Angel at Troublesome Creek

by Ballard, Mignon F.

  “‘Jer-u-sa-lemmm …’” Fronie trilled. “‘Lift up your gates and s-i-i-n-g!’”

  And Hairy Brown did. His loud, high-pitched howling made Augusta clutch her padded ears and shudder.

  “Hush, Hairy!” I yelled, pulling his wiry brown head into my chest. “She’ll hear you, be quiet.” But it didn’t do any good. Hairy gave an encore.

  “You were going to have to ask her sometime,” Augusta said with what I thought was a slight note of I-told-you-so in her voice. “We can’t keep an animal this big out of sight forever.” And she reached down to scratch behind a floppy ear, which made the dog lean against her knee and bay anew with pleasure.

  I’ll have to admit I was a little jealous. When Augusta was around, my puppy followed her about as though he thought she was his mother. Now he took time out to lick her hand.

  “I guess you’re right,” I said, giving up on trying to muffle my musical hound. “Might as well get it over with.”

  Maybe she hadn’t heard him, I thought as I plodded, head down, around to the front of the house where Fronie banged accompanying chords on the piano in her living room. She had moved on now to something that sounded vaguely like a hymn I used to sing in Sunday school, and if a song can be in pain, this one was screaming for mercy.

  I saw his feet as I turned the corner, but it was too late. He held out a hand, stepped back to avoid me, but I was hell-bent on a collision. I smacked into him anyway.

  “Oomph!” He was tall and good-looking. And I do mean good-looking. He stumbled, then steadied himself. “Sorry,” the man said, though of course it wasn’t his fault.

  “Excuse me.” I tried to edge around him. This must be the tenant who lived above me, the one with extremely heavy feet. He’d been out of town on a sales trip, my landlady said, and peace and quiet had reigned.

  Until now. I didn’t like the way he smiled at me—an invitation to start something. And I didn’t care for the way dark hair curled at his temples, or for those adorable little crinkles around teasing blue eyes. Bah! I thought. Humbug!

  Now he held out a hand. “If you’re coming to complain, I warn you, it won’t do a bit of good. The best we can do is pray for laryngitis.”

  A sense of humor, no less! And his teeth looked like a toothpaste commerical. I made a wimpy kind of noise and let him wrap my hand in his.

  “You must be my downstairs neighbor. I’m Kent Coffey—glad I finally got to meet the lady who likes swing. Sometimes I hear it on your stereo.”

  Augusta, of course, and her Benny Goodman collection. I let this pass, still, he waited expectantly. Here’s where I’m supposed to get all coy and silly, say something clever. Well, I had been through this before. Hadn’t Todd the Bod been all smoothness and smiles? Until he met his female counterpart in the Body Beautiful.

  “Mary George Murphy.” I extracted my hand and made myself turn away. It was hard not to look at him. My head came to his shoulder, I noticed as I walked past. Perfect for dancing—if I were interested in that sort of thing—which, of course, I wasn’t. I wasn’t a very good dancer, always felt clumsy somehow.

  “Well, guess I’ll be seeing you,” he said after me.

  “Sure,” I said. But I didn’t mean it.

  Fronie Temple saw me through her window and motioned me inside. I sidled through the entrance hall with my hands at my sides, afraid I might break something. The room was filled with bric-a-brac, and little crocheted doilies like huge snowflakes covered every available surface—except for the piano. That was draped in a pink fringed shawl, and in the center, shattering roses wilted in a huge blue vase. The roses reminded me of my landlady, once bright and beautiful, now past their time. One advantage of looking rather ordinary, I thought, is that old age wouldn’t be such a jolt.

  A really awful painting of Fronie as a young woman hung over the mantel, flanked, I learned later, by pictures of her former husbands, the late Mr. Temple—“Tempie,” she called him—whom I remembered vaguely, and the one before him, whom I didn’t.

  “Mary George! Come in, I hope my singing isn’t a nuisance.”

  Nuisance wasn’t the word I’d choose. “No, of course not! I’m afraid I’m the one who should apologize. I came about the dog.”

  “Dog?” She removed her bifocals to reveal faded blue eyes.

  I sighed. “I have this puppy … .” Oh, hell, Mary George, get on with it! “This very large puppy. You must have heard him ‘singing?’”

  “That was your dog? My goodness, I thought we were being stalked by the Hound of the Baskervilles! You didn’t tell me you had a pet, Mary George.”

  I thought about the new paint job, the shiny kitchen floor. I couldn’t blame her if she threw me out. But where would we go?

  “I didn’t have one,” I explained. “Well, not until I started working for Doc Nichols at the animal clinic, and this dog was going to be destroyed … . Oh, Miss Fronie, he’s such a sweetie! I just couldn’t let anything happen to him. And then there were those break-ins.”

  You are totally evil, Mary George Murphy! You haven’t heard about any break-ins. But surely there must’ve been some around here, I thought.

  Fronie Temple held a plump hand to her heart. “What break-ins?”

  “Petty things mostly. No place is immune to crime, Miss Fronie, not even Troublesome Creek.” How many times had I heard Aunt Caroline say that? And she was right. But I didn’t think the person who murdered my aunt was after valuables.

  “We are kind of isolated here,” I reminded her. “And living alone like this, I just feel safer with a dog around.” Hairy Brown had barked twice in the few days I’d had him here—once at a cat on TV and again when he woke from a nap and caught sight of his tail.

  Fronie looked at her hands, twisted a rather large ring on her finger. She was going to tell me to leave, I just knew it.

  “He’s very clean,” I said. “And smart! I haven’t had a bit of trouble training him. Usually I come home for lunch, so it’s not a problem to take him out for a few minutes … .”

  She rubbed her arm, glanced out the window. “It’s always been my policy—”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I should’ve asked. I’m sure Doc Nichols will board him while I look for another place.”

  “It’s always been my policy … not to have a policy,” Fronie Temple said finally. “Animals, as well as people, deserve to be considered on an individual basis. Now, when do I get to meet this mammoth puppy of yours?”

  If I hadn’t been afraid of smearing her makeup, I would’ve hugged her neck. Jamming my hands in my pockets so as not to break any doodads, I headed for the door. “Right now,” I said. “Just follow me—and I promise you’re going to love him!”

  Hairy Brown gave my landlady the once-over, then wallowed shamelessly at her feet and allowed her to tickle his tummy.

  “I suppose you’ve met our upstairs neighbor,” Miss Fronie said, looking about. She seemed to approve of the room. I’d finally found a place for everything, except what was under my bed in a box.

  “Briefly,” I said. “Kind of reminds me of one of those glamorous movie actors from the fifties.”

  Fronie Temple smiled as she adjusted a dangling earring. “Looks a little like my first husband. But he seems quiet enough, minds his own business.”

  She paused at my kitchen door on her way out. “I like that ivy on the shelf by the window, Mary George. Nice touch. Did you ever find that jar you were looking for?”

  “Not yet, but I’m not giving up.” I had called several of the people I remembered being at the yard sale, but none of them had purchased the ceramic dog.

  I followed her to the door. “Miss Fronie, did Aunt Caroline ever mention a male visitor, one who came on a regular basis?”

  “Oh, you are naughty, Mary George! Shame on you! You know your aunt wasn’t like that.” Fronie laughed as she gave me a playful pat.

  “I don’t mean like that. Delia said she’d seen somebody over there from time to time.”

/>   “Maybe Delia Sims was a little jealous,” Fronie said in what I’m sure was meant to be a teasing voice. “You know there was a little conflict there.”

  “No, I didn’t know,” I said.

  Fronie frowned. “Never did learn what it was. Tempie and I came here soon after we married, you know, and I’ve never heard anyone mention it, but there was a strain between those two.”

  And there’s a strain on your brain, I thought as I closed the door behind her. My aunt and Delia Sims had been good friends as long as I could remember. If there had been a problem between them, Aunt Caroline would have told me. Wouldn’t she?

  With Hairy curled on the rug by my bed, I slept well that night for the first time since Aunt Caroline died. But each time the phone rang I had to force myself to answer, dreading to hear Todd Burkholder’s voice on the other end of the line. To be honest, a secret part of me gloated at the delicious justice of rejecting him, but Todd’s rekindled interest annoyed me and I didn’t have the time or the patience to deal with it. Thank goodness he hadn’t called again since that first night, and I hoped he had gotten the message. I almost put him out of my mind.

  Until the next day.

  We had a waiting room full of sick animals and a terrified cat crying to get out of her carrier. Earlier, a boxer had escaped from his owner and cornered a whimpering Chihuahua behind the settee.

  When the phone rang for the third time in five minutes, I tried not to sound impatient. “Animal clinic.”

  “Mary George? Don’t you dare hang up on me. We’re going to talk.”

  “No, we’re not. Where did you get my number?”

  “That woman who lived across from you. What’s her name? Valerie. Said you’d moved back home and were working for a vet. Duh, Mary George, this was the only one in the phone book!”

  I remembered chatting briefly with my neighbor when I went back to Charlotte to close my apartment and collect the rest of my belongings. Naturally it didn’t occur to me that Todd the totally odd would come sniffing along behind me.

  “I mean it, Todd. Don’t call me here, or anywhere else, again!”

  And he didn’t—for a couple of hours at least. By the end of the afternoon we had worked our way to the last three patients—a cat with a kidney infection and two dogs waiting for microchip implants.

  The electronic identification chip is a new method for keeping track of animals. It’s about the size of a grain of rice and is inserted into the pet’s skin with a large needle. I had Doc Nichols implant one in Hairy Brown before I took him home. Now if he ever gets lost and turns up at an animal shelter, the microchip will cause a scanner to beep and display his identification number. Unlike a dog tag, the chip is supposed to last a lifetime and can’t fall off. At the clinic we’ve inserted one or two a day since the technique became available, and although it only takes a few minutes, it had been a busy day, and all of us were ready to go home.

  I was reviewing the next day’s appointments and wondering how we could possibly fit them all in when the telephone rang again. Oh, please! I thought. Don’t let it be an emergency! Doc Nichols was just finishing the last implant.

  “I’ll see you after work,” Todd said. “Your place. Be there.”

  “You’re hallucinating, Todd. Have you been eating funny mushrooms?”

  “I’m serious, Mary George. I made a big mistake when I broke off with you, but I won’t make it again. I’m not letting you go.”

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I think you’d better take a reality pill. Take a whole bottle of them!” And I slammed the receiver back in place. There was something in his voice that made me want to wrap myself in a blanket and hide.

  About that time Doc came out of the examining room and threw his green smock into the laundry bin. He took one look at my face. “What’s wrong, Sport? You’re about the same color as the underside of a turnip green.”

  “It’s nothing,” I told him, and cried.

  When I was composed enough to talk, I told him about Todd Burkholder and the phone calls, how he had dumped me for the aerobics instructor. “I’m being silly, I know, but I just can’t handle this right now.”

  “If the damn fool calls again, you let me deal with him,” Doc Nichols said with a fatherly pat on my shoulder. “I won’t let him bother you here.”

  But what about when I wasn’t here? As much as I loved my dog, I doubted if he’d be much protection. And I knew Todd had a nasty temper, although he’d been careful not to show it until now. I had met Todd at a party at Missy Helms’s who worked in my office building. Todd had dated a friend of hers, Missy said, until he became a little too possessive. She had tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t listen. I guess I just didn’t want to hear.

  To get to the entrance of my apartment in the rear of Miss Fronie’s, you had to wander through a maze of trees and shrubbery that screened the house from the street. Who would see or hear me if I yelled? I was honest-to-God afraid to go home.

  And that was why I went weak-kneed with relief when I found Kent Coffey at my door with a long-stemmed red rose and an invitation to dinner.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Fronie says you had a hot date last night,” Delia remarked the next day when I dropped by her place after work.

  And that wasn’t all Fronie said, I thought. I wanted to ask our old neighbor about her relationship with my aunt, but I couldn’t think of a way to do it without being rude and intrusive.

  I shrugged. “Miss Fronie talks too much. I did go out with the guy who lives upstairs, Kent Coffey. Went to that fish camp down by the river, but the only thing hot was the cocktail sauce.”

  Delia cuddled a huge orange tabby. “And?” she said, looking up at me.

  “And nothing. He’s very good-looking, seems nice. The shrimp was delicious, but the hush puppies had sugar in them. We got home before ten.”

  “Oh,” she said. The tabby thumped to the floor and gave me a hateful cat glare.

  “Actually, I had a very good time,” I said, feeling a little guilty for being abrupt. I had been eager to go somewhere, anywhere away from my apartment, away from Todd Burkholder. But I didn’t tell Delia that. “Kent’s a manufacturer’s rep,” I explained. “Works for that new systems company just outside of town.”

  “Think you’ll go out with him again?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. He’s good company, but I’m not ready for anything serious. Besides, I don’t know much about him.” I didn’t want to repeat the mistake I’d made with Todd, but it gave my sagging ego a boost to know somebody desired my company. And of course it didn’t hurt that he looked like a flesh-and-blood fantasy—mine, to be exact. But I had learned the hard way to watch my step.

  Delia bent to stroke a purring calico. “You’re right to take it slow. I certainly wouldn’t rush into anything, but surely Fronie knows his background.”

  She seemed to have something on her mind. Did she know something I didn’t?

  “I don’t think she knows any more than I do. He’s quiet and minds his business, she says, and has been with her since January.

  “Look, Kent’s not the least bit sinister or anything. He’s just a guy who wanted company for dinner. That’s all.” Delia was as bad as Aunt Caroline! Did she expect a resume, complete with family history? I did wonder, though, why someone as handsome as my upstairs neighbor would choose to ask me out, especially when I’d been out-and-out rude when we met. Surely there were a lot of single women eager to date him.

  We sat in sagging wicker chairs on my neighbor’s back porch with the whish-whish of the ceiling fan and the cloying smell of gardenias by the steps. Outside the cicadas tuned up for their summer evening serenade. “Well, I have good news and bad news,” Delia said, refilling the iced tea in our glasses. “I think I know who bought your cookie jar.”

  “Great! When can I pick it up?”

  “That’s the bad news. There’s a problem. I ran into Lottie Greeson in the post office this morning—knew I’d seen her at the yard
sale with Edith Shugart. They go everywhere together—cousins, you know. Anyway, turns out Edith was the one who bought the china dog, only the Shugarts are on vacation. Aren’t due back for several weeks.”

  “Isn’t there any way to reach her? A phone number or something?”

  “Not unless you want to try to chase her around Europe. They’re on one of those tours. You know, dinner in Paris, lunch in Venice—that sort of thing.”

  “But when will they be back? Isn’t there some way her cousin could get it for me?”

  “Not without checking with Edith first. I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait, Mary George,” Delia said.

  Still I wrote down the woman’s name. Delia didn’t think the Shugarts were due back anytime soon, but it wouldn’t hurt to call.

  Delia reached over and patted my arm. “We’ll find it, honey. Don’t worry. It isn’t going anywhere.”

  She was right. It wouldn’t help Aunt Caroline’s cause to get all worked up over something I couldn’t change. I took a long swallow of tea, sweet and cold, and closed my eyes, relishing the peace of the moment. At least that idiot Todd hadn’t come calling the night before, or if he had he hadn’t found me at home. And he hadn’t phoned today either. Yet.

  One of Delia’s four cats—the gray striped one with a white-tipped tail—rubbed against my ankles, making me welcome in spite of my dog scent. I would miss this old house. “When do I get a tour of the condo?” I asked. “I thought you were going to put your house on the market.”

  Clink! Clink! Delia rattled ice in her glass, stared into the amber liquid like a fortune-teller searching for the future. “They won’t take pets,” she said, more to the cat at my feet than to me.

  “Who won’t?”

  “Those people developing the condos. Pine Thicket Paradise, they call it. How can it be paradise if they won’t let me bring my kitties? Mary George, what am I going do?”

  “I can’t imagine Delia Sims without a cat draped around her,” I said to Augusta that night. “Why, she’d be miserable without her pets. I know how lonely I’d be without Hairy, even in the short time I’ve had him. I look forward every day to his being here when I come home.” And I reached down to stroke the dog’s head. He made one of his agreeable doggie grunts and pawed my knee.