A Wedding To Die For

“I need you in a hurry,” I said and gave him the address. He said okay. The battery warning sounded again right after he hung up. Too much picture taking.

The teeth-baring standoff between the dogs grew louder and then I saw a light sweeping the ground on the other side of the house, a light headed in my direction.

I was scanning the landscape for a hiding place when I heard a loud pop.

One of the dogs yipped and took off running, tail between its legs. The others followed—all except for my friend. She stood her ground.

The pop had come from a rifle—seems the owner of the flashlight happened to have a weapon. And a uniform. And when he came up to me with that rifle pointed at my chest, I also noticed he had Dog Police embroidered above his pocket.

Then he changed his focus and targeted my partner, pumping his rifle several times.

The idiot planned to shoot her.

“Hey! This is my dog and if you hurt her, I’ll have you arrested,” I said.

He looked at me and grinned. “Is that so, mon?”

“Yes. She and I are locked out of my house and—”

“You don’t live here and neither does she.” He gestured at my friend with his gun. “I chase that bitch two, three times a week.”

Okay. Lie number one failed. Try another. “I do live here and I want to adopt this wonderful—”

“Miss Donnelly live here long time, so unless she die and give you this place, you don’t belong here. The cops pay me nice for burglars. You a burglar?”

If he was asking, I still had hope of getting myself out of this mess. “Of course I’m not a burglar. Blythe and I go back a long way and—”

“Miss Donnelly keep to herself and I never seen you round here.”

Lie number three also seemed doomed to failure. Maybe I could salvage it. “We haven’t seen each other in years, but—”

“First time she leaves the island you comes round here opening her windows.” He nodded up at my escape hatch. “She no like that stuff. Now you and me, we gonna visit the jail.”

He stepped toward me, but the dog and I had definitely bonded. She growled.

The guy raised his rifle and aimed.

“No! Please don’t!” I raised my hands in surrender. “What can I do to make you listen?” I was thinking of money and at the same moment remembering I had very little to offer.

He lowered the muzzle slightly. Then I heard another car approaching. The cop turned his head, and we both saw Jug’s cab pull up to the shed.

“I think my ride is here,” I said.

Jug got out of the cab and called, “Hey, beast! What you do with my lady?”

“This bobo your lady?” the cop said.

“Yeah and she be some bobo, mon. Give me plenty agony, though.”

Both of them laughed and if I read their tone correctly, I’d say lecherous was the operative adjective.

But if trash talk worked, I’d play along. “Hey, honey, this is the dog I was telling you about.” I placed a protective hand on my rescuer’s head.

“You no want that flea bag,” Jug said.

The cop smiled. “Hey, lady says she wants to take the dog home, you take the dog. But you know I need something from the both of you, mon. See, your lady’s story been changin’ every five seconds. She don’t know when to shut up.”

I started to answer his insult with one of my own but realized he was right. I bit my lip.

Jug reached in his pocket and pulled out a wad of Jamaican bills. “This is all I got, mon.”

The dog catcher took the money and counted it, shaking his head. “Cops pay me way better if I bring them a burglar.”

I pulled out my wallet. Travelers checks do not make great bribes. He didn’t want them. And what little Jamaican money I had left didn’t please him either. But he liked my watch, my sapphire ring and my tiny gold bead earrings. He also liked my phone, but when I balked, Jug offered a heavy gold chain from around his neck and that was enough to buy my freedom. Once he’d cleaned us out he went away.

While Jug closed the bathroom window and returned the crate and pail to the shed, I tried to interest the dog in the only thing I had left—my Altoids. She liked chasing them, but kept bringing them back and dropping them at my feet.

When Jug was finished covering up my crime, he and I walked to the cab, the dog panting happily after us. I tried to say good-bye, but she looked so pitiful and I was so worried she had an air rifle attack in her imminent future, I pleaded with Jug to take her along with us. He looked unhappy, but didn’t really argue all that much as he pushed the dog into the backseat. Then Jug and me and the dog drove off together.

11

Knowing the Plaza Hotel would shun a canine addition to my room, Jug drove us to his place. He lived in a shack on the mountainside that actually looked in far better shape than the other dilapidated houses in his neighborhood.

“My wife gonna kill me when she see this dog, miss. You gotta help me explain.” Jug had taken a piece of rope from his trunk and tied it around the dog’s neck to use as a leash.

Between the fleas she’d shared with me on the ride over and the mosquitoes that had attacked me at Donnelly’s house, I felt ready to crawl out of my skin.

“I owe you big-time,” I said, scratching my ankle, “so whatever I can do, I will.”

The three of us made our way up the dirt path to a front porch strung with brightly colored bulbs. Maybe it was always Christmas in Jamaica. Jug tied the dog to a rickety railing surrounding the porch and opened the front door.

“Where you been, mon?” called a feminine voice after the door opened.

The smell of curried something filled the small room we entered. Sitting on a rustic-looking bench were three smiling black-skinned children. The two boys and a toddler girl switched their attention from a thirteen-inch combination TV and VCR playing cartoons and grinned at Jug. They all shared his same wide smile.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Abby.”

They just stared back at me, and the girl put four fingers in her mouth.

Then Jug’s wife appeared in the entry to what I assumed was the kitchen. She wore a red and yellow striped strapless dress and was beautiful in that unique Jamaican way—long necked, dark and tall, her hair in beaded dreadlocks. She was also very pregnant.

Wiping her hands on a thin white towel stretched like an apron over her firm round belly, she nodded at me, then turned questioning eyes on Jug.

“This be the lady I been working for,” he said. He gestured at me. “Miss Rose, this is my Martha.”

“Call me Abby,” I said.

Martha smiled tentatively, but the smile immediately disappeared when the dog barked.

“You didn’t bring no dog round here, Jug,” she said, sounding more than a little pissed off.

Jug elbowed me. “You tell her.”

“Actually, I brought the dog,” I said. “It’s kind of a long story, and—”

But before I could finish speaking, Jug’s two oldest—the boys wearing torn T-shirts and shorts—leaped off the bench and streaked past us through the screen door.

I looked out after them and saw the dog kissing both of them with an enthusiasm dogs only heap on children.

“How many times I tell you we can’t afford no dog, Jug? We got too many mouths to feed already,” Martha said.

“I plan to fix that,” I said quickly, hoping to curb her obvious anger. “I’m hiring your husband for an important