Reminiscing on the case made Paige feel nostalgic, and she bitterly remembered that things hadn’t been quite the same for her following it. She wondered if she had been bored before the case. Getting a taste for excitement from it had not been good for her. It was at the point where she wasn’t even sure if she would be satisfied returning to be a divorce lawyer in Portland.
Barkley yipped at her, dragging her from her dark thoughts. Paige blinked at him and then laughed.
“Yeah, yeah,” she said. “We’re almost there. Be patient.”
Barkley wagged his tail and Paige felt her dark mood dissipating a little. It was hard to be depressed with the little beagle around, she had to admit.
Sometimes, she wondered if that was why Jack had gotten him for her.
Soon, she pulled up at a small field. The Comfy Canine Training School boasted that it worked with dogs and their owners in outdoor settings unless it was raining. As she turned off the engine, she could already see a handful of people mingling on the field, so she clipped Barkley’s lead to his collar and left the car.
Almost immediately, Barkley tried to run, overexcited by the smells of the other dogs on the field. He was pulled up short by the lead, and he whined pathetically as he realized that he couldn’t go much further.
“Patience, Barkley,” Paige reminded him, though she doubted it did her much good. “Try to play nice with the other dogs, alright?”
Barkley jumped around, not listening to her, and Paige rolled her eyes. She hoped that the other dog owners would be understanding of her untrained puppy.
The group was small but they were standing together, giving her the impression that they had been working together for some time. As she approached, two people turned around. They were both wearing identical purple polo shirts, the logo for the school on the pocket.
“Hello,” the man said, stepping forward to hold out his hand. “Are you Paige Moore?”
“That’s me,” Paige said.
She tried to move forward to take his hand, but she suddenly realized that, at some point, her feet had gotten tangled in Barkley’s lead as he tumbled around her. She almost overbalanced, and the man’s training partner, a woman with short black hair and laugh lines around her eyes, reached out to steady her.
“I can see why you’re here,” the woman joked.
“Yes,” Paige said, flushing. She shot Barkley a sour look, and he looked back at her with innocent eyes.
“Well, welcome to our school,” the man laughed; he had a deep, booming voice and a pleasant smile. “My name is Jonathan Cook, and this is Alice Campbell. We’re the trainers for this school.”
“It’s nice to meet both of you,” Paige said, finally managing to shake both their hands. “I’ve only had Barkley a few days; my boyfriend sprung him on me as a surprise.”
“Always the best sort of surprise,” Alice said with a wink. She grinned. “Barkley is an interesting name.”
“My partner chose it,” Paige said, rolling her eyes. “He thought it was funny.”
“Well, why don’t you and Barkley come and meet the class?” Jonathan suggested. “Some people have been here longer, but others are still new as well. The two of you will fit right in.”
“Thanks,” Paige said.
Paige sidled up beside a young woman with blonde hair, her black poodle standing at her side, wondering what to do now. She was not prepared when Barkley leaped at the little dog, sending the two of them tumbling and barking at each other.
“Barkley!” she exclaimed.
“Don’t mind him,” the young woman said with a laugh. “Sadie likes playing as well.”
Sure enough, the poodle appeared more than happy to roll around with Barkley. Paige sighed; at least he was occupied while they stood there.
“I’m River Townsend,” the woman said as they watched their dogs. She smiled at Paige. “It’s nice not being the new one here anymore.”
“Paige Moore,” Paige said, eyeing her. “How long have you been at the school?”
“About four weeks,” River mused. “We haven’t been here that long either, so you have nothing to worry about.”
Paige smiled, relaxing. It was nice to know that she wasn’t the only complete rookie in this class. A snort behind her made her turn around.
“Those dogs need to shape up,” the man sneered. His large German Shepherd stood at his side, eyeing the two puppies. “They’ll never win any competitions like that.”
“Not everyone is aiming for competition, Alex,” River said, sounding exasperated. She glanced at Paige. “This is Alex Ward. He’s aiming pretty high.”
Alex scowled at her. He was a large man, and he used his height to intimidate. Paige was impressed that River, who was quite short, stood her ground.
“Gunner and I have won many competitions; we’ll be on an international stage before you know it,” he said. “Meanwhile, you can be content playing in the mud.”
He stalked away.
“All those competitions were local,” River muttered to Paige. “I think the last one he won was an eating contest; Gunner beat the record for how much food he ate in fifteen minutes.”
Paige snorted and did her best to look innocent when Alex looked back suspiciously. Then she and River shared a grin.
Maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea. Paige hadn’t realized that attending puppy school would force her to socialize as well. But it made sense; all those dogs had owners too. Maybe this school would be good for Paige, too. She didn’t get many chances to meet new people these days.
Suddenly, Barkley perked up and barked. All the other dogs, however, stopped what they were doing and ran forward. Confused, Paige looked toward Alice and Jonathan. Alice was blowing into a silver whistle, but it made no sound.
“A dog whistle,” River explained, noticing Paige’s confusion. “The dogs have far better hearing than us, and they can hear it. Alice uses it to help keep the dogs in line. Barkley will learn the different sounds as well.”
Paige nodded, impressed. She hadn’t been sure about attending a dog training school, but it looked like it was going to be a lot more interesting than she had thought it would be. She looked down at Barkley and smiled.
“Get prepared to learn, Barkley,” she said.
Barkley looked up and barked at her, and she grinned. Maybe Jack was right after all; having Barkley around would be interesting enough to keep her from brooding too much.
Remembering a new client that she had soon, Paige went home that afternoon with the intention of doing some work. Unfortunately, Barkley, still keyed up from playing with so many different dogs, easily pulled her into a game of Monkey in the Middle. Afterward, she opened her laptop and, instead of doing her work, she began doing some research on vets, remembering that she needed to get him a check-up at some point.
She was still sitting with Barkley as it began to get darker. She had just chosen a vet when there was a knock on the door, and she pulled herself from her warm, sleepy stupor to open it and allow Jack to step inside.
“Jack,” she said with a tired smile, waving to him. She yawned; sitting with Barkley reminded her that she had stayed up late last night reading over the Wilsons’ file. “How was your day?”
“Good,” Jack said with an amused smile. “How was your new client?”
“Terrible,” Paige said drowsily.
“Well, it looks like you’ve found a good way to deal with it,” Jack said, his smile softening.
Paige just grinned at him. Her thoughts from earlier had disappeared the longer she sat on the couch with her puppy. She stretched, and Barkley, who had fallen asleep on her lap, drowsily opened one eye.
“Let’s go outside, Barkley,” she said, picking him up and standing. “You probably need to go to the bathroom, right?”
“Are you talking to Barkley?” Jack asked, bemused.
“He has better conversation skills than most people I know,” Paige shot back with a teasing grin.
“Oh really?�
�� Jack sniffed. “I suppose you don’t want to have dinner with me, then? And here I was, thinking of cooking a lasagna.”
Paige’s stomach rumbled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten all day. She flushed when Jack raised an eyebrow.
“A lasagna sounds good,” she said, turning her nose up and stalking outside as Jack laughed.
When she returned, Jack had already started cooking. She smiled fondly; while she wasn’t half bad at cooking simple dishes herself, she had been stunned when she discovered that Jack was an amazing cook. She had tried to return the favor, once, but she had burned the stew she cooked. Now, if Paige spent the evening with Jack at either his place or her place, he would be the one who cooked for them.
“How is Barkley doing?” Jack asked. “You took him to the dog school today, right?
“He did well, though he kept jumping on some of the other dogs,” Paige said. She winced as she watched him run straight into the side of the couch. “He’s the clumsiest dog I’ve ever seen, though.” She laughed. “When we came home, I tried to get him to sit, but he just wouldn’t. We ended up playing for the rest of the afternoon.” Paige rolled her eyes. “I did need to do some work, though; I have a new client this week, and I really needed to look over the information I got from them.”
Jack laughed. “Well, a relaxing afternoon is not bad; you can do some work tomorrow.”
“Not the point,” Paige said, rolling her eyes. “Barkley is a distraction.”
“A bad one?” Jack asked.
Paige paused. And then she looked away. “Not really.”
She didn’t need to look at Jack to know that he was giving her a ridiculous grin. She huffed and stalked away in mock offense.
They chatted about Barkley and gossiped about their neighbors as the lasagna slowly cooked, the smell permeating the kitchen and making Paige’s stomach rumble more and more. She saw Jack give her a suspicious look once or twice, and she was thankful that he kept himself from asking what she actually had eaten that day.
Finally, they sat down at the table.
“How is the dog case going?” she asked.
“No leads,” Jack sighed. He kicked her lightly under the table. “Remember, you can’t get involved in police business.”
“Yeah,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I know.”
Before she could take a bite of the lasagna, however, Jack’s phone rang. They looked at each other in surprise, somehow not expecting to be disturbed, before Jack fished his phone out of his pocket.
“Sheriff Lewis speaking,” he said.
He listened and his expression became grim. He stood, pushing his chair back.
“I’ll be right there,” he promised.
“What’s going on?” Paige asked, startled; she had been looking forward to having dinner with Jack tonight.
“Lock your doors, okay, Paige?” Jack said. He pursed his lips. “There’s…” He shook his head. “You’ll find out soon anyway; news travels fast. A body has been discovered out at the Flying Dutchman Winery. It looks like a murder.”
Chaoter 3: The Body
3: The Body
Jack saw Paige open her mouth but he cut her off before she could even say anything.
“You can’t come,” he told her, and she closed her mouth with a mulish expression. “You’re a civilian, Paige; you can’t come to an active crime scene.”
“Yeah,” she muttered.
“Especially after what happened last time,” Jack reminded her.
She winced. Jack grimaced at the memory, too; he had been dragged in front of a board that had questioned his involvement of Paige in a murder case. In the end, he felt that he had been supremely lucky to get off with a slap on the wrist.
Admittedly, he should have never involved Paige in Cynthia Johnson’s case in the first place. He had just panicked when she had told him she would involve herself no matter what he had said, and had decided to take her with him so that he could keep an eye on her.
In retrospect, he should have just set a guard on her the moment she made the threat so that she couldn’t involve herself.
Jack sighed quietly at the thought. Regardless of anything else, though, Paige’s help on that case had been indispensable. With so little help at his own station, it had been nice to have someone clever that he could rely on.
It would be the first and the last time, though. They had gotten away with it once. He doubted they would get away with it a second time.
“Look, if you don’t want to stay here, why don’t you go to your parents’ house?” he suggested. “We can freeze the lasagna and have it another night.”
“Fine,” Paige sighed. “I’ll just let my mother know I’m coming.”
She turned away, heading to the closet to get her coat, and Jack subtly sent Jennifer a message, asking her to tell him straight away if Paige didn’t show up. The last thing he needed was her following him on some misguided attempt to find the excitement she felt she was lacking.
He waited until Paige and Barkley had driven off, and then he got into his own car and headed out to the winery. Jack couldn’t believe that he was on his way to another murder. In his entire career, he hadn’t had a murder before the Cynthia Johnson case. Now, eight months later, there was another one? Maybe he was having a run of bad luck.
As he pulled up at the winery, he was glad to see that there were only two cars there. He trekked up toward the building, hearing the waves crashing against the nearby cliffs. He could see Ryan Jackson, the young officer who was stationed with him in Otter Bay, sitting with a pale young man.
“Jackson,” he greeted. “What’s the status?”
“This is Zane Douglas,” Jackson said. “He found the body and called it into the station. He caught me right before I left for the night.”
“Lucky,” Jack said, looking around. Then he noticed that Jackson was craning his head to look around him. “What?”
“Left the smarter half behind?” Jackson asked with a grin.
Jack scowled at the young man. Officer Jackson had not been happy with Paige’s involvement in the last case, and he had made his displeasure known. As Paige started to show up more regularly, however, to bring Jack coffee, or stopping just to chat, making no attempt to steal any of their cases, he had warmed up to her. Now he teased Jack terribly about her.
Jack, in turn, often accused Jackson, when the teasing went overboard, of having been jealous of Paige, and frightened that she would somehow steal his job. The young man denied it, naturally, but the expression on his face always told the truth.
“She’s a civilian, Jackson,” he reminded his officer. “She’s not allowed on crime scenes. She’s also not allowed to investigate, so don’t you go giving her any information, hear?”
“I hear,” Jackson said, rolling his eyes. “Besides, she only got involved in the last case because Cynthia Johnson was her client, right? She has no reason to be involved in this one.”
Other than searching for something interesting to keep her in Otter Rock, Jack thought grimly.
He shook the thought away and kneeled down next to the young worker. He looked like he was only barely an adult, and he was trembling.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Jack asked.
“I came back to get my wallet,” Zane said, his lips pressed into a white, trembling line. “I heard a noise at the side of the building, and…”
He trailed off, shuddering. Jack grimaced and stood.
“Have you gone to check it out yet?” he asked Jackson.
Jackson nodded, grimacing. Jack sighed and walked away, fishing his flashlight out of his pocket as he rounded the corner.
The beam from his flashlight hit a foot first, and he followed it to the limp form of a man hunched over against the wall. It looked like he had fallen sideways and knocked over a small barrel, which was likely what Zane had heard.
It looked like the man was just sleeping. As he approached, however, he could see the large, red stain on the front of t
he man’s shirt, as well as the bloodless color of his skin. He could see, now, why Jackson had said it was definitely a murder. This man had been stabbed and left here to die.
Though…
Jack shone his flashlight around the area, frowning. For a stabbing with the weapon missing, there wasn’t much blood. If the weapon had been left in the wound, he would have understood, but the fact that the knife had been taken out meant that the victim had to have bled far more than this. Yet there was no blood on the ground around the man, or on the wall he was slumped against.
He heard footsteps behind him, and he turned to see Jackson approaching.
“Any ideas who he is?” he asked.
“No,” Jackson said, shaking his head. “I didn’t touch the body. I called and waited for you to get here.”
Jack nodded and knelt down beside him. He could see a wallet in the man’s trouser pocket, and he put on a pair of gloves before carefully pulling it out, trying not to disturb the body.
“There’s a license here,” he said, flicking the wallet open. “Jonathan Cook. He has an address in Newport. Ring any bells?”
“None,” Jackson said. “You?”
Jack frowned. “It feels vaguely familiar, but I’m not sure why I know the name.” He rifled through the wallet. “His bank card is still here, and there’s about seventy dollars. This definitely wasn’t a mugging gone bad.”
“He still has a watch on, too,” Jackson pointed out, aiming his flashlight at the gold watch on the man’s wrist.
“There’s nothing else in his wallet, just a few business cards,” Jack said. “Have you called the coroner?”
“Straight after you,” Jackson promised. “But they do have to come from Newport, so it will take them another ten minutes to get here.”
Jack grimaced. That was the problem with being a tiny station in the middle of nowhere; they couldn’t have everyone they needed immediately on the scene.
“Well, there’s not much we can do until we get an autopsy,” Jack said with a sigh. “We’ll track Jonathan Cook down and figure out who he is, then we’ll have to figure out who saw him last.” He glanced at Jackson. “Notice anything about the crime scene, officer?”
The Comfy Canine Murder Case Page 2