The Bark of the Town

by Stella St. Claire

  Telescope was her three-legged Chihuahua mix that she had rescued from a shelter, and he had paid her back by rescuing her from loneliness and from killers on two separate occasions. He was her boon companion, though sometimes she would tease him and call him her “bone” companion, always interested in dog treats.

  He was looking up at her as if he expected to hear what had been discussed on her phone call. Willow often talked to him and was always impressed by how much he seemed to understand.

  “That was Wednesday,” she reported. “But don’t worry. She’s not bringing her cat over here.”

  Telescope wagged his tail, signaling comprehension and Willow grinned.

  “But I’m afraid I am going to have to leave. We’re going to get manicures. You wouldn’t want to come with us?” she teased. “Get your nails clipped and painted?”

  He scooted out of the room as fast as his three legs could carry him – which was really pretty quick. Willow laughed and waited for her ride.

  As soon as Wednesday arrived, her sister pulled her into a big hug. Willow said her goodbyes to her dog. He was still hiding, she guessed in case she had been serious about the nail polish, but he did bark a farewell from the other room. Then, the sisters departed.

  “I’m glad you could come with me to my bi-weekly mani-pedi,” Wednesday said, as they climbed into her car.

  “Wait a second,” Willow said. “We’re getting pedicures too? No one is going to be seeing my feet in the ad pictures.”

  Wednesday muttered that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks and Willow stuck her tongue out at her like she did when they were kids. Then, they both giggled.

  They kept to safe topics during the drive, discussing the dog food photo shoot and Wednesday’s followers online. Willow sensed that her sister didn’t want to talk about Patricia, so she steered clear of the topic even when she realized which salon they were going to. Though she hadn’t been inside in years, Willow slowly recognized that it was close to where Patricia had lived and had died.

  “This is where you usually go?” Willow asked.

  Wednesday parked the car and then nodded. “Every other week. I like the way Becca does my nails. She’s in charge of the salon now, but she still does my nails.”

  They entered the salon and Willow was impressed. The new management had changed the look of the place. It felt more like entering a spa than a nail salon, and the smell of chemicals wasn’t as overwhelming as she remembered.

  “Wow,” she said, continuing to take in the plants and artwork on the walls.

  “I forgot you might not have seen the updates,” Wednesday remarked. “When was the last time you were in here?”

  Willow thought that the answer was probably junior prom, but she didn’t want to admit that. Instead, she shrugged.

  “Well, Becca really did a nice job with the place. She basically runs it now. Remember what it was like before? Everything was tan. Becca has a great eye for design and color.”

  Willow nodded. Even though she didn’t know Becca, she agreed with the assessment. They approached the welcome desk and were greeted by a woman with shiny metallic purple claws.

  “Can I help you?” she asked. “What would you like?”

  “My sister would like her nails done,” Wednesday said.

  “Something not too flashy,” Willow added.

  “And I’d like to request Becca for my mani-pedi.”

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said. “Becca isn’t available until later tonight. Do you want someone else?”

  “I’ll wait,” Wednesday said. “She has a way of picking out just the right shade for me.”

  “We can come back,” Willow said quickly. “We don’t need to stay just for me.”

  “Don’t think you can weasel out of this,” Wednesday replied. “This is my gift to you. Besides, you don’t want the dog’s nails to be nicer than yours, do you?”

  Willow relented and the purple-clawed woman said that she would be right with her. She directed Willow to a wall of polish and told her to select a color she liked.

  “Do you want me to help you pick one out, hon?”

  “No. That’s all right,” Willow said. “I think between my sister and me, we can find one that’s right for my look.”

  “I’ll be right over there,” the nail tech said, pointing with a long finger before she went off to her table.

  The two sisters looked at all the shades, trying to select the right one. There were so many, it was almost overwhelming. Willow realized that her general idea of “pink” was not nearly specific enough. She picked out a few potentials, and Wednesday helped her narrow it down even more.

  “Is that nail tech staring at us?” Willow asked softly.

  “It looks like she’s on her phone,” Wednesday answered after a covert glance. “Why?”

  “I just got the sense that someone was watching us.”

  “Oh,” Wednesday muttered. “They probably are.”

  “Who?”

  “Everybody,” Wednesday said, rolling her eyes. “This is the hub of female gossip in town.”

  “And you wonder why I want to avoid it,” Willow joked.

  “They’re probably looking at us because… of what happened yesterday.”

  “They know about it already?”

  “Apparently.”

  Willow frowned. She knew that another murder in town would become news, but she didn’t know how quickly it would travel. She also didn’t realize that everyone would learn that she and her sister had been the ones to find the body. What sort of gossip were these women saying about them? Did they think they could have been involved? Or was this simply a morbid curiosity? Willow hoped it was the latter because people who didn’t know Wednesday might just consider her being there suspicious.

  “Do you want to leave?” Willow asked, thinking that the circumstances might have changed in her sister’s opinion.

  “No,” Wednesday said firmly. “I’m not going to be frightened away from my life by gossip. But now you have your warning – don’t do or say anything here that you don’t want the rest of the town knowing about by tomorrow.”

  “Great.”

  “But,” Wednesday said, looking just a tad anxious, “I do hope they figure out who killed Patricia soon. Because I’d love any gossip about me to die down. Oh… pun not intended.”

  Willow didn’t want her to dwell on the death any more than she needed to, so she brought the attention back to the polish. She held up her selection, a pale apricot.

  “What do you think about this?”

  “It’s perfect. For you.”

  Willow decided not to look for any hidden meaning in that comment and headed over to the nail tech’s table. The woman worked quickly on Willow’s hands, preparing her cuticles and adding the polish. Willow felt the eyes of many of the other customers on her, but she was lucky that this nail tech was less talkative than some others.

  The only thing she said that could have been digging for gossip was, “Did you hear about that murder down the street?”

  Willow could have sworn she heard the entire rest of the shop inhale and wait with bated breath to hear her reply. However, all Willow provided them with was a, “It’s really terrible. That poor woman.”

  Willow was moved to set her nails under a dryer as the final step of her manicure. Wednesday sat next to her, exuding composure in the face of potential gossip.

  Not wanting to add any fuel to the rumor fodder, Willow remained relatively quiet. She was trying to do some people-watching of her own and was seeing if there were any familiar faces in the salon. She didn’t recognize anyone immediately, but then a frail-looking red-headed young woman entered, and Willow knew that they had met before.

  The woman walked over to an empty station and soon she was joined by another nail tech. Willow was certain that this tech was the person in charge of the salon. She had an air of someone who felt more important than everyone else, a perfectly matched ensemble that agreed with Wedn
esday’s analysis that Becca knew color, and she was wearing a gold necklace where the cursive letters wrote out the word “Beccalicious.”

  “I guess we know who took my appointment time with Becca,” Wednesday said with mock annoyance to her sister. “Just kidding. I don’t like to set a time. I just like to stroll in.”

  “That’s Cassandra Miller, right?” Willow asked, feeling pretty sure she had remembered the name correctly.

  Wednesday nodded.

  “One of my dog trainers, Shelly, is obsessed with her clothing boutique. She introduced us before.” Then after watching Cassandra and Becca a few more moments, she commented, “I wonder what’s bothering her.”

  Becca reached for Cassandra’s hand, but she pulled it away. Cassandra looked like she might faint at any moment but instead began whispering. Becca rolled her eyes and then led the other woman away from the main area of the salon. Willow could just see the two women when they reached their new position in the hall near the employee’s break room. They seemed deep in conversation, and Willow guessed it was a serious conversation. However, she couldn’t hear any of it and when the two women walked into the break room, she could no longer see them.

  She momentarily chided herself. Was she becoming as gossip-driven as the others in the salon? Still, she couldn’t deny that she had been interested in the exchange.

  “Cassandra is probably upset about Patricia,” Wednesday said softly.

  “They were friends?”

  “They were in high school for a while.”

  Willow refrained from tapping her nails as she thought. She was trying to recall everything that she knew about Patricia’s past, but it wasn’t much.

  “Was Patricia popular in high school?” Willow asked, thinking that rang a bell.

  “Popular. Pretty. Poisonous,” Wednesday answered with a nod. “She was part of a trio with both Becca and Cassandra. They were the ultimate mean girls then.”

  “And they stayed friends all this time?” Willow asked in surprise.

  She had lost touch with many of her friends from high school, though perhaps her moving out of town had done that damage. After all, a lot had happened since then. She had decided to go far away to college because she wanted to escape a mistake she’d made while interning with the Pineview Police. She had tried to forget about her hometown. Then she spent a good deal of time in Chicago building a business and then losing it in a disastrous divorce.

  Maybe things would have been different if she had braved it and stayed in Pineview, and maybe she would have been closer to those she went to school with. She had reconnected with Griffin since she returned, though it had been because he was by far the best contractor in town. And another former classmate did invite her to wine parties even if she did also ask her to do annoying errands.

  “I thought they had a bit of a falling out in school,” Wednesday said.

  Willow watched as Cassandra and Becca emerged from the back room. They hugged each other hard.

  “It looks like they’re close now,” Willow commented.

  The two women broke apart and then went their separate ways. Cassandra left the salon in a hurry. As Becca turned away, Willow saw her rub her eye which she knew was a covert way to wipe away a tear. They both did appear to be upset by the death of their friend.

  “I guess they are,” Wednesday said. “And if gossip holds true - those three will forever be linked by Daniel Blakemore, the most attractive transfer student to ever cross Pineview High’s threshold, and the love of their lives.”

  An incredulous look came over Willow’s face. “They’re still pining over him? From high school?”

  Wednesday shrugged. “First loves die hard.”

  4

  “I think all this relaxation is going to kill me,” Griffin said.

  Willow couldn’t hold back a laugh. She was sitting in her living room that evening with her newly polished nails, petting Telescope and talking to her boyfriend on the phone. While she was dealing with stumbling across a crime scene and worrying about her sister, Griffin had been forced to follow doctor’s orders and “take it easy.” This order was not easy for a contractor who liked to stay busy.

  However, after falling from a ladder, Griffin had sustained a concussion and a shoulder strain. Willow had been by his side for the first few days to make sure that his head injury was cared for, but now all they could do was wait for his shoulder to heal. He was not supposed to lift more than five pounds, which Willow knew was frustrating for someone who was usually so strong. Griffin had also been disappointed to learn that even though Telescope was a small dog, the pup weighed more than the maximum weight he could lift. Willow just kept reminding him that this was temporary.

  “It’s funny because most people would kill in order to have some relaxation time,” Willow pointed out.

  “I think you’re the same way I am though,” Griffin teased. “You need a project to keep you busy too. If it’s not running a dog gym business, it’s catching a killer.”

  “I only got involved with those cases because people I cared about were being implicated,” Willow said. “I’m not trying to make a habit of it. I’m going to let the police deal with this case all on their own.”

  “People you care about?” Griffin asked. “Are you admitting you care about me?”

  Willow knew it was pretty obvious that she did. Their friendship had blossomed as he worked on repairing her house and building her doggie gym, and when they finally took the plunge and started dating, they ended up being a pretty great couple. They had not yet traded “I love yous,” and Willow knew that she was being cautious in this regard.

  But could you blame her? Her ex-husband, Benjamin, had been manipulative and had even worked things so that he kept her first dog training business when they divorced. She knew that Griffin was not her ex, and he was a great guy. But why rush things?

  “You? I was talking about my show dog’s owner,” Willow joked. “But I guess I care about you too.”

  She could practically sense Griffin beaming on the other end of the line. Telescope was also wagging his tail next to her. He seemed to be a fan of Griffin’s, which was another point in Griffin’s favor. Telescope was a great judge of character.

  “I wish I could see you tonight,” he said.

  “Me too,” she agreed. “But you really need some rest. I know it’s not what you’re used to doing, but finding coverage to finish the projects you were in the middle of is work. You can’t overexert yourself. Or it will just take longer for you to heal. And I want you back to your regular able-to-lift-more-than-five-pounds self soon.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Griffin said, sounding unconvinced. “But it might still be relaxing if we just watched a movie. A short one.”

  “Well…” Willow said, feeling her resolve weakening. She did love spending time with him.

  “And I could make popcorn. That can’t weigh more than five pounds.”

  Willow was about to joke about how it depended on how much popcorn they were making and was about to agree to go over to his house when she received another call.

  “Hold on just a minute, Griff. Wednesday is calling. I need to take it and make sure she’s all right.”

  Griffin assured her it was no problem, and Willow switched lines expecting to hear Wednesday’s melodious voice. Instead, she was greeted with a gruff and serious one.

  “Willow, something has happened and I need your help.”

  “Dad?” Willow asked, trying to get her bearings. “What happened? Why are you calling me on Wednesday’s phone? Is she all right?”

  “She’s not injured,” replied Frank.

  Willow wanted to breathe a sigh of relief after hearing that, but she knew there was more bad news to follow. “Then, what’s wrong?”

  “There’s been another murder. And your sister found the body again,” Frank said, listing the facts without emotion. “She could use some moral support.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Willow
assured him. “Where are you?”

  “It’s a nail salon. I believe it’s called Polished.”

  Willow said she was on her way and hung up the phone with a feeling of dread. That was the name of Becca’s nail salon.

  As Willow arrived at the nail salon, her first thought was that it no longer looked spa-like and relaxing. The flashing lights and crime scene tape had seen to that.

  Wednesday was seated on the curb with a comfort blanket over her shoulders. A uniformed officer allowed Willow to approach when he learned who she was, and she hurried over to her sister. Last time that Wednesday had encountered the dead body, she had been freaked out and was rambling. This time she was pale and quiet. She appeared to be shutting down.

  Willow sat next to her and put her arm around her. Her first impulse was to ask how she was doing, but she guessed what the answer would be and refrained from asking.

  Instead she said, “I’m here for you.”

  “Wills,” Wednesday said quietly. “How could this have happened again?”

  “What did happen exactly?”

  Wednesday just shook her head. It was clear that she didn’t want to talk. Deciding that she would try to figure a few things out on her own first, Willow turned and looked through the large glass window of the salon. She could see her father and Detective Denton, along with a few other officers, examining the crime scene. A man she recognized as the medical examiner was kneeling next to the body on the ground. Willow thought that his analysis should be easy. Based on what she could see, even at this distance, the cause of death looked obvious. A nail file was sticking out of the victim’s neck. Despite the blood, Willow could recognize who the pitiable woman was. It was Becca.

  Willow shook her head. “Poor Becca.”

  Wednesday shivered and Willow sat next to her to listen. “I know that I see pictures of dead bodies semi-regularly as part of my job. But it’s not the same. Actually finding the body. And it being someone I knew. Somebody who did my nails for years. And who always picked out pretty colors. Well, this is a whole different ballgame. It’s a whole different sport! Like ping-pong and football.” Wednesday shook her head and whimpered. “I don’t know what I’m saying anymore.”