Assembly Day at St. Catherine's dawns bright and cloudless as professional women gather from all around Ohio to talk to the schoolgirls about their careers ranging from medicine, to NASA, to yoga. Jazz Ramsey has also signed up to give the girls a taste of her lifelong passion: cadaver dog training. Her adorable new puppy Wally hasn't been certified yet, so she borrows the fully-trained Gus from a friend and hides a few bones in the unused fourth floor of the school for him to find.
The girls are impressed when Gus easily finds the first bone, but then Gus heads confidently to a part of the floor where Jazz is sure no bones are hidden—at least, not any that she's put there. But Gus is a professional, and sure enough, behind a door that no one has opened in ages, is a human skeleton. Jazz recognizes the necklace the skeleton is wearing, and that it belonged to Bernadette Quinn, an ex-teacher at the school who'd quit her job abruptly one Christmas break. But now it seems Bernadette never left the school at all, and her hiding place makes it clear: this was murder.
Bernadette in life had been a difficult personality, and so there are a plethora of suspects inside the school and out of it. As Jazz gets closer to the truth she can't help but wonder if someone might be dogging her footsteps . . .
Release date:
May 5, 2020
Publisher:
St. Martin's Publishing Group
Print pages:
336
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Wally the puppy was a nineteen-pound ball of boundless energy with more sass than a three-year-old kid, and more common sense than one, too. He came when he was called, knew the names of his toys and fetched them on command, and he could sit and stay. At least when he felt like it.
He loved morning walks, afternoon hikes, and a jog around the neighborhood after dinner as long as it wasn’t too hot, too rainy, or the John Coltrane wannabe who played his saxophone over at the gazebo in the center of Lincoln Park wasn’t around. Wally wasn’t fond of bebop. He was mostly house-trained, except when he didn’t feel like going outside, mostly polite, except when a visitor didn’t scold him for chewing on fingers and clothing and Wally knew he could get away with it, and he was mostly well behaved.
Except when he wasn’t.
In the month since she’d gotten him, the puppy had become the light of Jazz Ramsey’s life, the dog of her heart she thought she’d never have again when Manny, her beloved golden retriever, died a little over a year earlier. Wally was also a constant reminder that though her relationship with Nick Kolesov, her former lover and the homicide detective who gave her Wally, was still rocky, as long as there were waggly tails and puppy kisses there was always hope.
Wally was square nosed, long legged, and as smart and smart-alecky as Airedales always are. He had a personality bigger than his puppy-sized brown and black body, and an interest in everyone he met and in everything within range of his sensitive nose or the reach of his paws or his mouth.
He was sleeping through the night now, thank goodness, but Jazz swore she was still catching up on the shut-eye she’d missed that first week when he carried on in his crate, sometimes for hours.
She was young, and thanks to the rigorous and rewarding work she did with human remains detection dogs, she was fit, too, but she was also exhausted.
She couldn’t remember a time she’d been happier.
The thought in mind and a spring in her step that hadn’t been there in the year before Wally made an appearance in her life, Jazz dropped her purse on her desk outside the principal’s office at St. Catherine’s Preparatory Academy for Girls and took a deep breath.
New day.
New beginnings.
Life was good.
“Well, I guess the little beast slept last night or you wouldn’t look so perky.”
Jazz had been so busy smiling at the framed photo of Wally on her desk, she hadn’t seen Sister Eileen Flannery sail into the school’s admin office. As usual, Eileen was wearing a dark suit and the TOMS shoes she swore were the only things that kept her feet comfortable enough to negotiate miles of school hallways every day. Her filmy cream and black scarf had just enough touches of rust in it to bring out the coppery highlights in Eileen’s short, stylish hair. At the same time Jazz admired her boss’s panache, she told herself her own black pants, white shirt, and beige linen jacket were professional enough for the day’s special occasion. Her shoulder-length brown hair was scooped back into a neat ponytail, her nails were polished (something she hardly ever did) with an understated, pinkish shade called Hawaiian Orchid, and her shoes …
Jazz glanced down at her black flats and cringed, then rubbed the toe of her right shoe against the back of her left pant leg. Yeah, like that would help buff out the marks left by a certain puppy’s needle-sharp teeth.
In the hopes that Eileen wouldn’t notice and think less of Wally because of it, Jazz ducked behind her desk and checked the time on her computer screen. She wasn’t surprised by the principal’s earlier-than-usual arrival. It was nearly the end of the school year and Assembly Day, an annual event and one of the highlights of the year, was upon them. In just a few hours the school would welcome women prominent in business, education, and government, speakers who’d talk to small groups of girls about everything from careers in science to summer job opportunities. Eileen and Jazz, the principal’s administrative assistant, would be running all day, and it was never too early to start.
“He’s a great dog,” she told Eileen, ignoring her shoes and adjusting the picture of Wally so it sat at just the right angle next to her computer. “He’s so easygoing, he’s great with people. My brother, Hal, and his girlfriend, Kaitlyn, stopped over last night and Wally treated them like long-lost friends.”
“Can finding human remains be far behind?”
Eileen was kidding, but she should have known better. Jazz had every hope Wally would be certified in human remains detection, just like Manny had been. “It might take a while until he’s completely trained,” she said. “But you know I’m going to try.”
“Don’t tell me; let me guess. You’ve already got the little guy sniffing decomposing body parts.” Eileen’s expression teetered somewhere between I’m trying to be interested and don’t tell me; I don’t want to know. Jazz couldn’t blame her. People were often uncomfortable hearing the details of Jazz’s volunteer work with cadaver dogs and Eileen, especially, had a reason for being queasy. Just two months before, Jazz and a dog she was training had found the body of a former St. Catherine’s student in an old building not far from the school.
It was that, more than anything, that made Jazz determined to put Eileen at ease.
“At this point I’m just exposing him to different scents,” she told the nun. “Teeth, bones—”
Eileen help up one hand to stop her from going any farther. “I get it.”
“Let’s hope Wally does. I’d love to work with him in the field. Fingers crossed he’s got the right temperament.” Jazz didn’t even need to think about what that meant. After ten years of working with HRD dogs, she knew Wally would have to meet all the requirements—loyal enough to follow her commands, independent enough to go off on his own to work a search, flexible enough to handle both urban and rural scenes, hardy enough to work in the field for hours at a time, in all kinds of weather. She’d teach Wally to be an air sniffer for those times the smell of decomposition was in the air, and he’d learn ground tracking, too, to trace cells that might drop from a body or be blown to the grass or soil by the wind.
The other handlers Jazz trained with came in as many shapes, sizes, and backgrounds as their dogs did. When it came to a cadaver dog, breed and pedigree didn’t make one bit of difference. What mattered most was that dog and handler alike were committed to the important work of finding the dead.
“He’s smart enough,” Jazz said, back on the subject of Wally because since the day she got him he was pretty much all she wanted to talk about. “He’s going to be the best!”
On her way into her office, Eileen patted Jazz’s shoulder. “You’ll make sure of that. For now—”
“The coffee and bagels should be here in just a couple minutes.” Jazz shook away the Wally infatuation and got down to business, motioning toward the tables set up along the wall at the far side of her office. Last thing the day before, she’d covered them in red and yellow tablecloths—St. Catherine’s school colors—and arranged white plates from the cafeteria on them along with red and yellow paper napkins, flatware, and bouquets of flowers that included red carnations, yellow daylilies, and purple irises, just for a little pop. “We’ll be ready by the time our speakers arrive.”
“And I know you’ve got the day’s schedule worked out down to the minute.”
It was printed and waiting on Jazz’s desk and she retrieved the list and waved it at Eileen. “Our speakers should start arriving in…” She checked the time on her phone. “One hour and thirteen minutes. I’ve got the speaker from NASA in the gym, the woman from Case medical school in the science lab, the attorney in the library, the yoga instructor in the art room. Sarah said it would provide the right vibe.”
Sarah Carrington was the art teacher at St. Catherine’s and Jazz’s best friend, and since both Jazz and Eileen knew she was also the most ethereal free-thinker on the planet and a big believer in things like the mojo of a place, they exchanged knowing smiles.
“All the other speakers and their rooms are listed, too,” Jazz told Eileen and handed her the paper. “We’ve got a full house, not one room open in any of the time slots.”
“The girls will love it.” It was what mattered to Eileen. That and the fact that she was helping in the formation of intelligent, independent, and confident young women. “You did…” Eileen’s smile thinned with skepticism. “You managed to get some of the girls to sign up for the talk in the chapel, didn’t you?”
“Religious vocations?” Jazz sighed. “Not the hottest topic on the agenda.”
Eileen’s grin was one-sided. “What? They don’t all want to grow up to be me?”
“They should be so lucky. But you’ve got to admit—”
“Yes, I know. Believe me, I get it. Obedience is bad enough. But the whole chastity thing … Well, it’s harder today than ever to get girls to think about religious life. There aren’t many of them anymore like—”
Eileen didn’t need to finish the sentence. They both knew who she was talking about, Bernadette Quinn, a teacher who’d left the school three years before.
“Bernadette should have been a nun,” Jazz reminded Eileen even though she didn’t have to. “She was—”
“Obsessed?”
“I was going to say devoted, but now that you mention it…”
It was all they needed to say about the subject. They both remembered the last, uncomfortable weeks Bernadette had taught religion at St. Catherine’s, the complaints from parents, the uneasiness of the other teachers who had to deal with Bernadette, the tears of the students who couldn’t live up to Bernadette’s impossible standards.
But then, Bernadette had never been able to live up to those standards, either.
“I wonder what ever happened to her.” The words escaped her before Jazz could stop them and she could have kicked herself. Assembly Day was all about energy, all about excitement. Thinking about those last weeks and the discord holier-than-thou (or anybody else) Bernadette caused at St. Catherine’s should have had no part of it.
Talk about mojo!
Jazz swished away the bad vibes with the wave of one hand and offered a confession. “I got girls to sign up for the religious vocation talk because I convinced Tina Carlson to offer extra credit in Religion to anyone who agreed to attend the chapel talks.”
If she expected Eileen to criticize the strategy, she was wrong. A knowing smile, a wink, and Eileen went into her office.
The next hour was as hectic as early mornings always were at St. Catherine’s, with parents calling girls out for sickness, girls stopping into the office to retrieve lost items, others running late and rushing past the office just as the last bell was about to ring. By the time it had and the girls were in their homerooms, the coffee and bagels were delivered and their speakers were gathered. The sounds of their conversation echoed back from the fifteen-foot-high ceilings of Jazz’s office.
St. Catherine’s was located in the Cleveland neighborhood of Tremont, once the home of dozens of different ethnic groups, people from all over the world who’d come to Cleveland at the end of the nineteenth century to labor in its factories. The building had once been a Russian Orthodox seminary, and though it had been remodeled when Eileen spearheaded its transformation into the most prestigious girls’ school in the area, it still retained its old-world charm. The scientist from NASA chatted with the attorney and Eileen near the bookcases with leaded-glass doors. The yoga instructor and Sarah, who was the one who’d recommended her as one of the speakers, laughed together over near the windows that looked out across the street and Lincoln Park, the eight-acre green space in the center of the neighborhood.
It was the perfect setting and everything was going well. Except …
Jazz took a look around the room, did a quick tally, and caught Eileen’s eye, and the principal excused herself from her conversation and came over. “What?”
“Sister Dorothea Baker.” Jazz poked a finger against the nun’s name on her list of speakers. “No sign of her.”
Eileen chomped down the last of a cinnamon raisin bagel, freeing up her hands so she could give Jazz an unconcerned shrug.
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