To Catch a Treat (9 page)

thirteen

Speaking of treats, Reed
called later that afternoon, interrupting my not-so-deep concentration while I did some accounting in my small office at the back of the kitc
hen.
He reminded me about the dinner plans Biscuit and I had with Hugo and him. I needed something both to distract me from all that was going on and to cheer me up, so I was looking forward to it.

Just after finishing up with an Icing customer, I heard from a clearly dejected Neal. Janelle hadn't answered when he'd called her, nor had she responded to the messages he'd left. I worried that I might have to postpone my plans with Reed.

I told my brother about the visit from the detectives that day and how they had apparently scheduled a time to meet with Janelle tomorrow—along with the fact that I had given Janelle information about the attorney I'd talked to during my own days as a murder suspect. Once Neal had an explanation for her mood, he seemed to feel a little better. When he said his work behind the reception desk at the resort that day would end at five, I told him that Reed was coming over to our place for dinner and that he was invited to join us.

I called Reed back to tell him that Neal would be there as well. “I'll bring Chinese food for all of us,” Reed promised.

“Except the dogs,” I said. “I'll have food for them.”

“Treats, too?”

“Of course.”

I considered inviting Janelle also, but I didn't want to do that without checking with Neal first. From what he'd said, she might refuse anyway. Besides, what I really wanted was just to hang out with the two topmost men in my life, along with the dogs. Maybe that was selfish on my part—but I liked the idea of having a dinner with no emotions to deal with except for those related to the two men who'd be there.

When Biscuit and I arrived home around six thirty, Neal was already there and had surprisingly set the kitchen table for the three of us. I'd already walked Biscuit, so I sat down at the table with Neal to await Reed, Hugo, and our food.

“So are you doing better?” I asked my brother. His usually glowing blue eyes looked dull, and he was moving slowly.

He must still be thinking a lot about Janelle—unless the detectives had now also bothered him. Unlikely, though. He'd have mentioned it.

“Kind of,” he said. “But, you know, when Elise said she had a couple of guests say they wouldn't mind a hike tomorrow night, I jumped on it.”

A hike. Depending on where he would go, that might actually fit really well in the agenda I'd been considering for myself. “Will it be similar to the last one?”

“Sure, it could be. Why? You want to go, too?”

“Yes,” I said, without explaining why. But my on and off thoughts about Ada's death—and the dogs—had been tumbling all over the place, and I'd even been coming up with some odd scenarios. As a result, I had an urge to visit the Arnist mansion again just in case that guy Tim was hanging out there by himself. What if those dogs he'd brought to the clinic were like Go, and he and Ada had brought them all to Knobcone Heights after dognapping them? Maybe he and Ada had been staying there, even though the place appeared unoccupied, and now, with her gone, he was still living there? And … well, I was jumping to too many conclusions.

But I wanted to reassure myself that the home where Ada had stayed while she was here—and before she'd been murdered—wasn't a hangout now for lost dogs.

If it wasn't, I wanted to track down where Tim was staying with the dogs he'd claimed were his. Unfortunately, I hadn't checked in the clinic files for the address he'd given. Assuming it wasn't the Arnist property, I'd look it up when I went to the clinic the day after tomorrow.

Then I blurted out something I'd been holding inside for a while. “Neal, I have to ask—you seemed so interested, before, in Gwen … ” My good-looking brother, who'd always had more than his share of dates, had lately been zeroing in on one woman at a time. Maybe he was looking for a real relationship.

“I still like Gwen,” Neal said with a wry grin. “But I told you, she said she has a boyfriend somewhere else. So when Janelle appeared in town, I found her really pretty and nice and sad and all.”

On top of everything else, Neal was a nice guy. But I hated to see him hurting over either of these women—or anything else, for that matter.

The doorbell rang then. Biscuit stood up and woofed, and I hurried to the front door.

It was Reed, arms laden with plastic bags with the logo of a local Chinese restaurant on them. Hugo was with him, and the two dogs traded their usual nose sniffs as well as butt sniffs.

“Come on in,” I said, reaching for one of the bags and smiling at him. “Mmm. Smells good.”

“I hope you like what I got,” he said.

“Definitely.” I kept my voice low as our eyes caught and held in a suggestive gaze.

“I meant food,” he finally said, raising his eyebrows.

“Of course.” I backed off. After all, he knew that Neal was here, too.

But before Reed could start reeling off the names of the dishes he'd brought, I said, “And I hope you'll be in the mood for another Neal-led hike tomorrow evening.”

Fortunately, Reed was. Once more, we'd assembled at the resort—Hugo and Reed, Biscuit and me, and, to my surprise, Janelle and Go.

There were others, too, in athletic gear and carrying backpacks, who were paying the resort and Neal for the experience. They included Garvy Grant, who was dressed now in jeans, a blue Knobcone T-shirt, and large white athletic shoes and looked all prepared to go on an intensive hike.

This was going to be interesting.

But as we started out, walking along the beach as before to circumnavigate the loop around Knobcone Lake, Garvy stayed away from me. Maybe he recognized that I preferred being with Reed.

Janelle and her dog hiked at the front of the group, along with Neal. They'd kissed each other briefly before we started, so hopefully Neal was no longer concerned about how she felt about him. I'd already told Neal part of my purpose for going on this outing, and he was all for it.

Reed and I, and our dogs, stayed beside one another, which made me feel good. He knew I had a hidden agenda for this walk. Plus, we were together.

Janelle hadn't worked at the shops that day, and she'd made it clear, when I'd asked, that her interrogation at the police station hadn't been fun—but she hadn't been arrested, either. And, yes, she'd hired Ted Culbert to be by her side. I was glad that Ted must have adjusted his rates, since I felt certain this photographer, and my part-time employee, didn't have a lot of money to spend on legal fees.

As we hiked, Neal turned often and walked briskly backwards, using his red staff to point out sights along and above the lake as he had before. But I thought he was moving the group more quickly, since it didn't take long for us to reach the residential area across the water from the resort.

Last time, it had been Janelle who'd wanted to scale those elite residential roads. Maybe she did again, although she hadn't mentioned it to me.

This time, I was the one who wanted to check out the Arnist estate. It hadn't been obviously occupied last time, and the most likely scenario now was that it still wouldn't look occupied—since, at the moment, it most likely wasn't.

But to my surprise, when we'd headed up Pine Lane and passed the other large mansions up the hill, then made the turn onto Vistaview Place, the metal gate across the driveway that led to the ornate gray stone house stood open.

Interesting. Was my remote and off-the-wall suspicion true? Had Tim, that guy with the dogs, been living here with Ada and now stayed here alone?

But there was an older couple there, getting out of a new-looking white Mercedes near the house.

Maybe others in the Arnist family had come to town, possibly because of what had happened to Ada.

Clearly I wasn't the only one who was wondering about it. Garvy waved one arm in the air toward the house, then started hurrying through the gate and up the driveway.

“Hey,” Neal yelled at him. “Come back here.” Hikers were supposed to sightsee on their excursions and not trespass, or that's what I'd understood from Neal.

But Garvy ignored him. And since Neal had all the other hikers to wrangle, I decided to play the helpful big sister. I hastened after Garvy.

Instead of looking grateful, Neal glared at me, too. But I was interested in what was going on. And it was certainly better for me to check things out than for him—or Janelle—to do it. I might get some insight here into what Ada's family believed had happened to her.

Or not. But it wouldn't hurt to find out.

Garvy had reached the couple. “Hello,” he said. “Do you live here?”

The man was dressed as nicely as I'd seen Garvy dressed before, but he was at least a couple of decades older, and his shoulders were slumped forward. I guessed he was, in fact, an Arnist, and in mour-
ning.

At Garvy's question, he stood straighter and glared with moist hazel eyes that were partly hidden by age-lined skin folds. “Yes, this is our property. What are you doing here?”

Garvy hung his head, regarding the man from beneath lowered brows. “Then you're related to Ada Arnist,” he said quietly. “I'm very sorry for your loss.”

The man swallowed. “Thank you.” At a quiet wail from the other side of the car, he hurried over and put his arms around the woman who stood there crying. She was probably his age and dressed in a nice, fashionable pants outfit with a white scarf draped around her shoulders and dangling earrings that appeared to be large, appropriately shaped tear-drop diamonds.

Garvy joined them. I stayed in the background, not wanting to interfere—but still interested. “My name is Garvy Grant,” he told them. “If there's anything I can do, please let me know. I'm in real estate but I'm here on vacation. I met your daughter and was sorry to hear what happened to her.”

The woman's wail grew louder, but the man pulled slightly away, holding out his hand to shake Garvy's. “We're Sheldon and Sondra Arnist.” His raspy tone indicated that he, too, was holding back tears. “If this place hadn't been in our family for … well, we weren't spending much time here before and will probably never come back after this. Ada was … well, she liked this place. Liked the view of the lake and … I doubt we'll want to sell for a while but you can give me your card just in case.”

“Oh, I didn't mean to presume … ” Garvy let his words trail off as he pulled a card container from his pocket, extracted one, and handed it to Sheldon Arnist. Of course he meant to presume. Weren't real estate people always on duty—like veterinarians and vet techs?

Now I knew the reason he'd hurried to meet these grieving
people. If I hadn't already determined to ignore any flirtation on his part, I certainly would have now.

On the other hand, I had reason to say hi to these people, too—not that I would. Not yet, at least. But I'd have loved to ask if they'd been aware that their daughter was visiting here. Whether she had come with any friends. More important, whether she had been collecting any dogs, and, if so, whether she traveled with them.

Did they know that Ada might have brought Janelle's dog Go up here, at least? Or that Janelle, who was with the hiking party still in the street, had confronted their daughter in front of a lot of people just before she was killed?

I didn't hear any dogs barking from inside the house, so I made the assumption there weren't any. I wasn't sure, though.

But I couldn't ask any of that. And when I looked back toward the street, the crowd of hikers remained there, with Neal closest to the gate, his gaze on me.

I wasn't sure what he was trying to impart to me, but I knew what needed to be done.

“Excuse me.” I approached the three people, Biscuit at my side. “I couldn't help overhearing some of what you said. I'm very sorry for your loss, too. And right now, my fellow hikers are eager to go.” I planted a nonnegotiable glare on Garvy.

I wasn't happy when he leveled one of his flirtatious smiles on me. “You're right.” He turned away. “And let me repeat my condolences.” He joined me, and I hurried off down the driveway.

“We're not supposed to bother the residents,” I hissed toward him as we neared the rest of the gang.

“I don't think expressing our condolences bothered them,” he said mildly.

We'd reached where Neal stood, and he, too, glared at Garvy. “Let's go,” he said.

“Sure.” Garvy started leading the pack of hikers farther along Vistaview toward where we'd grab the next road going back down toward the lake.

Neal hung back, along with Janelle and Reed. “Did you learn anything … helpful?” He stole a glance at Janelle and Go.

“Yes and no,” I said. “I still have a lot of questions, but I gathered those were Ada's parents who've just arrived here, and they don't spend a lot of time here in Knobcone Heights despite owning that house.”

“Was Ada staying there before … before?” Janelle asked.

“She said she was, some of the time.” I recalled how Mr. Arnist had talked about his daughter liking this place and its view of the lake.

“I assume they didn't tell you who they believed killed their daughter.” That was Reed, and his tone was droll. He clearly didn't believe I'd gotten that information from them, and he was right.

“Nope,” I said. “One thing I did learn, though.”

“What's that?” Neal asked.

“That Garvy's in real estate. I figure he can find things out about our house pretty easily. Yours too, Reed. And given a hint of encouragement, he might try to find a buyer for either of us.”

“Well, I'm not interested,” Reed said. We started following the other hikers, side by side as our dogs walked with us, and Neal and Janelle hurried to get to the front of the pack again. I met Reed's gaze. He apparently wanted to know my degree of interest—in Garvy? In Garvy's profession? Both?