Shattered Secrets

by Karen Harper

  “Got a few minutes?” Gabe asked.

  “A few. Busy day. My office is just down the hall where—”

  “Mind if I just step in here with you instead?” Gabe asked and, without permission, the dog under his arm, entered an examining room. He quickly scanned the open shelves, but most were hidden behind cabinet doors.

  “Just curious, Dane. When you knock a dog out for something like neutering, what do you use? Just straight ether or something else?”

  “Things are a little more sophisticated than that today. Ether use began in the Victorian age. A variety of anesthetics are available now for animals, and certainly for people.”

  “I had a friend who just had a colonoscopy, and they gave him Versed, some kind of amnesiac. I guess with animals you wouldn’t use something like that.”

  “Hardly. It was probably a sophisticated cocktail of drugs your friend had, and Versed was a part of it. We don’t need or use such drugs for animals, only painkillers, not ones that kill the memory. So, where is this going?”

  “Obviously nowhere,” Gabe said, noting that Dane showed no particular reaction to the mention of an amnesia drug. “I actually came today to tell you someone’s been harassing Tess Lockwood by putting one of John Hillman’s taxidermy dogs on her back porch. It belonged to Jonas Simons. I just wondered if you ever treated this dog.”

  “The Simons boys—all three of them—don’t get their dogs treated, neutered, nothing, though I have sewn up a couple of wounds from fights they had with coons.”

  “Or fights with each other?”

  Dane shrugged and looked away. He started to straighten items on his counter, dropping scissors into some sort of sterile bath, his rubber gloves into a waste bin he opened with a foot pedal. He let the bin slam closed.

  “I don’t know about the dogs fighting each other,” Dane said, obviously trying to keep his temper in check. That’s the way Gabe liked it: let them get riled.

  “But,” Dane went on, gesturing more broadly as if that would convince him, “I did not harass Tess Lockwood by putting a mounted pit bull on her back porch, if that’s what you’re implying. Sheriff, are you still on a mission to pull me into her case, or any of the others? You know I had an alibi from when Teresa Lockwood was taken, so give it up.”

  “I know both you and Dr. Linda Stevens said you were going to see her and that you arrived, visited awhile and headed back. A single witness, a friend or more than a friend.”

  “Just leave her out of this! And Marva said you went to see her at the spa. Make a case, Sheriff, or get out of my life. Unless you have a search warrant, and want to go looking for lost little girls in these drawers or cupboards, get out of my examining room!”

  “Thanks for your cooperation, Dane. I’ll be seeing you,” he said, and walked out.

  * * *

  After Gabe called Tess to tell her to be ready in half an hour, he walked into the police station with the pit bull in his arms. He put the dog down on Ann’s desk.

  “You tagged this and entered it in evidence,” he said, “but forgot to tell me who owned it.”

  Her cheeks colored. She didn’t meet his eyes, staring at her computer screen as if she’d read her next words there.

  “If you mean it might belong to my brother, I wasn’t sure. Lots of people have pit bulls.”

  “Recently dead ones mounted by a local taxidermist? I hear his name was Sikkem.”

  “I thought it might be, but I wasn’t sure. You don’t hire me to solve cases. You didn’t ask. You haven’t asked me anything of importance lately.”

  He ignored that barb. All he needed was her brothers tampering with Tess’s confidence, complicating his investigation by leaving terror presents on her back porch.

  “Are we adversaries now, when I need my entire staff to pull together at this time—all times, Ann?”

  “I don’t want to be your enemy. You’re the one backing off, getting confused, getting too close to a witness and victim.”

  “She’s helping me. I have to be able to trust you.”

  Ann started to say something else but shut her mouth and bit her lower lip.

  Keeping his voice calm, Gabe gave her instructions. “Please phone Jonas and tell him I’d like him to stop by my office before work tomorrow morning. Ann,” he added, putting his hand around her wrist as she started to write that down as if she would not remember it, “I’d like for us to be friends.”

  “Strange how that word can hurt—friends. And please take that dog off my desk. I hate dogs. I’ve always hated their dogs.”

  “It must have been painful to watch your brothers pit their dogs against each other.”

  “I don’t know what you mean. And if I did ever see a dogfight, it wasn’t as bad as when people fight.”

  He picked up the dog. “Tell Jonas he still owes John Hillman for his work, but, if he wants it, he has to pick up the dog here.”

  Gabe ignored whatever Ann was muttering as he walked back to his office with the dead dog in his arms. He felt he was getting nowhere fast, but at least he hadn’t turned up any human bodies—yet.

  16

  On the highway to Chillicothe, Tess started to realize what else it meant to be a law enforcement officer, besides being on call all the time. Cars slowed down when they saw Gabe’s vehicle, though they were going the speed limit. Even huge semis moved out of their way, as if Gabe had the siren and light bar on. It was a strange kind of power she’d never experienced, though she was familiar with the feeling that people were looking at her. Yet everything about being with this man seemed new and amazing. Since she felt safe bouncing her deepest fears off him, she’d decided to share something else she was agonizing over.

  “Gabe, I found something disturbing in one of the books Miss Etta loaned me. It’s called Stockholm syndrome. It means that sometimes hostages express sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors. They’re so grateful to be fed and kept alive that they come to need and like—even love—their abductors. Is that insane or what?”

  “Sounds crazy, but it happens. Do you think it figures in what happened to you?”

  “I’m not sure, but it makes me wonder if that could be a reason I can’t remember things. Could there be someone I think well of now who took me and hurt me years ago? I like almost everyone in Cold Creek except Dane and Bright Star Monson—which I realize doesn’t narrow suspects down one bit for you. And,” she added, eager not to dwell on the subject, “I meant to tell you I called my sister Char out in New Mexico and asked her if Mom and Dad ever used the word smacking when they punished us. She’d never heard it and had no memory of a scarecrow either. She about had a fit when I admitted I’d been thinking of calling our father.”

  “I’m sure your mother and sisters were hurt by his desertion. As the youngest, you maybe don’t remember too much about it.”

  “We were all devastated. I remember that. He must have been really upset or bitter about something to leave. I know he partly blamed Mom for not keeping me with her the day I was taken, but Kate and Char hinted it was more. I know all the jokes about traveling salesmen, but I never heard he had someone else. He met the woman he married out west after he moved there.”

  “Yeah. Well, it might be rough to talk to him after all this time. You might want to put it off.”

  She pulled her seat belt out a bit and turned toward him. “Gabe, he was never under suspicion for taking me himself to get back at my mother for something, right?”

  Gabe looked as if she’d hit him. His eyes widened, his nostrils flared. He didn’t look at her but kept his eyes on the road. “Vic Reingold and my father considered it. But they decided no.”

  “He had an alibi?”

  “There were rumors he’d been out of town, but he’d gone for a walk near the falls. He took off work that day and wasn’
t traveling. He told Vic, who interviewed him, he had some tough things to decide about his marriage. The parents are always looked at immediately in abuse or kidnap cases, but Vic believed him.”

  “Your father did too?”

  “Yeah.”

  An awkward silence stretched between them. She thought he was going to say something more, but he didn’t, so she continued, “Anyway, it was great to talk to Char. She’s always good at calming me down. It’s the social worker in her. Kate says she’s a bleeding heart. Kate’s a lot more ticked off that Mom left the house to me alone, but they’re both still supportive in their way.”

  “There are advantages and disadvantages to being an only child, like me. The youngest kid, the middle kid, the oldest and in between can all have problems, but when you’re the only kid, it’s all on you. You’re the firstborn, but you’re always the baby too.”

  “You and your mother must miss each other.”

  “We’re getting close now,” he said, as if he’d had enough family talk. He turned the cruiser onto the ramp to downtown Chillicothe. “Let’s go over this again. I’ll drive past Dr. Stevens’s house, then her vet clinic. They’re not in the same area. The clinic’s off Bridge Street near the hospital. Just take a good look at both places to see if anything prompts a memory. Behind her vet clinic, near the train tracks, she had an extension built out the back that’s evidently not used. It’s something my dad discovered and I’ve checked on periodically since. I’ll interview her while you look around, and if you see anything at all suspicious, just meet me back where I drop you off, and we’ll check it out together. Tess, are you okay? Got that?”

  “I hear you. Agreed. It’s all a long shot, isn’t it? You have to just keep unraveling threads and hope that something really frays or tears loose.”

  “That’s a sad way to look at police work, but I guess, at least in the case of the Cold Creek kidnapper, that’s right.”

  She reached over to squeeze his shoulder. He covered her hand with his. At that smallest touch, her heart soared.

  * * *

  “This is certainly a surprise and, quite frankly, not a welcome one,” Dr. Linda Stevens told Gabe as she sat across her desk from him. “I was barely beginning my practice here when your father came calling with cloaked innuendoes that I might have something to do with a kidnapped child when I only had contact with Dane Thompson for business.”

  The vet going on the offensive reminded Gabe of Dane’s attitude earlier. He felt deflated that Tess had not recognized this woman’s house or clinic from their drive-by, but he wasn’t giving up on this interview. He kept thinking his only chance without a solid lead was to rattle each possible suspect’s cage. It bothered him when there were so many caged animals nearby. He could hear the muted cries of dogs and cats, even with the office door closed. But he’d give about anything to hear a young girl’s cries from her place of imprisonment, so he could rescue her.

  “Each time there’s another abduction,” he told her, “we need to go back over all former evidence. These crimes may well be linked.”

  “But I gave no evidence, per se. I merely gave a deposition that Dane Thompson visited me the day of that first abduction for which he was wrongly suspected.”

  The woman lit a cigarette then inhaled deeply. It surprised him, but then he knew all kinds of doctors smoked. He took it that she was nervous enough to light up in front of him without asking if he’d mind.

  Linda Stevens was a good-looking woman in an icy way. Her blond hair was pulled away from her face into a twist. A face he’d call classic or aristocratic with high cheekbones and arched eyebrows. He could see why it was his father’s theory that Dane Thompson was interested in her for more than business reasons.

  “So, what can I do to get rid of you?” she asked, tapping nonexistent ash from the end of her newly lit cigarette into a cut-glass ashtray.

  “Make my day. Admit you covered for Dane by giving him a false alibi that he wasn’t in Cold Creek when Teresa Lockwood was abducted. You certainly won’t be prosecuted for misleading statements to my father from twenty years ago, whereas withholding information now that would be useful—that could be a different story.”

  “All right, so I was seeing Dane socially at that time and didn’t want people to think I was dating a possible kidnapper.”

  “I believe that much.”

  “But I don’t think he was—a kidnapper.”

  “I should tell you, however, that all kinds of law enforcement, even media, may be swooping in here with our new emphasis on the investigation. And one way to stop that is to level with me about the drugs you and Dane use to sedate animals.”

  “What? Now, wasn’t that a non sequitur!”

  He hoped she’d be upset enough to go for his bait-and-switch tactic. Maybe she’d want to get him off the topic of her earlier lies in her deposition and instead give him info about sedation drugs available to vets. He saw her quick mind follow exactly what he’d implied. She stubbed out her barely smoked cigarette with such vehemence that her long fingernails went rat-a-tat against the ashtray.

  “Drugs?” she said. “Ask him. Besides, all vets use sedation drugs. And yes, some are the same or similar to what would be used by doctors of Homo sapiens, if that’s where this is going.”

  “A drug like Versed, for example?”

  “You mean midazolam? That’s for humans. It’s an amnestic. With a dog or cat, unlike with a person, it isn’t necessary to suppress memories of a medical procedure. We use pain or knockout meds for animals. However, I will say one other thing, if you keep it off the record.” She hesitated, frowning.

  He shifted slightly forward in his chair. “So far, this is all off the record.”

  “Dane, at that time, not now, was my source for drugs. Vet drugs, not recreational drugs or medical drugs for humans like midazolam. He had some source on the East Coast, got them cheap from some clearing house, nothing illegal.”

  That was intriguing, perhaps useful. But he decided to go for another quick change in topic. “Did he phone you to say I might be visiting today?”

  She blinked, once, twice. “I don’t see him anymore. Haven’t for years.”

  “That’s not what I asked. You want me out of here right now, answer the question.”

  She pushed the ashtray away. Her hand was shaking. He heard a distant train coming closer and thought of Tess. The tracks were barely a block from here. Would that sound trigger a memory that she’d been kept near here, even for a short while? He wanted to be with her in case her memories came back. The problem was, he wanted to be with her more and more.

  “Yes,” she said, not looking at him. “He phoned earlier to give me a heads-up you might stop by or that Reingold might. Look, Sheriff, I had nothing to do with the first abduction or this latest one of Sandy Kenton or anything!”

  He stood. Maybe that was why Dane was so confrontational. He was afraid Gabe would uncover his drug pipeline, whether for animals—or young girls.

  “I see you’re keeping up with details of the latest kidnapping,” he said. “You know Sandy Kenton’s name.”

  “It’s been in the papers for several days, for heaven’s sake!”

  “Thanks for the information. I’ll show myself out. And even though Dane phoned you, I’d advise you not to report this interview to him or take more of his calls, or it will look like current collusion, as well as twenty years ago. I’d advise you to steer clear of him.”

  He walked away and opened the door, then turned back. She looked as if she was going to cry. He’d probably overstepped, but learning Dane was a drug supplier was important. And that search warrant he was going to apply for would give him the power to comb the man’s house and clinic for any trace of amnestic drugs.

  17

  “You won’t like this,” Tess told Gabe as he picked her up down th
e block from the vet clinic. “Despite that train going by—much closer than my memory of it—I looked in the windows of that wing she has built out the back.”

  “Tess, I told you—”

  “I know, I know, but I want to help, and we’ve got to find those girls. I think it’s meant to be a kennel for boarding dogs, but it’s empty. Maybe she built it, then decided not to expand that way. Did she say anything to help?”

  “She gave me a lead on some drugs Dane might have access to.”

  Tess rubbed her arms through her jacket until she realized she was trying to soothe the memory of injections she’d once had there. Gabe went on, “It will help me get a search warrant if there’s any problem with that. Since the guy’s supposedly such an upstanding member of society, the judge may balk. Would you do me a favor while I drive, partner, and look up a drug called Versed or midazolam on your phone, then read me the specs on it?” He spelled it out for her.

  “She told you Dane uses that drug?” Tess asked as she leaned down to fish her phone out of her purse.

  “Not exactly. It’s another of my wild-goose chases, I suppose.”

  She selected Wikipedia, since it always covered the basics, while they drove through downtown Chillicothe, a city large enough to swallow twenty Cold Creeks. As she read aloud to him, she began to shiver.

  “Midazolam is not a pain medication. The main effects are amnesia and patient compliance. Patients lose touch with reality, not knowing where they are or what is really occurring. Patients do not recall pain or a bad experience. Under the drug’s influence they can carry on a conversation but will remember nothing once it wears off. It can open the door to abuse!” she went on, her voice getting louder. “Some patients, during a procedure or later, experience a distorted, nightmarish version of actual events and later feel abandonment and panic. Gabe, that’s it! That’s how I felt! Abandoned. I’ve felt panic, deep inside for years, especially when I hear or see certain things.”