Big Three-Thriller Bundle Box Collection (108 page)

CHAPTER 62

I
t had been over two months since the
Days of the Dog
. As Tony Parker drove the old white minivan home late one Saturday afternoon, the last day of October, Led Zeppelin’s
Black Dog
came on the radio. He tapped his finger on the steering wheel and gave a half grin while reflecting on the many changes brought on by that terrible week in August. The sun beamed bright on the warm, clear fall afternoon that was windy, as usual. The breeze kicked up trash, dried leaves and other debris and swirled them in cavorting dances, celebrating life on such a lovely day.

Parker had just left the Dillons grocery store with a bag of groceries after taking in some target practice at the Wichita Police Department’s pistol range. He kept Jack’s old .357 within easy reach at all times, now. He didn’t like having it, but he felt he might need it someday. He wasn’t sure that there would be any more trouble—not for sure.

He’d been on medical leave since coming home and would be until he resigned as animal control director within the next month. Soon, he would be back in school for the spring semester to get his DVM degree.

Doc and Patsy had willed their entire estate to Parker, and he had planned to resume Doc’s old practice and specialize in large animals after graduation, but things had changed. He had been having that strange feeling of being watched again. It started when he was told Truong’s son had arrived a week after Truong’s death to claim the body and to take it back to Vietnam. He’d assumed that all of Truong’s children had been killed during the war. Evidently not.

The nightmares had returned. He’d been waking up in the middle of the night, his heart slamming inside his chest, but was unable to remember what he’d been dreaming.

He had decided to take one of his old instructors up on an offer she’d given him. After graduation, he would work at the Manhattan, Kansas Veterinary School second in charge of rabies research—after all, he was well versed on the subject.

The Parkers planned to move to Manhattan in December. From there, Julie would have a short ten-mile drive to one of the Junction City elementary schools where she’d be teaching the spring semester. Now, she was attending classes at Wichita State University in preparation. Julie didn’t leave the house anymore without a can of mace. She had talked Tony into buying her a dependable car, a new Ford Escort, and she was happy.

Parker pulled up to a stoplight alongside a red Mercedes-Benz. It reminded him of Sylvia Taylor. He grinned, thinking of her. She had forgotten about suing him and sued her husband for divorce, instead, when she found out his time in Topeka was spent more in the client’s secretary’s briefs than with the client’s.

So many changes for so many people. Parker thought of some of the others who were truly affected by the
Dog Days
.

MacGreggor’s nephew had been $445,000 richer for a full twenty-four hours after being given his uncle’s money. Not trusting anyone, even the local banks, he put the money in a handbag when it was turned over to him. During a two-hour layover in Denver on his flight to Las Vegas, he was mugged in the men’s room, and the money was yet to be recovered. The IRS saw the episode as a little too convenient, thinking it was a scam to avoid paying thousands of dollars in taxes due and was investigating him for income tax evasion and fraud. Parker gave a crooked smile. He didn’t care much for the jerk anyway.

There had been three others who got their comeuppances, also. He thought of them as the light turned green and he proceeded through the intersection.

Roary Rapids’ band split up after the incident at the Epic Center, and his father had all but disowned him. He now worked at a record and tape store in an eastside shopping mall.

Henry Haskins was fired from Channel Two News. He recovered from his injuries, the most serious of which were a couple of puncture wounds on his right forearm that, according to the doctor who attended him, looked more like they were from a woman’s high-heel pumps than a basset hound’s teeth. He moved down to Ft. Worth and got a job as a DJ on a small country-and-western radio station.

Lt. Hardessy hadn’t been as lucky. The Dobermans had ripped off the better part of his nose and torn into his left arm and right leg so badly that he’d never have full use of them again. After extensive therapy, though, he hoped to fill a spot as a county dispatcher on the swing shift, and Tyrone wasn’t too thrilled.

For a long while, it looked as though it would take an act of God for Pastor Santini to recover. He did. But the throat wound left a terrible scar. He had become a sort of local celebrity due to the attack and the days following he’d spent hanging onto life in the hospital. The number of his flock grew enormously from the ensuing publicity, and well-wishers came to his room by the dozens. “Pastor Carl’s Sunday Mission” now broadcast with his sermons on Channel Two every Sunday morning. For him, it was a prayer come true. He now wore his keys on a chain around his neck.

Tommy Chin had made out all right. He was filling in as acting Sedgwick County animal-control director and was expected to be assigned the position permanently after Parker resigned. But Chin had been pretty busy lately, the city manager insisting on tough enforcement of the city’s leash law, and Alvarez constantly on his ass whenever a rabies test came back positive. The skunks had been real bad lately.

Parker’s eyes welled up as he thought of Jack. He missed his longtime confidant. He missed Sadie and the kids, too. They moved to Oklahoma City in September to be near Sadie’s folks so they could help with the kids. Just before moving, she found out she was pregnant—due in mid-May. Sadie was sure it would be a boy. The girls looked forward to little Jack Junior’s arrival.

Parker took in a long breath and sighed.
Sarah
. She found a job with the San Diego Zoo and moved to California after recovering from her injuries. The last Parker knew from a post card she’d sent, she owned a white Persian cat and dated the zoo’s director. He chuckled.

Tricia Carpenter seemed to have recovered fairly well from the trauma she’d been through. She and her kitten now lived with her mother in Colorado Springs and had been calling Parker every two weeks to tell him about pre-school and her new home. She’d renamed the cat Tony. Her mother repaired Raggedy
A-yun
as best she could, and Tricia was yet to be seen without it.

The kids were fine. Julie and Tony were having a hard time keeping Nick in shoes. It seemed like he either wore out or grew out of a pair a month. Audrey was getting bigger and stronger and even cuter every day. Her golden curls and big blue eyes made it hard to be upset with her even after she ransacked the house on one of her toddler rampages.

Yankee and all of the other dogs were back to their old selves again after some intensive deprogramming. All the other dogs, that is, except Jezebel.

Jezebel hadn’t eaten or drank anything the night she was tranquilized. They contributed death to a heart attack, probably brought on by a combination of the tranquilizer, excitement, exhaustion, and lack of food and water. Only Parker knew it was more than that. Jezebel had died of a grief-shattered heart.

Parker slowed down as he passed a little old lady walking a large Irish setter. He thought of how wonderful it was for the old woman to have a companion like that. A loyal friend that would be by her side and could always be trusted.

Driving farther, he saw several children out in their Halloween costumes. They were mostly younger kids, too young to be out by themselves at night, and darkness would soon throw its ebony veil over the city.

Jezebel was apparently the costume of choice this year. After all, she had been such a terrible monster. It seemed one out of every three trick-or-treaters were dressed in black and wore a black dog mask, either homemade or whipped out by a local entrepreneur trying to take advantage of the opportunity to make a buck.

Parker thought back on the panic. There had been at least a hundred different incidents rumored involving Jezebel during those terrible days of August. She was the devil’s own dog, appearing at night in the shadows behind bushes and between cars. There were several stories of people waking in the middle of the night to see the phantom-like hound staring at them in the darkness. She seemed to just materialize inside bedrooms, waking sweat-drenched sleepers from their own nightmares.

Few people knew the real story—that Jezebel was an innocent victim. Parker had tried to tell it, but no one wanted to hear. The tabloids had a field day. According to them, Jezebel was the dog from Hell that ripped its own master’s throat open and killed dozens of people. She was the night-stalking demon that gobbled down small children in just a few large gulps. Her true master, Truong, was one of Satan’s disciples, half dog himself, who had recruited other dogs to help in his diabolical plan of vengeance on the American people.

Not a soul seemed to understand that every living thing has a demon locked up inside. Some of them are small and let out only on occasion. Others have been fed by years of hurt and turmoil and have grown to enormous proportions. These demons, when allowed to roam free, cause horrific suffering. Truong’s demon was vengeance, and it was gigantic. A terrible war had released it, although much less could have turned its jailer’s key. It had hideous, seeping, pus-filled wounds that reeked with the putrid smell of overwhelming pain and suffering, and it licked them often in self-pity. It longed to heal its wounds, but the only sure poultice was revenge. Only by causing pain and suffering such as Truong had felt, to bring a war to the home of his unwary prey, could the demon inside Truong make the world understand his terrible distress and hurt.

Parker squinted as he drove, seeing something run behind a clump of lilac bushes near the next intersection a block down. It was large and black and moved gracefully as if floating. Surely, it was only a child wearing a black witch’s costume or perhaps one of the Jezebel ones. But Parker seemed to be drawn toward it as he slowed and turned the corner to follow.

Again he saw the black apparition as it ducked around the next corner and out of sight. It moved quickly, very quickly. Perhaps it was just a child, but could a child run that fast?

Parker was surprised to see the neighborhood he had suddenly ended up in. He pulled to the curb and sat for a moment, staring out across the street.

The old MacGreggor house had been condemned, and its windows and doors were boarded. Tall weeds of various types had taken control of the yard, and even more paint had peeled from the lap siding, exposing the old gray wood underneath. It made a heavy, lonely feeling in Tony Parker’s chest.

Mrs. Crane stood in her front yard, trimming her hedges. He couldn’t resist going over to see how the old girl was getting along. After all, she was all by herself, now.

“Hi, Mrs. Crane. How have you been?” Parker asked, stepping onto the curb.

“Hello. Oh, Mr. Parker, I didn’t recognize you,” she apologized. “Won’t you come in and have a cup of coffee?” She pulled off her white cotton gloves and laid them and the pruning shears on the porch.

“No, thank you, Mrs. Crane. I was just passing by and thought I’d say hello.”

“Well, I’m so glad you did.”

“How have you been getting along?”

“Just fine. I just try to stay busy. You know.” She nodded to the bushes she had been trimming meticulously, and Parker acknowledged her with an understanding smile.

As if a magnet pulled their eyes, both looked to the MacGreggor house.

Mrs. Crane drew a deep breath and sighed. She looked as if she was about to tell him something she wouldn’t tell anyone else. A secret she could only trust with him.

“I still put bowls of food and water out for her,” she said, gazing at the old house. “I know it’s silly, but I do it anyway. Some mornings, when I go out to check it, it’ll be gone, all ate and drank up. Probably one of the neighbors’ dogs or some stray cats.”

She smiled at Parker and crossed her arms in front of her chest as if she felt a chill. Parker felt it, too.

The smile left her face. “I know it’s my imagination, but sometimes around midnight when I can’t sleep, and I’m lyin’ in bed— well, that old north wind whips through the neighborhood and between the houses—and I hear it howl. Sounds kind of like Jezebel. I know it’s just the wind whistling, blowing between the boards covering that broken window, but still, I get a funny feeling about it. You know?”

Parker looked at Mrs. Crane, then back at the house. “Yeah, I know.”

“Now, you don’t worry none about this old woman, Mr. Parker. I’ll be fine, just fine.”

Parker took the wallet out of his back pocket and pulled out two twenties and a ten. “Here, I’d like to help with the dog food. Keep putting it out, okay?”

Mrs. Crane took the money from Parker’s hand and stuffed it into her apron. She nodded and gave a misty smile.

Parker turned and walked back toward the minivan. That strange and familiar feeling came over him again as he stepped into the street. Someone,
something
, was watching him.

He looked back at the house, at each of the windows and at the front door. For a brief moment, he thought he could hear whining— small yelps, like puppies. He knew it must be his imagination. But, when he glanced at Mrs.
Crane, he found a knowing smile on her face.