Beaglemania (32 page)

He took a step toward me. Maybe I should have acted cowed and stepped back, but I didn’t. I stared him right in the eye.

“You’d better watch what you say. We’ve had this account sewed up for a long time, and you’re not going to ruin it.”

“I think that you’ve managed to do that yourself,” I said, then turned and walked away.

And practically felt the daggers from his glare piercing my back like the HotRescues feed knives.

Oh, yes, this man was one person I definitely suspected.

I took a quick potty break and returned to the adoption area near the far side, where that very pit bull was in a nice, roomy crate—all by himself, of course. Si was near him, sitting on a folding chair. As I approached, he jumped to his feet.

“Lauren, I’ve been hoping to get you over here. I want to show you my progress with Perry.”

“Perry?”

“I thought that Perry the pit bull mix would sound cute and not especially scary.”

“Got it.”

As Si bent to open the crate and leash Perry, I looked around. The park was still full of visitors. I crossed my fingers, hoping that Perry wouldn’t attack anyone else. Including me.

I noticed Matt watching from a distance. He hurried in our direction as Si brought the nearly all white dog out. I appreciated Matt’s concern. Was it for me or for everyone here, as part of his Animal Services responsibilities? Probably both. Whichever, it made me feel good.

Si noticed him, too, and glared. “Please stay back,” he said. “Everything’s under control.”

And it was. Si put Perry through an amazing array of commands, from the usual “sit” and “down” to “shake” and even “beg.”

“You did this in a week?” I said in amazement.

“He knew some of it. Whoever his owner may have been before, he’d apparently had some training. I’ve found that the more I work him out, the less aggressive he is. He’s not for a household with kids or other pets, but he’s a good candidate for adoption.”

“One more test.” I’m not usually wimpy when it comes to being around any kinds of animals, but Perry had been one nasty canine to me before. I approached him slowly, my hand out in a nonthreatening manner, but half expected him to go back into snarl and growl mode.

He didn’t. In fact, his tongue flopped out of his mouth as I petted him.

As I stepped back, I smiled at Si and gave him a brief hug—making sure that Perry didn’t take it as a threatening gesture toward his new master. “You’re fantastic!” I told Si. “Don’t you think so, Perry?”

The dog I’d feared so much previously just seemed to smile.

 

 

I visited the cat area next and was thrilled to learn from Nina and a couple of our volunteers that half of the kitties we’d brought here were likely to be rehomed, once I approved the applications. I wanted to hug them all in congratulations. But that was when I spotted two more people I’d hoped would show up that day, thanks to my e-mailed invitations: the Shaheens.

Patsy and Bradley looked bemused when I greeted them, then showed them the two parent dogs from their puppy mill. “We haven’t found new homes for them yet,” I told the couple I despised. “Too soon. But we will when it’s appropriate.”

Patsy again put on her act of loving them all and missing them. And blaming Efram for everything.

I again thought how convenient, since he was dead. Possibly at her hands, or her husband’s.

We were joined then by Efram’s stepmother and girlfriend, whom I’d also invited. Apparently the Shaheens knew Mandy Ledinger and Shellie Benudo. Maybe they’d met Efram’s stepmother and girlfriend at his funeral, if not before.

Smiling a lot and keeping my digs at them ambiguous, I told them my reason for holding this adoption event in Efram’s honor. Did they buy it? Maybe.

The Shaheens still seemed affronted that I would equate their actions with Efram’s supposed really bad animal abuse in throwing puppies into a storm drain. After all, they’d merely tortured dogs and their offspring by untenable conditions.

Mandy and Shellie seemed to accept the situation with more grace, although they still maintained that Efram had done nothing wrong. Holding an event like this to help counter anything he had allegedly done was insulting to his memory.

Had any of them killed him? A definite maybe, considering their respective attitudes—although they seemed more angry with me than with Efram. Could any of them have tried to cover it up by the ensuing shenanigans that had taken place at HotRescues? Yes, if Efram had demonstrated how to get in and circumvent the security, including the cameras.

But no one yet knew where Perry had come from or how he’d gotten loose on the premises. That could be the key.

Or not.

 

 

Later, we returned to HotRescues with all the animals, including those who were likely now to be adopted. I helped to get them into their enclosures once more, then started the administrative work to sign them each back in again.

We’d had a fairly successful day, with quite a few potential rehomings—although I would definitely follow up as quickly as possible with visits to make sure the adopters were as kind and caring as they’d professed on their applications and in person. I’d also make sure they had the suitable facilities they’d described for their new pets.

I realized several things as I returned to my office and collapsed.

A few people I’d hoped to see there, including James Remseyer, Efram’s attorney, hadn’t shown up. That didn’t gain him any brownie points with me. He was still a suspect.

The other thing that I found particularly interesting—and disturbing? Well, I’d heard stories of how Dante’s lady friend, Kendra Ballantyne, the lawyer, had solved quite a few murder cases. She’d done it in odd ways, setting things up, often, to have animals she was pet-sitting involved in the resolution.

I’d done something similar today. I’d hoped for an equally good result, determining once and for all who’d murdered Efram.

But despite such a good day in so many other ways, especially for some of our former HotRescues animals, I still felt no closer to determining the killer.

I was about as happy that evening in my office at HotRescues as one of our pet residents who’s just been relinquished here permanently by his former owner.

First, I noticed I’d missed a call on my BlackBerry from Detective Garciana. Usually, I was perturbed if I didn’t hear my phone ring while easily accessible, in my pocket. Not this time. I’d even missed its vibration with all the excitement of the adoption event going on around me.

That was the only good thing about the call.

At our pet fair, I’d spoken with nearly everyone I’d wanted to talk to that day. Even so, I was no more ahead in figuring out what had happened to Efram than I had been before.

At least the detective hadn’t shown up at the park. I definitely wouldn’t have wanted to talk to him then. Or now. Or ever. But I doubted I had a choice.

He’d left me a message to call him. He had more questions. And, oh yes, it was fine for us to set up a meeting where my lawyer could be present.

Those questions of his would go on forever. Or until he arrested me for Efram’s murder. Whichever happened first.

I had a feeling inside—one that squeezed my lungs into a tight, constricted ball—that it would be the latter. Soon.

At least it was too late to call the detective back now. Tomorrow? Maybe I would forget. Or lose my phone.

I stayed at HotRescues long after my staff had departed. I used the excuse to them, and to myself, that I still had a lot of administrative work to do.

That was true.

It was also true that I didn’t have to do it all myself. Or that night. But I wanted the distraction.

When the last to leave, Nina, got on her way, I waited for a few minutes, then walked through the shelter area, greeting all our residents who were still around.

Was I nervous after everything that had been happening around here? I’d have been a fool not to be.

But would I let it stop me? Never!

I even smiled and waved at the security cameras, in case they were working and being monitored by someone under orders to watch my every move—and to pray I did something really awful that they could record and show to the cops and to Dante.

I stopped to open gates and hug as many dogs as I could—and especially to commiserate with those animals who’d been at the fair and had to return here.

Perry was among them. We were ostensibly boarding him now for Si, and if we happened to find him a good home that would be fine, too. I tempted fate—and Si’s amazingly excellent training—by first putting my arm through the fencing and petting the formerly vicious dog. I half expected him to bite a finger or two off. Instead, he came over and let me pet him. I went inside his enclosure.

“You’re wonderful,” I verbally caressed him, too. “It’s so much better for you to be so calm and sweet. I wish we’d been able to learn where you came from. Well, if we can’t figure it out, we’ll find you a new, loving home that’s just right for you. I’ll make sure of it.”

I hoped I could deliver.

With a final hug for that night, I reluctantly slipped out, locking Perry’s gate behind me—making sure I’d done it securely. I always checked, or tried to, with all our residents. I especially didn’t want to take a chance on Perry’s getting out in case he reverted to his prior aggressiveness.

The HotRescues grounds were fairly bright, thanks to our lighting. The dogs barked a lot, as usual. Now and then, I got a whiff of an enclosure that needed cleaning, and I stopped to take care of the offending piles inside—using that as an excuse to hug another lonely dog.

I went into the center building and provided a similar pep talk to the smaller dogs and the cats who came back here. “I know you don’t show it as much on the surface,” I told a ginger and a Siamese cat who’d both been at the fair, and who deigned to look at me now, “but I’m sure you were hoping you’d find a new human servant to take you home with them today. It’ll happen.”

My current round was over. I’d visited everyone who lived here.

I stood outside the central building, close to the spot where Efram had died. It wasn’t far from where Perry had all but attacked me. From there, I went back to Honey’s enclosure. “I’m really surprised you’re still here,” I told her sadly. “I’ll bet you are, too. We’ll figure something out.”

What I figured just then was that I needed to visit the storage building. I yanked the door open, flicked on the lights, and went in. I stomped through both floors and left again.

Outside, I again walked from one end of the shelter grounds to the other.

And then I realized what I was doing: tempting not only the security company, but, even more importantly, the killer, the person who’d been inciting all the mischief around here. My moving around the entire facility was a challenge. A dare.
Here I am . . . again. Come and get me
.

Show your face, you damned coward
.

But except for the animals who watched me, sometimes barking, occasionally whining, and nearly always alert, I was alone. And disheartened.

I needed answers. Right away.

Before I was confronted once more by Detective Garciana.

Before I lost my mind from frustration.

But what could I do about it now? I supposed I’d have to sleep on it. There wasn’t a lot I could accomplish that night.

Shuffling in discouragement like a hurt child who’d been sent to her room, I returned to my office.

The only thing I could think of to slather a temporary balm over my mood was to check out the reports on our adoption fair—or add one if no one else had so far.

I went to the Southern California Rescuers Web site I sometimes visited where pet rescue administrators keep in touch. Since I’d seen no one I recognized from other shelters at the park that day, and no one had introduced themselves to me as being in the same capacity, I assumed none of the members had been at our event. There were no “attagirls” on the site, so that still seemed a reasonable assumption.