Nina Wright - Whiskey Mattimoe 06 - Whiskey and Soda (12 page)

“Abra attacked Sandra,” Jeb said.

“Sandra provoked her.”

“How? She was lying by my feet.”

“Sandra was lounging in Abra’s driveway wearing a big hat and bling. Way too much bling, by the way, for her figure.”

“What?” Jeb was laughing, and that pissed me off.

“Abra’s a prideful beauty,” I barked. “And she’s drawn to shiny things. She’s also an alpha dog. She came home to find a tacky French bitch wearing cheap jewelry and acting like she owned the place. You’re lucky Abra didn’t kill her.”

“Sandra’s an alpha, too,” Jeb said. “She doesn’t care if Abra has the home field advantage and twenty more pounds.”

“She’d better care.”

“May the best bitch win.”

“My bitch lives here.”

“When she’s not on the lam.”

“Cheap shot,” I cried. “Your bitch is just visiting.”

Thunderous silence.

“Hello?” I said finally.

“Hello,” Jeb said.

“You do understand that Sandra can’t stay, don’t you?”

“No. Explain it to me.”

I tried. I really did. Yet Jeb managed to gently turn each of my objections into a reasonable alternative, reasonable, that is, to anyone who adored or collected dogs and wasn’t expecting her first baby.

“I don’t want a dog,” I explained. “Yet I have a dog. One dog. That’s the max. Besides, these two dogs hate each other, and I don’t do doggie drama.”

Well, I did, of course, but not on purpose.

“Let’s give them time to cool off,” Jeb said. “Then we’ll try it again, and we’ll do it differently.”

“Without Sandra?”

“That’s funny, Whiskey.”

I was serious, deadly serious, and ready to weep from frustration. Abra had crawled into the backseat and fallen asleep again. I had to give her credit for compartmentalizing her life.

Reminding Jeb that I had taken the afternoon off to spend with him, I asked what he proposed to do now.

“How about I stay here and make sure Sandra feels secure while you take Abra for a long, relaxing walk?”

It was my turn to apply the silent treatment.

“Whiskey? I know you’re there. I can hear you breathing, and I can see you through the front window.”

I could see him, too. He was holding the phone and Sandra Bullock. I forced myself to do the less immature thing. I waved instead of giving him the finger. Finally, he set Sandra down and walked out to talk to me in person. I continued to let my best self shine by cracking open the window so he wouldn’t have to shout through the glass.

Damn. After all these years, I still loved the sight of him leaning against my car, trying to coax me out of it. His casual, earnest, sexy way—the same approach he’d used in high school—still lit something inside me. Until he mentioned Sandra’s name again.

“Jeb, I’m having a baby! I can’t have another dog, too.”

“I hear you,” he replied. “But I need you to hear me. Sandra’s my first dog. I rescued her. I can’t give her away.”

When I didn’t respond, he said, “Peaceful coexistence is possible. Look at Iran and Iraq.”

“Bad example.”

“Okay. South Korea and North Korea.”

“Seriously?”

“Can we just try again?” Jeb said.

“Are you talking about us, personally, or Abra and Sandra?”

“We don’t have to try, Whiskey. We are solid. It’s the dogs that need work.”

I didn’t want to work with dogs or even hang out with them. I wanted to curl up with Jeb and make the bad parts of the world go away for a while. Jeb helped me sneak out of the car and into the house without waking Abra. We secured Sandra again in Abra’s bedroom.

I had to give the little gargoyle credit for going quietly although I detected a definite fart, a real stinker, ominous coming from a dog that small. I hoped Jeb had fed her the wrong food because that could mean flatulence was an accident and not a permanent condition.

Too late I realized that Abra would go wild when she whiffed the Frenchie’s odor in her boudoir. We would deal with that later, much later. Now Jeb was leading me to our boudoir, which fortunately didn’t smell like dogs or farts.

After we made love, ate, slept and made love again, I reluctantly broke the cycle, informing Jeb that I had to go back to work. First, though, we had to let Abra out of my car and figure out how to avoid another dogfight. Jeb and I strategized, dividing the chores. I would feed and walk Abra while he dispatched Sandra to the exercise pen. He would disinfect Abra’s room afterward.

Although I doubted that erasing the French bulldog’s scent was possible, I had a bigger worry, that Abra and Sandra would fly at each every time their eyes met. Oh, I still believed that Sandra would have to leave, later if not sooner. I didn’t need to talk about it, though. All that good sex had suffused me with optimism, or maybe just more denial.

Around my house, leashes vanished like potato chips, but I needed leashes more. The one I grabbed from a wall peg near the back door was basic black leather. Strictly functional, unlike the gold-lamé-and-faux-emerald number Jeb had bought for Sandra Bullock. Granted, Abra wore a rhinestone-studded collar, but that was a nod to Leo’s belief that every female needed at least one piece of nice jewelry.

I gave silent thanks that Abra had not gnawed my car’s upholstery during my absence. In fact, she was still dozing when I opened the door. Once on the leash and out of the vehicle, she gobbled the kibble that I offered. Not that Abra was usually a dainty eater, but she was used to being fed indoors. I could tell that she was suspicious; she eyed me sideways as she chewed.

Jeb had requested thirty minutes to vacuum the house and sanitize Abra’s room. Since that would include a change of linens, I was glad I had a back-up comforter for her bed. Sure, Abra preferred her plum-tone Calvin Klein Madeira duvet, but the alternate—her sky-blue IZOD Calypso comforter—bore no trace of Sandra’s DNA. I just hoped Jeb could rid the rest of the house of alien dog dander before I brought Abra inside.

Twenty minutes passed. The Affie and I were on our third vigorous pull around my property when my phone rang. The caller had a 469 area code and a melodious female voice.

“Ms. Mattimoe, this is Pauline Vreelander. We met this morning.”

“Yes, Mrs. Vreelander. How can I help you?”

“I’m calling because I’m going to need a Realtor. I want to sell our home here as soon as I possibly can.”

So help me, I stumbled, and it had very little to do with Abra’s pace. After months of trying to jump-start my business in a stalled real estate market, I suddenly had two requests for my professional services within a single day. Ironically, both were new contacts developed as a result of a tragedy that I had just happened to witness.

“Are you ready to list the property for sale?” I said.

“Almost. I’d like to show you the house and discuss my options first. I know this is short notice, Ms. Mattimoe, but could you possibly stop by today?”

It was already after three, which meant I was meeting Stevie McCoy in less than two hours. Before that, I not only needed to make myself presentable, I also needed to tame two wild dogs. Maybe Jeb would be willing to handle the hounds solo.

I told Pauline I’d try to rearrange a couple meetings already on today’s docket and call her back. Immediately I dialed Jeb. He answered, panting. I was panting, too.

“We shouldn’t be breathing this hard unless we’re doing something wickedly good to each other,” Jeb said.

“Abra’s dragging me in circles. What’s your excuse?”

“I’m running your vacuum cleaner at record speed up and down the stairs.”

Quickly I filled Jeb in on Pauline Vreelander’s call.

“Do what you need to do, Whiskey. Chester’s stopping by on his way home from school. You know he’ll want to help me with the hounds.”

Whatever Chester lacked in size and strength, he more than made up for in good will and animal magnetism. The kid could talk to most dogs and some cats. I couldn’t explain it, yet I had seen it. Even more amazing, Abra adored him. I wondered what that felt like.

Another call was coming through, this one from Jenx.

“You left the Bentwood School just in time,” she said. “The press conference wasn’t pretty.”

“Neither was the student assembly. You’re saying the press conference was worse?”

“Way worse. A couple PTO moms barged in. They asked more questions than the press, and they heckled me.”

“Why?”

“Guess they didn’t like my answers. Or maybe they don’t like lesbians.”

If that were true, then Camo-Mom hadn’t been in attendance.

“Who showed up?” I asked.

“Kimmi Kellum-Ramirez. So did Loralee Lowe.”

“Lowe’s a teacher. How could she leave her class?”

“She brought her class. The kids bawled all over again when I said the headmaster was dead. Geez. You’d think I killed him.”

“Maybe that is what they think.”

“Nah. They think whiskey killed him, and I don’t mean you. They’re still confused.”

“I still like Kimmi for the murder,” I said.

“Any of those PTO moms had time to scream at Vreelander and then head over to
Tir à l’Arc.
The killer fired from there, or near there. We’re waiting for the State Boys to complete a trajectory report.”

“How far can an arrow fly?”

“Depends on the archer and the arrow,” Jenx said. “And the bow.”

“And the bow?” I asked.

“Sure. How many pounds of pull the bow has. If we like a PTO mom for this, she’s gotta have skill and strength.”

I pictured Kimmi drawing back the bow. Her augmented anatomy would interfere, not to mention all that dangly gold jewelry.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said. “How far can an arrow fly?”

Jenx sniffed. “Up to forty yards.”

“How far was Vreelander from the range?”

“About thirty yards. This was a clean kill. The shooter struck the upper center of a man’s back as he moved away, probably traveling close to fifteen miles an hour. I’m no trajectory expert, but I’d say we’re looking at a champion archer. Male or female.”

I replayed the mental image of Vreelander coming toward me around the bend, raising his hands and falling down dead. For the first time I wondered what might have happened if I’d started sooner or traveled faster and encountered Vreelander earlier in his ride. If the would-be killer had seen me first, the headmaster might still be doing twenty miles a day. I said so to Jenx.

“Yup, and you might be dead. Don’t make yourself crazy with ‘what-ifs.’”

“But isn’t it true that most murders are crimes of opportunity?”

“Passion and opportunity,” Jenx said. “Somebody hates somebody else so much they figure out a way to whack ’em.”

“So there’s no way this was an accident? A shot on the range that went out of control?”

“Not this kill. Somebody who wanted Mark Vreelander dead was armed and ready when he rode by.”

“Maybe an employee at the range?”

“Anouk’s the only employee,” Jenx said. “But archery clubs have lots of skilled shooters. The killer could be somebody who competes in a league, or who joined the club just to keep their skills sharp.”

“Will you subpoena the club roster?” I said.

“The State Boys will, probably, if Anouk doesn’t hand it over. But the killer’s name might not be on it. He, or she, could have been a guest or a trespasser.”

I noticed that Jenx hadn’t mentioned a certain PTO mom who knew archery and the chief herself, Robin Wardrip, so I opened that door.

“Did Camo-Mom storm the press conference, too?”

“Who?”

“Robin Wardrip.”

I listened to the silence on the line. When it dragged on, I decided to make life easier for my old schoolmate. “Jenx, Anouk Gagné told me that Robin knows archery. I think she also knows you.”

“Used to know me. A long time ago. Way before Hen.”

The words were clipped and defensive.

“So, did Robin come back for the press conference?”

“Nope.”

“She could have killed Vreelander. She was part of the angry PTO mob on the Rail Trail, and she fits the profile.”

“We don’t have a profile,” Jenx huffed.

“You liked Robin for the crime before we saw her at the school. Something happened when you two made eye contact—”

“Nothing happened.”

“This morning you said she was a suspect. Now that you’ve seen her again, you’ve changed your mind.”

“Bullshit. My history with Robin doesn’t affect the way I do my job. Anyone who’d be better off with Vreelander dead is a suspect. It’s too early to have a profile.”

“Robin took a swing at Vreelander a half-hour before he died,” I reminded Jenx. “Plus, she had the skill to kill him, and the strength, too.”

“I’ll remember that,” the chief said.

I didn’t enjoy sparring with Jenx. Besides, all this talk about murder made me queasy, and I’d had enough of that just being pregnant. I switched subjects, mentioning my two new real estate prospects, both involved with the Bentwood School.

“Do me a favor, Whiskey, and take a real close look at Vreelander’s house.”

“What am I looking for?”

“Anything that helps you understand the headmaster,” Jenx said.

“You’re authorizing me to snoop?”

“Since when do you wait for my okay?”

She was right. Curiosity was my primary reason for becoming a Realtor. I followed the code of ethics, mostly, but I sure did love to snoop. It didn’t hurt that Jenx often appointed me temporary volunteer deputy. I even had a badge. On close inspection though, it looked like a booby prize.

“You think something’s not right with Pauline Vreelander?” I asked.

“I didn’t say that. She never lived in that house. I understand she has a condo in Dallas. Find out if they ever shared an address. See if Vreelander has a PC. Look around.”

“What about his office at the school? Who’s searching that?”

“The State Boys,” Jenx snorted. “I sneaked in for a minute this morning. Vreelander kept a clean desk. No stray papers. All his pencils were sharpened and lined up straight. Only personal artifacts were a couple framed photos of him and his wife. Everything else looked professional. I didn’t have time to check his computer. If Brady could get his hands on that hard drive—”