Death on Covert Circle

by Patricia McLinn

  “All right, Sheila, now that you’ve heard about my sex life and you won’t talk about yours, ready for what we didn’t have time to talk about in your earlier call? You tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine.”

  “Yours?”

  “Want to hear what I found out about Rod Birchall and the Jolly Roger board?”

  “Yes.”

  DAY FOUR

  THURSDAY

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Clara answered the door in a rush.

  “Just finished class. It ran long. Thank you for taking LuLu, especially so early. You can let the dogs out in the back yard. Ned’s there. Poison ivy’s sprayed and the area’s closed off. Now he’s trimming the regular ivy.”

  “He’s working hard.”

  “Says he’s making up for the neglect during the hottest days and he wanted to beat the rain that’s supposed to come in later. Anything at the dog park?”

  “Bear’s over his diarrhea.” Bear was a Newfoundland. Enough said.

  “Very good news, but not what I meant.”

  “Nothing on the murder, but I talked to Kit again last night.”

  “Oh, good. Want iced tea while you tell me?”

  * * * *

  “A faction of the board isn’t as blind to Birchall’s faults as it might appear,” Kit had told me last night. “Trouble is, others either were loyal to him or forced to be loyal.”

  “Corporate skullduggery?” I’d asked.

  “All the time. Too bad none of them were around when he was killed. You’d have prime suspects. Anyway, he outmaneuvered the group trying to maneuver him out by getting Foster Utton named successor.”

  “He selected Utton as his successor to be sure the board would think twice about dumping him?”

  “That’s it. Birchall had enough votes to secure his position — for now, anyway. Word was Utton would’ve been out before the end of the day after next week.”

  “As long as he was Birchall’s heir that’s his most obvious motive, but if he knew he wouldn’t be heir much longer that makes the motive urgent.”

  “Unless he’s stupid, he knows,” Kit had said. “From what I hear, the jury’s out on whether or not he’s stupid.”

  “Clara said maybe he’d gone up the corporate ladder because he didn’t threaten the people above him. In other words, he was safe.”

  “Exactly. And that’s why Birchall named him successor. He knew the board wouldn’t want Utton as CEO, so it became a kind of job security.”

  “But not life insurance.”

  “Definitely not life insurance. Also not long-term job security for Utton. They’re searching for a replacement at a record-setting pace for this sort of thing.”

  * * * *

  “That’s interesting,” Clara said at the end of my recitation of my conversation with Kit.

  “Utton knowing about that could explain what Isaac overheard and gives him a motive. He sees Birchall eat the snack—”

  “How did he know it had sesame in it?”

  “He didn’t. But it gives him the idea to go find a snack he knows includes sesame. Then he goes back and waits for his opportunity when both Jacqueline and the guy in jeans were gone—”

  “If they were both gone at the same time. We’ve got to find that guy to ask.”

  “—or he uses another door directly to the back room after getting that sesame snack off the shelves, kills Birchall, circles back around and returns to wait with the other two or one if—”

  “Clara! Sheila!” Ned shouted from the backyard.

  We barely took time to exchange a glance before we were out on their back deck and pelting down a story’s worth of steps to their ground level patio.

  That’s how urgent his shout was.

  We were propelled by that and an ominous lack of barking.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Gracie and LuLu had gotten out of the fence enclosing Clara and Ned’s yard.

  This was bad.

  The depth of the bad started with neither dog being street-smart. The rest of the bad rested with geography, the founders of Haines Tavern, and modern real estate.

  Since earlier arrivals staked claim to the flatter land and since there are a whole lot of creeks in North Bend County, that left subdivision builders with high ground between creeks and low land along creeks.

  Their solution was to level off the ridge of the high ground, run a street along the center of the leveled area, then build houses on either side. The lots had flat or flat-ish front yards, then houses that were two stories in front and three stories in back, and back yards that could serve as ski jumps.

  Ski jumps landing in a creek.

  If Gracie and LuLu had escaped out the front, we would have had neatly mown lawns to chase them across. Heck, we could have carried parasols and played a game or two of croquet as we went along.

  They didn’t.

  All this flashed through my mind as we ran to Ned.

  “I don’t remember how long it’s been since I noticed them. I saw kids by our back gate.” Their yard, like most of the others I could see, had grass on the first part of their back slope, enclosed by a fence with double gates allowing egress to the steepest part of their yard close to the creek. “But I didn’t check if they’d opened it. I should have checked. After the last time when LuLu nearly got out, I should have—”

  Calm, certain, Clara said, “They must have gone down to the creek. C’mon, let’s go.”

  I felt neither calm nor certain, but we all hurried to the double gates. One gate was opened about a foot. Plenty of space for one or the other of our dogs to lead the other through the gap and into the wild.

  Because wild was what awaited us past the gate.

  Tangled bushes, clumps of weeds — was that poison ivy? — fallen tree limbs and sharply angled trees seeking sun amid heavy competition.

  Despite my instinct to take the lead, good sense said to leave it to them. They had to be more familiar with the area than I was. Ned went first, taking the brunt of the prickly branches on his spread-wide arms. Plenty remained, though. One caught Clara’s hair and forehead. Ned pivoted back to her.

  “Keep going, keep going.” She put her fingers to her temple, came back with blood, wiped her hand on her pants and took her own advice.

  A thorn branch snagged my top. I yanked it free, ignored the ripping sound and followed them.

  I caught glimpses through the underbrush of the creek bed, half dry, the other half murky with sluggish water following an irregular path.

  And then I wasn’t behind them anymore, I was shooting forward.

  The sharper descent, my slick sandals, and underlying moisture had turned this slip and slide into a demolition derby.

  Windmilling my arms to try to stay upright, I slipped and slid into shallow water framed by mud on either side. I encountered both sides, because my downhill speed carried me through the water, through the other line of mud and partway into their back neighbor’s wild creek-side fringe. The momentum kept my upper body going, while my feet stayed put in the mud. I went down like a felled tree.

  “Sheila. Stay still. You’re hurt. We’ll get help—”

  “No.” That would take too much time. I tried to pop up convincingly. It was more of a stagger. “I’m okay. Which direction?”

  Ned finished hauling me up as we all looked up and down the creek. No dogs, no pawprints, no helpful tufts of fur caught by a branch to show us the way.

  “We split up,” Ned said. “Cover more territory. I’ll go that way.” He nodded toward the right. “You guys go the other way.”

  We stumbled along past first one yard, another, and a third. I stumbled. Clara did fine. We called their names over and over. Alternating. In case Gracie associated being called by me and LuLu by Clara with being in trouble, maybe being called by the other would encourage them to come.

  No dice.

  The charms of the creek likely kept them fully enthralled.

  I was torn.

  If th
ey wandered up through a yard on the opposite side of the creek from Clara and Ned’s house they’d be in an entirely different neighborhood, where no one would recognize LuLu and possibly contact Clara or Ned.

  But the creek led to dangers I tried not to focus on as we kept going.

  “Over here.” A shout echoed from our left.

  We crashed along the creek. My feet slid into the creek — twice. I kept going, dripping water and mud from the sides of my sandals.

  Two more yards down and on the opposite side of the creek, a white-haired man stood with a hose, watering tomato plants in a raised bed.

  But no dogs in sight.

  “You’re looking for two dogs?” he called.

  “Yes. A Great Pyrenees mix and a collie,” Clara said.

  He looked blank.

  “One mostly white, one mostly brown,” I said.

  “They were pretty dirty, but probably, yeah.”

  “How long ago?”

  “A few minutes. Maybe five. Tried whistling to them. They were having too much fun. Headed that way.”

  A flip of the hose indicated away from Clara and Ned’s house.

  “Thank you, thank you.”

  I started forward, but Clara held up. “I have to let Ned know. Damn. I don’t have my phone. I left it on the table.”

  “I have mine.”

  She grimaced. “Ned doesn’t have his. He never does in the yard. Maybe… Ned! Ned! They went this way.” She got no answer. “You go ahead. I’ll catch up.”

  While she retraced our steps, I continued on, pulling out my phone while I also looked for any sign of our dogs.

  Teague answered cheerfully after three rings.

  “Gracie and LuLu are lost. I don’t know when I’ll be there.”

  “Lost? Where? When?” Totally different tone. The cop on duty.

  “They got out of Clara and Ned’s yard. We don’t know how long ago. Can’t be more than fifteen minutes. Looks like they got down to the creek and they’re headed toward the highway,” I said grimly.

  “I’ll be right there.”

  “Teague—”

  He’d hung up.

  That let me hear Ned’s answering call to Clara behind me. That meant she’d be starting back toward me.

  I resumed my soggy, sloppy, slow progress in the direction the tomato-waterer had indicated.

  Clara caught up with me. “Ned’s coming, too. Oh, God, if something’s happened to them… It will break his heart if LuLu’s hurt, but if Gracie is, he’ll never forgive himself. Never.”

  “We’re not going to think that way. Clara, these shoes are slowing me down. You go ahead since you can move faster.”

  She did. Soon she had nearly two yards’ worth of a lead on me. I heard her calling the dogs’ names, along with “Good girl” and “Come.” I knew “Come” wouldn’t work and had little hope for “Good girl.” They were surely having too much fun.

  Ned caught up with me, panting and red-faced. He slowed to my pace. “I’m so sorry, Sheila. I can’t believe—”

  “We’ll find them.” I had to interrupt him. I couldn’t bear to hear the dire possibilities lurking in those somber tones.

  “Lulu! Gracie!”

  Clara’s call was different, though we couldn’t see her around a clot of trees forcing a bend in the creek. “She’s spotted them,” I told him.

  Driven by two spurs — hope and a sound I now identified as vehicles on the highway, I picked up my pace as much as I could against the dragging-me-down sandals. I’d ditch the darned things if I thought I could move faster barefoot. But I’d be hobbled in a half dozen strides on these rocks.

  I cleared the trees and could see ahead.

  To the rear ends of two mud-soaked dogs, their tails high and happy.

  And to the highway, with cars and pickups and big trucks whizzing along.

  It was raised the height of a house above the creek, but access to it was provided by a sloped embankment that would be all too apparent to adventuring dogs.

  Their alternative would be to go under the highway through a concrete tube.

  I thought of the agility equipment coming soon. If they were already used to those tunnels, they’d more likely accept that safer path now. But they weren’t used to it.

  I pushed for more speed, almost even with Clara and Ned now.

  “Gracie! Gracie!” I shouted. I swear her ears flickered around like furry radar dishes.

  But she didn’t slow and she didn’t look back. LuLu had her head down, sniffing, letting Gracie take the lead. If Gracie went through the tunnel, LuLu would, too.

  “Go through the pipe,” I muttered. “Go through the pipe.”

  “Maybe if we flank them, we can guide them into the pipe,” Clara said.

  “We can try, but from this far back…”

  “We’ll try. Ned, you go up that way.” She pointed left. “I’ll go up this other side. Sheila, you stay in the middle.”

  After only a few feet of following his diagonal path, Ned called, “Somebody’s pulling over. On the highway.”

  My brain went six ways at once. A dog snatcher. The dog catcher. A good Samaritan. A ghoul prepared to take pot shots at “strays.”

  I could see only part of one tire, offering no reassurance.

  Ned, Clara, and I surged forward.

  Gracie’s head came up, her attention caught by a change in activity — not ours, but on the highway shoulder above her.

  And then, as if my earlier thoughts conjured the actions, she started up the embankment.

  “No. No. No!” I shouted.

  Not even an ear flicker. She disappeared around a clump of bushes, then Lulu, trotting after her.

  Gasping and slipping, I desperately tried to go faster. To defy the equation putting me, Ned, Clara, all there too late. The equation of dogs and a highway.

  My phone rang. Teague. Panting, I jabbed at it with a shaking finger, still moving.

  “Teague—”

  His voice interrupted, clear and certain. “Got ’em.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  I heard the solid thunk of his truck door closing in stereo — on his phone and ahead of me up the embankment.

  Ned made it up to the highway first, then leaned over to help Clara.

  Teague came around the back of his truck and reached down to me. We clasped wrists and my abused feet barely touched the surface as he hauled me up.

  “You look like hell.” He gazed down at me. “Trying out for a season of Survivor?”

  I continued the motion his hauling started by stepping into him and hugging him. “Thank you.”

  He held on, his breath stirring my hair as he teased, “For the compliment?”

  “For Gracie and LuLu.”

  He felt solid and reliable and oh, so good.

  He felt like somebody I was lying to.

  My arms dropped from around him. His didn’t release me.

  “How did you do it?” I asked as I stepped back.

  “I held onto Murph’s leash, opened the back door, let him bark, and they came straight for us. Jumped right into the back seat of the truck like flowing water. Only hitch was getting the door closed without catching any of the wagging tails.”

  That explained the smear of mud across his noise and one cheek. I raised a hand to rub it away, then dropped it.

  Instead, I said, “You’ve got mud on your face.”

  “You’ve got mud everywhere.”

  He was right.

  Also one of my feet was bleeding. Clara’s face and both of Ned’s arms had oozing scratches.

  “C’mon, everybody get in the truck and we’ll get the two escapees back and get you all cleaned up.”

  Saying, “This is all my fault because I let them get out,” Ned insisted on sitting in back with the three dogs, two of them even muddier than we were and all of them vying to sit in his lap.

  Clara pushed me into the front seat of the truck cab ahead of her, then nudged me over until I was flush agai
nst Teague’s side.

  I gave her a dirty look, but she pretended to be busy fastening her seat belt.

  She had to ease up pushing against me to let me fasten mine, but as soon as it was clicked, I was shoved back to his side. His warm, solid, muscled side.

  Teague glanced at me, but said nothing, as he returned his attention to driving. Specifically doing a spritely U-turn to head to Clara and Ned’s.

  * * * *

  We hosed down as best we could outside, Clara, Ned, me, Gracie and LuLu. Even Teague and Murphy needed a little cleanup.

  I left Gracie, with her leash hooked to the railings of the deck, so she’d dry out.

  All the dogs were secured that way, in a taking no chances precaution of the closing the barn door after the horse is out variety.

  Especially since Gracie and LuLu were now happily exhausted. I borrowed old towels and rugs to protect my car from my soggy clothes. At home, they went right in the washer and I went right in the shower.

  Clean hair, clean body, clean clothes did wonders. Bandages on my foot protected the scrapes that had been bleeding, adding a challenge to finding shoes. But I overcame that and headed back to Clara and Ned’s.

  Going around back, I found Teague sitting on the deck with the three snoozing dogs. He had his legs stretched out, crossed at the ankle and the glass of ice water balanced on his flat abdomen.

  He looked—

  “Where are Clara and Ned?” I asked instead of finishing my thought.

  “Inside. Showering.”

  Just then, giggling came through to us from inside, accompanied by a deeper chuckle.

  Our gazes, connected during the mundane earlier exchange, caught. And held.

  He grinned slightly, both appreciating their pleasure and acknowledging the awkwardness of overhearing it.

  Did it also acknowledge an awareness between…?

  The reminder on my phone went off. Saved by a ringtone.

  I shouted, “Clara, we have to leave or we’ll be late for our appointment. Our appointment in Indianapolis.”