Doggone Dead Read Free Page B

preoccupied with work lately. Missing puppies don’t seem all that important.”
    “Mom!” Zach whined. “We need to get Grandpa to help. He can find anything.” I thought about the many years it took him to find my now ex-husband.
    “Yes, he can, but maybe we can help him out by trying to find Butch ourselves.”
    “That’s right,” said Danny between bites of crispy chicken. “We can find Butch. We just got to call him. He’ll come running.”
    “We did call him,” Zach answered. “We called and called, and he didn’t come.”
    I thought about the little bark in front of the Loper estate. Had it been Butch, or was it the neighbor’s dog? It seemed like the sound had been coming from the wrong direction. That creepy guy in the box was pretty unsettling, too.
    “Aunt Maggie, what do you know about the people in Charlie Loper’s old house?”
    Aunt Maggie placed a bowl of mashed potatoes on the white lace tablecloth. “Oh, that house. Is that where Butch disappeared?”
    “Yep,” Zach said. “He wiggled right under the fence and then the man said he wasn’t there.”
    “Really?” Maggie’s eyes widened. “What man?”
    “The man in the black box,” Zach answered.
    “Let me explain,” I said. “It was a remote speaker at the gate. Whoever it was speaking to us was inside the house. Oh, and get this – it was some British guy. Do you ever remember anybody with that kind of accent around here?” I asked, sinking my teeth into a biscuit.
    “Can’t say that I have,” Maggie replied. “The lady who lives there must be quite old by now. She’s the daughter of old cowboy star Charlie Loper.”
    “Is that the guy on the horse?” Zach asked, referring to the rider on the bucking horse fountain in the front of the house.
    “Yes, that’s the one.” Aunt Maggie sighed. “Oh, he was quite the star in his day. The best shot in the West. That’s what they called him. His golden Colts are down at the Charlie Loper Dead Eye Museum. How long has it been since you’ve been in that old place?” Maggie’s eyes took on a sparkle as she began her version of Charlie Loper’s Texas drawl. “‘Let’s go get those bad guys, Ol’ Bess,’ he would say to his horse, and then he would jump up on it from the back end. It was a regular acrobatic miracle. I can remember going to the show every Saturday to see a double feature, and he was usually in one of the pictures. He had him a little guitar and always sang a song to the cowgirl. It was very romantic.”
    “So whatever happened to him?”
    “Oh, he died. He had property here and a house in Los Angeles. He spent more time in California than little ol’ Pecan Bayou, but who could blame him?”
    “So his daughter is living in that house?”
    “Probably. She was the apple of his eye. There used to be pictures of her on little white ponies all duded up in the movie magazines. What was her name?” Aunt Maggie tilted her head to one side as she tried to recall. “Libby! Little Miss Libby Loper! That’s what they’d put in the magazines. Little Miss Libby Loper.”
    “Can we go see the white horse?” asked Danny.
    “No, baby.  He's long gone by now.  I can’t think of anyone else in the family who would still be alive. Charlie Loper’s wife, Griselda, lived in the house in the ’70s until she died. Didn’t really see much of the daughter in those days. Strange.”
    “So who’s the guy?”
    “Don’t know.  If there’s any residual income from Charlie Loper’s films, it might be enough to support a person comfortably. I also heard he made a bundle off of some land in California. You know they did a remake of one of his movies about five years ago, and that would have brought in some big checks for her. With that kind of money coming in, he’s either a boyfriend or some sort of help she’s hired.”
    “But how can you live in a town the size of Pecan Bayou and never be seen?”
    “Makes you wonder,” Aunt Maggie said, “but it sounds