Trouble at the Animal Shelter: A Cedar Bay Cozy Mystery Read online

  “Yeah, the truth is asleep in his dog bed in the other room as we speak. We named him Max. He and Lucky seem to get along fine, so he’s got a home for a few days.”

  “Doc, knowing you, I imagine Max has found a permanent home, and he couldn’t ask for a better one. How’s Liz handling the situation?”

  “She likes him. Max really is adorable. He sat on her lap in his dog bed all the way home and spent the whole time giving her doggie kisses. Think that might have sealed the deal in Liz’s eyes. By the way, Kelly, how well do you know Reverend Barnes?”

  “Not well. When I attend church, I go to the Catholic Church, so I’m very familiar with Father Brown, but I only know Reverend Barnes from when he’s been at the coffee shop for lunch. Other than that, I don’t know much about him. I saw him sitting at lunch with you today. Why do you ask?”

  “We left the coffee shop together after we’d paid for lunch. He was a little ahead of me and dropped a piece of paper on the ground that fell out of his wallet. Evidently he was in a hurry, because even though I called out his name, he got in his car and left before I could return it to him. Apparently he didn’t hear me.”

  “And?”

  “Here’s the and. I picked the piece of paper up and stuffed it in my pocket. A few minutes ago, I remembered I had it. I took it out of my pocket, and it had a website written on it. I just pulled it up on my computer, but I don’t know what to make of the website that came up.”

  “What was the website?” Kelly asked.

  “It was an online gambling site. Somehow I’m having trouble thinking that the reverend is looking at online gambling sites. That’s why I asked you how well you know him. It seems very odd.”

  “I agree, but maybe one of his parishioners has a gambling problem and gave him that site’s link. There could be a very logical reason why he wrote it down.”

  “Kelly, I just remembered something else. He told me at lunch he was very close to the woman who was murdered. Evidently he went to her house a couple of times a week to pray with her, because she was housebound. He said she’d made him the beneficiary of her will. The whole thing seems odd to me.”

  “Does to me, too, Doc. I’ll tell Mike about it. Maybe he found out something today. I expect him home any minute. I won’t keep you, but I sure was curious what Liz thought about the new addition. Glad it’s working out.”

  “Me too, Kelly, more than you know. See you at lunch tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER 9

  When Reverend Barnes returned to his church office after lunch he spent some time sitting in front of his computer looking at different websites. Using a piece of paper, he wrote down the numbers shown on the spreadsheets displayed on the websites and then added up the numbers. He stared at the total amount for a moment, and shook his head in amazement.

  I had no idea I owed that much. This is a disaster. I don’t know how much is in Maggie’s estate, but I can sure use it. I better call Lem Bates and get the probate of her estate started. I need that money, and I need it now. He picked up his phone and placed a call to Lem Bates, the sole attorney in the small town of Cedar Bay.

  A moment later a female voice said, “This is the law office of Lem Bates. May I help you?”

  “Yes,” Reverend Barnes said, “I need to make an appointment with Mr. Bates. If he has time tomorrow to see me, that would be fine.”

  “May I ask what this is regarding?” she asked.

  “Yes. I’m the beneficiary of the estate that belonged to a woman who was murdered yesterday evening, Maggie Ryan.”

  “Yes, I heard about that. It’s hard to believe that something like that could happen in a sleepy little town like Cedar Bay. If you’ll hold, I’ll check his calendar and see if he can fit you in tomorrow.” The line was quiet for a moment, and then she said, “He could see you at 1:00 in the afternoon. Will that work for you?”

  “Yes. I’ll be there at 1:00. Thank you,” he said ending the call.

  I wonder how long it will take to get the money transferred to my account. I don’t remember Maggie ever saying she had any relatives, so I don’t think anyone will contest her will. I really need that money. I don’t know how much longer I can hold off those awful collection agency people that keep making threatening phone calls to me. I owe a lot more money than I ever realized. He looked back at his computer and shook his head. Maybe instead of paying them back, I should just bet the money I’m going to get from her. My luck’s due to change, he thought smiling, so why not?

  *****

  “Good afternoon, Lem. How was court?” his secretary asked as he opened the door to his law office.

  “The same as always. It’s the good guys versus the bad guys. Sometimes they win, sometimes we win,” he countered walking over to her desk and setting down his briefcase. “Anything happen this afternoon I should know about?”

  “Not much. I did get a call from a man who identified himself as a Reverend Barnes. I made an appointment for him to see you tomorrow at 1:00. Evidently he’s the beneficiary of Maggie Ryan’s estate.”

  “Really? Is that what he told you?” Lem asked with a raised eyebrow. “That’s not quite how I remember she willed her estate, but it’s been several months since we went out to her house, and she signed her will. I put it in my safe deposit box at the bank after she signed it and you and I served as witnesses.” He looked at his watch. “It’s a few minutes after five, and the bank’s closed now, but I better get it first thing in the morning, particularly if my memory serves me right. Why don’t you go ahead and leave now? I’m only going to be here a couple more minutes. See you in the morning.”

  He walked into his office and stopped in front of the file cabinet where he kept his files, pulled a drawer open, and leafed through the files which were in alphabetical order. When he got to the R’s, he carefully looked at each one, finally coming to the file that was labeled Ryan, Maggie. He pulled it out, walked over to his desk, and sat down. For the next few moments he studied the notes he’d made after he’d been to her house the first time. He also noted he’d returned to her home a week later with his secretary, and Maggie’s will had been properly executed by her, and witnessed by them. He’d made a note with the date he’d put it in his safe deposit box at the bank.

  Lem looked out his window at the darkening sky and thought, I think I better call Mike about this when I get home. I have a bad feeling about it.

  He turned off the light in his office, walked into the reception area, took his coat from the coat rack, and locked the door behind him on his way out. Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day, he thought to himself.

  CHAPTER 10

  Later that evening, Rebel, Lady, and Skyy all rushed to the door leading to the garage, tails wagging in anticipation. Mike opened the door and said, “Hi everybody, I’m home. Kelly, where are you? You’re the only one not standing at the door with your tail wagging.”

  “I’m in the kitchen fixing dinner, and even if you can’t see it, my tail is definitely wagging,” she said laughing.

  A moment later the big burly sheriff walked up behind her and kissed the back of her neck. “That’s what I like to hear. By the way, Kelly, I don’t know how you do it, but you just get more beautiful with time.” He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around, breathing in her scent and looking at her green eyes, her porcelain-like complexion, and dark hair which was swept up in a bun, the silver and turquoise hair picks she always wore keeping it in place.

  “Keep talking like that, Sheriff, and I just might allow you to join me for dinner. Go change your clothes, and I’ll open a bottle of wine. I have one chilling, since I figured you probably had a rough day,” she said pushing him away.

  “There’s no way to have a nice day when you’re trying to solve a murder,” he grumbled as he walked down the hall followed by three dogs looking for a treat or at the least, a pat on the head. “Back in a few.”

  Kelly opened the wine and poured two glasses. She took the small slider buns out of
their package and set them, along with the frozen tuna patties, on a tray on the counter. She’d made the mango coleslaw and wasabi spread earlier as well as a tomato and avocado salad.

  When Mike walked back into the kitchen she handed him a glass of wine and said, “We’re in no hurry. Let me know when you’re ready for me to start, and I’ll have dinner on the table in about five minutes. She sat down across the kitchen table from him. “I’m really curious what you found out today. Solve Maggie’s murder?”

  “Not even close, sweetheart. It’s really a difficult case. There are no witnesses, nothing turned up in the way of fingerprints, and although I put a priority rush on the DNA test, it too, was a big fat zero,” he said taking a sip of wine.

  “What about the arson angle? Did the fire chief find out anything?”

  “He confirmed that the fire was deliberately set. His men found traces of gasoline on some rags that had been strategically placed in locations leading into Maggie’s bedroom. Another thing that led him to believe it was arson is all the windows in the house had been opened as wide as possible. You may remember that an increase of oxygen is needed to make a fire really burn hot and fast, and the open windows provided that.”

  “Couldn’t Maggie have been the one who opened the windows?” Kelly asked.

  “Sure, but think about it. She was a spinster, and usually, in fact, almost always, when a woman lives alone safety becomes a priority, and I find it very difficult to believe an elderly woman would open all the windows in her house on a fall evening. That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.”

  “Well, Mike, she had over thirty dogs in the house with her. I’d think that would provide her with some level of comfort concerning her security.”

  “That’s a good point, Kelly, and one I’ve thought about,” he said as he rubbed his fingers on the stem of his wine glass, “but I still think someone deliberately set that fire. Even if she was the one who opened the windows, that doesn’t explain the presence of gasoline and rags.”

  “That’s true. I guess I’m struggling with why anyone would kill an elderly spinster. Did you have a chance to talk to any of the neighbors, although the houses on that street are set pretty far apart from each other.”

  “Yes, we canvassed the neighborhood, and no one saw anything. There was one neighbor I’m a little suspicious of, but I don’t think it means anything other than I have a suspicious mind. I guess that’s what comes from being a sheriff.”

  “What caused your antenna to go up with that neighbor?” Kelly asked as she stood up and walked over to the stove. “Okay with you if I start dinner? We can continue to talk while I cook.”

  “Sure. What’s for dinner tonight?”

  “Tuna sliders with mango slaw and wasabi sauce are the main show. I picked the last of our tomatoes this afternoon, so we’re having a salad with those and avocado slices. For dessert, I made a kind of trifle-like dessert in those crystal glasses I inherited from Mom. I think you’ll like it, because it has all your favorites like chocolate, raspberries, sponge cake and whipped cream in layers. I made them when I got home and put them in the refrigerator to chill. It turned out even better than I’d hoped. I might make them at the coffee shop. I always try to be a little creative and develop new recipes. You’re my sounding board.”

  “Trust me, you’re always creative, my love,” he said grinning at her. “Back to your question as to why my antenna went up. There’s a couple who live across the street and up about half a block, and Maggie’s house is certainly within their line of sight. The husband seemed okay, but his wife’s the one who kind of interests me.”

  “In what way?”

  “Well, when I asked her if she’d seen anything recently that was suspicious, her answer was, ‘What could possibly be suspicious about that old hunch-backed biddy? The only thing suspicious about her was why she had so many dogs, and why she let them bark all the time. Good riddance, if you ask me.’ Seemed a little harsh to say something like that about a person who’d recently been murdered.”

  “I’ll say. How do you intend to follow up on that?”

  “I’m going to ask some of the other neighbors if there was any bad blood between the two women. It’s pretty flimsy, but for now that’s all I’ve got.”

  “Mike, a thought just occurred to me. Do you know Sunny Jacobs?”

  “No, should I?”

  “I’ve lived my whole life in Cedar Bay, and I pretty much know everyone. Sunny’s the principal of the Cedar Bay Elementary School where Maggie taught. I’ve known her forever, and I consider her to be a friend, although I don’t see her much. Occasionally she comes into the coffee shop, orders her usual Cobb salad, and we catch up. Rebel and I are going to visit the nursing home after work tomorrow, and since the school’s only a block from there, I could stop by and see if she can tell me anything about Maggie. Would that be okay with you?” she asked as she poured him another glass of wine.

  He looked at her and said, “It’s okay only if you tell me everything she says, and you don’t try to get involved in this case. I want to be very clear about this, because we’ve had some problems regarding this issue in the past. You are not to get involved in this case, do you understand?”

  “No problem, Mike,” she said as she sat down. “I’ll tell you everything she says, under one condition.”

  “And the condition being?”

  “You do the dishes tonight.”

  “I can certainly meet that condition, and I’m glad we’re on the same page with this.”

  “Good. By the way, I’ve got some interesting news to tell you. Doc went to the animal shelter after lunch today, and he and Liz are fostering a bulldog puppy that came from Maggie’s house, but I’ll bet that dog never sees the shelter again. Anyway, does anybody know why Maggie had so many dogs? I wonder what caused her to keep so many dogs.”

  “Kelly, all of us have idiosyncrasies of one kind or another. I imagine people would be shocked that someone who looks like you do and appears to have it all together keeps a supply of bacon chocolate chip cookies in her minivan for emergency snacks. That probably wouldn’t be considered normal behavior by a lot of people.”

  “Their loss. They don’t know what they’re missing,” she answered. “You’re probably the only person I know who doesn’t have some sort of idiosyncrasy.”

  “Of course I do. I’m as normal as anyone else.”

  “I’ll bite. Fess up.”

  He sat back in his chair and swallowed the last of his wine. “No matter what I’m going to be doing on any particular day, I have to read the newspaper comic strips before I leave the house. As soon as you go to work in the morning, I get my cup of coffee, sit down, and read them. And another idiosyncrasy is that I’m ready for dinner.”

  “Okay, like I said, it’ll be ready in about five minutes, but I have a question. How can such an intelligent man like you feel compelled to read the comic strips every day?” she asked, shaking her head in disbelief.

  “I’ll make it even worse. I have to do that, or I know I’ll have a bad day. There, I’ve said it. Guess we all have our oddities.”

  While they were eating dinner, Kelly said, “I forget to tell you what else Doc told me. It has to do with the Ryan case.”

  “Good grief, woman. Haven’t we been married long enough for you to know that anything relating to one of my cases takes precedence over other topics?”

  “I know, Mike, it’s just that one thing kind of led to another. This is about Reverend Barnes. I’m sure you’ve met him, although the only times you’ve ever gone to church have been pretty much at my insistence, and we’ve always gone to the Catholic Church.”

  “Kelly, back to the point. What did Doc tell you?”

  She told him about how Doc had shared his booth at lunch with Reverend Barnes, and he’d told Doc that Maggie had willed her estate to him. She went on to tell Mike about the piece of paper that had fallen out of the reverend’s wallet and Doc had picked up. She concluded by telling h
im Doc had visited the website that was written on the piece of paper, and it was a site for online gambling. “Mike, why do you think the reverend had a piece of paper in his wallet with a gambling website URL written on it?”

  Mike was quiet for several moments and then said, “Kelly, I have no idea. Maybe a parishioner gave it to him, or maybe he likes to gamble and look at gambling websites. Maybe that’s his idiosyncrasy.”

  “I don’t know. Somehow it doesn’t seem normal for a reverend to be looking at gambling websites.”

  “Kelly, that’s unlike you. By nature, you’re not a very judgmental person. So what if he looks at gambling sites?”

  “Intellectually, I know you’re right. Emotionally, even though there isn’t a commandment against it, actually the ten commandments were way before the web…”

  Mike interrupted her. “Kelly, you’re rambling.”

  “Okay, I can’t give you a solid reason why it isn’t right, but I just know in my heart of hearts, it isn’t, so there.”

  “Fair enough. Should we call that another idiosyncrasy?” he asked, laughing and getting up from the table. “Go, the kitchen is now my domain, and the dishes await their wash and rinse.”

  CHAPTER 11

  “I’ll be back in a minute, Kelly. I just got a call I need to take,” Mike said walking away from where he and Kelly had been watching television, the three dogs asleep at their feet.

  “Hi, Lem. Your name came up on my cell phone screen, so I knew it was you. How are you? It’s been awhile since we’ve talked.”

  “Well, considering what each of us does for a living, that’s probably not a bad thing,” Lem said, laughing. “A little situation has come up I need to run by you and see what your thoughts are.”

  “I’m all ears, Counselor, shoot.”

  He listened while Lem told him about the phone call his secretary had received from Reverend Barnes that afternoon, and how the reverend was under the impression he was to inherit Maggie Ryan’s estate. He continued, “I was Maggie’s attorney and was out at her house a few months ago for the purpose of revising her will. I couldn’t remember exactly who she’d named as her beneficiary in the new will, but I didn’t think it was the reverend. I decided to go to the bank tomorrow and get the will out of my safety deposit box after I was finished in court.