Under the Dog Star: A Rachel Goddard Mystery #4 (Rachel Goddard Mysteries) (6 page)

“We’ll figure out what happened to him later,” he said. “Right now we need to cut that tape off so he can breathe and get him up to the house.”

Ethan knelt and held out a hand to the dog. “Come on, boy,” he coaxed.

The dog backed away.

“He’s scared to death.” Tom pulled out the latex gloves he always carried in a pocket and tugged them on. He didn’t want to smudge any fingerprints that might be on the tape. “Take it slow.”

“Hey, Thor, come on, boy,” Ethan crooned. “I’ll bet you’re hungry, aren’t you? We’ll take care of you. Come on, Thor. Come to me, boy.”

Thor cast longing eyes toward the house on the hill, toward safety, but he hung back, whining. Tom had to admire Ethan’s patience with the dog. He coaxed Thor until the animal’s rigid body began to relax. He limped forward, one inch at a time. When he was within reach Ethan closed his arms around the dog.

“Just hold him there for a minute,” Tom said. He extracted his Swiss army knife from his pants pocket and stepped forward slowly. As if realizing he was being freed of the restraint, Thor stood still while Tom slit the tape and eased it off. He folded it and stuck it in his pants pocket, hoping he wasn’t obliterating any fingerprints in the process.

“Let’s get him home now,” Tom said. The dog was too big for either of them to carry up the slope. Thor would have to walk on his own, despite his injured leg.

On the way up, with Thor limping between them, Tom pulled his cell phone from his shirt pocket and called Rachel.

By the time they reached the patio, Vicky had stepped out, along with Soo Jin, Beth, David and Marcy. “Dr. Goddard’s on her way,” Tom told Vicky.

She dropped to her knees before the dog and caressed his head. Thor licked her cheek. “Oh, you poor baby. I’ve been so worried about you.”

The crowd of men on the patio stood back, guns in their hands, and watched silently.

Looking up at Tom, Vicky said, “He’s so old and feeble he couldn’t defend himself against that vicious dog. Just look at all these wounds.”

Yeah
,
Tom thought, but that vicious dog didn’t tape Thor’s mouth shut and tie a rope around his neck.

***

Half an hour later, Rachel knelt beside the dog in Gordon Hall’s home office, where Thor’s big bed occupied a corner. While her children crowded the doorway, Vicky Hall sat on the sofa, blotting a continuous flow of tears with the handkerchief Tom had given her.

Tom crouched beside Rachel, ready to help restrain Thor if he reacted while she tended his wounds. The rope and the taped muzzle were undeniable evidence that someone had held the dog overnight and had plans for him. Memories, the kind Tom didn’t like to dwell on, flooded his mind. Memories of dogs he and other deputies had confiscated from fighting operations. After every raid, Tom spent weeks trying to shake the images.

“Would somebody bring Thor a bowl of fresh drinking water, please?” Rachel asked the assembled Halls.

Young Marcy raised her hand as if responding to a teacher’s request. She wheeled around and disappeared. Less than a minute later she returned, carrying a dog bowl brimming with water. She presented it to Rachel with a brief, shy smile.

“Thank you.” Rachel rewarded the girl with her own warm smile as she took the bowl.

Before she began her exam, she allowed Thor to take a few laps of water, then removed the dish and set it a couple of feet away. “Let’s see if he keeps that down, then he can have some more,” she said. “Mrs. Hall, would you get him something to eat? Just a little to start, a quarter cup, and bring a spoon with it.”

After Vicky pushed past her children in the doorway and went off to the kitchen, Rachel pulled back Thor’s blood-matted hair to get a better look at his wounds. He remained still and quiet. “His skin’s ripped open,” Rachel told Tom, “but I don’t see any deep puncture wounds. He should be okay.”

Tom spoke quietly. “You know, I’m starting to think…”

When his words trailed off, Rachel prompted, “What? What are you thinking?”

Conscious of the Hall children a few feet away, Tom said, “I’ll explain later. Don’t let me slow you down.”

Vicky brought in the canned dog food and fed tiny amounts to Thor on a spoon to distract him while Rachel treated his wounds. Tom stood back and took in the family’s reactions. Marcy and Beth, standing just inside the door, grimaced as Rachel wove a needle and black suture thread in and out of the dog’s torn skin, but Soo Jin craned her neck to get a better view. David leaned in the doorway, wearing a sullen teenager’s scowl. Ethan stood rigid, hands jammed in his pockets, his face blank.

Her work finished, Rachel sat back on her heels and asked Vicky, “Can you look after him here? I don’t want to stress him any more by moving him, but if you can’t manage him here I’ll take him to the animal hospital.”

“I’m a nurse,” Vicky said. “I can take care of him.”

“Mother,” Soo Jin said, “I don’t want you to exhaust yourself.”

“Your father loved this dog,” Vicky said. “I can’t help Gordon, but I can help Thor. Now all of you go find something else to occupy yourselves. Thor needs peace and quiet.”

Her children reluctantly turned away, one by one. Rachel gave Vicky a bottle of antibiotics for the dog. When Tom and Rachel left the room, Vicky was sitting cross-legged on the carpet next to Thor, stroking him. Tom couldn’t help wondering if she had given any of her suddenly fatherless children a fraction of the attention she lavished on her husband’s pet.

In the hallway, Tom told Rachel, “I want to talk to you before you leave, but first I need to deal with that mob on the patio.”

“There’s a mob on the patio?” Rachel said. “Why?”

“It’s a bunch of idiots with guns who think the feral dogs killed Gordon Hall. They want to hunt down the dogs and kill them.”

“What?” Rachel exclaimed.

“Aw, Christ. Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut?”

“I want to talk to these people. Which way is the patio?”

“Oh, no. Don’t even think about it. I’ll handle them.”

“But I can tell them—”

“You can’t tell them anything they’ll want to hear, believe me. Stay out of it. All right?”

Rachel blew out an impatient sigh. “All right, all right.”

When Tom opened the French doors from the living room onto the patio, the armed men greeted him with truculent silence. Ethan, looking pale and shaken, followed Tom outside and stood with the men.

“I want all of you to go home and put away your guns,” Tom said. “The Sheriff’s Department and the animal warden will deal with the dog pack.”

The men muttered, a drone of discontent that produced no clear words Tom could make out. One man, though, spoke up. Tom knew the guy, a sharp-nosed runt named Larry Randolph who had been hauled in a few times for assault after drunken Saturday night fights with his wife. His wife inevitably came around the next morning begging for his release and claiming the fight had been entirely her fault. “All you’ve been doin’ is actin’ like it’s not any kind of a problem to have a pack of wild dogs runnin’ loose. If you’d been doin’ your job, this boy’s dad would still be alive.” He gestured at Ethan.

A chorus of voices rose in agreement. Ethan looked down at his feet.

“The dogs didn’t kill Dr. Hall,” Tom said. “All the evidence—”

“The hell they didn’t,” Randolph said. “We got to protect our families, if you won’t do it. I don’t want my kids gettin’ attacked by those dogs. We need to get rid of every last one of them.”

Tom was about to answer when Rachel stepped onto the patio. “We’re going to trap the dogs, starting tonight,” she said.

“Rachel, go back inside,” Tom said. Why couldn’t she stay out of this? She had no authority that these men would recognize. “Please.”

She went on, “There’s a shelter being built on the old McClure property, and it’s ready now to house some animals. We’ll trap them and take them there.”

“Then what?” one of the men asked.

“Yeah,” put in another. “You gonna feed ’em and pamper them like they’s somebody’s housepets?”

“They
were
pets,” Rachel said. “They could be again, after they’re rehabilitated.”

“Rehabilitated?” Randolph exclaimed. He looked around at the men, an incredulous half-smile on his face. “You hear that? She’s gonna
rehabilitate
a bunch of killer dogs.”

The other men responded with derisive laughter.

Tom could see Rachel winding up to fire back a hot response. He gripped her arm and spoke in a low growl. “Get back inside. You’re making matters worse.”

She threw an outraged look at him, but she spun and stepped back in, closing the French doors after her.

“You sure you can handle that woman of yours?” Randolph asked. The others laughed. “She’d better be careful if she’s goin’ out at night lookin’ for them dogs. We’re gonna be shootin’ anything that moves.”

“Did I hear you right?” Tom stepped closer, looming over the man. “Did you just threaten to shoot Dr. Goddard?”

“I said what I meant. You take it any way you want to.” Jutting his chin, Randolph tried to hold his challenging posture, but he didn’t have Tom’s staying power. After a few seconds under Tom’s glare, Randolph broke eye contact and scraped a hand over his stubbly chin.

“If anything happens to her,” Tom said, “I’m coming straight for you.”

“Nobody’s threatening your girlfriend,” Ethan said. “We just want to get rid of those animals.”

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Tom told him. “I want you and your sister to come to headquarters and listen to that tape. I want you to talk to Dr. Lauter too. You need to accept what’s really happened here. And you ought to be looking after your mother and the rest of your family instead of stirring up trouble.”

Without giving Ethan a chance to answer, Tom shoved open the French doors and strode back inside.

Vicky sat on the living room couch, taking a cup of tea from Rayanne Stuckey. “Thor’s fallen asleep,” Vicky told Tom. “Dr. Goddard said she’d wait for you out in front. I’ll call if I think of anything else you ought to know. And I promise I’ll try to talk some sense into Ethan and Soo.”

***

On her way to her Range Rover Rachel kicked at the fallen leaves, sending a flurry of red and gold into the air. “Idiots.” At least Tom had picked the right word to describe them. “Ignorant, stupid—”

She stopped herself, hating the sound of her own words.
Calm down. Get a grip.
Tom would handle it. He was better with people like that than she could ever hope to be.

Rachel leaned against her SUV, her face tilted toward the sun. Her SUV and Tom’s cruiser were the only vehicles in the parking circle. The family cars undoubtedly occupied the outsized garage attached to the house, and none of the men on the patio had parked this close to the Halls’ impressive house. All those dented cars and rusted trucks she’d seen on the shoulder of the main road must belong to them.

Bright leaves fell like a light rain from the trees and settled on the paved parking area. Except for the ridiculously large garage, the Halls’ property reminded Rachel of the house where she’d grown up in Northern Virginia, the woods she had roamed on her solitary explorations. At home the foliage would just be starting to change color, the September nights would still be warm and humid, and the trees wouldn’t be bare until early December. Autumn, the season when the world dies, she thought. Here in the mountains, it came too soon.

She straightened as Tom approached. “I really do wish you wouldn’t be so damned bossy,” she said. Then she registered his troubled expression. “What’s wrong?”

He reached into his pants pockets and pulled out two plastic bags containing tape and rope. “These were on Thor’s muzzle and neck when he showed up. And his collar was missing.”

Rachel frowned. “Then he wasn’t out in the woods by himself all night. Somebody had him.”

“Maybe the same person who sicked his dog on Hall.”

“Somebody used a dog to kill Dr. Hall, then stole his dog? Why would they want Thor?”

“I don’t know what the connection to Hall is, I don’t know why he was murdered, but I’ve seen dogs restrained this way, tied up with their muzzles taped. I could be way off, but I’m wondering if Thor ended up in the hands of people running dogfights. Maybe they planned to use him as a bait dog, to train the fighters.”

“A bait—” For a second Rachel felt too sick to speak. “Tom. All those pet dogs that have disappeared—Do you think—”

“It’s starting to make sense. If that’s why they were stolen, a lot of them are probably dead already.”

“But I haven’t heard anything about dogfighting in Mason County.” Rachel didn’t want this to be true. She wanted Tom, sensible Tom who always carefully examined the evidence before making up his mind, to admit he’d jumped to an irrational conclusion. “And wouldn’t you have known about it?”

Tom shook his head. “It’s illegal, it’s carefully hidden. It always takes a while before we hear about it.”

“It’s happened before?”

“Oh, yeah. Dogfighting’s like some damned fungus we can’t get rid of. We put a stop to it, arrest the people responsible, rescue the dogs, and a couple of years later it pops up again—usually with the same people involved.”