Groomed For Murder: A Pet Boutique Mystery (23 page)

Two men, so different from each other: the poet with a protective side, and the warrior with a sense of humor. And they both liked me, at least a little.

I smiled a smile just for myself.

Tonight,
I thought,
tonight, I will dance.

Annie Knox
doesn’t commit—or solve—murders in her real life, but her passion for animals is one hundred percent true. She’s also a devotee of eighties music, Asian horror films, and reality TV. While Annie is a native Buckeye and has called a half dozen states home, she and her husband now live a stone’s throw from the courthouse square in a north Texas town in their very own crumbling historic house.

Rena’s Enchilada Hotdish

Here’s what you’ll need before you begin assembly. Don’t fret. There are lots of pieces, but they’re all super- easy.

1 recipe enchilada sauce

1 recipe potato filling

1 recipe pinto bean filling

18 6-in. corn tortillas

12 oz. cheddar or Colby cheese (reduced-fat is fine)

Enchilada Sauce

¹
/
₄
c. vegetable oil

2 Tbsp. flour

¹
/
₄
c. chili powder

1
¹
/
₂
c. vegetable broth

1 (15 oz.) can tomato sauce

³
/
₄
tsp. ground cumin

¹
/
₂
tsp. garlic powder

2 oz. Mexican chocolate*

salt to taste

Heat oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Stir in flour, reduce heat to medium, and cook until lightly brown, stirring constantly to prevent flour from burning. Stir in chili powder, then slowly mix in veggie broth, getting rid of any lumps. Stir tomato sauce, cumin, and garlic powder into sauce and continue cooking over medium heat approximately 10 minutes, or until thickened slightly. Stir in chocolate to melt. Season to taste with salt.

*Mexican chocolate comes in tablets for making hot chocolate. Abuelita is the brand I get most often, but there are several. Look for them in the Hispanic or international food section of your grocery store. If you cannot find Mexican chocolate, you can use unsweetened chocolate and add a dash of cinnamon.

Potato Filling

1 bag frozen, steam-in-bag russet or sweet potatoes, prepared as directed on the bag*

10–16 oz. frozen chopped spinach, thawed (whatever size your grocery store carries!)

1 tsp. cumin

¹
/
₂
tsp. garlic powder

dash of ground chipotle or cayenne

Press as much water out of the spinach as you can (put it in a colander and press with the back of a spoon).
Mash the potatoes with a fork or a potato masher; they don’t need to be smooth, just mushed a bit. Stir in the spinach, cumin, garlic powder, and chipotle/cayenne.

*As an alternative, use 2 pounds russet or sweet potatoes, peeled, diced, and boiled in salted water until tender.

Pinto Bean Filling

1 can pinto beans, drained and rinsed

¹
/
₂
c. fat-free refried beans

1 (14.5 oz.) can diced tomatoes

1 c. frozen corn

1 tsp. chili powder

¹
/
₂
tsp. cumin

¹
/
₂
tsp. garlic powder

Mix all ingredients together in a small saucepan, mashing some of the beans with the back of a fork. Heat over medium-low flame until hot.

Assembly

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 9" x 13" pan with a little nonstick spray and spread about
¹
/
₂
cup of enchilada sauce in the bottom. Arrange 6 corn tortillas on the bottom, tearing and overlapping so that the whole bottom of the pan is covered.

Spread half the potato filling on the tortillas.

Ladle half the pinto filling over the potatoes, and
drizzle about
¹
/
₂
cup of enchilada sauce over the pintos. Top with 4 ounces of shredded cheese.

Repeat with another 6 tortillas, the rest of the potatoes, the rest of the pintos, and another
¹
/
₂
cup of sauce. Top with the last 6 corn tortillas and ladle the rest of the sauce over the tortillas (so they are totally covered). Finally, top with remaining cheese.

Bake, uncovered, 30 minutes.

Read on for a sneak peek at the next novel in Annie Knox’s Pet Boutique Mystery series,

COLLARED FOR MURDER

Coming from Obsidian in summer 2015.

D
ee Dee Lahti stood in the middle of the North Woods Hotel Ballroom Number One, her aqua kaftan billowing in the intermittent wind from an oscillating fan, a patient Maine coon hanging from her hands by his armpits. Dee Dee cocked her frizzy head, scanning the hutches and velvet-draped cages lining the benches, her mouth—generously outlined in mauve—moving softly as she maintained a running conversation with herself.

Without warning, she lurched forward and down as though she were falling and began to shove the cat into a pink-leopard-print PVC hutch.

Pamela Rawlins had been chatting idly with me while I arranged my chiffon ruffs, hand-wrought collar dangles, and delicate clips sporting rhinestones, bows, and small beaded flowers on my vendor’s table. When Dee Dee crammed that cat into the hutch, though,
Pamela stiffened and sucked in a breath, her patrician nostrils pinching shut. “I swear, that woman has less sense than a box of hair,” she muttered.

“Dee Dee, darling,” she called. “You really must put the correct cat in the correct enclosure.” She bit off her words like a Connecticut blue blood. Or a shark.

Dee Dee looked up, her features scrunched in confusion.

“You can’t put Mr. Big in Charleston’s hutch.”

Dee Dee stared at the cat she had just deposited, then leaned in to look at the picture pinned to the outside of the enclosure. She stood straight and looked back at us, her expressive face slack, blank.

“You just put Mr. Big in Charleston’s hutch. Mr. Big should be in his
own
enclosure.” Nothing. “The cage with the red velvet drape.”

“Are you sure?” Dee Dee said.

Pamela waited a beat. “Of course I’m sure, you . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence, but even Dee Dee knew where it was going.

Pamela was correct that Dee Dee Lahti was a few walleye short of a fish fry. Still, the residents of Merryville were one big dysfunctional family. We could harbor grudges against one another, whisper spiteful things behind one another’s backs, and, yes, even occasionally call Dee Dee Lahti “dingbat.” To her face. But Pamela wasn’t part of the family, and I felt a surge of protectiveness when she sniped at poor Dee Dee.

I’d seen Mr. Big and Charleston, both silver-and-white Maine coons. “Pamela,” I said, “it’s an easy mistake to make. The cats are almost identical.”

Pamela angled her body to face me, her small, birdlike eyes utterly flat and emotionless. “
Almost
identical—but not identical. If she can’t tell the difference between those silver markings, how will she tell the difference between two white Himalayans?”

I raised my chin a notch.

She allowed herself a tight shake of her head. “This is all highly irregular. I told Marsha Denham that we shouldn’t vary from our usual procedures. The Midwestern Cat Fancier Organization’s annual retreat has a pristine reputation precisely because we have rules, and we follow them to the letter. Our silver anniversary is not the time to start bending those rules.”

I’d heard this argument a good dozen times since the MCFO had decided to host their twenty-fifth annual retreat in our little town. Marsha Denham, wife of the organization’s president, Phillip Denham, had taken a shine to Pris Olson, owner of Prissy’s Pretty Pets. While the official rules of the organization specified that the cats were not to be handled by anyone other than the owners and the judges, Marsha had arranged for Pris to provide grooming services in one corner of the ballroom. Pris had a crackerjack crew of groomers, but she’d taken pity on Dee Dee Lahti, who was unemployed and in constant misery thanks to her habitual-criminal husband. Dee Dee was not crackerjack.

Apparently sensing tension in the air, Pris ceased supervising her employees and floated our way. “Is there a problem?” she cooed. Pris sported a perfectly painted beauty-pageant smile and a practiced, formal politeness that screamed “privilege.”

“Practiced” is the key word here. In public, Pris defined “Minnesota nice.” The term refers to the smiling openness and back-bending helpfulness that most Minnesotans seem to exude from birth. Sometimes Minnesota nice is genuine. Sometimes it is not.

I knew firsthand that Pris’s brilliant white smile could be a trap—a colorful Amazonian flower that promised sweet nectar before clamping shut around some poor, unsuspecting insect.

No one was safe. We were all insects in Pris’s world.

Now Pris and Pamela faced each other like a photograph and its negative: both tall and elegantly slim, with hair pulled back in a sleek knot, clad in figure-skimming suits. But, whereas Pris wore baby pink that matched the soft blush of her porcelain skin, her eyes a pale, Nordic blue, her hair shining the color of fresh butter, Pamela’s olive complexion reflected the onyx black of her hair, eyes, and suit.

I took a step back. Like all the McHale sisters, I’m tall and athletic. In theory, I could have snapped either of these model-thin women in half. In a physical fight, I would have had them licked. But this promised to be another round in the women’s months-long battle of wills, and I was hopelessly outmatched.

Pamela’s crimson lips curved into a smile. “Mrs. Olson—”

“Please, call me Pris.”

A heartbeat of silence.

“Pris, your assistant over there”—she waved dismissively in Dee Dee’s general direction—“was just returning Mr. Big to Charleston’s hutch.”

“Oh dear,” Pris said. “Well, those two big boys really do look alike. And I did urge Mrs. McCoy to stay with us while we gave Mr. Big his blow-out. It’s our policy, you know. But she was far too eager to start getting ready for tonight’s festivities. I’m sure she didn’t even consider the possibility that her cat would be confused for another, nearly identical cat . . . but that’s what policies are for!” Pris concluded, her mouth settling into a wicked little smile.

Harsh red heat spread across Pamela’s cheeks. I took another step back. Pamela was about to blow.

Still, when she rallied enough to speak, her voice remained as flat as Iowa. “You’re absolutely correct. That’s why we have policies. Like the policy of requiring owners to groom their own animals.”

Pris raised a single shoulder. “Well. What are you gonna do?”

The phrase was as much a challenge as an expression of commiseration.

I held my breath, waiting for the fireworks, but they never came. The whole situation was defused when my aunt Dolly sashayed up, back from her tour around the ballroom. In typical Dolly style, she wore glittering stack-heeled sandals. Her tunic-length T-shirt, featuring a tropical sunset picked out in sequins, was draped over a pair of neon orange capris. No matter the occasion, Dolly dressed with flare.

“Ladies,” she drawled, her head swiveling back and forth between Pris and Pamela as if she were watching a match at Wimbledon.

“Hello, Dolly,” Pris responded.

Pamela extended a hand. “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.”

My aunt took the proffered hand and gave it two vigorous shakes. “My name is Dolly,” she said, overenunciating each word. “Just like Pris said,” she added helpfully.

The tendons in Pamela’s neck stood out. “I’m Pamela Rawlins, co-coordinator of the show.”

Dolly grinned. “Well, it’s a mighty fine cat show. Not that I’ve ever been to a cat show before. But this is terrific. I’ve never seen so much drama packed into a single room.

“That lady over there,” she said, turning to me and jerking her thumb in the direction of a heavyset woman in a cobalt blue tracksuit, “said that sometimes people poison other people’s cats.” She shivered in morbid delight.

I gasped. “Really?” I said, turning to Pamela for verification.

“Once,” she Pamela emphatically. “That was six years ago. And the accused insists to this day that she accidentally dropped those acetaminophen tablets into Betsy Blue’s bowl of kibble. Besides, she’s been permanently banned from participating in our shows.”

I was still reeling from the notion of a cat owner poisoning someone else’s pet, when Dolly jumped in again. “That guy over in the corner,” she said, indicating a balding gentleman wearing an argyle sweater-vest, despite the summer heat, “confided that one of the female judges slipped her room key under Toffee Boy when she returned him to his cage.” The man glanced up, almost
as though he knew we were talking about him, but then went back to methodically running a brush over the sleek coat of a caramel-colored Burmese.

Pamela appeared stricken. “That doesn’t happen anymore.”

“Ha! He said it happened last year.”

Pamela quirked her head to the side, frowning in confusion. Her eyes scanned the room, pausing on each judging ring. Her lips moved slightly as she counted them off.

“Well,” she finally said, “I assure you that I run a tight ship. There will be no such shenanigans under my watch.”

Dolly shook her head. “I hate to tell you, Miss Pamela Rawlins, but I have a hunch that this week will be a hotbed of shenanigans. And my hunches are never
wrong.”