Rachel gave him a long, steady look. Shadows played across her face as a breeze rustled through the trees and shook loose a shower of leaves. For a moment he thought she was angry. But she set down her bag, moved closer, and wrapped her arms around his waist. As he enclosed her in his arms, she pressed her face to his neck and whispered, “Be careful. Please. I couldn’t take it if anything happened to you.”
***
The full harvest moon, high in the sky, made it easier than Tom expected to find the turnoff Burt Morgan had described. He pulled onto the shoulder and braked, and four more cars driven by deputies lined up behind his cruiser. Joe Dolan brought up the rear in his animal control van.
“Man, when he told you it was just a path, he wasn’t kidding,” Brandon said. Powering down his window, he focused his flashlight on the ground. “I can see tire tracks, though. There’s definitely been vehicles going in and out of there.”
The plan was to park on the road so their vehicles wouldn’t be spotted by anybody attending the dogfight. They would go in on foot. Joe would wait on the road until they needed him.
Silently they all piled out of their cars and gathered at the head of the path. The Blackwood twins, tall blond mirror images, practically vibrated with controlled excitement. Dennis Murray, stolid as always, pushed his chronically slipping glasses up his nose and rested a hand on the butt of his holstered pistol. Grady Duncan, a middle-aged veteran of several dogfighting busts, looked as calm as a man out for an evening stroll.
Tom took the lead going in, shotgun in hand. He hoped they’d be able to go the distance without using their flashlights. With the trees shedding leaves, they didn’t have the dense cover the woods would have provided in summer, and one spot of light would be enough to give them away.
They walked without speaking. The woods grew denser, with branches arching over the path and shutting out most of the moonlight. Tom couldn’t see his own boots anymore. He stepped on rocks, stumbled on roots. Behind him, he heard quiet swearing every few minutes when somebody hit an obstacle. The last crickets of the season chirped in the leaf litter and somewhere a screech owl let loose its bone-chilling cry.
Where the hell was the place? They’d been walking almost ten minutes. Tom expected to hear raucous cries from the dogfight audience, but the woods remained hushed and peaceful. He’d feel stupid if it turned out Burt was gaming him, sending him on a wild goose chase.
Suddenly the path veered to the right, and there it was, a broad open space in the woods, bathed in moonlight. A circle of wire fencing created a pen in the center. And not a person in sight.
“Damn,” Tom said.
Brandon came up behind him. “You suppose they heard we were onto them and called it off?”
“Either that, or this is just one of several spots they use, and tonight they’re holding a fight somewhere else.”
Switching on his Maglite, Tom moved forward, sweeping the beam over the ground. The trip wouldn’t be a total loss if they found evidence that dogfights had taken place here. Empty beer cans and cigarette packs littered the ground around tree stumps. He walked around the pen, examining the five-foot high fencing and the shallow pit inside. Clinging to the fence wire he found half a dozen tufts of hair, a couple with bloody skin attached, dried and withered. Patches of a darker substance on the dirt looked like dried blood.
“Let’s get some bags from the cars and collect everything,” Tom told Dennis. “We’ll get fingerprints off the trash, and we can compare the dog hair with—”
A shot cracked the air and Tom heard a bullet whiz past his head.
“Get down!” he yelled.
The men dropped to their knees and pulled their weapons.
“Where’d it come from?” Dennis whispered.
“I don’t see anything. Hold your fire.” His heart galloping, Tom scanned the woods for movement. Nothing. But he and his men were exposed, easy targets.
Another shot rang out, and Tom heard the slug slam into a tree behind him. The shooter was right in front of them but they couldn’t see him among the trees.
“Captain? Return fire?” Brandon urged. He had his pistol in both hands, aimed toward the woods.
“Hold on,” Tom ordered.
The third shot made him jump. It hit the ground two feet in front of him, inside the fence, and sent a shower of dust into the air. It came from a different position, to their left. Was it only one person, moving around? Or were there more, spread out in the woods and just waiting to open up on them with a volley of shots?
The path that offered escape was twenty-five, thirty feet away. If more than one shooter lurked in the woods, they could all be killed before they made it. And if they stayed here, firing back at an invisible, moving target while they crouched in the open with only a wire fence as a shield, they would certainly be killed.
They didn’t have any choice. Tom raised his shotgun. “When I fire, I want all of you to get out of here,” he whispered.
“Captain,” Brandon protested, “you can’t stay—”
“Don’t argue with me. Do what I tell you.”
“Tom,” Dennis said, “let’s all go. All of us.”
“I’ll be right behind you.” He shouldered his shotgun, balancing it on the edge of the wire fence. “Okay now. Be ready.”
He fired into the woods, and the men took off.
An answering shot pinged off the fence a foot from his head.
Tom jumped up, fired again, turned and ran.
Two more shots followed him. A bullet split the bark on a tree and drove splinters into his face.
He ran on through the dark woods, following the other men. The shooting stopped and he couldn’t hear anyone behind him, but that didn’t mean the deputies were safe. The shooter could be taking a parallel route through the trees.
Tom emerged from the woods breathless and sweating. The other men were getting into their cars. Brandon waited by Tom’s cruiser, the passenger door open. Joe’s van was already speeding away.
“Get out of here,” Tom called out. “Go home.”
He slid into his car. “We’re going to see Burt Morgan right now,” he told Brandon as he started the engine. “That son of a bitch has a lot to answer for.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Rachel pushed herself up in bed, flipped her pillow again, and punched it a few times, wishing she could pound away the thoughts that kept her awake. With every wallop she told herself it was a ridiculous notion, but there it sat in her head, like an obnoxious visitor with no intention of leaving. When she’d seen the big dog’s neat scars, obviously the result of professional-level care of his wounds, something had clicked in her mind. Now she couldn’t get rid of the image of the irascible Dr. Jim Sullivan filling his case with antibiotics and surgical supplies.
She lay down again.
Sullivan was a veterinarian. He had a legitimate use for those supplies. True, he harbored no warm and fuzzy feelings about animals, but Rachel wanted to believe he was an ethical practitioner. How could she suspect him of being connected to dogfighting?
One part of her mind told her she was reacting to his obvious contempt for her as a boss.
Another part of her mind asked how much she really knew about the man.
Next to nothing.
She’d heard something about his son having problems—drugs?—and his wife leaving him, but she couldn’t recall any details. Most of the time he operated like a phantom employee, doing his work beyond her sight and supervision, coming in after hours to pick up supplies or drop off the checks and cash clients had paid to him directly. Most of the income from his farm visits arrived in check form through the mail, and his salary was deposited directly to his bank account.
Sullivan had years of experience. He was established as the farm vet everyone called, and he generated a lot of income for the clinic. Rachel had trusted him as a professional. But he could be getting away with murder, for all she knew.
She sat up again, drawing her knees to
her chest. At the foot of the bed, Frank emitted a sleepy croak of protest at being disturbed. Even with the curtains drawn, the hastily installed security lights around the outside of the house lit the windows and reminded her that she had to be protected from people who wanted to hurt her. A deputy sat in a cruiser in front of the house, and he would be there until Tom came home.
Where was Tom? What was taking so long?
She told herself that booking the men arrested at the dogfight would take hours. If anything had happened to Tom, someone would have called her by now. If any of the animals needed immediate medical attention, Tom would have called her himself. She had remained dressed and ready to go until midnight, past the time when she might have been summoned, then gone to bed. She might as well have stayed up, though, because she wouldn’t sleep until Tom came home.
Maybe the raid tonight would answer a lot of questions. It might lead to the recovery of the stolen pets. The dogs used in the fights would be rescued. Tom might find out whether the leader of the pack was an escapee from the fights, and who had done such an admirable job of stitching up his wounds.
***
Tom was still in a rage when he hit the cruiser’s brakes and killed the engine outside Burt Morgan’s log cabin. He didn’t see any lights in the house, and only the full moon illuminated the clearing. Burt’s truck and his girlfriend’s car sat in front of the cabin.
“He’s either gone to bed without a care in the world,” Tom said, “or he’s waiting for us. You know the drill. Let’s go.”
“He could open fire before we ever make it to the door,” Brandon protested.
“All right, stay in the car. I’ll handle it.”
“No, Captain, I didn’t mean—I’m going with you.”
They stepped out of the car, drew their pistols, and charged up the steps to the porch. They positioned themselves on either side of the door.
“Burt!” Tom banged on the door. “It’s Tom Bridger. Open up!”
He went on hammering with his fist until a faint glow appeared through the uncurtained window on the far side of Brandon’s position.
In a moment, the door flew open and Morgan stood there with a battery-operated lantern in one hand, wearing boxer shorts and a tee shirt that barely covered his bulging belly. His two big mutts, Rambo and Bullet, flanked him, growling at Tom. “Shut up,” Morgan snapped at the dogs, and they both promptly fell silent and sat on their haunches. “What the hell, Bridger? What time is it?”
“You son of a bitch.” Tom pointed a finger in Morgan’s grizzled face. “You set us up. Somebody could’ve been killed out there tonight.”
“What?” Morgan’s eyes flicked to Tom’s pistol. “What are you talkin’ about?”
“I trusted you, I gave you a chance to prove yourself, and you set us up for an ambush.”
“Hey, now. Whoa, whoa.” Morgan raised a hand to stop Tom. “You sayin’ somethin’ went wrong?”
Another lantern light swam out of the darkness behind Morgan, and Tom saw the man’s woman friend, Sylvia, clutching a terry-cloth robe around her plump body as she approached the door.
“Come out here,” Tom ordered Morgan. “And shut the door behind you.”
“Well, all right, if it’ll calm you down any. You gonna put that gun away first, though?”
Satisfied that he and Brandon were in no immediate danger, Tom holstered his weapon. Brandon did the same, but kept one hand on the butt.
Morgan stepped out and pulled the door closed on Sylvia and the dogs. “Now tell me what you’re so riled up about. What happened?”
“You know damned well what happened,” Tom said. “I took your word for it and took my men out to that spot you directed me to. There was nothing going on, nobody in sight. Then somebody opened fire on us.”
“Good God almighty. Anybody get hit?”
“No, thank God, and no thanks to you.” Although Morgan sounded genuinely concerned, Tom knew the man was a skilled liar when he had to be. “They were hiding in the woods, waiting for us. At least one person, maybe more. They knew we were coming. Who did you tell, Burt?”
“Look now,” Morgan said. “I don’t know how to make you believe me, but I didn’t rat on you, I didn’t pass the word about a raid goin’ down.”
“You told somebody. How the hell did they know if it didn’t come from you?”
“I can’t answer that for you. All I can tell you, and I’d swear it on a Bible, is I didn’t warn them. Hell, I don’t even know who’s runnin’ the fights this time around. I was just passin’ on what I heard about where the fights are goin’ on. I promised Syl I was gonna stay out of that life, and I’m keepin’ my promise.”
Against his better judgment, Tom was beginning to believe Morgan was telling him the truth. “So how were you able to get information about the fights, if you don’t even know who’s involved?”
“I know plenty of people that go to the fights and bet on them. Don’t ask me who they are, ’cause they’d deny it to their dyin’ breath if you called ’em on it. You couldn’t pin anything on them anyway unless you caught them at it. But they go, and they still try to get me interested. That’s how I found out.”
“And these friends of yours haven’t mentioned who’s running the fights?”
Morgan shook his head. “They don’t throw around names. They know better.”
His anger dissolving into weariness, Tom rubbed the knot of tension at the back of his neck. “Burt, they knew we were coming. It was an ambush. That’s the one thing I’m sure of. If it didn’t come from you—” Tom looked pointedly at the house.
“Oh, no,” Morgan said. “No, sir. Don’t you go blamin’ Syl for any of this. I’d put my life in that woman’s hands. She knows she’d be settin’ me up for big trouble if she told people I was helpin’ the cops. I never told her exactly what was goin’ on anyway.”
“I want to talk to her,” Tom said.
Morgan sighed, but after a moment he called, “Syl? Could you step outside?”
She opened the door promptly, which told Tom she’d been listening. The two dogs barreled out around her, knocking her off-balance. Holding a lantern in one hand, she grabbed the door frame with the other to steady herself before she stepped onto the porch. “What is it, hon?”
“Captain Bridger’s got some questions for you.”
She pulled the terrycloth robe tighter around her throat, her gaze darting between Morgan and Tom, then over to Brandon, who stood off to one side. “Questions about what?”
“Have you been telling people about Burt’s dealings with me? Telling people he’s helping the Sheriff’s Department?”
“Lord, no.” Her brassy blonde hair was crushed on the right side where she’d been sleeping on it, and she brushed at it self-consciously with her fingers. “That’s the last thing I’d be blabbin’ about. You think I want to get him shot?” She threw a pleading look at Morgan. “Honey, you don’t think I’d do that, do you?”
“Naw, I don’t.”
They faced Tom, united.
He didn’t trust either of them, but he also didn’t see any reason for them to lie. Sylvia had no cause to put half a dozen deputies in danger, and Morgan seemed to have genuinely turned his life around with her help.
Yet somebody had alerted the dogfighters that deputies were coming tonight.
“This isn’t over,” Tom told them. “I’ll going to find out who was responsible for what happened tonight, and you’d better hope I don’t turn up proof the two of you were involved.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
Rachel lay awake, staring at the bedroom ceiling, listening for Tom’s car. When all this was over, she decided, she would insist that Tom take down the security lights, or at least promise never to turn them on again. Even blinds and drawn curtains couldn’t shut out all the light, and the light kept her awake.
No. Worrying about Tom kept her awake. She sighed and shut her eyes, hoping to rest, if not sleep.
Close to one in the morning
, she heard a car door slam outside. She leapt from the bed and looked out the window to see Tom leaning down to talk to the young deputy who’d been parked in front of the house all evening. Tom straightened, thumped the top of the cruiser, and the deputy drove off.
Rachel ran downstairs and opened the front door before Tom reached it.
“Did it go okay?” she asked when he came in. No, it hadn’t. His grim expression told her that. Rachel closed the door and slid the bolt in place. “Tom? What’s wrong?”
Before answering, he yanked off his gun belt and stashed it on the shelf in the hall closet, then shucked his uniform jacket and hung it up. “There wasn’t any dogfight,” he said, closing the closet door. “Somebody warned them about the raid.”
“Oh no. I was hoping you could put an end to it tonight, rescue all those dogs—” Rachel broke off, realizing she wasn’t making the situation any easier for Tom. “But it’s just a temporary setback.”
“Yeah, we’ll put a stop to it one way or another.” He flexed his shoulders as if they felt stiff. “I might as well tell you what happened before you hear it from somebody else.”
A wave of apprehension flooded through her, but she instantly dismissed it as nonsense. Nothing had happened to Tom. He stood right in front of her, safe and sound. “Tell me what?” she asked.
“Let’s talk upstairs,” he said. “I need to get ready for bed. I’m dead tired.” Placing an arm around her shoulders, he steered her toward the steps.
Holding her impatience in check, Rachel stayed silent as they mounted the stairs together. He’s fine, he’s okay, he’s home, she told herself.
Halfway up, Tom said, “First of all, none of us got shot. Nobody was hit.”
Rachel gasped and halted on the stairs, grabbing the front of his shirt to make him look at her. “Somebody was shooting at you?”
He nudged her to keep moving up the stairs. “Like I said, nobody got hurt. But somebody was waiting for us. It was an ambush.”
Under the Dog Star: A Rachel Goddard Mystery #4 (Rachel Goddard Mysteries) Page 19
