The Redemption Game

by Jen Blood

  “Four,” I said. She started to argue, but I stopped her with dead eyes. “I’m serious.”

  “Fine,” she grumbled. “Can I wrap up a couple of things, or you gonna run me out of here now?”

  I allowed a smile. “I can be reasonable. Do whatever you need to do. Bear actually wanted me to check on one of the dogs in here. Reaver?”

  At the name, a shadow darkened her eyes. “You might want to say goodbye, then. He’s not looking good.”

  “Where is he?”

  She nodded to the end of the aisle of kennels. I followed the nod, leaving Therese behind. The last kennel in the aisle had been draped with blankets so Reaver wouldn’t be disturbed at sight of the other dogs. I took one look through the gated door, and my eyes welled.

  Reaver looked up at me, docked ears tipped forward. He lay on a bare concrete floor, his eyes downcast. He couldn’t even lift his head. I noted a canvas laundry bag by the door and looked inquiringly at Therese, who had followed me.

  “More soiled blankets,” she said. “He hasn’t been able to keep anything down—he’s gone through six bedding changes by my count so far.”

  Hence the bare floor, I supposed. “Is there anything else clean?”

  “Sarah just brought in a fresh load. I can make a bed up for him.”

  “You’re going to sleep, remember?” I said. “I’ll take care of it.”

  She harrumphed, but it was clear that I wasn’t giving up on this one. After she’d gone, I went to the storage closet and picked out fresh bedding, still in canvas bags and straight from the dryer.

  Reaver managed to lift his head when I came in, watching me warily.

  “It’s all right, boy,” I said quietly. “Just setting you up with a fresh bed, okay?”

  Each individual kennel was equipped with elevated beds made from PVC pipe and canvas—easy to clean by just hosing them down, and virtually indestructible. Reaver’s had been pulled out. Looking closer, it was clear why. This one would need more than hosing down to get it clean again.

  “How about we just stick with a bed on the bare floor this time,” I said.

  My chest tightened when his tail thumped against the concrete. He lay his head back down, eyes drifting halfway shut. I situated a thick, plush blanket on the opposite side of the kennel, then sat down beside the dog. Hesitantly, I ran my hand over the big block head. He closed his eyes the rest of the way.

  “What do you think, bud?” His ears twitched at my tone. Eyes opened once more, this time fixed on me. I saw no animosity there. No fear. That was something, anyway. “Bear’s worried that you’ve been through too much. Is he right? Are you done?”

  He lifted his head again. I ran my hand over his body, anger rising once more at the feel of his ribs through his mangy coat. He whined. And then, summoning the strength from somewhere deep, he edged closer to me. With a sigh, he lay his head in my lap. Tears filled my eyes.

  “Okay,” I said. I continued petting him, moving carefully over his scars and scabs, the thinned fur and flaking skin. “Let’s give you some time, Reav. You’re not done yet.”

  He was snoring within a few minutes, his head heavy in my lap. I forgot my own problems, and focused instead on the dog now relying on me for his future. A dog who had every right to distrust every person who crossed his path, and yet here he was—drooling on my blue jeans, body twitching from dreams I would never know.

  No. Reaver definitely wasn’t done yet.

  As I was petting him, my hands paused at the feel of raised skin on his belly. I resituated myself to get a closer look, and frowned. There was what appeared to be a number of some kind tattooed on the skin, though it looked like someone had tried to remove it by burning the flesh there. People are monsters, I thought, definitely not for the first time in my life.

  A tattooed number, for a dog who clearly wasn’t as far gone as Nancy had seemed to think. He’d had some training, I was sure of it—possibly quite a bit of it. This would require some investigation.

  Chapter 10

  THE FIRST NIGHT WITH CASH and the kittens, not a lot of sleep was had. The vet had estimated the little bundles of fluff were at least five weeks old, which meant there was no need for two a.m. bottle feedings—or any bottle feedings at all, actually. Regardless, the squalling and cheeps and perpetual mewling coming from the next room were jarring enough to keep Jack—by now well-used to sleeping in an apartment alone—up for the better part of the night.

  At six a.m., after a couple of hours of fitful dozing, he gave up and got out of bed. With the sun just coming up, it seemed Cash and his brood had retired. The kittens lay curled around the tomcat, who opened one eye at Jack’s approach. Otherwise, he didn’t move.

  “You need to get them on a better schedule,” Jack informed the cat wearily. “You may have been nocturnal before, but things have changed.”

  He heard a low rumbling purr come from the tom, who stretched lazily. The kittens protested—loudly—and Jack took a step back.

  “Okay, fine. Do whatever you think is best.”

  He ran a hand briefly over Cash’s ragged head. The purr got louder. The kittens began to stir in earnest, which Jack felt bad about. If he thought he wasn’t getting enough rest, he could only imagine how Cash’s routine must have been impacted by the changes of the past twenty-four hours.

  Jack got dressed with the news playing in the background. Network news, on an honest-to-God TV set, not a computer. He knew he was a Luddite; that others had news channels streaming on their phones and iPads and even watches (or so he’d heard), but he much preferred this. Later, he would even read the paper.

  Now, however, he would run.

  He started a Spotify playlist on his phone. He wasn’t that out of touch. Jack felt his blood start to move as the first strains of Brittany Spears kicked in. He could almost hear Erin Solomon’s voice just under the music. Seriously, Jack? What is it with you and divas? He smiled faintly at the thought, and made a mental note to check in with his former girlfriend and her partner, Diggs, soon.

  Jamie liked country music, and she liked to sing along when she thought no one was listening. She had a pretty alto that made him think of clear days and sunlight. Secretly, at one time Jack had wanted to be a singer himself, but the nuns at the Miami convent where he’d been raised from thirteen to eighteen hadn’t approved of such frivolous daydreams.

  He stepped outside and stretched his long legs. Main Street Rockland was virtually empty, apart from a couple of people walking their dogs. It was ten past six when he set out, letting the cool morning air wash over him. He had a long list of things he needed to do today. To be honest, that had been the reason for the sleeplessness last night as much as anything. He was…excited. It had been a while since there had been a genuine reason to get out of bed in the morning.

  As he ran, he considered the case. Had the police identified the bodies in the basement yet? Found Albie? Determined Nancy’s cause of death? At this stage of any case, the questions were broad, and should be reasonably simple to find answers to. He’d made plans to meet Sophie Laurent at the medical examiner’s office in Augusta early that afternoon—at which point, he expected he could start digging into this puzzle in earnest.

  He ran along Main Street until he hit Front Street, then turned left to run with the ocean at his side. The waterfront was busy, the fishermen there having already been hard at work for hours by now.

  Jack ran the backroads along the water until he ran out of backroads to run, then paced himself along Route 1 until he could get back off the beaten path. He had a strong rhythm going by the time he reached the Rockland Breakwater. He felt the familiar pull in his calves, the strength of a body that wasn’t quite breaking down yet, despite the fact that forty was closing in fast.

  By the time Jack returned to the apartment, it was after seven o’clock. Traffic had picked up on Main Street, though only marginally. He stopped at Main Street Market for the paper and a coffee, then returned to his place eager for a show
er and the ability to finally get down to business.

  At the entrance to his hallway, however, he paused.

  An attractive blond woman sat perfectly upright in a folding chair beside his door. She stood at sight of him, a cup of coffee in each hand; she started to extend one to Jack, but faltered at sight of the steaming cup he already held.

  Barbara Monroe—the Davis’s inquisitive neighbor from the previous day.

  “Ms. Monroe,” Jack said, unable to hide his surprise. “Can I help you?”

  “I hope so,” she said. He realized as he took a step closer that it looked like she had been crying, her pretty eyes swollen and red. She dabbed at them delicately with a cloth handkerchief. “I’d like to hire you.”

  His surprise grew tenfold. “Hire me for…?”

  She took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and looked at Jack with a degree more calm than he would have expected from the woman. “I want you to prove that Nancy Davis killed my husband.”

  Jack froze. No clients for three months, not a case in sight. And now, suddenly, he had two clients in the space of twenty-four hours intent on solving a mystery revolving around the same woman.

  “Hang on,” Jack said awkwardly. “Just let me secure my cat, and you can come inside and start from the beginning.”

  Once he was sure Cash and the kittens wouldn’t bolt for daylight at their first opportunity, Jack led Barbara into his office, where she settled in the chair in front of his desk. He took a moment to clean himself up and change his clothes, then returned to the office with his mind already turning over her opening gambit.

  Barbara looked more put together when he returned, and slightly embarrassed for her outburst. “You must think I’m crazy for coming here like this. I can hardly blame you. Sometimes I wonder about that myself, but I just haven’t been the same since Tim left. Or disappeared. It’s been hard, not even knowing how to react, whether to be angry or worried or just distraught. And, of course, it’s taken an even worse toll on my daughter.”

  “I’m sure,” Jack said. “But what you said before, about Nancy… What makes you think she had anything to do with your husband’s disappearance?”

  “She hated Tim,” Barbara said. “I always complained about the animals, but Tim was the one she actually fought with. He was the one who called the police. He was the one who got animal welfare involved. She despised him. And I know that isn’t really enough to go on, but I heard about what you found in the basement. There were bodies down there, weren’t there?”

  Barbara wrapped her arms around herself more tightly, shivering despite the warmth in the room. She sighed. “I know how this makes me sound. Pathetic. Like I simply can’t accept the fact that my husband walked out on us.”

  “Is that what the police think?” Jack asked, as gently as he could. “That your husband left you?”

  Barbara nodded. “They’ve been nice to me about the whole thing,” she assured him. “I don’t feel as though I’ve been abused by the system or anything. But I know Tim; they don’t. We may have had our problems, but he never would have left Julie like this.”

  “When was the last time you saw your husband?” Jack asked. He took a legal pad from the top drawer of his desk and a freshly sharpened pencil from a cup of them beside his computer, then looked at Barbara expectantly.

  “It will be two months on Tuesday,” she said. She appeared relieved that they were getting down to business. “He’d been preparing for a business trip, and was supposed to leave the next day.”

  “I assume his car was gone. It’s not possible that he just left early?”

  “That’s what the police think,” Barbara agreed. “And it is technically possible, I suppose. But he would have waited to say goodbye to Julie, at least.”

  “I’m sorry to ask this, Mrs. Monroe, but were you and your husband having difficulties?”

  Barbara appeared uncomfortable. She shifted in her seat, her gaze settling on the wedding band around her finger. When she looked at Jack again, tears shimmered in her eyes. “Tim and I have been married for over twenty years, Mr. Juarez. Of course, we’ve had our challenges. What marriage hasn’t? That doesn’t mean he would be unnecessarily cruel—Tim just isn’t that kind of man.”

  Jack nodded. He suppressed a sigh, recognizing exactly where this case would most likely lead. No one wanted to believe their partner would betray them. But in his experience, that was usually exactly what had happened. Husbands cheated. Mothers ran out on their kids. Lovers killed one another in fits of jealousy. How many times had he dealt with exactly those things in the FBI? Of course, it was true that there were remains belonging to an unidentified male in Nancy’s basement, and that man had been killed recently. Technically, it was possible.

  “Mrs. Monroe—”

  “Please, call me Barbara,” she insisted.

  “Okay,” he agreed. “Barbara. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through in the past two months. I’m happy to look into this for you, but I think you need to prepare yourself for the most likely scenario. Based on what you’ve told me, your husband was a fit, athletic man in his forties. How do you think an elderly woman like Nancy—with a long list of medical issues—could have murdered your husband, disposed of the body, and then had the foresight to get rid of the car? I hate to be cruel, but I just want you to think about these things before you spend the money on a private investigator.”

  “How did she kill those other people?” Barbara challenged. “The ones in her basement? Trust me, I’ve thought about this obsessively for the past eight weeks. I watched Nancy. She was hardly a decrepit, doddering old fool. But I never would have thought of this if I hadn’t heard about the remains in her basement yesterday.” Her eyes filled suddenly, and she dabbed once more at her tears. “Suddenly, all the pieces fell into place.”

  She sat up, gathering strength. When she spoke again, her voice was resolute once more. “Maybe Nancy didn’t work alone. Albie was there. He would do anything his mother told him to do. She may not have the muscle anymore, but she could have directed him.”

  She met Jack’s eye. The tears were gone now, no hesitation in her gaze. “You may believe I’m throwing my money away, and that’s fine. But the reality is that I don’t have unlimited resources. My husband’s been gone for two months. He was the breadwinner in the family. I make a small amount of money from an Etsy shop, but that’s not enough to keep Julie and me going for much longer.

  “Tim’s vacation time at his job has long since run out, and he was officially fired two weeks ago. We don’t have a body, so insurance is refusing to pay anything. If I hire you, at the very least you’ll be able to find him. If he’s still alive, that’s fine—at least I’ll know. He’ll be financially culpable for Julie. And if he’s not alive…”

  Barbara remained in her seat, head up and back rigid. Her arms were no longer folded across her chest, but now lay on the armrests, fingernails digging into the leather.

  “You say you’re out of resources,” Jack began. “But my services aren’t inexpensive. How much are you prepared to pay for something that could ultimately break you and your daughter’s hearts?”

  “I’ll pay what I have to,” Barbara said. “I have a little money set aside, and I’m still quite close to Tim’s parents. Naturally, they’re as concerned as I am. They will be paying most of this bill.”

  “I’ll need to speak with them, if they’re the ones paying.”

  “I assumed so. I told them as much—they’re expecting your call. They’re traveling right now, but they’re as keen as I am to find out what happened to their son. Whatever any of us can do to help you get to the bottom of this…”

  With that out of the way, Jack found himself at a loss. “In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that I’m already working for someone on a case related to this.”

  “Solving Nancy’s murder, you mean,” Barbara said with a nod. Jack couldn’t hide his surprise.

  “It’s a small town,” Barbara said.
“I asked around when I saw you there, but no one could tell me for sure. But once I heard what happened to Nancy, it made sense that you might be there for more than just to help out the Humane Society.”

  “But you don’t see that as a problem,” Jack clarified.

  “Can you work two cases at once?”

  “Of course,” Jack said. “I usually had at least half a dozen open cases I was working on at the FBI simultaneously. If you’re all right with it, so am I. You should know that all of my clients have full confidentiality, which means I won’t be discussing your case with anyone else…”

  “So, I shouldn’t expect you to discuss the other case with me,” Barbara finished for him. She waved off the statement. “Honestly, I don’t care who killed Nancy Davis. If I could, I’d thank him myself. It has made my life much easier.”

  “Him?” Jack asked, caught by the pronoun. He ran through the conversation again in his head, replaying Barbara’s words. “You said you heard what happened to Nancy. What was the story you got, exactly?” He kept his voice neutral, making it seem as though he already knew.

  “Well, I don’t know for sure. I mean, I don’t have a coroner’s report or whatever. But Jimmy—he works with the EMTs—said they got there and Nancy was dead on the floor with her head smashed in. That doesn’t sound like much of a heart attack to me.”

  “Do you think Albie would have been capable of physical violence against his mother?” he asked.

  “God, no. That man’s as gentle as they come, and he worshipped his mother. No, I can’t see him doing something like this.”

  “If you’ll forgive me saying, you seem pretty intent on keeping Julie away from a man you insist is harmless.”

  “No, that’s fair,” Barbara said. If she took offense, she showed no sign of it. “It’s not that I’m afraid he would do something to her, but I don’t want her giving him the wrong idea, either. Julie always gets mad at me because she feels like I’m not being fair to him, but she’s young—she might think she’s wise to the world, but she can be awfully naïve.”