by Annie Knox
“I do,” Lucy said. We all nodded in agreement.
“Did you find anything?” Rena asked. “When you were searching the apartment?”
I’d been so focused on the murder part of the story it had never occurred to me to wonder whether Dolly’s ill-fated snooping had yielded any information.
“Not much. He is . . . He was definitely a reporter. I found a binder of newspaper clippings from the Madison Standard and a stack of photos he’d taken around Merryville. And I almost broke his camera. One of those big ones that newsmen use.”
Lucy raised her hands above her head and crowed in victory. “I won! Investigative journalist. That’s what Xander and I have been saying all along.”
My mother shushed her with a quelling look. “Lucy, this is hardly the time.”
Irrepressible Lucy smirked. “I know. But I did win.”
“What were the pictures of?” I asked, curious about what would bring a reporter from Madison to our sleepy town.
Dolly raised one bony shoulder. “I just thumbed through them, but there were lots of things. Pictures of the downtown shops, some wildlife photos, a series of a dark-haired little boy playing at Dakota Park, and a few of our more colorful local characters. Basically, the type of pictures that any tourist might take.”
“Forget the pictures. What did you tell the cops?” Rena asked.
Dolly sighed. “Sean wouldn’t let me tell them much. In fact, he got mad when I said I would have used my own gun.”
“Your own what?” my mother gasped.
“My gun,” Dolly said with a shrug. “The derringer I carry in my pocketbook. I didn’t have it with me tonight because I was carrying that tiny beaded purse Lucy gave me for Christmas.” She leaned across the table to pat Lucy on the hand. “You have such good taste, dear.
“Anyway, I told them if I’d planned to kill Daniel, I would have brought my own gun instead of hoping I’d find one there. I was a Pioneer Girl back in the day, you know.”
My mother sighed in frustration. “The Pioneer Girls are a church group, Dolly. They never once suggested we bear arms.”
Dolly waved her off. “Whatever. I like to be prepared. I wouldn’t have shown up for a gunfight without a gun.”
Poor Sean must have nearly stroked out when Dolly blurted that out to the cops. I could picture him, slouched down in the chair next to Dolly, elbows on the table and his head resting in his hands, his dark wayward curls standing up in alarm at her pronouncement.
“Did they say whose gun it was?” I asked.
“It was his. Daniel’s. They found the open gun safe in the living room where he was shot.”
So whoever approached him didn’t necessarily come armed. But something about their conversation made Daniel worried enough to get his own weapon . . . only to have it used against him.
“I don’t know about the rest of you,” Dru said, “but I’m exhausted. And Aunt Dolly’s had quite a day.”
My mom insisted that Dolly stay at my folks’ house that night, and Dru and Lucy left with them while Rena and I cleaned up the remnants of our ice cream feast.
“What are we going to do with that cake?” Rena asked, pointing at Ingrid and Harvey’s beautiful tiered wedding cake.
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “Tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll figure out what to do with the cake and how to prove that Aunt Dolly is no murderer.”
* * *
Soon I was rattling around the big house at 801 Maple on my own. Even from the first floor, I could hear the call-and-response of Ingrid and Harvey snoring. Packer and Jinx had each looked up the stairs, ears twitching, before choosing to bed down on the first floor. Packer had done the three-circle-and-sniff dance around his fleece dog bed, and Jinx had picked her way up to the top of the oak armoire before settling into a cat-shaped loaf, her tail brushing lazily against the side of the wardrobe.
“Thanks, guys,” I muttered. Ungrateful wretches, leaving me to face the ruckus Ingrid and Harvey were making on my own. Part of me wanted to bed down with them, and not just because of the noise. I was spooked about walking past Daniel’s apartment, past the place he died.
But it was Daniel’s plight that ultimately forced me up the stairs so I could retrieve poor Daisy May. Even if I’d been willing to step over Daniel’s final resting place, the police had blocked off the front stairs with yellow tape. Jack had assured me it would be gone by the next day, so I wouldn’t have to explain it to my customers. At that point, though, the tape forced me up the back stairs—the stairs the killer had probably taken to and from the apartment.
I’d walked the stairs a thousand times, but I’d never been more aware of them than I was that night. The fifth stair from the bottom squeaked. There was a rough spot on the railing halfway up to the landing. The pale cream paint had dripped onto the dark wood baseboard. The stairwell was very dark, perfect cover for nefarious deeds. I shivered.
I hesitated for a moment before opening the door to Daniel’s apartment, but when I heard a whimper from Daisy, I steeled myself and went in. The apartment was spacious, but it had a shotgun layout. The back hallway opened onto two bedrooms and a three-quarter bath before spilling into the open living and dining area in the front of the house. The larger of the two bedrooms had a full bath en suite.
I flipped the light switch at the back end of the hall, and the trio of milk glass pendant lights that marched down the hallway flamed to life. I hustled through the apartment to the living room and over to the big dog crate in the corner. Daisy was lying on her belly; she cocked her ears and looked up at me with big soulful eyes. Poor girl.
I opened the crate, and she flew out in a jumble of large head and skinny legs, her momentum driving her right into my midsection. I huffed out a surprised breath and tried to quell the panic of so much dog coming at me so fast. But after her initial flailing, she settled on her haunches by my side, her head pressed against my thigh, her tail bouncing with barely controlled energy.
“Shhhh,” I breathed. “Let’s just simmer down.”
Her response was to butt her head against my leg and whimper softly. It occurred to me that she hadn’t been out to do her business in a very long time.
I found her leash and chew toy and pulled the bedding from her crate. I snapped the leash to her collar and left the toy and bedding in the back stairwell so I could carry it up after Daisy had a chance to relieve herself.
We clattered down the stairs, her toenails skittering on the hardwood, my own feet struggling for purchase as I tried to keep my balance with nearly seventy pounds of dog pulling me off my center. She danced at my side as we reached the back door, and I couldn’t help but smile at that universal canine sign of desperation mixed with joy.
When we stumbled into the alley, she immediately began sniffing every available surface for a good place to go. Not surprisingly, her travels tripped the motion sensor on the back of the Greene Brigade, the military history boutique run by my neighbor Richard Greene.
As though he’d been waiting by the back door for precisely this moment, Richard’s door swung wide and he stepped out onto his stoop with his massive German shepherd, MacArthur, at his side.
MacArthur and Richard were a perfect match, both grizzled and forbidding. But where MacArthur was all bite and no bark, Richard had bark to spare. He’d been suspicious of the ruckus my pet-based store would create on our quiet little block from the very start. He’d been trying to get Trendy Tails shut down since before it had even opened, and he never failed to remind me of his intent.
“What’s going on out here, Isabel?”
“Our tenant’s dog needed her evening constitutional.” At that moment, Daisy found a spot outside the back door of the Spin Doctor, across the alley, to squat and tinkle.
“That’s what the dog park is for,” Richard reasoned, his voice suggesting I was too dense to grasp that simple fact.
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“I know, but it’s really late and it’s been a long evening.” I held up my roll of plastic poop bags. “We won’t leave a mess.”
Richard harrumphed, but the peeved sound morphed into a bone-rattling cough. “Well, I knew you’d be trouble, Miss McHale, and I see I’m right. First there was the debacle with that rodent nesting in my store.”
Gandhi, an orphaned guinea pig, had indeed made his way into Richard’s store and eluded capture for several days before dashing out the back door and into the wild. After the harsh winter we’d had, I feared Gandhi had not survived, and I still felt a pang of sadness that I’d been unable to protect that little guy better.
“Now,” Richard continued, “you’ve got the police swarming the place again and you’re letting this animal use our shared alleyway as a latrine.”
I didn’t really have an answer for that. He was right. Today I was not the best neighbor. Instead of responding, I picked my way across the bricks to clean up the mess Daisy had left by the Dumpster, hopefully showing that I was at least trying to be more responsible.
Richard sneezed.
Daisy made her giddy way to MacArthur’s side, and I gasped in fear of an altercation. Richard appeared unfazed, however, and sure enough, MacArthur sat perfectly still, the stoic soldier, while Daisy sniffed him all over. Still, unsure how long MacArthur’s patience would last, I grabbed her leash and tugged her away as quickly as I could.
“So, Miss McHale,” Richard said, his tone resonant and commanding. “What sort of shenanigans were going on in your store tonight?”
“It’s a long story.” I wasn’t prepared to provide more ammunition to Richard, more reason for him to want my store gone.
“Nonsense, little girl. I may be old, but I know a gunshot when I hear one. I was loading my old Remington to come to your aid when I saw the first responders arrive. If they hadn’t been so Johnny-on-the-spot, I mighta come in, barrels blazing. So spill it. What happened?”
I sighed. “Short story? Our tenant, Daniel Colona, was shot in his apartment and tumbled down the stairs into the middle of Ingrid and Harvey’s wedding.”
“Sorry to have missed that,” Richard said, punctuating his statement with another sneeze. “Terrible cold. Didn’t want to spread contagion.”
I couldn’t stop my smile. “I know. Ingrid was sad you couldn’t make it. But turns out you didn’t miss the wedding at all. Daniel died before the ‘I do’s.’”
“Huh.”
“Daniel dying was bad enough, but the worst is that the police actually arrested Aunt Dolly for the murder.”
Richard’s craggy features crumpled into a look of utter disbelief. “Dorothy? Hogwash! Why would Dorothy want to kill that man?”
Richard was the only one who called Aunt Dolly “Dorothy,” and I found his use of her proper name charming.
“Right now, I think the cops are focused on the fact that she was literally holding a smoking gun, but you know how Dolly was obsessed with Daniel.”
Richard laughed, the sound like gravel in a bucket. I’d never heard him laugh before, and it took me aback. “Dorothy has always had a vivid imagination.”
Really? Richard had noticed Dolly’s vivid imagination? He’d always seemed completely oblivious of her, even when she’d tried to exercise her feminine wiles on him a few months ago.
Daisy had stopped trying to get MacArthur to play with her and had turned her attention to Richard, himself, pushing her silky head up into the rough cup of his hand. He rubbed her ears absently while he continued. “She told me she’d seen that Colona guy taking pictures all around town and thought he might be a terrorist planning to plant a dirty bomb somewhere in Merryville. Said she might call those folks in Homeland Security.”
He laughed again, this time the sound dissolving into a coughing fit.
“She didn’t,” I gasped, truly alarmed that Dolly’s fantasies had taken such a dark turn.
“She did, indeed. I told her she had it all wrong. Terrorists aren’t concerned with itty-bitty Merryville, Minnesota.” He shrugged. “Twin Cities, maybe. Even Duluth. But not Merryville.
“He came by the store one time. Seemed like a nice enough fella. Interested in the history of the area. Looking for a local hunting and fishing guide. I told Dolly that whatever that man did outside Merryville, here he was just a tourist, taking it all in.”
“And that’s what you believed?”
“I didn’t say that. Who knows what’s going on in a man’s head? And Dorothy was right that Colona was poking around into something. When did he move in?”
“It’s been a little over four weeks. Thirty days, to be exact.” I’d had to get that information for the police.
“Right. Four weeks during the month of March, looking for a hunting guide.” He turned his head and coughed into his fist.
“So, he wants to hunt. Hunting and tourists are Merryville’s lifeblood.”
“Little girl, are you sure you’re not from the Cities? Unless that fancy city man came up here to hunt for raccoons or beavers, there’s nothing in season in March. Not a dang thing. Whatever that guy was looking for in Merryville, it was more than a little fresh game.”
CHAPTER
Four
I snuck into my own bedroom and gently nudged Ingrid’s shoulder. “Shhh,” I soothed, when she woke with a start. Harvey was snoring next to her, and I didn’t want her to wake him up.
“What’s going on?”
“Shhh,” I reminded. “Put on your robe and come downstairs.”
I left her alone and scooted down the back stairs to the first-floor kitchen. I decanted the pot of piping hot coffee into a thermal carafe and took it and a pile of paper goods we’d planned to use the night before into the barkery portion of Trendy Tails. The cherry red farm table was already surrounded by my sisters, Dru and Lucy; Rena; and our friends Taffy and Jolly Nielson. My mom had called and said that she and Dolly were too wiped out from the night before to make it.
I joined the girls at the table, with the coffee, and began passing it around. Everyone was a little hollow-eyed after the previous night’s shenanigans, but there were still hints of smiles all around. The plate full of Rena’s sinful pecan caramel rolls sitting in the middle of the table may have had something to do with it. I couldn’t imagine how early she’d needed to get up to get those made; I suspected she hadn’t slept at all. Jinx was draped across Rena’s lap, and she was gently stroking the cat’s big, silky head.
Ingrid thumped down the stairs wearing a cotton housedress over her flannel gown and a pair of untied hiking boots on her feet. Her silver hair fell over one shoulder in an unkempt braid. I promised myself right then and there that this was how I would always remember Ingrid. The look was just so her.
“What the holy heck is going on?” she snapped. “Did someone else die?”
We all laughed. “Nope,” I said. “We never got around to holding a true bridal shower for you before the wedding, so we’re doing one right now.”
“At the crack of dawn in the middle of a crime scene?”
Rena piped up. “Actually, you’re the only one standing in the crime scene. Come and join us at the table.”
Ingrid stomped across the room and slid into a chair, her brow furrowed and lips smashed shut. She loosened a little when I passed her a cup of hot coffee with extra cream (just the way she liked it), and a smile came out when Rena handed her a caramel roll and a fork.
“When did you put this all together?”
“Last night,” I volunteered. “After you and Harvey went upstairs and while we were waiting for Dolly to get back from jail. We all wanted something to get our minds off the ugliness, and this seemed like a good idea. We had to phone Taffy and Jolly, but they were both still awake.”
Taffy shook her head. “I’ve never been so creeped out in my life.”
�
��It was alarming,” Jolly agreed. “I didn’t ever think my heart would ever stop racing.”
I caught an intimate glance between Jolly and Rena. Beneath the edge of the table, Rena took Jolly’s hand, laced their fingers, and rested their small embrace on Jinx’s black-and-white flank. Jolly and Rena’s relationship was only a few months old, but they seemed to have fallen deeply in love. They made a good couple. Rena was exuberant, playful, and sometimes a little rash. Jolly, on the other hand, was a few years older and significantly more levelheaded. Rena was all edges, Jolly was all curves.
“Anyway,” I said, trying to draw the conversation away from the murder, “we have presents!”
“Oh, heavens, no. I’m nearly eighty-five. I’m not some young blushing bride just getting her start in life.”
“Nonsense,” Dru said, pointing a caramel roll at Ingrid to emphasize her point. “Every new love should be celebrated.”
“Besides,” Taffy added as she brushed a stray honey gold curl from her face, “this is as much for us as for you. We’d been looking forward to throwing you a shower from the minute we knew you were getting married, but then the wedding preparations themselves pushed the shower to the back burner.”
“But now, it’s baaaack,” Lucy said with a grin.
The tension in Ingrid’s shoulders had been seeping away with every word we’d offered. I went in for the kill. “So what do you say, Ingrid? Will you let us shower you with joy so we can all breathe a little easier today?”
“All right, all right, all right,” she ceded. “I’ll put up with just about anything for one of Rena’s caramel rolls.”
We all heaved a collective sigh of relief.
“Me first,” Lucy chirped. She passed Ingrid a tiny package wrapped in cherry red paper and topped with a frilly silver bow.
Ingrid carefully pulled off the bow and handed it to me to save before using her fingernail to carefully remove the paper in a single piece. Surreptitiously, I squished the bow onto the back of a paper plate.