Bending the Paw

by Diane Kelly

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I SMELL BULLSHIT

  Brigit

  Usually when people showed their teeth, it meant they were happy. Brigit had been smart enough to figure that out over the years. But the guy at that house earlier had shown his teeth even though he wasn’t happy. Brigit could smell the adrenaline on him. He was nervous for some reason. Megan didn’t seem to notice the scent, though. Poor humans and their inferior senses. If only they could smell better, they could determine who was a threat and who wasn’t just by their odor.

  The guy she’d tackled at the school had been a threat, too. He had given off all kinds of smells. So had the other guy who’d been with him. At least Megan had realized they were bad guys and taken them away from the children. Megan had fed her a liver treat after, but the scratches and belly rubs from those kids had been an even better reward. She wondered if maybe someday Megan would get a kid for Brigit to cuddle and play with. It sure would be fun.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  EARLY TO RISE

  The Slasher

  This place might as well be called Hotel Hell. He’d spent the better part of yesterday fighting a fever and nausea. Law enforcement might not have caught up with him, but the influenza virus had. What’s more, a family had checked into the room next door to him at midnight and had banged around for a full hour before finally settling down. He’d just fallen asleep again when their baby woke at two o’clock and screamed for three straight minutes at the top of its lungs. The infant performed an encore performance at five o’clock. He’d barely closed his eyes again when his alarm went off at five forty-five, just in time for him to dress and be the first guest down to breakfast.

  He relieved himself, splashed some water on his face, and slid into his jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. After more than a week in these same clothes, they could use a wash, but he had nothing else to wear while he ran a load of laundry. At least he’d been able to wash his underwear in the bathroom sink and let them dry while he slept commando. There was a Dollar General store only a mile from the hotel. Maybe he’d walk there and grab a few things, some clean socks and underwear, a shirt or two. He was tired of feeling trapped in this place. He could use some fresh air and sunshine, too.

  He took the stairs down to breakfast again, surprised to find two other early risers already digging into the spread. Neither of them paid him much mind, more interested in filling their plates. He followed suit, loading a plate with scrambled eggs and toast and two raspberry Danish. Thank goodness that bug he’d suffered yesterday had passed quickly. His appetite was back.

  As he returned to his room, he wondered how his partner in crime was faring. He’d waited to reach out, not wanting to do anything that might lead the police to him. But the police investigation didn’t seem to be leading anywhere, as far as he could tell. Soon, it should be safe to make a connection.

  TWENTY-SIX

  CASHING OUT

  Megan

  Frankie wandered into the kitchen Wednesday morning to find me sitting at the table with my laptop in front of me and a mug of steaming coffee in my hand. “What are you working on?”

  “That murder case,” I said. “I’m beginning to wonder if it’s really a murder case, or at least I’m wondering if that’s what it started out to be.”

  Her face screwed. “Sounds complicated. Let me get some coffee before you blow my mind.” She reached for the pot, poured herself a cup, and plopped into the chair across from me. She slugged back a hot mouthful, leaned forward intently, and said, “Okay. I’m ready now. What the heck are you talking about?”

  “I’m wondering if Greg Olsen might have meant to fake his death, but then went too far and accidentally got killed in the process.”

  “Why would a person fake their own death?”

  I offered her the same reasons I’d heard. Bad marriage. Financial problems. Other relationships or commitments he might want to get out of. Evading outstanding arrest warrants.

  She held her mug to her lips and blew on the hot brew. “Is there evidence to support any of those motives?”

  “No,” I said. “That’s where the theory falls apart. By all accounts, his marriage was good. He and his wife were exceptionally close. He has no criminal record, and he seemed to like his job. He’s been with Take Two Theaters for years. Detective Jackson ran credit reports for both Greg and his wife, and they’ve both got stellar scores. They recently sold their house in Oklahoma for a profit. There’s plenty of money in their checking account.” I turned my screen to show Frankie the balance in the Olsens’ account before turning it back my way. “Still, something just doesn’t feel right to me. Greg is really into movies, and something about this whole thing feels scripted.” What’s more, I didn’t like being unwittingly cast in the role of bumbling cop.

  “I suppose any premeditated crime is scripted, in a sense,” she said. “But you’ve got good instincts. Detective Jackson and Detective Bustamente are always telling you that.”

  “Even so, I need something concrete before I can take this theory to Jackson or she’ll think I’m nuts. I don’t want to lose credibility with her.” I eyed the checking account data again. “Their account shows several transactions on Greg’s debit card for just over one-hundred dollars in the past few months. There’s a bunch for just over eighty dollars and just over sixty dollars, too. It’s odd, isn’t it?”

  “What kind of transactions?”

  “Purchases at grocery stores. Dollar stores. Target. Walmart.”

  “Maybe he was getting cash back,” Frankie said. She mentioned that when she’d worked as a night stocker at the Kroger grocery store before joining the fire department, she’d help out on the cash registers when the lines grew long or a cashier needed to take a break. “Customers would sometimes get cash back on their debit cards when they bought groceries. It saves them a separate trip to an ATM.”

  “So Greg might have been using these stores like a clandestine bank, withdrawing cash from his account along with small purchases.” My body began to buzz. “You may be on to something, Frankie.”

  “Do you have his debit card number?”

  “No, but his card’s in the evidence locker at the station.” I stood, circled the table, and gave my roommate a hug. “What would I do without you?”

  “I feel the same way about you.” She looked up at me, her blue eyes misty. “I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.”

  Tears pricked at my eyes, too, and I fanned my hands in front of them in a vain attempt to dry them. “Just because we won’t be living together anymore doesn’t mean we’ll be out of each other’s lives. We’ll still have our girls’ nights, and you know I’ll make every Whoop Ass game I can.”

  Zoe sauntered sassily into the kitchen, took one look at my fuzzy slippers, and pounced, her claws digging into my right foot as she rabbit-kicked my footwear. “Ouch!” I lifted my foot, cat and all, and glared down at the ferocious feline. “I’m not going to miss you one bit, Zoe.”

  “Sure you will,” Frankie said as she extracted her cat from my flesh. “You love her almost as much as I do.”

  I reached out and ruffled the calico’s ears. “Dammit, you’re right.”

  * * *

  Once again I arrived at the station early for my shift. I went to the evidence locker and asked to see Greg Olsen’s wallet. “I don’t need to check the evidence out,” I told the clerk. “I just need to get his debit card number.”

  The woman consulted her computer to determine where the evidence was stashed and went to the appropriately numbered locker. She removed the plastic bag that contained the wallet and brought it to me. I opened the wallet, slid the debit card out of the slot, and set it on the counter so I could snap a photo with my phone. I returned the card to the wallet and thanked the clerk.

  As Brigit and I patrolled our beat, I turned into one of the grocery store parking lots and led Brigit inside to the customer service booth. “I need some information about purchases made with a particular debit card.
Is that something you can help me with?”

  The attendant said, “I’ll need to get the manager’s okay first.”

  “No problem.”

  She picked up her phone and punched in two digits. “There’s a police officer here who wants some information.” She paused for a beat. “I’ll tell her.” She hung up the phone and turned her attention back to me. “He’ll be right down.”

  Shortly thereafter, a door opened at the back of the booth and a fiftyish man with salt-and-pepper hair and a thick seventies-style mustache emerged. He stepped over to the counter. “Hello, officer. What can I help you with?”

  I told him the reason for my visit. “I need information about transactions on a certain debit card made here in the store.”

  “No problem.” He waved me over to a computerized cash register at the end of the counter that wasn’t in use. After logging into the system, he asked, “Got the card number for me?”

  No sense tipping my hand and risking information getting out, especially when I might be totally off base with my theory. Rather than show him the photo of the debit card, which revealed Greg Olsen’s name printed across the bottom, I called the number out instead.

  The man typed the number in as I read it off, repeating each set of four digits out loud to ensure we were in sync. When he was done, he hit ENTER and consulted the screen. “There’ve been twenty-two transactions on that card here in the store. The first was back in November and the last one was a little over a week ago. Would you like me to print copies of the receipts?”

  “That would be great.”

  As the paper tape churned out of the top of the machine, he cut a curious look my way. “Stolen card? Fraud?”

  “Something like that,” I said.

  He frowned. “I wish people would keep their PIN numbers secure. Grocery margins are small to being with, and we lose quite a bit of income to debit and credit card fraud.”

  “I feel your pain. Stolen cards take up a lot of the department’s time, too.”

  When the tape finally stopped printing, it was nearly as long as I was tall. The man tore it from the machine and folded it over neatly, securing it with a paper clip. I thanked him and headed for the door, but Brigit had other ideas. She tugged on her lead and tossed her head, telling me she wanted to make a trip to the pet care aisle. I was dying to review the tape, but when she batted her big brown eyes at me, how could I tell her no?

  “All right, girl. You win.”

  Brigit wagged her tail and let her nose lead us to the shelves of toys and treats. She sniffed the bags and boxes until deciding that a box of peanut-butter-flavored canine cookies smelled good. She put her paw on the box and looked up at me, batting her big brown eyes again. That darn dog has me wrapped around her paw.

  I grabbed the box and tucked it under my arm. “Anything else, you spoiled mutt?”

  She looked around, sniffed at the toys hanging from the pegs, and nudged a bone-shaped chew toy. I pulled it off the peg and we made our way to the self-checkout, where I rang up the toys and paid for them.

  Back at the cruiser, I loaded Brigit into her enclosure. She wagged her tail and watched intently as I removed the chew toy from its packaging. I held it out and she grabbed it in her teeth, circling twice before plopping down on her cushion. I stashed the box of dog cookies in the front floorboard, removed the paperclip from the register tape, and reviewed the receipts. Sure enough, nearly all of the transactions on Greg Olsen’s card involved a small purchase along with a cash back. A single bag of ground coffee. A loaf of whole wheat bread. A box of the same peanut-butter dog cookies Brigit had just chosen. Armed with this new, potentially incriminating information and a renewed sense of hope that we might actually make some progress in the case, I set off again.

  In between dealing with traffic matters and a vandalism report involving garden gnomes posed in compromising and scandalous positions, I stopped at the various stores where Greg Olsen had used his debit card. While he sometimes used the card to buy a variety of groceries or other items, in the vast majority of the cases he purchased one or two items and received cash back in the amount of sixty, eighty, or a hundred dollars. There was nothing unusual about someone carrying around some cash for small purchases or incidentals, but it was rare for someone to carry large amounts of cash these days. Not only was it unnecessary with plastic being accepted almost everywhere, it was also risky. Wallets could be lost or stolen. While a credit or debit card could be deactivated and replaced, cash money couldn’t. It was clear that Greg Olsen had been stockpiling cash. But what had Greg Olsen done with that cash? Had he spent it? If so, what had he spent it on?

  Playing devil’s advocate with myself, I racked my brain for a reasonable explanation. Restaurants were notorious hotbeds for theft of debit and credit card numbers. After all, the servers generally carried the card away to process it, giving them an opportunity to snap cell phone pics of the front and back of the card, including the three-digit security code and the card-holder’s signature. Maybe the Olsens had heard that restaurants were risky places to use a card, and had used the cash at restaurants.

  To determine whether this might be the case, I logged back into the Olsens’ bank account. Nope. Their transaction history showed that they’d eaten out plenty and used their debit cards to pay for their meals. The account showed at least one restaurant charge each weekend, sometimes two. The couple seemed to gravitate toward upscale restaurants serving Asian or European cuisine. Charges appeared at several sushi and hibachi restaurants, as well as Thai, French, and German eateries across the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex.

  What about gas? Gas pumps were notorious places for unscrupulous card counterfeiters to install “skimmers” that read and stole card numbers. But no, that wasn’t the case here, either. The Olsens had used their debit cards rather than cash to pay for gas, as evidenced by regular charges at a Texaco station near their home.

  Could they have used the cash for parking? Again, nope. The bank records showed a repeated charge in the same amount for monthly contract parking at the building where Shelby worked. Greg parked for free in the theater’s lot.

  The only other ideas I could come up with involved some type of illegal activity, such as drugs or gambling, but neither seemed plausible in this case. Greg held a steady job, and there’d been no illegal drugs found in his car or the Olsens’ home. None of his phone records showed calls to or from a known drug dealer or bookie. Then again, he could have used a burner phone to make those calls, a burner phone with a ringtone that played “Popcorn.” Maybe Duke Knapczyk had been right, after all.

  If Greg had withdrawn a large amount of cash directly from their account to pay a drug dealer or a bookie, Shelby would likely have noticed. But she was far less likely to discern that he might have taken cash back with his purchases to finance a drug or gambling habit. During the interview at her home on Valentine’s Day, she’d said that neither she nor her husband used drugs or gambled. But my police work had taught me that people often didn’t know their family members or friends nearly as well as they thought they did, or had blind spots or were in active denial about their loved one’s shady activities.

  But ugh. I realized that my thought process had taken me in a circle. I’d started out thinking Greg might have stockpiled cash to make his own escape, but then come around to thinking he might have been offed by a drug dealer or bookie he owed money to. Of course, he could have attempted to fake his death to get out of a debt owed to the dealer or bookie. But if that was the case, then who were the two people who helped him make the attempt that had evidently gone awry? He appeared to have no friends in the city. Might he have rounded up some unsavory types at a sleazy bar? My mind spun, unsure which theory to land on.

  I drove to the station when my dinner break started at 5:00, and was lucky enough to catch Detective Jackson on her way out. I tooted my horn to get her attention, lowered my window, and raised a hand to stop her.

  “Uh-oh,” she said as I pulle
d to the curb in front of the station. “You’ve got that I-might-be-on-to-something look in your eyes.”

  “Only I’m not sure what it is I might be on to.” I handed her the stack of receipts I’d collected and told her my theories.

  She quickly perused the receipts and raised a brow before turning back to me. “I hate to burst your bubble, and I admire both your imagination and the thought you’ve put into this case, but I’m not on board with your ‘faked death gone wrong’ theory. It’s too Hollywood. Greg Olsen has never been arrested, his credit score is good, and I confirmed what Shelby told us—that they had no outstanding loans.” She held up the receipt. “But you did good getting these receipts, Megan. These prove Greg was either hoarding cash for some reason or spending the cash on something or someone his wife didn’t know about.”

  “A mistress, you mean?”

  “Exactly. Or drugs or gambling, like you guessed.”

  I posed another possibility to the detective. “You think Greg could have been spending the cash at stripper bars?” A guy could run through funds fairly fast at those places, especially if he were inclined toward lap dances. What’s more, topless bars tended to attract a somewhat seedy clientele. If Greg had flashed some cash at a pole dancer or tucked a nice tip into a dancer’s G-string, another man in the audience might have noticed and followed Greg home. Maybe one of the dancers worked in cahoots with two men, targeting customers who seemed to carry an excessive amount of cash. With Greg’s irregular work schedule and overtime, he could have easily convinced Shelby he was working late when he’d actually been going to strip clubs.