Mutts & Murder: A Dog Town USA Cozy Mystery (7 page)

Or the fact that Jimmy had at one point been my best friend.

And more than that, I had once loved him.

I pushed the half-eaten plate away, and Lou scooped it up quickly, placing the leftovers in a Tupperware container.

I watched silently as she did so, then poured myself a glass of the pink wine she was so fond of.

“All right, I’ll think about it, Lou,” I said.

Maybe I was being too judgmental. After all, a brazen in-your-face tattoo wasn’t the end of the world.

She spun around, her features glowing with a pleased expression.

“Milo is going to be
so
happy,” she said. “You should see the way he looks at you when you stop by for lunch. He—”

“I didn’t say yes yet,” I said. “I said I’ll think about it.”

She grinned a bright, big smile.

“Yeah, I
know
what you said.”

I shook my head.

We both knew that sooner or later, she’d wear me down. And that as far as Lou was concerned, my answer was as good as a confident yes.

Chapter 14

At 4 a.m. the next morning, I found myself rummaging around in the garage, looking for my pair of gardening gloves and some shears.

If it was up to me, I would have rather been soundly sleeping beneath the cool sheets of my bed, getting a good night’s rest.

But these days, I wasn’t lucky enough to have that many restful nights.

I’d awakened half an hour earlier crying in my sleep. Like usual, I hadn’t remembered the dream. But I awoke thinking about Myra Louden, lying dead there on the green grassy fields of the dog park.

And in that moment of early morning darkness, the fragility of life, and the overpowering inevitably of death, felt very, very real.

I couldn’t go back to sleep after that. And rather than just lie awake in bed, tossing and turning while listening to the low whirring of the ceiling fan, I decided to do something useful.

I pulled the gloves on and walked out into the front yard with the shears and a garbage bag. It was dark, but there was a pleasant evening breeze rustling through the leafy foliage of the long willow tree that stood in the middle of the lawn. The stars were out, and a swollen moon hung low in the sky.

It was a beautiful morning for gardening.

I started clipping at the broken branches of the yellow rose bushes, remnants of the dog vandal’s work. Buddy, never one to miss any action, came up and rubbed against the back of my legs as I worked.

I pulled the broken branches down, my mind drifting from subject to subject like a pinball. Overactive, the way it often was at this hour.

I was thinking about what had killed Myra.

The woman had been in her mid-60s. Awfully young to die. But then again, someone like her must have had a fair amount of stress in her life. I knew that as a teacher, my mom had had plenty of job-related stress. I was sure the same kind of strain went with being a principal. Myra didn’t appear to be in bad health, but she didn’t appear to be in stunningly good shape either. She power-walked on occasion, but she was a regular at
The Barkery
. The way Lou told it, the woman was a sucker for red velvet cupcakes. And while she was skinny as a rail, I knew that health didn’t always go hand and hand with being thin.

The woman could have had a heart attack, I figured. Or something else that wasn’t necessarily related to lifestyle choices. An aneurism, perhaps.  

But whatever had caused Myra to collapse the afternoon before, one fact remained true: the woman was dead.

I closed my eyes, seeing her legs there on the lawn. That one clunky black shoe sticking out.  

I shivered as Buddy rubbed up against the back of my bare leg again, meowing.

I knew that nobody was comfortable with the thought of death. But it seemed that ever since my mom died, it had taken on a new meaning for me. Every time death came up, I couldn’t help but dwell on the absolute finality of it. I couldn’t stop thinking how nobody on earth would ever again hear Myra Louden’s voice. No one would ever be subject to her dog board judgments. Nobody would ever hear one of her lengthy lectures about good dog ownership.

Hell, nobody would hear the woman so much as clear her throat ever again.

I sighed.

Then I pushed those dark thoughts away, thoughts that seemed even darker at this lonely hour of the morning, and tried to think of something more cheerful.

And for some reason, in that instant, the image of Lt. Sam Sakai walking away from me across the lawn, that little mutt puppy slung over his shoulder, popped into my head.

In some ways, Lt. Sakai was just like any other cop I’d come across in the years I’d been in the media. He was tight-lipped, stubborn, not forthcoming, and ultimately, detested everything I stood for. He thought I was cold-hearted and was solely driven by headlines.

But in other ways, Lt. Sakai was different.

He appeared to be introspective and quiet. And though I hardly knew him, the man struck me as driven. As a man who immediately commanded respect. Who, with just a flash of his dark eyes, could scare the hardest of criminals. And though he’d given me a difficult time, in any other situation, I felt that he’d be a trustworthy agent of the law. Someone you could count on to be honest.

He wasn’t your average small town cop.  

I realized I was spacing out again, kneeling down in the cold dirt and vacantly staring at a single dead rose that had been snapped off by the dog delinquent.

I shook my head, snapping myself out of my stupor.

What I wouldn’t give for one night of uninterrupted sleep.

Chapter 15

“Do you have a moment to talk, Freddie?”

I looked up from my computer to find Rachael Chandler hovering over me.

She was wearing quite the number today. Something that would have looked more at home in a Portland night club on a Saturday than a small newsroom on a weekday. She sported a tight-fitting, clingy red top with a plunging neckline. A long stranded gold necklace followed that neckline, no doubt a ploy to entice her male sources into losing their concentration and saying things that should have been off the record. To match, she wore a short black skirt and pointy heels that were the epitome of unpractical in almost every situation I could think of but a few. None of which were work appropriate.

“Sure, I have a moment,” I said, leaning back in my chair.

I still hadn’t forgotten about that little cackling incident at yesterday’s staff meeting. And I was still working on a way to get back at her for it.

She took a seat on my desk. She stared down at me a long moment in that sorority girl kind of way that made it clear she was analyzing my wardrobe choice and judging it harshly.

Today I was wearing a loose-fitting, white button-down shirt that seemed a sensible and work-appropriate selection given the 80-degree day the forecasters predicted, though I could tell as she looked at me that she wouldn’t be caught dead in such a blouse.

I crossed my arms, waiting for her to speak.

“So Kobritz told me about how you started working on a news obit on Myra Louden?” she finally said.

I nodded, preparing for what was coming.

This kind of story was something that didn’t exactly fall under my beat, and I was sure that first thing this morning, Kobritz had asked her to take over the story. Meaning there wasn’t much I could do in the matter.

I didn’t even know why I wanted to write the news obit about Myra so bad. Except that it was better than writing about how
The Pit Stop
, a local biker restaurant, was now offering special dog treats made from leftover food to its four-legged customers. Which was all I had for today’s story work load.

“Yeah,” I said. “I was there at the park yesterday after Myra collapsed.”

“Well, I’ll be honest, Freddie. I’m just swamped with the follow-up on that husband-wife shooting that took place last week. Kobritz wants it for Sunday A1, and frankly I don’t think I’ll have time to write this little thing up about Myra Louden.”

I felt my heart jump a little at that news. Which in a way, kind of made me sad. I used to cover high-profile city crime. Now I was leaping at the chance to write a story about a dead woman who I had never particularly cared for all that much.

“I could take it off your hands,” I said.

“It wouldn’t be too much trouble?” she said, lifting her eyebrows.

I shook my head.

“Not at all.”

She smiled.

“You’re a bona fide lifesaver, Freddie,” she said.

“It’s not a problem,” I said.

“You know, I’ve been trying to tell Kobritz for weeks now to give you better stories,” she said. “You’re a good writer. You really shouldn’t be languishing in the dog beat the way you are.”

I forced a smile, surprised at Rachael’s sudden friendly turn.

Since working at
The Chronicle
, Rachael hadn’t made much of an effort to be all that welcoming. For the first two months of my employment, she referred to me as
whatchamacallher
, my name somehow eluding her every time she spoke to or about me.

I’d taken offense to it. I’d also taken offense to the fact that her position in the company was a product of nepotism. And to the fact that she seemed to dress however in the hell she wanted to and didn’t see any ramifications for it.

But maybe I’d been too quick to judge Rachael Chandler. Maybe she was just a gal with a bad memory who didn’t make much of a first impression.

Either way, I was just happy that this would save me from writing about
The Pit Stop
and their dog biscuits.

“Well, thanks for the compliment, Rachael,” I said.

She smiled, then winked at me. A gesture that put me on edge a little bit, though I couldn’t think of any reason why.

“Thanks, Freddie.”

She got up off my desk and walked away down the hall back to her cubicle by the owners’ offices.

At least she’d finally learned my name.

Chapter 16

I got back from lunch at
The Barkery
to find a mysterious Post-it note taped to my keyboard.

I had stopped over at my sister’s bakery with the intention of having a nice, peaceful, healthy lunch. Instead, what I got was the most awkward hour of my life, a direct result of Lou’s clumsy, third-degree attempts at matchmaking.

Lou had been “too busy” to sit down with me at lunch, she had said. Though I quickly realized that this meant she was sending out one of her employees to take my order and deliver my Caesar salad. That employee was none other than Milo Daniels, the guy with the tattoo she was so keen on fixing me up with.

Milo was a nervous type. The salad had nearly ended up all over my lap thanks to his butterfingers. Then he’d taken a seat across from me, no doubt at Lou’s encouragement, and we had spent the entirety of my break making awkward small talk.

Not that Milo wasn’t a nice guy. In fact, he was a lot more interesting than I had initially thought. But he was a few years younger than me, and in some ways, it felt like the age gap was even bigger than that. He was still working toward his Associates degree at Dog Mountain Community College and still didn’t have a clear direction about what he wanted to do with his life. He said he liked science, but beyond that, he didn’t know. Additionally, he liked talking about himself an awful lot – about his interests in snowboarding and making homemade craft beer. About his dog. He talked about himself a little too much for my liking. But then again, maybe he was just nervous.

Either way, I left
The Barkery
that afternoon wicked pissed at Lou.

I treasured my lunches, my little moments of solitude away from the job where I could just sit quietly and enjoy a meal. It was just the kind of thing I needed in my line of work. My days were filled with talking to all sorts of folks and then churning out copy on deadline. I savored moments where I could actually sit and think in peace. And Lou had gone and bulldozed any notion of that today.

Needless to say, I was actually happy when 1 p.m. rolled around and I could head back to the newsroom.

I tossed my purse onto my cubicle desk along with the leftovers of my salad that I’d brought back. I hardly got to eat any of it because of all the small talk I’d had to make. I took a seat in my chair and started rolling up the sleeves on my white blouse. It was hot and suffocating in the newsroom. Kobritz had said they were going to get the air conditioner fixed this week, the same thing he’d been saying for the past three weeks, ever since that late spring heatwave hit. But despite his assurances, I was fairly certain me and my fellow reporters would be sweating out the long days of summer for the foreseeable future.

I pulled up my email inbox on my computer, noticing that the cops’ news release about Myra Louden’s death was still MIA, even though I had left several messages with various officers at the station, including the chief of police. They were sure taking their sweet time with it.

I started typing the TV news station’s web site into my search engine to see if they had gotten something we hadn’t, when I suddenly noticed the Post-it note stuck to my keyboard.

I’d been so distracted that I hadn’t noticed it sitting there.

I peeled it away, lifting it close to my face to get a better view of the hard-to-read scrawl.

She didn’t die of natural causes.

I immediately stood up and looked around the newsroom, searching for the person who left the note.

Scott Appleton was sitting at his desk across from me, using chopsticks to shovel away reheated Thai noodles that I recognized as having been sitting in the newsroom fridge for at least five days. On the other side of the quad, Jennifer was hunched over her desk, on the phone again with her ex. I could tell because of her strained, barely-keeping-it-together tone. Overhearing Jennifer fight on the phone with her former husband had become something all of us in the newsroom expected to hear at least twice a day lately.