by Nina Wright
Then I wondered why I wondered. I had a wanna-be live-in boyfriend of my own. A man I’d already married once-before I divorced him. Jeb still got my blood boiling. The chemistry between us was as combustible as ever. And he was lobbying hard to be a regular fixture in my life again.
But he hadn’t yet mentioned the M word. Did I want him to? Surely I wasn’t ready for that. If I were, I wouldn’t long for nights spent alone and lust after muscular, deep-voiced Scots who promised to protect me.
Would I?
“Why do you have to act like that?”
Tina’s familiar whine rudely interrupted my reverie. Naturally, I assumed she was snapping at me… 'til I spotted her husband Tim and realized he was the unfortunate object of her attention.
Walking back to my office in a daze, I had failed to notice the Breen family car, a dingy blue Chevy Malibu, parked in front of Mattimoe Realty. As he usually did when he came to retrieve Tina at the end of her shift, Tim had brought along their toddlers Winston and Neville. But today he had apparently managed to do or say something that annoyed Tina so much she wasn’t getting into the car.
“Act like what?” he retorted. “Like I’m sick of being your chauffeur and babysitter? Maybe that’s because I am sick of it! I have better things to do if we’re ever going to make more money than you get paid at this dump.”
Winston and Neville stopped bouncing in the backseat and stared like stone statues.
Since I was on the sidewalk only a few yards away, I couldn’t pretend to be invisible. So I took the opposite approach.
“Hey, Tim!” I called out cheerfully. “Long time no see. How ya doing?”
Tina turned crimson and glanced away. Tim waited a beat and then rolled the driver’s side window the rest of the way down.
“Hey, Whiskey. Tina gave me the good news about Mattimoe Realty representing the new development on Uphill Road. Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” I said. “But Odette’s doing all the work.”
He barked a laugh and said nothing more. I couldn’t help but notice that he failed to make eye contact. That wasn’t like Tim. Never an ambitious man, his usual manner was relaxed and friendly. The opposite of Tina’s, in other words. Today, though, he radiated hostility. Was that what happened to a man too long out of work? Without acknowledging me, Tina climbed stiffly into the car. I waved at Winston and Neville, but they didn’t wave back.
* * *
As my volunteer bodyguard had promised, Chester did indeed “have Abra ready to roll” when I arrived at Vestige. Ever dutiful, he had managed to make her look better without formally grooming her.
“She’s still a mess,” he assured me, “because Susan wants her that way, but I got out the worst tangles and the smelliest debris. I wouldn’t want anybody to charge you with animal neglect.”
Always a possibility if Fleggers showed up.
Just knowing Abra’s location was a refreshing change of pace. I was so grateful to Chester that I didn’t have the heart to bring up his waffles. As it was, I blamed Tina more than my breakfast for my prolonged case of the burps.
I had promised Susan I’d deliver the Bad Example in time for the Breeder Meet-and-Greet at five. That meant I needed to hit the road ASAP, just as soon as I could toss a few beige separates and personal items into my overnight bag and wrestle Abra into the car. Or ask Chester to load her for me. I opted for the latter. By the time I snapped my suitcase shut, she was in the back of my Lexus, looking almost demure.
“Did you… do something to her?” I asked Chester.
“I played Jeb’s Animal Lullabies,” he said. “And told her I love her. That usually does the trick.”
I made a mental note to follow Chester’s model, with minor modifications. I couldn’t use love talk to bribe Abra; she’d see through that in a nanosecond. But I could and should make better use of the Fleggers CD. I already knew the happy effects of Jeb’s crooning; during Velcro’s stay, I’d played the tunes 24/7. It was either that or listen to the shitzapoo’s nonstop yaps. By now, however, I was sick to death of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, and the like. Trust me, lullabies can make you nuts.
But I played them all the way to Nappanee. As a result, Abra traveled well. In fact, she slept the whole way. I could only hope she wasn’t storing up energy for a manic performance at the show. I could only hope…
As I drove, my thoughts kept returning to Jeb. That was natural since he sang me the whole way to Amish country. Plus, he phoned me en route to wish me luck with my Bad Example. I meant it when I told him I had no idea what to expect. I’d never been to a dog show, let alone stepped into the spotlight as the “how-not-to” human. I could only hope it wouldn’t feel like a three-ring circus with me in the lion’s cage.
So why was I going? What were my motives?
Jeb had insisted that bonding with Susan Davies could help my real estate business. I figured that was true only if she stayed married to her builder-developer husband. And if Liam’s company stayed solvent.
Why else was I going? I’d set fire to my eyelashes before I’d admit it to Jeb, but I wanted to watch Susan in action. Correction: I wanted to catch her being bad. Women know women. Or so my mother always said. I had a feeling that Susan wasn’t the nice person Ramona insisted she was.
For starters, somebody had used Susan’s car for target practice. I didn’t believe that was because Ramona was riding in it. I believed Susan attracted trouble. She was too pretty. And she had too many dogs. There’s something suspicious about a woman who can find the time to groom herself and eight Afghan hounds.
Of course, I now had a bonus reason for going, which I wouldn’t share with Jeb, either: I’d won a one-third timeshare in a handsome Scottish bodyguard.
If the weekend went to the dogs, there would still be treats for me.
Chapter Eleven
What I could see of Indiana Amish country was a letdown. It looked like farmland anywhere. I’d had the same reaction years earlier when traveling in France with Leo. The cornfields surrounding Paris were identical to the ones at home.
Back when I toured with Jeb as designated wife-slash-groupie repellent, I’d visited Amish country. Jeb didn’t play Nappanee, but he did have gigs in Middlebury and Shipshewana. That was during his ill-fated folk music phase when he sang earnest songs about working hard for a living that nobody wanted to hear.
On that tour, I saw lots of white houses, white fences, and very few power lines. Today I was sticking to the main roads, which probably explained why the scenery looked like textbook Middle America: farm fields alternating with gas stations, churches, and fast food restaurants. The Amish didn’t live along U.S. Route 20.
Although I was disappointed by the lack of bonnets and buggies, conditions were perfect for leaf-peeping. I hated to admit it, but the trees here were as richly hued as in Magnet Springs. Sure, we offered quaint shops, superb restaurants, and a scenic shoreline. But if you couldn’t afford a tank of gas and you lived in northern Indiana, you had plenty o’ pretty to gaze upon.
My destination was the ominously named Barnyard Inn, a motel attached to an exhibit hall on the east edge of Nappanee. Susan had assured me that the inn was “canine-friendly.” I hoped dogs were the only livestock.
The moment the motel came into view I understood why dogs were welcome. It was a dump-starting with the sagging roadside sign, which appeared to have been maimed in a collision with an eighteen-wheeler. Plastic letters held together with duct tape perched crookedly atop a cracked cement stand. The second R in Barnyard must have replaced in a hurry; it was backwards. Under the motel’s name was somebody’s idea of an enticement to stay there: FREE TV.
I pulled into the large, mostly empty gravel lot and parked in front of the glass door marked OFFICE. Since Abra, like me, needed all the beauty sleep she could get, I left the CD player running while I went inside to register.
No one was at the front desk. Nor was there one of those bells you can ring to request service. But I wasn�
�t yet sure I wanted any. I surveyed the dimly lit lobby, or what passed for a lobby at the Barnyard Inn: humming yellow overhead lights, cheap dark paneling, and orange shag carpet. The air was a gagging mix of rug cleaner, bleach, and floral air freshener. Even in the low lighting, I could see stains on the carpet, no doubt from those welcome canine guests.
“Hello?” I inquired. There was a door behind the desk. It was mostly closed, but from the other side came the sounds of a TV game show conducted in a language that wasn’t taught at my high school.
I called out again, louder. Still no response. I was thinking about getting back in my car and pretending I’d never been here when the glass door to the parking lot opened, and in walked a distinguished man about Leo’s age. Or about the age Leo was when he checked out of life early: late 40s. A few inches shorter than me, as many men are, this one had thick glossy hair, ramrod-straight posture, and a rather blank but not unpleasant face. He wore a linen sports jacket over a pale cotton shirt. His coffee-brown pants were crisply pressed, and his shoes were Italian. Frankly, he looked as out of place in this dive as I was. But for completely different reasons.
“Nobody’s working today?” he asked me.
“So it seems,” I replied.
Wasting no time, he leaned over the front desk and bellowed, “We need some service out here!”
Almost instantly a petite dark-skinned woman in jeans and a Purdue University sweatshirt stained with baby spit-up appeared from the room behind the desk.
“May I help you?” she said to neither of us in particular.
The gentleman deferred to me.
“I think you have a reservation for Whiskey, I mean, Whitney Mattimoe,” I said, hoping she didn’t. It wasn’t yet too late to go home.
Impassively scanning her computer screen, she said, “I don’t see it. When did you phone it in?”
“Oh, that’s all right-“ I began and turned toward the front door.
The man spoke up. “Mattimoe? I know that name. You’re here as a guest of the Breeder Education Committee.”
Busted.
He told the clerk, “Her reservation should be under the Midwest Afghan Hound Club.”
She nodded. A few seconds later, I was holding a metal key attached to a red plastic tag labeled 17.
“Uh-I have a question.”
The desk clerk gazed at me with narrow, expressionless eyes.
“Where are all the Amish?”
No response.
I tried again. “The horse and buggy people? I thought this was their country. I mean, I thought this was where you find them.”
Without a word or the slightest change in her bored expression, the woman plucked a brochure from a display rack at one end of the counter and held it at my eye level.
AMISH COUNTRY TOURS
SEE HOW GENUINE AMISH PEOPLE LIVE AND WORK
I took it, thanking her excessively for… what? Rudely handing me a brochure? Sometimes I was way too Midwest-humble.
“There are better tours than that one,” the man told me. “If you can wait a minute, I’ll point you in the right direction.”
Why not befriend the attractive Afghan hound man? It would be nice to know someone at the show besides Susan and Ramona. And our bodyguard.
“Next.” I smiled and made room for him at the counter.
The man returned my smile, his teeth so movie-star perfect they had to be porcelain veneers.
To the clerk he said, “You have a reservation for Mitchell Slater.”
So help me, I dropped my key. This was the possible shooter? The bitter breeder who had failed to refund Susan’s stud fee after her bitch killed his dog with sex? The man with the freezer full of dog sperm?
I scooped key number 17 from the raggedy rug. It came up smelling like chemicals and… something else. I made a mental note to rub it with hand sanitizer.
As the clerk printed out his receipt, Mitchell Slater watched me blandly. I slipped the key in my pocket and parked my trembling hand there with it. If Mitchell Slater was the shooter, I was chatting up a man who, according to MacArthur, “sent a message” with gunfire. Had he shot at Ramona this very afternoon?
“You brought the Education Dog, didn’t you?” he said.
“Pardon?”
“You’re here because Susan Davies and her committee invited you.”
“Oh. Yes. How nice of you to call Abra the Education Dog. I’ve been thinking of her as the Bad Example.”
“There are no bad dogs,” he began.
“I know,” I said. “Only bad owners. I guess that makes me the Bad Example.”
“I was going to say, there are no bad dogs, only dogs that need training.”
I liked his version much better than Susan’s. In fact, I liked him better than Susan. He was way too charming to wield a high-powered rifle.
We stepped from the cramped lobby into the late afternoon sunlight. The mild air held a hint of crispness. I smelled freshly turned earth.
“You can recommend a better tour?” I asked, brandishing my brochure.
“Much better.” He plucked the pamphlet from my fingers and proceeded to tear it into shreds.
“You don’t care for that tour, do you?” I said.
He shook his head and continued ripping, his eyes on me. Specifically, his eyes were on a part of my anatomy below my chin and above my waist. I wasn’t sure if this was flattering or just plain rude.
“So which tour do you recommend?” I said.
He tossed the tiny bits of glossy paper into the air like confetti.
“My tour,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
“I recommend that you let me show you Indiana Amish Country. I grew up in Elkhart. Trust me, I know all the back roads.”
I was willing to bet that he did. Suddenly I understood why Mitchell Slater’s face seemed strangely blank: Botox. The man had surely had injections. His neck, his hairline, and his hands confirmed that he was closing in on the big Five-Oh. Yet his face had almost no lines at all. Skin as smooth as a teen-ager’s and an attitude to match.
“Well, that’s very nice of you,” I babbled, “but I’m sure you’ll be busy with the show.”
“Not very. Most of my committee work is done, and I hire handlers to show my dogs. So all that’s left is the socializing. And collecting my ribbons, of course.”
“Of course. But I’m afraid I will be busy. I’m… the Bad Example, remember?”
“Let me talk to Susan about that. There’s no reason she should monopolize your time.”
Mitchell talk to Susan? According to Ramona, he shunned her at every event.
“So… you and Susan are… friends?” I ventured.
He barked a short laugh. I couldn’t read the emotion.
“You might say that. I left my wife for her.”
Before I could concoct a response to that bombshell, a firecracker exploded nearby. I jumped at the sound.
Then I shrieked like a terrified toddler. But not because of the bang.
I screamed when Mitchell Slater staggered and fell against me. I saw no blood, but I knew by the way his muscles let go that life had left his body.
Chapter Twelve
The reason I didn’t see blood was that the bullet shattered the left side of Mitchell Slater’s head. The side not facing me.
I found that out from the cops. Later.
When Slater laughed at my question about him and Susan being friends, he pivoted toward the road. And in that instant, the shooter found his mark.
It was the closest I’d ever been to a murder victim as he was murdered.
Naturally, I passed out.
When I awoke, a woman was holding something smelly much too close to my face. In my haze, I briefly thought it was the unpleasant desk clerk trying to stuff my stinky key up my nose. Then I realized that the desk clerk was standing a few feet away, holding her baby and a cell phone, and chattering in the language of that unseen TV game show. The woman next to my face was wearing a
uniform.
“Welcome back,” she said, capping the smelling salts.
Some welcome. I had graduated to a sitting position, but I felt woozy. And then I saw the blood: a wide red spray arced across the gravel where Mitchell and I had sagged together, one of us already history. Blood also stained my shirt and my pants.
I instantly tasted Chester’s waffles again. How was that possible after so many hours?
“Breathe,” the uniformed woman ordered.
Although she looked young, she sounded professional. So I complied. I also closed my eyes, which was my own idea. I heard voices murmuring, gravel crunching, car doors slamming. A dog howling. My dog.
“Can you open your eyes?” the uniformed woman said.
I knew I could, but did I want to? As if blood and death weren’t awful enough, I’d also have to handle Abra. I was a big girl, though, so I took an extra-deep breath and prepared to face the world.
The officer was leaning in so close that she was the only part of the world I could see.
“We’re going to help you stand up,” she said.
Immediately, two beefy men hoisted me to my feet, facing away from the nasty spray on the gravel and directly toward my car. Abra bounced between the front seat and the back seat in a mad, howling dance. Proof that even Jeb’s mellifluous voice had its limitations.
The Elkhart County sheriff’s department had a few questions for me. Quite a few. They suggested that I take my dog out first, correctly guessing she needed to relieve herself but incorrectly guessing she also needed to see that I was all right. Abra didn’t give a shit about me. She was, however, fascinated by movement, noise, and odors. As usual, she longed to be in the thick of things and resented my restraining her with a leash.
Like getting to my feet, shoving Abra back into my car required police assistance. She was adrenalized with excitement. Crime has that effect on my canine.