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Chapter 2

“Sue?” It was Shelby Ryan, my assistant manager. “Are you in there?”

“Stay outside!” Chief Turner called.

“Stay! Stay! Stay!” Shelby said.

“Yeah, that’s what I said.” The police chief was taking notes, his back to the door.

“Oh, no!” I knew what was coming and turned to Taylor and Laurie. “She has the puppies with her.” On Christmas Day, Shelby’s Bernese Mountain Dog—poetically named Bernice—had a litter of eight puppies. Shelby, and her husband, Jeffrey, had three left. And those three had smelled the food that was covering the lobby floor. They tumbled over the board holding the inner doors apart and ran in. When their claws got to the pilfered food, they began skidding, trying to catch kibble in their mouths as they slid.

“My evidence!” Turner yelled. Then he saw Bernice. His mouth dropped open at the sight of the one-hundred-pound dog.

Bernice was on a leash and when Shelby commanded her to stay, she did, though she did look longingly at the buffet she was missing out on as she stood with her head and neck between the doors. She, like most of her breed, had what was known as a dry mouth, which meant she didn’t drool. Bernice’s tight lips meant the lobby entrance would stay dry, more or less.

Taylor and Laurie each picked up a puppy. I picked up the third.

“Sorry,” Shelby said. We have a strict no leash–no lobby rule. “I raced out the door when the alarm company called. Sue, they said you didn’t give them the password.” For her to have driven with Bernice and her puppies loose in the car instead of crated or harnessed told me she had been as worried as I had been at the thought of Taylor and Laurie here during a break-in.

The flashing lights of a second Lewes police department car lit up our small parking lot.

Chief Turner looked at Bernice, then at Shelby. “Would you mind, uh, doing something with that?” He obviously wanted to meet with the new police officer on the scene, but the dog’s head, the size of a football, still filled the space between the two interior doors.

“Sure. Sorry, I forgot,” Shelby said and returned her dog to the van. This was the van we had used to chauffeur dogs until one of our employees was found murdered in it last year. We figured the good people of Lewes wouldn’t want to see it around town and besides, it seemed disrespectful of the dead. We had the title to the Honda van transferred to Shelby, and she transferred the title of her Prius to Buckingham’s. The van was our signature golf-course-green, and she had it painted white. We had the Buckingham Pet Palace logo painted on her Prius and we were good to go. Sometimes we had to make more than one trip for morning pickups or afternoon drop-offs, but that was okay. A small-business owner that wasn’t flexible was soon out of business.

Chief Turner carefully worked his way through the doors to get outside, where, except for the patrol car headlights, it was still dark.

As soon as Shelby came back inside she stretched her arms wide for a group hug.

“Shelby, your hair is as big as a person,” Taylor said, holding up a strand of thick, curly, red locks, and towering over her. Shelby was just over five feet tall. “Did you know that?”

“If you’re giving me a hard time, I guess everybody’s okay,” she said.

“It might take Chief Turner a while to get over seeing Bernice,” I said.

“So Lewes Five-O hasn’t gotten over his fear of dogs?” she whispered. That’s only one of the nicknames we have for our town’s oh-so-serious, and dangerously handsome police chief.

“Doesn’t look like it,” I said.

“Guess what?” Laurie asked. “Sue tried to chase the burglar’s car.”

“I would have paid good money to see that,” Shelby said.

“It was so old for a minute I thought I had a shot.”

Chief Turner was back inside. “Can anyone tell me anything else about the vehicle?”

“The paint job was so faded that even if there had been more light, I doubt I could say what color it was,” I said. “I saw some rust, if that helps. It looked like a little clown car.”

“A little clown car,” he mimicked. He added that to his trusty notepad, then closed it again.

I had been about to show him the photos I had taken of the car, but figured I should look at them in private before sharing them with Mr. Smart Ass, in case there wasn’t anything to see. Sure, I would have loved to be the person who could say, “That car? It’s a ’96 Corvette.” Or, “Hey, look, everybody, there goes a ’67 El Camino made in Atlanta.” But I’m not. Never would be. I can, however, identify dog breeds all day long.

“Can you come with me to Anglers now?”

“Why?” I asked, surely a reasonable question.

“I, uh, have a situation,” he let the sentence trail off.

“Officer Statler will wait here for the crime scene team.” He pointed over his shoulder to the uniformed officer, a young woman, standing behind him.

Rather than hang around for my answer, he gave further instructions to her. “Take statements from the two late–shift employees.” He gave the dog food on the floor a look that showed how profoundly the puppies had hurt him, then went out to the parking lot.

I didn’t have my watch on, but I guessed it was about four o’clock. “Shelby, if I’m not back in an hour, would you walk and feed Abby?”

“Of course,” she answered. “Anglers? Is he taking you fishing?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I have no idea why he wants to go there.”

“He’s tried every other way to get you to go out with him. Maybe he thought that would work.”

“Does he fish?” Laurie asked, with a doubtful look on her face.

I shrugged. “Maybe. Who knows? The guy is so private it’s like he’s in a witness protection program. Taylor and Laurie, do any of the boarders need extra TLC? What were the dogs doing while all this was going on?”

“All of them woke up and a few were curious. No one got upset or even barked,” Laurie said.

“Hmm,” I said. “They must not have thought you two were in any danger, or felt threatened. I’m surprised the high-pitched sound of the alarm didn’t upset some of them. Good job, ladies!”

I handed Shelby the puppy I was still snuggling and went to meet Chief Turner outside. He was waiting for me by his police cruiser. Our town, with a population of around three thousand, had a handful of these white cars with the yellow and black bands painted on the two front doors. The city’s coat of arms, which had been shamelessly copied from Lewes, in Sussex, England, was painted on both sides of the cars, too. He walked around the rear of the car and opened the door for me. “That’s what you wear in February?”

The sweatshirt had been adequate when I was scared to death. Now, not so much. “I’ll go home and get a jacket and meet you at Anglers.”

“Here,” he said, shrugging out of his windbreaker. “Take this.”

I graciously took the jacket, and got in the car, looking back at Buckingham’s, where I should be and wanted to be. I didn’t put it on—I was still leaving my options open, though we were driving out of the parking lot. “I really should stay here and clean up to get ready to open.”

“You can’t clean up until the crime scene team gets done.”

“And they’ll be through before seven o’clock?” That’s when we open on weekdays.

“I think so.” We waited for the light to change, both lost in our thoughts. I was wondering who around here would steal dog food. Then we turned onto Savannah Road and headed for downtown Lewes. On that stretch of road the speed limit lowered several times. I noticed that he obeyed each and every sign. If the police chief couldn’t speed, who could? Still, he drove at thirty-five miles per hour then twenty-five. Cute.

His avoiding telling me why we were going to Anglers? Not cute. It was too early for the store to be open. That meant we were going to the dock.

“So, what do you hear from Lady Anthea?” he asked.

Lady Anthea Fitzwalter and I are co-owners of the Buckingham Pet Palace. Her brother was a duke, her grandmother was lady-in-waiting to the queen, and her house, actually an estate, had a name. It’s Frithsden. At first, she was a silent partner. Using her name and photographs of her home, gardens, and dogs gave Buckingham’s royal cred. I paid her a percentage of the profits. Last August she visited and we bonded over solving the murder of Henry Canon.

“She’ll be here tomorrow,” I answered. “Last year the American Kennel Club approved a Trick Dog titling program. She’ll be teaching a one-week trick class and an agility class.”

“What is that?”

“It’s a timed, obstacle course a dog—”

“Oh, it’s for dogs?” he interrupted.

I rolled my eyes, more for my own benefit since it was still dark outside. “No, it’s for men we’re considering dating.”

“Will she mind not being the only VIP in Lewes?”

“Who else is in town?” I asked.

“Howard Fourie, the CEO of the management company running Friday’s celebration.”

“You’re not really comparing her centuries-old family name and title to Mr. Edutainer, are you?” I loaded all the derision I felt for the educational and entertainment project into my question. When there were no pet parents in Buckingham’s we strung out M-i-s-t-e-r E-d-u-t-a-i-n-e-r like circus barkers.

“Mr. Fourie wants to help Lewes celebrate some local history. But what I want to know is what kind of town celebrates the twenty-year anniversary of finding the bottom of a broken wine bottle?”

“Surely you know more about the discovery of the artifacts from the British supply ship than that.” I didn’t wait for his reply. “Are you stalling for time? Why don’t you want to tell me why we’re going to Anglers at this extreme hour?”

“We’re going there because that’s where the launch will pick us up to take us to the Harbor of Refuge Lighthouse. I need your help with something.”

“Look, you’re going to have to tell me more. I’d rather be at Buckingham’s. That’s where I need to be.” If we had been at a stop sign I swear I would have jumped out and run back.

“I’m sorry. I’m trying to process a few things at once.” He ran his hand over his short hair. “This morning I was about to call you and explain why we needed to go to the lighthouse when the alarm call came in. I was worried about you.”

“You need to go,” I said.

“Huh?”

“The light’s green.” There was a car behind us but since it was a police car sitting still at the light, the prudent motorist had resisted honking his horn.

Chief Turner waved an apology and drove on. We crossed the drawbridge over the canal and turned left. We drove to the end of Anglers Road, right up to the big blue Anglers Fishing Center sign.

“Why do you need my help with something going on at the lighthouse? I could give you the phone number for the president of the lighthouse foundation. Or you could call the Army Corps of Engineers since they own the Breakwater,” I said.

“I’m pretty sure you’re the best person for this particular situation. A pilot was on his way to a freighter and swears he heard a dog barking out on the Harbor of Refuge Lighthouse.”