Davis, Krista - Murder, She Barked - A Paws & Claws Mystery (A Paws and Claws Mystery)

I gasped. “So Philip mailed the original car keys to Tiny.”

“Apparently so. Tiny mistakenly thought Brewster mailed him the keys as a threat. That’s why he was spending nights in his daughter’s sleeping bag up in your storage room. He was afraid to go home.”

Dave stared at Philip with a scowl. “The frightening thing is that Philip could have gotten away with it. We had enough against Tiny and Brewster to convict them and nothing tying Philip to any of this. Not until Zelda found his cell phone.” Dave crossed his arms. “Should have worn waders, this water is freezing. Hey, Philip, how’d you lose your cell phone?”

Philip didn’t say a word.

“I’m thinking you lost it running back and forth to Hair of the Dog to make phone calls the night you killed Sven,” said Dave.

“I’m going to have hypothermia. I can’t feel my legs. I’ll tell you if you get me out of here.”

“Okay,” said Dave. “You first.”

“It was that stupid dog, Dolce. He was crazy wild when I let him out. In the middle of the green, he jumped up and put his paws on my shoulders, knocking me down. My phone must have fallen out of my pocket. Now get me out of this water!”

It wasn’t going to happen. We couldn’t move him without the danger of making his injury far worse, and the golf cart weighed way too much for us to pull it out of the lake by hand.

The ambulance arrived minutes later. The medical technicians didn’t hesitate to splash into the water to stabilize Philip. They immobilized his head and strapped him onto a stretcher.

Trixie and I were the only ones who weren’t wet.

Forty-six

Oma and I invited everyone to dinner that night, including inn employees, interested guests, and even Aunt Birdie. Zelda, Shelley, and I shoved the tables in the dining area into a big circle and arranged side tables for a buffet. Thomas catered it.

Only Aunt Birdie, Dave, and Ellie declined. Not surprising under the circumstances. Mr. Luciano showed up, with Gina on a leash, looking healthy and happy. Holmes and Rose arrived together. Even Ben and Kim came to celebrate. Our guests mingled before dinner with Appletinis and ginger pear Getaway cocktails in their hands.

To my surprise, Dave showed up after all. I hurried over to him. “I thought you weren’t coming. Let me get you a drink.”

“Thanks, I can’t. I have a lot of work to do tonight.” He studied the floor for a moment. “You were right about Prissy.”

“Oh, Dave. I’m so sorry.”

“I didn’t want to believe you. I thought Prissy had a thing for me but it was just an act to get on my good side. She took the job as police dispatcher to help Brewster.” Dave snorted. “He had a pattern of hiring people to do his dirty work for him. Prissy kept him apprised about the situation in Snowball and fed him information about where the police would be patrolling. We’ve arrested a couple of young guys over on Snowball who stole the goods from homes and hotel rooms for Brewster. Apparently, he feared they would turn on him and raid his house, so he hid everything in socks in a laundry basket where he thought no one would look. Periodically, he sent it off to be smelted.”

“Do you think Jerry was onto him?”

“I doubt we’ll ever know for sure. Brewster knew the socks were disappearing. Apparently, he saw Murphy dig up a couple of socks in Jerry’s back yard. Brewster jumped to the erroneous conclusion that Jerry had buried them there to hide them. After Jerry ate breakfast with us, he returned home where Brewster confronted him. According to Brewster, they got into a fight upstairs, and Jerry managed to snatch Brewster’s toupee. Brewster slammed a golf club on Jerry’s head, causing Jerry to fall, which gave Brewster the opportunity to slide the choke collar and leash on him. Jerry tried to get away but fell again when he was running down the stairs, and the collar choked him.”

“I don’t get it,” I said. “Hair of the Dog seems like a thriving business. Why would he throw all that away and get involved with a ring of thieves?”

Dave met my eyes. “Greed. Plain old greed.”

“What a twisted mind! It was okay for him to steal from other people, but he killed Jerry for stealing those same ill-gotten gains from him. And the saddest thing of all is that it wasn’t Jerry who took them—it was Murphy, Brewster’s own dog, who was taking his treasures.”

Ben shook his head. “I can’t believe that Kim went to a scumbag like Brewster for money. She’s lucky he didn’t try to kill her, too.”

“Hey,” said Dave, “even I thought he was a nice guy! I went to Hair of the Dog all the time.”

I whispered to Ben, “What’s going to happen to Kim?”

“Grand larceny carries a penalty up to twenty years.” Ben sighed. “All I can say is she’ll have the best legal representation possible. It’s her first offense, but it’s a whopper, even if she does claim she meant to return the car eventually.”

“Can’t Mortie drop the charges?” I asked.

Ben’s lips puckered. “If the state brings charges, only the prosecutor can drop them or reduce them. Who knows? Maybe Kim will get lucky this time.”

I looked at Dave for his opinion. He held up his hands. “That’s in another jurisdiction, up where the car was stolen. I have to get going.” He leaned forward to hug me. “Thanks for your help. I hope I wasn’t too hard on you.”

“You were just doing your job.”

Dave waved to us, and left at a fast clip.

“Did you know Kim had stolen the car?” I asked Ben.

“Nope. Mortie didn’t know a thing about it, either. Remember how Kim slipped away from me that first day? She was off having a little meeting with Brewster. He threatened to expose her as the car thief if she didn’t do what he asked. Kim didn’t tell me until yesterday morning that she had taken her father’s car and handed it over to Brewster.”

Kim ambled over with an Appletini in her hand.

“Did Brewster offer to expunge your debt if you brought him Trixie?” I asked.

“Close. He wanted me to kill her. I didn’t know why, of course.”

I stared at her in horror.

“Oh, don’t look like that. I could never hurt a dog. I love dogs.” She reached down to pet Trixie. “I planned to drive her out in the country, far enough away that she wouldn’t find her way back.”

“That’s horrible!”

“Hey! I was under a lot of pressure,” she whined. “Besides, Trixie got away from me, and everything turned out fine.”

“Holly!” called Zelda.

Good timing. I was ready to let Kim have it.

I joined Zelda, who stood in the center of a cluster of people.

“I had to hand Philip’s phone over to Dave,” said Zelda, “but in anticipation of that, your grandmother and I taped this from Philip’s voice mail.” She hit a button on a small device.

It wasn’t very loud. We all craned our necks to listen as Brewster instructed Tiny on the details of the hit-and-run murder plot.

“On Friday night, you’ll be sitting in the SUV at the end of the street with the lights off. Wear gloves so you don’t leave fingerprints anywhere. Got it? Jerry arrives at his mother’s house for dinner at 7:15 sharp. They’re calling for rain, so that will give you extra cover. You hit Jerry. Take him out. Then drive to the highway and hide the car in the trees. Go back around midnight or one in the morning when there’s no traffic and nobody there to see you, and roll it over the cliff. You understand? Don’t mess up.”

“When do I get my money?” Tiny spoke softly. I felt as though I could hear the doubt in his voice.

It clicked off. The recording ran for less than a minute, very short, but certainly enough to land Brewster in the slammer for a long time.