Play Dead

by Jane B. Mason

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Copyright

  I was under the table with my head on my girl’s shoes. Her grassy, soapy, and slightly bacon-y smell drifted into my snout. Ah. I loved it under the table. I was hard to see there. I was nearly invisible. Undercover. Not an easy thing to pull off when you’re a ninety-pound German shepherd.

  And the other great thing? Even though I was hard to see, I could see just about everything. That included any bits of dinner that might “accidentally” fall. Mmm. Bits of dinner. I loved bits of dinner. Really, really loved bits of dinner. The only thing better was food I stole from The Cat.

  The Cat’s food was good. The actual cat? She drove me crazy. The Cat thought she could get away with anything. Anything. But I saw her crouching. I saw her twitching tail. I saw the uncovered butter dish on the counter. I gave a small “Whuff,” to let her know I was watching. She didn’t look at me. But she heard. “Whuff.” Her tail stopped twitching.

  Cassie heard, too. My girl’s hand appeared under the table and she gave me a pat. “Easy, Dodge.” I licked her hand. I was easy. Just keeping things in line. I licked again. She always tasted good, but tonight she tasted burger good. Burgers were for dinner. I loved burgers. Burgers were my favorite.

  Cassie’s hand disappeared and I had to duck fast. The Sister had a sneaker-swinging habit, and her sparkle-crusted shoes were coming close. Too close. I adjusted, putting one paw on either side of Cassie’s Converse and leaning to one side.

  With my head cocked I could hear better in my good ear. Under the table I could see and hear. And what I heard was The Sullivan pack having a meeting. The Mom was chewing her words before spitting them out. My hairs tingled. When The Mom chewed her words, it meant something. It meant she was working things over in her head. Two words kept repeating: Verdel Ward. It was a name. A name that was bugging The Mom like a bad burr.

  In the Sullivan pack, The Mom was in charge. Sometimes The Dad took over, but not usually. Me? I only took orders from one human. The one who saved me. Cassie. Cassie would do anything for me, and I would do anything for her. But I’ll admit I would seriously consider any request The Mom made. Yeah. I would sit for her if she asked. Maybe even roll over.

  The Mom used to be in charge of me. When I was on the force, she was top dog — the Chief of Police. She gave all the orders. And still does — just not to me. I had to leave the force. But it wasn’t because I wasn’t good at my job. I was good. I’m still good.

  I graduated top of my class from K-9 Academy. I was trained to notice everything. Like my girl’s heart rate picking up. And her toes curling and uncurling beneath my chin. Cassie was great at noticing things, too. She was noticing right now.

  My girl didn’t have training, but she had something just as good. Instincts. We both smelled a case, and we kept sniffing. And listening.

  There was a whole lot to listen to. Even The Brother. The whole pack was talking tonight.

  Usually at dinner The Brother kept his feet pointed toward the door. He kept buzzing things in his ears to drown out the pack until The Mom told him to take them out. The Brother was a little over two in dog years. He had a bit of hair on his face, and his voice was getting growly. It was a hard time, two. I remembered. When you’re two you wanted to leave the pack. But you didn’t. But you did. But you didn’t.

  The Brother was chewing up the same two words as The Mom: Verdel Ward. Verdel Ward. Verdel Ward.

  I licked my chops. The air tasted like burgers. I tried not to drool. Or fantasize about a plate sliding off the table and spilling food all over the floor. Food on the floor was mine, or The Cat’s. Or mine. That was another reason I liked my under-the-table territory.

  “Funny how everyone suddenly cares about the billionaire,” The Mom said between bites. “It’s not like Ward had many friends when he was alive.”

  “You mean any friends,” The Sister said. Friends were important to her.

  The Dad snorted in agreement. “Yup, I think employees and clients were the closest relationships he had — relationships where money changed hands.”

  “No doubt.” The Brother surprised everyone with his talk. Even me. And he talked to me when nobody else was around. Sometimes when nobody else was around he talked a lot. “We trick-or-treated at Ward’s house once. We thought maybe the richest guy in town would be giving away something good. All we got were chalky mints that weren’t even wrapped! He was really cheap for a rich guy.”

  It was silent for two breaths. For The Brother this was a major howl. He shifted his feet. I pictured his face. Brown hair hanging into his brown eyes. Straight nose. Long face. Like an Afghan hound, only human.

  “Ward was the richest man in town?” Cassie asked.

  She was digging. Good girl.

  The Mom was nodding — I could hear it. “Maybe even the state.”

  “That’s because he never gave anybody a single penny,” The Brother growled. Those mints had made him mad.

  The Sister swung her feet faster. “I guess that’s why everyone hated him.”

  Cassie’s toes clenched and held under my jaw. Hated. Sometimes “hated” people didn’t just die. Sometimes they were killed.

  “Doesn’t matter how much money you have when you’re dead. You can’t take it with you,” The Dad said. He wanted everyone to be happy. Happy-making was a job for golden retrievers.

  “I bet he wishes he could have taken it with him,” The Brother said. “I bet he wishes he was stuffed in a coffin full of cash for all eternity.”

  “I half wish he could’ve taken it with him, too,” The Mom sighed. “It’s going to be a while before they know who gets his money, but that’s not what’s bogging us down at the station.” The Mom trailed off, and I could tell the burr was burrowing in.

  The Sister stopped chewing. She set her burger down. Was she done? No. She picked it up. She set it down. She wasn’t done. She was annoyed. “Do we have to talk about creepy stuff at every meal?” she whined. “Can’t we talk about —”

  “I like hearing what’s going on at the station.” My girl cut her off. “Especially the weird stuff.”

  “Yeah, but coffins and dying and … ick.” The Sister wiggled and tucked her toes over the rung of the chair.

  “Ward didn’t have a coffin to stuff money into,” The Dad pointed out. “He didn’t even have an urn.”

  “Huh?” Cassie shifted in her seat without moving my pillow foot. “What do you mean?”

  I cocked my good ear toward The Dad. Yeah. What did he mean?

  “You need a body for a coffin, and they never found Ward’s,” The Dad explained. He sounded disappointed. The Dad dealt with dead people every day. He was a coroner. He liked a body.

  Then, whoom! Something flickered in the corner of my eye — a piec
e of burger bun falling to the floor! I got my mouth under it. Mmm. Ketchup and burger juice. More? I wondered crazily. Please, please let there be more. A beggy whine tried to get out of my throat.

  “If they never found a body, how do they know he’s dead?” Cassie acted like she didn’t knock that piece of bun off the table on purpose. What a girl.

  “He went for a swim off Tempest Point,” The Mom explained. “It’s considered an ‘imminent peril’ situation because there’s no way he could survive in those waters for more than a few hours. So after four months his housekeeper filed a petition to have him declared dead.”

  “Tempest Point?” The Sister interrupted. “Isn’t that where they have all those warning signs? Don’t people drown?”

  “That’s the spot,” Cassie said. “So Ward disappears in the sea, and now, after being hated by everybody, he suddenly has lots of friends?”

  “His money has lots of friends,” The Brother corrected. His fork clinked down. His plate was clean. Bummer.

  The Mom tapped her foot. I remembered she sometimes forgot to eat when she was chewing on a case. The thought made me wag. Burger. Burger. Burger.

  “Right. He doesn’t have friends so much as people who want his money,” The Mom said. “His housekeeper claims that thirty years of service is worth a cut of the fortune. And Mayor Baudry wants the Ward estate donated to the city. He says that he and Ward had had several off-the-record conversations about it. But I don’t think Ward’s ever had several conversations with anyone. And then this …” The Mom tapped her finger on the table. It was a newspaper tap. Muffled. “The press reports that Ward had a long-distance girlfriend.”

  “No way,” The Sister balked. “That’s just weird.”

  “What’s weirder is that Ward had no will,” The Mom said.

  I felt Cassie’s toes unclench. She lifted the front of her foot a tiny bit. She sensed it before The Mom said it.

  “I’m opening a full investigation,” The Mom declared. The hesitation in her voice was gone. Her decision was made. As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she took a big bite of burger. But I was too excited to care. An investigation. A trail. Clues!

  I thumped my tail on the floor to let Cassie know that I’d been listening.

  My girl slipped the last few bites of her burger to me and I quickly took care of them. Nobody had to know. Then Cassie put her hand on my head and scratched the spot, the one behind my ears that makes me go limp. Her foot relaxed and so did I. I had everything I wanted. Burger. Girl. Case. Woof.

  I slid my last bite of burger to Dodge and got up from the table. I was on cleanup. Ugh. Why was I always on cleanup when I had a new case to mull over? I thought about asking Owen or Sam to switch dish nights with me, then questioned my sanity. Sam would never do a task she could put off, and Owen would probably just grunt in response. The only way to get out of the dishes was to get them done.

  Swooping up a handful of silverware and adding it to my stack, I headed into the kitchen.

  Dodge followed, and not just because there were burger drippings involved. Dodge and I were a team. We did almost everything together, and he was better company than anyone else in the house. “Can you believe I’m on dish duty?” I groused in his direction.

  He gazed back at me, his liquid brown eyes full of sympathy. Then he lowered his head, put his paws down in play position, and let out a little bark like he does when he wants me to throw the Frisbee.

  “I know, I know,” I said. “We’ve got real work to do.” I gave him a pet and went back to the dining room for another stack. Then I opened the dishwasher. It was full of clean dishes. “Owen, you forgot to unload the dishwasher again!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. Which maybe wasn’t totally necessary, but felt good anyway.

  Lately Owen was a problem. He didn’t want anything to do with the rest of us anymore — especially me. Or at least that was how it felt. So even if I got him to come do his job, it wouldn’t be fun. It wouldn’t involve jokes and miniature water fights. Not like it used to.

  Dodge thumped his tail on the floor, and I bent down so we were forehead to forehead. “Good idea,” I told him as I ruffled his neck fur. “It’ll be a lot faster.” I put the plates on the floor so he could get to work on the prewash. “No water needed!” I boasted, feeling efficient and environmental as I started to unload the clean dishes.

  By the time I finished the bottom rack, the plates on the floor had been licked clean and Dodge was lingering over the burger platter, his big pink tongue searching for that last bit of flavor. I grabbed the last few dishes, loaded them, and closed the dishwasher. “Time for the good stuff!”

  I darted into the hall and hit the stairs just in front of Dodge, who passed me halfway up. “No fair! Four-leg advantage!” I called as we rounded the corner and shoved open the door to our room.

  Unfortunately, it was also my sister’s room — at least for a few more days. And there she was, Samantha the spectacular, sitting in our swivel chair with her sparkly shoes parked on our desk, dangerously close to a stack of innocently bystanding mysteries. “Ahem,” I said.

  Sam didn’t even acknowledge me — she just kept nodding her sandy blonde bob, petting her cat, Furball, and leafing through her copy of Seventeen. I was about to get huffy when I realized she was plugged into her iPod. Annoying, but it explained not listening to me. That, and the fact that she was generally too busy listening to herself.

  I ran my fingers through the fur on Dodge’s back, which was starting to rise. Dodge and Furball were not exactly friends, and right now my sister’s cat was glowering in our direction. Not that Sam noticed this — she was too busy gawking at glossy photos of teen pop stars. “Who’s the real teenager around here?” I asked, settling Dodge’s fur. Owen might have been fifteen, but Sam was ten going on sixteen.

  I stepped forward with a sigh. “Can you get your feet off the desk? It’s not a footstool.” She didn’t respond, so I shoved her ridiculous shoes lightly to get them off the desk. “I need some —”

  Sam shot to her feet, sending a hissing Furball and a stack of my favorite old mysteries to the floor. Her blue eyes flared, and she was wearing mascara, which was against the rules. “I am so glad I only have to share a room with you for a few more days,” she snapped as she glanced down at my copy of The Hound of the Baskervilles before following Furball out the door.

  Dodge licked my hand to let me know he was there, and I picked up the books before plopping on my bed. Part of me, a big part, was totally psyched that I wouldn’t have to share a room with my little sister much longer. But another part was sad. Another part was already lonely. It seemed like everything was changing in my house, and all at once. Mostly it was Owen, but now it was Sam, too.

  The changes started after Owen’s birthday, when he announced that he was moving out of his bedroom into the bonus room in the basement. He said he “needed space.” But even an idiot could see the basement room was smaller, and there was hardly any light.

  Naturally, the minute Owen announced his plan, Sam called dibs on his room. I probably should have put up a fight and insisted the bigger room be mine — I’m two years older than she is. But the whole thing happened so fast. Plus I didn’t want to hear one of Sam’s “you have no idea how hard it is to be the youngest” rants. It’s not like being in the middle is a picnic.

  After that, Sam started obsessively marking the stuff she’d be taking with glitter tape. I looked around the messy room and noted that I was about to be left with my bed, a few books, and the ancient clown lamp Dad found at a thrift shop when I was three. Sam despised its faded paint and slightly torn shade, but I loved the way the night-light illuminated the clown’s red nose — so much that I pretended to be afraid of the dark just so I could turn it on.

  For all I knew, Sam was planning on taking the clown lamp at the last minute, out of spite. Then I’d be left with my bed, my books, and Dodge.

  I felt a rush of gratitude for my dog, who had parked himself next t
o my bed and was looking at me with total devotion. I leaned down to push my face into the longish fur around his neck. “It’ll be nice when it’s just us,” I said into his soft black ear. I rested my head against him for a minute, inhaling his smell — a mix of dry straw, good dirt, and cut grass. Comfort.

  Dodge lifted his head and licked my face — a big beggy wet kiss. “You’re right,” I agreed. “We do have work to do.” Grabbing the laptop Sam and I shared, I slid onto the floor next to Dodge. I did a lengthy search on Verdel Ward, reading and rereading all the recent articles about him, and started some lists in my notebook. The first included suspicious stuff: no body, no will, no friends. The second was stuff to investigate — stuff I’d need answers to: Who was the last person to see Ward? Was he really dating someone? Was there ever a —

  An IM popped up on my screen.

  Bittersweet: What are you doing online? Thought you finished your homework.

  It was Hayley, my best human friend. Hayley had waaay less hair than Dodge but was just as loyal. She was also in my grade at Harbor Middle, was allowed on school grounds, and never ever sniffed anyone inappropriately.

  Clued-In: I’m working on a new case.

  Bittersweet: Excellent! Murder?

  (Hayley was totally into true crime.)

  Clued-In: Maybe. Missing and presumed dead: Verdel Ward.

  Bittersweet: The mean rich dude? Hope he stays missing! Made a new cupcake today — calling it the Elvis. Peanut butter and banana with a candied maple bacon crumble. Tell Dodge.