While nuking a mug of the evaporated milk leftover from Chester’s gourmet mac ‘n’ cheese, I felt a presence behind me. Whirling around-which is easy in cotton socks on a tile floor-I confronted Chester, wrapped in the hugely oversized white bathrobe I kept in the guest room.
“Why aren’t you in bed?” I demanded. And then I remembered what really mattered. “Where’s Velcro?”
I simultaneously scanned the floor for stray poop and steeled my nerves for a strident chorus of yips.
Chester silenced me with a finger to his lips. “Velcro’s sound asleep, which isn’t easy when you’re up banging around.”
“You’re up, too,” I whispered back.
“Yes, but I know how to move with stealth.” He flourished a sheaf of computer printouts. “I had a dream about the dog show you’re going to. So I checked it out online.”
“A dream? Please don’t tell me you’re psychic,” I said. “This town doesn’t need one more person with telepathy.”
“Not a psychic dream. A regular dream. Then I woke up and Googled Mitchell Slater.”
“Who?”
By now I was sitting at the kitchen table, slurping my hot evaporated milk. It tasted smooth enough to knock me right out.
Chester said, “The breeder whose stud had a stroke while mounting Susan’s bitch!”
That snapped me wide awake. “What about him?”
“He might be the shooter, and he’s coming to Amish Country.”
Chester pulled out a chair, sat down across from me, and spread his pages on the table so that I could read them. They outlined the schedule of events at the Midwest Afghan Hound Specialty. Using a highlighter, Chester had marked Mitchell Slater’s name wherever it appeared. Apparently the man headed several committees.
“He’ll be in Nappanee, Whiskey.”
“So?”
To make his point without shouting, Chester stood on his chair. “Slater might be the shooter! If he is, Susan could wind up dead!”
“His stud died four years ago,” I said. “If he’d wanted to kill Susan, I think he would have done it by now. We have no proof he’s the one who fired those shots!”
“If he’s not the shooter, then Susan has a bigger problem,” Chester said darkly. “An enemy she doesn’t know.”
“Or won’t admit she knows,” I said.
“She needs a bodyguard,” Chester declared, “and so do you if you plan to be near her.”
“I’ll be with Abra. She scares the crap out of people.”
“Only people who don’t know Afghan hounds,” Chester said.
I understood his point. People who didn’t know the breed didn’t know how to handle Abra’s speed and springiness. She had disarmed more than one would-be assailant. But we were headed for an event where people knew all about Afghan hounds.
“If Susan doesn’t hire MacArthur this weekend, then you should,” Chester said.
“He’s your driver,” I said. “Isn’t he supposed to drive you places?”
“This weekend I can ride my bike. Besides, Velcro and Prince Harry need a workout.”
Chapter Seven
I challenge anyone to have a four A.M. conversation about shooters and bodyguards and then fall asleep. By the time Chester and I headed back to our respective bedrooms, I‘d sacrificed whatever soporific benefits were possible from a cup of hot evaporated milk.
I must have dozed off at some point, though, because I woke to the sun slanting through my blinds and Jeb insistently tooting the horn on his new BMW. I don’t care how classy the car is; a horn is a horn is a horn when it interrupts your beauty sleep. I threw on my robe, stumbled down the stairs, flung open the front door and shouted at him to hang on a freaking minute while I got myself together. He took that as an invitation to come in for coffee. Go figure.
I jumped in and out of the shower, ran a rubber brush through my recalcitrant curls, yanked on a couple deliberately understated beige separates, and dashed downstairs. Chester, clad in a starched white chef’s apron, was serving Jeb breakfast. A hot breakfast.
“Where did you find the ingredients to make waffles?” I asked. “Not to mention that apron. And isn’t today a school day?”
I cared about the kid’s education. But I cared more about the fact that there were hot waffles in my kitchen. They smelled like honey and malt.
“I called MacArthur, and he delivered what I needed from the Castle,” Chester replied. He removed a perfect golden waffle from a gleaming griddle that hadn’t come from my kitchen. “As for school, this is an in-service day, teachers only. That means I’m free 'til Monday to be Jeb’s personal chef.”
Jeb licked his chops. The diminutive chef indicated my place at the table.
“You’ll be in Amish Country with Abra,” he said. “So I’ll hang with Jeb. I’m going to try out a couple new entrées-including Steak Chester, a variation on Steak Diane.”
“If you’re good, Whiskey,” Jeb said, “maybe Chester will give you the recipe.”
That sent Chester into a spasm of laughter. Presumably because he’d never seen me so much as turn on my stove. He topped my waffle with imported Swedish syrup made from lingonberries, which I had never heard of.
“Where did you learn to cook like this?” I said.
“Cassina keeps hiring and firing chefs,” he said. “I learn what I can from each of them.”
After a second lighter-than-air waffle-and a third cup of Peruvian organic coffee, hand-ground by Chester-I reluctantly let Jeb drive me to work. What for, I had no idea. I walked in the door of Mattimoe Realty, buzzed and stuffed from my unexpected breakfast, to find the phones silent and my office manager sobbing.
While that wasn’t typical Friday morning behavior, it wasn’t unheard of, either. Tina Breen was quite possibly the most emotional person on the planet. I stared at her leaking bloodshot eyes, her runny nose, and her desk covered with sticky balled up tissues. Before I could ask what had set her off, she bawled, “My life’s a bigger disaster than your business!”
Although I thought that unlikely, the possibility gave me hope. Whenever I’m discouraged, I like to recall one of my mother’s favorite sayings: “There’s always somebody worse off than you are.” This morning that somebody seemed to be Tina.
So I pulled up a chair and sat facing her in the lobby. We used to have a receptionist on duty out here, but I’d laid her off months ago. Assigning the depressed and volatile office manager to double as greeter may not have been my brightest move. But we rarely had walk-in business.
I offered my best impression of a patient person. “What’s wrong, Tina?”
“Ask me what hasn’t gone wrong! That would be simpler!”
She snuffled loudly and wiped her red nose on the already streaked cuff of her wrinkled blouse. Tina must have run out of tissues some time ago. I fished in my purse for a fresh supply.
“Tim has been unemployed for five months!” she wailed. “And Winston and Neville were diagnosed with ADHD. Do you know what it’s like to have toddlers with ADHD?”
“Well, no,” I answered honestly. “Unless it’s like having Abra…”
“My husband is out of work, my kids are driving me out of my mind, and your business is going down the tubes!”
I tried to remember how shrinks on TV do it. “Let’s forget about my business for a minute and focus on you.”
“But your business is my biggest problem! If you go under, we’ll have no income! We’ll lose our home and our health insurance and our car! What would we do?”
What would I do if my business went under? As adept at sustaining denial as I was at brokering real estate, I hadn’t yet let myself face that hard question. And I didn’t feel like dealing with it this morning.