Escape Route (Murder Off-Screen Book 1) (5 page)

He woke up early, yawned, stretched his front half, then his back half after he stood up. He trotted the full length of the rope to do his morning routine as far from his food source as possible. There was no food, but this was one of the first lessons his mom had taught him and he’d never forgotten.

Buttons of morning dew shimmered on the water dish. He stood on the rim of the dish to hold it steady and licked it clean. There was a bitter aftertaste. He recognized it from the Man’s garage. The crinkled wrapper from yesterday’s meat logs was trapped in the tall grass just beyond his reach, but before the bright ball of light got too high in the sky, a skiff of wind blew it right to him. The wrapper smelled as good as the meat had tasted. He licked it clean of flavor and, finally, ate it, too.

The protected water of his cove hid under the heavy mist, but he could smell it, and hear it lapping the shoreline, and the geese, still asleep, probably, heads tucked under, except the guardians. They would keep an eye out, and might be aware of him beyond their line of sight.

Boats motored even further out, but King did not bark. He’d learned that lesson the hard way at the first house where the Man was always thirsty, and hit him with whatever was in reach. “No bark!” he’d shout, which King thought sounded exactly like barking.

He napped fitfully, rousing himself to avoid the narrow sundial of shade around the tree. It was warm and the stiff blanket the Men left behind blocked the chill from the soggy ground around him. He checked the water dish, but no joy. He heard Cars far off and wished he could bark. They might have water. The breeze blew south-to-east. Perfect. The sound of barking would carry. But he didn’t.

Hours later, when they poked him in the ribs, he nearly slept right through it.

I know that most of the innocuous lanes that disappear into the woods on the Eastern Shore have a fabulous house attached to the end of them with the Chesapeake Bay in the backyard. It was no surprise that the Cuthbart’s share of the bay was even more magnificent than the mansion. The slight chop twinkled in March’s watered-down sunshine.

Rusted trucks with beds full of mulch, wheelbarrows stacked with hoes and rakes ringed the mansion’s driveway. Piles of black, pungent mushroom soil waited to be spread in the raised flower beds, but not a gardener in sight to make that happen. Maybe Mrs. Cuthbart worried I was an ICE agent moonlighting as a screenwriter. An elegant woman in a cashmere shawl and flowing skirt stood at the understated, custom-made front door.

“Ms. Shanahan. Delighted.” Francine Cuthbart met me half-way down the semi-circular, brick steps and offered a hand as soft and limp as her shawl. “A bicycle? How unusual.”

“Trying to get back in shape. LA, you know. Nobody walks.” I said it because Frannie Cuthbart was a groupie, or would be if I had a group. The Hollywood connection. It’s why she’d agreed to meet with me. Why she was “beyond thrilled” to meet with me at seven o’clock in the morning.

“I can imagine. I’ve read about Los Angeles traffic, and the smog. Come in.” She stepped aside and opened the door into the foyer.

My sneakers squealed across the marble-tiled, double-decker entry hall as I followed my hostess into the family room. Not a chew toy or flea in sight. No Lost Dog posters scattered on the mahogany dining table for her children to staple to telephone poles after school. “You have a beautiful home.”

“Thank you, Jaqie. We enjoy it. May I call you Jaqie?”

“I hope your husband won’t be too busy to enjoy it now that he’s our councilman, Francine. May I call you, Francine?”

“Geoff has always loved politics. He plans eventually to be Senator Cuthbart. No doubt we’ll live in Georgetown and keep this as our summer cottage.”

She motioned me toward a sofa while she draped herself along the curve of a matching chaise. Maddie could do that, too,—meld into a serpentine piece of furniture without squirting out the other end. Francine rang a silver bell on the side table.

I made a show of absorbing my surroundings. “I’m so sorry not to meet the famous King. Have you any word?”

She stiffened slightly and shivered. Gertie calls that “when someone walks over your grave.” Francine adjusted her skirt and smoothed it carefully. “Everything will turn out as it should,” she said and offered me a smile of sorts. “Geoff’s children are over-wrought, but time heals all wounds.”

“They must be just sick about losing him. I hesitated to come, in case—”

Her mouth pursed like she’d bit a lemon. “I’m confident it will turn up. Geoff is searching everywhere.”

A young woman drifted into the room, carrying a china tea service. She set in on the coffee table. “Ma’am?”

“Evita, hold my calls.” Francine’s eyes slid toward me, and back again. “Unless it’s Mr. Cuthbart, of course.”

Evita dipped a shallow curtsy and backed out of the room.

King’s mistress appeared not to be perched on pins and needles waiting for a ransom demand.

“Labradors are excellent dogs. I missed the election, but my family said King quite stole the show.” I felt my mouth growing rounder and smaller, talking in polite society. It would be shaped like a prune by the time I got to the marina. “I am so sorry to hear he’s run away. Most unusual behavior for a Lab.”

“You’re an early bird, Jaqie. You must be anxious to discuss the Oakley Beach Butcher. How exciting you might actually write a movie about it.”

It appeared the lost dog segment of our conversation had concluded. Maybe for her. “This is the worst timing on my part,” I said. “I must apologize. Listen to me talking movies, when I know you’d much rather be searching for King.” Did Manolo Blahnik make hiking boots? “Let’s reschedule—”

“The
dawg
will be fine.” Our Francine was from Baltimore—possibly Philly—if my ear caught that momentary slip. She had no interest in discussing a missing dog when there was a perfectly good mass-murderer a stone’s throw away. “Your work must be terribly demanding.” Her pinkie shot sky-high, lifting her cup of tea—case closed.

“The devil’s in the details.” I sipped from the tissue thin cup and gazed importantly through a set of French doors that led to the veranda overlooking the bay. “Your house is situated perfectly. I hoped it would have this exact light in the morning. Look how the mist is trapped in the marsh grasses, outlining the Tyrell’s grounds. It’s this level of observation that layers itself on the page.” I set the cup and saucer on the tray and copied Mr. Stevenson’s move with the camera lens formed out of fingers and thumbs, and scoped out the landscape through the doors’ polished glass. “Simply wonderful.”

“But your people are from here,” Francine said. “I’d been led to believe you grew up in Oakley Beach.”

“True, but I’ve never seen the Tyrell mansion from this exact angle. It’s ideal.”

“To think, the Oakley Beach Butcher lives right over there.” She drew her shawl around her horrified shoulders.

‘Right over there,’ was a nautical mile away, but I nodded supportively and leaned forward, lowering my voice. “
Alleged
butcher.” I paused for a conciliatory moment. “It’s an important story, Francine. Some stories cry out for the telling.” I was giving myself a headache, and my lips stuck to my teeth, so I sipped more tea and lounged back into the sofa. “Edwin Tyrell was never charged with the murders, and, a decade later, if anything were to come to light, well ...”

“His entire family. How could anyone do such a thing? Horrifying about the children ...”

I craned my neck taking it all in. “Your house might be the perfect backdrop, situated as it is to the Tyrell’s. How out of line would I be to ask if you might consider ...” I paused to let the hook set.

She plucked a piece of invisible lint off her skirt. “Go on.”

“When the time comes,” I said, replacing the cup and saucer, clasping my hands, “might we consider your home as a shoot location? Provided we get the script written and greenlighted. Naturally, the compensation is ... more than ... adequate.”

Francine Cuthbart shot to the low end of the chaise like it was a waxed sliding board and wrapped my hands in hers. “Let me show you the rest of the house.”

I took the tour and smiled at her suggestions, nodded enthusiastically about her ideas and searched for any sign of a dog. No bowls on the kitchen floor. Not a stray nibblet under the cupboards. A hook by the back door, but no leash. We strolled the meandering brick walkway from the patio to the dock, and I never once had to step over a Frisbee or a frayed tennis ball.

The brittle grass was torn in spots. A path of divots from the water to the dock ended where several lines of dried, muddy paw prints tracked down the center of the weathered wood. Francine’s lips disappeared in an angry line at the sight of the devastation. She tamped down several of the worst clumps, then wiped the toe of her pink, Prada flat with an embroidered handkerchief. “Appalling.”

She dropped the hanky on a pile of empty mulch bags like it was a dead mouse, and walked me to my bike.

Uncle Frank was right. King was a dog that would never see the light of another day.

~~^~~

“You didn’t.” Gertie handed me the tire pump.

I’d pedaled the first five miles home from the Cuthbart’s in a fever. I was as flat and worn out as my ye olde front tire. “I did.” Could the coroner actually list “vintage bicycle” as a legitimate Cause of Death?

“You searched the house? They murdered the dog?”

I stepped on the black metal wings on either side of the pump. “I don’t know about murdered, but Uncle Frank might be right. King won’t be seen around here anytime soon.” I pushed and pulled the plunger like I was drilling for oil. The thought of the dog thrown away—stolen, or worse—hit me harder than I was prepared for. Since Jeep, every sad thing got an extra notch on my emotional dial. Doofus got two notches. “Maybe they found him a home and didn’t want the voters to know they got rid of him.”

Aunt B stuck her head out the door long enough to stir the gossip pot. “Don’t hold your breath. Shot that dog dead as dollars. You need anything, Willie?”

It was Wednesday. Willie Nilly sat cross-legged on the porch swing, connecting the dots in one of the puzzle books Aunt B kept in a box with his name on it. He shook his head without looking up.

“Dead as dollars.” In case I’d missed it the first time. The screen door slammed shut as she went back to whatever she was baking.

“Oooh. I keep a head thumper under my front seat,” Gertie offered.

“Nobody’s head is getting thumped. What good would it do?” I bled five seconds worth of air out of the front tire and screwed the cap back on the valve.

“I’ll thump ‘em, if ya want.”

“No thumping, Willie. You’re too big to thump people.”

Willie was chronologically ten years older than me. Mentally, he was six, but physically, Willie carried twice my body mass index.

“Dots,” he said. Willie’s answer to life’s problems.

Doofus gone. Abbott and Costello long gone. Jeep still gone. “Dots.”

Gertie cracked her neck. “Sorry, Al,” she said and patted the goiter, then to me, she said, “I have two paying guests I’ve got to wrestle up breakfast for. Must get a wiggle on.”

Gertie’s bed-and-breakfast oozed gingerbread, rocking chairs and board games—hand-stitched quilts on the beds. Retired schoolteachers loved it and filled the rooms in the summer, and Christmas, but that was the extent of it. No VIPs at Bo Peeps, just Ps. Ps in March was unheard of. A flat-out miracle, if we’re being honest.

She slapped her forehead. “I forgot to mend that gentleman’s patch. I’ve really got to hustle. They wanted up and fed by ten, and here it is, almost nine.”

“Patch?”

Gertie and Al nodded. She showed me her dimpled elbow. “Those patches like professors used to wear.”

My foot tangled in the pump hose and I stumbled backward. “Any sign of a dog? Did they try to smuggle one into their rooms?”

“Dog? The only dog they had was all over the fellow’s jacket. Yellow hair. About an inch long.” She put on her ball cap and straightened the bill. “I’ve got to get a move-on. I’d love to have them come back. I think the chubby one flirted with me. The skinny one has on a wedding band.”

“Want me to help?” Two boarders at Bo Peeps—a chubby one, a skinny one with dog hair and a patch in need of mending. I could mend. I was almost sure of it. I kept my tone nonchalant. If Gertie smelled a plot thickening, she’d turn into Miss Marple, and two female detectives only worked well on TV. “I’ll sew while you cook. Deal?”

“You sure can and I’ll thank you for it. Put that bike of yours in the backseat ‘cause I’m driving,” she said and vaulted to the ‘Vette.

Bo Peep’s Bed-and-Breakfast fits a number of categories in an online search.

—
Where do Ken and Barbie live

—Cupcake that resembles a house

—What does a migraine look like

If you love purple-and-pink-and-more-purple, then you’re prepared for a weekend in Gertie’s lavender house, and its turret festooned with pink gingerbread dripping from the roof line. Even in March, Bo Peep’s shimmers like a sunny day at the beach.

The exception is the concrete-block bomb shelter in the basement. It’s pink. ‘I’m a survivalist. Pink is calming. How’d you expect Al and me to remain calm in the event of a nuclear disaster without pink?’

Gertie patted the sign attached to the picket fence like she always did. For luck. Bo Peep’s for a Good Night’s Sleep. Her brother designed and crafted the wood plaque before he passed. Lavender background, gold lettering in a curly-q of a script so curvaceous it rendered the message indecipherable. The painting of a four-poster bed with a pair of tucked-in sheep and ZZZZZs drifting to the stars cleared up confusion for potential guests.

A plain, four-door sedan with Pennsylvania plates sat parked at the curb. Morning mist condensed into rivulets that trickled down the windshield in zigs and zags and dotted the door handles, undisturbed. The boys had not come down yet.

On the front porch, the storm door screeched as Gertie unlocked Bo Peep’s main door—an old-timey cottage number, thick with layers of white paint and panes of wavy glass outlined in pink.

I cupped my hands and suctioned my face to the passenger windows, front and back. “Dog” was written all over the backseat.

Marsh grass plastered on with tidal muck speckled the windows on the inside, and nose prints the size of a fifty-cent piece stamped an art-nouveau pattern across the glass.

Doofus had been in this car from Pennsylvania.

Was Doofus the Cuthbart’s dog? Or did he simply belong to these men? Where was he now?

Gertie motioned me in. “Come on,” she whispered.

I kicked myself for not remembering the condition of his coat or toenails while he slobbered on my knee. His nail-polished ear was dry was what I could swear to.
Some detective you are
.

“Jaqie, hurry up.”

That was an understatement.

~~^~~

I squatted on a footstool in the corner of Gertie’s mudroom and pinned the cell phone between my ear and my shoulder. It hung up twice when I twitched. Needles are the enemy. I stuck my finger in my mouth while the phone rang off the hook at Dumford’s Marina. Dell got bombarded every March and April. All the locals wanted their boats in the water at the same time. I really didn’t expect him to pick up.

“Marina. Dell.”

“Gweat.” I popped my finger out of my mouth. “Great! Dell, it’s Jaqie. How are you?”

Dell’s big voice boomed through the phone. “Jaqie! Hey, Little Bit. Where are you? Frank said you’d be here today. Can’t wait to see you. You bringing that saucy Gertie with ya’?”

Dell Dumford is Oakley Beach’s permanent bachelor. His Robert Redford looks keep him in high demand. ‘Have enough casseroles frozen to feed the flocks through Armageddon,’ he’s not shy to say. ‘Got to keep a lot of ladies happy. Like spinning plates on those sticks in the circus. Don’t want to let any of them down.’

“I am at Gertie’s. I’ll send your regards.”

“Regards! Bring that bee-uuu-tee-ful gal with you when you come.”

I didn’t know how Al the Goiter would take to the competition. Goiter versus Redford is a no-brainer. “She’s got guests at the Inn—”

“Tell her to kick ‘em out.”

“Say, Dell, is Ed there?” I hoped he’d remembered to show up. I hoped Dianne hadn’t gone into labor. I hoped Uncle Frank had not rendered him unconscious.

“Sure is. I can hear Frank cussing from here. Hang on.”

Dell set me on the counter as he went in search of my ex-husband. I used to do that a lot—go in search of my ex-husband, but Dell would have better results. I put my phone down and set it to Speaker so I could take another stab at getting Abbott’s patch neatly back in place. The corduroy oval underneath was nappier and shades brighter than the rest of the jacket, which now had a fine layer of Doofus hair covering it.

A half-wood, half-glass door separated the mudroom from the kitchen, but I’d left a crack open for a narrow view of the kitchen table. It was a festival of purple. She beat the plastic lilacs against her thigh and a cloud of dust mushroomed out of the blooms. She speared the green, metal stems into a tall, white vase and set the arrangement on a pink, lace doily centered between the white
Corelle
dishes.

Cinnamon buns warmed in the oven. Spurts of dark coffee burped in the last documented percolator on planet earth. Slabs of bacon spit grease out of the cast iron pan. Sunny-sides would go in last with a happy face of hot sauce in the yolk. Each slice of French toast was the size of a
Subway
special, and would soon meet their fate in a tsunami of real maple syrup. ‘Not the brown glue they pass off, nowadays.’

Ed picked up. “Hey, Jaqs. FYI—your uncle’s trying to kill me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. He’s put our divorce way,
way
behind him.”

“Yeah, well, he tossed me an anchor while I was straddling the boat and the dock.”

“See? Pranks. He only plays pranks with people he loves.”

“Jaqs, it was an
anchor
.”

“Anyway, Ed, I need a favor. Like right now.”

“You got it. Get me out of here. I’d like to cash that check before I die. This favor is off-site, right?”

The floorboards creaked overhead. “Maybe. Listen, I need for a car not to run. How can I make that happen.”

“Dynamite?”

“Too showy.”

“The Garrett brothers?”

“Still in jail.”

“Houdini?”

“Come on, Ed. This is serious. I have to stop a couple of guys from leaving Gertie’s for the next twenty-four hours. Can you help me out or not?”

“It’s not the good old days when you could just pop off a distributor cap,” Ed reminisced. “I can come and flatten the tires. My dad gave me a Bowie knife last birthday, and I’ve been wanting to try it out. Four slashed tires would keep them in one spot, for sure. Call my brother at Dings. He’ll make it a real nightmare for them with the paperwork.”

And rental car paperwork, on top of that.
“No. Put your knife away. I don’t want you hanging out in the yard with the Garrett brothers.”

“Uh oh, here comes Grim Frank Reaper, gotta go. Jaqs, get the keys. Steal the car.

Duh.