Hounds Abound (10 page)

I thought about inviting Matt to stay with me for the rest
of the night. Even told him I’d considered it—then decided against it. I didn’t want him to leave Rex alone, especially after he had already been by himself for so long. Although I did want to hear everything Matt had learned that day and told him so.

“Nothing important,” he said, and as he drove, he gave me a brief rundown that convinced me he was right; he hadn’t learned anything helpful.

He not only understood but agreed with my suggested plans for the night. He’d planned on just dropping me off, too. That was one of the things I liked about him. A lot. Not only did he work with animals, but to him pets were as important as people.

“As long as you’re okay after all that happened tonight,” he said. When I assured him I could deal with it, he added, “Okay, but one evening soon we’ll grab dinner together again when things aren’t so exciting. Spend more time together.”

“I’d like that,” I told him, and enjoyed a long kiss good night at my front door.

I allowed myself to sleep in the next day, but just a little. For one thing, Zoey hadn’t changed her schedule and she wanted a morning walk. Maybe she just wanted to assert some alpha control over me since I’d come home so late.

We didn’t do any training for the marathon, though. I was eager to get to HotRescues. I was also too tired for a workout that would only buy me more exhaustion.

I turned on a local morning news show as I got ready to go. I wasn’t surprised to see a segment about Miles Frankovick’s murder.

One of the people interviewed was another plastic surgeon from his office, a woman named Dr. Serena Santoval.
She was crying so much that it was difficult to understand most of what she was saying. The gist of it was that Miles had been a fine colleague, an excellent doctor, and an all-around wonderful man.

I didn’t believe a word of it, but I had no doubt that Dr. Santoval did.

Which made me wonder about the true relationship be-tween Miles and her. She seemed pretty upset for a coworker.

Not my problem, of course. But if I dropped a hint into Antonio’s ear for him to pass along to Detective Garciana, maybe the investigation would focus on the grieving doctor instead of Bella. Who knew? Perhaps this woman had had a motive to get rid of her colleague.

“They want to adopt Abel!” Nina sounded as excited as her words made me feel.

Zoey and I had just arrived at HotRescues. We had no sooner entered through the door into the welcome room when Nina leaped up from behind the counter and hurried over to us.

“One of the volunteers has taken them back to look at him again,” Nina continued. She thrust some papers in her hands at me. “They were here a couple of days ago and filled out the preliminary application. You liked them then, remember? The Oakes? Here’s their additional paperwork. If it all goes well, they’d love to take him home with them today.”

Abel was an über-sweet black Lab mix who had been with us for a while. His gray muzzle suggested he was middle aged, and his adoring personality had made me especially eager to find him a new, loving home.

Maybe this was Abel’s day.

I went into my office to leave my purse, then Zoey and I entered the shelter area for our first walk-through of the day.

We ran into the Oakeses, unsurprisingly, at the first kennel on the left. They were inside, sitting on the cement, playing with Abel. They looked up and smiled as I came over.

The volunteer who had been showing them around was Mamie Spelling. She was grinning widely.

“How is Abel today?” I asked.

“Absolutely wonderful!” said Mrs. Oakes, a large woman about my age in a long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans. Her husband, even stouter than she, nodded. Their application had indicated that they had just become empty nesters, with their youngest daughter now off at school, and they could devote a lot of time to a dog, especially since the woman worked at home selling things over the Internet.

An excellent situation.

They’d even brought photos of a very nice single-family home with a large, fenced yard. I’d go visit it, of course, but in this instance didn’t feel compelled to check it out before the adoption.

“I’ll be finished with my walk-through in about five minutes,” I told them. “If you’d like to meet me back in my office, we can finish up Abel’s adoption—assuming that’s what you want.”

“Yes!” they said at once, then laughed at each other. I joined them, and so did Mamie.

I’d give Abel some final hugs of my own later. For the moment, I let him revel in the company of his about-to-be family.

. . .

Mamie walked with Zoey and me along the rest of the first row of kennels. She wore loose jeans beneath her yellow knit HotRescues volunteer shirt. “I’m so delighted for Abel,” she said.

I agreed, of course, then asked, “So how are things with you, Mamie?”

She looked up at me, her wrinkle-shrouded eyes smiling. “Couldn’t be better, thanks to you. I love where I’m living now.” It was an assisted living facility, which Dante helped to pay for, not far from here. “And the fact that Herman can be with me is so wonderful.” Herman was her dog—the one canine she had really designated as her own when all the animals she was hoarding were taken into protective custody by Animal Services. They’d all been saved and, to my knowledge, each of the private shelters who’d eventually taken them in had found them good homes. Mamie had eventually been allowed to reclaim Herman, though. “Thank you again, Lauren.” She reached up and gave me a hug.

She turned to go back to where we had left the Oakeses, and Zoey and I continued through the shelter. We had a few empty kennels, which happened more now that our facility was larger. I’d have to check first with Nina because of her volunteering at a high-kill city shelter to see if we could rescue even more dogs and cats soon. If she wasn’t aware of any pets in immediate danger, I’d talk to Matt. As an officer of Animal Services, he had his fingers on the pulse of the whole organization and could determine which care centers were in need of someone to take in pets that otherwise would be put down to make room.

In a short while, Zoey and I had looked in on all the dogs and cats. We’d run into Angie Shayde, our part-time vet tech, who had been checking out our residents to make sure they all looked well—and was also examining a few recent arrivals in the quarantine area.

When we returned to the welcome area, the Oakeses were waiting. I showed them back into my office and told Nina to have our groomer, Margo, give Abel a quick bath.

That was another advantage of having a larger shelter. We now had a groom room and didn’t have to take our animals out to the nearest HotPets location for clips and baths—a necessity for keeping them looking their best for potential adopters.

The adoption paperwork and advice took about an hour. I never rushed through the process. Plus, I had a whole spiel about expectations that I bombarded them with—gently, of course. I wanted each adoption to work both for the adopters and their new family members.

Soon, it was a done deal. The Oakeses seemed thrilled. Abel obviously knew something important was afoot, since the usually mellow dog pranced and rubbed up against his new mom and dad as soon as he came back from his bath.

We walked out to the welcome area. I handed the leash—a gift from HotPets, of course, along with a collar and some initial food—to the Oakeses, then bent to hug Abel a final time at HotRescues. I would visit him at home at least once, though.

My congratulations were echoed by some staff members and volunteers who’d come into the area to say good-bye.

They were echoed as well by Bella Frankovick, who had just entered through the door.

I was surprised to see her but smiled a greeting. She knelt to give Abel a hug, too, as though she knew him. She’d seen him once, of course, during her prior visit, but her affection had to be more out of happiness for the event than for the specific dog.

When the Oakes family, including Abel, left, I turned to Bella. “How are you doing?” I chose to ask that instead of the myriad of other questions that whirlpooled in my mind.

“Not bad.” The strain on her face belied her words, though. “I came to invite you out for coffee.”

“Sounds good. Just give me a minute.”

I spent a little longer than that in my office, putting some notes about Abel’s adoption into the computer system so I wouldn’t forget them and handling the minimal donation we required from adopters. Then I told Nina, at the computer in the welcome area, that she was in charge, asked Zoey to stay with her, and Bella and I left.

I drove us to the nearest of the chain coffee shops. There, Bella ordered something so full of whipped cream and sugar-laden ingredients that I figured fully loaded coffee was her comfort beverage of choice.

I just ordered some brewed coffee, although I added some additional pizzazz via a sugar-free flavored sweetener.

We sat at a small, round table in the corner, and I was surprised that we got something as secluded in the crowded room. More people were outside, though, so maybe an inside seat wasn’t at as much of a premium.

“How are things at Save’Em?” I asked. That was a good, neutral way to inquire about why she really had come to see me.

“Hectic today.” Her British voice sounded dejected, almost fearful. “I needed to get away for a short while.” Her blue eyes looked straight into my green ones. “I left one of my best employees in charge, naturally.”

“Naturally.” I didn’t doubt it. Whatever else was going on in Bella’s life, I knew she would try to keep it from harming the animals in her charge.

“I would prefer not to talk about any of this,” she went on, and I knew that, despite her preference, she was going to spill her guts. I just hoped that didn’t include confessing to a murder.

Not that I thought her guilty.

“But that police interrogation last night was frightful. I despised Miles but I didn’t kill him, Lauren.” Her gaze remained on my face, as if she hoped to see inside to my brain to determine my opinion.

“I don’t see how you could have,” I said neutrally. “You called me all panicked about hearing an intruder, and then Matt and I found Miles’s body. The coroner will have to figure out time of death and all that, but I don’t believe the timing could have worked for you to have stabbed him and returned to your house.” Actually, I was fibbing a bit. She could have stabbed him and then called—but the coroner’s report might prove, or disprove, that. And so far I hadn’t heard the origin of the knife.

“I know a former spouse is a perfect suspect in a murder, at least when the couple remained in touch—which, unfortunately we did. And we were arguing. People knew about that, even you.”

I nodded.

“The detective who questioned me was not overbearing,
but he was insistent. I know enough from television shows that they don’t tell you that you have the right to remain silent and have an attorney present until they arrest you, but I believe I was cautious in the little I said.”

“Very good.” That alleviated some of my concerns about her interrogation, at least.

“This morning, the detectives waited until some of my staff and volunteers arrived and questioned them, too. Poor Kip was especially rattled. My accountant, Kip Schaley?”

Her expression suggested that she was questioning if I recalled him, and I gave a nod that I did.

“He didn’t like Miles. He is extremely sweet to me, and I think he believes he will take Miles’s place in my life. For the moment, I don’t even want to think about another relationship. People—men—seem to enjoy turning on me.”

Men plural? I wondered what she meant but didn’t want to interrupt her to ask.

“I don’t think Kip would have killed to help me, but he is the only person I can think of—besides me—who might have had a motive to kill Miles.”

“What about someone Miles worked with?” I asked. “Another plastic surgeon in his practice?” I thought of the woman doctor who had been crying on television.

“You see? You look beyond the obvious. You know the right questions to ask. First, though, I would like for you to refer me to the attorney who helped when you were accused of murder—if you liked his, or her, work, that is?”

First? What was second?

“I did,” I told her. I’d give her the contact information for Esther Ickes when we returned to HotRescues. “I take it that your divorce attorney doesn’t do criminal work.”

She nodded.

“And, also. …” Her hesitation told me that I was about to hear whatever was second, and that I wouldn’t necessarily like it. “Lauren, I know you stood in my shoes in the past when you were considered a murder suspect. Plus, I have heard that you helped someone else who was wrongly accused of murder, found who the real killer actually was.”

“Well, yes, but—”

“Please, Lauren. As long as you don’t believe I killed Miles—you don’t, do you?”

I shook my head, my mouth open to refute what I knew she was about to ask.

“Then, please. Help me learn who really murdered him. For the sake of all of the poor creatures now at Save’Em and all of those to come. Let me stay there and run the place and save as many elderly and infirm animals as I can, and not go to jail for something I didn’t do. Please, Lauren. Help me.”