Nina Wright - Whiskey with a Twist

Perry Stiles waved to me. He was in the concession area, too-standing at the condiments table, garnishing a wiener.

I thanked Matt for the offer to buy lunch but said I’d cover my own. He promised to let me know if he heard anything about Abra, but his focus was now entirely on Susan. Did that make him his father’s son?

“Good job getting the show going again,” I told Perry. “And before you ask-the answer is ‘Hell, no!’ I have no affiliation whatsoever with those animal-rights maniacs. Except that some of them are my friends.”

I flashed him my most earnest smile. The one I use whenever I have to explain myself to the IRS. Or to my mother.

Perry looked beyond me to the table where the Davies clan sat, accompanied by Odette. Susan was fussing over Matt and Silverado.

“You’re witnessing a historic event of questionable taste,” Perry whispered. “Susan, her husband, his lover, and her boy-toy. Plus the poor niece, stuck in the middle-with the dog.”

“I just have one question,” I said. “Is Matt as shallow as I think he is?”

“How shallow do you think he is?”

“Well, I met Mitchell Slater, and I don’t think the apple fell far from the tree… “

Perry said, “So, you know that story! Who told?”

“The niece in the middle.”

“Good for Kori! You got to love that girl’s pluck, if not her wardrobe. Yes, Mitchell was a vain one, and Matt is more or less the same-minus the mean streak.”

“Mitchell was nasty?”

“Ask his first wife. For that matter, ask any woman he loved and shoved aside.”

“Including Susan?”

Perry looked startled. “Susan dumped Mitchell. I think she’s the only one who pulled that off. If you ask me, she toyed with him just to get close to Matt. Or maybe, knowing Susan, all she really wanted was the dog.”

“What dog?”

“The niece didn’t tell you that story? Silverado was Mitchell’s gift to Susan.”

“I thought Susan dumped him-right after he left his wife for her. Then he cheated Susan out of her stud fee.”

“Mitchell would have left his wife, anyway,” Perry said. “He left them all. The man preferred conquests to connubial bliss. As for the stud fee, Susan didn’t get cheated. Mitchell saved enough sperm to make lots of puppies. Silverado was one, and Susan got him-plus the full refund of her stud fee. Ramona knows that.”

“Why would she and Susan lie?”

“Why do they do anything? For starters, Susan’s a manipulative bitch, and Ramona’s a drama queen. The latter will make a full recovery, by the way. She took the bullet in her well-padded ass, a glancing wound only.”

I refrained from revealing what I knew about Ramona’s acting career, courtesy of MacArthur.

Perry continued, “Ramona likes to make Susan look better than Susan is. Ramona probably thinks that makes her look better, too, by association. They’re friends and co-breeders, after all. As for her lies about Slater, well, Ramona had issues of her own with that bad boy.”

“What-?”

But I was interrupted. By a chili dog and a book. To be precise, I was interrupted by Odette Mutombo, who stood before me bearing gifts.

“Excuse me,” she said to Perry. “Whiskey, you need to eat.”

“Do I also need to read?”

“Yes. I bought this for you from that vendor over there.”

She pointed to a smiling red-haired woman sitting near the concession stand, behind a table piled high with books.

“That’s the author,” Odette said, pointing to the woman’s photo inside the book.

“Thanks… but I really don’t have time to read.”

“I think you should make time.”

Odette tapped the cover, which featured a cartoon-like rendering of a running Afghan hound.

“It’s a mystery about a dog like yours. That woman over there has written a whole series of them. Perhaps if you read the books, you would learn something.”

I doubted it, but I took the book just the same, tucking it into my bag. I took the chili dog, too, with more enthusiasm. When I bit into it, I was almost overcome with hunger.

“I can’t believe how good this tastes,” I said, my mouth full. Then I remembered my manners, or some of them, and started to introduce Odette to Perry.

She cut me off. “Please. Let me do the talking.”

Letting Odette do the talking had made me a lot of money. Which reminded me that she had stepped away from our current client. I checked the Davies table; it was now vacant. Where had the husband, his wife, her lover, her dog, and his niece disappeared to?

“Excuse me…”

I turned in response to a flat female voice. The Two L’s were behind me flanked by a pair of blonde dogs who looked like them. I assumed I was blocking their path to the condiments. So I moved. But that wasn’t what they wanted.

“You do know your bitch is missing, don’t you?” said the L named Lindsey.

“You mean Abra?” I asked. As opposed to, say, Susan.

The Two L’s nodded.

“Yes, I know she’s missing. I’m going to look for her just as soon as I finish this.”

When I held up what was left of my chili dog, some of the greasy garnish plopped onto Lindsey’s shoe.

“Then you’re aware that Abra is gone?” Lauren asked.

Did they think I was dense? Or did they suspect me of trying to lose her on purpose? Sure, the temptation had crossed my mind. But this was a very inconvenient place to lose Abra. Fleggers were everywhere, probably cheering her on.

“We’re asking,” Lindsey said as she wiped her shoe, “because we just saw her. And we thought you might like to know where.”

“Where?”

“In the back of a wagon. With a herd of long-haired goats.”

Odette was the first to respond to the Two L’s’ stunning announcement.

“Well, somebody thinks Abra is valuable. As valuable as a goat!”

“No,” Lindsey said. “Somebody thinks she is a goat. They don’t know they’ve got an Af on board.”

“We’re talking about an Amish teenager,” Lauren said. “Do you know about them?”

I didn’t know about goats or Amish teenagers, and I said so.

“The goats are probably irrelevant,” Perry interjected, “except for locating your bitch. Amish teenagers, now that’s a topic worthy of discussion.”

“I don’t want a discussion!” I cried. “I want my dog back!”

“Since when?” Odette said.

Perry plunged ahead. “On the Amish Country tour, you learn that Amish teens get a few years to act out and test the limits. Then, when they’re eighteen, they have to declare whether they’re going to be Amish or not.”

Lauren said, “This teen was definitely testing the limits. He was drunk.”

“He was weaving all over Route 20,” Lindsey confirmed. “We were walking our dogs around the front of the motel when he drove by.”

“In a wagon,” Lauren said, “pulled by two horses. He stopped to talk with a couple kids in a buggy going the other way. One of the goats nudged open the latch on the back of the wagon, and all the goats jumped out!”

“Don’t tell me,” I moaned. “And then Abra jumped in.”

“Not right away,” Lauren said. “She came running from the direction of the motel. When she saw the goats, she chased them. All over the highway.”

“She stopped traffic,” Lindsey added. “It took all three teenagers to round up the goats. Then Abra jumped into the wagon when nobody was looking.”

“You were looking!” I said. “Why didn’t you say something?”

Odette answered for them. “When that bitch gets going, it’s like watching a train wreck.”

“Which way did the goats go?” Perry asked.

“Toward Nappanee,” said Lindsey. “The kid is probably driving them to his family’s farm. And that could be anywhere around here.”