Vengeance Is Mine (An Owen Day Thriller)

by Rachel Ford

  Then things changed. The dog got involved. It was a squat thing with reddish fur and big ears, maybe fifty pounds. Maybe a little more, since it looked heavier than it should have been. It went for Owen’s ankles, chomping and snapping and snarling bloody murder.

  It didn’t break skin, but it did latch onto his heel. And it held on and pulled.

  Owen faltered. Ted and the red-haired guy started gaining ground. The dog went on pulling at his leg, not hard enough to pull him off his feet, but hard enough to stop him from getting around.

  Owen tugged at the shoe. The other guys got closer. He had three, maybe four, seconds before they reached him.

  He thought fast and reached a decision. This wasn’t something he’d planned on, obviously. But here he was anyway. So he pivoted his foot and slipped it out of the shoe. The dog held on fast and went skittering backward as he found itself faced with no resistance.

  Owen spun after it – the dog and his shoe. He ignored the biting cold as his foot, clad only in a sock, stepped in the snow. He grabbed the little beast by the scruff of the neck and the shoulders, and hoisted it off its feet. Now, it dropped the shoe and tried to spin around.

  He expected to have to hurl the dog at one of his attackers. They’d provide a soft landing for the little monster and buy him a few seconds. Maybe long enough to convince Tanney to get in the damned vehicle.

  But the entire tenor of the fight changed in an instant. The whole party turned to Ted. And Ted’s eyes were nearly bulging out of his head. Fear – real fear – crossed his face.

  So Owen held onto the dog – at arm’s length, while it squirmed and snarled and twisted in the night air. “Back up,” he said. “Don’t make me do anything you’ll regret.”

  “You goddamned monster,” Ted said. “Put him down.”

  “Get back in your trucks,” Owen said. “And I’ll let him go.”

  “You hurt a hair on his head, I’ll cut your balls off,” Ted said.

  Owen took a step forward, the writhing mass of fur and teeth going before him. “I said back the hell up.”

  They did, in unison, all taking a single step backward.

  “That’s it. Keep going. Back to your trucks.”

  “I’ll kill you.”

  “I said back.”

  “You’re a dead man. You hear me, Day? You’re a dead man.”

  Owen took another step forward, on his now freezing foot. “To your truck.”

  They all seemed to move. Ted took a small step, but a step anyway.

  “Go on,” he said. He could hear Tanney shuffling up behind him. “Get in your damned trucks.”

  The dog writhed and snarled. They all moved again, but not in unison this time. Three men moved backward: Ted and the two reluctant guys. But a blur of motion to his left drew toward him: the guy with the red hair.

  Ted started to scream, “Dammit, Dave, no. He’s got Moses.”

  At the same time, something darted out from behind Owen. It intercepted the guy with the red hair about a stride away.

  Owen was still pivoting, still holding onto the dog, when he saw what it was: Tanney. The old guy’s fist was balled up, with blood on his knuckles.

  The guy with the red hair – Dave – took a step backward. He looked confused, maybe even stunned. Blood trickled from his nose. He was staring at Tanney.

  “You want another, you fat fuck?” the old guy asked. “Then back up.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Sheriff Halverson got the call just after five-twenty in the evening. There was a bar fight at Tiny’s Tavern in town. The owner’s wife called it in, and she’d mentioned a familiar name: Ted Walters.

  He’d been just outside of town when it came in. He flicked on his lights and siren, and blitzed through the country roads. He slowed as he got into town, but it wasn’t a terribly big town. He reached the tavern a minute before five-thirty.

  Halverson was almost looking forward to this. Not that he could have admitted that out loud. Not as sheriff. But Ted had been a major thorn in his side these last days, more than usual. A few days in lockup would get him out of his hair, maybe even convince him to watch his p’s and q’s.

  Of course, it was Ted he was talking about. If anything, that’d probably get him more riled up. But getting him out of the middle of his investigation would help the investigation, anyway. Even if Halverson personally spent the rest of his life paying for it.

  And it wasn’t the first time this had happened. Ted was drawn to trouble, or trouble was drawn to Ted. He didn’t know which, and it didn’t really matter. The effect was all the same.

  He blitzed into the parking lot, siren and lights still on. He saw six guys. They all turned to him.

  Four of them were the usual suspects: Theodore Walters and a few of his hairbrained friends. Dave Rasmussen was bleeding from his nose. Dennis Nowak and Kevin Schultz looked like a pair of deer caught in the headlights.

  The other two guys he recognized, but with surprise.

  One was the old guy who had been in the accident – Bill, or Bob, or whatever his name was, Tanney. The other was Owen Day.

  And the latter had only one shoe on, and was holding a dog out in front of him like some kind of sacrifice to the old gods. Ted’s dog, Moses.

  Halverson hadn’t a clue in hell what he’d just stumbled into. He turned off the siren, turned on his spotlight, and stepped out of the cruiser. “Right,” he called, “put your hands up, all of you.”

  Dennis and Kevin complied. So did Bill or Bob or whatever his name was. Dave stared blankly, blinking into the spotlight. Ted yelled something about the dog. So did Day.

  “Nowak, Schultz, go sit in your trucks. Do not think about driving off, unless you want me to send deputies to your houses.

  “Dave, you too.” Dave blinked, then nodded and started to move. The other two went with him.

  “He’s got Moses,” Ted yelled.

  “The dog’s going to bite me,” Day said.

  Which looked like it was true. The dog was snarling and squirming and trying to twist back around to bite its captor.

  Halverson threw a glance around, and then decided, “Bring it to my car. Put it in the squad. Slowly, Day. Then I want to see your hands.”

  Ted started to holler that Day shouldn’t be allowed to touch his dog. Day moved for the car, half limping on his shoeless foot.

  What in God’s name… the sheriff wondered. Out loud, he said, “Ted, don’t move. You just get your hands up where I can see ‘em. Now. I’m not asking.”

  Ted didn’t put his hands up, but he did stay put, hollering the entire time. Day reached the car. The dog went on snarling.

  Halverson beckoned him to put the little menace in the front seat. Day complied, dropping the dog and jumping back quick enough for Halverson to shut the door.

  The immediate crisis averted, Halverson spun to face the men. “Alright, now what in God’s name is going on?”

  He got two distinct stories. Three, really, as Ted’s telling varied a little from his friends’, focusing mainly on the peril faced by his snarling furball.

  Day and Tanney claimed they’d walked out of Tiny’s after a peaceful meal, and been surrounded by a group of five. The other guys didn’t so much as deny this as focus on why it was all justified. Day had killed their friend. He had it coming, and so on.

  This was where Ted Walters differed from his friends. “That psychopath was trying to kill my dog. I want him arrested, sheriff. I want to press charges, you hear me? I want him behind bars.”

  The dog added another layer of complexity. Day and Tanney swore up and down that the dog had come out of nowhere and attacked them. Day’s missing shoe seemed to bear that out: its back was half torn off.

  The other guys insisted Day had attacked Moses without provocation. Ted was the most vocal, but with his prodding the other three backed him up.

  “Moses didn’t do a damned thing. Did he, Kevin?”

  The other man shifted and didn’t answer right away.<
br />
  “Didn’t he, Dennis?”

  “Sure did. I saw the whole thing myself.”

  “Yeah, me too,” Kevin added.

  It was bullshit. He could see that from a mile away. Still, it meant problems. He had witness statements that differed completely. So he separated the men, and put a little pressure on them. “You’re sure of that? If I go ask Marcene for the parking lot footage, I’m not going to see anything different?”

  Marcene didn’t have parking lot footage, but these guys didn’t seem to know that. Kevin blanched and threw a nervous glance around. He decided he couldn’t remember after all. He thought that’s what had happened, but maybe he got it wrong.

  Dennis laughed nervously when it was his turn. “You know, maybe I got that backwards.”

  “‘Maybe’?”

  “Actually, now that I think about it, I did. Only – don’t tell Ted I told you so, okay? He’ll kill me.”

  Dave just shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. That doesn’t give them the right to attack me, does it?”

  Which was another problem. Dave’s nose was probably broken. He was bleeding and looked a little hazy. He needed to get to a doctor for proper treatment. He laughed when the sheriff said that, though, then winced at the pain. “Like hell. I just need a good night’s sleep.”

  Sleep didn’t mend broken bones, which Halverson pointed out. Dave wasn’t interested. “I just want justice. That guy attacked me.”

  Halverson nodded. “Okay. I’ll arrest Day. But then you have to –”

  “Not Day. The old bastard. I mean, arrest Day too. He killed Rick. But it was that old guy who hit me.”

  Halverson stared at him, at his broken nose and bleeding face. “Hold on, Tanney hit you?”

  “I don’t know his name. But the old guy with Day. His accomplice.”

  Halverson told him to hold that thought and sought out Tanney next. It was one thing to arrest Day. He didn’t figure the young guy was in the wrong. But his rationale was the same as for Ted: a little while in lockup would get him out of his hair, and out of the case.

  He might even – subtly – be able to leverage the threat of prosecution, should Day come back around Yellow River Falls. Not a threat, exactly. Technically.

  But a threat all the same.

  The old guy, though? He had no beef with Tanney. So he headed over to the old man, and listened to his story.

  Tanney told it with too much excitement, maybe, but it seemed true at least. He admitted to hitting Dave Rasmussen. He almost boasted about it. “He was coming up on Owen from behind, while Owen was trying to figure out what to do with that little dog.”

  “Moses?”

  “Is that what it’s called? Anyway, he was coming in with his fist raised. Owen didn’t see him. So I clocked him. The fat guy, I mean, not Owen. That’s self-defense, isn’t it?”

  It was, at least if that was the truth. And despite his feeling that it was, he did his due diligence. He checked with the rest of the party.

  Owen Day told the same story. He only noticed Dave’s approach because Tanney intervened. The old guy had saved him from a beatdown.

  The other guys told slightly different stories. They were embarrassed for their friend, mostly. Kevin couldn’t remember who hit who. “Might have been Day. I didn’t see it, really. You’d have to ask Dave.”

  Dennis shrugged and studied his boots. “Don’t know. Guess I wasn’t paying attention. Might have been the old guy. He moves faster than he looks like he could, you know? He said something about being in the military. Marine. I guess that explains it, right?”

  Ted wasn’t interested at all. He waved the mention of his friend’s injuries away. “Dave’s a big boy. He can handle a bloody nose. But what about Moses? Are you going to take care of this, Halverson?”

  Halverson circled back around to Dave. He asked him point blank if he’d been trying to hit Day when he’d taken a hit himself. First, he denied it outright. Then, he got defensive. Maybe he had, but someone had to, right? “If you ain’t going to arrest Rick’s killer, we can’t just let him walk around bragging about doing the deed, can we? I heard him, Sheriff. I heard him with my own damned ears, bragging about it.”

  Halverson stuck with it, and finally got him to admit that he’d instigated the problem. So far, the story all lined up. All except Ted, who was focused on the animal. He could deal with that later.

  So now he got the story of what, exactly, Dave had heard. It wasn’t much, and it wasn’t precise. He retold it five times for Halverson, and each time the wording varied. But the gist of it was that Owen Day had declared no one would ever find the bullet used to kill Rick Wynder.

  Maybe he’d added, “I made sure of that.” Maybe he’d said, “you can bet on that.” Maybe he’d said, “after I done him.” It depended on which telling. Which, as much as Halverson would have liked it to be true, indicated it wasn’t.

  Not that he was surprised by that. But it would have made an easy solution to his case. Too easy.

  Still, he questioned Tanney and Day about it separately. At first, they professed no knowledge of the conversation.

  Tanney laughed when he figured it out. “He was talking about the case, alright. He’s hardly talked about anything else. He’s got a theory, Sheriff, that this was some serial killer. He wasn’t saying it was him who did it, though.”

  Day declared Dave to be a liar, outright.

  “So you never mentioned the bullet, or the killing of Rick Wynder?”

  “Well no, of course I did.”

  “No you didn’t, or yes you did?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then Dave isn’t lying.”

  “He’s lying. I didn’t say anything about shooting the guy. I was talking about whoever did kill him.” He was only too happy to elucidate on that, too. He started going on about the interstate, and a bunch of hunting accidents that weren’t. He rattled off names: Annie Shaw and Mary Koehler, Richard Walker and Ray Danielson, and so on. “Look, Sheriff, I know you think I’m a crackpot.”

  “Correct.”

  “But I’m printing off the evidence. Will you at least look at it?”

  “If I do, will you go on back home, and not interfere in my investigation any further?”

  Owen nodded. “You got it.”

  “Fine. Then I’ll look at your evidence.”

  Which seemed to tie the whole business up. Owen didn’t want to press charges. Neither did Tanney. He said, “It’ll be a long time before those old bastards think of tangling with anyone again.”

  Halverson mentioned the prospect of charges for instigating a fight, and Dave Rasmussen reconsidered his position too. He decided he didn’t want to involve the cops. He decided Tanney probably hadn’t even meant to hit him, and if he did, it was no big deal. “It was just a misunderstanding, between friends. Friendly acquaintances.”

  Kevin and Dennis were only too eager to avoid anything official. It seemed the prospect of their wives finding out about their shenanigans scared them more than Halverson himself.

  Which left only Ted Walters. Ted was fit to be tied at the very prospect of dropping charges. It didn’t matter who had started what. Owen Day had attacked his Moses, and he meant to see justice done. Not even the threat of being arrested for his own role in the business dissuaded him. “Animal abuse is a felony, Sheriff. I demand you do your job.”

  Halverson considered for a long moment. “Okay,” he said at length. “Okay, Ted. I’ve got five people who say nothing happened and they want to go home now. But if you insist, I’ll arrest everyone.”

  “We didn’t do nothing.”

  “I’ll arrest everyone,” he said again.

  “Then do it, as long as you put that son of a bitch behind bars.”

  “Oh, I will. And you too. And it’s late, so I’ll refer you all for charges, but they won’t come in until morning. Which means you’ll all spend the night in jail.”

  “Won’t be the first time,” Ted said
defiantly.

  “Of course, that means there’ll be no one to take care of Moses. He’ll have to spend the night at the pound.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “In fact, since I’ve got two people saying he bit someone, we’ll have to quarantine him. Test him for rabies. And then, I guess it’ll be up to Day whether he lives or dies.”

  “Watch what you say, you son of a bitch.”

  Halverson raised his hands placatingly, palms outward. “It’s not me, Ted. That’s the law. A dog bites someone, it’s up to the someone to pursue it or not. If they pursue it, nine times out of ten the dog gets put down.

  “Best case scenario is he’s not allowed out of the house without a muzzle. And he’ll have to be on a leash or a chain at all times.” He glanced over at the cruiser. The snarling, angry beast of earlier had settled. Now Moses watched from the driver’s window, tongue lolling out, tail wagging. “You think Moses will like a muzzle?”

  “You son of a bitch,” Ted said again.

  “I don’t know. Might be more merciful just to put him down.” He shrugged. “But, your call, of course. So, shall we get on with it?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sheriff Halverson released them with a warning. They were to avoid Walters and his friends and stay out of trouble.

  Owen hadn’t been sure they would be released. For a while, Ted seemed determined to press charges even though he’d been the aggressor. But then he’d changed his mind.

  Owen didn’t know why, but the other man wasn’t happy about it. That was clear. He scowled at Owen and Tanney, and at Sheriff Halverson. He scowled at his friends too, and took Moses and squealed off into the night.

  Owen and Tanney were in the SUV, on their way back to the hotel. They’d both scored victories that night. He’d got the sheriff to agree to look at the evidence. But he didn’t really get a chance to talk about that. Tanney was too excited to get a word in edgewise.

  “Well, that was a hell of a thing, wasn’t it?”

  “Sure was.”

  “They’ll think twice before tangling with us.”

  “I guess.”