Free Murder in a Basket (An India Hayes Mystery) by Amanda Flower Page B

dinner.”
    I left the office with Zach on leash and a large cardboard box containing his favorite dog food, toys, and a pooper scooper.

Chapter Eleven
    On the way home, Zach sat in the front seat of my car with his head outside the window, tongue flapping in the wind. I glanced over at him. How did I get myself into these things? I wondered. Oh, right. No backbone. The truth be told, I felt bad for Zach. Poor dog alone in the world without his master, and the only reason anyone wanted him was for his money. I hoped Templeton would understand.
    I parked in my gravel driveway and let Zacchaeus out of the passenger seat. I thought the best recourse was to break Templeton in slowly. It was dark when I let Zach loose in the fenced backyard. I turned on my back porch light, got a couple of old dishes from the garage, and filled one bowl with water and another with kibble. Zach ate and drank hungrily, and then he was off barking at an unsuspecting cardinal who had perched on the fence. I glanced at Ina’s back window, expecting to see her elfin face peering through the curtains. It wasn’t there. I wondered if she was out with her crony Juliet.
    I went inside my apartment through the sliding glass door. Templeton stood on the back of the couch. His eyes were narrowed, and his fangs peeked out from under his upper lip like sharp white toothpicks.
    “ Sweetie,” I said tentatively. “I’m home. We are going to have a visitor for a couple of days.”
    Templeton growled deep in his throat. There was going to be heck to pay. I stroked his back, but he ran away from me to the bedroom. Absently, I wondered which pair of shoes would be graced with the regurgitated hairball this time.
    I popped a French bread pizza in the oven and dug out my Summit County phonebook. I flipped to the Ws. There was only one Wagtail listed, “Wagtail, D. & D.” While I still had momentum, I dialed her number. The call went directly to voicemail. I hung up without leaving a message.
    The timer went off, and I was about to sit on the couch to scarf down my pizza when someone knocked at the door. Templeton, who had returned to the living room with the promise of pizza crumbs, bolted down the short hallway to my bedroom.
    I recognized the knock. It was a relentless rata-tat-tat. It could be the knock of only one person.
    I put my pizza down after taking a quick bite, chewing and swallowing as I made my way to the door.
    Ina pushed her way in, heading straight for my rocking chair, her favorite seat in my apartment. I closed the door and followed her back to the living room with as much excitement as a pacifist heading off to war.
    “ Is that a dog in my backyard?” Ina asked in her baby-bird voice.
    “ I’m dog-sitting for a few days,” I said, hoping it really was only a few days. “If you don’t like it, I can take him back.”
    Ina grinned. “Don’t even think about it. I love dogs. I would have one if I didn’t have to pick up its poop. I don’t do that. I hope you know that will be your job.”
    I nodded. Oh , joy. I returned to my place on the couch.
    Ina rocked. “Oh, you’re eating dinner. Kind of late, isn’t it? I read in a magazine you should never eat after seven at night. It slows down your metabolism. You might be thin now, but thirty is just around the corner and you’d better start watching your figure.”
    I picked up my pizza and took a bite .
    Ina shook her head sadly. “Juliet and I staked out the square today,” she remarked as if she spoke of a garden party, although it was difficult to imagine Ina at a garden party.
    I almost choked on my pizza. I put the plate on the coffee table. “Did you say ‘staked out’?”
    “ I was on the lookout for more jaywalkers. I told Juliet what a rampant problem it was becoming and that the police weren’t doing anything about it. So this morning, we decided to go over there and take a count. We counted ten jaywalkers in eight hours.”
    “ You were on the square for eight