by Nina Wright
“Convince me not to believe it!” I cried.
Then my stomach made a sound like a dying sperm whale-loud enough, I was sure, for every dog in the RV park to hear it. I expected a chorus of sympathetic howls.
“What’s the matter?” Jeb said.
“I don’t feel good. Odette said I look terrible. Oh, I forgot to tell you, she’s here. With Liam. They came by helicopter.”
“Liam showed up? Then he’s gotta be worried about Susan. So I have a right to be worried about you,” Jeb said. “In addition to being pissed at you. What do you want me to do? Should I come get you?”
“I can’t leave! Abra’s missing!”
Then I remembered that she wasn’t. Anymore. We just had to get her and Silverado out of room 18. I hastily explained that to Jeb.
“Anyway, I have my car here,” I added. “As soon as I can load Abra up, I’m heading for home. I should be there in time for dinner.”
My stomach roiled again, and I wondered when or if it would be safe for me to actually eat.
“I don’t know about food,” I said, “but we can talk. Do you want to talk?”
“We need to talk,” Jeb said firmly. “You got some crazy ideas in that head of yours.”
Just then I noticed Matt Koniger. He was about fifty yards away, striding toward the exhibit hall, with a dog. One dog. Silverado.
“Excuse me,” I told Jeb. “I’m gonna have to call you right back.”
Of course there were other blue-gray hounds at the show. But Matt had been on a mission to retrieve that one. Plus Abra. I wondered how he’d managed to remove Susan’s dog from Kori’s motel room without Kori’s key. She had been with me, and then she’d gone off with her uncle. What I really needed to know was what had happened to Abra.
“Didn’t anyone tell you?” he said.
I shook my head.
“The door to room 18 was ajar. I found Silverado on the bed watching TV, but Abra was gone.”
What little strength I had left leaked from my muscles like water from a shattered vase. Matt reached out a hand to steady me.
“Easy,” he said. “You need something to eat. Let’s go to the concession stand. My treat.”
“No burgers,” I murmured.
“No way,” he agreed. “I recommend hot dogs or nachos.”
I wasn’t sure my stomach could handle either.
Inside the arena the competition had resumed. Perry Stiles must have decided that the show should go on.
A second show was in progress. In the concession area Susan and Liam were having a conversation with Kori and Odette. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected in that department, but it wasn’t a four-way chat. The group had taken over a table in the concession area, where Silverado, Matt, and I were pointed now. I couldn’t wait to see how Susan would express her gratitude to Matt for returning the lost dog. Most likely, she’d save some of her enthusiasm for their next trip to the side door.
Perry Stiles waved to me. He was in the concession area, too-standing at the condiments table, garnishing a wiener.
I thanked Matt for the offer to buy lunch but said I’d cover my own. He promised to let me know if he heard anything about Abra, but his focus was now entirely on Susan. Did that make him his father’s son?
“Good job getting the show going again,” I told Perry. “And before you ask-the answer is ‘Hell, no!’ I have no affiliation whatsoever with those animal-rights maniacs. Except that some of them are my friends.”
I flashed him my most earnest smile. The one I use whenever I have to explain myself to the IRS. Or to my mother.
Perry looked beyond me to the table where the Davies clan sat, accompanied by Odette. Susan was fussing over Matt and Silverado.
“You’re witnessing a historic event of questionable taste,” Perry whispered. “Susan, her husband, his lover, and her boy-toy. Plus the poor niece, stuck in the middle-with the dog.”
“I just have one question,” I said. “Is Matt as shallow as I think he is?”
“How shallow do you think he is?”
“Well, I met Mitchell Slater, and I don’t think the apple fell far from the tree… “
Perry said, “So, you know that story! Who told?”
“The niece in the middle.”
“Good for Kori! You got to love that girl’s pluck, if not her wardrobe. Yes, Mitchell was a vain one, and Matt is more or less the same-minus the mean streak.”
“Mitchell was nasty?”
“Ask his first wife. For that matter, ask any woman he loved and shoved aside.”
“Including Susan?”
Perry looked startled. “Susan dumped Mitchell. I think she’s the only one who pulled that off. If you ask me, she toyed with him just to get close to Matt. Or maybe, knowing Susan, all she really wanted was the dog.”
“What dog?”
“The niece didn’t tell you that story? Silverado was Mitchell’s gift to Susan.”
“I thought Susan dumped him-right after he left his wife for her. Then he cheated Susan out of her stud fee.”
“Mitchell would have left his wife, anyway,” Perry said. “He left them all. The man preferred conquests to connubial bliss. As for the stud fee, Susan didn’t get cheated. Mitchell saved enough sperm to make lots of puppies. Silverado was one, and Susan got him-plus the full refund of her stud fee. Ramona knows that.”
“Why would she and Susan lie?”
“Why do they do anything? For starters, Susan’s a manipulative bitch, and Ramona’s a drama queen. The latter will make a full recovery, by the way. She took the bullet in her well-padded ass, a glancing wound only.”
I refrained from revealing what I knew about Ramona’s acting career, courtesy of MacArthur.
Perry continued, “Ramona likes to make Susan look better than Susan is. Ramona probably thinks that makes her look better, too, by association. They’re friends and co-breeders, after all. As for her lies about Slater, well, Ramona had issues of her own with that bad boy.”
“What-?”
But I was interrupted. By a chili dog and a book. To be precise, I was interrupted by Odette Mutombo, who stood before me bearing gifts.
“Excuse me,” she said to Perry. “Whiskey, you need to eat.”
“Do I also need to read?”
“Yes. I bought this for you from that vendor over there.”
She pointed to a smiling red-haired woman sitting near the concession stand, behind a table piled high with books.
“That’s the author,” Odette said, pointing to the woman’s photo inside the book.
“Thanks… but I really don’t have time to read.”
“I think you should make time.”
Odette tapped the cover, which featured a cartoon-like rendering of a running Afghan hound.
“It’s a mystery about a dog like yours. That woman over there has written a whole series of them. Perhaps if you read the books, you would learn something.”
I doubted it, but I took the book just the same, tucking it into my bag. I took the chili dog, too, with more enthusiasm. When I bit into it, I was almost overcome with hunger.
“I can’t believe how good this tastes,” I said, my mouth full. Then I remembered my manners, or some of them, and started to introduce Odette to Perry.
She cut me off. “Please. Let me do the talking.”
Letting Odette do the talking had made me a lot of money. Which reminded me that she had stepped away from our current client. I checked the Davies table; it was now vacant. Where had the husband, his wife, her lover, her dog, and his niece disappeared to?
“Excuse me…”
I turned in response to a flat female voice. The Two L’s were behind me flanked by a pair of blonde dogs who looked like them. I assumed I was blocking their path to the condiments. So I moved. But that wasn’t what they wanted.
“You do know your bitch is missing, don’t you?” said the L named Lindsey.
“You mean Abra?” I asked. As opposed to, say, Susan.
The Two L’s nodded.
“Yes, I know she’s missing. I’m going to look for her just as soon as I finish this.”
When I held up what was left of my chili dog, some of the greasy garnish plopped onto Lindsey’s shoe.
“Then you’re aware that Abra is gone?” Lauren asked.
Did they think I was dense? Or did they suspect me of trying to lose her on purpose? Sure, the temptation had crossed my mind. But this was a very inconvenient place to lose Abra. Fleggers were everywhere, probably cheering her on.
“We’re asking,” Lindsey said as she wiped her shoe, “because we just saw her. And we thought you might like to know where.”
“Where?”
“In the back of a wagon. With a herd of long-haired goats.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Odette was the first to respond to the Two L’s’ stunning announcement.
“Well, somebody thinks Abra is valuable. As valuable as a goat!”
“No,” Lindsey said. “Somebody thinks she is a goat. They don’t know they’ve got an Af on board.”
“We’re talking about an Amish teenager,” Lauren said. “Do you know about them?”
I didn’t know about goats or Amish teenagers, and I said so.
“The goats are probably irrelevant,” Perry interjected, “except for locating your bitch. Amish teenagers, now that’s a topic worthy of discussion.”
“I don’t want a discussion!” I cried. “I want my dog back!”
“Since when?” Odette said.
Perry plunged ahead. “On the Amish Country tour, you learn that Amish teens get a few years to act out and test the limits. Then, when they’re eighteen, they have to declare whether they’re going to be Amish or not.”
Lauren said, “This teen was definitely testing the limits. He was drunk.”
“He was weaving all over Route 20,” Lindsey confirmed. “We were walking our dogs around the front of the motel when he drove by.”
“In a wagon,” Lauren said, “pulled by two horses. He stopped to talk with a couple kids in a buggy going the other way. One of the goats nudged open the latch on the back of the wagon, and all the goats jumped out!”
“Don’t tell me,” I moaned. “And then Abra jumped in.”
“Not right away,” Lauren said. “She came running from the direction of the motel. When she saw the goats, she chased them. All over the highway.”
“She stopped traffic,” Lindsey added. “It took all three teenagers to round up the goats. Then Abra jumped into the wagon when nobody was looking.”
“You were looking!” I said. “Why didn’t you say something?”
Odette answered for them. “When that bitch gets going, it’s like watching a train wreck.”
“Which way did the goats go?” Perry asked.
“Toward Nappanee,” said Lindsey. “The kid is probably driving them to his family’s farm. And that could be anywhere around here.”
She was right. Suddenly I regretted wolfing down the chili dog. But not nearly as much as I regretted coming to this event. I turned to Perry.
“Any suggestions?”
“Well, I’d recommend going into town. Based on what I learned during the Amish Country tour, everybody knows everybody for miles around. Find out who deals in long-haired goats.”
“And who has a rogue Amish teen,” Odette said.
“Oh, they all have one of those,” Perry said.
I moaned again, as much from my bellyache as from my brand-new headache over Abra. The Two L’s made their excuses and turned their dogs toward the ring.
“The judge is about to decide ‘best in show,’” Perry informed me.
“One quick question,” I said. “You were going to tell me about Ramona’s issues with Mitchell Slater…?”
“Only that she threw herself at him and was summarily rejected. Ramona doesn’t like it when she doesn’t get her way.”
“Who does?” I said.
Perry glanced about. “Not Susan, as you already know. Whatever you do, don’t miss the next round. Kori expects to be back in the ring with Silverado. But I imagine that Susan has other ideas.”
After he excused himself, Odette made a suggestion.
“I’ve thought of a way to simplify your search for Abra.”
“How about amnesia? If I forget I have a dog, I can go home. It doesn’t get any simpler than that.”
“I was thinking of your ex-husband. Jeb could come in very handy about now.”
“These dogs are calm,” I said. “They don’t need Animal Lullabies.”
“I was thinking of a search party. Jeb could be here to help organize one in thirty minutes or less.”
“It takes three times that long to get here from Magnet Springs!”
“By car, yes. But I’m going to ask Liam to fly him here. He has a second helicopter at the construction site and a pilot on call. If Jeb’s ready, so is his ride!”
I said, “Liam would do that for me?”
“No,” Odette said. “But he’ll do it for me.”
My eyes locked on hers.
Coolly she said, “Liam will do it for me because I’m going to make him lots of money. And I’ll make money faster if you’re working with me instead of running around Indiana looking for goats and teenagers!”
She had a point.
“Where is Liam?” I said.
“Sorting out something with Susan and Kori. Not my business.” Odette yawned. “You call Jeb, and I’ll call Liam.”
We speed-dialed simultaneously. Jeb was expecting me to call him back, anyway, just not about this. He listened without comment to my brief account of Abra, the Amish, and the long-haired goats. When I said that Odette could get him a helicopter ride here right away, he asked what I wanted him to bring.
“Besides a camera,” he said. “I gotta bring my camera.”
“You want pictures of Amish Country?“
“I want pictures of you and Abra at a dog show. Or nobody’s going to believe it.”
“We’re here as Bad Examples,” I reminded him.
“I only hope they put it on a trophy.”
Odette, who had finished her call, reached for my phone. “Let me talk to Jeb.”
She told him where to go and when to be there. I was sure he would obey; Odette had that effect on people. It explained why she sold almost every property she showed.
To me she said, “You need to make an effort to find Abra.”
“I always do!”
“Let me finish. Make an effort so that no one can accuse you of animal neglect. Or whatever the term is for repeatedly letting your dog run away. Between the breeders and Fleggers, this is a high-profile event.”
“I know, I know. But this time Dr. David can’t help me. He’s here in an official capacity, advocating ‘canine freedom.’ And the breeders don’t seem to like me. Plus they’re kind of busy with the show.”
“Exactly why I’m bringing in Liam’s other helicopter-and Jeb!” Odette said. “Whether you find Abra or not is irrelevant. Just make it look like you’re looking and then get the hell out of Amish Country. We have Big and Little Houses to sell!”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Liam Davies was our ticket to ride the real estate market all the way up again. He was also Jeb’s ticket to ride in a helicopter from Magnet Springs to Amish Country to help me find Abra. Odette was right, however; my real objective was real estate. I needed to get back to business.
“What’s this rumor I heard about somebody claiming Yoda?” Odette said.
I summarized Perry’s story about Boomgarden escaping from his rented cabin on the beach.
Odette asked, “Does Peg Goh know she’s got to give up the cat she tattooed on her arm?”
“Not yet.”
That was when I realized I should probably be the one to tell her. Or at least alert her to the fact that someone named Perry Stiles would soon be calling.
“You might as well get that nasty job out
of the way,” Odette said.
I’d had plenty of experience delivering unpleasant news by telephone but never on the subject of cats. Although this wouldn’t be fun, fortunately for me Peg was one of the most stable people in town. Sure, she’d be disappointed, but I expected her to take it in stride.
I was wrong.
When I called her at the Goh Cup, Peg launched her part of the conversation with a litany of Yoda’s latest “hilarious” antics, most of which sounded just plain appalling to me.
“You know what he especially loves to do?” Peg enthused. “Ride around on my shoulder-like a parrot!”
I saw no charm in that. But I seized upon her remark as a clever transition.
“That does sound like something a parrot would do. Maybe that’s what your next pet should be, Peg. A parrot!”
Silence greeted my suggestion. Apparently, I was going to have to make myself clearer.
“Peg, I’m at this dog show in Indiana, and I met this guy-“
“You did? But I thought you and Jeb were back together. He’s on his way to help you right now, you know. Oh, Whiskey, how could you go and fall for somebody else?”
“I didn’t ‘fall for’ anybody!”
I glanced at Odette for guidance, but she merely gave me the “wrap-it-up-fast” sign.
“Trust me, Peg,” I continued, “I’m not this other guy’s type. The thing is, well, we got to talking… about Magnet Springs. It turns out he was there last spring, in a cabin on the beach-“
“And he visited the Goh Cup? Is that what you’re calling to tell me? I bet he liked the big cookies! Most men do. Let me guess which flavor he liked best…”
I took a breath and plunged ahead.
“I’m sorry, Peg, but that’s not what I’m trying to tell you. What I’m trying to tell you is that this guy-his name is Perry Stiles-was there with his cat-his friend’s cat, actually-and the cat got lost, and the cat is Yoda! That’s right, Peg, the cat you tattooed on your arm is somebody else’s cat, and that somebody else wants his cat back. His real name is Boomgarden, by the way. The cat, not the somebody else. I’m sure this is shocking, and I’m really sorry it happened, but I’m just trying to do the right thing by giving you a heads up.”