Free Hare Today, Dead Tomorrow by Cynthia Baxter Page B

weren’t likely to be very useful in figuring out who had killed her—even though they’d both been right next door at the time she was murdered.
    The clock was ticking—and with every passing second, Falcone was undoubtedly becoming more and more anxious to make an arrest. With Suzanne high on his list of suspects, I couldn’t afford to waste time.
    But at the moment, I was bleary-eyed from all the running around I’d done that day, especially since it wasn’t quite what the doctor ordered. It was hard to believe that it was only that morning that I’d been released from the hospital. Since then, I’d visited Suzanne, met her incompetent lawyer, endured Lieutenant Falcone, and snooped around Cassandra Thorndike’s neighborhood.
    As I turned the key in the ignition, a sharp pain shot through my neck. The effort required to reach up and massage it made me realize just how tired I was. All at once, the long, stressful day seemed to be catching up with me. On top of that, it was already getting dark, and I still had a long drive back home.
    Yet home was suddenly the one place I longed to be.

Chapter 4
    “As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat.”
    —Ellen Perry Berkeley
    Just pulling into the long, winding driveway that led to my cottage was usually enough to relax me. Today was no exception. As I veered off Minnesauke Lane, I could feel the tension draining out of my neck and shoulders. As always, the charming little house in Joshua’s Hollow that I had the good fortune to call home seemed like a refuge from all the terrible things that were going on in the big, bad world.
    True, my cottage was dwarfed by the other house on the property, a dignified mansion built in the mid-1800s by the estate’s original owner, a successful industrialist named Tallmadge whose grandfather had been part of a famous spy ring during the Revolutionary War. But its grandeur only made my little abode seem cozier. Besides, my friend and landlady, Betty, lived in the Big House. Having her right on the premises was like having friendship on tap.
    As I climbed out of my car, I noticed that a familiar cream-colored Rolls Royce was parked outside her house, a sign that she was spending this Friday evening entertaining. That was fine with me. At the moment, it wasn’t companionship of the human variety I yearned for.
    As soon as I threw open my front door, I was greeted by two leaping, barking canines who were so happy to see me you would have thought I’d been gone forty-eight years rather than forty-eight hours.
    The feeling was mutual.
    “Hey, you guys!” I cried, crouching down. “I am so glad to see you!”
    My Westie, Max, bounced up and down, his dark brown eyes bright as he pawed the air with his fluffy white feet. As always, my adorable little terrier looked like a cuddly stuffed animal come to life, a cloud of white fur with a black nose that reminded me of the cherry on top of an ice cream sundae. Even though my Maxie-Max had lost his tail while living with his previous owner, he shook the stub that remained so hard he conjured up the image of a hula dancer who’d had too much caffeine.
    Lou, my Dalmatian, was also beside himself with glee. My gangly charge with sleek white fur dotted with black and only one eye was unusually assertive, a sign that he’d really missed me. While he usually deferred to his canine brother—even though Max weighed a third of what he weighed—today was one of the rare occasions he took advantage of his greater size to shove Max out of the way. Terriers don’t usually take no for an answer, so the two of them were having a grand old time slamming against each other, each one trying to prove that Mom liked him best.
    “Who’s the pretty birdy? Awk! The pirate’s life for me!” Prometheus screeched from his huge cage in the corner of the living room. The sound of his shrill voice cutting through the barking, the panting, and the clicking of doggy toenails against the wooden floor made me