Pit and Miss Murder

by Renee George

  Parker crossed the room to me and stroked his fingers down my arm. "Her diarrhea wasn't bloody. That's a good sign. Other than the squirts, she seems to be doing okay. I'll keep an eye on her while you're at class. Trust me, if I think she's in danger, I'll drive her over to Ryan's clinic immediately."

  Class. Between the notice and Smooshie's tummy upset, I'd almost forgot about school. "I think I better skip today."

  "Nope," Parker said. "I promise to call if Smoosh worsens."

  "It's not that," I told him. I peered down and fidgeted with the hem of my shirt for a second. "You're needed at the shelter. A letter from the city came this afternoon. It says you have some zoning violations, and you'll be fined for every day they aren't addressed." I hastily added, ''Theresa is calling the zoning office to find out what we can do."

  Parker frowned. "This happened once before, and unfortunately, it's not something that we can take care of in an afternoon. But I'll get it sorted. I don't want you to worry about it." He dipped his head and placed a gentle kiss on my lips, then smiled. "Now, you don't want to miss your first day of summer classes."

  His relaxed manner eased my own tension. I smiled back and let my gaze travel from his face to his naked chest. I wiggled my brows. "Maybe, I do."

  He encircled my waist with his arms and pulled me in close. "Ditching school. Such a bad girl."

  I giggled for a second then gagged as an overwhelming stench, of what could only be described as raw sewage and spoiled eggs, wafted and clung to the air around me. "Oh, Goddess. Smooshie," I said, my tone two octaves lower than normal. I gazed down at my gorgeous pittie as she danced around our legs, her tail whacking me in the calves. I pushed away from Parker and cast him a piteous look as I waved my hand back and forth in front of my nose. "Girl, there was nothing lady-like about that stink bomb."

  Parker wrinkled his nose, and Elvis whined. "I think someone needs to go outside again."

  The smell had texture to it, and my werecougar senses were entirely overwhelmed. Not even Parker's aroma of honey and mint could cover up the Eau de Poopoo Smooshie was serving. "I think that's the universe telling me to go to class."

  "Smooshie is a garbage eater, so her eating several universes would not surprise me one bit," Parker said.

  The odor doubled in potency. Goddess in a green tutu, the methane leaking from the loveable pit bull's butt could accelerate global warming to crisis levels.

  Parker's lip curled as he gave Smooshie an incredulous stare. He turned his gaze back to me. "She'll be fine. Promise." His nasal tone told me he was avoiding breathing through his nose.

  I didn't blame him. I'd stopped breathing through my nose the moment the smell hit. Still, I swear it was seeping in. "If you're sure..." I was already walking backward toward the door.

  He shooed me. "Go on. I'll see you after class."

  "I'll see you in a few hours. Or sooner if she gets worse or you need me."

  "You got it." He winked and gave me a cute finger wave then scratched Smooshie's ear. Then waved his hand across his face dramatically. "Oh," he said, shaking his head and taking Smooshie's collar. "Come on, girl. Out with the bad."

  I cast him a grateful smile before closing the door between the biohazard and myself.

  The first day of the Summer Semester at Two Hills Community College teemed with life. College students young and old walked the paths between buildings carrying heavy backpacks and satchels on their way to becoming their dreams.

  Or at least that's how it always felt for me.

  My one-thirty in the afternoon once-a-week-on-Mondays three-hour chemistry class, two hours of lecture time with one hour of lab had lasted exactly twenty-three minutes. Enough time for the professor, Dr. Marigold Robbins, an older woman with long, gray hair that flowed over her shoulders like a lion's mane, and who carried off bohemian chic with flair, to go over the syllabus and warn us that missing even a single class could lower our grade. I overheard three young men whispering about dropping the class. Dr. Robbins, whose hearing, it appeared, had not diminished with age, encouraged them to go with their gut.

  I knew from some of my fellow students that there were many of them, too many, who were only going to school because it's what their parents wanted. I had wanted to go to college for so long that their ambivalence to education made me sad. My other two summer courses were on the Tuesday-Thursday schedule. The first one at eight in the morning, and the second one at nine-thirty. I'd just did a search for the classrooms and was on my way back toward the parking lot. I wanted to get back to Parker's and check on Smooshie. Parker and I weren't living together, but I did spend a lot of time there. The renovations on my old house were coming along slowly. And with school and fewer work hours, I didn't have time or money to finish any time soon.

  Parker didn't seem to mind one bit. He'd hinted several times about me moving in with him, but I wasn't ready to give up on my own place. I'd never owned anything other than my truck, and too many times I'd been the victim of other people's greed and cruelty. There was something about having a house and property in my name that was completely paid off that made me feel secure. Even if the house wasn't livable, and I had to stay in a small used trailer for the time being.

  I took a deep breath, inhaling the scents of spring, as I crossed in front of Davis Auditorium toward the front lot. Spring had arrived late this year after a particularly long, cold winter, so the redbuds, magnolia trees, lilac bushes, and dogwoods were just now in bloom creating a perfumed array of purple, pink, and white landscape. The sidewalks were heavily dusted with yellow pollen, the layer thick enough that you could see shoe print tracks moving in all directions. A sneeze from a student in desperate need of allergy medicine drew my attention.

  I recognized the guy. James Hanley. He walked with purpose, his shoulders rounded and his head down, going in my direction, only at a much faster pace. He'd been a high school buddy of Addy Newton, a good kid and one of our past volunteers.

  James, as I recall, was a troubled youth and a bit of a real jerk. He'd been part of the group who had urged Addy to shoot his .22 rifle off in town and nearly put a hole in me. I ducked in time, and he hit my truck door instead, thank heavens. I'd learned to really like Addy. He'd turned his life around and had become another member of my extended Moonrise family, but his friend James was another story.

  I stepped to the side when I felt him get close to me, but still, he nearly clipped me with his elbow. "Hey," I said, feeling surly.

  James muttered, "watch where you're going," and kept walking toward the mostly-full parking lot.

  Ugh. I shook my head. Getting out of high school had done nothing to grow him up. He was still a jerk. I was still watching him speed walk ahead of me when a chorus of, "Look out!" "Heads up!" and similar shouts put me on alert. I glanced up to see a small round object the size of a baseball winging toward my head. Thanks to my supernatural reaction time, I reached up and snatched it from the air before it could nail me.

  I examined the object. It was not only the size of a baseball, but it was also, in fact, a baseball.

  A young man, about two hundred feet away near the auditorium, trotted toward me. I could hear him cussing and thanking God he hadn't hit me. I smiled.

  "Stay there," I said, waving him back. He slowed down to a halt.

  I'd played catcher on my high school softball team, and I used to a have a deadly arm, but it had been two decades since I'd thrown a ball. I reared back and let go, delighted when the young man caught the ball.

  He waved his gloved hand at me and shouted, "Thanks, Miss!"

  "No problem," I yelled back.

  "That's some arm you got there, Lily," a familiar voice said.

  I smiled as my friend Ryan Petry caught up to me. "What are you doing here?" I asked. "I thought you weren't teaching any classes during the summer."

  Ryan taught a few courses at Two Hills for the vet tech program during the fall and spring. His perfectly coiffed hair ruffled in the breeze and he ran a ha
nd through it to smooth it down. "I had to attend a mandatory adjunct meeting today." He shook his head. "I like teaching. It's everything else that goes with it that makes me think about quitting every year."

  "Well, you can't quit until after I'm done. I need all the allies I can get."

  "From what I hear, you're a bit of a teacher's dream."

  I flushed with pleasure. "I really love learning. If there was any money in it, I'd become a professional student."

  Ryan laughed, and it was a sound that could break a thousand girls' hearts if Ryan happened to be interested in girls. But he wasn't. Ryan Petry, the local heartthrob, was gay, a fact not many people knew. Small southern towns weren't known for having liberal values, but I'd grown up in a shifter-witch community, and I knew that who a person was attracted to and who they loved was ingrained in their DNA. Still, I would keep Ryan's secret as long as he wanted it to remain so.

  He put his arm around my shoulders. "Can I walk you to your truck?"

  "Yes, sir," I said. "If I can get some advice from you on the way."

  "Sounds like a fair trade," he replied. "Is this about school, romance, or a certain wrecking ball named Smooshie."

  I giggled. "It's Smooshie. She had some diarrhea this morning, and I'm worried she might have gotten into something at Buzz's diner yesterday afternoon. Parker says she'll be all right, she's active, drinking water and eating food, but I don't like to take chances with her."

  "Parker is one of the most in tune people I know when it comes to dogs, especially pit bulls. If he's not worried, I think Smooshie is going to be a-okay. He's right. If she's active, and drinking and eating like she normally does, chances are once she's pooped out whatever has irritated her belly, she'll be fine. If you are really concerned, though, bring me a stool sample, and I'll get it analyzed for you."

  "Thanks, Ryan." I leaned into him and gave him a friendly nudge. "Hey, we got a notice today that the rescue was being cited for zoning code violations. Parker says this has happened before, but not since I've been in town. The daily fines seem pretty steep."

  Ryan's brows furrowed. "I got a notice three weeks ago. It was for a slight crack in the concrete on the sidewalk leading into the clinic. The damage probably happened because of the cold winter contracting the concrete and the suddenly warm spring, causing it to swiftly expand."

  "What did you do?"

  "I sealed the crack and paid the fine. It cost me eight hundred dollars." He shook his head. "Talk about highway robbery. If I hadn't heard about Albert Langdon having to pay double the fines at his appeal, I might have tried to fight it, but it just wasn't worth the risk."

  "How would the city even know you had a cracked sidewalk?" I asked.

  Ryan shrugged. "Someone complained. Maybe a customer. Maybe a neighbor. Though I can't think of anyone malicious enough."

  Theresa had said Jock might be targeting me. Could he be taking his anger out on the people I care about? Ryan? Parker? Who's next? Buzz, Nadine, and CeCe all came to mind. "I'm sorry, Ryan."

  "It's not your fault, Lils." He unlooped his arm from my shoulder as we approached the driver side of my small, green rust-bucket of a truck. "Unless you're the one who called in the complaint."

  "I'm not," I assured him. "Thanks for the walk and the talk. I'll get a fecal sample over to the clinic this afternoon."

  He gave me a two-finger salute. "I'll be there."

  As I got into the truck, I couldn't stop the coiling tension winding in my gut. Two notices could be a coincidence, I told myself, but I knew no amount of rationalizing would satisfy me until I checked on Buzz.

  Chapter 3

  It was after two in the afternoon by the time I got to The Cat's Meow. The diner was empty with the exception of Opal Dixon and her sister Pearl. The two elderly ladies sat at their favorite booth, the one in the back corner where they could watch the other tables while also keeping an eye on the goings-on in the parking lot.

  Opal with her cotton ball hair was the more serious of the two, and I'd found out the year before that she would and had done almost anything to keep her sister safe from an abusive husband who'd had ties with the mob in Vegas. Pearl, the quirkier of the two, had her hair dyed hot pink today, and I applauded her bold choice of color. When I'd first arrived, I'd been targeted by a poison pen threatening to spill my secrets. I'd worried that my werecougar status was about to be exposed, but it turned out it had been Pearl amusing herself by baiting people in town and seeing if any of her guesses might land on the truth. Since I'd found her out, Opal had promised to end Pearl's poison pen days.

  "Lily!" Pearl said brightly. "Come join us."

  "I'm sorry," I told them. "I can't right now. I have to talk to Buzz." I looked around the diner. "Where's Freda?" Freda was Buzz's waitress, and she was always here during the day.

  Opal shrugged. "Buzz is pulling double duty."

  Pearl cackled. "It's okay, though, we just keep getting our coffees refilled so we can watch him come and go."

  "Pearl!" Opal said, but her smile told me that Pearl wasn't wrong.

  "You know I don't mind taking care of my two very best customers," Buzz said as he walked out of the kitchen and into the diner. He gave the ladies a wink.

  Pearl clutched her chest and Opal tittered. I shook my head at him and said in a quiet voice that only his werecougar ears could pick up. "You're going to give them a stroke one of these days."

  I rolled my eyes. "Do you have a minute to talk?"

  He gestured a the mostly empty room. "I'm kind of busy right now."

  "You're a laugh riot today."

  "I have my moments." He turned toward the hallway that led to his office. "Follow me."

  "Is Freda off today?" I asked.

  "She is helping Lacy move into an apartment today." He sighed. "She hasn't been able to find a job that paid decently since losing her legal assistant position with Jock Simmons, so she can’t afford the rent on her house anymore."

  "That guy needs a butt-whooping," I said with a little too much enthusiasm.

  Buzz sat at his desk, and I took the chair in front of it. "What's Jock done now that's got your panties twisted?"

  "Something. Nothing. I don't know. Parker got a zoning violation notice today, and Theresa said that he's friends with the chair of the zoning board, Clem Hanley." That last name. "Is he related to the kid James Hanley? The one Addy used to hang out with."

  "James is his son." Buzz waved his hand. "But go on with what you were saying."

  "Theresa says that Jock has it in for me. He blames me for Theresa leaving him."

  "Why?"

  "Because he's a delusional jerk, I guess. But anyhow, she says she thinks the violations might be Jock's fault, as a way to get at me through the people I care about. And then, after class today, I ran into Ryan. He says he got a citation three weeks ago for a tiny crack in his sidewalk, and that got me thinking--"

  "--that what Theresa says might be true." Buzz's green eyes flared bright under his dark copper lashes. He bared his teeth as he opened a drawer and pulled out a folded letter. He put it down in front of me. "Mine came in the mail on Friday. They got me for overgrown weeds on that small patch around the signage outside, a downed gutter around the back, which I had no idea was downed because the last time I'd checked it, it was fine, and several cracks in the sidewalk that have been there for years. On top of that, I had a health inspector show up this morning without notice and go through the diner with white gloves. I am extremely cautious when it comes to this place," he said, running his hand through his thick, short curls, "but the guy found a dog chew in the back corner of the kitchen, or so he said."

  "Did Smooshie bring it in there? I'm sorry if she got you in trouble."

  He shook his head. "I got a good whiff of the half-eaten rawhide knot. It didn't smell like Smooshie."

  "So, you think he planted it."

  Buzz grimaced then rubbed his palms over his beard. "This wouldn't be the first time I was shaken down by an inspector wan
ting a small bribe. I'd written it off as much. But Jock is on the town council, and he has a lot of connections. People who don't care that he's a wife beating son-of-a-bitch."

  "If this is him, what's next?" I mean, I'd been worried for Theresa where Jock was concerned, but now I'm worried for me and everyone around me." I couldn't meet Buzz's gaze. He'd warned me when I first moved to Moonrise not to get involved with the drama in this town. Keeping my head down was the only way to keep our secret. Instead, I'd involved myself in five murders, and now I'd brought the drama right to Buzz's front door. "I'll figure this out, Buzz. I promise. I'll get Jock off our backs."

  "You'll do no such thing, Lily Mason," he said in a scolding tone that reminded me of my father.

  My heart clenched, as his death from twenty years ago suddenly felt fresh, and tears prickled my eyes.

  "Don't cry, Lily. I'm not mad at you."

  "It's not that," I said. "I just...well, for a second there you made me really miss dad."

  A small smile turned at the corners of Buzz's lips. "I miss him, too." He got up and came around the desk and put his hand on my shoulder. "I'll take care of the Jock Simmons situation if there's anything to take care of. It could just all be a coincidence."

  "Do you really think so?"

  "No, but I can hope. I'll talk to him man to man."

  "What about your rules of engagement?"

  At the same time, we both said, "Don't get involved."

  "You're my family, Lily, and I will happily come to your aid. Even if it means breaking my number one rule. Besides, you're not the only Mason Jock has a bee up his butt about. After all, I had a pretty public banning of him from The Cat's Meow last year. After he punched Lacy at the hospital, I couldn't let him come around here for lunch and upset Freda. She's been with me for a long time, and like I said, you come to the aid of family." I could see the tension in his body, an itch that needed to be scratched, and I worried that Buzz, maybe, was wound a little too tight.