Рита Браун - Probable Claws

A half hour passed. Felipe didn’t hear any phone conversation. He stuck his head into Lisa’s office, the door was always open. Pirate was licking her hand.

“Something’s wrong,” the handsome fellow cried.

It was. Lisa was dead.

28

January 30, 2017

Monday, 7 PM

Felipe and Raynell sat in the conference room with Cooper. Pirate sat with them, confused as his human’s body was wheeled out of her office. The sheriff’s department crime team arrived at Nature First within twenty minutes of Felipe’s call. Cooper, across the street at the large post office investigating a tampered P.O. box, stepped into their office within seven minutes of Felipe’s call to the department.

Ashen-faced, Felipe stared straight ahead with his hands folded on the table. Raynell kept wiping away tears.

Notebook open, Cooper gently asked questions. “First, I am not assuming this is an unnatural death but, given the ad in the paper, Nature First right now is in the public eye. Did either of you notice any health problems these last few days?”

Both shook their heads. “No.”

“Her mood?”

“Exuberant. Finding the skeleton in Richmond gave us an opening to insist for more involvement in city planning, environmental issues, history stuff.” Felipe took a deep breath. “You know.”

“I think I do. But she didn’t seem stressed?”

“The reverse.” Raynell found her voice. “She was energized.”

Cooper dropped her hand, placing it on the puppy’s head.

“Did I do something wrong?” Pirate asked.

Cooper patted him, turned to Felipe. “Tell me again what you saw.”

Clearing his throat, he replied, “Lisa and I were working late. It had been a crazy day. She’d been giving interviews much of the day on the phone. Also she must have checked in with our state headquarters in Richmond every two hours. She and Kylie Carter, state director, work closely together. Anyway, I looked up from my computer at about five-thirty and realized I hadn’t heard any talk or noise from her office. Of course, I assumed she was working on her computer but something told me to check. That’s when I found her slumped over her desk, computer on. She’d knocked a book she’d just bought onto the floor. Oh, Pirate was pawing at her.”

“No signs of, say, a convulsion? Great pain?”

“No. And no one had been in the office since after lunch. It was just the two of us. Raynell left at five. I walked behind Lisa’s desk, shook her a little, and she didn’t move. I was horrified but I could still think. I took her pulse. No pulse. That’s when I called the sheriff’s department.”

“Did you touch anything?”

“Just Lisa. I didn’t even pick up the book. I brought Pirate back to my office.”

“Who did you call after you called the department?”

“Kylie first. She kept me on the phone asking a million questions, none of which I could really answer. I can give you her phone number.”

“Thanks. Anyone else?”

“Just Raynell. She’d just gotten home. She came back immediately, which took about fifteen minutes.”

“I rent a room in Cascades subdivision,” Raynell offered.

“So when did you arrive here?”

“Maybe one minute before you did.”

“Did you look at the body?”

“Yes.” Raynell’s tears flowed again. “It doesn’t seem real.”

“Did you touch anything?”

“No. I only stood in her doorway.”

“Are either of you aware of any condition she might have had?”

Felipe said, “She had an irregular heartbeat. She’d joke and say if anything ever happened to her make sure emergency services knows.”

Raynell let out a small sob. “Now she doesn’t have any heartbeat at all.”

“I don’t want to disturb you, but what you can recall so close to the event of her death can be very helpful. Did she take drugs?”

“Like recreational drugs?” Raynell asked.

“Anything,” Cooper tersely answered.

“No,” Felipe said. “Once or twice she might tell us she smoked weed at a party, but Lisa wasn’t really a user. Sometimes she’d get a headache and take an aspirin. We keep the aspirin in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.”

“Drink?”

“A glass of wine. Sometimes at the end of the day we’d go down to Fardowners Restaurant and have a glass. I never saw her tipsy.” Raynell provided that information.

“Have either of you ever been to where she lived?” Cooper continued.

“Once,” Raynell replied.

“Well, I’ve worked here longer than Raynell so I would pick up stuff from her house at times. I don’t know, maybe five or six times a year I’d stop by.” Felipe unfolded his hands, then folded them back again.

“Did you ever go inside?”

“Sure. Tidy. Not too much furniture. She was renting down Mt. Tabor Road and she was actually looking for a place to buy.”

“Raynell.”

“I didn’t go inside. I picked up a pile of stuff from the Nature Conservancy that she wanted me to read.”

“Will we know how she died?” Felipe asked.

“I think so. It appears to be natural causes, but we need to be careful. The body will go to the medical examiner in Richmond.”

“You think she died of a heart attack?” Raynell asked.

“I have no medical expertise whatsoever. But given recent events, we need to be sure she did die of natural causes.”

“Who could kill her? We were here working all day. Harry came in for a minute, brought the book that Lisa had ordered from Over the Moon. No one else came by and that was around lunchtime. Who could have killed her? She was just slumped over.” Felipe was trying to make sense of a young person’s quiet passing.

“Well, it certainly appears natural, but the department has to make sure. When we know you will know, of course.”

“What will happen to Pirate? I can’t take him,” Raynell asked.

“Me neither. Irish wolfhounds are the biggest dogs there are, even bigger than Great Danes,” Felipe added.

“I have just the place for him. No point in taking him to the SPCA, good as they are. Don’t worry, he’ll have a nice home.”

“Where am I going? What’s going to happen to me? What happened to Lisa?” the puppy cried.

At nine that evening, Tucker let out a bark. “Cooper.”

Harry and Fair, sitting on the sofa in the living room, heard the corgi.

“I’ll go see.” Fair volunteered.

He reached the back door as Cooper knocked on it, then opened it. “Fair, please help.”

Fair looked down at the forlorn puppy. “What are the symptoms?”

“Heartbreak,” Cooper replied.

Harry came into the kitchen. Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, luxuriating on the sofa before the fire, didn’t move.

“Pirate.” Harry knelt down to pet the fellow.

“You know this dog?” her husband asked.

“Pirate. He belongs to Lisa Roudabush. He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?”

“Harry, I hope he now belongs to you,” Cooper explained. “Given my hours I can’t take him. Lisa’s dead.”

“What!”

Cooper told her what she knew.

“Oh, this is terrible.” Harry held the big puppy in her arms.

Pirate was already getting too big to pick up.

Tucker, such a sweet dog, licked the puppy’s face when Harry put him down. “It will be all right.”

“If I take him to the SPCA he will get wonderful care. They’ll call the Irish wolfhound rescue people, but Lisa, well, I believe she would want her puppy to be with someone she knew. And he couldn’t have a better home. Harry, please take him.”