forty-eight

Leo got up, stretched, and strolled over to rub himself against my fleece jammies. One second he was on the floor, the next he was on the table, leaning toward me with his squinty “I love you” look. We bumped noses and I said, “So, Catman, we didn’t get our practice session in today.”

He yawned, which I took to mean he could run the agility course backward with his eyes closed. But his eyes were wide open and he was looking right into me. I stroked his head and he pushed the top of it into my palm. I glanced at Jay. He was on his back, hips rolled one way and front legs the other, like a loosely wrung towel. His head was tilted back and gravity had pulled his upper lips into a passive snarly face. I looked at Leo and said, “Your brother looks like a doofus.”

He said, mmmrrrwwwwllll.

“So, what do you think?” I asked my cat. “Should I return those calls?”

“Mmmrrrwwl.”

“Should I call Giselle first, or Tom?”

He kept his opinion on that to himself and jumped down, so I pushed Tom’s speed dial button and was about to push “call” when my land line rang. I picked it up.

“Janet, I’m so upset? I don’t have a lawyer, should I talk to your, Bill’s … you know, I don’t know …”

When she stopped, I said, “Giselle? What’s happened? Why do you need a lawyer?” And suddenly I knew who was behind the tinted window in the back of the police car. I started to laugh, not because I wished her trouble with the police, but because it made me happy to know that Giselle was progressing from passive-
aggressive silliness to full-out civil disobedience.

“What’s funny?” she asked, more than a hint of hurt in her voice.

“No, it’s not funny,” I said. “Giselle, did you spray paint those rocks?”

“Yes?”

“Well done!”

“Really?” her tone shifted to something like tentative satisfaction.

“Oh yeah. Brilliant, really,” I said. “Although bummer getting caught.”

“I’m out on bail?” Her voice lost its confidence. “They have evidence, they say …”

I cut her off. “Right, the nosy old neighbor saw you do it. Call my brother-in-law Norm in the morning. If he can’t handle it, he’ll refer you to another good attorney. But I bet they’ll back off. They aren’t going to want the publicity.”

“No, Janet, I mean, yes, I need an attorney, but it’s not the stupid rocks,” she said. “It’s murder. They think I killed that Rasmussen guy.”

That shut me up for a few seconds. Finally, I said the only thing I could think of. “What?”

She described her arrest, and I asked, “Are you okay? I mean, if you want you can come over here, stay in my guest room. You and Precious are welcome.” I thought about her little dog and added, “And Precious is welcome here if you need a place for him, you know, for a while.” Like twenty-five to life, I thought with a jolt.

“No, I’m okay. My friend is here.” There was a long pause, and then she said, “Thank you for not asking.”

“Not asking what?”

“If I killed him.” She hung up.

I knew she didn’t kill him. At least I knew it until I remembered her telling me about whaling away with the pooper-scooper in a fit of anger. Could Giselle actually have killed Rasmussen? I flashed back to another time and realized that I had suspected Giselle of murder once before. But I barely knew her then, and she had changed so much since those days that I had almost forgotten. But do people really change that much? I had thought her capable of murder at one time, so why not now? Then again, I had been wrong that other time, and besides, what real motive did she have? She hadn’t liked the way Rasmussen treated his wife, or my mother and her beau Anthony Marconi, but that hardly seemed cause to kill the man. She was certainly angry when he yelled at her and—worse—at her dog, Precious. Still, it was a huge leap from there to murder.

Besides, there were more practical issues. I wasn’t sure Giselle could have managed it physically. Rasmussen had not been a small man, and he had the power of intimidation on his side. I just couldn’t imagine Giselle mustering enough confidence to attack the man and do him in.

What if Goldie was onto something with her Orient Express comment? What if several people, all bubbling over with motives and emotions, had teamed up to do away with Charles Rasmussen and his belligerent, evil ways? I didn’t imagine some grand conspiracy, mind you, just a perfect storm of proximity, opportunity, and righteous anger.

“Come on, Jay,” I said, refilling my mug and padding off to the living room. My thick fluffy slipper socks made a satisfying whoop whoop on the carpet. I plumped a couple of pillows against one arm of the couch, stretch my legs out, and covered up with my old blue afghan. Jay didn’t need a second invitation to hop up and sprawl with his chest on my thigh and the rest of him stretched toward my feet. I wriggled us both around until I was comfortable and picked up my phone.

Tom answered on the third ring. “Hi you.”

“Hi yourself.”

“Are you okay?”

Aside from insane from trying to make myself ask what you’re up to and furious that I even have to? “What do you mean?”

“You sound like you’re stuffed up.”

“Oh.” He was right. I felt a bit stuffy. “Hang on.”

I tried to reach the box of tissues on the coffee table but they were just out of reach. “Jay, take it,” I said, pointing at the box with my vertically flattened hand. He leaped up, shoving a front foot into my gut for his launch off the couch and over the table. “Oww!” Jay took no notice of my pain. He was intent on the job at hand. He grabbed the new copy of Outdoor Photography from the table and brought it to me. “Thanks, Bubby, but that’s not it.” He grinned, wriggled, and cocked his head. I pointed at the tissues again and said, “Take it.”

Jay tried to grab the box from the side but it was too big for his mouth, and the harder he tried, the faster it slid until it fell off the table. He tried a couple more times, then looked at me for help. I knew he would figure it out, so I just waited while he stared at the box for a few seconds. Then he grabbed hold where the slit for tissues is and brought it to me. The black of his nose was pugged up against the edge of the cardboard slot and he sneezed when I took the box. “You want one, too?” I asked him as I pulled out a tissue and blew my nose. Jay hopped back onto the couch and curled himself around my feet.

“Okay, all clear,” I said into the phone.

“What was all that?” asked Tom.

“Jay had a little trouble with the tissue retrieve.”

Tom chuckled, then asked about my mother. I was just going to tell him about the vandalism of the feral cat colony when he said, “I’m in Indy.”

But we’re going to Indianapolis tomorrow. “You are?”

“Yeah, I tried to call you earlier to see if you could get away.” He seemed to be waiting, but I couldn’t think what to say. I was too busy trying to pick my heart up off the floor. “Tommy’s flying in tomorrow afternoon. It was a lot cheaper to Indy, and since I was headed there anyway …” You mean we were headed that way, I thought.

“Okay,” I said finally. “We can go see the puppies next week.” I grabbed another tissue as my nose started to run.

He cleared his throat. “I, uh …”

“You’re going to see them?” I worked at keeping my mixed emotions out of my voice. “That makes sense, I guess.” I blew my nose as quietly as possible.

“I already did. This evening. Are you catching cold?”

I’m not sure which was more disappointing, this awkwardness with Tom or missing the chance to play with a bunch of baby Labs. “No, I just got a little chilled out there this afternoon.”

He asked about both photo shoots, the woods and wetlands and the feral cats, and I gave him a very short synopsis, then asked, “So what did you think?”

Any other guy might think I was still talking about the afternoon’s outing, but not Tom. He sounded like he could still feel those roly-poly little bodies all around him. “They were great. Barely six weeks old, nine little yellow girls. And I really like the bitch.” Meaning the mother of the puppies.

“Who’s the breeder?” I know a lot of the active dog people in Indiana, so there was a good chance I knew this one.

“Jill Peabody. She just moved here from North Dakota. She doesn’t breed much, just a litter every three or four years so she can keep one for herself.” I knew Tom had walked away from a number of breeders for a variety of reasons, including some who he thought had too many litters. “You should have seen them, Janet.” I held the phone at arm’s length and mouthed seriously? I missed a little of his tale, but he never noticed. Puppy talk does that to people. “Is your computer on? You have mail.”

“Ohmagosh,” I said. Each one was cuter than the next.

What I wanted to ask next was Do you really think this is a good time to get a puppy, with your big sabbatical plans and all, but what came out was, “I thought you were going to wait for a black male in the spring?” When he didn’t say anything, I started to laugh.

“What?” he asked.

“About that list of possible names.” Tom had been throwing out potential names for a month or so. Names like Jim and Gander and the like.

“Yeah,” he said, and I could hear the smile that I knew was curling around the corners of his eyes. “Better start a new list.”