A Bloodhound to Die for (28 page)

After that, Jimmy Joe undid the complicated chain weavings that had held Bobby Lee in place for too long. Bobby Lee leaped toward me, and I held him, putting my face to his neck.

“Well, I’d better be going to see if they’re out there for me or not,” I heard Jimmy Joe say. Then I heard him start on his crawl through the tunnel to his parents’ house.

But I didn’t watch him go.

Instead, I held on to Bobby Lee, and sobbed in relief while he licked my face.

N
early two weeks had passed since I’d finally found Bobby Lee. Jimmy Joe had crawled through the tunnel to his parents’ empty house—they’d gone to a prayer meeting—and had walked out the back door and into the arms of the law. Hank had heard our entire conversation and had summoned backup, but had made all the officers wait quietly. I would forever be grateful to him for trusting me to handle the situation, because I still had nightmares about my final encounter with Jimmy Joe going much, much differently—nightmares in which in anger he shot Bobby Lee.

Now, Jimmy Joe was locked up again, and I figured it would be a long while before he made an escape attempt. He’d want “our” verse added to his ballad first. Still, I wasn’t worried about him escaping.
Maybe it was my taking a turn at believing in a reality I wanted to be true, but I trusted in our odd little promise to leave each other alone.

Tonight, twilight streaks of orange, red, and purple filled the sky, and I was happy to be doing nothing for the moment other than to stare at the colors from my favorite rocker on my porch. I stared intently, as if the colors would suddenly do something wild, maybe shoot off in all directions like some celestial fireworks show. Of course they wouldn’t, and that was their beauty. Their only change was to soften into night; their magic, which kept me staring in fascination, was that in doing so, the colors somehow didn’t lose their sense of power.

The day had been a scorcher. The air was still heavy and humid and warm, but I liked its feel, like an invisible comforting shawl. I held a glass of sweet tea, wet in my hand, and took a sip every now and then. The contrast of the cool liquid in my mouth with the warmth around me was also comforting, somehow.

Most comforting of all was Bobby Lee draped over my bare feet. He was snoozing, his paws twitching every now and again. What was he dreaming of? I wondered. Peaceful dreams, I told myself. Dreams of being on the trail with me, doing what he’d been born to do. Dreams, maybe, of chasing butterflies in a bright, sunny field. I loved the feel of his warm fur over my skin, but I kept staring at the twilight sky. I wondered how long it would be before I could look at
Bobby Lee without a lump in my throat and my eyes tearing.

And tonight wasn’t a night for tears. Jasmine and Susan were coming over for our usual Friday girls’ night of pizza and beer and talk. I wondered too how much longer we’d have our Friday nights like this. I couldn’t say change was in the wind—the air was as still and hunkered down as a rabbit in hiding. But somehow, I felt I could see change coming in those twilight streaks, sense it in the warm, humid stillness.

For tonight, though, I had plenty of bottles of beer cooling in the fridge, and Jasmine was bringing the pizza—sausage and onion and banana pepper—and Susan was bringing herself and, I sensed, some news. She’d sounded a little wary, a little careful when I’d called her earlier to make sure that she was joining us.

The sound of a car coming up the lane hooked my attention. I didn’t stand up, partly because I didn’t want to disturb Bobby Lee and partly because from the way Susan got out of her car and ambled up to my porch, she wanted to approach slowly, quietly, on her own terms.

The porch creaked from Susan’s tread up the steps. She sat down in the rocker next to mine and began rocking. I took a sip of iced tea and waited.

“Pretty sky,” she said finally.

“Yes.” I didn’t comment on the fact that she was twenty minutes early. Our girls’ night wasn’t officially supposed to start until seven-thirty. “Want some sweet tea?”

She laughed, softly. Carefully. “Nah. Looks like Bobby Lee is pretty happy right where he is. I wouldn’t want you to disturb him.”

I let a bit of silence spin out between us. “You know right where the sweet tea is, Susan,” I said. “You know you can make yourself feel right at home.”

More silence. “I know,” she said. “Look, Jo Beth, I came a little early because I wanted to talk to you alone.”

I looked over at her. “It’s all right if Bobby Lee hears what you have to say, isn’t it?”

Susan smiled, grateful for the light humor. “Sure. I, um, I just came from spending the afternoon with Leland Kirkland.”

“I thought he’d gone back home.”

“He had—but he’s back down for a visit for the weekend.”

“Worried about his parents?”

“Yes—but they’re doing all right. He’s really down to spend some time with me.”

“I’m happy for you.”

“I’m relieved, Jo Beth. I know you found him … attractive. I’m glad you’re not upset.”

I grinned. “He is attractive. And, like I said, I’m happy for you.”

“He wanted me to tell you that things are working out great with Sherlock. That he understands your love of bloodhounds.”

My grin widened. “Attractive and wise. Now I’m
wildly happy for you. This means no more Brian Colby, I take it?”

“No more Brian Colby,” Susan agreed with another quick laugh. “Or others of his ilk. I think Lee might be the right guy for me, Jo Beth. For keeps. I think I’ve finally figured out that a good man is hard to find.”

“And a hard man is even better to find,” I quipped.

We both laughed in the raucous way that defines our girls’ nights, but when our laughter faded, there was an edgy silence between us again.

“That’s not all you came early to tell me,” I said. “Because I know you’ll want to tell Jasmine too about your new relationship.”

Bobby Lee gave a little snorting sigh, stood up, stretched his forelimbs. I gave him a long scratch behind the ears. Satisfied, he trotted over to Susan, and licked her calf, as if encouraging her.

Susan reached down, and scratched Bobby Lee some more. “Lee told me I needed to tell you what I told him.” She took a deep breath, then stood up, pacing as she talked.

“You’ve always wanted to know who started the rumor about Leon and Norma Jean, who told me about their affair. The truth is, Sara herself told me her suspicions. I’m not sure what made her tell me. She just came into the Browse and Bargain one day, wanted me to help her find a book for Leon for a surprise gift, and as we were looking she ran across a baby-naming book, and next thing I knew, she was crying, telling me
she thought Leon and Norma Jean were having an affair, and she didn’t know what to do about it.

“It was bewildering. Sara had been in my store before, but she’d never wanted help in finding anything, barely said more than hello and good-bye to me on previous visits. But something about that baby-naming book made her open up. No one else was in the store, so I just listened and gave her tissues. When we heard the bell over the door tinkle, she suddenly got quiet and left without ever getting anything for Leon. It was like I’d dreamed it.

“Maybe that’s what made me talk about it later—it was just so weird, totally unlike Sara. She was always so withdrawn, so tense. Anyway, I found myself telling someone about the incident—I don’t even remember who now. I just—I just wasn’t thinking. And then from there, all the rumors grew, and—and, oh, Jo Beth, I can’t help but think that it was hearing all the talk that pushed Sara over the edge, that if she hadn’t heard the talk, which I started, then maybe she wouldn’t have, wouldn’t have …”

I put my now-empty glass on the small side table, then stood up, pausing for a moment to stretch. I’d been sitting too long. Then I caught Susan in midpace and pulled her to me. She leaned into me, crying openly now.

“What did Lee say when you told him this?”

Susan sniffled. “That there’s no denying that betraying Sara’s confidence in me was wrong. But that there
was also no way to know if the talk was what sent her over the edge—or if something else would have sent her over anyway. He—he forgave me, Jo Beth.”

I patted her back. “I do too.”

“Thank you,” she said.

We sat back down. “Lee told me that Leon had confided in him about the affair, so Sara’s suspicions were right. Sara had had trouble trying to get pregnant, and she was getting obsessive about it, to the point that their marriage was falling apart.”

“I reckon that explains why seeing the baby-naming book made her break down and confide her worries to you,” I said.

“Yes,” Susan agreed. “Lee also said he didn’t think Leon was justified in using his marriage troubles as an excuse for an affair,” she added quietly.

“Lee’s right,” I said. Then I added, with a grin, “See, Lee is a good man … and a good man is hard to find.”

“And a hard man’s even better to find,” Susan returned, not even sniffling.

We laughed again, and this time our laughter lasted until Jasmine came up the porch steps. The heavenly scent of sausage, onion, and banana pepper pizza settled us down, although we were still giggling as we followed Jasmine into the house.

We ate in the kitchen, getting serious about the pizza and the cold beers. When there was nothing left but a few crusts and the take-out box, we had another round of beer. This silence was easy and satisfied, the
kind that can only be shared by good, longtime friends.

I broke the silence first, looking at Jasmine and asking quietly, “How’s your mama?”

I’d learned that Jasmine’s mama had relented on the same night I’d found Bobby Lee, and had agreed to a long talk with her daughter. Jasmine hadn’t shared any of the details, but I knew that since then she’d been visiting with her mama about twice a week, and that she’d been over at her mama’s house before picking up the pizza for our girls’ night.

“She’s fine,” Jasmine said, then grinned. “We’re never going to be buddies. But we’ve at least made our peace.”

Susan glanced over at me, then held up her beer bottle. “To making peace.”

We all clinked our bottles together, then took a swig.

“Now,” said Jasmine, “maybe one or the other of you can tell me what you were hooting and hollering about when I came up the steps.”

I let Susan do the talking, telling as much as she was comfortable with, and I was glad that she cut out the part about her having started the talk about Leon and Norma Jean, and just stuck to gabbing happily about Lee and their blooming romance. We’d just toasted to making peace, after all.

When Susan finally took a break from talking, Jasmine held her beer bottle aloft again. “Here’s to good men. And hard men!”

We clinked bottles, laughing. Then, midswig, Jasmine pointed at my left hand, and sputtered, “Oh, my God, Jo Beth. What’s that? What’s that?”

You’d have thought she’d spotted a snake curled around the ring finger of my left hand.

But it was just a simple ring, with a single emerald-cut diamond. I had kept the diamond turned palm-side down, until Jasmine had proposed her toast, and then had turned the diamond around so it could be seen more easily. Now seemed as good a time as any to share my—and Hank’s—news.

“That, ladies,” I said with more bravado than I actually felt, “is an engagement ring. Hank and I are getting married next month.”

I tried to stay cool, I really did. I tried to let the nervous twitchiness that arose every so often ever since I’d said yes to his proposal a week before serve as the counterweight of reason to the giddiness Jasmine and Susan were displaying shamelessly at my news. I knew, after all, that ours would not always be a comfortable, easy marriage. We weren’t suited for that kind of life. But, as Hank had put it when he proposed, we were better suited for rocky times together than smooth—but dull—times alone.

Jasmine and Susan got to me, though, and soon enough, I found myself laughing and giggling and jesting just as shamelessly as they were, while trying to explain that, no, the particulars of our wedding hadn’t
been worked out, and yes, they’d be very much in on the planning.

After a while, into the middle of our girls’ night, Bobby Lee ambled in. We started cooing and fussing over him and minutes passed before I realized that I was actually interacting with Bobby Lee without getting teary eyed, for the first time since I’d reclaimed him.

As Susan and Jasmine went to get more beers, I stayed down on the floor, staring into Bobby Lee’s big soulful eyes. And in his eyes I think I saw that all along I had been as much a searcher as he. For a sense of meaning, perhaps, or a sense of peace. And I realized that I’d finally found those things … with my bloodhounds, with my friends, with Hank, and within.

It had just taken a bloodhound to die for to show me the way.

Look for these doggone good mysteries by
Virginia Lanier,
starring dog trainer and amateur
sleuth extraordinaire
Jo Beth Sidden

Ten Little Bloodhounds
Blind Bloodhound Justice
A Brace of Bloodhounds
The House on Bloodhound Lane
Death in Bloodhound Red

“Virginia Lanier’s Southern mysteries have one irresistibly appealing ingredient: dogs … Jo Beth deserves a good scratch behind the ears for running a crackerjack operation.”

New York Times Book Review

Anthony Award Winner
Agatha Award Nominee

Jo Beth Sidden is a bloodhound trainer with a special talent for harrowing search-and-rescue missions, and a bad habit of mouthing off to deputies who refuse to take orders from a woman.

She has seen her share of trouble: moonshiners poking guns at her head, crooked cops, and an abusive ex-husband.

Then she’s suspected of murder and finds herself treading a quagmire as thick and treacherous as the Okefenokee Swamp. If she can’t prove her innocence, she might lose not only the thriving business she loves, but the freedom and independence she’s fought for all her life.