Shepherd's Crook (22 page)

sixty-two

My fingerprints were on
the shotgun—the murder weapon. I had a perfectly good explanation to offer Detective Wainwright, if I could get my mouth to operate. Trust me, I don't lose my ability to speak very often, but at that moment, with the detective staring at me and the gun on the table between us, I was dumbfounded.

“Hang on a minute,” said Norm. “Why do you have Ms. MacPhail's fingerprints?”

Wainwright gave Norm a dismissive look, but he answered the question. “They're on file from a case last year.” He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at me.

“They fingerprinted a lot of us,” I said, ignoring Wainwright and speaking to Norm. “For elimination purposes.”

Norm had already jumped to his next question. “Detective Wainwright, what time was Mr. Fallon killed?”

Wainwright hesitated, but finally answered. “Between
six-thirty
and
seven-thirty
.”

Norm seemed surprised. “That's pretty precise.”

“Yeah, well, the manager at Blackford's said he helped load some feed into a customer's truck at
six-thirty
. Had to walk back and forth past the dumpster, and Fallon wasn't there.” By “manager,” I was sure he meant Ralph Blackford, the owner. “When he went out there an hour later to toss some trash, there the guy was. Blood everywhere. That's when he called us. The manager, I mean.”

No kidding.

“Shotguns are loud,” said Norm. “Didn't anyone hear the blast?”

Wainwright nodded. “Couple of the clerks said they heard something, but there's a storage room full of sacks of feed and stuff between the showroom and alley, and the doors were closed. They said things bang around out in the alley all the time. Deliveries and garbage trucks and such. They didn't think much about it.” He fixed me with a cold stare and leaned in a bit. “But we're looking for a possible eyewitness.”

“I think we might have a few witnesses of our own,” said Norm, turning toward me to ask where I had been Tuesday evening

“Dog Dayz. The seven o'clock classes were just starting when I walked into the building. Tom and Goldie and I left together, you know, in separate cars but at the same time, just after eight, and went home.” I whispered to Norm, and when he nodded, I said, “I can explain the fingerprints.” I told Wainwright about holding the gun while Evan changed his shoes the day I learned that Summer was missing. “Coyotes. Evan said the gun was there to drive off coyotes.”

Wainwright snorted. “Looks like somebody got one.” He used his phone to establish that Dog Dayz is a
fifteen-minute
drive at best from Blackford's Farm and Garden. Once he had done that, he asked for names of witnesses and I rattled off a dozen. Then he let me go.

Norm offered to talk it out over lunch on his dime, but I was in no mood to eat and so full of adrenaline I was twitchy. “I think I'll go get Jay and go for a very long walk.”

And that's exactly what I did. Jay and I spent three hours hiking the trails at Chain O'Lakes State Park. The water and forest and easy companionship of my dog worked their magic on me, like a spiritual massage. We sat on a fallen sycamore trunk and watched a pair of beavers drag a sapling down the bank and around a bend in a creek. A kingfisher flashed into view along the eastern edge of one of the smaller lakes, and an ear flick alerted me to a doe standing alone and still in a dappled clearing.

As we returned to the van those three hours after we began, I realized I had almost forgotten that two men were dead at the hands of other human beings. I hadn't liked Mick Fallon, had even feared him, but I hadn't wished him dead. And Ray Turnbull, con artist or not, had always been polite to me. Besides, the dogs liked him. Who, I wondered, would want both men dead? Were there two murderers running around the same circles, or had the same person killed both Ray Turnbull and Mick Fallon? I drowned out some of the noise in my head by singing along to the oldies station, and had solved nothing by the time we got home
forty-five
minutes later.

The fragrance of tomato sauce and basil, fennel and herbs I couldn't name, engulfed me the instant I opened my door. Tom hugged and kissed me and asked about our hike while Jay ate his dinner. I would have felt guilty feeding him kibble with that tantalizing fragrance in the air if he hadn't inhaled his food with such delight.

I went to wash up, and when I got back to the kitchen Tom was setting a steaming
carry-out
pan of eggplant Parmesan on the table. “Mmmm,” I said, dipping a tiny bit of warm, crusty bread into the sauce and teasing my appetite with it. I opened the fridge and grabbed a beer, and with my other hand picked up an eggplant. “I thought you were making dinner with this purple guy. So what's that on the table?” He had called earlier and said he was dropping another couple of boxes at my house and thought he would sit there and grade papers while dinner baked. “Run out of time?”

“Ran out of heat.” We sat down and he served the eggplant while he explained. “How old is that oven, anyway?”

“It was old when I moved in.” Fortunately, I only ever used the burners. I couldn't remember the last time I slid a pan into the oven for any purpose other than storage.

“Well, tomorrow we're going to buy a new one. My housewarming present for moving myself in.”

“I can't let you do that.” I wiped my mouth and tried to sort through my thoughts.

“Sure you can.” He smiled at me, and when he spoke again it was as if he had anticipated my reaction. “How's this. It will be my appliance because I'm the one who likes to cook. You may use it whenever you like. If you ever kick me out, I'll get it out of your way.”

If I hadn't had a mouthful of eggplant, tomato sauce, and cheese, I'd have jumped his bones right there.

sixty-three

I can spend all
day waiting in a bug-infested wetland for the perfect photo opportunity, or shooting photos of dogs or cats or horses in action, but twenty minutes shopping for anything other than pet toys, running shoes, or camera accessories makes me want to curl up like a cat on a cushion. Shopping for an appliance I will use occasionally to boil water? Just thinking of the upcoming ordeal made me itch, but Tom insisted I tag along since the thing would be installed in my kitchen. And he wanted to go early so he would have the afternoon to take the dogs for a swim at Collin Lahmeyer's place.

Pixel is almost trustworthy enough to be loose in the house when I'm gone, but with Winnie there, I decided to shut the kitten into my bedroom. She would have access to everything she needed other than trouble. I left Leo with her for company and tossed a couple of felt rodents into the room for good measure. Tom was shutting Winnie into her wire exercise pen in the living room when I emerged from the bedroom.

“Don't you think she should be in her crate?”

He clipped the final slide bolt into place to close the pen. “She'll have more room in here.”

“But she might get out.”

“She never has,” he said, giving the corner a tug to show me the panels were securely connected. “Anyway, we won't be gone all that long.”

How long does it take for an
eleven-week
-old puppy to get into trouble?
I bit my tongue.

“Have you ever left her in the pen before? I mean, when you weren't home?”

He grinned and kissed my cheek and said, “You worry too much. She'll be fine.”

I wasn't so sure, but decided to wait and see.

The appliance store had some kind of mega super
biggest-of
-
the-year
power sale going on, and an army of salespeople hovered just inside the door. A perky brunette won the sprint to intercept us. “I'm Evelyn,” she said. “How may I help?” The low cut of her polyester top said she was in her twenties, but her face argued for
mid-forties
.

She guided us right by the nearest row of stoves and into one with price tags that would have gotten me a very nice new telephoto lens. Then she began her pitch for the latest in sensory this and electronic that, all aimed at me. I wasn't sure whether to find her assumption sexist or hilarious. Both, I decided.

“Let's see something a bit less precious, shall we,” said Tom.

“Certainly,” Evelyn said, bustling around the end of the lineup and into the row we had passed by earlier. “Now here's a nice unit,” she told me, and started to rattle off all the fancy features.

“We don't need all the bells and whistles,” Tom said. “Just a nice basic stove with a
self-cleaning
oven.”

Evelyn shot me a quick glance of what looked a lot like sympathy, and I just couldn't help myself after that.

“Oh, really? We can have
self-cleaning
?”

Tom looked at me like I'd lost my mind, but when Evelyn explained that a
self-cleaning
oven would reduce my exposure to toxic cleaners, he started to laugh. The poor woman started to say something else, but closed her mouth and took a step backward.

“Evelyn, I'm the cook at our house, and I'll be the one cleaning the oven.” Tom smiled at her, but she looked skeptical. Tom asked a few questions about two competing models, and picked one.

As Evelyn held her phone and waited for delivery information, I smiled at her and said, “I hate to cook.” She seemed to have some trouble processing us.

We passed Blackford's Farm and Garden on the way home, and I wondered again about who might have killed Ray Turnbull and Mick Fallon. And where in the world was Summer? “Tom,” I said, but stopped because I couldn't seem to shape my thought into words.

“Janet.” He glanced at me and grinned.

“Those two guys, the goons from Cleveland …”

“Yes?”

“We've been assuming they came after Evan, you know, to collect the money he owes their boss. But what if once they got here, what if Summer and Ray …” I still couldn't fit the pieces into a coherent whole, and the
half-formed
question just hung there for a few moments.

“What if Summer or Ray—or both of them—had some history with the guy? Is that where you're going?”

“I think so.” I thought about the photo of Summer running away from the encounter between Evan and the two men. “What if they met him in Reno, you know, tried to con him, but didn't really know who he was, what they were getting into? Maybe that's why they left there in such a hurry.”

“But why move closer to his home base?”

We pulled into my driveway and Tom turned the engine off.

“Maybe they didn't know he was from Cleveland. Or maybe they thought, heck, it's what, three or four hours from this area to Cleveland, and there's nothing around here to make him likely to visit.” I popped my door open, but stopped to add, “They didn't expect Evan to go borrow money from the same guy.”

We were just approaching the door from the garage into the house when something hit it from the other side with a solid
thunk.
Tom and I looked at each other, and closed the overhead door and opened the other. I was not surprised to see a dog on the other side. I had figured the crash into the door was Jay or Drake skidding to a stop. The surprise was which dog it was, and the way she looked.

Winnie was a moving collage. Bits of multicolored paper were stuck to her head, her body, her legs. She tumbled over the doorsill and ran two loops around the garage before skidding past Tom and back into the house. She disappeared into the kitchen and the sound of her little paws on vinyl stopped, telling me she was on the living room carpet. We hurried past the laundry room and into the kitchen, where we were met by Jay and Drake. They, too, had bits of paper stuck to their heads, but only a few. Drake held his ears pulled back and was wagging his tail in low, short, fast motions that looked a lot like an apology. Jay squinted his eyes and bared his teeth in a submissive grin. Behind them, the kitchen table was shoved out from its usual home against the wall. The salt and pepper shakers lay under it, and the teddy bear honey dispenser lay in the far corner. It seemed to be deformed.

I pulled a bit of raggedy paper off Jay's cheek. It felt sticky. I ran my finger over it and touched my tongue. Honey. I scowled at the paper bit and realized what it was at exactly the moment I heard “Ohmygod!” from the other room.

Winnie's pen lay where it had been knocked over, the wire panels collapsed but for the puppy toys caught between them. Tom was trying to catch Winnie, but she was too fast and too exhilarated, and small enough to get behind the couch to escape between gleeful circuits of the room. Nothing else looked out of place in the living room, but when my eyes took in my work area, my lungs seized.

sixty-four

A mound of confetti
filled the space in front of the dining table on which I work. At first, I couldn't make sense of it, but then I saw the plastic milk crate that I used to file and organize printed photos I planned to mail to clients. It had been pulled away from its spot between the table and the credenza, tipped onto its side, and relieved of its contents, which were now torn to bits and scattered across the floor and stuck to the dogs.

I let my body sag into the wall as I took it all in. Jay leaned against my leg, and I looked at him and Drake and said, “Go lie down.” They both backed away and disappeared into the kitchen. Just then Winnie dashed out from behind the couch, leaped onto her pile of photo confetti, and lay down and panted with obvious satisfaction. Tom stepped forward and picked her up. Then he turned to me.

“I'm sorry. You were ri—”

I raised my hands, palms toward him, and closed my eyes. “Don't.” Tornadoes are common in Indiana in spring, and I felt one spinning inside me as I took in the mess, the lost work, the cost of the prints, the time it would take to replace them and to let my customers know about the delay. All that now lay in tatters on the floor. And there was also the potential danger to the puppy who wasn't ready to be unsupervised, and to the older dogs she took on her juvenile joy ride.

Tom tried again. “I'll clean up the dogs and then I'll get the re—”

“Why didn't you crate her like I asked? You know
x-pens
aren't—”

“I thought she'd be fine. I used to leave Drake in his ex—”

“—secure,” I said, a bit more loudly. “And stop interrup—”

“If you didn't leave your crap all over the pla—”

“Crap?” I stopped picking up bits of photos and whirled toward him. “Crap? That ‘crap' is hours of work and hundreds of dollars in printing costs.” My cheeks felt so hot I thought they might blow the top of my head off. “And it isn't ‘the place,' it's
my
place.”

I realized suddenly that Jay and Drake had both come back into the room. They were between us, looking from me to Tom and back, ears down and back, worried looks on their faces.

“This isn't going to work. You haven't even—” I was going to say
moved in yet
and who knows what else I'd have regretted later, but he interrupted again.

“Come on, I'll help clean up and Winnie will pay for the damage.” I knew he was trying to lighten the mood, but my mood didn't want lightening. When I didn't respond, he let out something resembling a laugh and said, “I think you're overreacting.”

“Just go.”

“Janet, I—”

I glared at him and he stopped, a stricken look on his face. My inner good girl, the one socialized to accommodate everyone else's needs, pinched me and whispered, “You can't tell him he can't move in now. He's sold his house for you. Where will he go? He'll have to live in his car with his dogs.” But at that moment I didn't care. I wanted him to be sorry. I wanted all my doubts to go away, and I wanted all the work I had put into those
now-useless
photos to be worth something. I wanted him to say he was wrong and I was right. I said nothing.

“I'll call you,” he said, and left with Drake and Winnie.

I turned my back and knelt to pick up some of the paper. The first piece I touched had to be peeled from the carpet, and I wondered whether I'd be able to get honey out of the fibers without professional help. Feeling certain my
brother-in
-law would know what to do, I called and he talked me through sponging it up with dish soap and water. Then he reminded me of all my wedding duties coming up on the weekend, and checked that I had made the dreaded hair appointment. I didn't mention that Tom might not be at the festivities.

I thought about trading
Wednesday-night
training for a quiet evening at home, but a hot shower and a grilled cheese sandwich revived me.
Besides
, whispered Janet Devil,
you never know when you'll need an alibi.
Jay had napped while I showered and ate, and he was ready to go again by the time we loaded ourselves into the van. I could swear he knows when a training night rolls around.

Tom's van was already in the Dog Dayz lot when I got there, and I considered going back home. I had spent the afternoon
flip-flopping
between how much I loved him and how sure I was that living together would be the death of us as a couple. We were going to have to have a long, serious talk very, very soon, but I didn't want to start it that night. I was still too angry about the shredded photos, although my funny bone was starting to react to the memory of happy little Winnie sitting in the middle of her pile of confetti. She must have had a lovely time ripping all the paper to bits. The whole thing would be a great story in a few weeks, I knew, but not just yet.

The parking area near the training building was mostly full, but I found a space about halfway between the back entrance and the exercise area. I went over Jay one more time to be sure I hadn't missed any bits of paper in his thick fur, and led him away from the building along the line of dogmobiles. Most were
mini-vans
and SUVs adorned with stickers professing to
❤
this breed or that dog sport. Toward the back of the lineup a gray sedan was backed in. At first I thought someone had forgotten to turn their lights off, but then I saw movement in the car.

Gray sedan.
My heart sped up as I thought about the Cleveland goons in their gray sedan. Could this be Mick Fallon's partner Albert Zola? I stopped and stared, then looked around.
Get a grip, woman.
How many gray sedan false alarms had I fallen for in the past few days?
But people have died.
I was alone. I'd arrived a bit later than normal, and everyone seemed to be inside. “Come on, Jay,” I said, backing up a couple of steps and watching the car before I turned and
high-tailed
it toward the building entrance. When I got there I encouraged Jay to relieve himself on a rock near the door. Marietta discouraged the practice, but I gave myself a pass this time and went inside. I slid into a shadow and watched out the back door for a moment, but nothing happened. I made a mental note to leave with other people, and hoped that Hutchinson might be there with Giselle.