Desperate Housedogs

by Sparkle Abbey

  “I just have a few questions for you, Ms. Lamont.” He didn’t sit.

  “Dammit, Judd, stop with the Ms. Lamont crap.”

  There was a little flicker. Was he laughing at me?

  “Did Kevin ever talk about what he did for a living?”

  “He did not.”

  Malone stood in front of me arms crossed, feet planted.

  “But that’s true of most of my clients,” I continued. “When I’m working with them, our only discussion is about their pet. How they make their living may come up in conversation related to how much or how little they’re home, but other than that, we don’t really talk about it.”

  Still silence from Malone.

  “I assumed Kevin must either work from home, or have an independent income of some kind because he was home most of the time.”

  “Did you ever hear him mention any connection to the pharmaceutical business?”

  “Never.” I would have expected Kevin to be into sales or marketing if that were the case. He struck me as a people person. Not so much the science type.

  “Alright.” He moved to leave.

  “Anything you’d like to share?” I stood and walked him to the door.

  Seemed like he could throw me a bone. After all, I’d been the one to cart all that mail to his office.

  “No, and Caro. I heard from Shar Summers. Leave this the hell alone. Understand?”

  “I understand.”

  And then he was gone.

  Drug companies, huh? As soon as Malone left I headed for my computer. “Understand” and “obey” are two totally different words.

  I stopped only to fix myself something to eat. The memory of the smell of that Shake Shack burger still haunted me, but I had to settle for warmed-up soup and a grilled cheese.

  I searched the Internet until my eyesight blurred. It was like searching for a needle in a haystack. There were so many pharmaceutical companies. I tried every combination I could think of with Kevin Blackstone and most of the well-known corporate giants in the drug world. Then I tried just Kevin, thinking perhaps Blackstone was an alias.

  Then I resorted to reading through websites detailing scandals, cover-ups, lawsuits, and case-action cases involving any sort of drug company. There were just too many.

  I finally had to give up and go to bed.

  As I fell asleep I told myself at least it seemed Malone had been open to taking the investigation in a new direction.

  I prayed I’d wake up in the morning to a headline that said, “Hollywood’s Sweetheart Set Free—Real Killer Behind Bars.” Of course, it would make Diana happy if it also said, “Tickets still available for next week’s Fur Ball.”

  Chapter Thirty

  I’d had enough of secrets. I’d had enough of lies. I’d had enough of everything in a muddle. So first on my list for the morning was cleaning up my own muddle. The boxes from Geoff, my ex, had arrived and I had stacked them in my living room. Maybe I couldn’t straighten out all the secrets and lies today, but I could at least lend some order to my household.

  Dogbert and the cats looked at me like I’d lost my mind when I tore into the boxes.

  Two hours later I had a pile of books I wanted to keep, another stack to donate, and a garbage bag full of old mail, notices, and memos that hadn’t been worth shipping.

  Leave it to Geoff to let me sort it all out.

  There were wads of unopened mail, mostly advertisements and outdated invitations to conferences. I smiled at the “Conference for Psychopharmacology and Treatment Modalities” in Barcelona, Spain. Then a drug company sponsored announcement about a new drug to treat sleep disorders. There were slick advertisements from all the big drug companies, including some of the ones I’d come across in my searches trying to find info about Kevin.

  Wow, those drug companies spent a lot of money on advertising. I shuffled through the ads but practically all of them were outdated.

  That had been my old life. It didn’t really apply to dog psychology. I added the stack of paper to the recycling box.

  My cell phone buzzed and I noted the number. Dr. Daniel Darling. I hoped it was good news on the Kevin’s dogs.

  “Hi, Doc.”

  “Hey, Caro. Do you have a minute?”

  “Sure.”

  “I contacted Don at the shelter, but I also wanted to let you know what was going on with Zeus and Tommy Boy.”

  “How are they? I wondered if the behavior could be grief related.”

  “Here’s the deal. The spot where Zeus had the hot spot was the injection site for a microchip.”

  “Oh gosh, I gotcha. The identification chips the rescue groups use. We do them all the time at the shelter. We check to see if they have one and then we scan it for the information. If they don’t, we put one in.”

  “That’s what I thought, too, at first. I had to take the one out of Zeus and this seems to be different. Or defective. My reader won’t read it.”

  “That’s odd.” I continued stacking the papers to be disposed of.

  “I’ve saved the one I removed and fixed them up. Both dogs are back at the ARL. One of the volunteers came and got them, but I knew you were worried, so I wanted you to know.”

  “Thanks, Daniel. I appreciate it.” Something was nagging at the back of my thoughts but I couldn’t quite bring it into focus.

  “I also called Kevin’s brother to let him know since, technically, he’s the one responsible for them. I know you’re looking at potential adoptions. It sounds like he’s ready to sign release papers so adoption should be easier. And now that we’ve got this problem solved.”

  “Thanks, I’ll look in on them later today.” I hung up and added a note to check in on Zeus and Tommy Boy to my list of things to do.

  Glad to be done with the mess of papers Geoff had shipped to me, I stood and stretched. Wow, I was stiff. Those missed yoga classes were catching up with me.

  As I carried the box of papers to the garage to place in the recycling bin, one of the flyers caught my attention. ZTB—Zeta Thomas Barnes. One of the big companies. They were as well known as Wyeth, Johnson and Johnson, and Pfizer. But it was the initials that made me stop and think.

  I’d seen those initials recently.

  I went and retrieved the copied pages from my safe. I was sure I’d seen ZTB in them. At the time it had made no sense relative to what I knew about Kevin, but now that Kevin had clearly had some connection to a pharmaceutical company, I knew it was too much of a coincidence.

  I skimmed the pages. Sure enough, it was in the middle of all the Latin phrases Sam had translated for me.

  Hidden in plain sight. ZTB.

  I went back to my online search this time with a new objective. I looked for information on any scandals related to Zeta Thomas Barnes Pharmaceuticals. It didn’t take long.

  There it was. ZTB was in the midst of a government investigation related to the release of a drug found to have disfiguring side effects. The FDA had received complaints from many former patients who had used Poncé, one of the company’s most popular and extremely profitable prescription-only products. It was an anti-aging serum.

  There were stories with accusations of fraudulent clinical trials. They included shocking pictures of skin reactions after several treatments. Some sources claimed the government was in on the cover-up.

  It was difficult to sort through which information was legitimate and which was not. In what seemed to be a reputable article, the author noted that apparently the company was on the verge on financial ruin if it turned out that the ZTB executives had been aware of the side effects.

  It took a while, but I finally came across a picture of ZTB’s executive marketing team. There was Kevin Blackstone. It wasn’t a very clear picture, but it was him.

  Except his name wasn’t Kevin, it was Kirk. Kirk Blankenstein.

  He had worked for ZTB and been one of their top-producing salespeople and then been promoted to a marketing director position. Guess what he’d been tops in?
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  Yup, sales of Poncé, the foundation of youth serum.

  Wowza. That important secret hadn’t been in the list of Ruby Point residents’ secrets in Kevin’s book.

  Kevin’s secret was the biggest one of all.

  The secret worth murder.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  You know, it’s funny how things work. If it hadn’t been for my ass of an ex-husband and his timing in sending all the junk from our practice to me . . . if I hadn’t been so angry he’d been too lazy to sort anything out . . .

  And if I hadn’t been so frustrated with everything else I couldn’t figure out, I would’ve just let the boxes sit. Then I would have never figured out the right drug company connection. Not for a long while, anyway.

  Once I made the drug connection, I still wouldn’t have figured out where Kevin had hidden the information, if not for my ‘to do’ list. When Dr. Daniel called about the dogs, if I hadn’t written the note to remind myself about Zeus and Tommy Boy in such a hurry, I wouldn’t have abbreviated their names.

  As soon as I picked up my to do list and saw my note—ZTB, the cogs in my brain made one of those slight turns and everything suddenly clicked.

  ZTB.

  The drug company, ZTB, Zeta Thomas Barnes.

  The dogs’ names, Zeus and Tommy Boy.

  Daniel’s call about the microchip.

  Kevin’s notation that ZTB was in ZTB. Good Lord, the guy had spelled it right out. I’d be willing to bet Kevin had put the information on a microchip and put the microchip inside the dogs. What was on that microchip? Incriminating evidence that would cost ZTB its reputation and bankrupt the company? Had Kevin been a whistleblower?

  If he had been, it made sense that someone might be willing to go to great lengths to shut him up. Like killing Joe, the regular Ruby Point landscape worker who’d been found beaten in the state park. Which opened the door for Spike, the new landscaper who wasn’t really a landscaper, to be hanging around Kevin’s house the day Kevin was killed. And who was now conveniently also dead.

  If Spike killed Kevin, which seemed like a pretty good bet, the unanswered question remained: Who’d killed Spike and Joe? And more to the point, where was the killer now?

  Holy guacamole, this was way bigger than I’d imagined. No wonder Malone kept warning me off. How much of this had he figured out? More than I had until just now, but maybe not enough.

  My hands shook as I called Malone.

  Damn. His voicemail again. I left a scattered, cryptic message. I didn’t take the time to go into detail. I wasn’t even sure I understood it all yet. Mostly I just said I needed to talk to him right away. Right away.

  I called the police station. Arnold/Sally answered and told me Malone had gone into L.A. to meet with some federal guy. That told me he’d figured out the same connection I’d come across. He was way ahead of me on that front.

  I told Sally I needed to speak with Malone as soon as he was back. What I guessed he hadn’t figured out yet was that Kevin had hidden the information in the dogs.

  The dogs. Oh, God. I felt sick.

  I had to keep Zeus and Tommy Boy safe until I could talk to Malone. I decided the only way to do that was to go to the ARL, pick them up, and keep them with me. The evidence would be safe, the dogs would be safe, and soon the people responsible for Kevin Blackstone’s death would finally be behind bars.

  And Diana could go home.

  I drove as calmly as I could to the ARL. Don Furry was on duty, and he didn’t question me picking up Zeus and Tommy Boy. He’d just filled their bowls and they happily lapped up water.

  “The guys will be happy to get out after being cooped up at the vet’s.” Don handed me Zeus and Tommy Boy’s leashes and the dogs bounded out to my car.

  I drove around for a while trying to think what to do. Maybe I should simply take the dogs to the police station. They’d be safe there. I was just ready to turn back toward town when my cell phone rang. It was Malone.

  “Thank God.” I couldn’t wait for hello.

  “Caro, where are you?”

  “Laguna Canyon Road,” I answered. “Near the dog park.”

  “I’ll meet you there.”

  It was a good plan because the amount of water the dogs had downed was making them antsy. That and they probably sensed my tension. We all three needed a break.

  The dog park was minutes away and I scored a parking place up front. As soon as we were through the two gates, I turned them loose. They took care of business and then raced and romped and barked at each other like school kids out for the summer. I walked to the far end of the big dog area.

  They were a sight to behold. German Shepherd Dogs love to run. I leaned against the fence and watched and listened for Malone’s car.

  In my mind, I reviewed the facts as I thought I knew them.

  Kevin Blackstone was not Kevin Blackstone.

  He was instead Kirk Blankenstein, a former pharmaceutical marketing guru who had uncovered incriminating evidence about a ZTB drug with horrible side effects.

  It was a drug that had been poised to save a company that was on the verge of bankruptcy without it.

  Spike, the landscaper with the Die Hard fake name must have been sent to get the information from Kevin/Kirk. He may have killed Joe, the regular worker to gain access to Ruby Point.

  The dogs in the gated community had known what the humans had not. There had been a predator in their midst. They were unsettled and in their own dog language they’d been communicating the danger. Too bad we hadn’t understood sooner.

  Spike may not have known about Kevin’s heart condition. Or maybe he had known. In any event, in what I figured was supposed to be an effort to convince Kevin to give up the goods, the torture had instead killed him.

  That’s when things got desperate.

  I believed the company had then sent someone else in to take care of things, including Spike. But the clean-up man had been unsuccessful in finding where Kevin had hidden the incriminating evidence.

  Kevin had trusted no one.

  For good reason.

  He was never sure who would turn out to be the enemy so he’d gathered dirt on everyone around him. Even me. Even Diana.

  But there were two guys who Kevin had trusted completely.

  And right now they were racing around the Laguna Beach Dog Park unaware that Kevin had placed the information the government authorities, the police, and Kevin’s killer were seeking in them.

  Now that information would put the real evil behind bars for, I hoped, the rest of his life.

  That could only be the mastermind who was currently posing as Kevin Blackstone’s half-brother.

  I heard a car door and turned, expecting to see Detective Malone.

  Instead it was J.T.

  He moved with purpose through the two gates and toward me.

  Malone was right. I should have left the investigating to the police.

  I’d forgotten that Dr. Daniel had said he’d also contacted J.T. about the microchip.

  I looked around for an escape route but there was none.

  In my attempt to get the dogs out of harm’s way, I’d left myself no options. The hills rose in front of me and I was surrounded on all other sides by high fences.

  I wished I had a gun. Like many Texas girls who’ve grown up on a ranch, I’d learned to shoot at an early age.

  No gun.

  I looked around for my purse.

  Maybe mace.

  Dang it, I’d left my purse in the car.

  No mace.

  Maybe I could play dumb. Buy some time. Malone was on his way. “J.T., what brings you to the dog park?”

  “No dice, Caro.” His face, which I’d previously thought of as friendly, now seemed menacing. “I know you’ve figured things out. At least enough to be dangerous.”

  “How did—”

  “Your friend, Don Furry, the guy at the dog place, told me I’d find you here.” A derisive smile twisted one side of his mouth. “I’d
just planned to pick up the dog, rip out the other microchip, and be on my way.”

  I cringed.

  “It would have been less messy. But now you get to help me.” He pulled a pistol from his jacket and aimed it at my mid-section. “I’ve already got the one chip. I picked it up from your friend, the vet. Nice of him to call me. Now, I need the other one.”

  I could sense, rather than see, the dogs come closer. Crap. I’d put them and all the other people and animals at the dog park in danger.

  The brush of the two Shepherds against the back of my legs told me they knew J.T. was a threat.

  “Tell them to stay back.” J.T. ordered.

  He still aimed the gun at me but his eyes dropped to the dogs.

  Zeus growled deep in his throat. A primitive sound.

  Tommy Boy nudged my leg and pushed against my hand.

  “I said, tell them to stay back. I’ll shoot them both.”

  I believed he would too.

  “Too bad you couldn’t leave things alone. Kind of like Kirk.”

  “I’ve called Detective Malone.”

  “Too bad. Now I’ll have to take care of him too.”

  My money was on Malone. Too bad I wouldn’t live to see it.

  “You need to come with me.” He reached out and took my arm, concealing the gun between us. “Walk slowly toward the exit.”

  If I resisted, everyone in the park was at risk. The people. The dogs.

  The man was a lunatic.

  The one thing I’d never do is use an animal to hurt a person.

  I’m sorry, guys. We’ve got to try. Forgive me.

  I heard the twin engines of their ominous growls. They were ready.

  “Zeus. Tommy Boy. Fass!” I shouted. “Fass!”

  I used the German attack command, knowing there’d be no hesitation. Kevin had trained them in German.

  The two dogs lunged at J.T. taking him down and knocking me down in the process.

  They went for his throat.

  I crawled toward J.T. intending to wrest the gun from him and then call off the dogs.

  In my peripheral vision I could see people scatter in all directions.

  I yelled. “Take your dogs and get out.”