This dog lay resting in a patch of sunshine and didn’t respond to Joe’s coaxing, but his head was up and his ears cocked, and he was listening. Not friendly, not hostile, simply watchful.
“That’s progress,” Rachel said.
“Yeah, I think there’s hope for this one too.”
“He’s not gonna be so quick about trustin’ people,” Mrs. Turner said, as she and Holly joined Rachel and Joe. “But he’ll be all right. I’ve been talkin’ to him a lot, and he looks like he’s takin’ in every word and givin’ it a lot of thought.”
“You’re our dog whisperer,” Rachel said. That drew a proud little smile from Mrs. Turner. Holly had been raised by her grandmother after her mother disappeared, and the old woman, who came across as tough and no-nonsense with people, had a deep and tender love for animals that she had passed on to her granddaughter.
“I just hope we’ll be allowed to keep them here and work with them,” Joe said. “I’ve been hearing from the county supervisors about this. They think I oughta take the dogs straight to the pound and kill them. There’s a lot of people out there that feel the same way.”
“That’s crazy,” Mrs. Turner exclaimed. She gave Rachel a stern look. “Any dogs you bring in here, they’re gonna get a second chance. If somebody intends to hurt them, they’ll have to get to them over my dead body.”
Some might choose to take that route, Rachel thought. “I’m not euthanizing any of them. I’m on their side. Tom and I can probably hold off the supervisors and the sheriff, but I’m seriously worried about somebody getting in here at night.”
“We got our protection,” Mrs. Turner said. “Round the clock.”
“The guys workin’ at night don’t fall asleep on the job,” Holly said. “They’re too scared of Grandma. They’d rather tangle with a hungry bobcat than mess with her.”
Anybody who would set fire to an occupied house, Rachel thought, probably wouldn’t balk at shooting the sanctuary’s guards to get past them. She stifled the thought, fervently hoping she was exaggerating the danger. “We’ll bring you at least one more dog tonight,” she said. “I want to concentrate on catching the alpha dog. That should make it easier to get the rest of them. He’s big, and he might be vicious, so you’ll have to be especially careful when you get close to him, and take all the precautions when the run needs to be cleaned.”
“Oh, don’t you worry,” Mrs. Turner said, “I expect I can handle him.”
That kind of overconfidence, Rachel worried, would get her hurt.
***
She felt disturbingly like a damsel in distress who couldn’t venture into the world without a man to look after her, but she was glad to have Joe following her in his van. Although he surely had better things to do with his Saturday, he was going to wait for her on the road outside the Halls’ house and follow her back to Tom’s farm.
At the entrance to the Halls’ driveway, the same burly guy who had stopped Rachel before stood on the driveway with one hand up and the other clutching a shotgun. God, these people freaked her out.
She waited while he marched over to her Range Rover, squinted at her as if making sure she was who she was supposed to be. After what seemed a ridiculously long and close scrutiny, he stepped back and waved her on.
“Thank you so much,” she muttered. Now she could look forward to an encounter with Ethan at the house.
To her relief, young Marcy answered the door. When she saw Rachel, the girl’s blank facade fell away, her eyes brightened, and she almost smiled before some internal restraint put a stop to the show of friendliness. “Hey,” she said, her voice barely audible, all emotion wiped from her face.
“Hi, Marcy. It’s good to see you again. I’m here to check on Thor.”
The girl bobbed her head and opened the door wider to let Rachel in.
As Marcy closed the door, Rachel said, “I was so sorry to hear about your sister’s accident. How is she this morning?”
Marcy hunched her shoulders. “I don’t know,” she murmured. “Nobody told me.”
A strange family indeed, Rachel thought. “Could you show me where Thor is? We don’t have to bother your mother right now.”
Marcy nodded and led Rachel through the living room and out onto the patio, where Thor lay on one of his dog beds, watching squirrels forage among the fallen leaves on the lawn. The girl knelt and stroked his side, prompting a few slow thumps of his tail.
Rachel stooped to scratch Thor’s head. “He must be feeling better. Is he eating well and taking his antibiotic?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The girl’s voice remained a near whisper.
With her brown skin, curly black hair, and long-lashed eyes, Marcy was a beautiful girl, and Rachel longed to see her smile, hear her laugh, see a spark of life in those eyes. This timid, withdrawn child wasn’t reacting to her father’s death. Rachel felt sure Marcy was like this all the time. Life in the Hall household had drained the spirit from her.
Stay out of it, she could hear Tom say. Rachel turned her attention back to the dog, scratching his neck with one hand while she lifted his lip to check gum color. He was doing well, bouncing back from what must have been a terrifying experience.
Glancing into the empty living room, Rachel wondered where the rest of the family was. This would be a good time to ask Marcy about her plea the last time Rachel had seen her. Help me. She was positive that was what the girl said. How could she ignore that?
“Have you been keeping Thor company?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am. He keeps wanting to come out here.” Marcy hesitated, then added, “I think he’s waiting for Daddy to come back. But doesn’t he know what happened? He saw it. Why does he keep looking?”
She sounded so bewildered that Rachel wanted to pull her into a hug. All she allowed herself to do was place a hand on Marcy’s shoulder. This child had seen her father’s body immediately after he died. She had seen him lying on the ground with his throat ripped open. “Animals can grieve when they lose someone they love, the same way we do. Give him a lot of attention and make sure he eats well, and he’ll probably pull out of it.”
For the first time, Marcy lifted her eyes to meet Rachel’s. Her voice came out stronger, more urgent. “Why would somebody do a thing like that to another person? I mean, sic a bad dog on him?”
“I don’t know, Marcy. I don’t understand it either.”
“They must have really hated him.”
What was she supposed to say to that? Yeah, I hear your father was a real s.o.b. Plenty of people must be glad he’s dead. She said the only thing she could think of. “The reason doesn’t matter. It was wrong. Nobody has a right to do something like to another person.”
Marcy didn’t respond. She stroked Thor while Rachel checked his wounds and changed his dressings. This was such a peaceful setting, surrounded by woods, with cardinals and wrens singing from the shrubs behind the house, that Rachel could hardly imagine the carnage that had taken place at the bottom of the lawn. How would any of the Halls ever again enjoy a simple walk in the yard, with such a memory intruding?
Marcy murmured something Rachel didn’t catch.
Smoothing the last new bandage in place, Rachel glanced up. “I’m sorry, what did you—” She broke off, struck by the change that had come over Marcy.
The girl had gone rigid, her bottom lip trembling, and her gaze seemed to focus inward. For the first time, Rachel saw strong emotions play across Marcy’s face, a jumble of bewilderment blending into fear, giving way to—what? Before Rachel’s eyes, Marcy’s small, beautiful face hardened into a mask of bitterness. Her voice remained quiet, but now it had a cold edge. “He was mean,” she said. “He was mean all the time.”
Staring at her, Rachel was momentarily at a loss for words. Was she still talking about Gordon Hall? Was the memory of her father stirring up these ugly emotions? “Who, Marcy? Who was mean?”
The girl shot a fearful look at the house. “Him.”
“Your father? Dr. Hall?�
�
Marcy nodded.
What am I doing? Would she make matters worse by coaxing Marcy to confide in her? Did the child have anyone else to talk to? She seemed so alone in the world, and so afraid. Rachel got to her feet. Anybody in the family could overhear them, walk out onto the patio while they were talking. “Let’s get Thor out in the yard. He’ll feel better with some exercise.”
Marcy scrambled up and helped Rachel give Thor a boost onto his feet. With Thor between them, a frail patient who couldn’t be rushed, they moved slowly onto the grass.
When they were twenty feet from the house, Rachel said, “Marcy, what did your father do to you? Did he hit you, or…do other things to you?”
She shook her head.
Thank god for that, at least. But there were so many other ways to inflict pain on a child. “Why did you say he was mean?”
As they walked in a slow circle with the dog, Marcy kept glancing at the house as if she expected someone to storm out at any moment. “He said we had bad blood. Our real daddy’s blood, and our real mama’s. So we couldn’t do anything right. He punished David a lot.”
“Punished him how?”
She bit her lower lip and hesitated before answering. “He locked him in his room all the time. That night—when Daddy died—he made David go to his room without any dinner, and he locked him in. When everything was happening, after we found Daddy, David heard us all yelling, but he couldn’t get out. Beth finally unlocked the door.”
Rachel was appalled, and a sudden fresh memory of the fire at Tom’s house the night before made her wonder what would have happened to a child in a locked room if the Halls’ house were burning. Why would a bedroom have a door that could be locked from the outside?
Now that Dr. Hall was gone, maybe that kind of punishment was over for Marcy’s brother, along with the psychological abuse Hall had practiced on both David and Marcy. One thing, though, nagged at Rachel. “Marcy, when I was here yesterday, you said something I didn’t understand. I think you said, Help me. Am I right?”
Marcy hung her head and mumbled her words. “David wants him and me to go—” She paused and looked back toward the house.
Rachel’s gaze followed. David stood on the patio, watching them. How long had he been there?
Marcy’s face slammed shut like a door. With a snap of his hand, David summoned her.
Seeing the girl was ready to obey, Rachel said quickly, “Marcy, you can call me anytime you want to talk. Just call the animal hospital number and you’ll get through to me. Okay?”
Marcy hesitated, her eyes filled with doubt as she searched Rachel’s face. Then she bolted, back to the house and her brother.
Chapter Twenty-three
“I wouldn’t have recognized her,” Tom said.
He and Brandon stood outside Soo Jin’s room in intensive care, looking through a window at the small figure in the bed. Bandages swaddled her head, bruises and swelling distorted her face, and white tape secured a breathing tube to her mouth. Her doctor, a balding and scarecrow thin man named Hurley with a slight stoop that cut a couple of inches off his height, scribbled something on the chart at the foot of her bed.
When the doctor emerged from the room, Tom asked, “Has anybody from the family been in to see her?”
Dr. Hurley responded with a deep sigh. “Not a soul. It saddens me.”
“Man, that is cold,” Brandon said.
“Have you talked to Mrs. Hall about Soo Jin?” Tom asked.
“Briefly,” the doctor said. “She’s not well herself, you know, and the stress of Gordon’s death—Well, she’s nearing the end of her tolerance, I’m afraid. I hope the girl pulls through. Vicky doesn’t need another crisis to deal with right now.”
Interesting way to put it, Tom thought. He wondered if anybody had the slightest feeling for Soo Jin herself, for the young life that had been brutally interrupted and might come to an early end.
“Has she been conscious at all?” Tom asked. “Has she said anything?”
“Oh, no.” Hurley shook his head. “She’s been in a coma since she came in.”
“But she’s still—”
“Yes, yes, there is brain activity. How much damage has been done remains to be seen when she regains consciousness.”
“Let me know the minute she does,” Tom said. He pulled out his wallet and removed a business card. “Call me. Anytime. Night or day.”
For a couple of minutes after the doctor strode away, Tom and Brandon lingered, watching a nurse check the various tubes connected to Soo Jin. Tom had found the girl off-putting, but the sight of her lying helpless and alone in a hospital bed brought a rush of pity and outrage. For the second time in her life, she’d been abandoned by the people who should have loved her.
“What little I’ve seen of her,” Brandon said, “she seemed real chilly. Like she didn’t want anybody getting too close. If she was conscious, she probably wouldn’t want the Halls hanging around her hospital bed. But I’ll bet she never expected one of them to try to kill her.”
***
Tom turned his cell phone back on as they walked out of the hospital, and it rang immediately. Rachel. “Hey,” he said, “what’s up? Is everything okay?”
“I just came from seeing the Halls’ dog, and I thought you’d want to know something Marcy told me.”
“Rachel, I asked you not to get involved—”
“Listen, Tom. She told me that Dr. Hall was mean to her and her brother. He didn’t hit them, but it sounds as if they got a lot of psychological abuse.”
Tom remembered what Soo Jin had told him: He never let me forget where I came from.
“And get this,” Rachel went on. “Dr. Hall was in the habit of locking David in his room to punish him. David was locked in the night Dr. Hall died. Marcy said Beth let him out later. And I think David’s planning to run away and take Marcy with him. I’m so afraid something’s going to happen to that little girl.”
“Did she say that?” All the Sheriff’s Department needed was two of the Hall kids disappearing and triggering an urgent search.
“Not exactly,” Rachel admitted. “She didn’t have a chance, but she started to say it.”
“I’ll look into it,” Tom said. “I don’t want you to get involved.”
She didn’t answer. That could only mean trouble.
“Rachel? Did you hear me?”
“Of course I heard you.”
And you’re going to ignore me. He could drive himself crazy just worrying about keeping Rachel safe. “I’ll see you at home for dinner.”
Walking to the car in the hospital’s front lot, Tom told Brandon what Rachel had learned from Marcy.
“So it wasn’t David out there with a dog,” Brandon said. “And he’s just a kid, he couldn’t have hired somebody, could he? No matter how much he hated Dr. Hall. They might have given him a lot of stuff, but I’ll bet they never let him have much money.”
Coming up to the cruiser in the emergency vehicle parking space, Tom said, “I have to admit I’m starting to dread going to that house.”
“How are we going to question Beth without getting the whole family in an uproar?”
“I wish to hell I knew. We’ll wing it and hope for the best. The last thing I want is for Mrs. Hall to collapse and end up in the hospital along with her daughter.”
***
This time Ethan’s hired guard stepped aside when he saw the cruiser. He lifted a hand in greeting as Tom and Brandon passed. They ignored him.
At the front door, Rayanne told them Vicky Hall was on the patio with Thor. “I just took her out. It’s a real nice day, and I thought some sun would do her good.” Rayanne walked ahead of them through the foyer and living room, her bleached curls bouncing on her shoulders. Pausing at the patio door, she asked, “Have you heard anything new about Soo Jin?”
“No change,” Tom said.
“So she’s still unconscious?” Rayanne asked. “She’s still not talkin’?”
�
��Hasn’t Mrs. Hall been getting updates from the hospital?”
“Somebody called this mornin’, but Mrs. Hall was asleep and Ethan told me not to wake her up. He talked to them. He didn’t tell me what they said.” Rayanne looked up at Tom, her brow furrowed. She lowered her voice when she spoke again. “Why doesn’t anybody go see her?”
“You tell me. You know them better than I do.”
Rayanne shook her head. “No. I don’t think I’ll ever understand what makes this family tick. But I guess I don’t need to, long as I get paid on time.” She pasted a bright smile on her face and swung open the patio door. “Mrs. Hall, Captain Bridger and Deputy Connolly’s here.”
Vicky Hall lay on a chaise with a light fleece blanket covering her from waist to feet. Over her blouse she wore a thick, nubbly sweater in a shade of yellow that emphasized the sallow cast of her skin. One arm drooped over the side of the chaise, her hand resting on Thor’s back. Rolling her head toward Tom, she looked at him with half-closed eyes that appeared ringed with bruises. Rayanne fussed over her, tucking the blanket closer around her legs.
She was in bad shape, Tom thought, especially considering that she’d had dialysis the day before. She looked worse every time Tom saw her.
“Hello,” Vicky said, her voice listless. “Do you have some news?”
“No, I’m afraid not.” Tom noticed David near the bottom of the lawn, far from the house, kicking a soccer ball around without enthusiasm. The boy stopped for a second, looked up toward the patio, then went back to what he’d been doing. Tom told Vicky, “We just saw Soo Jin—”
“You did? What did she tell you?”
Tom hesitated. Didn’t she know the girl was unconscious? “There hasn’t been any change. She’s not able to talk yet.”
“Oh, that’s right.” Vicky’s head lolled away from him, as if she’d lost interest in what he had to report. “You know, I’m surprised Soo was driving recklessly. It isn’t like her. Such a conscientious girl.”
Under the Dog Star: A Rachel Goddard Mystery #4 (Rachel Goddard Mysteries) Page 16
