Muffin murder, p.10
Muffin Murder, page 10
“Any news?” I asked the black lab.
He whuffed. “Ron still hasn’t figured out who took his keys, and Bex and Jacki came in before we closed the store. They were fighting about something.”
Well. That was news. “Was it about the note?”
The skin above Fred’s dark eyes raised in surprise.
“You know about the note?”
“Yes!” Klaus barked, keeping his voice soft. He was getting better at that, since I told him I’d boot him off the investigating team if he kept dropping clues everywhere at full voice.
“Jacki came into the shop earlier,” I said.
“Oh. Yes. It seems Bex hadn’t told Jacki about getting the note. It had been in her apron the night before, and she shoved it in her new apron when Jacki got them out. At least, that’s what it sounded like. They were both pretty upset, which got Josephine Baker all riled up. It took Ron half an hour and playing that Baby Shark song to calm her down.”
“Baby Shark?” Klaus asked. “She likes Baby Shark?”
Fred looked pained. “Yes. And it is a terrible, terrible thing. Ron can’t even figure out how she heard of it. It’s not like he stocks that album in the store.”
No. Baby Shark was not the sort of music Bones, Dogs, and Harmony would carry.
But we were getting off topic.
“Fred?” I asked.
“Hmm?”
“Do you think Josephine Baker would know who stole Ron’s keys?”
“Oh. She knows, all right. But getting Ron to listen to that? It isn’t happening.”
I felt Klaus tremble with excitement.
“Who, Fred? Who does Josephine Baker suspect?” I asked.
The older dog looked me in the eyes. “She does not suspect. She knows.”
“Who?” Klaus squeaked out.
“A mysterious woman took the keys.”
“Who?” I barked. I swear. Parrots.
“Marsha P.!” John’s head peered under the table. “What have I told you! Shh!”
“Who?” I woofed more softly. Seriously, I had turned into Klaus, barking at full voice like that, when the men were having dinner. But Fred had startled me.
And speaking of dinner… we’d had not one piece of salmon skin as a treat. It was almost as if they’d forgotten us. Which meant their conversation was as serious as ours.
“Josephine Baker said it was a mysterious woman?” I prompted again. Maybe there was more to this story.
“Oh, yes,” Fred said. “That dang bird caught the woman red handed. Bold as brass, she said. Slipped the keys right out of Ron’s office when they were talking about something. Josephine was on her office perch and saw her.”
Well, that was confusing.
“But who could it be?” Klaus asked.
Fred shrugged. “I don’t know. But I think it was Bex. Bex was talking to Ron recently, and who else would Ron let in the office but Bex or Jacki?”
“But I like Bex!” Klaus complained.
“I do, too, Klaus. I do, too. We all do,” I said.
But that didn’t mean she wasn’t up to something. And now we had two things we had to get the humans to pay attention to. The poison probably used on Patch, and Bex being a key thief. Maybe.
I thought detecting would be fun, exciting, and glamorous. I never expected it to be so hard. Right as I had that thought, I heard the rumble of an old car engine and shot to my feet.
This part of Pride Street didn’t allow cars, but one block away, turning a corner, I saw a flash of red.
“Come on, guys!”
I shot out from beneath the table, leash dragging behind me, Klaus barking at my heels. We almost crashed into Daniel. The owner of How We Roll teetered on his fancy leather shoes.
“Hey! You dogs!”
But I didn’t stop to hear what else he said. We had to catch that car.
CHAPTER 25
Garrett
I was so out of shape. Running as fast as I could, malachite egg bouncing in my front pants pocket, my leather brogues pounded the sidewalk, jarring up my spine.
Yeah. I clearly have no running form. Why would I? As an asthmatic kid, running and I never got along very well.
John passed me easily, his long legs loping after the little white butts and swishing tails. The dog’s leashes bounced on the sidewalk behind them, and people scurried to get out of their way.
Did I mention corgis are fast? Like, really fast?
I just hoped they didn’t trip anybody. The last thing I needed was someone else’s injury to deal with.
“Marsha! Klaus!” I yelled after their retreating butts and saw them turn a corner. What in the world were they both after?
We’d left Ron and Fred at the restaurant, so hopefully Daniel wouldn’t think we were skipping out on the check.
My breath wheezed in my chest. At least I didn’t have breasts to bounce painfully around anymore. That was one comfort. My top surgery made running a little bit easier, at least. But not easy enough.
Maybe I needed to start joining John on his jogs. Dog walking wasn’t enough exercise. Not when it turned into dog chasing.
By the time I turned the corner, John had both leashes in hand. I slowed down, panting and wheezing. Was my asthma flaring? I hadn’t had much trouble with it since I moved here, but some people say it never fully goes away.
“What were they chasing?” I asked once I finally reached my husband. Other than a slight sheen of sweat on his beautiful skin, he hardly looked as if he’d just given chase to two wild dogs.
“That,” he said, pointing to the end of the block.
I’d been so focused on the dogs, I had completely missed the fact that a classic red Mustang sat, abandoned, blocking half the street. It had crashed into a silver Prius, whose owner was gesticulating, hands in the air, as a small group of people clustered around them on the sidewalk beneath a cherry tree.
“You’re kidding me,” I muttered, and started toward the car.
John handed me Marsha’s leash. The dogs seemed docile enough now that we were headed where they wanted us to go.
“I guess we should text Ron,” I said.
“On it,” John replied, sliding his phone from his pocket. He’s a better one-handed texter than I am, so I was grateful. I didn’t want to have to stop to tell our friend what was going on.
John slowed a bit, which isn’t saying much, considering how much longer his legs are than mine, and Marsha and I paced him and Klaus.
When we reached the small cluster of people, I saw that one of them was Belinda, wearing a flowing purple top over black leggings and purple sparkle sneakers. She looked shaken.
We hurried her way.
“What happened?” I asked.
She turned to me, face ghost white against her purple hair.
“I’m not sure. I just needed a walk after working all day and talking to John there.”
John pocketed his phone. “Hi, Belinda. You okay?”
She nodded. “I am. Or I will be. It was just so shocking! I was crossing the street, and that red car raced toward me, almost knocking me down, then it swerved last minute and crashed into that poor woman’s car.”
Despite the warm day, my blood ran cold. “They tried to hit you?”
Her eyes were wide with shock. “I guess so. But then… why would they swerve away like that? If they hadn’t, I would be in the hospital right now!”
Or dead. I looked at John and could tell he was thinking the same thing.
“And the driver just ran?” John said.
Belinda nodded again. “Driver and passenger both, though the passenger had to crawl out the driver’s side, for obvious reasons.”
She gestured toward the car. The right corner of its front end had slammed the silver Prius, crumpling the smaller, less sturdy car. But that left very little room for a passenger to exit. Unless they were a small, thin child.
“What did they look like?” I asked. I had my suspicions about who the passenger was, at least. But it would be good to get some information on the driver.
Belinda shook her head. “Nothing notable. The driver was taller. Both of them in baggy jeans. Backward baseball caps. I didn’t see their faces.”
Patch’s brother and someone else, it sounded like. What the heck was going on? I didn’t have one clear suspect in this case, and every piece of new information I gathered only made me more confused.
We had stolen keys. An assaulted parrot. Threatening notes. Tarot cards. Smashed windows. Sunflowers. Attempted vehicular homicide.
And one dead young man named Patch.
The only truly tall person in the situation was Cesar, but why would he smash the window of a place he was invested in?
And what about Bex? Was she stealing keys and planting notes in her own pockets? That made even less sense.
Something was off about Maddy, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
The smashed glass and threats pointed to Patch’s brother and his friend or friends, but he seemed genuinely upset when I told him Patch had died.
“Babe?” John’s voice broke my reverie. He and Belinda were both staring at me, eyes concerned. Cops had shown up to look at the scene and question people. I hadn’t even noticed them pull up.
Looking at the chaos in our usually quiet, friendly little neighborhood, my mind swirled with possibilities.
What were we missing?
“Sorry,” I said. “Woolgathering. We need an all-hands-on-deck meeting tonight. Belinda, could you come? And bring Cesar?”
“Sure. I guess. I can ask him. Where?”
“Don’t know yet. Give me your number and I’ll text you a place and time.”
We exchanged information, then Belinda went off to talk to the police. John and I took the dogs the other direction, which Marsha was decidedly unhappy about. She wanted to investigate the crash.
I didn’t want her or Klaus anywhere near the smashed metal and glass. Besides, with the police here, what were we going to do? Crawl all over the car in full view?
But maybe there was something…
“John!”
My husband stopped on the sidewalk just ahead and turned.
“What?”
“Change of plans.” I looked up and down the block. “The street is clear for now. Let’s take the dogs and walk around the car.”
“What?” John hissed. “You think the cops are just going to let you investigate that car in front of them?”
I drew myself up. “Of course not! But they are going to let us use the street to avoid the crowded sidewalk as we walk our cute little dogs.”
He sighed.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”
We tried to act casual, but Klaus and Marsha decided this was a wonderful turn of events and began to prance and yip, drawing more attention to us than I wanted.
My only hope was that people would be so intent on looking at the corgis that they didn’t notice when I peered into the windows of the car.
There were fast food wrappers, an abandoned sweatshirt, and enough cans and bottles to keep the street recyclers in coin.
“See anything?” John asked out of the side of his mouth.
My eyes gave the car one last sweep.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Then let’s get out of here.”
John increased his pace, tugging at Klaus who was sniffing around the tires with Marsha. They seemed interested in the red car, but I couldn’t tell if that meant anything, considering that they’d chased it down as if it were a wild animal and they were mighty hunters.
“Okay, Marsha, let’s go.”
And then I saw it, hanging from the rear-view mirror. A charm.
The same sort of protective charm I’d seen in Curios and Candles.
CHAPTER 26
Marsha
We were back at Ron and Fred’s shop, gathered around the front counter.
Klaus was still sorely disappointed that he hadn’t brought down the car himself. Me? I was kind of relieved. Much as I liked giving chase, when I actually got close to the car racing down the street? The thought of biting it didn’t seem so appealing.
Instead, I just had a vision of being dragged down the black tarmac, paws scraping and bouncing along.
Ouch.
Some things in this world are too powerful for a corgi, no matter how fierce we are. That list includes red classic cars.
“Did you notice anything?” Fred asked.
“Not a thing,” I woofed back. And that was a grave disappointment.
“John caught us before we could bite the car!” Klaus complained.
“And when we walked past it, I didn’t really notice anything off. Well, except that the car crashed into another car, and no one was in it.”
“A ghost car?” Fred asked.
I barked a laugh. “No, silly. The humans did a runner.”
We were used to dogs—and sometimes even cats—doing a runner, but humans? I think that behavior is rare. So, what did that mean about the people in the red car?
Then I remembered the Most Important Thing.
“We didn’t get to tell you at the restaurant!” I barked. “We think we found what killed Patch!”
“Oh! Yeah!” Klaus yipped.
“Killed Patch!” Josephine Baker screamed from her perch. “Bex! Bad woman is a thief!”
“Josephine!” Ron scolded. “Not so loud! And don’t go accusing people of being thieves. Or killing people.”
“What is she saying?” Garrett asked. “Josephine thinks Bex killed someone?”
I looked up at Ron. The big man shook his head, causing the long coiled locs to shake like one of those shimmering curtains some people hang in their doorways.
I used to love those curtains, until I got tangled in the beads one day. Never again. John had to cut me out, and beads bounced everywhere. Garrett laughed at me.
It was humiliating.
“What killed Patch?” Fred prompted.
“At first we thought it was something from the bakery, because we smelled almonds. But now we think it was this plant behind the muffin store. A woman who lives there says the thing is deadly.”
“But it smells nice!” Klaus said.
“It does,” I agreed, “and that’s what makes it dangerous.”
It also meant we couldn’t just grab a piece of the plant in our mouths and show it to the humans. How to get them to understand?
Maybe we could enlist Adam. The ghost was good at helping us communicate things to Garrett and John when we needed to. But since he didn’t leave the house, I was still stumped.
“Fred?” I asked. “Can you take a walk with Ron and show him the bush somehow? Paw at it and whine, or something?”
We’d already been in that alleyway earlier in the day, and I couldn’t figure out a way to get Garrett or John back there again.
“Has anyone gotten ahold of Trixie yet?” John was asking.
“She’s gone missing,” Ron said. “Her boss said she called in sick or something.”
Garrett sighed. “I guess I’ll add her to my nonexistent list of suspects.”
“But you do have suspects!” I barked.
“Who?” Klaus woofed back.
“The man who threatened us. Trixie…” But who else? “And none of us really know Belinda, Cesar, or Maddy.”
Fred nodded sagely, as Klaus wrinkled up his forehead, the way he did when he felt confused.
“But Belinda almost got run down by the red car. Why would that happen if she killed someone? And she wouldn’t smash her own shop window…”
“But one of the people in the red car was probably Patch’s brother. And if she killed Patch, his brother might be mad.”
“But why would she do that?” Klaus whined.
“Killed Patch! Bad woman is a thief!” Josephine Baker squawked again. “Ask Bex!”
“Do you have to yell so loud?” I asked. Josephine Baker really needed to learn the meaning of inside voice. The dang parrot was pretty, but she hurt my ears.
Fred woofed. We both looked at the wise old lab.
“I think we’re looking at this all the wrong way around.”
“What do you mean?” Klaus asked.
“What if the smashed windows, stolen keys, and Patch’s murder aren’t connected? What if more than one person is at fault?”
I slumped to the ground and groaned. “Great. Just great. We were having enough trouble figuring out one crime, let alone two or three.”
We dogs were silent for a moment, listening to the humans talk.
It seemed like they weren’t having any luck, either.
“So, where are we having this all-hands-on-deck meeting, anyway?” Ron asked.
“I texted Jacki,” Garrett replied. “She said we could do it in the cafe, since they’d be closed anyway.”
Ron groaned. “Guess that means I need to ask Bex why Josephine Baker keeps screaming she’s a thief.”
“Thief! Thief!” Josephine shrieked.
Double ouch. I covered my ears with my paws.
But then I realized what Garrett had just said.
“Klaus! Fred! If the meeting is a Bruiser’s, we can walk down the alley behind Mystical Muffins!”
“How will we convince them to do that?” Klaus asked. “They like the sidewalk better than that stinky old alley.”
I bumped his nose with mine, then sat back.
“Here’s the plan….”
CHAPTER 27
Garrett
“Great,” I gasped. “This is just great. I’m fine. Really, I am.”
“Who are you talking to, babe?” John asked.
I was slumped against a fence in the alley behind Mystical Muffins, trying to catch my breath while not inhaling too deeply.
“Myself. You know, a pep talk. Mind over matter? Uh, self-affirmations?”
He laughed, then glanced over my shoulder.
“Hey Ron. I see Fred is better behaved than these two.”
I looked up to see Ron grin. “He’s just old, isn’t that right, Fred?”
