A Tiger's Tale (A Call of the Wilde Mystery) (20 page)

It was a creepy kidnapper’s lair if there ever was one.

I turned my attention back to the dogs and was just about to ask about a dark-haired girl when the front door opened and, after a moment, a man emerged from the shadows.

I knew two things instantly.

One—I’d found Mr. Reedy. And two—he was not a kidnapper. That is, unless he’d found a way to use his portable oxygen tank to subdue his victims.

“What do you want?” he gasped. Two of the dogs trotted to him as he spoke; the other two remained in their positions, watching me.

“Mr. Reedy? I’d like to speak to you for a few minutes if you have the time.”

“You go back to the bank and tell them they can kiss—”

“I’m not here from the bank,” I said, cutting him off. “I have a question about one of your old customers. Please. It’s important.”

“Oh, I’m sure it is,” he muttered and began to turn away.

“Wait.” I put my hand on the gate and the dog closest to me let out a warning growl.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you. They don’t let anyone in the gate unless I say the word.”

“Oh? And what’s the word?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

And with that, he wheeled his oxygen tank around and shuffled inside.

I sighed and looked down at the brindle dog. “So, who wants to tell me the magic word?”

It turned out to be fizzlesticks. And once I uttered it, accompanied by a heavy dose of calming, confident energy, the dogs became their goofy, grinning selves.

To say Mr. Reedy was shocked to find me standing at his front door, flanked by two happily panting pit bulls, would have been an understatement.

“How the hell did you do that?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I parroted his words and thought I saw his lips quirk under his grizzly facial hair. “How about this? Ask me in and I’ll tell you.”

Clearly intrigued, he opened the door and ushered me inside. I was greeted with the odor of stale cigarette smoke and wet dog.

Not exactly pleasant, but bearable.

I followed him to a small living room, where he lowered himself onto a blue corduroy recliner. He motioned to an adjacent blue plaid couch.

Once I sat, he asked, “Okay, how did you get past my dogs, Ms. . . .”

“Wilde. Grace Wilde. I’m an animal behaviorist. I know all the tricks.”

He made a skeptical grunt then took a pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket and tapped one out. Mr. Reedy looked like he needed a shave, a shower, and a break in life.

“Please don’t,” I said.

“Don’t worry about me, sweetheart. My lungs are shot.”

“Mine aren’t.”

He paused to regard me as he raised the cigarette toward his lips. “You telling me not to smoke in my own house?”

“No. I’m
asking
you not to smoke in your own house.”

He blinked at me, stunned, then let out a bark of laughter that devolved into a hacking cough.

“I like you. Even if you are from the bank,” he proclaimed when he could catch his breath. Then he lifted a can of beer from the side table and raised it in salute. “You’ve got spunk.”

“I’m not from the bank.”

“Right, you’re an animal whatever it was.”

“Behaviorist.” I dug a card out of my back pocket and handed it to him.

“Why would an animal behaviorist want to know about my customers?”

I gave him the shortest version I could. Explaining that the man at Billy’s Feed and Seed who seemed to have followed Brooke might be an old customer.

“You think one of my customers kidnapped this girl?”

“I don’t know, but I’d at least like to find him.” I described the young man and added, “He bought three fifty-pound bags of garden soil and a twenty-five-pound bag of cat litter.”

Reedy shook his head. “I don’t—” The rest of what he was going to say was lost in another fit of coughing.

He tipped back the beer, finished off the last gulp, and dabbed at his tearing eyes with a handkerchief he pulled from the same pocket that housed the cigarettes.

He held out the can. “Mind getting me another one?”

I took the can, walked into the tiny, cluttered kitchen, and dropped it in the trash. I found a clean glass in a cabinet and as I filled the glass at the sink, something caught my attention.

The weak presence of a canine nearby. Hurting.

Turning to glance around, I noticed a laundry room off the kitchen. I poked my head through the door to find a dog curled in a ball on a pile of old blankets.

I knew instantly the dog had been injured in some way.

The animal slowly lifted its head and blinked at me with bleary eyes.

“Hey, girl.” I squatted down and, though I didn’t touch her, I offered as much comfort as I could with my thoughts as I assessed her injuries.

I felt soreness and fatigue. And a hint of wooziness that went along with pain medication.

A quick glance at the prescription bottles on the washing machine told me what I needed to know.

“I noticed you have an injured dog,” I said to Reedy as I handed him the glass of water.

“What’s this?” he asked, staring at the glass.

“You’re welcome.”

He set the glass aside with a snort.

“If you agree to look into your old customer files for me, I’ll make sure she gets the medicine she needs. I’ll also come back and take the sutures out so you don’t have to make a trip to the vet.”

“Really—and how are you going to do that?”

“I’m a veterinarian.”

“You a ventriloquist, too?”

“Smart ass.”

He coughed out a laugh. “All right, you’ve got a deal. I’ll just have to figure out how to get to the files—they’re in storage and they weigh a ton.”

I thought about the fit and eager painter I’d met.

“There was a man at your place working—he said his name was Josiah. Maybe he could help.”

“That boy.” Reedy
tsk
ed with a shake of his head. “I haven’t been out much in the last few months. I guess I need to try to get it through his head to stop trying to take care of the place.”

“He seemed a little . . . slow.”

“Wasn’t always.” He tapped a finger to his head. “Had an accident a while back. Made him simple. He’s always been softhearted, though. Trying to take care of everyone.”

“He was feeding your cats.”

“Cats? There shouldn’t be more than one—Buddy.”

“Well, word has spread. You’ve got a colony going now.”

“Peachy.”

“I have a friend at the ASPCA. If you don’t mind giving up the cats, I might be able to find them homes.”

“That sounds good to me. Hell, I can’t bring them here,” Reedy said. “Rhett would probably kill one of them, the way he goes after the squirrels. And now, with Scarlett hurt, I don’t know how I’d pay to feed them.”

“Rhett and Scarlett?”

“I’ve got Melanie, Ashley, and Belle, too.” He grinned.

• • •

I called Sonja. Miraculously the ASPCA had room for the cats. She agreed to meet me with extra carriers and a couple of nets. I was pretty good at cat wrangling, but felines could be, well, feline, and refuse to cooperate despite my proclamations of good intentions.

Uncle Wiley called as I was pulling into the old farm supply store.

“You aren’t in jail, are you?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said with a chuckle. “That’s the good news. The bad news is I don’t think your piece of tabby came from up here. The color of the shell’s different.”

I told him I hadn’t done much better in my search and he promised to keep looking and call if he found a possible location.

I pushed the tabby out of my head as I drove around the building and stopped.

The tan truck was gone, as was Josiah.

Just as well—I didn’t want to upset him.

Sonja arrived not long after I’d climbed out of Bluebell and cast my mental feelers out for a head count.

“Hey,” she said, stepping up to stand next to me.

I muttered a distracted greeting, too focused on my task to offer more.

A few of the more curious cats stepped out of the shed to peer at us. I homed in on each animal. Though I couldn’t be a hundred percent sure of how many cats were in the area, I was able to gauge how skittish or tame they were.

I sensed a mixture of hopefulness, hunger, and wariness, but none of the animals was plagued by the bone-deep fear of humans that would indicate a feral.

“I’m counting somewhere between five and six,” I told Sonja. As I said the words, my mind caught the trace of something . . . else. I focused on the quick, panicked thoughts. One of the cats had caught a rodent. I closed my mind off to that particular circle-of-life moment with a grimace.

“What is it?”

“One of the cats is making a meal out of a mouse.”

“Eew.” She made a face.

“Yeah.”

“Feral?”

“Not that I can tell. Skittish, but they’re hungry. They’ll come once they smell the food.”

“The oldest trick in the book,” she mused.

“Whatever works,” I said and shook the bag of cat food Sonja handed me.

She popped open a can of cat food and called out, “Who’s hungry?”

Buddy was the first to succumb to temptation, trotting over with a happy
meow
to ribbon through my legs. Sonja was able to coax him into a carrier with a bit of mental encouragement from me and a dollop of wet cat food.

We rounded up the rest in similar fashion—five in all—and were loading the carriers into the ASPCA van when Josiah’s tan truck pulled around the side of the building.

“Crap.”

“What?” Sonja asked.

“This guy is kind of mentally challenged—he’s been feeding the cats. I was hoping to avoid having to explain where we’re taking them.”

“Miss Grace? What are you—” His eyes went wide in alarm when he saw the cat carrier I held and the stack already in the van. “What are you doing?”

“We’re taking them to find new homes. It’s okay, Mr. Reedy said so.”

“But this is their home.”

“Josiah, I’m sorry, but they need—”

“And—and Mr. Reedy said I could look after them.”

“I’m going to look after them now, okay?”

“No! They are my responsibility.” He snatched the carrier out of my hands. The jostled cat let out an alarmed yowl, which only seemed to upset Josiah more.

“Josiah.” I spoke in a calm, stern voice, the one I reserved for overexcited elephants. “Put the cat carrier down. Now.”

“The Bible says to rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked.”

I would have been offended if it hadn’t been for the tears threatening to spill from his wide eyes. I looked at Sonja for help. She eased closer to him.

“That’s right, Josiah,” she said. “We who are strong have an obligation to bear the infirmities of the weak, don’t we?”

Josiah’s wild, roving gaze swiveled to focus on her.

“And the Bible also says that you who are younger be subject to the elders. So we should respect Mr. Reedy’s wishes.”

“He asked me to take care of them. He wants me to.”

“I know. But things are different now. The cats aren’t getting enough food, are they?”

Josiah’s eyes became dark pools of utter despair. Tears began to fall in wide streams.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I know you are, Josiah.” Sonja’s voice was low and lulling. She eased the carrier out of his arms and handed it to me, then led Josiah to sit on the nearby steps.

I slid the carrier, with its irritated but unharmed occupant, into place next to his comrades and shut the van’s door.

As I walked to where Sonja and Josiah stood, I could hear her talking to him in a soft, reassuring voice.

“I told my sister I’d bring her a kitten,” Josiah said. He was no longer crying but he seemed miserable.

“You can still have a kitten. I promise,” Sonja assured him. “You and your sister can come pick one out once they’re old enough. That way, she can get whichever one she wants. How does that sound?”

He swallowed hard and nodded.

Without looking at me, she said, “You go ahead, Grace. I’ll meet you at the center.”

Something in her tone made me pause. The way she said my name. Terse and angry.

I blinked at her, baffled at what I’d done to raise her ire. Sonja was understanding and lighthearted—I rarely saw her angry.

She continued to talk to Josiah and shooed me away with one hand. I did as she asked, bewildered.

My problem, in a nutshell: I could soothe a panicking polar bear but when it came to people I was clueless.

• • •

“What was I supposed to do, Sonja? You saw how upset he was.”

“Which is why you should have waited and talked to him
before
we’d packed up his cats to zoom off with them.”

“They aren’t his cats.”

“Doesn’t matter whose cats they are,” she said as we toted the last two cat carriers into the ASPCA.

She let out a long, heavy breath, set the carrier down with the others, and turned to me.

“He cared about them. It just about broke his heart thinking he’d failed to care for these cats.”

“Sonja, he’s had a brain injury—the guy isn’t all there.”

“And that makes it okay?”

“No—”

“I do
not
like hurting people, Grace.” Sonja’s dark eyes bored into me. “And I do not like picking on people.”

“What are you talking about, Sonja? You calmed Josiah down.”

“By making him believe he’d done wrong.” Her expression was one I’d never seen on her smooth, dark face. A mix of anger and regret. I realized I was the person who put it there and my eyes watered, stinging with unshed tears. I swallowed them back.

“I’m sorry, Sonja,” I said around the lump in my throat. Her face softened abruptly.

“Oh, now. Don’t you start, too.”

“I wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s natural to focus on what you’re good at and ignore the rest.”

“I don’t mean to.”

“I know,” she said softly. “Come on, let’s get these guys settled in. It might be a while before one of the docs will be able to take a look at them.”

We worked side by side, and after a while, I started feeling a little less like a bad friend.

“That’s enough moping,” Sonja said, as if she were the one who could read minds. “You’re making me feel like I kicked a puppy.”