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Chapter 2

I pulled out of the Villages of Five Points community and, in one of those little gifts from the universe, caught a green light to make the left onto Savannah Road. My passenger was silent. Our two-year-old partnership was the result of a project by Global She, an international organization of female small business owners, to encourage collaboration among women from different cultures. I’m not sure we’re what they had in mind, but it’s worked.

I was born and raised in Lewes but hadn’t lived here since I went away to college in Georgia. After graduation I worked as a dog walker, sitter, and trainer in one East Coast beach town after another. I had never stayed more than a couple of years in any of them. When I was thirty-six, I came home to Lewes. I was ready for the next phase of my life to begin. I wanted to open a pet daycare and boarding facility, with lots of frills. But mostly, I wanted to stay.

I knew a lot about caring for dogs, but I needed something to make my business stand out. I needed help with branding. Lady Anthea Fitzwalter was offering her consulting services. I sent her an email with my proposal and offered a percentage of the profits. For years, I’d read about this or that royal being a charity’s patron, and that was what I had in mind. She wrote back right away with her approval and the “pet-ronage” began.

To make conversation, I pointed to the local veterinary clinic, Lewes 24-Hour Pet Care.

“That’s nice to have a surgery so close by. Does the veterinarian make house calls?”

“Thankfully we’ve never needed him to. Our staff and his get along great.”

“But you and he don’t?”

Time for honesty. “Dr. Walton hates me. And our pet resort. A few months ago he stopped offering boarding and day care because we’ve taken 90 percent of his business.”

I glanced over to read her reaction. She was smiling. “Why only 90 percent?”

We both laughed. Then she said, “I appreciate your emails apprising me of all aspects of the enterprise. Why do you think it’s been such a success?”

“We have something special. That’s you. And I try to provide extras the pet parents want. For instance, Lewes has its share of retirees, and when we bought the van, the non-drivers became a source of new business, both for camp and grooming. We charge for pickup and drop-off for day camp, but not for bringing the dogs in for boarding or grooming.”

She nodded and then leaned back and seemed to enjoy the sights. We passed shops and restaurants as we drove through the first town in the first state. “Delaware was the first state to ratify the Constitution, and Lewes was the first settlement in Delaware,” I explained. I told her city was founded in 1631, and other historical particulars.

“Lewes is in Sussex County, just like Lewes, England,” she said.

“Someone’s done her homework,” I said.

She didn’t respond, and we drove in an uncomfortable silence for a bit. Was even that gentle bid of teasing too familiar?

We crossed the canal bridge and just before the Lewes beach, I turned right onto Cape Henlopen Drive. This street ends at one of the country’s first open spaces, the five-thousand-acre Cape Henlopen State Park. But we weren’t going that far.

“You’ll give your driver a talking to when we get there?” she asked finally.

“If he’s there. They found the van, not Henry.”

She must have realized then that we wouldn’t need to unlock the vehicle if Henry was around because she murmured an apology. We were going to get the dogs out and back to their homes. We still had to locate Henry.

In a few minutes, she spoke again. “Do you think he may have, to quote some of the young people we’ve employed at home, done a runner?”

I shrugged. Truth was, because it was Henry we were talking about, I had no idea.

Sure enough, the Buckingham van was on the street, in line to turn into the parking lot and go through a ticket stall. Just waiting there surrounded by the white Lewes police cars, parked at a respectful distance, like suitors and a debutante. A Lewes police officer directed traffic headed farther down Cape Henlopen Drive to the far-right lane. Wayne waved me around to enter the ferry parking lot through a closed ticket booth, and motioned for me to park at the curb. As I passed, he gave a lazy salute, then mouthed Gilligan’s. I wondered why he had chosen that restaurant for me to pay up at, instead of On The Rocks, the outdoor bar at the ferry terminal he usually preferred. It was all good. Lady Anthea and I could have dinner at Gilligan’s after I’d settled my debt to buy him a drink.

One of the ferries had docked and cars waited to drive onto the ramp. Their passengers gawked at the hive of police activity back on the street, but the drivers had to pay attention. There was another delay before the cars could drive onto the ferry for the seventeen-mile, eighty-five-minute crossing. The cars were stopped at a spot farther along the route to the waiting ferry, where a bomb-sniffing dog, a powerful and attentive German Shepherd, walked up and down the line, and an officer with a mirror checked undercarriages. Almost everything had changed at the fifty-year-old ferry after 9/11. The Delaware River and Bay Authority operates the Cape May-Lewes Ferry, among other transportation links between Delaware and New Jersey. Both the DRBA Police Department, made up of officers like Wayne, and the City of Lewes Police, would want to know why a van had been abandoned just outside a parking lot full of a few hundred people.

I parked and took a couple of steps toward the action before I realized Lady Anthea hadn’t moved. “If you’d rather wait in the car…” I held out my hand with the car keys. She could listen to either the Elvis or the Jimmy Buffett satellite radio station.

“I should go with you.” She took a deep breath and got out of the car.

We backtracked to the street and looked around at all the purposeful chaos. It wasn’t hard to tell who was in charge. Chief John Turner was tall, maybe as tall as Dana, but then she’s a model. He was new, so I had never met him, but I certainly liked him better when he wasn’t yelling. The whimsically painted mini-van was in sharp contrast to his severe demeanor and uniform. Said uniform wasn’t particularly stern, being a light blue, short-sleeve shirt and navy pants. It was somewhere between late afternoon and early evening, which placed the sun behind him, outlining his broad build. I guess the way we’d been let through told him who we were because he left the group of uniformed officers he’d been talking to. We watched each other through matching Ray-Bans and met up at the back of the Honda.

He gave me his name then reached out and we shook hands.

“I’m Sue Patrick and this is Lady Anthea Fitzwalter.”

She stared at his outstretched hand for a beat. It seemed an eternity—like what her formality was going to make this week feel like—before she relaxed and shook his hand.

“Nice to meet you,” he said. I’d place his age in the mid-forties. He looked like he’d spent a lot of time outdoors. “You’re from the dog place?” He had to speak loud enough to be heard over the barking coming from inside the van.

“The Pet Palace,” I corrected him.

Suddenly, the barking stopped.

“The what?” Turner said with a raised eyebrow and a curled lip. He glanced back at the now quiet van.

Lady Anthea cleared her throat to regain his attention and pointed to the burgundy lettering on the van. “We’re the owners of the Buckingham Pet Palace.”

Turner turned back to us. Derision oozed out of the police chief’s pores, making me feel like the 1950s Elvis surrounded by a congregation of Southern Baptists. He opened his mouth to say something, and the barking started again. A small dog first, a larger dog joining in. And the third rounding out the harmony.

“Uh, I have the key,” I said. The van went silent again. “Can I open the door now?”

He held up a stop-sign hand. “Juuuust a second.” His voice was deep, almost a growl. He scanned the parking lot, stopping when he saw the handler of the German Shepherd. Then he spoke into the radio on his shoulder. “Chuck?” The handler looked our way and the dog lowered to a ready sit. From this position, he could jump up in less than a second. Chief Turner motioned for him, actually them, to join us and spoke into his radio again. “Can you give this another check?”

We watched and waited as the dog handler and the German Shepherd wove through the cars to get to us.

The pleasantries were out of the way, and we were about to see how long he would think it was nice to meet me. “There are three dogs in that vehicle and it’s August. I’m responsible for them and I need to open that door right away.” Water bowls were attached to the rungs on the sides of the crates and the dogs sounded okay, but since mentioning either fact would hurt my case, I didn’t.

“Animals in a closed-up car is something we take very seriously,” Lady Anthea said. She was standing beside me, and it felt good to have her support.

The police chief took in my face and then hers. “I need just another minute.”

Another minute? No. I pointed the key fob at the van.

“Please.” Turner’s voice was unexpectedly gentle. I lowered my arm and took a deep breath.

I turned to Lady Anthea. “I know the dog handler, Chuck. There used to be a children’s daycare center in the Villages of Five Points. He and I gave a talk to the kids there and they met one of his dogs. They’re all cross-trained in bomb sniffing and attack. The dogs, that is. Not the kids. But maybe they are too, I wouldn’t know.”

Before he could stop himself, Chief Turner laughed.

I went on. “We didn’t mention the attack part to them.” I got a kick out of seeing him loosen up, but I was also rambling to hide my rising anxiety about the dogs.

When Chuck got closer, his dog turned in a circle either from excitement or confusion. The Shepherd walked around the back of the van and halfway up the length of the vehicle, then reversed and walked back to the middle of the van on the other side. When they passed our little group, the handler said, “Hi, Sue.” Then he turned to Chief Turner. “There’s an unfamiliar scent coming from the back of the van.”

“He’s not just reacting to the dogs in there?” I asked.

Chuck shrugged his shoulders. “Could be, but I don’t think so.”

“So are we cleared to open the vehicle?” Chief Turner asked.

“Go ahead.” The two men said goodbye via that reverse-nod motion their gender uses. Chuck and his dog went back to inspecting cars lined up to drive onto the ferry.

I went around to the side of the van and Lady Anthea followed.

“Those dogs gonna leap out?” Chief Turner leaned over me as I clicked the key fob, and the side door rolled back.

“No, they’re in crates.” I had my foot on the running board about to step in. The dogs went silent and stiffened as the door opened. All three—the dachshund, the collie mix, and the poodle—were on high alert, getting information from wherever they could. Seeing, smelling, or hearing. “It’s okay, fellas.” Their backs and tails relaxed. Robber’s front legs bent a little. The crates squeaked as they shifted their weight, moving their paws up and down as they calmed. Paris sighed and gave a little “mmm” whimper.

“Everything’s fine.”

Only it wasn’t. There was something on the floor, between the two rows of crates. My employee, Henry. The front of his white undershirt was covered in black blood. His eyes were open and his chin was raised. He seemed to be looking to his side, or over his shoulder. His right arm was bent at the elbow, with his lower arm either protecting his throat, or the lower part of his face. I backed out of the van, thinking my shoe would never reach the asphalt. “Chief?”

I’m five-foot-seven, but he bent forward to hear me. I tilted my head to the van’s interior. The dogs, all three, were still watching me. Waiting for me.

As I was processing what I’d seen, I was raising a wall so this couldn’t hurt me.

Turner leaned in and saw what I had seen. He radioed for another officer to join him, then he took off his sunglasses and looked at me. “I’m sorry. That explains Chuck’s dog’s confusion. He’s not trained to detect a cadaver.” Then he turned to the uniformed woman. “Get a crime scene team out here.”

A corpse, outside of a funeral, should have scared me. Instead, I was enormously sad. Henry was my latest hire. He had worked at Buckingham’s for three months but was still outside the team we had become. The confident, dynamic man I interviewed turned out to be arrogant and cagey. I was planning to fire him, but that didn’t change the fact that I hadn’t been there to take care of my employee. I found myself mentally promising him that we’d find out who did this. We?

I looked over at Lady Anthea standing ramrod stiff. “Henry? Is he…?” she asked.

I nodded, looking down at my feet.

She cleared her throat. If anything, she pulled herself up even taller, straighter, and more in control. Then she asked me, “Can we get the dogs out? We need to take them to their respective homes.”

Chief Turner’s eyes darted to the van, but he didn’t answer.

I turned to him. “With some help, we can take the crates out the back of the van, and not disturb anything.”

Finally, he said, “All right, but can you take the animals and leave the crates? I’m concerned there might be blood spatter on them.”

“Sure.” 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 you know if he carried large amounts of cash in his wallet?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “I never saw him flashing any….” I let the sentence drift, and I turned to look over the top of the ferry building to the ocean. It was obvious the line of questioning was about a possible motive for Henry’s murder.

“Or drugs?”

I tilted my head back to Chief Turner. “Not that I ever saw or even suspected. I have no idea why anyone would do this.”

The chief nodded and went back to doing whatever police chiefs do when someone’s been murdered. His questions had made me uneasy about what the days ahead would bring, what we would learn about Henry and about our world.

Already the Buckingham van was surrounded by orange cones and four or five law enforcement officers. Two Lewes police cars, which for all I knew could be the totality of the force’s fleet, had been moved closer. The cheerful yellow swirls painted on their car doors now seemed unbefitting to me, and I turned my head.

Next, Paris had her turn for doing her business and she performed admirably. Lady Anthea got in the passenger seat and I placed both the smaller dogs on her lap. As I closed the door, I looked back to see the woman police officer picking sand and gravel out of the Buckingham van’s tire treads and bagging it. I pulled my eyes away.

“Our first stop will be to drop off the dachshund. Charles Andrews swears the dog has low blood sugar.”

“Does he?” Anthea looked the dog in the eye; it seemed she dared him to tell a fib. He pulled back. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“We checked with his vet to confirm that he doesn’t have diabetes. He doesn’t.”

I took back roads to Route 1 and we headed south toward Rehoboth Beach. In a few miles we turned left, back toward the water. We hadn’t been talking. Again, Lady Anthea seemed to be taking in as much of the scenery as she could.

“Here’s Charles’s street. I hope you haven’t been too uncomfortable holding both dogs.”

“Not at all. Do you think anyone will complain about the dogs riding in the front seat unsecured?”

“Once they know they’re in your lap, it’ll be fine,” I assured her.

Charles Andrews came out of his house before we had come to a complete stop. How was I going to explain where So-Long’s leash was? Turns out I didn’t have to. Anthea opened the car door and the eighty-year-old widower reached for his dog, easily taking him into his arms. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, maybe a touch of jet lag,” Lady Anthea said.

“I’m fine just a little sho…,” I said. Mr. Andrews was holding the dachshund close and looking into his eyes. It was obvious he hadn’t been asking about either of us. “Oh, you were talking to So-Long.”

“Yes, I was. I heard what happened. Or almost happened.”

“Almost?” My intention was to say as little as possible, but Henry wasn’t almost dead.

“Sue, I trusted you. And now I hear your employee was killed trying to steal our dogs.”

“Where did you hear that?” I asked, trying not to get annoyed.

“From an extremely reliable source.” You can’t throw a stick in a small town like Lewes without hitting a so-called reliable source.

As much as I wanted to know who had made such an outlandish suggestion about my employee, I didn’t have time to cajole it out of Charles Andrews. We had two more dogs to deliver. “Let’s wait until all the facts come out.”

He continued to examine his dog for ill effects. So-Long’s expression hadn’t changed. “May I introduce you to Lady Anthea Fitzwalter?”

That drew his attention from the dog, but not for long. “Pleasure to meet you.” Then he went back to scrutinizing his dog.

She smiled. “The pleasure is all mine.”

“See you Friday night,” I called on my way back to the Jeep.

“I don’t…” The rest of what Charles had to say was lost in a mumble.

“I do hope so, Mr. Andrews,” Lady Anthea said. “I always say it’s not summer without an annual fête.” Was it possible she had just sounded more British?

“Well, I guess I’ll be there.” Allowing himself to be charmed into relenting, but only to a maybe.

I said good night and we headed out for our next drop off. “He seemed to be having second thoughts about coming to the gala. And I know he had really been looking forward to it.”

“I’m sure everything will be fine by Friday. This is only Monday.”

***

“My poor baby! Almost a Canadian!” Kate Carter leaned into the back seat of the Jeep and hugged Robber.

Huh?

“Sue, I heard all about it. You must be so relieved he didn’t get away with it.”

For the time being, Henry’s killer had gotten away with it. I had known Kate, fifty-something, blond, tall, but she always wore heels, throwing safety to the wind for years. She read the confusion on my face. “You don’t know?”

I opened the rear passenger side door and a worn-out Robber lumbered down. “Know what?” Oh, I knew plenty.

Kate ran her hand down the back of her sleepy dog’s neck. “Your employee was on his way to Canada to sell our dogs. Somebody, must have been a dog person, committed murder to stop him. I hope you don’t have any other rogue employees like that. I’ve never heard anything like it.”

“Neither have I,” the British voice in the front seat said.

Lady Anthea got out and patted the startled dog owner’s arm. “Certainly, we can’t be too careful with our dogs.”

Kate was about to say something but Lady Anthea rolled on.

“The queen’s favorite corgi breeder is also my breeder.” Let’s just say, she didn’t have to worry about Kate interrupting again. That line was a showstopper. “Our corgis are from the same line. My two are being boarded at her farm while I’m here in the…” She hesitated. This was going to be good. Oh, no. What if she pulled out one of her obscure cultural references? “…The colonies.” She bestowed a smile, and Kate looked like she wished she had a notepad on her. “Buckingham Pet Palace is as safe as a dog can be. You have my word.”

“Thank yooooou,” Kate reverently whispered.

I couldn’t move. I had never seen anything like that performance. I was grateful. I’m not sure what the political parties are in England, but at that moment I would have voted for anyone my business partner wanted me to. Tories? Do they still have Tories?

I moved Paris from the driver’s seat, where Anthea had deposited her, and started the Jeep. I had to get Lady Anthea away from there before Kate started curtsying. We had one more stop before we could return to Lewes.

* * * *

I accelerated onto Route 1. We were both happy to have all three dogs safely in their own homes and to be heading back to Lewes for dinner. Betsy Rivard had the same crazy story about Henry intending to sell the dogs, and Anthea had charmed her the same way as the others. Of course, she felt her poodle, Paris, was the real target of the scheme.

“Is the weather always this pleasant?” she asked.

“The weather in Delaware is pretty mild. And this summer has been especially nice. We have the occasional tropical storm and nor’easter, but none are predicted this month. The weather should be perfect for Friday’s gala. Want to stop by the Lewes beach to watch the sunset before going to Gilligan’s?”

“Oh, yes! That would be lovely.”

I looked at the clock on the dash. “I just need to call Buckingham’s to check on everyone.” She cringed and I realized I had said Buckingham’s. That’s what all our pet parents call it, but Anthea hates it. Was she afraid someone would confuse the palace in London with a pet resort in Lewes, Delaware?

After a quick chat with Shelby, I had been assured the two overnight employees had fed all the boarders and most of the dogs were ready for bed. Dana had fed Abby and walked her to my house, before going home for the night. I told her about the crazy rumor that had spread so quickly.

“Who could have started it?” Shelby asked. “Only the police, Lady Anthea, and you know about Henry’s murder, right? I told our people what I knew, but I don’t think any of them would embellish it.”

Neither of us spoke. We didn’t need to. The only Buckingham staffer that would play fast and loose with the truth like that was Henry.

Anthea and I headed down Savannah Road to Lewes Beach at its end. A handful of cars were lined up facing the ocean. “About half of these people are vacationers. After Labor Day, only locals will come here.”

“When is that?”

“It’s the first weekend of September.” I parked but didn’t budge. It felt good to be still. “Most of the regulars who come here at this time of day are retirees and a lot of them are our clients.”

“I think it’s a good idea for the people here in the car park to see you and, if necessary, hear you refute that nonsense about their dogs being abducted.”

“After the day we’ve had, I’d rather have an early night.”

“It’ll help restore confidence. Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”

I looked over at her.

“Shakespeare,” she said.

“Thank you.”

“Henry IV, specifically.”

“I meant, thank you for stepping up when we dropped off the dogs,” I said. “You charmed their socks off.”

“I was laying it on a little thick, don’t you think?” She laughed at herself, but I had heard pride in a job well done in her voice.

“I wonder how many people will decide they have other plans for Friday night?” I looked through the windshield at the ocean, like it could tell me the future.

“What about after Friday night?” Lady Anthea’s question brought me out of my daze. “Could Henry’s murder irreparably damage the confidence the town has in the business?”

“Not if I can help it.” I opened the car door. “‘Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.’ That was John Wayne.”

She got out and followed me to the white, sandy beach. Some of the sunset watchers were enjoying ice cream cones from the Dairy Queen across the street. Hopkins Farm ice cream is from a dairy farm on Route 9 and was also an excellent choice, but for convenience you couldn’t beat DQ. This gentle ritual of our small beach town was certainly more to my taste than the rumor mill that had our clients’ dogs emigrating to Canada. A light wind swirled the sugary sand around the asphalt, making and unmaking one design after another. If I caught the eye of anyone in a car, I waved. I introduced Anthea to three couples sitting on the white, wooden benches where the parking lot met the beach.

“Want to walk a little?” I asked.

“Brilliant!” she said.

I pulled off my sandals. “Uh-oh.” I had forgotten that she was wearing pantyhose and heels. I pointed to the Beach Patrol office. “There’s a restroom in there if you want to change.”

“No worries.” It was obvious she had no intention of removing her shoes. She began walking and I scrambled to catch up.

“Where are the waves I’ve heard so much about?” she asked.

“Lewes Beach is on the bay. Our town is at the mouth of the Delaware Bay.” Then I pointed east to the series of low, rock walls extending out from the shore and the two lighthouses. “That’s our breakwater. On the other side is the Atlantic Ocean where the waves are. The breakwaters reduce the intensity of the waves and provide safe harbor.”

“Safe harbor,” she repeated. I wondered if they used a different term in England.

We walked down the shoreline, and I introduced her to other beach walkers. She made conversation comparing US beaches to those in England. Suddenly she gasped. “Look!” she yelled and pointed to the western sky. “We almost missed the sunset.”