“We were en route to Chicago to meet with Liam’s architect. The pilot got a radio message from Jenx that Ramona had been shot, so Liam decided to swing by the dog show to make sure Susan was all right.”
That was Odette’s story, and I had no doubt she would stick to it. My star salesperson had just introduced me to the man who might make both of us considerably richer. Provided that his plans for Big and Little Houses on the Prairie got off the ground as smoothly as his chopper.
Liam Davies was not a tall man. Nor was he what I could call handsome. But he had a quality worth way more than good looks alone: charisma. I suspected that Liam had started out in sales and worked up to much bigger things. Like convincing investors to loan him scads of cash with the promise of delivering office buildings, shopping malls, and subdivisions.
Now Odette stood on his right side, and Kori stood on his left. Neither acknowledged the other, but both seemed pleased to have at least some of the Great Man’s attention. And to have one of his arms around each of their waists.
“How’s my favorite niece?” Liam asked Kori.
“I won my round, but I lost the dog.”
I had to admire how succinctly she summed that up.
“Don’t worry. We’ll get you another,” Uncle Liam said.
“It was Susan’s dog,” Kori said.
For just an instant I thought he was going to pat her on the head. Instead Liam turned to me.
“Your sales agent is brilliant! She has a contact list that could rival Donald Trump’s!”
Everybody in west Michigan knew that Odette was the best schmoozer on this side of the Lake. So I merely nodded.
“I’m going to introduce O. to my Chicago contacts,” the developer said.
“’O.’?” I repeated. “Odette lets you call her ‘O.’?”
“Doesn’t everyone call her that?”
“Not if they want to keep their teeth.”
“Whiskey is funny,” Odette told Liam. “You’ll get used to it.”
“She’s not that funny,” Kori said.
I stared at O.’s perfectly marcelled waves. How the hell had they remained unruffled by the chopper’s tornadic blades? Come to think of it, shouldn’t Liam’s short hair also be mussed? I was pretty sure mine was a mare’s nest, and I hadn’t been that close to the copter. Maybe O. and L. were already sharing hair gel.
“And now if you’ll excuse me,” Liam said, “I need to find my wife. Could you direct me-?”
The eavesdropping members of Team Fleggers pointed as one to the exhibit hall.
“Thank you,” Liam said, acknowledging the group onstage. “I like your shirts. Never been a dog-show enthusiast myself.”
“Me, neither,” Kori announced. “Susan made me do it.”
We all watched as she and her uncle jogged together toward the arena. Then I arched my eyebrows at “O.” and waited for the rest of her story. She arched hers back at me but said nothing. We went on like that for a minute or so. I could feel the Fleggers’ collectively curious gaze.
“Can we step away from the nut jobs?” Odette asked. “Or did Dr. David draft you, too?”
“Nope. I’m still a free agent.”
I gestured toward the motel, thinking we might adjourn to my room.
“Definitely not,” Odette said. “I refuse to set foot in any establishment known as the Barnyard Inn. Isn’t there a Starbucks around here?”
“We’re in Amish Country,” I said. “The best we can hope for is a cheese bar.”
“Where are the Amish?” Odette asked. “I didn’t see any as we flew in.”
“I’ve been wondering that, too, ever since I got here! The closest I’ve been to anything Amish is holding one of their brochures.”
“It’s a scam,” Odette intoned. “There are no real Amish anymore. Only actors.”
“I don’t think that’s true…”
But suddenly I wondered if it might be.
“We could take my car,” I suggested. “Drive around a little. See if we can find us some Amish. Some real Amish.”
“What about Abra? Did you lose her again?”
“Only for a few minutes this time. She’s in room 18 with her new boyfriend. Don’t ask.”
Odette declined my Amish search invitation. She expected to be airborne again soon.
Trying to sound neutral, I said, “What’s up with you two?”
“We’re getting the word out on Big and Little Houses. Working night and day.”
“Mostly nights?”
“Whatever it takes to get the job done,” Odette replied blandly. “Liam is tireless.”
Before I could insert my foot all the way into my mouth, my cell phone rang. The tune of the ring told me it was my ex-husband. Odette knew it, too.
“Tell Jeb I said hello. Also, tell him to take better care of you. You don’t look good.”
“Always nice to be jacked down.” I fumbled for my phone.
“Whiskey, I’m going to sell every last home in that subdivision,” Odette said. “Don’t ask me how. Don’t ask me when. And for god’s sake don’t accuse me of anything. Just because you can’t trust your man doesn’t mean you can’t trust other men. Now go get sleep or food or sex. Whatever it takes to make you human again!”
She stalked off, and I opened my phone in time to catch Jeb.
“Hey,” I said.
He wanted to know about the latest shooting. Both Jenx and MacArthur had already called him.
“What I really want to know is why you didn’t call me,” he said.
Jeb didn’t sound like his laid-back self. He sounded either hurt or annoyed. Maybe both. I tried to explain that there was too much going on, what with Abra departing and Fleggers arriving.
“Abra runs away every chance she gets,” he said. “And you knew Dr. David and Deely were coming. Those aren’t excuses, Whiskey. You should have called me.”
“Yeah? Well, maybe I needed you to call me. So I could be sure you care. Sometimes I’m not sure you do.”
“You’re not sure I care?”
“Sometimes, no, I’m not. Sometimes you seem more interested in other people.”
“What other people?”
“Like the person who invited me here. You told me I should go to the show. You said it might help my business if I did. And I believed you. But now I think you just wanted to please Susan Davies!”
The silence on the other end of the phone was thunderous.
“Hello?” I said finally.
“I’m speechless,” Jeb said. “If you believe what you just said-. Well, I have nothing to say.”
“Convince me not to believe it!” I cried.
Then my stomach made a sound like a dying sperm whale-loud enough, I was sure, for every dog in the RV park to hear it. I expected a chorus of sympathetic howls.
“What’s the matter?” Jeb said.
“I don’t feel good. Odette said I look terrible. Oh, I forgot to tell you, she’s here. With Liam. They came by helicopter.”
“Liam showed up? Then he’s gotta be worried about Susan. So I have a right to be worried about you,” Jeb said. “In addition to being pissed at you. What do you want me to do? Should I come get you?”
“I can’t leave! Abra’s missing!”
Then I remembered that she wasn’t. Anymore. We just had to get her and Silverado out of room 18. I hastily explained that to Jeb.
“Anyway, I have my car here,” I added. “As soon as I can load Abra up, I’m heading for home. I should be there in time for dinner.”
My stomach roiled again, and I wondered when or if it would be safe for me to actually eat.
“I don’t know about food,” I said, “but we can talk. Do you want to talk?”
“We need to talk,” Jeb said firmly. “You got some crazy ideas in that head of yours.”
Just then I noticed Matt Koniger. He was about fifty yards away, striding toward the exhibit hall, with a dog. One dog. Silverado.
“Excuse me,” I told Jeb. “I’m gonna have to call you right back.”
Of course there were other blue-gray hounds at the show. But Matt had been on a mission to retrieve that one. Plus Abra. I wondered how he’d managed to remove Susan’s dog from Kori’s motel room without Kori’s key. She had been with me, and then she’d gone off with her uncle. What I really needed to know was what had happened to Abra.
“Didn’t anyone tell you?” he said.
I shook my head.
“The door to room 18 was ajar. I found Silverado on the bed watching TV, but Abra was gone.”
What little strength I had left leaked from my muscles like water from a shattered vase. Matt reached out a hand to steady me.
“Easy,” he said. “You need something to eat. Let’s go to the concession stand. My treat.”
“No burgers,” I murmured.
“No way,” he agreed. “I recommend hot dogs or nachos.”
I wasn’t sure my stomach could handle either.
Inside the arena the competition had resumed. Perry Stiles must have decided that the show should go on.
A second show was in progress. In the concession area Susan and Liam were having a conversation with Kori and Odette. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected in that department, but it wasn’t a four-way chat. The group had taken over a table in the concession area, where Silverado, Matt, and I were pointed now. I couldn’t wait to see how Susan would express her gratitude to Matt for returning the lost dog. Most likely, she’d save some of her enthusiasm for their next trip to the side door.
Perry Stiles waved to me. He was in the concession area, too-standing at the condiments table, garnishing a wiener.
I thanked Matt for the offer to buy lunch but said I’d cover my own. He promised to let me know if he heard anything about Abra, but his focus was now entirely on Susan. Did that make him his father’s son?
“Good job getting the show going again,” I told Perry. “And before you ask-the answer is ‘Hell, no!’ I have no affiliation whatsoever with those animal-rights maniacs. Except that some of them are my friends.”
I flashed him my most earnest smile. The one I use whenever I have to explain myself to the IRS. Or to my mother.
Perry looked beyond me to the table where the Davies clan sat, accompanied by Odette. Susan was fussing over Matt and Silverado.
“You’re witnessing a historic event of questionable taste,” Perry whispered. “Susan, her husband, his lover, and her boy-toy. Plus the poor niece, stuck in the middle-with the dog.”
“I just have one question,” I said. “Is Matt as shallow as I think he is?”
“How shallow do you think he is?”
“Well, I met Mitchell Slater, and I don’t think the apple fell far from the tree… “
Perry said, “So, you know that story! Who told?”
“The niece in the middle.”
“Good for Kori! You got to love that girl’s pluck, if not her wardrobe. Yes, Mitchell was a vain one, and Matt is more or less the same-minus the mean streak.”
“Mitchell was nasty?”
“Ask his first wife. For that matter, ask any woman he loved and shoved aside.”
“Including Susan?”
Perry looked startled. “Susan dumped Mitchell. I think she’s the only one who pulled that off. If you ask me, she toyed with him just to get close to Matt. Or maybe, knowing Susan, all she really wanted was the dog.”
“What dog?”
“The niece didn’t tell you that story? Silverado was Mitchell’s gift to Susan.”
“I thought Susan dumped him-right after he left his wife for her. Then he cheated Susan out of her stud fee.”
“Mitchell would have left his wife, anyway,” Perry said. “He left them all. The man preferred conquests to connubial bliss. As for the stud fee, Susan didn’t get cheated. Mitchell saved enough sperm to make lots of puppies. Silverado was one, and Susan got him-plus the full refund of her stud fee. Ramona knows that.”
“Why would she and Susan lie?”
“Why do they do anything? For starters, Susan’s a manipulative bitch, and Ramona’s a drama queen. The latter will make a full recovery, by the way. She took the bullet in her well-padded ass, a glancing wound only.”
I refrained from revealing what I knew about Ramona’s acting career, courtesy of MacArthur.
Perry continued, “Ramona likes to make Susan look better than Susan is. Ramona probably thinks that makes her look better, too, by association. They’re friends and co-breeders, after all. As for her lies about Slater, well, Ramona had issues of her own with that bad boy.”
“What-?”
But I was interrupted. By a chili dog and a book. To be precise, I was interrupted by Odette Mutombo, who stood before me bearing gifts.
“Excuse me,” she said to Perry. “Whiskey, you need to eat.”
“Do I also need to read?”
“Yes. I bought this for you from that vendor over there.”
She pointed to a smiling red-haired woman sitting near the concession stand, behind a table piled high with books.
“That’s the author,” Odette said, pointing to the woman’s photo inside the book.
“Thanks… but I really don’t have time to read.”
“I think you should make time.”
Odette tapped the cover, which featured a cartoon-like rendering of a running Afghan hound.
“It’s a mystery about a dog like yours. That woman over there has written a whole series of them. Perhaps if you read the books, you would learn something.”
I doubted it, but I took the book just the same, tucking it into my bag. I took the chili dog, too, with more enthusiasm. When I bit into it, I was almost overcome with hunger.
“I can’t believe how good this tastes,” I said, my mouth full. Then I remembered my manners, or some of them, and started to introduce Odette to Perry.
She cut me off. “Please. Let me do the talking.”
Letting Odette do the talking had made me a lot of money. Which reminded me that she had stepped away from our current client. I checked the Davies table; it was now vacant. Where had the husband, his wife, her lover, her dog, and his niece disappeared to?
“Excuse me…”
I turned in response to a flat female voice. The Two L’s were behind me flanked by a pair of blonde dogs who looked like them. I assumed I was blocking their path to the condiments. So I moved. But that wasn’t what they wanted.
“You do know your bitch is missing, don’t you?” said the L named Lindsey.
“You mean Abra?” I asked. As opposed to, say, Susan.
The Two L’s nodded.
“Yes, I know she’s missing. I’m going to look for her just as soon as I finish this.”
When I held up what was left of my chili dog, some of the greasy garnish plopped onto Lindsey’s shoe.
“Then you’re aware that Abra is gone?” Lauren asked.
Did they think I was dense? Or did they suspect me of trying to lose her on purpose? Sure, the temptation had crossed my mind. But this was a very inconvenient place to lose Abra. Fleggers were everywhere, probably cheering her on.
“We’re asking,” Lindsey said as she wiped her shoe, “because we just saw her. And we thought you might like to know where.”
“Where?”
“In the back of a wagon. With a herd of long-haired goats.”