Paula K. Perrin - Small Town Deadly Read Online Free PDF Page B

keep the Mercedes
safe despite my pleas for him to be a good dog.
    When the lock popped, Lofty stood
back and said, “It’s all yours.”
    Gene said, “Touch as little
as you can.  We’ll dust inside the car.”
    Little Bunny Foo Foo showed
surprisingly big teeth.
    I hesitated.
    Gene reached for the door handle
saying, “I’ll get him.”
    “No!” I said, grabbing
his wrist.
    He stopped, but tension vibrated
through him as he snarled, “What now?”
    “It’s just that his biggest
sin is running off if you don’t have a leash on him.  He’s a real escape
artist.”
    Gene sighed.  “What do you
suggest?  He looks ready to bite.”
    “It’d help if you all get
away from the car.”
    They retreated to the roofed
walkway.
    “Now, Little Bunny Foo Foo,
I’m going to open the door.  You remember me, don’t you?” I said.
    He was quiet, though he didn’t
back away from the door.
    I touched the handle, and he
barked again.  “Look, this is your only chance to escape the dog
catcher.”  I said what Andre had always said as he got in the car,
“Now get back.  Back, back, back.”
    He turned and hopped onto the
passenger seat, but as I opened the door and slid in, he yipped.
    “You know, dog catchers are
nasty fellows,” I said.
    Little Bunny Foo Foo cocked his
head.
    I looked on the passenger side’s
floor.  “Now where’s your leash?  Andre never took you anywhere without
it.”
    I leaned over and felt under the
passenger seat.  Little Bunny Foo Foo growled.
    I twisted and looked in the back. 
No leash.
    The poodle’s cold nose touched my
hand where I’d absentmindedly rested it on the steering wheel.
    I leaned over and felt under the
driver’s seat.  My middle finger encountered something small and dry just as my
ring finger touched the leash.  I pulled both objects out.  Besides the leash,
I held a skinny, crumpled, half-smoked cigarette.  I supposed it was marijuana.
    Little Bunny Foo Foo growled. 
Right outside the window, Gene’s voice said, “What’s taking so long?”
    I jumped, and the cigarette sprang
out of my fingers.  I left it for the police.
    I leashed the dog, and he hopped
out and stayed at my heels as if he never would have considered a wild dash
anywhere.
    He settled onto the passenger seat
of the station wagon as I drove out of the parking lot.  Kirk, in his old VW
bug, was right behind me.  It was after eleven.  Most houses were dark.  I
passed two cars on Main Street, their headlights shining on the wet pavement. 
After a few blocks, when I turned left onto Macrae Avenue at the corner where
the Episcopal church stood, the bug turned into the rectory’s driveway.
    I said, “He could have taken
you.  Every time there’s something he doesn’t want to do, he cites the rules
and regulations of the church.  As if we’d kick him out of the rectory for
having a dog!  That was lame.”
    Fran’s new black Mustang was
parked in front of our house.  I pulled around the corner and into our
driveway, my heart sinking when I saw Meg’s car wasn’t there.
    I walked Little Bunny Foo Foo
around to the front.  Our house was a northwest bungalow built by my
grandfather in 1923 as a country getaway.  I’d lived in it all my life. 
“Act as if you belong,” I said to the poodle as we passed the rose
bushes and mounted the steps to the porch.
    The light from the porch fixture
gleamed on the dark green paint of the porch’s floor.  At Mother’s request, Meg
and I had painted the house last summer.  Mother wanted it white.  Again.  We’d
given in on that, but when it had come to the steps and the floor of the porch,
we refused to repaint them grey.
    Too much of the house had become
grey over the years, Mother’s bedroom, the parlor, the hallway.  When I was
little, those rooms had been painted yellow and peach.
    I peered through the etched-glass
panel before I opened the door.  The poodle’s nails clicked on the hardwood
floor of the dark, narrow