LITMIR.BIZ

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I had read enough murder mysteries to know what blood spatter was. Just last night I had finished Murder, My Dear and planned to begin drawing the secrets out of Assassins Aren’t Angels—or maybe the title was Angels Aren’t Assassins—later that evening.

      “Would you pull the Jeep over here?” I asked Lady Anthea.

      “Certainly.”

      I handed her the keys, and she turned and marched back to my car.

      She went first to the passenger side, then corrected. I hoped Chief Turner hadn’t noticed. No such luck.

      Turner touched my elbow. “Was that a good idea?”

      “She’ll be fine. She’s in a parking lot, so she doesn’t have to worry about which lane to use.”

      We walked to the rear of the van, and I raised the door. Anthea drove back to the street without incident. Then she backed the Jeep up to us until I called out, “Okay, that’s close enough.”

      Chief Turner pulled me away from the van, and I instinctively yanked my arm back.

      “Brake! Brake!” I yelled.

      Every cloud has a silver lining. She wasn’t accelerating when she collided with the van, so she rolled into it. “Considering she’s probably never driven an automatic transmission car in her life, not bad,” I said to Chief Turner as I waited for Anthea to climb out of the Jeep. I took her place and pulled my vehicle forward a few feet and got out.

      I turned to Anthea. “I’m not wild about driving with dogs loose in the car, but I don’t think we have a choice. I have a harness we can use for Robber.”

      “I can sit with the dachshund and the miniature poodle in my lap,” she offered. “Are their leads in the van? I’m sure they’ll need walks.” I didn’t know if Chief Turner understood that walk was a euphemism for going to the bathroom, but I knew that’s what she meant. She seemed happy to be of service that didn’t involve driving in the States, in what to her was the wrong side of the car.

      Chief Turner was shaking his head. “Sorry, that van is a crime scene now. Anything in there, other than those dogs, has to stay.”

      “The only leash I have in the Jeep is Abby’s,” I said.

      “That’s fine. If we can’t get the leads from the van, I’ll just take them one at a time.”

      I took a deep breath. I’d have to get the dogs to her before she could start taking them to relieve themselves. After steeling myself, I climbed into the van. At least two of the dogs could be handed out the rear door. The dachshund would come out first. I awkwardly straddled Henry’s legs, careful not to touch his pristine deck shoes or his blue jeans. I leaned over and opened the door to So-Long’s crate, careful to keep the wire door from touching the body. Once I had him out, I held him close and backed up. I kissed the top of his head before twisting around and positioning myself to lower him down to Lady Anthea’s waiting arms. Suddenly all four of his feet were scrambling in an attempt to stay attached to me. “It’s okay,” I whispered.

      Lady Anthea snapped her fingers at him. “We’ll have none of that, young man!” I handed the dog down, and she walked over and deposited him into the back seat of the Jeep. We repeated the maneuver—no finger snapping needed this time—for Paris, the miniature French poodle. Robber’s crate was behind the driver’s seat. The doors to the crates faced the van’s center aisle, and I inched forward then stepped over Henry’s shoulders. I stood straddling Henry’s head and neck, wondering how the hell I was going to get a seventy-five-pound dog out of there, without any of his four feet touching the floor. I looked at Robber for—oh I don’t know, maybe some guidance or a little I-know-you-can-do-it energy. The collie stopped pacing long enough to give me a blank stare. She seemed mildly curious to see what I would come up with. The longer I stalled, the more fidgety she grew.

      “Sue,” Lady Anthea called, “the bitch needs to know you’re in charge.”

      I leaned closer to Robber. “You know she was referring to your gender, right?” The dog was so anxious to get out that I was sure she’d lunge for freedom as soon as the crate door opened. Chief Turner was watching me from the still open side door. The side door! That’s how I would get her out. I carefully rotated myself, reversing so I was facing the back of the van. I took a deep breath and opened the crate door. “Go!”

      Robber jumped out and I caught her mid-air, with both of my arms under her ribcage. If I lived to be a hundred years old, I would never forget the look on Chief Turner’s face when he saw the airborne dog flying his way. Then his expression when he realized I had caught the animal and that he wasn’t going to die. I moved my right leg over Henry’s body and sidestepped to the door. Lady Anthea met us there. She gently pulled Chief Turner, who was imitating a statue, out of the way. I let Robber jump down from the van. Lady Anthea grabbed her collar and held on. Abby’s leash was hanging from her shoulder and with her free hand she hooked it to the dog. We allowed ourselves a quick smile for our victory. She led Robber to a nearby grassy island, where she promptly relieved herself.

      When Chief Turner was able to speak again, he said, “I need the name and phone number of the victim’s next of kin.”

      “Looks like what you need is a drink,” I said. I pulled my cell phone out of my pants pocket and hit speed dial for Buckingham’s. Shelby answered and I told her about Henry. Ignoring Turner’s scowl, I gave her a minute to digest the bad news before I asked her to look in Henry’s personnel folder.

      She told Dana that she had to go to my office, then said to me, “Be right back.”

      Being put on hold gave me a chance to think about what had happened. Every muscle in my body was clenched, and my heart was still racing. I don’t know one piece of classical music from another, and I was praying what I was listening to wasn’t the one where they fire a canon at the end. If it was, I would probably drop dead on the spot.

      “You’re on hold?” Turner asked.

      “No,” I lied. Then I made un-huh noises into the phone. Thanks to my recent close reading of The Killer Wore a Kilt, I knew the police liked to control the release of information on a case. He was going to give me a hard time for telling Shelby about Henry’s death, and if I pretended like I was still talking, I could put it off. Maybe he’d forget.

      “You know I can hear the hold music, right?”

      Giving up my pretend exchange, I said, “I trust Shelby. And I didn’t want to have to lie to her about why I needed the phone number.”

      “Tell her not to tell anyone.”

      While I waited for the information, I watched Lady Anthea walk Robber to the Jeep. She commanded the dog to jump into the rear of the car and she did, no questions asked. Then she leashed So-Long and took him over to the spot Robber had christened. By then I was ready to dictate the number, which the chief noted on his tablet. “He gave his sister as his closest relative. Her name is Ashley Trent and she lives in Albany, New York.” I asked Shelby to text me the addresses for our three passengers, and to tell the pet parents we were on our way.

      “How does this work?” he asked, still typing.

      I looked at him, wondering what kind of idiot the city had hired. “Well, somebody killed somebody and now you figure out who did it. Does that sound about right?”

      His head jerked up. “That’s hardly what I was asking. Do your customers pay for these rides?” He motioned to the van.

      “Sure.”

      “Would your driver have been carrying money?”

      “No.” I shook my head. “We have credit card numbers on file. All of the door-to-door services are paid that way. There are very few cash transactions for anything.”

      “Did your employee wear anything someone might want to steal, like an expensive watch or jewelry?”

      “No,” I answered.

      “Do

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