To Sketch a Thief

by Sharon Pape

  The timer rang for the rolls that were warming in the oven. With dinner ready and everything still quiet on the supernatural front, Rory was actually starting to relax. They were seated at the dining room table, toasting the success of her new career with the bottle of red wine her parents had brought for the occasion, when Hobo jumped up and bolted out of the room making a horrible sound that was somewhere between a bark and a shriek.

  “Is he okay?” her father asked as he ladled chunks of beef and vegetables onto his plate. “I didn’t know dogs could make noises like that. Could you pass those egg noodles, Helene?”

  “Maybe he had a bad dream, the poor dear,” she said, handing him the requested bowl.

  “But he wasn’t sleeping,” Rory’s mother said. “He was just sitting here between Rory and me waiting for handouts.”

  Rory shrugged. “He acts a little strange sometimes. No reason to be concerned.” Unless you happen to be a federal marshal with a death wish. A moment later Hobo came tearing back into the room, executed a neat pirouette as if he were thinking of chasing his tail, then ducked under the table, trampling everyone’s feet until he landed against Rory’s legs with a dull thud and a groan.

  “He’s trembling something awful,” Helene said when she reached under the table to pet him. She looked at her sister. “Remember Snuggles, that little dog we had when we were kids? Whenever there was a thunderstorm he’d shake like he’d swallowed a vibrator.”

  “Except there’s no storm,” Rory’s father said. “And the expression is ‘shake like a leaf,’ not a vibrator.” He broke off a piece of a roll and used it to sop up some of the gravy on his plate. “Great stew, Rory, great stew.”

  “So now you’re the word police?” Helene came back sharply.

  “Who sees a dog shaking and thinks ‘vibrator’?”

  “Someone with a bit of imagination.”

  Rory didn’t pay attention to the little skirmish taking place beside her. As far back as she could remember her father and aunt had enjoyed sparring with each other.

  Their sniping no longer even registered on her mother’s radar. “Maybe you should speak to a vet or a trainer,” she said to Rory.

  Having had the last word, Helene claimed victory by refilling her wineglass and toasting herself. Then she turned to Rory and her sister and hopped aboard their conversation. “My neighbor swears by her vet. I can get you his name if you want.”

  “Thanks,” Rory said, propping her lips into a smile, “but I know exactly who to talk to.”

  “Zeke!” Rory thundered. She was standing in the entryway after saying good night to her family. Not yet over his earlier trauma, Hobo was pressed against her like a bizarre conjoined twin. When she moved, he moved. When she stopped, he stopped. He’d become so proficient at matching her steps that they could probably do a dance routine for one of the talent shows on TV.

  The hanging lamp above her blinked and a moment later the marshal appeared wearing a perplexed expression. “You’re sounding a mite vexated, Aurora,” he said. “Didn’t your dinner party go well?”

  Hobo was caught in a conundrum. Although he wanted desperately to get away from the marshal, he was equally desperate to stay with his savior. His solution was to press his body more tightly against her leg, nearly knocking her over in the process.

  “It went very well,” she snapped, once she’d regained her balance, “in spite of your efforts to undermine it.”

  “My efforts?” Zeke managed to sound both surprised and indignant. “I just stopped by to get the feel of your family again. Surely I can’t be blamed for simple curiosity. It’s been a while since I’ve seen them.”

  Rory applauded, causing Hobo to flinch. “Nice performance, but I’m not buying it. You promised to behave yourself.”

  “I did. No one had any idea I was there.”

  “Except poor Hobo, who might have to be surgically removed from my leg. I don’t even want to know what you did to make him flip out like that.”

  “In case you’ve forgotten, Hobo has a tendency to overreact when it comes to me,” Zeke pointed out. “But I’m more than willin’ to put that aside and talk about more important things, like that letter you got earlier.”

  Rory didn’t want to let him off so easily, but she’d made her point and there was little to be gained by harping on it. She took a deep breath and changed gears.

  “You didn’t happen to see who slipped it under the door, did you?” she asked as a matter of course.

  “Yes, darlin’, I sure did.” Zeke’s mouth stretched into a grin as he waited for her reaction.

  It took Rory an extra moment to absorb what he’d said. Then her brows arched up in amazement. Was this finally the break they’d been waiting for? “Give me a minute,” she said, already on her way up the stairs. When she returned with her sketch pad and pencil, Zeke had relocated to his favorite chair in the living room.

  “Okay, fire away,” she said, perching on the edge of the couch, pencil poised to begin.

  “He was a young fella, twenty tops. A couple inches shorter than me. Brown hair, real short the way soldiers wear it these days. His eyes were sorta squinty.”

  “Thin or heavyset?” Rory prompted. “Tell me about the shape of his face, his ears, his mouth.”

  “He was thin, gangly thin like he’d just got finished growing. Long face I guess you’d say. His ears stuck out from his head some, but that might have been because of that haircut. His mouth? Can’t say that I noticed, him not being a woman and all.”

  Rory glanced up long enough to shoot him a disapproving look. “You need to focus. Any distinguishing marks or features?”

  “Nothin’ that I can . . . no, hold on. He had a tattoo on his right arm. I only saw a piece of it stickin’ out between the sleeve of his jacket and his gloves, but I’m pretty sure it was the tail of a snake.”

  She nodded. The gloves were pretty much a given, since there hadn’t been any prints or DNA on the first letter. “Regular leather gloves or the thin, latex ones I use for handling evidence?”

  “Black leather gloves.”

  She drew for another minute, then turned the picture around for him to see. “Tell me what needs fixing.”

  Zeke issued a low whistle of appreciation. “I know this ain’t the first time I’ve seen you draw, but it’s a downright amazin’ thing.”

  “Thanks,” Rory said, more taken by his praise than she would have expected to be. “But you need to help me finetune it. Tell me what’s wrong.”

  He stared at the picture for a while and then had her make adjustments to the hairline and the thrust of the chin.

  “Yup, that’s him all right,” he said when he saw the final product.

  “Did you get a look at his car?”

  “There wasn’t any car, at least none I could see.”

  “The odds are he had one. Getting around the island is too difficult otherwise. Plus he had to be watching, waiting for me to leave. He probably parked down the street where we wouldn’t notice him.” She sighed. “I guess a license plate number would have been too much to hope for. First thing in the morning I’ll drive out to Yaphank and give this to Leah to run through the database. With any luck this guy is in the system, and she’ll be able to give me his name and last known address.”

  “What will you tell Leah when she wants to know who gave you his description?” Zeke asked.

  Rory hadn’t thought that far ahead yet, but he was right. She needed to have her answer ready if she didn’t want to say a ghost was her resource.

  “I’ll tell her I saw him hanging around near Boomer’s Groomers the day I was there,” she said. That would have to do. If she said she’d gotten the description from someone else, Leah might want to interview that person too. They were both scraping the bottom of the barrel on their cases.

  “What about the letter?” Zeke asked. “What did it say?”

  Rory jumped up from the couch. “Damn, I got so caught up in drawing the guy, I haven’t opened
it yet.”

  Zeke beat her into the kitchen, since he didn’t have to deal with the inconveniences of gravity and friction. He was standing at the center island, arms folded as if he’d been waiting an hour for her to arrive. Rory pulled on a pair of latex gloves, then took the envelope out of the drawer and tore it open. In all likelihood the sender had been as careful not to leave prints or DNA this time either, but a girl could dream.

  The writing on the sheet of paper inside was done in the same neat stencils as her name on the envelope. The last note had been pieced together using words from magazines and newspapers. Apparently her pen pal liked variety. Rory read the two short lines out loud. “Drop the investigation now. This is your final warning.” The words had no real impact on her. Like the previous note, it sounded like it had been lifted straight from the script of a hammy old movie. But taped to the bottom of the page was a grainy four-by-six photo of Hobo in her backyard with a large “X” drawn across him in permanent black marker. The nonverbal message slammed into her gut like a steel fist. If she’d harbored any doubts about the depth of her affection for Hobo, this threat put them to rest. No way was she going to let anyone lay a hand on him or disturb a single hair on his lovable, shaggy head.

  She transferred the note to a plastic bag, hoping Reggie would still be willing to donate his time. Then she looked Zeke squarely in the eye. “I know what you’re thinking, and I’m not going to have this argument with you again. I can’t run to the police every time some thug tries to scare me off. If I do, my reputation and my career will be over in a heartbeat, and you’ll find yourself haunting some new home owner’s life.”

  Zeke’s jaw was tight, his words measured. “I get what you’re sayin’, but I don’t know that you’ve been in the business long enough to know the difference between what’s prudent and what’s downright foolish.”

  “Given your current status, you’re hardly the right one to teach me,” Rory reminded him as she stalked out of the kitchen.

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Aurora,” he said, cutting her off at the staircase. “I’m the perfect one to teach you, precisely because I got it wrong.”

  Rory didn’t bother to reply. Determined not to let him block the way, she squeezed past him and continued up the stairs to her room. It wasn’t late, but she was tired. She undressed, pulled on her nightgown and crawled into bed without bothering to wash. Yet sleep didn’t come easily. In the stillness, the nagging feeling that she’d missed something important came back to her. Like an itch too deep to scratch, it kept tugging her back from the brink of sleep until well past midnight.

  Chapter 20

  Rory arrived at the Huntington Dog Park in the early afternoon accompanied by Hobo. The plan was for him to get exercise while providing her with instant entrée into the social network of dog owners there. It was a cool day made colder by a blustery wind that chased clouds across the sky and juggled the russet and gold leaves it plucked from the trees.

  Rory had bowed to the weather and hunted down her short winter jacket for the excursion. After searching for half an hour, she’d finally found it on the floor in the back of the guest room closet. As much as she loved the renovations Mac had made to the old Victorian, her one quibble remained. There was too little closet space. Mac hadn’t felt the need to increase it. In his line of work he’d lived in chinos or jeans that he paired with tee shirts for summer and sweaters for winter. He had one good suit that he’d adapted to every occasion, from weddings to funerals, by simply changing the shirt and tie. Since it had been late spring when Rory moved into the house, she’d simply stuffed her winter clothing into whatever nook or cranny she could find, certain there’d be plenty of time to organize her wardrobe before the first chill. So much for certainty.

  As she pulled into the parking lot of the dog park, Hobo started whining and dancing around the backseat as if he knew exactly where they were. Pavlov would have been proud of him. When she turned off the engine, he jumped into the front prepared for a quick exit. Rory grabbed his leash and ordered him to sit down. It took several tries and the addition of a menacing tone before he obeyed. But even then Rory could tell by the way he was wiggling around that she had a window of maybe twenty seconds before he came unglued again. She managed to open the door and jump out before Hobo launched himself after her. Some obedience training was definitely in order.

  She closed the door and locked the car. She’d already decided to leave her sketch pad behind, so she could get a sense of the people there before she let on that she was investigating the dognappings.

  The dog park occupied several acres of open field that were well maintained and complete with benches for the owners and waste bag stations so that they could clean up after their pets. The area was divided into two sections, one for small dogs under twenty-five pounds, the other for their larger kin. There was no ambiguity about where Hobo belonged. Rory opened the first of the double gates into the big dog enclosure. Like an airlock on a spaceship, the two-gate system prevented dogs from escaping when someone entered or left. Hobo was bouncing up and down with excitement by the time Rory led him through the second gate and unhooked his leash. He immediately took off across the open field, barking as if to announce his arrival.

  By Rory’s count there were close to a dozen people in the enclosure, most of them women, either sitting on the benches or standing and talking in small groups as their dogs raced around making the most of their freedom. Rory turned her collar up against the wind and set out for the two middle-aged women standing nearby. They stopped their conversation to say hello as she approached them.

  “Hi.” Rory smiled. “Is it always this windy here?” Thank goodness for weather, the universal conversation starter.

  “Today’s a little over the top even for this place,” the shorter of the two women replied. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her nose was red from the cold. “Was that Hobo with you?”

  “Yeah, I guess he’s used to coming here. I had no clue.”

  “See, Jean, I told you that was him,” the taller woman said. She had on a red knit hat and oversized sunglasses. “There’s only one Hobo, the original class clown. I’m Susan.” She nodded to Rory, but kept her hands tucked into her pockets. Given the weather Rory understood perfectly. She’d shoved her own hands into her pockets as soon as she’d let Hobo loose. She introduced herself as Hobo’s new owner.

  Jean shook her head. “It’s terrible what happened to Brenda, so terrible.”

  Susan wagged her head in agreement. “Did you know her?”

  “Barely,” Rory said. And not while she was actually alive, but they didn’t need to know that yet.

  “It was really good of you to take him,” Jean said. “He’s as lovable as they come, but a bit of a handful.”

  “So I’ve been finding out.”

  “Just between us”—Susan lowered her voice and leaned in to them—”I don’t buy the idea that Brenda was killed when she got in the way of the dognappers. I’m willing to bet she was killed because of that affair she was having. When it all gets sorted out you’ll see I’m right. I’m intuitive about these things.”

  “If you don’t mind my asking, what makes you think that?” Rory asked. She’d planned to reroute any conversation about Brenda into a fact-finding mission about the dog thefts, but she couldn’t resist hearing what Susan had to say. She told herself she was only pursuing that line of questioning so that she could pass any worthwhile information to Leah. The trouble was that she didn’t believe it any more than Leah would.

  “Well,” Susan said, “we used to hang out a lot, you know, see a movie, get dinner. She was single like me. But for the past six months she was always, quote, ‘busy.’ No explanation. She used to confide in me when she had a man in her life, but this time—nothing. I think it’s because she was seeing a married man and I think he was somebody we know. She was probably afraid that if she told me, I’d slip and spill the beans to his wife.”

  “Is that it?”
Jean asked. “The entire basis for your theory is that Brenda didn’t talk to you about a guy she was seeing?”

  “A couple of times when I called her I heard a man in the background and I heard her trying to shush him.”

  “Come on, now. That’s hardly proof she was having an affair,” Jean said skeptically. “For all you know the guy was her brother.”

  “Except she doesn’t have a brother,” Susan replied, a testy snap to her words.

  “I’m just saying, I don’t think we should be spreading rumors when even the police don’t know for sure what happened or why.”

  “So you think Brenda’s death was the result of a lovers’ quarrel?” Rory asked.

  “Either that or the guy’s wife found out and decided to take matters into her own hands,” Susan said in a huffy tone aimed at Jean.

  Rory was starting to feel responsible for the escalating tension between the two friends. It was time to change the subject. She was about to admit her real purpose in being there when a man shouted, “Heads up! Incoming!”

  The three women automatically ducked as a Frisbee soared by, inches above their heads.

  “Sorry, the wind caught it,” the Frisbee thrower called to them. “Baxter, no!” he shouted. “No! Stop!”

  Before Rory could turn to see what was happening, she was knocked to the ground by a brick wall that apparently went by the name of Baxter. The black Lab raced on to retrieve his toy oblivious to the casualty he’d left in his wake.

  Susan and Jean were helping Rory to her feet when the Frisbee thrower reached them. “I am so sorry,” the young man said. “Are you okay?”

  Rory brushed off a few leaves that were clinging to her legs. “It’s nothing my own dog hasn’t done to me,” she assured him.

  “I feel terrible. Baxter’s usually better behaved than that, but when he’s going for a Frisbee he has no manners at all.” He extended his hand to her. “I’m Pete Dowling, by the way. You’ll need to know that if you decide to sue.”