Саманта Сильвер - Barking Up The Wrong Tree

I was worried that we’d quickly run out of things to talk about, but luckily, Sophie decided to pitch in at one point.

“Hey Austin, did you hear that today Willow Bay had its second murder in two months?”

“Sophie,” Lisa scolded. “That’s not exactly dinner conversation.”

“It’s fine,” Austin said, smiling. “I enjoy a little bit of local gossip here and there. Do they know who was killed?”

“A local gossip,” Sophie replied with a small smile. I couldn’t tell if she was ridiculously angry, enjoying herself, or both. Austin’s smile dropped slightly, but then he pasted it right back onto his face.

“Well, that’s quite sad. I heard you ladies had a little something to do with helping the police find the last killer,” he added.

“Yeah, we just helped,” I jumped in quickly, before either of the other two could reply. I was going to do my best to make sure this dinner didn’t devolve into total chaos, for Lisa’s sake. I might not like the guy, but if he made Lisa happy, wasn’t that what was important? After all, she’d raised Charlotte, Sophie and I as a single mother; the least we owed her was to be nice to her first boyfriend that we knew of since her divorce.

Just then the waitress came by with our meals – thank God – and the conversation was a lot slower as we all focused on our food.

We made it through the rest of the meal without anyone openly insulting anyone else, and when we finally parted ways, we decided that we’d just leave Lisa and Austin there and head straight back to the bungalow. Walking through the parking lot towards the car, I thought I heard a bang behind the restaurant.

“What was that?” I asked Charlotte and Sophie, and they shrugged. “Just someone throwing out some trash.”

“Maybe,” I replied, but something drove me to go have a look. Witch’s instinct? I wasn’t going to say no to that. “I’ll be right back.”

I made my way around the side of the diner building towards the back. Most of it consisted of windows, to let the guests see the view of the water, but the far end was just behind the kitchen. I made my way over there, certain that was where the sound came from.

I was suddenly extremely aware of the fact that I was alone, in the dark, at the back of a restaurant where I’d just heard a strange noise. My heart leapt into my throat as I heard something else, there was someone in the garbage at the back of the restaurant.

Moving ever so slowly, I made my way closer, and closer, until I saw what it was and let out a yelp.

Sophie and Charlotte came running over.

“What is it?” Sophie asked, as I came out holding a dirty, ragged, but still healthy looking red and white shepherd mix named Sprinkles.

“Sprinkles,” I said, grinning from ear to ear. We’d found him.

Chapter 7

“It’s ok, Sprinkles, it’s ok,” I repeated to the little dog over and over like a mantra as he sat in my lap on the way home. He’d been out looking in the restaurant garbage for any extra food to eat. Luckily, being a vet, I always had a reasonable store of dog food at home, and I knew that in less than five minutes he’d be able to eat to his heart’s content.

Well, ok, maybe not that much. Giving dogs free reign of the food bowl is rarely a good idea, unless you like vomit. But I was going to make sure Sprinkles didn’t go hungry again tonight.

He was shaking as he sat in my lap, and I patted him softly to try and calm him down.

“Is he ok?” Charlotte asked, concerned as she saw him shaking.

“I think so,” I replied as I gave Sprinkles the best physical exam I could while in the passenger seat of a moving car in the dark. “I think he might just be scared. Is that it, buddy?” I asked, but rather than reply, Sprinkles simply burrowed his face into the nook of my arm.

Charlotte gave me a concerned look. Poor Sprinkles. I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d seen his owner murdered, and if he could help find who did it.

If it was murder at all, of course. Either way, poor Sprinkles had likely seen his owner’s death, and that couldn’t be easy for anyone.

“Hey, can we stop by the sushi place and grab a small container to take away?” I asked Sophie. “I think Bee’s going to kill us if we bring back a dog and no sushi.”

She rolled her eyes, but made the quick detour to get Bee her treat. I was afraid to know what chaos was going to happen otherwise.

As soon as we walked through the door, Bee jumped up onto a side table and hissed at Sprinkles, who cowered behind me.

“Bee, absolutely not,” I scolded. “Be nice.”

“I will not be nice. How dare you bring a dog into my sacred home?”

“First of all, this is my house, so I can bring whoever I want into it. Secondly, if you’re not nice to Sprinkles, I’m not going to give you any sushi.”

Bee eyed up the dog, trying to decide which was more worth it: the promise of sushi, or the ability to torment a poor, scared little dog. Thankfully, she eventually settled on the sushi. Maybe she was more like a dog than she realized.

“Fine,” Bee eventually said, turning with her tail up so I could see her butthole. I rolled my eyes.

“Thank you, Bee. Sprinkles just lost his owner, and he’s been running loose outside for a few days. We’re just going to be taking care of him for a little bit,” I told my cat’s retreating form.

“Don’t care, dogs are awful, give me sushi,” Bee replied from the kitchen. I gave Sophie an exasperated look.

“Sometimes I know exactly what’s going on, even when I can only hear one side of the conversation,” she snickered, taking the box of sushi over to Bee.

“Just give her one roll, we’re probably going to need to bribe her with the others later on,” I warned Sophie as she headed off to appease my cat. At least the claws hadn’t come out yet.

“Now,” I said to Sprinkles, sitting down on the floor with the dog to get to his level. “Are you hungry?”

For a minute I didn’t think Sprinkles was going to answer me. He just looked at me sadly, then came out the saddest little sound from his mouth.

“Yes, I am,” he replied.

“Ok. I have some dog food here. When was the last time you ate?”

“I don’t remember. I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok,” I told him gently. The poor dog was apologizing for not remembering when his last meal was. Sprinkles was just so sweet, I almost couldn’t handle it. “Let me get you a bowl of kibble, ok?”

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“It’s no problem at all. I’m just glad we finally found you.”

I went into the kitchen, where Bee was happily munching on her sushi roll, and found a bag of kibble given to me for free by a major dog food company. It wasn’t the best quality food, which was why I just kept it at home, but it would do for a night.

Grabbing an extra dog bowl from a storage cupboard – it’s amazing the things you pick up in this job – I poured in two handfuls of kibble and brought it over to Sprinkles. I knew he’d eat it all straight away, but I didn’t want him eating so quickly he threw up.

As soon as I set down the bowl, Sprinkles’ instincts took over. I heard him muttering thank you after thank you in between bites, and in seconds, the whole bowl had been licked clean.

“Thank you so much,” he told me when he was finished, looking up from the bowl, unable to help himself and looking around to see if there was more.

“You’re very welcome, Sprinkles,” I told him. He was so sweet and polite. Which was ironic, given as his owner had been just the opposite. “I do have more food for you, but if you eat it now you’re just going to throw it up, so let’s wait a little bit before I give you some more, ok?”