Under the Dog Star: A Rachel Goddard Mystery #4 (Rachel Goddard Mysteries) (17 page)

“We already know it’s big, with rough black hair, and somebody trained it to be damned vicious. Dogs don’t get that way on their own.” Tom turned from the pictures and pulled out a chair at the conference table. The others followed. Tom and Gretchen sat side by side, with Dennis and Brandon facing them across the table.

“Have you found any connection between the attack on Gordon and dogfighting?” Gretchen asked. “Aside from what was done to his dog?”

“No.” Tom rubbed his tired eyes. He’d give anything to go home to Rachel, have a real dinner, and fall into bed. But he would eat fast food, Rachel would be out most of the evening chasing dogs, and he had at least one more stop to make before he could quit for the day. “We don’t have much of anything yet. Dennis and a couple of the other guys have been checking up on people who’ve been involved in dogfighting before, but nothing useful’s turned up.”

“Three of them are in jail for other stuff,” Dennis told Dr. Lauter, “and the rest have pretty strong alibis for the night Hall was killed.”

Tom shuffled the papers in front of him and pulled out a report. “The tape I took off Hall’s dog had a couple of fingerprints on it, but they don’t match anything in our local database. Whoever put the tape on Thor has never been printed in Mason County for any reason, and that rules out most of the locals who’ve been involved in dogfighting. We sent the prints to the state to see if they turn up anything.”

“How’d you track down the dogfighting operations before?” Brandon asked. He’d only been a deputy for a couple of years and had never been involved in a raid.

“Tips,” Tom said. “People coming to us with information. And that’s probably what we’ll have to rely on this time. Somebody will come forward, or we’ll get something through our informant. Meanwhile, we’ll keep poking around and try to find out where it’s going on.”

“Well, if Gordon’s death is connected to dogfighting,” Dr. Lauter said, “wouldn’t that rule out family members? And people from work who had a grudge against him?”

Tom shook his head. “We can’t make that kind of assumption. Like I said, we don’t know enough yet. For now, everybody in the family is a suspect, along with everybody who had a grievance with him.”

“Not Mrs. Hall, though,” Brandon protested, leaning forward on his elbows. “You don’t think she could have set it up, do you?”

“It doesn’t seem likely, but we could be surprised before it’s over. We’ve already verified where everybody in the family was at the time of the murder, but that’s no proof of innocence. We need to keep looking at the whole family. Beth and her boyfriend, Pete Rasey—that’s a classic setup for trouble. A girl from a rich family gets involved with a boy from the wrong side of the tracks, the dad comes down hard on them, orders them to stay away from each other. The kids lash out and the dad ends up dead. And there’s something going on with David, the younger boy. I want to find out what it is.”

“The Halls give a whole new meaning to the term dysfunctional family,” Dennis said. He pushed his glasses firmly against the bridge of his nose. “They’re quite a crew. Real interesting history.”

“Gordon came from a family of prominent physicians,” Gretchen said.

“Yeah,” Dennis said, “and he inherited a lot of money, so he could afford to go off and do charity work in Korea after med school. I guess he didn’t have any loans to pay off.”

“Ethan was born in Korea, wasn’t he?”

“Yep,” Dennis said, “and they adopted Soo Jin out of an orphanage before they came back to the States. Dr. Hall had a private practice in Boston until his mother died and left him even more of the family money, then he looked around for a hospital to buy. He had his own ideas about how a hospital ought to be run, and he wanted to be the one in charge. That’s how they ended up here. Everybody I’ve talked to says the same thing—Dr. and Mrs. Hall had a real close marriage, devoted to each other, but he was strict with the kids. Not abusive, nobody’ll say that. Just strict. Always expected a lot from them.”

“Even if someone in the family wanted to kill him,” Gretchen said, “why would they choose this method? Setting up a dog attack? It seems so convoluted. Wouldn’t shooting or stabbing make more sense? That’s the normal pattern with family murders.”

“Good questions,” Tom said. “And we don’t have any answers. Here’s the situation the way I see it. Hall was killed by a dog. From what I heard on the answering machine tape, somebody was with that dog and didn’t try to stop the attack. It sounded like it was somebody Hall knew. Hall’s dog disappeared and later turned up with his muzzle taped and rope around his neck and one of his back legs. He didn’t run off after Hall was attacked, he was taken and held somewhere.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean dogfighters took him,” Gretchen said.

“No, it doesn’t. But I’ve seen it before—dogs muzzled so they can’t bite, and tied up and hobbled so they can’t run or fight back. I’ve seen that done to bait dogs, the ones that are used to train the fighters.”

“And we’ve had all those pet dogs disappearing out of their yards,” Dennis put in.

“Yeah,” Tom said. “That’s something new. The dogfighting operations we’ve broken up before got their bait dogs in other ways. It’s possible the pets are being stolen for some other reason, but my instincts are telling me all this is tied together.”

Gretchen smiled at him. “You father used to say that, and when John Bridger’s instincts pointed in one direction or other, everybody was wise to follow. He was always right.”

“I’ve never known Tom to be wrong,” Dennis said.

Tom barked a laugh. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. Now I’ll feel like a total idiot if I’m way off-base here.”

Brandon asked, “What’re the legendary Bridger instincts saying about the feral dogs? If they didn’t attack Hall, are they part of this in any way?”

“God, I hope not,” Tom said. “Rachel’s got her heart set on saving them all.”

“If we could find out where they hole up during the day,” Brandon said, “Rachel and Joe Dolan might be able to get all of them at one time.”

“As far as I know, nobody’s ever seen them in broad daylight,” Tom said. “I don’t like Rachel out there trying to track them down at night, with Ethan’s buddies roaming around with guns, but I don’t see any other way to do it.”

“Well, don’t worry about her tonight,” Brandon said. “I’ll make sure nothing happens to her.”

“Thanks, Bran.” Giving responsibility for Rachel’s safety to somebody else was damned hard, something Tom had to force himself into, but he knew Brandon was rock-solid dependable. Tom had too much work that couldn’t be put off. He couldn’t spend his evening chasing down the feral dogs.

***

Cicero, Rachel’s parrot, landed on her shoulder, shook his gray feathers, and said, “Love you. Love you.”

“Aw, sweetie, I love you too.” Beyond the window, dusk was fading into night. Brandon and Joe Dolan would arrive shortly to pick her up for another dog hunt. Rachel had downed a quick dinner of soup and sandwich, fed Frank and played with him for a few minutes, and now she had to give Cicero some concentrated attention to make up for her prolonged absences. She slipped her fingertips under his neck feathers and scratched him gently. “I’m sorry I have to leave you.”

The last thing she wanted to do was go out there in the dark again.

Mrs. Barker’s words snaked back into her mind.
I implore you to take every precaution. There are evil forces at work in Mason County. They surround you, but you are unable to see them.

Rachel couldn’t cope with unseen forces. She had enough trouble dealing with the ones that were clearly visible.

***

Leo Riggs was about to lower the roll-down door on the service bay when Tom pulled into the lot at Leo’s All-Auto Service & Repair outside of Mountainview. Caught in the glare of Tom’s headlights, Leo squinted and shaded his eyes with one hand.

“Hey, Leo.” Tom lifted a hand in greeting. “Got a minute? I need to talk to you.”

Jamming his fists into the pockets of his greasy overalls, Leo said, “Yeah, sure. This about Dr. Hall? Anything I can do to help.”

“Are you going out with that gang looking for the dog pack tonight?” Tom asked.

Leo’s shoulders twitched in a quick shrug. “Naw, I think I’ll skip it. I mean, you made a lot of sense, what you said about lettin’ the authorities take care of the problem. Ethan’s havin’ second thoughts too, and the only reason I was goin’ along was because I feel like I owe the family.”

Silently Tom surveyed the business property. It stood on a quarter acre of cleared land at the base of a mountain, with a padlocked chain link enclosure protecting cars left overnight, a service bay with four hydraulic lifts, an attached office, and a gas pump out front.

“The Halls helped you get set up here, didn’t they?”

“Well, yeah, they invested. But they knew their money wasn’t gonna be wasted. I know what I’m doin’ with cars. I can handle all of them, old and new.” Leo withdrew his hands from his pockets and gestured at the building. “Hey, you mind if I finish closin’ up while we’re talkin’?”

“No, not at all,” Tom said.

Leo pulled down the service area door and padlocked it. Tom followed him into the office.

Tom hadn’t been here before, and he was surprised to find the interior spotless, the countertop clear, the tile floor shining, even the maps in a wall rack perfectly aligned. A faint fragrance of lemon air freshener hung in the air. Proud of the place, Tom thought, watching Leo open the register.

“Gotta make a run to the bank and drop this off before I head home,” Leo said. He pulled out some of the cash, counted it, noted the amount on a bank slip, and placed it in a night deposit envelope. He began the same process with checks.

Tom leaned his elbows on the counter. “Is that why you agreed to let the Halls have your sister’s kids? Because they gave you the money to start your business?”

“Now, wait a minute.” Leo paused, several checks in one hand. “It’s not like I took money for the kids. I wouldn’t do that. I wanted David and Marcy to have a good life. Dr. Hall and Mrs. Hall, I could see how much they could give them.”

Everything except love,
Tom thought.

“My mama and daddy,” Leo went on, “well, you probably know how they felt about the kids havin’ a, you know, a black daddy.” He began noting the amount of the checks on the deposit slip, but quickly abandoned the multitasking effort and gave his full attention to Tom. “It’s pretty sad, them feelin’ that way about their own blood kin, but they’re set in their ways, and they’re gettin’ old too. I hate to say it, but they wouldn’t have done right by those kids.”

“You never thought about raising them yourself?”

“Lord, no. What would I do with two young’uns? They needed a real family. It was the right thing to do, you know?”

The profitable thing to do
. “The Halls started trying to adopt David and Marcy before your sister died, didn’t they?”

“Well, yeah, they did, but that was a hard thing for Jewel to get her mind around. She knew she wasn’t the best mom, with all her problems, not bein’ able to stay clean. But they were her kids, her blood, you know? It was hard for her to think they might be better off with somebody else.”

“Hadn’t she been clean for a while before she died?”

Leo laid the checks on the counter, placed a hand over them. “Yeah, that made it even worse. We all thought she had it licked. She was workin’ regular and all, supportin’ herself and the kids. She loved them. But all it takes is one step in the wrong direction, you know? Then she was gone.”

“Did the Halls come to you right after Jewel died about adopting David and Marcy?”

Licking his lips, Leo let his gaze wander the room and took a moment to answer. “Pretty soon after, yeah. They wanted to take the kids, get ’em out from underfoot, you know, while we made arrangements and had the funeral.”

“So you gave the children to the Halls immediately?”

“Well, I didn’t see any cause not to.”

“Did they go to their mother’s funeral?” Tom asked.

“Naw. Kids don’t belong at a funeral.”

Tom stepped over to a chart on the wall, studied the list of recommended maintenance work. “How long after your sister died did the Halls invest in your business?”

“Oh… I don’t rightly recall.”

Tom looked around at him. “You don’t recall when you started your business? Most people wouldn’t forget something like that.”

“Well, I guess it wasn’t too long after Jewel died.” Leo started entering check amounts on the deposit slip again, keeping his head down.

Tom moved closer. “How did David and Marcy feel about moving to a new home right after losing their mother?”

“Marcy was so little I doubt she knew what was goin’ on,” Leo said without looking up. “David seemed okay with it. They’ve been real happy with the Halls.”

“David seems a little antisocial,” Tom said. “Like he’s holding a grudge against the world.”

“Aw, you know how teenagers are. They’re all like that.” Leo scribbled numbers and slid each recorded check into the deposit envelope.

“You spend much time with them?” Tom asked.

“Naw. No point in it. They got a new family now. I don’t interfere.”