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Chapter One
“Bye, babies, see you this evening!” I slipped past the cats and out of my house, pausing on the stoop to check that the door had latched properly, since it had been windy enough to pop open doors that appeared closed.
A crashing sound came from behind me. I whipped around to see movement—someone lurking in the bushes by the fence?
Moments later, the lurking turned to prancing as the intruder pushed free of the bushes. A white and brown pit bull or pit bull mix bounded toward me with a silly grin, toes tip-tapping in the dry grass.
“Well, hello,” I said. “Aren’t you a cutie?” Its tongue lolled and its entire back end wagged. “How did you get in?” I glanced around my fenced yard. “Oh, I think I know, and I didn’t even have to use my burgeoning detective skills.”
A three-foot-high chain-link fence separated my yard from my landlord, Shelley’s. Part of it was now listing into my yard, suspiciously like a fifty-pound bundle of energy had rocketed over it and dragged the section out of alignment.
Shelley had an elderly Saint Bernard, Toby, not a dog anyone would worry about jumping a three-foot fence. This wiggle monster, on the other hand, could easily clear it. Well, maybe not easily, since the dog hadn’t managed it without a certain amount of property damage, but that might have been clumsiness rather than jump height.
I crouched and the pittie climbed into my lap. A quick glance showed that it was in fact a male, not that he would know how I labeled him. As long as I used the right tone of voice, I could address him as Princess or Lady or Miss Sugar Cookie Fancy Pants, and he’d be delighted.
“But how did you get into Shelley’s yard? Are you visiting? Are you lost?”
He whined as if trying to answer my question. He had a collar, but no tags, and looked reasonably healthy. His ribs were visible under the skin, but lined with muscle, like a lean young dog rather than a gaunt starving dog.
After indulging us both with some vigorous cuddling, I rested my hand on the collar. I was getting more comfortable with my psychometry, the ability to touch an object and read emotions left behind by the person who’d used it or held it. I tried to appreciate it as a useful talent, since it wasn’t a choice. Did having the ability mean an obligation to use it sometimes, to help people? I hadn’t decided, but I’d been practicing for the last few months, in order to learn the parameters of what I could do and to get comfortable with the results. I still didn’t exactly like the experience, but I could generally tolerate it. And in this case, maybe the collar would tell me something about where the dog belonged.
With the dog collar, I got a tangled sense of sadness, hope, excitement, hunger, curiosity, and the urge to mark things by peeing. Not terribly helpful. One reason I loved animals was because I generally didn’t get psychometry readings from them. They didn’t wear clothes or jewelry, and the most I’d get from, say, my ferrets’ favorite blanket was a vague sense of lazy contentment. But I was pretty sure the images from the dog’s collar were from the dog, not its owner. I got the sense he’d been in a shelter for a while.
“Poor boy.” Any happiness about being with a new owner was buried under other feelings, which didn’t help me figure out where he belonged. Fortunately, I had a backup plan. I pushed him back and stood up. “Come on, let’s ask Shelley.”
Even if the dog wasn’t supposed to be in Shelley’s yard, she’d likely know who owned him, since she knew everyone in town and most of their business. I’d been on my way to work, but my boss wouldn’t fuss if I arrived a few minutes late. I started work at the museum at ten; it was now nine-forty, late enough to make an unexpected morning visit, even to my eighty-year-old neighbor, who wasn’t an early bird.
I led the way out the gate, grabbing his collar as we made the short walk along the white picket front fence down to Shelley’s gate. Once inside her garden, I let go, even though he’d proven he could escape if he wanted to. He seemed perfectly happy to be by my side, and if he really wanted to flee, I doubted I could stop him.
Shelley’s front door was open to let the cool New Mexico morning air in through the screen door.
I rapped on the door frame and called out, “Shelley, it’s Petra.”
Her husky voice shouted back, “Come in.”
As I opened the door, I heard a low mumble from the back of the house. Shelley definitely had a low voice, but she spoke clearly, not to say forcefully, and this sounded like a man’s voice.
Shelley came through the living room, using her cane. “Oh, nonsense, it’s just Petra. She lives next door. You could hardly come and go without her noticing you.”
Goodness, what had I interrupted?
A man with a shaggy beard peeked out from the kitchen and muttered something else.
“Oh, Petra won’t tell.” Shelley waved her free hand in dismissal.
“Um, hi?” I said. “This dog was in my yard, and it looked like it might have come from your yard, given some damage to the fence.”
“Bruiser!” The man sighed. “Darn dog. Just got him. Not trained yet.”
The dog, who had started sniffing around the porch, perhaps for any food dropped from the meals Shelley often had there, looked up at his name. He pranced into the house with a silly grin, his tail wagging a mile a minute.
“His name is Bruiser?” My goal was clarification, but my words came out sounding dubious. Rarely had I seen a dog less deserving of a tough name.
“This is Wayne,” Shelley said. “An old friend. He called me the other day, said he was headed across country and wanted to visit, so I invited him to stay a few days. He arrived late last night. Wayne, this is my friend and renter, Petra. She’s in the house next door. Don’t worry, she won’t gossip about you.” Shelley chuckled. “Gossip is usually my job.”
“That’s why I have to keep you away from everyone else and close to me.” Wayne slid his arm around Shelley.
She giggled.
I cleared my throat. “So, the dog. Bruiser. I don’t think our fences will keep him contained.”
“I doubt he’ll wander far, since his food is here and Toby is here,” Shelley said.
Toby, stretched out near the front door, gave a huge yawn. He wasn’t exactly the best playmate for a lively young dog.
“Sorry for the trouble,” Wayne said. “Shelley, if you have some rope, we can tie him up.”
While I didn’t want Bruiser to run away and maybe get hit by a car, it was hard to imagine the poor pup restrained by a rope. “He probably needs a long walk. I’d offer, but I have to get to work.”
Shelley tapped her cane on the floor. “Long walks aren’t exactly my thing.”
“Maybe I can drive out somewhere and let him run.” Wayne looked at me. “I’m trying to avoid being seen around town. You know how nosy people can get in a small town like this. I’d prefer to stay under the radar and enjoy my time with Shelley.”
She beamed at the compliment. “We can sit on the porch and throw a ball for him. That’ll wear him out. Petra, maybe you can walk him this evening.”
“Sure.” It was still quite warm in the evenings, but if I waited until after dinner, the heat would drop as the sun did, and I’d enjoy more time with this sweet boy. I’d been thinking about getting a dog, now that I had a house with a yard, but I already had three cats, three ferrets, and two guinea pigs, and I’d had vet bills when my two rats had to be euthanized six weeks apart recently.
“If you don’t mind, that would be a big help,” Wayne said. “I’m a little worn out from the drive across country, and not as young as I used to be.”
“No, but we still have some life left.” Shelley gave him a flirtatious look.
“I’m happy to do it.” I resisted the urge to comment on Wayne’s choice in getting a young, energetic dog if he couldn’t keep up. Bruiser’s life would surely be better now than in the shelter. I wasn’t sure of Wayne’s age—possibly younger than Shelley, but over seventy, and age generally mattered less than lifestyle and luck in how active a person was. Maybe Wayne was typically active. The 4000-foot elevation we were at in southeastern New Mexico could be hard on visitors.
I headed for the door. Bruiser tried to follow, but I squeezed out and closed it behind me. “You’d better keep a hold of him now, so he doesn’t try to follow me through the screen door.”
Wayne strode forward and grabbed Bruiser’s collar. “You’re not much of a guard dog, buddy. Too friendly. Nice to meet you, young lady.”
I was halfway down the walk when I heard, “Young lady!” behind me. I turned back as Wayne hurried toward me. His bushy eyebrows drew together in a way that looked unfriendly, but maybe he couldn’t help his face. “Don’t tell anyone about me.” His whisper was almost a growl. “It’s important.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say. The thought in my head was Why would anyone care about you?
His cheeks moved. It took a second for me to recognize the new expression as an attempt at a smile. “I’m sure it sounds silly. But, you know, gossip and all. And I want to focus on Shelley, not . . .” He waved his hand in the general direction of town. “Just don’t mention meeting me.”
Weird, but what could I say? “Fine.” I got out of there.
As I walked the mile to the museum, I thought over the interaction. Had Wayne lived in Bonneville at some point? If so, people might recognize him and want to visit. I could understand wishing to avoid that. He also seemed to be worried about Shelley’s reputation—though I thought she’d be delighted to have people know she had a gentleman visitor. Either way, wanting to keep his visit secret seemed over-the-top but not entirely unreasonable. He was right about small towns, or at least this one. Gossip was a favorite pastime, and people were excited by any break in the monotony.
I couldn’t even claim to be different. The morning’s events were the most curious things that had happened to me in months, so if I were more social, I’d be tempted to tell everyone I saw about Wayne and Bruiser. But part of that was because Wayne had acted oddly. If he hadn’t been so secretive, I wouldn’t still be thinking about him. His strange behavior still didn’t come close to some of the odd things that had happened since I moved to Bonneville, population two thousand, to work in the geology wing of the Banditt Museum, but the summer had been quiet. Or rather, it had been extremely busy at the museum, but quiet in terms of mysterious and/or dangerous happenings.
I was glad things were calming down as autumn hit, and it wasn’t too unbearably hot to walk to work. Actually, the summer highs were usually in the low nineties, and the dry heat did in fact make a difference, so it hadn’t been that bad. But people enjoyed teasing me about coming from cool and drizzly Seattle, and I found I enjoyed playing along. Who would have expected that?
I was a few minutes late to the museum, but I slipped into the breakroom while everyone was still chatting. Since it was Sunday, we were all there. We didn’t all have the same days off, but we all worked weekends, the museum’s busiest days. I had time to fill my coffee mug before Peyton Banditt, the genial patriarch of the museum, turned the talk to museum business—basically any updates on our plans or announcements of new donations.
When it was my turn, he said, “Petra, my dear, I know you’ve been quite busy back there, what with the new jewel in our crown.”
We’d had an impressive meteorite specimen on display all summer, one that was both scientifically interesting and had a dramatic story attached to it. It had certainly increased visitation to the museum in general and my department in particular. I would’ve been perfectly happy to hide out in the geology wing all alone, except that I actually liked my job and my new home, and I wanted to keep them. Payton’s pride in me, and the increase in visitors, made that more likely.
“Now that you have more free time, what are your plans?” he asked.
“I’m still going through that big donation you got just before I arrived. I’ve sorted a lot of the materials, and I’m reading the journals to match objects with where and when they were found. I think I’ll finish within the next month.”
“Excellent.” He moved on to my coworkers.
I hadn’t told him yet that I’d found something interesting in a journal. They’d been donated by a man who did a lot of rock hounding and gold hunting in his retirement. One of the last entries mentioned an area where he’d found something impressive but didn’t say exactly what. I thought it would be fun to try tracking whatever he found. Maybe I’d never find anything, but it kept me entertained.
And even with the risks of dehydration, falls, and wild animals, hiking was safer than the murders I’d investigated.
End of Excerpt
