Miz Scarlet and the Vanishing Visitor (A Scarlet Wilson Mystery)

by Sara M. Barton

  Chapter Eleven --

  We sat for twenty minutes in the waiting room. A Great Dane, a Pekinese, and a poodle went into exam rooms ahead of us with their owners. When we finally were shown into number six, the assistant weighed Mozzie, marked the new patient chart with the information, asked a number of questions about vaccinations and the spaniel’s health history. Luckily, Jenny had kept up with the dog’s care. She gave the assistant the name of the veterinarian clinic up near Pelham, so the vets could communicate. She also authorized Mozzie’s old vet to send the records. The assistant took a look at the dog’s ragged ear and shook her head sadly. It did not fill me with confidence that Mozzie was coming home with us tonight.

  The vet strode into the room, brimming with confidence and good cheer. She shook hands with me and with Jenny before having her assistant hold Mozzie on the table for the exam. The young woman gently cradled him, but it was clear the dog was suffering. Going over every body part, the vet said little, other than offering the occasional grunt here and there. Finally she stepped away from the table, made some notes in the folder, and then turned her attention to us.

  “I can tell you the pup is in very rough shape. There are a number of puncture wounds all over the body, several of which are infected. And we have the situation with the ear. My best advice is to euthanize the dog and put him out of his misery.”

  The howl that came out of the teenager’s mouth shocked even the vet. We all turned to see Jenny as she lost consciousness. One moment she was standing next to me, and the next, she was a crumpled, unconscious figure on the floor.

  Ten minutes later, once we had her sitting on the chair, Mozzie in her lap, I asked the vet to step out for a conversation.

  “Look, Doc, this isn’t your normal situation. This poor girl just lost her only living relative to cancer two and a half months ago. Her stepfather just stole her inheritance right out from under her. And on top of that, she’s right smack dab in the middle of a criminal case in another state. She has no one and nothing, save for this little dog. If she loses him, I’m afraid we may lose her. Is there anything, anything at all that might work to save Mozzie’s life?”

  “She’s an orphan?”

  “Yes. She lost her mother and her home. We brought her to our house because she has nowhere else to go. I’ll pay for the dog’s care, but please, there must be something you can try to keep this pooch alive.”

  “It won’t be easy,” said Dr. Greenwald. “The flesh is very infected. The dog will need to have the wounds cleaned daily. It’s going to be expensive, between the tests, the medications, and the emergency treatment. If the dog survives and goes home, there’s still a lot of round-the-clock care needed, which is time-consuming. You could save some money if you did some of it yourselves.”

  “Whatever it takes,” I promised. “Jenny wants to be a nurse. She took care of her mother through her hospice stage.”

  “The dog will need to stay on the antibiotics. You can’t miss a dose. We could start him here, at the hospital. And he needs fluids. He’s quite dehydrated. He needs to gain weight. I don’t think he’s eaten much lately. He’s all skin and bones.”

  “Anything he needs.”

  “She’s an orphan?”

  “Yes. I’m trying to figure out how to get her in school. I was going to take her to register next week, and now, with this, I’m afraid she’ll just give up.” Even as I talked, I kept trying to figure out how to convince the veterinarian how important Mozzie was for the teen’s psyche. “Worst of all, we just found out that her birth mother died when she was two weeks old, and her aunt posed as her mother. We’re still trying to figure out how to break that news to her. We’re just overwhelmed here.”

  “Like I said, the normal course for a dog this ill is to put him to sleep. But we’ll give it a try, at least for a couple of days. If he doesn’t improve, I’m going to lobby hard for the humane treatment. In the meantime, we’ll do the best we can to keep him comfortable. We have a fund for uninsured pets. Let me see if he’s eligible. And tell me something. What bastard did this to the dog? I’d like to give him a taste of his own medicine.”

  “You and me both. The dog was a pawn in a criminal case, and he was tortured in an effort to make the girl cooperate with the bad guys. There’s a state trooper, a homicide investigator, who will check in with you to get the details. You have my permission to share with her.”

  “Okay. Time to get started on making a miracle happen.”

  It took us the better part of five minutes to convince Jenny that no one was going to put Mozzie to sleep. The vet gave her a blow-by-blow explanation for the treatment, along with the gritty details of what to expect if things got worse. The vet allowed Jen to hold the dog while she cleaned all the wounds and medicated them. It was a quiet night at the animal hospital, so Dr. Greenwald allowed us to stay. Jenny sat with Mozzie in an exam room, hugging him as she sang lullabies and cried.

  I tried to talk her into something to eat, but the teen just wasn’t hungry. I finally convinced her to let me get her a fruit smoothie on a food run. I ducked out of the facility and down the road, where I grabbed a burger and coffee. I sat at the table in the nearly deserted restaurant, watching the occasional diner wander up to the counter to order. What was I going to do if Mozzie didn’t make it? Dr. Greenwald was going to give the dog a massive dose of antibiotics, to try to knock the infection out. Maybe I should be thinking about what we would do if it did work. What would it take? The vet said we’d have to work around the clock. Jenny couldn’t do it alone. I might be able to rope Laurel and Lacey into helping for a few hours here and there. I had reservations for all three guest rooms for the next couple of weeks, so I would be stretched thin. Then again, maybe I could ask my mother’s cousin, Myrtle, and her daughter, Willow, to help us. Willow was a nurse and an animal lover. She had already promised to mentor Jenny in nursing school. Maybe she’d be willing to start with a little hands-on animal patient care.

  We finally left at midnight, and the only way I convinced Jenny to leave was that I promised her Bur would bring her back in the morning. She cried all the way back to the Four Acorns Inn.

  Lacey was waiting up for us in the living room, dressed in cotton floral pajamas, a glass of scotch on the side table. She was watching an old Hollywood B-movie.

  “What happened?” She led Jenny by the shoulder over to the sofa and sat her down. I found my way to the armchair opposite, where I regaled her with the details. She promised to be part of the Mozzie team and help out. By the time I led the teenager up to her third-floor bedroom in the wee small hours of the morning, she was sleepy, but optimistic. I wished I felt that same hope.

  The first day of Mozzie’s hospital stay was brutal. Twice, the vet suggested the kindest thing to do would be to euthanize the dog, but Jenny just wouldn’t hear of it. She stayed with the dog in one of the back rooms, with vet techs coming and going as they worked around her. She refused to take a break, so we took meals to her and held Mozzie while she ate.

  The second day dawned much like the first, with a lethargic pooch, but somewhere around midday, something changed. It was a slight, and yet noticeable, improvement. The eyes were brighter, more alert. Mozzie’s temperature dropped, even though he was still on an IV drip, receiving fluids.

  The third day offered a real ray of hope. Dr. Greenwald wanted Jenny to let Mozzie sleep on his own, so that he would get more rest, because he was starting to stabilize. The teenager could see the dog was healing. His wounds were beginning to clear. He wasn’t eating on his own yet, but the fluids were helping.

  On the fourth day, Dr. Greenwald told Jenny that she needed to give back a little something to the animal hospital, to help defray some of Mozzie’s costs. She had Jenny walk a couple of the dogs outside before their dental cleanings, and she even asked her to wipe down the waiting room and sweep the floor. She also had the teenager filing papers and refilling the brochure holders. At eight, the vet on duty told her to go home for the night,
because it was important for her to get some rest. Mozzie would be released within twenty-four hours. Bur picked her up and brought her home after dropping his date off. I had a plate waiting and she sat at the dining room table, recounting her day as she ate. She was finally beginning to relax, no longer the tense teen, and things seemed to be turning around.

  I set the breakfast table for eleven people before I went to bed. We had six guests staying in our three rooms, and two of the couples were traveling together. They were leaving at seven to catch a plane, so I was up early to make them eggs. They indulged in a variety of bagels, muffins, and croissants, fresh mango and pineapple slices, and took their time, reading the Hartford Courant and the New York Times. I had already cleaned up the first round of breakfast dishes when Jenny padded into the dining room. I was on my second cup of coffee, enjoying a container of Greek yogurt.

  “Oh, that looks good.” The last few days had taken its toll on her. Face thinner, clothes beginning to hang on her, she needed to make up for lost time.

  “Would you like some eggs? Maybe a cheese omelet?”

  “Mmm...can I have the comics, please?”

  I handed her the Living Section on my way to the kitchen. When I returned, with a steaming plate of egg and cheesy goodness, she had vanished.

  “Maybe she went to the bathroom,” I decided. Ten minutes later, I went looking for her. Another five frustrating minutes passed before I tried her cell phone. No response.

  Bur helped himself to Jenny’s omelet while I was busy. I decided that was better than letting it go to waste.

  “Have you seen Jenny, Colonel Poup?”

  “Nope. This could have used more onions and peppers, Miz Scarlet.”

  “I’ll try to remember that next time I make Jen an omelet. In the meantime, I can’t reach her.”

  “She’s not answering her phone?”

  “No. And I can’t find her in the house,” I told him, even as he was dialing his phone.

  “Hmm...you’re right. She’s not picking up.”

  “She knows we’re supposed to leave to get Mozzie in a little while,” I fretted, as I sat down at the dining room table in front of the comics section that the teenager requested from me. “Where would she go? Do you think we should worry?”

  What if Bobby’s boss decided to come after the girl? What if someone snatched her? As the possible scenarios flew through my brain, panic followed.

  “Take a breath, Scar. We’ll go looking for her. Where are the dogs?”

  “With Mama,” I told him. Sure enough, January and Huckleberry were ensconced on the carpet, in a patch of sunlight, snoozing. My mother had her head buried in a book about Wales, glasses perched on her nose, taking notes as she read. “Have you seen Jenny?”

  “She went out. Is something wrong?”

  “When you say she went out, does that mean she mentioned where she was going?” I wondered. Laurel shook her head.

  “I caught sight of her in the bird garden in the backyard, if that helps.”

  “It does.” I thanked her as I hurried away.

  Bur beat me to the back door. “I’ll take the blue trail, you take the yellow. I’ll meet you at the summit. Call me if you find her.”

  I hit the trail at a fast walk, dialing Jenny’s Smartphone every five minutes. Still no answer. By the time I reached the wooden footbridge across the stream, I was worried. What would make Jenny just vanish? Or who?

  As my eyes scanned the rugged landscape, searching for the tiniest movement, I was baffled. It wasn’t like her to just disappear. In the short time we had known her, she hadn’t been completely honest, or sensible, for that matter, but she had been a decent kid. If she up and went, she had a reason. Maybe something upset her.

  I was five minutes from the summit when my cell phone buzzed in my hand. “Bur, did you find her?”

  “She’s on the boulders at the top, Scar. She’s bawling her eyes out. I think I’m going to let you talk to her.” My brother has never been good about women and tears. “I’ll stay and keep an eye on her until you get here.”

  I came through the woods and out into the opening, where the wide panoramic view of Hartford spanned the miles. The morning was clear, with good visibility. A couple of early bird hikers were passing through and they paused to admire the scene. They glanced at the girl on the rock ledge, nudging each other with that question strangers often ask each other. “Should we approach?” I made sure to make some noise, so they would know I was there for Jenny. They looked up at me, nodded, and moved on.

  “Jen?” I called softly. Her back was to me and I didn’t want to startle her. Those shoulders were bobbing up and down, chin on her chest. “You okay?”

  She went on crying, at times gasping for breath. I let her agony take its course, knowing she needed to get it out in the open. Sitting beside her, I lightly rubbed her back in gentle, slow circles. When she rested her head against my shoulder, weary, the little sobs intermittent, I put my arm around her and let her finish, compose herself, and tell me what was bothering her.

  “Today is...my mother’s...birthday,” she sniffed. “She would have...been...42.”

  That explained a lot. With everything that had happened in the last couple of weeks, it would have been easy to forget the importance of the date. But she had asked me for the comics section of the newspaper. The date at the top of the page must have hit her unexpectedly, as she was gazing at the cartoons.

  We stayed another half hour, talking. I asked her what kinds of things her mother liked to do, what kinds of books she liked to read, what lessons she taught the teenager. When we finally came down from White Oak Hill, we walked in companionable silence.

  Bur was watching for us when we got back to the house. He was working on his laptop in the living room, with Laurel, while they waited for our return.

  “You okay, squirt?” His voice was kind and the girl responded honestly.

  “Yes. It’s my mother’s birthday today,” was her explanation. My brother mumbled about how tough that must be. Laurel patted the sofa cushion, beckoning. I noticed Jenny didn’t hesitate. She plopped herself down wearily and put her head on my mother’s comforting shoulder.

  I left them to go call the animal hospital and find out what time we should collect Mozzie. Helping myself to a second cup of coffee, I punched in the number, talked to Tonya at the front desk, and promised her we’d be over in about half an hour.

  Knowing my mother wanted the chance to work her magic with Jenny, I kept myself occupied while I waited. I was chopping vegetables for lunch when my phone rang.

  “Miz Scarlet,” Kenny greeted me. “How’s my favorite lady?”

  “Captain Peacock, it’s so good to hear your voice. I miss you.”

  “Miss you too, babe. And I’ve got news. Unbelievable news.”

  “Great. I could use something cheerful.” I told him about Jenny’s tough morning.

  “Know that one. It’s tough. First birthday after Jillian died, it was hell. I thought I was going to feel that heartache forever. The kids suffered, too. At least we had each other. Poor Jenny doesn’t really have anyone who knew her mom to share the pain.”

  “We’re trying, but we don’t know what it’s like to miss Vivian, do we?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So, what’s the good news?”

  “Are you sitting down?”

  “Actually, I am, at the kitchen counter.”

  “I found Jenny’s grandparents.”