Follow a Shadow: A Foxglove Corners Mystery, #14

By Dorothy Bodoin

A shadowy intruder haunts Jennet's woods, and a woman who can't accept the death of her collie asks Jennet to help her find Rainbow Bridge where she believes her dog waits for her.

          In the meantime Jennet discovers that her rare bi-black collie, Raven, belongs to somebody else.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wings ePress, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781613090923

Book preview

One

Somewhere out in the night a dog was barking, breaking through the fragile barrier of my sleep.

No, that was wrong. Multiple dogs were barking, and most of them were mine. Inside the house and outside and across Jonquil Lane, several canine voices joined in a discordant chorus loud enough to wake the dead, or at least Camille and Gilbert, my nearest neighbors. I didn’t have to worry about my husband, Crane, who was out of town on sheriff’s business.

But I did have to worry. No dog creates an uproar in the middle of the night without a reason.

I turned toward the beam of moonlight that fell across the bed, closing my eyes against the sudden brightness as I turned on the night stand lamp, and reached for my charging cell phone. It was almost midnight. Lucky for everyone concerned, tomorrow was Saturday and I didn’t have to go to school.

Sliding into my slippers, I crossed to the door just as it opened. Candy, my tricolor collie, launched herself at me and grabbed the edge of my long nightgown in her mouth.

Come! Hurry! A dog’s body language is easy to interpret.

Turning on lights, I followed her downstairs to the kitchen where the clamor originated. Halley, Gemmy and Sky were prancing around the side door, all three collies in alarm mode. Candy plowed through their ranks and nudged the doorknob with her nose.

No, I said. Wait!

Anything could be out there. Anyone. And Raven, the rare black and white collie who accepted our food but refused to sleep in the house, was howling.

A light winked on in a second story window of the yellow Victorian across Jonquil Lane. The noise had awakened Camille and Gilbert then. Their dogs, Twister and Holly, were barking too.

I could hear Crane’s voice as clearly as if he were in the room with me. Strange how he never really left the house. Don’t go outside after dark, Jennet. You don’t know who or what might be out there.

I knew.

Woods and a lonely cluster of unfinished houses that beckoned to homeless man and animal alike. The recently sighted bobcat that had escaped from a wealthy man’s preserve up north. The feral dogs set free by a misguided animal activist. A few of them had been captured and taken to animal shelters, but the pack was still large enough to pose a real threat to the denizens of Foxglove Corners.

And Raven was outside in the whimsical Victorian doghouse Crane had built for her. Once wild herself, she would be no match for the pack if it decided to tear her apart.

I opened the door, stepped outside and closed it again quickly, but not before Candy slipped through the opening.

A brilliant moon flooded the landscape with light, creating grotesque shadows amid the leafless trees. Frost and late fall winds had left the acreage surrounding our green Victorian farmhouse withered and bleak. The sky seemed close enough to touch, and a thick night silence gripped the land.

Nothing stirred. No one was there, and the dogs’ barking had subsided to a low rumble.

Wagging her tail, Raven braced her forepaws on the black wrought iron fence Crane had erected around her house. It was purely ornamental, never intended to keep Raven in or any woodland creature out.

Raven had a jet black and white coat, without the tan markings that make the tricolor collie so striking. She was a throwback, a seldom seen bi-black, and she was mine.

I leaned over to stroke her head. What’s wrong, Raven?

Her howl ended in a plaintive yelp. All the dogs had fallen silent. Candy stood frozen at my side, her gaze focused skyward.

A bird of prey, I thought. Or Brent Fowler and his latest date flying over Foxglove Corners in his hot air balloon. It would be like Brent to add an extravagant touch to his romantic repertoire.

Go back to sleep, Raven, I said. Candy, come.

Neither collie moved. I reached for Candy’s collar, then remembered I always removed the dogs’ collars at night. That brief memory lapse was the result of being yanked out of a sound sleep.

But if you have to go outside for some reason, take a gun with you.

It was Crane’s voice again.

I’d forgotten the gun and even Mace, not to mention my robe. With the crisis, whatever it had been, over, I realized I was cold.

Okay. Occasionally, I liked to call Candy’s bluff. No dog in the house.

She sprang into action and reached the door ahead of me.

I only hoped I wouldn’t lie awake the rest of the night.

MY FRIEND AND AUNT by marriage, Camille Ferguson, gave the teapot one last stir and poured our tea. She’d arranged a batch of orange muffins in a basket on the table and cut an apple-cinnamon coffeecake into thin slices.

Camille wore a yellow gingham apron over a white wool dress and looked as fresh as the morning sunshine. Twister, the black Belgian shepherd, and Holly, the collie, were stationed in the doorway, both of them bright-eyed and quite literally bushy-tailed.

I envied them. In spite of the light streaming through the cobalt bottles on the windowsill and the crisp blue and white kitchen, I was drooping. After our nocturnal non-adventure outside, I hadn’t fallen asleep until four-thirty in the morning.

Something had been out there, prowling around in the dark. I just hadn’t seen it.

Whatever got the dogs all riled up last night? Camille asked. Gilbert was going to investigate, then they stopped barking. I hope it wasn’t the bobcat, she added.

I tried to hide a yawn. I couldn’t see anything, but I don’t think a wild cat would slink away because I came outside.

Camille shivered. It was looking for a tasty dinner. Too bad Crane wasn’t home to protect you.

I broke a muffin in half and spied the orange peel inside. Good! My favorite. That’s one of the advantages of having a husband, but nothing ever happens when Crane is home. It wouldn’t dare.

Before my marriage to a deputy sheriff, I had lived alone in the country with my one collie, Halley, for company and protection. The woods had held the same dangers then, and I’d managed to deal with whatever came my way. Now, with the collies on perpetual guard and access to Crane’s gun collection, not to mention my own gun, I felt confident I could take care of myself.

I’m glad we’re not spending the winter in the south, Camille said. Gilbert enjoys his job at the university more than he misses his Tennessee home.

I’m glad too. I missed you last year.

Camille gave her dogs two homemade biscuits and took a sip of tea. "English Breakfast. My, that’s good. She paused and transferred a slice of coffeecake to her plate. Jennet, I’ve been meaning to talk to you. A friend of mine, Barbara Bennett, has a problem, and I haven’t been able to help her. I think maybe you could."

I’ll be happy to, if I can.

Her collie, Honey, died and Barbara is still grieving for her. She can’t seem to get over it, and I’m worried about her.

That’s not unusual, I said. How can I help?

Maybe talk to her. You’re compassionate and good with words.

Well, so are you.

When I told her about how I lost Snowdrop, I started crying.

Years ago Snowdrop had been killed by Camille’s vile first husband. She still kept her picture on the buffet.

We’ve all lost dogs, she said. Their lives are so short. It isn’t fair.

I nodded, not wanting to think about short life spans or the dogs I’d lost in the past. Losing your best friend can be devastating. Then people expect you to bounce right back. That doesn’t happen for everyone.

Barbara and Honey went everywhere together, even on vacations, Camille said. Now Barbara hardly ever leaves her house. It’s been a while since Honey died.

There’s no timeline for grief, I said.

I know, but every time I see Barbara, she looks worse. She’s sunk into a deep depression. She lost weight and her zest for living as well.

Are you sure there isn’t something else the matter? I asked. Something physical?

She says not. It’s losing Honey. Barbara thinks there’s no reason for her to get up in the morning now.

I’m afraid she needs more help than I can give her, I said.

I agree, but she won’t see a professional. I thought the three of us could have lunch together. I’ll come up with some pretext to get her out of the house.

I smiled. Tell her I’m the friend with the problem.

Camille gave a sigh of relief. I knew you’d help her.

I’ll try.

I thought of the orphaned dogs in the Foxglove Corners Animal Shelter waiting for new homes that might never be offered and of the feral dogs who were about to face a long, cold winter. At one time, I’d thought they would all be returned to their shelters by now. That hadn’t happened.

Maybe Lila and Letty Woodville at the shelter had the one dog who could put Barbara Bennett’s broken heart together again.

I don’t have a magic formula, I said, but sometimes taking care of a new dog keeps a person too busy to keep mourning the lost one. Especially if that new dog is a puppy.

I suggested that, but Barbara vetoed it, Camille said. She says Honey was her last dog.

I finished my tea slowly. The tea and muffins had only made me sleepier, and the temptation to waste a Saturday morning napping was strong. What I needed was fresh air and exercise. A walk with my own dogs followed by a trip to the Corners or Lakeville would be a better option for a precious weekend day.

Our conversation had left me a bit depressed. The thought of losing one of my collies made a deep cut in my heart. Halley was the oldest of my brood. Like Barbara, I’d taken her everywhere with me. For years. Long before I moved to Foxglove Corners and met Crane. Since the other collies were rescues, I had no way of knowing their ages.

But time didn’t stand still for any of us. The day would come when they’d grow old, their muzzles would turn gray, and their limbs arthritic. When they could no longer walk. Even the unflappable Candy.

Every dog lover knows one bitter truth. Losing a dog is the high price one pays for the years of joy. But people tend to forget that until somebody else’s grief reminds them.

In a minute, I’d be crying as Camille had wept over Snowdrop.

I wish Crane were coming home tonight, I said.

Two

That day when Crane called, I didn’t mention last night’s disturbance. Why worry him needlessly when the show might well be over?

But after my solitary sandwich dinner, I glanced out the window. Raven was agitated. Through the kitchen window I saw her pacing back and forth behind the fence like a lion in a cage. On a typical day, she’d be taking an after-dinner nap in her dog house. Did she sense the presence of an intruder in the woods?

If Raven had been afraid, she could have leaped over the fence and joined us in the house, but she was fearless, and from the beginning had resisted all my attempts to lure her inside.

I’d long ago surmised that Raven must have been a kennel dog at one time. She would eat her meals on the front porch but lie well away from the door. As she must be a year old or more, training her would be a mammoth undertaking. It was a game to her, one she had yet to lose.

But living outside had suddenly become dangerous.

Thoughts of the coming night set my heartbeat racing. I imagined a ravenous bobcat creeping out of the shadows and a dozen other dire calamities. With the encroaching trees and their far-reaching branches, there were too many shadows on our property.

Well, be ready, I told myself. Taking the gun I’d bought but never used out of the cabinet, I placed it on the kitchen counter, close to the door. I might wish for Crane, but he wouldn’t be home until Monday when I’d be in Oakpoint teaching English at Marston High School. In the meantime, I was a bachelorette again.

And how lonely the house was without my husband! I didn’t hear his voice now. Probably because I was doing what he’d always told me to.

Candy began to pace in the house, traveling from the living room through the hall and to the kitchen, circling the dining room table on her way back. Halley and Sky watched her from the rug by the fireplace. Before long, Gemmy began to scratch at the side door and whine.

It had to be the bobcat or the feral dogs out there. Or something equally lethal. I needed to bring Raven in and do it before dark. Maybe this time she’d cooperate.

Telling Candy and Gemmy to stay, I put on my jacket and shoved a leash into one pocket and the gun in the other.

Outside, icy air slammed into me. The temperature must have dropped at least ten degrees since I’d come home from shopping in Lakeville, and the last of the light was rapidly fading. The short distance to Raven’s house seemed longer than usual.

Raven ceased her pacing long enough to give me a quick affectionate greeting, complete with slowly wagging tail and sparkling eyes. The black in her coat had the sheen of frost, and her tags jingled in the clear air. She radiated excitement.

In many ways she was like one of the house dogs, so much like Gemmy and Candy I had faith in my ability to train her.

Which was why I was standing outside, shivering in the cold and apprehensive in the gathering dark.

We weren’t alone. I could sense a presence, feel its nearness and menace.

I scanned the ruins of the garden, the tall thin trees at the edge of the woods, and the lane winding out of sight, all shimmering in the light of the moon.

Everything in my view was still and silent until a deer streaked across the fields and melted into the trees. From inside the house, an explosion of barking alerted me to the great danger of deer.

A doe running in the woods was harmless and even, I thought, good luck, but there was something out there that didn’t belong. I was glad I’d taken the precaution of arming myself.

Hurry, I thought. Make your daily attempt to capture Raven and get in out of the cold.

I took a piece of beef jerky out of my pocket and waved it in front of Raven’s nose. Look, Raven. Yum.

She licked her chops but ducked quickly out of reach. She always knew when I wanted to bring her into the house. Well, she could smell the leather leash in my pocket.

Like most collies, Raven was smart; she was crafty and one step ahead of the human. How else could she have survived life in the wild for so long?

I broke the strip in half and let her grab it. In a heartbeat, it disappeared down her throat.

Do you want one more? I asked.

She did but not enough to let my hand get close to her collar. In the end, I tossed the other half into the air and let her catch it. Our so-called training sessions always ended this way. Today, as always, Raven was determined to stay in her own quarters and wait for what would come.

But her best friend, Gemmy, was safe in the house. Gemmy loved the dog house as much as Raven did.

I wasn’t about to let her out to wait with Raven.

BY FIVE O’CLOCK, IT was completely dark, and my evening chores were done. I sat at my desk contemplating the jumble of papers that always collected on weekends. A folder of papers to correct, along with my heavy literature book open to the short story I planned to teach in my American Literature class on Monday, commandeered most of the space. The day’s mail waited sorting in a small basket. Most of it was for Crane.

Printed pages of the book I was writing on true ghost stories, a grocery list, post-it notes, and four back issues of Collie Vistas filled a floor basket that had thus far survived Candy’s attempts to turn it into a chew toy.

I’d let the Collie Vistas collect over a long busy summer. Why not spend this evening without Crane catching up on my collie reading?

That was the best idea I’d had all day.

A gorgeous dark sable collie graced the cover of the May-June issue. He was a magnificent animal with a princely expression. The thick fur on his back and shoulders resembled a shawl of rich dark mahogany. His name was Champion Autumn Acres Dark Grenadier.

With the dogs settled for a peaceful snooze and all quiet outside, I read articles, admired pictures, and mentally outlined a story of my own on the rare bi-black collie who had entered my life under such strange circumstances.

As I turned a page, the small picture of a black and white collie jarred me to awareness. ‘Rare Bi-black Comes to Mayfield.’

The dog, Autumn Acres Broken Cloud, looked enough like Raven to be her identical twin. The two collies appeared to be the same size with white markings in the same places. I could almost see a ‘Catch me if you can’ gleam in her eyes.

I’d never seen a photograph of a bi-black in Collie Vistas or any other magazine devoted to the breed.

The accompanying article was short and dealt mostly with the rising star of Autumn Acres Collie Kennels, the dog on the cover. The bi-black had apparently been brought along to the show as an afterthought.

It can’t be, I murmured. Could it?

Candy raised her head and stared at me, waiting to hear something to her liking, but the picture had erased all awareness of my surroundings.

Autumn Acres was located in a small town near the Michigan-Ohio border, not far from the woods where I’d first encountered Raven.

Her appearance in our woods might have seemed magical, but obviously she had to have come from somewhere. Maybe she’d had more than one previous owner.

But how had she traveled from Autumn Acres to Foxglove Corners? And how about the male who resembled her, the rabid dog who had attacked me? Had the two collies arrived in our town together? With no one intercepting them along the way? It was possible but unlikely.

After Raven saved my life and came home with me—but not into the house—I ceased to wonder about her origins. I wanted to keep her. As for the mad dog, he was almost certainly dead. I’d stopped thinking about him except when I felt a twinge in my arm where he’d torn it open.

The rest of the summer I’d spent hours trying to domesticate Raven. I had given her food and toys and a name. She was part of our family.

So forget you ever saw the picture, I told myself. Pretend you moved the whole stack of Collie Vistas to the bookcase without even opening the May-June issue.

After all, throwbacks weren’t that rare. Surely there was another one, a Raven look-alike, maybe a littermate, who’d posed for the picture at Mayfair last spring.

In any event, few people knew Raven was living in a Victorian doghouse on Jonquil Lane with the Ferguson family and their collies. I planned to keep it that way.

A KNOCK ON THE DOOR set the collies barking. Even Raven out in her house joined the clamor. I set aside the photograph of Raven I’d been studying and glanced out the bay window. By the light of the porch lamp, always left on when I was alone, I saw Brent Fowler’s red convertible parked behind my Taurus.

And never open the door after dark when I’m not home, cautioned the invisible Crane. You don’t know who’s out there.

But no one else would be driving Brent’s car, and Brent was our good friend.

A blast of cold air and energy entered with him. In a forest green jacket, with dark red hair the shade of an autumn maple leaf, he looked like a woodland spirit. A tall, husky one.

I shooed the collies back before they could push him outside again in their enthusiasm. He shrugged out of his jacket and gave Sky a pat on the head. Brent was Sky’s favorite person.

Evening, Jennet, he said. How’re you doing?

Fine. Come in out of the cold. I’ll make coffee.

Don’t mind if I do.

I hung his jacket in the closet, and he flopped into the rocker I’d just vacated. I promised the sheriff I’d stop by and check on you, he said.

Mmm. His Uncle Gilbert was here twice on the same mission. My husband doesn’t think I can take care of myself.

"Well, collies aren’t exactly guard dogs and you are a woman."

Before I could object to his sexist comment, he said. So, any sign of trouble on the lane?

Not so far. Only the dogs were barking at something last night. I hope it was a one-night event.

I was about to mention the bobcat when he said, If you’re all right, we can talk about my problem. It looks like I’m smack dab in the line of fire again.

Three

W hat’s the matter? I asked.

I’m under siege. Rima’s back.

This was an unexpected development. Rima, also known as Maria Evans, had created a massive problem for Foxglove Corners and neighboring towns when she’d begun her campaign to free shelter strays.

Even before her activities branched out to attempted murder, she became a wanted woman. Being clever and as devoted to self-preservation as to her twisted idea of animal activism, she had left town shortly after being arrested by the sheriff of Indian Ridge and subsequently released on bail.

After exacting her revenge on me for thwarting her shelter raids, Rima had dropped out of sight. She’d been gone for two months, which wasn’t long, but she had caused so much trouble for so many people and animals no one thought she would dare return to Foxglove Corners. After all, what was there to lure her back to our town except for her unfinished college courses?

Only Brent Fowler, and he was indeed a prize. Handsome, charismatic, rich, and perhaps most important of all, indifferent to her blandishments.

In a sense, it was my fault Rima had become Brent’s problem. So now it was mine.

I should never have romanced her, Brent said.

I smiled; I couldn’t help it.

I haven’t heard that word ‘romancing’ in ages. Maybe never.

Isn’t it a verb?

Oh, yes. A slightly ornate one.

"Okay then. Anyway,