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  ARSENIC AND YOUNG LACY

  A Marcia Banks and Buddy Mystery

  by

  Kassandra Lamb

  author of the Kate Huntington Mysteries

  a misterio press publication

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Arsenic and Young Lacy (A Marcia Banks and Buddy Mystery, #2)

  BOOKS by KASSANDRA LAMB

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  EPILOGUE

  AUTHOR’S NOTES

  OTHER BOOKS by KASSANDRA LAMB

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Please check out these other great misterio press series:

  Published by misterio press LLC

  Cover art by Melinda VanLone, Book Cover Corner

  Photo credit: silhouette of woman and dog by Majivecka (right to use purchased through Dreamstime.com)

  Copyright © 2016 by Kassandra Lamb

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used, transmitted, stored, distributed or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the writer’s written permission, except very short excerpts for reviews. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or by any other means without the publisher’s/author’s express permission is illegal and punishable by law.

  Arsenic and Young Lacy is a work of fiction. All names, characters, events and most places are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events or people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Some real places may be used fictitiously. The towns of Mayfair, Florida and Collinsville, Florida are fictitious as is Collins County.

  The publisher does not have control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites and their content.

  BOOKS by KASSANDRA LAMB

  The Kate Huntington Mystery Series:

  MULTIPLE MOTIVES

  ILL-TIMED ENTANGLEMENTS

  FAMILY FALLACIES

  CELEBRITY STATUS

  COLLATERAL CASUALTIES

  ZERO HERO

  FATAL FORTY-EIGHT

  SUICIDAL SUSPICIONS

  ANXIETY ATTACK

  POLICE PROTECTION

  ~~

  The Kate on Vacation Novellas:

  An Unsaintly Season in St. Augustine

  Cruel Capers on the Caribbean

  Ten-Gallon Tensions in Texas

  Missing on Maui

  ~~

  The Marcia Banks and Buddy Mysteries:

  To Kill A Labrador

  Arsenic and Young Lacy

  The Call of the Woof

  A Mayfair Christmas Carol

  Patches in the Rye

  The Legend of Sleepy Mayfair

  The Sound and the Furry

  A Star-Spangled Mayfair

  Lord of the Fleas

  My Funny Mayfair Valentine

  (coming Fall 2020)

  ~~

  Unintended Consequences Romantic Suspense:

  (written under the pen name, Jessica Dale)

  Payback

  Backlash

  Backfire

  (coming 2021)

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Mar-ci-a,” the frustrated voice coming out of my phone emphasized every syllable of my name. “What the devil have you gotten yourself into now?”

  The voice was that of my, uh, boyfriend ... um, male friend... man friend... lover?

  Hmm, tall, hunky Will Haines definitely wasn’t a boy, and male friend sounded way too platonic. Man friend was kind of primitive—brought up some interesting images of us taking turns hauling each other off to some cave. My nether regions sat up and panted.

  Sadly, we did not qualify for lover status yet, although it hadn’t been for lack of trying, at least recently.

  “What do you mean?” I feigned my most innocent tone, and crossed my fingers to boot. Did people still do that when they weren’t being totally truthful? Ever since Will had pointed out that I wasn’t a typical thirty-something, I’d been second guessing myself all over the place.

  The sound of air being blown out in a long-suffering sigh. “Why am I getting a BOLO on some guy for a destruction of property charge and your name’s on it as the complainant, with some address up in Ocala? And it’s flagged that the suspect is potentially dangerous.”

  Crapola. I hadn’t realized a be-on-the-lookout bulletin in Ocala would make it all the way to Sheriff Will’s desk in Collinsville, a whole county away.

  “I was... helping out a friend.”

  Rainey Bryant wasn’t a friend exactly, although she thought she was. She was my client, or rather the client of the agency for which I train service dogs. And technically it would probably be unethical for me to become friends with her, although she seemed to want that to happen.

  Yeah, I know, I’m a mess in the relationship department.

  Buddy, my Black Lab-Rottie mix, whined softly and tilted his head at me with his patented what’s-up look. I’d been about to take him for a walk, had the leash in my hand even, when Will called.

  “Just a minute, boy.”

  “You talking to me?” Will said.

  “No, to Buddy.”

  “Are you going to talk to me?”

  “Yeah, I’m just trying to figure out what to say.”

  “How about the truth.”

  Ouch!

  “That’s not fair,” I said. “When have I ever lied to you?”

  Another sigh. “Your sins tend to be more ones of omission.”

  Okay, I had to give him that. “Look, it’s a long story.”

  “I’ve got nothing better to do right now.”

  I held my hand out, palm parallel to the floor and motioned down. Buddy cocked his head the other way, then laid down. I flopped back on my sofa, knocking the scrunchie loose that was holding my long auburn hair in a ponytail.

  I yanked it the rest of the way out. “Okay, but this has to do with a client so some of it’s confidential. You have to keep it to yourself.” I paused for breath before plunging in.

  I’d really liked Rainey Bryant from the first time I met her. Although later, I would wonder why.

  She was bright, with a friendly smile and short blonde hair bracketing an attractive face. And despite all that she’d been through, there was an innocent, child-like quality about her.

  And she’d been through plenty. For starters, she’d survived basic training, although as an Army nurse perhaps hers wasn’t as physically rigorous as those volunteering for the infantry. I wasn’t sure how such things worked inside the military.

  I was pretty familiar, however, with how things worked, or didn’t, after people got out of the military.

  The service dogs I train for veterans who suffer from PTSD should be like a prosthesis or a wheelchair for physical injuries, paid for by the Veterans Administration. But they aren’t always. Fortunately, the agency I train for has some grant money for scholarships.

  Rainey didn’t know that I knew that she was the recipient of one of those scholarships. Mattie Jones, the director of the agency, had accidentally let it slip.

  I’d met Rainey for the first time when I’d taken her potential service dog over to her house to introduce them. It was something Mattie insisted on, checking for compatibility before starting the expensive training process.

  Lacy, a white Collie-Alaskan Husky mix, was a little yappy, but otherwise she had the right temperament for a service animal—intelligent, people-oriented, eager to please.

  “She’s adorable.” Rainey dropped to her knees to pet the dog’s soft fur. The sparkle in the young woman’s blue eyes said that it was love at first sight.

  This was confirmed a few minutes later when Rainey turned down my offer to find her a more protective breed, a German Shepherd perhaps. “Oh no, I want Lacy.”

  The offer was in response to the revelation that she’d been sexually assaulted by a male soldier during her second deployment in Afghanistan. And now her greatest fear was of being attacked like that again.

  “The guy was, is a sergeant.” Rainey ducked her head, avoiding eye contact. “But he claimed the sex was consensual. Our CO said it was a he said/she said and there was no way to prove assault.”

  She’d developed PTSD symptoms and had been shipped home with a medical discharge, devastated by what had happened and feeling betrayed by the Army.

  I’d heard similar stories in news reports regarding the problem of sexual assault in the military. My heart had gone out to her.

  Fast-forward six months, and Lacy was now a fully trained service dog. It was time for me to deliver her to her new owner and start the human phase of the training process. This usually takes two to three weeks, with some breaks in there for me to attend to my other trainees. Forget about having a life during that time, which could now be added to the
list of things that kept confounding Will’s and my efforts to consummate our relationship.

  The first time I went to Ocala to train with Rainey Bryant, it was a beautiful, sunny morning. Not unusual for spring in central Florida, and a pleasant contrast to the April showers—translation: damp and dreary—of my native Maryland.

  “Come on, Marcia,” Will said. “I’m growing old here.”

  “I thought you said you didn’t have anything better to do.” I lowered my voice to what I hoped was a sultry whisper. “I could come down there and keep you occupied, big boy.”

  Yet another sigh. “Client. Lacy. Sunny day.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  I felt an attack of the guilts for talking about Rainey’s history, even though she seemed to talk about it freely enough herself. But Will needed to know in order to understand Rainey, and why this whole stalking thing was pretty serious.

  “Remember, this is all confidential.”

  “If it will make you feel any better, the assault would have come up in a background check on this woman anyway.”

  Warmth spread through my chest. This man understood me so well.

  I was excited about showing Rainey what Lacy could do. In addition to all the normal commands and behaviors that helped PTSD sufferers, such as the dog waking her owner up to interrupt a nightmare, I had come up with one that was unique to Rainey’s situation.

  I’d created a maneuver that I’d dubbed the Lassie response. If Rainey was attacked, she could tell the dog to “Run!” and Lacy would take off and search for a passerby who could be enticed to return with the dog to help her owner.

  I knew the odds were small that the dog would bring back help in a timely manner, but maybe the belief that a rescue was possible would keep Rainey from wasting her life away in a state of helplessness and fear.

  Service dogs aren’t the cure-all for PTSD, but they help a lot, and the hope for normalcy that they represent is, in itself, a powerful thing.

  I pulled up in front of the house that my client shared with her older sister. It was a modest, cement block bungalow, painted white, with dormers in a light green metal roof.

  When Rainey answered my knock, her gaze skittered from me to the street behind me and back again. Her face was pale, and her hand trembled as she raised it to brush back a strand of blonde hair.

  “What’s the matter?” I said. Lacy looked up at me in response to my sharp tone.

  Rainey waved a hand in the air in a vague gesture. “Nothing. I’m fine. Come on back.”

  I followed her through a sparsely furnished but spotlessly clean living room to an equally clean kitchen. Lacy bounced along beside me in her red service dog vest.

  A tanned, redheaded young woman, in white slacks and a snug navy knit top, rose from a chair at the table and slid a purse strap onto her shoulder. “I’ll get going then,” she said to Rainey.

  No Southern accent. Yet another transplant from the cold North.

  The two women hugged and I heard murmuring. “So sorry... call me.”

  When they pulled apart, Rainey introduced the other woman as her friend, Carrie Williams.

  Hand thrust forward, Carrie gave me a toothy smile.

  I shook the proffered hand.

  Then before I could react, she’d dropped into a crouch and stretched her arms out. “Oh, is this your new dog?” she squealed.

  I took a half step, inserting my leg between her and Lacy. “Sorry, she’s on duty now.”

  Carrie stood up, frowning. “I can’t pet her?”

  I mustered a smile. “Not today. Once she and Rainey are working as a team, you can pet her, when she’s off duty. Right now it might confuse her.” I wasn’t the least bit worried about the dog. But I wanted to establish the boundary up front that Lacy was not to be treated as a pet.

  Carrie’s attractive face settled into a not-so-attractive pout.

  Rainey spared me from further discussion by taking her friend’s arm and walking her toward the front door.

  She was back in a moment and we went out into a large, fenced backyard.

  I began to show her the various commands that Lacy knew, but Rainey seemed distracted—fidgeting and staring off into space. I hadn’t even gotten to the Lassie response when I spotted tears trickling down her cheeks.

  “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, then shook her head. “It’s him.”

  “Him who?”

  “There’s this guy. He’s stalking me.”

  I sucked in my breath. “Do you know who it is?”

  This time, she shook her head, then nodded. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

  “It might be this guy I dated awhile back. My sister thought she saw him running away.”

  “Running away from what, where?”

  She motioned for me to follow and walked around to the far side of the house. She flung her hand up in the air.

  The wall of the house was sprayed with big red letters.

  I’LL GET YOU, BIT...

  The top of the T ran off the side of the house. Assessing how much room was available for one’s message was apparently not one of this vandal’s strengths.

  Around the second-floor window, under the peak of the roof, was a crude target, the big red bull’s eye smack in the middle of the window glass itself.

  “That’s m...my room,” Rainey said in a shaky voice.

  A car crunched to a stop in the street on the other side of the six-foot privacy fence.

  Rainey startled and took several steps away from the fence.

  A car door slammed.

  She bolted for the backyard.

  I followed, wondering what exactly had triggered the flashback that had apparently taken hold of my client’s mind.

  She’d slithered in under the steps leading down from her back porch and had pulled Lacy in with her.

  I crouched down. The white of the dog’s coat stood out in the dim and dingy space. Cobwebs hung from the bottom of each wooden step. Lacy looked out at me, confusion and a touch of fear in her dark eyes.

  “It’s okay, girl.” I gestured for her to lie down.

  She tilted her chin down in what looked for all the world like a nod, then dropped onto the ground.

  I was contemplating how to lure Rainey out when her sister barreled through the back door and onto the porch. Her gaze slid right past me as she scanned the backyard.

  She was thinner than Rainey’s average build, and she wasn’t aging well. Her tie-dyed tee shirt and jeans hung loosely on her frame. Shoulder-length, stringy hair blew around her head. I noticed a few gray hairs scattered among the blonde ones.

  “Rainey, where are you?” she called out, but low, like she was trying not to let her voice carry too far. “Why’d you call the cops?”

  Then she turned, saw me and bolted back inside.

  What the H?

  The few short conversations I’d had with Rainey’s sister had led me to believe she was a sane person. A bit of a crunchy granola type, but rational. Now I wasn’t so sure.

  Under the steps, Rainey put a finger to her lips in a shh gesture and shook her head. Hadn’t she heard her sister go back inside?

  Deciding that their dysfunctional family dynamics were none of my business, I stood up, my knees popping a little, and headed around the corner to the gate on the other side of the house. I wanted to know what was going on out front, with all the car doors slamming and such.

  I got there in time to see an elderly woman walking toward the house next door and a young male sheriff’s deputy headed up Rainey’s front walk.

  He glanced over, then veered in my direction. “Ma’am, we have a report of possible vandalism here. Can you tell me anything about it?”

  I opened my mouth, but suddenly Rainey was at my elbow. “It’s no biggie, Officer. They sprayed some paint on the side of her house. But I’m sure it was just some kids.”

  Her house? Who’s her?

  “Deputy, ma’am.” He tipped his hat slightly and smiled. The correction and the gesture had a well-practiced feel to them.

  “Who called it in?” Rainey asked, her tone sharper than it should be when talking to the law.

  The deputy pointed toward the house next door. “Apparently your neighbor can see the paint from her bedroom window.” He gave me a hard look.

  I shook my head a little. What the heck was going on here?

  “I got the impression, ladies,” his gaze flicked from me to Rainey, “that there might be some resistance on your part to reporting it, so she called it in herself.”