Nina Wright - Whiskey Mattimoe 06 - Whiskey and Soda (10 page)

Ramirez was no longer my favorite suspect. Now I liked Anouk for liking me. Translating TV cop lingo, we didn’t personally like each other at all; I figured Anouk was trying to frame me for something she had either done herself or conspired to do.

“This is a deflection,” I blurted. “Whoever made that poster and put Vreelander’s number on it was playing a sick game or worse.”

“Trying to distract people from the real crime,” Jenx agreed. “Or, at the very least, they were playing a schoolboy prank by routing the calls to the victim’s own phone.”

She faced Bentwood. “Can you think of anyone who would do that?”

Once again, the school president had nothing. After a pause followed by a dramatic throat clearing, he said, “I can’t imagine anyone making light of Mark’s demise, let alone taking Mark’s life. Frankly, every aspect of this tragedy exceeds my comprehension.”

Anouk squeezed his arm, a gesture that seemed almost as intimate as their earlier kiss.

“I’m all right,” he said although no one had asked. “But I do think I need a short break before the press arrives.”

“Go ahead,” Jenx said. She checked her watch. “You got twenty minutes, and if you oversleep, I got it covered.”

“I hardly expect to sleep,” the school president said. “Anouk, did you wish to see me privately?”

The question sounded vaguely like a proposition. Did he need a nap-mate?

“No, no,” Anouk said, waving him away. “I came to see Chief Jenkins.”

She faced Jenx. “I did call the police station this morning. They said that you were here.”

“You came to see me about the murder?” Jenx asked.

I noticed that Bentwood wasn’t leaving, after all.

“Not about that, no. Although I will answer your questions, of course. I phoned your office this morning because I recovered my dog.”

“Your dog?” Jenx said, baffled.

“My poodle is the one who went missing yesterday,” Anouk said.

“The champion stud dog? You called that in?”

“My daughter phoned it in. She reported seeing Napoleon run off with a long-haired goat.”

I coughed.

“A long-haired goat?” Pauline interjected. “Those are quite rare, and most dogs don’t like them.”

“That’s true. But my daughter heard that a long-haired goat was terrorizing farm animals in this area,” Anouk said. “And then she saw it at my house.”

“What time was that?” I asked, keeping my tone neutral.

“Around three. I was still at the archery range giving lessons. My daughter was alone. She saw the goat leap the fence into our backyard. It flirted with my dog, then Napoleon followed the goat over the fence. Amazing.”

“Amazing,” I agreed, studying the dark oak floor.

“Napoleon had never jumped that fence before, but he was scratching at the back door early this morning. I wanted you to know that, Chief Jenkins.”

“Was he all right?” Jenx said. Although she was talking to Anouk, I could feel the chief’s eyes boring into my skull.

“He was fine. Fatigued and in need of grooming, but otherwise fine. He was not alone, however.”

I glanced up. “The goat came back?”

Anouk smiled cagily. “There never was a goat, Madame Mattimoe. Only an Afghan hound. Your Afghan hound, I believe.”

“We haven’t determined that,” I said, trying to sound like the last lawyer who defended my canine in court.

“Now we can,” Anouk said. “The bitch is in my car.”

I stared at her. “You left Abra in your car?”

“It’s not hot outside,” Anouk said.

“I’m not worried about the dog. I’m thinking about your upholstery. She eats that stuff.”

“I crated her.”

“Yeah, well she eats metal, too, especially if it’s shiny.”

I took a reluctant step toward the door and paused.

“How did you know she was my dog?”

“Please, Madame. Everyone knows.”

Again Anouk was violating my comfort zone, standing closer than anyone not in love with me should. Smiling, she added, “Abra has a certain, shall we say, reputation.”

Everyone in the rarified world of well-bred dogs knew too much about my canine. Abra had recently won worst-in-show at the Midwest Afghan Hound Specialty, a nightmare I would never live down.

“Why bring her here?”

“I knew the chief of police was here. The bitch is a convicted felon, so I’m doing my civic duty by turning her in.”

“She’s not a felon this time.” I turned to Jenx. “Is she?”

The chief assured me that there were no warrants pending for Abra’s arrest. However, the dairy and chicken farmers hadn’t yet decided whether to file civil suits. Against me.

That was how it worked. Abra was the felon, yet I was legally responsible. Go figure. The law, I had learned, had little to do with fairness. How could a human be held responsible for a hound that no human could contain or track? And to think that Four Legs Good, the animal rights activists responsible for Jeb’s canine-crooning career, believed our pets needed more rights than they already had.

“No legal threats this time, Whiskey,” Jenx summarized. “Unless, of course, Mrs. Gagné wants to sue.”

On her behalf George Bentwood said, “She’ll want to see her lawyer before she decides.”

“No,” Anouk said. “I have decided already. Napoleon had a life-changing experience with that Afghan hound. He is now fixated on her. Madame Mattimoe and I will have to arrange play-dates.”

She meant sex-dates. I did not want to picture a poodle “fixated” on my hound, let alone my hound’s role in encouraging that. Before I could be expected to comment, my cell phone rang. I gave silent thanks that I hadn’t done the right thing by turning if off.

Seeing that the call was from Jeb, I removed myself to the far end of the foyer.

“Hey. What’s up?”

“Lots of stuff,” he replied cheerfully. “How’s it going there?”

I informed him that my oversexed Affie was in the car of the French woman I had seen last night.

“She hooked up with a standard poodle named Napoleon, who’s now addicted to her love.”

“So everything’s back to normal,” Jeb concluded. “Odette has been texting you. She phoned me when you didn’t text her back.”

I hadn’t checked my phone since leaving home. “Problem at the office?”

“You might say that.”

Before I could reply, my phone signaled another incoming call.

“Odette’s on the line now,” I told Jeb.

“Better take that,” he said. “Then call me back.”

“Your mother has arrived from the Sunshine State,” my best salesperson announced in her rich Tongan accent. “Please remove her from the premises.”

“She’s at the office?”

“She’s running the office. Your mother has appointed herself our new receptionist and office manager.”

I should have known. Irene Houston was a chronic early arriver and lifelong subscriber to the fallacious notion that everyone loved a surprise. Naturally, she had reached Magnet Springs ahead of schedule and decided that nothing would delight her daughter more than a drop-in visit at work.

My mother had built a career running the office of a small insurance firm. I could only imagine her reaction upon arriving at Mattimoe Realty to discover that I had no office manager because the woman who used to hold that job was now running from the law. Business being as bad as it was, and my swollen belly making me look as bad as it did, Odette and I had agreed that we could get by with my doing the behind-the-scenes work, but Irene Houston had other ideas.

“Your mother is sitting at the front desk, answering our phone,” Odette hissed.

“Our phone is ringing?”

“That’s not the point.”

Odette Mutombo is brilliant at selling real estate for one reason only. She refuses to take no for an answer, so I couldn’t argue with her now. Secretly, though, I was excited by two developments. First, that our office phone had rung, and, second, that I had stumbled upon a way to distract my mother during her visit. Irene Houston needed to keep busy. As a result, the minute she got on my nerves, I would put her to work. Of course, I’d have to ease that past Odette, but I knew something my best agent didn’t. My mother was relentless. Given that real estate success depends mainly on persistence, I suddenly had a winning team, and half of it would probably work for free for as long as she was determined to pester me.

I promised Odette that I would come straight to the office. As soon as I hung up, however, I remembered that Abra lurked in Anouk’s car. Like a ticking time bomb. Before I could decide what to do, Jeb phoned again.

“I figured you’d get distracted and forget to call me back.”

The man knew me too well. I was about to ask him to come fetch Abra so that I could handle matters at the office when he said, “I just took Sandra Bullock for a walk and saw something you’re not going to like.”

“The dog at the end of your leash?”

“No. Sandra heels perfectly.”

“Great. Will she get her own apartment?”

“Whiskey, listen. Somebody smashed open the door on Leo’s workshop. I can’t see that anything’s missing, but the door is history.”

I groaned and told Jeb about the missing basement window pane that Jenx had detected.

“Could it be the same person?” I wondered aloud. “Why would they come back, especially if they don’t steal stuff?”

Jeb had no answer, but he offered to report the incident to Jenx. I said I’d tell her myself since she was standing a few feet away.

“Sorry to give you bad news,” Jeb said.

“It’s not all bad,” I said. “Between Abra and my mom, I’ve got two excuses to get out of here.”

However, I was too intrigued by what was happening in front of me to bolt just yet. Stevie McCoy—Director of Admissions, Recruitment, Retention, Marketing, Public Relations and Media Relations—had returned with Robin Wardrip. In the close quarters of the school foyer, Camo-Mom and Jenx were straining not to acknowledge each other. The air was suddenly thick with unspoken personal history and something that felt distinctly like sexual tension. Unless I was wildly mistaken, Anouk Gagné was enjoying the game. She slipped sidelong knowing glances at both women, amusement dancing in her dark eyes.

The press arrived at that moment in the form of three eager and attractive young field reporters with their camera crews. The lobby was now wall-to-wall humans, which was my cue to go fetch my dog. Camo-Mom seemed to be in an even bigger rush than I was to exit the building. She pushed past the press and out the door, red hot face clashing with her olive drab ensemble. I glanced at Jenx, who was in high color herself. She stared after the fleeing PTO member, an expression in her eyes that I would have described as longing, if we weren’t talking about Jenx, who was totally committed to Henrietta and had been for years. Meanwhile, Stevie was organizing the press as Bentwood whispered to Pauline, who seemed to be taking it all in stride.

“One of my former protégées,” Anouk said, following my gaze in Robin Wardrip’s direction.

I couldn’t imagine Camo-Mom loving French poodles, so I tried another direction. “Archery?”

Anouk nodded. “Her anger issues were a liability at the range. Speaking of liability, may I show you to your hound?”

Resignedly I let the energetic French woman lead me to her SUV, which I could have identified without assistance. It was the only rocking vehicle in the parking lot. Frantically jumping from one side of the crate to the other, Abra set up her spine-tingling howl. I slowed my pace, knowing full well that the instant I opened the car door, she would launch like a rocket right past me. We needed a strategy to manage the transition.

“I have a strategy,” Anouk announced. “Walk to your vehicle, and I will take it from here.”

For a second, I thought she meant I could get in my car and drive away. Alone. Then I realized that she planned to bring the bitch to my car. That was probably the next best option.

I fully expected Anouk to pull her battered Ford Explorer alongside my vehicle so that we could team-wrestle Abra from her crate into my backseat. Although we’re talking about a distance of less than four feet and a dog who weighed less than fifty pounds, lightning quick reflexes and ample upper-body strength would be required. But that was not what went down. Drawing her front bumper up to mine, Anouk signaled for me to stay in my car. She got out, disappeared around the back of her Explorer, and returned with Abra calmly heeling.

No leash and no agitation. When Anouk opened my passenger-side door, Abra entered like a lady. She even lay down in the backseat.

“How—?” I began.

Anouk handed me a green business card featuring a bow and arrow, the same logo I had noticed on the side of her green SUV. The card read:

Tir à l’Arc

Archery Instruction and Competitive Leagues

We win

followed by a phone number and email address.

“Other side,” she said.

Flipping the card, I found a whimsical sketch of a standard poodle with an amazing pompadour haircut.

Gagné Standard Poodles

Bred, Trained, Shown

We win

The text included the same phone number and email address listed on the other side.

High-school French flashback: gagné is the past tense of gagner, which is the verb “to win.” I said this aloud to Anouk.

“But of course,” she said impatiently. “I am an experienced trainer and handler of large dogs. It is only natural that Abra would respond well to my methods.”

I thought it more likely that this wasn’t my dog. Inspecting her closely, however, I recognized the mischievous glint in her eyes. The instant that Anouk vanished, all hell would break loose. I noticed something else, too.

“You groomed her.”

“But of course,” Anouk said again. “Do you give gifts that are in poor condition?”

I could have pointed out that Abra was no gift, but that would have been petty. Although Anouk had returned a dog I wasn’t sure I wanted, she had brought her back safe, calm and clean. That never happened. Abra, the chronic runaway, always came home a complete mess.

“So, you also train and groom dogs that aren’t standard poodles?” I asked.

Anouk pursed her lips as if tasting something sour. “I can train and groom other dogs. However, I choose not to.”