Chapter 1

Late October, Friday Morning…

After a lovely night's sleep and a lazy morning inside, Doreen decided to treat herself to Chinese food. Mack was due to come by for lunch, and she thought maybe she could pick up enough for both of them. She had a little bit more money at the moment, and, besides, after the last case closed, she deserved it.

She was pretty sure food therapy wasn't a good thing to get used to, but it was awfully tempting to just keep turning to food every time something good was going on. As she walked down to the Chinese food restaurant that she loved so much, animals in tow, she stepped inside and looked at the menu, just as Mr. Woo came out from the back and asked, "One dish?"

She smiled at him. "Hey, I was hoping to get a couple dishes."

"You always get one dish."

"I'll have company this time," she replied.

"Ah, two dishes."

She winced. "Maybe three."

He looked at her. "Big spender." But his face was splitting into a big smile.

"Not really." Finally settling on three dishes that would hopefully fill her and Mack, she placed her order. With lots of money coming, she wondered if she would ever get used to spending it.

"You wait fifteen minutes." Then he shooed her out the door.

She went outside and sat down on a bench. All kinds of noises came from all around the place. A normal city day. As she sat here, she sniffed the air and smiled.

Mack had plenty of work to do at Meredith's place, but they had unearthed Dennis yesterday, much to everybody's relief. So, of course, Kelowna was just abuzz with all the news. Doreen didn't really want to get caught up in too much of it, but there was only so much she could avoid.

She'd talked for hours with Nan on the phone but had resisted going down to Rosemoor, pleading tiredness. Even now, as she sat here with the animals all around her, she was feeling pretty whomped. But it was a good tiredness.

Goliath wandered over to a shrub and disappeared behind it. She stood up and walked over. "Goliath, come back," she ordered. His head poked through the bush, looked at her, and then he disappeared into a huge cluster of yarrow plants. She smiled at the multicolored flowers.

"Look at the size of those blooms. I've heard you can make tea out of that stuff." She wondered whether that was an old wives' tale or something she could trust. She'd come a long way, but she still had a way to go in terms of knowing what she could do and couldn't do with plants. Google helped, but it also confused her more often than not.

When Goliath started to hiss and snarl, Doreen raced into the shrubbery, looking for him. "Come out of there," she called to him. She found other flowers, dandelions, and one azalea bush, but this cluster of yarrow seemed to go on and on along the back into another corner. She kept following it. "Goliath? Goliath, come here."

Thaddeus poked his head out from behind her curtain of hair. "Goliath," he called out. "Goliath. Goliath, come here."

She glared at him. "You could have told me that you could call him earlier," she muttered.

"He, he, he, he, he," he snickered at her side.

She just sighed. What was she supposed to do when Thaddeus was so completely wise and yet such a little snot sometimes?

"Goliath!" Another howl came, and that was followed by a different animal sound, and all of a sudden the air was filled with cat cries. Doreen raced in that direction, and then out came a spindly-looking cat, who glared at her and sauntered off. Goliath finally came out, strode toward her, his tail up and all puffed out, having had quite a battle. Yet he was strutting, as if he had won the spoils of the war. And something was in his mouth.

Doreen groaned. "What did you find?" she scolded. "Who did you steal it from?"

Of course the other cat was gone, and there was no further sign of him.

Goliath didn't need to steal food from anybody, as he had plenty of food at home. But, as he approached her, he stood up on his back legs and put his front paws on her thighs, and she saw something plastic in his mouth. She snatched it from his mouth. He didn't want to let it go right away, but eventually he released it.

She looked at it and gasped. "Where did you get this?" she cried out in horror. She raced around to the back of the garden and stopped. She pulled out her phone, and her voice was shaking.

"What's the matter, Doreen?" Mack teased. "I told you that I'll be there in a little bit."

"No, no," she cried out. "You need to come now."

"Doreen, what's the matter?" he snapped. "Are you okay?"

She took a deep breath. "I'm okay, at least for the moment, but I'm not going to be okay for long."

"Stop making cryptic comments, and tell me what's going on."

"You need to come to Mr. Woo's Chinese restaurant. I was buying lunch for you and me, and I was waiting for it to walk back home because you were supposed to be there."

"Yes, I'm in the vehicle heading your way. What's the matter?"

"Meet me here now, please." And, with that, she ended the call.

It seemed like an hour, but it was probably not even five minutes before Mack whipped into the parking lot.

He saw her, hopped out, and came running over. "What's the matter?" he cried out.

She stepped back a bit and pointed, and then she held out the plastic item in her hand. "Goliath brought me this, so I went and took a look."

He looked at what was in her hand, frowned, and stepped around the corner. He came back, his face grim. "This is all Goliath brought you?"

She nodded slowly. "Isn't that enough?" she asked. "That's Mathew's driving license," she cried out. "And that's Mathew in that garden bed, isn't it?"

Mack nodded ever-so-slowly, his gaze intense and searching. "I'm sorry, Doreen."

"Sorry won't quite cut it right now," she declared, staring at him. "Somebody killed Mathew."

"Yes. Do you realize what this means?"

She nodded. "Oh, I know what it means. I'm suspect number one."