Nina Wright - Whiskey with a Twist

By the time I reached Deely and Kori, they’d already gotten their wind back-if they’d ever lost it. Deely was introducing Kori to Dr. David, who stood on a makeshift stage surrounded by Fleggers. I knew they were all Fleggers because everybody wore bright yellow shirts with black block letters that proclaimed

YOUR DOGS DESERVE DIGNITY.

WHY MAKE THEM COMPETE IN

AN EVENT YOU COULDN’T WIN?

BAN CANINE BEAUTY PAGEANTS!

I jogged up to the edge of the stage and promptly doubled over, gasping for breath.

“Hewwo, Whiskey,” said Dr. David with his signature speech impediment. Allow me to translate the rest of his remarks: “Told you we’d be here! Sorry to hear about Abra running away. Again. Wish we could help.”

“Oh, please help!” I panted. “Please, please help!”

Around Magnet Springs, Dr. David-in his Animal Ambulance- was the dogcatcher of last resort. I tried not to count the number of times he’d assisted me in looking for Abra.

The good vet leaned down from the stage.

“I don’t think you understand. Deely and I are here in an official capacity. We can’t retrieve the very dogs we admonish owners to set free!”

“Oh shit.”

This time finding Abra was going to be entirely up to me. And I didn’t know the territory.

“But we can tell you which way the dogs went,” Deely said helpfully.

She pointed toward the Barnyard Inn. We were looking at the back of the building, the section that housed my room. The motel faced Route 20.

“Did they cross the highway or follow it?” I asked without enthusiasm.

“Neither,” Deely said. “They’re in room 18.”

“What?”

“Yes, ma’am. Abra was chasing the big silvery dog, running loops around the RV lot-”

“Abra was chasing Silverado?” I interrupted. “When I last saw them, he was chasing her!”

“Not by the time they got here,” Deely said.

“That’s right,” Dr. David confirmed. “By then Abra had assumed her usual role as sexual aggressor.”

He pronounced it “sexuah aggwessah.” That made it sound even worse.

“The male dog-I think you called him Silverado?-left the RV lot and ran to the motel,” Deely continued. “Abra followed him in hot pursuit.”

No doubt.

“When Silverado scratched at the door of room 18,” Deely said, “somebody let them in.”

“Not room 18,” Kori said. “That can’t be right.”

“Yes, ma’am, I’m sure it is. Dr. David and I were both witnesses.”

The good vet nodded. So did the entire chorus of Fleggers arranged on the stage.

“Why couldn’t it be room 18?” I asked Kori.

“Because that’s my room. And I’m out here. Duh.”

“Somebody was in there ten minutes ago, ma’am,” said Deely. “We all saw it.”

Dr. David and his yellow-shirted compatriots agreed.

“The bitch set me up,” Kori muttered.

I assumed we weren’t talking about Abra anymore. Just to be certain, I asked.

“Who do you think I mean?” Kori snapped. “My favorite auntie! Susan wants to make damn sure everybody knows I’m a Bad Example. She’s getting back at me for winning that round!”

“Why would having Silverado in your room be wrong?” I said.

“Susan wants to make it look like I’m trying to steal him! First, I set him free. And then I hid him in my room. But she did it herself!”

“I don’t see how,” I said. “Even if Susan set him free, she couldn’t have been in your room to let him in. There was no time-“

“She got somebody to do it for her! Susan has ways of making people do whatever she wants.”

Kori narrowed her eyes and blew a bubble half the size of her head. I stepped back in case it exploded. No need. Kori deftly deflated it with her metal tongue stud and rolled the whole wad back into her mouth.

“The plan, if there was one, has a downside,” I pointed out. “They got Abra, too. And that bitch is no bargain.”

Kori asked Deely and Dr. David if the person who opened the door was a man or a woman. Neither could say, so they consulted their team of Fleggers. No one had actually seen the whole human.

Kori spat her gum on the ground. I assumed that meant she was annoyed, so I changed the subject.

“Hey, I’m next door to you. In room 17.”

“No shit. Your puking kept me up half the night.”

I was about to apologize because that’s what Midwesterners with low self- esteem do. There was no time, however. At that moment every head in the vicinity-including those on the Fleggers’ stage and those inside the RV park dog crates-turned toward the roar in the sky.

The sound stirred memories; I’d once ridden in a helicopter and endured the deafening whine of the engine, plus the whup-whup of the blades. As the craft drew closer, everyone who could covered his ears. The dogs had to settle for howling.

At first I thought it was a cop helicopter, zooming in to investigate Ramona’s shooting. After all, this was the third round of gunfire at the Barnyard Inn-and the second round aimed at Ramona-in less than twenty-four hours. Somebody was obliged to check it out.

It wasn’t the police, however. After the craft landed neatly in the parking lot, the second person out the door was Odette Mutombo. She followed a man who jumped athletically from the helicopter and then offered his hand to help her down. Wearing what I recognized as her favorite Armani suit, Odette gracefully disembarked.

The man wore a flack jacket, jeans, and boots; his still-thick hair was an equal blend of brown and silver. I couldn’t help but notice he stood so close to Odette that their shoulders touched. She threw back her ebony head and laughed. Then he slid an arm around her waist, and they started toward us.

I was about to meet Liam Davies. At last.

Perry simply couldn’t have been right about Liam and Odette. I’d known Odette for years, and I refused to believe she would betray her husband. Not even for the biggest commission check of her life.

And yet… watching her with Liam stirred an old, happy memory. The only man who’d ever made me laugh like that while doing business was my late husband Leo. And when we weren’t working, we were having great sex.

“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!”