Six

I stopped so fast that John ran into me from behind.

“Oof. Sorry! Is Trixie okay?” he asked, moving to my side.

“She’s fine, but I don’t think he is.”

I heard John’s sharp intake of breath.

Trixie quit barking and nosed around the man on the ground.

He wore a short-sleeved pale blue golf shirt with pressed trousers and city-slicker leather shoes. The short sleeves revealed pale, flaccid arms. This fellow did not work out.

Without a word, John and I fell to our knees and turned him over. All four dogs sniffed him.

“Hey, buddy! Are you okay? Can you hear me?” asked John.

I started to reach for the guy’s neck to see if I could get a pulse when John moved his lantern closer to the man’s head.

I sucked in a noisy breath of air when I recognized the closely cropped beard and curly hair of the impertinent man who had spoken to Oma and me on the plaza. But there was something different about him. I peered closer.

“Look at that bruise on his face. Somebody slugged him!” John blurted.

There was no doubt about it. He was the man who had ridiculed people who love dogs and cats. His left cheek bore a whopper of a blue and red bruise.

“Do you know him?” asked John.

“Not really. Oma and I were talking to him earlier today.”

“Do you think he’s dead or unconscious? What’s his name?” John pulled out his cell phone and punched in numbers. “I’m calling nine-one-one.”

“I have no idea.”

I moved the collar of his shirt aside, trying to find a pulse.

“Look at his throat!” John rasped. His hand trembled and the lantern cast a wavering light.

A red welt encircled the man’s neck. Shivers shuttled down my arms, and I whispered the obvious. “Looks like he’s been strangled.”

The light caught on something in the grass. I moved my lantern over to see it better. The man’s rimless glasses lay there broken, like they’d been stepped on.

“Why can’t I get a signal?”

I handed him my phone. “It’s the mountains. We might be in a dead zone.”

He took my phone and tried it. “I hope that wasn’t meant as a pun.”

I wasn’t paying attention because I was desperately trying to find a pulse on his neck and wrist. “Do you think we should do CPR?”

“Still no signal. I hope the Alley Cat has a landline. I’ll start CPR if you call nine-one-one from the bar,” John offered.

“Deal.” I took Huey and a lantern and jogged toward the bar. It was farther than I had thought. Even though I could see the lights of the Alley Cat, I stopped to catch my breath and try my cell phone one more time. Still no reception. I resumed my lurching run with Huey.

The warm glow from the arched windows of the Alley Cat was welcoming. Gasping for breath, I burst through the huge double doors. The place was packed. People sang rowdy drinking songs at the bar. A crowd of people, dogs, and cats engulfed us.

Huey and I struggled through them to the bar. “Do you have a landline I can use to call nine-one-one?”

The bartender eyed me. “Nine-one-one? You got a problem?”

“There’s a guy outside near the river. It doesn’t look good.”

“He’s probably just drunk. I’ll get Sam, the owner.”

I jumped up and reached across the bar, grabbing his sleeve.

“Hey! What’s wrong with you?” The bartender smacked my hand.

“He’s not drunk. Listen to me carefully. He might be dead.” I let go of him and nearly fell as I scrambled to find my footing on the floor.

He stared at me for a moment. “Yeah, right. I suppose you just stumbled across him?”

“My dog found him.”

“That dog?”

“No. My Jack Russell. Why are you questioning me? This is an emergency.”

The bartender’s eyes narrowed. “What’s your dog’s name?”

“Trixie. What does that have to do with anything?”

He brought me a telephone. “You’re Holly Miller?”

I dialed 911. “Yes.”

“Why didn’t you just say so? Everybody knows about Trixie.”

Oh, swell.

The dispatcher answered. I gave her a detailed explanation of where the man was and his condition as far as I could ascertain. Then I hustled outside to wait on the footpath.

Sadly, thanks to Trixie’s nose for trouble, I knew how it worked. The phone call went to a dispatcher over on Snowball Mountain, who would radio or call Wagtail’s own resident cop, Dave Quinlan—affectionately known as Officer Dave— who was undoubtedly maintaining order in Wagtail at the moment.

Dave had been a sailor in the navy. He was sharp and diligent, and living in Wagtail gave him a leg up on investigations because he knew most of the full-time residents. I heard his feet pounding along the path before I saw the beam of his flashlight jerking up and down as he ran.

I showed him the footpath that turned off toward the river, and he raced ahead of me. By the time I caught up, totally winded, Dave was radioing for an ambulance.

“Holly, would you call Trixie and Gingersnap?” he asked.

I whistled to them and stepped back a bit so we wouldn’t be in the way.

Dave swapped places with John and continued CPR. His radio squawked.

As usual, I didn’t understand a word.

But Dave looked up at me and said, “Can you go to the river and flag them down? They’re sending the team that was stationed at the lake.”

John went with me, which I thought very courteous of him. The river was only yards away.

“Is this some kind of lover’s meeting place?” John asked, looking around.

Under the light of the moon, I had to admit that it was romantic. The calm river reflected the moonlight. An owl hooted nearby. I could make out the bright orange clusters of blooming butterfly weed, and the purple blossoms of horse nettle. A large rock, no doubt worn flat over thousands of years, offered a perfect picnic spot for two.

The rescue squad arrived in no time. We led the way to Dave and the man.

Dave appeared relieved to hand over the job of CPR to them. He was breathing heavily when he asked if I knew the guy.

One of the rescue team members handed Dave a sheet of paper. “I can’t find a wallet, but this was tucked in his pocket.”

Dave unfolded it with me looking on.

“Oh no,” he groaned. “He’s a friend of your grandmother’s. Do you recognize him?”

“No way. He’s not a friend of Oma’s.” I lowered my voice. “He was quite obnoxious to the two of us earlier today.”

“So you do know him?”

“No. We had an impromptu conversation on the plaza. He was a stranger. I would be surprised if Oma knew him because she was outraged by what he said to us. If she knew him, I think she would have let him have it.”

Dave’s eyebrows took a quick dive.

Why had I said that? I certainly didn’t want him thinking Oma would have hurt the man. “Verbally, of course. It wasn’t a big deal. I didn’t mean to imply that. He was just a pill.”

Dave held out the letter so I could see it. I raised my lantern. It was written by Oma, all right, to one Gustav Vogel! “I can’t believe this. He had a reservation at the inn, but he didn’t show up. We were waiting for him, but he never checked in.”

Dave groaned. “You’re not making sense. You were expecting him, and you talked to him. So you did know him.”

“No, we didn’t. I’m sure Oma didn’t know who he was. We were expecting a Gustav Vogel because he had a reservation, but we didn’t know this guy was Gustav Vogel.”

I looked at the letter more closely. It was personal, not businesslike. “Aha! Oma didn’t know him after all. And this proves it.” I pointed at the letter. “It says, ‘I look forward to meeting you.’”

“She knew him well enough to invite him to stay at the inn,” Dave pointed out.

“But not well enough to know him when she saw him today,” I insisted.

“Hey, Dave.” One of the rescue squad members approached us. “I’ve called for the medical examiner.”

“Does that mean he’s dead?” John asked.

“Only the medical examiner can determine that,” said Dave.

That might have been the appropriate official response, but I knew better. “John, they call the medical examiner to declare someone dead. If he were alive, they would be loading him up to take him to the hospital.”

“Did you two see anyone out here?” asked Dave.

John shook his head. “Trixie found the guy. We didn’t run into anyone. It was silent and peaceful. We didn’t even pass anyone on our way into the Shire.”

Dave pulled John aside. I could hear him asking John’s name, address, and what had brought him to Wagtail.

When he finished, Dave said, “Holly, you and John get the dogs out of here. I’ll be in touch.”

Gingersnap came immediately when called, but Trixie seemed reluctant to leave. Only the sound of the other dogs munching on treats tore her away.

“Still want that drink?” John asked. “Or would you rather call it a night?”

“If you don’t mind, I think I had better break the news to Oma. Dave will probably be paying her a visit as soon as he’s done here.”

“Of course. I understand entirely.”

We headed back somberly.

“Are you all right?” I asked John.

“I’m okay. A little shaken. I’ve never discovered a dead person before. Even when you don’t know the person, it’s pretty unnerving. That guy probably came here hoping to find a relationship and never dreamed this would be his last day. He was probably planning for his future.” John gazed at me in alarm. “Do you think his dog is lost? What if there’s a cat waiting for him somewhere?”

“I don’t think we have to worry about that. Given what he said to Oma and me on the plaza this afternoon, he doesn’t have a cat or a dog.”

John lowered his voice. “And making matters worse, he was murdered. I’ll never forget what his throat looked like.”

“That was fairly obvious. I didn’t see a rope or anything lying around, did you?”

“No. But I was in such a fog that I wasn’t concentrating on that. Besides, we might not have noticed it in the dark. It could have been just a few feet away, and we wouldn’t have seen it.”

“Dave will probably get some guys out there with lights.” I looked up at the moon. “I guess they’ll rope it off and check it again in daylight, too.”

We paused at the road between the Shire and Wagtail to return our lanterns. Crickets chirped in the night. Not a car or golf cart rumbled along the road. We crossed into historic Wagtail.

John sighed. “As cool as the Shire is, I have to say that I’m relieved to be back in the land of streetlights. I never realized how important and comforting they are.”

“Where are you staying?”

“I rented a house in Wagtail a few weeks ago because I’ve been working on a book and this seemed like a nice quiet place to concentrate.”

“Fiction or nonfiction?”

“A historical thriller.”

“That sounds interesting.”

“If only it would pay the bills. I used to be a history professor. These days, I write and edit history textbooks. It’s okay but a little boring.”

“I don’t recall seeing you around,” I said.

“I haven’t gotten out much. Not knowing anyone has actually been a big plus. I stay home and work most of the time. Sometimes Cooper and I hit the hiking trails for walks. But when I heard about Animal Attraction, I liked the idea of letting Cooper introduce me to someone. Dogs are supposed to be great judges of character.”

“I would be flattered by that, but I find a lot of dogs like me because I usually carry treats in my pocket.”

“You see? Only a person with a good heart would do that. But my olfactory skills aren’t sufficiently advanced to detect dog treats in a person’s pocket, so I have to rely on Cooper.”

For the first time since we had discovered Gustav’s body, I smiled.

“This might be out of line, and I hope you’ll say so if it is, but would you mind if I went with you?” asked John.

“To tell Oma?”

“Yeah. It’s not very macho of me, but right now I’d rather not be alone.”

“No problem. I know exactly how you feel. Sitting alone someplace is the last thing I would want to do at this moment. Come on, there’s always plenty of company at the inn.”

We walked along the sidewalk that ran the length of the green in the middle of town. Business from the cafés and restaurants spilled onto the sidewalk. Despite the late hour, even some of the bakeries had stayed open. It looked like they were selling coffee and pastries to go.

Oma and Rose’s idea appeared to have turned into a business boom for Wagtail.

The porch of the inn buzzed with activity as well. We breezed past the couples getting to know each other, but Nessie saw us enter the inn and made a beeline for me.

“Holly! Holly!” Nessie bustled toward me with Lulu at her heels. “Have you seen Sky? I can’t find her anywhere.”