“What?”
Not that I had expected some kind of psychic connection between the dog and his former master to manifest itself where Colt had taken his last breaths. But if some bloodhound in Fozzie had picked up a trail…
I ran to keep up with him, almost tripping over a blackberry vine snaking around a short stump.
“Criminy!” I exclaimed, my adrenaline spiking while the barking intensified. “What’d you find?”
No sooner than the words came out of my mouth I saw a squirrel scamper up a tree.
“Really, dog? We have better things to chase after here than a squirrel.”
A barking Rufus, running up to the fence, appeared to echo my sentiments.
That’s when Fozzie gave up on the squirrel and upped the volume of the barking chorus at the fence.
“Time to go.” Before the six-foot-six Dog living in the little apartment above the office came out here with another baseball bat.
I heard a door slam. “Rufus!”
Uh-oh.
“Fozzie, come!” Yanking on his leash while he continued his barking tirade, I tried to pull sixty pounds of dead weight toward the street.
“Shut up, Rufus,” Georgie shouted over the decibel level of the dogs.
Crap! It was bad enough that I was sneaking around the scene of the crime with a dog as my witness. I didn’t want any humans to see me doing it, especially the one charged with the crime.
“Come on!” I grabbed Fozzie’s collar to insert myself between the animals, and he nipped me.
I reared back, the fleshy skin below my wrist burning. “Crikey!”
“Rufus, down!”
While Fozzie growled at the new addition on the other side of the fence, I met the gaze of George Bassett Junior.
“You okay, Char?”
“Yeah, I…uh…” I needed a believable lie, pronto.
Not that I made a habit of lying to my friends, but complete honesty wouldn’t serve me well at this moment. “My dog and I are still getting acquainted.”
Georgie pointed at my hand. “Let me see.”
I held it out to him.
“He broke the skin. You’d better come in.” Without waiting for a response, he headed toward the gate with Rufus hot on his heels.
I glared at Fozzie. “Thanks a lot.” Not only did I need to come up with a good reason to be on the property, I needed to do it having suddenly acquired a dog. Colt Ziegler’s dog.
I could only hope that man and beast had never met one another before. Otherwise, this conversation was going to become very complicated.
Fozzie’s ears relaxed, his tongue lolling as if nothing had happened.
“You don’t look very sorry,” I said, leading him to the gate.
He ignored me, probably because he was smart enough to realize that this dog-walker wouldn’t be in his life after tomorrow.
As we stepped through the narrow opening, I pulled up on Fozzie’s leash to remind him who was supposed to be in charge. “Mind your manners.”
Georgie rolled the gate shut and then leaned over to stroke Fozzie’s ear. “He looks like a handful. When did you get him?”
“Technically, he’s not mine. I’m just dog-sitting.”
Georgie nodded. “Part chow, maybe?”
I had no idea. I was just relieved that he didn’t seem to recognize Fozzie. “Maybe.”
“Where’s your dog?” I asked, hearing barking as we made on our way to the garage, but it sounded far away.
“I put him inside the apartment. Didn’t want any trouble in case the two of ‘em didn’t get along.”
I couldn’t blame him. He’d seen enough trouble today.
Georgie turned on the water at the utility sink to the left of the sedan with its hood open, handed me a bar of soap, and took Fozzie’s leash. “Wash up.”
He wrapped the leash around the car’s bumper. “Sit.”
Fozzie immediately plopped his butt down on the cement floor.
“Wow, I’m impressed.” I was also more than a little envious at the quick rapport that had been established.
“You gotta show ‘em who’s boss.”
The bigger dog in this garage was clearly the dominant male. I knew it, Fozzie knew it, and after at least two tussles with him, Colt should have known it too.
So, what had possessed him to go up against Georgie one last time?
It seemed so improbable, much like the two little puncture wounds just below my wrist.
It just shouldn’t have happened, today or any day.
“Excuse me, Chow Mein,” Georgie said, using the nickname Steve gave me back when the three of us shared the same third-grade classroom.
Shutting off the water, I grabbed a paper towel and stepped aside to let him pull a first aid kit from the shelf above the sink. “It’s not like I’m bleeding to death.”
Ignoring me, he took the kit to a workbench, where he silently waited for me.
“Okay, if you insist.”
Again, no response.
The silence was fine with me. After all the years I’d known him, it didn’t feel the least bit uncomfortable, but as Georgie motioned to the stool next to him, the tightening in my chest told me that feeling was about to change.
He took my hand, bringing it close to inspect the wound. “Doesn’t look too bad. Does it hurt?”
Not as much as what I had to ask him was going to hurt. “It’s nothing.”
Tearing open a packet, he wiped my red, raw skin with an antiseptic towelette.
I flinched a little, but he gently held my hand in place with his big mitt. “Don’t want it to get infected,” he said. Then, with the skill of a nurse who had dressed the wounds of a thousand patients, he applied ointment and a bandage.
He gave me a goofy smile as if to tell me everything was going to be fine.
I stood to give him a hug. “Thanks, Dog.”
Patting my back like a wrestler who wanted out of the hold I had him in, he pulled away. “I should probably get back to work. We’re really behind with… Well, you know.”
Yeah, and I needed to know more. “Georgie, could I ask you a couple of questions about what happened last night?”
He shook his head. “I have to give you the same answer I gave a reporter who came snooping around here earlier.”
“I’m not trying to snoop. I need to know more facts so I can help you.”
“Doesn’t matter. My lawyer says I can’t talk to anybody about it but her.”
“I understand, but maybe you could confirm something your dad already told me about Colt Ziegler trying to break into that white limo.”
“I don’t know.” He raked his sausage fingers through his shock of red hair. “My dad probably shouldn’t have said anything.”
“But he did, so I already know about it. But what I don’t understand is why Colt was breaking into the car that he brought here.”
“How the heck should I know?”
“Well, did he try to explain?”
Georgie smirked. “He was too busy running.”
“From you and Rufus.”
“Just me.”
“And your bat.”
He gave me a chilling stare. “I should get back to work.”
I touched the sleeve of his coverall. “I don’t care that you had a bat. You were defending your property and the cars that were left in your care. Just tell me, did you hit Colt with that bat?”
“No,” he stated, out of the garage and marching toward the gate.
But George Senior had told me that some contact had been made, so that No didn’t jive.
“Wait up!” I untied Fozzie and ran to the gate. “Say it to my face. Did you hit him in the head with that bat?”
“No!”
Was that fear pulling at his eyebrows? Fear of being found out? Fear of what he had done?
“Did you get a good-enough look?” he barked, a bead of sweat trickling down his temple “No!”
The whites of his eyes were painted w
ith anxiety, his pupils twice what they had been when he was bandaging my hand.
Something had happened in the exchange he had with Colt. Something bad that he didn’t want me to know.
I wrapped my arms around him while my heart shattered. “Take care, Georgie, and thanks for fixing me up.”
A minute later, I stood with Fozzie at the locked gate and watched one of my oldest friends stalk away in deafening silence. “Hope your dad got you a really good lawyer, ‘cause you’re gonna need one.”
Chapter Eight
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, I opened the door to my apartment and Fozzie’s thick tail didn’t clear the doorway before he started barking at the guy making himself at home on my loveseat.
“It’s okay,” I said, unhooking his leash. “That man won’t bite.”
Steve turned off the TV and frowned at the dog growling at him from the parquet entryway. “The heck I won’t.” He turned that frown on me. “What’s with Cujo?”
“His name’s Fozzie, and I’m sort of dog-sitting.”
Steve’s chocolate brown gaze sharpened. “Sort of?”
“Until I find him a new home.”
“That wouldn’t be because he recently lost his owner, would it?”
“Something like that.” With Fozzie anchoring himself to my side, I filled his water bowl at the kitchen sink.
When I turned to set it down, Steve was leaning against the refrigerator and Fozzie had backed into the corner.
“What are you doing, Char?” Steve asked, arms folded across his solid chest.
“I’m giving him some water. Do you mind?”
“I mean, what are you doing with Colt Ziegler’s dog?”
Taking Steve by the arm, I led him back to the loveseat. “I had to interview his neighbors, and when one of them mentioned animal control, and her kid started crying, I thought I should see if Colt’s sister would take him.”
Staring at the big black dog poking his head out of the kitchen, Steve blew out a breath. “This is not your problem to solve.”
Maybe then, but it was my problem now.
I rested my head on his shoulder. “It’s just one night.”
“Uh-huh.”
After several beats of silence in which Fozzie inched closer, I reached out my bandaged hand. “Just come over and say hello.”
He made it as far as the garage-sale coffee table I had acquired last month, and then crawled under it as if to shelter himself from the more disapproving human in the room.
“I think you’re making him nervous,” I said to Steve.
He yawned and unfolded himself from the loveseat. “I can fix that problem pretty quickly.”
Both Fozzie and I sat up. “You’re leaving? You just got here.”
“It’s been a long day, and it’s not over yet.”
“You have to go back to work?”
“I had to join the captain at a press conference today, so I’ve got a bunch of paperwork to finish up.”
I pushed off the loveseat. “To process Little Dog’s arrest?”
“That’s not the only case I’ve got, Chow Mein.”
I wrapped him in my arms. “Sorry. I know it’s been a miserable day all around.”
He kissed the top of my head. “There’s a leftover slice of pizza in the box on the counter, if that will help you feel better.”
“Did it help you?”
“Nope.”
I kissed Steve good-bye and then turned to the sound of Fozzie’s toenails on the parquet kitchen floor.
Short of jumping up on the Formica counter, his snout couldn’t reach the small white box, but I also didn’t want to ask for any more trouble today.
“Pizza isn’t for dogs,” I told him as I popped the box into the microwave.
It also wasn’t for a girl who needed to lose another five pounds to fit into her bridesmaid dress for her mother’s wedding. But it had been a really crappy day, and I wanted to believe that an application of gooey cheese could salve the sting.
A minute later, Fozzie followed me when I carried the box to the dining table sandwiched between the kitchen and the living room, and took a seat.
Staring at the white box, he sat and licked his chops.
“Not dog food. People food.”
Surprisingly, I heard no whining or whimpering. He simply appeared to be waiting as if he had been trained that exhibiting patience would pay off in edible dividends.
“This is a familiar routine for you, huh?”
Fozzie answered with a woof. Not sounding so much like begging, but more as an appropriate response to a cue he recognized.
“Sorry, boy,” I said, reaching for the slice of Steve’s favorite pepperoni and sausage combo. “You may have been taught to sing for your supper, but if you’ll recall, you already ate.”
Technically so had I, and the congealing cheese was rapidly losing its appeal.
I dropped the pizza slice back in the grease-stained box, my imagination conjuring an image of a battered Colt Ziegler as the life slowly oozed out of him.
Recoiling, I clutched the edge of the table to vanquish the picture from my mind and felt Fozzie’s rough tongue drag over my bandage.
At first I had thought he was offering me a little comfort. Then I realized that he just wanted to lick the grease from my fingers.
“Not so interested in biting me now, are you?” I asked, enjoying the distraction of his black tongue as it worked.
He wagged his tail, his pointy ears pinned back.
“I know. You’re sorry.”
I picked up the pizza box and Fozzie followed me into the kitchen, where I dumped my would-be salve in the sink.
His mouth gaped open as if I had committed culinary sacrilege.
“Trust me, it’s not going to make anything about today better. We’re still gonna have to find you a new home.”
He gave me another soft woof.
“Fine. You had a rough day, too.”
I picked off three of the pepperoni slices and fed them to Fozzie one by one.
“Happy now?”
I could have sworn I saw him grin before he trotted off to make himself comfy in the living room.
Yeah, he was happy. And I had the feeling that I had just been schooled by a dog.
* * *
After tossing and turning for a couple of hours, I padded into the living room around two and watched Sleepless in Seattle for the umpteenth time.
Sure, I lived over thirty miles away in Port Merritt.
Close enough.
Like Steve a few weeks back when a Seattle station was featuring films shot in the region, Fozzie fell asleep long before Meg Ryan found her happily ever after with Tom Hanks.
Not me. I may have had a pillow and a nice soft quilt with me on that loveseat, but the moment I’d drift off to la-la land I’d envision Colt Ziegler lying in those weeds. Worse, a tall faceless man stood over him holding a bat.
Dear God, I didn’t want it to be Georgie.
But since he couldn’t lie to me with any conviction, I feared that Ben Santiago would attack this case like a shark smelling blood in the water. And by the time the prosecution rested, no one would doubt the identity of the batter who was up that night: George Bassett Junior.
I threw back the quilt and scrubbed my face. “Jeez Louise.” Georgie was in deeper than deep doo-doo.
When I turned off the TV, Fozzie cracked open an eye.
“Don’t even try to tell me you were watching that,” I said, stepping around him to get to the kitchen.
I started brewing a pot of coffee and noticed he was standing at the door.
“You realize that it’s not even four-thirty yet, right?”
Fozzie didn’t budge.
“There’s no way that Colt took you out this early.”
He pawed at the door.
“Fine. Give me five minutes. Are you a runner? Because we might as well get some exercise while we’re out there.”
He looked back at me and huffed.
“Yes, I know you’re a dog. Stupid question.”
* * *
Yawning, I parked in front of Ray’s Feed and Supply and dragged my butt out of the car.
“Be good,” I said, pointing at the fur ball in the passenger seat that had run me ragged four hours earlier. “I’m just going to ask a few questions and then we’ll go visit your new mom.”
At least I hoped Colt’s sister Kendra would be willing to take Fozzie.
I knew that she and her husband owned a house near the south shore of Merritt Bay—a quiet pastoral neighborhood lined with horse and bike trails, and where dogs chased squirrels to their hearts’ content.
Fozzie would love it there. Couldn’t say the same for the squirrels, but they were the least of my concerns today.
After I talked to Kendra, I needed to schedule an appointment with Eric Caldwell and finish interviewing Colt’s neighbors. With any luck, also some of his friends. But first up was Ray Ortiz.
I’d always liked Mr. Ortiz. All the kids did. He’d have a twinkle in his ebony eyes, and a kindly smile on his shoe-leather face when he’d treat us from the stash of candy he kept under the register for his hypoglycemic wife.
The shoe leather was well-worn now, and I didn’t expect to be handed any treats, but the same smile greeted me as I stepped through the door.
“Charmaine,” he said, standing at a rotating display of brightly colored seed packets. “What brings you here this beautiful morning?”
Considering the reason for my visit, he seemed a little too chipper.
He doesn’t know.
I labored to keep my smile from slipping as I walked past an aisle stacked with pungent sacks of dog and cat food.
“Something for your granny’s garden?” He waved a packet of cucumber seeds at me. “We’ve got a sale running this week that she might be interested in.”
“I’ll let her know. Actually…” I lowered my voice as a customer headed to the register with Seth, the other employee I’d seen with Colt the last time I was here. “I wonder if I could speak with you in private.”
Mr. Ortiz raised a heavy silver brow. “Of course. We can talk out back.”
He said a few words to Seth, who shot me a wary glance, and then I followed Mr. Ortiz through a back room filled with mulch and fertilizer to a redwood picnic table covered by a faded green and white awning.
Dogs, Lies, and Alibis Page 6