Terrier Transgressions

Chapter Sixteen

Nan reappeared about fifteen minutes later. At her side stood a fiery-haired, freckle-faced girl wearing pajama pants that had been liberally patterned with smiling cartoon tacos.

“Hello, darlings,” Nan sang out proudly. “This is Mitch Hayes.”

“Yeah. Nobody’s called me Michelle from grade school,” the college student explained before plopping a kiss right on Yo-Yo’s fuzzy head. The little dog looked as if he were floating on a cloud as Mitch hugged and doted on him.

“Thanks for coming out to talk to us,” Charles said. He rose and offered his hand to Mitch, and she struggled to adjust the terrier in her arms to accept his greeting, leading to a rather awkward introduction.

“Why weren’t you answering any calls?” I demanded. Maybe I was being a tad rude, but none of us had time to waste if we wanted to meet my mother’s deadline for clearing Brock.

The girl shrugged. “I dropped my phone in a toilet a couple weeks ago and haven’t felt the need to replace it since I’m pretty much always on my computer or tablet, anyway.”

“But why not return any of the many, many calls from people trying to get in touch with you?” Charles asked, crooking his eyebrow.

“I was sick of people calling to make themselves feel better about offering condolences while only making me feel worse with the constant reminders that my parents are dead.” She buried her face in the Yorkie’s fur and mumbled, “Maybe I don’t want to talk about the fact my parents were murdered in cold blood.”

Nan placed an arm around Mitch and pulled her in close. “You two can stop with the third degree now. Mitch doesn’t have to help us, but she’s kindly agreed to anyhow.”

“Thank you, Mitch,” I said, offering a smile I hoped would get through to her. “We do really appreciate it.”

She kicked at the ground and kept her eyes focused there. “So you really think this Brock guy is innocent?”

I placed a gentle hand on her shoulder and waited for her to look up at me. “We know he is.”

She shivered beneath my hand and her face took on a new pallor. “That means the person who killed my parents is still out there.”

I let go of her shoulder and grabbed my shoulder instead. “Yeah.”

“Tell me what you need me to do.” Mitch set her mouth in a determined line, her brows furrowed in anger.

“Over here.” Charles cleared his throat and motioned for everyone to sit on a nearby retaining wall. “We need you to tell us anything that could help us identify the real killer.”

Poor Mitch looked a bit lost. “But you have my statement, right? I already told the cops everything I could think of.”

“We do, but do you mind if we ask you a few more questions in light of recent things we’ve learned?” Charles asked, reaching into his bag. I seriously hoped he didn’t plan to pull out the crime scene photos right now. Mitch shouldn’t have to see that.

Even before Charles could find what he was searching for, a sudden burst of tears fell from the girl’s bright blue eyes.

“Oh for goodness’s sake, you two. Slow down a bit. Can’t you see this is hard on her?” Nan grumbled, pressing the girl’s head into her shoulder. “You just go ahead and cry all the tears you need to cry. That’s right. Nan is here for you now.”

Yo-Yo whined and licked his sister’s face, offering a hesitant tail wag.

As I watched them and tried to come up with a new way to approach questioning Mitch, Octo-Cat pawed at my shoulder.

“Excuse me,” he said, shocking me with his sudden politeness. “Dum-Du—I mean, the dog says he remembers who hurt his owners now. Also, he says he thinks his humans might even be dead.”

“He remembers?” I asked, not even caring when Mitch lifted her head to study us curiously. “I thought he said it was too dark to see.”

“Yes, but he smelled everything just fine, and apparently remembers who it was now,” Octo-Cat explained slowly.

Yo-Yo fixed his eyes on me and gave an urgent bark.

“So, yeah.” Octo-Cat dropped his voice to a hissy whisper and leaned in close. “Can I finally just tell him already?”

“Tell him what? Oh…” That his owners are dead. Yo-Yo still didn’t know for sure. I nodded my agreement. “Yeah, I think it’s time.”

Octo-Cat spoke to Yo-Yo calmly and much kinder than he ever had before. When he’d said all he needed to say, I waited for the inevitable high-pitched screeching and crazy escape attempts from Yo-Yo, but he just let out a soft whimper and snuggled in closer to Mitch.

“Why isn’t he freaking out?” I asked my cat.

Octo-Cat had something akin to respect written across his face. I couldn’t be one-hundred percent sure, since I’d never seen him make that expression before and it didn’t seem likely I’d ever see it again, either.

“He wants to be strong for his human,” he told me.

I brought a hand to my chest and said, “Awww, that’s so sweet.”

Octo-Cat shrugged his little kitty shoulders. “Yeah, dogs might not be the smartest, but they are loyal. I guess that’s their one redeeming quality.”

Yo-Yo licked Mitch a few more times, then untangled himself from her arms and came to sit right next to me. He let out a string of four or five barks, keeping his eyes trained on me the whole time he spoke.

“He didn’t see much, but he remembers her smell now,” Octo-Cat said. He lifted a paw to his mouth, but then thought better of beginning a new grooming session at this key investigative moment and dropped his paw back to the ground.

“Her, right.” So far everything was lining up with what Charles and I already knew—or at least theorized—and things weren’t looking very good for our realtor friend. “Who was it?”

Sure enough, Octo-Cat confirmed my suspicions with what he said next. “He says it was the lady selling the house.”

“Breanne, I knew it!” I shouted before turning to Charles. “Give me that picture of Breanne from her flyer, please.”

He stared at me wordlessly for a moment before finally reaching into his messenger bag and retrieving the requested photo.

“Is this her?” I asked, holding the paper up to Yo-Yo.

He let out a bark that quickly turned into a growl.

“See!” I said, shoving the paper back at Charles. “You let your crush on Breanne blind you to the truth. It was her this whole time.”

Octo-Cat pawed me again. This time with a bit of claw.

“Ouch!” I cried. “What now?”

“That’s not what he said,” he told me with a smug smirk.

Not Breanne? How could that possibly be? We already knew it wasn’t Mitch. Glendale wasn’t very big. How many five foot seven redheaded killers could we possibly have in our small town?

I widened my eyes at him, waiting.

“He said it wasn’t the lady on the paper,” Octo-Cat explained, visibly losing patience with each word. “It was the other one.”

“What?” I asked as my heart crashed to my feet. “All this just to find out it really was Brock all along?”

Octo-Cat turned to the terrier, and the two spoke quietly back and forth for a couple minutes before he looked back to me.

“Not the man,” he said. “The other lady.”

“Charles,” I said, reaching out my hand. “Give me a photo of Brock to show Yo-Yo.”

Mitch, who’d kept quiet during this whole exchange until now, piped up. Her eyes were wide and unblinking as she asked, “Are you actually talking with that cat?”

“It gets less weird the more you’re around it,” Nan explained with a kind chuckle.

“Looks like the cat’s out of the bag,” Charles added with a laugh that was way too generous for his bad joke.

I didn’t have the time to worry about some college student learning my secret. I was so close to figuring this out, and just in the nick of time, too. We only had about ten hours before my mom’s story would run. Maybe—just maybe—it would actually be enough.

Charles held up the picture of Brock, and Yo-Yo made a high-pitched yipping noise.

“Not him,” Octo-Cat translated.

“Then who does he mean when he says it’s the other one?” I complained. Something just wasn’t clicking. Maybe Yo-Yo wasn’t the key to solving the case, after all.

“Brock is the other one,” I insisted, speaking to Octo-Cat but keeping my gaze on Yo-Yo as I did so. “Who else there?”

“I’m calling Breanne,” Charles announced already mid-dial.

“Give me that,” I said, yanking his cell phone right out of his hand.

“Hello?” Breanne answered full of an energy and friendliness I certainly hadn’t heard from her before.

I caught the eye of each of my companions and raised a finger to my lips to let them know they needed to be quiet. “Hello, Breanne. It’s me, Angie Russo, the paralegal on your brother’s case.”

“I thought I told you I didn’t want you working on it anymore,” she growled, every ounce of kindness having evaporated within a split second.

“I’m off the case after today,” I explained quickly. “But Charles asked me to drive up to Michelle Hayes’s school and see if I could find her. She only had a few minutes before her class started, but she told me the realtor did it.”

Yeah, like I was about to confess my strange abilities to someone who already hated me.

“Impossible,” Breanne spat back. “I didn’t do it, and neither did my brother. It’s awfully funny that she’s blaming me now when she swore she didn’t have a clue in her statement to the police.”

I made a tight fist and then let it go, bracing myself for what came next. “If you didn’t, then who did? I mean, who else could she possibly mean?”

Breanne made a series of infuriated noises that started with a huff and ended with a yell. “That’s it! I’m definitely calling Mr. Thompson to file an official complaint.”

“Please just answer the question,” I insisted, praying she wouldn’t hang up on me before offering anything good.

“The realtor,” Breanne yelled. “That could mean absolutely anybody. Do you know there are more than three-thousand realtors licensed just in the state of Maine? It could have been any of the ones who showed up at the open house or had a showing before that, or even the one who was helping them to buy their new house. Anyone could have had access to the lockbox. Anyone could have killed them.”

“Wait,” I said. My breathing hitched, and I shook from the sudden excitement of my realization. “Go back.”

“Anyone could have access. The fact you insist on blaming me when I’m the one paying—”

As much as I knew she liked yelling at me, I had to cut Breanne off in order to keep her focused. “Not that. Before,” I begged.

“Despite your fondness for blaming me, Michelle could have literally been talking about any other realtor. If she had some insider information, then why hasn’t she shared before now?”

“Forget about that for now,” I said. “You mentioned another realtor. You’re not the one helping buy their new house?”

Breanne drew in a sharp breath. Maybe she was finally beginning to understand now. “No. I mean, I wanted to, but they already had someone picked out before they came to me to list their house.”

“Do you know who that other realtor was?” I asked, then held my breath as I waited.

Her answer would determine everything.