“Yes?” a voice growled from speaker.
“Benjamin Kalico, M. Moon, and Katie Kalico from the Kalico Detective Agency to see Mr. Skifford.”
“Mr. Skifford is in Los Angeles.”
“We have an appointment. It’s about his lost dog, Ghost.”
“You can speak to Dick Crenshaw, our head trainer. Follow the drive to your right and park beside the main kennel. You’ll spot him.”
“Thanks.” M’s pulled the car forward as the great gates began to swing open and proceeded slowly down the drive. The Star Ranch was beautiful. All of the cedars had been cleared, making way for tall native grasses. Stands of live oak graced the meadow, where a small stream meandered. A sprawling, single story ranch house with a wrap-around deck stood lookout from a small hill on the left. The road angled right to reveal several fenced training pens with different agility courses set up. M’s parked in front of a large white rectangular building with a sign that read Kennel One.
The trio knocked on the kennel door. Except for a random yap, the place was empty and silent. The front door to the kennel was locked, and their knock brought no human response. Barks, however, erupted.
“Let’s look around the side,” suggested Katie, who paced forward, not waiting for the others. Movement in a far off enclosure caught her attention. She pointed. “Look. I bet that’s our Mr. Crenshaw. Prime suspect, numero uno.”
“But there’s been no crime,” Kalico and M’s called out in unison to Katie’s back before following her across a grassy field.
They stopped beside a chain link fence. A trim, dark-haired man in his forties was putting a border collie through its paces on an agility course. With short whistles and hand signals, the trainer ran the course, directing the compact black and white dog to leap over fences, rush through pipes, zigzag around poles, climb a stairway, and slide down a ramp. As the obviously gleeful and panting dog sat down at his trainer’s feet, the girls broke into applause. The man turned, commanded the dog to heel, and strolled over to his audience.
“That was awesome!” Katie danced from foot to foot, grinning. She bent down with hand extended toward the border, who looked up at his trainer. At the man’s nod, the dog walked over to Katie and raised a paw.
So much for bad cop, thought Kalico, before introducing himself to the trainer.
“Hello. This is Bess.” He smiled proudly at the dog who was now being hugged.
Remembering her role, Katie stood up, adjusted her glasses, and frowned at the trainer. “Did you breed her here?” She was ready to spring at any hint of a puppy mill.
“No, she’s a rescue. Bess was picked up by the Bastrop Humane Society. She’d been left on the side of the highway at seven weeks old. Mr. Skifford brought her here about a year ago now. She’s going to be an agility course star. Aren’t you, girl?” The border collie, nosed her trainer’s hand and received a small treat.
“But you do breed dogs here, don’t you?” Katie removed her glasses and pointed them at Mr. Crenshaw, who appeared slightly amused or flustered. Kalico elbowed her in her side, willing her to be quiet.
“Bess, is a beautiful dog and so well trained!” M’s interrupted. “We’re here to gather any information that may help us recover Ghost.”
“Yes, of course. As you know, he bolted during a thunderstorm about a month ago now.”
“Did he pull off his leash or get out of his kennel or…?”
“Our intern, Davis, was cleaning out Ghost’s kennel. The dog bolted past him and disappeared.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe we lost him.”
“Had Ghost ever tried to escape before?” Katie leaned in accusingly, as her brother unsuccessfully tried to signal her to be quiet.
“Escape? I assure you, Miss Kalico, that Star Ranch is not a dog prison. We practice affection training, have spotless kennels, and feed our animals only premium food. The husky was frightened by thunder and ran. Now, if you’ll excuse me, Bess and I have work to do.”
Katie made a noise that sounded like a stage Ah-ha! followed by a whispered, “Methinks he doth protest too much.” As she opened her mouth to respond, Kalico stepped forward.
“No one is suggesting that Ghost was mistreated or had any reason to run away. What puzzles us is why he keeps evading capture. I assume he’s been well socialized. Is there anything that you can tell us about his background or training that would help us understand him better?”
Crenshaw glanced at Katie who stayed quiet. He took a breath. “Ghost’s behavior puzzles me too.” He paused. “When he came to us, he knew the basic commands, socialized with the other dogs well, and was quick to train. He likes people and enjoys contact. Mr. Skifford recognized his potential for photo shoots, commercials, and even movies. Perhaps, you saw Ghost in the ad for River City Wilderness Supply Company?” Kalico and the girls nodded. “Anyway, I started training him to ignore any and all distractions—the first rule of order for a show biz dog—and to stay still for ever-increasing periods of time. When he ran away, Ghost was a finalist for a national dog food commercial.”
“You said, ‘when he came to you.’ You didn’t raise him from a puppy?”
“No. Ghost was almost two years old when Mr. Skifford bought him.” He glanced pointedly at Katie. “We don’t breed dogs here. Ninety percent of our dogs are rescues. The others, like Ghost, Mr. Skifford buys. He had high hopes for our husky.”
“Did Ghost seem…” M’s paused, searching for the right word. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Katie was once again petting and sweet-talking Bess. “Did he seem, I don’t know, unhappy or unsettled in any way?”
Crenshaw shook his head again. “No.” He signaled Bess, who heeled instantly. “Ghost seemed happy, and that boy loves to work. But every now and then, he would suddenly lose focus. We’d be running a course, or I would be training him to ‘go to mark’ in preparation for a movie shoot, when Ghost would just stop. He’d raise his head, listening to—I don’t know what. He’d ignore commands.” He shrugged. “Then, he’d snap out of it and be fine.”
“Thank you for your time.” Kalico extended a hand and signaled Katie that it was time to leave. “We’re going to continue to do our best to find him.”
Katie repeated M’s thank you, then she asked, “Do you happen to know the name of Ghost’s first owner?”
“Not off hand, but I have it in my files. I’ll text it to you when I go back to my office.”
They watched the trainer and his border collie make their way back to the agility course. As they made their way back to M’s bug, Katie was uncharacteristically silent.
“Okay, Kat. What’s up?” asked Kalico as M’s started the car.
“What if the husky was homesick? Maybe, just maybe, he ran away and keeps running because he’s searching for his first owner. Maybe he wasn’t running away from this place—I have to admit it’s gorgeous and seems on the up and up—maybe, he’s running to his old home.”
M’s looked skeptical. “Now you’re replaying Lassie, Come Home?”
“It’s not that far-fetched. Dogs are loyal.” Kalico concentrated for a moment. “Remember the story of the little Scottish dog? What was its name? It searched for its owner or sat by its owner’s grave or something for years and years!”
Katie nodded gratefully at her brother. “He was Greyfriar’s Bobby! That terrier stayed by his master’s grave for fourteen years.”
“How in the world does that apply to Ghost?” M’s said in exasperation. “Are you picturing him languishing beside a loved one’s grave?”
“It’s not that far-fetched.” Katie grumbled.
“I’ll follow up on Ghost’s first owner,” promised Kalico. “But let’s not get our hopes up. The more time that passes, the less likely it is that we’ll find him.”
“And it’s possible that he doesn’t want to be found,” asserted M’s. She braked as a motorcycle cut in front of her. “Ben, don’t forget your 10 o’clock with the auto insurance company.” She paused to let a S
ubaru merge. “I need to drop Katie off at the dorm, drop you off at the office, and get to class. The professor is returning our Jane Eyre papers today.”
“Can you drop me off at my folks’ house?” asked Katie.
M’s raised an eyebrow.
“Mom made lasagna, and I’m hungry.”
“It’s only 9:15!”
“Lasagna is good at any time.” Katie began pulling hairpins from her bun, letting her red hair shower over her shoulders. “Besides, I’m thinking of moving back home.”
M’s frowned but refrained from commenting.
“The dorm is so…” she paused trying to find the right word. “So incommodious!”
“But to move back in with your parents! After having freedom…”
“To quote that poem we learned in AP English: I, too, am one who has felt the weight of too much liberty! Besides, I miss my old room, home cooked meals, Mom doing my laundry. And Ben is back!”
“Temporarily,” he asserted, looking up from his phone.
M’s shrugged. “I don’t get it. The only thing I want is to get away from….” She stopped.
Silence stretched out between the friends. Katie studied M’s profile, before she tentatively asked, “Missy, did your folks do something to you? I know they’re strict, but….”
“Katie, stop! Bethany and Stephen Montgomery are picture perfect parents.” She paused somewhere between exasperation and anger. “They just want me to be someone I’m not. They won’t let me breathe.”
“Raising parents is challenging,” Katie said lightly. “But you know they love you, right? They’re worried and just want to understand your, uh, transformation.”
M’s grunted.
Ignoring her brother’s warning look, Katie nodded her head twice, whispered No guts—no glory, and asked, “M’s, what happened senior year? You know that you can tell me—and Ben––anything. I just want to understand.”
Eyes fixed on the road and hands gripping the steering wheel, M’s frowned deeply, her lips forming a straight line.
“Melissa Anne Montgomery!” Katie flashed with red-headed temper. “I am so tired of you shutting me out. I am tired of walking on egg shells around you! I am tired of biting my tongue, afraid that I’m going to say the wrong thing!”
“Then stop talking!”
On fire, Katie picked up her pace. “What am I supposed to think? One day you’re blonde; the next, you’ve cut your hair, dyed it black and blue, and changed your name! I don’t care if you change your name to Bambi and dye your hair lime green, but I can’t stand it that you will not talk to me. We’ve been best friends forever. You stopped talking to me after that birthday party incident and….”
“That was in the fourth grade.”
“And it took ages and ages for you to open up, and it was all about…I don’t even remember what! This time you are….” Katie paused dramatically. “You are insufferable!”
“Get out.”
“I will not. Not until you tell me what happened to you!” She glared at M’s profile.
“Katie, get out. You’re home.” M’s looked at her friend’s flushed face.
“Oh.”
“You went to Tiffany Court’s princess birthday party, and I wasn’t invited.”
Katie shook her head, puzzled.
“In the fourth grade, you went to the party, and they posted pictures of you and Tiffany, arm and arm, with the tag, ‘Besties.’”
“Mom made me go, and I couldn’t stand Tiffany. She just wanted to play with Barbie, and I hated dolls.”
“I know.” M’s faced her friend and grinned crookedly. “Bambi?”
“Don’t change the subject!”
“Leave it be, Kat,” she said quietly. “Leave me alone.”
“All right, I will.” Katie pushed against Kalico’s seat, and leaped out of the car, the instant that he pulled the backseat forward. She stormed to her front door without a backward glance.
M’s and Kalico rode to the office in silence. As he unfolded his tall frame to exit the Beetle, he leaned in and patted his assistant awkwardly on the shoulder. “You know, Katie means well. She loves you.”
M’s shrugged off his hand and drove away without comment.
Chapter Twenty-One
Kalico had just thirty minutes to prepare for his meeting with the auto insurance company, newly opened on the East side. He moved into his office and leaned back in his chair. Yes, he could envision a steady stream of important cases coming his way: insurance fraud, missing persons, cold murder cases, art theft….His phone vibrated—his ten o’clock cancelling. He sighed and decided to spend the next hour responding to emails, cold calling companies M’s had compiled for him, and rechecking his accounts receivables, hoping that magically the bottom line had changed.
He turned finally to the Winterjoy file, preparing to write CLOSED in large block letters across its cover. He opened it one last time. Nancy’s accidents had been just that—accidents. He opened the baggie containing her left gardening glove. The delicate scent of lavender swirled around him. He shook his head. Nancy was allergic to lavender, so why was her glove soaked in it? Had someone tried to attract bees? Had the bee sting been part of a murder plot? He shook his head ruefully. Most likely, Nancy had picked up one of Emelia’s gloves by accident. The simplest explanation is usually the best one, he reminded himself.
He stared for a moment at Susan’s picture, experiencing again the shock and sadness at her passing. But why had her skin retained that slight blush hours after her death? And who had given her that cobbler? He conjured the bustle of good-bye’s at Miss Winterjoy’s front door: guests carrying containers of leftovers, laughing and calling out thank-you’s and good-byes; Emelia hugging Susan and Margie and Nancy as the trio of friends departed; Susan laughingly declining dessert; Emelia encouraging her to take it….
Kalico scribbled on scratch paper: listing names and events, circling some, starring others, placing a huge question mark beside Susan’s name. Under Nancy’s name he wrote: fall, car accident, bee sting. Certainly Connor and the book circle ladies all had opportunity and means—if Nancy had been a target. In fact, Miss Winterjoy had been present at each “accident’ except for Nancy’s fender bender. But her decision not to attend the book circle had certainly facilitated the potential for disaster. Instantly, he imagined the retired English teacher as a white-haired criminal mastermind who had hired him to divert attention away from her. Perhaps she had played him for a fool. But what motive could she have? What motive could any of them have for wanting to harm Nancy? Money? She was not a rich woman, and, logically, her son would inherit if she died. Power? No. Sex? Revenge? He squinted at the crack in his ceiling, hoping it would reveal a reason.
He put a box around Susan’s name as he tried to figure out what was bothering him about her death. What if Susan had not suffered a heart attack? What if she had been murdered? What if someone had poisoned her cobbler or her tea? He, again, conjured Miss Winterjoy carefully washing Susan’s cup and dessert plate. What if?
Kalico resolutely shut the file, wrote CLOSED across the front, and placed it his file cabinet. Done.
His phone buzzed.
“Hello, Benjamin.”
“Miss Winterjoy! Hello.” Kalico stifled a groan. “I was just thinking about you.”
“Call me Emelia, please. After all that we’ve been through….”
“Emelia, then. What can I do for you?”
Her voice was unusually soft and sounded a little tentative. “I was wondering if you could meet me for coffee?” She named a café around the corner from his office.
“You’re welcome to come here. I can put a pot on.”
“No.” Her voice was stronger. “No. I’d like to meet you here. Now, please.”
Five minutes later, Kalico entered the Capitol Café. Miss Winterjoy clad in light grey, sat alone at a window table and waved at him. He slid in across from her, watching her carefully as they exchanged the usual pleasantries, no
ting that she seemed to fidget and avoid his eyes. After their coffee arrived, he drank and let silence expand between them.
Miss Winterjoy glanced furtively around the room, checked over her shoulder, and perused the sidewalk outside of the window before fixing her blue eyes onto Kalico’s face. “Thank you for meeting me here. As you know,” she said pointedly, “I promised Nancy that our professional relationship has ended.” She narrowed her eyes and waited.
Not quite sure what she expected, Kalico asked, “And how is Nancy? I trust there have been no more—accidents?”
“Nancy is fine. Back at work.” She leaned forward, willing him to speak. But about what?
“And you’re well?” he asked. “Lynn mentioned that you’ve been having trouble….”
“I’m fine. I miss Susan, but at my time of life, death is no stranger, after all.” Cold.
Kalico searched for something to say. “And what is Connor up to?”
Colder. She shook her head but answered.
“Connor is being amazingly thoughtful and useful. He’s studying hard, still working at the restaurant, but he made the time to mow both his grandmother’s yard and mine!” She pursed her lips. “I think I was wrong to suspect him. He’s just young and sometimes a bit reckless, but he loves his grandmother. I believe that.” She frowned, adding ruefully, “I have to or Nancy will disown me.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she tilted her head, like a hungry sparrow, willing him to speak again.
Kalico leaned back in the booth at a loss. He felt like he was failing a quiz on a subject that he had never studied.
“That was quite a temperature drop yesterday,” Miss Winterjoy commented mildly.
“Yes. Heard there were wind gusts of over fifty miles an hour,” he said. Why are we talking about the weather?
“I was lucky to get my errands done before the storm.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I dropped off bequests from Susan to Margie and Jane.”
Maybe Murder Page 18