Groomed For Murder: A Pet Boutique Mystery (2 page)

“Well,” Rena said, “one way or the other it will be over tomorrow.”

“That sounds ominous,” Dolly said with a shiver.

Rena laughed. “You haven’t seen ominous until you’ve seen the thundercloud that gathered over Ingrid when she found out Jane Porter was bringing a plus one to the wedding.”

“Oh, she’s just being ridiculous. I mean, it’s not like Jane’s marrying Knute Hammer,” Dolly huffed. “They just gad about town together.”

Rena started pulling rolls of crepe-paper and tissue-paper wedding bells from the box Dolly had brought. “Why would she care about Jane’s love life, even if Jane
was
going to tie the knot with Knute?”

Dolly hummed thoughtfully. “I think the whole reason Ingrid invited Jane was that she had a vision of Jane curled in a puddle of misery while she walked down the aisle with Harvey. Jane having a date takes some of the fun out of it.”

“Geesh,” I muttered, fanning out a honeycomb bell and slipping the plastic clips in place to hold it open. “Ingrid’s always been brusque, but I’ve never known her to be mean-spirited. Other than a few sour grapes over a canasta hand, what does she have against Jane anyway?”

“You don’t know?” Dolly gasped.

Rena’s eyes lit from within as she leaned in for a good dish. “No, we don’t. . . . Spill it.”

Dolly hummed nervously, studying the ceiling as though she could pinpoint Ingrid’s precise location there. “Well,” she finally whispered, “Jane and Arnold Whitfield dated in high school, when Harvey and Ingrid were together. Everyone thought Jane and Arnold would get married and Harvey and Ingrid would live their own happily ever after. But then Jane moved to Chicago to do some TV work, commercial bits, and such. Harvey got sent to military school, and things just sort of happened the way they happened. . . . Next thing you know, Arnold and Ingrid were engaged.

“Then back, oh, thirty-some years ago now, when Arnold was still alive, Ingrid spent a few months up in Duluth looking after her sister who’d broken a hip. When she got back, she and Arnold had a big blowup, and he ended up spending a month or so with his brother in St. Paul. When he came home, he brought Ingrid a fancy new dishwasher. I don’t think either one of them ever told a soul about that fight, but we all knew. And we all knew its cause: Jane and Arnold had, uh . . . well . . .”

Rena squealed. “Oh no, they didn’t! Arnold Whitfield and Jane Porter had a fling?”

“Hush,” Dolly urged, glancing up at the ceiling again.

“Man,” I whispered, “Jane picked the wrong woman to betray, didn’t she?”

“You bet she did,” Dolly continued. “Ingrid seemed to forgive Arnold, but she never forgave Jane. What’s more, without so much as a word she made sure everyone in Merryville remembered that Jane’s morals were a little loose. I know Ingrid never hung her head in shame over the affair, but this . . . Well, this was her big chance to beat out Jane in the love game once and for all.”

I slipped a ribbon through the grommets on the tops of three of the honeycomb tissue bells, making a little cluster to hang from the chandelier in the front room. “Wow. I never would have guessed. I can’t imagine Ingrid putting up with a tomcatting husband. I guess everyone has secrets.”

Dolly finished nestling the bundles of Jordan almonds in a lace-lined basket. “That they do, my dear. That they do. Don’t you ever forget it.”

Two

E
veryone who was anyone turned out for Ingrid and Harvey’s wedding. My sisters and parents were there, graciously standing near the back to allow other guests a better view. I counted every member of the Methodist Ladies’ Auxiliary. The
Merryville Gazette
had even sent a reporter to cover the event for what passed as our society page. I admit, I was delighted to see Ama Olmstead taking photos of the array of goodies laid out on the cherry red folk art table that dominated Rena’s barkery, while her husband, Steve, stood back and patiently held her bags—so many bags it looked like she was ready to go on the lam. Not only was she chronicling the nuptials, but she was providing Trendy Tails with a little free publicity. I admired the way they worked, tiny Danish Ama having merely to give her strapping Norwegian husband a glance before he handed her a lens or some other sort of camera paraphernalia.

Ken West emerged from the kitchen, a tray of his savory hors d’oeuvres in his hands. Ken had come to Merryville from Madison to open a high-end seafood restaurant, the Blue Atlantic, but when it went out of business, he stuck around doing catering jobs. He’d recently secured backing—thanks to a little blackmail—from Hal Olson to open a new restaurant, this one with a more realistic steak-and-chops menu. He’d recently begun the process of revamping the building that once housed the Grateful Grape—just across the back alley from me—into his new concern, Red, White & Bleu. The conceit was to pair just the right wine with locally sourced beef, pork, venison, and fish. I’d even heard a rumor that he was bringing in a sommelier from his days in Madison to help with the pairings.

I admit I was a little disappointed about Ken opening Red, White & Bleu. As smug and unpleasant as I found Ken to be, he really did a nice job with catering, and I imagined that the restaurant would take up too much of his time for him to continue with these little jobs.

A small mob of no-nonsense Merryville men—all over fifty—crowded around Ken to grab his mini-chicken-potpies and beef skewers, along with a few of Ollie Forde’s Norwegian meatballs. I noticed the widowed contingent of the Methodist Ladies’ Auxiliary staring at the men with predatory eyes, looking for a weak one to cull from the herd.

Even the much-maligned Jane Porter had shown up, hanging on the arm of Knute Hammer. Knute Hammer was the minister at the Hope of Christ Lutheran
Church. Though he was slight of frame, he towered over the gently rounded, petite Jane Porter—a birch tree giving shelter to a plump squirrel. All things considered, it was hard to imagine that Arnold, the man who’d loved strapping, forthright Ingrid, would find much of interest in Jane’s Cupid’s-bow mouth and coy, lash-batting gaze.

Still, the past was what it was, and according to Dolly, Ingrid’s bitterness had never mellowed. I just hoped the two women wouldn’t come to blows during the reception.

It really was a true Merryville event. The only person glaringly missing was Hal Olson, Merryville’s most outspoken mayoral candidate. I was a little surprised, because Hal always had a new deal in the works, something that needed the shaking of hands and the slapping of backs, and with the election coming up in just a month, glad-handing the denizens of Merryville was all the more important. Missing an opportunity to hobnob like this seemed out of character.

His wife, Pris, was in attendance, though. She stood right in the thick of the action, but most of the guests carefully avoided her eyes. Half the town was terrified of Pris’s tongue, as sharp and precise as a surgeon’s scalpel. Pris didn’t seem to be bothered by the absence of her husband or her lack of conversational partners. Still, everyone with eyes could see the Hal-shaped hole at Pris’s side and could guess that there must be tension between the two. I, however, knew the depths of their marital discord. This was not an isolated incident but part of a long trend of Pris and Hal avoiding each
other whenever possible. A few months earlier, in a rare moment of camaraderie, Pris had confessed her desire to ditch Hal and the financial bonds that kept them tethered.

Don’t get me wrong. Pris and I were not friends. In fact, Pris and I were archrivals in the Merryville pet care industry, though our businesses seemed to drive us into each other’s paths more than they kept us apart. In such a small town, you couldn’t do much without collaborating with people you barely tolerated. Take, for instance, the upcoming doggy wedding between Pearl Collins and Romeo Tucker. While I was dressing the duo and providing the site for the wedding, and my friend and partner, Rena, was catering the event for the animal guests, Prissy’s Pretty Pets was helping with decor and with grooming the pups before their walk down the aisle.

Trying to be a gracious hostess, I sidled up to Pris. “How’s it going?”

Pris flashed her beauty-queen smile. “Izzy! Don’t you have just the worst feeling of déjà vu?”

“What do you mean?” Pris’s smile rarely boded well for me.

“Well, it was only, what, six months ago that we were standing right here in Trendy Tails, the room packed with guests, Ken West in the kitchen providing delicious nibbles just like today. And look how that turned out.”

That
night had ended with a dead body.

I chuckled uncomfortably. “I think that was a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing.”

Pris just smiled.

“The room looks lovely,” she said.

“Thanks.” Given the short notice, we’d done a fine job with the decorations. I’d spent the morning clearing away all the merchandise on the floor and draping the glass case beneath the cash register with a swag of deep purple velvet. White tissue paper and tulle twined around the handrail of the staircase leading down from the second floor. We’d scattered the room with milk glass bowls of mixed nuts and the all-important wedding mints: little pastel pillows that melted on your tongue. While many of the guests would stand, we’d placed a handful of chairs at the front of the room for Ingrid’s contemporaries and their shaky knees. All in all, Aunt Dolly, Rena, and I had transformed Trendy Tails into a chapel of love that rivaled any in Vegas. All we were missing was the Elvis.

“What’s up with those two?” Pris asked. “They look like they’re ready to take it outside.”

She lifted her glass of punch in the direction of the chairs. Hetty Tucker and Louise Collins were sitting side by side, chattering and giggling like a couple of teenagers. They were flanked by their sons, Sean and Jack, who were glaring at each other over their mothers’ snowy permanent waves.

“You got me,” I muttered. “They’ve been like that for weeks. Every time we meet to talk about Romeo and Pearl’s pupptials, I feel like I need to send them to separate corners.”

“Well, in my experience, men only get their dander up like that over one thing: women. I’d lay odds that those boys are in a tiff over some female’s affection.”

Pris had probably been the subject of many male rivalries, so she would know. Sean was newly single, and we’d been renewing a friendship from our high school days . . . a friendship I secretly hoped might blossom into something more. But Sean hadn’t shown any signs of reciprocating my affection, and I hadn’t heard of Jack having a girlfriend since high school. Maybe it
was
a woman. Or maybe they’d had a run-in on the grade school softball field and had never let it go. Who could tell? After my fiancé of many years had left me high and dry, I’d given up trying to figure out the male mind.

I saw Rena waving at me from across the room. I made my excuses to Pris, and wound my way through the guests toward the kitchen door.

“Are we ready?” I asked.

“I think so,” Rena replied with a weary sigh. “Dolly just texted down that Ingrid was dressed and ready to go, Harvey’s been standing by that makeshift altar for the last thirty minutes, and I caught the reverend checking his watch.”

“Great. I’ll get everyone in order, and you can send Dolly a text telling her to send Ingrid down the front stairs, and then she can hurry down the back stairs and not miss a thing.”

I grabbed my hand-tied bouquet of lilacs off the red country table, made my way to the altar—an arch of lavender and white balloons—and beckoned to Reverend Wilson. As he took his place between Harvey and me, a wave of whispers rippled out through the room, leaving silence in their wake. Someone coughed, the sound like a shot in the quiet room.

Somewhere behind me, Rena pushed
PLAY
on an MP3 player, and the sweet notes of Pachelbel’s Canon in D filled the air.

After a few moments of tense anticipation—during which I harbored the fleeting fear that Ingrid had escaped down the back stairs and fled into the twilight—her taupe pumps appeared between the balusters of the staircase. Everyone sighed softly as the bride made her way down the last of the stairs. She wore a periwinkle suit with a flirty little peplum and carried a cascading bouquet of frothy lilacs. A blusher-length veil covered her face, a gift from Dolly, who had worn the same veil when she married. The outfit was out of character for Ingrid, but I could tell by the tilt of her chin and the faint smile playing across her rose-painted lips that she felt beautiful.

I scooched out of the way so she and Harvey could stand squarely before the minister. Rena cut off the music, and Reverend Wilson began the service, his resonant voice holding us all rapt.

By the time Rena sent Packer scampering across the store, the ring pillow balanced precariously on his back, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Except, of course, for Ingrid. She looked vaguely embarrassed by the tears pouring down Harvey’s weathered cheeks. I was right there with him, choking back unexpected sobs of joy for my friend and mentor.

I’ll be honest—while most of the tears I shed were for Ingrid and Harvey, a few were for myself. I didn’t love Dr. Casey Alter anymore—he’d made sure of that when he ran away to New York with a perky little
nutritionist—but I still felt as though some part of life had passed me by. I didn’t miss the groom a bit, but I did miss the wedding I’d been planning, the prospect of being a bride.

“Do you, Harvey, take Ingrid to be your wife? To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, as long as you both shall live?”

“I do,” Harvey sighed, his voice trembling with raw emotion.

“And do you, Ingrid, take Harvey to be your husband? To have and to hold, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, as long as you both shall live?”

“I—”

Ingrid stopped short, midaffirmation. The sharp noise that had startled her into silence still echoed through the room. My first thought was that our coughing guest was at it again, but before I could consider that thought further, the room was filled with a thumping that grew louder with each report.

Hetty Tucker was the first to utter a gasping scream, but she was quickly followed by other guests as something heavy tumbled down the stairs behind Reverend Wilson.

It came to a stop in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, and it didn’t take long to see the hand extended, fingers curled in a gesture of supplication, to make out the outline of a hip beneath the black mass, and to realize that the crumpled object at the foot of the stairs was a person.

I was closest, and I reached the injured person’s side first. I looked down to see a sweep of inky black hair partially hiding the unmistakable strong, square jawline of
our second-floor renter, Daniel Colona. I also saw blood. So much blood that Daniel Colona had to be dead.

Behind me, I heard someone speaking frantically to a 911 operator, begging for police and an ambulance to come to Trendy Tails. I glanced over my shoulder to find a shaken Ama Olmstead, panting softly from her sprint through the partygoers to the front of the pack, fumbling with the bags hanging off her shoulder and clicking off pictures with trembling fingers, likely capturing the most significant story of her career.

As I leaned down to check for a pulse, a flash of movement caught my eye and stopped me in my tracks. I glanced up the stairs. There, on the landing, stood my aunt Dolly, a gun in her hand and a look of horror on her face.

Before I could recover, Jack Collins nudged me out of the way and knelt to check Daniel’s pulse. I saw him look up the stairs in Dolly’s direction. He then caught my eyes, and gently shook his head.

Sure enough, Daniel was dead, and my aunt couldn’t have looked more guilty if she’d worn a sweater with the word “murderer” embroidered across the chest.

I glanced around the room at the sea of wide eyes and dropped jaws. From across the room of shocked partygoers, Pris Olson caught my gaze, lifted one eyebrow, and raised a glass of punch in a silent toast.

Right then I knew one thing for certain: I was never throwing another party again.

*   *   *

I led Jack through the first-floor kitchen, just as Ken West was walking in from the alley.

“Where are you coming from?” Jack snapped.

“A smoke,” Ken snapped back. “Perfectly legal, Officer.” The last word rolled out in a snide drawl, an equally snide smile gracing his face.

“Did you see anything, Ken? Anyone else come out the back door?” Jack’s urgency must have pushed through Ken’s usual contrariness. He straightened up, on alert.

“See anything? No, what happened?”

“Daniel Colona is dead, and it looks like he was shot in the upstairs apartment. Did you see anyone going through your kitchen?”

Ken shot me a look of pure amazement. He’d been there for my last murder party.

“I didn’t see a thing. I, uh, went out to have a smoke with Steve Olmstead.”

“So he can vouch you were outside the whole time?”

“Well, no, I guess not. He came in before I did. But I didn’t have any reason to kill Daniel Colona.” He shook his head. “Wow. I can’t believe this is happening again.”

“Did you see anyone leave through the back door?” Jack was growing impatient. I knew he wanted to get upstairs, but he had to ask these questions while the answers were fresh in Ken’s mind. Ingrid had been the only one to use the front stairs, which meant the killer must have used the back.

“No.”