Death Tracks the Scent: A Penelope Standing Mystery by Tess Baytree

Author:Tess Baytree [Baytree, Tess]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Speculative Turtle Press

It was nearly two hours later when she saw a familiar face coming toward her. Two familiar faces, really. Jake was jogging, very slowly, with his leash hand held straight out from his side, and Brutus was eyeing a tree ahead. When the dog saw her, he galloped forward and Jake ran behind him.

Penelope took the two seconds before impact to stow the mail in her hand back in the bag — Brutus generally didn’t eat paper, but his drool clung to everything nearby. Then she gave the dog a long hug with butt scratches before looking up at her husband.

“You’re right,” he said. “He really is a terrible jogging partner.”

Penelope brushed some dirt off Jake’s shoulder. “He’s getting better. Any trouble with Jetta?” He had texted her that the dog was safely home earlier, and she’d passed that along to Susanna, but it had taken him longer than she’d expected.

“Jetta was a perfect angel. The house next door had been broken into and the intruder went into Jetta’s backyard to check if he could get into the house before he realized Jetta was there. She went out the dog door into the yard, and the intruder ran off and left the gate open. Then she decided to go on her own walk. The neighbor on the other side got most of it on his security camera.” He paused to scratch Brutus’s ears. “Apparently not all dogs sound like they’re about to come through the door to kill the person on the other side when someone knocks.”

“Who’s a good little watchdog?” Penelope crooned to Brutus. Not that Brutus would hurt anyone. If someone ignored his growling and barking and went inside, he would undoubtedly treat them like his best friend. She stood up. “I bet Susanna can still get pizza delivered to her place though.”

“That thought did cross my mind.” He matched her pace as she continued on her route. “In any case, I spent some time talking to the neighbor with the security cameras. He wanted my opinion on whether he should talk to the police about something.”

“And you immediately said yes.” This was one of the places where they differed. Jake got irritated when people waited to contact the police until things had gone past the point of no return. Penelope thought people called the police for too many stupid things and that could lead to innocent people being hurt. They’d agreed that they were probably talking about different subsets of the population, but it was an argument that resurfaced every so often.

“I had some extra time. I’m retired, you know.” He fell behind as he waited for Brutus to finish sniffing, then caught up again. “There was a middle-aged woman sitting in a car watching the house across the street all night. Then in the morning she just drove away.”

Penelope winced. “Sounds like someone thinks her husband is cheating on her. Or she’s a private investigator working for someone who thinks their spouse is cheating on them. Either way, not a job for the police.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.