Under the Dog Star: A Rachel Goddard Mystery #4 (Rachel Goddard Mysteries) (10 page)

One of the first things Tom had learned years ago as a detective on the Richmond police force was that family members had to be considered suspects in any murder until they were proven innocent. A spouse wanting out of a soured marriage. A kid infuriated by a controlling parent. But until a few minutes ago, he’d been blinded by Beth’s usually meek manner. Pete Rasey could have gone after Gordon Hall in retaliation for trying to come between him and Beth, but maybe he hadn’t planned the attack alone. If he needed to know exactly when Hall was outside in the dark, vulnerable to a surprise assault, only someone inside the Hall family home could have given him the information.

Someone like Hall’s angry daughter.

Chapter Nine

The full moon hung high in the sky when Rachel and Tom set out in his pickup. Rachel felt jittery, not dreading the search and capture so much as what would come afterward. The dogs hadn’t been on their own for long, and odds were that most of them could be re-socialized, but those that resisted contact with people… She hated euthanizing healthy animals and didn’t want to think about it.

“Are you sure we’re going to the best place?” she asked Tom. “Haven’t the dogs been seen in a lot of different parts of the county?”

“Yeah, as far as I can tell they aren’t sticking to one territory. And they don’t seem to be stopped by the river and the creek. We’ve even had complaints from Rocky Branch District, and a situation’s got to be pretty bad out there before anybody invites the cops to handle it.”

The mention of Rocky Branch District brought to mind another worry that Rachel couldn’t shake. She knew Tom’s day had been long and exhausting, and she didn’t want to drag him into an argument, but she had to ask. “What happened to the dogs you rescued from fighting operations in Rocky Branch District?”

Tom was silent for a long moment. The dashboard lights cast a faint glow over his strong features, making Rachel think of an Indian warrior or chief. “All of them were put down right away.”

“So they weren’t rescued. They were killed. And if you find a new dogfighting operation, those dogs will be destroyed too.”

“There’s nothing else that can be done with them. They aren’t like the dogs we’re going after now. They’ve never been pets. They’ve been trained to be vicious.”

Rachel had plenty to say about this attitude, which she considered cruel and ill-informed, but she would leave the discussion for another time. Instead, she asked, “Who did the procedures? Did Joe do it at the shelter?”

“No, actually he refused to. Almost got fired for it, but he stood his ground.”

Rachel’s generally good opinion of the animal warden took a giant leap toward admiration. “So who did it?”

“Jim Sullivan.”

Why am I not surprised?
She let it drop, and they rode in silence for a few minutes.

Tom was the first to speak again. “The pack’s been showing up on the Atkinson farm every night around this time. Atkinson runs them off, but he doesn’t have a gun so he doesn’t fire shots to scare them. I think that makes a difference. It might take them a few nights to get the message, but they usually figure out that a gun means it’s not worth the risk.”

“Mmm.” Rachel started chewing a fingernail, realized what she was doing and dropped her hand to her lap. “Is Ethan Hall going to be problem for Holly and me? Will he try to stop us from rehabbing the dogs?”

“I think he’s calming down. He saw what was done to Thor. That’s proof that a person was behind Dr. Hall’s death. I think he’ll lose interest in the feral animals and focus on pestering me to move the murder investigation along faster.”

Rachel hoped Tom was right, but she didn’t have much faith in anybody’s willingness to let go of a firmly held misconception. Especially not one that was shared and reinforced by many other people. “I had four calls this afternoon from clients who wanted to talk me out of trying to help those dogs. They were all people whose pets have disappeared, and they actually believe the pack killed their pets and ate them. If they’ve killed as many other animals as people are claiming, they’ll be too fat to run and we won’t have any trouble catching them.”

Tom laughed. “The foxes are getting a free ride these days. They can take all the chickens and ducks they want, and the dogs’ll get the blame.”

“Maybe there really is some evil cosmic influence at work.” Rachel leaned forward and studied the star-flecked sky. “You can’t even see the dog star this time of year, can you? For most of the night, anyway. I think Sirius rises right before dawn. It’s up there all day, but we can’t see it.” The echo of Mrs. Barker’s words sent a shiver through her:
There are evil forces at work in Mason County. They surround you, but you are unable to see them.

“I’m not interested in the position of a star,” Tom said. “All I care about is getting those dogs out of the landscape. There’s Joe up ahead.”

The animal warden’s van sat on the shoulder of the narrow county road, its emergency blinkers flashing on and off.

They pulled alongside the van and Rachel powered down her window. Leaning across her, Tom called to Joe, “Follow us over to the Atkinson place.”

When they drove up to the farmhouse, Ken Atkinson clomped down his front steps to greet them. “Hey,” he said when he reached Tom’s truck. “I sure appreciate y’all coming out. Them dogs have been in my hen house three nights in a row. I ain’t seen them so far tonight, but I reckon they’ll be here.”

“Are they killing chickens?” Rachel asked.

“Not yet. I don’t give ’em a chance.” He ran a roughened hand over buzz-cut gray hair that looked like a remnant of another era. “I hear a ruckus and I run right out. I find eggshells all over the ground. They’d get around to the chickens if I didn’t show up fast enough. Go on, you’d better get set up. They’ve been coming right around this time of the evening.”

Tom and Joe drove across the small farm and parked in the deep shadow behind the barn. Joe had the tranquilizer dart gun loaded and ready, aimed out the window of his van toward the hen house.

Half an hour passed. Rachel wondered if they were wasting time that might be better spent driving around looking for the dogs.

“There!” Tom whispered. He pointed. “Look.”

They appeared out of the dark, emerging single file into a pool of moonlight between trees. Most of the dogs were small to medium sized, but the leader of the pack was a massive black animal with a deep chest and square muzzle.

“What is that thing?” Tom whispered. “The first one.”

“Mixed breed,” Rachel said, “but I’m not sure what.”

An animal that size, if it had a good set of teeth, could easily rip out a grown man’s throat. But Rachel didn’t believe an alpha dog would attack alone. He would always be backed up by his followers.

The big dog stopped suddenly, and the others paused one by one, spreading out around him. The leader raised his snout, sniffing the air. He yelped, spun around and took off, the rest of the pack following.

Rachel groaned with disappointment.

“Christ,” Tom said. “He spotted us.”

“No, he smelled us.”

Rachel heard another yelp and saw the shaggy brown dog in the rear of the pack frantically biting at its flank. The other dogs ignored its distress, barreling past it, bumping it as they fled.

“Joe got it with a dart,” she said. “It’ll go down in a minute.” She already had her door open. When the dog dropped she snatched her medical bag from the floor and jumped out. She sprinted toward the dog, her bag banging against her leg. The rest of the pack had vanished.

Rachel dropped to her knees, yanked the dart from the animal’s hip, and stuck her stethoscope in her ears. When Tom and Joe ran up, she said, “He’s fine. Let’s get him in a cage before he comes to.”

Joe carried the limp dog to the van with Rachel walking alongside and supporting the animal’s head. Saliva dripped from its lolling tongue. Joe slid the dog into the van, then he and Tom climbed in and maneuvered it into one of the cages.

“We gonna try for more tonight?” Joe asked Rachel.

“They’re so spooked, I think we’re lucky to get one.” She pulled a mini flashlight from her jacket pocket and swept the beam over the tranquilized dog. “Let’s get him over to Holly’s place.”

Rachel remained in the van, examining the dog and administering vaccines. It was a male, mixed breed, of medium size. He’d been out here long enough to lose most of his body fat. Under his filthy, matted brown hair, all Rachel felt were bones. “You’re safe now,” she whispered.

***

The cheerful BLUE RIDGE SANCTUARY sign, with its paintings of cats and dogs, couldn’t dispel the sense of foreboding Rachel felt every time she entered the property, nor did all the new construction that was altering the secluded, tree-ringed clearing around the old McClure mansion. She had lived through a nightmare in that house and the nearby woods. Memories still invaded her dreams and shook her awake in the middle of the night.

When they parked behind the house, Holly and her grandmother, Sarelda Turner, hurried over. Joe flung open the rear door of the van and both women leaned in to see the dog.

“Oh, wow!” Holly said. “I’m so excited! Our first animal. And we’ve got a place all ready for it.”

Mrs. Turner, a slight dark-haired woman with skin the same deep olive as her granddaughter’s, announced, “I’m goin’ to get this poor thing a good meal.” She headed into the house.

Brandon Connolly, out of uniform and dressed in jeans and a sweater, joined Holly. “Hey, Dr. Rachel,” he said, offering his hand to help her out of the van.

Bright lights from flood lamps mounted on poles lit up the area behind the house. A row of dog runs, built of chain link fencing, stood on ground once occupied by Pauline McClure’s overgrown, abandoned herb and flower garden.

Brandon took Rachel’s place inside the van and pushed the dog’s cage forward to Tom and Joe. They carried the cage into the first dog run and set it down. Motioning the men out, Rachel opened the cage door and knelt to check the dog’s respiration and heartbeat. When the stethoscope touched its chest, the animal lifted his head groggily, and Rachel’s ears filled with the magnified sound of a low whine.

“Get out of there now,” Tom said. He stepped into the doorway of the run. “I don’t want you getting bitten.”

“I’m almost done. He’s not capable of biting anybody right now.” The dog was scared, not hostile, and Rachel saw that as a good sign for his future. Working quickly, she repositioned the stethoscope a few inches to listen to the dog’s lungs.

“Come on,” Tom said. “This isn’t safe.”

“Don’t worry,” Rachel whispered to the dog. She stroked his head, feeling clumps of dirt and tangled hair under her fingers. “You’re going to be fine.”

The dog’s eyes rolled toward her and it dropped its head.

When the door to the run was closed and locked, they all stood watching the dog struggle to his feet, stand on shaky legs for a moment, and sink to his belly. “He’ll be back to normal in an hour,” she told Holly. “Then he can have something to eat and drink. Don’t let your grandmother overfeed him though. He can’t—”

A commotion near the house interrupted her. They all turned to look.

“Oh, no,” Rachel groaned when she saw three pickups and two SUVs rumbling toward the dog runs. “The vigilantes have arrived.”

The vehicles came to a stop and a dozen men piled out, most carrying shotguns and rifles. Ethan Hall, without a weapon, took the lead as the men approached. Tom stepped into his path.

“You got one of them, didn’t you?” Ethan demanded. “Where is it? We ought to shoot it right here and now.”

“Nobody’s shooting anything,” Tom said.

“Them dogs are killers!” a man in the group yelled. “We need to get rid of them.”

Rachel moved forward to face Ethan. “This is an animal sanctuary. No animals are going to be killed here.”

Ethan shook his head. “Do you think people in this county are going to let you keep a pack of dangerous dogs alive?”

“You’re all trespassing,” Rachel said. “You have no right to come in here waving guns around.”

“Ethan,” Tom said, “I thought you’d come to your senses. I want to see you at headquarters in the morning. There are things you need to know. But right now, yeah, you’re trespassing, and you and your friends are going to get off this property.”

“Who’s going to make us?” someone called from the back of crowd.

The men pressed forward, forming a wall of angry faces behind Ethan. Rachel took an involuntary step backward, then stopped herself. She didn’t want them to see how much they scared her.

“Whatever you’re thinking about doing,” Tom said, “you’ll have to go through me first. You lay one hand on a deputy sheriff and you’ll be in jail for the next year. If anybody points a gun at me, I’ll take it as a threat, and I’ll have to shoot him in self-defense.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Ethan spat out.

Tom returned the taunt with a calm smile.

Under the cold light of the flood lamps, Tom and Ethan stared at each other. After a silence that seemed endless to Rachel, the crowd of men began backing off. She realized she’d been holding her breath and forced herself to let it out slowly, breathe in slowly.