Foxes and Fatal Attraction: Mystery (Madigan Amos Zoo Mysteries Book 9)

by Ruby Loren

  “So, they set up the meeting, killed Harry, and then moved his car back to his office and returned the key to Herriot’s Houses to delay anyone suspecting that Harry was still at the house,” I said, talking through my theory. “Only, the killer didn’t expect the property to be shown so soon.”

  “Who would have known about the viewing?” Katya asked.

  “Potentially only Tristan Herriot. Tiff had spoken directly with him, and him alone.” I shot a sideways look at Katya. “He likes to be the sole point of contact for certain clients.” I knew she was getting the message loud and clear. “Even when that client is engaged,” I added.

  “Your friend is engaged? Are you having a double wedding?”

  I looked at Katya in unconcealed surprise for a full second. I knew that deep down, Katya cared about good principles like loyalty and friendship, but she’d never struck me as the kind of woman to go gooey over wedding talk.

  “No, Tiff’s actually getting married before me,” I confided. “They haven’t been engaged for long, but I think they really love each other.”

  “Oh,” Katya said, immediately looking suspicious. I was willing to bet she was guessing at the reason for the quick wedding, and though she’d be right, I knew that wasn’t the real reason they’d chosen to have it all happen so fast. Tiff had just made a decision and I thought, by some wonderful chance, the detective was the same sort of man. They were impulsive and quick to love, but I also thought they made a lovely couple.

  “You said that no one at the estate agents saw the key being returned?” Katya said, jumping straight back to the case.

  I nodded.

  “My guess would be that it was the receptionist - Josh - who returned the key. He claimed to have been over at Farley and Sons on the night of the murder to deliver papers, but I bet that’s not the whole truth. What if he was given the key by the killer in order to return it? He would have known who the killer was.”

  I bit my lip. “But why not go to the police? He knew what they were capable of!”

  Katya gave me a sad sort of smile. “Love. It’s the only explanation. Harry might have wanted a romp with his killer, but I think Josh must have been in love. He simply couldn’t believe that this person had committed such a terrible crime. Perhaps he didn’t even want to believe that she’d been anywhere near the first victim. It’s amazing what people can convince themselves of when they don’t want to accept the truth.” Her expression darkened. “And it’s amazing what lengths certain people will go to in order to conceal their actions.”

  We sat and watched as the foxes and Rameses played again with some interference from Lucky, but the bright mood from our barbecue had dimmed.

  It seemed as good a moment as any to introduce my problem. “I’ve been given a tip-off about something that’s been happening all over the country. I’m really sorry, but I can’t say where this tip-off came from, just that I believe it to be accurate and have some evidence to support it,” I said, thinking of the lynx on the loose. “This is what’s been going on under our noses for a very long time…” I said and then confided everything I knew about the animal smuggling operation and the opportunity we might have to stamp it out - once and for all.

  I hoped that Katya would know exactly what to do because I was drawing a big fat blank.

  “Hey, have you ever heard of a man called Alex Gregory? Detective Alex Gregory?” I asked her as a thought occurred to me.

  She shook her head. “Nope. Should I have?”

  “No,” I said sincerely, feeling relief wash over me. With hindsight, it seemed like a stupid question to even ask… but my best friend was hoping to spend the rest of her life with the detective. I wanted to be darn sure he was exactly who he claimed to be.

  I opened my eyes right before sleep carried me off that night. I swore into the darkness. By my side, Auryn turned over, but beyond a sleepy grumble, he didn’t wake.

  By comparison, I was now alert and irritable. The reason for my sudden resurgence into full-waking mode was all due to a very important form that I knew I’d left in the care of my best friend. The next morning, I was due to go up to London for the first of many press conferences to promote my forthcoming comic release. As part of this special release party, Tiff had been commissioned to create one of her maps for the fictional zoo, Monday’s Menagerie.

  The idea had been quite a last minute one, and although everything was due to be printed on time, Tiff had been tasked with signing a release on the work she’d done. Some crossed wires had resulted in me promising that I’d deliver the form and her signature to my publishers at the event itself. I never believed that Tiff would sue me for any slight legal miscalculation, but my publishers were a lot more cautious. My neck would be on the chopping board if I didn’t turn up with the form in my possession bright and early tomorrow morning.

  I did some calculations and realised that the only decent time to fetch this form was right now. Tomorrow was just too early. I glanced at the time on my phone and discovered midnight had just rolled around. I quickly penned an appology-cum-explanation text to Tiff and set off into the night. Lucky opened a bleary eye when I passed him at the end of the bed and Rameses remained snoring, dead to the world. I was once more left on my own to make my trip into the darkness.

  I usually relished driving along the country roads late at night. There was seldom any traffic around and you could pretend, just for a moment, that you were the only person in the whole world driving beneath the starry sky. Tonight I simply wondered what the murderer had been feeling as they drove Harry Farley’s car back to his office. Had they, too, delighted in the peace of the empty roads and the time spent in-between places, or had they been angry, afraid, or even sorry for what they’d done?

  My phone buzzed right before I pulled up outside of Tiff’s house, which had a large ‘To Let’ sign in the front garden. It looked as though she and the detective were definitely going through with the move. I looked down at my screen. Tiff’s brief text (mostly consisting of single words) told me that she was asleep, but I knew where the key was hidden and the form had apparently been left on the kitchen table.

  I got out of my car and noted that Tiff’s was the only other car parked in the driveway. I assumed that meant that the detective wasn’t around - probably working late on the unsolved murder case.

  I walked up to her front door and felt under the loose windowsill of the kitchen window until I found the plastic tag and was able to remove the spare set of keys. A moment later, I was inside the dark house.

  The sound of claws clinking across the wood-laminate floor reached my ears. I bent and silently ruffled Sampson’s worn ears. Sampson was Tiff’s oldest rescue dog and had the privilege of being kept indoors. Tiff’s house operated largely as a rescue centre. She’d always had a thing for waifs and strays. It had led her to erect temporary buildings in her garden to house the animals she wasn’t really supposed to have in the house. When her landlord had first discovered what she’d done, I’d feared retribution, but Tiff could charm anyone - male or female - and she’d been permitted to continue - so long as the animals stayed out of the main house. Sampson was the only one for whom she bent the rules.

  The old dog sighed and laid down, worn out from the short walk. I shook my head and watched as he went to sleep. It’s a dog’s life! I thought, before continuing into the kitchen-diner room on the hunt for the form.

  It was my sense of smell that first told me something was wrong. Strange though it may sound, I knew what Tiff’s house smelled like, and I knew what the people in it smelled like, too. For a moment, I considered that the strange aftershave I’d caught a whiff of belonged to the detective and had perhaps remained behind, but then I reconsidered. Firstly, it wasn’t the detective I was smelling, of that I was sure. And secondly, I’d smelled that aftershave before. If only I could remember who had worn it!

  All of a sudden, I realised I was standing motionless in the middle of a dark room smelling traces of a person who
shouldn’t be in the house right now. With swift decisiveness, I moved until I was up against the wall, pressed into the small alcove next to Tiff’s fireplace. Then I listened.

  Sampson’s snoring was the first thing I heard. It was a sound that made me want to think all was well, but my sense of smell still screamed that it wasn’t. Come to think of it, had Sampson really just fallen asleep on the floor of his own accord? I’d put it down to him being old, but what if…?

  I held my breath when I heard movement in the kitchen. It was the sound of a knife being pulled out of the wooden block Tiff kept on her kitchen counter. I’d heard the same noise so many times before when I’d house-sat for her in the past. The person standing in the kitchen had to know that someone else was in the room with them.

  My heartbeat seemed deafening but I knew now wasn’t the time to panic. With another moment of swift decisiveness, I tiptoed back across the room and into the hallway. For a moment, I considered walking out of the house, but then I remembered Tiff, still sleeping upstairs. This intruder, whoever they may be, was in her house. I couldn’t leave her alone with them - especially when I knew they now had a knife!

  Instead, I dodged into the thankfully ajar study. I quickly sent Tiff a text, warning her of the intruder in her house downstairs and asking her to call the police immediately, as I couldn’t.

  With that done, I turned my attention to anything I might be able to use as a weapon.

  The intruder seemed to know I’d realised he was in the house. He didn’t bother trying to hide his footsteps as he walked across the living room area, heading straight for the hallway. Too late, I realised I should have opened and then slammed the front door in a ruse to make him think I’d left. Instead, he probably had a fairly decent idea of my hiding place.

  Hindsight is a wonderful thing, I thought, bitterly, before I took a deep breath and braced myself for another fight for my life.

  While I waited, I wondered why? Why had someone come after Tiff? I knew that there was a killer on the loose, but even though we’d been present at both crime scenes, my best friend had nothing to do with either of the victims. There was no reason for the killer to come after her.

  I blinked as my brain jumped into overdrive, the adrenaline I felt pushing thoughts out at lightning speed.

  This couldn’t have anything to do with those murders. For one, I was sure that the killer in those cases was a woman, and everything about the unwelcome presence in the house hissed at me this was a man. I could also sense that they weren’t just a run-of-the-mill burglar. The animal thefts had jumped into my mind, but Tiff didn’t fit in with that either. She was at home right now, and anyway, her animals were hardly the valuable kind, in terms of monetary value.

  I could only think of one other possible option, and it surely had to be the correct one.

  The intruder was here for Detective Gregory.

  The footstep right outside the study door made me jump and remember how much danger I was currently in. My grip tightened around the only weapon I’d been able to find and I silently hoped that I would walk out of the house the same way I entered - in one piece.

  There was the sound of movement upstairs. A door opened and the floor creaked. I heard the intruder hesitate and then take a couple of steps up the stairs. Filled with fear for my friend upstairs all alone, I threw open the door, ready to rush the man.

  The light flashed on. I froze, holding the vacuum cleaner above my head.

  Detective Gregory stood at the top of the stairs. He was holding a gun pointed squarely at the face of the man caught between us.

  “Drop it,” the detective said with ice cold fury in his voice. The knife hit the carpet and bounced back down the stairs, landing next to the sleeping dog. I kept my eyes on both men and then swept the knife away, into the open study where it wouldn’t be a danger to the dog or anyone else.

  “Take it easy,” the man on the stairs said. It was with horror that I realised I knew who he was. He was the man who owned the house where Josh had been found murdered. He was the same man that Joe Harvey had warned me to tell him about if I ever happened to see him again.

  “What are you doing in my fiancé’s house?” the detective said, his voice still like ice.

  “I, uh, tried ringing the bell, but no one answered. I thought I’d go round the back and it was open…” the man on the stairs stumbled, but the detective wasn’t having any of it.

  “The knife you collected on your way tells me this wasn’t exactly a social visit. Tell the truth or my finger might slip.”

  The man on the stairs raised his hands a little higher in the air. “I thought that someone else had broken into your house. I was doing you a favour, I swear.” He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder and then flinched when the detective reacted to the sudden movement. “I was defending your place.”

  Detective Gregory said something unrepeatable that gave away his thoughts on the intruder’s truth-telling abilities.

  “I’ll give you my version of events. You came here tonight because you thought that my fiancé was in here alone. I don’t know what you thought you were going to do to her, but you are lucky that you didn’t get the chance to even try. If you had, you would not be breathing anymore.”

  Something must have changed in the intruder’s expression because the detective looked even more furious.

  “All of this to settle an old score, Jim? I thought you were better than that,” the detective said with disgust evident in his voice.

  “It’s just not possible what you did. No one gets promoted that fast. I know what you are, you cheat. You weren’t even trying,” the man on the stairs spluttered, finally losing his cool.

  Alex’s expression stayed cold. “You have no idea what I’ve done,” he said, ominously. “Not that it matters, but I deserve everything I have. Privilege and good background doesn’t get you everywhere. Sometimes you’ve got to work.”

  “I did work! There was something wrong about you. Something that wasn’t right. It’s still not right!” the man said, sounding more confused than angry now. “And then, right after you were sitting pretty on top of the pile, you disappear. Now, years later, I see you in the paper next to some celebrity picture drawer.”

  I rolled my eyes at that. The man on the stairs clearly had no idea that the ‘celebrity picture drawer’ was standing right behind him.

  “I couldn’t believe you moved to some nothing police force. But I wasn’t going to say no to the chance, especially when I realised where you were. You knew I came from here. Did you think that taking the promotion wasn’t enough? You wanted to drag my name through the mud in my hometown as well?”

  “You’re deluded,” the detective told the man plainly.

  From my position at the bottom of the stairs, watching the interchange, I wanted to conclude that the detective was correct. But there were some things that he was saying that were piquing my curiosity to say the least.

  “You’re coming down to the station. The law won’t be on your side,” the detective informed the intruder, walking down the stairs and motioning for the man to turn around so he could put the pair of handcuffs he’d been carrying on him.

  When the man saw me, his face became a picture. “It’s a conspiracy, all of it. They’re all in it together,” he muttered, making me doubt the sanity of his words all over again.

  “Let’s go,” the detective growled, pushing the man over the top of sleeping Sampson and out of the front door with the barest of looks in my direction. Right before he left, he looked at me.

  “Make sure Tiff’s okay,” he said. And then he was gone.

  I lowered the hoover in silence, reeling from everything that had happened. On the surface, it seemed to me that this Jim guy was a complete nut, still hung up over some ancient bad blood between the two men. But the detective was awfully young to have been granted his current title, wasn’t he? And I had no idea what his position had been when he’d worked on the same force as this guy claimed. Had
his position there also been surprisingly high up? Either Detective Gregory was a super-cop, or there genuinely was something fishy going on with his career advances.

  I suddenly realised that the detective had hinted that the intruder came from a position of wealth and privilege, but didn’t he himself have a large fortune stashed away? I thought back and realised I’d assumed it had been passed to him by family, or had that been Tiff’s assumption? I wasn’t sure, but it was definitely just another thing that didn’t add up as far as Detective Alex Gregory went.

  Above all else, I couldn’t get the sight of him holding that gun out of my head. And the knowledge that I’d seen that type of gun before.

  If it meant what I thought it did, then Alex Gregory was hiding a pretty big secret from the woman he was about to marry.

  I called Katya up first thing the next morning. I was pleasantly surprised when she answered after two rings. My secret agent friend often stayed out of contact for long periods of time due to her work.

  “What’s up?” she said when she picked up, reminding me again that I really needed to work on my friendship skills. I didn’t want anyone to think I only called them when I needed something. Unfortunately, this was definitely one of those times.

  “It’s about that detective… Alex Gregory. I know you didn’t recognise his name but would you mind taking a look at a photo? It would put my mind at ease…”

  “Sure, send me one through.”

  I hesitated for a moment before searching for the news article that the intruder must have recognised him from. I sent her the picture of the detective, who’d been snapped after ‘solving’ the murder of Timmy Marsden.

  “Got it,” Katya said a moment after I pressed send. There was a pause as she looked at the image. And then a longer pause I liked a lot less.