Under the Dog Star: A Rachel Goddard Mystery #4 (Rachel Goddard Mysteries) (21 page)

Okay, she’d have to worm it out of him, maybe over breakfast. This was Saturday. They’d formed the habit of long, leisurely breakfasts on the weekend. But this wasn’t a normal Saturday. “You’re going to have something to eat before you leave, aren’t you?”

“I’ll grab something somewhere. I have to get back to work.” He pulled a fresh uniform shirt from a hook on the back of the door. “There’s a lot going on with the Halls.”

Only then did Rachel remember that the oldest Hall daughter had been in an accident the night before. “How’s Soo Jin?”

Buttoning his shirt, Tom said, “She’s still unconscious. The airbag deployed, but that didn’t stop her from getting a head injury.”

“Oh no. Is she paralyzed?”

“They can’t tell at this point.” He stuffed his shirt into his pants and gave her another quick kiss. “I’ve got to go. We’ll talk later. I know you’ll want to go check on the dogs, but don’t go out there by yourself. Get Joe Dolan to go with you. Everybody along this road will keep an eye out today and make sure nothing happens.”

She could argue with him about Joe, but what would be the point? He was right, after all. She needed protection. If anybody tried to attack her, Joe could shoot him with a tranquilizer dart. She almost smiled at the thought.

Tom brushed past her. On his way down the stairs, he called back, “I’ve already fed Frank, and I gave Cicero some fresh seeds and water and let him out of his cage.”

A minute later she heard the front door open and close.

Rachel walked back to the bedroom, acutely aware that she was now alone, but telling herself it was ridiculous to feel as if Tom had abandoned her. She’d never been the clinging type, and she despised the impulse in herself. “What do you want him to do?” she asked herself as she opened the closet door. “Stay home and hold your hand instead of finding out who set our house on fire?”

She paused, her hand on the shirt she meant to wear.
Our
house?
Was she thinking of it that way now?

She pulled the shirt off its hanger, grabbed a clean pair of jeans, and began changing.
Our house.
For weeks she’d felt like a visitor here, an intruder at times. Everywhere she looked, she saw reminders that this house had belonged to Tom’s parents, and in spirit it still did, even if Tom’s name was on the deed. Everything in it had been chosen by Tom’s mother. Some of the rooms had flowered wallpaper that made Rachel wince every time she looked at it, and nothing had been painted in at least a decade. But it had never occurred to Rachel to suggest changes. What right did she have? She was a pretender, playing house with Tom, letting him believe they had a future together when she wasn’t sure she believed it herself.

***

Tom was halfway to town when he got the call. The display on his cell said it came from a public phone.

“Hey, buddy, I got somethin’ for you.”

For a second the voice didn’t register. When it did, Tom yanked the steering wheel to the right and pulled off the road. “Burt? Hey. What is it?”

“I heard there’s gonna be a fight tonight.”

“Great. Where?” Tom fumbled in his shirt pocket for a pad and pen and flipped open the pad on the passenger seat.

“You know that place called Ladyslipper Hollow?”

“Yeah.” Tom wrote down the name. “That’s a wetland. How can they do anything in there?”

“That’s not the place. You go about two miles past there, maybe a little less, and look for a dirt road on the left. It’s hard to see. It’s more like a trail or a path than a road. You get on that and keep goin’ and you’ll find the spot. It’ll probably start around nine-thirty or ten.”

“Where did you—”

The line went dead.

Tom thought about trying to get Morgan back on the phone, but decided against it. He’d told Tom all he was willing to tell him. Morgan didn’t have a phone line at his cabin, and Tom doubted he owned a cell phone, so he’d probably had to go into town to make the call from a public place. He wouldn’t take a chance on prolonging the conversation and being overheard.

Tom pressed a speed-dial button and waited until he connected with Dennis at headquarters. “You’re there early on a Saturday,” Tom said. “Your whole family must be hating me about now.”

“They’re getting used to it,” Dennis said.

“I’m afraid I’m going to keep you busy tonight, too,” Tom said. “I got a tip on the location for the dogfights, and we’ll need to have a team out there tonight.”

“Hey, that’s great. I’m ready when you are.”

“You got anything from the State Police about Soo Jin’s car?”

“The report just came in, with some pictures.”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

When Tom reached headquarters, Dennis had four eight-by-ten close-ups of the tires on Soo Jin’s car pinned to the bulletin board in the conference room. Brandon joined Dennis and Tom in studying them.

The photos showed thin slices between the treads on all four tires.

“Man,” Brandon said, “that’s vicious. Somebody definitely wanted to hurt that girl.”

“It could have been vandalism,” Dennis said. “Somebody just wanting to give her four flat tires.”

“I wish we had some idea of when it happened,” Tom said. “How long would it take for the tires to go flat with the car moving? If the damage was done while she was out last night, they wouldn’t have lost so much air by the time she headed home. Maybe it was done earlier, before she went out.”

“Somebody at the house did it?” Brandon said. “Maybe somebody in the family?”

“Yeah,” Tom said. “That’s exactly what I think.”

Soo Jin could have been killed if the car had rolled all the way over or blown up. She might die yet. Murder usually involved strong emotions, and Soo Jin didn’t seem to inspire that kind of feeling in anybody except her adopted sister Beth. Tom had seen the kind of rage Beth was capable of. He wouldn’t be surprised if she’d plotted against Soo Jin. Beth could easily have tampered with the tires while the car sat outside the house.

Maybe yesterday had been payback day for both Beth and her boyfriend Pete.

Chapter Twenty-two

The little brown mutt with his ribs poking out didn’t look like he could terrorize a whole county. He didn’t look as if he wanted to, either. He scampered to the front of the cage, tail wagging, when he saw Rachel approach with Holly and her grandmother, Sarelda Turner. Standing up against the chain link fencing, he bounced and yipped.

Rachel poked a couple of fingers through the fence and scratched the dog’s head. “Hey there,” she said. “Have you forgiven us for putting you in a cage?”

“That poor little thing’s just starved for attention,” Mrs. Turner said.

“And starved for good food too,” Holly added. “Look at him. He’s skin and bones.”

The floppy-eared mutt looked as if his filthy, wavy coat had been draped over a skeleton. “He’s so small that the other dogs probably never let him get much to eat,” Rachel said. Standing, she smiled at Mrs. Turner. “I have a feeling you’ll fatten him up.”

“You know, I’ve kind of took a fancy to this one,” Mrs. Turner said. “He’s real good-natured. I bet he’d get along with my dogs like a charm.”

“Let’s make sure he’s healthy first. Let him settle in today and I’ll examine him thoroughly tomorrow. But you can pamper him all you want to in the meantime.” Rachel checked her watch for the fourth or fifth time since leaving the house. This was her first stop, and she still had to check on the Halls’ dog. Every minute she was away, she worried about somebody showing up at the farm, setting the place on fire or doing other major damage. The neighbors might check on the place and watch the road for strange cars, but the distance between the farms would make it easy for somebody to slip past. Billy Bob was safe with the Duncans, but Frank and Cicero were inside the house with no one to protect them.

Stop it,
Rachel told herself. She was worrying too much. If Tom thought the house and the animals were safe, she shouldn’t be concerned either.

Still, she wanted to finish up here, make a quick visit to see Thor, and get back home.

She walked over to the first run in the section, where Joe Dolan crouched outside the fence, trying to coax the dog they’d caught two nights before to come closer. The two dogs had been separated because Rachel wanted them to focus on their human caregivers, not each other, but as they captured more members of the pack, this whole line of runs would fill up.

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.