1 PAWsible Suspects by Chloe Kendrick

him. “You do know that dogs don’t recognize things the same way that we do. He doesn’t know the vocabulary for many things. He sees things from his perspective and his memory.”
    He cleared his throat and continued. “It must have been about two in the morning. I heard this awful sound. A shriek followed by a gun shot, or at least that’s what I thought it was. Loud bang noise. I looked outside and the lights were off at all the neighbors. No one seemed to have noticed a thing.”
    “That’s about what Perry said,” I concurred. I thought I might as well make Perry sound like one smart Scottie.
    “I kept the lights off, because I didn’t want whoever had fired the gun to see me. I was a bit scared to be honest.”
    “Perry said that Della’s scared of loud noises, but your beagles aren’t. They’re used to it from hunting, right?”
    “You bet. I’ve had them from pups, and I taught them how to hunt and to get over being gun-shy. My daddy had this beagle pup that couldn’t stand the sound of a shotgun. He used to go and hide from it.” The man continued on for a few minutes about his childhood before I could get him back on to the topic at hand.
    “So you heard a gunshot and then nothing else?”
    “Not a thing. I thought maybe I dreamed it. I tried to go back to sleep but I couldn’t. I just tossed and turned. About twenty minutes later, I heard a scratching at the door. I was a bit worried about it after all the commotion. I opened the door and found little Perry sitting there. He’d got a big gash on his leg. His collar was off, which meant that he needed to stay close to home or he’d get picked up by the SPCA. I didn’t want that to happen. I love my dogs too, and I wouldn’t have wanted someone to cart my puppies off to the pound. Ruby would have had a fit to think of Perry at the pound. The lights were on at the Jenkins house, but the door was open. I knew that wasn’t a good sign.”
    “I’ve heard from others that she didn’t leave the house very often.”
    “Never,” he said. “The only times she left were for doctor appointments and such, but even then she’d have someone come over and babysit the dogs. They are two spoiled little terriers, let me tell you that. They had constant attention.”
    “So what happened after that?” I asked, though I knew the outlines of the story from the vet.
    “I took the dog to an all-night animal hospital. The vet fixed up the dog. He needed a few stitches. He was going to keep him overnight and call me the next morning to pick him up. Cost me nearly five hundred dollars just for the visit. I can’t imagine what the rest of the charges would have been.”
    I quoted him a number, though I knew he had no more obligation to pay the bill than I did.
    He gave me a long whistle. “Well, I left some money there to pay his bills. Ruby always has a little cash lying around. I knew she’d pay to make sure Perry was safe and healthy.”
    I knew that my client aka my mother would not be picking up the fee for that. She probably wouldn’t be paying me for the entire matter either.
    “Yeah, so what happened after you dropped Perry off at the animal hospital?” I asked, wanting to end this. Even though I hadn’t asked outright yet, I knew that he was going to claim he had no knowledge of the actual crime here. He would only be recounting the aftermath of whatever had happened to Ruby.
    “I came home. It was nearly light by then. I sat down in my recliner and dozed off. The next thing I knew there were police here, looking all around for Ruby.”
    “Any thoughts on what happened to her? You didn’t see her leave?”
    He shook his head. “I just think it has to be something bad since she’s been gone so long. Ruby would never have left her dogs alone, just like I wouldn’t leave my two.” One of the beagles came up to him, as if on cue and started nuzzling his hand.
    “There had to be something that happened,” I stated firmly. “It’s not