When Bunnies Go Bad

by Clea Simon

  Maybe I felt I owed her something for her money. That little dog—Stewie—was as well trained as any animal I’d ever worked with. He might have been a bit overeager, but I put that down to a lack of exercise. No, she was the one who needed training.

  I’d had to take her hand as we turned back toward the Chateau. She wasn’t dressed for hiking, and the forest floor was soaked through from the day’s melt. When I had, the connection had been immediate. Not with me—I found the redhead’s touch cool—but with the dog. Although she held Stewie’s lead, when I made contact with Cheryl, a jolt of recognition had raced through me. The dog was on alert. Although the spaniel’s muzzle barely turned toward the woman at his side, those long ears, that nose were attuned to her every move.

  It boded well for the basics I was professing to teach. And so, once we were back on the pavement of the parking lot, I stopped her, gesturing to the lead still in her hand. The problem, I discovered, wasn’t with Stewie, but with the redhead. Although I demonstrated the basic commands—heel, stay, sit—she seemed not so much uncomprehending as uninterested. For all the affection she apparently lavished on the spaniel, she had precious little real interest in what made him tick.

  It was a problem I’ve seen before—the poor animal was more valued for what he symbolized than what he was. That’s one reason I talk clients out of giving pets as gifts whenever I can, but it was too late in this case. Poor Pudgy—what a name—was going to have to deal with being half-ignored, at least unless the friend who’d gifted him stepped back into the picture. With an animal this acute—and this centered on his person—that was a recipe for trouble. It would only be a matter of time before the animal began acting out.

  As I said, I’d done what I could.

  What I didn’t expect was for Wallis to disagree with me.

  “Giving in so easily?” She’d greeted me at the door when I got home, rubbing up against me as I came in.

  “I didn’t think you’d care about a dog.” I was discouraged.

  “A dog!” Wallis’ tone should have been a tonic. “And she sounded so interesting, too.”

  “I don’t know what’s up with that woman, Wallis.” I shuffled in, closing the door behind me, and let her lead me into the kitchen. “I can’t imagine she’ll be around for long.”

  “Really?” The question was muted, as Wallis had her head in the grocery bag. Suddenly the scent of roast meat became amplified, and I couldn’t be sure if it was my belly I heard growling or some atavistic sound from the cat. I withdrew the rotisserie chicken—Beauville was becoming civilized, at least to the point of having a full-service deli—under her watchful gaze and started to partition it. When I began scraping the meat off the thigh bone, the growl grew louder. I got the message, handing the piece over.

  “What’s she got to stay for?” I fetched a beer as Wallis began to eat. The sight of her tearing the cooked flesh apart didn’t dampen my appetite. It was the thought of getting nowhere with Cheryl Ginger and her dog that had me seeking liquid solace.

  “Well, the dog…what did you expect?” The thoughts reached me through the sounds of satisfied lapping as she licked at the salty skin. “Those creatures will do anything for anybody.” She sat back up and began to wash her face. “But the redhead?”

  She paused, as she licked the back of an already spotless paw. I reached to remove a nonexistent tuft of fur from my mouth and then gave up, pushing the chicken breast toward her.

  “Go wild.” I watched as she sniffed. The meat was cooling but still fragrant. “But share with me, if you will, what you mean.”

  As I watched, the tabby who shares my life bent over the chicken, her black leather nose twitching as she considered the offering. Finally, she licked at it, her tongue dabbing at the charred skin. When she looked back up, a moment later, without taking a bite, I was afraid she’d rejected the deal.

  “A lady can’t gather her thoughts?” The question sounded in my head and I took another drink. Wallis’ ability to read my mind meant I could take shortcuts—clearly she had picked up something, secondhand, from the scents on my clothes. But it would never stop being disconcerting.

  “Only because you insist on thinking in such a…linear fashion.” She was translating, I could tell not only from the pause but from the way her ears splayed out, their black tips lying almost flat as she concentrated. So I bit back my impatience and waited.

  “You needn’t be so angry, you know. The woman is not competing with you.” I opened my mouth—and immediately closed it. Wallis knows me too well for me to deny it. Cheryl Ginger was an attractive woman, and I knew how my ambivalence about intimacy had at times pushed Jim Creighton away.

  “No, she’s after bigger game.” I wasn’t sure if the idea of money and sugar daddies had a feline corollary, but I trusted Wallis to get the gist. “But I wouldn’t put it past her to toy with him.” An image of Wallis and an unlucky mouse passed across my mind. She huffed—the half-hiccup that heralds a fur ball—and I looked up. Had I gone too far? But she was already jumping off the table to run down the hall.

  “Speaking of…” Her voice reached me as she trotted off. “But you’ve got it wrong, Pru. He’s only doing what dogs do. And her?” From the living room, I heard a familiar hack. “She’s frightened.”

  I put my beer down to fetch a paper towel, but as I passed through the front hall, I saw headlights swinging up the drive and paused. Creighton, his car almost as powerful as mine but much quieter.

  “Hey, stranger.” Maybe it was Wallis’ words—“what dogs do”—maybe it was the beer. My greeting was warmer than I’d planned.

  “Hey, yourself.” He turned from my kiss, and I stepped back, still holding the towel. “You cleaning?”

  “Furball.” I smiled. A conciliatory move. Girlish. I shook it off. “Wallis,” I turned back toward the living room.

  “I figured as much.” Creighton sounded a little more like himself, a touch of humor creeping in as he followed me to the other room. “Sorry, Pru, I’m just in a mood.”

  “Oh?” I knelt to clean, the better to avoid a confrontation.

  “Let the man talk.” Wallis was washing again.

  “I know.” I meant to keep my voice low, but Creighton has senses like a cat.

  “Hey, you get in foul moods, too.” He sounded hurt, rather than angry. There was no way I could explain, and so I turned and stood.

  “I’m sorry.” To my surprise, I was. I wanted peace. Well, in truth, I wanted more. “I’ve had a strange day, too. But you first.”

  “A beer would help.”

  That got my attention. Creighton didn’t drink when he was working. Then again, he didn’t come by in the middle of a case either.

  “Sure.” I bit back my questions as I fetched our beverages. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing.” He looked at the can as if it wasn’t what he’d just asked for. “Nothing at all, really.”

  I watched as he downed most of the beer and then went to get him another. I knew this kind of mood, not that I’d ever seen Creighton in it.

  “Here.” I handed it over. “But at some point, you’re going to talk about it.”

  Jim Creighton wasn’t me. Wasn’t my father, either. Instead of downing the second can, he nodded and collapsed on the couch. A little wary, I sat beside him. Wallis, I noticed, had made herself scarce. That could mean there was nothing to worry about. It could also mean she was looking out for herself.

  “I know,” he said. “It’s just this damned case.”

  “Teddy Rhinecrest.” I didn’t think there was anything else going on in town. Not this early in the season, and certainly not of that magnitude. He nodded, and I took a breath. “Jim, there’s something you should know. I talked to Cheryl Ginger again.”

  He shrugged.

  “Met with her.” I couldn’t believe he’d forgotten. “The girlfriend?”
r />   “Not any of my business.” He was staring at his beer again. I was starting to get jealous. “Not any longer.”

  “Jim?” I forgot about Wallis. Forgot about Cheryl Ginger and her spaniel. I’d never seen my guy like this.

  “They took the case from me.” With a sigh like a deflating balloon, he sunk down into the sofa. Only then did he open that second beer and treat himself to a long pull. “I was making progress too. Had a lead.”

  “So that’s why you were out drinking?” I understood the urge. I truly did. But I’d never seen Creighton like that. From the blank stare he gave me, I wondered if I’d misheard Ronnie. “You closed Happy’s, I hear.”

  “That was work, Pru.” He looked at the beer as if it would speak up for him. “I was looking for some guys Teddy Rhinecrest may have run afoul of.”

  I thought of what I’d read about the deceased. “I didn’t think anyone around here would mess with someone like Rhinecrest,” I said.

  Creighton looked up at me, but he didn’t argue. “So you’ve heard. But not everyone here knew his history, and Rhinecrest liked to gamble. Only he didn’t like to pay up when he lost. He’d gotten out of the habit, I guess.”

  “And you thought…maybe this was about money?” In general I trust Creighton’s instincts. He’s a good cop. “That he welshed on a bet?”

  “He’d called someone a cheat. Some other names as well.” Another drink, another sigh. “To the folks around here, he was just a rich tourist.”

  “Could be.” I thought about Benazi. About Cheryl Ginger. “So what made you change your mind?”

  Creighton shrugged. “I didn’t. Didn’t get the chance,” he said. “It’s up to the Feds now.”

  “Wait.” I almost took his beer. When Ronnie had referred to “the Feds,” I’d assumed he was confused. Ronnie, as I may have mentioned, is not the sharpest. “The Feds? Not the Staties?” I’d been with Jim long enough to know the protocol. The state police have jurisdiction over any local cop in Massachusetts. In smaller towns, that means they step in when there’s a wrongful death case. But the Staties had been overwhelmed in recent years, and in a place like Beauville—where there was a good cop and not much else going on—that jurisdiction tended to become a formality. The commander of the local detective unit, out of Springfield, knew Creighton. Knew that someone who actually lived here had a better chance of closing this than someone who drove over from the other side of the county. Although the paperwork might say otherwise, that meant Creighton was usually left to work on his own.

  But he was still shaking his head. “The Feds, Pru. It seems they were quite aware that Teddy Rhinecrest wasn’t your ordinary vacationer. They seem to think it was…more complicated.”

  I nodded. “But why here? Why in Beauville?”

  Creighton didn’t pretend not to understand. “Maybe he was easier to get to here. On vacation with his girlfriend. Not exactly incognito—but, well, under the radar. He probably had his guard down.”

  “You think maybe he was up to something?” I caught myself. “I mean, besides being rude to waiters and his girlfriend?”

  “I don’t know, Pru, and nobody’s telling me.” He put the can down. It sounded empty. “And it’s been made very clear, I’m not supposed to ask. Now, come here.”

  ***

  For a small town, Beauville has its share of problems. Unemployment, drugs, boredom—they all contribute to keep my guy busy, despite the bucolic appearance of the woods and the hills. But he doesn’t often get big cases, the kind that require him to really apply his skills, and even with all the distraction I could provide, I could tell that he was dying to follow up. This is his turf, after all. He’s got cop instincts, and it would take more than two beers to dull his sense of responsibility to the small town where we both lived.

  He was enough of a boy scout, however, that he wouldn’t go against the rules. Not directly. And if he wanted to divert his attention with me, well, I had instincts of my own.

  It wasn’t until several hours later, when I got up for a glass of water, that I found myself staring out at the frosty night and wondering about the mysteries in my own life. Wallis came up silently, pressing her warm body against my bare legs before jumping to the kitchen table to stare out at the night with me.

  I looked over at her, noting how the moonlight reflected off her green eyes, making them almost silver. She must have felt me turn, sensed my shift in focus from the still dark outside to her. She didn’t speak, though, and didn’t return my gaze, the only acknowledgment a silent lashing of her tail. Still, through her presence, I was able to pick up so much more about the world outside. Out in the woods, animals were moving. The snow that had provided cover for mice and chipmunks was nearly gone, and a hungry owl was watching for movement in the carpet of dead leaves. A mother fox was on the prowl, too, her early kits waiting, hungry, in her den. What other creatures were out there, I could only guess.

  “The rabbits you’re so fond of.” Wallis’ voice sounded quietly in my head. “They’re out there, too.”

  “Yeah, but asleep, I would imagine.” In the wild, the prey animals tended to be active at dawn and dusk, the safer between-times of the day. It was a behavior that made rabbits better pets than nocturnal hamsters or gerbils, despite their greater size. I thought of Henry and Marnie Lundquist. I hoped for her sake that the fluffy brown creature was safely tucked in and snoozing. “Safe in their warrens,” I added for emphasis.

  Wallis didn’t respond. Instead, she jumped off the table with a barely perceptible thud and set off down the hall. She wouldn’t come sleep with me, not with Creighton there, and from the way my cop beau was snoring I doubted he’d be up before morning. Wallis didn’t begrudge me my pleasures, though. I knew that from past experience, and tonight I got a sense of hunting—or a trail and of the cautious buildup to an attack. She had her own agenda for the rest of the night, and the less I knew about it, the better.

  I filled my glass with water and turned back toward the bedroom. It wasn’t until I was halfway up the stairs that I stopped. A faint noise—my old house settling or the dying cry of a small creature—had caught my attention. It had also made me remember. I had told Creighton about Cheryl. I hadn’t told him about Benazi, or that the old man was looking into Teddy Rhinecrest’s death, too.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I hadn’t forgotten the next morning, neither Benazi nor the bunny. But as Creighton showered and dressed, I kept my thoughts to myself. Creighton knew a bit about the old gangster. I hadn’t ever told him the whole story, though, about how the dapper if deadly gent had taken me for a ride—literally—to a secluded house up in the hills. Up there, he’d shared his hawk’s eye view with me—both of our town and of certain events that had recently occurred. He’d driven me back to town, too, without anything even remotely like a threat being stated. It didn’t matter. I knew without being told that some things were not to be shared with anyone, particularly anyone in law enforcement, and I was glad that Creighton wasn’t going to be involved. I’d become fond of the guy.

  Besides, I thought as Creighton came out of the shower whistling, why should I spoil my beau’s good mood?

  “You’re looking chipper this morning.” I watched as he scouted around for his clothes. “Got somewhere to be?”

  “Nowhere at all.” He smiled up at me as he put on his socks. “Thought I’d catch up on some paperwork. That’s all. And don’t you have a dog to walk?”

  I took his cue and went downstairs to make coffee. He followed as I was filling my travel mug, and I held out the pot as an offer.

  “No, thanks.” He grabbed a sip of mine, then handed it back. “I should get moving.”

  “Paperwork, huh?” I waited, but he only smiled. “And it’s pressing?”

  “You’re not the only one who can keep secrets,” he said finally, before leaning in for a kiss. “Stay safe.”

 
; “Excuse me?” Wallis’ voice broke into my thoughts. “It’s a good thing I know how to take care of myself.”

  “Sorry.” I shrugged off my musings and cracked open an egg for her breakfast. “I’ve just never seen him lie before. That I know of.” I caught her look and reached for another.

  “He’s on the hunt, same as you.” Her tongue darted out involuntarily, swiping over her chops as she watched me slice the butter. I cut off an extra pat as an appetizer. She licked at it delicately as I cooked the eggs.

  “I know, Wallis.” A sense of dread hung over me. Creighton wasn’t one to be pulled off a case. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “We all have our jobs, you know.” Her voice had the rich vibrato of a purr starting. “Like that dog.”

  “Growler?” I looked up at the clock. I’d slept later than usual, thanks to my overnight guest. I slid the eggs onto the plate where the pat of butter had been and went to refill my mug. “Poor guy. He’s not going to have any sympathy for why I’m late today.”

  “You’ve got a one-track mind.” Wallis’ words barely reached me. “And you’re focusing on the wrong animal.”

  ***

  It wasn’t until I was halfway to the Horlick house that it occurred to me that Wallis wasn’t simply being snarky. Don’t get me wrong—animals have a sense of humor. Pets in particular, since they pick up so many behaviors from the people they cohabit with, and cats specifically understand more about irony than many of us would credit. You live with someone who controls your behavior, you either learn to laugh or you die. But as I drove, I realized that Wallis was referring to one of my other charges—Cheryl Ginger’s spaniel.

  Something of my thoughts must have shown on my face, because Tracy Horlick greeted me with a more curious squint than usual.

  “What’s on your mind, I wonder?” She leaned toward me, exhaling twin streams of smoke through her nose. “Who are you thinking about?”

  “A dog I’m training.” The truth has a different sound to it, and I was hoping to get Growler without the usual fuss.