Perry Stiles dashed past me with such sudden speed that I couldn’t compute what was happening. His run was accompanied by a chorus of shrieking sirens. Also shrieking Afghan hound fanciers; they scurried through the side door after him. I joined the fray.
The scene of the crime was around the corner of the building, at almost the exact spot where I’d caught Kori kissing MacArthur (and MacArthur kissing her back). But there was nothing titillating about what had gone down since.
My height permitted me to peer over the heads of shorter mortals. A small crowd had gathered around the prone form of Ramona Bowden. She looked much as she had when she’d fainted in my driveway on Thursday, save three major differences: (1) Jeb hadn’t thrown himself on top of her for protection; (2) she was face down; and (3) there was a whole lot of blood.
Perry Stiles kneeled alongside the mound that was Ramona. He checked her pulse as everyone else formed a murmuring circle. I couldn’t help but notice that Ramona’s silvery pajama-like outfit, now splotched with red, showed no sign of a breath beneath it.
Since I don’t do well in the presence of body fluids, I quickly stepped back. To be accurate, I stumbled backwards and narrowly missed the team of charging EMTs, who arrived post-haste with black bags and sundry portable equipment.
Just as I wondered who had dialed 9-1-1, my peripheral vision snagged a glimpse of the cleaner-slash-bodyguard. MacArthur wasn’t lurking at the edge of the cornfield; he was standing there waving at me. Weakly I waved back. Then I realized that his gesture meant “Come over here!” So I went. Nobody in the crowd was watching anybody except Ramona.
MacArthur wouldn’t let me speak 'til after we’d receded into the cornfield. Our progress through the drying stalks wasn’t silent, but it was furtive. Despite telltale rustling, cornstalks provide good cover. The exhibit hall and the melee outside it had completely vanished from our view. Which meant nobody could see us, either.
“I’ve been alternating between watching you, Susan, and Ramona,” MacArthur began.
“Don’t forget Kori,” I said. “You fit her into your schedule, too.”
He smiled. “Every working man needs a break now and then.”
“Where is Kori, by the way? I hope you know that the dog she was handling took off after Abra!”
“So I heard. I had just finished my latest tour of the exhibit hall-“
“You were inside the hall? When?”
“I tour and secure it every hour on the hour,” he said.
“Then how come I’ve never seen you in there?”
“Because I know how to do my job. May I continue?”
I nodded.
“I slipped out the side door just before your dog and that champion. No sooner had I started my exterior tour than I heard a voice raised in anger. It was coming from the other side of the building.”
“Only one voice?” I asked.
“Correct. It was Ramona’s. She sounded agitated. Then she screamed. I rushed ‘round the corner and found her lying there-just as I heard the uproar from inside the building.”
“You mean, when Silverado went after Abra.”
“Presumably.”
“Did you call 9-1-1?” I said.
“Yes. I would have administered CPR, but it was not appropriate.”
“Because Ramona’s… dead?”
“No,” he replied. “Because she was breathing just fine… although somebody shot her.”
“Why would Ramona have been shouting at the shooter?”
“I didn’t say she was. If you looked closely, you would have seen her mobile on the ground.”
“Her cell phone?”
“Yes. I believe Ramona was arguing with someone on her mobile when she was shot. The two incidents may or may not be related. I checked her phone,” he added, “and reported the latest numbers to Jenx.”
“Will Ramona live?”
“I’ve never known anyone to die from a bullet wound to the arse.”
“But… she’s nonresponsive!”
MacArthur cocked an eyebrow at me. “Is she now?”
“She didn’t respond to Perry Stiles. And there’s so much blood!”
“It’s a flesh wound, and the woman has a lot of… flesh. That explains the blood,” MacArthur said. “As for her being nonresponsive, she used to be an actress. Off-Broadway. Strictly heavy drama.”
Jenx herself called before I could ask MacArthur what he’d told the chief. She was in the process of identifying the other party in Ramona’s latest conversation. The former actress had dialed a cell phone in the 630 area code. That covered northwestern Cook County, Illinois-including Itasca, where Susan and Liam lived.
“It doesn’t mean the person Ramona talked with lives there,” Jenx reminded me. “It just means the phone was registered there. And it’s a cell phone, so he-or she- could have been anywhere. Even at the dog show. We won’t know 'til we run down the records.”
The Magnet Springs Police Department didn’t have a forensics team. Or any technology worth mentioning. I was about to ask Jenx how she planned to acquire cell phone records since the latest shooting wasn’t even in her jurisdiction.
“Brady’s cousin Lonnie is going to hack into the other cell phone account,” the chief announced happily.
I didn’t bother to comment on the obvious, that hacking was illegal. But I did call the chief’s attention to the fact that Lonnie was incarcerated.
“That’s the beauty of if!” she exclaimed. “He’s been good since he’s been inside, so he’s a low-security inmate-with web access. And he’s already in the slammer, so there’s no risk and no down side!”
“Except to you,” I pointed out. “If he got caught, you could be charged as an accomplice.”
“Not a chance,” Jenx said. “He won’t get caught cuz he’s good, and the phone companies aren’t smart. Besides which, he’s Brady’s cousin, and family is family. They don’t rat each other out. Lonnie won’t mess with me, either. I helped get him the lightest possible sentence for grand theft auto. The kid’s messed up, but he’s loyal as a dog.” She paused. “Loyal as most dogs. I hear yours ran away again.”
“Yes, but this time it wasn’t really her fault.”
Jenx harrumphed. “I don’t like the direction this thing is taking. Too many flying bullets. We already have one corpse and one casualty. Not to mention two missing dogs.”
“We always have missing dogs,” I sighed.
“And you attract dead bodies.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Get the hell out of there!” Jenx said. “You’ve been humiliated, so you’re morally free to leave.”
“Except now I have to find Abra.”