Silent Night: A Raine Stockton Dog Mystery (14 page)

“Good for you.”  He turned and started back to Nick and Melanie.  “Whatcha doing there, princess?”

Melanie examined a figurine, frowned a little, and put it back in the box.  “I saw a movie once where the bad guys used these Virgin Mary statues to hide drugs.”

Buck looked impressed.  “Any luck?”

“Nah.  I think these yokels are too dumb to figure out how to do that.”

Nick glared at her and Buck suppressed a chuckle.  “I wouldn’t doubt you’re right.  However…”  He turned to Nick and held out his hand.  “You can turn over that joint you’ve got in your pocket now and save yourself a lot of grief later.”

So
that
was why Nick had been so worried about drug dogs.  I watched appreciatively as Nick, looking utterly dejected, fumbled in his jeans pocket and drew out a half-smoked marijuana cigarette.  Melanie’s jaw dropped in amazement and delight, and Buck winked at her. “That’s why they pay me the big money, princess.”

Lester Stokes arrived a few minutes later, and I hurried Melanie to the car before she heard some language worth reporting to her father.  My phone started ringing as I was fastening my seat belt.  I snatched it up.

“Miles, I am so sorry—”

“Is Melanie okay?” he demanded.

“Yes, she’s right here—”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, of course, I just—”

“Meet me at your house,” he said, and disconnected.  He did not sound happy.

He wasn’t.  He was leaning against the driver’s door of his black Lexus when I drove up, his arms folded across his chest, his face tight.  Melanie grabbed her iPad and had her door open almost before the car stopped.

  “Hey, Dad, guess what?” she cried, running up to him.  “We rescued puppies from the highway!  Then we went on a drug bust and interrogated witnesses and examined evidence!”

She was as animated as I had ever seen her, and I thought that might have earned me a few points with her father.  But no.  He spared a smile for her and ruffled her hair as he said, “Oh, yeah?  You can tell me all about it on the way to Far Heights.  We’re going to have lunch at the lodge and then hit the slopes, how does that sound?”

“Cool!”  She climbed in the car and added just before she slammed the door, “And I met Sheriff Buck!”

That did nothing to improve Miles’s disposition, and I approached him cautiously.  “Miles, I’m sorry we’re late.  We had a few stops, and I would have called but—“

“But clearly you don’t know how to dial a phone, any more than you know how to answer one.”

“Hey, that’s not fair.”  I bristled.  “You could have called Melanie.  And I told her to call you, more than once.”

His eyes were cold.  “I trusted you with my daughter,” he said, “and you showed her less respect than I show your damn dogs.  Don’t ever do anything like this again.”  He got inside the car and slammed the door.

I was so astonished that he had started the engine and was backing up before I could think to shout, “Watch your language!  She’ll turn you in!”

Not my finest moment.  And he drove away without even looking back. 

I got Cisco out of the car and trudged up the front steps, feeling about as Scrooge-like as I had ever felt this close to Christmas.  I opened the door and stopped dead in my tracks, staring in astonishment.  Cisco came to a halt beside me.  I’d like to think it was because he was that well trained, or because he was as amazed as I was.  In fact it was because neither one of us could have taken a step forward without becoming entangled in an elaborate spider web of glittering Christmas ribbon.

It stretched from the staircase to the
mantel
to the coat rack to the end table, around the sofa and over the easy chair, through the rails of the banister and around a floor lamp.  It encircled a dog crate twice, wrapped around the draperies, looped over another table, and made a beeline for the kitchen.  My entire house had been wrapped up like one great big Christmas present.

I gingerly lifted a length of the ribbon and ducked under, then stepped over, and urged Cisco to do the same.  Feeling a little like Tom Cruise breaking into a museum, weaving my way in and out of the network of criss-crossing lines, I made my way to the kitchen with Cisco at my side.  I wished I had had a camera.  The video would have gone viral on YouTube.

Crouched under the kitchen table with her head on her paws—and a length of ribbon twisted around one of them—gazing at me with an expression that was part sheepish and part proud, was Mischief.  This is why I have dogs.  I stood there, hands planted on hips, and I burst into laughter.  My mood wasn’t nearly as foul as it had been when I walked in.  Sometimes the Christmas spirit sneaks in on four paws.

I freed Mischief from the ribbon tangled around her paw and she scampered off to find her sister, who was, of course, obediently waiting in her crate where she belonged.  Yes, I know.  The average person would wonder why I didn’t find some kind of lock for Mischief’s crate that she couldn’t master or why I even bothered to put her in her crate at all.  I asked myself the same thing now and then, but the truth is, she had me pretty well trained.  I was starting to enjoy her exploits as much as she was. 

I went through the house unwinding the ribbon from various objects and had almost reached the living room when Maude arrived, followed closely by Sonny.  I had forgotten that they had promised to help me with the Christmas mailing for Golden Rescue today.  They stood at the door for a moment, taking it all in, and then Maude observed in her dry British way, “Interesting choice.”

Sonny had brought her service dog, Hero, and all three of my dogs scampered to greet him, entangling themselves in ribbon along the way.  There was the usual confusion of sorting dogs and people, which was made even more complicated by the fact that Maude had brought a casserole and Sonny had brought cookies. In fairly short order I rescued the food, turned the dogs out into the play yard, and explained about Mischief’s sudden interest in holiday decorating while the three of us finished clearing out the ribbon jungle.

“Yesterday I came home and she had taken out all the silver Christmas balls and lined them up across the floor,” I said.  “She even managed to put one in Magic’s crate.”

“Clearly, she thinks the place could use some sprucing up,” Maude said, and Sonny was chuckling out loud.

“I think she just likes leading you on a treasure hunt,” Sonny said.

“Yeah, well, you know what they say,” I responded.  “One dog’s treasure is another girl’s trash.”  And to prove it, I wadded up the last of the ribbon, stuffed it in the trash and headed toward the kitchen.  “Come on, let’s eat.  I’ve had a pretty full morning—a pretty full twenty-four hours, as a matter of fact.”

“So I see.”  Maude, following me into the kitchen, picked up a high-heeled, leopard- print shoe from the center of the table and examined it with a lifted eyebrow.  Sonny found the mate protruding from the half-open bread box.

For a moment I drew a blank, and then I exclaimed, “Oh, no!  Those shoes danced with President Kennedy!  Tell me she didn’t chew them!”  I snatched the shoe from Maude and examined it quickly.  “How did she even find them?”

Sonny handed me the other shoe.  “I assume we’re still talking about Mischief?”

“Who else?”  Both shoes appeared to be unharmed, and I looked around for the box. 

“She says she’s innocent,” Sonny said.

“Yeah, well, all evidence to the contrary.”

“She says it’s not evidence.  It’s magic.”

I spared Sonny a look that clearly said,
Enough, already,
and she shrugged good-naturedly.  “I can only tell you what I know,” she said.

“Might one ask how your dog came to almost chew up a pair of shoes that danced with a former president?” 

That was from Maude, and I gave up looking for the box and explained about Miss Esther and her eccentric gift while I warmed the casserole in the microwave and set the table.  “She’s a sweet old thing,” I said, “but I’m afraid she thinks the shoes are more valuable than they are.  She says the government has been after them for years.”

Sonny examined the shoes skeptically.  “They’re vintage,” she admitted, “but I don’t think even a museum would want a pair of shoes that may or may not have danced with a president.  Do you suppose she really knew John Kennedy?”

I shrugged.  “She knew a lot of famous people.”

“A pity the shoes don’t fit you,” Maude said.  “This being the season for parties and all.”

That reminded me of the Sheriff’s Department Christmas party tonight, and that reminded me of my morning with Buck and the missing Ashleigh.  I filled them in on the events of the past twenty-four hours—including my unexpected overnight guests and the even more unexpected box of puppies—while we ate. 

“What I'm still unclear on,” Maude said with a meaningful look at me, “is how you lost control of Cisco in the first place.”

Maude doesn't mean to be judgmental; she is quite simply a perfectionist dog trainer. And since she taught me everything she knows, she expects me to be the same.  Which I am.  More or less.

“Well, it certainly wasn't my idea.”  I couldn't help being a little defensive.  “Cisco has always been an idiot about Buck, and Buck reinforces it.  Cisco just can’t be trusted around him.”

“It seems to me a little training in impulse control might be appropriate.”

“Tell that to Cisco.”  But I privately thought Maude was right, and I felt guilty for not being a better trainer.  We spent a good deal of time working around law enforcement, and Cisco’s enthusiasm around Buck was not only embarrassing, it might one day very easily prove dangerous.

“He runs to Buck because Buck gives him undivided attention,” Sonny commented.  “That’s all he wants.”

“That’s what everybody wants,” I muttered.

“He’s out of control because he doesn’t have a job,” was Maude’s opinion.  “He’s a working dog and he needs something to do.  Since the kennel closed down you’ve stopped training agility, and how long since he went to tracking class?”

“Come on, I missed one month.”  The thing about tracking class is that it is invariably held at sunup, regardless of rain, snow, ice or sleet, and there is usually an hour’s drive involved to get to the open field or wooded hill where the course has been set.  Who can blame a person for wanting to sleep in now and then?  “And I can hardly train agility when my equipment’s in storage.”

Maude gave me a stern look, which I avoided.  Many of the top competitors, I knew, trained with nothing but a set of portable jumps and weave poles.  In the snow.

“Cisco says he’s a star,” Sonny insisted.  “He feels his talents are being under-utilized.  When he runs away, he’s just looking for a way to be useful.”

Maude lifted an eyebrow.  “For once you and I are in agreement, my dear.”

Even I couldn’t argue with that.  He had certainly proven himself useful when he had discovered Nick’s cache of stolen treasure...even though I had yet to be convinced that had not been an accident.

“Speaking of runaways,” Sonny said, “if it wasn’t her boyfriend who was driving the car Ashleigh was seen getting into, who do the police suppose it was?”

“No theories yet.”  I was glad to turn the conversation to something other than my failures as a dog trainer.
 
“She was carrying a bag, though, so she must have planned to be gone for a while. What I can’t figure out is how she ended up way out on Burdock Road, and then why she'd turn around and
hitch another ride into town.”

“Strange,” said Sonny. "The police don't really think she killed her own father, do they?  A fourteen- year-old?"

"One certainly hears worse on the news these days," Maude observed. "Personally, however, I wouldn’t trust the word of a boy who would toss a box of puppies out of a car. He’s got her stashed away somewhere, you mark me.”

“Come on, Maude, he
did
bring them to Rescue,” I said.  I was talking about the puppies now.  “And I’m sure he didn’t really toss them out.  He just left them by my mailbox.”

“As though we have nothing else to do with our lives but take care of the mistakes of every irresponsible breeder in the county,” returned Maude, who had never turned down a homeless Golden in her life.  “And unlimited funds, of course.”

“If the female does have parvo,” I said unhappily, “it will cost a fortune to bring her through it.”

“Well, that’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
 
Sonny started to rise to clear the table, but I saw her wince and waved her to stay seated.
 
She had arrived with her cane today, and I had not seen her do that in several months.

“Sorry,” she said as Maude and I took the dishes to the sink.  “The cold weather is starting to work its dark magic on my bones.  I can’t wait to get to the coast.  My sister says it’s seventy degrees today.”
 

Sonny had a degenerative rheumatic condition that had reduced her to a wheelchair when I first met her; after she had adopted Mystery—and then Hero—I had seen a marked improvement, but I knew there were days, and always would be, when she could not get out of bed.  I was glad she was getting out of the mountains for the winter and felt guilty for begrudging her, however briefly, the escape.