Page 35 of Death on Gallows Path

Donna snorted. “Biggest help to calm him down was getting him away from those two women. The screeching. You would not believe it. Mostly Zoley,” she added judiciously. “The second biggest help was getting Willow over to see Lucifer and Izolde.”

A backward tip of her head indicated Willow was the young woman she’d left with Hattie.

“Willow Yost has been walking Lucifer and Izolde from the start. When they saw her, they took a deep breath, felt safe enough to play. You need to talk to her.”

The abrupt switch from the dogs wasn’t as disorienting as the idea of Donna inviting us to ask questions.

Her standard behavior provided tacit approval of our investigations, with an insight here and there, but never anything this overt.

Our duet of surprised silence drew another impatient snort. “Don’t tell me you two aren’t looking into the murder of Damon Swindell, because I wouldn’t believe it. You’d put your noses in the murder of someone who came within ten miles of you, much less anyone from our training class.”

“We’re . . . interested, of course,” Clara started. “But—”

“No buts. Go talk to her. I told her who you are. No time to waste. Lucifer and Izolde aren’t bad dogs, but with them and Bernie . . . I’m too old for that much puppy energy.” She finished with a firm, “Hattie, here,” then walked to another area of this enclosure, declaring she wasn’t getting more involved, while not looking back because she fully expected the dog and all three humans to obey.

We did.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

We introduced ourselves to Willow Yost.

“Donna told me about you, that you’re trying to figure out what happened, and I should talk to you,” she said.

Clara’s slightly widened eyes told me she was as taken aback as I was by this endorsement from Donna, though it fit that she delivered it behind our backs.

“We understand you’re a dog walker, Willow,” I said. Inspired, huh?

“Yeah.”

“Have you been doing that for a while?”

“Uh-huh. I started in high school and now that I’m taking classes at NKU—” The initials for Northern Kentucky University. “—I can tailor my schedule and it helps with tuition.”

“That’s smart. You walk their dogs for the Swindells and Georgers?”

“Uh-huh.” She pushed a chunk of wind-frothed hair behind her right ear. She was attractive in an understated way, with regular features, a medium build, gray eyes.

“Did you walk them today?”

“This morning. Before . . . before . . . anything . . . I went and got Lucifer like usual. I had no idea. Not until after class when people were talking.” She blinked rapidly.

Quickly, I asked, “How long have you walked the dogs?”

“Since they got them.”

“So, you know them pretty well.”

“Oh, yes, I know Lucifer and Izzy — Izolde well.”

Couldn’t help but like the girl for putting the dogs first. But unless one of them learned to pull a trigger, had remarkably good aim, and had been at someplace called Gallows Path, that wasn’t going to help us figure out who killed Damon Swindell.

“And their owners?”

She skittered away from that like most dogs do from fireworks.

“I don’t know anything that has to do with him getting killed. I never heard— I never saw anything that would tell you about what happened to Damon.”

“Of course, you didn’t see anything that made you think he’d be killed.” Clara was the poster woman for making someone feel seen, heard, and understood. “Nobody would jump to that conclusion. Would they, Sheila?”