Rubbed Out

by Barbara Block

  CRIME SCENE

  I touched the door handle. It moved slightly, which was when I realized that the door wasn’t completely closed.

  I pushed the door open and went inside. Even from my position in the hallway, I could see something bad had happened. One of the chairs in the living room was on its side. So was the coffee table. Magazines and papers had been scattered all over the floor. There was a splatter mark on the wall where someone had thrown something. Shards from one of the mirrors on the wall lay on the floor.

  The kitchen hadn’t fared much better. The cupboard doors were hanging open. The floor and the counter were littered with cans and boxes. Smashed plates and glasses covered the floor and kitchen table. I spotted what looked like a smear of blood on the edge of the counter.

  Then I noticed another one on the floor . . .

  Books by Barbara Block

  CHUTES AND ADDERS

  TWISTER

  IN PLAIN SIGHT

  THE SCENT OF MURDER

  VANISHING ACT

  ENDANGERED SPECIES

  BLOWING SMOKE

  RUBBED OUT

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  RUBBED OUT

  Barbara Block

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  CRIME SCENE

  Also by

  Title Page

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Copyright Page

  To Hank and Paul Nielsen for their

  friendship and support

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’d like to thank the following people for their help and assistance:

  Dino Quarantiello for his coffee, without which I could not function, and his advice on gambling, which I’m sure will make it into my next book.

  Charles Samuels for reading the book and pointing out my obvious errors.

  Robert Strickland for his knowledge of materials and engineering and for propping me up when I really needed it.

  My son, Lawrence Block, who is always my first and best reader.

  I’d also like to especially thank my editor, John Scognamiglio, for his unwavering support and his suggestions, as well as for the freedom he’s allowed me.

  Chapter One

  Everything bad in my life that’s ever happened to me has started with a phone call. This was no exception.

  It had been a slow week at Noah’s Ark. So slow that I’d closed up shop early on Tuesday evening and taken my dog Zsa Zsa downtown to listen to some jazz at the Shamrock. But the band hadn’t shown up and I’d downed a couple of Scotches, eaten a handful of pretzels in lieu of dinner, shared a beer with Zsa Zsa, and come home instead.

  It was a little after eleven when I walked into the kitchen. The message light on my answering machine was blinking. I unwrapped my scarf and kicked off my boots as I hit the play button. Calli’s voice, frantic sounding, floated out into the room.

  “Robin,” she said. “Where the hell are you? Lily’s gone. Someone stole her out of the backyard. Call me as soon as you get in.”

  That had been two days ago and we’d been searching for her with increasing desperation ever since.

  Tiger Lily was my friend’s three-year-old pregnant golden retriever bitch, her baby. I loved her too. Apologies to Zsa Zsa, my cocker spaniel, but goldens are my favorite breed. They are the true innocents of the world. With their goofy grins, they remind me of slightly dim-witted eighteen-month-old children dressed up in furry blond suits. Tiger Lily didn’t have a mean bone in her body. She was sweet and trusting, the kind of dog who firmly believes that everyone in the universe adores her, and the thought of her alone, hurt, and afraid broke my heart.

  I was hoping that someone had kidnapped her and was holding her for ransom, but when Calli didn’t get a note it was clear that whoever had stolen her had something else in mind. Like keeping her and selling her puppies. Without papers the puppies would be worth a fraction of what they would be with them, one hundred dollars instead of eight, but maybe the someone who took them didn’t know that. Or maybe they didn’t care. Maybe they just needed a quick way to make a few bucks.

  I could make a pretty good guess who that someone was, but Calli didn’t want to hear about it. She didn’t take bad news well in the best of times, and these weren’t the best of times for her. She’d never been what you’d call tightly wrapped, but in the last couple of months the strings holding her together were fraying. On the other hand, not smoking wasn’t bringing out the best in me either.

  Friday turned out to be as slow as Tuesday had been at the store. If things kept up this way, I’d just make the month’s expenses. I was cleaning out the gerbil cages when Calli called. Even before she told me her news, I could tell from the tone of her voice that she’d located Lily.

  I reached into my jeans pocket for a cigarette and then remembered I wasn’t doing that anymore and got out a piece of gum instead. I unwrapped the stick, folded it into thirds, and popped it in my mouth as Calli talked.

  “She’s chained up in back of this house on Fayette,” she said.

  “How’d you find her?”

  “Luck.” Calli took a deep breath and let it out.

  “Luck?”

  There was a brief pause; then Calli said, “What do you care how I found her? The important thing is that I did.”

  “Have you called the cops?”

  “And give the low-life scum who did it a chance to sneak out the back with Lily while the police are banging on the front? I don’t think so. We might never find her again.”

  “True.”

  “Damned right it is.”

  I snugged the phone under my chin while I filled the gerbils’ food dish. They stood up on their hind legs waiting for me to finish.

  “So what are you saying? Exactly.”

  “You know what I’m saying.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  “I’m saying we need to get my baby back. Now. It’s not as if you haven’t done this kind of thing before,” Calli said when I didn’t answer.

  “After all, what are friends for if you
can’t ask them to help you with a spot of robbery now and then?” I said as I put the cover back on the gerbil cage.

  “I can ask Dirk when he comes back if you don’t want to.”

  “No. I’ll help.” Anything Dirk touched turned bad.

  “It’ll be easy. All we have to do is pop in, grab Tiger Lily, and go.”

  “It’s never that simple.” This I did know.

  “This will be. So when can you get here?”

  I checked my watch. It was ten minutes after twelve. Manuel was due in the store in twenty minutes. It would take me about twenty-five minutes to get to Calli’s, with a stop at my house to get what I needed. That should put us at the house a little before one.

  Which would give us over an hour before the junior high students got out of school and started clogging the streets. Since most of the adults would probably be at work, not too many people would be around. I bit a nail while I thought. Eleven at night would be better, but this was doable. I told Calli I’d be by her house as soon as Manuel came, and then I called him on his cell and told him to hurry it up. He blew into Noah’s Ark ten minutes later.

  “God, this weather sucks,” Calli said as she scanned the street for a parking space. “I wish I was back in California.”

  “What do you expect? It’s February in Syracuse.”

  “It’s depressing.” And she waved her hand in the air to indicate that she was talking about the block as well as the weather.

  She was right. Most of the houses on the street needed painting. Torn plastic sheets flapped over windows. Trash bags spilled their guts onto the snow.

  “I feel as if we’re living in a black-and-white movie,” Calli complained as she pulled the collar of her sheepskin jacket up and tucked her chin into it. Blue veins stood out on her forehead. “At least get the heater fixed in your car. If it’s twenty degrees in here, it’s a lot.” And she blew a couple of smoke rings to emphasize her point.

  Which reminded me of what I wasn’t doing. God, this not smoking thing was making me crazy. Even with the patch I felt as if I had ants crawling up and down my skin. I took a deep breath and tried to focus on the scrawl of graffiti on the lamppost. It didn’t help. Maybe lollipops would work. Either that or a gun to the head.

  “Maybe we should use yours,” I said.

  “Yes, a Beamer would fit in so well.”

  “Dare I suggest you could get something less conspicuous?”

  “One of the only benefits about living in a place like this is that I can afford a BMW.”

  “I suppose,” I said and turned my attention back to the road.

  We’d had twenty-three consecutive days of snow and the stuff was piled everywhere. With cars parked on both sides, the street reminded me of one of those narrow, windy mountain roads in Spain where only one vehicle at a time can get through and the other one has to back up.

  “I hope Lily’s all right,” Calli said.

  Out of the corner of my eye I could see Calli’s lower lip quivering.

  “She’ll be fine.”

  “She better be.” A moment later she indicated a space right before the bus stop. “Pull in over there.”

  “You’re sure she’s here?” I asked as I maneuvered the car around an overturned trash can. I could see it all now. I’m sorry, your honor. My friend got the wrong house. We meant to rob the one next door.

  Calli nodded.

  “Positive?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You gonna tell me how you found out?”

  “No. And don’t blame Dirk.”

  “I wasn’t going to.”

  “Yes, you were.”

  “Okay. I was.”

  Chapter Two

  Calli had always had bad taste in men, but Dirk was the worst of the bunch. Dirk? What kind of name is that anyway? It sounds like something out of a bad sword-and-armor movie. A drummer who’d last worked with a band called Tonto and the White Boys, Dirk lazed around Calli’s house, ate her food, and made long-distance phone calls to Rome—the Rome in Italy, not New York State—on her phone when she was down at the paper. Oh, did I forget to mention the minor fact of him forging her signature on a couple of checks? But Calli had an excuse for that too.

  I had not a doubt in the world that he or one of his white trash, redneck buddies was behind Tiger Lily’s disappearance, but Calli refused to listen. I just couldn’t figure out what she saw in him. He wasn’t that hot. He certainly wasn’t that smart. Or nice. Or helpful. Maybe he was great in bed, but I couldn’t buy that either. He was too concerned with himself to be interested in someone else’s pleasure. Anyway, if he were I would have heard.

  “This isn’t your business,” she reiterated as we got out of the car.

  I flinched as the wind hit. I definitely needed a warmer jacket. The lining on this one was falling apart. “It is when you involve me.”

  She reached for the bolt cutters. “Then give them to me. Wait here. I’ll get Lily back myself.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a two-person job. Anyway, you don’t know one end of these from the other.”

  “I think I can figure it out.”

  Calli wore high-heeled boots, believed shopping was an art form, and had trouble changing the lightbulbs in her kitchen fixture. She was most at home parked in her cubicle at the local paper, where she worked as a reporter.

  The wind was making the lobes of my ears burn. I flipped the hood on my parka up and held on to my temper. “This is stupid. We both want the same thing: Tiger Lily home. Let’s just concentrate on that. Okay?”

  Calli’s hand dropped to her side. “Okay.”

  I slipped the bolt cutter under my jacket. It made for awkward walking. I probably should have taken a smaller one, but I’d wanted to make sure it could do the job. I wanted to snip the metal and go in, not stand there struggling with the damned links. We were conspicuous enough as it was. I glanced at Calli as we walked down the street. The cold had leached the color from her skin. She looked like an advertisement for a vampire movie with her white skin and blood-red lipstick.

  “Lily will be fine,” I repeated. I didn’t know what else to say.

  “She’s due in two weeks. I hope the stress doesn’t make her deliver early.”

  “Me too.”

  “Dirk says he’ll help.”

  “That’s comforting.”

  “Can’t you ever drop anything?”

  “No.”

  “Even when I ask you to?”

  “Don’t you want to hear the truth?”

  “Your truth?”

  I shut up. Sometimes there’s no talking to Calli.

  “Fine then,” Calli said.

  I watched her hunch her shoulders up against the wind and keep walking. A moment later we arrived at the fence. It was as Calli had described it. Standard chain link. Except for one thing. There were five other dogs staked out in the small junk-cluttered backyard. I counted two nondescript, medium-sized black-and-tan mutts, a young black lab, a German shepherd with torn-up ears, and a beagle.

  Tiger Lily started woofing the moment she saw us. Great big woofs. The other dogs joined in a few seconds later. The din was enough to alert everyone in a three-block area. All the dogs were tied up to metal stakes on short leads. No water or food bowls were in evidence. Even though it was minus seventeen with the wind chill factor, there wasn’t as much as a blanket, let alone a shelter of any kind in sight. The snow around the dogs was stained brown with feces.

  “You should have called Animal Control the moment you saw this,” I said.

  Calli put her hand on my arm. “I know. I’m sorry. I just wanted to get Lily. We’ll call Animal Control once we get Lily in the car. An hour more or less won’t make any difference”

  “It would if you were the one freezing out there.”

  “Robin, be reasonable. I was afraid if I told you, you wouldn’t do it.”

  “You should have allowed me the courtesy of making up my own mind.”

  As I t
urned toward the fence, I reflected that the problem with old friends is that you take things from them you wouldn’t take from anyone else.

  “Aside from everything else, given the noise the dogs are making, it’s only a matter of time before someone comes over to find out what we’re doing.”

  “I know.” Calli buried her hands underneath her armpits and hopped up and down while I took the bolt cutter out of my jacket and got to work.

  In a minute I’d made a hole big enough for Calli and me to crawl through. By now Tiger Lily was wagging her tail so hard, her hindquarters were wiggling from side to side. The other dogs were barking hysterically.

  “Oh, Lily,” Calli said and ran toward her. She wrapped her arms around Lily’s neck and buried her nose in her coat. The golden licked Calli’s cheeks. “You poor thing.” And she started to cry.

  I snipped the rope that was holding Lily with the bolt cutter and tapped Calli on her shoulder. “Let’s go.”

  Calli stood up. Released, Tiger Lily jumped up and put her paws on Calli’s shoulders and gave her another long lick. Her coat was matted and dirty, but a good bath and brushing would take care of that. The other dogs looked about the same.

  “Don’t you worry, guys,” I told them. “You’ll be out of here soon.”

  We had taken a couple of steps when we heard a woman yell, “Hey, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Calli and I turned. A heavyset woman wearing a bathrobe and unlaced work boots was standing by the side door shaking a broom at us.

  Calli grabbed onto Tiger Lily’s collar. I noticed it was a frayed blue nylon. The people who’d taken her must have gotten rid of the expensive leather one Calli . had purchased for her in Florence. I wondered what they’d done with it as Calli screamed, “I’m taking my dog.”