Murder, She Barked: A Paws & Claws Mystery (A Paws and Claws Mystery)

by Davis, Krista

  I turned the golf cart into the driveway.

  Not too far away, in the cabin’s backyard, I could see Philip striding toward the lake with his back to me. In front of him, Kim and Ben walked slowly into the cold water. Kim was sobbing and pleading for her life. Philip had to have a weapon to make them do something so stupid. The water must have been frigid.

  Doing my best to keep Trixie from barking, I dismissed the idea of calling 911. It would take them too long to arrive. Philip would turn and see me soon—and then there would be three of us walking into the water.

  Praying that we wouldn’t hit anything noisy on the driveway, I drove the golf cart downhill toward them. Every snap under the tires as they rolled over pebbles and twigs sounded amplified to me. But Philip must have been concentrating on Ben and Kim, because he hadn’t heard us creeping closer behind him. Kim’s wailing probably helped drown out the sounds we made, as well. At the end of the pavement, a mere twenty feet from Philip, I accelerated, fearing that Philip would finally notice us any second. The golf cart sped up, much faster than I’d anticipated, and catapulted downhill with alarming speed.

  Kim, glanced back toward Philip, saw me, and screamed even more loudly. Now in waist-deep water, Ben turned around, grabbed Kim’s arm, and struggled to move out of the path of the golf cart.

  Philip looked over his shoulder and finally saw me hurtling toward him. His eyes widened in shock. But it was too late.

  I grabbed Trixie and leaped off just as the cart hit him full force. Philip rolled over the front and fell backward into the passenger seat.

  Forty-five

  I rolled on the ground, clutching Trixie underneath me to protect her. Philip’s gun flew through the air in a big arc. Happily, it didn’t fire when it landed.

  I darted over and picked it up.

  The golf cart had plummeted into the chilly lake.

  “Help!” cried Philip. “I can’t move. I can’t feel my legs. I’ll drown.”

  Kim screamed, “I hope you do!” She fled the water as fast as she could and ran for the cabin.

  The golf cart sank at a worrisome speed.

  “Ben! Maybe we should get him out of there,” I yelled.

  “Not a chance.” He signaled me with a thumbs-up.

  Huh? I called 911 but heard a siren before anyone answered. I turned around to see Dave pull into the driveway.

  I inched closer to the golf cart. No wonder Ben wasn’t worried. The wheels in the back had hit bottom. It wouldn’t sink further.

  “He’s injured,” yelled Ben to Dave. “I don’t think he can get out.”

  “You’d better go inside to warm up and change into dry clothes,” I said to Ben.

  Now that Dave had arrived, I wasn’t afraid. Okay, I was shaking. It wasn’t every day that I ran a golf cart into someone.

  Dave radioed for an ambulance, and I handed him the gun.

  “How did you know we were here?” I asked.

  “Thank Zelda. She stuck a GPS collar into this golf cart because she was so worried about you. Then, when she charged Philip’s phone, she heard a rather interesting message.”

  Philip groaned.

  “You wanted the inn,” I baited him. “You drove the car that hit Sven. It wasn’t Tiny after all. You’re the one who let Dolce out and called the inn hoping Oma would come so you could plow her down.”

  His jaw tightened.

  “Oh my gosh.” I rambled on, speculating. “But then you decided that you didn’t have to kill Oma because you thought you would weasel your way into ownership of the inn through me!”

  Dave tsked. “Lucky for your grandmother that Philip determined it would be cheaper and easier to inherit an inn than to buy it after her death.”

  Ugh! He probably would have killed Oma and me eventually. I felt like the blood had drained out of me. “It was so easy for you because you live on the same street as Ellie. But why did you steal the car from Brewster?”

  Philip grunted.

  “And why would you be up here trying to murder Kim and Ben? They had nothing to do with . . .” Suddenly I felt like pushing him farther into the water. “You thought Ben stood in your way of conning me into a relationship.” I held the top of my head between my hands. I’d been so stupid using Ben as an excuse not to date Philip. I’d caused this nightmare by telling Philip that Ben and I were engaged. “I hope you and Brewster end up in the same place. You’re two of a kind.”

  “I’ve got more guts than Brewster.”

  Dave poked Philip’s leg, but he didn’t respond.

  A spinal injury?

  “Philip,” said Dave, “I’m going to wait for the med techs to move you.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “If Philip killed Sven, then why did Tiny throw the car over the cliff?”

  “He confessed once we brought up Brewster’s name,” said Dave. “As near as I can make out, Brewster hired Tiny to kill Jerry by hitting him with Mortie’s car. But this schlub, Philip, got wind of their plan, and thought he would change the victim so he could get rid of your grandmother. Pretty sneaky, actually. If Philip’s plan had worked, Tiny would have unwittingly killed Oma, and no one would be the wiser about Philip’s involvement.”

  “It was Philip who sent Jerry in search of downed electric wires and called Oma to come search for Dolce?”

  “Looks like it,” said Dave. “He knew she would come running to Ellie’s house if Dolce was lost.”

  “So why did Tiny have the car?”

  “Tiny was supposed to drive the car. He parked it at the end of the street in front of Philip’s house, left the keys inside, and took a walk to think about it. He needed the money Brewster promised him, but he didn’t want to kill anybody. Tiny didn’t know how to get out of that mess without angering Brewster. That’s when Philip stepped in. He stole the car, intending to hit your grandmother, but killed Sven by accident. Then he parked it near Hair of the Dog and took the keys.” Dave snorted. “Pretty obnoxious. Meanwhile, Brewster thought Tiny had killed Sven and was steaming mad. Tiny was afraid to tell Brewster he didn’t know who had driven the car. So he took credit for it but told Brewster he lost the keys. It really was Tiny you saw coming back from pushing the car over the cliff. Brewster had made a spare key. Brewster didn’t go out to the highway. Tiny walked back through the woods, where Brewster picked him up in a golf cart. According to Tiny, Brewster pressured him to kill the driver who saw him out on the highway. Brewster’s no dummy. He knew that if the driver identified Tiny, everything would lead back to Brewster.”

  I gasped. “So Philip mailed the original car keys to Tiny.”

  “Apparently so. Tiny mistakenly thought Brewster mailed him the keys as a threat. That’s why he was spending nights in his daughter’s sleeping bag up in your storage room. He was afraid to go home.”

  Dave stared at Philip with a scowl. “The frightening thing is that Philip could have gotten away with it. We had enough against Tiny and Brewster to convict them and nothing tying Philip to any of this. Not until Zelda found his cell phone.” Dave crossed his arms. “Should have worn waders, this water is freezing. Hey, Philip, how’d you lose your cell phone?”

  Philip didn’t say a word.

  “I’m thinking you lost it running back and forth to Hair of the Dog to make phone calls the night you killed Sven,” said Dave.

  “I’m going to have hypothermia. I can’t feel my legs. I’ll tell you if you get me out of here.”

  “Okay,” said Dave. “You first.”

  “It was that stupid dog, Dolce. He was crazy wild when I let him out. In the middle of the green, he jumped up and put his paws on my shoulders, knocking me down. My phone must have fallen out of my pocket. Now get me out of this water!”

  It wasn’t going to happen. We couldn’t move him without the danger of making his injury far worse, and the golf cart weighed way too much for us to pull it out of the lake by hand.

  The ambulance arrived minutes later. The medical technicians didn’t hesitate t
o splash into the water to stabilize Philip. They immobilized his head and strapped him onto a stretcher.

  Trixie and I were the only ones who weren’t wet.

  Forty-six

  Oma and I invited everyone to dinner that night, including inn employees, interested guests, and even Aunt Birdie. Zelda, Shelley, and I shoved the tables in the dining area into a big circle and arranged side tables for a buffet. Thomas catered it.

  Only Aunt Birdie, Dave, and Ellie declined. Not surprising under the circumstances. Mr. Luciano showed up, with Gina on a leash, looking healthy and happy. Holmes and Rose arrived together. Even Ben and Kim came to celebrate. Our guests mingled before dinner with Appletinis and ginger pear Getaway cocktails in their hands.

  To my surprise, Dave showed up after all. I hurried over to him. “I thought you weren’t coming. Let me get you a drink.”

  “Thanks, I can’t. I have a lot of work to do tonight.” He studied the floor for a moment. “You were right about Prissy.”

  “Oh, Dave. I’m so sorry.”

  “I didn’t want to believe you. I thought Prissy had a thing for me but it was just an act to get on my good side. She took the job as police dispatcher to help Brewster.” Dave snorted. “He had a pattern of hiring people to do his dirty work for him. Prissy kept him apprised about the situation in Snowball and fed him information about where the police would be patrolling. We’ve arrested a couple of young guys over on Snowball who stole the goods from homes and hotel rooms for Brewster. Apparently, he feared they would turn on him and raid his house, so he hid everything in socks in a laundry basket where he thought no one would look. Periodically, he sent it off to be smelted.”

  “Do you think Jerry was onto him?”

  “I doubt we’ll ever know for sure. Brewster knew the socks were disappearing. Apparently, he saw Murphy dig up a couple of socks in Jerry’s back yard. Brewster jumped to the erroneous conclusion that Jerry had buried them there to hide them. After Jerry ate breakfast with us, he returned home where Brewster confronted him. According to Brewster, they got into a fight upstairs, and Jerry managed to snatch Brewster’s toupee. Brewster slammed a golf club on Jerry’s head, causing Jerry to fall, which gave Brewster the opportunity to slide the choke collar and leash on him. Jerry tried to get away but fell again when he was running down the stairs, and the collar choked him.”

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “Hair of the Dog seems like a thriving business. Why would he throw all that away and get involved with a ring of thieves?”

  Dave met my eyes. “Greed. Plain old greed.”

  “What a twisted mind! It was okay for him to steal from other people, but he killed Jerry for stealing those same ill-gotten gains from him. And the saddest thing of all is that it wasn’t Jerry who took them—it was Murphy, Brewster’s own dog, who was taking his treasures.”

  Ben shook his head. “I can’t believe that Kim went to a scumbag like Brewster for money. She’s lucky he didn’t try to kill her, too.”

  “Hey,” said Dave, “even I thought he was a nice guy! I went to Hair of the Dog all the time.”

  I whispered to Ben, “What’s going to happen to Kim?”

  “Grand larceny carries a penalty up to twenty years.” Ben sighed. “All I can say is she’ll have the best legal representation possible. It’s her first offense, but it’s a whopper, even if she does claim she meant to return the car eventually.”

  “Can’t Mortie drop the charges?” I asked.

  Ben’s lips puckered. “If the state brings charges, only the prosecutor can drop them or reduce them. Who knows? Maybe Kim will get lucky this time.”

  I looked at Dave for his opinion. He held up his hands. “That’s in another jurisdiction, up where the car was stolen. I have to get going.” He leaned forward to hug me. “Thanks for your help. I hope I wasn’t too hard on you.”

  “You were just doing your job.”

  Dave waved to us, and left at a fast clip.

  “Did you know Kim had stolen the car?” I asked Ben.

  “Nope. Mortie didn’t know a thing about it, either. Remember how Kim slipped away from me that first day? She was off having a little meeting with Brewster. He threatened to expose her as the car thief if she didn’t do what he asked. Kim didn’t tell me until yesterday morning that she had taken her father’s car and handed it over to Brewster.”

  Kim ambled over with an Appletini in her hand.

  “Did Brewster offer to expunge your debt if you brought him Trixie?” I asked.

  “Close. He wanted me to kill her. I didn’t know why, of course.”

  I stared at her in horror.

  “Oh, don’t look like that. I could never hurt a dog. I love dogs.” She reached down to pet Trixie. “I planned to drive her out in the country, far enough away that she wouldn’t find her way back.”

  “That’s horrible!”

  “Hey! I was under a lot of pressure,” she whined. “Besides, Trixie got away from me, and everything turned out fine.”

  “Holly!” called Zelda.

  Good timing. I was ready to let Kim have it.

  I joined Zelda, who stood in the center of a cluster of people.

  “I had to hand Philip’s phone over to Dave,” said Zelda, “but in anticipation of that, your grandmother and I taped this from Philip’s voice mail.” She hit a button on a small device.

  It wasn’t very loud. We all craned our necks to listen as Brewster instructed Tiny on the details of the hit-and-run murder plot.

  “On Friday night, you’ll be sitting in the SUV at the end of the street with the lights off. Wear gloves so you don’t leave fingerprints anywhere. Got it? Jerry arrives at his mother’s house for dinner at 7:15 sharp. They’re calling for rain, so that will give you extra cover. You hit Jerry. Take him out. Then drive to the highway and hide the car in the trees. Go back around midnight or one in the morning when there’s no traffic and nobody there to see you, and roll it over the cliff. You understand? Don’t mess up.”

  “When do I get my money?” Tiny spoke softly. I felt as though I could hear the doubt in his voice.

  It clicked off. The recording ran for less than a minute, very short, but certainly enough to land Brewster in the slammer for a long time.

  Mr. Luciano scowled. “Why would this be on Philip’s phone?”

  “We wondered about that,” said Zelda. “It’s on Philip’s voice mail. We think it was an accidental pocket dial. You know—when the buttons on your phone are accidentally pushed, and you can hear a conversation going on but they don’t hear you. Except Philip’s voice mail answered the call and taped it.”

  Philip was as devious as Kim. He’d heard that conversation and then made arrangements for Jerry to be called away about a phony emergency. Ironically, Philip had saved Jerry’s life that night. He knew a murder was going down, and instead of reporting it, he’d used that knowledge to further his own desires by substituting Oma as the victim, instead of Jerry.

  • • •

  When everyone had helped themselves to the buffet, Oma dimmed the lights slightly, and we sat down to eat. Through the huge window wall, a harvest moon shone in the sky like a beacon. A golden path sparkled across the lake reflecting the light. Inside, a fire crackled in the rustic stone fireplace. Candles and bouquets of sunflowers and chrysanthemums adorned the tables. Even though we weren’t all relatives, the horrible events of recent days bonded us like one big family.

  Oma clinked a fork against her glass. “Thank you all for coming. It has been a terrible time for us in Wagtail. We mourn the loss of two of our beloved residents, Sven and Jerry. We are grateful, though, that the perpetrators have been apprehended, and we thank everyone who played a role in that effort, especially Zelda, Trixie, and my wonderful granddaughter, Holly. Enjoy your dinner!”

  I caught a glimpse of Kim. She turned away quickly, no doubt ashamed of herself for her involvement.

  We dined on savory spinach and bison lasagna and blackberry-wine venison stew that I
could have eaten by the vat. Miniature versions without onions or wine were available for the dogs. Assorted salads, grilled zucchini with fresh herbs, and spicy sweet potatoes rounded out the meal.

  Over after-dinner coffee and chocolate-glazed profiteroles filled with rich vanilla ice cream, Ben said, “I’m heading home tomorrow, and I’d like to take my car. Can you be downstairs prepared to go by nine?”

  I wasn’t quite ready to leave Wagtail. But, like a vacation, my visit had to come to an end. I had to get back to my job. They wouldn’t hold it for me forever. “Guess I’d better head back with Ben,” I said to Oma. “Assuming he’ll allow Trixie and Twinkletoes in his car.”

  Oma couldn’t hide her disappointment. “If this is what you want.”

  Around the room the chatter stopped in a wave, and everyone listened.

  Even Trixie watched me with a glum, apprehensive look.

  “We’ll be back to take care of the inn when you go on your cruise.”

  Oma brightened a little bit. “You could stay a few more days if you drove my car home. I don’t use it very often since we have the golf carts.”

  “That would be so complicated. I’d have to come back to return it.”

  “Exactly.” Oma smiled. “Then I would know that I will see you again soon.”

  I felt terrible. Would another year, or five or ten, pass before I returned for a longer stay? I gazed around at their faces. Zelda, Shelley, and Casey, appeared disappointed. Even Gingersnap, who walked over and buried her face between my knees. They had been so good to me. What was my big rush to return to Washington? To a relationship that had ended. To a job where I would turn into a workaholic again. If I was going to work all the time anyway, shouldn’t it be fun? In a place I loved?

  “Oma, if you were to semiretire, wouldn’t you need a manager of sorts?”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of a partner.”

  A partner? That thought had never crossed my mind. “Really, Oma?”

  “This has been my dream for a very long time.”

  It was a huge decision–a major life change for me. But there was no place in the world I would rather be. Running the inn and meeting new people was fun, and different every day. I stood up and hugged Oma. “I accept!”