She lapsed into sobs and petted her dead dog while my thoughts raced trying to sort it all out. Someone had been listening when the two sisters told me about their suspicions concerning their stepfather. Whoever that was must have killed the dog on the way in, presumably to make sure it didn’t sound an alarm. But how had they managed to get that close? I wondered if it could have been brother Neal.
Isobel hurried out of the house.
“The police said they’d have someone here as soon as they could,” she said, more to me than to Corrine. She’d had the presence of mind to grab some flour sack towels. “I’m so sorry, dearest,” she murmured as she began to wipe the worst of the gore from her sister.
“I’ll have a look around, see what I can find,” I said.
Isobel nodded.
If anything caught my eye, I’d leave it undisturbed for the cops, but I wanted to make sure I saw it too. Whether this had to do with a man disappearing twenty-six years ago or the recent dispute over property, I had a feeling the Vanhorn sisters needed some help right now. The unnecessary viciousness with which the dog’s throat had been cut bothered me.
I’d been catching glimpses of bright blue beyond some old quince bushes that blocked the view on one side of the fence. I moseyed toward it.
A head tied up in a kerchief for cleaning bobbed up to greet me.
“Is everything all right?” asked the middle-aged woman standing on tiptoe. She sounded concerned rather than nosy. One hand held a wet rag.
“Someone killed their dog,” I said. That was enough information for now. “I was here visiting.”
“Oh, dear!” said the neighbor. “Poor Corrine! I thought I heard someone screaming. Giles was one of those special dogs, you know. For blind people. She went away for weeks and trained somewhere when she got him. He took her everywhere. On the streetcar.... Who would do such a thing?”
“I don’t suppose you saw anyone back here? Or heard anything?”
“Sorry, I was inside. Washing windows. I saw Neal come out and drive away when I was doing one of the front bedrooms, but that was quite some time ago.”
From the way she said it, she didn’t appear to think Neal might have been involved. We kept on chatting until I heard car doors slam. The cops were here. I headed inside.
***
What I encountered in the parlor made my jaw clench.
Corrine sat on one of the needlepoint sofas, pale and trembling. There was still a smudge of blood on her chin and the front of her dress was stained. Her hands were kneading a lace-trimmed hanky, tugging so hard the lace, if not the fabric, was likely to rip. Isobel stood protectively at her side with a hand on her shoulder.
Two detectives in cheap suits stood nearby. At least one of them was a detective, a blond cop named Boike.
The other was the north end of a southbound horse that answered to Fuller. The last I’d heard, he’d been in uniform. He stood spraddled with fists on his hips looking cocky as all get out. The jerk was yelling.
“Lady, we’re a homicide unit!” he scolded Isobel. “You got us out here under false pretenses. Claiming there’d been a murder—”
“I never said—”
“Screaming about all the blood.”
“I said we’d had an intruder! And that someone had killed our dog.”
Corrine had a dazed look about her. She didn’t seem to be hearing.
“There’s a law against wasting police time, you know.”
“But—”
“We come out when people are killed. People, understand? Not mutts.”
Corrine sprang like a tiger, striking his chest with her open palms.
“He wasn’t a mutt! He was pure-bred, and he was highly trained. Anyway, why does it matter what kind he was? He was my friend! He made me feel safe. And someone killed him, do you understand that? Someone killed him!”
She hit his chest again. Not hard, just frustrated smacks. Her fine aim at someone she couldn’t see impressed me.
Fuller went six shades of red. He retreated half a step and stabbed a finger at her.
“You just bought yourself a charge of assaulting a policeman, missy.”
Boike cleared his throat. He was a placid man who ordinarily trailed his boss, the homicide chief, and didn’t get much chance to speak. “Officer Fuller—”
“Back off from her or I’ll show you assault,” I said stepping forward.
The little tableau noticed me for the first time. Fuller snarled.
Once at a party Fuller had waylaid me as I returned from the loo. I’d had to apply my knee where it counted to convince him I didn’t like his attentions. Right now my knee was itching to pop up again.
“Hope you’ve had your rabies shot, Boike, the way this boyo’s acting. You’re a disgrace to the department, Fuller. Can’t you see these women are terrified? They don’t need you adding to it by being a bully. I don’t know why you two got sent here, but I heard Isobel making the call. She may have said their dog was dead, but she never reported a homicide. Since you’re already here, instead of complaining maybe you could trouble yourself to go out back and have a look.”
I was mostly hoping Boike would take the suggestion. He did.
“Officer Fuller, you call dispatch and ask them to send someone from burglary. My apologies for the confusion, ladies.” Boike tipped his hat and made for the hall like he was relieved to escape.
“I’ll show them the way,” I said to Isobel. “You stay with your sister.”
I pointed Fuller toward the telephone on a little table in an alcove under the stairs. He was capable of walking right past it. Of all the cops on the force, he was the only one I had a beef with, not only because we’d tangled a couple of times, or because he’d once tried to frame me for murder, but because he did sloppy work.
“Those have been kicked around,” I said indicating the chunks of broken ironstone as Boike and I reached the kitchen. “Looked like the pitcher they came from set on that table. The three of us were in the other room and heard the crash.”
Boike nodded. He went out the back door.
“Vicious,” he said squatting to study the dead dog. “Way the head’s almost severed makes it look like a grudge.”
“Same thing occurred to me. I got a glimpse of a guy running, other side of the fence.” I pointed. “By the time I got there he was gone. Then I heard Corrine scream and turned back.”
“I don’t suppose you got a good enough look to describe him.”
“Just saw him from the shoulders up. Had on a fedora.”
Boike was eyeing the fence. “That looks like about five feet, so if you saw his shoulders, he’d be somewhere around five-ten. But as Fuller pointed out with such tact, it’s not a situation where we’ll be involved.”
He circled the dog again, frowning.
“Where’s Lt. Freeze?” I should get back inside before Fuller did any more mischief, but I was too curious. I thought I heard Boike sigh.
“Had to be somewhere else. And Graves quit, went to be chief of police in some podunk place near Columbus. So we’re making do with a couple of men who might be in line for detective — him included.” He jerked his thumb.
Shite. Mick Connelly wanted to make detective too, and he was as smart as they came. He worked three times as hard as Fuller. He was possibly even good-looking once you got past the reddish cast of his brown hair, but I wasn’t inclined to explore that particular question.
“Fuller couldn’t find his important body parts with both hands,” I said.
“I know,” agreed Boike glumly.
***
A team from the burglary unit showed up. They were as courteous as Fuller was rude.
“Please — won’t you stay?” Isobel caught at my sleeve as I started to leave. “You may be better remembering details than we are.”
Corrine looked utterly drained now. Isobel was out of her depth and upset. After what the two had just been through, it seemed like sticking around for them was the least I co
uld do.
The burglary boys asked their usual questions, but I knew as well as the cops did that chances of anything coming of it were low. As nearly as Isobel could determine, nothing had been stolen. The women themselves hadn’t been attacked. There was probably a law against killing dogs, but as undermanned as the Dayton department was, that sort of crime wasn’t likely to be a priority.
I added the details concerning the man I’d seen running. As soon as Isobel got back from ushering the second batch of cops out the door, I gathered my handbag and stood.
“I think Corrie and I are too worn out to talk any more just now,” apologized Isobel. “But please — will you come back tomorrow?”
I hesitated.
“Are you saying you still want to hire me?”
Isobel looked at her sister. Through that telepathy they seemed to possess, Corrine sensed it. She nodded listlessly.
“Yes.”
“To look into your father’s disappearance.”
“Yes,” they answered as one.
“I would have to bill you, even if I learned nothing at all.”
“We understand. We’ll pay in advance, if you wish,” said Isobel.
I thought for a minute. About the dog, for one thing. Like Boike, I saw something significant in the violence with which the animal had been killed. A quick, shallow slash of the knife would have silenced it just as thoroughly. For that matter, how would a stranger know there was a dog to be silenced until it started to bark an alarm?
The direction those thoughts led disturbed me. I couldn’t begin to guess what was going on, but I had no doubts that right now these two somewhat sheltered women needed someone looking out for them.
Four
The business with the Vanhorn sisters got to me. It wasn’t just the savagery of the attack on the dog. It was also the idea someone would deprive a blind woman of an animal so crucial to her functioning.
That morning I’d dropped off a bundle of clothes at Spotts’ Laundry, as I did every Thursday. On the way back to my office, I stopped to retrieve it, hoping the familiar routine and yakking with the counter girl would lift my spirits. It didn’t. Since Finn’s was a good place to brood, and to find the man who could maybe fill me in on a thing or two about the flood that had become a cornerstone of the city’s history, I headed there.
I’d been eighteen when my dad died. Two days later, bawling so I couldn’t see, I’d said good-by to the house where I’d grown up. Unknown to him, I’d had to sell it to cover the bills from his long illness. I’d walked to Finn’s where an old school chum who knew the score had given me an awkward hug. Finn, the owner, had drawn me a half pint of Guinness from a barrel marked Root Beer, repeal of Prohibition still being one year away. The pub had been the nearest thing I had to a home ever since.
“Hey, Maggie,” called a man at the bar that ran along the right wall as you came through the door. He drained the last of his stout. “Wee Willie here’s claiming he kissed you out on the playground when you two was in the fifth grade.”
“The only one likely to kiss Wee Willie in fifth grade was one of the nuns. He was their little darling.”
Hoots erupted. The man with the empty glass gave Wee Willie a thump on the back that almost knocked him from his stool. Willie Ryan, who’d gotten his nickname because of his tiny stature, waggled a finger at me. We’d been slagging each other since we were old enough to tie our shoes. We’d still be doing it until one of us died. Maybe longer.
After I’d yakked with Finn and he’d pulled me a pint and then let it rest until he could give it a perfect head, I carried it to one of the tables with mismatched chairs that occupied the rest of the place. It was the time of day when regulars drifted in after work, among them numerous cops with collars undone to show they’d come off duty. I’d gone to a Swedish massage place once and come away feeling like I’d been beaten up in an alley. Sitting here while a rhythm as predictable as my own pulse seeped into me and voices I knew engaged in arguments I’d heard a thousand times relaxed me a lot better.
Maybe I didn’t want to brood as much as I wanted to think. Somebody had it in for the Vanhorn sisters. Somebody well enough known to them that their dog hadn’t sounded an immediate alarm. Their brother Neal would be my pick. He didn’t appear to care what happened to anyone else, just what suited him.
Then again, couldn’t the same be said of my own brother?
I’d been ten and he was four years older when he took off. He’d known it would leave me to bear the brunt of our mother’s scalding resentment. Not that she didn’t lash Ger with the same criticism she poured on me. Occasionally, though, she’d managed a word of approval for Ger.
Maybe it was the shattered crockery in the Vanhorn kitchen that had shoved the past into my thoughts. Our small frame house. A smaller kitchen. A note wedged under the sugar bowl when the rest of us came out that morning. My father had spotted it first and picked it up. His stricken expression filled me with terror that he was having a heart seizure. Seeing it, my mother ran to him, and he held the note out. It was one of the few times I saw the two of them interact normally.
As she read it, my mother let out a scream. Dad put a protective arm around her shoulders. She shoved him away. With small, whimpering sobs she fled to the bedroom. My father’s eyes were flooding with tears. When he turned to dash them away, I picked up the note that had fluttered from Ma’s nerveless fingers. My brother’s words scrawled over the page
.
I can’t stomach any more of this hell hole.
Sorry, Sis. Don’t try to find me
.
We had tried, of course.
I took a swallow of Guiness. It was halfway down when I felt the same current that charges the air before lightening strikes.
“I’ve seen happier faces at wakes,” said a voice.
I looked up into steel blue eyes.
“Hiya, Connelly.”
I was hoping he wouldn’t sit, but he did. Mick Connelly had gotten it into his head that he was going to wear me down until I fell for him. I had to stay on my toes to make sure he didn’t. It was harder at close range.
Tossing his uniform hat in a chair, he savored a deep drink of stout. His gaze was like a camera lens, capturing every detail in an instant. Right now it was focused on me.
“Bad day, was it?” With a fingertip he pressed gently on the back of my hand to survey the bruise on my middle knuckle from punching Neal.
Under pretext of lifting my glass, I freed myself as casually as I could.
“Not as bad as it was for the guy on the other end.” I searched the length of the bar, though I already knew the answer. “Seamus didn’t come with you?”
“Billy shanghaied him into buying a ticket to some dinner Kate’s helping with at the parish. Seamus claimed the food would be worth the long-winded speaker, but I wasn’t tempted.”
I smiled. Officers Seamus Hanlon and Billy Leary were nearing retirement age. They’d been my father’s best friends, present in my earliest memories. Billy and Connelly were partners now that a bad knee kept Seamus mostly on desk duty. Seamus and Connelly palled around a lot, though, and as often as not came into Finn’s together.
Connelly had tipped his chair back, comfortable as a cat. The tiny cowlick that decorated the front of his reddish-brown hair was asserting itself.
“Is it anything I could help with?” he asked.
“Not unless you were walking a beat here twenty-six years ago.”
He chuckled. Connelly probably wasn’t past thirty. Not half a dozen years had passed since he’d left Ireland. Since he knew I was aware of it, my answer had stirred his interest.
“This have to do with the scraped knuckle?” he asked curiously.
I nodded. If we were going to be sitting here, talking work was safe turf. I told him about my afternoon with the Vanhorn sisters.
“Christ almighty,” he said when I got to the part about the blind woman’s dog. He rubbed at his chin. “Anyone know the two
of them were expecting you?”
“Not when I was coming,” I said slowly. I saw what he was thinking. Nothing had been stolen. It could be because the intruder realized people were home, and searching for valuables would make noise. In that case, though, why not leave? The pitcher that had broken had been next to the exact spot where someone would stand if they were listening, or if they wanted to know why the women had hired a detective.
“What about the brother? Neal, is it?” Connelly asked.
“Making a stink seems to be more his style than running away. Besides, he seemed to have a pretty good idea what they were going to tell me.”
I’d already put checking what time Neal had returned to work on my list of things to do the next day. This added a slightly different reason.
“You haven’t heard the worst part yet,” I said. “Whoever took the call at the station heard Corrine screaming about a killing and sent the homicide unit. Which included Fuller.”
Connelly went still as a rock.
“Did you ever put in paperwork saying you want to be considered when a detective slot comes open?” I asked.
He took a slow drink of Guinness before giving a nod. His face betrayed nothing.
“Too early for me be considered much, though. I haven’t been on the force long enough, and I’ve no connections.”
His mildness could be deceiving, but it rubbed me the wrong way.
“So you’re just going to roll over? Watch that half-witted s.o.b. land a plum slot you’re better suited for—”
He sat up so abruptly his knees connected with mine. If I drew back, he’d know the contact affected me. Unfortunately, he probably realized that was how I was playing it. He leaned comfortably over his crossed arms.
“I believe I already I told you once, mavourneen, I don’t give up on things I set my mind on. Ever.” His eyes danced with amusement as they held mine.
My pulse beat faster than it should. How the devil could I face down bruisers with guns and then go dry-mouthed around this one man?
“If you’re inclined to cheer me after the bad news, though, or to think a bit how we might prevent Fuller from being a fly in the ointment for both of us, I was just about to see if you wanted to get a bite of dinner.”
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