Groomed For Murder: A Pet Boutique Mystery (10 page)

Ten

M
onday morning dawned as bright and clear as the sound of church bells. I crawled out from the pile of quilts I’d been nesting in on my couch and made my way to the shower, where I indulged in a long soak.

Once downstairs and ready to face the day, I got to work swapping out some of my winter fashions for more summery outfits. I tucked the fleece-lined hoodies and striped sweaters (all repurposed from human sweaters I’d found at thrift shops) into sturdy plastic totes and used the clear space for spring slickers, fluttery chiffon ruffs, and a few ridiculously tiny swim trunks.

Packer did his best to help, dogging my every step and generally getting underfoot, drooling around the rawhide toy he had in his mouth. Daisy mostly stayed put at the foot of the stairs, but occasionally tiptoed toward Packer, her eyes on that rawhide. Whenever
she got close, Packer would hunker down and growl. Finally, I found a rawhide for Daisy. She was delighted and dug into the chew toy with abandon. Packer, however, looked like I’d given another kid his ice cream. Sharing wasn’t Packer’s strong suit. He renewed his efforts to get under my feet, to gain my attention.

Meanwhile Jinx sat on top of the counter and watched us all with narrow-eyed ennui.

“For the love of Mike, Packer, can you settle down?” I snatched the nasty rawhide out of his mouth before I pulled one of the new rope toys I’d just gotten in from its shelf—making a mental note to pay the store for the lost inventory—and tossed it in the direction of the barkery. I was hoping the novelty would keep my little guy distracted from Daisy and me for a while. Sure enough, Packer went scampering off, toenails clicking on the hardwood floor. When he got the rope toy, he gave it what for, shaking it fiercely and growling to let it know who was in charge.

He was a dork, but he sure was cute.

By the time Rena rolled in to set out her organic pet treats beneath their sparkling cake domes, I was hip deep in receipts, trying to make sure that my sales matched up with my bank deposits.

“Better you than me,” Rena said, idly scratching her ferret Val’s head as the animal lay draped around her neck.

Val, short for Valrhona, was a chocolate roan ferret. Her rich brown coat was sleek like an otter’s, and she adored being close to Rena. In fact, Val had been known to ride around inside Rena’s shirt. Val was adorable,
frolicking around the store, pestering Jinx and frustrating Packer (who never could catch her in their chasing games). Val’s one flaw, and it was a biggie, was her kleptomania. Like many ferrets, Val had a way of slithering here and there, picking up shiny or interesting objects, and stashing them in hidey-holes she maintained throughout the shop. Rena was used to returning watches with a loaf of banana bread, or earrings with a plate of fudge.

“Yeah, well, I’d be completely underwater if Xander the Wunderkind hadn’t installed that bookkeeping software.”

Rena laughed. “What exactly were we thinking when we decided to open our own business?”

“That starving didn’t sound like fun.”

The bell over our front door jingled and Pris Olson made her elegant way into the store. She carried a flowered hatbox in one hand and a plate of pastries in the other.

“Sorry to drop by unannounced, but I’ve just been so swamped lately. The master gardeners want to do a tour of gardens in late May, so I’ve been up to my eyeballs in new shrubs and eighteen potential lilac varieties. I figured I should stop by while I could.”

With her hair in a perfect French twist, her nails immaculate with a fresh French manicure, and the enticing aroma of some fabulously expensive French perfume wafting with her every move, it didn’t seem like Pris had been gardening. But I imagined that Pris’s gardening involved a lot of pointing and yelling and not very much actual digging.

“I brought a peace offering. I stopped by the Happy Leaf and picked up a handful of pastries for us to munch on while we chat about Romeo and Pearl’s upcoming wedding.”

“Pastries?” Rena craned her head around the corner from the barkery, trying to scope out what exactly was on offer.

Pris’s eyes fluttered gently, as though she was trying to keep her composure in the face of a crude display. “I brought cherry Danish, pecan twists, and bear claws . . . two of each.”

“Mmmm,” Rena hummed, making her way toward the plate of goodies, her eyes never wavering from her prey.

Her lips twisted in an indulgent smile, Pris set the hatbox on the counter as well. She popped off the lid and began lifting out its contents.

“We have more crepe paper, because I don’t imagine we can reuse the paper from Ingrid’s would-be wedding. I have the tiny bottles of bubbles for the humans to use after the ceremony is over.”

That had been my idea. I couldn’t wait to watch the dogs all lose their minds chasing the bubbles around the store. I would have to hide all the breakables—and Jinx.

“Finally, I have a CD of the music Louise and Hetty picked out. ‘Puppy Love’ leads the list and Elvis’s ‘Hound Dog’ ends the show. Very clever, those two little ladies.”

I ran my fingers over the ridges of one of the bubble wands. “For the first time, I feel like this is going to work.”

Pris laughed softly. “You’re so trusting, Izzy. Any number of things can go horribly wrong. The bride or groom may pee at the altar. One of the four-legged guests may devour the cake before the service starts. Or try to devour a guest. Cats are quite refined, but dogs are rambunctious and unpredictable.”

I managed to keep my eyes from rolling. Pris was the definition of cynical. “If we do our parts, I’m sure the dogs will do theirs. Let’s not borrow trouble.”

Pris shrugged as she took one dainty bit of a pecan twist. She’d barely taken off a corner of the pastry, but she set it back in its box and picked up a paper napkin to remove the crumbs from her fingers. No wonder she was still as skinny as her high school beauty queen self.

“I’ve got to get back to work,” Rena said around a mouthful of her second bear claw.

As she skipped back toward the barkery, I saw an opening, and on impulse, I took it. “Speaking of trouble, how are things going with the real estate development that Hal is working on?”

If it had been any other wife in the world, I wouldn’t have bothered asking. But Pris made no bones about the fact that her husband was uncouth and a little dense. She stayed in the marriage because he also happened to be filthy rich, and she had signed a prenup before they got hitched.

She narrowed her eyes. “Fine, I guess. I haven’t been out to the site. I don’t do wilderness and marshes and such. But Hal hasn’t mentioned any problems. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, nothing really. I just thought that Hal might be a little overextended between managing the building site, helping Ken with his new restaurant, and keeping up with sales at the RV lot.”

Pris’s lips curled in a feline smile. “
Tsk
,
tsk
,
tsk
, Izzy. Surely there’s no need for pretense between us. I’ve already told you that I would like nothing more than for my husband to get caught with a mistress. After an admission like that, secrets seem inappropriate.”

I studied Pris’s face for a moment, looking for some hint that she was being disingenuous, but she looked as honest and forthright as Pris ever looked. Maybe I could just come right out and ask my questions.

“Look, I was out walking the dogs by the lake, and I couldn’t help but notice that there didn’t seem to be much activity, so I wondered if maybe Hal was having a little cash flow issue.”

Pris tipped her head back and laughed.

“Oh dear,” she said as she dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “Oh my.”

Her response wasn’t quite what I was hoping for. In annoyance, I started playing with the fringe of a red crocheted poncho that I hadn’t set out for display yet.

“Gracious, Izzy. That’s too funny. No, we are not having money problems. You should know better than anyone that if the cash was drying up chez Olson, I would be skating out of there faster than Apolo Ohno.”

She had a point.

“No, when Hal told me he wanted in on this project,
I set a very precise spending limit. He was not to spend a penny past his limit, and he knows better than to try to sneak something past me. Besides, Hal is a dolt most of the time, but he has good business sense. He’s way too savvy to sink a chunk of his working capital into a real estate deal. Not as volatile as that market has been over the past few years.”

Pris was usually so surface—perfect face, perfect clothes, perfect hair—that I tended to forget how smart and savvy she really was. She clearly had a strong grasp of her husband’s business and finances.

“Anyway, he had a budget, and he’s just about hit the limit.”

“So are they going to just stop building? Leave those half-finished condos there?”

As bad as the condos would be for the view of the lake, a scattering of half-finished buildings slowly being reclaimed by the forest would be an even bigger eyesore. Richard would have a cow.

“Oh heavens, no. He’s just regrouping by bringing in some additional investors.”

I tried to think of who in Merryville had the kind of cash to keep the development moving. If there were any more solvent Harpers in town, that family could probably help. As it was, though, they were all dead, in jail, or living in warmer climes.

“Who?” I asked. I hadn’t meant to ask the question out loud, and could feel myself blush as soon as the word left my mouth.

Pris laughed again. “I promise you—you wouldn’t
know them. And they prefer to remain silent partners. Very silent, if you catch my meaning.”

I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I caught her meaning. Maybe just about ninety-five percent sure.

“Well, listen,” Pris said, placing the lid back on her now-empty hatbox. “This has been delightful. I’m always intrigued by your little theories, Izzy. But I’m afraid I have to boogie. I have peonies to pick out and a business to run.”

She left without looking back, nothing but a pageant wave over her shoulder to say good-bye.

I hadn’t heard Rena creeping back into the room, but she suddenly yelled “Booyah!”

“What?” I snapped, startled.

“I was right. ‘Very silent partners.’ That means the mob. I knew Daniel had something to do with the mob,” she crowed.

“You thought he was a crime boss. I didn’t hear anything in there that suggested Daniel was a made man.”

“Oh, come on. Don’t be a stickler. This all makes perfect sense. Daniel was up here investigating the mob connection to the Olson development. Maybe he wasn’t a member of the mob, but his reason for being here had to do with organized crime.” She bounced up and down in excitement. “Xander and Lucy may have been right about him being a journalist, but I was right about the mob connection, too.”

I began stashing the supplies Pris had delivered in the cupboards behind the counter.

“You’re making some pretty big leaps here, Rena.
First, you don’t know whether Hal is really getting into bed with the mob. And, even if he is, we don’t know that Daniel was aware of that connection. Why would Daniel feel compelled to watch the construction site if he was really interested in who financed it?”

Rena plopped down to sit tailor-style on the floor. On cue, Jinx jumped off the top of the wardrobe—her second-favorite napping spot—did a downward dog stretch, and crept onto Rena’s lap—her favorite napping spot.

“It makes perfect sense. If Daniel was investigating organized crime in Madison and he caught wind that the mob was investing in the Badger Lake development, it would explain why he moved up here. As for spending time at the development site, maybe he suspected something other than building was going on down there. Or maybe he was staking out the place in the hopes of catching one of the mob guys visiting the site.”

My punk pixie friend was a smart cookie. It was all pure conjecture, but this was a better explanation for why Daniel would be in Merryville and haunting the shores of Badger Lake than anything I’d come up with.

*   *   *

I called Sean and asked him to perform his legal mumbo jumbo to figure out who was investing in The Woods at Badger Lake other than Hal Olson. Sean had a client to meet, so he told us it would probably be a couple of hours. Sean ran a general practice, willing to handle all kinds of cases. Divorces, DUIs, and minor
assaults (read: bar fights) were his bread and butter. Given the raised voices I heard in the background, I was guessing he was working on a divorce case.

While Rena and I waited for Sean to call back, our lives slipped out of investigator mode and into entrepreneurial mode. Rena got to work trying a new flavor of pupcake—an apple-carrot creation with a maple glaze. I spent about half an hour on the phone with a woman from Duluth who made jewelry out of Lake Superior agates. We were discussing the possibility of her making collar dangles with the stones, so they would serve as pet adornments and as souvenirs of a family trip to Minnesota.

After reaching an agreement about a trial run of ten dangles, I quickly said my good-byes so I could wait on the genuine customer who had walked through the door.

She was a stately woman with straight black hair framing a face as bloodless as marble. She wore a camel-colored turtleneck and a pair of deep brown trousers, her outfit set off by a massive topaz pendant that rested right on the crest of her bosom. She carried with her a black patent bag. A sleek feline head poked out of the bag, a Burmese by the looks of her slender skull and chocolate fur.

“Welcome to Trendy Tails. Can I help you?”

“Perhaps,” the woman said. “My name is Pamela Rawlins, and I’m on the board for the Midwestern Cat Fancier Organization. Tonga, here, and I are visiting Merryville to determine whether it might be a good fit
for next year’s Cat Fancier Retreat. I’m visiting the pet-related businesses in the area.

“It seems you have two.” She concluded her introduction by pursing her lips and tilting her head at the exact angle as her feline friend Tonga.

My heart began to race. She was right. Merryville had two pet-related businesses, but having the retreat here would be incredible exposure for our businesses and the whole town.