Muzzled

by June Whyte

  All except that revolting rubber thing…

  Bob Germaine moved three steps closer. I knew it was three steps because with each stride his shiny black loafers slapped against the wooden floor and sent vibrations skittering up through my knees.

  “And to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Katrina?” His voice mocked me and I didn’t need to look up to feel his eyes boring through the top of my head. “If it’s photo-copying or a nomination query, you’re too late. My staff went home earlier, as soon as the Sunday morning trials finished. In fact, there’s no-one here but me.” He paused and the air chilled several more degrees. “Even old McKenzie out there has finished grading the track and gone home to lunch.”

  On my knees I stared up at the man I thought I knew. He’d been a fellow greyhound trainer before giving up to work as a temp on the Greyhound Control Board. From my vantage point on the floor, Bob Germaine appeared seven feet tall and although his smile didn’t shift, the stillness of his mouth made him even more menacing. Butterflies staggered around in my stomach like a mob of drunks. This man may be a killer and I was alone with him. Damn! Why the heck didn’t I let Ben come with me when he offered? My cowboy wasn’t due for at least another fifteen minutes and by that time my chopped up body could be packed and stored in the canteen’s refrigerator.

  I stumbled to me feet, dropped the half-eaten biscuit into the bin and wiped my hands on the seat of my jeans. Oh well, if I was going to be murdered I wanted some questions answered first. “Bob, what did my sister tell you when she came to see you on Friday?”

  His smile slipped and confusion clouded his eyes. “Your sister? I didn’t know you had a sister, Katrina. I thought you were checking out what I watch on my computer.”

  “Bob, I couldn’t care less if your eyeballs exploded from watching threesomes perform in bed. I’m here about my sister. Her name is Liz. A hippy type. I believe she tried to give you information she’d overheard about how slow dogs were winning on country tracks.”

  “That’s your sister?” His look was almost sympathetic. “That ditzy dame that causes trouble everywhere she goes?”

  Yep. Sounded like Liz. I nodded.

  He dragged a hand through his hair without disturbing one immaculate strand. Amazing. Must be gelled to within an inch of its life. “Look,” he said, “I’ve already told that other troublemaker, Scott Brady, I haven’t seen his pesky girlfriend since she tagged along with him and tried to create chaos, claiming we were racing greyhounds against their will—which is when I told her if she stepped on the track again I’d ring the police and have her charged with trespass and causing a disturbance. So… I’m sorry, but if your rabble-rousing sister has disappeared, I say, good riddance.”

  “But she came to see you on Friday.” I crossed my fingers behind my back. “I have proof.”

  His smile vanished which was good because the perpetual sight of those whiter-than-white shark teeth was doing my head in. “What do you mean…you have proof? Who told you that fruitcake came here?” His snake eyes turned into sharp pebbles. “You can’t prove a thing. It’s their word against mine.”

  Aha. So I was right. Liz did talk to Bob Germaine about what she’d overhead regarding the slow dogs winning. Thing is—after their conversation, did Liz walk away from his office and then take off with another bunch of professional protesters—or did Bob Germaine make sure she couldn’t walk anywhere again?

  He stepped closer. So close, I could see the ring of sweat forming under his armpits and smell the strong odor of his musky aftershave. “And what if she did come in here with some cock-and-bull story about how there was a betting scam going on?” he growled. “I told her what I’m telling you—keep your nose out of what doesn’t concern you. Long priced dogs pop up every day of the week, from here to Timbuktu. It’s the fickleness of the game. As long as the winning dog’s swab comes back negative, it’s all above board.”

  “But—”

  “Now, if you’ve finished sifting through my trash and checking out my computer—I think you’d better go.”

  “How much money did you win on the slow dog that won today, Bob?”

  “I said, you’ve outstayed your welcome.”

  “Are you in league with the scammers, Bob?”

  “Are you deaf—or just as thick as your idiot sister?”

  “Does that mean you know where my sister is?”

  “I have nothing more to say to you, Katrina.” His anger almost palpable, Bob’s mouth twisted and his face, now coated in sweat, came close to touching mine. I cringed away from the sweat and the barely controlled rage, both hands cradling my stomach where butterflies lurched into the air, crashing and bouncing off the walls. “So, do I have to pick you up and throw you out—or are you going to leave on your own two feet?”

  There was a shuffling movement near the door and the distinct sound of jingling spurs. “Am I in time for morning tea? If so, I’ll have a strong black with three lumps, please.” Ben swaggered into the room, a borrowed Stetson jammed hard on his head. “And unless you’d rather those lumps were beaten into your head with my fist, Germaine—I’d move away from my girlfriend. Right now.”

  21

  Fifteen minutes later, Ben drove through the township of Port Augusta and out onto the main highway back to Adelaide. Smiling, I relaxed into the passenger seat. No doubt about it, Benjamin Taylor was handy to have around in a tight fix. Even when we were just good mates, in the days before Ben recognized my womanly assets, he’d always been there for me. Now, however, there was an added dimension to his protectiveness.

  Could it possibly be love?

  Okay, when my urban cowboy came bursting through the doorway to my rescue, he didn’t actually toss me over the pommel of his saddle and gallop off into the sunset—neither did he leave the bad guy flat on his back, battered and bruised and with his butt well and truly kicked—but his timely entrance certainly changed the dynamics in the room. Immediately Bob Germaine’s ugly threats dissolved into cowardly whines. He didn’t even protest when Ben expressed his opinion that a man who felt the need to become physical and threaten a woman was either insecure—or had been inflicted with a puny underdeveloped penis that he couldn’t get up.

  It was a long drive home. With a trailer load of dogs hooked on behind the car we probably had three hours driving ahead of us. What’s worse—it had started to rain again. I shivered under my jacket and peered through the car window. This was serious rain. Large bloated drops that sent our windscreen wipers into a frenzy of activity. Overhead, the sky hung like a thick dark curtain and although the middle of the day, Ben switched on the car’s headlights. Leaning forward, I bumped the heater up a notch then settled back in my seat to mull things over in my head.

  Okay, what had I really learned from questioning Bob Germaine? Not much. Perhaps I was wrong about him. Perhaps the man’s temper tantrum was more to do with me poking my nose into his computer’s hard drive and discovering his less-than-moral taste in downloads than any involvement in the slow dog scam or my sister’s disappearance.

  Ben shifted in the seat beside me. “You do realize you need to work on your interview techniques, don’t you?”

  Huh? Mouth open, I stared at him. Was my boyfriend psychic? Did he just read my mind?

  I narrowed my eyes in his direction and gave a warning sniff. Nah. He was having a go at me. “What do you mean, Benjamin?”

  Dark eyes dancing wickedly, Ben shot me a quick grin. “Hey…don’t bite my head off, babe. I’m only basing my opinion on the color of Bob Germaine’s face when I interrupted your interview back there.” He cocked his head to one side, frowned and pretended to deliberate the issue. “And of course your victim’s parting words to me—‘control your girlfriend—keep her on a leash—she’s a menace to society’.”

  “Bob Germaine is not a victim—he’s a suspect.”

  “Riiight.”

  “And his face was red from temper.”

  “So your interviewing techni
que didn’t have anything to do with making him spit the dummy?”

  I wriggled in my seat. “Yeah, but—”

  “Remember Katrina, I was also with you the day you grilled Big Mick, our dodgy bookmaker friend, at his house. Mick’s face then was exactly the same shade of puce as Bob’s today.”

  I scowled at the passing scenery. Other than spinifex grass, prickle bushes and the occasional stunted tree, the never-ending land stretched flat and brown and wet on both sides of the bitumen roadway.

  “Excuse me for breathing,” I growled, “but all I did was what any other concerned citizen would do in the same situation.”

  “Which is?”

  “I asked Bob Germaine if he had anything to do with Liz’s disappearance or the slow dog scam.”

  A smile twitched at the corners of Ben’s lips. “Right. And I suppose you were subtle, delicate, restrained, and the ultimate professional in your approach? In other words you didn’t blast him with these questions straight out? Didn’t indicate in any way shape or form that you thought he was up to his eyeballs in skullduggery?”

  “Well…”

  “I rest my case.”

  Damn. Maybe I did need to brush up on my PI techniques. Maybe I should watch more CSI on TV, read more mysteries and study how Jessica Fletcher, Kinsey Millhone and Nancy Drew approached the art of interrogation. I blew out a sigh of frustration. Subtle? Okay, but whenever I attempted subtle, I didn’t get a direct answer—more like an eye roll.

  I blew out another sigh and relaxed my muscles, one by one. Strung out as I was from questioning Scott at the hospital and then the ill-tempered Bob Germaine, I was surprised to find my eye lids growing heavy. The regular drone of the rain on the roof of the car and the swish of wheels on wet bitumen acted like a lullaby and next I knew Ben was shaking my shoulder.

  “Come on Sleeping Beauty, wake up. We’re home.”

  “Whaaat?” I said and blinked owl-like at the familiar surroundings outside the car window. My graveled driveway—my chocolate box, two-storied house—the sound of excited barking not only from behind my welcoming front door but from the kennel house at the end of the path.

  Ben helped me undo my seatbelt and then stood back and watched as I scrambled out of the car and stretched. “Next time we travel together,” he said, straight-faced, “remind me to store a few clothes pegs in the glove box. You snored like an express train all the way home.”

  Dodging my hook to the kidneys, he laughed and dropped a quick kiss on my forehead. “See you tonight, gorgeous. Can’t stop, ’cos I gotta get my dogs home. They’ll be itching to get out of the trailer and stretch their legs.”

  “After that clothes peg quip, you’d better bring chocolates if you want to see me tonight, Benjamin. And only the biggest, most expensive box in the shop will do.”

  The strident ring of the phone greeted me as I pushed past my two bouncing dogs and stumbled into the lounge room. Geez. Anyone would think I’d been away for a year instead of a day. While dishing out pats and cuddles and exchanging kisses with my welcoming committee, I lifted the hands free from its base and pressed TALK.

  “Kat McKinley.”

  “Hey, Kat.” It was Dr. Terry Chapman, the vet. “Any luck locating Stanley?”

  “No…nothing yet.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll find him.” Terry’s voice, as always, brimmed with confidence. “I’ve contacted the animal rescue services and left the dog’s description at every vet surgery in South Australia. Someone, somewhere, will find your dog and when they do they’ll bring him in.” There was a short pause. “Talking about Stanley, there was something else I wanted to discuss with you.”

  I plopped down onto the lounge, lifted the wriggling Tater into my lap and tossed Lucky’s favorite squeaky purple dragon across the room for her to fetch. “Go on. I’m all ears.”

  “Due to the confusion at the surgery on Friday, I didn’t get around to explaining what I discovered when I examined Stanley prior to neutering.”

  “Confusion? Geez more like World War Three erupting,” I said scratching the special spot behind Tater’s ear. As usual, it made him purr like a cat. “Come to think of it I do remember you mentioning something about Stanley’s ear brands—but that’s around the time the poor squashed cat and the legless bird were brought into the surgery and I discovered Stanley was missing.”

  “Well, when I checked Stanley, I noticed the ear brand on one ear was difficult to read. Of course this happens often which is why micro-chipping is gradually taking the place of ear branding. Anyway, after studying the ear more closely under a microscope I wrote the numbers down. Got a pen handy?”

  I yanked at the front drawer of the coffee table and rummaged around until I found a small notebook and a biro. “Yep. Go ahead.”

  “His right ear brand is S418. Okay? Now, it might pay to check this against Stanley’s racing papers because what’s suspicious is the fact that the last number has been changed from a 6 to an 8.”

  Perplexed, I stared at the numbers I’d scribbled on the first page of the notebook. Who would change the dog’s ear brand? And why? Was Purple Pants, the man we’d found in the refrigerator, responsible for this? Or was it his killer?

  “Another thing,” went on Terry—as if this wasn’t enough to comprehend already. “Did you know Stanley has a white sock on his left front leg?”

  “No.”

  “You can’t see it because someone has covered the sock with a dark colored dye.”

  I stared at the phone. As Alice remarked when confronted by the weird goings on in Wonderland—this was getting curiouser and curiouser.

  “Plus,” continued Terry, “the white toenails on the same foot have also been dyed.” He paused again and I imagined him running his fingers through his thick hair which is what Terry always did when overexcited. “So…it looks like our dearly beloved GAP dog is actually part of the mystery.”

  I frowned. “So it wasn’t Lofty they were after at all?”

  “Nope.”

  “It was Stanley all the time—and now they have him.”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “Guess I’ll have to start calling you Sherlock.”

  Terry let out a chuckle. “Nah. That Sherlock guy was a wimpy drama queen—left all the work to his side-kick, Dr. Watson. Me—I’d rather be Perry Mason. You know, a day in court to demonstrate the brilliance of my mind, followed by cocktails in a nightclub at five.”

  I stood up and began to pace—much to the disgust of Tater who slid off my lap onto the lounge with a disgruntled growl. “Okay, Perry Mason, after all that, I think it’s time we bumped up the search for Stanley. I have a shaky feeling he’s in more trouble than we bargained for.”

  “You’re right. I have to attend to my next patient right now, but after that I’ll get onto my contacts, see if they’ve heard anything. There’s something strange going on here.”

  I placed the handset back on the base and scooped Tater up in my arms. There was something strange going on alright and I had a feeling Terry’s discovery was a major clue to the secret of the slow dog saga.

  Were faster litter mates being used as ring-ins and entered in races under the name of their slower relatives?

  22

  “Ben should’ve tied Germaine’s nose in knots and shoved the whole freaking mess down his throat.” Tanya’s rant indicted if she’d been with me at the time, another of Germaine’s appendages would have copped a similar serve.

  It was four hours later—close to 7 pm. The rain had stopped but a strong gusty wind rattled the loose window in the laundry. The one I meant to get fixed and only remembered on windy nights when tradesmen were tucked up at home, downing a couple of pints and fixing their own loose windows. After working and feeding my racing team, I’d settled them down for the night and given my best friend a ring.

  Of course the phone call lasted all of two minutes. What the blue-blazes!, had been Tanya’s immediate reaction when I told her about someone trying to kill
Scott and then she’d promptly invited herself over for dinner and was standing at my front door with two enormous steaks—before I could even warm up the grill.

  Ben wasn’t coming for dinner. He’d rung to tell me Pot O’ Gold, his favorite brood bitch, had decided to go into labor five days early, and nothing short of an earthquake would shift him from Goldie’s side until every squirming puppy was safely lined up against the warm milk bar.

  It was Erin’s turn to stay with her father this week—so it was just Tanya and me. And that suited us fine.

  Our steaks sizzled under the grill, the tantalizing smell sending my stomach into spasms and rumbles of anticipation. While I filled Tanya in on my Port Augusta adventures, I also sorted through dirty clothes ready to bundle in the washing machine. It’s a fact of life that even when there’s a killer on the loose and everything around you gets hectic and scary you still need clean clothes.

  “Ben didn’t need to get physical,” I told Tanya. “It was enough to hear his spurs jingling as he pushed through the door and ordered Germaine to move away from his girl-friend. You know—in that no-nonsense, bone-melting voice of his that makes me almost wet my pants just thinking about ripping his clothes off and—”

  “La, la, la…” Tanya covered her ears with both hands and shook her head. “Just get on with it, will ya?”

  I laughed. Tanya’s little black book was legendary, yet she balked at descriptions of what Ben and I got up to under the sheets…or on the floor…or in the cupboard…or…