Mary sat in her big reading chair, Millie beside her. Pat and Karl Bennington were on the sofa opposite. Her niece, Ellen McKenzie Dunham, fidgeted a little in the wingback chair that sat beside the fireplace, her three-legged hound, Morgan, asleep at her feet. None of them said anything as they watched Ranger sit politely at Karl’s side, never taking his eyes off Mary’s front door.
Finally Karl sighed. ‘I hate this kind of thing. How am I supposed to explain to this dog that his master isn’t coming through that door? Not now, not ever?’
Pat laid her hand on his. ‘You can’t. Don’t they forget after a while?’
‘Some do. Some never do. I have no idea how long this dog will grieve. Depends a lot on what kind of family he has, if he has one. If it was just him and Miller then it may take a while. German shepherds are pretty smart dogs and very loyal.’ He looked over at Mary. ‘Do we know anything about this man, other than his name?’
Mary let her hand drop on Millie’s head and ran her fingers through the silky hair on her ears. ‘I don’t. Millie and I met him and Ranger at the dog park only once. He said he was here on vacation, that he lived in Sacramento and he and Ranger were going over to Pismo beach for a few days before they headed home. That’s about all. I saw him again today outside Lowell’s.’
‘Dan will know.’ Ellen had been watching the dog with a worried frown. ‘I feel so sorry for him. Not Dan, the dog. Although Dan won’t be happy. If you’re right,’ she looked over at her aunt, ‘and he was shot in the back, that makes it murder. Not suicide, not an accident. Murder, pure and simple.’ She shuddered. ‘I wonder who he was and why someone would want to shoot him. And in the back? That’s so …’ She looked at Morgan, who slept on. ‘I take Morgan to the dog park a lot but I never met him or his dog.’
‘When will Dan be here?’ Pat asked. ‘It’s getting late and we have to do something with him tonight.’
‘It’s later than late and I have no idea. He said for all of us to wait for him here, that he’d try to get over as soon as he could.’ Ellen looked at Mary’s old schoolhouse clock and sighed. ‘It’s already one. If he doesn’t show up pretty soon …’
The front door opened but it wasn’t Dan Dunham, chief of Santa Louisa police, who entered. It was her great-niece, Susannah McKenzie, her long dark curls held back from her face with a bright scarf and her dark blue eyes laughing, followed closely by Neil Bennington, a tall, blond young man with a cowboy hat set on the back of his head, his well-washed jeans and battered cowboy boots proclaiming they were his usual costume.
‘What are you all doing here so late? We saw the lights and thought we’d better check. It’s been a long day and I thought … Hello, Ranger.’
The dog was on his feet, his tail wagging as he walked toward Susannah. She squatted down, allowing him to place a kiss on her cheek while she ran her fingers over his ears and his shoulders. ‘Why are you here? Where is Mr Miller? Why … Oh, no. Does this have something to do with whatever is going on at the park?’
Mary sighed. Susannah and Neil had shown up at the park tonight in time to meet Karl and Pat Bennington, Ellen and Dan Dunham and Mary for ribs and salad purchased at the Kiwanis stand. After that they’d gone their separate ways, but here they all were again. All except Dan.
‘I’m afraid it does.’ That was as far as Mary could go.
Susannah got to her feet and faced Ellen. ‘Mom, what’s happened?’
‘Someone shot Mr Miller during the fireworks display.’
‘So that’s why the dog’s here,’ Neil said softly. ‘Leave it to you two to think of the dog in a crisis.’ He smiled at his parents, then took Susannah by the arm and pushed her down beside her mother. He perched on the arm of the sofa next to her and swung his hat off his head.
Ranger immediately started a low rumbling in his throat. The hair on the back of his neck stood up and his body got rigid.
‘It’s OK, boy. I’ll get rid of it.’ Neil dropped his hat on the floor beside the sofa and held his hand out to Ranger, his fingers down for him to smell.
The dog examined the hand then looked at Neil and listened to the soothing voice. The rumble died away, the hair on his neck lay back down and they all relaxed.
‘That dog doesn’t like cowboy hats,’ Karl observed. ‘Lots of dogs don’t like hats. They don’t seem to recognize even a close friend when they put on a hat. Interesting.’
Susannah looked at him, down at the dog, then back at her mother. ‘Never mind hats. What happened?’
But Ellen watched Ranger work his way under the coffee table until he faced Susannah then put his head on her foot. He sighed. So did Mary, with relief. The dog was obviously not going to attack Susannah.
‘He seems to know you. So you must have met Mr Miller. How well did you know him?’
‘We met him at the dog park.’ It was Neil who answered. ‘We’ve taken Morgan with us a lot since we’ve been home from school this summer. He’s even gone on some horse-farm calls with us when we’ve done a ride along with Doctor Pickering. He seemed to like the horses. But what he really likes is the dog park. He and Ranger became racing buddies. Ranger fell hard for Millie.’ Neil grinned. ‘Guess he fell even harder for Susannah.’ The grin was gone. ‘How did Mr Miller get shot? Was it an accident? Is he all right?’
This time Ellen’s sigh was more of a groan. ‘He was murdered.’
‘Mr Miller?’ Susannah straightened up from petting Ranger to stare at her mother. ‘That nice man? Why would anyone—’ She broke off and looked at Neil as if he might have an answer.
He didn’t and turned to his father. ‘What happened?’
Karl shook his head. ‘No idea. I’d never met the man until this afternoon when he came to drop off Ranger. He said the dog didn’t do loud noises well and he wanted him to be somewhere safe. He’d pick him up right after the fireworks. I guess from what Mary’s said he was shot in the oak grove sometime during the display. Probably during the finale. The “1812 Overture” is pretty loud. All those cannons going off.’
‘We’ve been waiting for Dan to give us more information,’ Pat told her son. ‘We need to know what to do with the dog.’
‘That’s easy,’ Susannah said firmly. ‘He’s coming home with us. He doesn’t understand what’s happened and needs comforting. Putting him in a kennel all alone would be cruel. That’s OK, isn’t it, Mom?’
Mary might have laughed at the stricken look on Ellen’s face if the situation hadn’t been so sad. But Susannah was right. The dog needed comforting. Her hand strayed once more to Millie’s head. Millie had needed a lot of comforting when her previous owner had been murdered and Mary had provided it. Ranger deserved the same.
‘I don’t know.’ Ellen looked and sounded torn. ‘Jake’s just getting used to Morgan. He was an only cat for years … and what will Dan say?’
‘Dan will be fine with it. He’s a good guy, even if he is a cop and my stepfather.’
‘Nice to have approbation,’ Dan said, ‘even if it is qualified. Which is worse, being a cop or your stepfather?’
Susannah laughed. ‘Depends.’
‘Oh.’ Ellen was on her feet, ready to greet her husband. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’
‘Evidently none of you did. What is this nice guy supposed to agree to?’
‘Taking Ranger home with us tonight so he won’t be sad. That’s OK with you, isn’t it? He and Morgan like each other.’ Susannah gave her stepfather her full-watt smile.
He grinned back. ‘As long as he doesn’t eat Jake, it’s fine with me.’ He looked at Ranger, who was still under the coffee table. ‘Poor guy. Why is he under the table?’
‘To get closer to Susannah.’ There was a smile in Neil’s voice. ‘She has a way of doing that to guys.’
Dan grinned at Susannah, who made a face at Neil, then he slid out of his uniform jacket and hung it on the peg beside the front door. His hat went on top of it. He turned back to face the expectant faces watching him and sighed. ‘I don’t suppose there’s any coffee?’
‘No, but there’s iced tea.’ Ellen was on her way to the kitchen before he could respond, but since he didn’t stop her Mary assumed iced tea would be acceptable.
They were going through a lot of it this hot night. She’d have to make another container tomorrow.
In the meantime … ‘What do you know?’
‘Not nearly enough,’ Dan said a bit mournfully. He pulled a dining-room chair close to the end of the sofa Ellen had vacated, settled down and took a long swallow from the glass she handed him. ‘Mary, how are you? That can’t have been a pleasant experience.’
‘I’m fine.’ She wasn’t as sure as she sounded. Shock did something to you, something not pleasant, and seeing Mr Miller lying there, so very dead, had indeed been a shock. What happened after she started yelling for help was a bit of a blur but one thing stood out – still did. He’d been shot in the back. ‘That poor man. He was lying on his face and all that blood on the ground. That’s where he was shot, wasn’t it? In the back? There was blood on his jacket and it looked … There was a hole in it. Why would someone do that?’
Dan set his empty glass on the side table by the sofa, careful to make sure it was on a coaster, then looked around the room. ‘I can only guess but Ian Miller wasn’t here on vacation. He was with the California Bureau of Investigation, special crimes division, and had been investigating a series of jewelry store robberies. Evidently he was following some kind of lead. What exactly, I don’t know. Makes me wonder if he found what, and who, he was looking for.’
‘Oh.’ The thought struck Mary hard enough that her exclamation came out as a gasp.
All eyes shifted to her.
‘What?’ Ellen leaned forward expectantly.
‘Do you know something?’ Susannah left off stroking Ranger’s ears and stared intently at her great-aunt.
‘No,’ Mary said. ‘It’s just that Millie and I saw him … them … Mr Miller and Ranger in front of the jewelry store this morning, right after the dog costume parade. He was staring in the window at the new necklace Jerry Lowell made. He said the necklace was new but the sapphire and diamonds were old. Had old cuts or something. I wondered how he knew. Do you suppose he thought Lowell’s was about to be robbed?’
‘No idea.’ Dan looked around the room, his gaze coming to rest on Susannah, then moved on to Neil. ‘You two have toted Morgan around a bunch this summer. You must have met them, since Ranger seems smitten with Susannah. Where?’
‘At the dog park.’ Susannah looked at Neil, as if for corroboration.
Neil nodded. ‘Three or four times.’
Dan glanced at Susannah then at Ranger. ‘What did you talk about?’
‘Dogs.’ Susannah’s answer was quick and emphatic. ‘I told him Neil only had one more year of vet school and knew all about dogs. He was worried about Ranger’s hip but Neil told him he thought he was fine. He’d be sitting crooked if it was hurting him.’
Karl turned to look at the dog, who had worked his way out from under the table and was sitting in the middle of the room, seemingly following the conversation with interest. ‘He thought the dog was dysplastic? Why? Look at him. Neil’s right. He’s sitting perfectly straight. How old is he?’
‘Four.’ Neil and Susannah spoke together.
Pat laughed but Karl ignored it. His focus was on the dog. ‘If he was he’d have shown signs long before this. What made him think that?’
Neil shook his head. ‘I asked him. He was pretty vague – just said he’d heard it was common in German shepherds.’
Karl snorted. ‘Not like it used to be. There must have been some reason …’
Dan barely glanced at Ranger. ‘Did any of you see him tonight at the fireworks? In town, today? No? Just Mary? OK. I’ve got to get back. We have agents flying down from Sacramento and they’ll be landing at our airport in …’ he checked his phone then slid it back in his pocket, ‘… any time now. Ricker is meeting them but I want to be at the park when they get there. Go home, all of you. Go to bed. There’s nothing more any of you can do tonight.’ He put his chair back by the table, shrugged into his jacket and set his hat back on his head.
Ranger took one look at it and started rumbling in the throat. Dan looked at the dog. The dog looked back and the rumbling got louder.
‘It’s your hat.’ Neil was on his feet, holding the dog’s collar, stroking him, making soothing noises.
Mary felt Millie tense when Ranger started to growl but her head dropped back on Mary’s lap when she saw Ranger settle. Was it the hat? Did he always do that when he saw a man in a hat? Police hats were pretty distinctive. He must have seen one before. So why … There wasn’t time to think about that right now. Dan was leaving and she had one more question for him before he left.
‘Dan, you said Mr Miller was investigating a string of burglaries. How do you know that?’
He paused, hand on the doorknob. ‘Miller stopped by the office shortly after he arrived in town. Introduced himself, said he was following a lead about a string of jewelry store robberies up and down the state that might be connected but wasn’t sure it was going anywhere. I told him to let us know if he needed any help. He said he would. We chatted for a few minutes and he left. I never saw him again.’
‘Did he say what the lead was?’
‘No, Mary. He didn’t. More’s the pity.’ He closed the door softy behind him.
Mary noticed he hadn’t put his hat back on. No one said anything for a few moments, shock and exhaustion having drained them all.
Finally Karl said, ‘We need to get going. The clinic still opens at nine in the morning.’
Pat nodded, stretched and got to her feet. ‘Neil, you coming home or are you dropping off Susannah?’ She paused, smiled and looked at Ranger. ‘And the dog, of course.’
Ellen also was on her feet, staring at the dog. ‘He has a lot of hair, hasn’t he?’ She sighed. ‘Neil, would you mind dropping them off? I have real estate clients in the morning and I really don’t want to have to vacuum the car before I meet with them. I’ll take Morgan with me and put the cat in my bedroom before you get there so he doesn’t freak out.’ She dropped a kiss on Mary’s cheek. ‘Are you all right? Will you sleep? Susannah can stay with you …’
Mary couldn’t think of anything she needed, or less, wanted. She made shooing motions with her hands, saying she would be fine, of course she’d sleep, she had Millie didn’t she, she’d see them tomorrow, and she didn’t stop until they were all on their way. Then she and Millie headed for bed. Millie was asleep before she laid down her head. Not so Mary. She stayed awake a long time, staring at the dark ceiling, wondering.