Death and a Dog

by Fiona Grace

  He started pulling his pockets inside out, spewing credit cards and candy wrappers onto the floor.

  “Is there a chance you dropped them?” the officer said dispassionately.

  “No way,” the inebriated man said confidently. “They’ve been stolen.”

  “Can we get out of here?” Tom said, turning away from the ensuing debate between police officer and drunk man about the difference between something being stolen and something being lost.

  “What about Xavier?” Lacey said.

  “Xavier?” Tom asked.

  “The Spanish man, from my auction,” she explained, realizing Tom had no idea what she’d been doing prior to her arrest, nor with whom she’d been doing it. “The one who lost out on the sextant to Buck. They arrested him as well, on suspicion of murder. We can’t leave him in there.” She looked at Heidi. “Can you help him?”

  But before she replied, Tom shook his head and placed a hand on Lacey’s arm. “I’m sure the police had a reason to arrest him.”

  “Like they did me?” Lacey returned, moving her arm out from under his hand. She huffed. “Xavier saw Daisy rowing back to shore on the night of the murder. He’s not a suspect, he’s a witness.” She paused, recalling how Superintendent Turner had told her Daisy had an alibi. Had Xavier lied? Or had Daisy? She shook her head, trying to get her thoughts back on track. “Anyway, he’s in the same situation I was—a foreigner in a country with a different legal jurisdiction. We should help him.”

  But Tom’s mom looked unmoved. “Sorry, there’s just no grounds to help him on. No loophole to work in his case like there was yours.”

  “How long can they keep him here for?” Lacey asked.

  “They have seventy-two hours before they either have to charge him or release him.”

  “Three days!” Lacey exclaimed.

  To think if Tom hadn’t had a lawyer for a mom, she more than likely would have spent the next three days locked inside a cell for something she hadn’t done!

  Lacey glanced back at the door that led to interrogation rooms, where she knew Xavier would be behind one being grilled. But there was nothing she could do to help him. Unless, of course, she looked into Daisy’s alibi. If she could expose Daisy as a liar, then hopefully she’d be able to get Xavier out.

  She left the station—and Xavier—behind her, vowing to uncover the truth once and for all.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Lacey hurried down the steps of the police station, discovering, for the first time, that she’d been inside the windowless interrogation room long enough for the sky to have turned black. But rather than lamenting her own misfortune, Lacey’s concern was with her poor missing pooch. The image of him pelting down the street after the police kept repeating in her mind’s eye like a horrible scene from a movie, and now she saw how late it really was, she felt even worse.

  She turned to Tom, who was walking down the steps with his mother at a snail’s pace.

  “Did Brooke say anything about Chester when you spoke with her?” Lacey asked while he was still a few steps away.

  “No,” he said, taking the last steps and joining her on the sidewalk. “Why?”

  “Because he was with me in the tearoom when I got arrested!” Lacey exclaimed, feeling her anguish take hold of her. “Brooke had him by the collar when they cuffed me, but he went berserk. He was so worried for me. You should’ve seen him.” She felt tears welling in her eyes at the memory. “Then he must’ve got out of her hold because he started chasing the car down the street.”

  “Oh my,” Heidi said, a hand covering her mouth.

  Lacey chewed her bottom lip fretfully, her worry seeming to magnify now that she’d spoken it aloud.

  “So Brooke didn’t bring him to patisserie?” she questioned Tom.

  Tom shook his head. “No, she didn’t. When she came by to tell me about your arrest, she wasn’t with him. She didn’t even mention him, she was in such a state of panic about you.” He reached out and rubbed her arm to comfort her. “Please don’t worry. You know Chester. He’ll find his way back home. In fact, I’d put money on him being there now, waiting for you.”

  He tried to smile reassuringly, but Lacey was having none of it.

  “If he was going to go anywhere, it would be my store,” she said. “It’s more familiar to him than Crag Cottage, and he’s gone there before on his own volition. I should go and check.”

  But before she had a chance to move, Tom took her by the shoulders, grounding her. “Lacey. If Chester was going to go to the store, I would’ve seen him on the high street already. It’s a ten-minute walk max between the tearoom and your store.”

  “But he chased me over half the way along the promenade road,” Lacey told him, hearing her voice becoming more frantic. “That’s the opposite direction. And he was running full pelt. It could’ve easily taken him an hour to make it back.”

  “Or,” Tom said, in his reassuring tone, “it could mean that he decided to head home. He’s a smart dog. Once he saw the beach, he probably worked out it would take him home. All he’d have to do was follow the coast until he reached the cliff path up to your house. That’s how animals’ brains work. We had a cat that did that once. Remember, Mom?”

  He turned to Heidi. The strawberry blond had been waiting patiently while they hashed the situation out, but she’d taken a little step apart from them and her gaze was now averted. At the sound of her son’s attempts to include her, she smiled attentively.

  “That’s right. Pickles. She’d follow the canal path for miles.”

  Lacey couldn't stop herself. “Yes, but Chester isn’t a cat.”

  Her tone was snipey. If she’d been worried about making a terrible first impression to Heidi before, she’d more or less blown it now.

  Tom rubbed her arm again, though it felt to Lacey like he was handling her with kid gloves.

  “You’re right,” he said. “Chester’s way smarter than a cat. He’ll be back at Crag Cottage. Mark my words. We should all head there. Have a cup of tea. I’ll cook something to eat, since we’ve missed dinner.”

  There was no debating, Lacey realized. Tom, as the rescuer and getaway driver, had taken command. And he was obviously also thinking with his stomach; Tom wasn’t one for missing a meal.

  “Fine,” Lacey muttered, realizing there was no way arguing.

  “Great!” Tom said, as if she’d actually had a choice in the matter. He looked over at his mother again. “What do you say?”

  Heidi smiled. She had the same genial, genuine smile as her son. “That sounds lovely. As long as Lacey doesn’t mind?”

  The last thing Lacey felt like doing was sitting down and having a nice cup of tea with her new boyfriend’s mother. What Lacey wanted to do was find her poor dog who’d gone MIA, then head to Taryn’s boutique to carry on with her investigations. Taryn had given Daisy an alibi for the time that Xavier sighted her on the beach. The two events were in complete contradiction. Either Taryn was lying, or Xavier was. If she could put the alibi to the test herself, she’d be one step closer to finding out the truth.

  But as much as she wanted to dive right back into the detective work, Tom had made a good point about Chester. He’d managed to make his way back to the store after the car crash that killed his prior owners, after all, and that journey had taken him days. He clearly had a very strong homing instinct, and the likelihood of him being at Crag Cottage waiting for her was quite high.

  So she nodded, and returned Heidi’s and Tom’s twin smiles.

  “I don’t mind at all,” she said.

  *

  As grateful as Lacey was for Tom swooping in and saving the day, she felt extremely uncomfortable in the back seat of his van, as he drove both her and his mother across town toward the cliffs. She was hardly in the right frame of mind to make a good impression.

  “How are you enjoying living in Wilfordshire?” Heidi asked. “Tom says you recently moved from New York City. It must be quite a change for you.”


  Small talk, Lacey thought with dread. That was about the last thing she felt like doing right now.

  “I love it,” Lacey said. “The sea. The people. It’s been a lovely change of pace.”

  If only it hadn’t been for all the murders, she thought wryly.

  They reached Crag Cottage and Tom pulled up in the driveway.

  “This is your house?” Heidi asked. “It’s charming.”

  “Thanks,” Lacey said, still unable to relax into conversation.

  She headed up the garden path. The front door to Crag Cottage opened before she got there. Gina was standing there on her porch.

  “Gina?” Lacey exclaimed. “What are you doing here? Is it Chester? Did he come home?”

  Gina shook her head. “No, I’m sorry poppet. Brooke told me what happened. She was in a right state about it, feeling really guilty about everything. But I told her the same thing I'm going to tell you; Chester has a strong homing instinct, he will find his way home sooner or later.”

  “Let’s hope sooner,” Lacey said, feeling morose.

  Gina took her in her arms for a comforting embrace. “I’ve called the vet to let her know, and I’ve also logged him missing with the microchip company. If only those chips had GPS, eh?”

  Gina released her, and Lacey let out a sad smile.

  “Now, come in out of the drizzle,” Gina said. “I’ll get the kettle on.”

  Against all the motherly instinct telling her to run off in search of her missing pet, Lacey felt an even stronger pull coming from Gina, and so she went inside her home.

  “It’s Heidi, isn’t it?” Gina said to Tom’s mother as they strolled through the corridor.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Mrs. Forrester replied. “Have we met?”

  “Once or twice,” Gina told her.

  “I’m sorry. I meet so many people in my field of work.”

  Gina chuckled. “Colorful types, I imagine.”

  Lacey felt out of place as she listened to their chitchat. She was in her own home, and yet she felt as if she was the guest!

  Gina went straight for the kettle to make tea, Tom to the fridge to make dinner. Lacey slumped at the butcher’s block table and let it all happen around her. The clinking of crockery. The whooshing kettle. The merry chitchat as the three of them engaged in friendly small talk as if they had no cares in the world. Lacey felt unable to join in. Everything swirled around her. Her mind couldn’t settle her mind. She’d lost Chester. She’d spent a day in an interrogation room. And Xavier was still inside.

  The moist nuzzling of Boudica’s nose against her arm was the final straw for Lacey. She stood, abruptly, making her stool squeak against the tiles.

  Everyone stopped and turned to look at her.

  “Lacey?” Tom asked. “Is everything okay?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t do this. I can’t sit here pretending everything’s fine. I need to look for Chester.” She rubbed her pounding head as her swirling thoughts turned into a tornado in her mind. “I need to do something.”

  “What you need is a warm meal in your stomach,” Gina said. “And a long sleep.”

  “Sleep?” Lacey exclaimed. “My dog is out there somewhere, wandering the streets. The same streets a murderer is currently walking, might I add!”

  An awkward silence filled the room. Lacey squirmed as three pairs of eyes blinked at her with expressions ranging from sympathy to bemusement.

  Heidi spoke. “Lacey, in all probability, the murderer is the man sitting in the police station.”

  “Xavier didn’t do this,” Lacey returned.

  Tom quirked his head to the side. “How can you be so certain? He has the clearest motive. He wanted the sextant so bad he killed for it.”

  “And he had the opportunity,” Heidi added.

  Lacey narrowed her eyes and shook her head. “No. No way. If Xavier killed Buck for the sextant, then why would he have put it in my store?”

  “He couldn’t exactly keep it on him, could he?” Tom said.

  “And if the police picked him up at six a.m.,” Heidi continued, “and prevented him from leaving the country, he must’ve realized he needed to hide the sextant somewhere safe. Well, where would be safer than back where it had originally been?”

  Lacey looked from mother to son, watching them get caught up in their hypothesis.

  “Your store was the only other place in Wilfordshire he was familiar with,” Gina said, adding her theory to the fray. “Perhaps he went straight there hoping to see you, so he could slip it in with your items when you weren’t looking? But he found the back door open.” She coughed into her fist with embarrassment. “So he decided just to put it inside.”

  Tom immediately latched onto Gina’s embellishment, adding to it with his own. “Yes! I bet that whole thing about your dad’s store was just a cover story he had prepared so that when you asked him why he was back at the antiques store he’d have something to tell you!”

  He looked as animated as the other two. The three amigos who thought they’d solved a crime. But Lacey wasn’t sharing in their enthusiasm one bit. She’d listened to them all, feeling more and more frustrated.

  She folded her arms. “And what about the fact he saw Daisy on the beach that night? Rowing a boat! How does that fit in with your theory?”

  The three exchanged glances. It was Heidi who answered, using a gentle tone as if she didn’t want to make Lacey feel stupid.

  “He’s lying. In fact, that might even be an embedded confession. He’s placed himself almost exactly at the scene of the crime. He’s given an explanation as to how he got on and off the island.”

  Lacey had heard enough. She headed for the back door.

  “Lacey?” Tom said, looking a bit perturbed. “What are you doing?”

  “I already told you,” she said, reaching for her rain mac. The drizzle from earlier was still lingering in the air, and Lacey didn’t want to risk it. “I’m going to look for Chester.”

  Tom hurried over to her. He spoke in a stage whisper. “My mother is here. We’re in your house. You can’t just leave.”

  Lacey looked over his shoulder at Heidi. She was wearing the same slightly perturbed expression as Tom. She was probably wondering what on earth her son saw in this lunatic of a woman. But there were far more important matters at hand than making a good impression.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Forrester. You just caught me at a bad time. I hope next time we meet, it will be under better circumstances.”

  She pulled open the back door and hurried out, not wanting to see the look of disapproval she was sure was now on Tom’s face.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Lacey tried to temper her fury as she sped down the cliff road in her secondhand Volvo. She should never have let Tom talk her into going back to Crag Cottage. She should have insisted they head out in search of Chester right away!

  Lacey turned onto the high street, glancing at the Coach House Inn, the center of all gossip, as she went. She wondered what conversations they were having inside. By now, they would have all heard about her and Xavier’s arrests. They probably had concocted a million wild theories about the pair of them. They probably sounded just like Tom and Heidi and Gina had earlier, as they threw around accusations as carelessly as confetti!

  Lacey parked up outside her store, throwing her champagne colored Volvo onto the curb.

  ‘Gina actually locked up properly for once,’ she thought as she climbed out, noting that the shutters of her store had been pulled down securely.

  There was no sign of Chester on the street outside the store, so Lacey decided to try round the back. She went around to the side gate—which Gina had also miraculously locked properly—and into the garden.

  “Chester?” she called. “Are you here?”

  She checked to see if he was sheltering in the greenhouse or shed, which would be warm on this chilly spring evening. Both were empty.

  The pit of worry in her guts grew even stronger. Where could he poor pup ha
ve gone?

  She was just about to head back inside when she noticed there was a light on in the boutique’s back room. Taryn must be working late. Maybe she’d seen Chester?

  I can test Daisy’s alibi while I’m as it, Lacey thought, as she stepped over the knee-high fence that separated their yards.

  She went up to Taryn’s patio doors. Inside, she could see Taryn amongst the stock in the back room, organizing things. She rapped her knuckles against the glass.

  Taryn leaped a mile. Then a scowl came over her features and she marched over, unlocking the door and heaving it so hard it slid on its runners, hit the doorstop, and almost bounced closed again.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Taryn screeched. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack? Who the hell lurks around in the dark like that! And you know how much I’ve been freaking out about the footpath back there, and burglars.”

  As she spoke, Lacey noticed the CCTV camera in the corner of the store, blinking away. State of the art, Superintendent Turner had said. HD quality. She wondered if the machine really did hold footage that provided Daisy with an alibi. If it did, that would prove Xavier was a liar. And if he lied about seeing Daisy on the beach, then that begged the question, what else had he lied about?

  “Have you seen Chester?” Lacey asked, ignoring her tirade.

  Taryn’s frown only deepened. “Why would I have seen your stinking dog?”

  “Because he ran off and I thought he might’ve come here, maybe gotten around into the gardens for shelter. You’ve been working late, right? So, have you seen him at all?”

  “No,” Taryn snapped. “I haven’t. And by the way, if your dog so much as sets foot on my grass I’ll have a wall built between our gardens. That you pay for. I am not having a disgusting dog poop on my property, or make muddy paw prints in the grass. Or… Lacey? Hello, earth to Lacey? What are you staring at?” She looked over her shoulder, then back again, her expression even more nonplussed. “Are you staring at my CCTV camera?”