The Secret Room at Eidt House: A Foxglove Corners Mystery, #13

By Dorothy Bodoin

    A rabid dog that should have died months ago from the dread disease runs free in the woods of Foxglove Corners, and the familiar library's long-kept secret unleashes a series of other strange events.

   Will Jennet's wish for a little spice in her summer lead to her own death?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781613090510

Book preview

One

The bush was moving , impossibly alive in the still woods where no breeze stirred the leaves.

Candy, securely attached to her long leather leash, growled a low warning. Sky, the gentle blue merle, whimpered in alarm and pressed her body close to mine. I reached into my skirt pocket for the can of Mace I always carried these days when walking with the collies.

A pack of wild dogs ran in the woods of Foxglove Corners, living on small game, bringing down deer, and on occasion threatening humans. They were crafty and dangerous, potentially deadly. The alternative to arming myself with Mace was to stay at home, which was unthinkable on these glorious summer days.

The bush moved again, and a spill of red berries drifted down to the forest floor. Quickly I revised my perception of the landscape. Some creature hid behind the trembling branches, creating an illusion of motion. A creature acting in an unnatural way spelled danger. It could be one of the feral dogs, a coyote or a rabid raccoon. Anything.

Candy growled again and shook her head violently as if to break free of her leash. The air thickened with tension. The can felt cold in my hand. For a moment I wished it were a gun.

Sky cowered behind me with Candy in full protective mode. Black fur bristling, lips curled high, she was ready to defend her person and her timorous sister.

I didn’t want Candy to tangle with whatever waited behind the bush. But it was too late.

Without a sound, the creature leaped into a meager patch of sunlight, about six feet from us. It stood its ground, defiant and menacing. We were facing a large dog, black with white markings. Another collie.

I gasped and stepped back, stumbling over an exposed root and momentarily losing my balance. Grabbing the slender trunk of a maple seedling, I stared in disbelief.

I knew this dog.

Of all the creatures that roamed the woods across from Jonquil Lane, the one I least expected to encounter was the bi-color collie who had bitten me last month. He should be dead.

The horror from the past returned in lightning-strike images. A collie with a dull coat and glazed eyes obliterating the daylight as he tore the flesh from my arm. A memory of blood and pain and the longest walk of my life. And the rabies shots, every one of them.

The dog had been rabid. Why wasn’t he long since dead?

Get! I shouted. Go away!

I aimed the Mace at its eyes and braced myself for the attack, for fangs sinking into my throat.

It didn’t happen. Not this time. In a flash of black and white, the bi-color turned tail and ran into the sheltering darkness of the close-growing trees. The woods were quiet once more. I could hear my heart pounding and my ragged breath and Sky panting.

I laid my hand on Candy’s quivering head. Good girl, Candy. You scared him off.

She wasn’t happy. Candy had wanted the confrontation. She still pulled on her leash, trying to take me with her on a merry chase through the woods.

It’s all right, Sky, I added to the whining blue merle. Everything’s all right now.

But of course it wasn’t. Not if the bi-color collie still lived.

MY GREEN VICTORIAN farmhouse shimmered in a soft haze, the stained glass windows under its twin gables welcoming me home. Still, the distance seemed interminable now that I’d come to a stop at the lane’s edge.

The house across the lane, a vintage yellow Victorian with elegant gables and turrets, was closer.

Camille Forester Ferguson, my neighbor, good friend and aunt by marriage, knelt in one of her perennial gardens, contemplating a row of maroon-streaked peach foxgloves that were a near match for her silver-honey hair. Goldcrest, she called them. They were new, ordered from a catalog. She wore a long denim jumper and red gardening gloves. A grocery store box overflowed with unsightly weeds.

The dogs flopped down at my feet, not especially eager to join their three sisters who were waiting inside our house for the grand reunion.

Camille shifted her gaze to my face. My goodness, Jennet. Did something happen?

I saw that dog again, I said.

Now, with the danger over, I was shaking, unable to escape the memory of the black and white collie’s attack and his shocking reappearance so long afterward. It could all have happened again.

What dog? she asked, pulling off the gloves, rising.

The collie who bit me.

Oh, my Lord! Not the one who had rabies?

Yes, that one. He should be dead.

I had to stop thinking that. He wasn’t dead. I’d just seen him. He had to be dealt with. Somehow.

Let’s go inside, and I’ll make you a nice cup of tea, she said with a surreptitious glance at the woods. It’ll settle your nerves.

Across the lane, my other collies began to bark. At least one of them would be looking through the kitchen window with its clear view of the yellow Victorian.

I should go home, I said.

You will. First, I want to hear more about this remarkable dog. I didn’t know an animal could survive rabies.

Camille’s black Belgian shepherd, Twister, and her tricolor collie, Holly, were waiting impatiently on the other side of the front door. They greeted my two as if they hadn’t seen them for years.

I followed Camille into the house, through the living and dining rooms to her blue and white country kitchen where problems and concerns had a way of shrinking, where sunlight streaming through the cobalt glass collection on the windowsill illuminated hitherto hidden solutions.

The dogs lay down in a row alongside the table. Adhering to her principle of taking care of the animals first, Camille gave each one a large biscuit, then filled the teakettle with water.

I have iced tea, she said, but hot tea will be better for you. And there’s a chocolate angel food cake and cherry muffins from this morning... She trailed off and spooned loose tea in the mugs. What did the dog do?

He just looked at us. Candy was growling. I had my Mace but didn’t use it. Then he ran away.

Stripped of the drama and terror, how simple the incident seemed in the retelling. How easily the slender story could have had another ending.

Thank heavens for that, Camille said. But I don’t understand. If the creature was rabid, why isn’t he dead?

That’s what I’ve been asking myself.

They’d never found the dog’s body, which wasn’t surprising with all the woods around us. In the hours after I’d been bitten, my husband, Crane, together with our friend, Brent Fowler, and Lieutenant Mac Dalby of the Foxglove Corners Police Department, had searched the area around the vacant Queen Anne Victorian where the dog had savaged me. To no avail.

I’d driven him off with the handle of my umbrella. That was how I’d escaped further injury.

Brent had expressed what we were all thinking, what seemed logical. You know how easy it is for a dog to disappear in these woods. This one is sick. He’ll probably find a quiet place in the woods to lie down and die.

No one saw the bi-color after that day. We had all grown complacent. I’d had a series of rabies shots, dreading every one. The summer sped by, a parade of golden days, bringing us inevitably to the hot and stormy month of August. The dog days.

Complacency can be dangerous.

The dog didn’t look sick today, I said. Maybe he never had rabies after all. Maybe I didn’t need those shots.

But you thought he did. My goodness, Jennet, you couldn’t afford to take a chance.

No, I said. When a strange dog bites you for no reason and can’t be found, you have to assume the worst.

There was no point in wishing the past had been different. I’d endured the rabies shots, survived the incident, and in time stopped seeing the dog’s distorted features in the faces of my own beloved collies.

The teakettle’s shrill whistle brought me back to the present.

Well, it’s a mystery, Camille said. I’ll bet Doctor Foster over at the animal hospital could clear it up.

She set a large piece of chocolate angel food cake sprinkled with powdered sugar in front of me and added fresh strawberries.

Eat this, she said. "It’s the star of my new cookbook, Light and Luscious."

I did, and it was indeed good, a simple dessert that brought a dash of normalcy back to my life. Cake and mint tea and Camille’s wisdom. Already I felt stronger. At least I wasn’t trembling.

I still intended to consult Alice Foster but thought I’d found the answer.

The dog might have been sick, but he never had rabies, I said. It just looked like he did. That’s the only explanation that makes sense.

But he bit you! He shredded the skin on your arm.

Yes, moments after he offered me his paw to shake. That’s bizarre behavior, one of the signs an animal is rabid.

Even if he isn’t, he’s still dangerous.

Very.

But not today. Now there was the mystery. Could Candy, the most aggressive of my five collies, have made the difference? I glanced at her. She’d finished her biscuit and was eyeing my cake expectantly. I’d have loved to give her a bite, but chocolate is toxic for dogs.

I’ve never ever been afraid of dogs, Camille said, but that pack that set up housekeeping in the woods unnerves me. Of course I don’t go for walks by myself, and they wouldn’t come near the house with Twister on guard. Still, they’re out there. I don’t feel as safe as I once did.

Neither did I, but I refused to be intimidated.

I won’t give up walking. Crane wants me to, but I can’t. School will be starting next month. Every one of these days is precious.

And you have a gun now, she added.

I did, and it stayed locked in a special cabinet with Crane’s guns. Crane and I had had several past disagreements about my owning a gun. Finally, after the attack, he’d capitulated. In fact, he was the one who had suggested it. By this time, I’d changed my mind.

The problem is, I could never shoot a dog, I said.

Not even in a life-or-death situation? Not even if I were again set upon by a rabies-maddened canine?

No, I loved dogs. I wasn’t a killer.

Then I remembered the rabies shots and the pain in my left arm that still bothered me at times.

Don’t be so sure, I told myself.

I hope you’ll never have to, Camille said.

Two

Safe in my own home , the encounter in the woods refused to fade into memory. It was still too new, still raw. My mind insisted on replaying the episode with alternate outcomes.

The bi-color collie springing at me. Candy leaping to my defense—too late. The bi-color’s bite infecting her with deadly rabies. All of us doomed except Sky. She had run away.

Candy has all her shots, I reminded myself, and kept mixing ingredients for the miniature meatloaves I was making for dinner.

Eventually I was able to focus on the collie itself and my previous curiosity about his origin. I’d assumed he was a mix because I’d never seen a black collie with white markings but not a single patch of tan.

Except in a picture. A vintage print in an ornate oak frame hung in the living room. It depicted a turn-of-the-century child holding a doll almost as large as she was. Books lay on the floor and at her side a collie with a black and white coat stood on its hind legs. One white paw rested on the little girl’s lap as if to touch the doll.

I’d found the print at the Green House of Antiques last winter and promptly added it to my collection. I loved the soft colors and sentimental scene, and, of course, the collie.

I wondered if the breed had this coloration in past times, before Albert Payson Terhune wrote his stories.

When the meatloaves were in the oven, I studied the picture. The dog had a full white ruff—judging from what I could see of it—and a wide white blaze on its face. The collie in the print looked alarmingly like the one in the woods except the painted dog was gentle, eager to participate in a child’s playtime.

How can you tell that from a picture? I asked myself.

Well, didn’t most collies have gentle temperaments? Especially with children? The only reason a collie had bitten me was because the disease had destroyed his mind. He had no choice. Or so I’d assumed. After today, I had to cope with another reality.

In truth, with more than one reality. The dog had recovered from his illness and was still at large. If I were to meet him again on another walk, the story might well have a different ending. Walking with the dogs was a part of my life.

During the summer, I walked the collies in shifts. Sometimes Crane and I took all five of them out in the evening. Gemmy, Wafer and Halley had already trekked up to the horse barn on Squill Lane. Everyone had enough fresh air and exercise for the day.

Fortunately I didn’t have to go outside until Crane came home, and by tomorrow, I hoped my fright would be firmly lodged in the past.

With dinner preparations completed, the dogs deserted the kitchen for their favorite napping places. The house was quiet. Too quiet. It was too easy to think.

When shared with Camille, the day’s experience lost a portion of its horror. Now that I was alone with nothing that had to be accomplished, my imagination continued to create a host of appalling scenes, all of them gory, all involving a future confrontation between me and the bi-color collie.

Leave the might-have-beens for fiction, I told myself.

Inspired by Camille’s chocolate angel food cake, I baked one of my own, planning to top it with the fresh raspberries I’d bought at the Farmers Market. As I lifted the cake stand from a lower shelf, pain stabbed at my left arm. Absently I rubbed it, assuring myself that I was all right. The hurting was part of my imaginings. I would always have the scar but shouldn’t still have pain. I did tend to favor that arm. Usually. Sometimes I forgot.

Crane would be home in an hour. I had to tell him what had happened today and I dreaded it.

I knew my husband well. I could predict what he would say.

CRANE WATCHED SILENTLY as I set the meatloaves on a platter. He’d locked his gun in the cabinet and changed out of his uniform, but he hadn’t changed who he was: deputy sheriff in charge of keeping order in Foxglove Corners and in his home.

Finally he said, Don’t worry, honey. If the dog is in the woods, one of us will be bound to see it.

Crane, Brent and Mac. The armed ones. I knew what would happen then. In Crane’s presence, my lingering fear had drained away. A new concern had taken its place.

When you do, you’ll shoot him, I said.

In telling my story, I’d emphasized the dog’s apparent return to health and his judicious retreat. Crane heard, The dog that bit me is back.

It has to be done, he said quietly.

I suppose so. Only it’s sad to see a dog punished for something he did weeks ago.

Have you forgotten, Jennet? He attacked you. Crane’s voice was stern, unrelenting. That dog is dangerous to anyone he comes in contact with. Dogs don’t get one free bite anymore.

If they ever did.

You wanted us to catch him, he reminded me.

That was when I thought I could avoid those rabies shots. That didn’t happen.

Obviously he didn’t intend to be drawn into a debate. Leave it to me, he said.

He’s right, I thought.

A vicious dog capable of savaging a human couldn’t be allowed to live. Subconsciously I was letting the black and white collie in the old-time print influence me. Even after the effects of today’s encounter had ebbed, there was still tomorrow. All the tomorrows and the possibility our paths would cross again.

This is all Rima’s fault. I couldn’t keep the tinge of bitterness out of my voice. She’s the one who flooded this part of Michigan with dogs.

Earlier this summer, the girl who called herself Rima had set out to free homeless dogs who would otherwise be destroyed, along with others who had every hope of finding a new home. Some, but not of all of them returned to their shelters. No doubt the wild dogs that ran in the woods of Foxglove Corners were among the liberated foundlings.

Rima had created an almost insurmountable problem and taken no responsibility for it. She appeared to have left town. We who lived in Foxglove Corners and the other little towns she’d targeted had to live with the droves of roaming canines.

I was getting sidetracked. The bi-color collie had returned to our area. Perhaps he had been nearby all along. Now his days were numbered, and against all reason; I was sad.

Still, I couldn’t let negative emotions cast a shadow on our dinner hour. My own household rule banned serious or distressful talk at mealtimes. No discussion of sheriff’s business or anecdotes from Marston High School where I taught English during the school year. Just innocuous, pleasant topics.

I brought the last dish, a bowl of scalloped potatoes, to the table, lit the tall tapers in the heirloom candlesticks, and we sat down to eat.

Crane passed me the platter of meatloaves. Summer is flying by. I can’t believe it’s August first already.

And it’s been a little boring, I said. Nice but uneventful, once we put a stop to Rima’s activities.

That’s good. I don’t miss the tornadoes.

Neither do I. Or brushes with death. Or hauntings.

Or the sterile hospital room and the series of painful rabies shots. Aside from that, once the dust of the Rima upheaval settled, our summer had been a string of sun-drenched days filled with an extravaganza of flowers and clement weather.

If I were to describe it, I’d say it had been a domestic summer. I’d made new curtains for our bedroom and a valance for the kitchen window. I tried new recipes and froze berries for the long winter to come, kept the flowerbeds free of weeds, and even learned to embroider floral patterns on pillowslips and aprons, perhaps the most frivolous project I’d ever attempted.

Good grief! That’s what I did on my summer vacation? What a life for a girl detective!

Crane had praised my achievements, even the frilly new apron I’d worn to prepare dinner this evening. He always wanted me to be safe, and safe I had been, but a little bored with endless leisure.

He smiled at me from across the table. The candlelight turned the gray strands in his blond hair to silver and his gray eyes to glittering frost. Crane never failed to compliment me on my culinary achievements. Wait until he saw the chocolate angel food cake, the star of Camille’s Light and Luscious.

These scalloped potatoes are great, he said.

They were good, even though they weren’t my first choice. "I wanted to have mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, but the story in the Banner about people being hospitalized after eating mushrooms made me think twice."

They were picking morels in the woods up north and got them mixed up with poisonous mushrooms. You have to know what you’re doing.

What I’d be doing is buying them in the store, I said.

Or not at all, if it was that easy to pick the toxic variety.

The dogs were watching us from a polite distance, no doubt hoping the meatloaves would come their way. Certainly something would, if only the biscuits, but the leftover meatloaves were destined for the freezer.

The bi-color collie was a danger to our own dogs, especially Halley and the timid blue merle, Sky who had once suffered at the hands of a demented sadist.

I should ban distressful thoughts from the dinner hour.

When I got up to bring the cake to the table, Candy rose with me, having her own agenda. I relented and gave her a bite of a meatloaf that had fallen apart. Then I spread powdered sugar and raspberries on top of the cake.

Another successful dinner, another surprise dessert and a long romantic evening at home with my husband.

Uneventful, I decided, could be wonderful. But so could excitement. The good kind, that is.

I had only a month to add a little spice to my summer.

Three

In the early morning stillness, the shrilling of the land line telephone sounded like an alarm bell. I wasn’t ready for alarms but could never resist a ringing phone. Still holding the dishtowel, I rushed to answer it.

Good morning, Jennet. The voice of the town’s beloved librarian, Miss Elizabeth Eidt, fairly bubbled with excitement over the line.

Something wonderful happened at the library yesterday, she said. I could hardly wait ‘til a reasonable hour to call you.

Likewise, I couldn’t wait for enlightenment. If the occurrence warranted an early morning call from Miss Eidt, it must truly be unusual.

What happened?

I have a new mystery for you, a wonderful, amazing mystery.

That wasn’t exactly an explanation. I waited for her to continue.

You know that addition I’ve been talking about? A combination sun room-reading room with a skylight and a wraparound ledge for green plants?

She’d only mentioned it a few times, but apparently it had been a longtime dream, waiting for the right time and necessary funding.

I remember.

The contractor started work yesterday. He knocked down a wall, and you’ll never guess what we found behind it.

Never, I thought. But Miss Eidt had called it wonderful and amazing. Could he have unearthed hidden treasure? A chest filled with gold nuggets?

I won’t tell you what was on the other side, she said. It’s best you see it for yourself.

For heaven’s sake, Miss Eidt! Tell me. Isn’t that why you called?

Really, Jennet, it’s practically indescribable. Can you stop over this morning?

I glanced at Halley who had followed me to the phone. I could go after the dogs’ walks. Or before. I had to admit Miss Eidt had roused my curiosity.

The old white Victorian at the Corners had once been her family home until she donated it to the town as a library and volunteered her services as librarian, along with donating many of her personal books.

Afterward, Miss Eidt moved to a smaller house nearby, one more suited to her needs. A genteel silver-haired figure in pastel suits and pearl necklaces, she’d grown older gracefully as the library evolved into a respectable institution. With long mahogany tables and comfortable chairs, the house-turned-library was a pleasant haven in which the denizens of Foxglove Corners could wile away a leisurely afternoon.

Often in the past, the library had been the scene