Groomed For Murder: A Pet Boutique Mystery (4 page)

I’d walked the stairs a thousand times, but I’d never been more aware of them than I was that night. The fifth stair from the bottom squeaked. There was a rough spot on the railing halfway up to the landing. The pale cream paint had dripped onto the dark wood baseboard. The stairwell was very dark, perfect cover for nefarious deeds. I shivered.

I hesitated for a moment before opening the door to Daniel’s apartment, but when I heard a whimper from Daisy, I steeled myself and went in. The apartment was spacious, but it had a shotgun layout. The back hallway opened onto two bedrooms and a three-quarter bath before spilling into the open living and dining area in the front of the house. The larger of the two bedrooms had a full bath en suite.

I flipped the light switch at the back end of the hall, and the trio of milk glass pendant lights that marched down the hallway flamed to life. I hustled through the apartment to the living room and over to the big dog
crate in the corner. Daisy was lying on her belly; she cocked her ears and looked up at me with big soulful eyes. Poor girl.

I opened the crate, and she flew out in a jumble of large head and skinny legs, her momentum driving her right into my midsection. I huffed out a surprised breath and tried to quell the panic of so much dog coming at me so fast. But after her initial flailing, she settled on her haunches by my side, her head pressed against my thigh, her tail bouncing with barely controlled energy.

“Shhhh,” I breathed. “Let’s just simmer down.”

Her response was to butt her head against my leg and whimper softly. It occurred to me that she hadn’t been out to do her business in a very long time.

I found her leash and chew toy and pulled the bedding from her crate. I snapped the leash to her collar and left the toy and bedding in the back stairwell so I could carry it up after Daisy had a chance to relieve herself.

We clattered down the stairs, her toenails skittering on the hardwood, my own feet struggling for purchase as I tried to keep my balance with nearly seventy pounds of dog pulling me off my center. She danced at my side as we reached the back door, and I couldn’t help but smile at that universal canine sign of desperation mixed with joy.

When we stumbled into the alley, she immediately began sniffing every available surface for a good place to go. Not surprisingly, her travels tripped the motion sensor on the back of the Greene Brigade, the military history boutique run by my neighbor Richard Greene.

As though he’d been waiting by the back door for precisely this moment, Richard’s door swung wide and he stepped out onto his stoop with his massive German shepherd, MacArthur, at his side.

MacArthur and Richard were a perfect match, both grizzled and forbidding. But where MacArthur was all bite and no bark, Richard had bark to spare. He’d been suspicious of the ruckus my pet-based store would create on our quiet little block from the very start. He’d been trying to get Trendy Tails shut down since before it had even opened, and he never failed to remind me of his intent.

“What’s going on out here, Isabel?”

“Our tenant’s dog needed her evening constitutional.” At that moment, Daisy found a spot outside the back door of the Spin Doctor, across the alley, to squat and tinkle.

“That’s what the dog park is for,” Richard reasoned, his voice suggesting I was too dense to grasp that simple fact.

“I know, but it’s really late and it’s been a long evening.” I held up my roll of plastic poop bags. “We won’t leave a mess.”

Richard harrumphed, but the peeved sound morphed into a bone-rattling cough. “Well, I knew you’d be trouble, Miss McHale, and I see I’m right. First there was the debacle with that rodent nesting in my store.”

Gandhi, an orphaned guinea pig, had indeed made his way into Richard’s store and eluded capture for several days before dashing out the back door and into the wild. After the harsh winter we’d had, I feared
Gandhi had not survived, and I still felt a pang of sadness that I’d been unable to protect that little guy better.

“Now,” Richard continued, “you’ve got the police swarming the place again and you’re letting this animal use our
shared
alleyway as a latrine.”

I didn’t really have an answer for that. He was right. Today I was not the best neighbor. Instead of responding, I picked my way across the bricks to clean up the mess Daisy had left by the Dumpster, hopefully showing that I was at least trying to be more responsible.

Richard sneezed.

Daisy made her giddy way to MacArthur’s side, and I gasped in fear of an altercation. Richard appeared unfazed, however, and sure enough, MacArthur sat perfectly still, the stoic soldier, while Daisy sniffed him all over. Still, unsure how long MacArthur’s patience would last, I grabbed her leash and tugged her away as quickly as I could.

“So, Miss McHale,” Richard said, his tone resonant and commanding. “What sort of shenanigans were going on in your store tonight?”

“It’s a long story.” I wasn’t prepared to provide more ammunition to Richard, more reason for him to want my store gone.

“Nonsense, little girl. I may be old, but I know a gunshot when I hear one. I was loading my old Remington to come to your aid when I saw the first responders arrive. If they hadn’t been so Johnny-on-the-spot, I mighta come in, barrels blazing. So spill it. What happened?”

I sighed. “Short story? Our tenant, Daniel Colona,
was shot in his apartment and tumbled down the stairs into the middle of Ingrid and Harvey’s wedding.”

“Sorry to have missed that,” Richard said, punctuating his statement with another sneeze. “Terrible cold. Didn’t want to spread contagion.”

I couldn’t stop my smile. “I know. Ingrid was sad you couldn’t make it. But turns out you didn’t miss the wedding at all. Daniel died before the ‘I do’s.’”

“Huh.”

“Daniel dying was bad enough, but the worst is that the police actually arrested Aunt Dolly for the murder.”

Richard’s craggy features crumpled into a look of utter disbelief. “Dorothy? Hogwash! Why would Dorothy want to kill that man?”

Richard was the only one who called Aunt Dolly “Dorothy,” and I found his use of her proper name charming.

“Right now, I think the cops are focused on the fact that she was literally holding a smoking gun, but you know how Dolly was obsessed with Daniel.”

Richard laughed, the sound like gravel in a bucket. I’d never heard him laugh before, and it took me aback. “Dorothy has always had a vivid imagination.”

Really? Richard had noticed Dolly’s vivid imagination? He’d always seemed completely oblivious of her, even when she’d tried to exercise her feminine wiles on him a few months ago.

Daisy had stopped trying to get MacArthur to play with her and had turned her attention to Richard, himself, pushing her silky head up into the rough cup of
his hand. He rubbed her ears absently while he continued. “She told me she’d seen that Colona guy taking pictures all around town and thought he might be a terrorist planning to plant a dirty bomb somewhere in Merryville. Said she might call those folks in Homeland Security.”

He laughed again, this time the sound dissolving into a coughing fit.

“She didn’t,” I gasped, truly alarmed that Dolly’s fantasies had taken such a dark turn.

“She did, indeed. I told her she had it all wrong. Terrorists aren’t concerned with itty-bitty Merryville, Minnesota.” He shrugged. “Twin Cities, maybe. Even Duluth. But not Merryville.

“He came by the store one time. Seemed like a nice enough fella. Interested in the history of the area. Looking for a local hunting and fishing guide. I told Dolly that whatever that man did outside Merryville, here he was just a tourist, taking it all in.”

“And that’s what you believed?”

“I didn’t say that. Who knows what’s going on in a man’s head? And Dorothy was right that Colona was poking around into something. When did he move in?”

“It’s been a little over four weeks. Thirty days, to be exact.” I’d had to get that information for the police.

“Right. Four weeks during the month of March, looking for a hunting guide.” He turned his head and coughed into his fist.

“So, he wants to hunt. Hunting and tourists are Merryville’s lifeblood.”

“Little girl, are you sure you’re not from the Cities? Unless that fancy city man came up here to hunt for raccoons or beavers, there’s nothing in season in March. Not a dang thing. Whatever that guy was looking for in Merryville, it was more than a little fresh game.”

Four

I
snuck into my own bedroom and gently nudged Ingrid’s shoulder. “Shhh,” I soothed, when she woke with a start. Harvey was snoring next to her, and I didn’t want her to wake him up.

“What’s going on?”

“Shhh,” I reminded. “Put on your robe and come downstairs.”

I left her alone and scooted down the back stairs to the first-floor kitchen. I decanted the pot of piping hot coffee into a thermal carafe and took it and a pile of paper goods we’d planned to use the night before into the barkery portion of Trendy Tails. The cherry red farm table was already surrounded by my sisters, Dru and Lucy; Rena; and our friends Taffy and Jolly Nielson. My mom had called and said that she and Dolly were too wiped out from the night before to make it.

I joined the girls at the table, with the coffee, and
began passing it around. Everyone was a little hollow-eyed after the previous night’s shenanigans, but there were still hints of smiles all around. The plate full of Rena’s sinful pecan caramel rolls sitting in the middle of the table may have had something to do with it. I couldn’t imagine how early she’d needed to get up to get those made; I suspected she hadn’t slept at all. Jinx was draped across Rena’s lap, and she was gently stroking the cat’s big, silky head.

Ingrid thumped down the stairs wearing a cotton housedress over her flannel gown and a pair of untied hiking boots on her feet. Her silver hair fell over one shoulder in an unkempt braid. I promised myself right then and there that this was how I would always remember Ingrid. The look was just so
her
.

“What the holy heck is going on?” she snapped. “Did someone else die?”

We all laughed. “Nope,” I said. “We never got around to holding a true bridal shower for you before the wedding, so we’re doing one right now.”

“At the crack of dawn in the middle of a crime scene?”

Rena piped up. “Actually, you’re the only one standing in the crime scene. Come and join us at the table.”

Ingrid stomped across the room and slid into a chair, her brow furrowed and lips smashed shut. She loosened a little when I passed her a cup of hot coffee with extra cream (just the way she liked it), and a smile came out when Rena handed her a caramel roll and a fork.

“When did you put this all together?”

“Last night,” I volunteered. “After you and Harvey went upstairs and while we were waiting for Dolly to
get back from jail. We all wanted something to get our minds off the ugliness, and this seemed like a good idea. We had to phone Taffy and Jolly, but they were both still awake.”

Taffy shook her head. “I’ve never been so creeped out in my life.”

“It
was
alarming,” Jolly agreed. “I didn’t ever think my heart would ever stop racing.”

I caught an intimate glance between Jolly and Rena. Beneath the edge of the table, Rena took Jolly’s hand, laced their fingers, and rested their small embrace on Jinx’s black-and-white flank. Jolly and Rena’s relationship was only a few months old, but they seemed to have fallen deeply in love. They made a good couple. Rena was exuberant, playful, and sometimes a little rash. Jolly, on the other hand, was a few years older and significantly more levelheaded. Rena was all edges, Jolly was all curves.

“Anyway,” I said, trying to draw the conversation away from the murder, “we have presents!”

“Oh, heavens, no. I’m nearly eighty-five. I’m not some young blushing bride just getting her start in life.”

“Nonsense,” Dru said, pointing a caramel roll at Ingrid to emphasize her point. “Every new love should be celebrated.”

“Besides,” Taffy added as she brushed a stray honey gold curl from her face, “this is as much for us as for you. We’d been looking forward to throwing you a shower from the minute we knew you were getting
married, but then the wedding preparations themselves pushed the shower to the back burner.”

“But now, it’s baaaack,” Lucy said with a grin.

The tension in Ingrid’s shoulders had been seeping away with every word we’d offered. I went in for the kill. “So what do you say, Ingrid? Will you let us shower you with joy so we can all breathe a little easier today?”

“All right, all right, all right,” she ceded. “I’ll put up with just about anything for one of Rena’s caramel rolls.”

We all heaved a collective sigh of relief.

“Me first,” Lucy chirped. She passed Ingrid a tiny package wrapped in cherry red paper and topped with a frilly silver bow.

Ingrid carefully pulled off the bow and handed it to me to save before using her fingernail to carefully remove the paper in a single piece. Surreptitiously, I squished the bow onto the back of a paper plate.

Ingrid opened the tiny box and pulled out a slim metal item about the size of a cigarette lighter. “What’s this?” she mused, turning the object this way and that.

“It’s an MP3 player,” Lucy said. “I’ll show you how to use it later. But it has music on it. A lot of Johnny Mathis, of course, but Bobby Vinton, Sinatra, Tom Jones . . . all sorts of music Xander and I thought you and Harvey might like.”

Xander ran the record store behind my shop, the Spin Doctor. He and Lucy had been dancing around each other like a couple of lovesick calves for months, each totally infatuated with the other, each way too
cool to admit it. Even saying his name had raised a blush in my sister’s cheeks.

“That’s very thoughtful, Lucy.” Ingrid still stared at the player with suspicion. I’m sure she was trying to figure out how something so small could hold more than a single song.

Taffy pulled a giant package from beneath the table. It was wrapped in cellophane and tied with a huge red bow (which was quickly added to the paper plate). The basket contained a delicate blue willow china teapot and two matching cups and saucers. The china was surrounded by small boxes and bags of various teas.

“Some are traditional black and green blends, but others have herbs for various illnesses. There are teas for indigestion, headache, and even one that’s supposed to crank up your libido.”

For the first time in forever I saw Ingrid Whitfield blush. “Well, uh, thank you, dear. I’m sure . . . Did you know my mother had a set of blue willow china. I loved it so much, but my sister got it when Mother died. I’m happy to own some of my own now.”

Dru shyly pushed her package across the table. It was much larger but wrapped in the same red paper Lucy had used and topped by a trio of the silver bows. Ingrid went through her ritual of carefully preserving the wrappings as she opened the box, and once again, I added the bows to my collection.

Dru’s gift was much more straightforward. Two purple-and-white-striped scarves. Dru shrugged. “I’ve been learning to crochet, but I haven’t learned much beyond rectangles. I thought you and Harvey could
keep your matching Vikings scarves here for when you come up to visit in the winter. Because I really hope you’ll come visit during the winter.”

Ingrid cleared her throat. “They’re gorgeous, Dru. I’d like to place an order for your first tea cozy,” she teased.

“We’re up,” Rena said, glancing at Jolly, who pulled another small package from her pocket.

The wrapping was all Rena: paper from the Sunday comics and brightly colored rubber bands holding it together. Even so, Ingrid’s Depression-era instincts had her gently sliding the rubber bands so they wouldn’t muss the paper and then pressing the paper flat so it could be used again.

With great care, Ingrid lifted a long chain and pendant from the box. It glinted as it twisted in her hand. She gasped. “It’s beautiful.”

“Thank you,” Jolly said. Jolly was a jeweler who made exquisite pieces inspired by nature. Her usual materials were hammered silver and polished agate, but I could tell the pendant wasn’t silver.

“I wanted it to remind you of home,” Jolly said.

“Black Hills gold,” Ingrid breathed.

Jolly chuckled. “Not exactly. Unless it’s made in the Black Hills, it isn’t Black Hills gold. But I have been playing around with the technique of combining different gold alloys to create colored gold.”

Ingrid handed the necklace around the table. The pendant was a mellow gold, covered with sprigs of green leaves and pale pink roses. The pendant was large enough for a woman of Ingrid’s stature to wear, but the delicate coloring gave it a fairylike lightness.

“It’s a locket,” Rena said when the pendant had made its way back to Ingrid.

She gasped again, as she found and opened the tiny lock on the side of the pendant. When it opened, she teared up. “It’s us,” she said. “However did you pull this off?”

Rena grinned and winked. “Like we said, we’ve been planning this for a while. The locket was Jolly’s idea, but the pictures were mine. I went to the high school library and found the yearbook from the last year you and Harvey were both enrolled there. Digital cameras are amazing these days. It didn’t take me long to duplicate the pictures, touch them up again, and—boom—cut them to fit the locket.”

Ingrid passed me the locket and I gazed down on a very young Ingrid and Harvey. Ingrid’s strong features were balanced by the rolls of blond hair that framed her face and the pert little netted hat perched on top. Harvey’s short hair was slicked back by pomade that made it shine. Both of them were smiling like they hadn’t a care in the world . . . like the end of World War II had cleared a pathway to a perfect future.

I fought back a lump in my throat. I was determined not to cry, even though my emotions were right at the surface.

“Here,” I announced. “It’s tradition.” I displayed the paper plate with the red and silver bows decorating its back. I’d stapled a strand of ribbon on either side. With Ingrid’s hesitant permission, I placed the plate on her head and tied the ribbons under her chin to make a hat.

“This is tradition?” Ingrid asked.

I laughed. “Yes. Maybe not an old tradition, but still.”

“This is ridiculous, is what this is,” she pouted.

“Oh, hush. At least I didn’t keep track of the ribbons you broke.”

“Why would you do that?” she asked.

“Because, according to
tradition
, you have a baby for every broken ribbon.”

Ingrid threw back her head and howled. “I assure you, there’s no danger of babies in our future.”

I took my seat and an awkward silence fell over the group.

Rena kicked me under the table. “Your turn,” she said. “Give her your gift.”

“Right. Well, my present isn’t so sentimental. And you may not even want it.”

“Stop hedging,” Dru said. “Just give the woman your gift.”

I pulled the envelope from the back pocket of my jeans. It was a little rumpled, so I smoothed it on the table before handing it to Ingrid. There was no glitter, colored paper, or ribbons . . . just Ingrid’s name written across the front.

She opened the envelope and pulled out a single folded sheet of paper. As it shook loose, a check fell to the table.

“A check? For twenty thousand dollars?”

“Just read the letter,” I said, my voice tight with nerves.

I had expected she would read the letter silently, but instead she read it aloud.

Dear Ingrid,

In many respects, you nursed me back to life after Casey left me. You kept a roof over my head and food in my mouth by allowing me to work at the Gift Haus, even though I know you never really needed the help. More importantly, you gave me a sense of purpose by encouraging me to develop my pet couture skills. And you gave me a shot at a life by allowing me to continue living and working at 801 Maple even after you left.

When we made this arrangement—that you would move to Boca and let me use this space for cheap—you made it sound like I was doing you a favor. But I know better. You were supporting me just like you always have. I know if it weren’t for me, you would have sold the building and used the money to travel and live more comfortably with Harvey.

So let me buy you out, let me free up this asset for you. Consider this check a down payment on a contract for deed. That way I can take over all the bills here and still continue sending you payments to make your life better.

Never fear. You will always have a home here. Just not so many bills.

All my love, Izzy

When she was finished reading, she let the letter fall to the table. I couldn’t read her expression to save my life.

“I mean, if you don’t want to sell, then that’s okay. I can just start paying you more rent or something. I just . . . You’ve helped me so much, and I think it’s time I carried my own weight. You’ve given me the strength to do that, Ingrid.”

She stood up and pulled me from my chair, throwing her arms around me in a crushing embrace. I felt the delicate drop of a tear on my shoulder, and that turned on my own waterworks. But I didn’t know what we were crying about yet.

“I am so proud of you, Izzy McHale. I didn’t give you anything but the gift of time. Even when you were reeling from that stupid boy’s betrayal, I could sense the strength in you. You just needed to trust in yourself.”

I squeezed her tight and let the tears fall.

I don’t know how long we would have stood there if Rena hadn’t broken us apart with a gagging noise.

“
Blech
. You two sound like a Celine Dion song.”

I caught Jolly gently slapping the back of Rena’s head and the two of them exchanged secret smiles.

“So?” Dru asked. “Are you going to sell the building to Izzy?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Ingrid replied, wiping the moisture from her eyes and sinking back down to her chair. She tipped her head back to look me in the eyes. “You could have stayed on as a tenant for as long as you wanted, but you’re right that I’m even happier without having to worry about taxes and utilities and maintenance.” She paused and glanced away for a moment. “It will be strange to be a guest in my own home. Which won’t be my own anymore.”

“But there will always be a place for you here, both in this house and in my heart.”

*   *   *

After the schmaltzy bit, our little hen party dissolved into gossip and laughter. I wanted to stay in that warm circle of joy all day, but at some point, I had to open up Trendy Tails. And before that, I had two dogs that needed some serious relief. I left Dru and Lucy tidying things up, let Ingrid go crawl back in bed with Harvey, and Rena accompanied me while I walked the dogs.