Murder Most Howl: A Paws & Claws Mystery
Page 26
6 carrots, peeled
4 stalks celery
1 teaspoon thyme
1 bay leaf
7 cups water
6 potatoes, peeled and quartered
1 8-ounce package frozen yellow corn
1 package frozen baby lima beans
cooked barley or rice
In a large stockpot, combine the chicken, turnip, carrots, celery, thyme, and bay leaf with enough water to cover everything. Put the lid on the pot, bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 1½ to 2 hours.
Remove the chicken, bay leaf, carrots, turnip, and celery.
Take out the fat using one of these methods. Do not skip this step—too much fat can make your dog sick:
Refrigerate the broth overnight and skim the fat off the top;
Skim off the top with a spoon or fine mesh skimmer;
Pour through a fat-separating pitcher.
Add the carrots, turnip, and celery back to the pot. Bring to a simmer again and add the potatoes. When they have cooked, remove 1 cup of the potatoes, mash them with a fork, and put them back in the soup to thicken it.
Meanwhile, take the meat off the chicken and dice.
Add the corn and lima beans. When they are warm, add the meat and serve over cooked barley or rice. (Do not add salt or pepper to the stew for dogs.)
Sugar Maple Inn Rodeo Roundup
For dogs. Makes 2 to 3 Gingersnap-size portions or 5 to 6 Trixie-size portions.
1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound very lean ground beef
½ 8-ounce package frozen corn
3 cups cooked brown rice
½ 15-ounce can kidney beans
Heat the olive oil and cook the ground beef as you would hamburgers. Meanwhile, cook the corn according to the package. When slightly pink inside, remove the ground beef from the pan and set aside. Add a splash of water to the pan and deglaze, scraping up any bits stuck to the bottom. Add the rice to the pan and stir to coat with the flavor of the beef. Add the beans and corn, and crumble the beef into the pan. (If your dog likes to pick out the meat, crumble very fine.) Mix and serve mildly warm but not hot.
Keep reading for a special preview of Krista Davis’s next Domestic Diva Mystery . . .
The Diva Serves High Tea
Coming June 2016 from Berkley Prime Crime!
Dear Natasha,
My new boyfriend’s mother loves to garden. She keeps offering me cups of home-grown comfrey tea but I’m a little nervous about drinking tea made from some weed. Do you think her herbal teas are safe to drink?
Uneasy in Tea Kettle Junction, Maine
Dear Uneasy,
Many herbal teas, like chamomile, have been safely consumed for centuries. However, comfrey tea is not one of them. It sounds like she wants you to find a new boyfriend.
Natasha
At three in the morning the world is simultaneously peaceful and a little bit spooky. No cars rumbled by on my street. No warm yellow glow shone in the windows of my neighbors’ homes. Of course, it didn’t help that Natasha had woken me from a deep sleep by texting the word Intruder!
Who sends a message like that? I had phoned her to ask if she had called 911, but she didn’t answer. She didn’t respond to my return text either.
My ex-husband, Mars, who now happened to be Natasha’s significant other, was out of town at a political event. I had known Natasha since we were kids in tiny Berryville, Virginia, and competed at everything except the beauty pageants she loved so much. Familiar with her predilection for drama, I hadn’t hurried. I slid my feet into sandals and threw on a fluffy long white bathrobe, attached a leash to my hound mix, Daisy, and crossed the street at a leisurely pace in the warm full night.
Nevertheless, I shrieked when a cat streaked out of the shadows and across the sidewalk right in front of us. Daisy barked once at the inconsiderate cat.
Natasha’s front door was locked. I rapped on it, and called, “Natasha!” I banged the knocker, which sounded unbelievably loud in the night. No response at all. I was beginning to get worried. Why wasn’t she answering the door? I tried the handle again but the door was definitely locked.
“Let’s go around back,” I said to Daisy.
I opened the gate to the passage that ran along the side of the house. In Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, the historic houses were situated close together, often with only a narrow service passage between buildings. Daisy led the way in the darkness. In the back yard, I pulled the handle of the sliding glass door to Mars’s man cave, but it didn’t budge.
We hurried up the stairs to the deck, where I pounded on the kitchen door. “Natasha?”
Still nothing. There were no lights on in the house, either.
Daisy pulled on her leash.
“Not now, Daisy.” Why hadn’t I brought the key to Natasha’s house? I considered smashing a window. Should I go home and look for the key or break the glass to save time?
Daisy yelped, startling me. She tugged toward the side of the deck.
I heard a soft whoosh. Following Daisy’s lead, I tiptoed over to the railing and looked down just in time to see a person in black, wearing a hood, close the sliding glass door and sneak around the side of the house.
“Hey! Stop!”
I scrambled down the stairs but he or she had already vanished. I stopped short of following the person into the dark passage. That would be incredibly stupid. The intruder could be lurking there. Besides, Natasha might be hurt and need help.
“C’mon, Daisy,” I whispered. We ran to the basement door. I slid it open. Where were the light switches? “Natasha?” I yelled.
Walking cautiously, and looking around in case another intruder remained behind, I made my way to the back of the room, where stairs led to the main floor. I found a panel of light switches. I flicked them all on, and the room blazed. I took a quick look to be sure no one hid behind the bar before racing upstairs calling Natasha’s name. I turned on the lights in the foyer and the stairwell. Nothing seemed out of place. “Natasha!”
I wasn’t sure where to start. She had probably been asleep when the intruder came in. I rushed up the stairs, hoping Daisy, who wasn’t much of a watchdog, would alert me if she smelled someone lurking in the house. At the top of the stairs, I turned right, toward Natasha and Mars’s bedroom, flicking on overhead lights as I went. “Natasha!”
In the master bedroom, decorated in shades of gray from the walls to the bedding, it was clear that her bed had been slept in. But she was nowhere to be seen. “Natasha!”
Daisy pulled me toward the bathroom door. I grabbed the doorknob and twisted but it didn’t budge. It was locked tight. I knocked, which seemed somewhat silly under the circumstances. “Natasha? Are you in there? It’s Sophie.”
Nothing. No response. Not a sound in the house.
I jiggled the doorknob, which accomplished nothing. I studied the lock. Who put a key lock on a bathroom door? I backed up a step and banged my shoulder into the door. Ow. It looked a lot easier in the movies.
The thud of the door knocker rumbled through the house. When I was dashing down the stairs, I heard, “Natasha? It’s Officer Wong.”
Thank heaven! I recognized Wong’s voice, unlocked the door, and threw it open.
Wong enjoyed surprising people who expected an Asian officer. Her surname was the last vestige of marrying the wrong man, but she hadn’t bothered to change it. Wong wasn’t much taller than my five feet. Her uniform strained against her ample curves. African-American, she wore her hair short in the back with a sassy curl that fell on her forehead. “Sophie! I didn’t expect to see you. Everything okay?”
“I think Natasha is locked in the bathroom upstairs. But she’s not responding when I call her name.”
“We had a report of an intruder.”
“Someone was in the house. I saw him leave.”
“Him?”
“Or her. I don’t know. Someone dressed in black.”
Wong frowned. “Wait here.”
“What about Natasha?”
“Stay right where you are. You don’t know if there’s someone else in the house.”
Wong had proven herself logical and reliable in the past. I followed her instruction and waited by the front door with Daisy. I could hear Wong moving through the rooms on the main floor and basement, checking them out.
Wong made her way back to the foyer. “I don’t see anything unusual. How’d you get in?”
“Through the basement.”
Wong started up the stairs.
I hated waiting by the door. I knew I could be in the way if I followed her and she found someone hiding in the house, but I couldn’t help feeling time was of the essence. What if the intruder had hurt Natasha and locked her in the bathroom? I ran up the stairs as quietly as I could, but Daisy’s paws hit the stairs like thunder.
I tried the doorknob to the bathroom again. It was still locked. “Natasha! Natasha!”
Wong walked up beside me. “What part of wait right there wasn’t clear to you?”
“What if she’s bleeding or unconscious?” I jiggled the knob in frustration.
Wong looked around, opened the drawers of a dressing table, and withdrew something.
“What are you doing?”
“Stand aside, Sophie.”
She took two hair pins, pried one open, and bent the other at a slight angle. She inserted them in the lock and opened the door in a matter of seconds.
Inside, Natasha was sprawled on the floor, facedown.
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Table of Contents
Praise for the NEW YORK TIMES bestselling Paws & Claws Mysteries
Berkley Prime Crime titles by Krista Davis
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Contents
Epigraph
Cast
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Author’s Note
Recipes
Special Excerpt from THE DIVA SERVES HIGH TEA