Sleeping Dogs Lie wfm-1

by Sharon Henegar

  “So, is the possible untrustworthiness of the police the reason we are having this cozy discussion of murder without the help of Ed or any of his minions?” Ambrose asked.

  “Right,” said Kay. “I don’t think Ed would spill the beans. But he is still mad at me, and now he’s peeved at Louisa for not getting the license number of Bob’s kidnapper.”

  Ambrose’s eyes widened. “Kidnapper!”

  “Last night Bob was kidnapped when he went into the Food Right near his house,” I explained.

  “By the bad guy? My god, Bob, how did you get away?” He sat up straighter in his chair.

  Bob shook his head. Kay said, “No, he was taken at gunpoint by a woman. We don’t know who she is but we think she must be working with Walsh. Bob was able to hypnotize her into a deep sleep and get away, and Louisa and I found him in an old barn near his house when we were going to get Louisa’s car.”

  “Ah, Louisa’s car.” Ambrose looked at me. “I was a trifle surprised to see you arrive here this morning with the two dogs in a taxi. What happened to your car?”

  Why do people always ask you a question just as you’ve taken a bite of food? I’ve long been convinced that waiters are trained to do it—they sweep by and ask “Is everything all right?” just as you’ve inserted your fork into your mouth, so you can only mumble, and they sweep away again, leaving you no chance to say anything, and your only opportunity to ask for a clean knife or another napkin is gone. This didn’t seem like the time to ask Ambrose if he had ever worked as a waiter. I held up my hand to indicate I needed a moment, and Kay jumped in.

  “Louisa was waiting in Bob’s car last night when he went into the grocery store. She saw him come out and drive away in the other woman’s car. She went to Bob’s house this morning to see if he was back, and while she was there she saw a strange man searching her car.”

  “Which, if I'm remembering correctly, looks exactly like Bob’s car,” Ambrose said.

  “Right. We assume he thought he was searching Bob’s, but his is still parked in Louisa’s garage. When Louisa saw the guy at her car, she ran out the back door with the dogs and got lost in the woods and eventually got to a phone and called a cab and came here, which is when you saw her.”

  She made me sound like an idiot, and I knew I'd certainly looked like one when I arrived at her store. “It wasn’t just the woods,” I said, “it was him searching in the barn while we were hiding behind the hay bales—”

  Bob looked upset. “I still can't believe he came so close to finding you in the barn.”

  “—and that neighborhood with all those stupid curving streets that look alike. I thought we’d never find our way out. It was almost worse than being in the woods.”

  Ambrose peered at me with real sympathy. “That must have been frightening, Louisa, though I don’t think either of these dogs would let anyone harm you.” He added judiciously, “And I’ve been lost in places like that neighborhood myself. Believe me, you were lucky to escape merely damp and with a cab bill.”

  “Uh, thanks,” was all I could come up with. The image of Ambrose lost in a suburban housing tract beggared the imagination.

  Kay swept on. “When we got to Bob’s house we were just in time to see the woman in red—”

  “Woman in red?” Ambrose repeated.

  “She was wearing a red suit when she marched me out of the grocery store,” Bob explained.

  “Only when we saw her again she’d changed clothes and had on a red plaid shirt,” I added.

  Ambrose nodded. “I see. Go on, please.”

  “Thank you. I will.” Kay glared at Bob and me. I forbore to point out that it was Ambrose who had interrupted her. “We arrived just in time to see this woman drive off in Louisa’s car. I called Ed, I mean the police, but we haven’t heard anything about the car yet. We came back here and made Bob tell us what’s going on.”

  “We wanted to watch the tape of Ian’s hypnosis session,” I added.

  “Which I hid in Kay’s store,” said Bob. “I was afraid that Carl would catch up with me sooner or later. There would be no reason for him to look here for the tape.”

  “And when we went downstairs to get it, we learned he’d hidden it in the Albatross, which you picked up this morning,” Kay said. “So now we need to get the tape back. And we’re waiting to hear from the police about Louisa’s car, and we’re waiting for another shoe to drop. We don’t know when or where Carl or the woman in red will show up.”

  “And there’s Trixie,” I added.

  “Who’s Trixie?” Ambrose asked. “Is someone really named Trixie?”

  “We don’t know if that’s her real name. I found a matchbook from a local bar on Bob’s kitchen table this morning, with the name Trixie and a phone number written inside.”

  “I swear I've never seen it before,” Bob said. “I have no idea how it came to be in my house.”

  “And every time we call the number, the line is busy,” Kay finished.

  Ambrose shook his head and took another bite of pizza. He chewed thoughtfully, then swallowed and said, “The searching of the car—don’t you think it's interesting that they were there at different times? It seems to me if they were working together they’d be searching it together.”

  “But the woman in red probably hadn’t woken up yet, it was quite early,” I said.

  “And Carl must have thought she had me tied up in her hotel room while he was searching the car,” Bob pointed out.

  “Yes, and why was he searching a perfectly innocent car when he could have been in the hotel room interrogating you, or worse?” Ambrose frowned and shook his head. “It would have been much more intimidating for the two of them to be working you over rather than just her. Did she talk to him on the phone?”

  Now it was Bob’s turn to shake his head. “No. No calls in or out. I don’t think she even looked at the telephone.”

  “I have to wonder if they aren’t working at cross purposes. My guess is that she took Louisa’s car to give herself time to search it thoroughly. You had escaped and could show up at any time.”

  Bob said, “That’s possible.”

  “And I suppose the registration papers are different,” Ambrose remarked.

  Kay groaned and shoved her plate away. “Louisa, all they have to do is read the papers in your glovebox to know where you live.”

  Bob looked pale. “Oh god, that’s right.”

  “By now they’ve probably been to your house,” Kay continued, “and found Bob’s car in your garage. It isn’t safe, either or both of them could be there.”

  An electrical impulse zapped its way down my back and left me chilled. I leaned forward in my chair. “Um, Kay, that’s not all that was in my glove box.”

  “What? What else?” she demanded.

  “Do you remember those business cards you gave me when I started working for you, with the name of your store and my name on them?”

  She paled a little. “They were there too?”

  I nodded. “I keep a supply in the car in case I'm out and need one for some reason. And that means—“

  “And that means they know about this place,” Bob said. He stood up abruptly. “My god, what have I done to you all? Louisa has to get to someplace safe. Kay, you too. You’re both in danger.” Jack went to Bob and leaned on him.

  “I agree that getting to a safe place while I fetch the tape from that benighted restaurant in High Cross is a good idea,” Ambrose said. “Though I think the person most in danger is you, Bob.”

  Bob started to speak, but Ambrose held up a hand. He went on, “Two people are intent on finding you. The fact that Louisa had your car would suggest that they might look upon her with a certain disfavor too. The business cards make it likely they’ll come here looking for you, but they won’t know Kay is Louisa’s cousin or be certain that she knows anything. But best to be safe.

  “Here’s my suggestion. I have a cabin in the woods out near Parson’s Lake, a little getaway place I inherite
d from my uncle. It's about thirty-five miles north of here. You can all go there tonight, and in the morning I will get the tape and bring it to you at the cabin. The Albatross is either still on the truck or in the delivery company’s warehouse. I'll make some phone calls tonight but I doubt if I can get at it until tomorrow.”

  “I can't go,” Kay stated flatly. We all looked at her. “Hey, I have a store to run. I can't keep chasing customers out of here, though in Doris’s case I would have done it even if I had been open.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Ambrose was clearly at sea over this remark.

  “Oh, that awful Doris woman who worked with Louisa’s husband showed up at my door earlier wanting to buy something. We had just discovered that the tape was carried off in the Albatross and I didn’t want to mess with her, so I wouldn’t let her in.”

  “I don’t imagine she knows you’re my cousin,” I inserted. “We should tell her so she’ll stop coming around.”

  “What makes you think that would stop her?” Kay wanted to know. “I'm sure she would relish further opportunities to be rude to you.”

  “True,” I had to agree.

  “Anyway, Ambrose may be my favorite customer but he’s not my only one. I've arranged for some pieces to be picked up early tomorrow, and I need to be here.”

  “But, Kay—” I started. She interrupted.

  “I closed today and that was no problem, but I have appointments tomorrow and I won't stay in business if I'm not here when I've said I would be.”

  “But, Kay—” I tried again.

  “Ambrose is right, Louisa, just because you work for me doesn’t mean I would necessarily know anything about Bob. I could say you don’t work here anymore. I could blacken your name.” She got a zealous light in her eye and started looking eager. “If someone does show up asking about Bob, I’ll send them off in the wrong direction. I can say that I fired you and the two of you ran off together. Oh, I know, I can say you ran off together and that’s why I fired you—”

  “Kay, don’t do us any favors,” I warned.

  Bob sat down at the table again and looked earnestly into Kay’s eyes. “Kay, you should come with us. Call your customer and put them off. Or come back early in the morning. I can't leave you here to face Carl Walsh by yourself. You’ve never even seen him. He could pretend to be a customer and come in and do something awful.”

  “Bob, you are very sweet, but my mind is made up. I have a business to run. I'll bar the doors and arm myself with a butcher knife and a cell phone. Remember, you’re the one they’re after.”

  I could have told him to save his breath. I'd seen that expression on her face too many times to imagine she would agree. Short of kidnapping her ourselves, Kay was going to stay in Willow Falls and we were going to Ambrose’s cabin.

  Kay always gets her own way.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Bob turned off the engine of Kay’s car and we sat in silence, looking at the cabin in the headlights.

  “Maybe we can spend the night in the car,” I said.

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  The place was a wreck. I couldn’t understand why Ambrose had sent us here. A sagging porch stretched across the front of a small, weathered building. If any paint had ever graced the wooden walls, it had long since silvered away. The roof was littered with pine needles and leaves, and green things were growing along the edges. Shutters over the windows gave the cabin a lost, blind air.

  “We’re here. We might as well get out,” Bob said halfheartedly.

  “This can't be the right place,” I said. “Are you sure it's safe? It looks like it will keel over if I lean against a wall.”

  “We followed the directions exactly. It's not like we had a lot of roads to choose from,” he pointed out.

  “I cannot believe Ambrose ever spent one second of his life here.”

  “I know, but this has to be it. There must be more to Ambrose than meets the eye.”

  “Well, that’s true,” I admitted. I suddenly remembered a certain period in high school when jocks kept losing their clothes while they were in football practice. They would arrive naked and dripping from the showers to find nothing in their lockers but a note typed on ordinary notebook paper that said, You boys be nice. Oddly enough the only victims were the boys who ganged up on other kids and made their lives a misery because they were not overdeveloped, physically adept and ordained to play high school sports. It didn’t happen every day, just often enough to keep them all edgy. No one ever found out who was doing it, though I always had my suspicions, but the clothes turned up at the local Goodwill store at Christmastime.

  Emily Ann reached over the back of the seat and poked my neck with her cold nose. “Okay, Emily Ann, okay, we’ll get out,” I told her, and unclipped my seatbelt.

  The two stairs to the porch creaked ominously as I trod on them, and the porch itself had a definite sway. Bob fished the key Ambrose had given him out of his pocket, and fitted it into the lock in the door. After only a minor struggle it turned, proving we had the right place. Damn.

  Bob took a deep breath. “Louisa, I am very sorry about all this.” He looked as tired as I felt. It had been a long day.

  My throat tightened. I managed to croak, “You haven’t done anything to be sorry for. Open the door.”

  He turned the knob and shoved. I expected creaking hinges and festoons of cobwebs to sweep across my face, but the door swung open silently. Bob groped around for the light switch, and flipped it on. We stepped inside and halted.

  My first impression was that the room consisted entirely of an enormous bed—it was so magnificent that it was all I could see. Four tall, slender posters were hung with linen draperies, and a matching spread with exquisite cutwork embroidery covered the mattress, which was so high off the floor that a set of steps was necessary to enable one to retire. I felt my cheeks pinken until I noticed the rest of the furniture between me and that bed in the cabin’s single room. A pair of overstuffed chairs and a loveseat, upholstered in dark brown linen, flanked a stone fireplace with logs laid ready to light on its hearth. A low round table filled the space between the seating pieces, and side tables held tall lamps with painted glass bases and linen covered shades. A small kitchen area was to the left, round dining table and four chairs at one end.

  I knew from Kay that Ambrose was considered an excellent decorator and had the clients to prove it. Now I saw for myself how this room reached out and wrapped itself around you in a warm welcome.

  We took a couple more steps into the room and looked at each other. “Wow,” Bob remarked, and I nodded.

  “A little getaway cabin in the woods,” I said. “I wonder if I could get him to work on my house.”

  “This is great.”

  “I'm sure I could never afford him. Maybe he gives discounts to people he’s known a long time. I could get Kay to ask.”

  Resting on the mantel was a large painting of a windswept plain with a single farmhouse in the near distance. An Amish quilt of the center diamond pattern was hung on the wall between the two front windows, its intricate quilting thrown into relief by the light. While Bob opened the shutters to let in some air, I peered closely at the quilt, trying to count the incredibly tiny stitches that made up the feathered rope design.

  Jack busied himself checking out the room, sniffing around in a thoughtful manner. Emily Ann went straight to one of the big chairs, climbed up and settled down with her chin resting on the arm.

  A closed door flanked each side of the bed. After freeing the windows, Bob walked over and opened the one nearer the fireplace: a large closet, with room for hanging clothes on one side and shelves on the other, holding a variety of household items: blankets, linens, cleaning supplies, light bulbs. I went around the bed and tried the other door. When I switched on the light I saw this was the bathroom—or rather Bathroom.

  This must have been added some years after the cabin was built, which most likely had an outhouse in its early days. The room was the sha
pe of a traditional lean-to addition, but much taller, and the high ceiling allowed for a row of clerestory windows above the roofline of the cabin itself. The toilet was in an alcove to my left, with a door leading to the outdoors beside it. An enormous old fashioned claw-footed tub on my right had a shower suspended over it. In front of me was a wall of glass that during the day would doubtless lend the impression one was bathing in the woods.

  Overhead was a crystal chandelier, tinkling like a glass of iced tea in the faint breeze from the still-open front door. Its myriad of sparkling drops gleamed in the light of five clear bulbs, throwing shards of brightness around the room. Bob came up behind me and looked in, his gaze caught by the chandelier.

  “Waterford,” I remarked. He looked startled.

  “What?”

  “It’s a Waterford chandelier,” I explained.

  He looked at the chandelier. “Wow, you’re good. How many people could tell that by one look?”

  “Probably a lot, but don’t be too impressed. Kay sold it to Ambrose just after I moved back to Willow Falls. I never knew what he did with it, though.”

  His smile turned into a laugh. “Louisa, I love your honesty.”

  My smile faded, and he quickly sobered. “What?” he asked. “What is it?”

  I shook my head once. “There’s so much you don’t know about me—”

  One arm came around my shoulders in a quick hug, then he gave me a little shake. “Louisa,” he said sternly, “we’ve only known each other for a couple of weeks. Of course there’s a lot I don’t know about you.”

  “And what you do know is awful.”

  “What are you talking about? I don’t know anything that’s awful about you.”

  I felt the bridge of my nose prickle with tears that wanted to be shed. “The idiotic way my husband died—”

  “But that wasn’t you, that was his idiocy. And while I'd like to claim you know everything about me since I narrated what felt like my whole life story this afternoon, probably still one or two events remain that you haven’t heard about. I admit I can't think of anything quite so spectacular as what Kerry Sue described, but some of mine are fairly idiotic.