Terrier Transgressions

Chapter Twenty

“Why, I’ve never been so insulted in all my life. Go! Get out of my office!” the realtor cried. All traces of her earlier smile completely wiped clean from her face, which now pinched in rage. Sandra popped to her feet so quickly, I instantly recoiled in fear.

And, in my attempt to stumble to a standing position, I stepped on Octo-Cat’s tail.

He let out a terrible yowl and jumped onto the desk between us, hissing up a storm.

“What? Where did he come from?” Sandra demanded, turning redder and redder as each moment passed.

“Why don’t you answer my question first,” I shouted at her. “I know you killed the Hayeses, and I can prove it!”

“You can’t prove anything,” she spat. “Now get out of here!”

I crossed my arms over my chest and stared straight into her eyes, hoping she couldn’t see how afraid I was in that moment. “I’m not going anywhere until you admit what you did.”

“I didn’t do anything,” she said, taking care to enunciate each word, but I was not convinced.

“You killed the Hayeses in cold blood. You bashed out their brains with a hammer and framed the handyman,” I said. “Hey, if I agree to work with you, will you kill me, too?”

Sandra let out an enormous huff and lunged for me, but I was too fast for her.

I ran out of her office and back into the main waiting area. “Help!”

“No one else is here,” Sandra told me, approaching slowly, deliberately.

I saw my chance, so I took it. Squeezing past her down the hall, I bolted back into her office and locked the door behind me.

“You’re going to regret that!” she screamed, pounding furiously on the door.

I tuned her out and began pulling open drawers and cabinets in search of evidence. “Help me find proof!” I told Octo-Cat, who sat licking his wounded tail.

Soon we were both tearing through the office.

Surely something had to be here.

“I called your mother just like you said,” my tabby informed me.

“I’m calling the police!” Sandra screamed from the hallway.

“Good, that will make it easier for them to arrest you!” I shouted back, calling her bluff while shooting the cat an appreciative smile.

“Thanks for your help,” I told him. “You did good.”

We searched frantically for another couple moments, my desperation growing by the second.

“What’s this? The words look familiar,” Octo-Cat said, nudging a pile of mail from on top of the filing cabinet until it fell and scattered to the floor. He still didn’t know how to read, but he was beginning to recognize familiar patterns of numbers and letters.

Sure enough, I combed through the pile and found a sealed envelope addressed to Charles at the firm.

“Oh! Think you can get away with blackmailing my colleague, do you?” I called to Sandra, waving the letter around wildly even though she couldn’t see it. “But why threaten him when you know perfectly well that Brock Calhoun didn’t kill Bill and Ruth Hayes?”

She didn’t come back at me with an angry retort. In fact, Sandra said nothing at all as the entire office fell silent. The only sound in my ears was my own blood as it flew through my veins at a rapid tempo. My heart went crazy as I sent up a silent prayer that Sandra hadn’t someone gotten her hands on a gun or some other weapon she could use to attack me through the closed door.

A moment later, the front door burst open, sending the greeting bell into a violent jangle.

“Laura Lee, Channel 7 News. Do you care to tell our viewers what’s going on here?” my mother’s voice rang out, loud and clear, and I could just picture her there with her probing microphone that she swung around like a sword when she was really on the warpath. I imagined now would be one of those times.

Feeling safe enough to exit now that I had backup, I swung the door open and stepped back into the main area just in time to see Sandra Lynn make a run for it.

“Mom! Stop her!” I screamed as I began to run after the fugitive. I had absolutely no idea what I would do if I caught her, but I at least had to try.

“Wait here,” my mom said, dropping her mic and wrapping her arms around me. Her cameraman gave chase, but his gait was mired by the giant apparatus on his shoulder.

I watched through the glass door as a police car squealed to a stop and two armed officers jumped onto the scene.

“I’ve got her!” Charles called from somewhere I couldn’t see.

My mom let go, and I raced outside to extend my view. Sure enough, Charles stood with the very distraught murderess in his embrace.

“You don’t have any evidence!” she screamed.

“Actually, I have this,” I said, waving the envelope in the air. “It was in her outgoing mail,” I explained, handing it to the nearest officer.

“Threatening letters, huh?” the officer said with a smirk after scanning the letter. “Thanks for this,” he told me as he slipped it into his pocket. “But the mass collusion and double homicide should be more than enough to put this one away for a long time.”

“I have rights!” Sandra shouted pathetically.

“That’s right,” the other officer said. “Let me read them to you now. You have the right to remain silent…”

Charles ambled over to me with a bit of limp, which made me think Sandra put up some kind of fight when he subdued her. “Are you okay?” he asked, checking me over.

“I’m fine.”

Once he realized that was true, his handsome features contorted in an angry mask. “Why did you come out here on your own?”

“I had to find a way to prove Brock’s innocence, and this seemed like the most surefire way.”

“Well, it was the most ridiculous way,” Charles said. “The most unsafe way, too.”

I shook my head, going back over what the officer had said. “Did you find another way to prove she did it?”

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “Yes, and if you would have come back to the house, I could’ve told you that in person.”

“How?” I insisted. I still couldn’t figure out why the realtor had turned on her clients, and that was driving me crazy.

“Mitch,” Charles said simply. “She set everything in motion by texting a few key people during our drive.”

“But she said her phone—”

“She used Nan’s,” he cut me off. “Anyway, you were on the right track with the Bayside Printing Company, but you didn’t have the right access. Bill’s former employer, Mr. Weber, was able to do a system restore to recover previously deleted files. Once he knew to examine Lighthouse Realty & Brokerage’s past jobs and records in particular, he found exactly what he was looking for.”

I was so happy we’d found the answer, but it still didn’t make sense to me. “Which was?”

“The motive,” Charles said with a winning smile. “It was small and easy to miss, but on her latest print job, Sandra provided one page too many.”

“Meaning?” I asked, motioning for him to hurry up and answer the question that had plagued me all week long.

“Meaning she gave Bill a financial document, which showed some illegal activity involving false documentation and offshore accounts,” he explained.

“And so she killed him over that?” I asked. “Because she was worried he’d turn her in?”

“He blackmailed me!” Sandra screamed. “He said since I already knew how to skirt the rules that it shouldn’t be a big deal to get him a new house free of charge, the selfish jerk! I didn’t just have half a million to throw around. What was I supposed to do?”

“Not steal in the first place,” one of the officers said as he pushed her head down and shoved her in the back of the cruiser.

“Yeah, and you definitely shouldn’t have killed him or anybody else,” the other said.

“Well, there you have it,” my mom announced, coming to stand between me and Charles. “Brock Calhoun is innocent, and the real murderer has now been apprehended. And you saw it all unfold live, only on Channel 7.”

As my mother began to interview Charles, I quietly slipped out of the frame and went to retrieve my cat and his iPad from inside the brokerage.

I found Octo-Cat curled up on Sandra’s desk chair. Somehow he’d actually managed to fall asleep despite all that excitement.

“Hey.” I nudged him awake gently. “We did it.”

He blinked up at me, yawned, and then said, “Great. So what now?”

“How about a lobster roll from the Little Dog Diner?”

Charles joined us for lobster rolls and he even paid for everyone, including Mitch, Nan, and Yo-Yo who all joined us shortly after Sandra’s arrest. I let him recount all the gritty details while I focused on the delicious meal before me.

Toward the end of his explanation, Nan hit me on the back of the head, almost causing me to choke again.

“What?” I cried, my mouth still stuffed with food.

“If you do something that stupid again, I’m going to kill you,” she said, fixing me with a scowl.

“Sorry,” I muttered. “Does Brock know yet?” I asked in an effort to change the subject to happier outcomes.

Charles licked a bit of mayo from his thumb. “They’re processing him for release now. He’ll be a free man by nightfall.”

This news made me so happy I couldn’t help but smile as I devoured a second lobster roll.

Mitch finished eating first, then picked Yo-Yo up and sat him on her lap. That reminded me of something that still didn’t sit well with me.

“When I was talking with Sandra,” I said, waiting for a beat to make sure everyone was listening, “she mentioned dog-sitting for a friend once. Do you think it’s possible she meant Yo-Yo?”

“Do you really think she stole him, kept him hostage for a few weeks, and then let him go? That seems kind of improbable,” Charles said. “What reason would she have for doing that?”

“Let’s ask the dog,” Octo-Cat said before taking a giant hunk of shrimp into his mouth.

“Would you?” I said, adding “please” when he didn’t immediately comply.

“What’s—?” Charles began, but I shushed him while I waited for the animals to finish their exchange.

“Affirmative,” Octo-Cat said a moment later. “She took him that night when he wouldn’t stop barking, but he got away and came home. It took him a while to find his way back from Misty Harbor, but he was determined to get home, no matter what.”

I quickly relayed this information to the rest of the group.

“So, why didn’t she kill him, too?” Charles asked, stating the obvious.

“I guess even evil has its limits,” Nan said with a pert nod.

“He says he’s sorry for not remembering everything sooner,” Octo-Cat informed me. “And he said thank you for helping his family.”

“What’s going to happen to Yo-Yo now?” I asked the others.

“Charles is helping me petition the school to keep him with me on campus as an emotional support animal,” Mitch answered with a sad smile. “I just couldn’t imagine losing him again. He’s the only family I have left now.”

“And until then, he’ll stay with me,” Charles said. “But we should have no problem getting our petition approved, in light of…” His voice trailed off, but Mitch picked up the thread for him.

“My parents being recently murdered.”

“What a day,” Nan said with a giant sigh. “Let’s take a break before investigating our next big case, if that’s okay with you,” she said, turning to me.

“What makes you think there will be a next case?” I asked, surprised.

“Because, my darling, you might not always go about things in the safest way, but I think you’ve finally found your true calling.”

“Which is?”

“You’re the best private eye in all of Maine,” she said with a proud smile.

“I’ll drink to that,” Charles said, raising his glass of soda.

“Me too,” Mitch said.

That’s when Mom came swooping into the restaurant to join us. “I’m here!” she cried. “What did I miss?”

“Nothing,” Nan said, sending a wink my way. “Nothing at all.”

Well, I guess I could tell Mom later. I’d had more than enough excitement that night already.

Octo-Cat nudged me with his paw. “Now that that’s over with, I’m ready to collect on my favor.”

Mom was busy giving her order to the waitress, so I bent down and quietly hissed, “What is it?”

“I want you to buy me a house,” he said with a Cheshire grin.

“A house!” I exploded.

He nodded excitedly. “And not just any house. My house. I want to go home.”

My jaw hung open as I searched for the appropriate response. Nothing came to me, though.

“Don’t worry, you’re coming, too,” Octo-Cat added in a futile effort to answer my objections. He’d learned a lot about human society lately—I’d give him that—but there were certain things that still went way over his head, money being a prime example.

“You want me to just buy Ethel’s house?” I hissed again. “ There’s no way I can afford that huge place.”

“We’ll figure out the details later,” he assured me, returning his attention to his meal.

When I glanced back at my human dining companions, I saw Mom staring at me with a look I instantly recognized.

She knew.