Chapter 7

The spotlights were the first thing I noticed. They were very bright and very hot. We approached the judges’ table, and I presented Freddy as Aunt Betty had shown me. The consummate charmer, Freddy gave a small bow, lowering himself on his forelegs while leaving his rump in the air, as he glanced at them from under the brim of his hat. They should have just handed him the trophy right there because, honestly, he was too much in the best possible way.

There were five judges, and I noticed that they each took a second to make a note before the stern-looking woman who was the head judge gave me the nod to proceed.

The agility course looked like the craziest sort of maze and frankly if one of the volunteers hadn’t been standing at the entrance, I would have had no idea where to go. Freddy did not seem confused at all and trotted right over to the start line. I saw there was a large digital clock and a timekeeper stood next to it.

The PAWS volunteer next to me said, “When I say, ‘Go,’ you may begin.”

She was a young woman, probably a few years younger than me, and she gave me a reassuring smile. I nodded and removed both Freddy’s hat and my own, leaving them on a nearby bench. We took our places at the start line. I scanned the tunnels, jumps, a small pond and series of standing hoops in front of us and thought I might pass out.

I bent down next to Freddy, unclipped his leash and said, “It’s all on you, buddy, no pressure, but seriously, I don’t have a clue. Just run your cute little butt off, okay?”

Freddy turned his head so we were nose to nose. He licked my face and then barked. I took that to mean he understood.

I straightened up and the volunteer shouted, “Go!”

Freddy took off like there was a steak dinner ahead of him. I bolted after him, trying to look like I knew what I was doing, but seriously, since I run only if someone scary is chasing me, I was pretty winded after the first series of hoops, the tunnel and a series of short rails. Freddy did not wait for me. He dashed through the course as if it were what he was bred to do.

Halfway through, my nerves were forgotten as I marveled at how brilliantly Freddy was attacking the course. He didn’t just jump, he soared. When he ran fast, it was fast and low to the ground, like a high-speed train with no brakes. At the apparatus that required crawling, he looked like a commando attacking an enemy line. I found myself jumping up and down beside him, cheering him on as more of a spectator than a handler. Freddy paid me no mind. When he sped for the finish line, I was right behind him. Okay, not right behind, but pretty close.

He sat proudly in front of the judges’ table, and I collapsed to my knees beside him. I was sucking in huge gulps of air while Andre snapped our picture. I hugged Freddy, thrilled that we had survived and he had kicked butt.

When our time score came up, the crowd erupted. Freddy had moved into first place on the leaderboard, which so far ranked only the agility course. I laughed as Andre looped an arm about me and hauled me to my feet.

“You did it, Scarlett!” he cried. “That was brilliant!”

“Freddy did it,” I gasped. “I was just along for the run.”

Aunt Betty, Harry and Viv waved to us from their spot behind the judges’ table. I shot a double thumbs-up at them. The look on Aunt Betty’s face made it all worth it. She was thrilled.

I reached down to pet Freddy, but he wasn’t there. I glanced up to see that he had trotted back onto the course. Not wanting him to undo his fabulous run with some misbehavior, I hurried after him, calling, “Freddy, come here, boy.”

Freddy ignored me. I glanced at the judges’ table. They were watching him with what was clearly disapproval. Damn it! I put on some speed even though I was pretty sure I was going to pass out from lack of oxygen.

“Freddy!” I called. He ignored me.

At the end of the arena was the cloth-draped podium where the winners would be showcased at the end of the competition. Did Freddy think he had already won? Would points be deducted for his overconfidence?

I had almost reached him when he ducked under the festive bunting. Nuts! I knelt down and called him through gritted teeth, “Freddy, come out here right now.”

I hoped Jasper and Penelope Young were not privy to this scene as I didn’t want them to think Freddy was anything like Henry, although at the moment there was a marked similarity in the stubborn department.

Was this what parenting a toddler or teen was like? I was going to have to do a big rethink on children if I couldn’t even get a well-trained dog to listen to me.

“Freddy!” I hissed. I could feel the eyes of the crowd on my back and hear the titters of laughter that people were trying, not nearly hard enough, to suppress. I glanced over my shoulder to see the head judge, a woman who looked to have absolutely no sense of humor, frowning at me.

Just as I was about to forcibly yank Freddy out from under the dais by his heart-shaped behind, he came trotting out with a man’s shoe clamped in his teeth. I rocked back on my heels. What the hell?

He trotted toward me and dropped the brown shoe in my lap. It was a high-end designer shoe, camel-colored in what appeared to be crocodile. Freddy sat down, panting with his tongue hanging out, as if waiting to see if I would throw it for a game of fetch. Aware of the crowd watching, I picked it up and, with a shrug, held it in the air.

The audience seemed to find Freddy’s shenanigans amusing and I heard a man shout, “Oy, is that a part of the agility test?”

This was met with a low rumble of laughter from the crowd.

“I think he should get bonus points for that,” a woman shouted, and the crowd applauded.

Freddy looked pretty pleased with himself and I glanced, again, at the judges and they seemed amused, too. Okay, maybe this wouldn’t hurt his score.

I put the shoe on the dais and clipped Freddy’s collar with the leash. I was about to walk away when it occurred to me that the quality of the shoe wasn’t the sort that would become a dog toy when it had served its purpose as footwear. The brown leather was soft to the touch, the hand stitching impeccable, there wasn’t much wear on the leather or the sole, so why the heck was it under the dais?

“I think you’re good to go now, Scarlett,” Andre said. He handed me our hats. “The crowd seems taken with Freddy’s cleverness.”

I glanced from Andre to the dais and back. “There’s something wrong here.”

His face, which had been wreathed in a jovial smile, fell, plummeting into an expression of dismay and possibly a little horror. He backed away.

“No.”

“Hold Freddy,” I said. I shoved the leash and the hats at him.

“No.”

“Andre, we may have a situation here,” I said.

“Why?” he asked. “Let’s just walk away and pretend that everything is fabulous, because if we pretend hard enough it could be. It really could.”

I stared at him, waiting. With a sigh of resignation, he let his camera hang from the strap around his neck and took the leash and the hats. I couldn’t blame him for his reluctance. Shortly after we’d met for the first time, he and I had discovered one of Viv’s clients murdered. The trauma had cemented our friendship for life, but it was an experience Andre never wanted to live through again. Well, neither did I . . . but the shoe.

I knelt down and lifted the cloth of the dais. It was pitch-black under there. I threw the heavy fabric up onto the dais to get more light. I could hear the crowd getting restless, wondering what I was doing, and I sensed several people approaching. I wondered if they were planning to forcibly remove me for tampering with the property of the competition.

When enough light shone into the space, I saw, to my horror, another shoe that matched the one Freddy had brought me. Only this one was still attached to the foot inside of it. And it wasn’t just a foot. An entire person had been crammed under the dais.

My gaze moved over the body. The clothes were expensive just like the shoes. One hand was visible and I noted that the fingernails appeared bluish. That was bad. I didn’t need a medical degree to know this person was in trouble. I reached forward to put my fingers on the person’s wrist. The skin was icy to the touch. I jerked back.

“What is the meaning of this?” the head judge snapped. I rocked back on my heels, wiping my fingers on my sweat suit as if dead was contagious.

She was an older lady with thick silver hair that was styled away from her face in waves. The cut flattered her sharp features and distracted from the deep wrinkles around her mouth and eyes. A festive red scarf was tied around her neck and she wore a light blue dress shirt under her official judges’ navy blazer. She looked very authoritative. Her bright blue eyes were narrowed as she studied me. Her name badge read Claudia Curtis.

“There’s . . .” I gestured to the darkness beneath the dais. “A person under there.”

“What?” she snapped. She knelt down beside me, using the dais to lower herself to her knees, and peered into the shadows, taking in the other shoe and the foot and the hand at a glance. Her face went pale and she whipped around and snapped her fingers at a few security personnel. When they rushed over, she said, “There’s a man under here. Lift him out.”

The authority in her voice had the volunteers moving without question. I stepped aside to be close to Andre, who had his eyes clamped shut as if he could wish it all away. The sound of the crowd was rising with curiosity mingled with some high notes of alarm.

It took only moments for the security team to pull the body out from under the dais, and when they did, the glaring brightness of the overhead lights shone down on the body of Gerry Swendson. There appeared to be some bruising on the side of his head, and around his mouth was a thick trail of dried spittle. It was easy to see from the stiffness of his form, the pallor of his skin and the blue tinge to his fingernails and lips that he was dead.