Furbidden Fatality

by Deborah Blake

  “Good morning, Kari,” she said, looking up from her labors.

  “That’s a matter of opinion,” Kari said glumly. She tucked her purse into the cubby underneath the desk that was labeled with her name. Sara was very big on organization.

  “Ah,” the older woman said. “You’ve seen the newspaper.”

  “Suz called me down to the diner and showed it to me,” Kari said, sliding her butt onto the second stool. “It’s a disaster.”

  “Nonsense,” Sara said in a firm tone, tossing another file onto the top of the pile. “Hurricanes and forest fires are disasters. This is merely a minor bump in the road. Annoying, but hardly worth wasting energy worrying about.” She waved her hand in the general direction of the rear of the shelter. “If you want something to worry about, you can focus on the fact that we can’t open again until the sheriff allows us access to that back area so we can replace the fencing. Something he shows no sign of doing, I might add.

  “Or there’s this,” she said, handing Kari an official-looking envelope. “Apparently the new dog warden wants to come check on Buster.”

  A large lump formed in Kari’s throat as she read the letter. While not threatening, it wasn’t particularly reassuring either. “He says he is following up on all of Myers’s open cases. Especially the ones involving possible issues with public safety. He wants to come see the dog before he reschedules another court hearing. Darn it.” She sighed. “I have to admit, I was kind of hoping that without Myers, the whole thing would just go away.”

  Sara pursed her lips. “That was never going to happen, I’m afraid. What is the name of the new dog warden? Maybe it is someone I know.”

  “Um,” Kari looked at the bottom of the letter. “Jack Falco. I’ve never heard of him. Have you?”

  “Not that I recall,” Sara said, leafing through another folder and releasing a wave of musty-smelling aromas into the air. “Perhaps he’s new in town.”

  “Drat,” Kari said. “I guess we’ll have to wait and see what he’s like. He has to be an improvement over Bill Myers, right?” But she didn’t feel any less anxious about it.

  As she was getting ready to get up and get to work, Bryn came out of the back, slamming the door behind her. The other two women looked up, startled.

  “I can’t wait until we get that soundproofing,” Bryn said. “Those dogs are going to make me crazy with their barking. It’s like bedlam in there today.” She scowled at Kari. “They’re all going stir-crazy, not being able to get out into the yard. Two fifteen-minute walks a day aren’t enough for active dogs. We need that new fence.”

  Kari and Sara glanced at each other. Bryn was normally pretty even-tempered, and she had more patience with the animals than anyone else there.

  “I’m sorry,” Kari said. “You know I can’t get the fence put up until the crime scene is cleared.

  “A lot of help that is now,” Bryn said. “I spend so much time walking the dogs, I don’t have time to tend to anything else.” She grabbed two leashes down off the holder on the wall.

  “Jim and Emma are happy to walk the dogs during their shifts,” Sara said in a mild tone. “As am I, although I try not to take the very large ones, since they tend to yank me off my feet.”

  “Well, Jim and Emma aren’t here on Saturdays, are they?” Bryn said. “It’s just us, the early cleaning volunteers, and her.” She glared in Kari’s direction. “Daisy was a lot more help, that’s for sure.”

  Kari was taken aback by Bryn’s vehemence. Daisy still came in some days for a few hours, mostly to help them figure out the paperwork mess and help with the dogs, but she was trying to hand the reins over to Kari as much as possible. Kari had thought she’d been doing a pretty good job stepping into Daisy’s shoes, but maybe she wasn’t doing as well as she’d assumed.

  “That’s hardly fair,” Sara said, abandoning the files and standing up. “Daisy was here for a lot longer, and she built the whole place up from nothing, starting it out of her apartment before there was even an official space. Kari has only been around for a couple of weeks and she’s still getting up to speed. I think she has done remarkably well, all things considered.”

  “You know what’s not fair?” Bryn said, twisting the leashes in her hands. “They’re going to arrest my aunt for murdering Bill Myers. That’s not fair.” And she burst into tears.

  Eight

  Wait, what? They’re going to arrest Izzy?” Kari’s jaw dropped open. No wonder the poor girl was so upset. If Izzy was arrested, it would be a disaster for Bryn in more ways than one, since she lived at Izzy’s house rent-free, although Kari was pretty sure that wasn’t the girl’s major concern right now.

  Izzy was older than Kari by about twenty years and had started working at the library when Kari was in her teens. The library had always been a refuge for Kari, a place to escape from the family drama that stemmed from her father’s drinking, constant criticism, and bad temper, but when Izzy arrived, it became even more of one. The other woman had gone out of her way to recommend books she thought Kari would enjoy, let her sit in a back corner for hours doing her homework, and listened without judgment on the rare occasions when Kari was willing to admit that there was something wrong at home.

  Izzy was one of Kari’s favorite people in town. The thought that she might somehow be caught up in this murder unpleasantness made Kari’s stomach clench.

  Apparently Sara had been right—the newspaper article was the least of their worries.

  Ever practical, Sara guided Bryn to a chair, handed her a tissue, and sat down next to her. “Why don’t you start from the beginning,” she suggested. “That might be more helpful than picking a fight with Kari, who clearly isn’t part of the problem.”

  “She found the body,” Bryn muttered, sounding for a moment like someone ten years younger.

  Sara snorted. “Well, you can hardly blame her for that. It’s not as though she murdered him and left his corpse there on purpose.”

  “Are we sure about that?” Bryn blew her nose noisily and sighed. “Sorry, Kari. Of course you didn’t. I’m just really upset about my aunt.”

  “Why didn’t you mention this when you got here?” Sara asked.

  Bryn bit her lip. “I kept hoping it was just a bad dream. And really, how do you start that conversation? ‘By the way, they hauled my aunt off to jail this morning. How is your day going?’”

  Kari thought about sitting in the diner looking at the newspaper. “Not great, actually. But you know, if they arrested your aunt, I would have thought everyone in the diner would have been talking about it.”

  Bryn glared at her briefly before sighing again. “They didn’t exactly arrest her,” she admitted. “But they did insist on her going to the station with them, and they asked her all kinds of questions. I’m not really mad at you. I’m mad at myself. It’s all my fault.”

  “The beginning is starting to look better and better,” Sara murmured. “Why don’t I make you a cup of tea, and you can tell us why the police suspect your aunt of having something to do with Bill Myers’s death.”

  * * *

  * * *

  She was heard threatening him,” Bryn admitted a couple of minutes later. “I love my aunt, but she’s not exactly subtle. It amazes me, because at the library, she is always the heart and soul of politeness, but outside of work, if you get in her face, she’s not going to hold back.”

  “And Bill Myers got in her face?” Kari asked. She knew Izzy, even considered her a friend although they didn’t see as much of each other these days, but she’d never seen the woman lose her temper. She found it hard to imagine.

  “Not exactly,” Bryn said. “He got in mine.”

  Ah, Kari thought. That makes a lot more sense. Izzy adored her only niece, and Kari could definitely imagine the otherwise well-mannered librarian jumping to Bryn’s defense. “What did he do?”

  Bryn sta
red at the floor.

  “Honey? No one is judging you,” Sara said. “Just tell us. We can’t help if we don’t know what was going on.”

  “He was kind of harassing me,” Bryn said. “At first, it was small stuff. He’d stop by to check on a dog, or to let us know that someone’s animal had gone missing, so we’d know to alert him if it turned up. And while he was here, he’d ask me out. You know, just for coffee, or a movie.

  “Nothing big. I always turned him down. I mean, not only was he kind of nasty, he was a lot older than me, and not exactly my type.” She blushed, glancing up from underneath long dark lashes at Kari. “Your friend Suz is more my type, just for the record.”

  Kari smiled at her across her cup of tea, not terribly surprised. “Which just goes to show you have good taste. I’m guessing that Myers didn’t take no for an answer?”

  Bryn shook her head. “Not hardly. At first he was nice about it. Brought gifts like a box of candy, which I just shared with the rest of the volunteers. Then, after he’d started coming down hard on Daisy, he said he’d give the shelter a break if I’d go out with him.” She bit her lip, blinking back tears. “And by ‘go out with him,’ he obviously meant sleep with him. When I still turned him down, he threatened to go to the administrators at the college and tell them I’d been practicing veterinary medicine without the proper certification.”

  “That bastard,” Sara said. “Kind of makes me wish I’d killed him myself.”

  “Me too,” Kari said with feeling. “I’m so sorry you had to deal with that.” She suddenly understood why Bryn had been so defensive about whether she treated the animals that first day they’d met.

  Bryn wiped her eyes again and looked away. “I sometimes feel guilty about not just giving in,” she said in a voice barely louder than a whisper. “It might have made things easier on Daisy. Easier on the animals. Maybe Buster wouldn’t be facing a death sentence if I had just gone along with what he wanted.”

  “No,” Kari said, in a tone that didn’t allow for argument. “You can never make things better by giving in to bullies and abusers. This I can assure you on.”

  Sara raised an eyebrow in her direction but didn’t comment other than to add, “Plus there is no reason to believe that a man like Myers would have kept his promises. He would undoubtedly have taken advantage of you and then done whatever he was going to do anyway.”

  “Oh,” Bryn said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “That’s the way they work,” Kari said, patting the girl on the hand. “They keep you so off balance, you just react instead of thinking. I’m really impressed with you for not caving. Good for you.”

  Bryn sat up a little straighter. “Thanks. I just . . . couldn’t. But now my aunt is in trouble, and it is all my fault.”

  “It’s that jerkwad Myers’s fault,” Sara said acerbically. “Not yours.”

  “Jerkwad?” Kari repeated, biting her lip to hold back a smile.

  “Hush up, you.” Sara turned back to Bryn. “So your aunt found out that Myers had been giving you a difficult time, and she got into an argument with him? Is that what happened?”

  “It wasn’t exactly an argument,” Bryn said. “From what the police said, she accosted him in the grocery store and told him that if he didn’t leave me alone, she’d cut off all his favorite body parts and feed them to her cockatoo.”

  Sara choked on her tea and Kari had to pound her on the back for a minute until she could catch her breath.

  “Oh, bless her heart, I do love that woman,” Sara said. “Although that seems like it might be unnecessarily cruel to the bird.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Kari said. “I’ve met that bird. He’s not a very picky eater.”

  Bryn stared from one woman to the other as if she thought they’d both lost their minds. “How can you make jokes about this?” she asked. “They dragged my aunt down to the sheriff’s office and questioned her for two hours. And she doesn’t have an alibi. I was staying at a friend’s house, not that they would have taken my word for anything anyway. She told them she was up late reading, but it’s not like she could prove it.”

  She blinked back more tears. “I could never live with myself if my aunt went to jail because of me.”

  “Do you think she did it?” Sara asked.

  “No! Of course not.”

  “Well, then,” Sara said, “the solution is obvious. We just have to keep working on finding the real killer, so Izzy won’t go to prison for something she didn’t do.”

  “Or me, or Daisy,” Kari added. “Also not guilty.”

  “Exactly. So we just need to find out who is.” Sara stood decisively. “Now, who’s up for walking some dogs?”

  * * *

  * * *

  They managed to get all the dogs out for some fresh air and exercise before Bryn had to head out for the day. She wanted to cook something nice for her aunt, to make up for how crappy the morning had started out. Apparently her grandmother’s meatloaf recipe was the cure for most of life’s misfortunes, especially when paired with mashed potatoes and gravy.

  Sara and Kari were just getting ready to attack the old files again when Sara got a call from her friend Rachel at the town offices.

  “What are you doing at work on a Saturday?” Sara asked, putting her phone on speaker so Kari could hear.

  “I just came in to pick up that information you wanted,” Rachel said. “I was going to bring it to you yesterday, but things got hectic, and I forgot it on my desk.” She paused for a minute. “Look, I’m happy to give you what I’ve put together so far, but I’d just as soon not be involved anymore after that. I’m sorry.”

  Kari and Sara exchanged silent glances.

  “May I ask why not?” Sara said in what was clearly an intentionally neutral tone.

  “You’re going to think I’m being overly sensitive,” Rachel said. “But Marge Farrow came by when I was printing everything out and she acted kind of weird about it. Accused me of wasting the taxpayers’ time and sullying the name of a dead man and a bunch of other stuff that didn’t even make any sense. I’ve never seen her so worked up. I didn’t even think she liked Bill Myers.”

  “How odd,” Sara said. She tapped a pen against the desk in a thoughtful kind of way.

  “It was,” Rachel said. “But you know, I’ve got to work with the woman every day, and I’d just as soon not get on her wrong side. Besides, I think I’ve got pretty much all the info there is. I hope it helps you with whatever you’re trying to figure out.”

  “I’m sure it will be fine,” Sara said. “We certainly don’t want to make things uncomfortable for you. There’s probably nothing to find in all those records anyway.”

  “Well,” Rachel said slowly, “I’m not so sure about that. While I was pulling everything, I noticed a few strange patterns. Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s not. Either way, I’ll be glad to drop the folder by your house tonight, if you’re going to be home. Then it will be your problem instead of mine.”

  “Okay,” Sara said. “Thank you so much for doing this. I do hope we didn’t get you into trouble.”

  “It should be fine,” Rachel said. But she didn’t sound convinced.

  “Well, that was odd,” Sara said when she ended the call. “It isn’t like Rachel to get so easily spooked.”

  “Why would a court clerk care if someone was looking into the public records of a dead dog warden?” Kari asked. “Heck, why would anyone?”

  Sara shrugged. She was wearing an old, faded, pink tee shirt that would have looked shabby on anyone else, but on her it still managed to appear neat and dignified. “I suspect it is a control issue, more than any real interest in what Rachel was doing. Some of the folks who work for the town get kind of territorial after a while. It’s like they think the public is a nuisance that gets in the way of their jobs, rather than the ones who pay their salaries.”<
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  She rolled her eyes. “We had a secretary at the school who had been there so long, she used to boss the principal around like he worked for her instead of the other way around.”

  “And she got away with that?” Kari said, amazed.

  “Oh goodness, yes,” Sara said. “Never argue with the person who knows where everything is filed.” She glanced at her watch. “I know I said I’d stay until five and it is only four, but I’d like to get home and wait for Rachel, if you don’t mind.”

  “No problem,” Kari said. “The only thing left to do is give the animals their evening meal. It won’t take long, with the limited number that are still here.” She was a lot more comfortable with the dogs than she had been when she first arrived, although she still found the noise a little overwhelming. Most of the cats got fed together in the big feline room, except two sickly three-month-old kittens that were kept in a cage in the front room away from all the others.

  “Great,” Sara said, looking relieved. “And you’ve got things covered for tomorrow?”

  “You bet,” Kari said. She still couldn’t believe that both Sara and Bryn came in six days a week, for at least a few hours a day. Thankfully she could pay Bryn for her time now, although Sara still insisted it was practically a vacation after teaching ninth graders for over forty years.

  “One of the volunteers is coming to help with the cleaning in the morning,” Kari said, picking up the box of discarded files as she walked Sara to the front door. She staggered a little under the unexpected weight of all that paper, but managed to heave it into the recycling bin beside the dumpster that was located next to the building. “And Jim is working from eight until noon, so he can deal with the feeding and help me walk the dogs.”