Beaglemania

by Linda O. Johnston

  “I could have,” he admitted.

  “So, end of my story. I’d like yours now. Will you confess and make it easier on all of us?”

  Silence. Matt said nothing.

  Ed Bransom didn’t appear, although I half expected him to rush through the door and take Matt into custody, thus exonerating his security company from its former negligence.

  Although, of course, everything I’d accused Matt of could just as easily have fit Bransom.

  “Hey, this is supposed to be the time that the villain stands up and confesses,” I asserted brashly—to hide the insecurity fluttering inside me. What if this didn’t work? “Don’t you watch cop shows?”

  Matt shrugged.

  I turned to Si. “What do you think? Does that scenario make any sense to you?”

  “Sure,” he said. “Come on, Kingston. Tell us why you did it.” He came toward me, apparently ready to put his arm around me. Instead, I backed away to face these two men.

  And then I turned toward Si.

  “One thing really troubles me about that conclusion,” I said. “Maybe you’ll be able to shed some light on it, Si. You told us how much effort you put into retraining the dog you called Perry. It didn’t surprise you that he became such a model animal in less than ten days?”

  “I was amazed, too,” Si said quickly. “He just seemed so smart, so willing to change.”

  “I know you considered that he might already have known some of the lessons you taught. With your background in dog training for shelters, did you ever try to find out if anyone had lost a smart, already trained dog like him? Did you check him yourself for a microchip before taking him to the vet?” I paused. “Or maybe you knew about Bubba. And maybe you changed the information tied to his microchip from the get-go.”

  Si’s turn to become silent. He just looked at me. For a moment, the sweet, caring expression I was used to seeing him aim at me turned as vicious as the pit bull mix who had attacked me. Then it disappeared.

  “Why don’t we get the cops here now, Lauren?” Si said. “You can tell them your suspicions about this Animal Services freak.”

  “If I bring them here now, Si,” I said softly, “I’ll tell them this all was a setup to see how you would react, not Matt.”

  “Me?” His voice grew as shrill as a Chihuahua’s yap.

  “Everything I said in accusation of Matt would fit you even better,” I said. “I suspect that you killed Efram in the first place for his showing up here at HotRescues and threatening us all. You did it to protect me, in some ways. But then you were afraid of the consequences. You knew at last that I wasn’t going to reciprocate any romantic feelings you might have for me—so you decided I was the right one to take the blame for Efram’s killing. You had easy access to HotRescues, more than any of the outside suspects I looked into. More than Matt. Maybe even more than our buddies at EverySecurity.”

  Si’s glance moved toward the shelter door where we’d last seen Ed Bransom. Bransom wasn’t there. Si grabbed the nearest chair and looked like he wanted to hurl it at me.

  Matt moved around, but I put my hand out, waving him back. I knew that animal control officers could carry guns for euthanizing injured animals. Probably commanding officers, too. Did Matt have his with him?

  Si released the chair. I assumed his thoughts had been going over what I’d said.

  The smile he leveled at me was almost angelic. “You have such a wonderful imagination, Lauren. I’m sure that’s how you dreamed up such a complicated series of events to try to exonerate yourself in the first place. But no one is going to believe you.”

  “Oh, I’m not so sure about that.” A familiar voice sounded conversational as Detective Stefan Garciana entered the room from the shelter area, followed by Ed Bransom. I’d told Bransom to watch for the cops and let them in the back way.

  Allowing Bransom to feel the anxiety of possible suspicion resting on him and his company was part of my scheme, of course. But I knew by then who’d been responsible for it all.

  Now Si was going to realize it, too.

  “You’re the police detective who’s been after Lauren, aren’t you?” Si’s tone was a friendly welcome. “I’m so glad you’re here. Did you hear all the things she said? She accused that Animal Services guy, there—Kingston. But I’ll bet all of this is just blowing smoke so you’ll get off her case. She’s such a smart lady, but I think she finally outsmarted herself.”

  “Or you,” Garciana said. Tonight, he had put a suit jacket on over slacks and a white knit shirt. “I was listening out there to part of what she said. Interesting stuff. She’d told me a little about it before. And I’m quite impressed about how she used my own case-solving exercise, scoping out all possible suspects, no matter how unlikely. I think it worked well this time—even more for her than for me, although I shouldn’t admit it. But there are some things she didn’t mention, because she didn’t know them.”

  All eyes were on the detective. His face was ramped up into what appeared to be a triumphant smile.

  “When Ms. Vancouver told me her outlandish story, I had to check it out, of course. And guess what. The authorities in the Palm Springs area recently discovered fingerprints that they believe came from whoever stole Bubba, the dog, and assaulted his owner. This matter isn’t the highest on their agenda, so they haven’t run it through AFIS yet—the national fingerprint system—but I think I’m going to make it easy for them. I suspect they’ll match yours, Mr. Rogan. And although we didn’t make it public, there were a few partial prints on the knife used to kill Efram Kiley that hadn’t been wiped away. Mr. Kiley’s, of course, and we weren’t surprised to find that others matched employees here at HotRescues, including yours and Ms. Vancouver’s. That kept her on our suspect list. But she actually fed the animals sometimes. Why would a part-timer who only trains animals here leave prints on a knife used to open bags of food?”

  Leaping sideways, Si again grabbed the chair and hurled it generally in my direction. Matt yanked me out of the way and pushed me to the floor.

  I nevertheless saw Si reach the door to the parking lot and pull it open . . . only to be confronted by the uniformed officers that Detective Garciana must have called in as backup that night.

  Si was busted!

  Chapter 31

  The next afternoon, when things were finally settling down again at HotRescues, I took some time to hang out in the welcome room near our front door, with Carlie and Nina.

  Carlie had arrived only a few minutes before and apparently talked her way past those cops who still hung around the parking lot. She had sped here, demanding the whole story, in detail, after I’d called her. Which I’d had to do, since the media had started to point their ugly, oversized noses in this direction again and were screaming all over the local news, and even networks and cable stations, about Si Rogan’s arrest. Carlie would never have forgiven me if I’d not given her a heads-up, even a slightly late one.

  And, yes, I’d called both Tracy and Kevin even before Carlie. My kids would have been outraged if they’d heard about this, too, on YouTube or their favorite online news source. I asked them to tell Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Alex, too, since I was still too busy to contact them all. We’d talk later.

  I’d stayed the night, catching quick dozes on the couch in Mona’s office. The place was still busy with cops who were looking for additional evidence in Si’s office. I didn’t think they’d need to disrupt anyplace else at HotRescues, but just in case I had put together another list of employees who needed to get in to help care for our residents. That included Nina and Pete Engersol, who had both come early, Angie Shayde, and some of our most reliable volunteers. Dr. Mona had called and promised to come and give counseling to all of us and our residents later this afternoon.

  At the moment, Carlie faced me, hands on her bluejeaned hips. She cocked her head so her blond hair unevenly fringed out along one shoulder. I knew that look. She used it often on her animal health TV show when unhappy with some own
er’s approach to a pet’s care. Now, she was about to chew me out. “So you set things up here last night, pretending you were sure that gorgeous Captain Matt Kingston of Animal Services first killed Efram, and then kept doing things around here to make you look bad to the police?”

  “That’s right,” I answered mildly, taking a seat at the table. If she was going to ream me, I might as well be as comfortable as possible while she did it.

  “Did you really think it could be Matt?” Nina, standing beside Carlie, sounded amazed. She’d just come inside from feeding and otherwise caring for our residents. “But he’s such a nice guy.”

  “That’s the point,” Carlie said. “Matt was in on it, too, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes.” I answered Carlie but looked at Nina, who seemed confused. “I was already pretty sure, because of some things I’d learned about the dog who attacked me, that the one who’d done it all was Si. Plus, he’d had access at any time to HotRescues and would have had no trouble pulling off one, or all, of the incidents. He bought a hoodie that looked like mine—and wore it when he thought the security guys might see him hanging around outside. He eventually stole mine, too—probably when he didn’t have his new one around.”

  “He seems so obvious now,” Carlie said, sitting down opposite me. “Didn’t you know before that it was him?”

  I narrowed my eyes into a hot glare that I hoped would weld her lips together. “You don’t know Si very well,” I told her. “He just seems like the nicest guy, always courteous, willing to help, training animals with love, staying in the background.”

  “I get it,” Nina said. “Just a sec.” She hurried through the door to the kitchen and returned a minute later balancing three mugs filled with coffee in her hands. “He’s in love with you, Lauren. You know that.” I shrugged ruefully. “That’s his motive, of course. And why he never even tried to teach me to train animals, like he once promised you—since I’m not you. It all makes perfect sense—well, in an awful kind of way. He hated that Efram fooled you. Fooled us all. Then threatened us. So, to protect us—you in particular—he killed Efram. Right?”

  “Right,” I said. I tasted the coffee. Good stuff—with just a hint of hazelnut. I took another sip. “But . . . well, I’m just speculating, but I think he expected me to cry on his shoulder about the threats, then be thrilled Efram was gone. I’d considered strangling the guy myself, but I just felt awful when he was killed at HotRescues . . . especially when the police were sure it was me. Si was really sympathetic about that, too. Offered me that shoulder again. But all I did was to try to figure out an alternative suspect for the cops. By then, Si was frustrated.”

  “And maybe a little scared that you’d figure it out or the cops would?” Carlie leaned her elbows on the table and sipped her coffee.

  “Exactly. He even called in an anonymous tip to the cops that I’d threatened Efram. Of course that was no surprise to anyone. I’d even told the detective about it. When the ‘tip’ didn’t result in anything exciting, Si conceived of this additional plot to make me feel bad—and look guilty. He put together the whole scenario with Honey in the storage shed. Apparently he jammed something into the security camera’s mechanism to keep it from panning around and photographing him when he moved Honey, then removed it later. At least that’s the official speculation. Detective Garciana just confirmed it to me, and it’s what they’ll assume during their interrogation of Si.” I sighed and looked at both of them. “I suspect now that Si was glad I was actually stabbed—a little bit more vengeance.”

  “That detective seemed so sure you’d done it yourself to try to make the cops look for another suspect,” Nina said, sitting back at the table with us.

  “That was Si’s intent.” I put my coffee mug down. “He even phoned Matt from here that night, making it look like I’d called him to direct suspicion from myself . . . again.”

  “And you still didn’t take Si’s offered shoulder, I gather,” Carlie added.

  I shook my head. “I liked the guy. Had no indication he was loony. Or, should I say in the interest of being politically correct, mentally unbalanced. By then, I was even more scared but determined—both to fix things for myself and not rely on anyone else. Not even Si, who tried hard to get me to lean on him—all the while also trying to get me to take the blame. So he dreamed up the last of his scary events.”

  “Bringing in a nasty pit bull.” Nina shuddered.

  “Not so nasty,” I corrected hastily. “I’ve notified Bubba’s owner. The guy sounded so nice and relieved. He’s coming today from Palm Springs and staying in LA till his dog is released back to him. Poor Bubba is evidence at the moment. Since Si only worked here part-time, it was easy for him to go unnoticed to Palm Springs, beat up Bubba’s owner, and steal the dog. A dog he knew could have a short temper with the use of the right drug.”

  “Poor guy,” Carlie said. “Guys. Both the dog and his owner.”

  I nodded and smiled. “My sentiments exactly.” I took another sip of coffee and continued. “At least the security company is cooperating. Apparently Si was talking to them, acting completely innocent as he expressed concern about my mental stability and how I might be hurting HotRescues with all the things I was doing around here.”

  “Men suck,” Nina pronounced, taking a longer swig of her java as if she’d spiked it. Of course she had every reason to think so. But me? Well, I’d been lucky to have Kerry in my life. And even after all this nastiness I maintained a sense of optimism that not all men sucked, even if a lot of them did.

  For some reason, Matt Kingston’s quick kiss last night, before he was taken into another room for a cop interrogation, butted its way into my thoughts, and I kicked it right back out again. Did I like him? Sure. Would I go out for a drink with him, or dinner? Why not? But that didn’t mean I’d succumb to a mad, passionate love affair. Let alone a caring relationship.

  “So how did you determine it was Si?” Carlie demanded. “I know, when you pushed through that adoption event and invited everyone you suspected to come, you weren’t ruling anyone out.” She had the grace to look slightly embarrassed when Nina looked at her, then me.

  “Did you really think I could have done it all?” Nina’s hoarse voice all but shouted out her pain.

  “Like Carlie said, Nina.” I kept my tone gentle. “I was afraid to rule anyone out until I could be sure. I didn’t think it was you, but . . .”

  “But,” she repeated sadly.

  “But I’m really glad it wasn’t.” I stood and hugged Nina’s shoulder as she continued to sit there.

  “So you had to do something so dramatic?” Carlie pushed. “I mean, really, why pretend that you were sure it was Matt Kingston and get that Si guy on your side to bring him down?”

  “It’s more fun than just making accusations,” I said with a half smile. “But, really? It was because I needed to do something more than point fingers. I’d been doing that all along, and the detective on my case just ignored everything I suggested. This way . . . well, one good thing about our damned security company is that we just set up a new, higher-tech camera with a microphone right in here. It’s all there for the cops to see.”

  My BlackBerry rang. I took it out of my pocket and glanced at the display. Dante.

  “I’ve got to take this,” I told the others, and went into my office to be alone, in case the guy who funded my job decided to yank it away from me because of all that had happened. “Hi, Dante,” I said when I was sitting down behind my desk.

  “So is all that stuff over now, at last?” he demanded with no greeting.

  I took a deep breath to prepare myself for whatever nasty discussion might be impending and said, “I certainly hope so.” I leaned forward, holding the phone to my ear with one hand and planting my forehead on the other as I rested my elbow on the desk. Maybe I could keep my head from aching this way.

  “The media’s all over the place with this, but there are insinuations that you staged some kind of scene last night to get t
he killer to confess. Right?”

  That sounded so much like the path taken by his significant other, Kendra Ballantyne. I’d even tried her way with my pet adoption event and it hadn’t worked.

  And yet, when trying to fix things for myself, I guess I did, subconsciously or otherwise, try to control things by creating a unique dog and pony show of my own to get the situation resolved.

  This time, it had succeeded.

  “Simple answer?” I said to Dante. “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Good girl! You want a raise?”

  I laughed. “I always want a raise. You paying?”

  “We’ll see. You’ve gotten some good publicity here for HotRescues, after all.”

  “That’s why I did it,” I joked, leaning back and smiling. But then I grew serious. “We still need to talk about our security around here. I involved Ed Bransom last night. I still had a niggling doubt about his innocence, despite being all but certain that Si Rogan was our bad guy. Bransom did come through, letting the cops in and all, but EverySecurity really screwed up all those times before.”

  “Yeah, they did. They won’t again. I’ve had a long, nasty talk with my buddy, the CEO. Bransom is on probation for now. He apparently had an excuse for the way he acted—some supposedly confidential discussions with Si, who ‘let’ Bransom drag out of him how confused you seemed to be. Bransom claims that was why he felt so sure you were setting everything up. With that behind us, I’m fairly confident that they’re still the best outfit to protect HotPets, especially since I’ve got . . . Well, you’ll find out soon. That was another reason I was going to call you. Expect some company any minute. And let’s you and I get together soon to talk about what’s best for HotRescues, all right?”