Three Dog Island Read online

  There was something comforting about knowing he was there, knowing he was curled up in front of my fireplace, guarding the manor, looking out for me. Well, it wasn’t quite like that yet, but it would be. He was a good dog and he was my dog. According to the vet, he was around two years old, predominantly Australian shepherd mixed with Bernese Mountain dog and possibly something else thrown in. What he’d been through in his short life, I did not even want to think about. Nor did I think about the people who had abandoned him. What I did think about was his angelic spirit and how quickly the Universe had responded to my request.

  And, despite my efforts not to, my mind did keep wondering what else the Universe had in mind besides the rescue of three dogs from a miserable island.

  Chapter 2

  Everywhere I went, I was accompanied by a big—albeit skinny—black and white and caramel colored, very furry dog with, what I interpreted as, a look of appreciation and expectation on his sweet face. There was definitely an advantage to living on an Island in the Pacific Northwest where it was never so warm that you couldn’t leave a dog in your car. He liked coming with me, even to the market and the pub. That of course meant a lot of waiting. But he seemed to prefer waiting in the car to waiting in the cottage, at least as determined by his whine. I did remain vigilant though. If anyone so much as eyed my dog for more than a three-second glance, I panicked. Did they know him? Did they want him back?

  Anxious to get back to work at my pottery wheel, I made a trip to the north end of the island where Army and Navy ran an art studio and carried art supplies, including clay.

  “Sorry, Jenny. We’re all out,” Army, short for Armistad, said in his distinctively deep voice. Army was a big burly man with a round face. For some reason whenever I saw him, I thought of Friar Tuck. I did remember once seeing him in a poncho that resembled a medieval robe. But normally he was wearing sweat pants and T-shirts. Today, with the chill in the air, he had on a long-sleeved turtleneck. Still, his feet were bare inside his Birkenstocks.

  “We used a lot ourselves this past week,” he said, motioning toward the kiln. “And then Dante bought quite a bit.”

  “Dante?”

  “Yeah, he’s an old Italian potter who lives on the island. And then Jasper Rosenthal called us and asked us to bring him what we had left that we weren’t using. He finished a new stone sculpture and needs some clay to conceptualize a new project.”

  “Oh, my gosh, I haven’t seen Jasper in a long time.”

  “You know Jasper?”

  “Yes, from when I used to visit my Aunt Winnie. But I haven’t seen him in a couple years.”

  “Of course. They were old friends. Unfortunately, he becomes more and more of a recluse every year. His work is well-known but he rarely makes an appearance. He usually stocks a large supply of clay to experiment with for his models. I deliver it to him when I pick it up in the city. But he ran out and didn’t want to make a trip down to Seattle himself. And, of course, the stone and marble for his final pieces is shipped directly to him.”

  “What kind of work has he been doing?”

  “He does unusual sculptures. He always has. Mostly human figures, but always with a story.”

  It sounded like the work of his that I’d seen. No two pieces were alike. “I’m surprised I haven’t seen Jasper since I moved to Anamcara.”

  “Like I said, he’s become more of a recluse. You’ll only see him on occasion when he’s delivering art work to the artist co-op,” Army said. “More and more he’s having us drop it off for him.”

  “Or when he comes out to buy extra clay from us,” Navy, short for Nadia, said. “But that’s rare.”

  I smiled when I saw her. She was wearing sweats and a turtleneck too. They must have made a trip to the Eddie Bauer outlet recently. Her feet were bare as well, in her well-worn Birkenstocks. They were a cute couple. Navy was half Army’s size, as trim as he was round and her hair was as straight as his was curly.

  “We’ll be picking up a new shipment next Wednesday if you want to come back then, Jenny,” she said, flicking her single blond braid over her shoulder.

  “Thanks, Navy. I’ll do that.”

  I wouldn’t be starting back at the pottery wheel after all—at least not immediately. I could work in the garden. Or do some sewing. Or try a new tofu casserole recipe. It was time I got back to my healthy eating. Too many scones and too few vegetables since I’d relocated to Anamcara.

  And here I had my own vegetable garden, thanks to Frankie and a dear friend of my Aunt Winnie’s who could grow tomatoes in sand on the harsh northwest coast of Scotland. We had planted potatoes, carrots, turnips, onions, leeks, and even some peas. Good Scottish fare.

  A little work in the garden soothed the soul. My new furry friend seemed to like it too. He was also an aficionado of my cooking experiments, especially the ones I considered failures. But sewing? I wasn’t quite ready to tackle that. The computer was more enticing than Winnie’s old Singer Featherweight, despite its charm.

  I sent off a couple emails, one to each of my children. Holly, who was in Connecticut at college, would probably not answer for a week or two. She would use the excuse that I’d been out to visit her recently. At least she was better at picking up a phone and calling her mother than her brother was. But Matthew was the writer in the family. And he was only two ferry rides away at a university in Seattle. He would email back as soon as he received mine. He was good that way. Either that or it was an attempt to avoid answering his mother’s questions about his love life which were difficult to deflect over the phone.

  When I finished my emailing, I did some web surfing. This and that, dogs, big furry Australian shepherd-Bernese Mountain dogs, finally settling on the local islands. The one where Frankie wanted to eat lunch was Waterloo Island, slightly larger than Anamcara. The next one over was privately owned by a gentleman named Edward Sharkey. Tara Island. Nice Irish name. It too was in the San Juans, just this side of the Canadian border. And finally, the dogs’ island. Also in the San Juans, privately owned as well, by an LLC of some kind. Aurora Island.

  Oddly, I kept getting the feeling that I needed to go back there. There was no logic to it. No haunting cries were coming from the island anymore, but something was out there. A wounded dog that was too sick to even cry out for help. I felt nauseous at the thought. But would my dog have left him behind? He wouldn’t leave the other two so why would he leave a fourth one? Oh, yeah, I’d lured him with food.

  Feeling just a little bit stir crazy—or maybe it was my way of avoiding going back to the scary Island with the scarier compound—I went down to Seattle to see my father, Charlie McNair. He had been pestering me to help him with a case anyway. Knowing Charlie, it was just an excuse to get me to visit, despite my having been there a few weeks ago en route to visiting Holly.

  Malcolm MacGregor, Charlie’s neighbor and my old college professor was there when I arrived. Despite their age difference, they were good friends. Not only did they teach together at the University, but they were born and raised in Scotland.

  Both dressed in jeans and rugby jerseys—something else they obviously had in common—they were talking about a friend of theirs over a cup of tea.

  “Another old boy soccer player?” I asked, picking up on their conversation.

  “Need you put so much emphasis on the old?” MacGregor asked, brushing away his thick brown hair that was always just a little bit messy like a good professor’s hair should be.

  “Ah, the gap between the young and old only widens with age,” Charlie said, bursting into verse, “’What can a young lassie, what shall a young lassie—‘”

  MacGregor jumped in to finish the quotation, “’What can a young lassie do wi’ an auld man?’”

  “Robbie Burns,” Charlie said proudly. “Och, I’ve a better one. Sir William Gilbert, I believe, ‘For I’m not so old and not so plain—‘”

  He pointed to MacGregor who obliged him with, “’And I’m quite prepared to marry again.’”


  “Are you two finished showing off then?”

  “Not impressed are ye, lassie?” Charlie said. “So, didn’t you meet Eddie when you were here last, Jenny? At the pub?”

  “Oh, right. He recruited you for the old boys’ soccer. I saw him at a game as well. Watched him in action on the wing.”

  “Aye, Edward Sharkey, a fine Irishman. Of course, his having spent a great deal of time in Scotland is to his credit.”

  “Owner of Tara Island?”

  “Now how would you know about Tara Island?” MacGregor asked.

  I shrugged.

  Charlie misinterpreted my shrug. “Don’t you ever try to tell me again that your intuitive powers aren’t working, Jenny,” Charlie said when I told him the exact location of Sharkey’s Island.

  Tempted as I was to let my intuition take the credit, I confessed. “Sorry, Charlie. I hate to disappoint you, but it isn’t intuition. I just spent an afternoon researching the various islands off of Anamcara.”

  Charlie gave me an endearing wink. “Ok, so your timing is good too.”

  “Only I didn’t put it together. Maybe I didn’t know his last name was Sharkey. His island, Tara Island, is also in the San Juans.”

  “I think we’ll be making a trip there very soon. He’s scheduled a soccer match up that direction and he wants us to come see his island home.”

  “Which means you’ll be stopping to visit with me?”

  “Any problem with that?” MacGregor asked, those deep brown eyes gazing into mine.

  “Hmmm. No, no problem,” I responded, blushing in response. And they say the song, “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” is silly. I have news for them. Irish eyes do smile and so do Scottish eyes, at least MacGregor’s eyes certainly were smiling at that moment.

  “What’s going on here?” Charlie set down his cup of tea and looked from me to MacGregor and back again.

  “Nothing, Charlie, absolutely nothing,” MacGregor said, exhibiting his proclivity for stating the exact opposite of what he meant. The truth was, I’d have liked to know what was going on myself. Just not in front of my father.

  Charlie zeroed in on me. “Are you hiding something from your old dad, Jenny?”

  I sighed. “Okay, maybe I am.”

  Charlie sat back with a smug grin on his face. “I’m ready.”

  His eyes were twinkling in anticipation. He was hoping for some lengthy discourse on the romantic innuendos that recently seemed to be passing between MacGregor and me. But it wasn’t what he was going to get. Mainly because MacGregor was sitting right there and I did not want to presume that the mild—well, perhaps not so mild—flirtations were actually indicative of some genuine interest in me. And if that was the case, I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it. I had always been extremely fond of MacGregor. The question was, had I ever looked at him as more than a friend? Certainly not while I was married to Joe. And now? Hmm. Excellent question.

  Resorting to my usual tactic of avoidance, I maneuvered the conversation in a different direction. “You’ll meet him shortly.”

  “Meet him?” Charlie asked.

  “Meet whom?” MacGregor asked, a slight note of concern in his voice.

  “Someone I’m hiding.”

  “Hiding?” Charlie asked.

  “A man?” MacGregor asked.

  “More of a boy.” Was it my imagination or was MacGregor breathing a little more easily?

  “Let me get this straight. You’re hiding a boy in your cottage? How old is he? Is he a fugitive? Is the law after him? His parents?”

  “My father, always the detective. I found him on a tiny island slightly northeast of Tara Island. Would you like to meet him? He’s in the car.”

  “You left him in the car?”

  “Yep.” I ran out to the car to get my angelic dog, stubborn too apparently. Clearly he thought crossing the road was a better option. He’d never been so willful. He must have caught the scent of a squirrel. Finally he gave in and followed me up the steps to Charlie’s.

  Charlie and MacGregor laughed when they saw him, until they realized how skinny he was. I told them the story of finding the three dogs on Aurora Island which was northeast of Tara and west of Anamcara.

  I caught Charlie looking at me with that concerned fatherly look of his.

  “Don’t worry, I’m taking good care of him.”

  “Not him I’m worried about. If whoever mistreated this dog like this finds out you took him—”

  I’d thought of that too, only I didn’t want to say it out loud.

  “Jenny?” Charlie could see the wheels turning.

  “I don’t think they’ll come looking for them or they’ll be met with animal neglect and possibly abuse charges. Besides, the vet determined that these gashes are from rocks, not from the hands of a human being.”

  Charlie didn’t look convinced.

  “Did I mention that one of my friends who took one of the dogs is our local sheriff’s girlfriend?”

  “Just be careful, McNair,” MacGregor said, sounding just like Charlie.

  “I don’t like this, Jenny. I don’t like it at all,” Charlie said, sounding just like himself.

  “It’s okay. I have a good feeling about it.” I looked from MacGregor to my father’s keen eyes for a brief moment. It wasn’t often that I lied to Charlie.

  I couldn’t name him. Fear. Fear that someone would come along and say he was theirs. Not the culprit who had neglected and possibly abused this beautiful shepherd-mountain dog mix, but the person the dogs had been stolen from, if indeed they had been. Okay, yes, I was also afraid of this culprit coming after the dogs . . . and us.

  “Come on, Jenny. We’ve done the computer thing, and there are no postings of missing dogs with these descriptions anywhere in the state.” Sasha stroked Whistler’s droopy wet ears that seemed to function as sponges in the Northwest mist “So either the people who took them to the island were their original owners or their previous owners have given up on them.”

  “Do you ever worry about them coming after them . . . and us?”

  “I think it’s safe to say, we’re dealing with careless people who would not try to find them for fear of being charged with neglect of animals. They left these poor dogs to starve!” Sasha concurred with my theory. She jerked her hand away quickly when she realized she’d touched one of Whistler’s open sores.

  Of course she had named her dog after an artist. It made perfect sense. And, I had to admit, I was toying with the name of a famous literary character. I just hadn’t quite decided or was still too reluctant to get attached. Naming a dog definitely increased the potential for disappointment.

  “Okay, okay!” I blurted out. “His name is Hamlet!”

  Sasha gave me a perplexed look. “Isn’t that what your ex used to call you when you were overanalyzing a situation?”

  “Like now?” I raised my chin in the air. “Well, if my dog’s name is Hamlet, maybe he’ll take on that part of me.”

  “I thought you liked that part of you.”

  True. “Okay, in keeping with the Beatles theme of naming our dogs from their songs, how’s Rocky Raccoon?”

  “Much better. “So, are you ready to go get a dog license?” Sasha asked.

  Fear clutched at my stomach. Now I knew how adoptive parents felt.

  “Come on, Jenny. Let’s go down to the Sheriff’s office and get a couple licenses. Frankie’s already done it.”

  “Of course she has. She’s dating the sheriff.”

  “Thanks to us and our expert matchmaking skills.”

  I laughed. “We did do a good job on that one, didn’t we?”

  Sasha slid Whistler off her lap, grabbed my hand and pulled me up from the couch. “We’re going. Now. Should we take them or leave them here?”

  Whistler and Rocky made that decision for us. They pushed past us and through the door as soon as it was open. They jumped easily into the back of my Volvo. Now I knew why I’d decided on a station wagon so many years ago,
besides needing space for my children’s miscellaneous dance and sports equipment and extra jump seats for their friends.

  Seven minutes later we were in downtown Anamcara Island, headed for Sheriff Sam’s office.

  “What will it be today, ladies?” Sheriff Sam asked as though we were ordering take out from a restaurant. However, instead of smelling like garlic and rosemary, a lovely incarcerated drunk odor wafted into the office from the jail.

  “Dog licenses.” Sasha handed over their recent vaccination records.

  “Ah, so these are your new friends.” Sam’s grin showed the dimples of which Frankie was becoming so fond. He rolled his chair out from behind his desk to greet Whistler and Rocky. He already knew Lenny. “Hey, Dan, can you bring a couple dog license aps up here?” he yelled to his deputy who was in the back room.

  “Sure thing,” Deputy Dan yelled back.

  A minute later the taller and trimmer blond, blue-eyed deputy emerged from the back office, two license applications in hand. “Here you are, ladies,” he said, jumping back when he saw the dogs.

  “Don’t tell me you’re a deputy who’s scared of dogs,” Sasha teased.

  “No, of course not,” he said, red creeping up his cheeks. “They just don’t look so friendly . . . or healthy.”

  “Don’t worry, Jenny’s Rocky may look big and scary but Lenny’s the one you have to watch out for,” Sasha said.

  Dan’s forehead wrinkled. “Frankie’s dog? I thought he was a little terrier.”

  “Little but fierce,” Sasha teased. “If you’re not careful he’ll get you in the ankles.”

  Dan’s vacuous look confirmed his failure to appreciate Sasha’s humor.