“You know about Hyacinth already?”
I gave me a small smile. “I believe there’s already a billboard on Dogwood Street.”
I groaned.
“It’s a miracle you found her when you did.”
“It is,” I said. “I’d actually gone there looking for Doug.”
“Doug?”
“He had driven her home from the Delphinium.”
“That’s right,” he said, holding up a wait-a-sec finger as he used a stethoscope to listen to Louella’s heart and lungs. He finished and picked up the conversation. “I’ve done the same many times.”
“Do you think she’s an alcoholic?” I asked.
“I think she overindulges, especially when she’s upset. Lately, that’s a lot.”
He crossed the room to grab supplies from a cabinet, and pipe tobacco wafted in his wake.
It stung my nose, at once stirring a memory . . . I tried desperately to tease it from the back corners of my mind.
“Well, I can’t say I blame her,” I finally said. “There’s been a lot to get upset about lately, between being blackmailed and her boyfriend being murdered.”
“An understatement,” he said, then added, “Louella’s dehydrated. I’ll have to start an IV, okay?”
I realized he was asking because I was her owner. “Yes, yes. Do whatever it takes.”
“It’s good you called when you did. She could go a few days without food, but dehydration gets serious really fast.”
“So she’ll be okay?”
“Just fine. A transition to a new home is often traumatic for animals. She needs time to adjust. She’ll come around.”
I leaned my head back against the wall and took a deep breath. I felt the sting of tears in my eyes and willed them away.
“Do you need some water?” he asked, walking past me again.
The woodsmoke. That pipe tobacco scent . . . The combination was familiar, yet I couldn’t quite place it.
I rubbed my eyes. “I’m okay. It’s just been three of the longest days of my entire life.”
He prepped Louella’s paw for the IV. “Idella mentioned you were trying to help clear Patricia’s name?”
I couldn’t tell him my main goal had been to help Haywood, so I said, “I thought it would help patch our relationship. It didn’t work out so well.”
“Because she’s guilty?”
I laughed. “No, because she hates me.”
I thought about Twilabeth and nearly groaned again.
“I don’t think that’s true,” he said, carefully inserting the catheter into Louella’s paw.
“You’re a nice man. Blind but nice. It doesn’t matter anyway. She’s made it clear that she doesn’t want my help.”
He glanced up. “Yet, you were looking for Doug tonight.”
I shrugged. “It’s complicated.”
“Not in Barbara Jean’s eyes,” he said, smiling again.
Geez. “She told you?”
“She told Idella, who told me.”
“I can admit when I’m wrong. I was off base about Doug and the blackmail.” I wasn’t ready to let him off the hook for hitting Virgil, however. Not yet. I trusted Virgil’s account of what had happened more than Hyacinth’s. I figured Doug had driven Hyacinth home that fateful night. But I couldn’t figure out why she thought she killed Virgil.
He prepped a syringe. “I’ll need to keep Louella here tonight. You’ll be able to pick her up tomorrow.”
Strangely, I didn’t want to leave her. “What about her fur?”
I inhaled deeply, still trying to reach that elusive memory. When it hit me, it hit me hard, and I was glad I was sitting down.
I’d smelled the pipe tobacco and smoke combo in Haywood’s study the day after he’d been killed.
I blinked at Doc Gabriel. He had to have visited that study a short time before I did for me to have picked up the pipe tobacco scent.
Had he been the one to burn the letters? After all, he carried matches to light his pipe.
Was he the blackmailer?
“A stress reaction. It’ll grow back, good as new. Mine did.” He smiled and patted his hair. “And this is just a couple of months’ worth. I was bald as cue ball last spring, remember?”
His hair had grown in full and thick, with a little wave to it, too, which I heard was common after losing hair due to cancer treatments. Before he’d lost it all, his brown hair had been thin and limp.
Wait a sec.
He’d been bald as a cue ball last spring. I thought back. Yes, he’d been bald in May. My brain raced, trying to connect random dots. I didn’t like the picture they created.
I abruptly stood up. “I should get going. Louella’s in good hands with you. Thank you so much for treating her tonight. It’s late. Dylan’s waiting on me.”
He tossed his gloves in the trash. “I thought the theory you told Barbara Jean about Doug killing Haywood was a good one.”
Warning tingles went down my back. “Well, thanks. You’re the only one who thinks so.”
I reached for the door, and he grabbed my arm. “You just had the wrong man.”
I glanced at his arm. “What’re you talking about?”