Necktie: An Avery Barks Dog Mystery (Avery Barks Cozy Dog Mysteries Book 8)

by Mary Hiker

  “Calm down.” I slipped off the hip pack and tossed it over to him. “Get yourself a drink and let me take a look around.”

  “Thanks.” Jackson sat on a log and put the pack on his lap.

  “Anyone in there?” I asked before unzipping the tent fly and peering inside. An unfurled sleeping bag sat on the ground. There were a few partial footprints in small patches of dirt near the fire ring that looked to be both men’s and women’s sizes. Too bad Ace hadn’t come along. A trained search dog would’ve made this part of the task a whole lot easier. He’d find it easy to follow a fairly fresh scent trail through these woods.

  While Jackson was preoccupied digging in the pack for a water bottle, I turned my back and checked for a phone signal. Nothing.

  One smaller boot print headed deeper into the woods along the ridge. “Stay here, I’ll be right back,” I said and walked a short way along the top of the ridge toward a group of massive boulders that provided a popular place to sit and watch the sunrise.

  “Chevy, come,” I called, clipping the leash on his collar when he trotted over. The rocks could be slippery when wet, and I didn’t want to take any chances.

  As I reached the first series of rocks, my foot made contact with a small cylinder, causing it to skitter across the hard surface and land in the soft grass. It was the first time I’d seen trash up here, so I took a closer look and found a thin blue canister nestled in the grass. It was housed inside a clear key-chain compartment, the side of the can reading, SABRE Blue Face Red Pepper Spray.

  “Whew.” That’s the strong stuff the cops use. Whoever got blasted with a dose would be in a world of hurt and marked with blue dye for a good twenty-four hours. They’d be instantly reduced to stumbling around as they tried to recover from the pain. These rocks wouldn’t be a good place to be blinded by pepper spray.

  Dread hit me. “Oh no.”

  My shoulders were in knots as I tied Chevy’s leash to a nearby tree and told him to stay while holding my hand out, showing him my palm as an additional signal. Chevy whined in protest but did as I told him.

  “Good boy.”

  I climbed up to the top rock, a large broad surface that could easily hold ten people on a busy day and lay on my stomach. The hard surface pressed against my belly as I peered down over the edge to the drop off below.

  Just as I feared, a man wearing camouflage was sprawled out on his back, his body mangled into an unnatural position fifty feet below, a swath of blue dye covering his eyes and half his face.

  CHAPTER 7

  “What are you really doing up here?” I stomped back to my cousin as Chevy proudly marched beside me, carrying a stick.

  “Did you find Buck?” There was a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

  “I found him.” I frowned. “Answer my question.”

  “I told you, business.”

  It was obvious his friend was dead, but I still wanted to find a way down to check and be one-hundred percent sure. I motioned to Jackson to follow me. He slung the backpack over his shoulder, and we traversed the ridgeline until I found a place I could safely slide down the slope.

  “Listen, someone pepper sprayed your buddy. Before I go check on him, I want to know why.” I stopped and turned toward my cousin. “You at least owe me that.”

  Jackson’s face started to lose color again. “He was following someone, a college girl.”

  “So, he’s a stalker?” My face grew hot at the thought of the hulking guy following a young woman through the forest. “I would’ve maced him too.” My hands started to tremble. “You can forget about me going down there by myself. I’m calling the sheriff.”

  “No.” Jackson grabbed my arm as I stomped past. “We’re professionals.” He spun me around to face him. “A private eye hired us to help out with an investigation.”

  “You work for a private detective?”

  “Yeah, Andy LaSalle.” He nodded. “We were supposed to find out who our subject was meeting out here.” He looked down and kicked at the dead leaves with his black and red tennis shoes. “After Buck left, I got a text from the boss calling it off. He said he needed a woman for the job.”

  “Why was that?”

  “Don’t know.” Jackson shrugged. “Buck was out of cell range and never got the text.” He wiped the sweat from his pale face. “Now, can we go help him? I can’t collect my pay unless we show up together.”

  A quick snort escaped from my mouth. My cousin was so freaking selfish.

  He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Well?”

  I recognized the sneakers. “Did you guys all go shoe shopping together?”

  Jackson frowned in confusion. “Actually, we did.” He looked down and studied his feet. “Andy bought them for us.”

  “I hate to tell you this, but that’s all Andy LaSalle is going to give you.” Chevy brought me his stick, and I tossed it for him. “He’s not paying you a dime.”

  “And why not?” Jackson jammed his hands into his armpits.

  “Because he’s dead.” I cringed at the recent memory.

  Jackson’s mouth dropped.

  “Saw him with my own eyes this morning at Diamond Song.” I turned my back to my cousin and started down the steep slope. “Stay here while I check on Buck.”

  “What do you mean dead?” Jackson finally found words and shouted over the steep bank. “Who’s going to pay me my five hundred dollars?”

  “Don’t know.” My dress slacks got filthy as I slid down the steep slope on my rump. “You’ve gotten yourself into a real mess this time.” I reached the bottom and looked up at my cousin. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure your buddy Buck is dead too.”

  Jackson stood a good thirty feet above me, peering over the edge as he swiped an arm across his forehead. “I didn’t sign up for this BS,” he said in a high-pitched voice. He swung his head, looking to the right, the left, back to the right, then spun around and ran off, kicking up some old twigs and leaving both his buddy and me behind.

  “Typical,” I muttered. “He even took the hip pack with my water and supplies,” I complained to Chevy as he found his own way down the slope to me. I patted my pockets and my stomach suddenly clenched.

  “Come back!” I shouted from thirty feet below the ridgeline. “My car keys are in that pack!”

  It was too late. Jackson was long gone.

  CHAPTER 8

  Scrambling across the rocks and crawling through a patch of rhododendrons really took a toll on my good pants. A one-inch tear at the knee, combined with the now ground in dirt, made my attire completely unfit for the fundraiser’s dress code.

  “Safety first,” I mumbled to myself, keeping close to the wall of earth. I probably could’ve found an easier place to walk, but I didn’t want to get turned around and lose my bearings. Two-hundred feet of thick vegetation finally gave way to a half acre open platform of dirt with a spectacular view. The man I presumed was Buck lay just ahead.

  “Sorry, buddy,” I hooked my dog’s leash to his collar and had him stay for the second time. At least I was able to scrounge up a couple dog cookies from my pocket and toss them in some leaves to keep him occupied sniffing them out.

  “Buck.” I crept closer to the man.

  He didn’t budge. I wasn’t surprised and reached down to check for a pulse. There was none. The bulky man wore the same black and red high tops that Jackson and the dead private detective had on. At least my cousin told the truth about that part of his story.

  A red backpack– one of the expensive ones, like the professionals use - was lying under one of Buck’s flailed out arms. It was completely flat, like there was nothing inside. I turned my back and entered a waypoint on my GPS to save the coordinates. I’d need to report this location to the authorities so they could recover the body. I knew Jackson wouldn’t take the time to do it. He’d high tail it out of the state as soon as he reached his truck.

  Why were they following a college girl? I squatted down and gently tugged on the backpack. W
hat could she have been doing out here that warranted a private investigator? She was probably long gone too.

  I glanced over at Chevy, who was still rooting in the leaves for dog treats. The pack pulled away from the body and had virtually no weight to it. I unzipped the main compartment and looked inside. It was empty. How weird.

  There was a familiarity to the design and I flipped it over. There was a decorative patch sewn onto the top flap. “What the…?”

  It was our search and rescue team logo.

  Chevy looked up until he realized I was just talking to myself. He planted his face back in the leaves and went back to the important business of hidden cookies.

  This was one of the missing backpacks for the fundraising event.

  I unzipped the side pockets and found a single piece of paper folded up in fourths. Written inside was another series of numbers, in a swoopy, girlish handwriting style. Were the guys after these location coordinates?

  I carried the red pack over to the shade, took a deep breath and blew it out, pulled out the trail map from my back pocket, and sat down to study the new coordinates. It appeared she was headed to, or had just come from, a spot near a dirt road about a mile from here as the crow flies.

  That unmaintained forest road was rarely used. The only time I’d known anyone to drive on it was during a previous search and rescue mission. It required a four-wheel-drive vehicle to get through all the deep ruts and downed branches.

  If I hiked along the ridgeline above me until I got close enough to that dirt road, I could cut through and hit that path, then follow it out to a more populated area. It would be faster than trying to hike down to my truck and hitch a ride from the mostly empty parking area we’d started from. It would also give me a chance to scope out the spot written on the piece of paper.

  “C’mon, Chevy.” I cut him loose, and we began the arduous task of clawing our way back up the steep bank to the ridge.

  #

  “You’re late.”

  My back tensed. I looked through the trees, following the gruff words, and spotted a man leaning against an older model 4-Runner in the curve of the dirt path. He was lean but looked strong at the same time, with an old cowboy hat and a weathered face. I hadn’t even realized he was there until I heard his voice.

  “Uh, sorry,” I sputtered, not knowing what else to say.

  He held out his hand. “Are you new?” His outstretched fingers motioned back toward his palm, beckoning me closer.

  I stood there and nodded, not exactly knowing what was going on.

  “Well, give it here.” He was eyeing the empty red backpack.

  I slipped it off my shoulder and handed it over.

  “You look like a deer stuck in headlights.” He chuckled and carried the pack to the back of his vehicle.

  I put Chevy back on his leash and kept my distance.

  “You’re going to have to hustle to make it in time,” he said, working quickly to fill the backpack before snapping a padlock contraption on the main compartment. “Believe me. You don’t want to be late.”

  “I’m in shape.”

  He nodded. “Turn around.”

  The cowboy lifted the pack onto my back, handed me a hotel room key card, and a piece of paper with new GPS coordinates. “Leave it in Room 134. It’s at the end of the hall past the conference room.”

  I was gripping Chevy’s leash so tight it hurt my hand.

  “Turn in your room key at the check in desk, and you’ll receive an envelope with your name on it.” He looked at his watch. “It’s four o’clock. You’ve got one hour.”

  “Okay.”

  “Don’t try to unlock the bag.” His eyes grew dark and his stare drilled into mine. “Don’t try to disappear with it either – we’ll find you.”

  “Okay.” I sounded like a broken record.

  He jumped in the 4-Runner and started the engine. “Get going,” he said through the open window and hit the gas, disappearing in a cloud of dust.

  CHAPTER 9

  The 4-Runner’s rumbling got farther and farther away as I moved my finger across the map, looking for the latest coordinates. The sinking feeling grew in my chest as my finger reached the edge of the national forest boundary and stopped right at a familiar location, the Diamond Song Resort.

  Stolen backpacks getting filled at secret locations, people dying who tried to intercept information, and tight time schedules. These guys were running drugs. Why did Andy LaSalle hire my cousin to come out here and chase girls through the woods? It was pretty ironic that they were headed to the same resort where he died.

  Or was it? Maybe it wasn’t a heart attack that killed him.

  The cowboy said it was four o’clock. By now, Don would think I was returning to the resort with his special tie. The fundraising event would be starting promptly at five. Wouldn’t he just flip out if he knew I was standing in the middle of the woods with dirty pants and a backpack full of drugs latched onto my back?

  Some kind of deputy’s girlfriend I was turning out to be.

  I had to alert Don to the fact that some kind of dysfunctional drug deal was going down. He’d think I was nuts at first, as usual, but I had the evidence to prove it. If I read the map right, I could take a shortcut down the creek and hit the trail that would take me right to the back of the resort. A rough route for sure, but it would take two miles off the winding trail route.

  If I kept a fast pace, I might even make it in time to borrow a quick change of clothes from one of the team members. We always had extra clothes stashed in our vehicles for emergency search calls. Definitely not dress-up clothes, but at least they’d be clean. It was a long shot, but I decided to give it a try.

  I trotted two-hundred feet west, hopped in the creek and followed it downstream, avoiding the brush and plants in the wooded areas that would otherwise slow me down. Chevy romped along in front of me, and I pushed forward, my feet quickly starting to numb from the cold water.

  Within minutes, my pants were soaked to the knees, and my shoes were weighted down with water, making it feel like I was hauling slabs of concrete on my feet. At any other time, it might be a fun adventure, but right at that moment, it definitely was not.

  The sounds of the water blocked out most of the surrounding noise as I walked in the creek, so I was surprised to hear approaching voices when I finally sloshed up a small bank and got my feet firmly planted on the trail.

  My stomach rumbled and felt a bit week; I was sure I’d burned off that hamburger and shake hours before. I was wet, filthy, and smelled like a pig pen, but the shortcut had easily cut thirty minutes off my arrival time. Well worth it.

  The voices I’d heard had gotten closer and turned into the giggling of a girl’s gossip session. I rustled in my pocket and was relieved to find a few dollars. Maybe I could buy a spare snack from the giggling girls. Chevy played in the water as I waited for the girls to march down the trail and reach my spot. They looked to be college aged and were physically fit.

  My eyes bulged out when I saw both of them wearing the same red backpack I was, SAR team patch and all. They seemed to recognize my pack too and smiled as I gave them a weak wave.

  “Are you okay?” the brunette asked as they stopped and stared at my dirty, wet pants.

  “I’m getting overly hungry.” I pulled out the money. “I was hoping I could buy a snack from you.”

  The blonde girl slid off her pack and dropped it on the ground. The main compartment had a lock on it just like mine. She reached into a small side pocket and pulled out a Snickers bar. “Here, you can have it.”

  “Thanks.” I ripped it open and took a bite.

  “You sure are hungry.” The girls watched me inhale the rest of the candy.

  “Are you sure you don’t want any money?” I held out the cash.

  “Keep it,” the blonde girl laughed. “We’ll all have plenty of money in a half hour.”

  The other girl giggled. I just stared as I chomped on chocolate and caramel.


  “Is this your first time?”

  I swallowed my last bite of candy. “Is it that obvious?”

  They nodded, laughing.

  I blew out a breath.

  “Relax, it’s the easiest money you’ll ever make.” The brunette flipped her ponytail.

  “Yeah, and it’s not like you’re hurting anyone,” the blonde one chimed in. “It’s just pot.”

  “Just drop the bags in the room and pick up the cash.” They slapped a high-five. “And party all night!”

  The brunette suddenly got serious. “We better keep moving, so we make time.”

  I called my dog out of the creek and started walking with them. “Do you guys do this a lot?”

  “Oh, yeah.” They broke out in another giggle. “Eddie keeps us busy.”

  “Just make sure you follow the directions to a T,” the blonde one said as they waited for me to catch up. “You’ll get to see the most excellent places.”

  “And make bank,” the brunette added.

  “There are plenty of hot guys, and you get to hang out at the finest resorts.” The blonde girl was beaming. “You can’t beat that.”

  “I haven’t seen any guys.” I pried for some information. Jackson said his boss needed a girl for the job.

  “The boys come in afterwards and pick up the load, thanks to Amanda,” the brunette said and gave the other girl a friendly nudge, setting off a round of laughter. “She was making out with a guy from Cali and made him miss his assignment. Now they keep us separated.”

  I laughed along with them, walking a few steps behind as they rated the hotness of their co-workers.

  Was Eddie actually Edward Cortese?

  No wonder the drop-off was in the private section near the conference room. He wouldn’t want the regular customers to get wind of a drug operation. I couldn’t believe he was running drugs across the country through their four and five-star resorts. Talk about multiple streams of income.

  It finally made sense why Andy LaSalle tried to call off Jackson’s mission – only females hauled the backpacks into the hotels. If the guys showed up at the drop spot, it would be a dead giveaway. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if LaSalle and Jackson planned to rob the pot supply. They made some pretty stupid mistakes.