Mutts & Murder: A Dog Town USA Cozy Mystery (19 page)

He started collecting his papers and then I stood up to leave, but he wasn’t quite finished.

“Freddie, I wanted to ask you something else too,” he said.

I raised an eyebrow. He didn’t often call me by my first name. 

“Yes?”

He tucked his papers under his arm and stood up.

“That candidate we had in for the photo job last week? Jimmy Brewer. How did you like him?”

My hands started perspiring at the mere mention of his name.

In all the excitement of the past few days, I had almost forgotten that Jimmy had been here interviewing for a job with the paper.

Almost, anyway.

“Well, I—” I started.

“The reason I ask is because I know the two of you worked together back at
The Oregon Daily
. And I thought you might have a good perspective on what kind of employee he is. Do you think we should hire him?”

I looked away for a moment. My knuckles had started to turn white.

I knew exactly what Lou wanted me to do in this situation. She wanted me to tell Kobritz that Jimmy was a terrible employee, a worse co-worker, and somebody who would add zero value to the quality of the paper.

And maybe she was right to want me to say those things.

It was wrong of Jimmy to put me in this situation. This situation, among other bad situations he’d placed me in. He had treated me poor. And while I should have known what I was getting into, it had been wrong of him to act the way he had. He’d destroyed our friendship, as much as anything else.

But as I mulled over the hurt, I realized that there was something bigger at stake than my feelings.

My self-respect.

I wasn’t going to let what he did to me turn me into a liar. I wasn’t going to let him make me do anything, ever again.

And while that might make things complicated if the paper did hire him, then that was just something I’d have to face.

But it was something I
could
face, I realized.

Because I was strong enough to now. I wasn’t that same girl who had quit and run home because Jimmy didn’t love me.  

That scared, broken part of me was still there, deep down. But it wasn’t going to determine what I did anymore.

“Jimmy’s a good photographer,” I finally said.

Kobritz nodded.

“But do you think he’d be a good fit for
The Chronicle
?” he asked, picking up on my apprehension.

“I think any paper would be glad to have him on their staff.”

Kobritz scanned my face. He seemed to know I was holding back something, but I wasn’t about to say it.

“Okay, well thank you, Ms. Wolf. This has all been very helpful.”

He opened the door for me and I walked down the hallway back to my desk.

The pain from what Jimmy had done to me still lived on in my heart.

But I had reached a tipping point.

Because now I knew, without a shred of doubt, that I was stronger than the pain.

That I was stronger than Jimmy, for that matter.

And that was a good feeling to walk out of that room with.

Chapter 51

I watched from the front porch as the rain splattered against the pavement. It fell in thick sheets, steaming as it hit the hot concrete, creating waves of white mist that drifted down the street.

I had gotten back home just in time before the summer storm hit. I’d spent that Saturday morning at the cemetery, bringing what was left of the yellow roses to my mother’s grave.

But the visit this time had been different. I hadn’t put a smiley face sticker on my life, the way I had the other times I’d visited her. I had been honest: I told her that Jimmy had been hired and was going to start work at the paper at the end of the month. He was moving here with his pregnant wife. I told her that I knew it was going to hurt some, but that I was confident I could handle it. I told her that Lou had almost been arrested for murder. I told her I had come dangerously close to being murdered, just like Myra. I told her that Buddy was still missing. I told her that her beautiful yellow roses had been practically ripped to shreds.

And I told her that I might not be the next Katie Couric after all.

But that that would be okay.Because I was Freddie Wolf. And maybe that was better than being the next Katie Couric.

For the first time since I visited her grave, I was honest with my mom. Hell, maybe for the first time ever in my life before I didn’t pretend to be stronger than I was to her. And even though I might not have been the pillar of strength she had hoped me to be, at least I wasn’t lying about who I was. At least I could live with the decisions I’d made.

If she’d been alive, I wasn’t sure what she would have thought of the person I was today. But I took solace in the fact that whatever she would have thought about me would have been okay. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I could look at myself in the mirror in the mornings and not shy away. All that mattered was that
I
was okay with where I was and who I was. And that anyone else’s opinion, dead or alive, just wasn’t worth a damn.

I sat by her headstone and told her that I was okay. That she could always count on me to be okay. And that I loved her and always would.

I left the cemetery just as the thunder clouds were starting to roll in.

Lou was now inside the house, making dinner. She normally worked on Saturdays, working hard at
The Barkery
all the way through the early evening. But today, for the first time in recent memory, she’d come home early. Mostly, I think, to keep an eye on me and make sure that I was all right. She didn’t need to do that, but having recovered from the Myra Louden fiasco and having had her name cleared, she was back to her old self and acting like big sister Lou again. Looking out for me and making sure I was well-fed: something I obviously didn’t need any help with. But I appreciated the thought, nonetheless.

When it came to Lou, I realized that I couldn’t have asked for a better sister.

I watched as the rain pounded hard on the railing. I rocked back and forth in the porch swing, and thought about how things had worked themselves out.

Everything was back to normal.

Everything, that is, except Buddy.

The big orange cat had been missing for a week now. With those odds, I knew that the chances of him ever making his way back home were bad.  

Really bad.

Every night over the past week, Lou and I had come home from work and spent our free hours searching for him throughout the neighborhood. We’d plastered telephone poles and just about every bulletin board in town with missing signs for him, offering a big reward for his return. But none of it had led to anything. The most we found on our searches were a couple of old tennis balls in a gutter.

I sighed.

It ripped me up inside to think about it.

I should have been thankful and happy for the way things turned out. Lou’s name was cleared and her reputation was saved.
The Barkery
was doing as well as ever. I had gotten my story, found the real murderer, and had a shot at the crime beat now.

But all of it seemed a moot point without that orange ball of fur that I loved so much.

I let out another heavy sigh. I stood up from the swing, about to go back inside and see if Lou needed any help when I stopped dead in my tracks.

I heard the sharp yipping and cries of a dog coming from somewhere down the street.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up on end. And as the sharp yipping continued, it sounded more and more familiar to me. 

I let the screen door slam back and I leaned over the porch railing, craning my neck to see where the barking was coming from.

“But… it can’t be,” I mumbled.

The rain and the mist had to be playing tricks on me.

Chapter 52

He jumped down from the large oak tree onto the pavement, clutching a giant brown creature in his arms.

A brown creature that if had been dry, would have been a bright shade of orange.

The man carrying the creature then unwound the dog’s leash, which he had tied around the tree before scaling it, and headed toward me in the rain.

Stupefied
didn’t seem to do justice to the way I felt watching him.

The rain had matted the man’s dark hair down and soaked right through his white t-shirt. But he walked normally, as if he was walking along on a blue, sunny day.

I ran down the steps to meet the three of them, not caring that I too had nothing on but a t-shirt and jean shorts.

I wanted to cry.

“You found him!”

The big, wet fur ball let out a deafening meow as I grabbed him. His claws had dug into the flesh of the man’s back, and it took a moment for him to let go, but the man didn’t seem to mind too much.

I pet Buddy’s wet head. The rainwater cascaded down from his fur in tiny rivulets

He was wet and cold and scared and lighter than he had been, but Buddy the cat was alive.

I thought my heart was going to burst with happiness.  

He meowed again loudly in my ear, clinging to my arm with his sharp claws. But I was so happy to see him I didn’t even feel the pain. I hugged him tightly and kissed the top of his sweet little head.

“
Buddy
, we were so worried…”

Water rolled down my cheeks, and it wasn’t just from the rain.

I glanced down, feeling something else at my feet.

A pair of innocent, hopeful, maple-colored eyes looked up at me.

I let out a sob of happiness.

It was all too good to be true.

Chapter 53

“He got himself stuck in that tree,” the man said, nodding behind him at the large, leafy oak. “I wouldn’t have seen him if it weren’t for Mugs here.”

My heart had just about melted right then and there. With Buddy in my arms, Mugs there at my feet and Sam Sakai standing there in the rain in front of my house.

Not only had he saved me from meeting an uncertain fate at the hands of Milo.

He had saved Buddy too.

The rain came down hard around us. I was already soaked through to the bone. My hair dripped long streams of water down my back.

But it was a warm rain. And I didn’t much mind being out in it.

“I, uh, I…” he started, but he paused as his eyes met mine.

He cleared his throat, looking away for a second.

I got the sense that something was making him nervous.

“I was on my way to see you,” he said. “I mean, I thought…”

He cleared his throat again.

I saved him the awkward trouble and interrupted – something I was good at doing.

“Do you think a cat person and a dog person can get along?” I asked.

He smiled.

“Sure they can,” he said. “Especially when the cat person is a dog person too.”

I grinned, looking down at Mugs.

The little pooch had captured my heart.

And maybe… maybe he wasn’t the only one who had.

It was foolish.

But no matter how logical and down-to-earth I was, there were still things that were beyond my control.  

“I came here thinking you might want to adopt Mugs,” he said.

I had never been a dog person. Never had the inclination to ever own a dog in my adult life.

But now, suddenly, I was beginning to see what all the hubbub was about.

Those little eyes looking up at me the way they were sent a bulldozer through every notion I’d ever had about dogs.

I smiled back at Sam.

“You’d let him go?”

He nodded.

“It was only ever going to be temporary,” he said. “Of course, you’ll have to fill out the papers at the humane society. But I’m willing to give him to you now on good faith if you like.”

I didn’t know what Lou would say about me adopting Myra’s puppy.

But I didn’t really care.

“I’m getting two pets out of this deal,” I said. “What are you getting?”

He shrugged.

“I get to see you smile.”

I felt goose bumps break out on my skin.

Sam handed me the leash. I held it in my free hand. The flow of the conversation paused for a moment. I felt myself get lost in those dark eyes of his. Again.

“Look, Freddie, I also came over here because I wanted to apologize,” he finally said. “About Louise. I should have told my partner to lay off her. I knew that she hadn’t killed Myra, but—”

“It’s okay,” I said.

That stopped him talking. He looked slightly confused for a moment, as if he had expected a bigger obstacle. 

“You’re not upset?” he said.

I shook my head.

“You got your guy,” I said. “And Lou’s okay. She’s tougher than you think.”

“Do you think she’s mad at me?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “You saved me, so I think she’s grateful.”  

He let out a heavy sigh of relief.

“That’s lucky,” he said. “I don’t know what I’d do without those Key Lime bars she makes at
The Barkery
. They’ve become my reason for living lately.”

I laughed.

“I admit,” I said. “They’re my favorite too.”

He smiled. Then he took in a deep breath.

“You know, Freddie, I was there that day,” he said. “That day they buried your mom.”

I stopped laughing, thinking I must of misheard him because of the way the rain was roaring.

“What?” I said.

“Remember how I told you that I lived here for a few months growing up? During high school?” he said.

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Well, I lived with my aunt,” he said. “My mom sent me to live with her because I was troubled. I was on a bad path. I probably would’ve ended up dead by now if it hadn’t been for someone believing in me.”

He cleared his throat.

“You know who that somebody was?”

I furrowed my brow, then shook my head.

“Your mom,” he said. “Mrs. Wolf.”

“You were in her class?” I said.

He nodded.

“Junior year literature,” he said. “She told me that where I came from didn’t dictate where I was going. And that I was a good student, if I was just willing to put the work in. And that I had a future, if I wanted it bad enough. She told me I had to fight for what I wanted.