“Thank you for calling Your Real Estate Agency. This is Carole. How may I help you?”
“Carole, have you had enough of my big black dog?” asked Aurora into the phone. “You sound tense to me. Could that have anything to do with King?”
“I sound tense? How could you possibly think I’m tense?”
Aurora grinned. “Is King getting to you?”
“If you mean is his constant floor-pacing wearing a rut in my carpet, or his unraveling my silk sweater that matched my teal linen pants suit, or his refusal to eat, or his whining every time he hears a car drive up bothering me, then the answer to your question is ‘Yes!’ But enough of me. When are you coming to get this gem of a dog?”
Aurora covered her mouth with her hand. She couldn’t answer for fear she’d break out laughing. And Carole would not appreciate that.
“Are you snickering, Aurora? I don’t recall hearing anyone say anything funny.”
Aurora swallowed her laughter and willed her brain to conjure up horrid images of the body she had just identified in the morgue. Seconds later, her laughter under control, she said to her friend, “I know you’ll miss King terribly when he’s gone, but would you mind if I come get him?”
“How soon can you be here?”
“I’m calling from my car, so I can probably be there in ten minutes, maybe a little longer.”
“That long. Oh well, it will give me ten extra minutes with this gem of a dog. We’ll both be waiting. And waiting.”
Aurora, tears running down her cheeks, laughed all the way to the real estate office. Carole and King met her when the car pulled into the parking lot. Barking ecstatically, King jumped into the car’s front seat and Aurora’s lap the instant she opened the door. After a long hug and some petting from Aurora, King backed out of the car and the three walked inside the agency.
“This is the calmest he’s been in three days,” said Carole. Aurora sat on the office sofa. King spilled out of her lap. The Lab gazed adoringly up at his mistress as his tail wagged a language that only Aurora and he understood. “He never crawled up in my lap like that, although I invited him on numerous occasions.”
Aurora stroked King’s head and back. He looked lovingly at her. “Carole, how well do you know Luke Stancill?”
“Luke? He grew up in Union Hall in Franklin County, went to Virginia Tech for two years, played basketball there. Then his father dropped dead from a massive heart attack. Luke quit school to help support his mom and three younger sisters. He’s since taken several night courses at Ferrum College. He’s working on a degree; I think it’s in business. He opened his own business two or three years ago.
“Just between the two of us, I don’t know him as well as I would like. He’s a really nice guy, good looking, smart, honest, hard working. Did I mention good looking? A good dancer, too. He’s the only man I’ve been the least bit interested in since Fred. Luke and I dated a few times, and I thought he was getting as interested in me as I was in him. Then wham! Little Miss Sexpot Vanessa strolls into his office asking for a part-time job, and that’s the end of my romantic dream. Why do you ask?”
“Is Vanessa the secretary who didn’t report the attempted ramming of Luke’s boat to the police?”
“Yep, same person. Has to be.” Carole fetched a bowl and set it on the floor. “I know it sounds like I’m a jealous woman, but something’s not right with Vanessa. My feeling is that she’s using Luke, but he evidently doesn’t see it that way. And, of course, I can’t tell him.”
Carole poured dry dog food into the bowl. King jumped off Aurora’s lap and began wolfing down his meal. “Look at him! You’d think I hadn’t offered him food the whole time he’s been here. Aurora, I tried everything I could think of, even pretended to chew on a morsel or two myself. No luck; he’d never take more than a few bites at a time.”
“Don’t worry about it. He does the same thing with Sam when I’m out of town.” She scratched his neck. “Guess I’d better go. I need to stop off at Diamond Hill General Store before I go home, and I don’t want to be too late. No telling what kind of trouble Sam and Little Guy will get into if I’m away very long.”
The two friends hugged good-bye as the Lab tugged at his leash. “Thank you so much for looking after King, Carole. I missed him, but I didn’t worry about him.”
Knowing King wouldn’t jump out of the car, Aurora rolled the windows all the way down after parking in Diamond Hill’s parking lot. Quickly putting tuna fish, pasta, milk, orange juice, eggs, and two bottles of local wine from Hickory Hill Vineyards in her cart, she paid for her items and loaded them into the Jeep. “King, let’s go home.”
Home. That sounded strange. She hadn’t called the house on Spawning Run Road home since her marriage to Sam. She reminded herself that home was their house in Augusta, but she knew in her heart that Smith Mountain Lake was really home, always would be. But now her parents, the people who gave the house its warmth, would never return.
A wave of sympathy hit her when she passed Robert’s house. He and Jill deserved to hear what had transpired at the police station. Maybe she could break the bad news about Lampwerth’s body floating up, kind of soften the blow before the proof came back from the lab. She backed up, drove in Robert’s drive, and rang the doorbell.
Jill greeted her with a limp hug. “Would you like to join Robert and me in the kitchen for a cup of coffee?” Jill didn’t wait for a reply, but led the way into the gourmet kitchen.
“Hi,” Robert said to Aurora. She had the feeling she’d interrupted something, that she should have called instead. She made up her mind to stay only a few minutes.
Jill handed Aurora a cup of coffee and moved over to stand beside Robert. They stared at Aurora. “What’s up?” Robert asked, his arms folded across his chest.
Aurora wanted to melt into the floor, to be anywhere but in that room with these two obviously upset people. But she said, “I’ve just come from police headquarters. They fished a body out of the lake this morning. Asked me to identify it.” Aurora paused, stared at her feet, and said, “It was the one I saw two days ago.”
Robert unfolded his arms and rested his hands on Jill’s shoulders. In a soft voice he asked, “Man or woman? The body, I mean.”
“A man.” Aurora looked down at her cup and watched the rich, brown coffee swirl around as she stirred it.
“Do they think it’s Lampwerth?” Robert asked bluntly, his hands tightening protectively on Jill’s shoulders.
“I’m afraid they suspect that, but the lab results haven’t come in yet.” She hated this. She wished she hadn’t come. “I’m so sorry. I wouldn’t have told you, but I thought you’d want to know.”
“You’re right, we do.”
“Was the body clothed?” Jill whispered.
“Yes.”
“What was it wearing?” asked Jill.
“Looked like the remnants of a plaid flannel shirt and jeans.” She wished she’d minded her own business.
In a low voice, Jill Hathaway said, “Then it’s not Mr. Lampwerth. I’m sure of it. He’s never in his life worn blue jeans. Or a plaid shirt. At least not since he was a child. Every shirt he’s ever owned was either white or light blue. Casual dress for him means no tie. No pun intended, but he once told me he wouldn’t be caught dead in plaid.”
Back at her parents’ home, Aurora parked beside Sam’s car, opened the car door for King, and stepped back out of his way. Happy to be back at Spawning Run Road, he raced around the yard, nose to the ground as he tracked every enticing new and familiar scent. Even though Carole had allowed him to keep her company at the agency and even permitted him to sleep in her bedroom, King had been in mourning most of the time. Until he saw Aurora, that is.
Aurora retrieved the groceries from the Jeep and entered the house. The cleaning service had finished and left; the house was immaculate. But something important was missing. She’d anticipated a loving greeting from Sam and Little Guy. Where were they? She looked at her watch. She’d been gone over two hours. Surely Sam had returned from his walk by now. She stepped out on the deck and eyed the dock and shoreline. No sign of Sam or the terrier.
When the doorbell rang, she jerked open the door and frowned. Luke stood on the porch.
“I’m in the middle of something right now, Luke.” She started to shut the door.
“Aurora, we have to talk.”
She wasn’t afraid of Luke. King obviously liked him. Despite Sam’s words of caution, she relented and let him in.
Within a few minutes, the two were talking as freely with each other as they had before the attack on Sam.
“Why didn’t you report the boat assault to the cops?”
“The battery in the boat phone was dead. I already told you that. By the time I arrived at my office, an upset and extremely influential client was waiting for me. Actually, he was getting in his car to leave when I ran up from the dock. I coaxed him back inside and told my secretary to call the police. Gave her your name and phone number to pass on to them. Because I trusted Vanessa to relay the message and because the client could make or break me, I made the wrong decision. I’ll never forgive myself, Aurora, but I’d like you to forgive me.”
“You’re forgiven, Luke, but I still don’t understand why the police didn’t get the message.”
“I asked Vanessa the same question. She swears she called them, said the problem must have been at the police station.”
“I don’t buy that. How long has she worked for you? What do you know about her?” King whined. Aurora rose from the sofa and put him outside.
Luke’s shoulders stiffened. “She’s worked part time for me for four months, two or three days a week. I can’t afford to have her full time, so she works another part-time job, too. Her parents live at the lake, and she lives with them. She’s very good with my clients. They all adore her.
“Once you asked if I had a ‘significant other’. Well, Vanessa’s the one I told you about. The relationship isn’t as significant to her as I’d like it to be, but I’m working on it. I trust her completely, and I know you’d like her.”
I doubt it. But Aurora said only, “Let’s look at the tape one more time. I’ll get it.”
As Aurora went to the bedroom to fetch the tape, she wondered again where Sam could have gone. She pushed the eject button on the VCR. No responding whir. No tape. Nothing. That’s strange. It was here when I left. She looked on the nightstand, on the bed, under the bed, then rummaged through her cross-stitch bag. Still no tape. She picked up her tape recorder and turned off the switch. She’d left it running.
Then she realized that Sam must have returned to the house, turned on the VCR, and discovered something important on the videotape. A clue, perhaps? He must have contacted the police, and they came by and picked up Sam and the tape. And, of course, Sam wouldn’t leave Little Guy here alone. Sam is surely safe. No use to worry. But he should have left me a note.
Empty-handed, she returned to the living room and to Luke.