Mutts & Murder: A Dog Town USA Cozy Mystery (13 page)

I furrowed my brow.

“I don’t understand what that means,” I said.

“I know you don’t,” he said.

“Then explain.”

He shook his head.

“It isn’t my place.”

The hound that had wandered into the bushes came back to the rest of the pack, and they all started walking again. We followed behind.

“Well, you’re just full of mystery,” I said.

My tongue seemed to have been emboldened by the tequila, allowing me to say things to Sam Sakai that I probably wouldn’t have had the courage to sober.

“Not really,” he said. “I’m a very simple man. I like my dogs and I like a good beer and a baseball game. Pretty cut and dry compared to most.”

I smirked.

“What is it about dogs?” I said. “I mean, I get having one or two. But why care for so many? It must take up all your free time.”

He shrugged.

“I guess I like them because I understand them,” he said. “They’re like me. They’re simple creatures. Their motives are pure, you know? There aren’t any angles. They just want food, water, a warm bed, and some love. And besides, they’re good company. Not like cats.”

I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth.

“Cats are plenty good company,” I said.

“Don’t tell me that you’re a crazy cat lady,” he said, pausing again as Mugs wandered off to relieve himself on a patch of dirt.

“No,” I said. “But I do have one. A big orange tabby named Buddy. And he’s just as good company as any dog. Maybe better. He’s a sweetheart.”

Lt. Sakai didn’t have any response to that. We walked along in silence for a while. The clouds above were conspiring, and I could smell rain in the air.

“How come you moved back to Dog Mountain?” he said. “I mean, I know you were at that big paper in Portland before this.”  

I glanced over in surprise. I was fairly certain I hadn’t told him where I was before
The Chronicle
.

He noticed my surprise and shrugged.

“I read the news from time to time,” he said. “Your name seemed familiar to me, and I realized it was because I read that story you wrote at
The Daily
about the Southside Slayings.”

That surprised me even more. The Southside Slayings had been a piece I’d written about a handful of homeless murders that the cops weren’t all that motivated to solve. I had considered the story to be one of the best ones I’d written.

“You’re a really good writer,” he said. “I don’t understand why you’d trade it in to cover dog festivals. Did you get laid off?”

I suddenly felt uncomfortable. As if the lieutenant was prying into things that weren’t any of his business.

I glanced over at him, though, and saw that he was looking at me, not with a sense of judgment, the way I had expected, but with a kind of desire to understand me better.

I let out a sigh, digging my hands into the pockets of my jean shorts.

“I left because of…” I started saying, ready to launch into something about needing to come home after my mom died, but then I stopped midsentence.

I looked back over at him.

And for some reason… some reason I decided to be honest.

“I left because I loved somebody that I worked with,” I said. “But he didn’t love me back. And I couldn’t take it anymore.”

The words came out barely above a whisper, but they seemed to linger in the air long after I’d spoken them, like cigarette smoke.

Sakai stopped for a moment, this time not on account of the dogs.

I kept walking, but he placed a hand on my arm to stop me. Then he looked deep into my eyes with his dark ones.

“I’m sorry, Freddie,” he said, calling me that for the first time. “That’s rough.”

I shrugged it away and started walking again.

“So it goes,” I said. The phrase didn’t make much sense in the context of how I felt, but it was all I could come up with in an attempt to take the sting out of it.

We walked along in silence. The third tequila seemed to be having a delayed reaction. I suddenly felt more off balance than I had. It took all my might to walk a somewhat straight line.

“How come your wife left you?” I suddenly said, remembering that he told me that the last time I’d seen him.

I regretted asking the question as soon as it slipped out of my mouth. But when I looked over at him, he didn’t seem to be offended by it.

He shrugged.

“She thought I loved my job more than her,” he said.

I nodded quietly.

I knew that was pretty common with cops. They got so obsessed with their jobs, their relationships often ended because their significant others felt they weren’t getting enough attention.

“She thought I loved my dogs more than her too, for that matter,” he said.

I smiled and started giggling. I knew that my reaction was inappropriate, but something about the way Sakai had said it cracked me up.

He looked back at me.

“Hey, it’s not funny,” he said.

But he was smiling too when he said it.

When we got to the front of my house, I was glad that I wouldn’t have to pretend I was somewhat sober for much longer. I noticed that the yellow roses in the front looked disheveled. The Ripper of Labrador Lane must have run through them, yet again. Normally I would have been enraged, but the tequila haze numbed the feeling to the point that I didn’t much care about the state of the yellow roses.

A few raindrops had started to splatter against the sidewalk and the acidic smell of rain on warm concrete filled the night.

I stopped.

“This is me,” I said, nodding to the house.

“Then I’ve done my job,” he said.

I knelt down, running my hand through Mugs’ soft fur. He licked my hand, and I felt that tug at my heart as I stood back up.

Sam Sakai smiled, that knowing look on his face again.

He was right about me: despite my normally cold heart when it came to dogs, there was something about this one that just got under my skin.

“Thanks, Sam,” I said.

“Anytime.”

I smiled slightly, then turned around and headed up the concrete stairs that led up to the house.

And then, in one fell swoop, all my efforts to appear stable and in control suddenly gave way as my sandal missed the step and instead hit the concrete edge.

I went flying forward, face first into the ground.

But just as I was about to take a hard and irredeemable fall into my walkway, I felt something pull me back from the broken-nose abyss.

He gripped my arm firmly with his free hand, holding me up and then letting me lean against him as I regained my footing. But even after I had, I found that he was still holding onto me.

I looked up at him, feeling sheepish and silly, but thankful at the same time that I wasn’t now lying on the ground with a broken face.

I let out a sigh of relief.

“Good thing I walked you home,” he said, a slight smile turning up the corners of his mouth.

“Good thing you did.”

He still hadn’t let go of me.

I stared up into those dark chocolate eyes of his, lit only by the faint glow coming from the busted porch light.

I felt myself falling again, but this time, not into the concrete.

I was falling into his eyes.

I’d like to blame what happened next on the tequila.

But even I knew that wasn’t any excuse.

Chapter 32

Lt. Sam Sakai tasted like sea salt and sunflowers baking in a hot field.

I leaned up and kissed him softly, feeling for a moment as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He tightened his grip on me as I did, pulling me closer. He kissed me back, letting the moment go on, both of us getting lost in the dream until –

He abruptly pulled away from me.

“Please don’t,” he said, looking at me with a confused expression. The softness that had been in his face suddenly drained away, leaving behind a stern and cold look that sent shivers down my spine.

Immediately the sting of rejection shot through my heart like a ricocheting bullet.

The tequila haze wore off in an instant, and all I could feel was a crushing wave of embarrassment.

What had I just done?

“Oh… I…” I started saying, looking at him.

But it was too hard to meet his gaze.

I shook my head angrily. Mostly angry at myself for letting the moment get away from me. For letting him walk me home in the first place. For letting this happen with somebody I needed to have a professional relationship with.

For letting him think that I might be one of those unethical reporters he seemed to hate so much, when the truth was I was the farthest thing from it.

I backed away as raindrops splattered around us.

“I… I have to go.”

“Freddie, wait—”

I turned around, rushing up the steps. I fumbled for my keys, dropping them on the wooden porch. His stare burned into my back as I reached down and scrambled for them.

I couldn’t get into the house fast enough.

What had I just done?

Chapter 33

I woke up the next morning to a pounding headache, searing heartburn, and paws that were heavy as anchors kneading my stomach.

I let out a long groan that was immediately responded to with a long, wailing meow.

I opened my eyes, the brightness from the morning summer sun burning into my retinas like a flame thrower. I squinted hard.

A large, round, whiskery, hopeful orange cat face was staring down at me.

It was Saturday morning, and I was fairly certain even in my hungover haze that Buddy the cat had already been fed this morning. Saturdays were big at
The Barkery
, and Lou took her weekends on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, meaning she had fed him before she left. However, despite this, the cat kept meowing at me like he hadn’t eaten anything decent in a week.

His loud wails only added to the pain I’d already inflicted on myself through the booze and the three cupcakes and the embarrassment leftover from the night before.

I sat up in bed, feeling a little queasy. When I’d finally gotten inside the house the night before, I’d raided the pink box Lou had brought home that was full of
The Barkery
’s leftover pastries. Without giving much thought to the matter, I’d found myself inhaling three of the Red, White and Blueberry cupcakes. Too many, even if I had been a six-foot-five burly lumberjack instead of a stout 140-pound woman. Well, 150-pound woman if I was being
really
honest.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, much to Buddy’s delight. He jumped down off the quilt and headed for the door.

Sam Sakai’s look after I had drunkenly kissed him was still fresh in mind as I got up and shuffled across the floor toward the hallway.

And now, thanks to the weekend, I would have all Saturday
and
Sunday to think about what a fool I had made of myself.

For all I knew, the lieutenant had a girlfriend. And there I’d been, crossing over all sorts of boundaries like a thoughtless teenage girl.

I groaned again as the nauseous feeling climbed its way up my throat.

I stopped for a moment, leaning against the wall to steady myself until the wave passed. Buddy looked back at me, meowing loudly, not understanding what the hold-up was.

Ugh. I had created a downright mess for myself—

Just then, I heard the jingling of my phone. I had left it downstairs on the kitchen counter, I realized.

I swallowed back the bile and made my way as quickly as was possible in my state to the kitchen counter. I grabbed the phone just in time before it went to voicemail.

“Hello?” I said.

“Freddie?”

I recognized the voice right away. Though why my former brother-in-law was calling me at this hour on a Saturday didn’t immediately make sense.

“Pete?” I said.

I glanced over, seeing the note that Lou had left me. Apologizing for bailing on me last night and saying she’d make it up to me.

“Freddie,” he said again.

I noticed that his voice was a little more strained than usual. Which wasn’t all that strange, considering that it was the bakery’s busiest day of the week.

“Yeah Pete?”

“Freddie, something terrible has happened.”

I felt a lump growing at the back of my throat at that.

“What? What is it?” I said, realizing that if he was calling, it had to be about Lou.

“They took Louise away.”

“What?” I said, my stomach plummeting. “What are you talking about? Who took Lou away?”

He let out an unsteady sigh into the speaker. He was barely holding it together.

“The
cops
, Freddie. They took her away half an hour ago. I’ve been trying to call you since. I couldn’t go with her because we’re slammed here at
The Barkery
and she asked me to take charge.”

“But… what did they bring her in for?”

“For that Myra
business
,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion. “They think she did it.”

“Oh my God,” I mumbled. 

“Freddie,” he said, his voice cracking. “You have to help her!”

Chapter 34

I should have realized, before I peeled out of the driveway and sped like a hungover maniac down the 106 to the police station, that Lou’s ex-husband was prone to exaggeration.

It was nothing that Pete meant intentionally, more so just a reflection of his own inner emotional state. But when I got to the police station and asked the cop at the front desk just what in the hell they thought they were doing by arresting my sister, he stared back at me with a humorless expression.

“We haven’t arrested anyone this morning, Miss Wolf,” he said, remembering my name from the last time we’d met.

“Well what the hell is going on?”

“We’ve brought a Louise Wolf in for questioning,” he said. “But that’s it. She’s here of her own free will.”

I felt my cheeks grow slightly red, realizing that I might have jumped the gun a little bit.