Free Beaglemania by Linda O. Johnston Page A

residents?”
    “It’s a crime scene,” he growled, as if tired of telling me so. Well, gee, it wasn’t as if the guy didn’t like to repeat things.
    “Would you be this way if the crime scene was a hospital? Or a nursery filled with hungry kids?”
    “I’d have taken you to the station to question you if I wasn’t aware that you were needed here,” the detective responded as icily as if his saliva was freezing in his mouth.
    “Who are you talking to, Lauren?” Nina’s voice sounded distant, and I realized I still held the phone off to the side.
    “A detective who’s been questioning me.” I looked back at him. “Like I said, some of my staff will arrive soon. Can they take care of the animals? Please?” Lord, it hurt to act polite, let alone beg.
    Before he answered, one of the uniformed cops came into the room. “Excuse me, Detective,” he said.
    Garciana rose and joined him near our reception desk, while I spoke softly into the phone. “I think Efram’s dead, Nina. I found him that way.”
    “Where?” she demanded. “How?”
    I didn’t have to choose whether or not to give her any of those details since the detective was already back in my face. “Later,” I told her. I again looked at Garciana. “I’m talking to one of my assistants. She’ll be here in a little while . . . okay?” Like, when was he finally going to give permission for me to do, or arrange for, what was necessary around here?
    “I want a list of all your employees,” Garciana said. “They’re apparently starting to arrive.”
    Big surprise.
    He glanced over his shoulder toward the cop who remained near the door.
    “Fine. And then, will you—”
    “We’ll work out a way for someone to take care of the animals,” he confirmed.
    For the first time in what had seemed like eons, I smiled a little. Then I told Nina it was okay to come here right away.

    After I complied with the detective’s request for a list of employees—to which I also added volunteers scheduled that day—he let me flee into the shelter area. Not alone, but accompanied by a uniformed cop, a lady this time—Officer Plummer.
    When I first went through the gate and onto the walkway, I stopped, stunned. The place hummed with people, some in uniform and some not. I watched for a short while as they flowed around one another as if experience had choreographed them. Some took measurements, others crawled on hands and knees with tweezers, picking up dust and twigs that had blown onto the paving.
    The scene didn’t completely resemble the crime scene investigations portrayed on TV. On the other hand, I’d heard for a long time that those shows made good drama but were not based a whole lot on reality.
    At least the dogs in the outside kennels seemed to be taking it all in stride now. I noticed a couple of crime scene folks talking through fencing to some of our residents, including Dodi, a sheltie mix, who wagged her tail eagerly, obviously delighted at the attention, and Junior, a Doberman, whose ears perked up as he listened to whatever was being said to him. I wanted to hug them both. But not yet.
    I realized that some of the dogs had probably witnessed what happened. Might they bark more at the killer than anyone else? Not likely. But it was an interesting thought.
    Pete Engersol stood with a woman in a suit almost as formal as Detective Garciana’s, and he looked down at her with an earnest but puzzled expression. Was he being interrogated, too?
    I had to assume that everyone would be questioned, employees and volunteers alike, as soon as they came in. Maybe they’d even be sought out at their homes or alternate places of business. Some, like Mona and Si, were only part-timers, after all.
    With the evident media coverage, it was unlikely that potential adopters would visit today. If they did, I’d be wary of placing any of our residents with them anyway, since that kind of person would have to be nuts to run the media gauntlet, or might be just