Groomed For Murder: A Pet Boutique Mystery (6 page)

As Rena got a little closer, Daisy—who had barely made a sound since she and Daniel had moved in four weeks earlier—started to bark. Not an aggressive bark but somehow insistent. Like when a dog needs out of the house or when he thinks it’s dinnertime. I don’t know whether it was the kids, the other dogs, or her desire to go home, but she kicked up quite a little fuss.

“Whoa,” Rena said, pulling on Daisy’s leash to make sure she didn’t charge.

Packer came dancing over, making twisty jumps in the air and barking just to be a part of the fun. Jordan followed him, running right into his daddy’s arms. Daisy’s attention immediately turned toward the toddler. She gave Jordan’s pudgy ankles big sloppy kisses while the boy flopped over in a dangerous backbend in an effort to pet the doggy.

“Whoa, buddy,” Steve said, righting his son in his arms. “Jordan seems to love dogs. We’ve been thinking
about getting one, but, you know, there never seem to be enough hours in the day.”

I tucked that little morsel of information away. If no one came to claim Daisy, she would soon need a forever home, and the Olmsteads might make the perfect family for Daniel’s sweet girl.

I laughed. “Well, this suddenly turned into a party, but we really do have to scoot. Steve, Ama, it was good to see you both.” I turned my attention on Ama and tried to capture her gaze with mine. “Think about what we were talking about, Ama. If you have any ideas, let me know.”

Ama glanced up at her husband and then quickly away. “Sure,” she said.

But something told me that Ama Olmstead wasn’t about to tell me anything about anything. I was on my own.

*   *   *

“I’m telling you—she knows something.” I carefully threaded a black bow tie onto a tiny collar. I’d made over two dozen of the little bows over the last couple of weeks. They were favors for Pearl Collins and Romeo Tucker’s doggy wedding. Once they were secured to the matching black collars—all sized to the various canine guests—we’d pack them in boxes, wrap and tag them, and set them in an artful stack next to the canine cake Rena was baking.

Rena picked up a bow and began fussing with it. “These are cute.” She gave the loops a gentle tug. “And sturdy.”

I snatched the bow tie from her hand. “They’re not that sturdy. Stop fussing.” I tossed the bow back in the box with the others, and shooed Rena toward the barkery.

She slouched away, looking over her shoulder once to blow me a raspberry.

“Maybe Ama knows something, and maybe she doesn’t want to say anything because she’s hoping for a big story,” Rena suggested.

“That’s what I thought, but when Steve joined us, Ama lied about what we’d been talking about.”

“Why would she do that?”

“I have no idea. It makes no sense. That said, I did get a little something out of talking to Steve Olmstead. Did you know that he put in a bid to help Hal Olson build condos at the old Soaring Eagles Camp on Badger Lake?”

Rena stopped in the middle of arranging a tray of fish-shaped kitty crackers and stared at me like I had two heads. “How on earth would I know that? I don’t exactly travel in those circles. I didn’t even know Hal had opted to build condos there.”

It was true. Rena was my dearest friend in the whole world, but she definitely lived on the fringe of Merryville society. With her bubblegum spiky hair, her unconventional wardrobe, and her hostile, drunken father, Rena had never fit in well. When we were in high school, I’d even heard some girls whispering that she was a witch. Rena tended to stick with my family and Merryville’s down-and-out crowd. She certainly
wasn’t privy to business dealings and development projects. She only knew that Hal owned the old camp because it came up during our troubles a few months earlier.

“Fair enough. Well, he is. He’s going to call it The Woods at Badger Lake. Very hoity-toity. Anyway, Steve said that the firm in Brainerd that got the job put in a ridiculously low bid. You know Hal’s always looking for an angle. I can’t believe Steve would even want to work with Hal.”

Hal Olson owned Olson’s Odyssey RV, one of the largest RV lots in the Upper Midwest. He was also my rival Prissy Olson’s husband. I’d gotten to know Hal a bit better—and actually accused him of murder—last fall. I knew he had one of the fattest bank accounts in the county, and he was in the process of running for mayor of Merryville. But I also knew that his good ol’ boy, “dang glad to meet ya” persona masked a man of questionable ethics and a very flexible sense of right and wrong.

“Well,” Rena said, “it’s too bad Steve didn’t get at least part of the construction deal. Xander”—who owned the Spin Doctor record store just across the alley from me—“said that Steve’s having a tough time with money. I guess Steve stopped by to ask Xander if he needed a tear-off and offered him a fire sale kind of deal. Anyway, maybe Steve figures he’s got to lay down with dogs if he wants to keep his wife and son from starving.”

“First of all, comparing Hal Olson to a dog is an
insult to dogs. But I see what you mean. Steve also mentioned that the construction at the old Grateful Grape has slowed to a crawl while Ken and Hal work out some of the kinks in Hal’s financing of the restaurant. With work being so scarce, I guess Steve’s got to do what he’s got to do. Even if he has to do it with Hal Olson.

“Anyway, the whole conversation got me wondering if Daniel was up here to investigate shenanigans at Hal’s development. It’s certainly the biggest thing going on in town.”

“Hmmm. Maybe. But what could Hal be doing that’s worth an investigation from a big-city newspaper? A four-week investigation at that.”

Before I could answer, the bell on the front door tinkled, signaling a guest. I turned on my brightest smile, anticipating a customer, but it melted when I saw Richard Greene wiping his feet on my welcome mat.

“Hi, Richard. What can I do for you?”

Richard glanced from me to Rena—who prompted the man to heave a big sigh—and back again. “Ladies. I’ve got some business to discuss.”

It was my turn to sigh. Dour Richard had it in for Trendy Tails, and I doubted he came by to suggest cross-promotion of our stores.

He pulled a sheaf of printer paper from inside his jacket, unfolded the bunch, and handed them to me.

“Commercial Feed Program, blah blah, Minnesota Statutes 25.31–25.43,” I read aloud. The entire sheet was covered with a single paragraph of text. I flipped
through the other two sheets of paper and saw more of the same.

“Why don’t we cut to the chase, Richard? What’s this all about?”

“Miss McHale, I’m going to have your business shut down.”

Five

“S
hut down?” Rena laughed. “And how are you going to do that? We’ve already gone one round with you at city hall, and we won that one.”

“Yes, well, this time I’m going to the state. Turns out there are rules in Minnesota about selling animal feed. Including pet food. You have to have your products licensed and pay fees for each one. They have to be labeled, too.”

“We have labels,” Rena said, tilting her chin in defiance.

“Labels with ingredients, not just smiley faces and loopy letters.”

I let the papers fall onto the glass display case at my side and rubbed my face with both hands. I didn’t need this. Not now. The murder in my showroom wasn’t enough? I had to deal with Richard Greene breathing down my neck about state regulations?

“Richard,” I said, foreclosing any more back-and-forth between the cantankerous old man and my cantankerous young friend. “We didn’t know. I promise we’ll get this straightened out with the state. Just give us a week. Right now, I’m busy dealing with Aunt Dolly’s murder charge.”

Apparently I’d said the magic word: Dolly. Richard narrowed his eyes, but relented. “Fine. I’ll give you a week. If you don’t take care of this on your own, I’ll have no choice but to report you to the appropriate state authorities. I don’t want a lawbreaker for a neighbor.”

“Thank you.”

He harrumphed. “How is Dorothy holding up? Is there, ah, anything I can do to help?”

Wow. Richard must have been really taken with my aunt Dolly. I’d never heard him string so many kind words together before. Ever.

“Thanks, Richard. I’m not sure what anyone can do right now. We’re trying to figure out who else might have had motive and opportunity to kill Daniel. If you have any thoughts . . .”

“I’ll think on it some.”

I had a sudden thought. “Hey, do you know Hal Olson is building condos on the old Soaring Eagles property?”

Richard frowned, the expression turning the lines around his mouth into gullies. “Vacation property,” he spat.

“Well, isn’t that a good thing?” Rena asked. “I mean, you rely on the tourist industry as much as we do.”

He drew himself up. “Got nothing against tourists. But I got something against mucking up the natural beauty of Badger Lake. Won’t be anyplace on the lake you can sit or float where you won’t be able to see those condos or whatever.”

I wouldn’t have thought it was possible, but his frown deepened. “Come to think of it, I walk down to the lake near every day. Gotta stay fit. Saw that Daniel guy more than once.”

“What was he doing?” I asked, my heartbeat starting to kick up a notch.

“Nothing. Just standing there by the build site. Watching.”

I knew it. Something about the lakeside development had brought Daniel Colona to Merryville. And that something had gotten him killed.

*   *   *

That evening, Sean Tucker came over to join Rena and me for dinner and a movie.

The three of us had been inseparable from the day Sean moved to Merryville in the fourth grade until a week before we graduated from high school. Then, one night, Sean had stood beneath my bedroom window in the midst of a summer storm and declared his love for me. At the time, I was so lost in my infatuation with Casey Alter that I couldn’t see the truth of Sean’s words: that I was an accessory to Casey, not a real partner. By the time I caught on, fourteen years had passed and the rift between Sean and me had grown into a vast gulf of awkward silence.

A few months ago, Sean had reentered my life when
Rena’s alleged involvement in a murder threw us together. The reunion had been rocky, to say the least. Sean’s feelings for me had withered on the vine just as I started to think maybe Sean and I should have been more than friends. Still, we’d managed to mend fences enough to hold a conversation, and Rena was positively giddy to have the old gang together again.

The night after Daniel’s death, we were all looking for a little lighthearted fun. I had DVRed
Clueless
, a movie we’d watched about forty-seven times when we were in high school, and Rena had promised to make her decadent cheese enchiladas. With Ingrid and Harvey’s permission, we’d gotten rid of the wedding cake—a tier for the Merryville General staff, one for the police department, and one for the firefighters—so we didn’t have dessert on hand. Sean brought the ice cream—he’d long since learned that we preferred a gift of ice cream to a gift of wine—and we had ourselves a party.

While Rena finished up in the kitchen, Sean and I leaned against the pass-through.

“So you think he was here to investigate the Soaring Eagles development?” Sean asked as he dunked a tortilla chip into a bowl of chunky salsa.

“It makes sense,” Rena said. “Nothing ever happens in Merryville. That development is probably the biggest change to this town since the streets were paved.”

“From what I hear, nothing much has happened yet,” Sean argued.

“Still, what else would someone from Madison come all the way out here to investigate?”

Sean looked down, and my own gaze followed. Packer and Daisy were sitting at Sean’s feet, wiggling excitedly on their haunches, their eyes following the path of another tortilla chip to Sean’s mouth. Daisy whimpered and licked her chops while Packer tried to worm his way between her and Sean’s loafers.

I looked up to find Sean staring at me, a quizzical twist to his brows.

“Unless you want those two trying to steal your enchiladas and fighting for your ice cream spoon, I would ignore them.”

“Not even one little chip?”

“See, that’s how they get you. First it’s one little chip. Then, well, what’s another? Pretty soon, they’ve eaten half the bag and consider you their dealer.”

Sean laughed.

“You can laugh, but that chip is a gateway drug. Two hours from now, they’re meth heads and you’re their only supply.”

“Okay. Fair enough.” He looked down at the pitiful dogs. “Sorry, guys. Mom says no.”

He shifted around so he could lean his side against the pass-through and face me head-on. “So, Daniel was working on a story. There’s not necessarily anything sinister about it. Maybe it was just a human interest story?”

“Ugh. Enough with that already. Everyone keeps saying it might have been a puff piece about a cute tourist town. But that wouldn’t take a month in the field to write, and Daniel wasn’t that kind of reporter,” I said.

“How do you know?” Sean asked suspiciously.

“Xander showed me how to go on the Internet and search the
Madison Standard
’s archives. I read a bunch of Daniel’s columns and they were all about public corruption and corporate greed and sex scandals.”

“Sex scandals?” Rena’s face brightened at the possibility of some delicious tawdry sex story. “Tell me one.”

I glanced at Sean. He shrugged like he didn’t care about the detour in our conversation, but his lips were curled in just the faintest hint of a smile. I think he wanted to hear one, too.

“There was one about a personal chef—whom Daniel mercifully never named—who was sleeping with all his female clients. We’re talking the wives of judges and city councilmen, and über-rich businessmen. Apparently all of the women thought they were the only one, that they were special. ‘You’re the center of my galaxy,’ he’d tell them. But then two of them were chatting over a manicure, found out they were both sleeping with the chef, and pretty soon they’d told all their friends. Once all the women knew, some started telling their husbands about other women’s affairs, and pretty soon the whole world knew that all of these powerful men had been cuckolded.”

“Wow. And he didn’t expose the chef’s name?” Sean asked.

“That’s just it. All these powerful people were exposed, but the women were still loyal to their lover and the men didn’t want to give the chef any publicity. According to Daniel, they all refused to give the man’s name. He’s the ‘Mystery Chef.’”

“What an awesome story,” Rena said. “I mean, it’s terrible that it happened and all, but still an awesome story.”

I knew what she meant. Sometimes hearing about other people’s bad choices made me feel a little better about my own situation. Specifically the whole Casey thing. I knew it was childish and maybe even a little catty. I wasn’t proud of that fact, but since we’re being honest here . . .

“So all of Daniel’s stories are like that?” Sean asked.

“Yep. He wrote about the real underbelly of life in Madison. Not always hard-hitting journalism. I mean the sex scandal was a pretty tabloidesque bit of journalism. But he certainly didn’t write anything about happy people and places and how great life was. In other words, I don’t think he was here to write a story about how great Merryville is and how everyone should come for a visit.”

“So let’s assume he was here to check out the development,” Sean said. “
What
about the development?”

“That, we don’t know.” Rena pulled the pan of enchiladas from the oven, and the apartment was immediately engulfed in the savory scent of chilies, corn, and just a hint of chocolate—Rena’s secret ingredient.

The rattling of the wire rack in the oven acted like a dinner bell for the dogs. They came scampering in, Daisy’s long legs serving her well but Packer trying his best to muscle his way in front of the canine competition. Rena lifted the pan high above their doggy heads and waded through their enthusiasm until she could
set the pan on the pass-through. I couldn’t see Packer, but I heard his snuffle of annoyance.

“Wow,” Sean breathed, a dreamy smile on his face. His voice dropped an octave to a bedroom growl. “That smells delicious.”

Rena laughed and I tried to muster a smile to hide the reaction that sultry voice had on me. I had to remind myself that Sean wasn’t interested anymore. No point developing a crush fourteen years too late.

“Anyway,” I said, “Rena and I were thinking about walking the dogs down to the lake tomorrow. It’s Sunday, so the shop doesn’t open until noon.”

Sean groaned. “Are we really doing this again? Getting involved in another murder investigation.”

“We’re just going to walk by the lake. If we happen to see something interesting, well, then so be it.”

“Right,” he deadpanned. “Just an innocent stroll.” He stood up straight and waggled his finger between Rena and me. “You two need to stay out of this. Jack Collins may not be my favorite person, but he’s a perfectly reliable cop. Let him do his job.”

I shrugged. “It’s just a hunch at this point. If I told Jack about it, he would look at me just exactly like you’re looking at me now. Like I’m a nut job. If we find something more concrete, I promise to take it straight to Jack.”

He shook his head. “I still don’t trust you two to stay out of trouble.”

I took a plate of enchiladas from Rena and handed it off to Sean. “We’re going. If you want to come along as
a chaperone, you’re welcome to join us. But with or without you, we’re going. It’s the very least I can do for Aunt Dolly.”

With a deep sigh, Sean conceded. “Fine. I’ll come with you. I’d never forgive myself if you two got yourselves killed.”

As soon as we were seated, Daisy and Packer took up positions with clear views to all three of us. Smart dogs. You never knew which human would drop something or cave in and offer a little treat below the table.

“This is delicious,” Sean said, lifting a forkful of melty cheese and sauce to his lips.

“I’ll give you the recipe,” Rena replied. “It’s bachelor-proof.”

Sean had been in a long-term relationship with a fellow attorney, but that had ended on a particularly sour note. I occasionally got a hint of a flirt from him, but I hadn’t heard of him going on any other dates. He apparently needed some time to lick his wounds after the whole Carla Harper debacle.

“I’ll have you know,” Sean said, waggling his fork in Rena’s direction, “I’m a pretty competent cook. It was a good way to unwind without feeling guilty during law school. After all, I had to eat, didn’t I?”

“Prove it,” Rena said.

“Fine. Next time we have a casual dinner party, we’ll do it at my house. I’ll make my famous eggplant parmigiana.”

“Sounds like a deal.”

We ate on in silence for a bit until Rena, whose chair faced the kitchen, heaved a sigh.

I followed her line of sight and watched as Jinx lifted her head out of the enchilada pan. A long string of melted cheese connected the cat to the pan, and the three of us watched her toss her head this way and that, trying to get that cheese into her mouth.

“Oh dear. I was so worried about the beggars here”—I indicated Packer and Daisy—“that I never even thought about Jinx’s cheese obsession.”

Sean snorted, trying to stave off a laugh.

Rena grinned. “I hope no one wanted seconds.”

“You two can laugh. You don’t live with her. That cat is lactose intolerant. She might drive Ingrid, Harvey, and me to a hotel for the night.”

Rena and Sean broke up then, howling with laughter. After a few miserable seconds, I joined in. I watched in resignation and Jinx went in for another bit of cheese, this time sticking her paw into the pan and trying to shovel the cheese to her mouth.

I got up and took the pan away from the cat, earning me a pouty hiss, and then we went back to eating in relative silence.

After the dishes had been cleared and the tainted enchiladas dumped into a trash bag, I scooped up Jinx—who rumbled softly in her postbinge stupor—and we retired the few feet to my living area and piled on the couch, where I found myself wedged between Rena and Sean. My couch is not that big. In fact, I’d never realized just how small it was. From just a few inches away, I could feel the heat emanating from Sean’s body, smell a faint whiff of juniper from his shaving soap.

“Okay,” I said, my voice sounding unnaturally loud. “I need a good laugh.”

I flipped on the television and started scrolling through menus looking for our movie. As soon as the opening credits began to roll, and the television started making noise, Daisy May came tearing out of my bedroom, big paws scrabbling on the hardwood floor. She slid to a stop in front of the couch and immediately leapt up between Sean and me. Or, more precisely,
on
Sean and me. One hindquarter rested on Sean’s leg and one on mine, the dog wobbling until she managed to find her balance. In the process, she completely dislodged Jinx, drawing a full-throated hiss from my queenly cat.