When Day Breaks (12 page)

W
hen the phone was answered, the sound of dogs barking and whimpering could be heard in the background.

“Hi. I’m the one who came in on Thursday and adopted the Great Dane.”

“Marco?” asked Vinny, a smile spreading across his face. “How’s he doing?”

“That’s the problem. Marco isn’t eating. He won’t run after a ball like he used to. He just lies there.”

“Have you called a vet?”

“Yes, and the vet said there’s nothing physically wrong with him. I think he’s lonely. I want to come in and get another dog to keep him company.”

“Great. We have plenty of ’em,” said Vinny. “I’m closing up now, but if you can come in Monday morning…”

“Are you open tomorrow, by any chance?”

“No. But you come on in on Monday,” the young man suggested. “We’ll find you another great dog.”

“I was hoping to come in tomorrow. I can’t make it any day next week, and I don’t want poor Marco to wait and suffer.”

Vinny looked down the aisle of caged dogs, knowing that if homes weren’t found for them, they faced euthanasia.

“All right. I’ll meet you here tomorrow morning,” he volunteered. “Nine o’clock.”

E
liza was still asleep when Janie came cautiously into the master bedroom. The little girl stood at the side of the queen-size bed and stared at her mother. When willing her mother to open her eyes didn’t work, Janie leaned over and put her own face as close as she could to Eliza’s without touching it. It was her daughter’s soft breath that finally awakened Eliza.

“I didn’t wake you up, did I, Mommy? I was quiet.”

Eliza smiled and stretched. “No, honey, you didn’t wake me up. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Janie climbed in beside Eliza. “We have to get up, Mom. Remember? We’re going to Hannah and Hudson’s this morning.”

“That’s right. We are,” said Eliza, though the plan had completely slipped her mind. She looked at the clock. “We have to get up soon if we’re going to make it to church first.” But she made no move to get out of bed.

“I love Mrs. Hizdak’s pancakes,” Janie said happily as she snuggled closer to her mother.

“Me, too,” said Eliza. “But you pronounce their name ‘Vizdak,’ honey.”

“That doesn’t make sense, Mommy. It starts with the letter
H
. I saw it on their mailbox. And
H
makes the ‘huh’ sound.”

“I know, but their name is H-V-I-Z-D-A-K. The
H
is silent, and you pronounce the
V
. ‘Vizdak.’”

Janie had a puzzled expression on her face.

“I know it’s confusing, Janie, but there are some words that don’t sound the way they’re spelled. Hvizdak is one of them.”

“I’m hungry, Mom.” Janie had moved on.

Eliza sat up, swung her legs around the side of the bed, and stood. “Come on. Let’s go downstairs and get you some fruit and me some coffee.”

Downstairs in the kitchen, Eliza sliced some melon and turned on the coffeemaker. Much as she loved and depended on Mrs. Garcia, Eliza enjoyed having the house to herself and Janie as much as possible on the weekends. Mrs. Garcia had been looking forward to going to her daughter’s house today to celebrate her grandson’s birthday, and Eliza had planned to have the whole day alone to focus on Janie.

Waiting for the coffee to brew, Eliza picked up the remote for the kitchen television set and switched the channel to CNN. A picture of Constance Young’s face popped onto the screen as a reporter recapped yesterday’s events. Next, the image of a cream-colored carved unicorn appeared on the screen as the reporter announced that police had confirmed that an ivory unicorn, similar in appearance to the one Constance Young had been seen wearing, was missing from the Cloisters. The unicorn was touted as having been a gift from King Arthur to Lady Guinevere in the Middle Ages.

What in the world is going on?
wondered Eliza.
How did Constance get that unicorn? Could she possibly have stolen it? Could she have been killed for it?

Eliza picked up the phone and pushed a number on speed dial.

“Range? It’s Eliza. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“What? Are you kidding? I’ve been up for hours. In fact, I’m on my way in to the Broadcast Center.”

“So B.J. heard right,” said Eliza, pouring the black liquid into her mug. “Think we should have reported the missing unicorn last night as ‘KEY News has learned…’?”

“Let’s not second-guess ourselves, Eliza. We didn’t have confirmation,” said Range. “And in one way at least I’m glad we didn’t. Linus Nazareth is on the warpath. He says we screwed Lauren on the air last night and made her look like an idiot. And that was just over your question to her about the dog. If you’d asked her about the ivory unicorn, too, I think Linus would have stroked out.”

“Not to mention Lauren,” Eliza observed. “I’m still wondering why B.J. called
me
about it but didn’t tell
her.
”

“I’m not sure why,” said Range. “But B.J. is no longer assigned to
KTA.
”

“So that’s his punishment, huh?” asked Eliza.

“Yep. And Linus told me he’s letting Annabelle Murphy go, too, because he figures she was either B.J.’s accomplice or an incompetent,” said Range. “But I heard through the grapevine that he didn’t fire her. Annabelle quit.”

“Well, I don’t know if she was in it with B.J. or not,” answered Eliza. “But the last thing I would ever call Annabelle is an incompetent.”

“Me, too,” Range agreed. “That’s why I already phoned her this morning and asked her to come work for
Evening Headlines.
”

“And?”

“She said yes.”

Eliza smiled. “Great.
KTA
’s loss is our gain. And what about B.J.?”

“I’ve already had him scheduled to work for us today. He’s on his way out to that dump where Constance’s pool boy told us he got rid of the dog.”

“Good call,” said Eliza. “Now that we’ve settled that, I was thinking I want to go up to the Cloisters today. Look around, see where the ivory unicorn had been stored, see if we can get anyone to talk to us.” She paused to take a sip of coffee. “I’d like to do a piece for tonight.”

“Someone else can go up and do that, Eliza. Mack McBride is going to get his shot at anchoring tonight. This was going to be your only day off this week. The story will still be around when you come in tomorrow.”

“I know it will, Range. And I don’t want to anchor the show, but I want to be a part of tonight’s show. Constance Young’s death carries a lot of weight, with us in the news division and with the public as well. I want to get a feel for the Cloisters. I’ve never been there. Why don’t you put me in tonight’s schedule as doing the unicorn angle?”

“All right, if that’s what you want. I’d love to have you in the broadcast. But I hate cutting into your day with your daughter.”

“You aren’t cutting into it,” Eliza replied. “I’m bringing Janie with me.”

S
ipping a cup of coffee, Vinny Shays leaned on his elbows reading the newspaper that was spread out over the front counter. He looked up when the front door opened.

“Hello,” he called. “Good to see you again.”

“Thanks for opening up for me this morning, especially in all this rain.”

“No problem. I wish there were more people like you. It’s wonderful you’re taking another dog. We have so many who need homes. Have you given any more thought to what kind you want?”

“I don’t think I need something as big as a Dane this time. Just one that can keep Marco company.”

“Let’s take a look around and see what we’ve got,” Vinny suggested.

They began to walk down the aisle. There were a boxer, a schnauzer, and a beagle-basset mix right near the front.

“Any of these warm your heart?”

“Let’s keep going. Let me see what you have farther in the back.”

At the rear of the room, they came to a cage that housed a black Labrador retriever.

“That one looks nice.”

Vinny nodded. “She is. Very good-natured and gentle. We’ve started calling her ‘Lucky’ because Animal Control found her wandering the streets before she got hit by a car, or worse. And she’s already been spayed and has all her shots.”

“Would you mind taking her out of the cage?”

Vinny turned his attention to opening the cage, unaware that behind him a weapon was sliding from a jacket pocket.

“Okay, Lucky,” said Vinny. “Let’s get you out of there.”

He reached in to guide the dog out of the cage, talking to her reassuringly. Vinny turned to look at the dog’s prospective owner. The hopeful expression on Vinny’s face turned to horror in the second it took for the hammer to come crashing down on his head.

Finishing the job with the hammer was always an option, but if the shelter stocked any sort of euthanasia solution, that would be a lot less work. And less bloody.

Among all the boxes and bottles and tools in the back room, the visitor found the sodium pentobarbital that was used to solve the problem of the animals nobody wanted to adopt. It didn’t take long at all to prepare the lethal syringe. It took longer to find the vein in Vinny’s arm. As the injected chemicals closed down the young man’s central nervous system, Lucky started barking. And by the time the kind human being who took such good care of them died, every dog in the shelter was howling.

B
.J. sat in his car eating a jelly doughnut and calculating how much extra money he was making, because not only was he working on a Sunday, he had not gotten the hours of turnaround time since his shift the day before as stipulated by his union contract. It was going to make for a nice fat paycheck.

He looked out at the piles of debris, discarded furniture, and old appliances and wondered if he’d missed it. He checked his watch. Had the police already been here this morning and found the dog?

B.J. got out and walked around to the rear of the car. He took his camera gear from the trunk. As he closed the lid, he noticed a van pulling in through the entrance to the dump. The van, lettered on the side with the words PACHECO POOLS, drove up next to the KEY News crew car and parked. A young man got out and walked toward B.J.

“You waiting for the police?” B.J. nodded. “What about you?”

“Yep. I told the cops I’d meet them out here and show them where I left a dog.”

“Oh, so you’re the guy who worked for Constance Young,” said B.J. “Thanks for letting us know where you dumped the dog. As you can see, the police didn’t announce it to any of the other news organizations, or else they’d be swarming all over this place. KEY News will air it exclusively.”

“You’re welcome. By the way, my name is Frank Pacheco.” He extended his hand.

“B.J. D’Elia.”

“How do you like working for the news?” asked Frank, gesturing to the camera.

“It’s a living,” said B.J.

“Must be really interesting.”

“Sometimes, yeah,” answered B.J. “But there can be a lot of hanging around and waiting.” B.J. looked at his watch again. “I’ve been sitting out here for an hour and a half.”

“So I guess you want to get some pictures of the dog, huh?”

“Yeah, if the cops will let me get close enough,” said B.J. “Otherwise they can’t stop me from taking video from a distance, of them searching.”

“Maybe I could help you,” said Frank. “I can show you where the dog is before the police get here.”

“That would be great,” B.J. said enthusiastically. “Thanks a lot.”

Frank was staring purposefully at the top of B.J.’s head.

“You like this cap?” asked B.J.

“Yeah. I do.” B.J. popped open the trunk of the car again. He pulled out a new red baseball cap and a navy blue T-shirt, both emblazoned with the KEY News logo.

“They’re yours,” said B.J., handing over the loot.

Frank donned the cap and threw the T-shirt on the front seat of his van. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you.”

They tramped across one of the paths that cut through the piles of rubbish, making their way toward the back of the dump.

“Why did you bother going all the way back here?” asked B.J.

“Because they have big fines if they catch you throwing anything in here but what they allow. Dead animals don’t fit the bill.”

“So you’ll be fined for coming forward with the information about the dog?”

“They said they’d make an exception in this case”—Frank looked pleased—“since I’m helping them out with the Constance Young investigation and all.”

When they got to the edge of the property, Frank pointed. “There it is,” he said.

B.J. looked in the indicated direction. A dirty white blanket covered a motionless mound. As he approached, he lifted up the edge of the blanket and shrank back. “That’s it, all right,” he said, wincing. He raised his camera and made the necessary adjustments to begin recording. He took video of the shrouded dog from a variety of angles and sprayed the area with the camera lens to get shots that would give a good picture of the overall location.

“You want me to pull back the blanket all the way so you can get pictures of the dead dog?” asked Frank eagerly.

“Not really,” said B.J. “But I better get them anyway.”

The black Great Dane lay on its side, and B.J. had to consciously direct his thoughts to the mechanics of getting good video instead of allowing himself to think of how sad it was that the beautiful animal was now lying lifeless and discarded like trash.

“All right, that’s enough,” he said. “I hope we don’t have to use them, but at least the editor will have the option to totally exploit this poor thing.”

“What did you say?” asked the pool guy.

“Never mind,” said B.J. as he capped his camera lens.