For a Good Paws

by Linda O. Johnston

  Interesting. Henry had been in town for a few weeks, at least. The resort didn’t seem the best place to stay long-term with dogs. Although …

  “Leave me alone!” Henry’s shout, aimed at Silas, interrupted my thoughts. Dinah had been off to one side, but instead of scaring her off, the shout intrigued her. She drew even closer, now holding her tablet in one hand.

  Silas was the head anchor of KnobTV’s evening news. He always was impeccably dressed on television, as he was right now. He was a little taller in real life than I’d anticipated, since he and the female newscasters appeared to be around the same height on camera. He had a cap of nicely styled black hair and large, arched brows over his dark eyes. Silas tended to be solemn in his reports, but I rather liked the guy, or at least his on-air persona, since he appeared to care about dogs.

  I gathered now that he was also a tenacious reporter when tracking down a story.

  “But we would really like your opinion about Mike Holpurn’s parole. Were you aware it was going to happen?” Silas spoke into a microphone, which he then held out toward Henry.

  “I don’t want to talk about it. Now really, leave me alone.”

  “Well, could you tell me what you’ve been doing recently? It must have been so hard to lose your wife that way, all those years ago—and lose a good bit of your life, too, since she was Knobcone Heights’ mayor. How have you been?”

  I realized it was Dinah talking now. Not necessarily how a news reporter would conduct an interview, but it seemed to calm Henry a little.

  He turned his back on Silas and the cameraman and faced only Dinah. He was the least dressed up of all of us, in his short-sleeved green T-shirt and jeans. His grayish beard, which I’d noticed before at the Barkery, seemed a little longer and scruffier, too. I imagined he hadn’t anticipated being interviewed, especially on camera. On the other hand, maybe that was the image he liked best.

  But, no. The way Henry was acting, he surely hadn’t wanted to be confronted by Silas and a microphone.

  “You’re right,” he said to Dinah—with Silas still holding the mic in the background and the cameraman still filming “It was hard. Real hard. That’s why I left Knobcone Heights, even though I like this place. A lot. I always wanted to come back. I was a real estate broker way back when I was married to Flora and even before that. When she was gone, my kids and I moved to Fresno and for a while I just sort of hid there, but I got back into selling real estate, and I hope to hook up with a sales agency here soon, too.”

  Yet he was living at the resort for now, as his dog walker had said? Interesting. Then again, he might have in mind exactly the kind of property he wanted to either rent or buy, and was perhaps waiting until he could find the ideal thing.

  Or perhaps he wanted to buy from whatever company he ultimately went to work for.

  Hey, I was using my imagination the way Dinah probably did. But I didn’t say anything. Just continued to listen.

  “Look.” Dinah was also ignoring Silas. “Today’s my birthday, and my wonderful boss, Carrie here”—she gestured toward me—“is throwing me a birthday party in the restaurant. Would you like to join us? I gather you’ve already got someone taking care of your dogs, right, since I don’t think they’d be welcome inside.” She looked beyond me to where the young lady still stood with the dogs.

  “That’s very nice of you,” Henry said.

  “That is very nice,” Silas said, this time thrusting the microphone in front of Dinah’s face. “Are we invited, too?”

  “Nope,” Dinah said, aiming a false smile toward the camera. “Are we on the air? Fun! Now, wish me a happy birthday, everyone.”

  “And—off,” Silas said to the cameraman, who moved the camera downward in response. He turned back toward Dinah. “Yes, it was a live feed for a while, including when you were talking to Mr. Schulzer and asking him what he’d been up to. We’ll edit it for a later showing, too.” Then he approached Henry once more. “Look, Mr. Schulzer. I’m a journalist. I can ask questions, and I’d appreciate answers next time. But I understand—”

  “There’d better not be a next time,” Henry exploded, then calmed again. “Look. I thought long and hard about returning here. I thought the timing would be okay, this long after … after what happened. I had no idea there would be a coincidence this crazy—and horrible—especially when I’d just moved back here for a few weeks. Holpurn let out of prison?” His voice had started to rise again, but he seemed to force himself to calm down. “Okay,” he said to Dinah. “Thanks. I need to say bye to some folks and then I’ll join you for your party.”

  “Fine,” Dinah said. “We’ll look forward to your joining us.”

  Would I look forward to it? I wasn’t sure. And why had he decided to accept Dinah’s invitation? I’d have assumed he would just want to get together with whatever friends he had there at the restaurant.

  Maybe he was just happy that a stranger was being nice to him

  After waving at his dog walker, Henry turned his back on us again, once more ignoring Silas and his assistant, and strode briskly into the restaurant.

  Dinah looked toward Reed and me. Reed hadn’t said anything during all this, but I knew he had my back—partly because he had put his arm around my shoulder and just stood there, watching. “I assume that’s okay with you,” Dinah said. “I’ll pay for whatever he eats. Part of my research.”

  “No need,” I said. “I didn’t know how many were coming so there are some extra meals being cooked anyway.”

  As I said that, I noticed one of the people I’d invited who hadn’t arrived before was now joining us: Billi.

  When she reached us, I gave her a hug, introduced her to Henry’s dogs—oh, and the dog walker, too, though I still didn’t know her name. And then we all went back into the restaurant.

  Well, all of us who were at the birthday party. Silas remained standing with his cameraman, watching us. He didn’t look particularly happy. But reporters didn’t always get their way when they tried to interview people. I’d even seen segments on TV that must have been embarrassing to subjects of those non-interviews who chose not to respond.

  Like Henry. Oh well. He would be joining us at the party and, from what I could tell, apparently was ordering himself a drink. And if he drank even more, that should be okay, too, since he didn’t have to drive anywhere.

  Like Dinah, I was a bit curious about the guy and how he’d handled being widowed the way he was. I wouldn’t ask him anything about it—but I’d listen while Dinah did.

  When we were back at the table, Dinah asked some of those who’d remained seated to move, to provide a seat near her for Henry. Not surprising. I knew she wanted to talk to him. Interview him, perhaps gently—and at least not as intrusively as Silas had.

  Did Henry understand that? He might just have thought she was being nice, inviting him to her birthday party.

  I waved to Stu, to request that he bring a side salad for Henry, and I also asked him to check on the drink Henry had ordered from the bar—which wound up being a rum and Coke, heavy on the rum.

  “What’s going on?” That was Neal, from across the table.

  I told him, “Dinah very nicely invited Henry to join us.”

  My brother’s expression turned justifiably skeptical. “Got it,” he said with a small shake of his head that indicated he didn’t get it at all. But Neal kind of knew Dinah and the fact that she loved to write and research, so he probably wouldn’t be surprised when I gave him a better explanation later.

  “Wish I could hear what they’re saying,” Reed whispered into my ear.

  “Me too—but excuse me turning my back for now. I want to listen, catch what I can.” I reached over, squeezed his hand, and turned again toward Henry and Dinah.

  I caught a significant portion of what she said, or so I thought. Dinah was again being her sympathetic self—or wearing that aspe
ct of herself like a caring shawl draped around the newcomer to the table.

  “It must have been so hard,” she was saying. “I mean, there you were, a major player in the local area, its economy and politics and whatever. Or at least your wife was, so you must have been highly respected, too. And then you lost her, which was very sad. And all that extra prestige of being married to the mayor must have fled at the same time. Right?”

  I wondered how Dinah’s mind was wrapping around this. What was she plotting? How would she use any information Henry gave her?

  “It wasn’t quite like that,” he said. “I … well, what happened with Flora was horrible in so many ways. I loved my wife. But I had a career of my own. My real estate company was highly successful, so I had all the prestige or whatever I needed from that. But one of the reasons I left town was because so many people were so nice—and it hurt like an arrow zinging into me every time someone expressed condolences or treated me differently, especially after her funeral and the trial of that SOB who killed her. And—”

  “Well, talk about a huge coincidence. Or not.” That was Silas’s cameraman, who’d just appeared behind Henry. “Guess who—”

  “Hey, Henry,” someone called. “Good to see you.” The tone of the shout sounded just the opposite, and I saw three men stride into the dining room, followed by Silas wielding his microphone.

  “Oh no,” Billi blurted from across the table. “That’s—”

  “It’s that SOB I was just talking about.” Henry rose, glaring toward the approaching men.

  “That’s Mike Holpurn?” Dinah also stood. The expression on her round face was so rapt that I felt as if she believed a cherished wish had come true. “Wow.”

  “Yes, that’s Holpurn,” the cameraman said.

  Heck. I was tired of having the cameraman hanging around without knowing more about him, so I asked, “What’s your name?”

  He looked at me as if I’d insulted him. “I’m Wilbur,” he said. “Wilbur the Wise.” He grinned. “But just Wilbur will do.” He was short, with alert hazel eyes and a determined curve to his mouth, and he seemed welded to the camera he held.

  “Do you know who the others with Holpurn are?” Dinah asked.

  “His brothers, I think,” Wilbur replied. “Or at least Silas has told me Holpurn has a couple of brothers who helped get him out on parole.”

  They’d reached our table. I assumed the guy at the front had to be Mike Holpurn. He was tall and probably in his early forties—which meant he’d been in his early thirties or so when he murdered the mayor. His hairline had receded, and his remaining brown hair, maybe the mixed color of a raccoon, was short. He was dressed casually, in a long-sleeved black sweatshirt that seemed too warm for the August day, plus jeans and athletic shoes.

  Nothing about his appearance suggested he was a murderer. But he began shouting as he reached our table—at Henry. “I saw you on TV a few minutes ago, on the news—and that’s why I came here. I saw you acting angry about even hearing that I was being paroled. But you’re the reason I was in prison, you son of a—”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Henry’s hands were fisted at his sides, but he didn’t take a swing at Holpurn. That was probably a good thing, since the men who accompanied Holpurn looked ready to jump in and fight, too. I could see some resemblance among them, or maybe that was just because I’d been told they were brothers. Neither looked as much like Holpurn as Neal looked like me.

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about.” Mike Holpurn’s glare at Henry appeared lethal. “You framed me, set things up so conclusively that to save my life I had to take a plea bargain that made me admit to a murder I didn’t commit. Fortunately, I still had people who gave a damn, and—well, you see that I got out early, on parole. There were questions in the supposed evidence, and—hell, I don’t need to tell you anything. Except that you’d better admit to killing your own wife, once and for all.”

  “You know I didn’t kill her or frame you or anything else,” Henry shouted. It wasn’t a very loud shout, but it didn’t need to be for everyone in the restaurant to hear it. There were no other conversations going on anywhere around us.

  “You were a liar then, and you’re a liar now,” Holpurn growled. “I came back to town to try to take back my old life as much as possible. I didn’t imagine I’d see you here. Did you come back to gloat or what?”

  “So, Mr. Holpurn,” Silas called out, edging closer to the side of the table where Henry sat. “Tell me why you believe Mr. Schulzer killed Mrs. Schulzer.” He held the microphone out toward Holpurn, and I could see Wilbur beside him, filming.

  “Back off, jerk.” Holpurn shoved Silas’s hand with the microphone away.

  “Were you mad that the mayor went back to her husband after her affair with you?” This time, it wasn’t Silas asking but Dinah. She must have found some time to do research online, assuming the affair had been gossiped about ten years ago. So the alleged affair had caused tension, along with whatever problems there were with the remodeling of the mayor’s residence.

  “Lies!” Holpurn shouted. “All of that was lies. I did some work for the mayor, and she and I were alone in the residence sometimes. We talked now and then about the restoration and redecoration, and that was all.”

  “Is that what you believed, Mr. Schulzer?” Now Dinah turned to face Henry. “Or maybe … did you think they were up to more, as was suggested? Were you mad enough to kill your wife and frame Mr. Holpurn?”

  “Why the hell are you asking things like that?” Henry now was standing up and glaring down at Dinah. I glanced quickly at Reed, who’d started in their direction as if to protect Dinah—or at least I hoped that was the reason.

  Dinah was wise enough to get up and back away from the table. By now, lots of people in the dining room surrounded us, and I saw excitement and curiosity in many pairs of eyes. I considered calling one of the contacts I’d made in the Knobcone Heights Police Department, Sergeant Himura, or even Chief Loretta Jonas, but if anything was going to happen, it would go down before any cops could arrive.

  “Sorry, Henry.” Dinah looked down at the floor momentarily before glancing back into Henry’s face. “My imagination is on overdrive, as it always is. I don’t know what happened back then, though I’d like to find out the truth—as anyone here would, I imagine. I’m a writer, mostly of articles and short stories, but I’m working on writing something with more substance, a thriller, something maybe based on a real story but fictionalized. If I base it on a real situation, like what happened to Mayor Schulzer, I want to know what’s real and what’s not, no matter what I put into my story. And—”

  “You’d better back off this, young lady,” Henry shouted. “If you base a story on my wife’s death and fill it with lies, like saying that I was involved, I’ll sue you. Or worse.”

  “What, you’ll kill her, like you did Flora?” Mike Holpurn now stood right beside Henry. His grin was menacing. Horrible. And it let me see how he could have been considered the main suspect in Flora Schulzer’s murder.

  Or maybe that was my imagination at work.

  “Of course I won’t. And I didn’t,” Henry snapped. “You did. But she’d better watch it. I have resources, and I have contacts this young lady couldn’t begin to know about. In fact, you’d better not write at all, about this situation or anything else,” he said to Dinah. “I can ruin that kind of career, and I’ll definitely ruin yours even before it begins. Count on it.”

  Dinah’s mouth had dropped open. She looked horrified, as if she believed Henry’s threats. For surely they were just that. There wasn’t anything he could do to end her cherished and anticipated writing career—could he?

  “But you can’t do that,” Dinah finally responded, her voice low and hoarse.

  “Just watch me.” And with a glare at Dinah, which he then turned on Holpurn, and finally on Silas, Henry Schulzer onc
e again stomped out of the restaurant.

  Six

  Dinah remained standing there, staring after him. The look on her face remained shocked. At first. And then it turned into a glare.

  “I have every right to research what happened back then,” she said through gritted teeth, her hands fisted at her side. “And to use it in a book, as long as I keep it a fictional account without naming any real names, and make it clear that I took poetic license, and—”

  “And it’s your birthday,” I reminded her, now standing beside her. “Sit down and forget about—well, I know you can’t forget it, but at least don’t focus on it.”

  Dinah seemed to focus instead on the dining room and the people at nearby tables who were staring at her. And then she looked at Mike Holpurn and his brothers, if that’s who they were, who approached her.

  “You’re a writer?” Holpurn asked. “Well, if so, you should write about that SOB who just threatened you. He means it, you know. I did talk to his wife a bit before … before she died. She told me how he’d harmed her in other ways, then. Threatened her political career by claiming he’d tell the world the truth, though she knew he meant lies that would make voters hate her. Oh yeah, Henry Schulzer was the one to—”

  “Say that all again,” Silas said, thrusting the microphone into Holpurn’s face.

  Which made Holpurn scowl and back away.

  I wondered if he’d said this ten years ago when he was arrested for murder. Or had he thought all of it up while languishing in prison—after confessing? Had he changed his story to get himself out on parole? But that surely wouldn’t make a difference.

  Well, I wasn’t going to ask Holpurn about it, so most likely I’d never know.

  Dinah, on the other hand, with her curiosity and drive, would undoubtedly question Holpurn if she communicated with him again. And that could endanger her, if the man’s confession ten years ago had had even a semblance of truth to it.