“Then he can have a turn calling the police,” Zona cracked.
Louise didn’t think her daughter was at all funny.
After they’d finished eating dinner, Zona baked a batch of frosted oatmeal cookies.
“These are bound to sweeten the man up,” Louise said as she sampled one.
“I hope so,” said Zona. “Or at least dissuade him from suing us.”
“Suing us!” Louise squeaked.
Zona shrugged. “I don’t know for sure if he can or not, but you did accuse him of committing a crime.”
“Oooh,” said Louise. She was going to be sick. Faint. Maybe both.
“Don’t worry. I’ll patch things up,” Zona promised.
She was on her way out the door when Martin stopped in to check on Louise. “It’s the least we can do,” she told him before she left.
“I feel like a fool,” Louise said as the door shut behind her daughter. She’d thought nothing would top her embarrassment over falling at the sail-away party on the cruise ship, but this dwarfed it completely.
“It was an honest mistake,” Martin said. “You heard the officer. It’s easy to mistake a deer bone for a human one.”
“Buried in your neighbor’s yard,” Louise added miserably. “I made a terrible mess of things. What if he sues us?”
“He won’t. And Zona’s cookies will go a long way toward smoothing things over,” Martin assured her.
“You know what’s really awful, Martin? I still think something wasn’t right over there.”
Martin looked wary.
“We really did overhear some very scary fighting,” she said. “And that man... he isn’t nice. I’ve never seen him smile.” He probably wasn’t smiling now.
“How much have you seen him?” Martin argued. “And under what circumstances?”
“Never good,” she admitted. “But he does seem to have a short fuse on his temper.”
“Louise, you can hardly blame him.”
“Well, what was I to think with that bone?”
“That Darling had found a bone and dug it up,” Martin said reasonably. “Who knows what other dog might have buried it and how long it had been there.”
“What a mess,” Louise said miserably.
Martin gave her an encouraging smile. “Maybe someday you’ll all laugh about this.”
“I don’t intend to have anything to do with him,” Louise said firmly. “Once Zona delivers those cookies, we’re even.”
As if cookies balanced calling the police on the man. Maybe she should have suggested Zona tell Alec James her mother had dementia. It would have made a good excuse.
ZONA’S ENCOUNTERS WITHAlec James had only been marginally better than her mother’s since the business with Darling had started, but at least she hadn’t accused him of murder. Still, he’d shown them his ugly side, so other than offering up an edible apology she didn’t plan to invest any further energy in being neighborly. No more communication whatsoever with the man next door after this.
After what had happened earlier, he’d probably be fine with that. Good grief, could the situation be any more awful?
Her heart started pounding as she made her way next door, and it picked up its pace when she rang the doorbell. By the time he answered, wearing a pec-hugging black T-shirt and board shorts, it was at a full gallop, not stopping to explain whether the rapid pace was due to nerves or something more primitive. He was built like an action movie star with that fit body and granite jaw.
The look he gave her could only be described as leery.
