To Sketch a Thief (11 page)

When was she going to learn that it was never a good idea to bait the marshal?

Chapter 14

R
ory had been surprised to hear from Deirdre Lopez a week after her initial visit to see her at town hall. The phone call had been strangely cryptic. After the briefest of greetings, she’d asked Rory to come in to see her at one o’clock the next day if that was convenient. When Rory had inquired as to the reason for the meeting, Deirdre had simply said it was a matter that could best be attended to in person. Before Rory could follow up with another question, Deirdre thanked her and said good-bye.

As soon as Rory arrived at town hall, Deirdre Lopez’s secretary showed her into the clerk’s office.

“Thank you for coming in again,” Deirdre said, rising to shake her hand. “Please have a seat.” She was wearing a dove gray suit, perfectly tailored to her narrow curves, with burgundy heels and a strand of pearls at her neck. The woman knew how to dress.

“After you left last week I found myself wondering if perhaps I’d overlooked something that might help in your investigation,” she said once they were both seated. “Since it’s been my habit to keep a daily work log, I went back a couple of years and started reading through my entries. Pretty dull stuff,” she said with a little laugh. “At least until I got to May tenth of 2008.”

Pen and pad in hand, Rory found herself leaning forward in her chair as if she could reach the information more quickly that way.

“On that day I fired a woman in my department by the name of Anita Callaway. I’m actually surprised that I’d forgotten about it, because it was a particularly unpleasant incident. Who knows, maybe I blocked it out for that reason.” She shook her head as if she were still annoyed with the lapse in her memory. “Anyway, Anita had been receiving substandard reviews from her immediate supervisor for close to a year. I won’t go into the specifics, because they’re not relevant to your investigation, and I believe in protecting employee confidentiality.”

Rory murmured that she understood.

“So,” Deirdre went on, “I had a frank talk with her myself to make it clear that she was at serious risk of losing her job. When her performance didn’t improve by the next reviewing cycle, I followed through and terminated her employment here.”

Rory was taking notes as quickly as she could, preferring not to interrupt Deirdre’s narrative. She’d been privy to enough police investigations to know that a lot of valuable information could be lost that way.

“Anita reacted as if she’d never been warned that she was in danger of being fired,” Deirdre said. “She became verbally abusive and even threatened me. She had to be escorted out of the building by two of our security guards.” Deirdre’s usually well-modulated voice had become tight and agitated as she retold the story, as if she were remembering those moments on a visceral level. “Now, I’m not easily intimidated, Ms. McCain, but I have to admit I was worried at the time that she might walk back in here one day armed with an assault rifle to even the score. Thankfully that never happened.”

“I guess that’s a normal fear given what you hear about these days,” Rory said.

Deirdre squared her shoulders and lifted her chin in an effort to regain her composure.

“If you’d like we could take a break before continuing,” Rory offered.

“If you could give me a minute or two.”

“Of course.” Rory assumed she was going to leave her office for a glass of water or a trip to the ladies’ room, but Deirdre just settled back in her chair and closed her eyes. She took a long, deep breath, then slowly exhaled. She repeated the exercise several times, while Rory sat there trying not to stare at her. There was little else to look at other than the four beige walls adorned with a few uninspired paintings that looked like they’d come straight off an assembly line. Either Deirdre’s flair for clothes didn’t carry over to office décor or she simply didn’t care much about her work space.

“There.” Deirdre smiled as she opened her eyes again. “Biofeedback. It’s really quite amazing. I didn’t believe in it myself until I tried it.”

She did sound calmer to Rory. “I don’t suppose it would work on dogs?” she asked to lighten the mood. Or ghosts?

Deirdre laughed. “Your dog must be like my cat. Major issues.”

“You have no idea.”

“Thank you for indulging me. I’m okay if you want to go on now.”

Rory glanced at the notes she’d taken to pick up the thread of her thoughts. “I’m assuming that while Anita worked here she had access to the dog registration files in the computer system, correct?”

“Yes. Dog registration was one of the areas she handled. And it’s probably safe to say that losing her job presented a financial hardship for her. But these days half the country is facing hard times and that doesn’t automatically mean that someone is going to fall into a life of crime. So, although it was an upsetting incident, I wouldn’t have contacted you about Anita based solely on that day. But after reading my log, I had a chat with one of the women she’d been friendly with in the office. I’ll just call the woman Jane. According to Jane, Anita couldn’t find work for months. In the end, she gave up and started a doggie day care business in her home. When I heard that I knew I had to call you.”

If Rory had owned ears like Hobo’s, they would have been standing at attention. What better way to camouflage a dognapping ring than by setting up a business in which there would be a continuously changing assortment of dogs around? Rory was having a hard time trying to put the brakes on her runaway thoughts. She was jumping to some very large, and as yet unproven, conclusions. And unless Congress had changed the law in the past couple of hours, Anita Callaway was innocent until proven guilty by a jury of her peers.

“I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you’ve come forward with this information,” Rory said. “It could be a tremendous help.”

Deirdre’s brow furrowed. “Please understand that I’m not accusing Anita of anything,” she said quickly, anxiety creeping back into her voice. “And to the best of my knowledge she did nothing illegal while she worked here. I’m certainly not interested in hurting her reputation or her ability to find employment in the future.”

Rory didn’t need any clarification, the subtext was obvious: Please be discreet. I don’t want any legal repercussions from sharing this information. I’m only trying to do the right thing here.

Rory knew she was seeing a vulnerable side of Deirdre Lopez most people never got to see. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep the information confidential,” she promised. “I’ll only turn it over to the authorities if and when I can prove that Anita’s involved in the dognappings.”

“I guess I can’t ask for more than that.” Deirdre sighed, clearly uneasy about entrusting her fate to someone else. “Oh, I almost forgot.” She picked up a sheet of paper that had been lying in the middle of her neatly ordered desk. “I printed out Anita’s home address and telephone number for you.” She passed it across the desk to Rory. “According to Jane, the information is still current.”

Rory rose and thanked her again.

By the time Deirdre stepped around her desk to shake Rory’s hand, she was smiling brightly, all polished businesswoman and politician once again.

A
s Rory left town hall she checked her phone for messages and was surprised to find one from a woman who identified herself as Joanne Lester, accountant to Dr. Stanley Holbrook. Rory hadn’t met the accountant when she’d taken Hobo in for his checkup, so she was more than a little curious to find out what was on her mind.

She hit the “call back” button as she opened her car door and slid behind the wheel. Joanne answered on the first ring. She thanked Rory for getting back to her so promptly, but when Rory asked how she could be of service, Joanne would only say that it concerned the dognappings and that the rest would have to wait until they had a face-to-face.

After setting up a date and time, Rory started her car and pulled her hijacked thoughts back to Anita Callaway. It took her less than a minute to weigh the pros and cons of developing a well-thought-out strategy or just dropping in on her. Immediate action won out. She was sure Zeke would have objected if he’d had a vote, which wound up being the deciding factor. Why waste time by going home and arguing the point with him? She had her Walther in her handbag along with her notepad and pen. What more did a girl need to interview a suspect?

The address the town clerk had given her was in an older section of East Northport that had started to look run-down five years earlier. Most of the houses on Anita’s block were in obvious need of repair. The gutters had pulled away from the roofline on one house; another was missing a number of its clapboard slats. Brown lawns appeared to be in fashion.

Rory found Anita’s house near the end of a cul-de-sac. It was a small ranch, its storm door hanging from a broken hinge like a snaggletooth and Christmas lights from a happier season sagging around the door frame. A small, hand-lettered sign on a post in the middle of the front yard announced that this was Dog Haven.

Rory pulled to a stop at the curb thinking that the name sounded more like a nursing home for elderly, incontinent dogs than a fun place for them to spend the day while their humans were away earning kibble money. She sat there for a moment, some of her fire snuffed out by Anita’s sad circumstances. She had to remind herself that criminal activity might well be going on in that house. How would
she
feel if Hobo had been whisked away and sold to someone else? That did it. She locked the car and marched up the cracked cement walkway to the front door. Before she had a chance to ring the bell, she heard a chorus of dogs inside announcing her arrival. Someone pulled back the curtain on the larger of two front-facing windows to see who was there. Finally the front door shuddered inward and Rory was face-to-face with a woman in her early forties. Her square jaw and narrow eyes gave her a hard, “don’t mess with me” appearance. She was flanked by a half dozen dogs of various sizes, some of whom were still grumbling their concerns about the visitor. Beyond them Rory could see a portion of the living room, including an old sofa in a faded floral print and a large flat-screen TV that seemed out of place given the general condition of the house.

“Anita Callaway?” Rory asked pleasantly. See, doggies, nothing threatening here.

The woman looked her up and down. “What can I do for you?” She sounded as wary as her charges. Rory tried not to read anything into it. These days everyone was cautious about opening their doors to strangers.

“My name is Lois Brady.” She couldn’t take the chance that Anita might have heard of her during her brief brush with fame over the summer. “Someone at the dog park mentioned that you run a day care for dogs.”

“As a matter of fact I do.” Her voice was an instrument with a single note. Behind her the dogs jockeyed for position. Not one of them tried to escape around Anita. Either they were afraid of her or they were perfectly content to be there. Rory voted for the former.

“I’m so glad to hear that,” she said. “I’ve been trying to find someplace to leave my dog while I’m at work. Wow, I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but that’s a beautiful TV set you have.”

“Actually I do mind.” Anita frowned at her. “What’s in my house is none of your business.”

Rory apologized, taken aback by the venom in her response. Anita was certainly no charmer, but it seemed over the top even for her. “I’ve been saving up to buy one myself,” Rory added, “and I was just going to ask what brand that is and whether you were happy with it.”

“My brother bought it for my birthday, and as long as it works I’m happy with it. Now, how big is this dog of yours? What’s the breed?”

“He’s a big, lovable mutt.” Rory laughed. Surely the woman had a lighter side hidden somewhere.

“I don’t take pits or Rottweilers,” Anita said. “Not even breeds mixed with them.”

Then again, maybe not. “Not a problem,” Rory assured her.

“I charge fifteen a day for dogs over fifty pounds. That’s eight a.m. to six p.m. Monday through Friday, paid in advance. Doesn’t matter if you pick the dog up early, the fee’s the same. It’s simpler that way.”

“Makes sense to me. By the way, have you had any problems with dogs being stolen around here?”

“No. But with this gang I’d know the second anyone wandered onto my property.” Her lips edged up just short of a smile.

Rory wondered if Anita was enjoying a little inside joke about stolen pooches alerting her to potential dog thieves. “Dog thefts are becoming a real epidemic lately and there have been so many in such a short time,” she said, trying to ease into a conversational rhythm. If she could engage Anita in a dialogue, the woman might slip and say something useful.

When she didn’t comment, Rory went on. “I know the police have put extra detectives on the case. They think it might even be someone with access to town records, can you imagine?” She watched Anita’s face for signs of concern or interest. Nothing. “Well, anyway, I’m really glad to have found your day care. I wonder if you’d mind giving me someone to call as a reference?”

“I don’t need anyone vouching for me,” Anita replied tartly. “If you want to leave your dog with me, fine; if not, suit yourself.” She started to close the door.

“Wait a minute, I didn’t mean to imply—”

“Look, I’m busy here. Drop your dog off at eight if you want. No need to call first.” Anita pushed the door closed with a reverberating thud, leaving Rory on the front stoop with a list of unanswered questions.

Chapter 15

R
ory was finally on her way to Northport to speak to Eddie Mays, proprietor of Boomer’s Groomers. He was a difficult man to pin down. If he was to be believed, he was perpetually shorthanded. This week one of his groomers was away on vacation and another had left without notice. According to Eddie, most people didn’t last a year there. Rory wasn’t surprised; the job didn’t offer much in the way of a career path. At times like this, if Eddie wanted to keep his enterprise going, he had to roll up his own sleeves and wash, clip and dry his clients himself. He’d agreed to see Rory if she didn’t mind talking to him while he worked. She assured him that wasn’t a problem. She didn’t mention that she was desperate.

Zeke had found close to a million sites when he’d searched the Web for dog-related businesses on Long Island. Since he could only work at it when he’d stored up enough energy, he was making little progress. At this rate the case could go unsolved for another fifty years, conservatively speaking. He suggested putting his time to better use by checking the local newspapers for ads hawking pedigreed dogs at bargain prices.

Rory was game to let him try that approach. Even though nearly every town and hamlet on Long Island had more than one free local paper, the numbers were still more realistic than the number of websites. Based on the map they’d drawn, he could limit his search and concentrate on the Huntington area. Rory reminded him to look for words like “discounted,” “lowest prices” and “must sell” in the ads; she tried not to focus on the fact that her own leg of the investigation was limping toward a dead end.

She’d spoken to nearly every person and followed up every lead connected with the lists she’d received from Tina Kovack and Leah. A few of them had left lingering questions in her mind, like Dr. Stanley Holbrook, the vet with his own curious list, but no one had struck her as the epitome of a dog thief, whatever that might be. In any event, Eddie was one of the few people of interest she hadn’t yet interviewed. She’d reached the point where she would have offered to assist him with his work just to get in the door. As it was, he thought she was a freelance journalist coming to interview him for a magazine article on pampered pooches. Journalism was a cover that had served her well in the past. People were generally eager to talk about themselves and their interests, and believing that they were the subject of an article stroked their egos quite nicely. In Eddie’s case it also doubled as free publicity.

Boomer’s Groomers occupied a storefront in a small strip mall that also housed a deli, a dry cleaner, a stationery store and a pizza joint. The parking lot was barely adequate for the number of people these businesses attracted, but since no one lingered there for more than ten minutes, finding a space wasn’t much of an issue. Rory turned into the parking lot as a minivan was backing out of a spot. Perfect timing. Now, if her interview with Eddie worked out as well, she might just learn something useful for the case.

Even before she opened the door to Eddie’s shop, she heard a muffled chorus of barking and yipping from dogs of various sizes and lung capacities. The tape recorder she’d brought along would be useless with that much background noise. It was a good thing she always carried a pen and pad in her handbag. She wished she’d also brought along some aspirin for the headache she was bound to have by the time she left.

Although the noise was louder inside, it was to some extent still muted. Rory assumed that was because the grooming area was located beyond the partial wall toward the rear of the shop. There was an unmanned counter with a cash register to her left and narrow aisles radiating out from the entryway stocked full of every dog accoutrement one could imagine. She was getting quite an education in just how big the dog business had become.

She was about to call out to let Eddie know she was there, when she spotted a man hurrying down one of the aisles toward her. Opening the door must have triggered some sort of buzzer in the back that alerted Eddie when someone entered the store.

As he came closer, the words “odd duck” flashed through Rory’s mind. It was one of her mother’s pet phrases that she hadn’t really understood before. But somehow she was sure that Eddie Mays would qualify for “odd duck” status in her mother’s opinion. His brown eyes were magnified by thick glasses, and his head was shaved, although not recently, dark stubble sprouting across his pate like a randomly planted crop. A little silver hoop dangled from one eyebrow and a silver stud marked the center of his chin. His faded blue tee shirt stuck to his chest in wet splotches, and soapsuds twinkled like sequins in the dark hair of his forearms.

“What can I do you for?” he asked, wiping his hands on the sides of his jeans as he approached her.

“Lois Brady,” she said, using the name that had popped into her head when she’d visited Anita. “I spoke to you about an interview?”

“Right, right.” Eddie nodded. “I’d shake your hand, but I’m still pretty wet. Look, it’s like I told you on the phone, we’ll have to talk while I work.” He turned and started back the way he’d come without waiting for her to respond.

Rory assumed she was supposed to follow. The noise level increased as they made their way to the back, until the din of dog complaints reached a crescendo at the doorway to the grooming area. She had all she could do not to plug her ears and run for cover. Eddie didn’t even seem to notice.

The room was small for the number of dogs in it, which helped explain the dense noise that fell around them like a curtain. Eddie went straight to a steel table, similar to the one Rory had seen in the vet’s office, where a miniature schnauzer was standing, tied to a retractable arm. The animal was soaking wet and shivering with either cold or nerves, or more likely a combination of the two, its dark eyes darting back and forth between Eddie and Rory, its stumpy tail offering a sluggish wag.

Having never been inside a grooming facility, Rory spent a moment checking out the place. There was a second steel table not presently in use a few feet away and at the other end of the room, a bathing tub with a ramp for large breeds and a smaller tub at counter height for their more portable brethren. A dozen cages of various sizes hugged the available wall space, two tiers high in places. Half the cages were occupied by dogs who’d already been groomed or by those still awaiting their turns. None of the dogs looked happy to be there. A few appeared downright miserable. Rory made Hobo a silent pledge to tend to his grooming herself, although she wasn’t at all sure how she would manage that.

There was a little white dog yapping away in one of the cages who looked just like the Sugarmans’ Falcon. When Rory remarked on this, Eddie told her she was looking at Falcon himself. Larry had dropped him off to be groomed that morning. Given how much Marti doted on her dog, Rory figured her patronage was the equivalent of a fivestar rating.

Eddie was busy snipping away at the schnauzer’s fur, so Rory took out her pen and paper and positioned herself beside him, doing her best to block out the cacophony around them.

“So, Eddie, tell me a little about yourself and how you got started in this business,” she said, finding that she had to shout to be heard.

“I like dogs and I needed a way to make a living.” He shrugged without pausing in his work. “So after my mom passed, I took the money she left me and bought this place from the last owner.”

He didn’t sound at all passionate about his career choice, but Rory doubted that anyone would be, given his present staff problems and workload. She asked him a short roster of questions that seemed appropriate for the article she was supposedly writing. Eddie answered her without embellishing on his life or accomplishments, which raised him several notches in her esteem. She was glad that she wasn’t actually writing an article about him, though, because it would have been a short and boring one.

He finished trimming the schnauzer, clipped his nails and dried his short coat, topping it all off with a blue bow he tied to the dog’s collar. Then he placed him in one of the cages to wait until someone came for him.

“I’m gonna take a ten-minute lunch break,” Eddie announced, and without further comment he led the way to the front of the store.

Rory could have nominated him for sainthood. Her head throbbed from the incessant barking and her throat hurt from the strain of shouting to be heard. The muted noise at the front of the store now felt like a peaceful sanctuary compared to the hell of the grooming area.

Eddie reached behind the front counter and pulled out a brown bag dotted with either grease or water stains. He set it on the counter, then, using his hands, levered himself up there as well.

“Feel free to pull up a piece of counter,” he offered. “Chairs take up too much retail space.”

Rory thanked him, but chose to remain standing.

Eddie opened the bag and withdrew a can of Coke and a thin sandwich that had escaped its plastic wrap. “PB&J,” he said, holding half of the sandwich out to her.

“That’s very kind,” she said, “but I have a lunch meeting right after I leave here.” She didn’t actually have a meeting, unless you counted potentially talking to Zeke, and that certainly had nothing to do with lunch, but it seemed like the most courteous way of declining the sandwich.

“Yeah, I’d pass on the PB myself if I had a better offer,” Eddie said, already biting into the second half.

In an effort to adopt a more casual, “we’re pals” kind of posture for her next round of questions, Rory leaned back against the counter a couple of feet from where Eddie was seated munching away on his sandwich. She needed to seem completely nonthreatening if she wanted him to confide in her.

“Listen, Eddie,” she said, “can we talk off the record?” She set her pen down to show him that she’d stopped taking notes.

Eddie bobbed his head. “Yeah, why not.”

“Good. I’d love to get your take on the recent rash of dog thefts. I mean, being in the dog business and all, I’m sure you’ve got your finger on the pulse of things.”

He popped the last of the sandwich into his mouth and washed it down with several loud gulps from the can of soda.

“Gotta get a fridge in here,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Warm soda just doesn’t cut it.” He paused to burp rather delicately. “Sorry, I gotta learn to eat slower and chew more. Turns out my mother was right,” he said with a sheepish grin. “So, you want my opinion on the dog thefts, huh?” He gnawed on the inside of his cheek while he thought about it. “I don’t know. Maybe the economy pushed some poor slob to do it, or maybe it’s some nut job with a bone to pick . . . ‘bone,’ hey’d you catch that?” He laughed, enjoying his own cleverness. “I’ve always had a way with words.”

Rory produced a smile, wondering what had ever given him that idea.

“Have any of your customers been hit?” she asked. Having seen the police reports from Leah, she already knew the answer, but she was interested in seeing if Eddie was going to be truthful with her.

“Yeah, six of them if you can believe it,” he said glumly. “A real bummer. Means lost business for me too.” After a moment of silence, during which he contemplated the linoleum, he raised his head and looked at her with his magnified eyes. “It’s a good thing dog people can’t stand to live without man’s best friend,” he said, perking up nicely. “After a couple of months, almost all of them bought replacements.”

Rory managed to nod, although she was taken aback by his quick emotional U-turn. She couldn’t imagine replacing Hobo as if he were a worn-out lightbulb. Of course, to be fair, the stolen dogs had not been Eddie’s pets and he did have a business to run. There was no requirement that he love or mourn the loss of every dog who passed beneath his shears.

“Unfortunately Brenda Hartley won’t be replacing her dogs anytime soon,” Rory said, keeping it vague to see if Eddie was aware of her death.

“Not in this lifetime,” he said with a low chuckle, to show her that he understood her meaning. “Not that I had anything against the woman. She paid her bills on time and almost never complained.”

“But she did complain on occasion?” Rory prompted.

“One time. She said I didn’t get all the knots and clumps out of her dog’s coat. I spent more than an hour on that big mutt. So I told her I can’t be expected to work all day on one dog unless she wanted to pay me by the hour.”

“Some people think the world revolves around them,” Rory commiserated, to see how much more she could get him to reveal. “Did she refuse to pay the bill?”

“Nah, nothing like that.” Eddie slid down from the counter and brushed a few bread crumbs off his jeans.

Rory knew she should let the Brenda line of questioning go. She was trespassing on police turf. But how was she to know which questions might field valuable information for her own case until she’d asked them? Besides, anything she learned about the murder case she’d take directly to Leah. That sealed the deal. The last nagging voice of her conscience was stilled.

“Do you think she was killed by someone who came to steal her dogs?”

Eddie frowned at her, the hoop in his eyebrow lowering until it brushed through his lashes. “Wait a minute, what the hell’s going on here? You seem a lot more interested in murder and dog thieves than you are in this article you claim to be writing.”

Rory had overplayed her hand and he was calling her bluff. She straightened up and stepped away from the counter so that she was facing him. “I’m sorry,” she said, going for sincerity with a side of humble pie. “I was laid off from my newspaper gig two months ago, and I’m having trouble letting go of the hard news angle. But the story about your business is great, and I promise to do it justice in the piece.”

Eddie stared at her for a moment, as if considering whether he should believe her. “Yeah, whatever,” he said finally. “I gotta get back to work.”

Rory thanked him again and promised to send him a copy of the magazine when it came out, but she was speaking to his back. Eddie was already halfway to the grooming area.