Shepherd's Crook

by Sheila Webster Boneham

  Judging by upright ears and sharp gazes, the spectating dogs seemed to enjoy the event as much as their owners, and I turned my camera on them from time to time. The result was several stunning head shots plus a couple of fifty-pound lap dogs squeezed into folding chairs with their people and a Corgi sacked out belly-up in a stroller with a toddler. I hadn’t planned to shoot a photo essay, but as I panned the audience for interesting shots, Kali, a red-merle Aussie I knew from Illinois, opened a cooler, finagled a soda bottle out of it, and handed it to her owner, Kim Johnson. I got the whole hilarious sequence and decided to surprise Kim with the best shots. There was also a cute black tri-color Australian Shepherd sitting in a folding chair and wearing sunglasses and a pink floppy hat with “Lilly” embroidered across the front. I took several shots of her and made a note to track her owner down after the parade.

  The herding demonstration, featuring a Corgi, a Border Collie, and an Aussie, was popular, but the real crowd pleaser was the disc-dog competition. My little friend Edith Ann was spectacular—she flew as if she had sprouted wings, and missed only one disc, which Kathy, her partner-in-sport, later attributed to her own “crappy toss.” Edith Ann left the field bouncing and wagging and grinning. Kathy came out panting. I smiled to myself as I checked my photos and caught up with her to get her email address. She’d get a surprise in a week or so.

  By late afternoon, Evan seemed to have gone to ground, but Summer was standing in the shadow of a big pin oak, watching as things began to wind down. I walked over and told her I needed to go home and regroup, but would be back later to help search for Bonnie, and the next day, too, if necessary. She nodded at me.

  “It was a lovely weekend,” I said, realizing how dumb that sounded even as the words came out. At least I didn’t add, aside from the hanged man and missing animals. “Well, you know …”

  Summer barely answered. She was very pale, her eyes rimmed in crimson, and I could see that she wasn’t as impervious as I had thought. She put her hand on my arm and started to say, “I appre …,” but her gaze slipped to something behind me and she froze. By the time she said, “Talk to you later,” her body was already turning away, and in the next heartbeat, she was gone.

  Maybe if I had looked right away, I’d have known what startled her, but I was a bit startled myself and I watched her for a few seconds before I turned around. Nothing and nobody stood out at first. Then I noticed two men standing near Dogs-on-Wheels. The fat one tossed a wadded-up hotdog wrapper on the ground and unbuttoned his straining jacket. The tall, skinny one was stuffing what looked like a Coney dog into his mouth. They were the same two I had seen talking to Evan earlier. Who are they, and what the heck is going on? That was, of course, the Janet Devil voice, the one that gets me into trouble. The other one was trying to drown her out. Who cares? Not your beeswax. I hadn’t chosen a side in that argument yet.

  It was past four-thirty by the time I made another tour of the grounds, picked up a bit of trash, packed up my stuff, and finally slid behind the wheel. As I reached for the key, the emotional weight of the weekend fell over me, heavy and black.

  I could barely breathe. I had plenty to deal with running my photography business, planning a wedding, and merging my household with Tom’s. The last thing I needed was to get dragged into another murder investigation. But here you are again, Janet. I forced myself to take some nice, long, healing breaths. In, one, two, three. My neighbor and best friend, Goldie, had taught me to do this. Out, one, two, three, four. Count to ten … eight, nine, ten.

  Twelve missing sheep.

  One missing dog.

  And a dead man.

  fourteen

  One of these days I’ll learn to see household chores through to the end. It will be part of the “get organized, stop procrastinating” self-improvement project I’ve been putting off for a while. Okay, for decades. Saturday had not been the day, though, and when I pulled the shower curtain back and reached for a towel, my arm on autopilot, I came up empty. My bath towels, all three of them, were still in the laundry room. I told you to set a timer to remind yourself, said that know-it-all in my head. I shushed her and looked around. For once I had not dropped my dirty duds on the bathroom floor. No, I had deposited them in the hampers in my bedroom, colors to the left, whites to the right. Besides, they stank of sheep and I no longer did, so I would have been reluctant to use them even if they were handy. The only bit of fabric in the bathroom was a navy blue washcloth. It wouldn’t cover much, and besides, navy is just not my color.

  I said some of those words I’ve been trying not to say and dripped my way across the three steps to the door. I listened carefully, then opened the door a crack and listened again. The house was still. Tom and the dogs weren’t back yet, and the feline contingent must have been asleep in some secret lair. I tried to remember whether the kitchen blinds were wide open or down with the louvers at a modest-making tilt. Either way, the light was so much brighter outside than in that I figured a peeper would have to press his nose against the glass to see anything. I ran for it.

  Maybe it was the day’s stress that set me off, but by the time I left the hallway and scampered around the tote bag I’d left at the end of the hallway, I was flapping my bare-naked arms and laughing like a nutcase. Eight tippy-toes and a pirouette later I was in the kitchen, face to face with Leo, my lovely orange tabby. I stopped, still laughing, and reached out to stroke his cheek in greeting. His eyes went wide and his fur went wider as he flattened his ears against his neck, hissed, and backed away.

  “Aww, Leo mio, it’s just me.”

  Leo relaxed slightly, gathered himself, and levitated onto the counter. He stared at me for a moment, then stepped closer and sniffed, as if confirming that it was in fact me, not some otherworldly demon that sounded but didn’t act like the woman he knew. Once he was convinced, he sat down and squinted at me, and I leaned in to bump noses. I didn’t linger, though, as goose bumps were beginning to rise on my arms and who knows where else.

  I flipped the light switch in the laundry room, visions of nice fluffy clean towels flapping in my head. Until I opened the dryer. Empty, but for a used dryer sheet and the well-worn kitchen towel I had used for Pixel’s pedicure. For half a moment I was confused. Then I opened the washing machine and said Aww, crap. I said a few other things, too, before I started yanking the damp towels and clothes out of one machine and throwing them into the other. Why can’t they invent a machine that does it all?

  A car door closed somewhere nearby. I froze and listened. Tom’s voice filtered faintly into the room. I figured I had enough time to race back to the bedroom and grab some clothes because he usually took the dogs through the gate and into the backyard. I heard Tom’s voice again. “Here. Go on in.” Who’s he talking to? Leo dropped off the counter across from me with a muted thud and trotted out of the kitchen. I held my breath and listened. A knock followed by the clink of keys, the noisy front-door hinge, and another voice. My neighbor Goldie.

  “Janet? Where are you? Oh, hello, Mr. Leo. How’s my little man?”

  With one hand I grabbed the laundry basket that held the laundry room door open and half slid, half lifted it out of the way. With my other hand I pushed the door closed, turning the knob to soften the sound of latching. Okay, now what? As I raised the laundry basket, meaning to set it on top of the dryer, its edge caught the open flap of the giant box of detergent that I’d neglected to stow against the wall. The tilt of the box traveled through the plastic basket, up my arm, and into my brain, but not in time for me to stop its momentum. Whup. The front of the box hit the floor and white powder with magic blue sparkly bits whooshed across the vinyl.

  I grabbed the rooster towel from the top of the dryer and backed up against the wall, straddling the detergent box and trying to figure out how to use the terrycloth rectangle to best effect. It didn’t offer much. I held my breath and listened.

  The back door opened and Tom’s
voice came into my hiding place, loud and clear and much closer. “Mmmm. What’s that?”

  “Tomato basil bread. I baked an extra loaf for you two.” Goldie, much as I loved her, was the bane of my weight-loss efforts.

  Tom said something I couldn’t make out, and then, “Where’s Janet?”

  She’s trapped nekkid in the laundry room, I thought, wishing for two things. First, that Tom would leave the dogs outside for a bit so they wouldn’t give me away. And next, that something would make Tom and Goldie go out with them for any crazy reason so that I could scamper back to the bedroom. If either of them had been alone, I would have braved the run back to my bedroom au naturel, but the two of them together ratcheted up the embarrassment factor. I wondered whether this was how the sheep felt when a dog had them cornered in a pen.

  “Janet? Where aaaaare you? I have fresh bread!”

  “I didn’t see her outside. She must be changing or something,” said Tom. The refrigerator opened, and Tom asked, “Beer?”

  For the briefest moment I still hoped he would leave the dogs outdoors. If Tom and Goldie moved out of the kitchen, I might be able to grab a big wet towel from the dryer and sneak past them. But my hopes were dashed when something thump thump thumped hard against the outside of the laundry room wall and snuffling sounds filtered up from under the door, followed by a soft little whine, which anyone who hears dog spoken as much as I do would understand to mean, “In here! She’s in here!” Traitor!

  Goldie wasn’t fluent enough in dog to have gotten the message, but Tom was. I grabbed the doorknob just as it began to turn, and heard Tom say, “What the … Janet? Are you in there?”

  I leaned in and pulled the door open a crack. “Yes, but, umm …”

  Tom pushed the door a little farther. “What are you …” His eyes traveled from my face to the arm I held across my breasts to my red rooster loin cloth and he broke into the biggest grin I’ve seen since my brother got his Corvette. “Nice outfit!”

  “Could you please get me some jeans and a top? And stop laughing.”

  “Who’s laughing?” He did a Groucho Marx with his eyebrows.

  Jay wedged his head and shoulders past Tom and sniffed my knee.

  “That tickles,” I said, stroking his chin and easing him back out the door. “Come on, Tom, please get me some clothes.”

  “Okay, but only because Goldie’s here.”

  He was still laughing when he got back from the bedroom.

  fifteen

  Tom brought me sweatpants and a T-shirt, so I pulled them on and scampered off to the bedroom to get properly dressed. When I returned to the kitchen, Goldie was in full snit about something, but she got up and gave me a hug. “Congratulations! I understand Mr. Jay did you proud at the roundup.” She seems to envision herding events as something akin to John Ford films, albeit heavier on sheep and dogs than cattle and horses.

  “He did that,” I said. We’ll ignore the part where he ran a flock of sheep over me. Twice. The message light on my phone was blinking, but I ignored it and peered into the fridge. “I’m starving,” I said, half hoping Goldie would invite us over for one of the fantastic concoctions she’s so good at whipping up.

  I turned to her. “What are you so sore about?”

  Goldie snorted. “Your new neighbor.” The last word came out in a tone I’m not used to hearing from Goldie. Pure sarcasm.

  “They’ve moved in?” I glanced at Tom and he shrugged.

  “He. Just one, and believe me, he’ll be more than enough if today was any indication.” Goldie rocked the bottom of her Ol’ Woody pale ale at Jay and Drake where they sprawled on the floor. “He’s not happy about them.”

  Pixel sauntered into the room, jumped onto Goldie’s lap, and relaxed into her arms. “Totem is such a wiggleworm, the only time he does this is late afternoon. He’s too wound up the rest of the time.” Totem was Pixel’s litter-brother. Goldie and I, and Detective Hutchinson, had adopted the three-kitten litter after a friend took in their feral mama and her brood, and we loved to compare notes as they grew. Goldie sat back and sighed. “We had just a quick encounter this morning, but it was enough. He’s a jerk.”

  Tom and I exchanged a glance, and Tom asked, “Totem is a jerk?”

  “Heavens, no! The new neighbor, what’s his name. Martin. Yes, that’s it. Martin.”

  “So what makes you say this Martin is a jerk?” I asked.

  “First of all, I never trust a man who hides behind reflective sunglasses. They seem sneaky to me, and they give me flashbacks.”

  Goldie marched for civil rights and against the war back in the sixties, and she had spent more than a few nights “in the pokey,” as she put it. I wish I’d known her then, but I knew my mother, and that was pretty close. Mom hadn’t been doing so well for a couple of years, but Goldie still burned with a soft and steady flame. She took the name Golden Sunshine back in the day, and as I watched the light from the window dance in her silver hair, I thought again that she chose the right name, especially back when her hair was still blonde.

  “He asked me how many pets you have, and when I told him two dogs, two cats, and a new puppy coming, he said something like, ‘We’ll see about that.’”

  “What the heck does that mean?” I asked, and thought about the protesters at the herding clinic. Is there no end to people wanting to keep us from having animals in our lives?

  “Maybe he’s talking about that bill that’s rumored to be coming up in the city council,” said Tom. “Wait a minute—is Martin the guy’s first name, or last? That bill is the brainchild of Phil Martin.”

  “What bill?” Goldie hadn’t heard the rumors.

  “If what we’re hearing is true, and the bill passes, it will limit the number of pets in any one household. We haven’t heard a solid number, but probably three to five.”

  “But if they pass that …” Goldie didn’t finish the thought, but we all knew where she was going. If they passed a number on the low end of the range, Tom and I would be in violation once his house sold and he moved in with me. And now we’d have a neighbor who, based on what Goldie said, would probably report us. The number chosen was, of course, entirely arbitrary. Our three dogs and two cats would be zero nuisance to the neighbors, unlike the single Dalmatian at the other end of the block who barked for hours on end, or the little terrierpoo on the next street who ran loose several times a week and used the neighbors’ yards as his personal relief stations.

  Tom patted my hand and said, “We’ll figure out a solution if we need to.”

  Goldie sat up straight and said, “You know, it could be Phil Martin. He said he was in insurance, and I think the councilman works for Farm Bureau or State Farm or one of those. I didn’t recognize him in the shades and baseball cap, but as I think about it …” She paused, and her mouth twisted into a wicked little smile. “He’s not going to be very happy here,” said Goldie. “He’s surrounded.”

  She was right. The Washingtons two doors down had three vocal little spaniel mixes named Flo, Mary, and Ross because, as Bill Washington liked to say, “they’re the supremes!” Mr. Hostetler across the street had Paco the Chihuahua, and the Machados behind Martin’s house had an enormous Golden Retriever x Newfoundland cross named ChaCha. There were cats in the neighborhood, too, but most were indoor pets who stared out their windows at the dogs and people walking by.

  “I thought he had one of those beautiful old mansions on Old Mill Road?”

  “His wife does. I mean, she inherited it. Her family owned the Three Rivers Brewery.” She looked at me. “You probably don’t remember it.”

  I had a vague memory of several huge old brick buildings somewhere along the river, but they were long gone before I was old enough to pay attention.

  No one said anything for a moment, until Goldie changed the subject again.

  “We really should go find that dress soo
n, Janet.” Goldie held her beer to her lips and peered at me over her readers. “Wedding day will be upon us before you know it.”

  There are few things I hate more than shopping for clothes, and I knew this particular quest promised to be fraught with stumbling blocks and hazards. I glanced at Tom. He shrugged and said, “You can’t go nekkid.”

  “Okay, okay. Tomorrow afternoon.” I can hardly wait.

  sixteen

  Stress makes me hungry for things I don’t want most of the time, and although finding Ray’s body had made me skip lunch, by the time Tom and Goldie finished their pale ales, I was ravenous. The problem was compounded because I’m not much of a cook, or shopper. Tom is, but he hadn’t moved in yet, so there weren’t many raw ingredients in the fridge or cupboards to assemble into a meal. If I had been alone, I might have settled for the stuff I did find—crackers with peanut butter, a freckled banana, some chocolate chips, and popcorn. Goldie’s a great cook, and she offered to thaw some homemade soup from her freezer, but Tom nixed that idea.

  “How about Indian?” he asked. “All three of us. My treat.”

  He didn’t need to ask twice. I shut Pixel and Leo into my guest room, checked the litterbox, ran a brush through my hair, and we were out the door.

  “Should I lock Totem up when I leave him?” Goldie asked as Tom cleared his backseat.

  “Not if he can’t get hurt,” I said. “I just don’t like to leave a baby loose with the dogs. They’d never hurt her on purpose, but play can get out of hand.” Face it, you’re over-protective. “I won’t lock Pixel up once she’s bigger.”

  “Jerk.”

  For half a second I thought she meant me, but Goldie was looking past me. I turned, and there he was, the new neighbor. He had a point-and-shoot camera hanging against his chest and a notebook and pen in his hand, and he seemed to be examining the exterior of his house inch by inch. That seemed a little tardy, since he’d already moved in. It also seemed an odd time for photos since it was almost dark out. Then again, he was an insurance agent. What do I know?