Never Con a Corgi (16 page)

The detective blew out a breath. "Don't get ahead of yourself, Koslow. The ballistics aren't back yet. If Brandon's handgun was the murder weapon, well... all I can tell you is that Peterson is nobody's fool. If he were," she added with a scowl, slinging a long rope of mud off the stick and into the bushes, "he would have volunteered for this crap job himself instead of conning me into it."

She finished scraping one shoe and moved to the other. Leigh could barely tell a difference.

"If Cara is so sure that Diana is responsible," Maura began thoughtfully, "how does she figure the woman got hold of Gil's gym bag?"

"His car has keyless entry," Leigh answered. "Diana must have memorized the code when she was working for him. She certainly knew all his habits. She even joined the same gym so she could 'run into him' in a sports bra and spandex."

Maura whistled under her breath. "Sounds like one scary chick." She took off her right shoe altogether, then heaved it against the table leg with enough force to crush a melon.

Leigh restrained a grin. "Yeah. Some women are like that."

The detective replaced the now notably cleaner shoe on her foot. "Peterson will keep an eye on Diana Saxton," she assured. "And the flaky widow besides. Which reminds me, what's this vaunted intel of yours? Spill it. I'm overdue at the station already."

Leigh described her encounter with Courtney Lyle, highlighting the enigmatic "somebody here" comment. With Diana almost certainly having planted Brandon's gun, Courtney's foibles didn't seem as important anymore. Still, adding any names to the list of non-Gil suspects could only help his case.

Maura's eyebrows rose. "Interesting," she remarked. "You say Courtney seemed afraid of something? Or someone?"

Leigh nodded. "Gil said she was living with another man in Chicago. I was thinking... a little jealous rivalry, perhaps?"

Maura smiled. "You know what, Koslow? Sometimes your instincts aren't all bad."

Leigh smiled back. "Can I have that in writing, please?"

Maura's grin widened. "Hell, no."

***

Leigh did not find Maura's mud problems nearly so amusing an hour later, when she found herself trudging along in soggy muck on the opposite side of the pond with her Aunt Bess, Chewie, and an awkward armful of camera equipment.

"Couldn't we wait until the sun dries things out a bit?" she suggested, dropping her aunt's tripod for the second time as the corgi lurched backward, jerking her elbow with him. She looked around the now empty woods, unclipped the dog from his lead, and picked up the tripod again. "Stay close, Chewie," she ordered.

"Oh, don't be such a priss," Bess chastised good-naturedly. "I want to get everything set up and concealed before any more curiosity seekers make it out here. It was quite a show this morning."

Leigh's eyebrows arched. "You mean there were spectators? For a pond dragging?"

Bess frowned. "Well, not
so
many. But then, not everyone is as devoted to the cause of law enforcement as I am. It was a long and messy process, but ever so interesting."

"You stood out here and watched the whole time?" Leigh inquired.

"Of course not, silly. I brought a lawn chair."

Leigh let that one pass. "What did they find?"

"Oh, all sorts of things," Bess answered cheerfully. "Hordes of glass bottles, as I expected. I pulled a few that might be worth something... if so, I'll give them to Clem. He has a collection, you know. Flashlights, some aluminum cans, some canvas that looked like it might have been a tent, deflated innertubes, a camp lantern, some mangled pieces of metal farm equipment, a drink cooler, three tires, and my personal favorite... a bed pan. It was all very enlightening. I felt like an archeologist!"

Leigh tried to imagine Clem's house containing a curio cabinet of carefully tended antique bottles, but all she could picture was a dusty shelf heaped with broken glass and empty chaw tins. Perhaps she was being presumptuous. Had she not expected Anna's house to contain a canary cage, cutesy china figurines, framed pictures of grandchildren, and perhaps a velvet Elvis? For all she knew, Clem's living room was filled with sophisticated computer equipment and he and Anna had been carrying on a wild affair since the Cold War.

"That reminds me," Leigh asked. "Are Anna and Clem buds? I mean, they're about the same age, and they've both lived out here forever, right?"

"I don't know if 'buds' is the right word," Bess answered, her voice chipper despite the effort of walking in mud that sucked down their boots with every step. "Their fathers were friends; Anna's father sold Clem's father his plot way back when theirs were the only two houses around. Clem and Anna not only grew up together, they were all each other had in the way of playmates. So you could say they're like brother and sister."

"Oh," Leigh said with disappointment. "I guess there goes my 'wild affair' theory."

Bess chuckled. "Well, they do bicker like an old married couple, but that's as far as it goes, I'm afraid. Lord knows they'd both be happier if they were getting a little action somewhere."

Leigh allowed herself a grin. Her forthright aunt had been married three times: once to her high school sweetheart, who had died in Korea; once to a lovely, educated man who had died too young; and once on the rebound to a bohemian drifter who was too young, period. Bess had divorced the third one promptly and vowed never to marry again—but she was still the biggest flirt in three counties.

"Have either of them ever been married?" Leigh asked.

"Anna was once," Bess replied. "Total disaster. Worthless scum cleaned out their joint account and skipped the country. Sent her a postcard a couple weeks later—from Rio de Janiero, no less—saying he'd met someone else and didn't want to be married anymore. To top it off, the card was one of those—"

Bess stopped short as her right foot dropped into an unexpectedly deep hole. She tottered dangerously, camera in tow. Leigh slogged over to lend a hand, but with some impressive one-armed windmilling, Bess miraculously managed to right herself.

"Good save," Leigh praised with relief. The last thing her drama-loving aunt needed was another broken ankle, seeing as how the last one had nearly gotten her sucker of a niece killed.

"As I was saying," Bess continued, unaffected, "as if dumping Anna weren't enough, the bastard picked one of those cheesy, practically pornographic postcards of a busty sunbather in a string bikini that said:
Wish you were here
.
"

Leigh winced. "Ouch. And she never married again?"

Bess shook her head. "She couldn't find the SOB to divorce him, so her legal affairs were a mess for a long time. But even after she was free, she wanted nothing more to do with men." Bess paused for a moment to readjust her load, letting out a dramatic sigh as she did so. "Sad, isn't it? And Clem's no better. That old geezer hasn't gotten any since Eisenhower was President. The man's healthy as a horse, but I can't tell you the last time I saw a woman anywhere near that cabin of his!"

Leigh's eyebrows rose. "This surprises you?"

Bess smirked. "Well, if he'd mixed it up a little more often over the years, he might not be such an old geezer now, would he?"

Leigh considered a moment. "Good point."

At long last, Bess reached her desired position near the edge of the pond and set the camera down on a fallen tree limb. "We'll set up the tripod here," she announced, pointing to a cluster of brush, "and then cover it with branches and such. If we're careful about it, it will be almost impossible to see the camera from the far bank of the pond—and that's where our guilty party will be headed."

Leigh swallowed. She had no desire to look at the spot in question, but Chewie, of course, was already making a beeline for the place where the body had lain. "Chewie," she chastised. "Get away from there! Go dig someplace else."

The dog's ears perked. He glanced quizzically at her for a moment, then bounded off to sniff around the water's edge. Not only were his previously white paws now brown up to his oxters, but his whole underbelly (none of which was particularly far removed from the ground) was dripping with mud. Leigh sighed, hoping Bess would have a hose handy when they returned to the house. She spared a glance around the rest of the pond and was dismayed to see the havoc that the dragging equipment had caused. The water was still as opaque as a cup of hot chocolate, and the bank on which the tractor had driven was gouged with deep, crisscrossing tire ruts.

"Don't worry," Bess said dismissively, following her gaze. "It'll heal. Besides, maybe the mess will keep people from walking across to this side of the pond and out of our viewing range." She fiddled with the tripod, placed the camera securely upon it, and then began to gather up nearby branches. "Feel free to help anytime," she suggested dryly.

Leigh started. She had been absorbed by more unpleasant memories. "Sorry," she apologized. She looked around. "Do you want me to find more of the—"

The crack of a gunshot split the air. Leigh jumped out of her boots... literally. Her too-big borrowed galoshes were stuck fast in the mud, and when she came back down to earth, heart pounding, it was with one sock-clad foot resting on a collapsed boot and the other sunk in muck up to her ankle.

She and her aunt swore simultaneously.

"Knock it off, Clem!" Bess yelled loudly, cupping a hand to her mouth. "We're at the pond!"

A moment's silence followed. Then a disembodied, whining voice carried back to them through the trees. "Sorry!"

"Don't worry, kiddo," Bess assured. "That shot was a lot farther away than it sounded. Clem's just doing some target practice. He usually makes sure I'm out of the way first, but I guess he thought I was in the house, since your car was out front."

Leigh pushed her feet back into her boots and tried to keep her teeth from chattering. The sudden shot had scared the crap out of her, as it obviously had Chewie, who had appeared from nowhere to attach himself to her shins like a barnacle. "Do—" she stammered. "Does he shoot like that often?"

"Not too much anymore," Bess said lightly. "For all his love of hoarding guns, he never was a very good shot. But he's always been careful with his target practice—he stays on his own land and makes sure no one else is around. He's never been shooting when you were at my house before, has he?"

Leigh shook her head.
That
, she would definitely have remembered.

Bess's expression turned thoughtful. "He had an accident once, when he was a boy. He and Anna used to practice hitting cans behind her house, and one day they set up the targets poorly, and Clem aimed too high. A stray bullet went out to the road and hit the car his mother was driving. She wasn't hurt, but it had a big effect on Clem. Even when he shoots in his own yard now, he climbs up to his deer stand and aims down toward the ground."

Leigh blinked. She would hardly have pegged Clem as a gun safety devotee. "Why shoot at all then?"

Bess shrugged. "It's a macho thing."

Leigh reached down to pet Chewie, who was still attached to her leg, and was dismayed to note that what part of his coat wasn't muddy was now laced with burrs. "It's okay, boy," she comforted, feeling less than comforted herself. "You go back and do some more excavating. We'll be done here soon." The dog seemed pacified enough to detach, but his eyes were wary and his ears remained perked as he trotted off toward the pond again.

Leigh's hands were still shaky, and her thoughts darkened. "Aunt Bess," she said soberly, "are you absolutely positive that Clem couldn't have shot Brandon Lyle?"

Bess's lips pursed. She faced Leigh squarely. "Of course I am! Clem's got no stomach for violence; he doesn't even hunt. He's such a nervous Nelly I've wondered if there weren't more to the story about his mother, or if some other accident didn't spook him somewhere along the line. But however he got this way, he's perfectly harmless!"

"All right, all right," Leigh conceded, moderating her tone. One could only go so far in impugning a friend of Aunt Bess's before having to duck. "But you have to admit, he
is
a bit wacko."

Bess dismissed the concern with a wave. "Clem may be a little wacko, but there's no harm in that. Hells bells, some of my best friends are complete crackpots!" She surveyed her camouflage job. "Perfect! We're all set to spy on smoking teenagers, mating cats, and panicky murderers. You want some tea?"

Leigh let that one pass, also. "Maybe after I hose off the dog. Aunt Bess, even if Clem isn't dangerous,
somebody
shot a man not twenty yards from here, practically in your own backyard. Doesn't that worry you?"

Bess looked at her with surprise. "Why should it? I told you before—and the gun being planted on Gil proves it—this was a crime of passion.
I
certainly didn't sleep with Brandon Lyle. At least, I don't think I did. Then again, the mind does wander when you're older. There was that one time last month, after Noreen made me that third fuzzy navel—"

"Aunt Bess!"

"Yes, Francie?" Bess drawled, one eyebrow raised high.

Leigh frowned. "Never mind. Are we done here, now? My foot is soaked, and I believe I was offered tea."

Bess cracked a grin. "You certainly were." She gestured for Leigh to follow her toward the house, then put a hand to her mouth and produced an ear-splitting whistle. "Chewie!" she called, "You've got a date with a hose, my dear!"

The brush rustled, and in a few seconds the corgi reappeared, toting an equally filthy prize in his mouth that looked like a much bigger dog's long-lost rawhide chew bone. The mud-covered mess collected more mud as Chewie half-carried, half-dragged it along the ground—which of course was only inches from his mouth to begin with. "Chewie!" Leigh warned. "You do realize that thing is
not
going home with us?"

The dog, who looked extremely proud of himself, ignored her and scuttled ahead.

Bess snickered. "Well, Chester will enjoy it, anyway. If he ever comes out from hiding. I've never seen him act so skittish with Chewie! I do hope your mother refrains from borrowing any more dogs this evening. He's still traumatized from being forced to fraternize with the huskies and the bloodhound. So, other than trying to shore up Gil's alibi, what's next on the Morton power agenda? I haven't had any orders from Sergeant Frances for"—she looked at her watch—"a good three hours now."