Hounds Abound (25 page)

I wished I wasn’t now.

“Then you say you’re not looking into the Miles Frankovick murder?”

“I say I’d really like to know how you heard about the health problem of the animal dropped off at HotRescues yesterday.” That question had lassoed an edge of my mind and was twirling around ceaselessly. Yes, I’d talked about it to several people while attempting to pare down my suspect list—and assuming, rightly or not, that the nasty relinquishment had something to do with warning me away from the murder. But stealing a sick animal, then leaving it at a shelter wasn’t the kind of event that should spark a
National NewsShaker
’s interest. Unless her “anonymous source” had an ulterior motive about revealing it. Publicly.

Was that person still trying to get me to back off? If something private but chillingly dangerous didn’t do it, maybe horrible publicity would.

“Apparently my source wasn’t entirely correct—or truthful.” That admission into my ear made my eyes pop
open in amazement. Did reporters ever own up to such things? Maybe Corina Carey wasn’t as terrible a person as I assumed.

Or she believed that feigning genuineness might scrape out my cooperation.

“You know, I am interested in what the media have to say about the Frankovick killing,” I lied. “I’m not involved, and neither is HotRescues, but since I admire Bella for her founding such a wonderful shelter as Save Them All Sanctuary, I’m very concerned about the situation and making sure she’s treated fairly. I think that, in any story you do, you need to be sure to stress what a kind, caring person Bella is, and how Save’Em is a fantastic sanctuary for older and special-needs animals.”

“There are other opinions about that,” Corina said. “In any event, thank you for your time, Lauren. I hope you don’t mind, but I may be in touch again.”

Oh, yes, I minded. But she had already hung up before I was able to tell her so.

Before I left HotRescues that night, I called Carlie. “How’s our little Miracle?” I asked.

“Doing amazingly well,” she replied. “No more dehydration or any major problems. We’ll probably be ready to let her come home to you in a few days.”

“Without being contagious?”

“Without being contagious,” she confirmed. “By the way, I’m gathering a crew together to film some more at Save’Em soon. Have you talked to Bella recently?”

“No, but I’m heading her way tomorrow. We can talk about who her favorite pups and kitties are to be immortalized on
Pet
Fitness
, and I’ll let you know her suggestions.”

“Excellent.”

I waited for Brooke to arrive before departing from HotRescues. “I don’t suppose you’ve been blabbing to the media about our ill, stolen dog who became a pet relinquishment,” I said. “And accidentally said it was a cat?”

“What are you talking about?”

Nina and most of the staff had left, so we sat at the table in the welcome area and I filled Brooke in on my conversation with Corina Carey.

“Very odd,” she said when I was done. “I’ll talk to Antonio and we’ll do some checking around about that as well as the rest. I’d love to know where it came from.”

“Me, too.”

That night at home, I called both my kids.

Having spoken with the media, however unwillingly, I was concerned that I’d be quoted, either accurately or not. My children had at various times seen postings on the Internet that included me on YouTube and elsewhere. If they happened on to whatever Corina Carey said about me, I wanted to warn them first about why I’d sort of cooperated, and how I didn’t expect the report would be truthful.

Sitting in my living room after eating my take-out Hawaiian barbecue, with Zoey beside me on the sofa, the TV off, and a glass of wine in my hand, I called my daughter, Tracy.

“Mom! Hi. Are you okay? I was going to call you. I heard from Kevin that HotRescues was in the news because of some nasty dog illness being dumped there by a nutcase who wanted revenge.”

I sighed. It was exactly what I didn’t want. Now I might have to allow myself to be interviewed again to counter it.

“That was all an exaggeration. There was a sick dog, but she’s going to be fine, and none of the other animals got it. No need to worry about me, or them. How’s life at Stanford?”

She started telling me about a course she just loved, and how she couldn’t wait till she could come home at Christmas break in a couple of months, and other things that relaxed me and warmed my heart.

My discussion with Kevin was similar, but he said he’d forwarded the Web link to me of the TV news show where Corina Carey talked about the HotRescues–Save Them All Sanctuary link: me. And the sick dog and how that might be related, tenuously, to the investigation into whether Bella killed her ex.

I watched it. I also saw how other news shows were picking up on it. People enjoyed hearing about pet rescue organizations. They apparently liked it even more if there was scandal and intrigue involved. Or at least the media appeared to think so.

Much too real. Much too scary.

It was bad enough that it had happened. But who was talking about it in public?

And how did they know so much?

I hugged Zoey and left her at HotRescues when I headed toward Save’Em around eleven the next morning.

Everything was fine at my shelter. I’d felt confident about that after taking two walk-throughs and speaking with everyone present before I left.

I’d also talked to a group of schoolkids who were there getting community service credit for learning how to volunteer, plus a group of three college students who were at HotRescues looking for a cat to adopt. I’d already sifted through their application and gotten them to agree which one would be chief adopter. Roommates tended to change a lot during college years, and I wanted them all to know up front that they’d not be allowed to take a cat home from our shelter without a commitment by one of them to love and care for the adopted pet forever.

Now I was free to concentrate on what I’d look for at Save’Em, and ask Bella.

Everything looked the same when I arrived. Volunteer Daya let me into the front of the main building. I remembered her uneven teeth as she smiled, and I smiled back.

“I’ll show you where Bella is,” she said. “There’s this cool new resident she’s working with.”

Both Ignatz and Durwood pranced at her feet on their short dachshund legs. She shut them into Bella’s office, then led me through the main building.

That cool new resident turned out to be a gorgeous Norwegian elkhound, apparently a purebred, who was twelve years old according to Daya. Bella was with him in the backyard area near the rear of the main building. Looking as lovely and poised as always in her Save Them All denim work shirt, her long brown hair mussed about her face, Bella was running the dog through some tricks. Kip stood nearby, watching silently, as did some shelter volunteers. None of us said anything as the dog sat on the grass and gave Bella his paw on command, then stood and danced on his hind legs. He wasn’t especially fast, but he seemed eager to comply with what she told him to do. She handed him a small treat each time, but I had the sense that the dog would have done it all just to please her—for the warm attention.

“Hi, Lauren,” Bella eventually said in her delightful British accent. “This is Spruce. Spruce, say hi to Lauren. Speak.”

He obeyed, then wriggled over to me as I laughed and held out my hand. His coat was well brushed, and I could see a lot of silver on his muzzle and the rest of his face. He
was twelve? Definitely becoming a senior dog, but he didn’t seem to know it.

“He’s a charmer,” I said. “What’s his story?”

Bella told one of the volunteers to put a leash on Spruce and take him for a short walk around the yard, starting with the paved path. Then she joined me, with Kip, on the nearby bench beneath a lemon tree. It wasn’t a very long bench, and I noticed how Kip stayed close to Bella, perhaps even touching her thighs with his own. The thin, grinning guy was wearing a similar Save’Em work shirt that day. It was one of the few times I didn’t see the spectacled accountant toting paperwork.

I wished I could read his mind.

As logically as the accounting he conducted, he had become one of my primary suspects as so many others fell to the nether end of my list. He could have killed Miles for Bella’s sake—and his own. He had been to Carlie’s veterinary hospital. I wasn’t sure how he might have known when sick dogs were being brought there. Maybe it was a crime of opportunity. But he certainly could have taken advantage of it, thrown on a disguise, and “relinquished” the stolen dog at HotRescues to warn me to back off looking for whoever had murdered Miles.

He had, after all, already told me to butt out.

Now would be a good time to look into whether any of the rest of my surmises could be true.

“He’s an owner relinquishment,” Bella began. “Can you believe it? The awful excuse for a human being decided she couldn’t deal with the fact that poor Spruce was getting old and she would lose him someday. She had decided to replace him with a puppy and had heard about Save’Em on
TV—the interviews with Vic Drammon.” She spoke his name in a clipped, emotional tone, then sighed. “I suppose that woman and Vic are two of a kind in the terrible department. She inquired whether he was right, and shouldn’t I make sure that Spruce was put down soon so he wouldn’t suffer? I wanted to …” Her hand went to her mouth. “Sorry. I was about to say something terrible that could let people think I really was capable of murder. Anyway, I pretended to be friendly until she filled out the paperwork and I’d had Spruce taken to our area to await a visit with Carlie and her vet clinic. Then I told her what I really thought of her. Spruce is fine, by the way. We’ll keep him in quarantine as we must, but I believe he has several more good years here. Or maybe we’ll even find him a new, loving home. I hope so.”

It was a perfect opening for my line of questioning.

“I’m glad this relinquishment had a good result for poor Spruce,” I said. “If she’d taken him to a city shelter and he didn’t get adopted, which wouldn’t have been likely … Well, you know. The latest relinquishment at HotRescues will have a happy ending, too.” I smiled innocently at both Kip and Bella, attempting to read their thoughts from their reactions.

“What relinquishment was that?” Kip asked, his tone as noncommittal as my feigned ingenuousness.

“The dog with parvo?” Bella said. “That was so awful. I did hear about it on the news after you told me about it.”

“You didn’t hear, then, Kip?” I asked, watching him carefully.

He shook his head. “You said a happy ending. Is the dog okay?”

“She’s back at Carlie’s clinic, recuperating. She’ll be fine. We had to scrub down HotRescues just in case, but all our dogs there are fine, too. No thanks to our false relinquisher—or at least I think he was false. Would you know anything about that, Kip?”

That direct an accusation might be uncalled for, but I hadn’t gotten any reaction yet and wanted to see what he would do.

“What do you mean?” His tone was shrill—a sign of guilt or just being upset at what I’d asked?

“You can’t seriously believe that Kip had anything to do with it.” Bella had risen suddenly. She now glared down at me with blue eyes as frigid as the Arctic Sea.

“I just want to eliminate him from my suspect list,” I said, also standing. “You know, the one I’ve developed since you asked for help.”

“That doesn’t mean you have the right to accuse perfectly innocent people.”

“How else can I make sure they’re innocent?” I peered down at Kip, who watched with a shocked expression behind his glasses. Real, or feigned? “Did you happen to be at Carlie’s clinic and see that some dogs with parvo were being brought in?” I asked. “Did that trigger this nefarious plan to keep me from digging further? Maybe you killed Miles to help Bella, then decided it was better that the police suspect her than you. When I kept investigating, you decided it would be better to scare me off, in case I got too close.”

“No!” He leaped to his feet, and his rage caused him to ball his hands into fists. He surely wasn’t going to slug me—not in front of his beloved Bella.

Unless he thought she wanted it, too.

“Now, look.” I backed away from the bench toward the path. Fortunately, the young volunteer walking Spruce was getting close again. There were other volunteers and staff members around, too. He wouldn’t attack me in public, would he? “Maybe I should have been more discreet in my questions, but—”

His shoulders crumpled and his hands relaxed. “I get it, Lauren. And, yes, I’d do anything to help Bella, especially since I know she couldn’t have killed Miles.” He raised his hands in a gesture that suggested he was trying to shape my interpretation of what he said. “Don’t take that wrong. I didn’t kill him, either. I just trust her and know her well enough to understand that, even though she sometimes says things that might imply she’d do something awful, that’s not her.”

“Oh, Kip, you’re such a dear,” Bella said.

They shared a smile that told me that their friendship might actually be turning into a romantic relationship.

“Tell me how I can help you find who really did leave that sick dog at HotRescues. It definitely wasn’t me.” Kip had stepped around Bella and now stood looking down at me. He wasn’t much taller than me—nor was he much taller than Bella. He didn’t look very strong.