One Dog Too Many (A Mae December Mystery) (8 page)

Mae silently disagreed. The only feelings Joe still had for Ruby were those of aggravation and maybe a little protectiveness. If Ben had ever seen Joe and his wife Neesy together he would have known better. The two of them were obviously very much in love.

Detective Nichols went on. “Ruby had some kind of connection with each of her neighbors, except possibly the Van Attas, Anne and Jason. We talked to them yesterday. If they have any ties to our victim, I couldn’t find them. There was one interesting thing we got in the interview, though. Do you have your notes, Robert?”

There was a pause.
Fuller cleared his throat. “Jason Van Atta reported seeing lights on in MaryLou Dennis’ house the night of March fifteenth. He assumed Joe was working late. Mrs. Van Atta told us she saw lights in the Connolly residence that night as well.”

Standing out in the hall, Mae was taken aback. She never realized Ruby had been so involved in the lives of all the Little Chapel Road residents.
Of course, she wouldn’t talk to me if my hair were on fire, unless she needed somewhere to stash Elvis
.

Detective Nichols spoke up. “We need to find out if the Connollys had a house sitter, or if anyone was supposed to be there that night. We’ll also need corroboration that Joe Dennis was working at his mother’s house the evening of the fifteenth.”

“The most critical detail to get now is the name of the person Ruby dined with the night she died. I would also like to have more information about her appointments with the lawyer and the doctor. Let’s get going.”

Chairs scraped back from the table and Mae ran down the hall to the ladies’ room. When she returned, the conference room was empty. She retrieved her coffee urn and tossed the empty donut container into the trash.

On the way out, she stopped at Dory’s desk. “I’d really like to help the sheriff with this investigation. Nobody should die like Ruby did, alone and terrified.”

Dory’s expression reminded her of Tammy’s when she smiled. “Maybe you and the sheriff can help each other out,
Honey.”

“I thought he and I had a meeting?”

“He’s left, Mae. Guess he thinks you’ve already shared what you know.”

Mae left the station and headed home. For the first time since the murder, her mind wandered to what was happening at her house. She wondered how Tallulah was doing with the newborns. She began to think about some possible names for the new puppies. They were all black with white ruffs except one, who had inherited a red coat from his father. She might call him Eric the Red. People who came to buy the puppies often wanted to hear what she had named them.

Of course, even the thought of puppies, adorable as they were, could only distract her for so long before
she again fixed on the subject of Ruby’s death. Sheriff Bradley said he needed to know the outcome of Ruby’s appointments, so Mae decided to drop by the doctor’s office on her way home.

The new fertility clinic in Rosedale was in a large multi-specialty medical complex used by several doctors. The modern facility was decorated beautifully with Asian scrolls on the walls, large plants, and a pond swimming with lovely red and white koi fish. Mae took a deep breath as she walked into the building, enjoying the scent of the fresh green plants. Checking the directory posted on the wall, she found the fertility practice on the third floor. The office décor was über modern with purple leather seating and large abstract paintings
. It seemed more like a living room than a doctor’s office. Mae had known Sheri, the woman at the front desk, since high school. Her shiny black hair was expertly cut and perfectly framed her small face.

“Hi Sheri.”

“Oh, hi Mae, did you have an appointment? You’re not trying to get pregnant, are you?”

“Sheri, I’m shocked.” She smiled. “You know I’m not even married. I wanted to ask about something. My neighbor Ruby Mead-Allison is a patient here. Did you hear she passed away?”

Sheri sighed. “I know. How awful!”

“I found her body. I was out walking my dogs at the time. It was horrible.” Mae felt the heat suffuse her cheeks. The retelling brought back the horror. “I can hardly talk about it. The reason I stopped in is that I wanted to know if Ruby made her last appointment on the fifteenth.”

“Mae, I’m sure you know I’m not supposed to give out patient information.”

“I know, but the sheriff’s people will be here shortly with a subpoena. Could you shake your head or nod in answer to one question?”

“I’m sorry Mae, but I can’t help you. I could lose my job.”

“Thanks anyway, Sheri. I have to get going. My pug had her babies yesterday. I need to go home and check on them.”

As Mae drove the rest of the way home she noticed that everything had turned green after yesterday’s rain. Spring was her favorite time of year. She mulled over all the details she had learned at the staff meeting.
Too bad Sheri couldn’t tell me anything. However, I can still check into Ruby’s other appointments
.

When Mae got home,
she called Tammy and asked her to come over. Then she made sure all the dogs went out and that they had full water dishes. Then she sat down and held each of the puppies for a while. Nothing made her happier than holding their warm little bodies. Puppies smelled so wonderful. You could almost sense their personalities even at a few days old.

T
ammy breezed in within the hour wearing stiletto heels, gray jeans and a silky blouse. Mae took one look at her and told her to come upstairs while she freshened up. Tammy followed Mae upstairs, sitting on her bed while Mae touched up her lipstick and attempted to smooth her hair. Once she felt a little more presentable, she told Tammy her idea for finding out what happened between Ruby and her attorney the day she got back. Deciding to go out to lunch, they took Tammy’s car and ate at Crepes, the new café in Rosedale.

After lunch, they went to James Connolly’s office. Mae assumed he would have been the one to handle any property transactions and
knew financial matters often figured as a motive for murder. Tammy knew a legal tech there named Mary and she went inside to talk to her. Mae waited in the car until Tammy returned. She wasn’t gone very long.

“So, what did you find out?” Mae asked.

“Ruby showed up to meet with her attorney, but she only stayed in his office for a little while. After Ruby left, Connolly came out and showed Mary a gift Ruby had brought him. An expensive cigar, a ‘cohiba,’ I think she called it. Apparently, they cost about fifty dollars apiece. She said that Connolly seemed preoccupied the whole afternoon after Ruby left.”

“That’s weird. I wonder if she even made her ten o’clock appointment with the road commissioner. I can probably get Dory to tell me.”

The sheriff’s office and the road commissioner’s office being in the same building, Mae assumed that Dory would know Mr. Stillwell’s secretary. She dialed her number.

“Hi, Dory, it’s Mae. I’ve been wondering about something. Ruby had an appointment with Aubrey Stillwell on the morning of the fifteenth. Can you find out if she kept it?”

“I’ll go ask his secretary. Give me a minute.”

Dory put Mae on hold for about five minutes and then
came back on the line.

“She kept it all right. Commissioner Stillwell was real sorry she did.”

“I’m sure he was. Mama told me Ruby was a total pain to the Commissioner. Thank you very much for the information. Bye.”

Riding along in the warm spring sunshine, the women reviewed what they knew.

Ruby had kept her ten o’clock appointment with the road commissioner and then she had seen her attorney at one, but only briefly.

“I wonder if she kept her dinner reservation at the Bistro?”

“Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Tammy smiled and called information for the number. Then she dialed the restaurant. “Hello. Could you look something up in your reservation book for me? Thank you. On March fifteenth, two of my friends were dining at your wonderful restaurant. Their reservation time was six forty-five. I need to know if they kept their reservation. Can you check for the name of Mead-Allison? Sure, I’ll wait. Yes, they did? Okay, thanks for telling me.” Tammy hung up and turned to Mae. “She kept the dinner reservation.”

“
Did they know who she had dinner with?”

“No. Maybe we can find out some other way. Can you drive over there?”

“Sure, but they aren’t open for lunch, only for dinner. It’s two-thirty now. They may not let us in.”

They pulled into the mostly vacant parking lot of one of the hottest dining spots around. There were only three cars in the lot. A sign on the door read, “Closed until four.” Mae tried the door and, to her surprise, it opened. They went in, flipped through the reservation book, and read the name in the six forty-five time slot on March fifteenth. The entry read, Mead-Allison/Hunter.

“Hunter? Who do we know named Hunter?” Mae asked her friend.
They were talking in hushed tones in the darkened entry of the upscale eatery.

“Besides Arlen Hunter?”

“Arlen Hunter.” Mae shook her head. He was a big country music star, about thirty-five and unmarried. Known for dating glamorous young women in their early twenties, he was also the singer who had first recorded Noah’s music.

At that moment, the Maitre d’ approached. Mae blushed but Tammy piped up saying, “Oh hello. We were hoping to find out when you were open and take a look at the menu. Sorry, this isn’t the menu, is it? It’s the reservation book, my silly mistake.”

The Maitre d’ looked dubious. “Menus are always posted outside restaurants,” he said.

“We’ll take a look at it,” Mae said, determinedly
pulling Tammy along with her.

“We’ll come back another time,” Tammy called back over her shoulder. Mae shushed her.

“What would Arlen Hunter be doing with Ruby?” Tammy asked when they got to the car.

Mae frowned. “Maybe Ruby wanted to be his manager.”

“Well that makes sense. She was way too old for his taste, which I understand runs to barely above jailbait.”

Mae dialed the sheriff’s office again. “Dory, it’s Mae again. Could you give the sheriff a message for me?”

“Go ahead.” Mae thought she detected a note of exasperation in Dory’s voice.

“Please tell him I found out that Ruby
met with the road commissioner—thanks for that information—then she met with her attorney, but I don’t know what happened at her doctor’s appointment. My friend wouldn’t tell me.”

“Imagine that,” Dory said
, her voice heavy with irony.

“I did find out that Hunter was the name that the restaurant had listed as Ruby’s dinner partner. I think it was Arlen Hunter.”

“Slow down. I’m writing all this down. You mean the singer?”

“Yes, that’s right, the singer.”

“Hmm, interesting. I’ll pass this on to Sheriff Bradley. Bye now.”

A few minutes later, Mae’s cellphone rang. Recognizing the number of the Rosedale Sheriff’s Department, she put the phone on speaker so Tammy could hear the conversation.

“Hello,” she said.

“Miss December.” The sheriff didn’t sound happy.

“Hello, Sheriff.”

“What do you think you’re doing? You need to stop running all over the county asking questions about this case.” His tone was quite unpleasant. Mae glanced at Tammy, who lifted one perfectly arched brow.

“What? You don’t want me to help you find Ruby’s murderer? I thought you were in favor of community involvement in stopping crime in the county.” Mae used her sweetest voice. Tammy rolled her eyes.

“I guess I haven’t made myself clear. This could be dangerous and you need to stay out of it.”

“I’ll stop if you tell me to, of course, Sheriff, but I have an appointment with Arlen Hunter at his office this afternoon.” A blatant lie.

“Fine then.” The sheriff gave a loud sigh. “Just let me know what he says, but
after that meeting, you need to stop.”

“Yes, of course. I’ll call you afterwards. Or better yet, I’ll be home around six tonight if you’d like to stop by for some wine and cheese.”
Her mother’s training was finally paying off.

“You go girl,” Tammy whispered.

“Deputy Phelps and I will stop by.”

“Fine. If you feel you need to bring a deputy.
It’s up to you. See you at six.”

Mae closed her phone and smiled at Tammy, who grinned back.

“Nicely handled. How are you going to get an appointment?”

“I don’t need an appointment. I’ll call Rhonda, his assistant. She and Noah were friends. She’ll help me out.”

“I need to get going,” Tammy said.

“Call me later.” Mae
responded as she hopped out of the car and carefully shut the car door, mindful of Tammy’s protective feelings about her prized convertible. She waved at her friend as she barreled down the driveway and went into the house. After checking on the puppies, she decided to call Dory again.

“Hi, Dory. I hope you don’t mind me bothering you again
.” Mae wondered if Dory was getting tired of all the phone calls and hurried on before she could protest. “Is it possible that Ruby was pregnant when she died? It didn’t really hit me until just now, but I saw a home pregnancy test box in Ruby’s car. Don’t tell me if you’re not supposed to.”

“You’re an observant girl, and you’re right.
The autopsy confirmed that Ruby was pregnant, but keep that to yourself. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I talked to Nancy in Stillwell’s office again, too. She heard Ruby and Stillwell arguing. After Ruby left, Stillwell called Nancy into his office and told her that Ruby was going to be the death of him. Apparently, Ruby had threatened the commissioner with some new trumped-up lawsuit. She’d found another reason to delay the road widening.”

“I don’t understand why the fight was so important to her.”

“I think she was an unhappy woman, honey. Seems like it’s always some man—or some money—at the bottom of that kind of a mess.”

Mae hummed as she got out of the shower and towel-dried her hair. She laid a black sundress with a red and yellow poppy print on her bed. Then she put on a black bra and panties and slid the silky dress over her head. Glancing into the mirror, she once again felt grateful for the color black. If she could just lose five pounds she could wear those aqua jeans again, she thought.

Putting on her silvery sandals and grabbing a yellow sweater for the cool night, she came downstairs to the kitchen and poured merlot into a decanter. She got out some crackers, red grapes and a round of Brie. Nearly six o’clock and for the first time in more than a year, she was entertaining a man.

At six on the dot, the sheriff’s car came up the drive. Ben was alone. Mae smiled, pleased he felt comfortable enough to leave his deputy behind. He came up to the screened porch and knocked.

“Come on in,” Mae called. He did, but there was a thundercloud on his face.

“Oh, Ben, what is it?”

“I can’t tell you how upset I am. I only came over to tell you in person to stay out of this case.”

Mae looked at him, crestfallen.

“You barge into my meeting, make a fool of me in front of my staff, produce a cellphone after having trampled all over the crime scene and then you go to Ruby’s doctor’s office and the restaurant!”

“Did someone complain from the restaurant?” Mae asked him with a guilty look.

“No, Dory told me. But this has to stop.”

Tears started to sting Mae’s eyes.

“Miss December, you may mean well, but a murder investigation isn’t for amateurs. These are things my staff is supposed to do, not you. I’m going to leave now.”

“Sheriff …”

“What?”

“I’m really sorry if I caused you any embarrassment by coming to the office with Ruby’s phone. I only wanted to help. I just feel so terrible about what happened to Ruby and to our beautiful little neighborhood. I thought since I know everyone, maybe I could find out a few details that your office couldn’t. I’m good at reading people, too. Finding the phone was some help, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” he sighed.

“Please stay for a while. I wanted to tell you what I found out about Ruby’s dinner partner.”

He hesitated. “Miss December,” his voice was low, “I need you to promise me you’ll stop all this nonsense about trying to solve this crime. You might be putting your life in danger. This isn’t a … a hobby. It’s a murder.”

“I will. I promise. Please sit down and have a drink, won’t you? You look like you could use one.” He wasn’t wearing his uniform, and in street clothes he seemed thinner and less intimidating. He also looked younger and very tired.

They sat in the two wicker chairs on the porch facing Mae’s
backyard. The tulips were opening, the light shining through their blooms casting colors on the grass.

“What did Arlen Hunter have to say about his dinner with Ruby?”

“Nothing. It turns out Arlen Hunter wasn’t her escort. I talked to his assistant and she said he cancelled his appointment with Ruby around four that day. She had dinner with someone, though. She wouldn’t waste a reservation at the Bistro. I wonder who it was.”