Never Con a Corgi (2 page)

"This is..."
Stop spluttering!
"Kind of an official call. I was walking Chewie in the woods behind the animal shelter just now, and we found a body."

Leigh winced as Shannon, beside her, drew in a sharp breath. Maura, on the other hand, exploded into a loud guffaw of laughter.

"Yeah, right, Koslow. What'd he find, a squirrel? Spare me. I'm too old for this."

Leigh pictured her solid, six-foot two-inch, two-hundred-forty pound, notoriously short-fused policewoman friend leaning casually back in her department-issue swivel chair. Age and marriage had mellowed her.

But not that much.

Leigh swallowed. "No, Maura, listen to me. I'm serious. It was a person. A dead man. Lying beside a little pond out here. And before you say—"

Too late. With a sigh, Leigh held the phone away from her ear, waiting for the expected string of exclamations, curses, and linguistically colorful references to certain previous, perhaps ill-advised actions on Leigh's part to diminish. It took a while.

"She's upset?" Shannon asked weakly, listening to the only partially muted tirade from several feet away.

Leigh nodded grimly. "She has a thing about how often my name shows up in her police reports. Petty, really."

When the noise from the receiver quieted, Leigh returned the phone tentatively to her ear. "At least I gave you a break for a while, right?"

She winced and moved it back out again.

Shannon's eyes widened.

After a suitable pause, Leigh tried again.

"Koslow!" the voice barked. "Are you listening to me?"

"Of course."

"Then listen to this. Stay right were you are. Don't go anywhere near that body again. And don't let anyone else go near it, either." The detective let out a breath. "Hellfire, Koslow! You know my heart can't take this."

"
The doctor said your heart is perfectly fine. Besides, this really isn't something I chose—"

"I suppose I should just be thankful it's not someone you're personally involved with!" Maura continued gruffly. "At least
this
time, since you don't know the victim—"

Leigh's heart skipped a beat. "Um... did I say that?"

Silence.

"Maura? You there?"

The brusque voice weakened to a groan. "Just spill it, Koslow."

Leigh cleared her throat. Both Shannon and Michelle, who was now off the other phone and looking as pale as her coworker, stood staring at Leigh with bugged eyes.

"It's... Brandon Lyle," she began hesitantly.

Michelle and Shannon shrieked in unison, their hands flying to their mouths.

"What was that?" Maura demanded. "Who's there? And who the hell is Brandon Lyle?"

The women slumped onto nearby desks.

"We were talking about him last night, remember? He's... I mean, he
was
, a client down at the agency. But more importantly, he was the real estate developer who wanted to buy Aunt Bess's land—and the church's. I'm at the church now, because it was the closest phone I could get to. The office manager is here. And Warren's aunt."

Maura's voice rose. "Then this is the same church that—"

"Yep."

Leigh could hear muffled sounds: a chair squeak, a drawer sliding.

"Maura?"

"Just getting my meds," the policewoman returned. "I'll be there in twenty—sending out a black and white now. And Leigh?"

She braced. "Yes?"

"Don't. Do. Anything. Stupid!"

Leigh's jaws clenched. "Now seriously, when have I ever—"

The phone line clicked off.

"Brandon Lyle!" Shannon exclaimed, her voice barely above a whisper. "But he was here last night..."

"That must be his car in the lot!" Michelle interjected. She turned to Leigh. "I wondered whose it could be; I don't know anyone in the church with a BMW convertible."

"But he
left
last night," Shannon insisted, her voice growing steadily stronger. "I know he did. A bunch of people saw him drive away. Right after the argument with Gil March."

"You mean the fist fight?" Michelle queried.

Leigh's stomach twisted uncomfortably. She hadn't told Maura the half of her—and her extended family's—rather unpleasant entanglement with the late Mr. Lyle. If she knew anything about police interrogations (and sadly, she did) the process was likely to take a while.

She considered, then rose with a jerk. "Shannon," she said earnestly, "I need to take my dog back to the animal shelter and let the manager know where I'll be. I'm going to walk him over by the road, but—well, if there's any suspicion that I've sneaked back to the pond, Maura really will have that coronary she's always talking about. So could you—both of you—watch me go? I'll be back in five minutes."

The women looked at each other anxiously. "Of course, Leigh," Shannon said firmly, walking with her to the door. "We'll park ourselves right here on the steps until the police come."

Leigh looked thankfully at her aunt-by-marriage, who despite looking like she could blow away on a strong wind, often showed surprising strength. Nice lady, always had been. Still, Leigh could never quite shake the feeling that there was something a little... well...
odd
about her.

"The police are coming, aren't they?" Shannon added tentatively.

The question was answered by the high, thin wail of a distant siren.

"Gotta run!" Leigh exclaimed. She hurried down the stairs, grabbed the lead, clucked to her eager-looking corgi, and took off at a jog. The animal shelter was only a short distance down the road, at least for a healthy human. To a thirty pound dog with six-inch legs, it probably seemed longer, but Chewie was not one to complain. He charged off beside her at a full gallop, his short strides bunching up his long body like an inchworm.

Not daring to slow, Leigh swerved around the parking lot and headed for the back of the building.

"Hey, mom!" A young voice called with amusement. "Why are you running?"

Leigh halted at the gate to one of the empty play yards. The fact that the sight of her running would elicit such a question was evidence of the shape she was in.

After several long moments, she caught her breath.

"I've got to get back to the church," she answered, locking Chewie securely in the run, where he made a beeline for the automatic waterer. "I'm meeting your Aunt Maura there—it may take a while. You just stay put till I get back, okay?"

The boy, who was walking a lab mix with one hand and some chow-looking beast with the other and making little progress in any direction, tossed his head to see from under the sheaf of bright red hair that fell across his eyes. "Whatever," he said cheerfully. "I'm not going anywhere. With these two, I may never go anywhere!"

Leigh paused just long enough to smile. Ten-year-old Ethan loved hanging out at the animal shelter—walking the dogs no one else wanted to walk. His clothes were already laced with slobber and his shoes would have to be scraped before she'd let him back in the car, but she was terribly proud of him. Besides being a hard worker, the boy had her love of animals and his father's cheerful disposition... what more could a parent ask for?

She hurried through the back door and passed through the hallway by the cat room. She would have to let Angie know she might be late in returning—

"Mom?"

Leigh halted in her tracks and back-stepped. "Yes?"

A petite, dark-haired girl sat cross-legged on the floor, a litter of kittens mewling as it tumbled across her bony lap. "Grandpa needs to take a look at these," the girl said determinedly. "They were all fine yesterday, but today this one's kind of sluggish, and I don't like the look of that eye discharge at all. They may have to be quarantined."

Leigh fought back an indulgent grin. If ever a pair of siblings were twins in birth only, it was hers. Her brainy, solemn daughter made quite a contrast to her easy-going, extroverted son. Even physically, while Ethan seemed an even blend of her own features and Warren's, Allison resembled neither of them. Rather, the poor thing was the spitting image of her grandfather Randall. "Do you think I should call him?" the girl asked, wrinkling her nose to adjust her glasses.

"Sure, honey," Leigh answered, bemused at how her daughter seemed to have inherited her grandfather's mannerisms as well. "Go ahead. I may be late getting back today. Just please, don't get scratched again."

"I'll be fine," the girl answered, not looking up. "I have my antiseptic spray."

The sound of a second siren wailed on the road outside, and Leigh hastened her steps through the building and up to the reception desk. "I may be back late, Angie," she said to the young manager at the desk as she moved, "there's been... a problem at the church next door. Just keep the kids here—don't let them wander around the woods today, okay? Call me if you need me!"

"All right, but what—" the front door closed behind Leigh before she could hear the end of the question, which was just as well, because she knew she couldn't answer it. She raced to the car, grabbed her purse and phone, and took off down the road at a jog. Her fingers itched to text her husband, but she had no idea what to write.
Found body; please sympathize
?
Client dead; not my fault
? Either way, it would hardly make his morning.

She arrived back at the church parking lot, panting, to find not one but two black and whites in residence, their occupants already questioning a visibly flustered Shannon and Michelle. "She's back now," Leigh heard Shannon say as she came into range. "She'll tell you."

The three policemen turned to face her.

"Sorry," Leigh said weakly, still trying to catch her breath. "I got back as fast as I could, but I had to check on my kids and make sure they stayed at the shelter."

"She ran right there and back," Shannon chimed in. "Michelle and I have both been watching—she hasn't been gone five minutes."

Leigh resisted the urge to throw Shannon a thankful smile. At least one person understood her paranoia where law enforcement was concerned.

"You say you found a body?" one of the township policemen questioned, his skeptical tone making clear that either (1) her full name hadn't been mentioned, or (2) he had never spent quality time with anyone on the county detectives' squad.

Both points were in her favor.

She nodded.

"Supposing you show us where?" he prompted.

Leigh looked in the direction of the woods, took another steadying breath, and started walking.

She really wished she could develop another hobby.

Chapter 3

Maura dropped her solid frame down onto the wooden picnic table that sat in the shady grove behind the church. She settled herself next to Leigh, who had been effectively chained there for the last half hour, and sighed.

The two women stared at one another.

"I don't do it on purpose, you know," Leigh offered.

Maura's eyebrows puckered. "Debatable."

"How could I?" Leigh argued. "You think I have some cosmic attraction for the marked to die, or the recently deceased?"

The detective considered a moment. "Let's hope not. Sure as hell wouldn't bode well for me."

Leigh frowned.

The ghost of a smile crossed Maura's otherwise sober face. "Sorry. Couldn't resist. Now let's get this damned thing over with, shall we? You know the drill. You tell me absolutely everything about how you happened to be the first one to stumble onto Brandon Lyle's body, and then you move on to everything else you know that you're planning
not
to tell me unless I ask you about it specifically. And so help me, Koslow, if I find out later that there was one shred of evidence you didn't tell me, one little detail you thought it would be better for your cousin's in-law's daughter's pet turtle if I didn't know, I will—"

"Yes, yes," Leigh cut in. "Thumbscrews, honey and ants, partial decapitation with a dull razor, yada, yada. Why would I hide anything from the authorities? I want nothing to do with this mess. I'm a mother now, remember?"

"Yes," Maura said hopefully. "There is that." She tapped her pen impatiently on her notebook. "Start talking."

***

Maura lifted a hand to massage her temple. Her short, dark hair was limp; her dimpled baby face (which had always made an interesting contrast to her otherwise intimidating appearance) was beaded with sweat. "Koslow," she said wearily, "when you say 'he practically blew up, right there in my office,' do you mean that he raised his voice, or do you mean—"

"I had to threaten to call security before he would leave."

Maura sighed.

Leigh's description of how she had found the body had gone well enough. Explaining her personal association with Brandon Lyle was proving more problematic.

"It wasn't the first time an ad agency ever had a business argument cross the line," Leigh defended. "I've seen it happen other places. At Hook, we work hard to keep our clients from getting irate in the first place, but when you're dealing with a guy like Lyle, who was a total—"

"Koslow!" Maura barked, "Will you watch what you say to me, please?"

"Oh, right," Leigh retreated. "What I meant to say is, when an agency has a client with a volatile personality who's risking large sums of money, meetings can get emotional, no matter how professional we are. Brandon was a problem from day one, but Jeff Hulsey and I were able to manage him. Until yesterday, that is."

The sweat on Maura's brow had coalesced into droplets, and she pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed. Maura was the only woman Leigh had ever known who carried a handkerchief. Then again, she was the only woman Leigh had ever known who did a lot of things.

"Just start at day one," the detective said tiredly.

"His development company has been with Hook for a couple of years now," Leigh explained. "We did two other projects for him before this one; we produced brochures and presentations to help him recruit investors and then later to sell the properties. Things went fine on our end, but rumor has it those two previous developments ran into major problems. Exactly what, I don't know—we had nothing to do with the financials. But it was clear he was banking on this current project to bail him out somehow."