Under the Dog Star: A Rachel Goddard Mystery #4 (Rachel Goddard Mysteries)

by Parshall, Sandra

  Ellis hadn’t responded to Tom’s remark. Tom demanded, “Where’s Leo?”

  “How would I know? He don’t tell me his plans.”

  “You work for him. Did he send you over here tonight because he was afraid to show up himself?”

  “I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Turning away from the man, Tom said, “All right, guys, let’s get these jokers back to the jail and get them booked.”

  As the deputies moved the men out one by one, Joe Dolan pushed past them into the building and over to the wire fencing around the pit. “These dogs need a vet,” he told Tom.

  “Rachel’s standing by for a call. Did you check on the dogs in the van?”

  “Yeah, there’s eight of them in there, in cages. If I can get these two back in there, one of your men could drive the whole lot of them to the pound.”

  “Hey, Bran,” Tom called to Brandon, who was shoving Ellis toward the door, “I think you’ll find the keys to that van outside in your guy’s pocket. Lock him in the back of my car, then come help us get these two dogs into the van.”

  While the deputies shoved the protesting men into police cars, Joe darted the injured dogs. When they were under, Tom and Joe pushed aside the makeshift gate in the fencing, dropped into the pit and lifted out the tranquilized dogs.

  When the animals were in the van and the door was closed, Brandon asked Tom, “Why do you suppose Leo didn’t show up?”

  “He’s a coward and doesn’t want to take a risk,” Tom said. “He’s probably been home with his girlfriend all evening so he can claim he doesn’t have anything to do with the fight. After we get these guys to jail and the dogs to the pound, we’ll go looking for Leo.”

  ***

  Accompanied by Brandon, Tom pulled into the gravel driveway behind Rayanne’s yellow Volkswagen Bug. No lights burned in Leo’s little house. Was Leo even here? Tom didn’t see his car anywhere, but it could be parked behind the house.

  They got out and quietly pushed their doors closed. Brandon headed toward the back, his pistol drawn, and Tom walked across the grass to the front door. As he mounted the three wooden steps to the porch, a creak made him stop and hold his breath. No reaction from inside. The floorboards on the porch also creaked under his weight, and he moved quickly to press his back against the house next to the front door. His gun in one hand, he balled the other into a fist and reached sideways to pound on the door.

  He waited a few seconds, but no lights came on inside and no one appeared. He banged on the door again and called out, “Leo! Open up! It’s Tom Bridger.”

  If Riggs was inside and wanted to run, this was the moment when he would do it. Tom knew Brandon was ready for him at the rear door.

  A light came on in the house and spilled through the window to Tom’s right. After a moment he heard a bolt slide back. The front door opened and Rayanne Stuckey blinked at him through the screen door.

  “What do you want?” she asked, pushing a mass of blond curls off her face with both hands. She wore a long tee shirt and fuzzy blue slippers.

  “I need to see Leo.” Tom faced the door but stayed off to one side to keep out of the line of fire if Leo started shooting from inside.

  “He’s not here.” Rayanne yawned, covering her mouth with a hand. “He said he might not be home tonight.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. He didn’t tell me.”

  “He stays gone all night and doesn’t tell you where he is?”

  “That’s right.” Rayanne folded her arms over her chest, catching enough of the tee shirt to make it ride up and expose a hint of red panties.

  “Mind if I come in and make sure of that?” Tom asked.

  “Yeah, I do mind. Look, you don’t see his car, do you? He’s not here. What do you want him for, anyway?”

  “I think you know.”

  “I’m not a mind reader.”

  “How often do you talk to your cousin Sylvia?”

  A sharp inhalation gave away her surprise, although her expression remained obstinate. “What business is that of yours?” Without giving him a chance to answer, she went on, “You know, I didn’t like the way you talked to me at the Halls’ house. Like I’m some kind of ignorant little hick.”

  Tom didn’t respond, but waited to hear what else she might say.

  “And your girlfriend’s just as bad,” she went on. “Acting like she can order me around.”

  “We’re both worried about Mrs. Hall. She’s in bad shape.”

  “You think I don’t know that? You think her kids don’t know it? She’s got family, and she’s got me. You don’t have to go pokin’ your nose in. And your animal doctor friend oughta stick to dogs and cats.”

  “Tell me something,” Tom said. “How did you get along with Soo Jinn?”

  Rayanne’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talkin’ about now? I’m gettin’ cold standin’ here listenin’ to you.”

  “Did you like her?”

  “Nobody liked her. Why would I? She treated me like something nasty she stepped in.”

  That wasn’t hard to imagine. “I hear she accused you of stealing from the Halls.”

  “She accused me of a lot of things,” Rayanne said, her voice turning haughty, “but none of it’s true.”

  “Must be hard for somebody like you, working in a place with so many expensive things sitting around. Jewelry, silver—”

  “Somebody like me?” she broke in. “What’s that crack supposed to mean?”

  “We’ll talk about this again,” Tom said. “Right now, if you know where Leo is, you’d better tell me. If he’s in the house—”

  “Oh, for god’s sake, come on in and look if that’ll get rid of you faster.” She pushed the screen door open.

  Tom kept his gun in hand as he entered.

  The interior smelled faintly of popcorn and butter. A snack before bedtime, maybe. The living room was so bare it was hard to believe anybody lived here. No magazines, no books, none of the clutter of daily life. The kitchen and bathroom were spotless, without so much as a potholder or a shampoo bottle in sight. The obsessively clean, spare look of the place reminded Tom of Leo’s business office at his garage. In the bedroom, a kingsize bed took up so much space that the chest of drawers had been moved out into the short hallway. Only one side of the bed was rumpled.

  Tom walked through every room and checked out the dirt-floor cellar to satisfy himself that Leo wasn’t lurking anywhere. In the kitchen, he rapped on the locked back door and called out, “Hey, Bran, he’s not here. Go on back to the car.”

  As they drove away in the cruiser, Brandon said, “Maybe the guys had better luck at his mom and dad’s place.”

  Tom had sent two deputies to the home of Leo’s parents at the same time he and Brandon had come to Leo’s house. “I doubt it. If he’s gone into hiding, that’s too obvious a place. My guess is that he’s hunkered down wherever he keeps his fighters.”

  When they found Leo Riggs, Tom believed, they would also find the dog that had torn out Gordon Hall’s throat.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  At three in the morning, Rachel drew the final stitch into a firm knot and clipped the thread. The unconscious pit bull on the operating table breathed evenly, at peace for the moment.

  After examining the two fighters’ injuries at the pound, she had asked Joe to move them to the animal hospital, where she had all the supplies she needed for surgical repair of wounds. She worked without the assistance of a tech, in an eerily silent clinic that would be bustling with people and animals in a few hours.

  Like the other dog whose wounds she had treated, this one was so thin that Rachel easily lifted him and carried him to a cage. After arranging him in a comfortable position and adjusting his IV, she stroked the dog’s head, something she might not be able to do when he was awake. While she was working on them, she could stay focused and keep her emotions in check. But she felt the rage building in her, and if she gave
in to it she’d be ready to kill somebody.

  When she walked out to the reception area, she found Tom, not Joe, leaning against the front desk.

  “Hey,” he said. “Joe wanted to get back to the pound. How are the patients doing?”

  “They’ll be all right. Their biggest problem is that they’re seriously malnourished.”

  “Fighters are kept lean and hungry,” Tom said. “Makes them meaner.”

  “If they get plenty to eat and they’re treated well, we might be able to save most of them.”

  “Rachel, come on,” Tom said. “Who’s going to want these dogs?”

  “We can’t just assume that nobody will want them. We have to give them a chance.” Tom squeezed her shoulder, an acknowledgment of her feelings that annoyed her because it felt like condescension. She pulled away from his touch. “They’re not going to be put down. I’ll go to court to stop it if I have to.”

  Tom opened his mouth to say something but apparently thought better of it.

  “I’m staying here for a while to keep an eye on them,” she said. “I’ll be okay. Nobody can get in unless I open the door from the inside. What are you going to do next?”

  “We need to find the base for the fighting operation. Pete Rasey’s never seen where the dogs are kept, but he says Leo has about twenty fighting dogs right now, so we only picked up half of them tonight.”

  “What about the stolen pets?” Rachel asked, her gaze shifting beyond Tom to the lost-dog posters on the waiting room walls.

  “Pete thinks some of them are still alive because Leo told him he had all he needed for a while. But we have to find Leo before he destroys all the evidence.”

  Rachel pictured Riggs shooting dogs, strangling them, bashing in their heads, dumping them into a burial pit. A shudder moved through her. “What did Pete say about the one we caught, the alpha male? Was he trained to attack people, like his litter mate?”

  “That one was used in fights. The other dog’s the one we’re after. I think if we can find it we’ll be able to match it to the DNA we got off Hall’s body.”

  “And that makes Leo Riggs guilty of murder under the law?” Rachel asked.

  “As surely as if he’d used a gun to kill Gordon Hall. His weapon just happened to be a dog. I hope we can—” Tom broke off when his cell phone bleated from his jacket pocket. He fished it out, answered and listened. “Aw, god, no,” he groaned. “All right. I’ll leave right now.”

  Rachel went cold inside. “What’s happened?”

  Tom stuck his phone back in his pocket. “Beck Rasey’s dead. Killed by a dog, just like Gordon Hall.”

  ***

  Babs Rasey screamed again and again. She was on the front porch, barefoot and wearing only a nightgown, and one of the Blackwood twins was trying to hold her back as she struggled to get to her husband.

  Beck lay spread-eagle in the yard at the bottom of the front steps. The other Blackwood twin—Keith, Tom guessed as he walked up the driveway—stood a few feet away from the body. Gretchen Lauter hadn’t arrived yet.

  Keith flicked his flashlight beam over the driveway pavement ahead of Tom. “Watch out there, Captain. Blood.”

  Tom unhooked his flashlight from his equipment belt, switched it on, and swept the light across the driveway. Arterial spray, at least fifteen feet from the body, was soaking into the cracks in the concrete. He stepped onto the grass and picked out a path that didn’t require him to walk in blood.

  Crouching beside Beck, he examined the wound. Beck’s throat, like Hall’s, had been torn out all the way down to the spinal cord. Shifting the light, Tom saw a few scratches on Beck’s bare chest where his terrycloth robe had fallen open. Blood soaked the robe.

  Babs Rasey went on screaming.

  Tom walked up the front steps, his ears ringing from her high-pitched cries. He hoped to god she had seen something, heard something. “Babs,” he said, keeping his voice calm, “do you have any idea who did this?”

  “Yes, god damn it!” she yelled. “I saw him! Leo Riggs, that filthy piece of trash. He turned that monster dog on Beck. He killed him, Tom, he killed Beck.” She sagged, and Kevin Blackwood had to grab her around the waist to keep her on her feet.

  Ah, god, Tom thought. Leo probably knew Pete Rasey was in jail, and it didn’t take much brain power to figure out that the boy had given up the time and location of the dogfight. Leo couldn’t get to Pete—yet—so he’d killed Beck instead. “Tell me exactly what happened,” Tom said to Babs.

  She choked out the words between sobs. “He walked right up to our door and knocked, and he got Beck outside and turned that dog on him. Oh, god, Beck never should’ve made Pete talk to you.”

  With her husband lying dead in the yard, Tom wasn’t going to argue the point with her. All he could do now was promise to keep her son safely locked up until they caught Leo. They would have to protect Babs too. Why hadn’t Leo killed her? Why did he leave a witness behind? “Did Leo threaten you?” he asked. “How did you get rid of him?”

  “I shot him, that’s how!” She gestured toward the shotgun leaning against the wall next to the front door. “I tied to shoot the dog too, but he got out of range.”

  “Are you sure you hit Leo?”

  “Oh, yeah, I know for damned sure I hit him. I was close, and I got him right in the belly.” In the space of a few seconds, her grief morphed into dry-eyed fury. “I shot that son of a bitch and he took off running like the coward he is.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  “I need your help this morning,” Rachel told Jim Sullivan on the phone. She’d called at six a.m., but as a farm vet he was used to early hours, and she doubted she would wake him. He’d answered on the first ring. “Could you reschedule any appointments you have so you can come with me?”

  “Come with you where?” He sounded wary. “Help you with what?”

  “The deputies rescued some dogs last night in a raid on a dogfight.” Rachel waited to see if Sullivan would react to that. He remained silent. “I patched up two of them, and they’re at the clinic now. I need to examine the others at the pound. I’d like you to help me.”

  A short silence, then, “I’ve got my own work to do.”

  “I’m sure nobody will mind if you reschedule.”

  “Why are you asking me? Why can’t somebody else help you?”

  “Because these are aggressive animals and I need someone who won’t be afraid of them.”

  “Look, I don’t think so.”

  “Dr. Sullivan—Jim—the clinic has a contract with the county to provide medical care to animals at the pound. This is part of our job.”

  “I’m just saying one of the other vets can go with you.”

  Rachel could give him a direct order, but that wouldn’t go over well. Softening her voice, she said, “You know how young and inexperienced they are. You’re the only vet on the staff I can trust with these dogs. I’ll feel a lot more confident if you’re there with me.”

  He didn’t answer.

  Okay, I’ll take that as a yes. “Would you meet me at the pound? Say, within the hour? If we work fast, maybe you’ll only be a little late for your appointments and you won’t have to reschedule anything for another day.”

  Rachel heard him sigh. She waited.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll be there.”

  Yes! She was determined to put her doubts about Sullivan to rest—or prove she’d been right all along.

  ***

  Tom wasn’t surprised to see Sheriff Willingham pulling into the parking lot at headquarters ahead of him. The sheriff’s phone had probably started ringing before daybreak.

  Tom parked in his reserved space next to the sheriff’s and got out. He walked over and held the door as Willingham struggled out of his vehicle. Before the sheriff could speak, Tom said, “We released most of them after booking, but they’ll have to show up in court. I’m not letting any of then off, no matter who they are.”

  Willingham sighed and shook his head. �
��I’ve seen it before, but I’ll never stop being shocked that respectable men would be part of that nasty business. No real man takes pleasure in animals being forced to hurt each other. Make them pay a price for it.”

  “I’m glad you see it that way.” Tom was a little surprised the sheriff wasn’t making exceptions for a couple of his political supporters who’d been arrested at the dogfight.

  “I was wrong about those abandoned dogs,” Willingham said. “I’m glad y’all got them rounded up—good job, quick and thorough—and I don’t mind admitting I was an ass for thinking they killed Gordon Hall.”

  The sheriff was full of surprises today. “That’s done with now,” Tom said. “We’ve got bigger problems to tackle. The guys are inside waiting for me—”

  “Hold on a minute.” The sheriff leaned on his cane. “You know, if you plan to campaign for sheriff, you’ll get some trouble from people you’ve run afoul of. You’ve got principles. Not everybody appreciates that.”

  For a moment Tom was too confused to respond. “I’m not running for any office. You’re the sheriff. I’m not planning to oppose you.”

  “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.” Willingham placed a hand on his shoulder. Tom had the feeling he was about to hear momentous news, but he didn’t want to imagine what it might be.

  “You know how much your dad meant to me,” Willingham said.

  “Yes, sir,” Tom said. He was a little alarmed by the quaver in Willingham’s voice. “He thought a lot of you too. He was always telling Chris and me stories about the two of you in Vietnam. Mom didn’t want to hear about it, but we ate it up.”

  Willingham nodded, blinking rapidly. Did the old man actually have tears in his eyes?

  “Well, I’ve watched you turn into a fine man too,” Willingham said, “as smart and honest and dependable as John was. A fine law enforcement officer.”

  What was this leading up to? While the sheriff kept him out here in the parking lot, deputies waited inside for him to prepare them for a dangerous manhunt. “Sir—”