Pooches, Pumpkins, and Poison
Page 1
Pooches, Pumpkins, and Poison
A Pooch Party Cozy Mystery
Carolyn Ridder Aspenson
Magnum Grace Publishing
Contents
Credits
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Books by Carolyn Ridder Aspenson
Authors Need Love!
Credits
Cover Design by Carolyn Ridder Aspenson
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.
CAROLYN RIDDER ASPENSON
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.
Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
No Derivative Works — You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.
For
Brutus, Missy, Bandit, Sam, Max,
Magnum, Gracie, Larka, Capone, and Allie
You’re all my favorite dog.
Chapter One
Most people didn’t make a habit of finding dead bodies, but I wasn’t most people.
The first body I’d discovered was my husband’s, no doubt the most devastating experience of my life. The memory of him lying on our driveway burned in my brain, and it would remain there forever, taunting me, trying desperately to take first place among the twenty-seven years’ worth of memories we’d shared. I had yet to let it win, and I promised myself I wouldn’t, but there were days that promise weighed heavily on my soul.
The second body I found belonged to the organizer of my town’s Halloween Festival, Traci Fielding. I’d found her lying in a pseudo pumpkin patch set up as part of the event. I wasn’t at all prepared, but was anyone ever prepared to discover a dead body?
I crouched down close and examined the remains before me, gently placing my fingers against the skin of the dead woman’s neck. My lips curled and my stomach performed somersaults in my gut as I got close to her lifeless body, but I persevered. I grimaced at the slight smell of bitter almonds. I’d never liked almonds, and I’d never understood the love my daughter Hayden had for them.
Traci Fielding had no pulse. I checked her wrist too, just in case I’d missed the right spot on her neck. I’d done the same thing with my husband. My calm surprised me, but I’d promised myself I’d never react the way I had when I’d found Sam on the driveway—panicked, emotional, out of control. It hadn’t changed anything. Sam was still dead, and even if I had tried to give him CPR, it wouldn’t have helped. He’d suffered a brain aneurysm and died before hitting the ground. I’d lost my husband two years ago. He was fifty-four-years old, and I was only forty-seven. We’d promised to love each other and spend the rest of our lives together. He’d lived up to that promise but unfortunately, I’d only been able to make good on half.
From the looks of Traci Fielding, CPR had no chance of reviving her either. I dug my phone out of my bag and dialed 9-1-1, and then shortly after, things got interesting.
The police arrived within minutes, likely because they were already at the fairgrounds policing the events set up to make sure the townspeople weren’t trying to get in prior to the event officially starting. Food trucks were popular in town, and every time we had a festival the lines reached outside the fairgrounds. The actual festival didn’t start for days, but that didn’t stop people from worming their way onto the grounds to scam samples from the trucks.
A heavy set police officer with beads of sweat covering his face and a quite large receding hairline questioned me. “Did you touch anything, ma’am?”
“Yes, sir. I touched her neck and left wrist checking for a pulse.”
“Did you touch any of the pumpkins or anything else?”
“Not that I’m aware of. At least not intentionally.”
“How did you come into the area?”
I explained my entrance from the left side.
“And what were you doing here?”
“Just walking around the fairgrounds on my way to the dog area. I run the dogs event. I took a short cut.”
“Dogs?”
“I’m with the shelter.”
He stared at me like he had no clue what I was talking about. Did he not read the local paper?
“We’re bringing dogs here for the kids to play with in hopes someone will want to adopt some.”
“Oh, gotcha.” He chewed a piece of gum with his mouth open.
I cringed. That was hands down one of my biggest pet peeves. Maybe even my biggest. No, on second thought, talking with a mouth full of food was my biggest. At least in the mouth pet peeves category. I might have had a few more pet peeves than I cared to admit.
“Anyone else here?”
“When I found her?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Just me.”
“See anyone around when you walked up?”
“I wasn’t exactly paying attention.”
He nodded once. “You think of anything, you let us know, okay?”
“Of course.”
He asked for my contact information, and I gave it to him, and then he told me not to tell anyone anything about what I saw, including the victim’s name, pointed to our right, and told me how to exit the area.
Mr. Personality.
I coughed. The smell of bitter almond growing stronger and overwhelming my nasal passages. “Do you smell that?”
“Smell what?”
“Almonds?”
He sniffed the air and raised his left brow like I was some kind of crazy person. “All I smell is funnel cake.”
“Well, I do, and it’s getting stronger, too.” I squatted down closer to the area where Traci’s body lay and made a circle above the pumpkin next to her. “Right around here.”
The officer bent down, smelled it and then quickly backed away, pulling me up in the process. “Ma’am, I’m going to need you to leave immediately.”
He called out to another officer and asked for masks and gloves. After he got them, he said, “I need forensics to mark those boot marks over there.”
I quickly grabbed my phone and snapped a few photos of the scene, including the prints, though I wasn’t sure what compelled me to do that. I did not photograph Traci’s body because I just couldn’t.
The officer reminded me of his request earlier, but with a stern voice. “Ma’am, you need to back out of this gated area immediately.”
A small crowd gathered on the other side of the yellow crime scene tape around the man-made pumpkin patch in the small sodded area of the fairgrounds.
A police officer spoke into a bull horn. “Ladies and gentlemen, the festival area is now closed. We need everyone to immediately exit the fairgrounds in a calm manner. Let me repeat, the festival area is now closed, and this means to vendors, employees, and guests. Everyone must leave immediately.”
Gina Palencia, a volunteer for the festival, rushed over to me. “Missy, I’ll walk out with you.” She hooked her arm into mine. “I heard someone found a body.”
I took
in a deep breath and exhaled slowly, doing my best to stay as calm as possible. You can do this, Missy, I thought. You can do this. “It was me. I found the body.”
She gasped. “Oh no, are you okay? She guided me over to a row of chairs near the grandstand and into a seat. “What happened?”
“Gina, we have to leave. They just told everyone the festival is closed.”
“Oh, yes, right. Silly me. I forgot. You can tell me what happened while we head to the parking lot.”
I’d been sternly instructed not to tell anyone about the identity of the victim, and I knew Gina well enough to know she was going to push for the name, so I prepared to keep my lips zipped.
“So, what happened?”
“I’m not allowed to say. They want to notify the family first.”
The ambulance drove by.
“Well, I guess we can’t see now,” she said.
I didn’t care to see another dead body ever again.
“Maybe the police chief will have something to say. You want to hang out in the parking lot and wait with me?”
I shook my head. “I’ve got to get some things done, and besides, I already know what happened, or at least as much as I care to know for now.”
As I headed to my car, another volunteer, Jennifer Lee, stopped me. “Missy, do you know what’s going on? I heard someone found a dead body?”
I raised my hand. “That would be me.”
“Oh my gosh, what happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m sure someone from the police department will need more information from me, but I’m fine.”
“What happened?”
“I’m not supposed to say.” I smiled. “I’m sorry, but I’m rushing over to the shelter. I’m sure I’ll have to address this again soon.”
She nodded. “Oh, yes, sure. I’m…I won’t keep you. If you need something though, feel free to ask.”
“Thanks, Jennifer.”
I headed back to the animal shelter to check on the dogs and introduce myself to the new intakes, or newbies as I called them, because there were always newbies. Kerry Pitman, one of our faithful volunteers greeted me by tossing a twenty-five pound bag of kibble at my feet.
She brushed a flyaway strand of her curly strawberry blonde hair from her eyes. “Can you carry that to the back for me? One of the Boy Scout troops donated seventy-five bags this morning, and as usual we’re understaffed, so I’ve been lugging these things in all by myself.”
“Seventy-five bags? That’s fantastic.”
“It is even though my back thinks otherwise.”
“I’m sure,” I said, lifting the heavy bag over my shoulder and following behind her.
We walked through the kennel area and were greeted by a symphony of barking and howling hellos from the pups. An equal mixture of love and sadness washed over me. I loved each of the dogs like they were my own, and it ripped my heart to pieces because I couldn’t find each of them the homes they deserved. We trucked the bags from the front of the shelter to the back of the kennels in no time, but I knew we’d both pay for it later.
Kerry, a few dozen years younger than me, and several dozen pounds heavier, brushed the dust from her hands and sighed. “That’s going to hurt tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? I’m thinking later today.”
She laughed. “You’re probably right. Hey, were you at the fairgrounds when they found the body?”
“Uh,” I shrugged my shoulders up toward the sides of my face and cringed. “I’m the one that found the body.”
“What? What happened?”
“I’m not allowed to discuss it before the police tell the family.”
She rubbed her arm. “Oh, yeah, I get that. Are you okay? Was it weird?”
No one at the shelter knew much about my personal life. They knew my husband had died, and that I’d found him, but I hadn’t talked much about our relationship, or the pain I’d gone through since his passing. Our relationship, and the grief I’d experienced, and still experienced every day, was private, and though I shared some of that with Hayden, I kept it hidden from the rest of the world. That and our memories were the only things I had left of us, and I had no intention of sharing any of it with anyone.
“Death is always uncomfortable but it’s a part of life.”
“Well, sure, but murder isn’t.”
“What makes you think this person was murdered?”
“Who dies of natural causes in a man-made pumpkin patch at a Halloween festival?”
She agreed. “We may not be that small of a town anymore, but word still travels fast.”
I used my personal key to open a locked storage cabinet inside the kennel area and removed a large bag of treats I’d stored inside for the dogs. “True, but trust me, death doesn’t check your location before it takes you. When it’s your time, it’s your time.”
“Well, I hope when it’s my time, I’m dressed and have my hair done, that’s all I have to say about that.”
I smiled and headed toward the first kennel with the bag of treats.
Sam worked hard his entire life, and he’d done well for us. We never suffered financially, and because of that, we’d been able to invest our money well. Part of that investment went into retirement funds and a life insurance policy for him. What I didn’t know about though, were secret life insurance policies he’d set up for himself in the event that something happened to him. I often wondered if he’d known he would die young, or if he’d simply planned for the possibility. Either way, those extra life insurance policies ended up making me a very wealthy woman.
I didn’t need or want that wealth. I wanted Sam, but since I couldn’t have him, I put aside enough for Hayden, and did as instructed by my advisors with enough to allow me to live comfortably the rest of my life, or to one hundred. After that there might be an issue, but I doubted I’d live that long. I kept a large sum tucked away in investments and available for emergencies, but I took out a large amount to be able to support the animal shelter and provide for the animals in a way that allowed for a better life in their kennels and cages, and a better chance at a life outside of the shelter. Part of that improvement included treats and toys.
It might sound silly, but treats and toys were rare items in shelters, and they brightened the dogs days. Every little thing counted in my book at least.
“Hey Brutus, what’s shaking big guy?” Brutus, a small mixed terrier mutt wagged his little wiry haired nub of a tail as I stuck the treat into his cage and rubbed the top of his head. “You’re being a good boy, right?”
“He’s always a good boy,” Kerry said.
Brutus barked his agreement.
The dogs nearby all waited at the front of their cages for me. I hit each cage or kennel with treats and greeted each dog with a cheery hello and a pat on the head. The newbies stayed in the backs of their kennels, and for those, I gently entered.
We’d only had three newbies since the day before, and for our city, that was a good thing. Being a suburb of Atlanta, we still fell victim to dog fighting that, thanks to a former professional football player and his very public dog fighting crimes, the city was once known for, and Pit Bulls were rampant in town. Pittie support groups had worked hard to curb the fear the dogs were labeled with, and it was working, but there were still too many bully breeds in shelters, and too many bully breed mama’s having babies in shelters.
“Hey sweetie.” I slid a dog treat across the kennel floor to the blue gray pittie in the cage. “That’s for you girl. Go ahead.”
She wouldn’t make eye contact with me, just stared into the corner of the kennel.
I slid another treat toward her. “How about two? You look like you’re hungry, baby.”
She slowly moved her head and eyed the treats.
“It’s okay. I’ll stay over here. I promise.”
I watched her little black nose wiggle and she caught a whiff of the bacon scented goodies.
“Go ahead. I hear they’re really good, and
I’ve got more if you want them.”
She bent her head toward them, took one of the treats in her mouth, and crunched down on it.
“You’re a good girl.”
She chomped it down quickly and immediately went for the other one. When she finished that one, I slid another one toward her, but not quite all the way. She stared at it.
“It’s okay, it’s for you, too.”
She took two steps toward it, and snatched it up, and gobbled it down.
“There you go. You are hungry, aren’t you?” I placed another one on the ground just a foot away from me.
She eyed it, and then finally glanced up at me.
I smiled at her. “It’s okay, sweetie. It’s okay.”
She took another scoot toward the treat.
“Good girl,” I said.
“Man that dropped her off said her name is Allie. Said he was allergic. Couldn’t keep her.”
“Right.” Maybe he was, it wasn’t my place to judge, and I tried very hard not to. “Allie, get the treat.” She raised her eyes to me again, and scooted a little closer. I noticed the white under her chin and wondered how old she was. “It’s okay, girl.”
She reached out her paw and pushed the treat toward her.
I laughed. “Look at you, being all smart. You’re a good girl.”
She ate the treat, and I quickly took out another one, but kept it right next to my crossed legs. “Can you do that with this one, too, Allie?”
She barked.
I smiled at her. “Don’t you get sassy with me now. Come on, get the treat.”
Allie’s tail wagged, and she struck a little downward doggie pose.
I didn’t move. “Come on Allie. Get your treat.”