Three Dog Island Read online

  “This guy, Mark, the friend of my step father’s, is a cop.”

  And aren’t we supposed to trust cops? Another betrayal. “A bad cop?”

  Josh nodded, finishing off his cup of tea. I wanted to go make some more and bring out some blackberry pie that was left over from a couple days before—the nurturing mother was alive and well—but I was afraid he’d stop talking and wouldn’t start again.

  “I think there must be some kind of bad cop network out there ‘cause these cops kept showing up anywhere I went in Salem.”

  “More than one?”

  “I never got a good look at them but they were different heights. Two of them.”

  “So then what did you do?”

  He smiled. This was his first real smile. It could have been grander, but I wasn’t complaining. It was a nice smile, a smile that could melt the hearts of girls, including my daughter’s if she were a couple years younger. “My cousin and me, we’re the same height, same build, similar hair cut. We went out one afternoon. He was wearing some of my clothes and I was wearing his work uniform. He works at one of those fast food places.” He took a deep breath so he could continue, obviously not used to stringing so many words together at one time. “Anyway, we drove to the bus station. He got out with a duffle bag, kinda like mine and acted like he was taking a bus to San Francisco. I took off in his car and headed to the fast food joint. There was a cop following us but he stayed at the bus station watching my cousin who actually did get on the bus but got off at the next stop.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I drove to a friend of my cousin’s, left the car, changed clothes, and hitchhiked to Seattle. Then I caught the ferry for Gael Island. I have a friend who lives there.” Josh stood up and carried our cups into the kitchen. “Would you like another cup of tea?”

  Since he was already up, I decided to serve the pie. While Josh made the tea, I served the pie with just a dollop of vanilla ice cream on each piece. Between the cookies and pie, this was more sugar than I normally ate in a week, but who was counting? The subject of betrayal definitely warranted comfort food.

  I waited until we were back in the living room to ask him how he had ended up on Aurora Island.

  “They found me on Gael Island.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know. The only one who knew where I was is my mother. I checked in with her and told her. I know she wouldn’t tell Mark, but maybe he tapped her phone or something.”

  Or she had mistakenly trusted her husband to keep the secret.

  “So this time when my friend got me over to that isolated island, I made sure no one else knew where I was.”

  “Until we found you. That explains why you were so afraid of Deputy Dan.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And the note you left was for your friend from Gael Island?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you have a cell phone?”

  “Yeah, but the battery was dead and it was real hard to get service. I was kinda scared they could trace it somehow too.” He winced. “Jenny?”

  “Yes?”

  “I hope it’s okay. I used your home phone to call my friend on Gael Island to let him know I’m okay. I was real careful. I only talked for a minute. And I didn’t tell him where I am.”

  “Of course, it’s okay, Josh,” I assured him. “But what about your father? Where is he?”

  “No idea. He left when I was a kid.”

  How many times had he been betrayed? Abandoned by his father. And despite his mother’s objective to protect him, she had in her own way abandoned him. She had sent him out into a world in which he was far from being able to fend for himself. I did not sense that he was harboring any hostility toward her, but at some point it would surface. It had to. He would realize that she could have gone to the police—the uncorrupt police. But she had chosen not to.

  And doesn’t the worst kind of betrayal come from the person you trust the most? Isn’t it a deeper betrayal when it’s committed by the person you depend on, with whom you let yourself be most vulnerable, the person you love the most, be it your mother . . . or your husband?

  I leaned back in my chair. The cottage felt cozy and warm and safe. Rocky perked up his head, knowing I had finished my pie. His head tilted to the side as he let out a soft whimper, but I knew enough about raising dogs not to start something I would regret, such as letting my dog lick my plate.

  I shook my head. He let out a single groan of defeat and, after giving me a gentle lick on the hand, settled back down. It was nice to have a dog in my life again.

  “He’s a good dog,” Josh said.

  “Yeah, he is.”

  “He feels safe here.”

  “Yeah, he does. How about you?”

  Josh looked around the cottage and I realized that he had pulled down all the blinds in the living room while I was out. “As safe as I can, I guess . . . considering.”

  We went back to our reading, the sound of a crackling fire and big band music playing softly in the background.

  “Jenny?

  I looked up from my book.

  “My last name isn’t Martin.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s Mitchell.”

  It was nice to know that his trust in humanity had not been completely destroyed.

  Chapter 6

  By the following day, I realized that if I was going to help Josh, I would have to put Charlie on the job. He was better at obtaining information on people, particularly from a distance, particularly when one of them was a cop. I wasn’t so concerned about Josh’s truck driver stepfather or his mother who waited tables in a diner outside of Portland, but the cop definitely had me concerned.

  I decided to wait to ask Charlie for help until after he came to the island and met Josh. Something told me that if I called him and told him I’d rescued and was harboring a run away sixteen-year-old boy, he would go into protective-father mode. But if he met Josh first, he’d feel the same way that I had when I met him. He would know it was the right thing to do. I could only hope.

  In the meantime, I was determined to find out who had abandoned three dogs in the Strait of Juan de Fuca just off of Three Dog Island and left them for dead. And if I just happened to find out what the people on the island were up to with their creepy compound, so be it.

  I decided to start with Sheriff Sam.

  “I assume Deputy Dan told you about our adventure to Aurora Island.”

  Sam looked up from his pile of paperwork. For a small office, there sure was a lot. But when I looked more closely and spotted the thick layer of dust covering the papers, I realized it was long-neglected paperwork. Sam had other things on his mind, more important things, like a new love in his life.

  “Hunh? What did you say, Jenny?”

  I pushed his cup of cold coffee toward him. “Have another sip, Sam. I was talking about Dan’s and my trip to Aurora Island.”

  “Trip to Aurora Island?”

  “Aurora Island or as Sasha calls it, Three Dog Island?”

  Still no response.

  “Dan didn’t mention it?

  “No, he didn’t.” Sam pushed away the pile of papers closest to him. It could wait for yet another day. He snatched a jelly donut from the box on the shelf behind him and took a large bite. “Want one, Jenny?”

  I stared him straight in the eye. “What’s going on, Sam? You’re more frazzled than usual. You and Frankie have a fight?”

  He shook his head as he chomped on his donut.

  “Let me guess. You’re not sure you know where you stand with Frankie? Ah, wait a minute.” I looked at his dimples that were more pronounced than usual. “You’re wondering if you should ask her to marry you!”

  He bent his head forward in a surrendering gesture. “I can’t keep anything to myself!”

  “Sorry.”

  “So, now that you know, what do you think?”

  “How long have you been dating?”

  “Six weeks?” />
  “And what do you think her answer will be if you ask her now?”

  “That we need more time to get to know each other?” He sighed and tossed the rest of the donut back in the box. “Maybe I should wait.”

  “Most men like to be sure the answer is going to be yes before they ask.”

  “Gotcha.” His posture relaxed as if he were relieved that the decision was made, at least for a little while. “So what’s this about you and Dan goin’ on an adventure?”

  “We went back to Aurora Island. I thought there might be something going on there, like more abandoned dogs. He didn’t tell you?”

  Sam shook his head.

  Maybe he wasn’t supposed to take the boat out without Sam’s permission after all. “I’m not getting him in trouble, am I?” I asked. “It’s okay if he takes out the boat, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, sure. He takes it out all the time—we patrol some of the other islands. He just usually lets me know first.”

  “You were down in Seattle. I really appreciated his taking me over there. Something kept nagging at me. It was really great of Dan to listen to me,” I murmured, vaguely aware that I sounded like a mother who was trying to convince her child’s teacher to excuse his behavior.

  “Did you find anything? Any more dogs?”

  “Uh, no. Nothing.” Despite my PI training, I still wasn’t good at lying. “Just this bizarre compound, all fenced like they’re trying to keep out the rest of the world. Speaking of which, I was wondering if you could do some investigating into what’s going on there.” Josh had assured me that his friend would have returned to the island by now and retrieved the tent and all other evidence of his having been there. Still, I had to be careful not to give away any of the information Josh had given me or Sam would wonder how I knew it.

  “I can’t go over there and search the island if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Is it out of your jurisdiction? Dan said it—”

  “It’s not that it’s out of our jurisdiction, Jenny. It’s just that it’s a privately owned island and if there’s no cause for us to search it, we really can’t.”

  Thankfully, that minor detail hadn’t bothered Dan. “Isn’t the fact that we found three neglected dogs there enough?”

  “Were they abused?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Sorry, not good enough. Besides, if they were abusive to these dogs, do you really want us to tip ‘em off? They’d figure if we’re from Anamcara, that’s where the dogs are.”

  “Good point. Forget it. But if you do happen to remember or come across any information about them, let me know?”

  “Sure, Jenny.”

  “Thanks, Sam.” I headed for the door but turned around before opening it. “Christmas.”

  “Christmas?”

  “Frankie loves Christmas.”

  “You mean, propose to her on Christmas?”

  I shrugged. A couple of days living with Josh was all it took.

  “But Frankie isn’t . . . what you’d call romantic,” Sam said.

  This was true. Frankie was a rough and tumble cowgirl who could rope a cow and tame a horse in five minutes. At least that was what I’d heard. But I had witnessed her digging a five feet deep hole in a quarter of the time it took Sasha and me to dig a two feet deep hole.

  “She’s romantic about Christmas,” I told Sam. It must have been a special time for her when she was growing up. She had gotten her first pony for Christmas, her first saddle, her first cowgirl boots, her first cowgirl hat, and eventually her first full-sized horse.

  “Thanks, Jenny.” Sam was grinning as he dumped the box of remaining jelly donuts in the trash. The things men sacrifice for the women they love.

  Okay, so my intuition had kicked in just fine when it came to Sheriff Sam’s love life. But when I needed some help with the identity of who was in pursuit of a runaway boy and why, and who had dumped three dogs in the Strait and why, where was it?

  “Boats!” I said out loud. Whoever dumped the dogs in the Strait near Aurora Island had to have a boat or rented one or borrowed one. Which could be anyone.

  Still I headed for the DMV which was next door to the post office which was next door to the sheriff’s office. Sadie Applebaum looked up from her desk, her bifocals falling further onto her nose as she tilted her head. “Hello, Jenny, what can I do for you?”

  “Hi, Sadie, how are you doing this glorious fall day?”

  She grinned and looked out the window behind me. “It is glorious, isn’t it?” Sadie was a daydreamer. I recognized that quality easily in others. I also considered it a quality . . . in others. Ah, if only I were so kind to myself.

  She was also a romantic, always concealing a romance novel on top of her desk. She wore her hair braided into a bun, the spitting image of a maidenly school marm. I waited for her to bring her attention back to me. It took a moment.

  “Do you think you could give me a list of all the registered boats on Anamcara and Gael and Waterloo Islands?”

  “Oh dear, I’m not sure I can, Jenny.”

  I pulled out my PI card and handed it to her.

  “Oh, my goodness. I thought you were a minister!”

  “That too,” I said.

  “Well, I suppose it would be okay.” She pulled up the list of registered boats. There weren’t many. Most were registered to local fishermen. She gave me a copy of the list and I was on my way.

  The only problem was, what was I going to do with it? Go knock on each boat owner’s door and ask them if they’d been to Aurora Island recently and had lost some dogs there? Or thrown them overboard? And in so doing, I would be telling them where the dogs were. And even if I were more surreptitious about it, this was a shot in the dark at best. The people coming and going from Aurora Island could be coming from anywhere, Anamcara, Gael, Waterloo, Orcas, or any of the other islands nearby or even Seattle, or one of the Canadian Islands for that matter.

  Why was I even doing this, I wondered, realizing it was not my intuition guiding me. It was more likely because I needed to do something and this was all I could think to do until Charlie got involved and gave me some guidance on Josh’s situation.

  I glanced down at my watch. It was just past lunch. Seth always took an early lunch. I should be safe. But even if I wasn’t, even if I ran into him, wasn’t it time I stopped avoiding him? I turned and strolled toward The Flower of Scotland.

  Pen came running over when she saw me. “Jenny! It’s so good to see you in the pub!” She glanced around quickly. “He just left.”

  Climbing onto a bar stool, I shrugged as though it didn’t matter anymore. Liar.

  “A Belhaven, dear? Fish and chips?”

  I nodded, feeling guilty that Josh couldn’t come with me. But he had pointed out that if people were used to seeing me in town, I needed to go into town. Better that than their stopping by to visit me at the house.

  I did ask Pen to package an order of shepherd’s pie to go. “It will do nicely for my dinner,” I told her, knowing Josh would enjoy it for lunch, if he hadn’t already eaten by the time I got home. Knowing him well enough already, he most likely would wait for me to come home and insist that he eat.

  Pen put in my order and came back to visit. “What’s that you have?”

  I was staring at the list of boat owners on Anamcara Island. I handed it to her. “Do you know any of these people?”

  She scanned the list. “All of them. It’s a small island. Are you investigating them?”

  “I’m trying to figure out who abandoned some dogs on Aurora Island.”

  “The dogs you and Frankie and Sasha rescued?”

  So the news had made its way around the island and still no one had come after any of the dogs or us. That was a good sign. Now I just had to remember that everyone assumed they’d been abandoned there, not that they’d been thrown overboard and had swum their way to the island.

  “Yes,” I answered her.

  “But why would you want to find the
se people?’

  “I suppose so that I would recognize them if they came after the dogs . . . or us?”

  “Oh, my goodness, Jenny. What are you thinking?”

  Even if they were thrown overboard, it didn’t mean that the villains wouldn’t come looking for the dogs or their rescuers. “That we probably should not be taking the dogs out with us.” And I would relay that advice to Frankie and Sasha as soon as I left the pub. At least for a little while, we needed to keep the dogs out of sight. Not that all of Anamcara Island didn’t already know about them. “Tell me about the people on this list.”

  Pen looked down at the paper in her hand. “These are fishermen,” she said of the first six on the list. She told me a little about each of the others and why they owned boats. They’d owned them for years. And they all were patrons of the pub. There was no one she could conceive of as a dog neglector or abandoner.

  “Looks like a dead end. Of course, there’s no reason to believe they came from Anamcara.”

  “You might check with Burt Burrows. He rents out boats, you know.”

  “Right. I’ll do that.”

  After lunch I did stop in at Cut, Curl, and Color on my way home. Marilyn told me Burt was at the rental shop and gave me directions. It was on the edge of town alongside the water, just before I turned northwest for home. I must have passed it a hundred times over, but hadn’t really noticed it, probably because I had not needed to rent anything. But, I was certain, the moment I needed that forklift, I would notice Burt’s shop.

  “Hey, Jenny, you decided you needed that forklift after all?” Burt greeted me with a grin.

  “Sorry, I don’t need anything today, but if I do, I know where to come.”

  His tiny mustache enhanced his frown.

  “Business still slow?” I asked.

  “Yep, seems nobody rents equipment anymore. They order it from catalogs and get it shipped to their doorstep and have it at the ready whenever they need it.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  ‘So, what can I help you with?”

  “I’m doing a little detective work. Has anyone rented a boat from you recently?”

  He scratched his full flock of silver hair and pulled out a fat grey binder. “How far back?”