Shepherd's Crook

by Sheila Webster Boneham

  He sputtered and said, “She saw you, with a table and dryer and a strange dog …”

  “Like the cop who saw my dog running loose the other night when my dog and I weren’t home?” We stared at one another. I finally said, “By the way, my dog isn’t strange, he was wet. And I’m late.” I got in the van and left the councilman red-faced in my driveway. For my part, I wasn’t sure whether the whole incident was hilarious or infuriating, and settled on half-and-half until I realized what it meant for Tom and me. If Martin and his girlfriend were already harassing me, they were bound to escalate when Tom moved in with two more dogs, especially if the new pet limit passed. Who knew? Maybe they’d even hire a couple of enforcers, like the goons from Cleveland.

  sixty

  The new classes were assembled in their respective rings by the time I had parked and taken Jay for the obligatory pre-training walk. Goldie waved as we passed the beginner ring. Goldie was sitting cross-legged on the floor with Bonnie sprawled across her thighs as if they’d been doing that for years. I hoped that Ray, wherever he was, knew his dog was safe and loved. I also hoped I’ll be that limber at Goldie’s age. Who are you kidding? It was that annoying little nag in my head. You wish you were that limber now.

  The puppies were in the next ring. Tom was on his knees, giving Winnie eensie bits of chicken as rewards for keeping her focus on him. He also had the attention of the bouncing baby Boxer on one side, and the spinning and bowing Poodle-mix puppy on the other.

  The third ring was open for individual training, so I stashed my equipment bag on a chair and buckled my treat pouch around my waist. Jean, whom I’d met at the Dogs of Spring event, was in the center of the ring talking to Giselle, and Jean’s lovely Aussie, Lilly, was leading Spike in circles around the two women, his leash gripped firmly in her mouth. “That’s cute,” I said.

  “I don’t know where she learned that,” said Jean, “but she loves to lead other dogs around by their leashes. And people, if you let her!”

  As I began warming Jay up with some heeling, Giselle said she needed to talk to me before I left, and I nodded but didn’t break training. Jay and I would be trying for our first utility-level obedience leg in less than a month, and I had been slacking off with everything else going on. We had a great session, though, and practiced several open and utility exercises—the drop on recall, the scent articles, a few directed retrieves.

  The last exercise I wanted to work on was Jay’s favorite—the retrieve over the high jump. On my command, Jay went over the jump and grabbed the dumbbell. As he flew back toward me over the jump, a familiar puppy voice spoke up from the next ring. Jay sat in front of me as expected, but as soon as I took the dumbbell from him he cranked his neck toward the source of the racket. Winnie was bouncing and squealing and twirling on her leash and pulling toward Jay, who was clearly having a lot more fun than she was. Tom smiled at me, shrugged, and made a trilling sound that finally got her attention. As soon as she looked at him he clicked his clicker and popped a bit of chicken into her mouth.

  Jay and I had been at it just over twenty minutes, but I decided that was plenty since he had made no major mistakes. Always better to quit on a high note if possible. Great advice, and not just for dog training. Giselle was waiting, so I stashed my paraphernalia, gave Jay an extra couple of treats and a kiss, and sat down to listen.

  Giselle’s face was flushed and her eyes were wide. She checked that no one was within eavesdropping distance and leaned toward me, her voice barely audible. “We were having breakfast at Cindy’s Diner downtown and Homer got a call.”

  I waited.

  “I didn’t really pay attention, but then he mentioned Blackford’s Farm and Garden. I buy my dog food there.”

  “So do I.” She just nodded at me, wide-eyed, so I asked, “Were they robbed?”

  “No.” Giselle clamped her fingers around my wrist. “They found a body out back, behind the dumpster.”

  My first thoughts were of Ralph Blackford, the owner, and Ed and Phyllis, the long-time clerks who always rang up my dog food and garden supplies. Then I thought of Joe, a homeless man who hung out in that part of town. “Did he say who it was?”

  Giselle shook her head and tightened her grip on my wrist. “Homer said there was no ID on the body, and …” She swallowed and pressed her eyes closed, then looked into my eyes. “He was shot in the face.” I was just absorbing that information when Giselle shuddered and added, “With a shotgun.”

  sixty-one

  By the time we got back to my house, my nerves had landed me somewhere between nauseated and ravenous for carbs. Tom was right behind me and Goldie’s car was already in her driveway. When I stepped out of my van she waved from her front porch.

  “Come on over for dessert when you get everybody settled in!” I knew she wanted to talk about her first-ever dog-training class, and although I didn’t really feel like socializing, how could I say no?

  Tom took the dogs straight out back, mostly for Winnie’s benefit, and we rendezvoused in the kitchen. I was sitting at the table, my face buried in Leo’s soft neck, when man and dogs came in. Winnie leaped against my knees, poked Leo with her nose, and rolled back into a sloppy sit. The cat ignored her, and she shifted her four-second attention span to Pixel. They wrestled at my feet while I told Tom about the body found behind Blackford’s Farm and Garden.

  “I’m afraid it’s Joe.”

  “Who’s Joe?”

  “The homeless man who lives in the area.”

  Tom nodded. “You know his name.”

  “Yes.” I didn’t bother to add that I often bought him some food when I saw him.

  We sat with our individual thoughts for a few minutes before Tom said, “Goldie’s waiting,” and we found our way from my kitchen to hers. The contrast was startling. Mine smelled of old coffee and the lingering scent of canned vegetable soup. Goldie’s was rich with a complex swirl of yeast and cloves and something like licorice that wrapped around me like a cashmere shawl. Bonnie pitty-patted back and forth between me and Tom, her lush tail waving. Totem, Pixel’s litter brother, watched from atop a stack of cookbooks on an antique sideboard.

  “How about a glass of wine to toast my return to school?” Goldie held a bottle of Infamous Goose Sauvignon Blanc and had I not been bound by social convention, I might have grabbed it for a quick chug. Instead, I said I’d love some. We toasted Bonnie and friendship and new ventures, and for a minute and a half, I felt better. I guess it didn’t show, because Goldie said, “What are you so glum about?”

  “No, nothing,” I said. “Just tired.” I muscled my mouth into what I hoped was a smile and she let it go, but with a look that told me she knew me better. The intermingled fragrances that filled me up when we arrived turned to ecstatic flavors when Goldie set her fennel and clove sweet rolls in front of us. By the time we left an hour later, the carbs and alcohol had done their work and I was out almost before I rolled into bed.

  It was a good thing I got a decent sleep, because I needed my strength on Tuesday. We were just having a second cup of coffee when my cell phone rang and I saw Hutchinson’s number on the screen. “Hutch? At eight in the morning?” I asked, looking at Tom before I answered.

  “Janet, you’re going to get a call from a detective named Tim Wainwright.” He was talking fast.

  “I am?”

  “He’s going to ask you to go to the station for a talk. They—”

  “About what?” I set my coffee down as the cup and a half in my stomach began to churn.

  Hutchinson’s voice was softer when he spoke again. “There was a murder last night.”

  My inner smarty pants wanted to blurt just one?, but another part of my brain urged caution, even with Hutch. “The one at Blackford’s?”

  “You know the place?”

  Tom was watching me, a crease forming between his eyes.

  “Yes. I’ve sho
pped there for years. Hutch, who—”

  “You didn’t get this from me, but don’t go in alone.” He paused, came back. “Hang on.” A few seconds passed, and he was back. “Your brother’s a lawyer, right?”

  The coffee in my stomach was now splashing its way up my esophagus. “My brother-in-law.”

  “Take him with you.”

  Something cold gripped the back of my neck. “Hutch, who was killed?”

  I heard a male voice in the background and Hutchinson told me to hang on again. I turned to Tom, “The police want to talk to me.”

  “Why?”

  I shrugged as a carousel of possible victims cycled through my mind—Summer, Evan, Joe the homeless man, Councilman Phil Martin. My spinning thoughts were cut short by Hutchinson’s voice. “I gotta go. I won’t be there when they talk to you, but I’ll be around if I can.”

  “Wait! Hutch, who was it? Who was killed? And why talk to me?”

  “It’s Mick Fallon. They have witnesses to your altercation with him the other night. Hell, Janet, even I saw it.”

  “But—”

  “I gotta go.”

  He was no sooner off the line than my other phone rang. It was Detective Tim Wainwright, and he asked me to come to the station at my earliest convenience. I wanted to say I couldn’t think of a convenient time, early or late, but that didn’t seem like a good plan, so I said I would try to be there around ten. Then I called Norm.

  “I’m not a criminal attorney, Janet.”

  “Well, that’s okay, because I’m not a criminal.” I tried to laugh, but it came out more like a gargle.

  Norm sighed. “I’ll meet you in front of the police station at ten.”

  Tom had classes all morning, but he told me about a dozen times to call him as soon as I was finished and he’d call me back. I promised. He took Drake and Winnie home and I stood in front of my open closet for what seemed like an hour pondering the right clothes to wear to a police interrogation. My innards felt like they were set on spin as I cycled through fear, anger, and apprehension about what was coming. I also felt a touch of relief that Mick Fallon wouldn’t be threatening me anymore, and guilt for feeling relieved at the death of another human being, no matter how odious.

  Detective Wainwright was younger than I expected, and friendlier. He had red hair and freckles and reminded me vaguely of Alfred E. Newman, the guy on the cover of Mad magazine. The conversation was relaxed at the start—did I know Fallon, when did I last see him, had we had any difficulties? I had to remind myself several times to follow Norm’s advice—“Just answer the questions they ask. Don’t offer anything extra.” He was right, of course, and telling them that Fallon had threatened me more than the one time they knew about would not help my cause.

  I thought we had covered everything when Wainwright said, “I’ll be right back. I want to show you something.” When he came back, he laid a shotgun on the table in front of me. A ragged scratch ran half the length of the stock. “Look familiar, Ms. MacPhail?”

  A little shot of adrenaline sparkled along my nerves. “It’s a shotgun.”

  “Have you seen it before?”

  My face went cold and I felt Wainwright assessing my reaction. “It looks like one that belongs to Evan Winslow. If so, then yes, I’ve seen it at their farm. Why do you have it?”

  “That’s the thing, Ms. MacPhail. We found it in a dumpster behind the Firefly Café, just down the street from where we found Mr. Fallon’s body.” He pinned me to my chair with a cold eye. “You know the place.” Wainwright now made me think more of Chucky from the horror films than of Alfred E. Newman, and the axe he wielded was what he asked next. “Ms. MacPhail, why are your fingerprints on this weapon?”

  sixty-two

  My fingerprints were on the shotgun—the murder weapon. I had a perfectly good explanation to offer Detective Wainwright, if I could get my mouth to operate. Trust me, I don’t lose my ability to speak very often, but at that moment, with the detective staring at me and the gun on the table between us, I was dumbfounded.

  “Hang on a minute,” said Norm. “Why do you have Ms. MacPhail’s fingerprints?”

  Wainwright gave Norm a dismissive look, but he answered the question. “They’re on file from a case last year.” He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at me.

  “They fingerprinted a lot of us,” I said, ignoring Wainwright and speaking to Norm. “For elimination purposes.”

  Norm had already jumped to his next question. “Detective Wainwright, what time was Mr. Fallon killed?”

  Wainwright hesitated, but finally answered. “Between six-thirty and seven-thirty.”

  Norm seemed surprised. “That’s pretty precise.”

  “Yeah, well, the manager at Blackford’s said he helped load some feed into a customer’s truck at six-thirty. Had to walk back and forth past the dumpster, and Fallon wasn’t there.” By “manager,” I was sure he meant Ralph Blackford, the owner. “When he went out there an hour later to toss some trash, there the guy was. Blood everywhere. That’s when he called us. The manager, I mean.”

  No kidding.

  “Shotguns are loud,” said Norm. “Didn’t anyone hear the blast?”

  Wainwright nodded. “Couple of the clerks said they heard something, but there’s a storage room full of sacks of feed and stuff between the showroom and alley, and the doors were closed. They said things bang around out in the alley all the time. Deliveries and garbage trucks and such. They didn’t think much about it.” He fixed me with a cold stare and leaned in a bit. “But we’re looking for a possible eyewitness.”

  “I think we might have a few witnesses of our own,” said Norm, turning toward me to ask where I had been Tuesday evening

  “Dog Dayz. The seven o’clock classes were just starting when I walked into the building. Tom and Goldie and I left together, you know, in separate cars but at the same time, just after eight, and went home.” I whispered to Norm, and when he nodded, I said, “I can explain the fingerprints.” I told Wainwright about holding the gun while Evan changed his shoes the day I learned that Summer was missing. “Coyotes. Evan said the gun was there to drive off coyotes.”

  Wainwright snorted. “Looks like somebody got one.” He used his phone to establish that Dog Dayz is a fifteen-minute drive at best from Blackford’s Farm and Garden. Once he had done that, he asked for names of witnesses and I rattled off a dozen. Then he let me go.

  Norm offered to talk it out over lunch on his dime, but I was in no mood to eat and so full of adrenaline I was twitchy. “I think I’ll go get Jay and go for a very long walk.”

  And that’s exactly what I did. Jay and I spent three hours hiking the trails at Chain O’Lakes State Park. The water and forest and easy companionship of my dog worked their magic on me, like a spiritual massage. We sat on a fallen sycamore trunk and watched a pair of beavers drag a sapling down the bank and around a bend in a creek. A kingfisher flashed into view along the eastern edge of one of the smaller lakes, and an ear flick alerted me to a doe standing alone and still in a dappled clearing.

  As we returned to the van those three hours after we began, I realized I had almost forgotten that two men were dead at the hands of other human beings. I hadn’t liked Mick Fallon, had even feared him, but I hadn’t wished him dead. And Ray Turnbull, con artist or not, had always been polite to me. Besides, the dogs liked him. Who, I wondered, would want both men dead? Were there two murderers running around the same circles, or had the same person killed both Ray Turnbull and Mick Fallon? I drowned out some of the noise in my head by singing along to the oldies station, and had solved nothing by the time we got home forty-five minutes later.

  The fragrance of tomato sauce and basil, fennel and herbs I couldn’t name, engulfed me the instant I opened my door. Tom hugged and kissed me and asked about our hike while Jay ate his dinner. I would have felt guilty feeding him kibble
with that tantalizing fragrance in the air if he hadn’t inhaled his food with such delight.

  I went to wash up, and when I got back to the kitchen Tom was setting a steaming carry-out pan of eggplant Parmesan on the table. “Mmmm,” I said, dipping a tiny bit of warm, crusty bread into the sauce and teasing my appetite with it. I opened the fridge and grabbed a beer, and with my other hand picked up an eggplant. “I thought you were making dinner with this purple guy. So what’s that on the table?” He had called earlier and said he was dropping another couple of boxes at my house and thought he would sit there and grade papers while dinner baked. “Run out of time?”

  “Ran out of heat.” We sat down and he served the eggplant while he explained. “How old is that oven, anyway?”

  “It was old when I moved in.” Fortunately, I only ever used the burners. I couldn’t remember the last time I slid a pan into the oven for any purpose other than storage.

  “Well, tomorrow we’re going to buy a new one. My housewarming present for moving myself in.”

  “I can’t let you do that.” I wiped my mouth and tried to sort through my thoughts.

  “Sure you can.” He smiled at me, and when he spoke again it was as if he had anticipated my reaction. “How’s this. It will be my appliance because I’m the one who likes to cook. You may use it whenever you like. If you ever kick me out, I’ll get it out of your way.”

  If I hadn’t had a mouthful of eggplant, tomato sauce, and cheese, I’d have jumped his bones right there.

  sixty-three

  I can spend all day waiting in a bug-infested wetland for the perfect photo opportunity, or shooting photos of dogs or cats or horses in action, but twenty minutes shopping for anything other than pet toys, running shoes, or camera accessories makes me want to curl up like a cat on a cushion. Shopping for an appliance I will use occasionally to boil water? Just thinking of the upcoming ordeal made me itch, but Tom insisted I tag along since the thing would be installed in my kitchen. And he wanted to go early so he would have the afternoon to take the dogs for a swim at Collin Lahmeyer’s place.