In Dog We Trust (Golden Retriever Mysteries) Read Online Free PDF

made its way through the court system. I wasn’t ready to lose Edith, too.
    “Sometimes I think maybe it’s just that I’m getting confused,” she continued. “I don’t know what to think. And it’s all so disturbing, after Walter worked so hard to leave me well-fixed.”
    I’d heard about criminals who preyed on the elderly, scammers who needed help moving money into the country or who promised elaborate yet unnecessary home repairs, which evaporated once the money had been paid. But Edith Passis had always been so smart and confident. I couldn’t believe someone was taking advantage of her.
    I looked out through the mullioned windows at Main Street, thinking about what I could say. Edith must have been over eighty, and still lived in the same small bungalow where she’d spent a lifetime giving piano lessons to local kids. I remembered sitting at her upright piano, struggling to master the simplest of songs. For three years, my parents forced me to trudge to Mrs. Passis’s house once a week, until they gave me up as a lost cause. Back then, she’d had true Black Irish looks—coal-black hair, pale white skin and bright blue eyes. When I returned to Stewart’s Crossing, though, I discovered her hair had gone stark white, and a medication she took tinted her skin a salmon-pink. The blue eyes were still as fierce and blue, though. Though I’d never say it to her face, I thought she looked like a gerbil, as if she ate chopped lettuce at every meal and lived in a pile of shredded newspaper.
    Her fingers were arthritic now, so she could no longer keep up with her students, and she’d given up all but the most advanced pupils, those she could help by ear. In addition, once a week she drove upriver to Eastern to tutor a couple of advanced piano students.
    She had always been so strong and vibrant, but that day, she seemed to have shrunk and faded. “I’m just finding it harder and harder to remember things,” she continued, shaking her head. “I saw you talking to Caroline earlier. Gail told me that she was a CPA. I was thinking of asking her to help me sort things out.”
    “That’s a great idea, Edith. She seems like a nice person.”
    “I can’t imagine who could do this to me,” Edith said. “I don’t have any children, you know, and none of my nieces or nephews live anywhere in the area. But I think Caroline could help me.”
    I was relieved. If anyone was cheating Edith, Caroline would be able to help her. She wasn’t my responsibility, of course, but my parents were dead and she had no children, and I felt a connection to her that went back many years, to dust motes dancing in the sunlight as I struggled to master Scott Joplin and “The Caisson Song.”
    Lying restlessly in bed, Rochester snoring lightly next to me, I worried about Edith, and wondered if Caroline had been able to figure out what was wrong before she died. I resolved to call Edith the next morning and let her know what had happened to Caroline, and see how she stood.
    Then I turned on my side and tried, once again, to fall asleep.

  Chapter 4 – The House Guest
     
     
    Just before I dozed off, Rochester jumped down and made himself comfortable on the tile floor in the master bathroom—choosing a spot where he could, by raising an eyebrow, keep tabs on me. In the morning, I woke around seven-thirty, stretching and rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Rochester’s head bobbed up next to me, his front paws planted on the mattress.
    I’d almost forgotten about the events of the night before. But seeing him there brought it all back. “I suppose you want to go for a walk,” I said, yawning.
    His head banged on the mattress a couple of times. I took that for a yes.
    But by the time I had pulled on a pair of sweat pants, an Eastern t-shirt, socks, sneakers and a fleece-lined jacket, Rochester had crawled under my bed and didn’t want to leave.
    I lay down on the floor next to him. A few of his golden hairs had already lodged in my