She looked up at the people standing around her. They all resembled refugees from a blizzard, eyes tearing, cheeks and noses raw from the wind. She thanked the young woman who’d identified Eddie. Without her help, the sketch would have been largely useless. Instead Rory had a face and a name, and tomorrow she’d be paying Eddie Mays another visit.
Chapter 21
“Y
ou know it’s possible Mays was just out there takin’ a walk, or what folks today call ‘gettin’ some fresh air,’ ” Zeke said after Rory gave him the rundown on the dog park and showed him the sketch of Eddie. As if by mutual consent they’d both moved on from the impasse of the previous night without the need for apologies, for which Rory was grateful. She didn’t have the time to waste dealing with bruised egos, his or her own.
The marshal leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb between the kitchen and the small laundry room where Rory had gone to transfer a load of towels from the washing machine to the dryer. “I mean he owns a dog groomin’ place so I’m guessin’ he likes dogs. Why wouldn’t he hang out at the dog park from time to time?”
“Well, for one thing,” Rory replied, tossing a fabric softener in with the clothes, “I’m not sure he loves dogs all that much. I doubt he even has one of his own. If he did, he’d take it to the shop with him and to the park. For another, if you’re working on other people’s dogs all day long, why would you spend your free time watching other people’s dogs run around? That’s what my dad would call a real busman’s holiday.”
“What does a bus have to do with anythin’?” Zeke asked in the exasperated tone he reserved for modern expressions that made no sense to him.
Rory almost fell into the trap of trying to explain it to him, but she caught herself in time. It was never worth the energy it required, because he’d already passed judgment on it and wasn’t likely to change his mind.
Zeke wasn’t waiting for an explanation anyway. “I suppose you could be right about Mays,” he said, “but I’m assumin’ that even these days the police can’t arrest a guy for just standin’ there watchin’ some dogs play.”
“No, we haven’t sunk that low yet,” she said. “Look, I know this may not be a great lead, but it is a lead. And in case you haven’t been counting, we’re not exactly buried under dozens of them. So I’m going to follow this one wherever it takes me. And tomorrow morning it’s taking me back to see Eddie.” She started the dryer and turned to leave the laundry room, but she found Zeke occupying half the doorway. She could either chance squeezing past him or she could ask him to move. Recalling Hobo’s hysteria after bumping into the marshal, Rory went with a polite “excuse me.”
Zeke moved out of the way without a single taunt about her lack of courage. Either he was totally focused on the Eddie Mays issue or he’d decided not to say anything that might push her into proving her courage in other, more dangerous ways.
Rory walked past him into the kitchen and picked up the coffee she’d left on the counter. She’d stopped for it at a local deli on her way home, and it had gone a long way toward removing the chill from her bones. When she’d set it down on the counter earlier, Hobo had promptly fallen asleep on the floor below it, a strategy no doubt meant to keep him informed as to her whereabouts. But he hadn’t taken sheer exhaustion into account. Practically comatose from his romp in the park, even Zeke’s appearance and voice had failed to rouse him. Rory stared at him with some concern until she saw the gentle rise and fall of his chest.
“What did you do to the mutt?” Zeke laughed, stepping over him as if that were the only available route through the kitchen.
Rory held herself in check and said nothing, even though she could imagine the hullabaloo if Hobo chose that moment to wake up. But Zeke completed his transit, and Hobo snored on blissfully unaware.
“You shouldn’t go makin’ an appointment with Mays this time,” Zeke said, straddling one of the kitchen chairs and looking at Rory over the back of it.
“I can’t anyway.” She shrugged. “I’ve played out my welcome as a journalist, and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t agree to see me again if I did call ahead. So I’m just going to drop in on him and hope he doesn’t throw me out. All I have to do is come up with a different excuse for wanting to talk to him.”
Rory sat down at the table, and in one quick blur of motion Zeke turned himself and his chair around so that he was facing her again. Thankfully Hobo wasn’t awake to witness Zeke’s little performance of legerdemain.
“In my time I had some success usin’ the least likely of approaches with suspects,” he said with a nostalgic smile. “Like the time I went to Texas to help out some friends with a cattle spread there. They’d been losin’ a lot of their animals to rustlers. After a few days nosin’ around, I had me a pretty good hunch who was doin’ the rustlin’, but they turned those cattle over so quick I couldn’t catch them with the goods. So I sat myself down at a table in the local saloon and waited for those boys to get thirsty. Two of them came in that very afternoon. Once they’d had a couple of drinks, I went over to them and told them I had it on good authority that a marshal was coming to shut them down. They were real interested, and we got chummy quick.” His smile deepened into a grin. “It didn’t take me long to find out what I needed to know in order to catch them and their boss red-handed.”
“So, make it seem like I’m on his side and just trying to give him a heads-up,” Rory said, a possible scenario taking shape in her mind.
“Just don’t let this Mays fella get you into the back of that store. You stay up front where you can be seen and heard in case he decides you’re a problem he doesn’t need.”
“You know I’m really not as dumb as those rustlers,” Rory said evenly, proud of herself for taking the high road when she actually felt like slugging him. It never failed to amaze her how helpful he could be one minute and how exasperating the next.
“Maybe I should try to meet you there,” Zeke muttered, raking the hair back from his forehead, a gesture that generally meant he was feeling frustrated or helpless. Rory knew that “frustration” didn’t come close to explaining what it was like for him to exist on the outskirts of life all these years. Surely it had changed him from the man he’d once been. Not for the first time she wished she could have known him before his long tenure in her house. Yet in spite of all the empathy she had for his plight, she had to keep him reined in now that his actions affected her life too.
“No way,” she said firmly, “no traveling. You’re not close to mastering it, and I can’t concentrate on Mays if I’m waiting for pieces of you to suddenly pop out of thin air.”
Zeke was shaking his head as if he already regretted telling her the story.
“I’ll be fine. I’ll have my gun with me, and besides, I’m pretty sure I can outrun Eddie.” She’d added the last in hopes of getting him to lighten up and smile again.
“This is serious business, Aurora,” he said, a smile nowhere in sight, “and you need to treat it as such.”
The telephone rang before Rory could reply. Just as well; her store of patience was bankrupt. When she answered the phone, Leah was on the other end.
“I ran the sketch of that guy you saw outside Boomer’s Groomers,” she said, “but there was no match. Whoever he is, he’s managed to stay out of the system so far.”
Another dead end. Rory thanked her and they spent a few minutes chatting about their cases. Leah wasn’t having any more success finding Brenda’s killer than Rory was having tracking down the dog thieves. For that matter, they still didn’t know if they were looking for the same doers. Rory told her about Susan from the dog park who was sure Brenda was murdered because of the affair she was having. On its own, it didn’t seem to be worth much, but it did tie in nicely with the information from Brenda’s sister.
Rory didn’t bother mentioning the sketch of Eddie Mays or her plan to visit him again. She told herself she’d let Leah know if anything came of it. Her conscience was stirring up a pot of guilt porridge over the omission, but not enough to change her mind. As she’d told Zeke on more than one occasion, she had to do right by her clients, and that meant not letting anyone tie her hands behind her back. For all of her fabulous qualities, Leah could be too maternal and protective of the people she loved.
W
hen Rory walked into Boomer’s Groomers, Eddie was behind the counter helping a woman who was there to pick up her dog, a miniature poodle that had been groomed and pruned into a canine topiary with a pink bow at each tasseled ear flap.
Eddie managed to keep his pleasant business face on until after the woman and her dog left. The minute the door closed behind them he came out from behind the counter, scowling at Rory from beneath recently shaved eyebrows. Added to his shaved head and piercings his appearance had morphed from merely odd to menacing.
“You’re not welcome here,” he said in a tone that matched his expression. “I called that magazine you supposedly write for, and they never heard of you. Who the hell are you? And why are you so interested in me?”
“Okay, here’s the deal,” Rory said, laying on a heavy dose of sincerity, “you’ve heard of neighborhood watch groups, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
She could hear his anger start to give way to wary curiosity.
“Well, I’m a member of PAW, Protect Our Animals Watch. The police haven’t been able to find the thieves who are stealing our pets, so we’ve decided it’s up to us to do whatever we can to protect them.”
Eddie skewered her with his owl eyes. “What’s that got to do with lying and pretending to do an article about me?”
This wasn’t going to be an easy sell. “Give me a minute,” Rory said, “I’m getting to that. PAW meets every week to share information, theories, suspicions. Last week your name came up.”
“My name? What’re you saying?” The scowl was back, blacker than before. “You accusing me of something?”
Rory’s feet were itching to backpedal, but she held her ground. “Take it easy. Let me finish,” she said more calmly than she felt. “A few of the members reported seeing you down at the Huntington Dog Park.”
Eddie surprised her by chuckling. He held his arms out straight as if he were waiting to be arrested and cuffed. “You broke me. I confess. I was at the dog park.” Then he turned abruptly away from her with a dismissive wave of his hand. “You’re mad as a hatter,” he muttered. “Leave now before I call the police to haul your ass outta here.” He started to walk toward the back of the store.
“They thought you were taking notes, possibly targeting certain dogs to steal.”
Eddie stopped and turned back to her. “Yeah? And how was I supposed to know where any of those dogs lived?”
“By following the owners home.”
Eddie retraced his steps until he was standing toe-to-toe with her. “Get outta here!” he growled.
“I stood up for you,” Rory said staunchly. She saw the rage ebb from his face and leave his features strangely blank. “I told them it wasn’t possible. That I knew too many people who loved Boomer’s Groomers and that you were a businessman with a good, solid reputation. I even said I’d check you out myself. That’s why I lied and said I was writing an article.”
“So you got what you wanted. Why’re you here again?”
“They weren’t sold by what I said. They still think you’re involved, because one of them saw you holding papers at the park as if you were taking notes. Between you and me, I think they’ve gone off the deep end,” she said, trying Zeke’s gambit of aligning herself with her quarry. “I just wanted to let you know what’s going on. You’ve got a reputation to protect and all.”
Eddie didn’t respond. He leaned over the counter and pulled a stack of paper from a shelf below the register. He held it out to her. “Here. Do these look like sinister notes or plans to you?”
Rory looked at the top paper on the pile. It was an ad for his store with a coupon for a free bag of dog treats with a grooming.
“I went down there to put these flyers on the windshields in the parking lot. I do that from time to time. It’s called advertising. When you report back to PAW, you can tell them for me they’re all certifiable.” Eddie walked away muttering something unintelligible.
Rory left the store thinking that if he was lying, he was doing a mighty fine job of it.
Then again, prisons were full of criminals who were every bit as accomplished in that art.
Chapter 22
“J
ean got the flyer,” Rory said, setting the phone back on its base. “It was on her windshield when she left the park. So I guess Eddie’s story checks out.”
Zeke was seated at the kitchen table. He rocked his chair back onto its rear legs and hefted his boots up on the table, a position that always made Rory cringe even though she knew the dirty boots weren’t actually there.
“Just because his alibi checks out, it don’t necessarily mean he was tellin’ you the whole truth. I’ve been derailed myself by that kind of assumption. It’s possible, and sometimes downright easy, to hide a criminal activity inside a perfectly innocent-lookin’ one.”
“It was you who suggested Eddie might have been at the park to ‘get some fresh air’ in the first place,” she said with an edge of exasperation. “You can’t keep switching sides of the debate.”
Zeke laughed. “Of course I can, unless that’s another one of your rules.” When Rory didn’t give him so much as a smile in response, he dropped the humor and switched on a serious expression again. “Listen, you’ve got to keep reevaluatin’ a case as the investigation goes along; otherwise you’re just hog-tyin’ yourself.”
“Lord knows I wouldn’t want to be hog-tied,” she said, glancing out the kitchen door to see if Hobo was ready to come in. Ever since she’d received the letter threatening him, she’d been afraid to let him out of her sight for long. She located him in the back of the yard blissfully rolling on his back in a pile of leaves the wind had raked into one corner. She’d be finding leaf particles all over the house for days. No matter, as long as he was okay.
“We can’t seem to make any progress in this case,” she said, sighing in frustration as she took a seat across from Zeke. “I’m going to have to speak to Tina and see if she wants me to continue. She certainly hasn’t seen much benefit from the retainer she gave me, and I’m not in a position where I can work for free.”
“You’ve spent so much time on the case, it’d be a real shame to give up on it now.”
“I know. I just wish we had a solid direction to go in. It feels like we’re chasing our tails, pardon the pun, and what do we have? I can’t honestly imagine Marti Sugarman stealing other people’s dogs, except maybe Tootsie. The woman’s too much of a nervous Nellie. That only leaves Stanley Holbrook and that list of his, Eddie Mays and Anita Callaway, winner of our Miss Congeniality award. If we’re not counting Marti, the motive for a crime like this has to be money, right? Joanne Lester seemed to think Dr. Holbrook was in particular need of some, but who doesn’t need money these days? It’s too broad a motive to help us eliminate anyone.”
“I beg to differ,” Zeke said with a grin. “It would eliminate me.”
“There’s no solid evidence that points to any one of them.” Rory went on refusing to be sidetracked. “In fact, we have no evidence at all, except for the two letters I received. And according to Reggie, they were both completely clean.”
“You’re forgettin’ a couple of suspects,” Zeke reminded her. “Tina’s husband Joe and the fella I saw deliverin’ that last letter.”
“Joe’s not on
my
short list,” she said, “and there’s no way to track down the delivery guy. Not without a license plate or a criminal record or something. To tell you the truth, I’m worried that the real thieves may not even be on our radar yet.”
“Now, don’t go gettin’ all discouraged. There were times when I was clean out of leads and hunches only to find the answer was right under my nose. It’s like that children’s game where you gotta connect the dots in order to see the picture.”
“I really don’t see how that helps.”
“Maybe not yet, but you will. All I’m sayin’ is you gotta keep on keepin’ on, darlin’. The only cases I didn’t solve were the ones I gave up on.”
Rory supposed there was a strange kind of upside-down logic to what he was saying. In any case she didn’t feel like discussing the point any further.
“Hell,” Zeke went on, “you’ve got more gumption than any woman I’ve known; more than most men too. There ain’t a quittin’ bone in your whole body.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind,” she said, giving in to the smile that was tugging at her mouth. The marshal really knew how to pay a girl a compliment.
She saw that Hobo was standing at the back door, so she went to let him in. Instead of racing through the kitchen at warp speed when he saw Zeke, the dog padded cautiously past the table and on into the dining room. Once he’d made it to safety, he gave his coat a vigorous shake that produced a mini whirlwind of dust and leaves. Then he settled onto the floor with a weary sigh.
Rory watched in wide-eyed amazement. “Did you catch that? I think we may at least be making progress on the home front.”
“I wouldn’t go claimin’ victory just yet,” Zeke grumbled, clearly unwilling to adjust to life with a dog, even if Hobo was making an effort to adjust to life with a ghost.
“Well, I choose to be optimistic,” she said, thinking that Hobo was showing more maturity than the marshal.
“I’ve often found optimism to be a direct path to disappointment,” he said.
Rory was about to suggest that he’d enjoy life more with an attitude adjustment, but since he didn’t actually have a life anymore, she decided that it would be tactless of her to harp on the fact. Instead, she let the subject expire and went over to the cabinet beneath the sink to take out Hobo’s brush. Armed with the brush and a scissor in case she came across matted fur, she joined the dog on the dining room floor.
“Can we get back to business now?” Zeke pulled his feet off the table, setting his chair down with a loud thump that gave Hobo a start. Rory had to grab the dog’s collar and sweet-talk him back down again. She sent the marshal a withering glare.
“If direction in the case is what you’re needin’, I believe I can help you out there,” Zeke said as if he hadn’t noticed the dog’s reaction or hers. “I’ve hunted down some questionable newspaper ads.”
“Seriously?” Rory looked up as she pulled the steel bristles through Hobo’s shaggy coat. “I could really use some good news about now.”
“I aim to please,” he said with a smile. “Far as I can tell there are two types of ads. First you have the more particular ones where an owner is tryin’ to find a new home for a pet. Then you have the general type that just says things like ‘all breeds, lowest prices, we won’t be undersold.’ It’s that second type I’ve been concentratin’ on like you suggested. If the ad mentioned a website, I checked that out too.”
“And?” she asked, the brush suspended in midair.
“I found three that fit the bill. I left the names and phone numbers on your computer in case you want to call the places. Sorry I couldn’t do that part for you,” he added.
“Hey, no need to apologize,” Rory said. “You did the research to get me the numbers. Calling is the easy part.” At least it was for her. For some reason, Zeke’s energy didn’t translate well through the phone lines. The person on the other end was treated to an ear-splitting screech of static, which she’d discovered the hard way when Zeke had tried to call her cell phone from the landline in the house.
“In fact,” she said, “I’m going to do just that as soon as I’ve made Hobo here a bit more presentable.”
H
obo chose to stay behind in the dining room for a little snooze while Rory went up to the study to make the calls. The marshal was perched on the edge of her desk fidgeting impatiently with a button on his shirtsleeve when she walked into the room. She supposed it was easy to get bored when one was always waiting for mortals who had to rely on the traditional form of locomotion.
She sat down behind the desk and picked up the phone. Although she’d had a new business line installed when she’d opened her agency, she’d also kept Mac’s existing home number. Since it was unlisted, it allowed her to make outgoing calls that didn’t come up on caller ID. Perfect for calls like the three she was about to make. She found the names and numbers from the ads on the computer screen as Zeke promised.
“Wish me luck,” she said.
Zeke gave her a wink and a thumbs-up.
Two of the lines were answered by women, the third by a man. Unfortunately none of their voices sounded like any of her suspects, but she’d known that was too much to hope for.
On the off chance that one of them had heard of her, Rory had decided to use an alias. Better safe than sorry. When she inquired as to who supplied the dogs they sold, they all said they worked exclusively with legitimate breeders, and that they would refund her money if she wasn’t fully satisfied. She told them she was interested in a Jack Russell puppy and asked if she could have the name of the breeder they would be using, since she wanted proof the puppy didn’t come from one of the notorious puppy mills. They were all reluctant to provide her with that information, until she made it clear that their refusal was a deal breaker. In the end, two of them gave her the names and numbers, but emphasized that the breeders had signed contracts preventing them from selling directly to the public and undercutting their prices. The third one, It’s a Dog’s World, refused to give her the information and hung up when she tried to press for it.
Rory set down the phone and turned to Zeke with a smile. “I think we have ourselves a winner.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He smiled back at her. “Sounds like you got yourself some of that direction you were lookin’ for. How are you fixin’ to handle this?”
“I’ll wait a couple of days so they don’t connect the two calls, and then Dog’s World is going to hear from a new customer. A lovely customer who’s willing to pay in cash and doesn’t ask too many questions.”
“You still plannin’ to ask for a puppy?”
She nodded. “The puppies aren’t being stolen from private owners, only from breeders and pet stores. Even though I’d return the dog right after it’s delivered, I couldn’t stand causing someone else so much pain and anxiety.”
“I know you don’t think I understand,” Zeke said softly, “but I do.”
Rory nodded. “I’m really glad to hear you say that.”
An awkward moment of silence stretched between them, and Rory found herself oddly at a loss for words with which to bridge it. That brief exchange had been among the most basic and honest they’d ever shared. In the past, whenever Zeke had revealed something of himself it had been in the heat of anger, as if it were wrenched from him against his will.
It was Zeke who spoke first. “So, what kind of puppy is it goin’ to be?”
It took Rory a few seconds to round up her meandering thoughts and refocus. “I don’t want to pick a dog that’s too hard for them to find or this will drag on forever. I think I’ll go with a beagle. They seem to be popular. After I order the dog, I’ll let Leah know, and if there’s a report of a stolen beagle puppy, we’ll know we’ve probably targeted the right company. It’s not a foolproof plan, but it’s the best we can do for now.
Zeke nodded. “Sounds fine. Of course, we’ll have to work out the details of how they’re gonna get the dog to you, and how you’re gonna nab them.”
“Well, some of that’s going to depend on how they usually do the deliveries. If I make too many demands, it could tip them off.”
“I wouldn’t mind bein’ with you when it goes down,” he said.
Rory could tell he’d picked his words carefully to avoid an argument, but the delivery couldn’t be at her house. If the dognappers knew her, using her address could be just as damaging as using her real name. And Zeke simply wasn’t ready for his traveling debut.
“I know I don’t quite have the hang of it yet,” he said as if he’d been reading her mind, “but there’s still time to get in more practice beforehand.”
“We’ll have to see what kind of time frame we’re dealing with. They could tell me I have to wait a month for the dog, or they could say they’ll have one for me tomorrow.”
“I suppose,” Zeke allowed grudgingly. “But we’ll do the strategizin’ about it together, right?”
“You have my word on that,” she promised.
1878
New Mexico Territory
W
hen Drummond opened his eyes he found himself in a room he’d never seen before. Sunlight was pouring in through a window directly across from the bed in which he lay, and his eyes ached from the brightness as if they’d been shuttered for too long. Hard as he tried he couldn’t remember how he’d come to be there. He couldn’t even recall what day it was, although he had the disquieting feeling that he’d lost a large parcel of time along the way.
Squinting against the light, he took stock of the room. This was clearly the home of a man of means. The wooden wardrobe and matching dresser had been made with careful attention to detail and were polished to a fine glow. Lace curtains framed the window, and a dozen leatherbound books filled a small bookshelf in the corner. From his position on his back, Drummond could just make out the edge of a braided throw rug below him on the shiny planked wood floor.
To the right of the bed there was a small nightstand and atop it a glass, a decorative pitcher presumably containing water, and lengths of bandaging material. The bed itself was comfortable; the linens, smelling mildly of lemon, were soft against his skin. That realization led him directly to wondering where his clothes were. He peeled back a corner of the blanket and sheet to check beneath them. Whoever had undressed him had not even left him the dignity of his drawers, though to be fair, they hadn’t been in the best of condition given his time on the trail.
He was still sorting through the jumbled images in his mind, trying to reconstruct how he’d come to be in this bed, wherever it was, when the pain in his left shoulder roared back to life. For the first time since he’d awakened, he was aware of the tightly bound dressing that immobilized his left shoulder and upper arm. He remembered being shot and then killing his assailant. He was pretty sure he’d managed to mount his horse. From that point on, his memory was lost to a black haze, illuminated only by the jagged flashes of pain that had ripped through him.
How many more miles had Trask put between them, while he lay senseless in this bed? He needed to find his clothes and his horse before any more time passed. He threw back the covers and with great difficulty managed to draw himself up until he was sitting on the edge of the bed. His head was wobbling on his neck, the room dancing merrily around him. Then somehow he was lying in a heap on the rug, the injured shoulder bearing the brunt of his fall. He heard himself scream as if it had come from someone else’s throat. Surely he couldn’t have made a sound like that.