Chapter Fourteen #2
Alek looked pleased. “They cost me a fortune, but the chairs are beautiful, and when you sit in them, they’re very comfortable.
” He managed to give them a little smile as he slid onto one of the barstools at the center island.
“Vincent Martinez, one of the vet techs, has a couple of side businesses. He makes furniture. Mostly, he sells it online. I happened to see his work, a chair he’d donated to one of the hospital fundraisers, and I asked him to make a couple of tables and chairs for the restaurant.
They were so nice, I kept going back. I have tables for two, for four and for six. ”
“I had no idea,” Shabina said. “I’ve met him. He’s so good with the animals. I wonder why he works at the veterinary hospital when he’s so amazing at furniture making. I think he could make a really good living if he did it full-time.”
Harlow was fascinated by the way Shabina could talk and work so fast at the same time. She pulled ingredients out of the refrigerator and began to chop things up. Rainier busied himself with the coffee pot.
“I asked him that very question,” Alek said, seemingly as fascinated by watching Shabina as Harlow was.
“He said he needs to do more than one thing, and for him, his choice is being a vet tech. He doesn’t want to have to do the woodworking.
If he did it full-time, he’s afraid he would get bored.
” He took the mug of coffee Rainier handed to him.
Sam settled on the barstool next to him.
“I understand completely. I’m like that.
I enjoy what I do at the resort because every single day it’s something different.
Speaking of the resort, we had a very strange incident recently that I didn’t put together with all the odd things going on in Knightly until you mentioned Vince.
That’s what I was going to tell you, Harlow. ”
Rainier set a coffee mug in front of him. Sam flashed a quick smile of acknowledgment. “Thanks, man.”
“What was the strange incident?” Alek asked.
“One of our security guards, Patrick Sorsey, brought a dog with him to work a couple of weeks back. Patrick has five kids and works all the time. A good man and crazy about his dog—a golden retriever, about eight years old. Patrick says he brings her to work with him to give her a break from the kids.”
“I’ve seen his dog,” Shabina said. “She’s very sweet. He calls her Belle.”
“That’s the one,” Sam said. “Patrick heard her yelp, and then she went silent. She was in the heavier brush close to the parking lot. It was a night with little moon. Patrick called and called, but she didn’t respond.
She’s a very well-trained dog, and she loves Patrick.
She prefers to be with him to anything else.
His truck was right there. If she could have made it out of the brush, she would have at least gone to his truck, even if she was injured.
At least that’s what all of us believed. ”
“Is she still alive?” Shabina couldn’t wait. She loved her dogs fiercely. The thought of Belle injured or perhaps attacked by any number of predators was distressing. She put plates in front of both Sam and Alek; omelets stuffed with various ingredients.
“Yes, but we couldn’t find her that night, and all of us looked.
We could see where something had gotten her because she thrashed around on the ground before running into thicker brush,” Sam said.
“We looked for her for nearly two weeks. Once, there were vultures circling, and I went up the side of the mountain to look, but she wasn’t there.
After two weeks, all of us believed she was dead, that a coyote or mountain lion got her and carried her off, even though there were no tracks to indicate that. ”
“How did you find her?” Alek asked.
“Belle came back on her own, but she was in terrible shape. Her body was swollen, and she could barely breathe. She shook continuously. It was easy to see she’d been very sick. Stella and I thought her symptoms sounded very close to Helen McKay’s dog, the one that had been bitten or poisoned.”
A chill slid down Harlow’s spine. “You took Belle to the vet. What did she say happened?”
“She was examining her when I left to come here. I’m waiting for a report from Stella, but I believe Belle was bitten, maybe by a rattlesnake. There was a site on her body where the skin was eaten away and looked infected,” Sam said.
“That does sound the same as Gwen, Helen’s dog,” Harlow said. “I swear something is stalking everyone, ready to bite without provocation. I honestly think that rules out some viral or bacterial illness.”
“At least nine people are dead, but both dogs are still alive,” Shabina said. “Does that mean dogs are able to deal with the toxin better than humans?”
The group exchanged long looks, each trying to puzzle out why a dog would have a better chance of fighting off the effects of a deadly toxin than a human being. Dogs were closer to the ground, and the chance of a snakebite nearer to their hearts was probable.
“We don’t know for certain it was a bite,” Sam said. “That was a guess from my observations. And it makes sense since there were no tracks of any other animal at the attack site.”
A knock on the door had Alek jumping. It was Rainier who answered it and let in two deputies, Mary Shelton and Griffen Cauldrey.
Harlow knew both well. Griffen was married with twin sons.
His wife, Mercy, was an English teacher.
They’d been together nearly twenty years and could just look at each other to know what the other one was thinking.
Mary’s husband, Dakwan, ran their farm. He hunted and fished as so many others did to get through the winter.
He also had a carpet-laying business that kept him very busy.
He was a hard worker. Harlow had always liked him.
He was jovial, his laughter booming when he was around company.
When he took his wife to the Grill for dinner and dancing, he always swept her off her feet, held her close, dipped and whirled.
The two looked as if there was no one else on the dance floor, they were so into each other.
“Mary,” Alek greeted. “Thank you for coming. I was afraid…” He trailed off.
Harlow glanced at him. He’d been worried Paul Rafferty would make vandalizing the restaurant a low priority in retaliation for allowing Shabina into his restaurant when she had a restraining order against his nephew, Bale.
She didn’t blame him for that concern. Rafferty and Bale were both vindictive people.
It seemed to Harlow that the two men were very much alike, even if they appeared to have had a falling-out.
She knew how bad it could be when family turned on family.
Mary didn’t need Alek to finish the sentence to understand what he meant. Rafferty was her boss. She would know firsthand the way he was. He might be charming to his voters, but he certainly wasn’t with his officers. Harlow had heard the rumors many times.
“You didn’t touch anything, did you, Alek? We’re going to fingerprint and photograph for evidence.”
“No, I stayed back,” Alek said. “Harlow took quite a few photographs for me. I’ll need them for insurance purposes.”
“We’d like copies, Harlow,” Griffen stated. “I’m sorry this happened to you, Alek.” He nodded to Rainier and Sam. “Are you certain not a single camera picked up anything at all before the wires were cut?”
Harlow realized that Alek had been calm enough to report everything about the break-in to the sheriff’s office before he allowed himself to become overwhelmed. Harlow had always admired Alek, but she did even more so knowing he held it together under such distressing circumstances.
Griffen moved into the restaurant area, but Mary hung back. “Do you have any enemies, Alek?”
“I’ve lived here nearly all of my life, Mary,” Alek said. “As far as I know, I’ve always gotten along with everyone.”
Harlow could confirm the truth of that, at least during the years she’d lived in Knightly.
“I wish it were that simple, Alek, but sometimes you don’t realize there is resentment. Think. Someone who may have disputed a bill and was angry about having to pay?”
“I have a policy, which is mine alone and not even known to my servers, that if a customer is really unhappy for some reason, I don’t have them pay the bill.
I want them to be satisfied. Now, if it happens more than once, that’s different.
They only get that grace one time. If they make a scene a second time, I ask that they pay the bill.
If they continue to protest, I give them the option of not paying and being refused future service, or paying and having the privilege of coming back. I think that’s a fair solution.”
“Has that happened? Have you had anyone who has insisted they shouldn’t have to pay on more than one occasion?” Mary persisted. “Or someone you’ve had barred from the premises? It doesn’t have to be recent. People can harbor grudges for years before they decide to act on them.”
Harlow immediately thought about Guadalupe. There hadn’t been threats in her mailbox since the luncheon with her friends and the realtor, but that didn’t mean anything. Guadalupe was a very busy woman. Maybe she just didn’t have time to add to the long list of letters.
Alek took his time before answering. “I think in the entire time the restaurant has been open, it only happened twice. Both incidents happened in the same summer, right after Stella came to me with her business proposal. We had changed the menu and added the additional room off the patio for eating and expanded the dance floor. That’s a long time ago, Mary. ”
“Do you remember who they were?” she asked, undeterred.