Case of the Pilfered Pooches Page 22

  I pointed at the open cellar doors.

  “I watched an old lady open those doors up and go down into that cellar. I’d also like to point out that she got here in a hurry. Screeched her tires and everything.”

  “You think the missing dogs are down there?” Vance asked.

  I nodded, “Yep. As soon as she disappeared from sight, both the dogs and I heard the jingle of a collar, much like what it sounds like when Sherlock gives himself a good shake.”

  To demonstrate the point, Watson shook her collar. I pointed at the red and white corgi.

  “That. It sounded just like that.”

  “And you’re sure it came from over there?” one of the officers asked.

  “100% positive,” I confirmed.

  “That’s all the validation I need,” Vance softly said. “Very well, we’ll take it from here. Stay put, Zack. We need to see if we can catch these people red-handed.”

  Vance’s sidearm appeared in his hand. He and the three officers quietly advanced on the cellar. Once all were in place, and leaving one officer at the top of the stairs as a lookout, Vance and the two remaining cops quickly descended into the cellar. Shouting came next, followed thereafter by…

  Barking! I heard several dogs barking!

  Several minutes later, the elderly woman appeared, with her hands cuffed behind her back. It was Edith all right. The policeman at the top of the stairs took possession of her and led her away. As for the other two cops, they were each holding a dog. One was a dark brown Cocker Spaniel, and the other was a Beagle.

  Vance appeared last, holding the leash to a large prancing brown and black dog. It was Anubis! It had to be! As soon as they made it to the top, Vance dropped to the ground and wrapped his arms around his dog. Anubis, for his part, was whining with joy and practically beating Vance senseless with his powerful tail as it wagged back and forth.

  EPILOGUE

  “You’re telling me you did all this in less than two weeks? So, what did you do, wait for me to go out of town before springing this surprise?”

  I grinned at Jillian, “If you want to get technical, this really only happened in the last week or so.”

  “And how long have you known you were planning on expanding the winery?” Jillian asked.

  “Ummm, for a week?”

  Jillian laughed, slipped her arm through mine, and started to walk with me. I led her north.

  “See that farmhouse there? That’s the Parson’s place. Their farm borders our winery on the north and west, from there to right over there. All that land now belongs to Lentari Cellars. Pretty cool, huh?”

  Jillian had gone strangely silent. I gave her a few moments, but when she didn’t say anything, I pulled her to a stop.

  “Are you okay?”

  “You said ‘our’ winery.”

  Surprised, I was taken aback.

  “I did?”

  “You did.”

  “Umm, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  I nudged her shoulder with my own.

  “Hey, don’t you read too much into it, either.”

  Jillian gave a slight giggle and gave me a million dollar smile.

  “I still can’t believe I missed all the excitement. And here I was, spending time with my parents in Arizona, while you almost single-handedly break up a dog-smuggling ring.”

  “Oh, please,” I scoffed. “You make it sound like a gang of ruthless thugs were involved. They were little old ladies, that’s all. But enough about me. Let’s talk about you! I’m surprised you didn’t let me know you were coming back early.” We turned east, towards the buildings that made up the winery. “I would have picked you up at the Medford airport.”

  “I know you would, and it means a lot. However, the decision to come home early was a spontaneous one. I’m still not sure what prompted me to push my return date forward by a full week. Maybe I was tired of living in my parents’ RV? Perhaps I missed my bed. Perhaps… perhaps I missed you.”

  I felt my face flame up. Damn that woman and her ability to make me blush. What was I supposed to say to that?

  “Don’t say anything, Zachary,” Jillian instructed. “Your face has told me everything I needed to hear.”

  “Umm, is that good or bad?”

  Jillian rested her head on my shoulder.

  “Good. It’s very good, Zachary.”

  I heard a car horn honk from behind us. We both turned to see Caden’s gray Toyota 4Runner pull up to the winery. My winemaster exited the car, saw the two of us slowly coming toward him, and waved.

  “That reminds me,” I whispered to Jillian. “I’ve got a surprise in store for Caden. It’s almost noon, so they should be here at any moment.”

  “Who?” Jillian wanted to know.

  Living out in the quiet countryside, I heard the approach of a car before I could actually see it. There, about a quarter mile down the road, I saw the truck and trailer. My eyes widened as I saw what was strapped on the back of the trailer. That was my tractor? The friggin’ thing was huge! It even had an enclosed cab! Exacerbating my surprise was the front loader attachment installed on my tractor, turning it into a loader.

  Jillian noticed I was staring at the approaching truck and gasped with astonishment, “You didn’t!”

  “I did. There’s Lentari Cellars’ newest piece of equipment.”

  “It looks so huge! Are you sure that’s going to work for the winery?”

  “The salesman at the John Deere dealership measured the width of the tractor. It’s classified as a ‘narrow’ tractor, especially made for wineries. It’s not brand new, but the salesman assured me it was used so little that it ought to be.”

  “Wow! Have you told Caden?”

  We both looked over at the winery. Caden had just unlocked the store front’s main door when he paused as he caught sight of the truck. It was approaching our driveway and was slowing. A look of incredulity appeared on his face.

  “You wanted one, now you’ve got one,” I told him as Jillian and I joined him at the front door. “It’s not brand new, but the salesman gave me a hell of a deal on it. I will say, for the record, that he didn’t tell me it had an enclosed cab, nor that it had a loading bucket on it. That’s pretty cool, right?”

  Caden still hadn’t uttered a word. Together, the three of us watched the huge truck head towards us. I could see the driver gesturing at me, wondering where I wanted the tractor to be delivered. I looked over at Caden and nodded towards the truck.

  “He wants to know where to put it. Well, let him know where you want it.”

  “Holy shit, Zack. I… I… I have no words. You seriously bought this thing? For me?”

  “For the winery,” I corrected. “And, I’ll need you to learn how to drive it so you can teach me. I can’t wait to see what it can do.”

  Caden suddenly thrust out his right hand. Not being sure why he suddenly wanted to shake my hand, I hesitated.

  “No, come on, Zack. I want to shake your hand. Thank you. Thank you for showing me you are willing to invest in the winery.”

  “Make me proud, buddy.”

  As Caden moved off to deal with the delivery of the tractor, my cell phone started to ring. A quick check of the display showed that the number was ‘unknown’. I sighed. This must’ve been another one of those damn crank calls. Should I, or shouldn’t I?

  Unable to resist the chance that there might actually be a human I could tell off on the other end, I decided to take the call.

  “Hello?” Silence. “Who’s there? Haven’t you got anything better to do than to bug me? And, for the record, you’re a number of hours early. Aren’t you the one who typically calls me in the middle of the night? What, around 3:30am?”

  For the first time, I finally heard something. I could hear someone softly sobbing.

  “Who is this?” I asked again. “I can hear you crying. Are you okay?”

  “It wasn’t an accident,” the voice softly informed me, be
tween sobs.

  “What wasn’t an accident? Explain yourself.”

  “Your wife. Her death? It wasn’t an accident. Why else would I call you at 3:30? I’m sorry. I have to go.”

  The line went dead. I’m sure I turned as white as a sheet. Jillian hurried to my side and took my hand in hers. She even had to give it a slight shake to get my attention.

  “Zachary? What is it? What’s wrong? You’ve gone so pale!”

  I had to take a couple of deep breaths.

  “Those calls? The ones that always call in the middle of the night? That was another one of them. This time… this time there was a voice. A female voice. She said that Sam’s death wasn’t an accident!”

  Jillian gasped with alarm. “Did you recognize the voice?”

  “No. Whoever it was talked in nothing more than a whisper, as though she was afraid of being overheard.”

  “What are you going to do?” Jillian asked.

  “I need to go find Vance. I… I think I want to have my wife’s case reopened.”

  THE END

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Well, so much for my plan for the year. Ever hear of the phrase, ‘Biting off more than you can chew’? Well, that was me. Sadly, it’s been almost a year since Holiday Hijinks was released.

  Okay, that won’t happen again. In fact, I even have the next CCF book 95% finished. As you may or may not know, I participate in November’s NaNoWriMo challenge, which is to see if an author can write a 50K story in only a month. I’ve tried a few times before, but to no avail. This time I made it. That’s right! 50 thousand words in one month! Well, there’s more than that, if you take into consideration the progress I’ve made on the 2nd Pirates of Perz story.

  So, the plan is to get Muffin Murders (CCF5) polished up and ready to release, only – after careful consideration – I’ve decided to release it possibly at the end of January. It all depends on when I can get Pirates #2 done. I’ll stagger the new releases, thereby giving the impression that I’m on a fairly consistent release schedule.

  So, what’s next for Pomme Valley? Well, the next book will be called ‘Case of the Muffin Murders’. It contains multiple murders, lots of finger pointing, and one dog owner scrambling to prove his girlfriend’s friend innocence. All with the help of two gifted dogs, that is.

  Thank you very much for reading the book! Also, if you enjoyed the book, please consider leaving a review wherever you purchased it. Every review, be it bad or good, will always help out the author, especially an indie author, such as myself.

  Happy reading!

  J.

  August, 2017