Murder, She Barked

One

It hadn’t been the best day. And now rain fell so hard on the windshield that the wipers whisked back and forth in overtime. If the needle on my gas gauge dipped any closer to E, it would turn into one of my top-ten worst days, and that was saying a lot, considering that I’d recently left my job without any prospects. I should have filled up on gas an hour or two ago, but I’d been in such a hurry that I pressed on. I squinted through the windshield in search of a gas station. I’d forgotten how far apart they were out in the country.

Relief surged through me at the sight of a combination convenience store and gas station. I turned off the road and pulled next to a gas tank, thanking my lucky stars I hadn’t been stuck in the rain miles from nowhere.

A spotlight cut through the downpour to reveal a bedraggled dog watching me. She stood up and offered a tentative wag of her tail.

The little dog huddled near the wall of the gas station, her eyes never wavering from their lock on me. The poor wet baby. Rain hammered sideways, plastering my hair to my head and soaking through my jacket while I filled my tank with gas. I could only imagine how drenched the dog must have been.

Laws probably prevented the owners from allowing their dog inside the gas station store, but they could at least provide a doghouse or some kind of shelter.

I dashed into the shop, biting back my desire to scold them for being so cruel to their dog. A lone hotdog turned in a roller grill on the counter, and I thought about buying it for the dog.

The woman behind the counter glanced my way for a second. “Been in there two months. Trust me, you don’t want it.”

Her hair billowed in an uncontrolled frizz as though she’d been as wet as I was. In her mid-forties, she had a good ten years on me. She returned to the magazine in her lap.

Self-consciously pushing my own hair back, I twisted it into a makeshift knot that I knew wouldn’t hold. There wasn’t much of a selection for dinner. I picked up a bag of nacho cheese Doritos. I’d given them up to lose weight but it was a well-known rule that all diets were off during road trips. Besides, I was about to explode from stress. If they’d had decent doughnuts, I would have bought one—or two or three.

“Coffee’s fresh,” she said. “I just put it on.”

I thanked her and poured half a cup full. “Any point in buying milk?”

“The stuff on that shelf is okay.”

I found little cartons, the kind kids take to school in their lunchboxes, dumped the entire contents of a box into the coffee and added sugar. It hardly resembled the lattes I liked so much, but it was the best I could do. I took my items to the cash register.

She looked up from her magazine and stared at me briefly before hopping off her stool. While she rang up my purchases, she glanced out the window into the night. “Where you headed?”

“Wagtail.”

“Be careful. The fog on the mountain will be so thick you won’t be able to see your own hands.”

I didn’t bother running through the rain to the car. The way things were going, I would surely spill my coffee or fall and land face-first in a puddle. Besides, at this point, I didn’t think I could be any wetter.

I opened the driver-side door, and the dirty little dog vaulted inside. She sat on the leather passenger seat, eyeing me.

Oh no. Not in Ben’s precious car. My boyfriend couldn’t tolerate a wisp of lint on a seat. He would have a fit when I brought his car back wet and muddy.

I leaned toward the dog. “I’m sorry, honey. I know you’re soaked through, but you can’t go with me.” I reached toward her, and she jumped into the backseat. Oh good. Let’s just spread the mud and dirt around a little bit more. Would a good car detailer be able to get mud stains out of the carpet?

Rain pelted me when I opened the rear door. No wonder she wanted to stay in the dry car. “I’m so sorry.” I reached for her, and she scrambled to the front, her slick fur allowing her to slip right through my fingers.

I trudged back to the convenience store. “Excuse me, but your dog is in my car. Maybe you could call her?”

The frazzle-haired woman narrowed her eyes. “So you’re the one she’s been waiting for.”

“What?”

“She picked you, darlin’. Some idiot dumped her out here two weeks ago. Three people have tried to catch her but nothin’ doin’. She’s smart as a whip. The animal control guy even set up a trap out there for her. She’s half starved, but she never went for the meat in the trap. She’s been waiting for you.”

Homeless, starving, and wet. I could relate—in a way. A mere week ago, I had walked away from the security of my fund-raising position over a breach of ethics. Theirs, not mine. It had been stupid to leave a job without another one lined up, but who expected that kind of development in life? I had done the right thing, and I knew it. I still had a home, but without a paycheck coming in, things would start getting tight pretty fast.

The dog’s situation was certainly more dire than mine. In a couple of hours, I would be in my grandmother’s inn, wearing a fluffy white bathrobe and sneaking something delicious from the kitchen.

I wiped water off my cheek. My own precious yellow lab had succumbed to old age about the time I met Ben. Every day I drove by the animal shelter on my way to work and thought about adopting a dog. When I’d mentioned it to Ben, he’d nixed the idea, insisting we didn’t have time for a dog in our lives. Maybe we didn’t . . .

I sighed. Except for my grandmother’s dog, they weren’t allowed in the inn. “I . . . I can’t take her with me.” My words faded at the end of the sentence. I wanted to take her. I wanted to rescue her from her miserable life.

“If you don’t, she’ll get hit by a car or shot.”

“Shot? Who would shoot a harmless little dog?”

“Sooner or later she’s gonna go for somebody’s chickens. Darlin’, just take her with you. It’s karma, you know. That little girl knows something we don’t. Lots of cars come by here every day. There’s a reason she picked you.”

I suspected the unceasing rain was probably the driving force behind her choice, but I just nodded my head and hurried back to the car. If nothing else, I would find a home for her.

When I opened the car door and lights illuminated the interior, I looked closely at the muddy yellowish dog with black ears, a black spot on her rump, an orange muzzle, and a Dorito clenched between her teeth. A Jack Russell terrier, I guessed. Her lively, intelligent eyes and body shape certainly suggested that.

The bag of Doritos had been ripped open, and orangey chips lay on the seats, carpet, and middle console. If that wasn’t bad enough, she’d managed to chew the lid off my coffee and spill the entire contents on the carpet.

Her eyes reminded me of a baby seal’s. Rimmed in black, with sweet white lashes, they studied me, waiting for my reaction. I burst out laughing. This day couldn’t get any worse. It was either laugh or cry, and I always preferred laughter.

I bought more Doritos, another cup of makeshift café au lait, and a roll of paper towels.

The dog promptly retreated to the backseat when I opened the passenger door and cleaned the mess she had made. Like the suede shoes I wore, the carpet would never recuperate. “Ben is not going to be happy about this,” I told her.

Water squished out of my wool skirt when I settled into the driver’s seat for the last two-hour leg of the trip. Trying to ignore the discomfort of sitting on waterlogged wool, I put the car into gear and headed out on the nearly deserted road.

Ben would never loan me his car again. He hadn’t had much choice when my phone rang during the tour of his boss’s vineyard. During the drive there, he’d asked me not to mention my employment issues. Issues, he’d called them! I got the message, though. The vineyard invitation was about him and his future with Mortie Foster’s law firm. He needed to put his best foot forward. I wasn’t offended. I understood the importance to him, and he deserved my support. But then he’d said something that blew my hopes to smithereens.

“They will all find out soon enough that you’re persona non grata in the fund-raising community.”

It wasn’t as though I hadn’t realized it somewhere deep in my subconscious. But when he said it out loud like that, I had visions of whispers about Holly Miller spreading like the threads of a spider web. No matter that I had been in the right—no one wanted a troublemaker. Finding a new job might not be as easy as I had hoped.

I’d put on a happy face, though, for Ben’s sake. Not the easiest thing to do considering the way his boss’s daughter, Kim, had latched onto him. Easily ten or twelve years younger than Ben and me, probably still in her twenties, her bottle blonde hair curled like she’d just romped in bed. Her upper lip curled, too, suggesting a doctor had plumped it up.

Jacqui Foster, his boss’s wife, had clutched Ben’s arm and snuggled up to him. “I always thought our Kim would marry Ben,” she’d said. “They made such a cute couple when they were dating.”

A fine time to learn he had dated Kim. Didn’t Ben know he was supposed to tell a person when she was going into enemy territory?

Jacqui had lifted my left hand to examine my ring. For a moment, I’d thought she might pull out a jeweler’s loupe to study it more precisely. “What, no engagement ring yet?”

Translation: Kim, there’s still hope!

No one could confuse the little band of five square-cut emeralds I wore on my middle finger with an engagement ring. Could she have been more obvious?

We had just finished dinner when my phone rang. Ben had shot me a look that could have fried an egg. “I thought we agreed no phones tonight,” he’d hissed. Under his disapproving glare, I excused myself to take the phone call.

“Holly, honey? Is that you?”

I hadn’t recognized the voice.

“It’s Rose, sweetheart. I think you ought to come to Wagtail as soon as you can.”

Rose had been my grandmother’s best friend for as long as I had been alive, maybe longer. “What’s wrong? Is it Oma?”

“Now don’t be alarmed. But you best come right away.”