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WHEN WE FINISHED BATHING the animals it was after twelve. Before we started for home, I called my son Bill and told him about the seize. Bill and his wife Carla live on our old family farm, and they always seem to have room on their land and in their hearts for more animals. As I’d hoped, Bill said he and their girls would consider adopting one or two of the dogs when they became available. “Daisy’s been missing a pet of her own since Brenda died,” Bill said. “Iris is busy with school, but Pansy might like a dog too, as long as it doesn’t pester her horses.”
“Do you think Cramer would take one? The shelter is chock-full, and now that he’s self-employed, he’d have time to work with it.” My youngest son was a computer nerd who’d recently started his own repair shop in his home, an old bunkhouse on the farm. He tended to work into the night and sleep until noon, but his low-key lifestyle might be perfect for some damaged creature.
“I’ll ask him,” Bill said agreeably. “Like Grandma used to tell us, ‘It’s good to have something alive in the house.’”
I hung up pleased with my progress. The system would permanently remove the dogs from that awful man’s clutches, and I intended to work at it until every one of them had a forever family.
Dale heard enough of the conversation to conclude I’d been successful in my first re-homing attempt. “You say Retta took one of the pups,” he said. “Think she’ll keep it?”
“Barb isn’t happy, but she says that’s Retta’s plan.” I drove on for a while before adding, “Maybe a new dog will help with whatever Retta’s got on her mind.”
“And what is that?”
“No idea, but her sparkle is a little dim lately, like something’s bothering her.”
He chuckled. “Seems as much like a freight train as ever to me.”
I made a noncommittal sound, unable to disagree but unwilling to disparage my sister. I admit Retta’s bossy and kind of fluffy, but she’s also kind-hearted, beautiful, efficient, and tough. I was always secretly glad she was younger than I, because no one should have to follow a sister who was both Homecoming Queen and Student Council president through high school.
“Maybe she’s thinking of getting a place in town.” Dale’s mind tended to run to exterior things, while I’d been trying to push away thoughts of something like a bad mammogram result. “It would be a lot easier if she didn’t have to keep that big house and yard by herself.”
There were newly-built condos at the mouth of the river, and I recalled she’d commented on how nice they looked. Keeping a house in a Michigan winter involves work. A homeowner can pay someone to plow the driveway, but there’s a lot more to it than that: sidewalks need daily clearing, roofs need attention in winters with heavy snow, water lines need watching so they don’t freeze. Maybe she was thinking of giving it up for something easier.
“If she is considering a condo, she might be worried about how Styx would react.”
“Styx would be fine wherever she is,” I argued. “And the condos back right up to his favorite park. Even if she keeps the pup, she’d have plenty of space for them to exercise.”
“She might be wanting to spend more time in Florida this year too,” Dale said. “Bet her girlfriends down there are missing her.”
In the past Retta had headed to her second home in Florida right after Christmas. There she chummed with a group of ladies who did a lot of nothing all day then got together for wine at four each afternoon. “Maybe. She always claimed it was great fun down there, but I haven’t heard her make a single comment about wanting to see them.”
Retta’s attitude toward Florida had changed with the advent of the detective agency. For the last two years she’d gone south only for a few weeks, claiming we needed her help with our investigations. Barb sneered at that, though never in Retta’s presence. “She thinks we can’t track down a deadbeat ex without her?”
While it was true we could operate without Retta, it was also true that she’d made real contributions to our success in past cases. Her knowledge of Allport’s citizenry was amazing; she was one of those people who knew where every “body” was buried, as they say.
“It seems like something more than Florida,” I told Dale.
“I don’t know what it could be then.”
Turning on the blinker and heading down our street I said, “Whatever it is, she’ll tell me sooner or later. Retta’s a lot of things, but a secret keeper isn’t one of them.”
