Dog in the Manger — Ursula Curtiss

Not until they heard her will read did Mrs. Ivy's stunned niece and two nephews realize that their elderly and very deaf aunt must have been wearing a hearing aid the night they came to dinner. Overhearing their spiteful remarks, she had left them only token bequests. Dowdy Cousin Hattie received Mrs. Ivy's house, her little watchdog Roger, and as Roger's guardian, a very handsome annuity.

The three Aintrees were not the only ones to suffer from the terms of the will, however. Strangers would be drawn into a web of terror and murder. Nineteen-year-old Deborah Kingsley, the night attendant at the local emergency animal clinic, opened the door to a caller and died instantly from gunshot wounds. Belinda Grace, who had taken a temporary job at the clinic, hoping to elude a psychotic admirer found herself suddenly involved in some alarming happenings. Unfortunately Lieutenant Hallam of the police made a dangerous mistake when he blamed Deborah's murder on a deranged client of the clinic. But then the killer had made a mistake -- a fatal one.