Lost & Found - Jacqueline Sheehan [63]
“Sorry. I’m Shelly. I was a friend of Liz’s. Or we were just starting to be friends again. Nobody could be friends with her when Peter was around.”
“Was that her boyfriend?” asked Tess.
“He had been, unfortunately, for about six months. And then she spent the next three months trying to get rid of him. She never really understood the effect that she had on men. It was like a chemical reaction. They got addicted to her,” said Shelly.
“Was he an archer too?” asked Rocky.
“No. And he tried to get Liz to quit spending so much time with archery. He didn’t like that she competed with men. He didn’t even like that Cooper was so close to Liz. I told her that he was pure trouble. She told me later that she wished she had listened to me.” Shelly’s chin quivered and blood vessels swelled in her eyes as she tried not to cry. “I went to the memorial service. I can’t believe she’s gone. That asshole was there, he had the nerve to come to her memorial. He slithered in like the snake that he was. Didn’t speak to anyone.”
“I’m sorry you lost your friend,” Rocky said. She waited until Shelly could talk again. “Did Dr. Harris tell you how I found Cooper? Someone used a traditional bow and arrow to shoot him. Is that what Liz used?”
“That’s what I wanted to tell you. Liz would never, no matter how whacked out she could get with her bipolar disorder, hurt Cooper. Did you know she was bipolar?”
“I wondered,” said Rocky.
“Until she met Peter, she had her meds figured out and it was like she finally got it, how to manage meds with sleep and diet. She hadn’t had a manic episode for ages until he convinced her to go off her meds and let him take care of her. He was against all medication. And yeah, she was way into the traditional bow and arrow stuff. She got her equipment from some guy out in Nebraska who made everything by hand.”
Two cars pulled into the parking lot to the side of the clinic. An agitated Doberman wearing a plastic cone collar jumped out of one car accompanied by a woman with a wool plaid jacket. From the second car, a silver-haired man lifted an animal carrier from which the howls of one cat, possibly two, could be heard.
“Look, I’ve got to go. Just don’t let Peter have Cooper,” said Shelly. She turned to go back inside.
“Wait. What about Liz’s parents? They’re coming to Peak’s Island tomorrow to get him,” said Rocky.
Shelly stopped. “I don’t know them. Only heard her talk about them. But let me ask you. Would you want your dog to go to someone who hadn’t talked to you in almost two years? It wasn’t Liz who cut off the relationship. It was her mother. I’ve got to go.”
Tess, Rocky, and the dog got into the car. Rocky unfolded the map of Maine.
“We’re in the neighborhood. How long could it take?” asked Rocky.
Chapter 21
The first thing they noticed was the green Dumpster in the driveway. The supersized kind, the ones that people use when they are going to gut an entire house to remodel. Two pickup trucks were parked in the street, both with ladders sticking out the back ends and silver toolboxes that took up half of the bed.
“What should we do with Cooper? He already knows we’re back in his hometown and apparently in front of his former house. We can’t do this to him, it would be too upsetting,” said Tess.
Cooper stood up in the backseat and began to pant.
“Don’t stop. Drive a couple of blocks away and let me out. I’m going to talk to the carpenters. Just drive around for a while. Maybe there’s a park near the college where you can walk him,” said Rocky.
Tess pulled to the curb several blocks from the house and Rocky quickly slipped out. Cooper made a dive for the front seat. Tess grabbed his collar.
“I’ll be back at this corner in thirty minutes,” said Tess.
Rocky jogged back to the house with the Dumpster. It was a white bungalow from the 1940s, a solid house with an inviting porch, two dormers on the second story. The rest of the houses on the block looked similar, and Rocky figured the houses were all built around the same time. She heard the shrill whine of a Skil saw from the house. As she passed