Manic in Christmas River: A Christmas Cozy Mystery (Christmas River Cozy Book 6) (26 page)

Mutts & Murder

by Meg Muldoon

Based on a true story

(Of sorts)

Chapter 1

Mr. Arthur J. Raffles gazed down from the courtroom’s projector screen, his muddied face frozen in a mean and malicious snarl.

His hair, an electric shade of white, was dirty and greasy and stained a pinkish-red in some places. His nose was oversized for his small face. His eyes held a kind of crude wildness that hinted at his unpredictability and capacity to inflict large-scale damage. And the way he sneered at the camera – his lips pulled back into a grotesque display of sharp teeth – wasn’t winning him any brownie points with the judges.

It was obvious to everybody in that stuffy courtroom: the offender was a real rotten apple.

Most certainly the kind you didn’t want to come across alone in a dark alley somewhere.

And most certainly the kind that could have been responsible for the slaughter out on Dandelion Road that took place a couple of weeks earlier.

Yet, despite the offender’s wicked looks, Fern Whitelaw, the elderly, cantankerous librarian who often was the subject of ridicule by the youngsters of Dog Mountain, Oregon, continued to beg for the life of her beloved white terrier-lab mix.

“That’s just a bad photo,” she said, her voice breathy and shaky from desperation. “He’s not like that most of the time. I promise you. He only looked that way when the picture was taken because that mean police officer yanked Mr. Raffles’ collar so hard, he twisted his leg backwards. You should have heard him yelp. It was the most terrible—”  

“I’m sorry, but that’s
not
the way it happened, ma’am.”

I looked up from my notepad, where I had been drawing a pair of lopsided palm trees beneath a crescent moon, and glanced over to where the voice had come from.

Lt. Sam Sakai, a tall cop with dark, shaggy hair and a quiet disposition most of the time, leaned forward in his chair. His eyebrows were drawn together in a look of injustice. His dark brown eyes appeared to be burning holes into the side of Fern Whitelaw’s face.

Now that was a look I wouldn’t have wanted to be on the other side of.

I sat up straight, the proceedings having suddenly taken a juicy turn that required me to actually pay attention rather than doodle far-off tropical beaches that I would never get to.

“I believe that was
exactly
how it happened, Officer,” Fern snapped back, shooting Lt. Sakai a nasty look that appeared to come quite naturally to the ornery librarian.

It appeared Sam Sakai had met his match in Fern Whitelaw.

I watched him as his eyes grew wider and darker.

“Ms. Whitelaw, you are
grossly
mistaken,” he said, his voice steady. “And if you truly believed I mishandled Raffles at the time, then you should have filed a complaint with the department. But you and I both know you didn’t do that, just like we both know that I didn’t hurt a hair on that dog’s hea—”

“Enough, Lt. Sakai,” Myra Louden, the head judge, said, pulling down her cat eye frames and glaring at him. “This matter is off-topic and doesn’t have anything to do with the reason why we’re all here tonight. Which is to determine whether or not Raffles the dog killed six chickens belonging to Delia Davidson of Dandelion Drive the 13
^th
of June.”

Lt. Sakai turned his attention toward Myra, his eyes flickering slightly. He wasn’t a man who was often interrupted, let alone interrupted by a middle-aged retired principal who didn’t have anything else better to do than to spend her evenings determining the fates of misbehaving canines.

“Now we’ve heard from everyone about what happened that day,” Myra said. “And since it’s nearly 8 p.m., I’d say it’s time the three of us judges deliberate and come to a verdict.”

“But Miss Louden, you hardly heard what I have to say about Mr. Raffles’ kind and pleasant nature,” Fern Whitelaw begged. “Mr. Raffles couldn’t hurt a fly. I know he didn’t do any of this. I know that it’s just the lieutenant and Delia who’s framing my poor Mr. Raff—”

“That’s a bunch of bull—” Delia Davidson, the owner of the murdered chickens, started saying.

“We’ve heard enough,” Myra said, abruptly cutting Delia off. “Now the three of us are going to go out in the hallway and deliberate the matter.”

Myra Louden stood up from her plush leather chair and led the way out of the courtroom. The two other judges, Bessie Stevenson, a retired city councilor, and Richard Kline, the manager of the local humane society shelter, followed her out into the hall.

I found my eyes drifting back over to Lt. Sakai. He didn’t look quite as angry as he had when Myra interrupted him, but he was still steaming about the whole thing.

And why shouldn’t he be? These dog board proceedings were all a big waste of time. A gimmick the city came up with as a way to get more “citizen participation” in the justice process, whatever that meant. The proceedings all took place after 5 p.m., and dragged on like cans behind a
Just Married
wagon. They only dealt with minor infractions like dogs killing fowl or damaging property. These evenings in Dog Board Court consisted of a lot of testimony and rehashing and begging and more rehashing for hours and hours on end.

The dog board hearings were nothing short of torture for those of us in the room who were forced to be here by our bosses. Like Lt. Sakai. And like me.

But this is what I had signed up for. Despite coming from a larger paper, and despite knowing every inch of my hometown of Dog Mountain like the back of my hand, I couldn’t just waltz into
The
Dog Mountain Chronicle
and expect to jump in on the crime beat or the city beat right away. Or so
The
Chronicle
’s managing editor, Roger Kobritz, had told me during the interview. Maybe in a year or so I could expect that kind of promotion. But as it was,
The Chronicle
had enough reporters to fill those beats. And what they really needed was a general assignment reporter. Somebody to scoop up the stories that fell in between the cracks. Somebody to cover the meetings that needed to be covered, but weren’t necessarily on a designated beat.

“It’s a real opportunity for a tenacious and dogged reporter” Kobritz had told me in the interview. “You’d be able to make a real impact on the community with this beat, Ms. Wolf.”

That’s what he sold me on. And I fell for that “you can make a real difference” mumbo-jumbo hook, line and sinker.

What I didn’t realize when I got the job was that 90 percent of my time would be spent covering dog-related puff pieces and writing pet profiles that were ever increasingly popular with our readership.

I really couldn’t blame it all on Kobritz, though. I should have known better. My hometown, Dog Mountain, had just been recently given the prestigious title by a popular national magazine as
Dog Town USA
, and with good reason.

The people in this town were mad crazy about their dogs. And Dog Mountain, a city of about 30,000 souls, had become a mecca for all things pooch-related. The town now had the highest dog capita in the country. It practically had more dog parks than playgrounds, and about half of the small-town businesses in this area were – you guessed it – geared toward dogs and their owners. All of this meant that there had been no shortage of stories to cover in the six months that I had been slogging through the “general assignment” beat.

Sometimes I thought about the things I used to cover back when I lived in Portland. The trials and homicides and robberies. Stories that were exciting and full of potential. Sometimes I thought about what my fellow reporters back at
The Oregon Daily
would think if they knew the indomitable Winifred Wolf was now covering dog board hearings and humane society fundraising events here in Dog Mountain, Oregon. They’d probably crack some joke about my last name and how I was meant for the job. Still, I knew most of them would wonder where my spark and ambition went. Sometimes I wondered that myself.

My breath caught sharply in my throat as Lt. Sam Sakai’s eyes suddenly met mine.

I hadn’t realized it, but I’d been staring at the cop since the judges left the room to deliberate, having become lost in one of my typical moments of deep thought that caused me to miss the occasional important quote.

Lt. Sakai’s deep-set eyes were the color of chocolate and spoke of some Pacific Islander background. Around the newsroom, Lt. Sakai had earned the nickname “Speed” because of how similar he looked to Keanu Reeves in the 90s action flick of the same name. And while the nickname was borderline inappropriate, it couldn’t be denied that the lieutenant did share a characteristic or two with the movie star.

He looked back at me, and for a moment, his look softened. He stared at me somewhat curiously. His lips turned up slightly at the edges, and there was something bordering on friendliness in his expression.

But that all changed when Lt. Sakai’s eyes fell on the newspaper-issued notebook in my hands.

His eyes narrowed and his expression immediately hardened to marble.

It was a look that I’d become accustomed to getting after nearly seven years of being a reporter. One that didn’t usually get under my skin anymore.

But for some reason, this time it did. 

I glanced away quickly, wishing that I hadn’t decided to space off in his general direction. Though it was easy to see why my focus had indeed found its way to him.

Lt. Sakai wasn’t exactly handsome in a typical way. But there was something about him… Something that wasn’t hard on the eyes by any means.  

The doors of the stuffy room opened, and Myra Louden came waltzing back into the courtroom, the gold chain holding the glasses around her neck clanging loudly as she did. She kept a stoic expression on her face, but I was relatively sure that the retired high school principal and avid dog shelter volunteer was relishing all the attention.

I didn’t know Myra all that well. And maybe I was biased, being that my mother had worked for Myra for more than two decades and the former principal hadn’t bothered to show up to her funeral a year ago. I didn’t much care for Myra Louden. She was the kind of woman who had joined the dog board committee because she missed the power trips and the ego-stroking that had been her everyday life in the education administration field. 

Though as a reporter, I had to do my best not to let my personal feelings bleed into my coverage of these kinds of events.

“We’ve agreed on a verdict,” Myra said, placing those cat eye glasses on her face and unfolding a piece of paper.

I glanced over at Fern Whitelaw. She swallowed hard. The fate of Mr. Arthur J. Raffles was now in the hands of Myra Louden.

“After much deliberation, we’ve come to the conclusion that given the testimony, Fern Whitelaw’s dog, Mr. Arthur J. Raffles, did indeed kill six chickens owned by Delia Davidson of Dandelion Drive.”

Fern Whitelaw let out a horrified gasp that resounded around the room like a pinball.

“But he
couldn’t
have done it!” Fern pleaded. “He doesn’t have a mean bone in his little bod—”

“
Please
, Ms. Whitelaw. Enough blubbering,” Myra said, obviously reveling in the poor woman’s distraught pleads.

Fern Whitelaw stopped speaking, realizing that the verdict as to the fate of her beloved pooch was still undetermined.

“But although Mr. Raffles is responsible for this
ghastly
act, since this is his first offense, and since we all agreed Mrs. Davidson didn’t properly secure the chicken coop, we have decided that Raffles will remain with Ms. Whitelaw and suffer no other ramifications, so long as Ms. Whitelaw agrees to reimburse Mrs. Davidson for the loss of her chickens.”

Fern’s worried expression faded and she smiled as a few happy tears streamed down her cheeks.

“What a bunch of crap!” Delia Davidson said, standing up out of her chair. “That dog is a menace to the neighborhood! This isn’t the first time he’s broken out of Fern’s fence either. How many more chickens have to die before you do something about this?”

Myra completely ignored Delia’s protests.

“This is Mr. Raffles’ first and final warning,” Myra said, looking smugly at Fern. “If he is found responsible a second time, we may be forced to euthanize the dog. Do you understand, Ms. Whitelaw?”

The librarian nodded vigorously. Obviously thankful for Raffles’ second chance.

“That concludes the Dog Board Hearing for this evening. Thank you all for coming.”

I stood up abruptly, the conclusion being my signal to flag down those involved in the proceedings and get interesting quotes from them.

I glanced at the clock.

The meeting had run over by at least an hour.