She shook her head. "Not that I notice."
Ramirez got a pair of tweezers and removed the picture. She held it up with the tweezers, and they could all see it was blank on the back. Then she slipped it back into its spot in the locket.
Drake shrugged. "Well, it hardly seems relevant to the case."
Maggie pulled out her phone.
"What are you doing?" Drake asked.
She put her phone down by her side. "Nothing."
Ibarra picked up a clipboard with the list of evidence numbers and turned his back to Maggie. "Which are the numbers with the shoes?" he asked Drake, and the older officer turned his back to Maggie, too. The two men went over the numbers.
Maggie lifted her phone and quickly snapped a couple of pictures of the open locket.
Officer Ramirez cleared her throat and Maggie jumped. She quickly put her phone away.
She waited for Ramirez to say something to Drake. But all the younger woman said was, "Lauren was a good friend of mine."
Maggie nodded. "Me, too."
"So you got what you came for?" Ibarra asked as he led her out.
"Yes and no."
They stood on the steps in front of the police station. Her little dusty blackberry car was parked there, and the two dogs could be seen through the open windows, their giant heads practically hitting the top of the car as they sat on the back seat waiting for her.
"What yes and what no?" Ibarra asked as he escorted her all the way to the car.
"Yes, there was a picture inside like I thought. Lauren must have found the little locket just the way I did, when she was playing with the beads. And no, it doesn't help with the case. She told me she had cared for someone and he died. That picture could be twenty years old for all we know. It can't relate to something now."
She unlocked the car with a chirp.
Ibarra opened the door for her and she got in.
He stood with his hand on the door. "So what are you going to do with the photograph you took of the locket?"
She started to deny breaking the evidence rules and taking photographs, but then shrugged. "I don't know. See if I can figure out who he is. He may have family still living. It may help fill in Lauren's background."
Ibarra leaned down. His face was very close to hers. "So we're on for dinner?" he whispered. "Tonight?"
"Let's put it off a couple days, okay?" she said. "I should go home and get some sleep before I fall over."
He nodded. "Okay. How about Friday?"
"All right," she said. "Friday."
He went back into the police station.
Chapter Seventeen
The next morning Maggie took the boys for a walk along millionaire's row. The three of them managed to walk the mile without getting tangled up in the leashes more than half a dozen times.
But by the time they made it back home, Hendrix was showing a pronounced limp. "What's up, boy?" she asked him. He sat down in the driveway and didn't answer.
Jasper hovered close by, worried about his big brother. "Jasper, Sit," she said firmly, and for once he obeyed and didn't get in her way.
She lifted Hendrix's paws one by one and checked for stickers. Nothing. She parted the huge toes on his paws and felt around in between, thinking maybe a rock had gotten stuck in there. But again, nothing.
So she ran her hands gently over his limbs, looking for a reaction. She felt up and down each of his legs, pressing just a bit to see if he responded.
He took her messing with his feet and legs in his usual stoic way.
"I wish you could tell me what's going on," she muttered to him, and he muttered a little grumble of agreement that didn't help her understand at all.
So she helped him up the steps into her tiny house. Jasper followed behind, looking concerned.
Hendrix lay down on the floor and put his head on his paws. He let out a big sigh.
Jasper went over and stood by Hendrix, sticking his long nose into his face and licking him.
"Don't tease him, Jasper. He's hurting," Maggie said. But the younger dog didn't want to play. He jumped up on the daybed and got his favorite toy, a little purple stuffed sheep. He brought it to Hendrix and offered it to him.
"That's sweet, Jasper," she said. "Sharing your beloved sheeple with your friend. What a good boy."
Hendrix ignored the toy, so Jasper set it in front of the old dog's nose, and then lay down next to his buddy and put his head against his side, wanting to offer comfort.
She got out some dog treats.
Jasper immediately pranced over to her and gave her a big bump to let her know he was ready to eat something. He barked at her, and she put her hands up to cover her ears, a bit too late to protect them from the ear-splitting sound.
He grinned at her. He seemed to think her hands flying up over her ears was some signal that she liked what he was doing, because he barked again.
"Oh, hush," she said.
Through this, Hendrix lay in the same spot, not moving.
Once Jasper sat for her, she gave him a treat. Then she called Hendrix to her, and he got up with his usual prompt obedience. But she could tell it hurt, and so she called him off and told him to lie down again. He did, gratefully.
She went to where he lay and gave him a treat. He crunched it thoughtfully, but without enthusiasm.
She watched him do it, waiting until he'd finished chewing and swallowed the biscuit.
"You're really in pain, aren't you? Did you injure yourself trying to keep up with Jasper?" she asked him. But he couldn't answer.
She sat down at her craft table and watched the old dog. She couldn't tell if he was just tired and sore, or if he'd actually gotten hurt in some way. Did he have a chronic condition that she'd accidentally worsened by taking him for a long walk at the younger dog's speedy pace, or was this a new injury? She couldn't answer that either.
It made her aware that she actually knew very little about the dog.
Very much like his owner, Hendrix was a bit of an enigma. Where had Lauren gotten him? How old was he?
She went over and sat on the floor with him. He rested his head on her lap, and she ran her hand over his big muzzle. His coat was black and tan, and it included shades from coal black to pale cream, with wisps of charcoal gray and rich auburn mixed in. "You have very pretty coloring," she told him while Jasper pranced around the two of them.
"Yes, I know you're the prettiest boy," she told Jasper. "But Hendrix is very nice, too."
Jasper preened and strutted and flipped his head up, making his russet coat shine and his white ruff move like a cascading river across his magnificent chest. Maggie laughed. It reminded her of Reese's unconscious beauty, and that made her stop smiling. She missed Reese, in all his complicated, messy glory.
She looked down at the dog with his head in her lap. Hendrix had closed his eyes. She rubbed his glossy black muzzle. There were some gray hairs among the black ones, and she wondered if that was part of his coloring, or if he was getting grizzled from age.
He opened his big brown eyes and looked at her, and she thought his expression looked a bit pained, though he didn't say anything, or move away from her touch.
Jasper stopped his prancing and stuck his long nose over her shoulder to see Hendrix. "What do you think?" she asked him, and he barked right in her ear.
Once she got her hearing back, she made a decision. She piled both boys into her car, bringing Jasper along to provide Hendrix with moral support.
Hendrix didn't seem to appreciate the gesture.
The Carita Cove Vet Clinic was a nice place that treated all comers alike, whether they were the spoiled Shih Tsus of the vacationing Hollywood housewives, or the barn cats of the working stiffs in town. Maggie adored her vet, Dr. Barcellos, who had once saved Jasper's life when he'd been shot in the shoulder.
The doctor was, as usual, patient with her many questions.
"He's at least ten years old, I'd say." He was looking into Hendrix's open mouth and examining his te
eth. He moved on to the old dog's hips. "But that's just a guess. He's either a younger dog who's had a hard life, or an older dog who has been well cared-for."
"And his limp?"
"Appears to be arthritis," Dr. Barcellos said. He held up an x-ray. "There's nothing broken. And there's no sign of hip dysplasia, which is a miracle in a big dog like this one."
Maggie glanced worriedly at Jasper, and Dr. Barcellos laughed. "I checked your boy's hips when you first brought him to me, remember? He's fine, too, so there's no need to worry about him."
Jasper thanked him with a hip bump, and the doctor patted him affectionately, and rubbed the spot on Jasper's shoulder where he'd operated on him.
Then the doctor tapped on his tablet, looking up prescriptions. "I'll give Hendrix a mild anti-inflammatory, and I'd like you to put him on some nutritional supplements as well to see if we can make him more comfortable." He wrote up a prescription. "I think this is a good starting dosage, and we'll increase it if necessary."
Hendrix took the news with a wise nod as if agreeing that the medication dosage was appropriate, but Jasper fussed and bumped at the older dog, wanting to help.
"Oh, Jasper, knock it off," Maggie said. "If you don't behave, I'll have the doctor give you a shot!"
Jasper ignored her, knowing it was a bluff. But he sat when she told him to, and whined sympathetically through the rest of the exam.
"Did Lauren Douglas ever bring Hendrix to see you?" Maggie asked.
He looked surprised. "Lauren Douglas? The woman on the news?"
"Yes," Maggie said, thinking how sad that Lauren had become simply the woman on the news, the victim of a horrible crime. "This is—was—her dog."
"I see." The doctor shook his head. "No, I haven't seen Hendrix before. I would remember such a wonderful dog." He patted him on the chest, and Hendrix accepted that with his usual grave dignity. "But she could have seen one of the other vets at the clinic. Do you want me to check?"
"I'd appreciate it if you would," Maggie said. "I'm trying to learn more about his background." She didn't mention that she also wanted to learn more about Lauren's background, because she was not investigating. Not at all.
He looked it up on his tablet. "Douglas. Let's see. She was here once. She got him vaccinated at our annual clinic. That's the only record we have."
"When was that?" Maggie asked, trying to pin down Lauren's timeline.
"Almost a year ago. Eleven months, actually. He's due for boosters soon. Do you want to do that?"
"Sure," she said absently. "But there isn't anything else in his record?"
"Just his contact info, his record of shots, stuff like that."
"What is his contact info?" she asked, and he rattled off the address of Lauren's cabin, and the same phone number Maggie already had for her.
A poster on the wall behind the doctor caught her eye. It was an illustration of a dog, lost on a dark, rainy night, topped with the headline: DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN. GET YOUR DOG MICROCHIPPED TODAY.
"Does he have a microchip?" she asked.
"I have no idea," Dr. Barcellos said. "But we can find out." He fetched a scanner and checked for a chip. "Yup," he said. "He's got one."
He wrote down the number, and gave it to her, along with a a flyer that listed the websites to check. "You can use those to see if he's listed in any of the microchip registries, and can update them with your information now that he's yours."
"He's not mine," she said quickly. One big dog in her tiny house was stretching it. Two would be ridiculous. She also had a sense that Hendrix would be happier with one owner, and a home of his own, like he'd had with Lauren.
"His owner's family will take him, I'm sure," she said.
"So do you want to hold off on giving him the painkiller?" the doctor asked.
"Oh, no," she said. "I want him to feel better as soon as possible."
She gathered the two dogs' leashes and got ready to go, thinking that it would take more than a bit of painkiller to put Hendrix's world back together.
Chapter Eighteen
Ibarra called her that afternoon and told her Lauren's sister was coming to town. When she tried to grill him about the woman, he said he knew nothing about her except that she would be arriving on a 5:15 flight. A hotel room had been arranged for her, and Chief Randall would pick her up from there and take her to the station this evening to explain the status of the murder case.
After saying all this, Ibarra asked Maggie, sheepishly, if she would be willing to go pick the woman up from the airport.
"Why me?" she asked. "Shouldn't someone from the department do it?"
"Chief Randall asked me to."
"And you're too chicken to face a weeping relative," she said.
"You can handle that kind of thing better than me," he replied, sounding gruff. "Please, Maggie?"
"Okay," she agreed, though she dreaded the idea of facing all that overwrought emotion. She was afraid she'd fall apart herself in the face of a crying family member. But she agreed, and found herself closing up the shop, piling the dogs into the car, and driving out to the airport to meet the flight at five.
"You've got to help me get through this, boys," she said to the two dogs in the back seat.
Alyssa Douglas-Jones looked a lot like her sister.
She was a lovely young woman with close-cropped jet curls, dewy skin the tone of Lauren's favorite smoked topaz Swarovski crystals, and the same self-contained manner about her as her sibling.
Maggie introduced herself as Lauren's friend, and they stood together like a tiny island in the terminal of Carita's executive airport, while people came and went all around them.
"I guess we should get going," Maggie said when Alyssa just stood there without moving. "They have you booked into a nice little boutique hotel in town. And after you're settled in there…."
"I'll go to the police station and claim her body to take her home," Alyssa finished. She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again, the rich brown irises glistening with tears, but not a single one falling on her cheeks. Again, so much like Lauren.
She just lifted her simple navy suitcase, and nodded that she was ready to go.
So Maggie led the way to her car, where the dogs waited.
Alyssa was taken aback by the two huge dogs, and for the first time her composure wavered. "They're so big," she said, hesitating to get in the passenger seat.
"It's okay," Maggie said. "They can't get to the front seat. They're also very sweet and won't bite, I promise."
So she got in. Maggie went around and got in, then started the car for the drive to town.
As they passed the artichoke fields that lined the airport road, she glanced at Alyssa. The woman held her shoulders up high, as if she could feel the dogs breathing on the back of her neck.
"Haven't you met Hendrix before?"
"Hendrix," Alyssa breathed. "What an odd name."
"Was Lauren a Jimi Hendrix fan?" Maggie asked.
Alyssa shook her head. "I can't imagine she was. She never listened to any old music like that when we were kids. But maybe when she went away to college she got into that…?"
"Maybe," Maggie agreed. "And there's no one in your family that name might be associated with? A relative with a nickname, an old friend, something like that?"
Alyssa shook her head again. She glanced back at the dogs. "Which one of them is Hendrix?"
"The German Shepherd," Maggie said. But Alyssa still looked confused.
"Is that the fluffy, smiley one, or the one that looks like a police dog?"
"The one that looks like a police dog," Maggie said with a smile. "The fluffy, smiley one is mine. His name's Jasper." She paused. "So, you never met Hendrix before?" she repeated with a touch of curiosity in her voice. "I never saw Lauren without him. They were inseparable."
Alyssa glanced her way. "Lauren and I weren't… close… in the last few years. When she ran away, she lost touch with the family."
"Ran away? Was there
a fight?" Maggie asked, then quickly stammered out an apology. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to pry. But I'm trying to understand what happened to her, and there's so much I'm realizing I never knew about her life."
"I don't mind," Alyssa said. She sat still, again with that composed demeanor. Her hands were clasped together in her lap as she watched the scenery out the windshield.
"You're from Atlanta, right?" Maggie asked. Ibarra had told her so, and Alyssa's soft southern accent confirmed it. "Did you grow up there?"
She nodded. "I've never been outside of Georgia, until now."
So this was all new to her. Yet when Maggie got to the turn where the airport road met the coast highway, and the expanse of the Pacific Ocean tumbling against the rocky shore came into view, Alyssa simply watched it with the same calm expression she'd had all along.
Again, she was so much like her sister, though Lauren hadn't an accent that Maggie had ever noticed. She wondered about that. Was it just something she lost when she moved to a different part of the country, or was it a deliberate choice to make her background more opaque?
"Is—I mean, was Lauren older or younger than you?" Maggie asked. Lauren had been only twenty-five years old. It had been confirmed in the newspaper story about her murder, though even that article had only identified her as an employee of the police department, with no information about her family or background.
"She was younger than me," Alyssa said. "By two years." She watched those ocean waves, which were now passing by on their right as they drove south toward Carita Cove.
"She was my friend," Maggie said. "But we didn't talk about our families much."
"We used to be best friends."
Alyssa said it in a whisper, and Maggie felt her heart break for her.
"I'm so sorry," she said.
Alyssa turned away from the mesmerizing ocean to look at Maggie. "There wasn't a fight. That was your question before. Not at all. She wasn't angry with the family."
"But you said she ran away."
Maggie and the Whiskered Witness Page 11
