Dog Days (4 page)

~*~

I had parked in the semi-shade of one of the drooping dogwoods that lined the street in front of Miss Meg’s, and as I started toward my car I noticed a man standing beside it. There was nothing particularly strange about that, since every parking place on the street was taken and I figured he had just gotten out of the red sports car that was parked next to my Trailblazer. In the dead season of January or February, I would be able to walk down this same street and call every person I met by name, but this time of year the opposite was true, and the man did not look familiar at all. He was tall, a little slump-shouldered, balding on top, wearing khaki shorts and a plaid shirt with sneakers and white socks—in other words, a harmless tourist. Harmless, I thought, until he cupped his hand over his eyes and peered in the window of my SUV.

“Hey!” I said, but I was too far away for him to hear. I quickened my pace.

He walked around my car and I swear I saw him take something from his pocket—a cell phone?—and point it at the rear of my vehicle. That was strange, but it wasn’t until he moved around to the driver’s door and tried the handle that I started to run. “Hey!” I shouted, and heads turned. “Hey, get away from my car!”

This may be a small town full of strangers, but it’s still a small town. When a woman starts running down the street screaming at a man, people stop and stare. Other men move closer to get a better look. Their wives take out their cell phones to dial 911. I could see the slump-shouldered man turn abruptly and dart his eyes around for the easiest escape route, but when you are constantly chasing after a dog as fast as Cisco, you get to be pretty fast yourself. I grabbed his arm before he could take the first sprinting step.

“What are you doing?” I demanded, breathing hard.

He jerked his arm away and raised both hands up in a placating gesture. “Lady, I don’t know what your problem is—”

“You were trying to break into my car!”

He looked outraged. “What are you talking about? This is my car! I locked the keys inside, that’s all.”

“Oh, yeah?” I dug into my purse for my keys. “Oh yeah?”

A smooth male voice said behind me, “Is everything okay here?”

I looked up to see Marshall Becker, and though I don’t usually respond well to men who like to think their main role in life is to swoop in and rescue women at the last minute, in this case I was glad for the eyewitness.

“This man was trying to break into my car!” I said indignantly.

He broke in with equal indignation, “This crazy woman ran up and grabbed me and started yelling at me just because I locked my keys in my car!”

I finally found my keys, yanked them out, and pointed the remote triumphantly at the door. The door clicked open and I tossed him a smug look as I pulled open the door and looked inside. Just in case I had any doubt, there were leashes in the door pockets, pickup bags in the cup holders, and the stray dog’s pink collar on the passenger seat. “No keys,” I pronounced, and turned to glare at him.

The stranger looked dismayed. “I, um, I was sure I parked here.”

A woman called out, “Do you want me to call the police?”

The stranger looked panicky and Marshall called back, “Thanks, just a misunderstanding.”

I turned my glare on Marshall. “Excuse me? I’m the victim here.”

The man’s tone took on a note of pleading as he slowly lowered his hands, “Come on, lady, an honest mistake. I’m just a regular guy passing through town on my way to the Blue Ridge Parkway. The wife and I are staying overnight at the Black Bear Lodge, you can check. My car looks just like this, same year and everything. I don’t know how I could have misplaced …” He started patting his pockets, and a look of sheepish remorse came over his face as he pulled out a set of keys. “Oh,” he said.

Marshall raised an eyebrow. “It’s up to you. You can call the police if you want.”

I snapped, “I know I can.”

The man looked distressed. “Lady, please.”

I rolled my shoulders irritably and waved him away. “Oh, go on.”

Both Marshall and I watched him hurry across the street, head down, and turn the corner. “He was lying,” I said, still scowling.

“People make mistakes,” Marshall replied.

“I’ve got an AKC sticker on my windshield,” I pointed out irritably, “and bumper stickers on the back.”

“Maybe he didn’t see them.”

“He walked around the back. I think he took a picture.”

“That is odd,” Marshall admitted. And he looked at me sympathetically. “I guess after everything you’ve been through, you have a right to be a little paranoid.”

“I am not paranoid.” I scowled fiercely and pushed my fingers through my curls. “This kind of thing has happened before,” I told him. “Ever since that stupid article about Cisco and me came out in
North Carolina Today
.” That article, which had been picked up a few weeks later by a national news magazine, had painted Cisco—and me, I guess—as heroes in a very bad incident that had taken place over the Fourth of July. My fifteen minutes of fame had not been nearly as enjoyable as one might expect. “Reporters calling any time of the day or night, perfect strangers taking my picture on the street or driving right up to my house, people e-mailing me with messages for Cisco … some guy even wanted to make a movie of my life. Turned out he was a twenty-two-year-old film student with a point-and-shoot. I’m just tired of it all. It’s weird and it’s annoying and I am not paranoid.”

He nodded sympathetically, but I could tell he wasn’t entirely convinced. “I’m just saying. It would be understandable if you were.”

I looked at him coolly. “Men with mustaches never win elections,” I said.

I got in the car and slammed the door, and I could swear he was chuckling as he watched me back out and drive away.

But the time I’d driven the four blocks to the public safety building, I was over my irritation, and I certainly wasn’t going to waste anybody’s time with an incident report about a confused tourist. However, it only made sense, as long as I was in town, to follow up on the stray dog, so I made the left turn onto Courthouse Square and found a parking space.

I don’t spend as much time around the sheriff’s office as I used to, but I’m still fairly comfortable there. Between my uncle having been sheriff for thirty years, and being married to Buck for most of my adult life—off and on, anyway—I know everyone in the department and everyone knows me. I had some time before I was due to pick up the golden, so I decided to stop by the office, as Jolene had suggested, and leave a description. Who knew? Maybe someone had already called in looking for her.

The blast of air-conditioned air felt good after the walk across the parking lot under the blaring sun. I pushed open the glass door of the sheriff’s department to a burst of laughter and the sound of applause. That was my first hint that a party of some kind was going on; the second hint was the slice of frosted cake on the empty reception desk. I could see everyone was gathered in the bullpen, where a tall cake and a bowl of punch had been set up. I started toward them.

This kind of thing probably isn’t procedure, but the sheriff’s department is its own little family, and my uncle always believed that impromptu celebrations of things like birthdays and promotions were good for morale. Even though I had just finished a slice of pie with ice cream, I wouldn’t say no to a piece of birthday cake. It looked as though it had come from the bakery, which was not something I got to have very often.

“Hi, guys,” I called, pushing through the gate that separated the desks from the lobby. “Whose birthday?”

The laughter and chatter died down little by little as the deputies and employees turned to look at me, their expressions oddly embarrassed. This was about the same time I noticed that the three-tiered cake was not a birthday cake, but a wedding cake, and that the bride and groom on top were not wearing a tuxedo and wedding dress, but sheriff’s department uniforms. I noticed this at the same time I noticed my ex-husband with his arm around Wyn, the only other female deputy on the force besides Jolene, and the woman Buck had left me for. They each had pieces of cake between their fingers and smears of icing on their faces, having apparently just finished feeding each other the traditional bite of wedding cake. And that was when I noticed the glittering diamond on Wyn’s finger, and below it a shiny new gold band.

You know that dream you have when you’re walking down the hall of your high school and realize that you not only forgot to prepare for a math exam but that you’re stark naked? That literally can’t begin to compare to the way I felt standing there, the ultimate party crasher, with everybody looking uncomfortable and uncertain and embarrassed, not because of me, but
for
me. Buck picked up a paper napkin and wiped the frosting from his face. Wyn turned away, refusing to meet my eyes. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

I cleared my throat, tried to smile, tried to make words come out. I couldn’t. So I simply turned and walked away, feeling like a perfect idiot.

CHAPTER THREE

I
crossed the covered walkway between the public safety building and courthouse, my cheeks burning with the kind of humiliation that makes you want to hide in a dark room someplace and not come out for a while. I really didn’t know where I was going, or care; I just wanted to get away from all of those awkward, pitying gazes.

It was stupid. It wasn’t as though I had any claim on Buck, or wanted to. I was with someone else. He was with someone else. But he married her. And I hadn’t known.

Buck was married.

I sat down abruptly on a curved concrete bench beneath the shade of a big oak tree, staring straight ahead at nothing at all, willing my cheeks to cool and my breathing to slow, until I suddenly realized where I was. Then it was a moment before I could breathe at all. I twisted my fingers together in my lap, hard.

Jolene sat down stiffly beside me. “I don’t like you,” she said, “and I don’t want to be your friend. But no woman deserves to be ambushed like that. I thought you knew, or I would’ve said something at the diner.”

Jolene’s dog Nike had found the first bomb less than twelve feet from where we were sitting. Miles and Melanie and Cisco and Pepper had been in the car right there, four easy strides away. A prickly film of perspiration broke out on my skin, and the shady air chilled it.

“It’s not like she hasn’t been flashing that ring around the office since before I got here,” Jolene went on. Apparently she thought I’d want to know. I didn’t. “I guess they got married last night at the courthouse, didn’t want a fuss. Some of the staff girls found out about it and wanted to surprise them with a cake. Stupid. Unprofessional. I guess you can get away with that kind of thing in a hick town like this.”

“I have nightmares sometimes,” I said. I intended my voice to be conversational, but was surprised at how thin and wavery it sounded, with a little catch at the end. I knotted my fingers together even more tightly.

“Stop it,” Jolene said.

But I couldn’t. “The thing is,” I went on rapidly, “I always wake up before the bomb goes off.” My breath was coming fast, a little shakily. “I know it’s going to happen and I’m trying to warn people, but nobody will listen, and when I wake up it’s almost worse because I think if I could have stayed asleep a few more seconds I might could have saved them.”

“Stop it,” she repeated fiercely. “Don’t you let that bunch of redneck fools come out and see you sitting here crying over some man.”

“I’m not—”

“I know that,” she said shortly, “but they don’t. Take a breath, get yourself together, or I swear I’ll pinch a black and blue mark on you.”

That surprised a laugh out of me. “My grandmother used to say that.” When I swiped a knuckle under my eye there was moisture there, but when two deputies came out of the building across the walkway and glanced in our direction I was glad they saw me sitting there laughing with Jolene.

“Everybody’s grandmother used to say that.” She stood, glaring at me. “I’ve got work to do. Don’t you have someplace to be?”

I glanced at my watch. “Yep, sure do.” I stood up too and added casually, “Let’s have lunch some time.”

I knew that would annoy her, and so it did. Her frown only deepened, and she walked away without another word. But I felt a little better as I went back to my car and drove out of town.

~*~

Crystal greeted me with a big smile from behind the desk when I walked into the vet’s office. “Good news,” she said. “We found her vet and they faxed over her shot records.” She presented some papers to me. “She’s good to go until March. Also, we got a phone number for the owner, but it goes to voice mail.” Now her smile turned to a grimace. “Probably their home number, a Virginia area code. Seriously, you’d think people would learn to put their cell phones as contact numbers on the microchip. You’re out of town, you lose your dog, what good does it do to have people calling your home phone to tell you they’ve found your dog?”

“Maybe they don’t have a cell phone,” I suggested, and Crystal, who was twenty-something, rolled her eyes at the very thought.

“Anyway, I left a couple of messages, your number and ours. The microchip company and the dog’s vet are doing the same thing, so maybe it won’t be too long before we hear something.”

“Thanks,” I said, glancing over the paperwork. The dog’s name was Cameo, and she belonged to April Madison of 238 Willow Drive, Highlands, Virginia. “What about this?” I pointed to a line on the second page. “Greg Sellers, the emergency contact?”

“Disconnected.”

I muttered, “Great. Why don’t people keep their information updated?”

Crystal shrugged. “Hold on, I’ll get her.”

The way a dog can affect your mood is nothing short of miraculous. I still had that same hollow soreness in the pit of my stomach that I’d taken with me from the sheriff’s office, but the moment Crystal came out with that fluffy white golden retriever pulling on the end of the leash, her fur combed out and shining with conditioner, her deep brown eyes bright and alert, I all but forgot my own troubles. I dropped to one knee, opening my arms as I exclaimed softly, “Look at you!”

Crystal dropped the leash a few feet away and Cameo came right to me. I gave her a big hug and ran my fingers through slightly damp, sweet smelling fur. She wagged her tail and bumped my chin with her forehead, clearly accustomed to being fawned over.

“I think she’s glad to be cleaned up,” said Doc, coming out behind Crystal. “She checks out fine. I couldn’t find a mark on her. I don’t know what she got into. A deer carcass maybe? But I doubt she ate any of it. She looks too healthy to’ve been eating carrion, and I don’t think she could’ve been on the loose more than a day or two. I guess Crystal told you we got hold of her vet and have a lead on the owner, so maybe this one will be a happy ending.”

“Thanks, Doc.” I caught up the leash and stood. “I could use a happy ending or two right now.”

He winked at me. “I’ll put it on your tab.”

Doc Witherspoon’s office is on the edge of town, in a building next to his house, which makes it practical for late night emergencies. It’s on a rural road with mostly farms nearby, and the closest house was an easy quarter-mile away. So naturally I noticed, as I made the turn out of his dirt driveway, that there was a blue sedan parked on the shoulder of the road about a hundred feet to the north. At first I thought the car was abandoned, but when I passed it I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw a man straighten up behind the wheel, as though he had been checking the glove box or reaching for something on the passenger side floor. Or trying to hide.

Because I swear, just for a moment there, the guy looked enough like that crazy tourist from town that I actually tapped my brakes to get a better look. It was too late though. He pulled off the shoulder and made a U-turn to go the opposite way, cell phone pressed to his ear. And while I didn’t get a look at his face, I could tell he was straight-shouldered, not stooped, wearing a red polo shirt, not a plaid cotton one, and if he was balding, a baseball cap covered it. He was just a guy who had pulled over to the side of the road to make a phone call.

Maybe Marshall Becker was right. Maybe I
was
paranoid.

~*~

On my way home I passed the fairgrounds, where the big Ferris wheel was already being erected and the colorful tops of canvas tents were being stretched between metal poles. There were several tractor trailers and a half dozen pickup trucks parked in the dusty lot, and I could hear the staccato sound of hammers as I passed. As a kid I used to love to watch them put together the Ferris wheel, and somehow always found a way to sneak past the fence meant to keep civilians out and watch in big-eyed wonder until Uncle Ro sent a deputy to chase us off. By “us” I mean, of course, Buck and me. We were inseparable even then.

It was a quarter till three when I got home, which meant I would have to hustle if I expected to finish all the grooming clients and have them—as well as the day care dogs—ready for pickup at 5:00. And if either one of those girls even so much as mentioned leaving early today, I would strangle her.

I hurried Cameo into the rescue run and made sure she had fresh water and access to shade, as well as a chew bone I’d just sanitized in the dishwasher that morning. Then I changed my nice blouse for another faded Dog Daze tee shirt and crossed the driveway to the kennel office at a brisk pace.

The first thing I noticed was that there was a bicycle parked inside the gate. It had a duffle bag sporting a red, white, and blue design strapped to the back fender, and a helmet painted with neon color paw prints dangling from the handlebars. Odd. I didn’t know anyone with a bicycle like that. Or with a bicycle of any kind, come to think of it.

There were no dogs in the play yard, and all was relatively quiet as I came up, which was always a good sign. I was starting to think a little more favorably about the girls by the time I reached my office. There I stopped dead.

The strangest-looking young man I’d ever seen was sitting behind my desk, talking on my phone. He had wild frizzy hair that was literally the color of fresh carrots, and it stuck out from his head about four inches in all directions. His eyebrows and eyelashes were also orange, although half-covered by square-framed white-rimmed glasses. He wore a bright yellow shirt with puffy short sleeves and a red bow tie. He was saying into my phone, “That’s right, Mrs. Carver, ten o’clock on Thursday. We’ll see you then. ’Ta!” He jotted something down on my calendar as he hung up the phone, and then leapt up from behind the desk, his smile as big as Colorado, his hands extended in joyful welcome.

“Raine Stockton!” he cried. “Raine Stockton, I can’t believe it’s really you!”

I just stood there, staring with mouth slightly ajar, frozen in place, and he rushed around the desk toward me. He wore the smallest pair of shorts I’d ever seen on a man, and electric blue Crocs. “I am
such
a fan!” he gushed. “I can’t tell you what an honor! I’ve been counting the days, the hours really …”

He was coming at me with such enthusiasm that I thought he was going to try to hug me, and I threw my hands up in self-defense. “Hey!” I said, using the same tone I’d use with an overly exuberant puppy, and he stopped like a well trained dog. I demanded, “Who are you?”

He crossed his hands over his chest in a gesture of contrition. “Where
are
my manners?” He spun on his heel and snatched a paper from my desk. “Cornelius Sylvester Lancaster the Third, at your service. I’m your twelve o’clock. My resume.”

He presented the paper to me with a flourish, and I stared at it for a moment, uncomprehending. Then I had to stifle a groan. The kid I was supposed to interview at noon for the job. I’d forgotten. Still …

“Where’s Cisco?” I demanded sharply. A sudden alarm overtook me and I whirled for the door. “Where are my dogs? Where are the girls?”

I ran out into the hall and pushed open the metal fire door that led to the kennel area. “Cisco! Mischief, Magic, Pepper!”

That of course incited an immediate eruption of wild, discordant barks, but among the excited voices I thought I recognized some familiar tones from the playroom. I hurried in and found Cisco, Pepper, Mischief, and Magic safely inside the roomy “resting” kennels I used for agility lessons when dogs were awaiting their turn. I went quickly to each of them, doling out treats from my pockets and assuring myself they were all okay.

Cornelius followed me in some confusion. “Um, they were having nap time.”

I whirled once again. “Where are the girls? They’re supposed to be in charge.”

He still looked confused. “They left at two. They said it was Thursday.”

I stared at him for another moment. I knew that. Of course I did. On Thursdays the girls left at two. I had just forgotten it was Thursday.

I said, “Look, um, Cornelius …”

“Corny,” he injected. “My friends call me Corny.”

I wondered if those people were really his friends, and it took me a moment to recompose thoughts. “Um, Corny, I’m sorry I missed our appointment, but this is really not a good time. I have five grooming clients to finish …”

“Done,” he said cheerfully.

I stared at him. “What?”

He held up a finger and went to the door, calling out in a singsong voice, “Ladies! Gentlemen! Please!”

To my absolute astonishment, the uproar of barking dissipated, little by little, until all that was left was the lone, determine yip of a Chihuahua at the far end of the run. Corny said sternly, “Chi-Chi!” and even that stopped. Even my own dogs settled down in their kennels and stretched out their paws, their eyes fixed upon the creature who may or may not have been the God of All Dogs.

He turned to me, smiling broadly. “Sorry. Go ahead.”

I was starting to get a little spooked. “As I was saying, my grooming clients …”

“Right.” He counted them off on his fingers. “Caesar and Cicero, baths and nail trims, picked up by their moms at one thirty. They left checks, but I didn’t enter them into the computer because I don’t know your password. Breeze, flea-dip and blow out, went home at two. Samson is still in the drying cage. Peaches’s card said she gets a puppy cut, so that’s what I gave her, plus a fluff-and-buff, and her mom is on the way now.”