To Sketch a Thief

by Sharon Pape

  Julia sniffled and produced a hopeful little smile that further inflated her cheeks. “Excuse me for getting so emotional, but I already love my little Louis so much. And Lola would be devastated if we lost him. She acts like his mother, you know, teaching him things and scolding him if he does something bad.” Thinking about the dogs increased the voltage of her smile. “Is there anything I can do to help you?”

  An idea was taking shape in Rory’s mind. Dog’s World had already completed a successful transaction with Julia and wouldn’t have any reason to suspect trouble delivering another dog to her address.

  “The problem we’re up against now is that although we suspect Dog’s World is involved, we still don’t have the names of the people behind the organization. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to follow this deliveryman back to his bosses . . .” She let her words trail off, hoping Julia would pick up the ball.

  “What if I ordered another dog from them? I could tell them how much I adore Louis and that I want another Cavalier as soon as possible so they can grow up together. The day they deliver the puppy, you could stake out my place, and then follow the deliveryman when he leaves.” Julia had not only scooped up the ball, she’d dribbled it down the court and slam-dunked it.

  “Do you think you’d be comfortable doing that?” Rory asked.

  “I don’t see why not. I’d like to help catch these thieves before they can cause any more grief.”

  Rory was still considering it from every angle. She didn’t want to put Julia in any danger. On the positive side, she wasn’t dealing with Helene. She adored her aunt, but it was no secret that her enthusiasm could get the better of her, and she could easily ad-lib any situation into a crisis. Julia was a novice in this arena, less sure of herself and more inclined to stick to the script she was given. And in spite of her tendency to speak like Mother Goose at story time, Rory could tell she had a quick intellect as well as a willing nature.

  “The risk to you would be minimal,” she said finally, “as long as you promise to abide by my rules.”

  “I’ll do exactly what you tell me to, I swear,” Julia said, placing her hand over her heart to emphasize her intent. “Oh dear”—her brow furrowed—“there is one problem. I’m short on money right now, what with paying for Louis and all. And Dog’s World only takes cash on delivery.”

  “Don’t worry,” Rory assured her, “I’ll provide the money.” She wasn’t exactly rolling in it herself, but she could take it out of her savings account or get a cash advance on a credit card. She couldn’t expect Julia to front it, especially when she might already be out whatever she’d paid for Louis. If this second sting attempt worked, Rory could get her money back after the deliveryman and his bosses were arrested. Of course, if it was needed as evidence, she might not see it again until she was ready to retire.

  She and Julia spent the next half hour fine-tuning the plan. They decided Julia should wait at least a week before she called Dog’s World to place the order. Intellectually Rory knew that allowing more time to pass would make the request seem less suspicious, but a week was all her patience could endure. She impressed upon Julia the need to play it from the heart when she made the call. If she didn’t sound convincing, they’d get suspicious.

  Julia suggested it might help if she sounded a little unbalanced, like one of the people you read about who have a dozen animals in a two-room apartment. Dog’s World would never be able to pass up potential future sales like that. Rory pointed out that it would be a fine line to walk. If Julia sounded too crazy they might just balk. So the women worked out a basic script for the conversation. By the time Julia left, Rory was confident they had a workable plan.

  She crossed the backyard to the house, grateful that Zeke wouldn’t be there to voice any objections. But when she entered the empty kitchen, her heart sank a little. She had good news that she wanted to share with someone. She found Hobo asleep on the living room couch and sat down beside him. He hitched up an eyelid in response to her arrival, then fell back to sleep while she told him all about her meeting with Julia Davenport and how they were finally going to catch the bad guys.

  Chapter 30

  Hobo was once again acting like the dog Rory had come to know and love. He chewed on his favorite stuffed duck with all of his normal enthusiasm and begged for a bite of everything Rory put in her mouth. After spitting out the piece of green olive she’d offered him from her lunch, he gave her a puzzled look that clearly said, “Why would you eat something so awful when you could have meat?”

  Rory laughed and scratched his head, grateful for the company and the comic relief. It would be a few more days before Julia contacted Dog’s World, and since Zeke hadn’t yet returned from what Rory thought of as ghost rehab, life in the McCain household was quiet and serene and thoroughly boring. But all that changed in the time it took for the phone to ring.

  She glanced at the caller ID screen before she answered it. The readout said “unknown caller.” No big deal. She knew a lot of people with blocked or unlisted numbers. But when she said “hello,” the voice on the other end was strange and high-pitched, as if the speaker had taken a hit of helium before placing the call. Rory’s first thought was that someone she knew was having a little fun at her expense, but she quickly realized she was wrong. The helium was intended to further hide the caller’s identity.

  “You got lucky with the dog, McCain, but you’re a slow learner. Keep your nose out of our business or . . .” The caller paused. The effect of the helium had started to wear off and Rory could discern a man’s voice breaking through. When he came back, his voice was once again fully masked. “When it’s your turn, trust me, you won’t be so lucky.” The line went dead before she had a chance to keep him talking long enough to blow his cover.

  She set the phone down, her insides quaking with a little healthy fear and a whole lot of lethal anger. Giving Rory a command amounted to issuing a challenge. To her credit, she actually spent a minute or two storming through the house debating the pros and cons of calling Leah. On one hand, she was sure if someone wanted to kill her, they would have already made the attempt—and without the heads-up courtesy call. On the other hand, Leah would surely have pointed out that whoever was making the threats had already followed through on the one involving Hobo. True, Rory would have countered, but whoever was stealing dogs away from their loving homes already thought of them as nothing more than possessions, and expendable ones at that, whereas the legal consequences of homicide upped the ante exponentially. In the moot court of Rory’s mind, the verdict had been reached. She didn’t need to involve the police.

  There was still one thing bothering her about the call, though. How did the dognappers know that she hadn’t given up the investigation? She hadn’t actively pursued the case since Hobo’s brush with death. Only two possibilities occurred to her. Either they considered her call about the failed puppy delivery proof that she was still on their trail or Julia Davenport was working for them.

  In the end, Rory decided to trust that Julia was on her team. She needed the teacher’s help to lead her to the thieves or the investigation was dead in the water. Besides, if she’d so seriously misjudged Julia’s character and intentions, maybe she ought to be in a different line of work. Of course, moving ahead with the plan didn’t have to mean putting on blinders. She’d be on full alert for any sign of treason.

  A second blocked call came that evening while Rory was trying to get interested in an old movie. Had “helium man” forgotten a crucial part of his threat the first time? She muted the TV before answering the phone. She didn’t want to miss anything that was said.

  “Rory McCain?” a man on the other end asked. No helium. And the voice was familiar.

  “Yes?” she said, trying to place it.

  “Hi, this is Dr. Holbrook. How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine, thanks.” Why was Holbrook calling her?

  “Hobo’s doing well?”

  “He’s great.” It couldn’
t be about an outstanding bill; she’d paid in full when she took Hobo home. “What can I do for you?”

  “Well, I’ve been calling all of our dog owners to explain our tattooing and microchipping procedures and to offer them a discount if they’d like to protect their pets in one of these ways.”

  “I appreciate the offer,” Rory said, “but you told me I didn’t have to worry about Hobo being stolen since he’s a mutt.”

  “That’s certainly true,” Holbrook said quickly. “But if he were to get out of the yard or run out the front door when you answer the bell, a tattoo or a microchip would be useful in finding him.”

  “Only if the person who finds him wants to return him,” Rory pointed out.

  Holbrook gave a halfhearted laughed. “Yes, of course. But some protection is better than none.”

  Rory never responded well to the hard sell, and the vet was definitely headed in that direction. “Again, I appreciate the call,” she said, “but Hobo’s never shown any inclination to leave me. In fact, after the traumas he’s suffered he’s practically glued to my side.”

  To his credit, Holbrook knew it was time to save his professional dignity and say good-bye, which he did after wishing Hobo continued good health.

  What he didn’t know was that in the course of their fiveminute conversation Rory had eliminated him as a suspect. The list of people, dogs and phone numbers that she’d seen the first time she’d taken Hobo to his office was apparently just a list of pet owners he was calling to promote the benefits of tattoos and microchips, the “T” or “M” noted beside each name. Those procedures were undoubtedly the source of his extra income. He wasn’t up to anything illegal or nefarious in spite of his accountant’s certainty that he was the dognapping kingpin. In fact, his effort to hide the list was probably an attempt to keep his clients’ personal information away from prying eyes.

  Two nights later Rory was awakened by Hobo, who was barking so ferociously that the bed shook like a rowboat in a squall. She sat up, adrenaline pumping, as the dog leaped off the bed and raced out of the room. She heard his nails tapping and skidding across the hardwood floors as he made his way down the stairs and toward the living room, roaring his displeasure all the way.

  Rory tried to collect her thoughts, which wasn’t easy with her heart hammering away in her chest. She took a couple of slow, deep breaths and found that she could think a bit more clearly. The first thing that occurred to her was that the alarm should be wailing if someone had broken in, but it wasn’t. Had she remembered to set it before going up to bed? She wasn’t sure. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time she’d forgotten since she’d been living there. No point in worrying about it now.

  She grabbed the .45 from her nightstand where she’d been keeping it since Hobo was poisoned and followed him out of the room. Although he was all about announcing himself in the most menacing of terms, Rory preferred to leave possible intruders in the dark, literally and figuratively, as to her own presence until she’d had a chance to assess the situation.

  The night-light outside the bathroom was a tiny beacon in the darkness. She moved quickly along the upper hallway to the stairs, confident that if intruders had been waiting in the shadows there, Hobo would have already found them. When she reached the bottom step she realized that she didn’t hear him barking anymore. Had he stopped on his own or had someone stopped him? There hadn’t been any noise of a scuffle, and if there’d been a gunshot she would have heard it. Even a silent knife would surely have caused the dog to howl in pain. Rory’s mind recoiled at the mere thought of such a sound. Hobo had been through enough. She wasn’t going to let anything else happen to him. Propelled more by fear for him than by concern for her own safety, she left the relative security of the stairs and followed the route he’d taken.

  The living room was dressed in black as if in mourning for the day, the furniture and empty spaces indistinguishable from one another. No light of any sort breached the windows.

  The street lamp must still be out. She’d meant to call town hall about it. She moved on, her back against the wall and her gun at the ready, trying to remember if she’d left a laundry basket or a pair of shoes in the middle of the floor where they could trip her. Too bad she hadn’t thought to keep a flashlight beside the gun.

  How much would she give right now to have Zeke call out to her from his chair by the window? She’d even forgive him his arrogant smile. Although she might not want to admit as much to him, a ghost was far better than a gun when it came to confrontations. Intruders might be willing to take their chances in a gunfight, but most of them would rather flee than take on a ghost. There was simply no way to win a fight against someone who was already dead.

  As Rory approached the kitchen, she heard a familiar sound that lifted her heart with hope. She held her breath and listened closely to be sure she wasn’t hallucinating or indulging in wishful thinking. No, there was no doubt about it. That was the unmistakable sound of Hobo snuffling, the sound he made when he was trying to pick up the scent of a squirrel who’d given him the slip or when he was foraging for crumbs he might have missed at dinner. A wave of relief washed through her, instantly turning her legs to jelly. She leaned against the wall for support until they felt solid enough to hold her weight again.

  She reached for the light switch but stopped herself in time. If someone was outside, illuminating the kitchen would make her an easy target. Instead she made her way to the refrigerator by memory and touch, which included banging her shin against the garbage pail. When she reached the refrigerator, she quickly tugged the door open and crouched behind it. No shots rang out. No window glass shattered. It was probably safe to assume there wasn’t anyone out there, at least anyone with a gun. The small bulb in the refrigerator cast enough light for her to see that Hobo was indeed fine. He was pacing back and forth at the kitchen door, which was still fully intact as well as locked.

  When Rory flipped on the kitchen light, Hobo turned toward her and gave one plaintive bark. Rory reset the safety on her gun before going over to him.

  “I know you want to go after whoever or whatever is out there,” she said to him, “but I can’t risk you getting hurt again. It’s not like you’re a cat who still has eight lives,” she added with a weak little laugh.

  Hobo didn’t seem to appreciate the humor in it. He turned away with a snort of indignation that as much as said, “This is ridiculous; you’re not letting me do my job!”

  “Sorry to pull rank on you, buddy. But as soon as it’s light out you can come along and help me scout the perimeter.” While Leah would have been pleased to know that she had enough sense not to go prowling around in the dark, it was patently clear that Hobo didn’t share that sentiment. With a whimper of frustration, he sank to the floor. If he wasn’t allowed outside to police the area, he seemed determined to remain on guard duty.

  The clock over the sink said it was four a.m. Sleep was out of the question, and it was still a few hours until dawn. Rory put up water for tea, gave Hobo one of his doggie treats that claimed to taste like peanut butter, and the two of them settled in to wait.

  Chapter 31

  When the sun came up, Rory was dressed in sweatpants and a heavy sweater. She had the .45 in her hand and an evidence bag in her pocket. Since Hobo hadn’t so much as growled in the past few hours, she didn’t really think she needed the gun. Whoever or whatever had spooked him was no doubt long gone. Still, the weight of the weapon in her hand felt wonderfully reassuring.

  While waiting for daybreak, she’d had plenty of time to review the night’s events from a somewhat calmer perspective. It was entirely possible that what Hobo had heard was just a raccoon on the roof looking for a room to let. With the car being their only predator on the island, the raccoon population was booming. Most of the people Rory knew had had one or more encounters with the animals, who often tore up roofing tiles and dug their way into attics and crawl spaces. The great American dream of owning a home seemed to extend to the four-legg
ed species as well. And although Rory had no desire to go through the hassle and expense of hiring a trapper to remove one of these squatters, a raccoon was definitely preferably to a hit man.

  As soon as the first rays of daylight sifted through the windows, Hobo’s alert status ratcheted up several notches. The moment Rory headed toward the kitchen door, he jumped up, clearly determined to be the first one outside. She unlocked the door, but it wouldn’t open more than a few inches with Hobo standing there doing his impression of a doorstop. She tried to push him out of the way, but he refused to give any ground. She tried ordering him to move and bribing him with a treat. No success. She even tried tugging him out of the way. The bottom line was that she had maybe ten or fifteen pounds on him, but he had a lower center of gravity and four sturdy paws that seemed rooted to the floor. They were at an impasse.

  She was debating whether she could beat him to the front door, when he resolved the dilemma for her. By shifting his position, he was able to squeeze his snout into the opening between the door and the frame and widen it by another couple of inches. Then, using his body like a wedge, he wriggled in far enough to push the door open the rest of the way. With a triumphant bark, he glanced over his withers to see if Rory had witnessed his accomplishment.

  She gave him a “way to go, what a good boy” cheer, thinking he must have sacrificed an entire layer of skin in the effort. She leaned over him to hold the storm door open so that he could be the first one out. It seemed like the least she could do under the circumstances.

  With the last obstacle out of the way, Rory fully expected him to go barreling through the doorway, but he took two steps outside and started snuffling the immediate area around the door. Her pulse quickened; she’d never heard of a raccoon trying to gain entrance through a door. That was a much more human thing to do.