Free Haunted Hamlet (Zoe Donovan Mystery) by Kathi Daley Page A

in Levi’s and a plaid shirt put a large black horse through a series of commands. “Actually, I turned the horses over to my dad’s best friend, Chip, who has lived on the ranch since before I was born. I enjoy the horses, but I really prefer to work with dogs. Chip has a way with horses that only comes from decades of working with them.”
    “So you train the dogs for law enforcement?” I asked.
    “ I do train dogs for law-enforcement agencies, but I raise and train guide and service dogs as well. I have two full-time assistants, but I still keep darn right busy.”
    “I can imagine.”
    “Can we meet Shep?” Ellie entered the conversation.
    “How about we chat a bit first ?” Peter suggested. “There’s a table and some chairs inside, if you’d like to follow me.”
    “Okay .” Ellie trailed along behind the man, who was quite the looker, as we made our way to the office that was located in the front of the white building we had parked near.
    “Please take a seat,” Peter directed Ellie.
    “What would you like to know?” she asked, fidgeting as she sat down and waited for him to begin.
    “Have you had a dog before?” Peter asked.
    Ellie hesitated. “No. Is that a problem?”
    Peter shrugged. “Not necessarily. Are you famil iar with the handling and care of dogs?”
    “I pet sit for Zoe all the time.”
    “And she ’s a fantastic pet sitter,” I added as I walked around the large room, looking at the photos on the wall. “My dog Charlie absolutely adores her.”
    “Tell me a bit about your home situation .”
    “Home situation?”
    “Are you married? Single? Do you have children? Other pets? Do you rent or own your home? House or apartment? That sort of thing.”
    “Oh, okay.”
    Ellie seemed nervous, but I thought she was doing fine, so I decided to wander around the office while they chatted. The walls were covered with photos of men with horses. Some of the photos were in black and white, while others looked to have been taken fairly recently. The photos were interesting; not only could you see the progression of men who had lived and worked on the ranch but the ranch infrastructure as well. The earliest photos showed a house a third of the size of the current structure, with only a single red barn. As we’d driven up, I’d noticed at least four large buildings, which I guessed housed either dogs or horses.
    There were also photos of men and women I assumed were family members , as well as some from the key moments of Peter’s life. In one photo he stood proudly in a cap and gown alongside a group of friends, and others were of the various proms he’d attended, as well as several of him alongside various dogs.
    “I’m sorry to interrupt,” I s aid as I did just that, “but this man standing with the group in front of the lake: who is he?”
    Peter looked up from the paperwork he was filling out as he spoke to Ellie. “His name is Adam Davenport. The photo was taken the summer after I graduated high school. My friend Puk talked me into getting a job with him at the summer camp they used to have at Star Lake.”
    “Adam was a counse lor?”
    “Yeah, everyone in the photo was. I only worked at Star Lake that one year, but Puk went back every summer until they closed the camp down after those counselors died.”
    Star Lake is only about five miles from Ashton Falls. The privately owned lake had been home to a summer camp for inner-city kids until it closed thirteen years ago. I was only a kid at the time of the incident, but I vaguely remembered that although it was strictly against camp rules to leave the area or to possess alcoholic beverages, a group of counselors snuck away to the Henderson house to party one summer night. Three people had died and another was missing before the night was over.
    “Was Puk one of the counse lors who snuck off?” I wondered.
    “No ; he was working out at the camp when the tragedy occurred,” Peter informed me.
    I looked back at the photo.