Page 34 of Death on Gallows Path

“Go straight. I promise we’ll get to the café. We’re going to the dog park first.”

“Why?” It did not compute to go there without the dogs. Not to mention— “Donna won’t be there. She’d already been and gone when we were there.”

“Then we’ll get to the café sooner.”

* * * *

Donna was there, with Hattie. Again.

That was unusual on top of unusual, with a side order of unusual.

Not her being with Hattie, of course, but that they were back at the dog park and this late in the day — by her standards — since it was now closer to noon than dawn, which as far as I could tell was Donna’s preferred time.

Adding icing on the unusual cake, she was in a separate large-dog enclosure, while other dogs and owners occupied the main enclosure.

Sometimes volunteers from the dog shelter used this second large-dog area to isolate a dog they didn’t yet have a gauge of.

That sure didn’t apply to dignified Hattie.

“How did you know she’d be here?” I asked Clara.

“Thought she might want to run out some of Lucifer’s and Izolde’s energy.”

I didn’t see either dog, but considering how right Clara had been about the rest, I didn’t question her.

Donna was with a young woman with wind-blown blonde, wavy hair who rubbed Hattie’s ears. The gray-muzzled dog leaned against her hip, head raised in bliss.

Threatening to break the unusual-o-meter, Donna headed toward us as we entered, gesturing for the young woman to stay put.

In Normal World, Donna required that we went to her, physically and in the sense of asking her for information.

“You heard about Damon Swindell?” She wasted no time.

“Yes, from Ruby,” Clara said.

“You have Lucifer and Izolde?” I asked.

Donna tipped her head toward a downward slope that hid a corner of this enclosure. In the other large-dog enclosure, the slope was much more extensive. Still, this one was big enough to hide two dogs.

Izolde’s head popped into sight, then Lucifer’s tail, held high.

For the first time, I wondered why Donna had them.

As if she’d heard me, she said, “Zoley Georger called and said Pammy Swindell was too upset to care for Lucifer, that Lucifer was such a strong reminder of Damon that his presence made everything worse. With the authorities at the Swindells’ house, the dogs were at Georgers’. The two women, too.”

The humans were such an obvious afterthought for Donna, I sucked the inside of my cheeks to keep from grinning.

“When I got there, both dogs were wound up like tops, in the backyard run and barking their heads off. Zoley Georger said to take Izolde, too. Said she had her hands full with Pammy. Along with complaining Bryon wasn’t around, so she had to do it all herself.”

Not around?

At work? Or . . . could deputies be questioning him? He was a friend— Or was he?

Law enforcement might not know about the tensions we’d seen.

Besides, wouldn’t they question Damon Swindell’s wife first?

Clara’s thoughts clearly remained on the dogs. “Having Izolde around, might help calm Lucifer down.”