Witch One Dunnit? (Rachael Penzra mystery) (28 page)

       My snoopy niece joined me downstairs in what was becoming a regular routine meeting.  “Boy, is
she
asking for trouble,” she shook her head, doleful.  “I wonder if that poor guy realizes how many women he has panting after him.  Poor innocent baby.  It’s a miracle he’s stayed single so long. Ha!”

       “You mean you think he might have noticed the effects of his own good looks and natural charm?” I asked, repressing the urge to chew her out for eavesdropping yet again.

       “The possibility has occurred to me,” she admitted dryly.  “I like the guy, but listening to Karyn sing his praises really turns my stomach.  It makes me think less of him.  I guess that’s not really fair, but I always seem to react that way when someone tells me how wonderful someone else is.  I wonder what would have happened if Shelly had made some time with him.  Karyn could murder her and stick her in the shop.  Then she’d get rid of her competition—and hopefully persuade you to sell out to Robert.”

       I agreed with her about listening to praise.  “It’s kind of like having somebody recommend a book too enthusiastically.  Then you can’t seem to get into it, or even like it.  Must be our basic contrary natures.  I can’t imagine Shelly being attractive to Robert, but who knows. Some men would be intrigued by her off-the-wall looks. Still, you’re way off the wall with your convoluted thinking about murder and the store.  Obviously, the murder didn’t get me to even think about selling.”

   “I didn’t say that was the main motive.  I just suggested it would be to her benefit if she could kill (forgive the pun) two birds at once.”

   “Well, I guess your theory’s as good as any, but let’s forget about it for a while and get ourselves something to eat.  Then we can walk George-the-galloping-garbage-can.  I really have to get in gear and start trying to find someone to take him before he gets too attached to us.”

       “Sure.”  She gave me a disgusted look.  “Like he hasn’t already.  Face it, Aunt Rachael, you’ve got yourself a dog.”

       I certainly didn’t agree with her.  I still believed I’d find time to locate a good home in the country for him, one with young children who would play with him and drop lots of table scraps for him.  That’s what he needed.  I had placed an ad in the local paper under the “lost and found” section, and kept my ears open for anyone mentioning having lost a dog that matched his description.  I hadn’t heard a single person mention having lost a huge, really ugly dog.  I was pretty much convinced my first guess was right.  Somebody had dumped him.

       Poor George.

       He needed a visit to the vet, too.  There were shots to be had and de-worming to be done and licenses to buy ... no wonder nobody was claiming him.  Add his bulimic eating-disorder (except he never bothered with the purging part) and he was an expensive pet when you considered that he was a mongrel.  Of course, while I was stuck baby-sitting him until we found him the right home, I might as well use him as a prod to get me outside and walking.

       We headed for the opposite end of town, towards the snowmobile, walking, biking, etc. trail.  I thought it was a good strategy to keep the route of our walk varied.  I was already starting to feel in better physical shape.  In reality, I was still as flabby as ever, but mentally I could almost feel the fat melting and the muscles hardening.

       It didn’t hurt my confidence to have Patsy home so regularly in the evenings.  Ridiculous as the feeling is, I never have nervousness when someone else is in the house with me, someone who’s
supposed
to be there.  I’m rarely nervous at any time, but I’ve had occasional moments when something has upset my safety equilibrium in my own home.  Since I’m a firm believer in trusting one’s instinct, I never try and laugh the sensation away.  There are many dangers that never come to fruition.  The man following you sees you make a dash for the bright lights a block off and of course nothing happens.  If you hadn’t made the sudden decision to race for the lights, who knows?
Maybe
nothing.  Ask any cop, or anyone who lives or works under dangerous conditions.  Over and over you hear the same warning, to trust your instinct.  Again and again you’ll hear the lament, “I knew there was something wrong, but I couldn’t see anything out of whack so I went ahead ...”

       That’s right.  I talk big, but I have a cautious side.  I hadn’t forgotten Elena’s warning to watch my rear end.

       There was also Patsy to consider.  My sister was less than thrilled to see the story of a murder in Balsam Grove on the news.  When she discovered the murder had happened in my house, she’d howled for Pasty to get home.  Patsy refused.  Her mother whined.  Patsy said no.  Her mother demanded ... 

   The final outcome was that Patsy stayed with me, and my sister sulked and called twice a day.  I tried to stay out of it.  I wanted my niece to stay, more for personal reasons than because I needed her help in the store, although I certainly did need that.  I’d become extremely fond of her and enjoyed her company.  On the other hand, if she’d been
my
child ... Then I thought of Michael.  Physical force might have kept Michael from doing what he decided he had to do, but nothing else would work.

       It was a dilemma.

       The walk, however, was utter perfection.  There was a brisk evening breeze, the air was fresh ... Then George found himself a little snack.  The little snack happened to be dead.  And old.  Very old.  By the time Patsy and I caught onto what he was doing, it was too late.  His breath, which isn’t exactly sweet at the best of times, was enough to gag a skunk.  I was glad he slept outside.  The last thing I needed was to have him vomit in the house, and surely even
George’s
stomach would rebel against being invaded by such a smelly mass of rotting flesh.

       We returned to the house safely.  I fed the dog yet again, hoping to hurry whatever rotten thing he’d eaten through his system.  He gulped the dog food down with the same degree of pleasure he’d eaten the dead thing.

       “Just be thankful he didn’t roll in it,” Patsy, animal-expert-extraordinaire, told me.  “They love to roll in dead, smelly things, especially fish.  I wouldn’t look forward to having to give him a bath.”  I must have looked horrified enough to remind her that George’s future as my permanent pet was still uncertain, for she quickly added, “Not that you couldn’t just hose him down outside.”

       We both looked at the animal.  He looked back at us.  He seemed docile enough at the moment.  Holding him while I soaked him with cold water and then shampooed the rotten stench from his body (not to mention continuing to hang onto him for rinsing) seemed like an incitement to rebellion.  Still, look at that face, those big, brown eyes ... I really needed to find him a good home.  I could just feel the lovely sense of freedom I’d felt when I’d realized I’d inherited financial freedom (at the same time I was turning the last of my offspring into the world) dissipating.  Travel?  Not with him.

       Animals are supposed to be psychic.  George could put the lie to that theory.  He hadn’t a clue about what was going on in my mind.  He wagged his tail at us, flopped onto the floor, and fell immediately into the stupor he called sleep.

       He seemed all right when I woke him later to put him outside.  One of the nicer things about his good nature was his delight concerning everything in his life.  If you put him outside, he was glad to go there.  If you let him inside, he was equally pleased.  He seemed to be completely without discernment.  In that way alone, he ranked way above my children.  They often seemed to work on the opposite end of the scale.  For a few years with each one of them, nothing I did had pleased them.

       My children, though, had grown and fled the nest.  It didn’t look like George was going anywhere anytime soon.

       When I went up to bed that night, it was pretty well decided that George was officially a family member.  I might complain about some of my family, but blood is thicker than water.  Perhaps not the blood part, exactly, but the concept of family.  You don’t choose them.  You’re stuck with them.  That’s what family is, good, bad, and indifferent.  I know that adopted children often feel the need to locate their birth parents, to find their roots.  With luck, they find a whole new family to add as an appendage to their non-birth family.  But like it or not, they are part of the family they were raised in.  The rest, hopefully, becomes a bonus.  Because, much thicker than blood is what we call “bonding.”  After all, we’re all just a part of humanity.  If we can bond to animals, and they to us, how much stronger is the bonding of like to like.

       My cousin Norma’s kids are adopted.  I can accept that they’re “black” by legal description, and Norma is  “white.”  That’s linguistic.  First and foremost, they’re Norma’s kids.   My own children were well into elementary school before it occurred to them that it was possible Norma and her husband might not have given birth to their children.  I remember thinking that it’s a shame society can’t maintain the same beautiful outlook on life.  Family is family.  Period.

       What this tirade is leading up to is, having let down my defenses, it was devastating to open the door the next morning, expecting a slobbering dog to gallop in, full of good-will and enthusiasm, and find no one there.  No dog.  Off on a potty break?  I called and gave my sad imitation of a whistle.  No response.  I stepped outside.  If anyone had attacked me then, I thought later, I would have been caught totally off-guard.  No one did.  My unknown enemy was taking one cautious step at a time.  This step was killing my dog.

       It
should
have killed him.  We found that out much later, long hours after I’d screamed for Patsy when I found the still form of my (yes,
my)
dog.  We frantically, tearfully, shoved his hundred-and-forty pound body into the back seat of my car.  It’s a wonder our jerking him around, cramming him where he didn’t fit, didn’t finish off the job the poisoner had started.  We weren’t worried about doing more damage at the moment, though.  Patsy, I know, thought he was dead.  I was positive he wasn’t.  I sensed his life-force, weak but persistent.  Or else I suffered from wishful thinking.  In the end it didn’t matter.  He was alive, albeit barely.

       The poor local vet is known to be a sucker.  She’s young, and still maintains the pitiful belief that what she’s doing makes a difference against the tide.  Because of her dedication, she was in the back of her clinic when we arrived, having gone in early to check on the progress of an injured raccoon whose prognosis was poor.  She’d tried to hide her truck behind the clinic to avoid early birds without appointments.  Silly woman.  She had no chance against the onslaught of yelling and pounding on the clinic doors.  We’d been so busy stuffing poor George into the car we hadn’t thought to worry about finding a vet at work before eight in the morning, and I didn’t know where an emergency clinic was located.

       Dr. Carly (we learned her name later) responded to our frantic demands, helping us drag the hapless dog from the car to the clinic.  Much to Patsy’s disgust, the first thing she did was muzzle George. 

       “George wouldn’t hurt a fly!  He won’t bite you!” she howled indignantly.

       “Patsy, he’s sick.  If he comes to now, he might bite.  Not because he’s mean, but because he’s scared.  Let the poor woman do her job!” I scolded between huffs and puffs of exertion.  As soon as he got better, old George was going on a diet.

    She told us later that her efforts to save him were routine, but not optimistic.  The poor guy was on the verge of death.

       The situation erased any thoughts of not wanting to keep George.  Oh, I’d already known I was going to end up keeping him, but I didn’t like to think of myself as being so weak-minded.  Now, my beloved George was hovering on the brink of death, and I don’t think I could have been more upset if I’d had the dog for ten years.

       I kept insisting he was sick from the stinking carcass he’d eaten on our walk.  Patsy kept crying and telling how he’d eaten a full meal not half an hour later without seeming sick.  Pieced together with a blood specimen later, we found out the rotten meat he’d eaten earlier on our walk, along with the extra food, had probably saved his life.  The first had caused premature vomiting (premature from the poisoner’s point of view) and the second had helped absorb some of the poison before it hit the system.  In other words, the food had held enough of the poison just long enough before it was ejected to keep him from ingesting enough to kill him. It was a freakish combination.  Whoever had poisoned him had taken his size well into consideration.  There had probably been enough poison to begin with to kill a small horse.

       It had been the piggy side of his nature that had saved him.  A lesson to us all.