by Nina Wright
Brenda froze but did not reply.
“Wrong,” I said. “Everybody here knows he’s her boy-toy.”
I glanced sideways at very pale Brenda. “Sorry to be so blunt,” I said.
Back to Sandy. ”Why would she want him dead?”
“Because he’s blackmailing her, that’s why!”
That was when the ever-pleasant Brenda Spenser revealed her inner bitch. In a single smooth move, she slipped off one of her prized Manolo Blahniks and pounded Sandy’s face with it. Fortunately for Sandy, Brenda employed the pointy heel as handle, rather than as a stabbing device. Yet I had no doubt that the finely crafted leather sole could sting, particularly when applied with manic vigor.
“Down, girls, down!” boomed an authoritative male voice.
As I stood helplessly by, the dog show judge broke up the cat fight. He seized Brenda’s right arm, effectively stopping her in mid-swing, at the same instant that Perry pulled Sandy beyond striking distance. The intervention happened so fast that I barely had time to savor the irony: Sandy was dragged to safety by the very man she’d accused of sand-bagging her late ex-husband and her son.
“How’s Matt? What happened?” I shouted over Sandy and Brenda’s spewed epithets.
“EMTs are on their way,” the judge said.
But Perry locked eyes with me, and in them I read what I knew to be the real answer: Matt was beyond human help.
As the judge restrained a squirming Brenda and Perry did the same with a kicking Sandy, Susan darted past us all, bound straight for Matt. Perry called after her to wait; she didn’t listen. Handlers and breeders closed in around her, blocking both Susan and Matt from my view.
Looking stern, Perry said something to Sandy, who shook him off. Then she stepped away to compose herself by drawing several sharp breaths. When she turned back, her face was as hard as a statue’s.
Meanwhile, the judge was holding Brenda’s arm like collateral and whispering to her. The scene reminded me of a parent trying to calm a tantrum-prone child. Brenda’s eyes seemed to lose their focus. She swayed like a dizzy drunk before folding herself against the judge.
My eyes followed Sandy as she lurched toward the ring. The snood business may have been good this weekend, but her personal life had gone hideously wrong. I expected the small crowd gathered around Susan and Matt to spring open as his mother approached. Instead, they visibly tightened ranks.
Why? To protect Sandy from the sight of her dead son? Or to protect Susan from Sandy? Maybe insiders feared that Sandy, in her moment of grief, would blame Susan for choosing Matt as handler. Or maybe they knew that Sandy had other issues with Susan, beginning with “A” for adultery.
Then again, hot-tempered Sandy could have had issues with lots of folks. If this was a woman who’d never given up loving, or at least lurking around, her first husband, she might be the kind of gal who nursed every grievance.
Several people moved in to comfort-or stop- Sandy, and soon I couldn’t see her at all.
Watching the handlers lead their dogs from the ring, I realized that Matt was not the only casualty of this round. Silverado, best in show, was gone. I hadn’t seen him when the lights first came up, and I couldn’t see him now. The dog had vanished.
Had Susan even noticed? When Silverado charged out the side door earlier in the day, she had freaked. But that had no doubt been to highlight Kori’s incompetence. As Perry had suggested, the gaffe was surely a set-up intended to make Liam’s niece look bad.
This scene differed in every detail. First and foremost, it appeared to be murder. Susan would look shallow indeed if she showed as much concern for a missing hound as for a mortally wounded handler.
I couldn’t imagine who or what had taken Matt down. It was unthinkable that one of his fellow competitors would kill him at close range. There was not only the logistical problem of shooting, stabbing, or bludgeoning to death a man running in the dark; there was also that longstanding AKC tradition of sportsmanship. At least inside the ring.
Yet the handler of the best dog in show was down, presumably dead or dying. And the winning dog was gone. Sirens grew louder as, once again, emergency vehicles converged on the Barnyard Inn.
The Two L’s stood nearby, identically pale and drawn. Although they paid no attention to me, I heard Lauren tell Lindsey, “Thank god Susan never hires us.”
Whoever took the dog had probably killed Matt. But what came first: the plan to steal the dog, or the plan to kill Matt? In other words, which was the primary crime? I was sure, without quite knowing why, that one was the motive and the other a consequence. Or a side effect.
EMTs dashed into the ring, dissolving the clot of bystanders. I glimpsed Matt-still in the same sprawled position-with Susan kneeling to his right and Sandy standing to his left.
What had happened here? I replayed my mental snapshot of the side door opening to reveal a large man in silhouette. There was no dog in that picture. Unless… the man had been carrying the dog. Mature male Afghan hounds like Silverado weigh about 70 pounds. The man in my memory was large enough to carry such a load. Who could he be, and why would he kill Matt? Or maybe his goal was to take the dog, and Matt’s death was collateral damage. Had Matt made the fatal mistake of trying to save Silverado?
Chapter Twenty-Nine
There was no point watching the EMTs. I was quite sure that this time they wouldn’t be able to work their medical magic. And I desperately needed a breath of fresh air. My sour stomach had returned with a vengeance that I couldn’t blame on the concession stand.
Across the ring, I spotted the red-haired writer furiously jotting notes on a pad. Either she doubled as a local newspaper reporter, or she was harvesting material for a future novel. Odette had said she wrote humorous mysteries. How the hell do you make murder amusing?
I chose to exit via the side door, not only because it was closer, but also because I was curious about the man whom I’d glimpsed using it. Would I find any trace of him? Or Silverado?
What I did find when I pushed open the heavy metal door was my undercover bodyguard. Down on all fours.
“Did you lose a contact lens?” I said.
With surprising agility, he sprang upright.
“No. But I found this.”
I didn’t at first understand the significance of what he showed me. Or even recognize what it was. MacArthur waited as I studied the tiny item resting in the broad palm of his hand.
“It’s a bristle from a pin brush, isn’t it?” I said. “The kind a groomer uses.”
“Or a handler,” MacArthur said.
“You know about Matt?” I asked. When he nodded, I said, “We should have assigned you to him and his dad instead of to Susan, Ramona, and me.”
Then I considered that Ramona had been shot, too, and Susan had lost her prize pooch. All in all, MacArthur was making a hash of his job this weekend, even if he was doing it for free. Maybe he was distracted.
“Seen Kori lately?” I asked.
“She’s in her room, packing to leave,” he replied.
“And you know that because…?”
“Deely and Dr. David said so. Fleggers are protesting in the parking lot. They said Kori stopped to make a donation before going to her room.”
I told MacArthur what I’d seen inside the exhibit hall from the moment the lights banged down. When I got to the part about seeing a large man silhouetted in the doorway, I stopped.
“When were you last inside?”
“About thirty minutes ago,” he said. “I watched Liam Davies confer with his wife in a storage area next to the concession stand. They both became a bit agitated, so I stayed close by. Then she went her way, and he went his. I followed him and Odette out to the helicopter and saw them leave. So I missed the final round.”
MacArthur’s size made him a perfect match, at least in silhouette, to the man I’d seen. Why would he lie? Unless he was trying to protect someone. But his job was to protect Susan, Ramona, and me.
“I sa
w a man leave through the side door. And now Silverado is gone.” I pointed to the pin brush bristle still resting in MacArthur’s palm. “Do you think that means anything?”
“It means something. The question is what. Most likely, at this spot, one of three things happened: someone was grooming a dog, or a dog shook off a bristle caught in his coat, or a human shook off a bristle caught in his or her clothes. I’ve been studying this area closely, and I’m certain that bristle wasn’t here an hour ago.”
I wanted to believe everything MacArthur said. After all, when he wasn’t being a bodyguard or cleaner, he supposedly worked for me. Or he would work for me once the real estate market rebounded. Meanwhile, he lived with my surly stepdaughter and her adorable twins. Although I could understand him cheating on Avery, I was concerned about the ramifications for my grandbabies. Would they soon be back at Vestige with me? Catching MacArthur kissing Kori made me question his fidelity. Seeing people die, and a canine champion go missing, made me question his skills.
“Incoming!” MacArthur shouted over the roar of another approaching helicopter.
“It’s Jeb this time!” I said. “Coming to help me find Abra!”
MacArthur nodded before I finished as if he knew more than I did. He motioned for us to go meet the chopper. Jogging behind him, I wondered how much he really knew about Silverado, Matt, Mitchell Slater, and Ramona. MacArthur’s fundamentally mysterious nature made him either a sexy bad boy or a scary bad boy.
By now Fleggers had expanded their protest from the makeshift stage to a circuit of the entire parking lot. Some carried signs. Others marched and shouted. The theme was more or less consistent although the chants varied: “Dogs deserve a full life, too!” “Let your dog be as free as you and me!” “Animals are natural beauties! Boycott dog shows now!”
For just an instant I wondered if Silverado had succumbed to this propaganda and excused himself from the ring. Who was I kidding? He was a good dog; Abra was the rebel hellion.
The protesters scattered as the second helicopter descended thunderously into the parking lot. MacArthur pointed to Dr. David and then jogged off in that direction; I assumed he was going to ask the good vet if he’d seen anything helpful.
When the helicopter door opened, the first person out was not my ex-husband but my next-door neighbor Chester, who ducked dramatically as he debarked. That amused me. At four feet tall, Chester was hardly endangered by the churning blades. Then I saw the real reason for his hunched posture: the poor child was toting both a duffel bag and a large plastic case.
Involuntarily my heart lifted when I spotted Jeb. He still moved in the loose, youthful way of that boy I’d fallen in love with back in high school. He had less hair now, but not from this distance. From here, he might as well have been seventeen again because that was how young and hopeful he made me feel. Time to remind myself of our long, bumpy history: heartbreak, disappointment, divorce. How could I possibly be tempted again? And yet I was…
Foolishly, I had hoped that a few days’ separation might frost my desire, but now I knew the opposite was true. I’d been away from Jeb for only a day and a half, and I wanted him more than ever. Flying in like a hero made him as provocative as a man in uniform. Not that I had a thing for soldiers, but part of me longed to be rescued. Who was I kidding? I needed to be rescued. The Barnyard Inn was turning into a boneyard.
As my libido soared, I gave silent thanks that Abra wasn’t around to distract us. If we pretended I’d never had a dog, then of course I hadn’t lost one. We could drive straight to a cheap, dark motel devoted to one-night stands and totally opposed to pets.
Then I remembered that we had Chester. He would insist on looking for Abra. No doubt that was why he was here-besides playing porter. Jeb was hauling luggage, too. Way more than a camera case and an overnight bag. Why had they brought so much baggage? And how had they found time to pack?
Jeb set one suitcase down long enough to wave. I returned the cheery salutation. But his aim wasn’t right; he was looking beyond me. To my dismay, Susan Davies was moving purposefully in Jeb’s direction.
Chester came straight to me, however.
“Hey, Whiskey!” he panted. “Here I am!”
“Indeed you are,” I said. “And I can’t help but wonder why.”
He dropped the duffel bag and then carefully set down the plastic carrier before pointing to the tin badge pinned to his navy blue school blazer. It was the chintzy, cereal-box-grade badge that Jenx gave every part-time volunteer deputy. Since being mistaken for a clown, I refused to wear mine.
“Jeb called Jenx, and she enlisted my assistance. I speak canine, you know.”
Yoda’s gray heart-shaped face and oversized ears appeared in the mesh opening of the plastic carrier. True to form, the ugly cat hissed at me.
“Long time no see, Yoda,” I said. “But not long enough.”
“He’s traumatized by his separation from Peg,” Chester said. “Also, cats don’t like helicopters.”
“You speak feline, too?”
“Yes, but not as fluently as I speak canine. I’ve had less practice with this species.”
When the cat hissed again, I said, “Is he telling you he hates being in a cage?”
“No. He hates you.”
Speaking of enemies, what the hell was Susan up to? She just happened to be hugging my ex-husband. The man who had flown here expressly to help me.
“I’ll be right back,” I told Chester.
Yoda yowled. I did not request a translation.
“Hello, Jeb!”
My tone was more business-like than affectionate. In salute, he raised a hand currently wrapped around Susan. She turned her head in my direction.
“Oh, Whiskey, Jeb is so good.”
“How would you know that?”
She paused to wipe what would have been a tear from her cheek. If she wasn’t faking it.
“Jeb called me to say he was flying to Nappanee. So I asked him to load my luggage.”
“Your luggage?” I said. “Don’t you have luggage here?”
“Yes, but with everything that’s happening, I… may not go straight home. And I always keep a few bags packed, just in case.”
I wondered if “everything that’s happening” referred to the murders or to her fights with Liam.
“Jeb made sure all three of my bags got on the chopper,” Susan said. “He counted them himself.”
I said, “His mother would be proud.”
“And just now, when I told him about the shooting,” Susan sniffed, “he knew exactly the right thing to say.”
“Which shooting?” After the attack on Matt, I wondered why Susan would be crying about Mitchell Slater or Ramona.
“The EMTs said Matt was shot at close range,” Susan said. “The gun had a silencer. Silverado might have been shot, too. When the forensics team gets here, they’ll test the blood on the floor to see… “ she choked, “if it’s all human.”
Sobbing, she buried her beautiful face in my lover’s shoulder. Jeb did not push her away. Instead he shot me a look with that basic male message: “Hey, what can I do?”
Chapter Thirty
“Jeb is here to help me,” I told Susan when my ex-husband didn’t. “Together we’re going to find Abra. Or at least look for her.”
“And I’ll help!” Chester tapped his volunteer deputy badge. “I speak canine, so Chief Jenkins sent me to assist local law enforcement. As a consultant.”
I tried to imagine any police department other than Magnet Springs relying on a precocious eight-year-old to solve crimes, especially an eight-year-old who looked six and claimed to speak canine. But, hey, maybe Nappanee’s finest were more open-minded than most.
As if reading my thoughts, Chester added, “I’ll probably keep my investigation on the down-low until I have solid evidence.”
“Good plan,” I said.
Just then Yoda yowled, and Susan frowned at the cat carrier.
“Why would you bring a cat
to a dog show?”
On Chester’s behalf, I explained that Perry’s friend had lost a cat while vacationing in Magnet Springs, and I happened to know that the cat had been found. Hence Yoda, a.k.a. Boomgarden.
“We’re returning him,” Chester said.
Susan squinted at Yoda’s face in the mesh opening. “I’ve seen that cat.”
“Really?” I asked. “Do you know Perry’s friend?”
“That cat belonged to Mitchell Slater.”
“I don’t think so. He belongs to the man Perry vacationed with.”
Susan shot me a “How dense are you?” look and replied very slowly, “I said, that cat belonged to Mitchell Slater. He and Perry had a little fling.”
Was Sandy Slater right about Mitchell being gay? She’d insisted that Perry dissed Mitchell because Mitchell had rejected him. I still couldn’t believe it.
“Mitchell Slater told me he left his last wife for you,” I reminded Susan.
Suddenly I realized that we had ventured into mature, if not illicit, subject matter in front of a young child. Granted, Chester was the child of a pop music superstar renowned for her own highly questionable behavior. But I wanted to set a good example.
“Chester,” I said in my best schoolteacher voice. “Why don’t you take Yoda into the exhibit hall and ask someone to direct you to Perry Stiles?”
“Okay,” he said, picking up the carrier. “But don’t worry about me. There’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”
The way he said it, I felt almost inadequate. As soon as he was out of earshot, I asked Susan, “Are you denying that you had an affair with Mitchell Slater?”
She had stepped back from Jeb and recovered her complete composure. I saw no trace of those crocodile tears.
“I’m denying that it’s any of your business!”
With a toss of her lustrous hair, she told Jeb, “Please take my bags to room 11.”
Then she followed Chester into the exhibit hall.
When Jeb stooped to scoop up her bags, I had a coughing fit. He put the bags down. Conveniently, MacArthur jogged into view. He and Jeb shook hands.