1 PAWsible Suspects (4 page)

I went through my spiel about how Della had told me that when she and Perry didn’t feel well, they went to the doggie doctor. Since Della had no idea of the man’s name, I had to call through the phone book until I found the vet who had treated Perry. She rolled her eyes a bit when I told the set-up for the story, but she looked impressed that I’d thought of calling vets. The police certainly hadn’t bothered with it.

The basic truth that she didn’t want to admit was that some people are animal people and others are not. I was an animal person. Always had been. Pets had been my lifeline when my sister had disappeared. All the days when I didn’t want to see people, I still wanted to see my dog and cat. Even now, there were many days when my pets were better company than the humans around me.

This police detective didn’t understand that level of devotion. She was thinking of a nice Fido who slept at the end of the bed and got fed twice a day. She thought of the family pet as a pet, not as part of the family.

As long as that remained her perspective, I was going to have an edge on her in this investigation. Ruby Jenkins would no sooner have left her dogs with the front door open than I would let Bruno play in the street. If the police didn’t understand this mindset, then they’d be likely to think that Ruby was in the same place as my sister.

“What’s going to become of the dogs?” she finally asked me when I was done.

“I can’t keep them forever, but for now, they’ll stay with me,” I replied, watching the two Scotties eye the woman nervously. They were smart enough to recognize who liked them and who didn’t.

She just nodded. “That’s fine then. We know where to find them if we have any more questions for them.” She flipped open the case with her badge in it and pulled out a piece of pasteboard. “Here’s my card. Call me if you find out anything else, though I really should remind you that this is an open police investigation, and you are legally bound to stay out of it.”

I smiled at her. “I wasn’t looking for Ruby. I was looking for Perry. Don’t you see how much more relaxed Della looks with him here? She’s like a new dog.” Indeed, Della had curled up on the sofa, watching me as I spoke. Perry was still off somewhere investigating the house. Bruno was likely leading the tour of the place.

“That’s a pretty fine distinction between the two. Just keep your distance. But if something happens, you can call me. Anytime.”

I wasn’t sure how to take that last word. Had there really been something more than professional courtesy when she said that? I stood there, wondering what was going on. It had been a year or so since I’d had a real date, and frankly I was slow on the uptake regarding cues from the opposite sex.

She smiled. “Yeah, it’s what you think I meant. Geez, maybe you should get your dogs to explain it.”

“They’ve been neutered and spayed. They’ve missed out on the whole dating rituals thing,” I said flippantly. “They sniff a butt or two, and then they want to go home.”

She nodded. “Looks like you might have missed out too.”

She was probably right. I had missed out on some of the dating rituals. My parents had been overly cautious with me after my sister disappeared. Dates with girls whose families we didn’t know was strictly forbidden unless a parent drove. It made for many an awkward evening with girls who didn’t understand the mindset of my parents. Looking back, I wasn’t sure that I did either.

I looked down at the card. Her name was Sheila Green, and there were contact numbers at home, at work and a cell – along with an email address. She definitely wanted to be in touch.

She gave me an appraising glance when I looked at her again. “You would be kind of cute if you cleaned up a little, bothered to match once in a while.”

“Unlike you, I don’t have a need for matching pantsuits. I’m fine the way I am.” I did wonder what she meant. In making myself less conspicuous, I likely had not taken care of my appearance, but I didn’t want to be targeted in any way for the way I looked. Drab was the color of transparency and anonymity.

She just looked at me and then turned away. I opened the door for her to leave and locked it afterwards. No use in being unsafe.

I tried to get the Scotties into our daily rituals, but they were having none of it. Even though they would lose in a three-to-two battle in the current household, I would have laid odds on their determination. Stubborn was the nicest word to describe them.

So they practically told me what to do. Ruby must have fed them early, because they were trying to herd me into the kitchen by 5:30 in the morning. Bruno will always eat and The Countess gets dry food whenever she wants, so I was okay with feeding them. I decided that rather than trying to put them into my routine, I would see what they normally did. This would give me some insight into Ruby’s routine and maybe give me some other avenues of investigation. At 8pm, they wanted a treat of some sort. I tried three different ones but none of them satisfied the dogs. When I went to bed at eleven, they went to bed with me, sleeping on the opposite, empty side of my queen-sized bed.

It must have been close to two hours later, when I heard a strange noise. At first, I assumed that it was just the sounds of new dogs in the house, but I turned to face the other direction and saw that both dogs were still sound asleep on the other side of the bed. I saw Bruno in his bed, and The Countess never made noises like this.

I had two things going for me if this was an intruder. The first was that I kept a bat under the bed. My parents had prepped the two remaining children on preparedness and surviving an attack. The second had been my own way of coping with the loss. I’d become a black belt in tae kwon do. The surprising thing to me about martial arts was that it taught you to avoid conflict rather than seek it out. That was a message I had needed to hear. I’d gone there to kick everyone’s ass and instead came out a philosopher.

The dogs didn’t seem to mind that I got out of bed with a bat. They both rested contentedly in the bed and barely raised their heads to see me tiptoe to the door. I was glad to see that they were comfortable here, but I wanted some of that territorial instinct now.

While I had been telling myself that this was all the product of my overly active imagination, what I saw proved me wrong. The beam of a flashlight hit the doorframe and moved on down the hall. I froze. This was exactly the scenario which had been drilled into my head from the day my sister had vanished: the nighttime intruder who snatched you up. Now he was in my house. At least I assumed it was a man given the years of hearing the abductor called a man in my house.

I tried to breathe slowly, but I couldn’t. I felt like the hero of a Poe story, where all you could hear was the beating of a heart. My heart felt like it would explode. I’d built my entire life around an event like this, and it had come to pass, because I hadn’t kept my head down.

The beam of light grew closer. I could tell approximately where the intruder stood and how far he was from me. I wasn’t going to try to negotiate or ask questions. I was going to attack now and worry about the details later.

The beam grew closer, and I brought the bat up. I was ready to strike when Bruno ran across the hallway and into the spare room. The light stopped and turned in my direction. I had no choice but to attack. I wasn’t quite sure where the intruder was, but I came out swinging. I swung wildly, not hitting anything with the first three misses. The fourth swing hit something hard, and I heard a noise come out of the intruder.

Like playing a game of Battleship, I knew approximately where he was and started swinging to all sides of the first hit. I connected again and then a third time. While I was preparing to hit him again, the intruder’s flashlight swung and hit me on the side of the head.

You really do see little yellow stars when you get hit hard enough. I staggered back but kept the bat poised for another hit. I had thought that I had done some damage to the man, but if he could still hit like that, either I wasn’t hitting hard enough or he had superpowers of some sort.

“Give me the Scotties, and no one gets hurt,” said a voice I didn’t recognize. It was definitely male and had the accent of a true Toledo resident.

“Too late,” I said as I swung again. This time, I must have hit a bone because the flashlight skidded down the hall, and the house grew dark. My eyes had gotten used to the level of light from the flashlight, and now I couldn’t see a thing.

I heard more cursing, and so I figured that I’d done some damage. I was proud of myself. I had kept my head so far and hadn’t panicked or let the person do any real harm to me. I thought that my sister would be proud of me, wherever she was.

The man started shuffling down the hall. From the sound of the footsteps, he was trying to get away from me. I had the upper hand if he didn’t want to be here anymore. At least, he would think twice before trying to break into my house again.

I moved into a sparring position as I went into the hall. I kept the bat in my hands, which looked odd from a martial arts perspective, but given that I didn’t know if the intruder was armed, it was best to be prepared. I continued down the hall, though apparently at a slower pace than the intruder had. By the time I made it to the front door, he had vanished. The dogs had all decided to get into the fun of it, and I had three dogs barking at the broken window as I tried to call Detective Green. She’d said anytime, though I doubted she had really expected a 1am call the very evening that she gave me the card.

She answered in a monotone voice on the third ring. I explained my situation, and the voice went into professional mode. She said that a car would be right out, and she’d be there within 25 minutes.

True to her word, the car was there in minutes. Two uniformed officers walked around the perimeter of the house, took a few notes, and came inside to escape the cold. I had brewed a pot of coffee and played hostess to them.

The older one spoke. “Definitely a break-in. We can track the footprints from the sidewalk to the window. Having a foot of snow on the ground makes it easy to follow the footprints. The panes are broken near the latch, so the window could be raised. Was anything taken?”

I shook my head. Even though I hadn’t done an inventory of what little I owned, I knew that he hadn’t come for my meager possessions. He had wanted the dogs and hadn’t worried about being explicit in that demand. I couldn’t imagine what was so urgent about the dogs that someone would break into the house for them. I decided to look into their pedigree. Maybe they were champion show dogs, hiding undercover, the way I did. It was possible. Ruby had said that she had a fortune invested in those dogs. I wondered if that was really true.

The two officers didn’t have much to say after that. I gave them a short run down of what had happened while they took notes and filled out forms. I’d almost given up hope that Sheila would be coming out that night when there was a knock at the door. I perked up as I saw her in the doorway.

“So what have you been up to?” she eyed the two officers who looked pretty comfortable at this point. “What’s the story?”

The older one spoke again, and only checking his notes once, gave her an accurate recount of what they’d seen and what I’d said. I had to admit that I was impressed. He’d succinctly summarized what I’d said.

She nodded. “Anything else you want to add to that?”

My mind was racing from the attack still, and I let my mouth take control. “Just that it’s becoming very clear that this isn’t a case of Ruby just going off and leaving her dogs. The person here tonight came for the dogs. He said so. I’m guessing that means that he’s the same one who went to Ruby’s house. There’s either an incredible number of criminal men in this case, or one man is doing all of this. I lean towards the one man theory.”

She gave me a wan smile. Perhaps that was the best she could do at 3am. My mind was still racing, but she hadn’t taken a baseball bat to someone who broke into the house in the middle of the night. Whoever it was hadn’t counted on my particular set of issues.

“What will you do?” I asked, hoping for action, but not knowing specifically what that would be.

“We’ll talk to the family again. We’ll talk to the vet. We’ll try to see if we can establish a motive for wanting the dogs. And of course, we’ll continue to look for Ruby Jenkins.” She looked at the two officers and shrugged. I wasn’t pleased by their shared amusement over a civilian wanting justice to be served.

I gave her my best smile. “Well, I’ll be sure to let you know when I find out something else. If enough things happen to me, maybe you’ll actually solve the case.” I didn’t bother to see them out. I just left the room, which was becoming a habit with me.

Soon enough I heard the door shut, and the cars drive off. I was pissed at me for losing my temper. I was pissed at me for freaking out. The intruder had wanted the dogs, not me, but my first thoughts had just been of me and my past. I wanted to be able to move beyond that. I had two dogs who were very much in trouble and needed my help. I was emotionally stuck in the past and couldn’t allow myself to move on from what happened twenty years ago.

Going back to sleep wasn’t an option, so I spent the hours just staring at the walls and occasionally petting one of the dogs, whichever one woke up and wanted a cuddle. There are worse ways to spend a sleepless night. It gave me plenty of time to think about what my next steps were in this case.

To find out who was behind this, I had to know why the dogs were so valuable. This was going to be a case where motive drove the actions. Could they be pedigree animals? I wondered, but it didn’t seem particularly likely. Ruby had spayed and neutered them early, so there was no chance of extending the bloodline through them. Perhaps a test could tell that they weren’t of a superior bloodline, but Ruby had purchased them, thinking that they were. It made more sense, except that at worst the dogs could be refunded for the money she paid to the breeder.