by B R Snow
“Even though he probably thought Samantha had sent the incriminating photos and video to that website?” Josie said.
“I guess,” I said, frowning as I refilled our wine glasses. “And if they did think it was her, I’m sure he and Pontilly were furious with her. But maybe they thought they could ride out any bad publicity and convince her to keep her mouth shut.”
“But why would Samantha spend all those years working for the circus and then decide to do something like that? She must have been aware that Claude was abusing those animals for a long time.”
“Yeah, I don’t get that either,” I said. “Maybe she had a rare moment of clarity.”
“Yeah, that must have been it,” she said, laughing. “Well, I guess we’ll never know why she did it. Or who threw her off the boat.”
“It doesn’t look like it,” I said, rubbing my jaw.
“And I know how much you hate it when that happens,” she said, then raised her glass in salute. “But you gave it your best shot. To a noble effort.”
“A noble effort,” I said, raising my glass.
The kitchen door opened and all four dogs came racing into the living room. We set our wine glasses down out of reach of the furiously wagging tails and spent a long time welcoming them home.
“Did they behave themselves?” Josie said to Chef Claire.
“They were great,” she said, then tossed a plastic bag of dog jerky on the table. “But that certainly helped. As soon as I threatened to withhold snacks, they settled right down. What on earth happened to your face?”
“I got punched,” I said.
“Who hit you?” she said, staring at my face.
“Master Claude,” I said.
“The guy from the circus?”
“That’s the one,” I said.
“Where’s my bat?” Chef Claire said, glancing around the room.
“It’s okay,” I said. “We came to an understanding. And he’s already walking around with a lump on his head.”
“He won’t be walking around when I get through with him,” she said. “Why did he punch you?”
“It was payback for me using the cattle prod on him.”
“How did he know you were the one who shot him in Brockville?”
“He sort of put two and two together after I shot him this afternoon,” I said, shrugging.
“Do you have any idea what she’s talking about?” Chef Claire said to Josie.
“Yeah, I’ll fill you in later,” Josie said.
“Okay,” Chef Claire said, stretching out on the couch then glancing at me. “Are you sure you don’t want me to pay him a little visit?”
“No, but thanks.”
Then Chloe noticed the bruise on my jaw and hopped up on the couch to inspect it. Then she placed a paw on my leg and gently licked the side of my face.
“Look at that,” Josie said, shaking her head. “How do they know?”
“It is pretty amazing,” I said. Then I flinched and stared off into the distance. “Duh,” I eventually whispered.
“What is it?” Josie said. Then she nodded, and a smile appeared. “Of course. Why didn’t we think of that earlier?”
“Are you two going to keep speaking in code, or would you mind explaining what the heck you’re talking about?” Chef Claire said, making room for her two Goldens on the couch.
“Queen B.,” I said.
“I’m sorry, but I’m going to need a bit more,” Chef Claire said.
“The beagle knows who threw them off the boat,” Josie said.
“And she might react if she saw whoever it was again,” I said.
“You’re going to take the dog to the circus?” Chef Claire said.
“Yeah, I think I might just do that,” I said. “I can swing by with the dog in the morning. They’ll probably be packing up, and I can use the excuse that I stopped by to give everyone a chance to say goodbye to the dog.”
“That’ll work,” Josie said. “What time do you want to go?”
“You want to come with me?”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind having a little chat with Master Claude,” Josie said.
“Oh, count me in,” Chef Claire said, then frowned. “No, that’s not going to work. I need to be at the restaurant early to meet the vegetable guy.” She glanced back and forth at us. “But feel free to borrow my bat.”
“If we’re starting early, then I’m going to bed to get my rest,” Josie said, finishing her wine and getting to her feet.
“I need to call Max before I turn in,” I said, reaching into my pocket for my phone but coming up empty. “What did I do with it?”
“Your phone?” Josie said.
“Yeah, I can’t find it,” I said. “I had it with me earlier in the car. And I know I had it with me when I was at the circus.” I sat in silence trying to remember the last time I’d seen it. “I bet it fell out of my pocket when I landed on the ground after he punched me.” Then I shrugged. “I guess there’s no time like the present, huh?”
“You want to go now?” Josie said.
“Why not?”
“It’s getting pretty late,” Josie said.
“Oh, I’m sure they’re still talking to the cops,” I said, getting up off the couch.
“Okay,” Josie said. “Let me call Jill to see if we can borrow the beagle.”
Chapter 26
A sleepy and somewhat confused Jill greeted us at the door with the beagle tucked under her arm. Then she motioned for us to follow her into the kitchen, and we sat down. Sammy entered rubbing his eyes and shuffling his feet. Half-asleep, he mumbled hellos then sat down and immediately made room for Tripod on his lap. The three-legged spaniel hopped up with no assistance and glanced back and forth at me and Josie, his tail wagging double-time.
“What on earth happened to your face?” Jill said when she finally got a good look at me.
“I got punched. Long story.”
“Who hit you?” Sammy said, suddenly wide-awake.
“The animal tamer from the circus,” I said, waving it off. “But don’t worry about that at the moment.”
“Oh, I’m gonna worry about it,” he said. “Where is he?”
“No, really, it’s okay, Sammy,” I said.
“Nobody gets away with that,” he said, rubbing the spaniel’s head. “Jill said something about you wanting to borrow Queen B.”
“If that’s okay with you guys,” I said. “We think she might be able to identify the person who threw her and Samantha off the boat.”
“Okay,” Sammy said, frowning. “She’s not going to be in any danger, is she?”
“No, she won’t,” I said. “And don’t worry, we’ll keep a close eye on her.”
“I have to say that it makes me nervous, Suzy,” Jill said, hugging the beagle. “Maybe we should tag along?”
“There’s no need for that,” I said. “The place is crawling with cops at the moment. Queen B. will be just fine.”
“I don’t know what I’d do if anything ever happened to her,” Jill said.
“Sure, we get that. She’ll be fine. You have our word.” I glanced at Josie. “Right?”
“Absolutely,” Josie said.
“You guys head back to bed,” I said. “If we run late, we’ll just take her back to our place tonight.”
“No, we’ll be up,” Jill said. “Won’t we, Sammy?”
“Do I get a vote on that?” Sammy said, glancing around the table.
“No,” Jill said, laughing.
We laughed, then Josie tucked the beagle under one arm, and I followed her to the door. On the way to the car, Josie laughed again.
“They’re like parents with a newborn,” she said, rubbing the beagle’s head.
“Like we’d ever let anything happen to her,” I said, reaching out to scratch one of the dog’s ears. “But it’s nice to know you’ve found your forever home, right, Queen B.?”
The dog licked my hand as I opened the passenger door, and Josie climbed in. We ma
de the short drive and parked in front. I hopped out and stood on the sidewalk surveying the scene.
“Where the heck is everybody?” I said.
“It looks like the place is completely shut down,” she said.
“They must all be back inside the tent.”
“Maybe the cops figured out who did it and made an arrest,” Josie said, sliding the beagle into her other arm.
“I guess it’s possible,” I said. “But I don’t hear anything. I thought they’d be taking everything down by now.”
“Pontilly’s dead,” Josie said. “Maybe nobody knows what’s going to happen next or what they should be doing.”
“Whatever happened to the show must go on?” I said, heading for the main tent.
“Didn’t the magician tell you that Pontilly was a total control freak?” she said, following me.
“Yeah, he did. If Pontilly never trained a successor, that could be a real problem. Maybe there’s nobody here who knows how the whole operation runs.”
“So, when in doubt, do nothing?” Josie said.
We stepped inside the main tent, dimly lit by a handful of nighttime security lights attached to a couple of the support poles. I looked around but saw or heard nothing.
“Weird,” I said, heading in the direction of the wardrobe room to look for my phone.
“Spooky,” Josie said. “And if you set me up with those clowns again, you and I are gonna have a serious problem.”
“Relax,” I said, laughing. “I’m sure they’re out of costume by now.”
Halfway across the ring, I spotted Grundella coming through the curtains that cordoned off the performer area from the main tent. She saw us, cocked her head, but continued heading in our direction doing her best not to stagger.
“What are you guys doing here?” she said, then spotted the beagle. “Hey, Queen B.”
The beagle emitted a soft, guttural growl and tucked herself tighter against Josie’s arm. I glanced at Josie who continued to watch the woman closely.
“That dog never liked me,” Grundella said, shaking her head. “I guess she never forgave me for the time I had an argument with Sammy.”
“What sort of argument?” I said, going for casual.
“I don’t even remember what it was about. We’d been drinking all night,” she said with a shrug. “But it was a big one.”
I put Grundella on the list as a doubtful maybe then glanced around the tent again.
“Where the heck is everybody?” I said.
“Packing. The boat is leaving in half an hour,” Grundella said.
“What? Where is the boat going?”
“Hopefully, somewhere in the direction of the nearest airport,” she said. “The guys who’ve been driving the boat are figuring that out at the moment.”
“Hang on,” I said, shaking my head. “Back up a bit. Did the cops say you could all leave?”
“They did,” Grundella said. “Right after they arrested Claude.”
“They arrested him for killing Pontilly?”
“As soon as they found the syringe in his work bag,” Grundella said, removing a flask from her pocket. “Boy, you should have seen the look on Claude’s face. He was shocked when they found it. I guess he thought he had it hidden somewhere where nobody would ever find it.”
“He thought nobody would ever find it his work bag?” Josie said, frowning.
“What can I say?” Grundella said with a shrug. “If Claude was any dumber, he’d need to be watered twice a week. What a piece of work he is.”
“From what I saw at dinner, you couldn’t wait to spend some more time with him,” I said with a grin.
“Yeah,” she said, frowning. “But not to discuss philosophy.”
“Got it,” I said. “So, where are you going to go?”
“Either rehab,” Grundella said. “Or Germany to get an early start on Octoberfest. I can’t decide.”
“Octoberfest?” Josie said. “It’s June.”
“Hence, the early start,” Grundella said.
“You’re taking your dogs to Germany?” I said.
“Oh, the dogs,” Grundella said, scowling. “I completely forgot about the dogs.”
I glanced at Josie who was giving Grundella her death stare.
“Don’t worry about the dogs,” Josie said. “We’ll take them.”
“You will?” she said. “All nine of them?”
“All nine of them,” Josie said. “You better get going.”
“Good call. I don’t want to miss the boat.”
“Yeah, the boat. That’s what I was talking about,” Josie growled as she continued to glare at Grundella.
Grundella was about to take a sip from her flask then got a good look at Josie’s face. Message received, she waved and quickly walked away.
“What a despicable human being,” Josie said, staring after her.
“Concur,” I said, scratching one of the beagle’s ears. “But I don’t think she was the one who threw Samantha and this little girl overboard.”
“Me either,” Josie said. “I think Queen B. dislikes her just as a matter of principle.”
“Come on,” I said, laughing. “Let’s go find my phone. I’m starting to think that this was a dumb idea. Nine more dogs,” I said, shaking my head.
“Yeah, I know,” Josie said. “But they should get snapped up pretty quick. They all do some cool tricks.”
“Hey, what about the circus?” I said.
“What about it?”
“If the boat is leaving in half an hour, that must mean they’re just going to leave everything here.”
“I guess it must,” Josie said. “Your mom and the rest of the council isn’t going to be happy about a bunch of circus crap getting left behind.”
“No, she isn’t,” I said, then another thought bubbled to the surface. “We need to take the elephant and the tigers.”
“What?”
“We can’t leave them here,” I said.
“Slow down a sec there, Daktari.”
“What else can we do? And the work crew has finished enough of the cage work at the rescue center. We’ll make it work.”
“But just on a temporary basis, right?” she said, monitoring my reaction closely. “And as soon as we find someone who can take them, off they go. Right?”
“Sure, sure.”
“Suzy, I’m not joking. We’re not going to just swap one cage for another.”
“Of course not,” I said, heading inside the wardrobe room. I glanced around and spotted my phone half-covered in the dirt. “There it is.”
I picked it up, wiped it off and was about to call Chief Abrams for an update when Bubs and Chuckles entered the wardrobe room wearing jeans and tee shirts.
“No, I think we should just head to California. Maybe work construction for a while until something better turns up,” Chuckles said, then came to a stop when he saw us standing there.
Before I had a chance to say hello, Queen B. whelped and scrambled out of Josie’s arms then hit the ground running.
“What the heck?” Josie said, racing out of the wardrobe room to chase down the beagle.
“Weird dog,” Bubs said.
“She’s been through a lot lately,” I said, then gave them a wide-eyed stare when the lightbulb popped. “You. It was you.”
“What are you talking about?” Chuckles said. Then a lightbulb of his own flickered, and he gave me a dark stare before turning to Bubs. “I told you she was snooping around for some reason.”
“Yeah, you were right,” Bubs said, scowling at me. “Well, I guess it’s better she figured it out before we left.”
“Yeah, we’ll just take care of her then get on the boat,” Chuckles said. “How do you want to do it?”
“Well, since she lives around here, we gotta assume she can swim,” Bubs said.
“Unless we attach something nice and heavy to one of her legs,” Chuckles said as calmly as if he were ordering a sandwich.
“That
’ll work,” Bubs said, glancing around the wardrobe room.
While they were trying to decide what to use to send me to a watery grave, I followed Queen B.’s advice and made a beeline for the exit barely escaping Chuckles’ lunge as I brushed past them. I took a quick look around and decided to head for the main tent. I was about to cut across the middle of the circus ring for the exit when I spotted Chuckles racing along the far wall to head me off. I knew I couldn’t win the footrace, so I paused at the edge of the ring desperately scanning the area for an escape route. I turned around and took a step toward the performer area but saw Bubs standing in front of the curtains with an evil grin on his face I so wanted to knock off.
“Problem?” Bubs said, laughing.
“Maybe,” I said, glancing back at Chuckles who was slowly walking toward me.
I took another look around then spotted the ladder that led up to the platform the aerialists had used during their performance. I stepped onto the bottom rung of the ladder then began my ascent while trying to clear my head about the possibility of falling sixty feet and missing the net. Halfway up the ladder, I glanced over my shoulder and saw both clowns staring up at me with bemused expressions.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Chuckles said, laughing.
“Up,” I said as I continued my climb.
“Should we go get her?” Bubs said to his clown mate.
“No, let’s give her a minute,” Chuckles said. “This is too much fun to watch.”
“Her friend is going to be coming back soon,” Bubs said.
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll deal with her when she gets here,” Chuckles said. “What’s she gonna do? Sic the dog on us?”
I reached the top of the ladder and stepped onto the platform. As far as platforms go, it wasn’t much to write home about. It was secure but small, no more than a three-foot square piece of thick plywood painted black. I knelt down and grabbed the top rung of the ladder for support and glanced around then looked down.
“Wow,” I whispered, my arms and legs trembling. “Probably not my best work.”
“Hey, lady,” Chuckles called out.
“Yeah.”
“Now that you’ve seen the sights, are you ready to climb back down?” Chuckles said.