Asking Fur Trouble Page 2

  One of the officers, a burly man with a crew cut who looked to be in his late-thirties, hesitated before shaking his head.

  I presumed this was Chief Ritter.

  He didn’t look old enough to be a chief. But maybe I just watched so many crime shows on TV that my view of this was somehow skewed.

  “Caroline?” Asher asked. “That’s the woman who lives here, right? Caroline Ford.”

  Chief Ritter nodded.

  “What happened?” Asher asked.

  I expected the officers to give a vague answer, or to not really respond at all.

  Instead, Chief Ritter heaved a sigh and said, “I’m afraid she’s dead.”

  “Dead?” Asher repeated with widened eyes.

  My own eyes were bulging a little, too. Didn’t they need to notify next of kin before they just started telling any old person on the street what they’d discovered inside?

  The officer nodded and then turned his attention to me. We’d spoken briefly when they first got there, and he’d asked me to stick around while they secured the scene and did their initial investigation. I had nowhere to go but the beach so it had been easy for me to agree to this. Which was exactly why I was sitting outside the house with two dogs when Asher Ellsworth had walked up.

  “I have your statement from earlier, Miss Walker,” the officer said. “I don’t think we have any more questions for you at this time, do we, Owen?”

  The other officer was a beefier version of Chief Ritter, about the same height but easily twenty pounds heavier. He, too, sported a crew cut, but his hair was peppered with gray, and I wondered if this hairstyle was part of the uniform for Sweetwater police.

  “That doesn’t mean we won’t have more questions later,” Owen warned. His deep-set eyes, set under bushy eyebrows, narrowed to the point of almost disappearing.

  I gulped, suddenly nervous. What questions could they possibly have for me? Up until a few minutes ago, I hadn’t even known the name of the woman I’d found on the floor. Heck, up until a few days ago, I hadn’t even lived on Sweetwater Island.

  But I just nodded and managed a weak, “Okay.”

  Owen gave me a card and I took it, hoping no one would notice that my hand was now trembling.

  Owen Simcoe, detective.

  The job I’d hoped once upon a time to have.

  “That means no leaving town,” Chief Ritter added. “Not without telling us, anyway.”

  Asher Ellsworth frowned.

  I did, too.

  The way they were talking made it sound like they suspected I had something to do with the woman’s death.

  Asher spoke up. “Do you have a cause of death yet?”

  The chief and Detective Simcoe exchanged glances.

  “No,” the chief finally said. “We are investigating all possibilities at this point.”

  All possibilities? What did that even mean?

  My heart thrummed faster, and I swallowed again.

  I knew exactly what it meant. It meant that they weren’t ready to rule the death accidental, or from natural causes, either.

  But there was one other thing I knew, too. Something important.

  I had nothing to do with this woman’s death.

  That knowledge did nothing to help quell the wave of anxiety that rushed through me. All I could think about was how one tiny twist of fate, one dog rocketing toward me on the path toward the beach, had turned into something bigger.

  I was now connected to this woman’s death.

  “You’re free to go,” Chief Ritter told me.

  Slowly, I got to my feet. Both dogs stood, too, their tails wagging as they looked up at me.

  The two policemen drifted back toward their cruisers, chatting in low voices. I wondered what they were saying. More importantly, I wondered if they were talking about me.

  Asher cleared his throat. “Well, that’s not the kind of news I expected to hear.”

  I glanced in his direction. “Me, either.”

  He offered a small smile. “I’m sure it’s all just a formality. Just covering their bases.”

  “Yes, of course,” I said, nodding. “I mean, I was just returning her dog. He…he got loose and I looked at his tag and saw the address on it. And no one answered the front door so we went around back. The door was open and I knocked, and then Arrow took off into the house and…”

  I didn’t know why I felt the need to explain myself to a total stranger, but I did. I wanted someone else to know what I’d told the police. Even though Asher Ellsworth couldn’t serve as an alibi, I could at least share my story with him. So someone else would also know the truth.

  He held up a hand. “I’m sure everything will be fine,” he said, his voice gentle. “Really.”

  I nodded, and hoped he was right.

  He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, then withdrew a card. He handed it to me.

  Another business card. My second one in the span of five minutes.

  “I’m serious about the dog walking thing, and I’m serious about paying you well,” he said. “Let me know if you’re interested.”

  All I could do was nod again.

  I was definitely interested.

  After all, money was money, and I needed a job like yesterday.

  I tried to focus on this and not what had led me to meet Asher Ellsworth in the first place.

  A dead body.

  I shuddered. I suddenly hoped that whatever happened to Caroline Ford was resolved quickly.

  Because I didn’t want to be attached to it.

  I was trying to start my life over, not end it by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  THREE

  “Why is that dog in here?”

  I was back at my grandmother’s house, and I wasn’t alone.

  My parents had decided to stop by, which was why my dad was currently parked on the sofa, his arms folded against his chest, staring grumpily at Trixie.

  “Because she lives here,” I reminded him. “With me.”

  “She should be outside,” he grumbled. “A house is no place for an animal.”

  I loved my dad, and there were definitely traits that we shared, but our feeling about animals wasn’t one of them.

  “And who is that mutt?” he asked, pointing at Arrow.

  I’d had no choice but to bring him home with me. After Asher left, I’d decided to head back home, belatedly realizing I still had Caroline Ford’s dog on a leash. A quick search on my phone told me there was no animal shelter on the island, only a couple of volunteer rescue groups. Phone calls to those organizations ended with a voicemail at one and the other suggesting I take the dog into the Humane Society on the mainland, as the woman who answered was heading out of town for the rest of the week. One look at Arrow’s wagging tail and lolling tongue confirmed that wasn’t an option, at least not right now. He’d just lost his owner and the last thing I wanted to do was stick him in some sterile cage in a room filled with anxious, barking dogs.

  “This is Arrow,” I said stiffly.

  My dad frowned at the animal curled up next to Trixie. The two of them had become fast friends. “So now you have two dogs?”

  “Michael, stop harping on the poor girl.” My mother reappeared from the kitchen, carrying a pitcher of iced tea and three plastic tumblers stacked inside each other.

  She sat down next to my dad and set the pitcher and glasses on the coffee table.

  He moved over and grunted. He reached between the couch cushions and held up a tennis ball.

  “That’s Trixie’s,” I said.

  “Well, I didn’t think you’d started playing,” he groused. He held the ball in his hand for a minute, watching Trixie, who was now staring expectantly at him. “You don’t throw this in the house, do you?” His gaze narrowed as he took in all of my grandmother’s belongings.

  “She doesn’t play catch, Dad. She doesn’t fetch. She just likes to chew on it.”

  The thought of the ball being in Trixie’s mou
th apparently repulsed him because he dropped it like a hot potato. Sure enough, my dog just watched as it bounced across the floor. Arrow was the one who got up to chase it, but even he did so half-heartedly. It hadn’t been much of a throw.

  My dad shifted his frown to me. “So,” he said, tenting his hands as he studied me. “What are your plans?”

  “My plans?”

  “Yes. Now that you’re divorced.” He said it as if it was a bad word. “And jobless. And homeless.”

  My mom swatted his knee. “Michael!” she scolded. “She is not homeless.”

  He raised an eyebrow but said nothing.

  Technically, he was right. I might be staying in my grandmother’s home, but it certainly didn’t belong to me. It was one of the older homes on Sweetwater Island, a charming 19th century house that had been lovingly cared for by my grandmother and by her parents before her. She’d died almost a year ago, leaving the house to my parents, but my mom hadn’t been able to bring herself to sell it. And my dad, never one to like change, couldn’t bring himself to move into it, which was what Mom had suggested, despite the fact that it was far nicer than the house he and Mom lived in and that I’d grown up in.

  So it had sat empty, with most of my grandmother’s belongings still inside, while my mother held off my dad’s repeated suggestions to put it on the market.

  Which turned out to be good luck for me. I might not have a job, and I definitely didn’t have a husband anymore, but at least I had a place to call home for the time being.

  My mother turned to me, her blue eyes filled with concern. “I just can’t believe what happened to you today, honey.” She poured a glass of iced tea and thrust it at me.

  I knew without tasting it that it would be the best glass of sweet tea I’d had in twelve years. My mother wasn’t particularly skilled in the kitchen, but she’d always known how to make a mean glass of sweet tea.

  “Me, either,” I said. I sipped the tea, letting the sweetness sit on my tongue for a moment before swallowing it down. It was just as good as I remembered.

  “That must have been so traumatizing,” she murmured. She reached out a hand and gently squeezed my knee. “To find poor Caroline like that.”

  Based on my mom’s expression, I was pretty sure she was the one who was traumatized.

  I quickly sought to comfort her. “It was fine,” I said.

  “Fine?” My mother wore a pained expression. “Honey, you might experience PTSD from this experience. I know I would.” She shuddered.

  “Remember, this was what I was going to do,” I said.

  My dad’s eyebrows shot up. “Murder people?”

  “What I went to school for,” I clarified. “To work in law enforcement.”

  My dad snorted. “And look where that got you.”

  I shot him a look. “Because of Greg.”

  He leaned forward and grabbed the pitcher, sloshing a generous amount of tea into one of the empty glasses. “Did he tell you that you couldn’t finish school?”

  A retort was on the tip of my tongue but I bit it back. My dad and I had had the same argument ad nauseum throughout the years, mostly via phone since I rarely came home. Even after explaining to him time and time again, he still asked the same questions and still jumped to the same conclusions.

  In my dad’s eyes, I was the one to blame for dropping out of school. For signing up at new schools over and over, only to drop out again. To him, I had no motivation, and a singular lack of focus.

  He conveniently forgot that Greg was the breadwinner of my little family, and that when his work took him to a new place—usually a new state—I followed, which meant leaving whatever world I’d carved out for myself behind. That world always involved saying goodbye to the home we lived in, the friends I made, and the schools where I had once again restarted my academic career. After enough of those moves in the early years of our marriage, I gave up. Decided it was just easier to ditch the idea of school and find a job I didn’t particularly care about.

  Because it would be easier to leave when the time came.

  And the time always came.

  I learned that early on.

  My dad stared at me in stony silence now, and the familiar feelings of shame and unworthiness reared their ugly heads.

  My mom cleared her throat, fixing me with a bright smile. “It looks like you’ve settled in nicely here.”

  I tried not to frown. I hadn’t done a single thing since moving in to Grandma’s, other than unpacking the two suitcases I’d brought and getting Trixie’s things situated. My belongings, which consisted mostly of clothes, toiletries, and a few books, were all upstairs, tucked away in the bedroom Grandma usually reserved for guests. I wasn’t ready to move into her bedroom just yet.

  But I didn’t argue with Mom. I knew she was trying to change the subject, to move on to easier topics. It was what she did, what she’d always done. She was the peacemaker in the family, which was a hard thing to do when my dad and I were constantly butting heads.

  She smiled at the dog curled up next to Trixie, and I noticed the deepening crows feet around her eyes. It was one of the only physical signs that told me she was indeed aging.

  “So what are you going to do with this little guy?” she asked.

  “Arrow?” I said. The dog immediately lifted his head and looked at me. I leaned down and stroked his ear. “I don’t know yet. I didn’t want to take him to the pound.”

  My dad grunted but an icy glare from Mom silenced him.

  “Do you think you’ll keep him?” she asked.

  “I don’t know.” I really hadn’t thought about what my next step with him was going to be. I’d been caught up in wondering why the police might want to talk to me again, but also in the moneymaking idea Asher Ellsworth had planted in my mind.

  “I think I might walk dogs,” I said, completely changing the subject. It came out sounding like an announcement, which I guess it sort of was.

  My mother’s brow furrowed. “Walk dogs?”

  I nodded. “I met a guy today. Asher. Asher Ellsworth.”

  Her eyebrows shot up, disappearing beneath a fringe of dark hair. “Asher Ellsworth?”

  “You know him?”

  “Everyone in town knows him,” she said. “He owns Sweetwater Suites, the rental condos down by the beach.”

  I let out a low whistle. “Seriously?”

  She nodded.

  I didn’t know much about the Sweetwater Suites except that I’d seen them when I drove around the island my first day back. It was a stunning complex, built right on the beach, with a walkway across the dunes that provided direct access to a nice stretch of sand and the ocean. I didn’t know whether to be horrified by such blatant commercialism of the island’s most precious resource or impressed that someone had thought our tiny town was deserving of such sleek, modern accommodations.

  “You’re going to walk someone’s dog?” my dad asked incredulously. He had drained his ice tea and slammed the empty tumbler onto the coffee table.

  I hadn’t made up my mind until that moment. “Yes.”

  His disapproval was written all over his face. “And how far is that going to take you?”

  Far enough to buy some groceries, I thought. And far enough to at least start earning a little bit of money off the bat, since I had no idea what kind of job prospects might be available on the island.

  “Mr. Ellsworth is quite well off,” my mom murmured. “And from what I understand, he positively dotes on that dog of his. I’m sure he’ll pay quite well…”

  “You can’t walk dogs for a living,” my dad gritted out. The veins in his forehead began to bulge and his cheeks flushed with color.

  I glared at him. “Who says I can’t?”

  I didn’t know if he was issuing a challenge, but that’s how I was taking it. Suddenly, I was determined to walk dogs. To make money walking dogs.

  Mostly because my dad had just said I couldn’t.

  And I never, ever did what my dad t
old me to do.

  My mom fingered the gold necklace she was wearing. “I could check with the office,” she said, her eyes darting from me to my dad. “They might be hiring.”

  My mother worked as a receptionist at a local chiropractor’s office.

  It was the last place I wanted to work.

  “It’s fine,” I told her, pasting a smile on my face. “I’m going to walk dogs.” I looked at my dad, narrowing my eyes. “And make a living doing it.”

  If looks could kill, I would be as dead as Caroline Ford.

  He got to his feet, smashing his knee into the coffee table as he did so. He cursed and grabbed his leg. His face was now turning purple; from anger or pain, I didn’t know. Probably a combination of both.

  “Are you alright, dear?” my mother asked.

  He growled in response.

  “Are…are we going somewhere?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he spat. “We’re leaving. Now.”

  “Michael…” she said uncertainly.

  “Glenda,” he countered. “Let’s go. Now.”

  My mom cast a glance at me, and I could tell she was torn.

  I gave a slight shake of my head, letting her know the fight wasn’t worth it.

  Not that she would have fought for me.

  She was the peacemaker.

  And I was the one who was always messing things up.

  I’d done it as a kid and I was doing it as an adult.

  At least I knew how to stay the course.

  FOUR

  I was going to need more dog food.

  Arrow ate just as much as Trixie, if not more, and the small bag I’d picked up at the local market would almost certainly be gone within days.

  I grabbed a banana from the bowl on the counter and sat down at the table. Memories flooded my mind, of sitting at the ancient, weathered wooden table as a young girl, sipping sweet tea and eating lemon icebox cookies with my grandma. Memories of playing cards—she played a mean game of Hearts—and listening to her read chapters from Little Women and Treasure Island, of watching as she rolled out and cut blueberry scones or kneaded and pulled bowls full of bread dough. I had no memories of my grandfather—he’d died when I was two—but my childhood was filled with time spent in this house, seated at this table.