“Yeah, I did, but parts of Sheffield’s life had nothing to do with dogs. The boyfriend, for instance. So it’s also possible that someone outside the dog world found out about you. Dog people have to talk to regular people sometimes. So word got around, and then you’d have someone whose interest in you was triggered by the gossip at the show, and he’d be a regular person who’s scared spitless by the dogs. You have to stop driving all over like this and start protecting yourself.”
“How? I can’t just abandon everything and go into hiding. I’ve already got the friend who backs me up with my clients taking all my calls. I can’t stop my whole life in its tracks.”
“Yes, you can, and if that’s what it takes to stay alive, you should. I’ll talk to the sheriff and see what we can do, but you’ll have to cooperate.”
“You were right when you told me he’d switch to a gun and then the dogs couldn’t stop him,” I admitted, “and I know you’re right about this, but it’s so hard to just let him win. Especially after this. If I could get my sights on him, I’d....”
My voice tapered off as the reality of what I was saying and who I was saying it to hit me. So did the fact that when I’d looked in my purse for the tissues, my cell phone was there, but not the gun, which explained why the lieutenant had been in my purse — he’d confiscated the pistol.
Of course, he knew exactly what I was thinking about. “Speaking of your sights, Ms. Brennan, do you have a carry permit for that nice little .38?”
“Not yet. In case you haven’t noticed since this all started I haven’t had time to take the class that’s required. I suppose I’m in trouble over that.”
“It did occur to me that you’d be safe in a jail cell. But your friend Owen Turner would be getting you out so fast it wouldn’t do much good. It would be legal in your car — if it was unloaded and secured properly.”
A fat lot of good it would do me unloaded. Then again it hadn’t helped tonight fully loaded. The details of what was going to happen to me over carrying the gun without the permit didn’t seem to matter that much either, so I changed the subject.
“You never investigated any of Jack’s clients or other handlers or anyone like that at all, did you?” I asked.
“We talked to some of them. That lawsuit he was involved in seemed a good source of motive, but then we found more likely suspects in other parts of his life.”
“Carl Warmstead? That’s part of what I called you about earlier — to ask if you were really sure he was out of town and couldn’t have snuck back.”
“Warmstead was in New York. It was a business trip, and he had breakfast with half a dozen people out there. Even with the time difference, he couldn’t have done it even if he had a private jet at his disposal.”
“Oh.” I could hear the disappointment in my own voice. “He really seemed the most likely person.”
“Spouses, lovers, and family, that’s where we look first and hardest,” he said.
“What about the trust you told me about?” I said slowly, thinking about it for the first time. “That’s got to benefit someone in his family now, right? Does the income go to someone else in the family, or does the principal go to someone?”
A small smile played around the lieutenant’s lips. “If you ever apply for a job as an investigator and want a reference, let me know. Of course I’d have to mention you aren’t much for rules. You know I can’t discuss our investigation with you.”
“Fine,” I said. “We won’t discuss it.” I went back to staring at the door. The problem with that was that talking to the lieutenant had distracted me from my fear and made the waiting easier.
So after another mop up with the tissues, I let my curiosity get the better of me. “Okay, let’s say someone in Jack’s family killed him because they get the trust money. If that person has nothing to do with dogs, what would make him decide I was dangerous all of a sudden?”
After a long enough hesitation to tell me he had no good explanation, the lieutenant admitted just that. “We can’t find that any of them know about you. Are you sure you haven’t been involved in anything else that threatened someone?”
I looked at him with disbelief. “Oh, sure, after never having anything to do with criminals for my whole life, I see someone minutes after he’s killed Jack and then in a totally unrelated coincidence have someone else trying to kill me. Tell me you believe that.”
“I don’t believe it. That’s the problem. The best suspects we have don’t seem to have any connection to dogs or to you. The people you want to focus on don’t have any motive.”
Now it was my turn for a small smile. I focused back on the door. We sat and drank coffee for a while.
The lieutenant shifted in his seat once or twice, sighed and gave in. “Are you telling me you found a motive for killing Sheffield among those dog people you talked to?”
I just nodded slightly and kept staring at the door.
“All right, Ms. Brennan. I suppose if you focused your energies in the right direction you’d find out everything I can tell you anyway.”
He got up and refilled our coffee cups a last time, turning off the pot. When I tasted the bitter dregs in my cup, I made a face and put the cup on an empty chair next to me, but he drank without expression.
After a few swallows, he started talking. “Sheffield’s grandparents set up the trusts, one for Sheffield and one for each of his two brothers. The parents are wealthy in their own right, divorced, and out of the picture so far as we can tell. But the brothers are interesting. They each had a trust too, and they each had twice as much as Sheffield, and they got their money outright when they turned thirty.”
“But you said Jack’s trust was income only for his lifetime. Why would his brothers get control of their money at thirty, and why was Jack’s trust smaller than theirs? Did they think he was a spendthrift?” Before the lieutenant could answer, the reason why Jack might have been treated differently than his brothers occurred to me. “They did it that way because Jack was a homosexual, didn’t they? It was a way to punish him.”
“Maybe,” said the lieutenant. “The grandparents are gone, so who knows. His brothers don’t seem to be grief-stricken. Sheffield’s trust ended with his death, and now they get everything. Outright. Divided equally between them.”
“But they already got their own,” I said. “Do they need Jack’s money now? They each get only half of his trust, and his was smaller than theirs to start with. Is it enough for them to murder their brother over?”
“One of them has already run through everything he had. He’s close to bankruptcy now. The other is doing better, but he’s a spender. At a guess he’ll be happier with the extra money than with a live brother he didn’t think much of.”
“I do see why you like them as suspects. Family feuds, greed, and money. Even so, I did find....”
The door opened.
Dr. Hunsaker looked even paler than before, exhausted and drained. He gave me a reassuring smile that let my heart return from my mouth halfway down my throat, pulled one of the chairs out from the wall, placed it to face me, and sat down.
“That’s a very strong and tough girl you have there, Ms. Brennan. She’s made it through the surgery. We’ll keep her resting as quietly as possible for the next several days. I’ve done everything I can and it’s pretty much up to her now. Very few dogs would have made it this far. She was shot twice. One wound was minor, and the other almost fatal. There are also a lot of other injuries. I presume that those are from the automobile accident.”
I stared at the vet, unable to accept what he was saying. A lot of other injuries. In my mind I saw the shadows of the dogs by me in the darkness after we got out of the car. Had Sophie already been injured then?
Beside me, Lieutenant Forrester was explaining to the vet. “She was run off the Jarre Canyon Road, and the car rolled. The dogs were in the back.”
“That explains it then,” said Dr. Hunsaker. “Sophie has a broken tibia and broken ribs that aren’t from the bullet, but a bullet is what almost killed her. It entered her right side, went through a lung and lodged near her heart. Another bullet — which undoubtedly actually hit her first — hit her sternum at an angle, traveled along the bone and stopped in the axillary region.”
As he spoke, Dr. Hunsaker demonstrated the path of the bullet, moving his hand from the center of his own breastbone, across his chest to his left armpit, then waited until I nodded my understanding before he went on.
“That wound wouldn’t be life-threatening on its own, but the other did a lot of damage, and she lost too much blood. Without the transfusion from your male, she wouldn’t have had a chance. I took as much from him as I dared considering his size. Before you leave, I want to give you some supplements you should give him, and he should stay quiet for the next couple of days too.”
When Dr. Hunsaker finished speaking, I asked, “Can I see her?”
Lieutenant Forrester spoke over me, “I need those bullets.”
The vet stood up, “Of course,” he said. To the lieutenant, “I have the bullets,” and to me, “You can see her. The anesthetic hasn’t worn off, and we’ll keep her sedated when it does, so she won’t respond to you.”
“Would you look at Robo, too?” I asked. “The way they ran off after the accident I never thought of them being hurt, but of course they were. I had a seatbelt and air bag. All they had was the foam rubber pad and rug that was on the floor of the car in the back.”
Sitting in one place for so long had let all my abused muscles stiffen so much I didn’t object when the lieutenant helped me up. Once on my feet, I could limp and shuffle well enough.
We followed Dr. Hunsaker to his recovery room, where Sophie was lying on the floor on blankets. She looked small and vulnerable, with large shaved areas, rows of stitches, and an i.v. dripping. Her left hind leg was enclosed in a cast.
“The break was clean,” said the vet. “It will heal fine with the cast.”
“I understand.” I got down on the floor beside Sophie and ran my hands over her, needing to feel the warmth of her, needing the reassurance of the steady rhythm of her breathing.
Robo had some bruising and swelling, but the vet didn’t find anything he considered worrisome.
“He outweighs her by quite a lot. When they were thrown around, she would have gotten the worst of it. If the swelling doesn’t go down, or if he gets more stiff instead of less in the next day or so, take him to your regular vet. Don’t give him aspirin. Just in case there’s any internal bleeding, we don’t want to make it worse. I’ll give you a safe analgesic along with the supplements. If I’d realized he was hurt too, I might not have taken blood from him, but then — well, it’s just as well we did things the way we did.”
I wanted to stay with Sophie. Lieutenant Forrester wanted to take me to a hospital. We argued of course. He reminded me of Millie and Bella, waiting at home, and used them to get me to agree to leave. I reminded him of Millie and Bella, waiting at home, and used them to refuse to go to a hospital and insist if he wanted to help, he take me straight home.
So in the end I had to kiss Sophie goodbye and promise her that I’d be back the next day to see her and that she was going to be fine and no one was ever going to hurt her again.
After I shut Robo in the back of the lieutenant’s car and settled myself in the passenger’s seat, I turned my face to the window so the he couldn’t see the tears that were sliding down my face again.
The car was warm and
the seat so much softer than the plastic waiting room chair at the vet’s.... I fell asleep with the crackle of the police radio as background and didn’t wake until the car stopped and the lieutenant shut off the engine.
We weren’t in my driveway. Bright lights illuminated every corner of the parking area and made reading the signs on the high porte-cochère of the building in front of us easy. Emergency. Parker Adventist Hospital. Lieutenant Forrester didn’t even have the grace to look apologetic.
“Come on, Ms. Brennan, let’s get you checked out.”
“You
liar
. You said you’d take me home.”
“I will take you home. Right now I’m serving and protecting. The sooner you get in there and let the doctors make sure you’re okay, the sooner you get home.”
I didn’t move, too tired and sore to be as angry as I wanted to be, but angry enough to start marshaling my resources for a fight.
The lieutenant got out, walked around and opened the door on my side. “If you want me to arrest you for carrying a concealed weapon without a permit, I’ll do it. Then you’re an injured prisoner in custody, and you get treated that way. It will cause a whole lot more problems in the end, but you’re going in there, and you’re seeing a doctor.”
Knowing he was right didn’t make the prospect of waiting for hours for a doctor to see me any more attractive. Hours when I could be home, washing off the dirt and blood, soaking away some of the stiffness in a tub of hot water. I said nothing when the lieutenant told the receptionist that I’d been in an automobile accident and needed to see a doctor. She handed me a clipboard with several forms attached.
With a sigh, I retreated to one of the chairs in the waiting area and began to print my life’s history on the forms, surprised at how shaky my letters looked and how hard it was to make my hand form them.
The lieutenant sat next to me. “I’ll do that for you if you want,” he offered.
His pale blue gaze showed concern and maybe something more that I wasn’t in any condition to face. I looked down at the sheaf of forms again, thinking about what some of the questions asked a woman about her medical history.
“No, thank you,” I said. “Why don’t you go home. This is going to take the rest of the night. I’ll call a friend to come get me when they’re done with me.”
“You already have a friend here to take you home when you’re done,” he said, still looking at me in that disconcerting way. Then he straightened in the chair and looked away. “Anyway, your dog is in my car.”
How could I have forgotten Robo? “You could drop him off at my house,” I said tentatively. “And maybe you’d be willing to let Millie out while you’re there?”