Chihuahua of the Baskervilles (11 page)

Michael and Angus lifted Charlotte and walked toward the front door.

It opened as they reached it.

Ellen Froehlich stood in the doorway. “What happened? Oh, my God, Charlotte!” She stood aside to let them in, then ran into the parlor ahead of them and plucked a throw off the chaise. “Put her down here. Do we need to call 911? I’ll find Thomas.”

“Suki’s calling. I’m pretty sure Thomas has been hit by a car out there.” As Angus lowered Charlotte’s shoulders onto the worn velvet, he heard the clicking of claws behind him. He looked down and saw Lila, dressed in a wedding-dress costume. Sequins glinted on the fabric, and the short train hung over her rump, threads trailing from the unfinished seams.

“Thomas was hit…” Ellen sat down suddenly. “Do I need to go outside?”

He took the throw from her limp hands and tossed it to Michael before squatting next to Ellen’s chair. “No. Suki’s out there. Do you know if Charlotte has a heart condition? Is there anything particular we should do for her?”

“She takes medication for arthritis and hypertension, but I don’t know of anything more serious.” She half rose, then sat back and gripped her knees. “Is Thomas…?” Her eyes filled with tears.

“I don’t know.” Angus looked over his shoulder, to where Michael was tucking the throw around Charlotte’s feet. One of her arms had fallen off the love seat, and Lila nosed at her curled fingers.

Michael looked down at Charlotte. “She’s breathing, anyway.”

The wail of a siren made them turn toward the front door. Lila let out a sharp bark.

“Should I go tell them she’s in here?” Ellen asked.

Angus shook his head. “Stay with Charlotte. We’ll let them know.”

Outside, an EMT met them on the porch.

“First room on the right,” Angus said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. The man nodded and went inside.

The ambulance stood in the middle of the street, lights flashing. Its headlights illuminated the nose of the other car and a dark shape on the ground in front of it.

A man and woman stood near the side of the car, the man with his arm around the woman, who cried in a helpless way.

Across the street, the doors to several neighboring houses stood open, their owners silhouetted against the lights from inside.

As Angus and Michael walked across the yard toward the ambulance, a truck came down the street from the other direction and pulled into Bob Hume’s driveway. Bob Hume got out and trotted down the sidewalk toward them, hands stuck in the pockets of his coat.

“What’s happening?” he asked breathlessly. “Has there been an accident?”

“Thomas Baskerville’s been hit by a car.” Angus put a restraining hand on Bob’s shoulder. “Don’t go over there. You’ll just be in the way.”

“
You
were going over there.”

“That’s because we saw it happen,” Michael said. “They might need to ask us something.”

“Why did the emergency people go inside?” Bob asked.

“Charlotte needs help, too,” Angus answered. “She may have had a heart attack.”

Bob seemed stunned. “They’re not both dead, are they?”

“I think Charlotte will be okay,” Michael said. “But it doesn’t look good for Thomas.” He followed Angus toward the street, leaving Bob standing there.

When they reached the ambulance, Suki stood watching as the EMT zipped Thomas’s body into a long plastic bag. The man finished his task and stepped back, avoiding a slick of something dark on the road.

Next to the ambulance, the driver of the car looked away, and the woman hid her face against his chest. The snow fell more heavily, melting into droplets on the body bag.

The driver of the car saw Angus and Michael approach. “There was nothing I could do! He ran right out in front of me.”

“I know. We saw it,” Angus said. He crossed his arms over his chest, feeling the chill.

They watched the EMT load Thomas’s body into the ambulance. Across the street, several of the neighbors’ front doors closed quietly.

Suki came over to join the others. “Dead before they got here,” she announced.

The woman gave a wail.

“Hey, if it helps any, he wasn’t a very nice man,” Suki said.

Michael gave a nervous laugh.

Angus pushed them both toward the house. “Go make yourselves useful. See that Ellen gives Charlotte’s medications to the EMT.” He turned to the man and woman. “Do you live around here?”

The woman shook her head. “We were coming back from vacation,” she gulped.

“My wife and I have relatives in Breckenridge,” the man said. “We were on our way back to Colorado Springs to stay the night. Our plane leaves early tomorrow.”

“He ran right in front of us,” the woman said, shaking her head and sniffling.

The man squeezed her close. “I’m Sean, and this is my wife, Julie. Are you related to the, uh…”

“No. Just an acquaintance of the family,” Angus said.

“What was he doing, running like that after dark?” Sean asked.

Angus thought for a moment before answering. On one hand, Charlotte might not want the details of her husband’s death to come out. On the other hand, he already had permission to do the story. Plus, Thomas’s death had a sense of fate about it, and these poor people could stand to feel less responsible. “He was chasing a ghost.”

They stared at him, openmouthed.

If there was a third hand, Angus thought, as he reached in his pants pocket for a business card, it was that word of mouth was always good for the magazine.

*   *   *

The
Tripping
crew received a call from the police, asking them to come to the hospital.

When they reached Charlotte’s room, they found her sitting upright on the adjustable bed, a flowered hospital gown around her and sensors taped to her arm. Her eyes were red, but also snapped with anger.

A policewoman sat in the chair by the bed. Her curly black hair was pulled into a ponytail, and a multitude of bobby pins fastened any wayward strands to the sides of her head. She vacated the chair when Angus and the others entered the room.

“Are you all right?” Angus asked Charlotte, taking the chair.

She gripped the arm of his coat. “Petey would
never
have harmed someone. I don’t believe it was his ghost after all.”

Angus glanced at the police officer.

“I’m Officer Deloit,” she said. “My partner is checking out the accident scene. Perhaps you’d like to tell me what you saw.” She took out a pen and pad.

“I can show you video, if you want,” Suki said.

Charlotte put her face in her hands. “Please, no.”

Officer Deloit turned to Suki. “Later.”

It took awhile to explain everything, including their presence and the purpose of the magazine, which Officer Deloit seemed to have trouble understanding. “Leaving aside the name for the moment, why would people want to go to places where bad things happen?”

“No one has ever died before,” Angus protested.

“If they haven’t died, then how can there be ghosts?”

“The ghosts are from a long time ago, in most cases,” Angus clarified. “And the magazine doesn’t deal exclusively with ghosts. We also cover things like Bigfoot and thunderbirds.”

“Those old cars?” Officer Deloit made a note on her pad.

“Supernatural birds,” Angus said. “Really big ones.”

Charlotte replaced her water glass on the bedside tray. “None of that matters now, because this couldn’t have been Petey’s ghost. I think someone purposefully set out to kill Thomas.”

“With a fake ghost designed to lure him into the street?” Officer Deloit asked.

Charlotte nodded emphatically. “Exactly.”

Officer Deloit tapped the end of her pen on the pad. “There are a few problems with that theory. First of all, how could they know he would chase it? Had he ever chased a ghost before?”

“No, but he was a very aggressive person.” Charlotte smoothed the blanket over her lap. “Anyone who knew him could have predicted his behavior.”

“Then there’s the timing,” Officer Deloit continued. “The driver of the car is from Indiana, has no priors, and no connection with your family. How could someone predict that his car would come along at that moment?”

Charlotte bit her lip.

“Finally, there’s the ghost itself,” Deloit went on. “If someone did rig something to run across the street, wouldn’t a passing car have disabled the mechanism?”

Charlotte held up a finger. “I’ve been thinking about that, and I don’t think it was a mechanism. I think it was an animal, painted to glow.”

Officer Deloit tilted her head skeptically. “In that case, you’re suggesting that someone trained an animal to run through the yard and into the street at a particular moment. Don’t you think it’s more likely that some random animal ran through the yard—a white cat perhaps—and your husband, prepped by these ghost stories”—she paused to give Angus a reproving look—“ran after it and was hit by accident?”

“But what about Petey’s bark?” Charlotte demanded, her voice rising. “We all heard him!”

Officer Deloit checked her notebook. “Petey is your dead dog?”

“Yes!”

“As for that, ma’am, raccoons make a lot of different noises. I really think we’re looking at a series of coincidences. It happens.”

Charlotte looked at her lap and muttered something.

“All right,” Officer Deloit said. “For the sake of argument, let’s assume you’re right.”

Charlotte looked up. “Yes?”

“Can you think of anyone with a reason to kill your husband?”

Charlotte plucked at the blanket, looking from side to side as if an answer might present itself. “No.”

Michael caught Angus’s glance and raised his brows.

Angus shrugged slightly. The person with the best motive to kill Thomas Baskerville was his wife.

The door opened to Charlotte’s hospital room, and Ellen Froehlich came in, clutching her purse and a cosmetics case printed with little Chihuahuas. “How are you feeling? What did the doctors say?”

Charlotte held out her arms. “They want to do more tests and keep me for the night, to make sure it was just shock.”

Ellen put the cosmetics bag on the nightstand and sat on the bed to hug Charlotte.

Officer Deloit looked at Suki. “Let’s go into the hall. Bring your camera.”

They went outside, followed by Angus and Michael. Angus closed the door quietly behind them.

Suki powered up the camera, then flipped open the screen and touched it several times. “Do you want to see the whole video, or just the ghost part?”

“Everything, please,” Officer Deloit said.

Suki handed her the camera, and they crowded around to watch the night’s tragic events play out on the little screen.

When a glowing spot appeared on the screen, Officer Deloit touched the pause icon at the bottom of the screen. “That’s the ghost, right?”

“Yeah.”

The police officer squinted at the screen. “Can we zoom in on it?”

“Not on the camera, but once it’s loaded onto a computer you can grab a still and zoom in on that.”

Officer Deloit handed the camera to Suki and took out a business card. “Send me a copy of the video.” She took the camera back and started the video again, watched it to the end, then replayed it from the beginning. “I have to admit, that looks like the ghost of a Chihuahua.” She handed the camera back to Suki.

Angus sighed. “Unfortunately, it may not be.” When they all looked at him, he said, “I found a spot of glow-in-the-dark paint in one of the upstairs bathrooms at the Baskerville house.”

“And you didn’t tell us?” Michael said.

Officer Deloit took out her notepad. “Who uses that bathroom?”

“Guests to the house, but it’s also Ellen Froehlich’s personal bathroom.”

Officer Deloit pointed toward Charlotte’s room with her pen. “The woman in there, right? She lives at the house?”

“A lot of people live at that house.” Angus held up one hand and counted on his fingers. “Charlotte and her husband. Their granddaughter, Cheri. Ivan Blotski, who trains the dogs. Ellen Froehlich, who designs the clothes for Petey’s Closet, and two Chihuahuas.” He frowned. “At the time of the accident, Ellen had one of the dogs in a white wedding dress. I wish I’d thought to check and see if the dress was wet. It was snowing outside.”

Officer Deloit scribbled frantically. “Do you think Ms. Froehlich had anything to do with this? Did she have any reason to dislike Thomas Baskerville?”

“Everybody did,” Suki said. “He was a real son of a bitch.”

“But would she have wanted him dead?” Officer Deloit clarified. “Were there any bad feelings between them?”

Suki shrugged and looked at the other two.

“Thomas generated bad feelings wherever he went,” Michael offered. “But it occurs to me that he may not have been the target.”

“What do you mean?” Deloit asked.

Michael held up two fingers. “This is the second sighting of the ghost, and it was Charlotte who ran after it the first time.”

“That’s true,” Angus said heavily. “Thomas tried to stop her from following it tonight.”

“Just a second. I need to get all this down.” Officer Deloit wrote quickly, then flipped through her notes. “Okay. Assuming Thomas wasn’t the target, did Ellen Froehlich have a reason to hurt Charlotte Baskerville? They look pretty friendly.”

“I talked to a friend of Ellen’s today,” Suki said. “Apparently Ellen was broken up after some guy dumped her, and Charlotte helped her through that. But I also get the impression that Ellen ought to be a partner in the company, instead of a paid employee.”

Officer Deloit stared into space for a moment. “As it stands now, the company would cease to exist if Charlotte Baskerville died, right? It wouldn’t make sense for Ms. Froehlich to kill her employer.” She held up a hand. “Not that sense always comes into it.”

“Presumably Charlotte has a will,” Angus said, “but I don’t know anything about it. Maybe she leaves the company to Ellen.”

Officer Deloit made a note before asking, “Have you seen this glow paint anywhere else in the house, or heard anyone talking about it?”

They looked at each other, heads shaking.

Officer Deloit waggled the pen between her fingers. “I think we’ll have a chat with Ms. Froehlich. Anything else?”