Whiskey with a Twist

by Nina Wright

  My dog ignored me, as usual. Instead she fixed her soulful eyes on Susan and thumped her tail.

  I eyed Abra warily. We hadn’t seen each other in eighteen hours. Her coat was as tangled as it had been the day before. But something had changed. She gazed at Susan with what appeared to be profound devotion. Then I got it: Abra wasn’t calm; she was waiting. Yes, that was it. The hairy beast was coiled and ready to spring into crazy mode the moment Susan handed me her lead.

  “Here’s what we’ll do,” Susan said cheerily. “Ramona will make a brief announcement. Then you’ll hear a prerecorded drum roll and some marching music. That’s your cue to walk clockwise all the way around the arena, starting from the side door, over there.”

  She pointed, but I didn’t play along.

  “I know where the side door is. I went out that way. Right past you.”

  Susan didn’t blink. “Then you know exactly where to go, don’t you?”

  With that, she passed the leash. I held my breath as the leather loop slipped into my hand and around my wrist. Abra’s head rotated in my direction; we locked eyes. I willed the Afghan hound to read my thoughts: We will walk. Together. You will not drag me. You will not disgrace me. You will not dislocate my shoulder.

  I wasn’t thinking about the march around the arena; I just wanted to make it to our starting position at the side door. Once we got that far, I would pray for the next miracle.

  But something else happened first. Abra and I were turning toward the side exit when a cry went up from somewhere behind us. I heard Susan’s voice shouting, “Drop! Silverado, drop! Somebody stop that dog!”

  The next few moments were a mad blur of Afghan hound and human commotion. I whirled around in time to see Silverado, the big blue dog that Kori had shown. He was now bearing down on me. I don’t mean that in a scary way. After all, this was the dog who had better manners than I did. Standing still, Silverado is a large, gorgeous dog, a picture postcard of male Afghan hound glory. In motion, coming straight at me, he was all churning legs and flying fur-an apparently airborne canine on a mission. And that mission, as it turned out, was making contact with Abra.

  My bimbo bitch had attracted a brand new hunk. A champion, no less. And this time, the hunk was the chaser rather than the chased. Usually Abra instigated and controlled all things sexual. She saw, she chased, she conquered. In human terms, my dog was a dominatrix. But not today. As Silverado flew at her, she dropped into a submissive posture. And I accidentally dropped the leash. I don’t know what made me do it, the sight of Silverado charging or of Abra playing the coquette.

  One brief instant of complete human detachment was all those two required. Abra bounced straight up as only an Afghan can, executed a spectacular mid-air twirl, and zoomed out the open side door, followed closely by her excited beau. Being an un-neutered male, his excitement was obvious to all.

  Susan was still calling for her boy to “drop” even as his silver self vanished from the arena. Matt Koniger bounded valiantly after the dogs. If he’d asked my advice, I could have saved him some sweat. Been there, done that, got nothing for it. Nobody but nobody can catch Abra and partner in medias res.

  I realized then that Susan had switched from calling Silverado to cursing Kori. Fleetingly I wondered if the other Bad Example was once again kissing the invisible bodyguard. I hoped so for her sake. That way even if Kori got nailed by her aunt for screwing up big-time, she would have the satisfaction of a face well kissed.

  Did I mention that I had lunged all the way to the floor? I was now in the undignified position of having lost not only my dog-and, by association, Susan’s-but also my balance. Unlike some women-including, no doubt, Susan-I don’t slide gracefully down. I topple. I tumble. I crash. From my position on one knee with the opposite foot turned sideways underneath me, there was no elegant way to get vertical.

  Fortunately, a gentleman extended a hand. Perry Stiles smiled down at me. Correction: the man beamed.

  “Now that’s what I call a ‘Spotlight Moment,’” he said as he gently returned me to full upright position.

  I moaned, “That turned out way worse than I’d imagined!”

  “Au contraire. Think about what happened here. Susan’s unattended dog caused your dog to escape. I hate to speak litigiously, but let’s be realistic. Should Abra fail to return, you might very well have grounds for a lawsuit.”

  “Abra never fails to return,” I assured him.

  Perry kept smiling as Susan bellowed for Kori; he seemed deviously delighted by the Breeder Educator’s dismay.

  “Isn’t Kori the one in trouble?” I said.

  “Susan will blame Kori, of course. But the buck stops with the owner. That’s the law.”

  I gazed at the side exit.

  “Why is that door ajar? I had to push it open when I went out earlier.”

  “Handlers prop it open to hear what’s going on inside while they’re outside with their dogs,” Perry said. “Quite a coincidence, don’t you agree?”

  I nodded although I had to ask what he meant.

  “That Kori the handler is nowhere to be seen when Matt the handler turns into an action-hero.”

  I nodded again, but I still didn’t get it… 'til Perry summed it up.

  “Kori, bad. Matt, good. Kori is on Liam’s side. Matt is on Susan’s side. Somebody wanted to make sure Kori looked bad.”

  “You don’t think Kori just screwed up?”

  “Oh, she screwed up, all right. She won her round! Bad examples aren’t supposed to best the competition. So Susan had to even the score. With a little help.”

  My head was starting to hurt. “Are you saying that Susan and Matt framed Kori by setting Silverado loose after making sure the door was open for his escape?”

  Perry grinned wickedly. “Do I have to say it?”

  “I thought Matt seemed kind of nice. Except for the illicit lover thing. He was friendly when I asked about grooming Afghan hounds.”

  “Oh, Matt’s very friendly. Ask any woman here.”

  Ah-hah. Perry had given me an opening. Unfortunately, I lost it to the chaos following my Spotlight Moment. Someone was paging Perry, no doubt to deal with the complications of a lost champion and a missing Bad Example. Counting Kori, that was two missing Bad Examples. Perry excused himself to tend to business.

  Meanwhile, for what I assumed was the benefit of the crowd around her, Susan continued to rant about Kori. I heard her say, “My niece is showing her true colors now. And they’re not pink, they’re yellow! When it’s time to take responsibility, Kori is afraid to show her face!”

  Susan seemed almost as theatrical as Ramona. Then it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen Ramona lately. Not, in fact, since the Breeder Breakfast. Abra had left too soon to cue Ramona’s opening remarks for our Walk of Shame.

  Two ashen-faced breeders intercepted Perry before he could walk twenty feet. His smug expression instantly disappeared; in its place was a look of genuine horror.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Perry Stiles dashed past me with such sudden speed that I couldn’t compute what was happening. His run was accompanied by a chorus of shrieking sirens. Also shrieking Afghan hound fanciers; they scurried through the side door after him. I joined the fray.

  The scene of the crime was around the corner of the building, at almost the exact spot where I’d caught Kori kissing MacArthur (and MacArthur kissing her back). But there was nothing titillating about what had gone down since.

  My height permitted me to peer over the heads of shorter mortals. A small crowd had gathered around the prone form of Ramona Bowden. She looked much as she had when she’d fainted in my driveway on Thursday, save three major differences: (1) Jeb hadn’t thrown himself on top of her for protection; (2) she was face down; and (3) there was a whole lot of blood.

  Perry Stiles kneeled alongside the mound that was Ramona. He checked her pulse as everyone else formed a murmuring circle. I couldn’t help but notice that Ramona’s silvery pajama-like outfit,
now splotched with red, showed no sign of a breath beneath it.

  Since I don’t do well in the presence of body fluids, I quickly stepped back. To be accurate, I stumbled backwards and narrowly missed the team of charging EMTs, who arrived post-haste with black bags and sundry portable equipment.

  Just as I wondered who had dialed 9-1-1, my peripheral vision snagged a glimpse of the cleaner-slash-bodyguard. MacArthur wasn’t lurking at the edge of the cornfield; he was standing there waving at me. Weakly I waved back. Then I realized that his gesture meant “Come over here!” So I went. Nobody in the crowd was watching anybody except Ramona.

  MacArthur wouldn’t let me speak 'til after we’d receded into the cornfield. Our progress through the drying stalks wasn’t silent, but it was furtive. Despite telltale rustling, cornstalks provide good cover. The exhibit hall and the melee outside it had completely vanished from our view. Which meant nobody could see us, either.

  “I’ve been alternating between watching you, Susan, and Ramona,” MacArthur began.

  “Don’t forget Kori,” I said. “You fit her into your schedule, too.”

  He smiled. “Every working man needs a break now and then.”

  “Where is Kori, by the way? I hope you know that the dog she was handling took off after Abra!”

  “So I heard. I had just finished my latest tour of the exhibit hall-“

  “You were inside the hall? When?”

  “I tour and secure it every hour on the hour,” he said.

  “Then how come I’ve never seen you in there?”

  “Because I know how to do my job. May I continue?”

  I nodded.

  “I slipped out the side door just before your dog and that champion. No sooner had I started my exterior tour than I heard a voice raised in anger. It was coming from the other side of the building.”

  “Only one voice?” I asked.

  “Correct. It was Ramona’s. She sounded agitated. Then she screamed. I rushed ‘round the corner and found her lying there-just as I heard the uproar from inside the building.”

  “You mean, when Silverado went after Abra.”

  “Presumably.”

  “Did you call 9-1-1?” I said.

  “Yes. I would have administered CPR, but it was not appropriate.”

  “Because Ramona’s… dead?”

  “No,” he replied. “Because she was breathing just fine… although somebody shot her.”

  “Why would Ramona have been shouting at the shooter?”

  “I didn’t say she was. If you looked closely, you would have seen her mobile on the ground.”

  “Her cell phone?”

  “Yes. I believe Ramona was arguing with someone on her mobile when she was shot. The two incidents may or may not be related. I checked her phone,” he added, “and reported the latest numbers to Jenx.”

  “Will Ramona live?”

  “I’ve never known anyone to die from a bullet wound to the arse.”

  “But… she’s nonresponsive!”

  MacArthur cocked an eyebrow at me. “Is she now?”

  “She didn’t respond to Perry Stiles. And there’s so much blood!”

  “It’s a flesh wound, and the woman has a lot of… flesh. That explains the blood,” MacArthur said. “As for her being nonresponsive, she used to be an actress. Off-Broadway. Strictly heavy drama.”

  Jenx herself called before I could ask MacArthur what he’d told the chief. She was in the process of identifying the other party in Ramona’s latest conversation. The former actress had dialed a cell phone in the 630 area code. That covered northwestern Cook County, Illinois-including Itasca, where Susan and Liam lived.

  “It doesn’t mean the person Ramona talked with lives there,” Jenx reminded me. “It just means the phone was registered there. And it’s a cell phone, so he-or she- could have been anywhere. Even at the dog show. We won’t know 'til we run down the records.”

  The Magnet Springs Police Department didn’t have a forensics team. Or any technology worth mentioning. I was about to ask Jenx how she planned to acquire cell phone records since the latest shooting wasn’t even in her jurisdiction.

  “Brady’s cousin Lonnie is going to hack into the other cell phone account,” the chief announced happily.

  I didn’t bother to comment on the obvious, that hacking was illegal. But I did call the chief’s attention to the fact that Lonnie was incarcerated.

  “That’s the beauty of if!” she exclaimed. “He’s been good since he’s been inside, so he’s a low-security inmate-with web access. And he’s already in the slammer, so there’s no risk and no down side!”

  “Except to you,” I pointed out. “If he got caught, you could be charged as an accomplice.”

  “Not a chance,” Jenx said. “He won’t get caught cuz he’s good, and the phone companies aren’t smart. Besides which, he’s Brady’s cousin, and family is family. They don’t rat each other out. Lonnie won’t mess with me, either. I helped get him the lightest possible sentence for grand theft auto. The kid’s messed up, but he’s loyal as a dog.” She paused. “Loyal as most dogs. I hear yours ran away again.”

  “Yes, but this time it wasn’t really her fault.”

  Jenx harrumphed. “I don’t like the direction this thing is taking. Too many flying bullets. We already have one corpse and one casualty. Not to mention two missing dogs.”

  “We always have missing dogs,” I sighed.

  “And you attract dead bodies.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “Get the hell out of there!” Jenx said. “You’ve been humiliated, so you’re morally free to leave.”

  “Except now I have to find Abra.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Wailing sirens on my end made it impossible to hear what Jenx said next. I assumed that the EMTs had loaded Ramona aboard the ambulance and were heading to the nearest hospital. Probably in Elkhart.

  By the time I could hear again, Jenx had disconnected. MacArthur was still with me, his considerable bulk squeezed sideways between tidy rows of yellowing cornstalks. He hadn’t yet answered my question about Kori. So I asked him again where she had gone.

  “She had an emergency,” he said.

  “What kind of ‘emergency’?”

  Given what I knew about Susan’s niece, I could imagine a wide range of crises, from scoring dope to stealing cars.

  “Kori had to counsel her sponsoree.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “She’s a sponsor in a step-program. The woman she sponsors was ‘right on the edge,’ so Kori gave her a reason to live.”

  “Kori… advises people… how to fix their lives?” I couldn’t buy it.

  MacArthur nodded. “She’s good. I heard her on the phone. Then she went off somewhere to talk in private.”

  What kind of step-program would designate Kori as an advisor? Was there a self-help group for irresponsible women inclined to crash cars? And, if so, had Kori graduated?

  Did MacArthur actually believe that story or expect me to? I wondered if the cleaner was determined to cover for Kori, even to the extent of bamboozling me. Was she that good a kisser?

  Then I had a troubling thought: Kori currently lived with Susan and Liam. In Itasca. If she had a cell phone, it might have a 630 area code.

  But why would Ramona call Kori? And even if she did, was the call relevant? I strained to imagine how Ramona’s phone conversation could be connected to her getting shot in the tush.

  “MacArthur, you said you were inside the exhibit hall just before Silverado got loose. Did you see what happened?”

  “Sorry, no. I do have a theory, however.”

  I parted a couple cornstalks in order to lean closer. He cleared his throat.

  “I believe Susan set it up. After Kori’s unexpected win in the show ring, Susan wanted to save face by making Kori look bad.”

  “But why sacrifice her own championship dog?” I objected.

  “You’re assuming Susan does
n’t know where her dog went.”

  “Her dog is with my dog! And my dog is notorious for leading other dogs astray.”

  “Here’s the thing,” MacArthur said. “Unlike you, Susan would want her dog back. Silverado is well trained and worth considerable money. I suspect that he had an objective.”

  “We all saw his ‘objective’! He wanted Abra!”

  “I mean, Silverado may have been coached to run somewhere specific. Think about it, Whiskey. In the commotion surrounding Ramona, nobody followed the dogs.”

  “Matt did-“ I began. And then I got it. “Matt is on Susan’s side. Nobody’s on Kori’s side.”

  MacArthur said, “It’s a theory.”

  “Back up. I need to know how you met Kori.”

  He smiled innocently. “I’m here to guard you and Susan-and those close to you and Susan. Kori is Susan’s niece, so I’m guarding her. And now, if you’ll excuse me, duty calls.”

  Kori was about as close to Susan as Avery was to me. But MacArthur might have missed that irony. Not because he was dim, but because he was a man. He turned away, crashing noisily through the corn. Was he heading back the way we’d come? I didn’t think so, but I’d already lost track.

  Fortunately I didn’t get lost, and I didn’t follow MacArthur, either. For once in my life, I trusted my own instincts. I started back the way I thought I’d come and soon heard a voice raised in anger. I stopped to listen and instantly recognized the voice as Susan Davies’.

  “What do you mean, it was an ‘e-mer-gen-cy’?” She separated the syllables as if translating from a foreign language. “I’m not interested in your excuses!”

  There was no other voice. And nothing more from Susan. I was still too deep in the corn to see beyond the stalks in front of me. Had I overheard the tail end of a one-sided phone conversation? Was she yelling at Kori or belittling someone else? I waited a few moments for her to either speak again or be gone. Then I emerged from the field.

  Blood soaked the grass where Ramona Bowden had fallen. Although I tried not to see the dark red stain, I couldn’t ignore it. My stomach clenched and gurgled in response. Everyone, including Susan, had departed. Would Perry Stiles insist that the show must go on?