A Woof in Sheep’s Clothing

Prologue

“Call the cops!”

Detective Brian Griswald stopped cold in his tracks, listening intently to the conversation taking place on the other side of the brick wall.

“Call the cops,” the unseen male voice said again nervously.

“We’re not calling the cops,” a woman answered, clearly annoyed by the situation. “I’ll handle it.”

“She could die,” the man argued.

Grabbing his badge in one hand and resting his other palm on the butt of his gun, Brian ran around the wall. “Police!”

A man and a woman, their backs to him, were staring up into a tree.

The man spun around, hands in the air, signaling his surrender. The quick action sent the strange hat he was wearing tumbling to the ground.

“Shhh!” the woman ordered without moving. Fuzzy white fabric that looked like sheepskin dangled from her hand that was firmly planted on her hip.

“Don’t shoot,” the man begged.

“Shut up, Stanley. You’re scaring her,” the woman warned.

Determining they weren’t a threat, Brian put his badge away. “What’s going on here?”

The woman waved him away dismissively. “We don’t need the cops or the fire department. I’ve got this.”

Brian frowned at the man, hoping to intimidate him into giving an answer.

Stanley retrieved his fallen hat, and stuck what looked like a mortar board, minus a tassel, back on his head. He pointed at the tree. “She’s stuck up there.”

Brian squinted at the tree, but didn’t see anything out of place. “Who?”

“Grace.”

“A kid?” Brian moved closer.

“A dog,” Stanley said.

“You mean a cat?” Brian scanned the branches.

“No,” the woman huffed. “He means a dog.”

Brian closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. It was bad enough that he was here at the Dubois estate because he was unofficially investigating the disappearance of a woman who claimed to be a psychic matchmaker.  Now he had to contend with a dog stuck in a tree. He was pretty sure his job description didn’t include animal rescue.

“C’mon, Gracie,” the woman called in a much sweeter voice than she used on humans. 

As she moved past Brian, he thought he smelled honeysuckle.

Leaning against the tree, she cajoled, “Come down, sweetheart. Stanley was wrong about dressing you up as a lamb.” 

Following her line of sight, Brian finally spotted a brown and black ball of fluff perched between two branches fifteen feet off the ground. 

“How the hell did she get up there?” Brian asked, stepping beside the woman to get a better look at the wayward dog. He definitely smelled honeysuckle, but there were no vines in the vicinity.  

Twitching her pointy ears, Grace looked back at him with dark, inquisitive eyes.

Instead of answering him, the woman addressed the dog. “Stanley was wrong about dressing you up as a lamb.” She turned a cold eye on the man in the hat and threw the white fabric to the ground at his feet. 

“Sheep.” Stanley retrieved what Brian realized was a costume from the ground. “It’s a sheep, not a lamb.”

“It’s a bad idea,” the woman growled.

The dog barked her agreement.

“It’s a wonderful PR idea,” Stanley countered weakly

The dog barked her disagreement.

“Will someone please tell me how she got up there”

The woman sighed. “Grace is a climber. Stanley, go find me a ladder and some food to entice her down with.”

“Of course.” Stanley hurried away, the sheepskin costume fluttering with each step.

“He’ll probably bring back a macaron,” she muttered. 

“A what?”

“Macarons. Meringue-based French pastries.” 

From the note of longing in her voice, Brian guessed that she was quite fond of these pastry things. For the first time, he took a good look at her. With her chin pointed skyward, he could only see her profile.  He’d guess her to be around thirty, with minimal makeup, pale skin, a full mouth, and blonde hair yanked back in a ponytail. Since her hair was secured with what looked suspiciously like a rubber band designed to hold a bunch of asparagus, he took her to be more practical than vain. An assumption that seemed to be confirmed by her no-nonsense polo shirt, khakis and sneakers.

“You don’t have to wait here,” she said dismissively, not taking her eyes off the dog.

“Do you work here?” he countered.

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Not me.”

That got her attention. She dragged her gaze from Grace and fixed him with a no-nonsense glare. “Who are you? A reporter?”

For a moment, mesmerized by the fire sparking in her dark eyes, he didn’t answer.

“I don’t know what kind of story you’re digging for, but you leave Ms. Dubois alone,” she ordered sternly, drawing herself up to her full height as though she expected to intimidate him despite he had six inches and forty pounds on her.

“Not a reporter.” He pulled out his badge and showed it to her. “As I said, I’m with the police. Detective Brian Griswald. I’m here because a person-of-interest in a case I’m working had recent contact with Mrs. Dubois.”

She frowned slightly, relaxing her body posture.

“And you are?” he prompted.

“Stephanie Browne.” She glanced up at the dog. She hadn’t budged.

“And you work here, Miss Browne?”

She grudgingly returned her attention to him. “A couple of hours a day.”

“Doing what?”

She clenched her jaw.

“Ma’am?”

She let out a defeated sigh. “I’m a dog trainer.”

Brian pressed his lips together to keep from laughing at her admission, but he could tell from the way her eyes narrowed that she sensed his amusement.

She gestured at Grace. “Despite appearances, I’m pretty good at it.”

He nodded solemnly, struggling to keep a straight face as Grace barked, seeming to disagree with her trainer.

Stephanie chuckled ruefully, shaking her head. “Go ahead and laugh. I deserve it.”

The hint of a smile softened her features and Brian found himself drawn to the woman with a sense of humor about herself.

To distract himself, he glanced up at the dog who appeared to be grinning.

“So tell me, officer, assuming you didn’t show up to rescue the dog, what are you doing here?” 

“Detective,” he corrected mildly. “I’m looking into the suspected disappearance of this woman.” He pulled out his cell phone and pulled up a picture of Armani Vasquez and showed it to Stephanie. “Does she look familiar?”

Stephanie leaned closer to get a better look, the scent of honeysuckle wafting over him.

He watched her reaction as she recognized the subject.  Lines appeared between her eyes. 

“Armani’s missing?”

“So you do know her?”

Stephanie nodded, raising her gaze from the picture to his face, her expression dark.

“How?”

“She’s a…” Stephanie paused for a long second. “It’s going to sound stupid, but she’s a matchmaker, a psychic matchmaker.” She winced at how ridiculous the words sounded.

“And you know her, how?”

“Marjorie hired her.”

“Mrs. Dubois?” Brian asked for clarification.

“Ms. If you make the mistake of calling her Mrs., she’ll act like you’ve delivered a terrible insult.”

Brian grinned and said warmly, “Thanks for the warning.”

She blinked, surprised by his display of emotion.

“So Ms. Dubois hired Armani?” Brian continued.

“I think so. Or maybe she just showed up. She’s a force of nature.”

“She certainly is.”“

Stephanie cocked her head to the side and examined him. “You know her?”

“We’ve met.”

“But you’re not friends?”

He shook his head. 

The dog trainer’s eyes narrowed. “So you’ve met her in the course of an investigation?”

“In a manner of speaking.” Brian wasn’t about to get into how he’d met Armani when he’d been part of an investigation to recapture Archie Lee, who’d given his Witness Protection Detail the slip right before he was due to testify against  a major crime family.

“Well that figures,” Stephan muttered.

“What figures?” 

“That she’s mixed up with something unsavory.” The iciness of her tone felt like a slap in the face.

“You don’t like Ms. Vasquez?”

“I don’t like scam artists.” Spinning around, Stephanie put her hands on her hips and glared up at the dog. “Down, Grace.”

The dog barked, but didn’t budge.”

“I never said she was a scam artist.”

Stephanie looked over her shoulder at him, arching an eyebrow. 

“I don’t think she’s a scam artist,” he elaborated. “I don’t believe in her “‘powers.’”” He made air quotations with his hands. “But I believe that she believes in what she says.”

Shrugging, she turned away from him, and said in a voice that seethed with hostility, “Then you’re more gullible than you look.”

A flush of defensive anger filled his chest, but before he could respond to her derogatory assumption, a wild pack of dogs descended upon them.

“What the…?” Brian muttered, surveying the motley crew of four assorted mutts sniffing him and jumping up on Stephanie.

“Sit.” Stephanie ordered sternly.

Miraculously they all did, staring up at her with rapt attention.

Brian suddenly believed that she really was a dog trainer.

“How did you guys get down here?” she asked the menagerie. She focused on a dog that seemed to be mostly shitzu. “Well, Rascal? How?”

The dog turned his head and stared in the direction Stanley had disappeared.

The humans followed his example and spotted Stanley, minus his hat, carrying a massive tray hurrying toward them.

“He forgot a ladder,” Stephanie muttered.

Grace, up in the tree, barked.

All the other dogs looked up at her. Some wagged their tails, others barked back.

“Quiet,” Stephanie ordered.

They all went silent and sat still.

“Impressive,” Brian murmured.

She flashed him a proud grin. 

He bent, inviting a husky-mix to smell his hand. Once the dog had, he rubbed his chest. 

“I thought the pack might entice Grace to join them,” Stanley said breathlessly, stumbling toward them.

Both Brian and Stephanie jumped toward him to catch the metal tray he was in danger of dropping. 

“And then they’ll all have a tea party?” Stephanie asked, looking down at the china tea set and a plate of pastel-colored pastries.

Stanley shook his head. “This is for Ms. Dubois. Polly asked me to bring it to her. She’s in the gazebo.”

“This detective wants to speak to her. You can take him with you,” Stephanie declared.

Stanley paled slightly and the tray he still held trembled hard enough that the teacups rattled. 

While Brian hadn’t finished questioning the dog trainer, he was curious about the man’s reaction.  “Great.”  He nodded at Stanley. “Thank you.”

Unable to argue with the detective’s gracious acceptance of an invitation he hadn’t issued, Stanley had no choice but to say, “This way.” He started walking away, chin held high.

Brian hung back. “We hadn’t finished our conversation yet, Ms. Browne. I trust you’ll be around when I’m ready for you?”

She glanced at Grace in the tree.  “I’ll probably still be standing right here.” She looked at some sort of black Labrador retriever mix. “Go find Marjorie, String bean.”

The dog obediently bounded off in the direction Stanley was heading. None of the other dogs moved, watching and waiting for their next command from the trainer.

“String bean?” Brian asked.

“There’s a vegetable garden behind the house. The first day he was here, he got into it, laid on his back, and nibbled all the string beans off the plants.” 

She grinned as she told the story, dropping her guard, and he got a glimpse of what she’d be like when she wasn’t tense and facing a cop.  He found himself wishing he’d met her in a coffee shop instead of on the job.

Caught off-guard by his reaction, he only managed a half-smile in response to her story. “I’ll see you later.” With a wave, he hurried after Stanley.

When he glanced back over his shoulder, he expected to find her staring into the tree. Instead, he caught her watching him, her dark eyes thoughtful, and he almost tripped over his own two feet.