Drop Dead on Recall

by Sheila Webster Boneham

  The pews were filling quickly, and about half the faces were familiar. Sylvia Eckhorn smiled sadly at me. Many of the others were people I saw often at obedience and agility trials, and I mentally matched them with their dogs. I’d photographed lots of them, and although I couldn’t remember most of the people’s names, I never forget a furry face. There was Bullet’s person, and owners of at least two canine Abbys, which I was sure Abigail would have enjoyed, and … you get the picture.

  In the pew behind the family, among the blondes and brunettes, auburns and silvers, I spotted a head of incandescent red. Francine Peterson, Pip’s breeder. She was leaning forward across the back of the other pew, toward the side of Greg’s head, talking nonstop and chopping at the wood in front of her with the heel of her right hand. She had people’s attention, and Greg looked none too happy about it.

  Greg shifted in his seat and turned toward the jabbering woman, his hand held up in a “stop” gesture. I couldn’t hear him, but saw him glare at Francine and round his mouth into “No!” before he turned his back on her.

  Francine froze for a few seconds, then clambered over the people seated to her left, stumbled into the center aisle, and scurried toward the rear exit of the church. Her face was fury incarnate, and she was talking again, this time to herself. As she flew past us I caught two words that spilled like ice water down my spine: “… be sorry!”

  37

  A murmur swept the chapel in Francine’s wake, and every eye following her retreat.

  “Boy, you weren’t kidding when you said she was odd.”

  “That was way past odd. That was certifiable.” Connie resettled herself facing the front of the chapel. “Talk about bad timing. You’d think she could wait until his wife is in the ground.”

  “Wait for what?”

  She combed back an errant lock of strawberry blonde with her manicured fingers. “To pester Greg about the dog.”

  “The dog?” I had no idea what she was talking about.

  “She wants Pip.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Connie leaned toward me, her blue eyes gone a dull gray. “I heard her talking to Greg before you got here. She said that as Pip’s breeder she should get him back.” A responsible breeder would be willing to take her puppy back at any age if he wasn’t wanted by his owner, but I had seen the love between Greg and Pip and knew he was more than just Abigail’s competition dog. He was family.

  “What did Greg say?”

  “He told her that Pip was staying right where he is.”

  Made sense to me. “Maybe she wanted to be sure he knew she’d take him if Greg didn’t want him?”

  “She wasn’t asking, she was telling.”

  _____

  The pastor talked about Abigail’s love of animals and her work with Border Collie Rescue, and Greg’s brother offered a brief eulogy, mostly about Abigail’s relationship to her dogs. It was fitting, upbeat, and twenty minutes long at the outside.

  I couldn’t see everyone from where we sat, but you’d have to be as deaf as the stained-glass saints to miss the mournful sobs and lamentations for “Poor, poor Abigail” emanating from Giselle’s pew. Even the pastor was giving her “tone it down” looks, but Giselle was oblivious. And loud.

  When it was all over and we were drifting out of the chapel, I whispered to Connie, “That was the most interesting assortment of music I’ve ever heard at a funeral.” A young soloist from the choir had filled the chapel at strategic points in the service with his rich tenor renditions of I Can See Clearly Now, I Hope You Dance, and Walking on Sunshine.

  “Greg said that Abigail left instructions with her will, including the music, and how she wanted to be dressed. Did you see her?”

  “Uh, no. I’m not all that keen on viewing dead people.”

  “Her favorite black obedience slacks, and her ‘Come Over to the Dark Side’ sweatshirt.” Connie grinned at me. “I guess the pastor had a hissy fit about that until Greg explained that the Dark Side means Border Collies.”

  “I bet.” I was thinking once again that there must have been a side to Abigail that I’d never seen—a side I would have liked.

  “She also wanted her favorite braided leash and photos of her dogs. I wonder what St. Peter will make of those when she presents them at the Pearly Gates?”

  “Forget the Gates. She’s going to the Bridge!” I meant the Rainbow Bridge, where pets are said to wait for their people to join them on the other side.

  38

  A half hour later, and despite Leo’s assistance, I laced up my brand new ninety-dollars-on-sale running shoes. No question, they were comfy. I loaded my bouncing Aussie into the back of the Caravan and drove to the River Greenway trail head on North River Road. The sky was a clean robin’s-egg blue, and the sign on the bank at Georgetown Square had given the temperature as sixty-seven degrees when I drove by on my way home from the funeral. A perfect day to find out whether my pricey new footwear made my back and knees feel better. Besides, a walk along the Maumee River would do us both some good.

  Our goal was a mileage marker two miles to the east. Jay trotted back and forth at the end of his retractable leash, marking here and sniffing there among the violets and spring beauties skirting the paved trail. We startled a great blue heron from his fishing spot on a sandbar, and watched his heavy liftoff and slow rise against a backdrop of stout beeches and silver-trunked sycamores on the opposite bank.

  I emptied my mind on the walk out, letting recent events go and reveling in the simple pleasures of a May day and companionable dog. Even without my other senses, my nose told me it was spring. The warm green scent of new-mown grass drifted to me from the farm to the north of the trail and mingled with the brown-black musk of damp soil and rotting bark. A pale, sweet, anonymous thread stitched itself in and out of the heavier scents, sweet and somehow disturbing. I had read somewhere that flowers want attention from both the loving bee and the scavenging fly, because both will carry pollen from bloom to bloom. So beneath the sweetness of tender blossom and heady scent lurks a hint of rot. Sex and death, entwined like lovers.

  I watched the silky surface of the river to my right, wending its way northeast to Toledo and on to Lake Erie, lazy and brown, like thick, dark tea. My Zen skills, minimal at the best of times, were exhausted by the time we reached the two-mile marker, and Abigail, Greg, Giselle, Suzette, Tom, and crabby old Aunt Ellie played hot potato with my thoughts for the forty minutes back. Who stood to gain by getting Abigail out of the picture? Greg? He’d inherit her money, and be rid of the constant nagging. Still, by all indications Greg adored his wife. Unless Connie was right about him and Suzette.

  An unwelcome question burrowed into my brain. What about Abigail’s long-lost cousin Tom? Even with Abigail dead, he wouldn’t get any of the family fortune, would he? Greg was Abigail’s legitimate heir, and Connie mentioned a will, so what could Tom have to gain? Revenge? That didn’t seem likely after all this time, but who knows how long vengeance can smolder in a human heart? I confess, I still entertain occasional revenge fantasies starring my ex-husband Chet, and it’s been twenty years since he left me with three maxed-out credit cards, an empty gas tank, and an enormous sense of relief that he was gone. Perhaps Tom relished his revenge, as the proverb recommends, served cold.

  Who else? Giselle? She’s smitten with the widower, and she turned onto the road to Weirdtown long ago. But murder? Desire blurs people’s vision, but could she really be so far off her rocker that she can’t see that Greg just isn’t interested?

  And what about Suzette? Would she kill over dogs and dog sports? Or to get Greg away from Abigail? How about two with one blow? And there was the matter of Abigail’s allegations about Suzette’s bitch, Fly. But all Suzette had to do was refer people to the online resources. They could see for themselves that when it came to health screening for breeding, Fly w
as cleared for takeoff. It would have been easier—and safer—to kill rumors with facts than to kill Abigail. Were Suzette and Greg involved, as Connie suggested? Judging by the diamond ring by her kitchen sink and her confused reaction to my questions about Fly’s intended consort, she certainly manifested all the signs that some sort of man-related business occupied her mind. But would Suzette kill for love?

  Love. Hormones. What troublemakers. I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one not looking for a lover when a vision of Tom’s broad shoulders and mischievous grin strolled into my thoughts. On its heels came an image of Chet before it all went wrong. No slouch in the good looks department, Chet. A cloud of sadness scudded across my mind. I shook off the sting behind my eyes and came back to the present, determined not to be sad, especially since I wasn’t entirely sure what brought the feeling on.

  We were almost out of the wooded portion of the Greenway when Jay darted across the blacktopped path and dove into some shrubbery, yanking me off the pavement. I sank to my ankle in soft, sticky clay, and the unmistakable stench of carrion crawled up my nose.

  I fumbled with the locking mechanism on the retractable leash and finally clicked it into position, for all the good it did by then. “Jay! Leave it!” I panted, pulling him backwards out of the brush. He turned toward me with a glob of gray fur and disintegrating flesh in his mouth and a delighted gleam in his eye.

  My left foot wrestled with the gooey clay for possession of my shoe, and lost. I stepped backward onto the pavement clad in two socks but only one shoe. I pulled Jay to me, snarled “drop it,” and clamped a hand across the top of his muzzle. No dice. He gave me a “Go find your own rotten squirrel” look. I squeezed his lips against his teeth, trying to get him to drop the stinky mess so I wouldn’t have to touch it. He loosened his grip, but not enough. I caught a lungful of air and held it, clamping my lips together and scrunching my nose against the stink. “Drop it!” I growled again, bending to grab the soft, wet mass from his mouth. I pitched it back toward the brush and shook my hand away from my body. “Yuch! That was disgusting.”

  Jay looked at me, and I told him to lie down and stay. He did, although he whined and gazed longingly toward the sprawl of crabgrass where the carcass had landed. I used my clean hand to search my pocket for a tissue. No luck. I swallowed the gorge that rose in my throat, and wiped my hand on a patch of grass, figuring it was better than nothing. I crouched on the pavement, reached cautiously toward my shoe, and took hold of the back of it. Pulled. It resisted at first, then began a slow slide toward me, and came free at last with a sucking plop. I fell back onto my butt and wrinkled my nose at the fat clump of yellow-gray clay that encased my no-longer-brand-new shoe.

  Jay crossed his paws and squinted at me, panting and smiling. “Very funny,” I said, using a stick to scrape off as much of the sticky gunk as I could. My sock was wet and muddy, so I peeled it off, stashed it in a plastic poop bag, and shoved my bare foot into my shoe. At least the inside wouldn’t be ruined for now. I picked up the leash, released Jay from his stay, repeated the “Leave it” command, and stomped toward the van. Nothing like a dead rodent and a pound of wet clay to cap off a nice walk on a spring day.

  39

  The thought of what might be dancing around on my squirrel hand had me itchy by the time we got home. I scrubbed and rinsed in the hottest water I could stand until my hands looked like lobster claws. Jay, ever the student of odd human behavior, followed my movements, brown eyes focused and ears pricked. He crossed his paws and grinned when I told him, “I know one dog who won’t be kissing me for a week!”

  Goldie would have pointed out that I was having a lovely time on my walk until I let my mind veer away from my own concerns and into other people’s business. Still, I’m nosey by nature, so I settled in at the computer, checked my e-mail, and decided to find out a little about Tom Saunders, who was arguably making himself my business.

  I started with a search for ethnobotany, which yielded an interesting assortment of links. Lots of websites devoted to saving the world’s rainforests. Information for science teachers. New Age sites on herbs of all kinds. So he’s a New Age conservationist? I googled Tom Saunders. Googling Tom Saunders sounds like fun! The little demon was back at my left ear. Be that as it may, it wouldn’t hurt to know something about him, countered Little Ms. Cautious on my right.

  I found his page among the university’s faculty web pages. There was a nice shot of Tom in front of some enormous plant in a greenhouse, and a short biography giving his academic pedigree. B.S. in botany and chemistry from Purdue. Masters in anthropology, Indiana. Ph.D., anthro, Michigan. Dissertation title: Flesh of the Gods: Ceremonial Use of Psychedelic Entheogenic Mushrooms in Oaxaca. Whoa! I flashed back to reading Carlos Casteneda in my wild youth.

  I went back to my search results and scanned the first page of links to see if there was anything else of interest. Mostly they went to conference sites where he was listed as a speaker, and some continuing studies courses from a couple years earlier, including one on native plants of Indiana.

  At the very bottom of the list was an odd one, a six-year-old obituary for a Rachel Saunders. I clicked on the link. Rachel Holtz Saunders, 68, died Monday at her residence in Fort Wayne. I skimmed over her two-paragraph biography, but read and re-read the rest. Survived by a son, Thomas Saunders, of Fort Wayne, a daughter, Nancy Saunders Wilson, of Wilmington, North Carolina, a grandson, Tommy Saunders, of Bloomington, Indiana. Since Tom was the only son, Tommy must be his son. College student? Bloomington is home to Indiana University’s main campus, so it seemed likely. I realized with a start that I knew nothing about Tom’s life away from dog sports, let alone his possible motives for, well, anything. There was also mention of a sister, Carissa Holtz Schwartz. That rang a bell. I ran to the kitchen and pulled the newspaper recycling bin from the pantry, fishing around for obituaries from the past couple of days. There it was, Thursday’s News-Sentinel—obituary for Abigail Schwartz Dorn, daughter of Carissa Holtz Schwartz. I left the papers where they were and returned to my computer, backtracking to the biography for Rachel Saunders, where I found Daughter of Eloise Holtz, founder of the Aunt Ellie’s Bakery chain.

  So Connie was correct. Abigail’s mother and Tom’s mother were sisters, but Abigail’s mother inherited Aunt Ellie’s entire wad. Oh-mygod! my guardian angel screeched into my right ear. Tom is an expert on poisons! Tom got screwed out of a fortune! The little twerp was practically hysterical.

  Oh please. The devilish voice of reason checked in. Just because he could’ve and had a motive, doesn’t mean he did. Then again, it doesn’t mean he didn’t, either. I sat in front of the computer screen and batted the possibilities back and forth for a quarter of an hour. Jay snored softly, his chin warm and solid across my instep.

  40

  The rest of the afternoon passed quietly and I got a lot of work done. I even sorted a pile of papers and threw half of them away. The rest I piled back onto the desk. Okay, so I’m organizationally challenged. I’m trying, but recovery from lifelong messiness is a slow process. I’ve thought about hiring a professional, but I’d have to get organized first so she could sort me out. At four o’clock I fed Jay, and the two of us went outside for some fresh air.

  “Janet!” called a cheery voice. “How are ya?” Goldie came to the fence. She peeled her dirt-encrusted work gloves from her hands and drew a forearm across her glistening forehead. The knees of her jeans were capped with drying muck and grass stains, and her faded denim shirt was rumpled and streaked with mud. She’s the happiest looking woman I know, although I did notice that the delicate skin beneath her eyes still looked bruised, and dark hollows burrowed into her cheeks.

  “Hey, what’s up? How’s the garden?”

  “Grow, grow, grow.”

  “And you? Are you okay, Goldie? You look tired.”

  “Say, remember I told you I knew your Tom from somewhere?”
>
  Okay, I thought, so we’re still not going to discuss how she is. “He’s not my Tom, Goldie.” I could feel the heat rising in my face. Damn! “He’s just a friend. That’s all.”

  “Sure. I can see that in the way your face gets red when you think of him.”

  “I’m having a hot flash.”

  “My point precisely. It’s time you put away your widow’s weeds.”

  “I’m not a widow.”

  “My other point.” She adjusted one of the pins holding her braids in place. “Anyway, I knew I knew Tom, but I couldn’t place him. He used to have a beard. And of course he was younger since it was, what was it, ten years ago?”

  “What? When?”

  “Oh, when I took the class. And he was very good—great class, he did a wonderful job of pulling together material from different disciplines, you know, history, botany, psychology. He’s an anthropologist, you know. Actually an ethnobotanist. Fascinating stuff.”

  “Yes, I know, Goldie. I mean, I know he teaches anthropology.” I love her dearly, but getting information from Goldie can be like riding a luge down the rabbit hole. “What class are you talking about?”

  “It was called, oh dear, it’s been a few years, let’s see,” she stood silent for a moment. Her soft gray eyes seemed to look through me, then glinted in the sun as she found what she was searching for. “Yes! That was it! It was right before Halloween, you know. I think it was four sessions, but maybe only three. Wonderful class. He really knows his stuff.”