Pearl came out of her house and mimicked Grandma. “What’s that dog doing here?” she snapped, giving Fred the evil eye through thick coke-bottle glasses.

  “He’s a tracking dog,” I told her. “He should have been along last week.” Then we might have finished the job and got out of this extra trip.

  “The other shoe is missing,” Pearl informed us, as agitated as if she’d been robbed at gun point. “Right off the back porch.”

  A week ago, according to Pearl, her motion detector went off late at night. She isn’t a good sleeper so she was awake when it happened. “They stole one of my gardening shoes,” she’d said, relating the invasion details. “It’s a test to see if I’m too old to pay attention. Before they rob me blind. That’s how it works. Just like when they take a couple bucks out of your bank account to see if you notice. If you don’t, the amounts get bigger and bigger and pretty soon your savings is wiped out.”

  “So they’re after your bank account?” Cora Mae had said, obviously confused.

  “You’re just as smart as Ida says you are,” Pearl told her. Ida is Grandma, who is not a Cora Mae fan.

  Now, as we stood on Pearl’s porch, she explained again. “They’re sending in a dog to take stuff. If we don’t react with a tough response, one day they’re going to steal everything I own.”

  I’ve seen this logic before in Grandma. I’ve seen it in others, too. As we age, we get more fearful, more worried about attacks on our person and property.

  “Did you see the dog this time?” I asked, thinking that Pearl didn’t have a single thing that couldn’t be replaced by visiting a rummage sale or two. “Because last time you weren’t sure.”

  “I might of,” she said, vaguely.

  Kitty flipped her wig. “Are you sure you didn’t just misplace it? Last week we didn’t have a bit of luck locating that shoe.”

  “You didn’t find it,” Pearl said, “because you aren’t very good at your job.”

  If I closed my eyes, it could be my mother-in-law’s voice yapping at me. “You’ve been spending too much time with Grandma Johnson,” I told Pearl. Then I went to the back of my truck, pulled out three empty coffee cans, and returned to the porch. Last time I’d hunted for her shoe, I found a great blueberry patch, but the berries weren’t quite ripe. They should be perfect by now. At least we wouldn’t come out of the woods empty handed. “We’ll give it another try.”

  Pearl’s hands were on her hips. “I want the name and address of the dog’s owner and a full report filed with the sheriff. And I’m pressing charges no matter who’s behind it.”

  Nobody replied; that’s how ridiculous this conversation was becoming. “Go get another of your shoes,” I ordered her, wanting to get this over with. “We’ll give Fred a sniff and if the garden shoes are out there, he’ll find them.”

  So Pearl went inside and returned with an orthopedic shoe, which Fred sniffed all over. Then he led us out into the state forest. He must not have found a scent because he lollygagged along, and when I steered him in the direction of the blueberry patch he didn’t resist.

  There, we picked the biggest, best blueberries I’ve found yet. We picked until our cans were full. I’d just straightened up to stretch because picking low-lying berries is hard on the back, when Fred’s ears went up and his nose began twitching.

  We heard something big moving through the brush toward us.

  “Bear!” Cora Mae screamed.

  Just my luck, I’d left my weapon purse in the truck again. Cora Mae wasn’t carrying her pink revolver either if that skimpy outfit she wore was any indication. Kitty, on the other hand, could have an arsenal of weapons under her housedress. Only she didn’t. When I threw her a hopeful look, she shrugged and yelled, “Run for it!”

  Chapter 7

  Our north woods teems with wildlife. We have moose, bears, bob cats, wolves, and porcupines, to name but a few. Normally, none of the animals are dangerous to humans, unless you get between a bear and her cubs. But bears have babies in the spring, not in the fall. Nevertheless, it sounded like an angry wild animal descending on us.

  At the shout to run, Cora Mae threw her coffee can and took off. The sky rained blueberries. Kitty, in spite of having been the one to make the suggestion to flee, wasn’t fast on the uptake either. She was still beside me when I noticed that Fred wasn’t taking a defensive stance. His back hair wasn’t raised up and he wasn’t baring his teeth or growling. In fact, his tail began wagging as something black burst through the thicket at the speed of light.

  It stood there momentarily, then the wild thing hurtled at Fred.

  It wasn’t a bear. It was a black dog.

  “A female lab mix,” Kitty said with a small nervous laugh after she recovered. “What do you know?”

  “No tags or collar,” I noted.

  Which wasn’t unusual in this neck of the woods. Dogs in the U.P. know how to get home when they get hungry without needing the assistance of strangers to find their way.

  While the two dogs sniffed butts, I glanced around for Cora Mae. She was definitely gone. She doesn’t have the best internal compass, so her chances of finding her way back to Pearl’s house were slim to none.

  Fred and his new friend decided to play chase. Kitty and I consulted.

  “Do you think this dog is our perpetrator?” Kitty asked. “The garden shoe thief?”

  “Possibly. But we have other problems right now. If I’m correct, that is the way back to Pearl’s.” I pointed in one direction.

  Kitty nodded. “That’s right. We came from that way.”

  “But,” I continued. “Cora Mae ran that way.” I pointed in the other direction.

  “I saw that, too.”

  So we tromped farther into the woods. Fred and his new friend came along. I thought it was too bad that I didn’t have something of Cora Mae’s to give Fred a scent. But we hadn’t expected to lose her.

  Suddenly, Fred went into tracking dog mode. He got serious, nose to the ground, oblivious to his surroundings, and I could tell he had a scent. Not Cora Mae’s, since in his dog world she wasn’t missing until we told him so with an article of her clothing. But maybe he had a bead on Pearl’s shoes.

  We came out into a small clearing and I noticed a certain, offensive odor. Sure enough, Fred rummaged in a junk heap and presented me with a garden shoe that was definitely Pearl’s. The lab wagged her tail and tried to take it from me, possibly assuming we were going to play hide and seek with it.

  “This isn’t yours,” I scolded her. “You shouldn’t be stealing from people’s yards.”

  She had the good grace to give me a slightly sheepish gaze that melted my heart instead of hardening it. It’s impossible to stay mad at a dog for long.

  “Geez, something smells bad,” I muttered, then to Fred, I asked, “Where’s the other one?”

  He went to work and found that one too.

  “Now if only we had Cora Mae,” I told him.

  “Over here,” I heard Cora Mae’s voice and glanced in the direction of the sound. She staggered toward us and sat down hard on a log. Then she removed her shoes and rubbed her feet. I should have guessed that she wouldn’t make it far in those heels. “This place stinks,” she observed.

  “Rotten garbage,” Kitty decided.

  I took a good look at our surroundings. Empty drain cleaner containers, fuel cans, old batteries, empty automotive starting fluid cans, something labelled muriatic acid, lots of containers with toxic warnings.

  “What is this heap of stuff?” Kitty wanted to know. “A hazardous waste dump?”

  “It sort of smells like cat urine,” Cora Mae said, wrinkling her nose. “Or rotten eggs.”

  I nodded in agreement. One time, in an effort to keep critters from eating vegetables out of my garden, I sprayed my plants with a mixture of eggs and water. Then I forgot to dump out what was left of the solution. A few weeks later, that spray bottle smelled worse than anything I’ve ever smelled in my life.

  “I don’t see eggs anywhere,” Kitty said. “Or shells.”

  “What a pernicious mess,” I announced, sliding in my word-for-the-day.

  Kitty’s eyes shifted from the pile of junk to my face. “Pestiferous for sure.”

  “Cripes.” Cora Mae put on her shoes and stood up. “You two drive me crazy with big words.”

  I kicked a bottle with plastic tubing attached, studying quite a few pieces of rubber hosing and several red-soaked rags, and dark stains of spilled liquids. “Illegal dumping,” I decided.

  Cora Mae came and stood next to me. “Pearl’s shoes disappear at night. Someone is dumping after dark, bringing that shoe-stealing dog along. So they were here a week ago and again last night.”

  “Or the dog lives nearby,” Kitty suggested. “Otherwise she wouldn’t still be here.”

  “Maybe she went missing and the dumper couldn’t find her,” Cora Mae argued back.

  “We don’t care about this place anyway,” Kitty said with finality. “We have Pearl’s shoes. A bit stinky, but we recovered them. We’ll tell her to stop leaving them outside. Problem solved. Case closed.”

  Cora Mae began walking away.

  “Other direction, Cora Mae,” Kitty called. “Let’s go, Gertie.”

  But my mind was working a mile a minute, making deductions that my partners hadn’t.

  “You know what this is?” I asked.

  “A smelly junk heap,” Kitty said.

  “We’ve stumbled across a meth dump,” I told them. “I watched a television show about this exact thing. There was a special on the local news. Don’t you remember, Cora Mae? You watched it with me.”

  “I remember,” she replied.

  “All this stuff? It’s used to make meth.”

  “As in someone’s making and selling drugs?” Kitty’s eyes went wide at the prospect. “You’re right.”

  Our pristine forest had been violated by drug dealers. What was the world coming to?

  “Don’t touch anything!” Cora Mae warned. “We don’t want our fingerprints on any of this.”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Kitty said. “Before they come back.”

  I thought the odds of that were small, but paranoia is highly contagious.

  We hurried back to Pearl’s with the Fred’s new friend trotting right along with us. We delivered Pearl’s shoes, explained about the dog, and offered a strict warning to keep her personal belongings locked up from now on.

  “Have you seen any suspicious activity out on the road late at night?” I asked her.

  “No, but if I had, I’da called the sheriff.”

  Pearl had trouble sleeping at night. She’d know if the meth dumpers came in this way. So they came from another direction, which is a relief considering I’d hate to think that Pearl might get herself into trouble by tangling with drug dealers. Grandma only has one friend, and I’d hate for her to lose Pearl.

  “My shoes stink,” Pearl complained.

  “They’re washable,” Cora Mae told her.

  Standing next to the truck with the doors open to let the heat out, we considered our next moves. Cora Mae thought we should drop the meth dump information in Blaze’s lap, let him be the one to figure out who was operating a meth lab.

  “He’ll get himself killed,” I pointed out. “Blaze never dealt with something this big before.”

  “Count me out right along with him,” Cora Mae said. “In fact, none of us are going to do anything about it. We don’t have a paying client who wants us to investigate, which suits me just fine. Even if we did, I value my skin, and you should too.”

  “We don’t have a single client, paying or not, at the moment,” Kitty said. “Not even a call about a missing pet.”

  We all looked around for the new dog. She was in the truck sitting next to Fred, patiently waiting for us.

  “That dump has been there for a while,” I decided. “If it waits a little longer for our attention, what will it matter? With any luck, the meth cooks will blow themselves up and solve this problem.

  Blowing up reminded me of Joe. I had an uneasy feeling about the correlation between his demise and this discovery. But I shook it off. What were the odds? Not ones I’d bet on. Although, the Michigan Upper Peninsula was becoming a popular destination for criminal elements who wanted to hide out in the woods. We’d had several meth lab busts earlier this year and only a few the year before. Until now, I hadn’t paid much attention. I just never expected to find one in Stonely.

  Granted, we didn’t have a single client at the moment, but this dump and the explosion might be the catalyst that sends a gig our way. You never know. What remained to be seen was whether or not we would be compensated for our future risk taking.

  “Pro bono work is good advertising,” our attorney-in-training said, reading my mind.

  “One case at a time,” I said, assuming leadership. “We have to clear Blaze so he collects that insurance check. To do that we have to prove Joe was murdered and catch his killer. Otherwise, Squeaky is going to blame Blaze or me for the fire and slither out of paying. We need to talk to Joe’s sister. Who knows? Maybe she’ll hire us to look into his death. That’ll be cash in our pockets. So, step one is to talk to her and then track down that drone. Also, it would be helpful to figure out why Joe latched onto Kitty the way he had. Why he’d lied about being a concealed carry instructor? Why he’d ingratiated himself with her, with us.”

  “First things first,” Kitty said. “We have to figure out how to get that dog out of the truck. There isn’t room for all of us.”

  She was right.

  I studied the dog. She grinned back. Although she could use a bath, she didn’t look hungry. Someone had been feeding her, so she probably wasn’t a stray. The residents of Stonely might be spread out thin, but that doesn’t stop us from gossiping. Eventually, sooner or later, her owner would start making inquiries around town, maybe at Ray’s General Store, or the Deer Horn Restaurant, or at Herb’s Bar. Word would travel to me.

  Then I’d have the name of the meth dumper.

  Easy peasy.

  “The dog stays with us,” I said. “Somebody is going to have to ride in the back of the truck.”

  After some discussion and a bit of arguing when I kiddingly suggested that Cora Mae and Kitty should ride back there, Fred and Pebbles (as we dubbed her) volunteered.

  We dropped them at my house, where they trotted off toward the back field before the guinea hens that guarded the property whenever it suited them, spotted intruders and sent up a warning. They dislike Fred, and he doesn’t much appreciate them. So right now, with the hens nowhere in sight, he was happy as a clam with his new bud.

  He didn’t even look back to say goodbye.

  Kitty made a few phone calls, reminding me of her status as the town’s hub of gossip. Within minutes, she had an address and makes and models for both the dead brother’s and the sister’s vehicles.

  “Joe had been living with his sister,” Kitty said when she hung up. “She drives a red Jeep Wrangler. He owned a tan Ford Escape of not-too-recent vintage. He didn’t own the truck that blew up.”

  “How do you know all this?” Cora Mae asked.

  Kitty grinned, pleased with herself. “Lots of contacts,” she said.

  With that, we headed south toward Perkin to offer our condolences to Joe Oja’s sister.

  Chapter 8

  I knew a few tidbits about Paula Oja from my conversation with Carl Anderson and shared on the way to the sister’s house.

  “Parents are dead,” I said. “She’s dating that new guy on the road crew, Ralph Hanson.”

  “The bald guy with the bike?” Kitty asked. “He’s going to be an organ donor one of these days. He needs to start wearing a helmet.”

  “You think that way because you’re middle-aged,” Cora Mae said to her. “If you were younger, you’d be on the back of his bike, and you wouldn’t be wearing a helmet either.”

  “I’m not middle-aged,” Kitty, who is absolutely middle-aged, said. She’s younger than Cora Mae and me, but not by that much. The tricky part is determining exactly when middle age starts and when you’ve blown right through it into old age. The dictionary says middle is from forty-five to sixty-five. I’m past that. I say it’s not about a number, but rather about a state of mind. As long as I don’t misplace things, forget names, and start complaining like Grandma Johnson, old age isn’t going to get me.

  “How old do you think Ralph is?” Cora Mae asked, still focused on age.

  “Too young for you,” Kitty said.

  “That’s my point. He’s too young for both of us. I bet he’s around forty.”

  “Whatever,” Kitty said, rather smugly. “I really don’t care because I have a man.”

  “The secret lover,” I said.

  “You’re making him up,” Cora Mae decided. “Otherwise, you’d tell us his name in a flash.”

  “And have it all over Tamarack County? No way.”

  “He’s married then.”

  “He’s not.”

  “Tell us who.”

  The rest of the drive Cora Mae attempted to learn the identity of the mystery man while Kitty, used to arguing law in her legal classes, successfully evaded being pinned down.

  I didn’t join in. Mostly, because I don’t want to give Kitty the satisfaction of knowing she knew something I didn’t, but that she knew that I really wanted to know. She’s highly competitive. Partly, I stayed out of it because I was preoccupied with a nagging feeling that I’d overlooked something important from the garden shoe search in the woods. Not on this trip, but the one last week.

  Fred hadn’t been along at the beginning of the missing shoe case, which would have made it a quick slam-dunk. That was a mistake on my part. Kitty and Cora Mae had been out to Pearl’s with me, but they hadn’t taken her seriously once she stated her plight as though it warranted calling in the feds.

  “Really?” Kitty had said, with some seriously missing enthusiasm. “A missing shoe?”