Aleksa Baxter - A Missing Mom and Mutt Munchies

Maggie May and Miss Fancypants Mysteries

A Dead Man and Doggie Delights

A Crazy Cat Lady and Canine Crunchies

A Buried Body and Barkery Bites

A Missing Mom and Mutt Munchies

A Sabotaged Celebration and Salmon Snaps

A Poisoned Past and Puppermints

Nosy Newfie Holiday Shorts

Halloween at the Baker Valley Barkery & Cafe

A Missing Mom and Mutt Munchies

A Maggie May and Miss Fancypants Mystery

Aleksa Baxter

A Missing Mom and Mutt Munchies

Chapter One

"Where's Fancy?" I asked my grandpa as I toweled my long blonde hair dry with one hand and rooted in the fridge for a Coke with the other. Normally when I took a shower she went to sleep at his feet, but he was seated at the kitchen table and there was no sign of Fancy anywhere.

He set aside his pen and half-completed crossword puzzle and reached for his non-existent cigarettes. (He'd stopped smoking when my grandma got sick, but lifelong habits don't die easy. He'd started smoking when he was twelve so that made close to seventy years of reaching for that pack of cigarettes tucked away in the breast pocket of his tried and true flannel shirt.)

"Where do you think, Maggie May?" He nodded towards the hallway that led to the backyard.

I sighed. "Bunnies."

"Rabbits. And wouldn't be a problem if you'd let me take care of 'em."

"You are not going to shoot a bunch of bunnies, Grandpa. One, because the neighbors would probably call the cops on you for using a gun in your backyard. Two, because even if they didn't, the police station is only a few blocks away and there's at least one cop there who would love to throw you in jail. And, three, because they're bunnies. Who shoots bunnies?"

"A homeowner who wants to protect the foundation of his house from varmint, that's who." He leaned back in his chair and glared me down.

I crossed my arms and glared right back at him. "They are not varmint. They're bunnies."

"They're rabbits. And where there are two rabbits there are ten and then a hundred."

"We are not going to have a hundred rabbits. There are what, two, living back there?"

"More than that." He took a long sip of coffee, still glaring at me.

I just shook my head. "They're bunnies, Grandpa. No shooting, poisoning, or otherwise harming them."

As I made my way towards the backyard I wondered what I'd done in my thirty-six years of life to warrant my current situationliving with my eighty-two-year-old grandpa who most definitely did not feel a need for me to take care of him (although his predilection for using guns when he shouldn't indicated maybe he was wrong about that), running a not-yet-successful caf and barkery in a small Colorado tourist town with my best friend (who had decided it was the perfect time to fall in love and get married), and trying to keep my precocious three-year-old Newfoundland, Miss Fancypants, from inadvertently killing a bunny in her desire to "play" with it.

This was nothing like the life I'd had just a few months before in Washington, DC. And even though it was one I'd chosen for myself, it wasn't exactly peaches and cream.

Was it too much to ask that my grandpa actually need my help, that my business actually thrive, that my best friend not go and get all moony over some guy, and that my sweet-natured dog not turn into a stone-cold bunny killer?

I mean, honestly.

I stepped out on the back porch and spared a moment to admire the clear blue sky and the mountain covered in evergreens and aspen tress that rose behind my grandpa's housea view worth all the frustrations in the world. But I didn't take too deep a breath. That time of year there was a yellow-flowered weed of some sort that grew all around and smelled decidedly musky.

Fancy was stationed on the bottom section of the ramp that led off the porch, her one hundred and forty pounds of furry bulk squeezed across the space over the last two slats. She was crammed in there so tight I wasn't sure how she was going to manage to stand back up.

She looked up with a "please help me" look and a small whine before returning to licking the slats and snuffling at the space between them.

I sighed. "Fancy"

I could never decide whether she was licking the slats because she wanted to make friends with the little furry creatures hiding underneath, or because she wanted to eat them. I'm honestly not sure she knew.

Whichever it was, I was just glad they were separated from her by two slats of very sturdy Trex decking. And glad, too, that my grandpa hadn't used wood to build the ramp or we'd be making frequent emergency trips to the vet to have splinters removed from Fancy's tongue.

I'd tried putting a welcome mat over the end of the ramp but she just pawed it away so she could get closer to the bunnies.

I was about to shove Fancy off the bottom of the ramp and tell her to go play in the yard and "leave it"a command she usually obeyedwhen I looked past her.

There in the grass, hunkered down not a foot away from Fancy, was a tiny little bunny about the size of my closed fist. It met my eyes and hunched its shoulders, pressing itself closer to the ground, not even smart enough to run away when it should.

I laughed. Once.

I know. I'm horrible, but I couldn't help it. There Fancy was, frantically licking at the slats on the ramp, crying her head off as she tried to get to the bunnies underneath it, and right behind her was one of the very bunnies she was looking for.

Fancy looked at me again and cried, pawing at the slats with both feet like she could somehow dig through the decking.

"Treat?" I said, hoping to lure her inside.

Her head tilted a bit at the magic word but then she went back to snuffling at the spot between the slats. Seemed there was something Fancy liked more than food. Who knew?

"I bet there isn't even a bunny under there, you big goof." I sat down next to her and peered between the slats, expecting to see nothing, but right there on the far right side was just a hint of brindled fur. So two bunnies. At least. Seemed my grandpa was right.

(And I should mention here that I call all rabbits bunnies. It's a quirk I have. To me rabbits belong on a fancy dinner menu at some four-star restaurant. Bunnies are the cute little things that infest your yard with their furry white tails and complete lack of survival skills.)

I stood up. "Come on, Fancy. Let's go inside."

She didn't budge.

Since she doesn't wear a collar at home I grabbed her by the ruff of her neck and tried to pull her towards the door. She cried out like I was torturing her and rolled onto her back.

Which was not an act of surrender, I might add, although it might look like it to the uninitiated. Oh no, Fancy and her rolling on her back because she doesn't want to go somewhere is straight out of the pacifist playbook.

It's like she's saying, "Look, I'm showing you my belly and making it so you can't actually get ahold of me to move me anywhere. Why don't you just give up on what you had planned and pet me instead?"

Normally at that point I would've started a countdown because I was not about to fall for that one, but unfortunately the foolish little bunny that had decided to hang out a foot from a very large predator chose that moment to make a run for it.

Away from the ramp.

Fancy scrambled to her feet and chased after it while I chased after her shouting "Leave it" as loud as I coulda command that had absolutely no effect on Fancy because there was a small scurrying thing running along the ground and she was no longer an overweight domesticated house pet but instead a descendent of wolves who needed to catch her prey or else risk starving to death.