Read Online The Nose Knows by Holly L. Lewitas - Free Book Online Page B

happen to Mom.
    Finally, Mom’s voice won out. Mr. Cartwright did not fire his gun. Mom convinced him no one needed to die that day. She wrapped her arm around his shoulders and helped him walk through the door and surrender. The police took him away. Mom walked through the same door, but she walked away from that office and everything and everyone connected to it.
    It had taken her years to drag herself back to caring about patients again. Now she was actually going to go downtown and hold a session. This time I’d help her.
    Mom and I arrived thirty minutes before the session. Mom said she wanted plenty of time to just get comfortable. First we went to the space she’d be using. It was exactly as she had set it up months ago. I could tell from the scents left behind that people had been in the office. But when Mom remarked that the cleaning people had done a good job, I figured it must be them that I smelled.
    Mom then unlocked the door between the two offices, and we entered the office that the clients use. I tried to sort out Melanie’s scent from the other females that used this space. Hard to do since I’d never smelled any of them. It’d be easy if we’d come into this office after her session. Then the freshest scent in the room would belong to her and easy to discern. Besides, the staleness of the scents there was another problem. There was one over-powering aroma—chickens! Sure enough, one of Mom’s clients must have spent a lot of time with a whole bunch of chickens. This made no sense, because the chicken scent was mingled with a male’s scent and currently the only male client that logged in from this office was Mr. Perkins. And he was an attorney! What he had to do with chickens was beyond me.
    I could’ve done more investigative work, but Mom said it was time to move back into the other office. Mom’s breathing stayed accelerated and her left leg jiggled for the entire session with Melanie. But she did it! She made it though her first session outside her home in over eleven years. Melanie didn’t seem to notice Mom’s heightened anxiety level. But then she was not sitting on Mom’s jiggling lap like I was. Mom had clung to me the entire time.
    I wish I’d been on her lap eleven years ago.

A lmost two months later, Mom and Jacob were still enjoying seeing each other at Puppy Park. However, the problem remained; Jacob was still hiding behind his wedding ring. According to Quincy, Jacob did take off the ring at home. He’d walk into the house, hang up his keys, empty his pocket change into the jar, and then slip the ring off his finger. He’d put it next to his watch and credit cards on the dresser. Quincy said there were even days when he came home from work and the ring was already in his pocket. However, whenever he was going to a social event, or to Puppy Park, he always put the ring back on.
    Maybe his ring was like my favorite blanket, it made him feel safer. When Mom asked about his wife, Jacob said her name was Janice and she was a dental hygienist. When Mom asked why his wife never came to the park, Jacob told her about Janice’s allergies. According to Quincy, all that was true, except for one significant detail—Janice was no longer Jacob’s wife.
    This man had some serious trust issues. We decided it was time to force the situation. We needed to get that wedding ring permanently off of Jacob’s finger. But how? Quincy had already tried knocking it off the dresser several times, but Jacob always retrieved it.
    Bobby was the one who came up with our new plan. It involved dead fish.
    He’d gotten the idea one night when Mom forgot to take out the garbage. Earlier that day, she’d thrown away some raw fish scraps. Bobby was well aware they were in there. He’d tried his best to communicate to Mom that his stomach would be a much better place for them. Mom heard him correctly, but she didn’t do what he wanted. “No sir, you’ve had enough for now.” The scraps went into the