Drop Dead on Recall (24 page)

75

The doorbell, followed by
Jay’s deep “boofs” from the direction of the front door, jolted me out of bed the next morning. The one morning in recent history that I’d actually slept until a decent hour, mostly because I’d been up several times during the night calling for Leo, and now some fool was ringing my bell. I glanced at my watch, pulled on a pair of sweatpants, and combed my hair back with my fingers. Turned out 6:49 was only a semi-decent time to get up, and obscenely early for a visitor. Panic clutched at my mind.

I should have used the peephole before opening the door since no rational person would come calling at that hour, unless they bore devastating news. I mean, what’s the point of having a reasonably secure locking system that you open right up for bad guys? But it was way too early to think, so I slipped the chain, flipped the deadbolt, grabbed Jay’s collar, and pulled the door open.

Detectives Stevens and Hutchinson were on my porch.

“Ohmygod. Who’s dead now?”

Hutchinson had his badge out, as if I wouldn’t recognize him. “Can we come in?”

I took half a step backward, holding Jay’s collar and my breath. Jo Stevens smiled at me and shook her head. “It’s not that kind of a visit.”

Jay stopped barking and leaned into his collar, stretching his neck toward the detectives, sucking in their scent while his body vibrated from his wriggling tail nub to his shoulders.

Hutchinson glowered at Jay. “Call off your dog.”

“Oh, for crying out loud.” Jo pushed past him and stepped into the house, giving Jay a scratch under the chin. Her partner followed, puffing up his chest as he glanced at Jay.

“You don’t like dogs much, do you, detective? I’ll put him outside if he scares you.”

“I’m not scared,” he lied.

Jay was no longer interested in Hutchinson. He stood in front of Jo, eyes sparkling and fanny wriggling. She rubbed behind his ears.

I peered out the door before I closed it. “You didn’t happen to see an orange cat out there, did you?” They hadn’t. “Leo’s been gone since I talked to you yesterday.”

Hutchinson hitched up his pants. “Look, we’re not here to chat about your pets. We have a missing suspect to find.”

76

Jo glared at her
partner but spoke to me. “I’m sure Leo will show up when he gets hungry. Probably needed a night on the town.”

I wanted to agree with her, but Leo wasn’t an on-the-town sort of guy. What would be the point, since he was neutered? “It’s not like him.” I led them through to the kitchen, let Jay out the back door, and surveyed the backyard. No Leo. “Coffee?” I asked, turning back to the detectives. My hands needed something to do that didn’t ruin my cuticles.

“That would be nice,” said Jo.

I got busy with the coffee scoop and asked, “Do you work every day?”

“Seems like it. We’re covering for a couple guys who are off.”

Hutchinson dragged a chair out. “Mrs. MacPhail, where is Greg Dorn?”

“Ms.”

He harumphed at me.

“Why ask me?”

“He’s wanted for questioning in the murders of his wife and his mistress.”

I turned toward the detectives. “Mistress?”

Jo glowered at Hutchinson, the look on her face suggesting that she’d smack him if she had to, and he shut up for a moment. “We need to find Mr. Dorn. He isn’t at home.”

“We’re not really friends, just acquaintances.” I finished setting the coffee maker, moved a couple of photo boxes and some files out of the way, and signaled them to sit at the table.

“Did Mr. Dorn plan to leave the country?” Hutchinson was nothing if not slow.

“How would I know?”

“So you’re not aware of any plans he might have had to leave the country?” Jo asked softly.

“Look, I don’t know the guy that well. Saw him with his wife at dog events sometimes, and I took care of Abigail’s dog for a couple of days. That’s it. I’m not privy to his plans. I heard some rumors that he might have been planning a trip before….” Suddenly my mind was spinning. Why would Greg kill Suzette if they’d been planning a Caribbean tryst? “Before?” asked Jo.

“Before what?” asked Mr. Charm.

“Well, before Suzette died.” I sighed. “I heard that he cashed in some tickets he had for himself and Suzette. But I don’t think …” I let Jay back in and served the coffee. “I can’t imagine Greg killing anyone, especially his wife or Suzette.”

Hutchinson pulled a beat-up spiral-bound notepad part way out of his shirt pocket. The end of the wire caught in the fabric, stretching out the bottom few coils and tearing the top hem of the pocket. He wrestled it free, tried to push the wire back into a coil, flipped the notebook open and scribbled something, and tried to pat the pocket flat against his chest. It defied his efforts, but Jay took the chest patting as an invitation and before I could intercede he had his front paws on the man’s shoulders and they were nose to nose.

Everyone froze, and then I recovered enough to reach for my dog. “Jay! Off!”

But Hutchinson surprised me. His hands came up tentatively to Jay’s cheeks, and he looked into the dog’s eyes, and he said, “Nah. It’s okay.” His shoulders relaxed, and he slowly ran his fingers along Jay’s copper cheek markings and, his voice softer, repeated, “It’s okay.”

Jo looked away from her partner and shrugged at me, then cleared her throat.

“Do you have any ideas about Greg’s other friends, anyone who might know his whereabouts?”

“Sorry.” Hadn’t I just told them I didn’t know him all that well?

“We haven’t been able to locate any of his family.” It was a statement, but there was a question in it.

“I don’t think he has any family around here. I don’t even know where he’s from, now that I think about it. But how do you know he’s gone? Maybe he just wasn’t home when you were there.”

“Oh, he’s long gone.” Hutchinson gently lifted Jay’s feet from his chest and lowered the dog to the floor, then shoved his partially wired notebook back into his torn pocket. Jay sat beside him and rested his chin on the man’s knee.

Jo explained. “We executed a search warrant early this morning.”
Early? Had to be the crack of dawn,
I thought. “There’s no sign of him. It certainly appears that he’s gone out of town.”

I watched several tiny bubbles spin in the whirlpool I stirred in my mug. “What about his car?”

“His car was there, and the van.”

Jo carried her empty mug to the sink. Her partner stroked the top of Jay’s head, and seemed reluctant to let the moment go. Finally he looked at me, his expression softer than I’d seen it. He seemed about to say something, then looked again at Jay, and stood up.

No one spoke on the way to the front porch, where I told Jay to lie down. “Are the dogs there?”

Jo looked at her partner, then at me, and shook her head.

“If the cars were there and the dogs weren’t, I’d say he took them for a walk. How long were you there?”

“Forty-five minutes, maybe. We just came from there.”

“Well, I bet he was just walking the dogs before work.”

Hutchinson pulled a battered business card from his inside jacket pocket. “Call if you hear from Mr. Dorn or learn his whereabouts.”

“Are you going to arrest Greg?”

Jo confirmed that there was a warrant for his arrest. Hutchinson’s phone chirped. He bent and stroked Jay again, then headed for the car as he opened his phone. Jo watched him, and said, “That was interesting.” She looked at me. “Cut him a little slack. His wife ran off last week with some biker dude.”

“I didn’t want to admit this to your partner….” I said, and Jo turned and looked me in the eye. “I’m a tad scared. I mean, someone killed Abigail and Suzette, and I knew them both. I probably know the killer.”

Jo completed the thought. “And the killer knows you, and doesn’t know how much you’ve figured out.” I nodded at her. “And whoever it is knows that you’ve been talking to us.” She glanced at the black sedan parked in front of my house. “So be alert and be cautious, okay? And again, if you think something’s wrong, call 911. Or me, if it’s not an emergency.” She bent and scratched Jay’s chest. “If I were you, I’d stick close to this guy for a while.”

I watched her get behind the wheel of the black car before I stepped back inside the house with my dog. We started for the kitchen, but I backtracked to lock the door.

77

As soon as I
was dressed I called the AKC’s Companion Animal Recovery and left them my cell number on the off chance that someone would find Leo and scan him for a microchip. He might even still be wearing his collar and ID tag. Then I set out to look once more for my cat. I drove first to Kinkos and copied a flyer I’d made with Leo’s picture and vitals. I handed them out at Animal Control, then the Allen County SPCA shelter, where I looked at the cats in the holding areas and filed “lost pet” reports. Then, consulting the pages I’d ripped from my phone book, I drove around to every vet office north of downtown and handed out more flyers. I’ve always thought that putting a distraught face with a report is better than just a phone call.

I tacked more than a hundred flyers to every bulletin board and lamp post I could find, and handed them out to my neighbors. I even got permission from the principals of all but one school in the area to tape copies to the exit doors for a few days, since kids were more likely than most adults to notice an animal wandering around.

I couldn’t think of anything else to do to help Leo find his way home, and I realized that I was close to Greg’s house, so I decided to run by and see if there was any sign of the other lost boy. Just as the detectives had said, Greg’s cars were both in the driveway. I parked on the street, and checked for lurking Yugos as I got out. Not a soul in sight.

I went to the front door and rang the bell. No barking. A newspaper was lying in its plastic wrapper at the edge of the porch, and I picked it up and looked at the date. This morning. I tried to peek through the decorative glass of the door, but everything was distorted, so I didn’t learn much. There was no sign of movement inside the house, though, so after a few minutes I set the paper back down by the door and walked around to the side of the house and through the gate into the backyard. No dogs, no Greg. I climbed the bluestone steps to the patio and tapped on the French door, just to be sure. The umbrella was up on the patio table, and a plate and half-full glass of diluted-looking tea sat under it. Odd that Greg would leave them out if he left, but maybe he was tidiness challenged. Like me.

From the patio I stepped onto a lawn that felt like thick carpet beneath my feet, not a weed or errant leaf in sight. The flower beds looked as if someone had edged them inch by flawless inch with nail scissors. I walked toward a building about the size of a two-car garage at the back of the yard. Clay pots were neatly stacked along one side under a row of narrow windows, all in the shadow of an enormous ash that must have been on the property before the house was built. An overhang shaded a wooden porch along the front of the building. I stepped onto it and knocked on the door. As I expected, there was no reply.

I stepped off the porch and went to the front-most window on the side and tried to see in, but the interior was too dark to reveal its secrets. I tried the other windows, too, but got the same results. I stood and looked at the lake behind the yard for a few moments, then headed back to the house. The blinds were closed on several windows, but I did manage to peek into the master bedroom. Nobody home.

I was just rounding the front corner of the house when a cold spray of water hit me in the back and sent me scuttling forward. I turned and look, half expecting to see Greg standing behind me with a hose. Instead I found myself staring at an automatic sprinkler that had popped out of the ground and assaulted me.

“Perfect,” I muttered, twisting as well as I could to wring out the hems of my pants and shirt. On a hunch, I opened the mailbox on my way by and sure enough, a hefty pile of mail hadn’t been picked up. I glanced up and down the street, not sure what I was looking for, but all was quiet. Too quiet, I thought. No kids out playing, no forgetful old ladies out gardening. No signs of life at all.

I glanced at my watch and was shocked to see that I’d used up most of the day. My reflection in my driver’s side window looked like a drowned rat. The perfect look for a dinner date.
Date? Who said this was a date?
But who was I kidding? I was really starting to like Tom, and guessed this was as much like a date as it could get. Oh, well, I’d worry about my hair when I got home. At the moment, I admitted to myself, I was more worried about Greg and his dogs and, of course, my cat.

78

I almost cancelled dinner
with Tom to stay home in case Leo showed up, but Goldie insisted I needed to go and promised to check my yard every hour or so and to let Leo in and call my cell phone if he showed up. Still, by the time I changed out of my damp clothes and fixed my hair and face, I pulled into Tom’s driveway a quarter hour late. Tom was in the open front door before I was out of the van. Drake sat at his side, holding the stay command but vibrating with excitement. He and Tom wore matching grins. Tom also wore his ever-popular just-right jeans and a white shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows and top button open to reveal a hint of brown and silver chest hair. With a little air brushing, he could pose for the cover of a romance novel.

Tom ushered Jay and me into the house. I wanted to linger near the kitchen, where the aroma of simmering tomato and basil and something I couldn’t identify wrapped itself around me like a warm embrace. But Tom wisely hustled everyone straight through to the breakfast nook, where he opened a sliding door and shooed the dogs out before they clobbered anything, especially us. They took off through the yard, careened around two Adirondack chairs set under an enormous pin oak, and zoomed away to the far end of the yard, each snagging one of a dozen balls scattered across the lawn. We stood on the deck and watched. I didn’t know about Tom, but I wasn’t interested in being slammed in the knees by my fifty-pound Aussie, let alone his seventy-five-pound Labrador pal.

“Gee, I guess they’re glad to see each other.”

“And I’m glad to see you.” Tom moved half a step closer to me. I got a whiff of a subtle, spicy fragrance, and fought off an impulse to make him lie down. Lucky for him, he kept moving. “But I’m not going to run like a maniac around the yard. How about a drink. Wine, beer … that’s probably all I can scare up except a dribble of Bailey’s.”

I followed him back into the family room, placed my order, and looked around while he disappeared into the kitchen. The room was tastefully comfy in a masculine way, and tidier by far than my place ever is. The deep-brown leather couch was well broken in but nowhere near shabby, and little Janet Angel whispered in my ear,
Good guy. He lets his dog lie on the couch.
A large nylon chew toy once shaped like a Y lay beside a needlepoint pillow with a black Lab on it, one arm of the Y-bone gnawed to a pointed nub and the other arm on its way to the same state.

“Here ya go.” Tom handed me a bottle of Killian’s Red, then grabbed the bone and tossed it onto a big round dog bed snuggled up against the side of an antique roll-top desk. He grinned at me. “Dogs!”

“Hey, you’ve been in my house. Toys-and-hair-are-us.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.” He set his bottle on a coaster sporting—what else?—a black Lab. “Make yourself at home. I’ll start the pasta.”

One wall of the room had a red brick fireplace flanked by built-in bookcases crammed from hearth-to-ceiling with books and a few knickknacks. A rough-hewn mantle held a pair of pewter candlesticks and about a dozen bronze, brass, and pewter Labrador Retrievers of various sizes. A large, very good oil of a black Lab in a field on a snowy day, a faraway look in his eyes, hung over the mantle.

My mother always said that you can tell a lot about a person by the books on their shelves, so I took a look. Low across the left-hand bookcase was an eclectic assortment of poetry. This is a science guy? Above the poetry was a shelf of nature and travel memoirs, including some of my golden-oldie favorites—Eiseley, Erlich, Lopez, Dillard, Chatwin. Good stuff. Above that, it was all fiction, modern and classic.

“See anything interesting?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” I took a sip of my beer as I turned toward his voice and almost spewed it back out.