The Case of the Quizzical Queens Beagle Read online

  The Case of the

  Quizzical Queens Beagle

  A Thousand Islands Doggy Inn Mystery

  B.R. Snow

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are either used fictitiously or are the product of the author’s imagination. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written consent of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher are illegal and punishable by law.

  Copyright © 2018 B.R. Snow

  ISBN: 978-1-942691-45-7

  Website: www.brsnow.net/

  Twitter: @BernSnow

  Facebook: facebook.com/bernsnow

  Cover Design: Reggie Cullen

  Cover Photo: James R. Miller

  Other Books by B.R. Snow

  The Thousand Islands Doggy Inn Mysteries

  The Case of the Abandoned Aussie

  The Case of the Brokenhearted Bulldog

  The Case of the Caged Cockers

  The Case of the Dapper Dandie Dinmont

  The Case of the Eccentric Elkhound

  The Case of the Faithful Frenchie

  The Case of the Graceful Goldens

  The Case of the Hurricane Hounds

  The Case of the Itinerant Ibizan

  The Case of the Jaded Jack Russell

  The Case of the Klutz King Charles

  The Case of the Lovable Labs

  The Case of the Mellow Maltese

  The Case of the Natty Newfie

  The Case of the Overdue Otterhound

  The Case of the Prescient Poodle

  The Whiskey Run Chronicles

  Episode 1 – The Dry Season Approaches

  Episode 2 – Friends and Enemies

  Episode 3 – Let the Games Begin

  Episode 4 – Enter the Revenuer

  Episode 5 – A Changing Landscape

  Episode 6 – Entrepreneurial Spirits

  Episode 7 – All Hands On Deck

  The Whiskey Run Chronicles – The Complete Volume 1

  The Damaged Posse

  American Midnight

  Larrikin Gene

  Sneaker World

  Summerman

  The Duplicates

  Other Books

  Divorce Hotel

  Either Ore

  To Laurie and Stella

  Chapter 1

  I gently slid the smallmouth bass back into the water and watched it disappear with a flick of its tail. I rinsed my hands in the still-not-warm-enough-to-get-in water then dried them with a towel and leaned my fishing pole against the seat.

  “I think I’ve had enough,” I said, refilling both our coffees.

  “Me too,” Josie said, reeling her line in. “So, you’re saying you’ve finally calmed down?”

  “For the moment,” I said, stretching out on the seat. “And if I can manage to avoid seeing her today, I should be able to stay that way.”

  Josie chuckled as she placed her pole next to mine.

  “Look at this way, marriage is going to be a piece of cake after you guys get through this,” she said, sipping her coffee. “And your mom just wants your wedding to be perfect.”

  “Where exactly does an eight-foot ice sculpture of the bride and groom fit into your definition of perfect?” I said, raising an eyebrow at her.

  “Yeah, I didn’t see that one coming,” Josie said, laughing. “But it will be August. Maybe it’ll be really hot that day, and it’ll melt fast.”

  “At this rate, I’m never going to make it to August.”

  “Hey, you’re inside a hundred days,” she said, digging through the cooler to retrieve a container packed with pastries. “It’s the homestretch.”

  I grabbed a blueberry muffin and quickly worked my way through it as I looked out at the calm water bathed in early morning light.

  “Three more months,” I said, shaking my head. “I wonder what she’s going to come up with next.”

  “Just try to roll with it,” Josie said. “The more you argue with her, the more she digs in.”

  “Whose wedding does she think it is?”

  “Oh, it’s way too early in the morning for rhetorical. Just eat your muffin.”

  We’d made the decision to go fishing last night after I’d gone another ten rounds with my mother about her latest additions to my wedding day. At first, our conversation had gone well, the eight-foot ice sculpture notwithstanding, but had gone downhill after she, again, brought up the guest list for additional discussion and debate. And her decision to invite a couple I barely knew had opened the floodgates. Unwilling to run the risk of offending anyone, she had quickly added another forty people to the invitee list and crossed the five hundred mark. And given that the guest list had been expanded, a two-hour conversation about the required changes to the seating arrangements ensued that left my mother exasperated with her belligerent moppet and me exhausted and grumpy and threatening a Vegas elopement.

  It was at that point when Josie had suggested a morning of fishing on the River sans my mom.

  I reached for one of the rapidly disappearing chocolate crullers then spotted a bizarre and brightly colored vessel heading downriver in the main channel several hundred yards away.

  “What the heck is that?” I said.

  “I have no idea,” Josie said, reaching for a pair of binoculars. “It’s not big enough to be a commercial ship.” She focused the glasses on the boat then handed them to me. “A circus? That’s weird.”

  Using the binoculars, I scanned the boat from bow to stern. It had to be a couple hundred feet long and sat about ten feet above the water. Painted yellow and purple with red accents, the sign on the side displayed the name Pontilly Family Circus in cursive script. I lowered the glasses and handed them back to Josie who took another look before tossing them on the seat next to her.

  “A circus that travels by boat?” I said, frowning. “Have you ever heard of anything like that?”

  “Never,” she said, shaking her head. “The cages on the deck tell me they have animal acts. And you know how we both feel about those.”

  “Yeah,” I said, reaching for the binoculars and taking another look. Then I scowled. “Great. Somebody onboard just tossed something in the water.”

  “What was it?”

  “I’m not sure, but it looked like a bag of garbage,” I said, setting the glasses down. “Unbelievable.”

  Both of us deplored circuses with wild animals acts as well as the barbaric methods used to train them. And we’d been delighted when many countries began banning circuses using those acts from performing. But for reasons inexplicable to us, both Canada and the States continued to allow them apart from some jurisdictions that had seen the light and instituted local bans.

  And we hated people throwing crap in the River just as much.

  “How’s your morning schedule?” I said.

  “It’s clear until eleven,” she said, cutting the last cruller in half. “It’s such a beautiful morning. You want to hang out here?”

  “Why don’t we just cruise around awhile?” I said.

  “Sounds great. We should have brought the dogs.”

  “They have a way of ruining the fishing,” I said. “There’s no way we could keep them out of the water on a day like this.”

  “Not to mention us being able to stay dry,” she said, stretching out and putting her feet up on the seat.


  I started the engine, and we headed upriver away from the main channel and spent the next hour working our way through the islands. We briefly entered Canadian waters, then turned around and headed for home. I slowed when we reached the main channel and waited for a large ship to pass. It had to be at least 700 feet long and was heading upriver toward Lake Ontario. We watched until it disappeared from sight, then I accelerated and crossed the channel at a forty-five-degree angle that would take us directly to the Inn.

  I waved to a passing boater then glanced over at Josie when she nudged my arm. I followed her eyes and slowed to an idle.

  “Is that what I think it is?” I said, staring at the buoy about a hundred feet in front of us.

  “Oh, good. You see it, too. For a second there, I thought you might have put something in the muffins.”

  The buoy in question was one of the markers used during the Seaway season to designate the outer edge of the deep-water channel ships used to navigate through a potentially treacherous section of the River dotted with islands of all shapes and sizes. It was painted green, about ten feet wide with a small platform that sat about three feet above the waterline. But it wasn’t the buoy itself that had us staring in disbelief. It was the small dog standing on it and staring back with its head cocked that left us with our mouths open.

  “Toy beagle, right?” Josie said.

  “Yeah, what a gorgeous dog,” I said, slowly approaching the buoy. “How the heck did it get up there?”

  “That, my friend, is a very good question,” Josie said, glancing over the edge of the boat to check for shoals. “You’re clear on this side.”

  “Thanks,” I said, slowly navigating closer. “The poor thing must be freaked out.”

  “She’s not the only one,” Josie said, making her way to the bow. “Just a couple feet closer.”

  I inched the boat forward, and Josie reached out with both hands. The beagle didn’t put up much resistance and basically jumped into her arms. She sat down holding the dog, and I maneuvered the boat away from the buoy then turned the engine off. I joined them in the bow, and we did a cursory exam of the beagle.

  “The poor thing is shaking. But she seems fine,” Josie said, holding the beagle up with both hands to get a good look before setting her back down on her lap.

  “How is this possible?” I said, frowning. “There’s no way she could have climbed up there by herself.”

  “She’s still damp,” Josie said. “So, she’s obviously been in the water. Do you think somebody was in the water with her and then lifted her onto the buoy?”

  “Can you think of any other way she got up there?” I said.

  “Maybe another boat dropped her off,” Josie said, glancing around. “What does her name tag say?”

  “There’s no name tag,” I said, removing the dog’s collar. Then I studied the collar and noticed the writing embroidered into the leather. “Queen B.”

  The dog wagged her tail and cocked her head at the mention of her name.

  “Queen B.?” Josie said, studying the dog. “Okay, now I get it. She’s a Queen Elizabeth Pocket Beagle.”

  “That’s the breed from medieval times that went extinct and has been recreated,” I said, stroking the dog’s ears. “They were taken on hunts and were so small they could fit in your coat pocket or saddlebag.”

  “That’s the one,” Josie said. “The first Queen Elizabeth apparently had a bunch of them. I think people started recreating the breed about fifteen years ago.”

  “She sure is cute,” I said, scratching the dog’s ears. “And tiny. What do you think she weighs?”

  “Can’t be more than ten pounds,” Josie said, again scanning the water. “I don’t see any other boats around.”

  “No, me either,” I said. “Which means that someone was swimming and decided to put the dog on the buoy.”

  “Do you know how strange that sounds?” Josie said, frowning at me.

  “It’s definitely a ten on the weird scale,” I said. “Can you come up with another explanation?”

  “No, I can’t,” Josie said. “But if it was a swimmer, that means they were trying to save the dog’s life.”

  “Because the swimmer was about to drown?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I guess we should just take her home with us and wait to see if anything turns up,” I said.

  “Like a dead body?” Josie said, exhaling audibly.

  “Oh, I sure hope not.”

  “Well, you have been looking for something to take your mind off the wedding.”

  “That would probably do it,” I said as I sat down behind the wheel then started the engine and headed for home.

  Chapter 2

  I enjoyed the breeze and early morning sun as we made our way back to the Inn. Josie continued to comfort and pet the dog that was quickly recovering from its morning adventure. About a mile from Clay Bay, I noticed the local police boat anchored near Devil’s Shoal, a notorious stretch of rock that ran several hundred yards and this spring was about a foot below the surface. Dozens of boaters, primarily tourists in rentals, ran aground on the shoal each summer usually losing the lower unit of their outboard motor in the process. But it was clear that Chief Abrams, Clay Bay’s police chief, hadn’t run aground. His boat was anchored next to the shoal, and he was talking with Freddie, our local medical examiner. I pulled up alongside the police boat and flinched when I saw the body bag on the deck.

  “Good morning,” Chief Abrams said.

  “What happened?” I said, glancing down at the black body bag that was obviously occupied.

  “I got a call about an hour ago,” the Chief said. “Jerry Olsen was having breakfast on his deck when he saw a woman in the water who was struggling.”

  I glanced at Josie who stared back at me.

  “Jerry said she was having a tough go of it and went down a couple of times before surfacing. Then she somehow managed to make it to the shoal. But just not in time.”

  “Who is she?” I said.

  “No idea,” the Chief said, shaking his head. “No identification and neither one of us recognize her. You guys want to take a look to see if you know her?”

  “Not really,” Josie said, shaking her head.

  “If we must,” I said with a grimace.

  Freddie unzipped the bag about halfway, and we glanced down at a woman with bright red hair and a vacant stare who was probably somewhere in her forties. We both took a good look then shook our heads.

  “No, I don’t know her,” I said. “Does she have any wounds or injuries?”

  “It doesn’t look like it,” Freddie said. “Just a whole bunch of water in her lungs.” Then he spotted the beagle. “Cute dog. A new addition to the family?”

  “No, we just found her,” I said.

  “Out here?” the Chief said, frowning.

  “She was perched on one of the channel markers,” Josie said.

  The Chief and Freddie looked at each other then focused on Josie.

  “You were driving by and just happened to see her standing on a channel marker?” the Chief said.

  “Yeah, that’s pretty much it,” Josie said. “Weird, huh?”

  “How far upriver was it?” the Chief said.

  “No more than a couple miles,” Josie said. “I guess it could be the victim’s dog, right?”

  “She put her dog on a channel marker before she drowned?” the Chief said.

  “The dog was wet,” I said, still trying to make sense of what was going on. “Maybe she put the dog on the buoy and was planning to hold onto it until she got rescued.”

  “And then lost her grip and drifted off when the current grabbed her?” the Chief said, staring upriver. “I suppose it’s possible.”

  “She must have fallen out of the boat she was in,” Freddie said.

  “Have you found a boat?” I said.

  “No,” the Chief said. “But I’m sure it’ll turn up at some point.”

  “Unless it sunk,” Freddi
e said with a shrug.

  “You’re on fire today, Freddie,” Josie said.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Freddie said, frowning at her. “What are you going to do with the dog?”

  “Just take her back to the Inn for now,” I said. “Then we’ll wait and see if anybody claims her.”

  “And if they do, you’ll let me know straight away, right?” the Chief said.

  “Of course,” I said, then glanced at Josie. “You ready to get going?”

  “Absolutely,” she said. “Chef Claire said she was going to make French toast around ten.”

  “Don’t rub it in,” the Chief said. “We’ll be lucky if we get a chance to eat lunch.”

  “Why don’t you guys join us for dinner at C’s?” I said. “My treat.”

  “And I suppose you’ll be expecting an update?” the Chief said.

  “You know me so well,” I said, then pushed our boat away and started the engine.

  We waved, then I checked my watch and accelerated.

  Ten minutes later, the boat was docked, and we were heading up the path that led to the house. We entered the kitchen and found Chef Claire putting the finishing touches on a big stack of French toast sitting next to a plate of crisp bacon.

  “Perfect timing,” she said, then spotted the beagle. “Hey, she’s a cutie. Where did you get her?”

  Josie spent a few minutes telling her the story as we made short work of our breakfast. Then Chef Claire headed off to start her day at the restaurant, and Josie and I walked down the path to the Inn. We went in through the back door and saw Sammy hosing down the high-traffic tile walkway that ran in front of the dogs’ condos. He turned the hose off when he saw the beagle and gently took her from Josie.

  “Look at this girl,” he beamed. “New family member or just a temporary guest?”

  “TBD,” Josie said. “I need to get ready for my eleven o’clock.”

  She headed for the registration area, and I glanced around at the empty condos.

  “You plan on leaving the dogs outside most of the day?” I said.