Chapter Twenty-Five
As soon as Clara opened her door to me, Gracie, and Murphy, she asked, “What did you learn from Urban? Anything useful?”
I’m no saint. I told her all of it as she straightened her desk, closed down her computer, and gathered dog park necessities.
At the end, she said, “Huh.”
“Huh, what?”
She blinked — she’d been staring into space — and looked at me. “You’re always bringing back things from Urban I’ve never heard before. That’s kind of crazy, isn’t it? Anyway, we won’t know if it was useful until we know if it fits in, will we?”
I had a headache.
It would be cured by the dog park.
Watching the dogs have fun, getting out their fidgets, breathing in fresh air. Sure, a good portion of that air had spring pollen in it, but still, it would be interesting to scope out the pre-sunset crowd.
First person we saw as we entered the foyer between the main gate and gates to the individual areas was Berrie.
My headache worsened.
And then her Boston Terrier named Marcus spotted me and started carrying on in the adjacent small dog enclosure.
No one knows why he goes — let’s say bananas, though some use an expression for a primate’s excrement — when I appear. I have never done anything to this animal except looked at him, smiled, said hello a time or two.
At the moment, Berrie wasn’t helping by screeching something in our direction that we couldn’t possibly hear over Marcus.
Clara shouted to me, “You go in first.”
Our experience is that the way to stop Marcus is for me to reach a point inside the big-dog enclosure, which only he knows.
After that, all is well.
One of the tough lessons of dog training, though, is that if you once open the gate and let your pups steamroll in instead of obeying the command to wait until being released, they will internalize that immediately as the way they get to act.
You’re not back to zero, you’re sunk into negative territory.
So, I handled Gracie’s and Murphy’s leashes as I steered them through the open gate, then shouted the commands to sit and wait.
Good thing these dogs are good at lip-reading.
As soon as I released them, they thundered away and I followed them deeper into the enclosure, quickly overtaken by LuLu, whom Clara had brought in, made her wait, then released.
It felt like I was halfway across the enclosure before Marcus abruptly cut off the banshee spigot and stalked away from the dividing fence.
It was one heck of an entrance and every one of the humans looked at me. A spattering of those who’d seen this performance before appeared to fill in the others.
That’s what I could see. What I could hear was Berrie.
That was the downside of Marcus falling silent.
“—not the only ones who know things. I know a lot. You can pretend you don’t care by not listening to me—”
As if I’d had a choice during Marcus’ raucous bombast.
Clara had hold of my arm and dragged me toward the fence.
“We do care,” Clara said. “Of course we want to know what you have to say.”
When it came to investigating, Clara was willing to sacrifice herself. I admired that. The part I wasn’t as fond of is she was willing to sacrifice me, too.
“You should want to know,” Berrie said triumphantly. “Because Zoley was cheating on Bryon with Damon.”
“She was?” Clara was also a far better actor than I ever hoped to be.
“Yes. And I told the deputies that. Not that I like to gossip—”
I glanced heavenward. Not rolling my eyes, honest. Checking for lightning heading her way that might catch us.
“—but it was my civic duty and I never shirk my duty.”
“What made you think there was something going on between Zoley and Damon?” I asked.
“I didn’t think it. I knew it.”
She tried to peer down at me from the height of superior knowledge, a tactic made difficult because I was numerous inches taller. I straightened to maximize that advantage.
Berrie sniffed. “Pretty hard to miss when she was out on the public street saying to Damon about how it was too late to hide it now, that Bryon knew, there was no use denying it.”
“When was that?”
“That night after training. Right before Bryon killed Damon.”
“The night with the tic-tac-toe game? Thursday night?”
Berrie frowned impatiently. “I don’t— Yeah, I guess. Anyway, it was right before Bryon murdered Damon.”
“How did you—?”
“I heard them. Plain as day. Right out there on the public street.”
“You mean . . .” The bits I’d seen that evening rearranged.
Berrie hadn’t happened to cross the street into the midst of the confrontation within the Gang of Four.
She’d walked down the sidewalk on Zepke’s side of the street, ever closer to hearing the conflict among the Gang of Four better than Clara and I had from the steps. Then she’d crossed the street and walked right up to them, drawn like a magnet by curiosity.
Clara might have taken the same mental journey as I did, but she reached the destination faster.
“What did they say?” she asked.
“I am not an eavesdropper.” Berrie drew herself up, without altering her outline, which resembled her short, round dogs.
“Of course, but—”
Berrie rolled over the excuse for eavesdropping Clara might have offered with her own. “But sometimes you can’t help hearing something, especially not with them yelling on the public street.”
“We absolutely understand you couldn’t help but hear,” Clara said, “especially when they said . . .”
“Nasty things about—”
That raised my hopes. Only to crash with her next words.
“—the tic-tac-toe game.”
She didn’t stop, though.
“Going at each other about who’d done better. Back and forth, back and forth. As if their dogs had been the stars of that or anything else in class.”
She sniffed with disdain.
She couldn’t possibly think her dogs were the stars. Really, she couldn’t and have any connection with reality.
“Nothing more personal?” Clara asked.
Berrie homed in on that with feral curiosity. “Personal, like what?”
Clara backpedaled with the skill of a tightrope cyclist. “Oh, nothing specific. I only thought since they’re such good friends there might have been something . . . else.”
“Friends. Hah. Couldn’t tell it from that wrangle. Went from tic-tac-toe to stuff about playing games. I am not repeating the language they used, I’ll tell you that.” Berrie frowned. “That was weird, because it was like it was about something other than Damon and Zoley.”
“What do you mean, Damon and Zoley?” Clara asked.
Another sniff of disdain from Berrie, this one for such naivete. “That they’re having an affair, of course. Been going on for months. Everybody knows that.”
“Have you seen—?”
“Don’t need to.”
So, no, she hadn’t seen anything.
Clara looked over her shoulder. “Oh, what are those rascals doing—? Sorry, Berrie, gotta check on our dogs.”
I followed Clara away from the fence and Berrie, considering the crumbs she’d given us.
“Not much,” I said under my breath.
“It would explain why Bryon Georger’s attitude was so different from the first class. But why was Damon Swindell so cranky? He was the one having the affair. Because he was caught? And that meant the end of his fun?”
“Did it, though? Or would they keep on?”
Clara side-eyed me. “They’d keep on. If Damon was still interested. Not at all a sure thing with this other woman making an appearance. We’ve got to find out who she is.”
* * * *
The good thing about the sunset dog park visit was it took up a chunk of the evening.
Enough that I could tell myself there wasn’t enough time left to make it worthwhile to try to write.
Even though Teague wasn’t calling tonight because of a conference event that was going late — too late for him, not me. But since it takes both of us for a conversation, he’d told me last night he’d call Sunday night.
He’d also chuckled when I asked if the event involved exotic dancers and fans. He said, no, it was his only slot available to attend a demonstration of new forensic technology, so he’d be spending the time at a nearby lab.
Some people have all the fun.
I called Kit.
Dangerous, I know, what with her first question most likely to be why wasn’t I writing.
It wasn’t.
Also she didn’t put on the video and she was all business.
The pieces clicked together — her gentleman caller was there. But she hadn’t been able to resist the temptation to get the latest on the murder.
I filled her in quickly — skipping the historical details. Not the time to get into that when I wanted information from her and she wanted to get off the call.
“Kit, what do you know about covering up a bruise with makeup?”
Of course she made me explain first.
She clicked her tongue when I finished.
“Amateur,” was her verdict on Zoley’s makeup skills.
Kit doesn’t wear much makeup herself, but doesn’t allow slack for people who didn’t at least hit the internet for how-tos.
“When I researched at that Broadway theater for a book — before we lived together — the makeup artist showed me what I needed for the murder plot. The mistake most people make is trying to cover a bruise by slathering on regular foundation. They miss the most important aspects. First, you assess the bruise—”
“Because they change color over time,” I inserted to show I’d done homework.
She grunted a yes. “—for what colors you’re trying to hide. You use concealer that’s opposite on the color wheel. That neutralizes the bruise color. You can get concealer kits at a drug store, though of course my source had professional grade.”
“Of course.”
Another grunt, this one with the flavor of smart ass. “Picking the right color to neutralize is step one. Next blend, blend, blend. The makeup woman would move back, look at the bruise from all angles, add concealer here or there, then go back to blending like crazy.
“Only when she was satisfied with that did she put anything over it. After foundation was set, she used powder. Absolutely necessary with stage makeup. Don’t want it sliding off their faces under stage lights.
By the time she was done, I couldn’t see the bruise from across that cramped dressing room, much less anybody in the audience seeing it. ”
Clearly, Zoley didn’t have that expertise, since Clara and I spotted her makeup across the training area, without stage lights.
“Kit, that seminar on domestic abuse said experienced abusers hit in the torso, maybe the neck, places clothes are likely to hide. Clothes can also cover defensive injuries. What about the face?”
“Soft areas show damage. Around the eyes, for instance — the classic black eyes. That’s where abusers who aren’t thinking about getting caught go. Why do you want to know?”
I told her about spotting Zoley’s thick makeup.
“What’s bothering you about it?” she asked.
No point asking how she knew something bothered me, especially when my answer was, “I don’t know.”
“It’ll come. Anything else?”
“No. Thanks. I’ll—”
“Bye.”
She hung up before I could promise to keep her updated.
* * * *
I looked up Florence Shoemaker Thompson, the Owensboro sheriff during the 1936 public hanging.
Disturbingly, some sources displayed her image as if she’d been the victim. I could hear Kit on that sloppiness.
I focused on the more reliable sources.
After being named as temporary sheriff in the spring of 1936, she ran in a special election to complete her late husband’s term and drew more than 9,800 votes . . . to 2 for the runner-up.
She didn’t run again after completing that term, but she later spent nine years as a deputy sheriff.
Way to go, Florence.