Puppy Mills, Puppy Kills (Animal Instincts Book 3)

by Chloe Kendrick

  Even so, on days like today, I reverted back to my comfortable ways. When any sort of criminal activity appeared on the horizon, I wanted to return to the days of keeping a very low profile. Today’s case had been no different, I realized as I looked at my jeans and shabby green shirt. The previous two cases had resulted in a number of media interviews and articles, all of which served to heighten my public profile. This pulled me out of my comfort zone, and I retreated to the habit that kept me out of sight.

  “What the hell, Griff, just what the hell?” my mother spat out. She was not one to show a temper or to curse, but she’d just done both. I wondered why she’d suddenly changed her ways with the knowledge that I had this police report. Was there something in the report that she didn’t want me to see? Was she angry that Susan had disappeared or that she’d never taken this action or that I’d grown enough to want to look at the remnants of my past? I knew that I wouldn’t ask her. We didn’t have that type of relationship. We were both just lonely mourners for a girl who would not return.

  I knew that adolescent memories were incomplete and vague at times, but I had certainly thought that I’d gotten the details of my sister’s disappearance correct. However, I’d had to stop reading the reports a few months ago, after I learned that the police had been called for two domestic violence issues. My mind had needed the time to process that reality. What had happened in our house that I’d missed? Obviously I hadn’t noticed the police cars or officers in the house. Granted that no one was arrested, but even so they’d been in the house. It made me suspect everything that I thought I knew, and I needed some time to recover from that new mindset.

  Now I had the sudden urge to push forward with the reports. If my mom was this upset about it, then there was something to hide. Something big enough that she was concerned about losing me, the only one who was local and who would talk to her.

  Sheila Green had given me those reports without a word. She hadn’t pointed me to a particular page or highlighted the sections I should read. She just gave me the file and allowed me to deal with it in my own way. I guess she figured that at the end of this trail, I’d know what had happened to Susan, and I’d be a different person for it.

  I wasn’t sure about becoming someone different based on some pieces of paper, but perhaps those pages would allow me to move on – if I wanted that. I honestly couldn’t answer that. I had grown so comfortable in this shell that I wasn’t sure if I could leave it behind.

  “I haven’t read the whole file. I just finished a few pages of it,” I said truthfully to her.

  “Then don’t. Just give it to me, and forget about this nonsense. Susan was taken by someone, and we don’t know who. I doubt that we ever will know who took her.” My mother started weeping into the phone.

  Crying fell into the same category as yelling and cursing. It didn’t happen. Of course it had in the first few months after my sister’s disappearance, but after my father had passed away, I never heard or saw my mother cry again. It was like she’d used all of her tears and had none left. Now though, she wept bitterly, mumbling something that I couldn’t comprehend.

  “Mom, what is going on here?” I asked finally. Something had to be behind this uncharacteristic behavior. I wanted to know what it was. It was a step I wouldn’t have taken two years ago.

  “Just promise me that you’ll give me that file. That’s all I’m asking for.”

  “I will,” I promised while I tried to think of a way to get off the phone. This had probably been the most uncomfortable conversation I’d had in ages with her. For the most part, we’d scabbed over, if not healed, and moved on. Now the wound was fresh again, and I had no idea why.

  She said her goodbyes, and I hung up, uncertain of what to say or do. I had never seen her that way before. While I wasn’t going to Denver, I decided that my brother had had a good idea and planned to leave town immediately.

  Chapter 2

  I was in Green Springs in less than two hours. I decided to do a little investigating on my own. Eventually that little Corgi girl would need to speak, and I wanted to have something for her to say. That meant I needed some information, and the only real way I knew to get that information was to ask questions.

  I didn’t want to get busted by the police who would quickly realize I was getting more than I was giving if I went to them, so I looked around the town. What I needed was a lady walking her dog. They were my bread-and-butter.

  Sure enough, after strolling around for 15 minutes, I bumped into a woman with a Afghan Hound of all things. She was a little woman who seemed dwarfed by the tall, but elegant hound. I stopped the dog and stroked its long hair and talked to it gently.

  “You’re not from here?” the woman asked, a common question in this part of the country. In a town of a few thousand, it was easy to know who didn’t belong.

  “No, I’m not. I am working with the police on that murder in the barn around here.” Honesty was the best policy. I knew that in a small town, gossip traveled quickly. I wanted to seem trustworthy.

  “You’re that dog talker guy, aren’t you?” she asked without filter.

  I agreed, “My name is Griff Fitzpatrick. The police had me come out to the barn and look around. They were hoping that I could talk to those dogs, but the mess was so bad that they just wanted food and a bath.

  She introduced herself as Jill Andriot, and she laughed as she asked what her hound was saying.

  “He’s a happy fellow. He’s very content with life.” I looked at the roundish body and the thick hips. He was very content from the look of it. His gentle face was placid, and he licked my hand from time to time as I pet him. No questions about contentment.

  “Is that what he says? That’s always good to know. I worry. He seems a little bored at times, and I worry that he’s not getting enough exercise.”

  “Well, he did say something about wanting to run free. Is there any place around here where he can do that? I know that farm was fenced. Maybe another farm around here.”

  “You mean the Zook place? There’s no way that I would take my Sterling there. Zook was a mean piece of work if there ever was one.”

  “So you knew him? Did you know the family?” I had found my gossip partner, and I hoped that I’d be able to find out some information from her. Anything would be helpful in giving me an insight into the farm, so that I could report back to the police.

  “I knew his parents, but they’ve been dead about ten years now.”

  “That’s too bad,” I said, thinking of my own father’s death. It had made a bad situation that much worse.

  “They died in a car crash near here. Took a corner too fast and hit a road sign. Nearly split the car in two. Horrible thing, horrible.” She shook her head and interestingly the dog shook itself too. Apparently dog and owner were sympathetic to each other. I hoped treating the dog well would get more information about the owner.

  “And he got the land and buildings?”

  “He got everything. He’s their own son. Fred Zook was never any type of farmer though. He raised some corn and some soybeans, but nothing else. Yet he always had enough money to pay the bills and buy a few new things. Still the house never looked up-to-date or even well cared for. His parents would have had a fit about the way it looks now. I wasn’t the only one in town who was slightly suspicious of that.”

  “Were the police?” I asked, wondering if he’d been visited or questioned by the police in Green Springs. It would be interesting if they already had a file on him. Maybe Detective Green could get a copy of that file for me as well, I wondered.

  “Not really. He didn’t have enough cash for them to be suspicious of him growing that marijuana. They likely thought it was dogs, either fighting or breeding. That’s what some of those people do to make a dollar around here.”

  “Is there good money in it?” I wondered if I’d missed my calling, but I knew that I couldn’t treat any dog like livestock to be held in crates and herded around. I especially didn
’t want to give them shots. Needles creeped me out when I was getting a shot. I couldn’t imagine giving something else a shot.

  “If you get the right stock, I suppose so. Most of them keep two or three dozen pairs of breeds at their place. Say there are six puppies per litter and even if the breeders only let the dogs get pregnant once a year, which you know they don’t, that’s 216 puppies a year. Round it to 200, and then multiply by $400 a puppy, and you’ve got $80,000 a year without problem or taxes because this is a cash-only business. Don’t let them go a heat cycle between pregnancies, and you’ve got twice that. Do you make that kind of cash?”

  “Not by a long shot,” I said, thinking over what she’d said. That explained why he did it, but that didn’t explain who was in the pit under the crates. By all that made sense, Fred Zook should have been under there for all the things he’d done wrong.

  “So I take it that it was an open secret that he had money?” I asked, trying to keep the conversation going.

  “Somewhat. I think people didn’t ask, because they didn’t want to know. If you knew, then your conscience would get the better of you, and you’d want to stop it. Most of us have lived here all of our lives. We’ve known each other since we were kids. I went to school with Fred Zook. I’d hate to think that I had to turn him into the police for doing something wrong. I couldn’t bear to get up on the stand and testify against him.”

  I nodded. Sterling was getting antsy, looking like he wanted to bolt. So I said my goodbyes to woman and dog and got back to the car.

  I went back out to the farm after that. It was trash day, and I saw several cans by the edge of the dirt road leading back to the Zook farm.

  I wasn’t sure if Fred Zook had been held by the police or not. At the worst, he was a material witness, but everything he had was tied up in this land, either the land itself or the dogs. He’d likely not want to leave his only assets behind, especially if they were part of a murder investigation.

  Even so, there had to be more to this case than that. Just as Green had steered me to the police file of my sister’s disappearance, the police had to have some reason to want me here to talk to the animals. Green had indicated that it mattered who paid for my services in Green Springs, but beyond that why would anyone pay when there was a very simple solution to the crime? Someone came to the barn who wasn’t supposed to know about it and Zook killed him or her and buried the body in the muck. Easy enough for the police to solve it on their own.

  Why had someone engaged my services to talk to the crated animals except if they believed that someone else had killed the poor soul in the muck? That would make Zook a victim in the murder case, a suspect who could not be cleared or convicted. He was still the villain in the breeding case, and he’d lose any sympathy with a jury and likely be convicted of being heartless. So perhaps my benefactor was someone on Zook’s side. I couldn’t imagine who could like that guy enough to spend money on him, but I vowed to charge my premium price to work in his interests.

  I walked around the barn twice before looking inside. It was desolate compared to yesterday’s bustle of activity. The empty cages were strewn everywhere, and the echo of a soft breeze whistled through the walls. At least the dogs were gone. In another few months, this would be snowed in and the lack of insulation would have meant that the barn would have been barely warmer than the freezing temps outside. I couldn’t imagine any animal living in those conditions.

  I was walking around, not sure what I was looking for, when I heard a voice behind me. “What are you doing here?”

  I turned and found the farmer from yesterday, standing in the doorway. He was trying to look menacing, but I just saw a sad, greedy man whose avarice had caught up with him.

  “I was here yesterday. I’m with the police -- consulting.” I said, not exactly lying. I knew the rules about identifying yourself as a police officer. I had skated past that rule without going over the line.

  Zook laughed, a harsh sound that didn’t improve my opinion of him any. “You’re that nut who thinks he can talk to dogs. What do you want? I’m fresh out of dogs today as you can see.”

  “I can, and I’m glad, but that’s not why I’m here.”

  “You’re cheating, aren’t you? You’re trying to dredge up something that the police don’t know so one of those mutts can ‘tell’ you something. I might run a mill, but I don’t scam anyone. They know what I do for a living.”

  I felt my blood run warm. I didn’t like the fact that this man, who I thought of as scum, thought he was better than me, because he didn’t lie. Such was morality. Everyone thought they were superior to the others, no matter what they did.

  “Yeah, well, I’m officially out of the dog business as of yesterday. No one’s going to want to buy a dog from a guy who kills his clients.”

  My eyes widened. “Are you admitting that you killed that person? Who was it? Why did you do it?”

  He shook his head. “The police sure are wasting their money on you. People will talk and say that, but no, if you’re really asking, I didn’t kill anyone. Why would I? People might not like it, but it’s still legal here. I’m just providing a service.”

  I could think of a dozen good reasons, but none of them fit the circumstances, since I’d been hired. Every one of the circumstances pointed to Zook except for the fact that someone wasn’t satisfied with that answer.

  “What about unhappy customers? Did any of the dogs die on people after they paid good money for them?”

  “Not a chance. There was a money-back guarantee if something happened to the dog in the first 30 days. The last thing I wanted was for one of the customers to make a fuss. That would be the end of my business. They knew what I was and what I did, but I gave them quality – I mean quality – AKC dogs. Nothing wrong with them at all.”

  I wondered if that was even possible. Would the AKC condone treating dogs like this? What would their reaction be to accrediting dogs from a mill?

  The AKC is the premiere organization for the standardization of breeds. There’s paperwork that you can fill out (along with cash, of course) to register new puppies with the AKC. In this way the buyers know that they are getting a full-blood dog in the breed they wanted. None of my dogs had ever been AKC registered, since they were rescue dogs. Bruno was likely to be a full-blood Corgi, but without paperwork on his parentage, it would be hard to prove that.

  The real need for paperwork was breeding and showing. The paperwork was necessary to show that both parents, sire and dam, were full-blooded members of the breed, which would make their children also full-blooded. The paperwork was needed for showing, since the AKC wanted all the participants to be on a level playing field of being the same breed. For the average family dog, all of this nonsense was irrelevant. No one cares if a full-blooded dog needs to go outside or just ate your slipper.

  The discussion of paperwork was curious, and I wondered which of the two areas Zook was involved with. It seemed hard to believe that anyone could show one of the animals I’d seen yesterday, but I remembered “Number 32” and knew how cute she was all cleaned up. Perhaps the new owners of the other breeds had done the same.

  The paperwork did allow Zook to command a higher price for the dogs. Some people were willing to pay more for the dogs for the bragging factor or the temperament. Most animals in a breed were fairly standard in personality though socialization could make a puppy more friendly or easy to work with.

  The thought of paperwork reminded me of the trashcans out by the road. I knew those had to be the property of Zook, and by law, anything out by the curb is fair game. That’s what keeps all those trash pickers in Toledo happy. They can buzz by your house on trash night and take it if they like it. I’d thought about taking my own obsession to that level, but had opted instead to just go to the thrift stores where things were sorted and cleaned.

  I excused myself and headed out the door. The papers were likely to be a better trail of what had happened here than whatever this guy would tell me.
I had already seen his rationalizations and his excuses. Paperwork could tell another story.

  I stopped at the end of the drive. My plan was just to dump it all in the backseat. For a guy who didn’t much care about his hair or his yard, this didn’t bother me in the least. My car had seen better days, and a little trash in the backseat wouldn’t be noticed.

  However, when I got there, the cans were empty. The trash men had obviously beat me to it. I had a fifty-fifty shot on going in the same direction as the truck, so I took a left, heading back towards town. Sure enough, three driveways down from Zook’s place, which was still a mile or so, was the truck.

  I stopped my car and approached them carefully. Even though I was sure that they got weirder offers all the time, I wanted to be safe in what I was doing. “Hey, how are you?” I asked, trying to seem normal about talking to the trash guys while they picked up cans.

  “Doing good. What do you want?” The older one was burly and burnt. He had the build of a linebacker and even though the day was cool, he wore a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off. His right arm sported a tattoo of something that had seen better days, and the tattoo was partially covered by the dark tan he had. He seemed mild, even with the rough look.

  “Yeah, Zook told me I could have those papers in his trash. He’s not using them, and they could save me some cash. But when I went to pick them up, you guys had already gone.”