Ain't Nothing but a Pound Dog

by Jeannie Wycherley

  “But The Pointy Woman—” Clarissa and Toby exclaimed in unison. Ed shot Toby a startled look.

  “I agree that there is something very odd about this woman’s appearance, and thanks to Mrs Crouch we know she was here at or around the time of Joseph’s death, and we have a good description. All I can tell you is that she remains a person of interest.”

  Clarissa snorted. Case closed then.

  “What’s more intriguing to me is that she then turned up on CCTV at the kennels.” Ed narrowed his eyes. “I’ve scrutinised all the CCTV footage from the afternoon of the fire. She can be seen arriving carrying a small container, like a petrol can you’d keep in the back of a car.”

  “Did she enter the same way she left? Through the staff door?”

  “No. She came in through reception. There appears to have been nobody in the back office at the time, but the main door was unlocked.”

  “She didn’t speak to anyone?” Clarissa twisted her face up at the memory of Sue Mitchelmore. What a disagreeable human being she’d been.

  “No. Not that you see on the footage.” Ed frowned. “I can see from the timings that the woman you call The Pointy Woman was in the kennels when you arrived. However, what’s really weird is that Selma claims not to have seen her at that time, and she didn’t recognise her from the images we shared with her.”

  “If Selma said she didn’t see The Pointy Woman, that’s good enough for me.” Toby lay his head down on the edge of his basket.

  “So there’s no link between her and the manager of the kennel?” Clarissa asked.

  “None that we can tell.”

  “Ask about the dogs,” mumbled Toby, and covered his ears with his paws, frightened of what he would hear.

  Clarissa nodded. “And all the dogs were alright?”

  Ed gave her a reassuring look. “Yes. Most of them were dispersed to other kennels.”

  “Most of them?” Clarissa asked when Toby pricked his ears up.

  “Yes. Obviously the kennels have now been closed down, and Selma is out of a job, but she took a few of them home with her.”

  “Brave woman,” said Toby, wagging his tail.

  “She said she couldn’t bear to see the back of them.”

  “Troot, I’ll bet.” Toby pondered Selma’s choices. “I wonder who else.”

  “That’s great news. I hope they’ll be treated better with Selma or in their new kennels.” Clarissa chewed her lip for a moment, thinking. “But The Pointy Woman? She definitely set the fire? Who else would it have been?”

  “Well, exactly. You don’t actually see her strike the match in the footage we have, but it seems absolutely plain that she’s the one we’re after. Everyone else is accounted for. I can’t figure out why—”

  “Oh but I can.” Clarissa gazed at Toby. “She wanted to eliminate the only witness to Old Joe’s murder.”

  “Toby, you mean?” Ed’s troubled gaze raked over the dog in the basket. “But he can’t tell us anything.”

  “He can tell us plenty,” Clarissa shot back. “You just have to listen.”

  “To be fair,” Toby interjected, “he does listen, he just can’t hear.”

  “Hmmm.” Clarissa drained her orange juice.

  “You think there’s a link there?” Ed’s eyebrows knitted together as he attempted to get his head around what Clarissa was saying. “You think the same woman that you claim killed Old Joe—”

  “She did kill him,” Toby pointed out.

  “Was also the person that set the kennels on fire?”

  “That is what I’m saying, yes.” Clarissa deposited her glass on the floor beside Ed’s and crossed her arms over her chest.

  Ed collapsed back in his chair, flummoxed. “I love your certainty,” he told Clarissa. “I just can’t prove it. And no matter who I show those pictures and photos to, no-one recognises that woman. Except you.”

  Clarissa rubbed her forehead. Maybe she’d had too much sun. She had a tension headache starting. “No, I understand that. And I get that you can’t prove anything just on our say-so.”

  Ed cleared his throat to get her attention, an uncomfortably tense sound. Clarissa blinked and looked up, and Toby studied him expectantly.

  “Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to press charges against Craig and his wife either. I’m inclined to agree with you about the links between them and Dave Cooke the dog warden, and probably between all three and Sue Mitchelmore, but regrettably I have no chain of evidence and absolutely nothing else to go on. My boss has instructed me to file this one away for now.”

  “Which is just another way of saying you won’t pursue it?” Clarissa stared at the young detective in horror. “That’s terrible. You know an offence was committed.”

  Ed shrugged; his mouth turned down. “I’m sorry. My hands are tied. You did a really good job with the write-up for your paper… even without naming names.”

  “Thank you.” Clarissa had written a scorchingly critical piece for the Sun Valley Tribune analysing the numbers of missing pedigree dogs in the wide geographical area the paper covered. She’d also offered advice so that people knew who to contact in the event their own dog had been lost or stolen. More than anything she’d sought to advise people to attend their local kennels in person and not rely on the say-so of staff who might or might not have been scanning microchips properly.

  Clarissa bent to retrieve the empty juice glasses and stood. “So that’s that then.”

  Ed avoided her gaze. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have brought better news.” He followed her out to the kitchen and watched as she dispensed of the glasses in the sink. They chinked viciously together, signalling her inner fury.

  “Look,” he said, his voice low and tempered with steel. “If it makes any difference at all, I’ll always be looking out for this woman, and when I find her I will prove that she’s a bad’n one way or the other.” He lifted his hand to reach out, as though he wished to touch her. Hesitating, it floated in the air uncertainly between them. She looked at it, and he dropped it, clearing his throat self-consciously. “I promise you.”

  Clarissa stared into his soft brown eyes, scrutinizing his soul. She could tell he was a decent man. A little inexperienced as a detective perhaps, but he obviously wanted to do right by her and Toby. She found herself liking him in spite of his inability to right all the wrongs in her world.

  “It makes a great difference,” she told him. “Thank you.”

  He exhaled softly, a sigh of relief. “We can be friends then?”

  Clarissa laughed, her tension easing. “Of course.” She held out her own hand and he took it and shook it, holding on for longer than was strictly necessary.

  Toby, who had followed them out of the living room, watched the proceedings with interest, before inserting his wiry body between them. He jumped up at Clarissa, his paws on her thighs. “You might want to be careful,” he told her. “You don’t know where he’s been.”

  Clarissa extricated her hand from Ed and pushed Toby down. “Are you jealous?” she asked him, giggling as he pushed his head against her knees.

  “Certainly not. I’m far more handsome than him. Besides, he has hardly any hair at all.”

  “What’s he saying?” Ed asked, and Clarissa wondered if he finally believed that Toby could talk to her.

  “He’s telling me he needs a visit to the poodle parlour to have some of those scruffy layers of his fur removed.”

  Toby’s bark of surprise trumpeted his defiance. “I most certainly am not saying that!”

  “Oh, he looks gorgeous to me,” Ed grinned. “And well taken care of. And that reminds me,” he looked about the kitchen and located the small gift bag he’d come armed with. “This is for Toby.”

  “For Toby?” Clarissa arched an eyebrow. “I’d hoped it was for me.”

  “Oops,” Ed grimaced. “Maybe next time.”

  “I’m just kidding,” Clarissa winked at him.

  “It’s a few treats I picked up from the market
stall, and another new ball.”

  “I love borlies,” Toby enthused, and set up a hue and cry until Clarissa reached into the package and handed him the luminescent orange tennis ball it contained.

  “Thank you, Detective Plum,” said Toby, and dashed through the dog flap and into the garden to hide it under a bush where no-one else could get at it.

  Clarissa and Ed followed him out, walking along the side of the house towards the front gate. They paused there for a moment, both at a loss about what to say next.

  “Thanks for coming over.” Clarissa tried for politeness.

  “No problem.” Ed pushed his hands deep in his trouser pockets and wandered out onto the pavement. Toby came skipping down the path with his ball in his mouth to stand next to Clarissa.

  “She loves me best,” he mumbled, the ball impeding his speech, gazing up at the policeman.

  “Shush,” Clarissa told him. Looking back at Ed she said, “And thanks for keeping an eye out for her. We appreciate it.”

  Ed nodded. He turned slowly and walked a little way up the street, before swivelling back to her. “Maybe I could—” He hesitated.

  “Give me a ring?” suggested Clarissa.

  He nodded. “And we could—” He fumbled for the words.

  “Go for a drink?”

  “That would be excellent.” This time his smile outshone the sun.

  “It would.” Clarissa chuckled a little to herself, shutting the gate and sliding the latch across. Toby glared at the detective. Ed winked at him and sauntered off up the road, a definite swagger in his step.

  Toby guarded the gate, watching the detective until he’d disappeared out of his eyeline. Behind him, Clarissa was wielding the secateurs once more. Toby, about to run in search of his growing borlie treasure pile beneath the bushes, paused. Across the road, about forty feet away, a medium-sized grey and cream dog with soft eyes stood staring, never blinking, her beautiful grey-blue irises calling to him.

  Toby dropped his ball in surprise. “Pippin?” he asked.

  She lifted her nose and barked sharply. Once. Twice. Then she turned about and walked slowly away, her tail, a beautiful cream brush, swaying elegantly as she went.

  “Pippin?” Toby called again, but she’d gone.

  Later that evening, with the moon high in the sky, and the stars blinking down on them through the open window, Clarissa and Toby held a ritual.

  Surrounded by candles, they sat on the exact spot where Old Joe had breathed his last, in the centre of the pentagram Old Joe must once have painted on the floor and covered with his rug. Clarissa set the carriage clock between them. It remained silent while they spoke their remembrances with joy and gratitude. Clarissa had few, but even so, she kept Old Joe’s letter close to her heart as she told of the delight of finding his love so late in the day.

  Toby spoke of the companionship and care the old man had given him, the adoration they had shared, the unselfishness of the bond between them.

  “One that can never be broken, even though we are temporarily apart from each other,” Toby said. He blinked into the flame of a burning candle. “I miss you,” he crooned. “How I miss you. Your warmth. Your smell. The slight touch of your hand. Your presence.”

  Clarissa’s eyes sparkled with emotion, empathising with his obvious pain.

  “But I feel you near, always,” Toby continued. “Your very absence reminds me how full of life you were, and you should know, I will seek to explain and avenge your death until the end of my days.”

  “We both will,” Clarissa said, smoothing open Old Joe’s letter to her. He had written, ‘I could never have walked your path for you in any case. What lies ahead may seem daunting…’

  Clarissa had puzzled over the letter in the intervening weeks since Catesby had handed it over, but now she firmly believed Old Joe had set her on a journey.

  One that had always been her destiny.

  The disappearance of her parents. Her peculiar removal to Ravenswood Court. Old Joe’s death at the hands of The Pointy Woman. The spellbinding of Toby. The disappearance of the mysterious gem from the carriage clock. Catesby’s apparent knowledge of certain aspects of this whole business and her safeguarding of Old Joe’s gift to her in his will.

  “The thing is Toby; we know who killed Old Joe. We know she took The Six Stone, but we don’t know what for or why that’s important. Old Joe spoke of my path. The more I think about it, the more I’m assuming that what he meant was for me to find out the answers to all these riddles. Perhaps retrieve the stone and find out what its purpose is.”

  “Did he need to die to set you on that path?” Toby asked, his throat constricted with pain.

  Clarissa shook her head sadly. “I don’t know, but I wish it hadn’t been the case.”

  Toby tilted his head. “If he knew… it would explain why he let her in, and why he was pleasant to her.”

  “Because you think he knew this was going to happen to him?” Clarissa nodded as that truth sunk in. “That it was somehow part of my journey? That it had to be.” She cleared her throat, emotion sticking there at the thought of his sacrifice. “And knowing that he prepared for it. The letter to me. The will. The anonymous tip-off I received that he was my family. Me finding you.”

  “Which I’m sure was the best part out of all this mess?” Toby peered closely at Clarissa.

  “Of course.” She reached out and ruffled the fur on his head. Already the shape of his skull cleaved to her muscle memory. They had a connection that they’d share for the rest of their days.

  Clarissa lifted a large red candle with her right hand and stared into the flame. “We will find The Pointy Woman and the property she stole from you, Grandfather, and we will work out the riddle of why you were killed. We will right the wrongs meted out, using every means at our disposal.” She poured a little of the melted wax into the palm of her left hand, wincing a little as it burned her skin.

  She waited, then crushed the cooled wax in her hand, scattering the remnants over the floor where Old Joe’s body had lain. “This is our pact. Our solemn promise to you.” She breathed deeply and then, her voice a little husky, articulated a vow, her words echoing around the still room. “In shadow and in light, by day or deep in night, we will find that which is lost and disregard the cost.”

  Clarissa blew the candle out. “So mote it be.”

  Toby, inhaling the sharp scent of the extinguished wick, blinked in the sudden darkness, his eyes shining. He nodded his assent. Old Joe had been his beloved master, a magnificent gift. But now Clarissa needed him, and he would love her just the same. Where she ventured, he would travel beside her. They belonged to each other now.

  A witch and her spellbound hound.

  “So mote it be.”

  You’ll find Book Two, A Curse, a Coven and a Canine right HERE

  If you enjoyed Ain’t Nothing but a Pound Dog and you’d like to see more Spellbound Hound, please leave me a review on Amazon or Goodreads.

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  A Curse, a Coven and a Canine:

  Spellbound Hound Magic and Mystery Book 2

  Toby dog can smell death.

  When someone assaults his elderly neighbour and leaves her for dead, Spellbound Hound Toby is devastated.

  For one thing, he’s worried who’ll keep him in cheesy dog treats now, but more than that, all indications are that Miranda Dervish—also known as The Pointy Woman—is behind this latest atrocity.
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  The woman who murdered Old Joe AND hexed Toby is back!

  Together with his human, the journalist Clarissa Page, Toby sets out to investigate Miranda.

  What is it she wanted from the neighbour?

  Scarily, as they begin to uncover Miranda’s mysterious past, her evil behaviour begins to escalate and Clarissa finds her own existence under attack.

  In a race against time, Toby and Clarissa have the odds stacked against them, but assistance comes from some rather eccentric allies in the form of The Blackdown Hills Squirrel Community, and a witch… who lives in a hedge.

  A Curse, a Coven and a Canine is Book Two of this brand new paranormal cozy dog mystery series which should be read in order.

  Find it here.

  The Wonkiest Witch: Wonky Inn Book 1

  Alfhild Daemonne has inherited an inn.

  And a dead body.

  Estranged from her witch mother, and having committed to little in her thirty years, Alf surprises herself when she decides to start a new life.

  She heads deep into the English countryside intent on making a success of the once popular inn. However, discovering the murder throws her a curve ball. Especially when she suspects dark magick.

  Additionally, a less than warm welcome from several locals, persuades her that a variety of folk – of both the mortal and magickal persuasions – have it in for her.