Death Comes to a Retreat (Book 4 Molly Masters Mysteries)

by Leslie O'Kane

  Jim looked a little pale with tension. Tall, thin, and handsome, he was wearing a yellow Izod shirt and black slacks, neater than his normal weekend attire, because of his having been on a business trip. He probably looked perfectly fine to a stranger’s eye, but his face was pale and damp with perspiration. His dark hair seemed to have considerably more white hairs than he’d had a mere five days ago. He knelt, and both kids rushed into his arms, crying “Daddy!” All the while he kept his eyes on me. He rose, still gripping both children so that their legs dangled. He said, “Sorry if I woke everybody. Couldn’t find my house key. I rented a car at D.I.A. That took almost as long as my flight from Dallas. Are you all right?”

  I nodded and gave him a reassuring smile. Inwardly, my emotions were on a rampage. While my relief at having my husband here was considerable, I felt at once guilty for spoiling his business trip, hateful at whoever had killed Allison, resentful that Tommy was still standing near Jim as if to say, Now that us men are here, we can fix this mess the little women have gotten themselves into, and, while I would never admit this, aloud, aroused at the concept that my husband had rushed across the country to my aid.

  While Jim lowered the children, I fixed a glare on Tommy. He was oblivious. Meanwhile, Lauren, never a slouch in the area of knowing when couples should be alone, came upstairs, said, “Hi, Jim. Glad you’re here,” grabbed Tommy by the hand, and said, “Good night. We’ll see you in the morning.”

  An hour or so later, after the children had gone to bed and Jim had hastily unpacked, we made love. Afterward, it occurred to me that if Jim’s radar for detecting when I was “in the mood” were only half as good when it came to discerning my other moods, marriage would be a snap.

  After church on Sunday morning, I borrowed Jim’s rental car—my own having been confiscated by the police—and herded Karen and Nathan into the backseat. Just as I was backing down the driveway, Tommy, who’d been out to breakfast with Lauren, pulled in. I waited as he parked and trotted over to me.

  “Where are you all going?” he asked in a friendly tone.

  “We’re going to meet Allison’s former dog.” I paused. “Which is not to say that Allison’s dog has turned into a cat, or anything.”

  “Think that’s wise?” Tommy scanned the empty street as he spoke, his freckled hands gripping my car door through the window. “The dog’s at a suspect’s house. Won’t look good, your bein’ there and all.”

  “Surely the police will find it even more suspicious if we act as though we’re under house arrest. I’ll be with my kids and a puppy, for heaven’s sake. What could look more innocent?”

  “Uh-huh,” he said slowly, eyeing me. “Got that information you were askin’ about.” He took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket.

  He was wearing the same flannel shirt and jeans he’d had on yesterday. Unlike temperatures in the mountains, the weather in Boulder called for shorts and tank tops, but then I’d often seen him in long-sleeved uniforms on hot, humid days. I glanced at the sheet of paper—two paragraphs alongside a small picture of the deceased. I thanked Tommy, stashed the page in my glove box, and drove off before he could insist upon accompanying us.

  Julie’s neighborhood was close to mine. Our houses were both in the northeastern outskirts of Boulder where the view of the Flatirons is more distant and the effects of the New Age, granola-crunching liberalism associated with Boulder are more distant as well. After having lived here for almost fifteen years, I knew that my neighbors shared the same general areas of concern as all suburbanites; the setting and climate just happen to be exceptionally beautiful here.

  As I wound my way through Julie’s neighborhood, I tried to orient myself. She lived a couple of doors down from Allison, who’d said something about Lois’s house being nearby, too. And Celia Wentworth, I knew, lived on this street as well. I glanced in the rearview mirror. There were no signs of my police escort, which was, I suppose, good news. We found the address, pulled into the driveway, and Julie opened the door and ushered us inside.

  There really was such a thing as love at first sight. One look at the adorable Betty Cocker, and I just knew she was meant to be my dog. She had sad, beautiful black eyes. Her fur was an unkempt sea of soft, red-and-blond fluff that would be the envy of most hair-dye manufacturers. It was highlighted by a little white star on her chest. She saw me and her stubby tail started wagging so hard her entire back half wagged with it.

  I decided to call our new puppy BC for short.

  The house, like Allison’s two doors down, was a large, lovely home that had been built onto its tiny lot as though the concept of privacy were irrelevant. For all of the house’s nice features, the fenced lot was small and overrun by her dogs: two Dobermans in addition to Teak and a cocker.

  “Betty is the puppy of my pet Cocker spaniel,” Julie explained to the children.

  Karen and Nathan sat down, and the puppy, tail wagging, raced between them and took turns hopping into each of their laps and licking their cheeks. We left the three of them to their joy and moved into Julie’s cluttered TV room to talk.

  “Well, she’s adorable, Julie. I’m just worried about how I’ll be able to get her back to Carlton. Plus, first thing this morning I told my husband we were—”

  “Your husband’s here?”

  “He got in last night.”

  “That’s the reason I can’t keep Betty. My husband’s quite a bit older than I am. He came into the marriage with the Dobermans, and the only way we could think to make it work was to keep my dog-breeding business at a minimum and never keep any of our dogs’ puppies.”

  “What does your husband do?” I asked out of idle curiosity.

  “He’s retired. He just tinkers around all day.” She paused and looked wistfully in the direction of the other room, where the children’s delighted peals of laughter resounded. “All children deserve to own a dog.”

  “You don’t have kids?”

  She shook her head. “My husband’s got four from previous marriages. So, what do you say? Will you take her?”

  “Jim said he’d have to think about it. That actually means no, but I can always pretend not to have understood. Are you absolutely sure Allison didn’t have some niece or someone else to take the dog?”

  “I’m sure. When she first got the dog, just a month or so after Richard had been killed, she said to me, ‘If something ever happens to me, I guess you’ll have to take Betty.’”

  “Why would she even think to suggest that?” I asked, thinking out loud. “It’s tantamount to buying furniture and telling the salesperson who your heirs are.”

  Julie merely shrugged, but she averted her eyes as if she knew more than she wanted to share.

  My curiosity piqued, I asked, “Did Allison ever receive any death threats, Julie?”

  “Death threats?” Julie asked, with not-quite-convincing surprise. “No. Not that she told me about.”

  “Meaning that she might not have told you if she’d received one?”

  Julie nodded, still avoiding eye contact. “There were lots of things we knew about Allison that she tried to keep from us.”

  “Such as?”

  A look of despair flickered across her features, replaced by a vapid smile. “Nothing in particular. Just things, in general. Like her marital troubles. You know.”

  I nodded, able to tell from Julie’s body language that there was no point in pressing—she’d said as much as she cared to on this subject.

  The kids and puppy rushed into the room. BC was a ball of canine delight, darting among the four of us. “Can we keep her?” Karen asked.

  “If it’s okay with your dad.”

  Karen leaped a foot into the air, hugged the puppy, hugged me, and finally hugged her brother, who said in a droll voice, “Dad’s going to say no.”

  While the kids “walked” Betty up and down the block on her leash, Julie and I tried to jam the dog carrier—a plastic crate with a latching-metal grate into the backseat of our small re
ntal car and still leave enough room for both children. We finally managed.

  Though uncomfortable with the subject of Allison, Julie had seemed willing to discuss Richard Kenyon’s murder with me. I asked, “What did Allison tell you about Richard’s death? Did she ever express any theories?”

  Julie stared off into the distance. “She said that the thief who did it was killing his own kind. I asked what she meant by that, but she said something about that being a Pandora’s box, and that was all she’d say.”

  The wording was the same as Allison had given me on the night of her death, so I took Julie at her word. “Did you know Allison and Richard fairly well?”

  “Nobody ‘knew’ Allison. She lived almost entirely within herself.” She smiled, which dimpled her cheeks. “I have to get back to Teak and the puppies. She had a fifth puppy after we got home yesterday, and I want to keep a close eye on them all, just in case.”

  I caught sight of a curtain moving in the house next door, as if someone had been watching us and then backed away. “Who lives there?”

  “Celia Wentworth. She lives in that big house alone.” Julie apologized for having to rush off, then did just that.

  I was sorely tempted to go next door, not because I relished the thought of spending time with Celia Wentworth, but because the more I thought about it, the more she struck me as the most likely killer. None of the others should even have been at the retreat, and Celia had been the one who manipulated everything so that she could choose the participants.

  Her door opened just as the kids neared. Celia trilled, “Molly. Are you adopting Betty?”

  “So it appears.”

  “Oh, you’re so lucky. That is just the sweetest puppy. I so wanted to take her myself, but I have a ten-year-old Boston terrier who doesn’t get along with other dogs.”

  Karen, who obviously didn’t like Celia at all, was watching her as if poised for flight. Celia donned those sugary tones of hers and said, “Hello, Karen. Nathan. I’ll bet you’re thrilled to have a puppy.”

  Karen nodded. Nathan turned his back on Celia and muttered that he and the puppy would go wait in the car.

  “Molly, I wanted to apologize for my behavior yesterday. Everything was so hectic and unpleasant, I forgot myself.”

  She gave me a plastic smile, then returned her gaze to the children. “Oh. You know what? I’ve got two or three pictures of Betty from when she was first born. Would you like to have them?”

  Karen looked at me first to see if I’d object, which I didn’t, then said yes. Celia’s gesture was, in my opinion, one she needed to make to maintain her erroneous self-image as a thoughtful person.

  “Let me get them. Come inside. I’ll even give you some doggie biscuits. My Bruno won’t eat them, but maybe Betty will.”

  She pulled open the drawer in the end table beside me and grabbed a stack of pictures. She dropped one in the process, which I retrieved for her. It showed her arm in arm with a dark, handsome, bearded man, at whom she was gazing with unmasked adoration.

  “Is that your husband?” I asked as I handed it back to her.

  She blushed and snatched the photograph from me. “Who? Oh, the picture? No, no. That was just a friend of a friend. My husband’s been gone for almost ten years.”

  “Natural causes?”

  “Yes. Incompatibility is a natural cause. We got married too young.”

  She gave me two shots of a tiny Betty Cocker. Karen said, “Let me see” and sprang up on tiptoe. I handed them to her.

  To my obligatory thank you, Celia said, “Oh, don’t mention it. I truly am sorry for everything about this past weekend. If only we hadn’t gotten our signals crossed, none of this would have happened. Allison might still be alive.”

  Perhaps inspired by the mention of Allison, a shocking realization hit me. We said a hasty goodbye—Karen accepting an open but full box of dog biscuits—and got into our car.

  The children bickered over who got to hold the dog, but I was too preoccupied to intrude. I grabbed the sheet of paper in my glove box and stared at the photograph. The caption below the picture read: Victim: Richard Kenyon.

  It was the man in Celia’s photograph.

  Chapter 7

  In Sickness and in Health. With Puppy or Without

  We headed home, our newest addition whining and yipping in the backseat. Karen was thrilled and all but crying with her delight. Beside me, Nathan sat with his arms crossed, angry that he’d lost the battle to be Holder of the Dog. I Knew Jim would be less than delighted that we went out and got a puppy without his consent.

  My thoughts—a veritable froth of questions about Celia’s relationship with Allison’s late ex-husband, plus rationalizations and excuses about the puppy—were interrupted when Karen asked, “Why does that lady always talk to us like we’re two years old?”

  “Which lady? Celia Wentworth?”

  “Yeah,” Karen said. Through the rearview mirror, I could see her nodding, ignoring BC’s attempts to lick her chin. “She acts so nice around me and Nathan it’s like she thinks we’re great, then two seconds later, it’s like we don’t even exist. And she wears so much perfume you can barely breathe.”

  “I’ll bet she poops,” Nathan growled.

  I had no response to that remark and merely gripped the steering wheel tighter.

  “I’ll bet Betty poops in the house when we’re not home,” he went on, still surly.

  Relieved that he meant the dog, I answered, “Julie said that BC is housebroken.”

  “What does that mean? That she already broke somebody’s house? I’ll bet she jumps on the table and eats our food right off our plates.”

  “We’ll train her not to do that.”

  We pulled into the driveway, and Nathan said under his breath, “The dog likes Karen more than me.” Nathan’s lower lip was quivering with barely controlled despair.

  “Tell you what, Nathan. You can be the official dog trainer and train BC to stay off the furniture.” I operated the garage door opener, and we parked.

  For a moment, none of us moved, except BC, who, desperate to get out of the car, was a flurry of furry motion in Karen’s arms. “Do you think Dad will be mad that we got a dog?” Karen asked.

  “I think your dad knows me well enough that if he really didn’t want us to get her, he would have come with us to prevent it.”

  Although that sounded good on the surface, much of the reason he hadn’t come was because he’d awakened with a low-grade fever. No sense worrying Karen unduly, though. We got out of the car, and the dog immediately dashed toward the door. The sight of her back end brought to mind an old Datsun of mine, which was missing one windshield wiper. The remaining metal stub would flutter back and forth madly, just like BC’s tail.

  What I needed now was a battle plan for presenting the news of my impulsive decision to Jim as gently as possible. “Okay. Let’s leave BC in the garage while—”

  My plan was foiled at its onset when Jim opened the door for us. BC rushed at him, licked both of his bare shins—Jim was wearing shorts and a T-shirt—then darted past him and into the house.

  Jim’s expression was abject horror.

  “Daddy!” Karen cried, hopping with excitement “Look what we got! Her name is Betty Cocker. Only Mom calls her BC for short instead of Betty ‘cuz she doesn’t want to confuse anybody named Betty in the neighborhood.” She ducked under Jim’s arm, and daughter and dog tumbled into a joyful hug on the family room floor. Nathan, still in the garage with me, was keeping a watchful eye on his dad. Nathan put his hands in his pockets and took a circuitous route around his father and into the house.

  Jim stepped toward me, the door banging shut behind him. “Molly! I said I needed time to think about it!”

  “I know. I’m sorry. You can still think about it while you’re getting to know her. I’ve told the kids we’ll take her back if you say no.”

  “Oh, sure. Let me be the villain and wrench her out of Karen’s loving arms.” He yanked the doo
r open and stormed inside, leaving me to stare after him.

  Karen wrapped her arms around Jim’s legs before he could pass. “Please can we keep her, Daddy? Puh-le-e-e-e-ease?”

  Jim sighed, then sent dagger looks over his shoulder at me.

  I gave him a sheepish smile. “Isn’t she cute?”

  Justifiably, he simply glowered at me. In the meantime, BC rolled over onto her back and looked at Jim expectantly.

  “She wants you to rub her tummy. I know it was absolutely reprehensible for me to get a dog without your okay. But let’s remember that we did agree we’d get a dog as soon as Karen turned ten, which was four months ago.”

  BC, her shiny black eyes focused directly on Jim, was smiling up at him, pawing the air playfully. Jim bent down to rub Betty Cocker’s tummy, sealing his fate.

  “It isn’t BC’s fault her owner died. She’s a puppy orphan. How could I refuse?”

  Karen, still on her knees, said, “Daddy? If we keep her I’ll do everything. I’ll brush her. I’ll pick up after her. I’ll feed her.”

  “Plus Julie gave me the portable kennel where she sleeps at night and a week’s worth of puppy food,” I added.

  Karen was now gesturing emphatically at Nathan for him to join her in pleading with their father. Nathan stopped his nervous pacing long enough to announce, “And Mom says she’s a housebreaker!”

  Jim rose. “All right. But it’s up to your mom to figure out how we get Betty Cocker back to New York with us.”

  The children’s cheers were halted when Jim said sternly, “Just remember, though, this dog belongs to you two. That means you have to do all of the work, and I’m not lifting a finger to help.”

  Jim was busy puppy-proofing the fence when the shrill ring of the phone broke the silence within our house. Lauren, Rachel, and Tommy had gone to a matinee, and Karen and Nathan were outside playing with BC. The voice on the other side of the phone wasted no time with a preamble.