Chapter One
Wednesday afternoon
There are two problems with the line of fuzzy white dogs along the fence. The first is that two of them were neither white nor fuzzy. The second is that unless they fell from the sky, it was impossible for these non-fuzzy nor white visitors to have gotten into the pen without Kate knowing.
A sharp bark from Quinn, Kate Killoy’s youngest Samoyed, broke through her astonishment. She walked forward, her hands reaching out to give pats and snuggles to each dog in turn. When she arrived at the two large greyhound bitches which she’d known since they were born, she snuggled them, while at the same time checking to see if the bitches were injured, or if their coats showed any sign of rough travels. Nothing. From the tips of their whip-like tails to their long-pointed noses, they were sleek and ready for the show ring. They were even wearing decorative snoods over their heads and heavy, elaborate, decorative collars. So if Thorin and Twisp were here, where was Agnes?
She walked into the kitchen and called, “Agnes?”
Nothing. Opening the front door, she repeated the call. Still nothing. Pulling out her phone she called Agnes’ number. It went to voicemail. Odd. She called her grandmother, who lived at the end of the driveway.
“Hi Gran, is Agnes with you? Her girls are in my exercise yard.”
“No, she’s not. Maybe she’s visiting Ellen.”
“I’ll check.” Ending the call, she stood there. This wasn’t like Agnes. Agnes Forester, former supermodel, did not go anywhere without a fanfare. Kate began to feel uneasy.
Looking out the kitchen window, she saw no sign of her cousin’s car. Wait, she thought. Security. Maybe Agnes came when she was listening to the news while cleaning the kennels. Taking her phone back out of her pocket, she pulled up the security app and hit the code to show anyone who’d entered or exited the property in the last four hours. The only entry was Mrs. Sager, who picked up her Basset Hound, Howard. So how did a former supermodel recently turned bank president sneak two large greyhounds onto the property, which had cameras and alarms everywhere; without that system letting out a peep? Plus, why hadn’t she heard barking from her dogs? Granted, they are trained to obey Agnes as well as her, but still…
Kate reached for a clean mug and a teabag. Then she keyed in Agnes’ phone number again and waited. Voicemail. As she disconnected, her phone rang, the display showing Sean Connelly, Agnes’ fiancé.
“Sean,” she said as she answered, “just the person I need to talk to.”
“Great!” he replied. “Can you tell me where Agnes is?”
“I was calling you with the same question. She somehow managed to sneak the girls into my dog yard when I was cleaning the boarding kennel. None of my alarms went off, so I don’t know how she got past the security. Harry’s going to have ten fits. We were told nobody could get by this security after what happened at the wedding.”
‘I found a note on my kitchen table saying she was called out of town and would be back soon. She said that you had the girls.”
“Did you call Sybil?” Agnes still lived with her grandmother, who had bred greyhound show dogs for close to fifty years.
“Sybil got the same note I did.”
“Harry is due back from the city in about an hour. He had to go into New York to wrap up two of the cases he finished right before the wedding. He may have an idea on how she got in here and out again or where she is now. But short of adding an invisibility cloak to her million-dollar wardrobe, I can’t figure it out. Look, I’ll go talk to my knitters before they go home. Maybe they saw something. You’re coming over tomorrow when they deliver the crane to put our house on its foundation this weekend. While you’re here arranging the traffic control for all the huge flatbeds, we can talk. Hopefully, Agnes the Invisible will report in by that time.”
She put away her phone and stared out the window at the dogs. They showed no sign of stress or upset of any kind. She wished she could say the same for herself. This was not Agnes’ style. She liked dramatic entrances, coming through a door with a swirl and a pause until she was sure every eye was focused on her. If there was one thing that Agnes wasn’t, that was subtle. Low key wasn’t part of her vocabulary.
Checking the clock, she saw it was almost time for her knitters to leave for the day so Kate finished her tea, put on her parka, and trotted across the parking lot while huddling inside her parka to fight the cold. She ran up the staircase outside the barn and pulled open the door to her knitting studio. Walking into a blast of warmth, she tossed her parka on the coat rack and pushed her way through the inner door. The swish, swish of the knitting machines competed with the laughing chatter of her knitters. Several kids were squatting at the low table in the back of the room playing a game. The school bus picked up and dropped off the children of her employees so that they didn’t have to go home to an empty house. Kate had built an area where the kids could do homework, play with their younger siblings or rock the babies in the nursery room.
Kate had decided right from the beginning when setting up her business, that she would employ minority women or single parents who had a hard time fitting both a family and job into a normal work situation. Here, they could work happily surrounded by their families. This created happy employees who worked hard. She also paid well and provided health insurance, which meant that there was a waiting list of people wanting to work. Her studio manager, Ellen, ran training classes as part of the town’s evening education program. Those who completed the classes were eligible to take on part-time work when the studio was under pressure to complete a big job. If they worked out, those students would slowly be added to the workforce. But in order to take on more staff, they needed more room.
The business had grown much faster than they first imagined. Kate and Ellen were now hard at work developing plans to build an extension on the barn which would give them an additional workroom and could house specialty equipment, like lace-knitting and automated machines, used for special orders. Smiles greeted Kate as she walked into the group gathered around Ellen. Her manager had laid out the sketches Kate had drawn of the possible expansion. Everyone had suggestions for what should be included.
Kate had just begun answering their questions when Roberto, Concetta’s eleven-year-old son, asked if he could come visit the big brown dogs sometimes.
“Oh, you saw the greyhounds.”
“Yea. I saw you put them in with your Sammies. They certainly look different. But they seem nice, just big.”
“They are nice. Both are females and are very gentle especially considering their size. I didn’t see you watching them.”
“Oh, I had just dashed out to put my backpack in the car when I finished my homework. I didn’t want to forget it. I noticed because you were wearing your old red jacket. It showed up when you went out into the woods after you were done.”
Not wanting to cause any alarm, she chatted with two of the new knitters who were still learning how the business ran, but after gathering no more information about possible sightings of Agnes, she pulled on her parka and headed back to her house. She had just entered the kitchen when her phone rang with a call from her grandmother.
“Kate, I’ve got an emergency here. Sybil is on her way over. Apparently, a close friend of hers and a long-time friend of her late brother-in-law, Paul, has died, and she’s really upset. It’s not like Sybil to be this emotional, so I think there is something much more wrong. Could you come talk to her? Apparently, his death was unusual.”
“Of course, I’m on my way. Harry will be back soon, so I’ll leave him a note.”
She tore off a sheet of her work pad and scribbled the information that she was at her grandmother’s and set it in the middle of the kitchen table, put her parka back on, and headed for the front door, then stopped. Roberto had said he’d seen her in the dog yard wearing her old red parka. She opened the coat closet door and looked inside. Both the red parka and the knitted hat that matched were gone as well–Agnes was doing it again, disguising herself as Kate.
The security ding on her phone told her that Sybil Forester had arrived on the property. Kate went out and locked the door. She plunged down the front steps and began running up the driveway in the direction of her grandmother’s home.
The looming hole in the ground was impossible to pass without being impressed. It was huge. The finished foundation for Kate and Harry’s home appeared even larger in the half-light of dusk. As dark came early, this close to the shortest day of the year. She felt excitement grip her in anticipation of the arrival of the sections of their factory-built home on Friday. The crane which would put all the pieces in place was due tomorrow and then before dawn on Friday, trucks carrying the sections of the first and second floors would get here. Somehow, the attic was carried flat on top of the second-floor sections. She was curious how they could carry another floor of the house hidden. Friday, she guessed she would find out when they put that together.
Mounting the front porch steps, Kate let herself in and heard sobs coming from the kitchen. Sybil was at the kitchen table crying with Gran holding her sister-in-law in her arms. She looked up as Kate came in and nodded. Kate slipped into the chair across from them and reached for Sybil’s hand.
“How can I help Sybil? Tell me what happened and what I can do.”
“You can find his killer and bring him to justice.”
Startled, she asked, “Whose killer? What happened? I’ll be glad to help and so will Harry and Tom, but we need to know who was killed.”
“Bill was murdered. My….” A wracking sob stopped her.
“Bill who?” Kate asked gently, trying to ease her great-aunt’s grief so she could catch her breath.
“Bill Salverson. He is…he was my best friend. He’s been on the board at the bank for over twenty years.”
“Bill Salverson, the dog show judge? Didn’t he do hounds and terriers? I remember showing Twisp under him for Agnes. Lovely man. He came to Thanksgiving here several times.”
“He was a lovely, wonderful man. A lovely, caring man who didn’t deserve to be smashed to death.”
“Sybil, please, tell me what happened.” Now Gran was crying along with Sybil. Kate didn’t want to be pulled into their heartbreak. She got up and made a fresh pot of tea after putting a new box of tissues on the table. Once the tea was poured and fixed the way the women wanted it, they were able to pull themselves together enough to sip their tea and talk.
“About an hour ago,” Sybil began, “a state policeman contacted me. It seems Bill had listed my name as the person to call in case of an emergency. Late yesterday afternoon, Bill was driving home from the city on I-84 when a large truck pulled up beside his car and began moving into his lane. Apparently, people in other cars noticed the move. The first time it happened, Bill braked and the truck moved ahead of him. Traffic behind the truck then began clogging up when the truck slowed to ten miles per hour under the speed limit. Bill waited for the traffic behind him to pass and then he moved into the middle lane to passed the truck. After driving for a while, Bill moved back into the right-hand lane so he could prepare to exit. The truck moved up on the left side of Bill’s car again, but this time, Bill didn’t have the time to get out of the way. Drivers told the police that the truck purposely swung to the right, plowing into Bill’s car, and kept pushing until it broke through the guardrail and rolled down the hill. The truck then swung back onto the highway, a minute later took the exit, and disappeared.
“Two of the cars following got the license number of the truck and others called the police, but by the time they got to Bill’s car, he was dead. Kate, it was murder. I don’t know why, but someone murdered him. I’ve been trying to call Agnes to tell her, but her phone goes to voicemail.”
“Sean told me that she was away,” Kate said. “She left the bitches here, but I didn’t see her.”
Sybil looked at her. “We’ve got to talk to Agnes. She might know who did this. Bill called her the night before last asking her to meet with him yesterday afternoon.”
“Did he say why he wanted to talk to Agnes?”
“He didn’t tell me, but after he spoke to Agnes, she seemed upset and worried. She said it was just business, but she seemed apprehensive. I almost asked to go with her, but yesterday was my morning to volunteer at the public library. When she came home yesterday, she was very quiet. She got a phone call late, just as I was going to bed. I didn’t hear what she said but I looked down from the stair landing and saw her staring at the phone as though it had bitten her. When I woke this morning, she and the girls were gone.”
Kate’s phone dinged, showing that Harry had pulled into the driveway. She scrambled to her feet and moved around to Sybil. Reaching down, she hugged her.
“Harry just came home. Sybil, I promise you, we will find Bill’s killer. I think you should stay with Gram tonight.”
Without adding what was beating on her brain, she quickly left and ran down the hill to meet her husband as he got out of his car. She wrapped her arms around him and held on tight. Visions of her past horrors came flooding back. She looked up, with tears beginning to fall, as she fought the gasps she had held in check.
“Harry,” she choked out, “Bill Salverson is dead. Murdered. And I think someone is trying to kill Agnes.”