I could call the police; after all, I'd been chased by a man with a gun. At least I thought he had a gun. Chief Johnson couldn’t still be on duty, could he? Surely he didn’t work around the clock. I considered whether explaining the whole thing to someone new would be worse that talking to Chief Johnson again. But he would have told the next person on duty about the events he had handled on his shift.
The sarcastic inner voice piped up. “Can’t you just hear him? ‘It was a busy night. I did a routine traffic stop and it was Kay Chelton’s crazy cousin claiming her boyfriend had been kidnapped by a space alien posing as a blonde in a red suit. Later she called to tell me about a message the space aliens had beamed down onto the boyfriend’s phone machine.’”
“Stop it, it was Kay who added the space alien bit,” I said out loud. The dogs pricked their ears at me. I reached for the phone. “I'll just tell the police we were chased by a man with a gun.”
The police officer in my head asked, “And what kind of gun was it, Mrs. McGuire? Oh, you didn’t get close enough to see? You say it was tucked into his waistband and you saw it through a set of white organdy sheers?”
I couldn’t do it. I ran through a mental list of other people I'd gotten to know in the few months I'd been back in Willow Falls. They were acquaintances, people you said hello to when you passed them in the street. I had met several friendly people at the dog park, but I didn’t know anyone’s last name. A tattered phone book was tucked under the phone, but the phone book is not enlightened enough to list people by their dogs’ names.
I pulled out the book, looked up a number. Dialed for a cab.
The ladies’ room beckoned next; I didn’t want to look so scary the cab driver would refuse to pick me up. Both dogs shook themselves hard as soon as I closed the door behind us. Luckily they were just wet, not muddy, so a few paper towels erased the evidence of their ablutions from the walls and floor. They panted happily at me, shiny and eager for whatever would come next.
I, on the other hand, felt like a refugee from a junkyard. Only so much damage to one’s appearance can be repaired with cold water and paper towels in a Texaco restroom. In my case it made no appreciable difference. Twigs of hay stuck out of the hair plastered to my skull. Mud streaked up my cheek, partially covering a scratch on my forehead. My wet clothes clung to me in a clammy embrace. My face was flushed and my neck blotchy and overheated. Mushroom goo smeared one knee, and a liberal coating of stick-tights decorated my jeans from the hems on up. My shoes squished as I shifted my weight. I was probably lucky the cashier had waited on me at all.
“Blagh,” I scowled at my reflection. I don’t waste space in my fanny pack on cosmetics or cleaning equipment. A few wet paper towels took care of the mud, and I fluffed as much water as I could out of my hair with my fingers. I made a face at myself in the mirror, and left the restroom to wait for the cab.
It took forever to arrive. After a few minutes I sat down on the curb by the attendant’s booth. When the taxi finally pulled into the drive I hauled myself to my feet. The white station wagon, several years old, was emblazoned with the name of the cab company and its phone number painted in purple and red on the doors. I pulled open the back passenger door. Emily Ann stepped in and lay down by the far door as Jack bounced in.
“Hey, lady,” the cabbie protested as I slid my wet butt onto the seat, “I don’t take no dogs in here.” He peered at me over thick glasses perched halfway down his long nose. A stout man in his early sixties, he sported the kind of stubble on his face that always looks like a three day growth of beard, no matter when it was last shaved off. Jack put his short front legs on the back of the front seat and laid his muzzle on them, giving the driver a soulful look. His tail wagged madly. “What the hell,” the driver shrugged. “Where you goin’?”
“Two twenty three Maple,” I told him and settled back for the ride.
Chapter Twelve
Two Weeks Earlier
Cleta came out of the café with a carafe of boiling water to refresh my tea. “Kay called,” she told me. “She wants you to come by when you finish your breakfast.”
Trellis Island’s Eileen had finished her coffee and hightailed it to my cousin’s store. “Sure,” I said to Cleta. “Thanks for the message.”
“Kay is your cousin?” Bob asked, surprise coloring his voice. “How did she know where to find you?”
“Kay has her little ways,” I said.
“Do the two of you have a deep psychic connection or something?”
“No, thank heavens! You just don’t know how small Willow Falls is yet.”
He took a sip of coffee. “You said you inherited your parents’ house. Is that where you grew up?” he asked. I shook my head.
“No, my parents bought this one after I'd left for college.” When I had gone home for Christmas my freshman year I’d found that from now on I would stay in my parents’ guest room, that I no longer had a room in their house. They had seen nothing odd in the arrangement. “I haven’t decided yet if I want to keep it or buy something else.”
He nodded. “You probably keep seeing your parents in it.”
I nodded.
“Which might be a comfort depending on how you felt about them,” he continued.
Whether he was a reporter or not, it was too soon to have that conversation. I took a bite of my roll to buy some time. After I swallowed I said, “What about you? What brought you to Willow Falls?”
He shrugged. “I've been living in High Cross, and I got a chance to rent a place here for less money. I can write anywhere, but I recently got Jack and the new place has room for him to run around more than he could in the city.” He looked down at his pet, now sprawled on his side, panting gently.
“Is he a pound puppy?” I asked.
Bob shook his head. “I guess you could call him a rescue dog. I ended up with him when his former owner died.”
“Do you have a map of Willow Falls? I could mark the location of the dog park,” I offered. “Or if you want, I could take you sometime.” I tried to sound offhand.
“That would be great. Jack loves to play with other dogs.” Bob sipped some more coffee. I couldn’t tell if he wanted my company or a map, and I wasn’t sure how to ask. I'd used up all my brazenness with ‘are you married.’
Bob’s focus shifted to something beyond me. I glanced over my shoulder. Two women were crossing Maple, and a large black car paused before turning left onto Second Street. I turned back around. Bob was staring at the street, his fingers around the coffee mug white with the force of his grip. A more delicate cup would have been in shards.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He pulled his gaze back to me. “What? Yes. I—I thought I saw a car I knew.” He set the mug carefully on the table. “Not very likely though.”
“Somebody you knew in High Cross? Maybe they’ll circle the block and you can catch them.”
“Let’s hope not. Come to think of it, this guy might be perfect for Doris.”
“Ahh,” I nodded. “Not a friend.”
“Definitely not.”
I ate the last bite of my roll and put down the fork. “Well, thanks for breakfast,” I said.
“Could I tag along to your cousin’s store?” he asked. “I'd enjoy seeing it. Maybe I'll find something I've always been looking for. Oh, but I've got Jack.”
“That’s okay, she’ll love him. She’s between dogs herself right now but Emily Ann hangs around whenever I'm there. We use her as a prop to highlight whatever sofas Kay has in stock. Emily Ann is a total couch potato, unless she’s outdoors running. But if Doris is there the one running will be me.” I had a happy thought. “Unless you think we could get Jack to bite her.”
As we left the patio, Bob looked both ways along Maple Street, swinging his little pack over his left shoulder. If Doris was still around, she was safely inside one of the shops. We walked the half block to OKay Antiques, where Bob paused to study the display in the window. Kay and I had set up a cozy library corner, with worn leather-bound volumes in a glass-fronted barrister’s bookcase next to a plump little settee. A small, round oak table was near, its top covered with an embroidered cloth. A pair of wire-framed glasses rested on an old-fashioned novel by a green-shaded lamp. In front of the settee was a small Turkish carpet, with a pair of needlepoint slippers apparently kicked off and abandoned.