by K. J. Emrick
Cream came trotting back, happy and enjoying the feeling of the rich forest soil under his paws. She took the time to use the bag she’d brought with her to clean up his mess. It was a chore, turning the bag inside out to keep her hands clean and making sure she got it all, but it was part of having a pet, as far as she was concerned. She’d seen too many people leave their dog’s mess behind thinking it would just melt into the ground somehow, but she knew that gave dog owners everywhere a bad name.
“All set, my friend?” she asked him as she tied the bag off. “Good. Now, let’s get back and start some breakfast for everyone. How’s that sound? I’ll bet that lazy husband of mine isn’t even up from bed yet. What do you think? Should we go wake Jerry up? Yes?”
She said it all with a smile, carrying on a conversation with Cream that she knew he could understand, even if he couldn’t exactly answer her back. He was a smart dog.
They took their time on the return, enjoying themselves, not in a hurry in the least. Cream stopped to sniff at every new flower and he pounced at every insect that moved. He was like a child in a lot of ways, no matter how old he really was. A child who needed to be cleaned up after, of course. She was glad when they got to the receptacle for pet waste that had been set up along the path, next to a garbage can, and she could finally drop his poop bag inside.
According to Cookie’s watch it was only just now getting to be seven o’clock. No doubt Jerry was still snoring away in bed, just like she’d told Stacia. She decided to take a little more time outside and walk around the semicircle of parked RVs. Most of them were still closed up, the people inside enjoying a little more sleep themselves. As a pet owner, Cookie didn’t have that luxury. Of course, her bakery back in Widow’s Rest took in a good part of its income from the breakfast crowd. That meant waking up early every morning to make sure the muffins were made, and the eggs were frying, and the coffee was brewed to perfection so that every customer would be happy. Cookie couldn’t actually remember the last time she actually slept in.
“I guess I can’t blame it all on you, can I Cream?”
He sneezed in reply.
She knew that he appreciated what she did for him. He didn’t have to say thank you even if he was costing her an extra half hour of sleep. That was fine with her. She could sleep when she was… Well. No need to finish that saying. Not on a beautiful day like this one.
She passed by the sleek new Starcraft model that Penny LaRock and her husband Franky drove. They were both out in front, in folding lawn chairs, drinking iced tea and eating pieces of chopped fruit from plates balanced on their knees. They were a younger couple, mid-thirties perhaps, both of them health nuts who believed the world was only worth living if you lived it in a state of perfect balance. Cookie knew that as soon as they were done eating, they’d be off for a jog just like they did every morning.
“Hey Cookie.” Franky lifted his iced tea in her direction. “Care for one?”
“Not just now, thanks.” Cookie stopped for a moment, giving Cream his leash so he could explore the grass just at the edge of the parking spots. “I see you’ve already had breakfast, I was going to ask if you might want to join Jerry and me.”
He gave her a wide grin, his dimples and wavy blonde hair making him seem like a child. “No, we’re about to go for a jog. Need to get all of this fresh air into our lungs that we can. Know what I mean?”
Just what Cookie thought Franky would say. “Oh, certainly. We’ll see you tonight for dinner with Stacia and Ernesto, won’t we?”
“We’ll be there!” Penny made sure to promise before her husband could dare say otherwise. “I hear that place has an amazing… house salad.”
Cookie caught the hesitation that Penny tried to cover up by popping more chunks of fresh watermelon into her mouth. She didn’t know them very well—in fact, she didn’t really know anyone in her new circle of friends all that well—but she had the distinct impression that Penny wasn’t quite as into the healthy lifestyle as her husband was. She was strikingly pretty, with long dark hair, and smooth skin, and not an ounce of fat anywhere, but she certainly wasn’t enjoying that fruit as much as her husband was. No doubt, she’d been about to say the restaurant served a great steak, or some such thing. Which it did, according to the internet reviews Cookie had read.
She was enjoying being able to stop at diners and cafés along their trip to try out new dishes and get ideas for her own bakery. Trying new foods had always been fun for her. Some people thought what they ate could either be healthy, or taste good, but not both. Poor Penny, she thought. Well. She knew of a few recipes that were both healthy and satisfying. More than a few, in fact. Penny and Franky both might appreciate it if she shared some with them. She made a note to write a few down for them before the end of the trip.
“Well, I’d best be going,” she told them. “I want to get Jerry up and on the road. We’re heading to the American Heritage museum today. I don’t suppose I could convince you to join us?”
“Oh, that sounds like fun, Franky,” Penny said to her husband. “I told you about that place, remember? It’s supposed to have a life-sized recreation of the Edmund Fitzgerald in it.”
Franky’s eyebrows scrunched down. “The Edmund Fitz-what?”
“You know, that ship that broke apart up in Lake Superior back in the seventies? Gordon Lightfoot did that completely depressing song about it? There were about thirty people who died in the wreck. It’s a famous part of American history.”
After a moment, Franky shook his head. “Yeah, I’ve never heard of it. But hey, if you want to go check it out then let’s do it. What time were you going to be there, Cookie?”
“We should be there around midafternoon, maybe two o’clock? Jerry and I planned on spending a couple of hours there before we all met up for dinner.”
“Great,” Penny said, setting her fork down onto the fruit plate. “We’ll see you there. Don’t worry, Franky. I know where the place is. It was on my wish list of places to go for this trip.”
His dimples deepened with a frown. “I told you. We can’t stop everywhere. We have a schedule to keep, and we need to do our run every morning or we’ll get out of shape.”
Penny stabbed her fork into a grape. “I know. I just want to do a few of them. Like the museum.”
“I already said we could go.”
“I know.” She sighed and set her plate aside. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“Well, then I guess it’s settled.” Franky finished the last blueberry on his own plate and stood up. “Let’s get our jog in now so we won’t miss it. See you later, Cookie.”
Cream saw him getting up and came right over, barking happily like he thought Franky wanted to play.
Franky backed up, putting his chair between him and the chihuahua.
“That’s enough, Cream,” Cookie said gently. She shortened up his leash to keep him close. She knew the signs of someone who didn’t much care for dogs and she respected that feeling, even if she couldn’t begin to understand it herself. “Well, we’ll see you at the museum, then.”
She left them stretching before their run, like a couple of human pretzels, and walked Cream around the rest of the cul-de-sac parking area. She waved and smiled to other people who were up, although she didn’t recognize everyone. Two motorhomes away from hers, she went by Humphrey Middlestead’s ugly green Airstream RV.
He was standing in the open door, at the top of the steps, leaning on his heavy wooden cane as always. He never went anywhere without it. In fact, Cookie suspected that he couldn’t walk two steps without its help. It was a single piece of wood, carved in an amateurish style of intersecting lines and showing the sort of smooth wear that came from years of use. The handle was a knob of gnarled wood as big as the man’s fist.
In his other hand was an open beer can. He was busy drinking his breakfast.
He was in his boxer shorts and a stained t-shirt under a terrycloth bathrobe, which was open at the front. He made no attempt at a
ll to hide his bare legs or… anything else. His face was wrinkled like a prune. His pale gray eyes tracked her as she approached.
“Good morning, Humphrey,” she said brightly. No sense in not being friendly. “Wonderful day, don’t you think?”
“Just keep moving,” he grumped, motioning her along with the hand holding his can of beer. “Don’t like having people stare at me.”
Then perhaps he shouldn’t be standing on his front step for all the world to see, Cookie thought to herself. “Well, we’ll see you later, then.”
“Not if I see you first,” he said unpleasantly. “Maybe I’ll get lucky and you’ll all be dead and gone by the time I finish my beer.”
Cookie blinked at him, shocked at what he’d just said. “I’m sure you don’t mean that, Humphrey.”
He shrugged, and took a long, long drink from his beer.
Cream barked at him, and then quickly whined and scampered away. Cookie followed.
What an unpleasant man, and what a horrible thing to say! Maybe she’d been wrong about finding any kind of good in him. Well. She wasn’t Humphrey’s keeper. As long as he didn’t hurt anyone then he could live his life however he wanted.
She was almost back to her own motorhome when the owner and operator of Whispering Maples waved to her from the small building that served as his office. He was being pretty insistent about it. If she’d known she was going to run into this many people, she just might have gotten showered and dressed after all.
“Well, Cream, I suppose a few more minutes before breakfast will be fine.”
He grumbled his thoughts about that. Obviously, he would rather have his breakfast than listen to more people conversation, but he followed along with her as they went to see Mister Abraham Selk.
“I see you took your dog for a walk,” he said, without so much as a ‘good morning.’ “You cleaned up after her, right?”
“Of course,” Cookie assured him. “We always take care of our messes. And Cream is a him, not a her. He’s a very good dog.”
Abraham looked down at the little chihuahua and sniffed. He had a wide face, and a head that looked far too big for the frame of his body. His brown suit and black striped tie looked professional but cheap. Like he’d bought it from a secondhand store.
“Don’t much like dogs,” Abraham said. “It’s fine if you lot do, but I hate having to clean up after them. Messy, dirty, smelly…”
Cream barked and gave him a short growl to make sure he took his meaning.
Abraham stepped back.
“He won’t bite,” Cookie said with a little smile.
Cream bared his teeth in a smile of his own. Abraham took another step back.
“Well, if that was all,” Cookie asked him, “I’m going to get back to my husband. You have a wonderful park here, Abraham. Very nice. I’ll be sure to recommend it to all my other friends who have dogs.”
Sometimes it was okay to annoy people who didn’t like dogs, Cookie decided.
Abraham snorted as she turned away. He got his courage back, now that Cream wasn’t sitting at his feet anymore.
“You just keep that dog on its leash, hear me? You keep him under control!”
Cookie waited until she was at the door of her motorhome to reach down and pick Cream up in her arms. “Good dog,” she whispered. “It’s eggs and bacon for you this morning.”
He licked at her face, finally hearing something that he liked.
CHAPTER 2
When the breakfast dishes were washed and put away Jerry went outside and disconnected all the hookups for the motorhome, and settled the bill with Abraham, and then they were off.
He was certainly a handy man to have around. Cookie wouldn’t know the first thing about maintaining this wonderful temporary home on wheels. Oh, she could put the gas in and had done so several times on the trip already, but the water hookup and the gray line septic and the electricity and all the rest of it? That was all quite beyond her. Men were good for more than one thing, as it turned out. At least, the very best men were.
Cookie’s first husband hadn’t been worth much, but that was the past. Her yesterday. Jerry was her present, and he was a good man. The kind that every woman deserved. Too bad for the rest of the fairer sex, because Jerry was her husband.
For nearly an hour after hitting the open highway they just listened to the radio in comfortable silence, making small talk every dozen miles or so whenever one of them would see something interesting or hear something funny on the radio. Cream watched the world going by in the ledge of the side window for a time, barking at the birds on the telephone wires, or cars that passed them on stretches where the road expanded into four lanes. It didn’t take him long to get bored with that and soon he was curled up on the bench seat of the compact dining area. Soon enough he was snoring, and his little paws were twitching at some dream he was having.
After stopping for a quick lunch, they got back on the road again. Cream had woken up just long enough to have his own lunch and then he was curled up again and asleep. Poor doggie, Cookie thought. He wanted to run and play. There just wasn’t much for him to do.
A sign up ahead told Cookie that they had just ten more miles before they got to the museum. She could take Cream outside when they got there.
She really hoped this would be as interesting as it had looked online. She had always been interested in history. The town where they lived, Widow’s Rest, was steeped in it. So much so that the ghosts of the past seemed to always be roaming about and looking to cause new mischief. They weren’t the murder capital of the world, by any means, but it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying. Hopefully no one would die in town until she got back.
Oh my, she thought to herself. That certainly wasn’t how she meant that!
Although, if she was being honest then she had to say helping to solve several mysteries in her cozy little town had been much more thrilling than she would have ever guessed. A murder in her bakery was what had finally brought her and Jerry together, actually. They had known each other for a long time before that, but only as friends. After several more mysteries here they were, in love and married. It was sort of amusing, in a way, that a sweet old lady like her would lead such an exciting life.
But this was her honeymoon, and a vacation for both her and Jerry. There wouldn’t be any of that sort of thing happening while they were on this trip—
The music from the radio stopped as Jerry’s cellphone rang. It was propped onto a magnetic holder on the wide dash, hooked into the radio for handsfree use. Up until now it had been displaying a GPS map of their route. Now the screen switched to caller ID and displayed a number they both recognized, although Cookie wished she didn’t.
Widow’s Rest Police Department.
“You said no working while you were here,” she whispered, reminding them of her deal.
“It’s the office,” he said apologetically. “I’m the chief now. I can’t exactly ignore them. It’s all right, they probably just want to know where we keep the extra reams of paper. Maybe the staples.”
Somehow Cookie doubted that.
Well, it wasn’t like they could turn around and drive home to take care of any problem that might have come up now. They were already two states away from Widow’s Rest. Even at the top speed of the motorhome they would never make it back in time to help. That fact actually made her feel much better.
Jerry pushed the button on the steering wheel that connected the call and spoke loud enough for the phone’s mic to pick up his voice. “Hello?”
“Hey, Chief,” a voice answered. “Sorry to bother you, I know you’re on vacation.”
“Patrick? Is that you?”
“Yup, it’s me. So. Got a little issue.”
“Patrick, this isn’t a vacation. It’s my honeymoon.”
“Yeah. Did I say I was sorry yet?”
Jerry pretended not to see Cookie rolling her eyes. “I’ve only been gone a week,” he told Patrick. “Don’t tell me the place is fa
lling apart already.”
“Nothing that bad.” Somehow, he didn’t sound convincing. “Just got us a string of home burglaries, is all. Funny thing is, someone’s breaking in, but nothings getting taken.”
Patrick Flanagan had been Jerry’s pick for lieutenant when he took over the top spot at the department. He’d been there half as long as Jerry had but the man was smart and loyal to a fault. That wouldn’t have been something that Cookie thought of as an issue for police officers, but the past two chiefs had both had issues with things like honesty and loyalty. One of them had been murdered. The other had been more interested in himself than the town. Now, Jerry was chief, and he was building a better PD from the inside. When they’d left on their honeymoon he’d told Patrick not to call unless the sky was falling, or the town caught fire.
From where she sat, Cookie could see the lines creasing her husband’s forehead. Just two minutes talking about work and the stress was already hitting him hard. He might have needed this trip more than she did.
“Patrick, I left you in charge,” Jerry reminded him. “You should be making these kinds of decisions on your own if you want to be chief yourself someday.”
“Sure, but what if I just want to be a patrol officer for the rest of my career?”
That, at least, got a laugh out of Jerry. He slowed and pulled into the right lane as he continued the conversation. Their turn was coming up. “So what do you need me for?”
“Well,” Patrick said, hesitating to tell him the rest. “I’ve got a plan to catch whoever’s doing this, but it involves having extra patrols at night, in plain clothes, watching for suspicious activity. Whoever’s doing this doesn’t seem to have a pattern. The only thing that’s been consistent is that the owners of the homes are always gone overnight at the time of the break in. The owners come back in the morning, they find a lock busted or the couch pillows mussed up, but nothing valuable’s stolen.”
“Nothing, huh?”
“Sure, like I said. So anyway, to put my plan into action I’m going to need to pay out a couple of nights’ worth of overtime, and I’m figuring four officers, two to a car, so that adds up to a pretty big expenditure. The mayor said I had to get it approved by the chief first and, well, that’s you.”