly not well enough to risk everything to cover it up if she had committed a murder. Which she didn’t.

  “Plus,” she added, “the information I gave you about Carter and Myers working together turned out to be true. So I’m hardly trying to ‘pin’ anything on him. He really is guilty of a whole bunch of crimes.”

  “That doesn’t mean you’re not guilty of the murder itself, Ms. Stuart,” the sheriff reminded her. “The two sets of crimes could be completely unrelated. Maybe when you found out about Carter and Myers, you decided to give me that info as a distraction. It doesn’t change the fact that you were the one found at the murder scene and that you might have caught the victim in the act of digging under your fence. Maybe you lost your temper, seeing him go after your dogs. Or maybe you thought you were acting in self-defense.”

  “Oh, come on,” Kari said. “You don’t really believe that, do you?” She sure hoped he didn’t, although when he put it that way, she almost believed it herself, and she knew she hadn’t done it.

  Richardson shrugged. “I used to see you at the diner, carrying those heavy trays full of food on your shoulder. You’re plenty strong enough to have done it. I’m afraid you’re not off the hook yet, even if you were right about a few things and the victim of a crime.”

  “What about Carter’s claim that Marge Farrow murdered Myers?” Kari asked, trying not to sound desperate.

  The sheriff grunted. “That man can’t figure out which story he’s telling from one minute to the next, and I wouldn’t believe him if he said the sun was hot. But I’m looking into it. That’s the best you’re going to get for now.”

  “So still don’t leave town?” Kari said, getting up from her chair.

  “Still don’t leave town,” he said. “And try to stay out of trouble.”

  Like I hadn’t been trying that already. Too bad she didn’t seem to be very good at it.

  Fifteen

  Once they’d both given their official statements, Kari drove herself and Mickey back to the shelter. Her brother pitched in to help with surprising enthusiasm for someone who normally didn’t get up before noon if he didn’t have to. The fact that he was assisting Bryn might have had something to do with that. Kari didn’t have the heart to tell him it was a lost cause. Besides, it amused her to see him cleaning the dog yard.

  Other than a quick text from Suz telling her that Marge had been seen going into the sheriff’s office and hadn’t come out for over an hour (news courtesy of the diner grapevine at lunch), the rest of the day went pretty smoothly until around three.

  Then things went downhill fast. Kari suspected this was not a coincidence.

  “Uh-oh,” Daisy said, looking out the window. “That new dog warden is back.”

  “Jack Falco?” Kari said, peering out over her shoulder. “I wonder what he wants.”

  “Nothing good, I’ll bet,” Daisy muttered darkly, flicking her long braid back out of her way.

  Kari hoped the other woman was wrong, but the expression on Jack’s face when he came in wasn’t encouraging. Nor was the official-looking paperwork he had in his hands.

  “Hi, Kari,” he said, then nodded at Daisy. “You must be Daisy.” He held out the papers. “I’m afraid I’m the bearer of bad tidings.”

  “None of the dogs have gotten loose,” Kari said. “We’ve been really careful.”

  “I know,” he said. “This is about Buster. Apparently Marge Farrow found Bill Myers’s notes on the case and contacted the man who claims Buster bit him. This is a summons to appear in court next Thursday, a week from tomorrow. I’m very sorry.”

  “Marge found the notes,” Kari said. “I see.” Was there a connection between Marge being questioned about Myers’s murder and the conveniently located witness? Somehow it felt a little too timely. Or a little bit too much like spite. The hand she held out for the summons only shook a little, she was glad to see.

  Jack excused himself and quickly left, backing out the door with another apology. The faintest aroma of Old Spice lingered where he’d been standing. And to think, that used to be Kari’s favorite aftershave.

  As soon as he’d gone, Daisy sank onto one of the stools behind the desk and burst into tears, burying her head in her hands.

  Bryn, who had come in from the kennels as soon as the dog warden’s car pulled up, ran across the room and put her arms around Daisy’s shaking shoulders. “This is all your fault,” she said to Kari. “You just had to go stirring things up.”

  “Hey!” Kari said. “That’s not fair.” After all, they’d all agreed it was necessary to look into who might have killed Myers. She had been trying to help Daisy, not to ment
ion Buster. But Bryn clearly wasn’t in the mood to be rational.

  “We should have just left it alone,” the younger woman said. “Everything is worse now. Maybe it would have been better if you’d never bought the place.”

  Part of Kari thought Bryn was just distraught and taking it out on the person who was the easiest target. But a part of her wondered if maybe the girl was right. What if Kari had screwed everything up? Even without this latest development, half the time she felt like she had no idea what she was doing. Maybe she’d bitten off more than she could chew. Maybe the entire thing had been a mistake from the start.

  Queenie jumped up on Kari’s shoulder and rubbed her little furry black face against the side of Kari’s jaw. “Meow?”

  Kari hugged the kitten and then headed back to visit with Buster while she still could. They would think of something. They just had to.

  * * *

  * * *

  Two days later, Sara came rushing in after taking her lunch break and pulled Kari and Bryn away from the last of the cage cleaning. Bryn had apologized to Kari for overreacting, and the two of them had returned to their previous cautious détente.

  “What on earth are you so excited about?” Kari asked. Sara was usually the most rock steady of them all. Kari didn’t think she’d ever seen the former teacher so worked up.

  “You are not going to believe what I heard,” Sara said, putting the to-go boxes she’d brought back for the others down on the front desk and turning around to face them. “They’ve arrested Marge Farrow for Myers’s murder.”

  “What?” Kari couldn’t believe it. She groped behind her for a chair to sit in and sank down into it before she fell over. “I guess the sheriff took Carter’s accusations seriously after all.”

  “I’ll say,” Sara replied, leaning against the desk. “According to the diner grapevine, which is rarely wrong, he called in a forensic accountant. They specialize in looking into fraudulent activity. And apparently they found it. This accountant was able to prove that Marge had been embezzling court funds, probably for years.”

  “That doesn’t mean she killed the dog warden, though, does it?” Bryn said, opening her container and munching on a couple of fries. The diner made the best fries in town by far, using fresh potatoes with the skin still on.

  “Ha!” Sara said. “It gets better.”

  “Better?” Kari said. She ate a couple of her own fries, dragging them through a pile of the diner’s special spicy ketchup. After all, a person had to keep her strength up.

  “Well, not better for Marge,” Sara admitted. “On the strength of the audit results, the sheriff was able to get a search warrant for Marge’s house and car. In her house, they found large amounts of cash, and get this, plane tickets out of the country. There were differing stories about where she was supposedly going, but far away from here seemed to be the general consensus.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily add up to murder,” Kari said. She was all in favor of Marge being the guilty party, but it still wasn’t sounding solid.

  “Oh, I’m not done yet,” Sara said, looking almost smug. She flipped the turquoise streak in her hair for emphasis. “Get this. In the trunk of her car, they found a rifle, weights, and a tarp. And when the sheriff confronted her, she admitted that she had been planning to lure Myers to the lake, shoot him, and then dump his body where it was too deep to be found. Cindy at the diner says Marge has won awards for target shooting, so she could easily have done it. Plus, there were texts on her phone arranging for them to meet up.”

  Kari felt as though she should applaud. That was one hell of a story. And Sara had only been gone for lunch for half an hour.

  “But wait,” Bryn said, munching thoughtfully on another fry. “That’s not what happened. I mean, he wasn’t shot. He was strangled with his snare pole. How did Marge explain that?”

  Sara rolled her eyes. “According to Cindy, Marge swears that somebody else beat her to it and she didn’t kill Myers. But she’d have to say that, wouldn’t she? I mean, she admitted to the planned murder because they had all the evidence, but she’s not stupid enough to actually confess to doing it.”

  “The sheriff arrested her, though, right?” Bryn said. “So he must think she did it.”

  “One would assume so,” Sara said.

  Just then the phone rang. Bryn picked it up, because she was closest, and listened to whoever was on the other end for a couple of minutes before hanging up with a strange expression on her face.

  “Speak of the devil,” she said. “That was the sheriff, Kari. He wants you to come down and talk to him.”

  * * *

  * * *

  So you’re officially no longer under suspicion,” the sheriff said, leaning back in his chair. “And we’ve finished gathering evidence from the crime scene, so you can go ahead and put your new fence up. The sheriff’s department appreciates your patience.”

  Kari thought that calling her patient about the whole thing might be a bit of an exaggeration, but she definitely breathed a sigh of relief at no longer being a murder suspect. Still . . . she had to wonder if they had the right person locked up.

  “I heard that Marge had a gun in her car and was planning to shoot the dog warden,” she said, hesitant to even bring it up. “If she already had a plan, why kill him out at the sanctuary? I mean, doesn’t that seem a little odd?”

  Richardson rolled his eyes at her. “Everything about this case seems a little odd, Ms. Stuart. Including discovering that one of my deputies had been involved in illegal activities right under my nose for years without my realizing it. Believe me, I’m not happy with the entire mess. But we have enough evidence to prove that Marge Farrow had motive, means, and opportunity for the crime. That’s good enough for me.”

  “Why would she change her approach at the last minute, though?” Kari asked. “She doesn’t strike me as the kind to go off a plan once she had one set up.”

  “She doesn’t strike me as the type to steal money or murder her accomplice either,” the sheriff said, sounding a little exasperated. “People are full of surprises. We’re assuming that she was following him, saw a better opportunity, and took it. Case closed.” He gave her a wry look. “Do you like being a murder suspect, Ms. Stuart?”

  Kari shuddered. “Holy crap, no. It has been awful.”

  “Then I suggest you just be grateful we arrested someone other than you,” he said. Then added in a slightly less acerbic tone, “I appreciate all your help on this matter, although it may not have seemed like it at the time. We might not have gotten to Marge before she left town if it hadn’t been for your information about Deputy Carter. So thank you, and good luck with the sanctuary.”

  He stood up. The interview was clearly over.

  “Always happy to be a good citizen,” Kari said. “If you’re ever looking for another dog, feel free to come up and see us.”

  The sheriff nodded, and she walked out the door. She was definitely relieved, but something about the whole situation nagged at her. The sheriff was right, though. It was time to get back to working on the shelter and minding her own business.

  She had almost made it to the front door of the station when the desk clerk hailed her and waved her over to his desk.

  “I’ve got a message for you,” the man said. With his squat build and prominent jowls, he reminded her a little bit of a bulldog they had at the shelter. His nametag said Sergeant Dooley and he had a handlebar mustache that wouldn’t have looked out of place in an old western saloon.

  “A message for me?” she said, puzzled.

  “One of our prisoners left it for you,” he said, a disapproving look on his homely face. “Marge Farrow would like to talk to you. She says it is urgent.”

  Sixteen

  Somehow, Kari had thought that no one could visit an inmate at the jail except a lawyer, or maybe a member of their family. Apparently that
wasn’t true. At least at this point, while Marge was still in a holding cell at the back of the sheriff’s department. Kari just had to sign in with an officer and show her ID. Then she waited about fifteen minutes for Marge to be brought into the visitor’s room. A counter separated them, and an officer stood at the back of the otherwise empty room. The wooden chairs were stiff and uncomfortable, and the room stank of sweat and disinfectant. Not a place anyone would want to linger, which was probably the point.

  Kari had no idea why Marge wanted to see her. It wasn’t as though they were friends. In fact, the last Kari knew, Marge was so angry with Kari’s interfering, she’d sicced the new dog warden on her and threatened Buster.

  Buster was the only reason Kari had come when the court clerk asked her to. If there was any way to help him, Kari was willing to take it, even if it meant talking to a supposed murderer.

  When Marge entered the room, she was wearing the county regulation prisoner clothing, but her hair was still carefully brushed and she looked as neat and poised as if she were walking into her own courtroom. Only the fine lines around her eyes and a certain tension in her shoulders gave away the fact that she wasn’t as at ease as she was trying to appear.

  Once she was seated opposite Kari, with the bland gray concrete walls as a backdrop behind her, she clasped her hands together in front of her on the counter.

  “Thank you for coming,” Marge said. “I wasn’t sure if you would.”

  Kari shrugged. “To be honest, I’m not quite sure why I’m here. I can’t imagine why you want to talk to me, of all people.”

  Marge bit her lip. “Because I believe you are the only one who can help me,” she said, reluctance clear in her voice. “And I really do need help.”

  Wow. The woman had nerve. You had to give her that.