Zoe Donovan Mystery: Haunted Hamlet Part 5

"I don't suppose you know of a slightly older dog that wouldn't need as much attention? I'd like a young dog, but perhaps not a brand-new puppy."

"Let me look around. I promise I'll find you the perfect dog."

Ellie smiled. "Thanks. And Zoe, can we keep my medical issues just between us for the time being? I don't really want Levi to know. At least not yet."

"It'll be our secret," I promised.

"I need a well-behaved older puppy for Ellie," I said to Jeremy the moment I walked through the front door of the log structure that houses Zoe's Zoo.

"Ellie's getting a puppy?" Jeremy asked. He was holding two of the kittens that had been brought in the previous week.

"Ellie needs a puppy," I emphasized as I reached for one of the little fuzz b.a.l.l.s Jeremy was cuddling. "She's decided to give up her quest for a baby, at least for the time being, and she needs a dog to keep her company."

"I think it's best that she decided to wait. How old a puppy are you thinking?" Jeremy asked as he placed the kitten he was holding back into its cage.

"Ideally, we're looking for a dog that's still young enough to be fun and playful but is also house-trained, socialized, and has gone through basic obedience training."

"Does size or breed matter?"

I paused to consider what type of dog Ellie would like. She'd never owned a dog before, but she seemed to enjoy the various canines who had pa.s.sed through my life and had never shown much of a preference toward one breed over another.

"No, I don't think so," I answered. "Ellie likes to hike, so perhaps a medium or large breed would be best. Not too big, though. She's living in the boathouse, so I'm not sure that a Saint Bernard or mastiff would be the best choice. Maybe a dog the size of a lab or retriever."

"I know a guy who breeds and trains German shepherds for police work. He usually starts off with four or five pups a year but eliminates puppies as he a.s.sesses their natural abilities. By the end of the year, he's usually down to one. He places the dogs he eliminates in qualified homes. The dogs he rejects are better bred and trained than any you're likely to find anywhere else. I can contact him if you want."

"That would be perfect." I placed the kitten I was holding back into the cage next to his brother. "Let me know what you find out. I want to get just the right pup, but it would be wonderful to find something right away."

"I'll call Peter after we discuss Gimp."

Gimp was the name we'd given the mountain lion who had come in with a broken leg.

"What's up with him?" I asked as I walked down the hall to my office with Jeremy tagging along behind.

"He's restless. Very restless. He's making the other animals nervous. I thought maybe we should talk to Scott about a sedative."

Normally, I hate to sedate animals unless we have to, but Gimp was a wild animal who was very efficient about letting everyone know that he wasn't happy about being caged. He tended to spend most of the day pacing and roaring.

"How long do we have him?"

"Just a few weeks. Once the cast comes off, they'll return him to the spot where they found him. His leg is healing great, but I do worry about him reinjuring it if we can't keep him quiet."

"Okay, call Scott. Maybe he can give him something to take the edge off. Anything else?" I asked as I picked up a pile of mail.

"Trenton Field called. He said he was returning your call. He tried your cell, but I guess you didn't answer. I told him that you often turned it off when you were in a meeting but would get back to him today."

"Okay, thanks. I'll call him back."

"Any news about the dead ghost hunter?" Jeremy asked. "Everyone is talking about him."

I tossed the mail back on the desk. "Not really. To be honest, I haven't even spoken to Salinger about the investigation. I'm really curious about what might have happened, but I've been busy, and I know Zak would prefer that I stay out of it. He thinks I'm going to put myself in danger by snooping around."

"Zak has a point. You do seem to have a knack for putting yourself in danger. I just figured you called Trenton because he'd spent time with the ghost hunter before he died. Everyone is talking about that too."

I walked across the room and opened the window. It really was a nice day. "Yeah," I answered. "That was the reason I called Trenton in the first place. Ethan mentioned that the men dined together, and I was curious. I don't suppose it would hurt to talk to him. No danger in that."

"If you do happen across anything interesting, fill me in. Adam Davenport's death is the talk of the town and it's nice to have a leg up on the local gossip."

I laughed. "If I hear anything juicy, you'll be the second one to know."

"I appreciate that. Before I forget, a reporter form the newspaper in Bryton Lake called. She wants to do a feature on you for a column she writes called 'Women Power.'"

"She wants to do a feature on me?"

"One of her good friends adopted a puppy from us last month. The woman came in looking for one type of dog and left with a different breed entirely. She's thrilled. The reporter indicated that the column would focus on your matchmaking superpower. She even referred to you as the 'pet matchmaker of our generation.'"

I smiled. "Really? I think I like that: Zoe Donovan, Pet Matchmaker."

"So should I set it up?"

"Give me her number and I'll call her. Maybe we can work in some publicity for the Zoo. It would be great to have all our charges adopted into cozy homes before the holidays."

"I'll look up her number and text it to you." Jeremy turned to leave.

"Let me know what you find out after talking to your friend about a pup for Ellie," I reminded him.

"I'll call him right now."

"Thanks." I headed back over to my desk to call Trenton. Jeremy had a point about being a step ahead of the local gossip. Even though I wasn't investigating the death, I supposed it couldn't hurt to hear what he had to say.

"Trenton, it's Zoe. I'm sorry I missed your call," I began after he answered on his end.

"Are you interested in parapsychology?"

"Only as far as it pertains to the dead ghost hunter who was found in the Henderson house."

"Ah, I should have known. What would you like to know?" Trenton asked.

"First of all, do you believe in ghosts?"

"So did he believe in ghosts?" Zak asked later that evening, as I was filling him in on my conversation with Trenton.

"He said that while he was open to the possibility of altered states of consciousness, and has seen some amazing research in the area, he wasn't willing to go so far as to say that he absolutely believed in the actual presence of ghosts as we were referring to them. He did say that it seemed Professor Davenport might have been on to something with his research, although, again, he was unwilling to state that a poltergeist might have frightened the man enough to cause his tumble down the stairs."

"I want to hear the whole story, but I'm going to grab a beer. Would you like some wine?" Zak asked.

"Yeah, I guess I'll take half a gla.s.s."

We were sitting outside on the deck overlooking the lake next to a roaring fire that was keeping us toasty warm. It really had been a beautiful autumn this year, and Zak and I were committed to taking advantage of every last minute of the awesome weather. I leaned back in my chair and looked out at the moon s.h.i.+ning on the lake. The orange glow from Zak's lights from the front of the house gave an eerie feel to the otherwise dark night. I'd convinced him that the firelight was all that was needed in the back on this particular evening. I tossed another log on the fire and watched as the sap that hid in the crevices of the freshly cut pine snapped and sparked as it was exposed and ignited. Luckily, the fire pit had been built on the edge of the seating area, where the deck met the sandy beach, which separated the lake from the forest.

"Okay, so Trenton talked to Davenport," Zak said, picking up the conversation where we'd left off as he handed me my wine.

"Trenton said Adam Davenport had been doing research on the Henderson house for quite some time. He'd gathered as much information as he could by pulling old newspaper articles, obtaining copies of police reports, and digging into everything he could find concerning the history of the house. After taking into consideration everything he'd uncovered, he decided there was enough evidence to justify a trip to Ashton Falls. It seems he'd been hanging out at the Henderson house for the past two weeks. No one realized he was there because few people, other than the occasional drifter or the high-school party crowd, dared to venture out to the property."

"How did Trenton know he was in the area?" Zak wondered.

"Davenport contacted Trenton and asked if he'd be willing to meet and provide some background information about the house. Trenton agreed since they had a similar background."

"Similar background?" Zak asked as he stirred the coals and tossed another log on the fire.

"Although Davenport ventured into the field of parapsychology later in his career, his undergraduate work was in psychology, as was Trenton's. According to Trenton, they'd actually attended some of the same seminars in their early academic careers."

I took a sip of my wine as I gathered my thoughts. Zak really did buy the best wines. Prior to my relations.h.i.+p with him, I'd usually purchased whatever was on sale at the grocery store, but Zak had wine sent to the house from vineyards all over the world.

"So the men met for lunch . . ." Zak prompted.

I set my wine on the table next to my chair and tucked my legs up under my body. The temperature had dropped and in spite of the fire, my feet were getting cold.

"Trenton indicated that while the men had taken differing paths after completing their undergraduate work, they had many viewpoints in common," I said. "He told me that he shared what he knew about the history of the house, including the mysterious deaths that had occurred over the years, and Davenport provided small tidbits of information that Trenton had never known."

"Such as?"

"Such as the fact that Hezekiah Henderson wasn't the only Henderson to die in that house. According to Trenton, Hezekiah's grandparents died unexpectedly when Hezekiah's father was a young man. His father, an only child, inherited the house, and after marrying a young girl from the area, he settled in to raise a family. By the time Hezekiah reached his twenty-fifth birthday, his parents and siblings had all died. According to Trenton, Davenport felt that each of the deaths he looked into could have a supernatural cause as well as a logical one."

"Like what?" Zak sat forward in his chair. He took one of my bare feet and placed it in his lap. He began to ma.s.sage away the tension in my entire body by skillfully working his magic on my foot.

"He didn't really go into a lot of detail. To be honest, I was in a hurry and didn't ask him to elaborate. He did say that in the one hundred fifty-odd years the house has existed, Davenport is the fifth person who died from falling down those same stairs."

"Okay, that's a little weird. And I didn't realize the house was that old."

"Trenton said Davenport told him that the place was originally built as a cabin and had been expanded many times since."

Zak frowned. "I'm surprised more people don't know that story. It seems pretty sensational."

"Hezekiah Henderson was an old man when I was a child. If I remember correctly, he was in his late eighties when he died. I was nine, so Pappy would have been around fifty. If Hezekiah was, say, eighty-five when he died, that would make him a good thirty-five years older than Pappy. If Hezekiah's family was dead by the time he was twenty-five, Pappy wouldn't even have been born yet."

"The town hadn't been incorporated back then," Zak added. "Which means there wouldn't have been a lot of recordkeeping."

"Yeah, and the newspaper in Bryon Lake wouldn't even have been in existence."

"How did Davenport find all of this out?" Zak wondered.

"Death records and personal accounts from the diaries of some of the mill workers who lived in the area during the days when it was used as a logging camp, among other things."

"So although Hezekiah lived a long life, dozens of others have died of mysterious causes over the years," Zak concluded. "Wow. It sort of makes you believe in the haunted house theory."

"I know. Right?"

I switched feet so that Zak could work on the left side of my body. Zak really does give the best foot rubs. He knows all the pressure points to address to create total body relaxation.

"So Davenport comes to get a 'feel' for the house and ends up dead," Zak continued after I'd made the switch. "I agree that the whole thing is odd and sort of spooky, but I think it's best we don't get too caught up in the theory that a ghost or otherworldly spirit is guilty of scaring Davenport down the stairs."

"Why not?" I groaned as Zak found an extra-sensitive spot.

"a.s.suming the man didn't simply fall, he was most likely pushed, and there very well could be a real killer out there."

"That's basically what Trenton said," I admitted. "Although he did say that it seemed like there was more going on with Davenport than he communicated."

"Like what?" Zak asked.

"Trenton didn't really know. He said Davenport seemed extremely invested in the history of the house, and the personal detachment that most researchers try to bring to a project seemed to be skewed by something Davenport wasn't saying. Trenton didn't go so far as to say he was lying about his true purpose for investigating paranormal activity in the house, but he did say that his words seemed deliberate, and at times he became downright evasive."

"So Davenport thinks there may be more to the killings than meets the eye?" Zak began to work his way up my calf. I hadn't had a chance to go for a run in several days and my muscles felt tight, so Zak's magical hands felt wonderful.

"Not really," I answered. "Although he isn't completely convinced the killings were random either. He spoke to Salinger, who thinks the killer ghost theory is hogwash, so I a.s.sume he's focusing on locating a living, breathing killer. I feel like I should be doing something, but I'm not sure what that would be at this point."

"It's not your job to track down every killer who lands in the area," Zak reminded me.

"I know. Which is why I'm going to leave the investigation to Salinger for once. Besides, I'm going off the mountain tomorrow and will be gone most of the day."

Zak looked surprised. "Really? Where are you going?"

"To see a man about a dog."

Chapter 6.

Wednesday, October 22

"I can't believe how excited I am." Ellie smiled as we drove through the valley toward the home of Peter Darwin, the breeder Jeremy had told me about the day before. Not only was he willing to meet Ellie to discuss placing a puppy with her but he happened to have a pup in need of placement. Talk about perfect timing.

"Remember, it's not a for-sure thing until he meets you," I warned her as we made the trip down the mountain. A rambling river paralleled the narrow, winding road as the thick evergreen forest gave way to the foothills, painted with autumn colors. "He wants to be certain that you and Shep are a good match before he agrees to the adoption."

"Yeah, I get it. You would do the same thing."

"Yes, I would."

Ellie took a deep breath and looked out the window. I could tell she was nervous, which, to be honest, sort of surprised me. When I'd first suggested a puppy, she hadn't been interested, and now she was acting like getting this puppy was the most important thing in her life.