Rottweiler Rescue (22 page)

“This won’t take as long as you think,” he said. “There’s no long line like in the city hospitals. Back at the vet’s you were about to tell me what you found out about those dog people that gives any of them a motive to kill Sheffield. By the time you tell me all about it, the doctor will be ready to see you, then I’ll take you home. I said I would.”

“You said you would take me
straight
home.”

“So we’ll call it even for the way you hid the dog the day Sheffield was killed. Come on, we had a deal.”

Oh, well, talking would keep me awake, and if I fell asleep in the chair I
would
need surgery soon. I finished the forms, handed them in, and began telling the lieutenant what I’d found out about Jack Sheffield.

He listened intently, asking only a few questions as I told him about the people I’d seen and what Susan had told me about their dog-show-centric world. When I was finished he asked me who else I planned to talk to.

“I’d like to talk to Jack’s assistant, but she’s moved and so far no one seems to have her new address or phone number. And then there’s the people who own the kennel Jack moved his dogs to after the blow up with Standers over Maida, and there’s a woman named MaryAnn Balma who testified in the lawsuit that Jack was at her house the night Maida was hit by the car.”

A woman in scrubs walked into the room looking as if she was ready for another customer. I stopped talking until she settled on a young couple on the other side of the room.

Glancing at the lieutenant, I finished telling him about MaryAnn Balma. “So she committed perjury for Jack, and I’d like to know why. What could he have had on her? He showed her dogs for her, but she’s not a competitor like Feltzer. She raises a litter every year or two, keeps a puppy for herself, and has — had — Jack show it to its championship. That’s all, and she never really turned her dogs over to Jack. Her dogs live at home. She’d bring a dog to a show and give the leash to Jack right there by the ring. After the show, her dog would go home with her that day, win or lose.”

“You know that for a fact?” he asked.

“I know it from Susan, and she’s very much one of those people. Even when she doesn’t have a dog of her own to show, she often goes to shows just to watch. There are always dogs there related to her own.”

“Who shows Susan’s dogs?” asked the lieutenant.

“She shows her own. She liked Jack, maybe more than anyone else I’ve talked to, and maybe that’s why. He never handled a dog for her and never would have, so there was no reason for him to try to get information to use against her. He’d never have been able to psyche her out the way he did some of the newer owner-handlers. Susan was probably already showing her own dogs when Jack was in kindergarten.”

The lieutenant shook his head. “The fact he was putting that kind of pressure on people means we’d better look at some of them again, but you haven’t really come up with anyone he was a real threat to at the time of his death. We already looked hard at Warmstead. Among other things, they owned a lot of property jointly, including the house, and now Warmstead owns it all. But unless he hired someone, he’s out of it, and we can’t find any evidence that this was a hired killing. In fact, the way it was done mitigates against a professional.”

“You mean a professional killer doesn’t use a knife?” I asked.

“Not usually,” he said. “And the way Sheffield was torn up, it looked personal — a lot of rage there. A gun is surer, easier, and a lot less messy. If this isn’t personal I’ll be surprised.”

That left Joyce Richerson out. She would have had to hire a professional. Unless, of course, she asked her husband to kill Jack for her. Were there marriages where one morning as the wife buttered her toast, she said, “Oh, by the way, dear, there’s someone I’d like you to kill for me. Would you mind?”

And what exactly could Jack Sheffield or anyone else try to use for leverage on a woman like Joyce Richerson, who not only didn’t care what anyone thought of her marriage to a man young enough to be her son, or even with a bit of precocity, her grandson, but took pleasure from the stunned reaction of people like me? That thought boggled my mind.

As the lieutenant and I sat there, trying to make motive mountains out of motive molehills, the woman in scrubs returned, and this time she was looking for me.

I forced my board-like muscles to move once again. The knowledge that Lieutenant Forrester was watching enabled me to get to my feet without groaning, but no force of will would let me walk away for the mandatory poking and prodding without a limp.

When the doctors were finally done with me, I limped back out to the waiting area, where Lieutenant Forrester sat reading what was now yesterday’s newspaper. When he looked up, I didn’t wait for him to gloat.

“Not a word. Not one damn word, or you’ll be arresting me for assault right here, and you’ll be the assaultee.”

His lips twitched, but he controlled the rest of his face. “Broken collarbone?”

“Those of us in the know refer to it as the clavicle,” I said sarcastically. “The radiologist claims he sees a crack on the x-rays. It hardly feels worse than any of the rest of me, and since you’re still here, will you
please
keep your word now and take me home?”

The lieutenant escorted me back to the car. The night was chilly, clear, and quiet, and our footsteps echoed as we walked across the pavement.

Stretched out flat on the back seat, Robo barely raised his head when I got in the car. As the lieutenant shut the door after me and walked around to the driver’s side, I sympathized with Robo.

“You look like you feel about the way I do right now, boyo. We’ll be home soon if our driver doesn’t have any more surprises planned.”

The doctor’s examination had turned my dull aches and stiffness into fierce pain, and what was going on in my right arm and shoulder was now close to unbearable. The bright blue vinyl sling seemed to be making things worse not better. I couldn’t wait to get home and take the wretched thing off. Not only was the pain worse, I felt far too vulnerable.

“Did they give you anything for pain?” the lieutenant asked.

“A prescription,” I said. “Don’t even think about stopping somewhere to fill it — I’m not taking anything that might drug me. There’s Advil at home.”

He didn’t argue. When he pulled into my driveway, he shut off the engine. “I’m going to help you inside, and then I’m going to look through the house and look around outside. You can call me names, you can call the sheriff’s office and complain, but that’s what I’m going to do.”

Perceptive as he was, he must know how relieved I was not to have to go into the house alone. “Thank you,” I whispered, avoiding looking at him.

Millie was so hysterically glad to see me and get out of her crate, I thought she wouldn’t make it out to the yard without her bladder giving way after all her long hours of waiting, but make it she did.

Robo followed her without any noticeable stiffness, but when I fed the dogs, for the first time since I’d had him, he didn’t finish his food. I felt him over gently. None of the swelling Dr. Hunsaker had pointed out seemed worse. His gums didn’t look pale, but would I be able to detect that in the artificial light of the kitchen?

The lieutenant had finished looking through the house while I was feeding the dogs and Bella, then gone outside to check the yard. As he came back in, he said, “Everything looks okay. I checked all the locks, so if you lock up behind me now, you don’t have to check again. Promise me you’ll get a few hours sleep and then move in with friends for a while.”

“I promise. And thank you for bringing me home and for checking. I was going to ask you to do that and wasn’t sure how after being such a pain about everything. I’m sorry.”

“You’re entitled. Most people would be raving or babbling after the kind of day you’ve had. And here, take this upstairs with you when you go to bed.” He laid my pistol on the kitchen table.

“I thought you confiscated that,” I said.

“Why would I do that? It’s yours, and it’s legal for you to have it in your house, which is where it is. Good night, Ms. Brennan.”

“Good night, lieutenant.” I followed him to the front door and locked it behind him.

The couch in the living room beckoned. Crashing there would be so easy. What drove me up the stairs was the bottle of Advil in the medicine cabinet and the thought of standing under the hot shower, not just to wash the blood and dirt off, but to massage my sore muscles.

Half an hour later I bundled myself in a terry cloth robe and reluctantly put the sling back on. Taking it off to shower had proved the doctor’s point beyond my stubborn desire to deny the need for it. Still miserable, and tired to the point of nausea, but feeling a little better for being clean, I remembered the gun sitting on the kitchen table. I didn’t want to go down the stairs for it, much less struggle back up. Maybe I’d just go down and sleep on the couch after all.

In the kitchen I picked up the gun and started for the couch when the sound of an engine coughing to life in the driveway made my heart jump. Clutching the gun, I limped to the front window as fast possible and peered out.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I made out the distinctive shape of Lieutenant Forrester’s SUV. Why was he still there? Why had he been sitting there with the engine off? And why was he there now with the engine running? The answer I came up with made me unlock the door, yank it open, march out to the car, and rap on the window.

When the window was down enough that I could see his face, I said, “How long are you planning on sitting out here, polluting the air so that you can run the heater?”

He turned the car off. “If the noise is too loud in the house, I won’t start it again. It’s not that cold.”

That wasn’t my point at all, and he knew it. “I suppose you think this is serving and protecting.”

“Yes, Ms. Brennan, it is.”

“How much protection are you going to be if he breaks in the back of the house?”

“I figure the dogs will bark, or I’ll hear you shoot him.”

“Well, if you want to protect me, I think you ought to do it right and come inside. You can sleep on the couch.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea.”

“Why? Are you married?” He wore no ring, not that I’d noticed.

“My wife died five years ago.”

“I’m sorry.” After a pause to consider my words, I went on. “In that case, there’s no reason for you to sit out here. Come inside, it’s warm, and you can protect better.”

“No, ma’am. The department wouldn’t approve any more than a wife. I’m all right here, and I have faith you and the dogs can hold him off long enough for me to get in the house.”

“You can tell the department you were interviewing me. I’ll leave the kitchen light on if it will help.”

“Are you asking me to lie to the Sheriff?”

“You don’t seem to be a stranger to the practice of deceit.”

“Touché,” he said, smiling slightly, “but I’ll stay here.”

“Fine,” I said. As I turned away, he turned the engine over long enough to raise the window, then turned it off again immediately. But I didn’t go back to the house. I walked around the front of the car, opened the passenger’s door, and eased myself into the seat. “I’ll just stay here with you. Start it up again and turn the heater on high, please.”

He didn’t reach for the key. We sat in silence for a moment or two. “Scared?” he said.

“Yes!”

“All right.” He sighed in resignation. “The couch.”

“Thank you.” I knew my voice trembled with relief, but I didn’t care.

He protested when I pulled the couch out into a bed, but Millie was delighted. She hopped right up and curled up in a small ball in a corner.

“I’ll take her upstairs with me.”

“Leave her. At least she’s not a bed hog.”

I didn’t tell him that Millie’s technique was to start in a humble curl and slowly stretch until most of the bed was hers.

When I woke much later
that day, bright sunlight streaming through the bedroom windows told me the morning was half gone. Bella was a small, comforting warmth at my left side; pretty much every other part of me hurt. I lay there, quietly assessing the damage, unwilling to move and intensify every pain. Then I thought of my overnight guest and of Sophie, gave the cat a warning pat, forced myself up, and headed for the bathroom and more pills.

Halfway down the stairs breakfast scents of coffee, eggs, and toast reminded me how long it had been since I’d eaten. Lieutenant Forrester was sitting at the kitchen table with the morning paper spread out in front of him. He looked slightly more rumpled than usual but still far too neat for someone who’d slept on a pull-out couch bed. At least beard shadow spoiled any look of regulation orderliness.

Millie sat on one side of him, a ladylike puddle of drool at her feet. Robo sat on his other side, not too close, but close enough not to miss out if the lieutenant felt like sharing.

“Good morning.” In my own ears, my voice sounded ordinary, giving away nothing of the tremendous relief the sight of him brought.

“Good morning.” He gave me an assessing look.

To avoid his gaze and any questions about how I felt, I picked up my purse and started digging through it. “Didn’t Dr. Hunsaker give me a card with his number on it last night?”

“Here.” The card he held out was one of his own with a number scrawled on the back. “I called about eight, and they said she’s stable. Sit down and have a cup of coffee, why don’t you, and then you can call and get details while I fix you some breakfast.”

“I need to feed the dogs — if they’re not full of toast.”

“I gave them some of the kibble you fed them last night a while ago,” he said, ignoring the subject of toast.

“Did Robo eat his? What about the supplements Dr. Hunsaker gave him?”

“I mixed the powder in his food, and he ate it and licked the dish. He motored around the yard pretty well too. How about you?”

“I’ll be okay as soon as the Advil kicks in.”

Bella was the only one who hadn’t sold out. She wound around my legs while I spooned Fancy Feast into her dish.