The Real Werewives of Vampire County

“Where was my baby when you saw him?” Mrs. Wahlen asked, squinting against the sunlight.

“Right there, on the deck.” I pointed at the spot where I’d left him. I noticed the dark stain on the wood too late.

Leaving her walker behind, Mrs. Wahlen hobbled outside and bent down. She poked at the spot with an arthritic finger. “Is that … blood?”

“I don’t know.” My heart started thumping loudly in my ears.

Mrs. Wahlen looked at the bat, which was lying next to the stain. “Did someone hurt my Skippy?”

“No.”

“Where is he?” she snapped.

“I didn’t hurt him.” At her glare, I amended my answer. “Well, maybe I hurt him a little. I didn’t know he was a dog.”

Her face turned the shade of a tomato. “How could you not know that? The ears? The tail?”

“It was dark outside. I didn’t see a collar or leash. I thought he was a wild animal.” I pulled up my pant leg. “He bit me.”

“Of course he bit you,” Mrs. Wahlen scoffed. “You were hurting him.”

“No, he bit me first. Then I … sort of … accidentally … erm …”

“My Skippy wouldn’t attack anyone unprovoked. Now, where is he? Did you take him to a vet?”

“Um, well. I don’t know where he is. When I came inside to find a box or something to put him in—so I could take him to a vet, of course—another animal, a bigger one, grabbed him …”

The woman’s eyes widened. Her tomato-red face went instantly white. Afraid she was about to pass out, I grabbed her arm, but she yanked it away. “Don’t touch me, you murderer!” Mrs. Wahlen stomped—as hard as a hundred-year-old woman could—back inside, reclaimed her walker, and headed out the front door. Once she was safely down the porch steps, she turned and shook an arthritic finger at me. “You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.”

Nifty. I was being sued. For killing a dog that had attacked me. With any luck, the attorney would tell her to drop it and that would be the end of that. But still, even if there was no lawsuit, my conscience was going to nag me for years about this one. I donate money to the Humane Society every year. Animal cruelty is my thing. My cause.

“I’ll look for his call then,” I said, thinking I might offer to pay a settlement if I was contacted by a lawyer. I didn’t have a lot of money in the bank, and I didn’t have a full-time job, but I had sold my apartment for a tidy profit. I would sleep better at night if I donated some of that cash to Mrs. Wahlen’s pet replacement fund. “One question, though. Was Skippy up-to-date on all his shots?”

The woman leered at me then stormed away.

“I’ll take that as a no?”

Someone was screaming. Outside. The sound was shrill. Eardrum-splitting. I thought someone might be dying. I pictured severed limbs, spurting blood. So, of course, I went racing outside to see.

It wasn’t what I imagined.

There were no severed limbs. No spurting blood. Just two little people—imagine Thing One and Thing Two from The Cat in the Hat, sans the red suits—racing up and down the front sidewalk, screeching at the top of their lungs like stuck pigs. Oh, and they were smiling. It would seem they were making that noise for the hell of it.

Immediately, I unchecked the Have Kids box on my mental Ultimate Things to Do list. With my luck, my kids would possess supersized lungs like these two lovely angels. And the energy of a pack of hyenas.

As I was about to go back inside, a serene-looking Samantha strolled onto her porch. Seeing me, she smiled and waved.

Before I could ask her whom the little monsters belonged to—thank God, that could’ve been a bad thing—they started trotting toward her, yelling, “Mama!”

Poor woman.

As I watched them bounce around her like jumping beans, knocking flowerpots over and trampling the petunias, I concluded she was either an angel or on Valium. There could be no other explanation for how she maintained her cool while chaos erupted all around her.

I returned her wave when she glanced my way, and in she went, following on the heels of Things One and Two. The blissful silence returned.

There wasn’t anything interesting to watch now, so back in I went. I headed down to my girl-cave and got to work. Roughly an hour later, I heard the doorbell. Being a girl who had lived in the city for years, I was starting to have some serious people-withdrawal. All this quiet, the solitude, the peace, it was getting to me.

I opened the door. Samantha. Smiling. As usual, she was wearing pristine vintage clothing—Chanel today—and her hair and makeup were flawless. If I was going to start spending a lot of time with this woman—which was still very much in question—I was going to have to do better than sloppy sweats and a ponytail. After all, I was a clothing designer. “Hello, are you busy?”

“Nope. Come in.” I ushered her inside, to the kitchen. “Something to drink?”

“No thanks.” She settled on a bar stool and watched as I poured myself a diet cola. She waved away a second offer at a glass.

I sat beside her. “Your children are very … energetic. Very cute.” I wondered where they were now.

“Thank you. They’re napping.”

“Ah.” I sipped my cola, wondering if Samantha had come over for some adult time or if she wanted to talk about something specific.

“Have you had any luck with your little investigation?” she asked.

Aha, so there was an ulterior motive. “I have. I learned Jon has an airtight alibi. But that’s as far as I’ve gotten. I don’t even know what sort of evidence was found when the police arrived.”

“I do,” she said. “I came to return Michelle’s Cuisinart. She’d loaned it to me a few days before. I was the one who found her.”

Hadn’t Jon said he was the one who discovered her? Had he lied? Or forgotten?

“Okay, so tell me. What did you see? Blood? Signs of a struggle?”

“No, none of those.” Samantha spun the swiveling stool around, so her back was facing the counter. “She was right there, lying on the floor, a wire dog cable hanging around her neck.”

“And … ?” When Samantha didn’t add any more details, I asked, looking up, at the ceiling, wondering how the former Mrs. Stewart had hung herself. “Is that all?”

“Yes, that’s all.”

“Am I missing something? A broken window? Signs of a struggle?”