Muzzled (7 page)

“Yeah, but Lofty
is
the same brindle color as Stella.”

“And about fifteen kilos heavier.”

It was like I had this thick rubber band circling my head and with every
maybe
the band tightened. I sank into the wooden backed chair in front of Terry’s desk and rubbed my throbbing temples with the tips of my fingers. Any minute now the unexploded bomb in my head would go Kaboom.

Yet I still felt I was on the right track.

I picked up a biro and twirled it in my fingers. “When I was driving back from the track yesterday, the same guy attempted to nick Stanley.”

Terry’s mouth opened but no sound came out.

“But Stanley was more interested in guzzling ice-cream than being nabbed, so the piece-of-scum thief drove off empty handed.”

“
Now
you’re making sense. Stanley
could
be mistaken for Lofty by those who aren’t acquainted with Lofty’s…shall we be kind and say…
distinctive
features.”

“Yes,
distinctive
sounds so much nicer than
pit-bull ugly
. Only thing is,” I continued, thinking aloud, “I can’t figure out why the thief would risk being caught and charged for stealing
any
of my dogs. There’s no way he can sell or race them, I’d still have the registration papers. And the grader at every track would be alerted to keep an eye out for any suspicious nominations.”

Terry tapped the last of Bessie’s details into his computer and stood up. “Okay, what do you know about this guy?”

“Not a thing! I’ve never seen the jerk before and haven’t a clue why he’s interested in my dogs.” I lifted one shoulder in a mystified shrug, then frowned. “But hey, that will change once Tanya and I put our heads together and get
Plan A
up and going. A policeman friend has been coerced into following up on the rego number of the car and he’s given us an address—so very soon we’ll be paying Mr. Purple Pants a visit.”

“Is it wise to go see him though, Kat?” The worry lines between Terry’s eyes deepened. “The man could be dangerous.”

I shrugged one shoulder. Dangerous? Hell, the way I felt, Tanya and I could take the old guy out by sneezing on him. As long as we confiscated his brass knuckle duster first. “No worries, I’ll have Tanya with me.” I sent Terry a knowing wink and stood up ready to leave. I was running late and my friend would be waiting for me at the mall. “The way her hormones are swinging at the moment, if the man so much as raises a finger, she’ll flatten him with the nearest heavy duty frypan.”

Terry laughed, flashing irresistible dimples. “Guess that explains why I saw her chasing her ex out the front door with a broom when I drove past her property last week.”

“Not necessarily.” I turned at the door, grinned and spoke over my shoulder before hurrying off to meet my hormonal friend. “Dan more than likely lost Tanya’s maintenance money on the favorite in the last race at Globe Derby—and then had the gall to ask her for a loan.”

7

It was nine hours later. On a night when the moon wasn’t home and dark rain clouds threatened to gobble up the few stray stars.

While Tanya carefully aligned her little red car beside the gutter in front of a house direct from a Hitchcock movie, I tugged the collar of my sheepskin coat up around my ears and slunk further down into the passenger seat.

Maybe the plan we’d come up with over warm chicken salad at the Café Aqua wasn’t such a good idea. Quite doable in the middle of the day while surrounded by chattering, laughing diners—but on a lonely road in the middle of the night—I was having second and even third thoughts.

On the condition Tanya would accept a dinner date with Policeman Paul, a condition which didn’t seem to displease her, in fact she’d been all smiley and gung ho when she’d imparted her new-found knowledge at the mall earlier today—Paul had infiltrated the Car Registry data base and come up with a name for the owner of the pus colored Holden:

Jack Aloysius Lantana.

And at this very moment we were camped outside his house.

I squinted at the shadowy property illuminated by a lone flashing street lamp. “Guess we’ll have to come back tomorrow. Lantana’s either asleep or gone out.”

Tanya, eyes fixed on the dark windows of the house, switched off the engine and pocketed her car keys. “I suppose we
could
hang a left here tomorrow and question the guy,” she drawled. “But, don’t you think this would be a good opportunity to case the joint?”

“Case the joint?” I laughed at my friend’s choice of words. “Where’d you pick up that terminology? Sounds like you’ve been reading murder mysteries instead of your usual happy-ever-after romance novels.”

Tanya rolled her eyes and muscled the car door open against the strengthening wind. “Where’s your investigative spirit, Kat?”

Good question. I shivered when a peppercorn tree looming overhead whipped and twisted—its low branches scraping warning fingers across the roof of the car. It was a wind similar to the night I trusted Peter Manning. The night I barely survived my last investigation. The night I almost ended up as ash on the floor of Manning’s Crematorium.

“My investigative spirit?” I repeated and sank further into the sanctuary of the warm sheepskin covered seat. “Probably hiding under a pile of discarded socks at the bottom of my closet.”

Insensitive to my concerns, Tanya ploughed onwards. “I thought you
wanted
to know why this piece-of-shit was stealing your dogs?”

I sighed. Grabbed a mental shovel and buried my fears in a shallow grave where I could quickly unearth them if necessary. “Of course I do, Tan. Here I am being weak-bellied and pathetic—a soggy pool of watery custard—while you’re ready to bust down doors to find the truth. You’re right. My dogs are at risk and I don’t know why. The creep who lives in this house
does.
” I flashed her a grin. “So, let’s say we go pound some answers out of Mr. Jack Aloysius Lantana.”

I joined Tanya on the footpath, flashlight at the ready. Yep. Time to bring my gum boots out of retirement, dust down my trench coat and slip into sleuthing mode—before this incompetent thief managed to actually steal the right dog.

However, Nancy Drew was short-lived. As though conspiring against us, the flashing street light in front of Lantana’s house gave a final flicker and kicked the bucket. Suddenly, I wanted to go home. Instead, I fumbled a flashlight from my coat pocket and let its beam spill across the ground in front of us. Over an acre of overgrown land and a graveyard of rusted car bodies which seemed to be keeping vigil on either side of a dirt baked pathway snaking up to Lantana’s front veranda.

With a firm shove Tanya opened the heavy wire-mesh front gate, undeterred by the scratchy squeal of unoiled hinges. “So, do we stick to our plan?”

“To the letter,” I told her. “If Jack Lantana’s home we ask questions, perhaps threaten him with the police. If he’s not home, we take a quick peep through the windows and then leave. No skulking around his garage or outbuildings. Okay? That’s called
trespassing!
” Plus poking around amongst rats and spiders and other creepy crawlies in the dark—discovering god knows what—wasn’t my idea of a fun night out.

Tanya didn’t answer. And that always made me nervous.

Half-way along the dirt path I could feel the glassless windows of the hunkering car bodies, like eyes, following our every step. Ahead, radiating menace, the sprawling farmhouse reared out of the darkness.

What the hell were we doing?

My Adidas sneakers slowed down and came to a faltering stop. “I don’t know about you, Tan,” I whispered, throat dry and uncooperative, “but my gut’s telling me to high-tail it out of here. Fast. In fact, it’s screaming at me to come back tomorrow…in the daylight.”

Tanya, who was so close she kept banging shoulders with me, slipped an arm through mine and continued walking. “Come on, Kat, we can’t chicken out now. It’s common knowledge that all successful detectives do their detecting in the hours of darkness.”

My snigger broke through the heavy silence. “Says who?”

“Well…” Tanya paused but didn’t stop walking. “Kinsey Millhone doesn’t investigate a suspect in the noon-day sun, does she? And look how successful she is.”

“She might be successful, but she’s also
not real
. Kinsey Millhone is a figment of Sue Grafton’s imagination—a character from a book.”

The nearer we drew to the house, the more I wanted to put on my brakes. Turn tail and skedaddle back to the car. Go home. The thought of sharing a family sized pizza with Tater and Lucky and our two canine guests, Stella and Stanley, all of us zoned out in front of the television, seemed a much more sensible alternative to what I was doing right now. I sighed. Where had my brain been hiding when I’d let my hormonal, gung-ho friend talk me into paying our geriatric dog-napper a visit in the middle of the night?

Unease, with all its shivery manifestations, continued to bite at my gut as we neared the four rickety steps leading up onto the overhanging front veranda. Who knew what lay beyond that front door? Jack Lantana, dressed in psychedelic orange and yellow pajamas, leering manically at us while sharpening his axe to a fine edge on wet sandstone?

Beside me, Tanya inhaled a deep breath. “You know what, Kat, I think—”

I never did get to hear what Tanya thought.

From the bowels of the closest wreck, a rusted-out car body that looked like it had been propped up on blocks for the last fifty odd years, slunk two dark creatures of the night.

Guard dogs…

Or to be more precise—large, slit-eyed, black and tan Rottweilers, their fierce growls indicating they were ready to tear out throats and swallow human tonsils.

A harsh panting noise pounded in my ears. I didn’t know if it came from Tanya, the dogs or me. A sour urine-like stench assailed my nostrils. Once again, I didn’t know if it came from Tanya, the dogs or me…

Then, like a well-oiled team, the two dogs slunk in behind us and posed; bodies’ rigid, snarls vowing menace.

Holy catfish!

I clutched at my throat which suddenly felt very exposed, very vulnerable. Retreat would now result in copious blood, a plethora of screams and definite hospitalization—or worse. Hand trembling, I shone the flashlight on our aggressors and my heart did a painful belly-flop. Every hair along the dogs’ backs stood on end. Their mean mouths drooled in anticipation. And the smell of hostility and old meat had my stomach heaving.

“Run!” yelled Tanya.

As if I needed any prodding…

All systems struggling to suck more blood and air and speed from my deeply traumatized body, I flew up the steps onto the veranda where Tanya was already hurling her shoulder against the front door.

“Is it lock–?” A sharp pain turned my words into a piercing scream. Almost brought me to my knees. The leading Rottweiler, the one with the white foam spewing like shaving cream from his mouth, had latched onto the seat of my jeans.

I was going to die. Ripped to shreds by a crazy demented canine. I must have done something horrendous in a previous life to deserve to die like this.

It was so unfair—I was a lover of dogs.

“Quick, Kat…in here!”

Before Cujo could spit out the jagged piece of denim and sink his fangs into exposed flesh, I fell through the open doorway into Tanya’s waiting arms.

Between us, we managed to slam and bolt the door from the inside, catching Rottweiler number one’s nose in the act. A chilling howl preceded by a crashing thump shook the door on its hinges and rattled crockery half a block away.

Tanya grabbed my arm and hung on like it was the last pair of Jimmy Choos on the sales counter. “You okay, Kat?”

With no breath left to do anything else, I nodded.

In the mad rush for the door I’d dropped my flashlight, probably glowing inside one of the Cujo’s stomachs by now, and in the stifling darkness I could barely see Tanya’s shadowy figure. It was bad enough we were trespassing in Jack Lantana’s house. It was bad enough we had no way of getting out without being eaten. But I was damn sure I wasn’t going to stand here shivering and gasping in the dark one moment longer. Chest wheezing, bum on fire, I pried Tanya’s claw-like fingers one by one from my arm and searched for the light switch.

Eyes huge in her pale face, Tanya stared back at me. “Shit!” she breathed, blinking in the sudden light. “That was close!”

Tanya Ashton: the master of understatement.

The tuna patties I’d eaten for dinner warred with nerves so tightly strained I wouldn’t be surprised if they unraveled and left me limper than a rag doll. Shaking, I burrowed my fingers into my back pocket and pulled out my mobile. “I’m going to ring Ben.”

“Not a good idea,” advised Tanya with a small shake of her head. “Ben thinks he’s indestructible. Tell him we’re in trouble and he’ll come galloping over here like a knight in shining armor instead of torn jeans and checked flannel shirt. And what do you reckon the guard dogs will do to him? Lick his face and play ball? I don’t think so.”

She was right. Cujo1 and Cujo2 would turn Ben into chopped liver and then spit out the bones. We needed plan B. I rammed my mobile into my pocket and tore at a hang nail with my teeth. “If we had some juicy lamb chops we could toss them through one of the back windows and escape while the dogs were eating.”