Crying, I can handle. Emotional customers are not a rarity in The Treasure Chest, my store. They wander the section devoted to pet memorial items and sob over their dearly departed fur babies. That I can cope with. I hand customers a box of tissues and commiserate. I, too, have lost beloved pets—and I assume that’s grief they are experiencing.

However, Walter Beaton was not crying. Walter was ranting, raving, yelling, cursing, and generally being unpleasant. He was a little goblin of a man with a pot belly, watery blue eyes, and a thick mane of white hair. He also had a potty mouth. In fact, he was tipping toward unhinged, and frankly, that scared me. Especially when Walter threatened to disembowel his veterinarian. As he stood in the middle of my sales floor with spittle flying from his mouth, Walter began running off my customers.

I couldn’t blame them. If I’d had the option of leaving, I would have. But I didn’t. The Treasure Chest is my bread-and-butter, and as such it provides me with ongoing income by selling upcycled, recycled, and repurposed goods with a coastal vibe. Leaving Walter to fuss and fume would have been both cowardly and costly. So I gritted my teeth and tried to make soothing sounds.

“Mr. Beaton, I am incredibly saddened by your news. I’m sure that your dog, um…” and I paused because I couldn’t remember the dog’s name. Could it possibly be BS? Had I misunderstood? Walter’s disjointed commentary had been hard to follow.

“BS,” Beaton supplied. “Stands for Beaton’s Sugarland, an AKC Champion Shih Tzu. He was Best in Show at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show two years ago.”

As a proud owner of rescue pups, that didn’t mean diddly-squat to me. Obviously, it did to Walter Beaton, so I said, “Um, I’m sure your dog, BS, was a wonderful pet.” The words were out of my mouth when I wondered if anyone had given those unfortunate initials—BS—a second thought.

“If you mean like a cuddly companion or a four-legged best friend, you are barking up the wrong tree,” Beaton yelled.

“Okay,” I said, wondering if he realized the pun he’d made. What did Walter Beaton mean when he said his fur baby wasn’t a cuddly companion or a four-legged best friend? I tried once again to offer my condolences. “Any pet lover would commiserate with you over the loss of companionship.”

Throwing back his head and hooting, Walter said, “Companionship? Ha, ha. That’s rich. That dog was not my companion! He wasn’t even my friend! Do you know that if I got up in the middle of the night to use the john, I had to call my wife on her cell phone and get her to grab hold of him before I climbed back into bed? Otherwise, Sugarland would bite me. Hard. See the scars?”

He pulled up a sleeve to show me a series of white crescent marks running up his forearm. The man had been bitten repeatedly.

“That little monster was vicious. Don’t get me wrong: BS loved my wife, but that dog only tolerated me. And I tolerated him because he made me a bundle of dough-ray-mee as a stud. Introduce him to a female dog in heat and he would get busy like—”

“Walter? I could use some cold water. Can I get a bottle for you? Hmm?”

Walter crooked a finger at me and whispered, “You wouldn’t happen to have anything stronger, would you?”

I shook my head.

“All right. Bring me the water. As long as it’s cold.”

I excused myself and escaped to my back room. When I returned I offered the cold bottle of water to Walter Beaton. He drank the contents down quickly. “This all you’ve got?”

I thought he’d gone back to questions about my liquor cabinet. But no, he was gesturing at our selection of pet memorial items: a picture frame with paw prints, a generic photo album that could have the pet’s name added, a charm that could be inscribed, and a small plaque with a sentiment about all pets going to heaven.

“If you’re asking if these are all the pet memorial items we carry, the answer is yes,” I said. I realized how paltry the offerings were. When people lost a pet, they experienced powerful emotions. We needed to stock merchandise that allowed them to vent.

“Huh,” he said as he shoved his empty water bottle at me. “I heard you were a savvy marketer. You don’t know anything about losing a pet, lady!”

That wasn’t true at all. But I knew better than to argue with a grieving customer. “I’m sorry we disappointed you, Mr. Beaton,” was the best I could do.

After he left, I sent a text message to all of my employees. We need to expand our pet memorial section. Any and all ideas are welcome!

Sand Trapped, A Cara Mia Delgatto Mystery #6
Genre: Cozy
Release: May 2021
Purchase Link

Cara Mia Delgatto was looking for a lost ball when she found Jocelyn “JJ” Johnson face down in a sand trap. The discovery gave a whole new meaning to “take a drop.” JJ was universally disliked, but seriously. Who hated her so much that they’d take a chance on ruining an expensive golf club by smacking JJ in the back of the head? Cara doesn’t plan to get involved, but when an innocent woman is unfairly accused, Cara can’t sit on the sidelines. The intrepid amateur sleuth promises to take a swing at the problem and see if she can hit a long drive down the fairway of justice!

About the author
Joanna Campbell Slan is a New York Times Bestselling, USA Today Bestselling, and Amazon Bestselling author as well as a woman prone to frequent bursts of crafting frenzy, leaving her with burns from her hot glue gun and paint on her clothes. And the mess? Let’s not even go there. Currently she writes five fiction series: The Kiki Lowenstein Mystery Series (Agatha Award Finalist, contemporary, St. Louis setting, crafting), the Cara Mia Delgatto Mystery Series (contemporary, Florida setting, DIY and recycling), the Jane Eyre Chronicles (Daphne du Maurier Award Winner, 1830s England, based on Charlotte Brontë’s classic), the Sherlock Holmes Fantasy Thrillers (late 1800s, based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s books), and the Zen Cozy Mystery Series (launch 2021). Visit her at jcslan.

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