Finally he looked at me and said, “I don’t know how you know it, but you’re absolutely right. That’s just plain scary. I thought those stories were all fake.”
“Years of practice. They just tell me what’s on their minds and what they’ve seen. I have to translate that into what actually happened. Needless to say, Perry was pretty upset about what happened at the house.”
“He should be,” the neighbor said, seeming to get into the spirit of me talking to the animals. “Poor little guy was banged up pretty bad.”
I nodded, remembering what the vet had said about Perry’s condition. He’d had a nasty gash on him, though the vet was unsure what had caused it. Maybe the neighbor would be kind enough to confess all.
“Do you want to just hear the whole story? I don’t know if Perry would know everything that I heard, but I can tell you my side.”
“That sounds reasonable.” The house was warm, and I was able to unzip my jacket.
The man motioned to a pair of chairs in the corner. They were thread-bare, but clean and faced each other. I’d be able to watch the man’s face as I heard his story.
He started again once we’d sat down. “Well, it was the night that Ms. Jenkins disappeared, but I’m sure that Perry told you that.”
I agreed with him. “You do know that dogs don’t recognize things the same way that we do. He doesn’t know the vocabulary for many things. He sees things from his perspective and his memory.”
He cleared his throat and continued. “It must have been about two in the morning. I heard this awful sound. A shriek followed by a gun shot, or at least that’s what I thought it was. Loud bang noise. I looked outside and the lights were off at all the neighbors. No one seemed to have noticed a thing.”
“That’s about what Perry said,” I concurred. I thought I might as well make Perry sound like one smart Scottie.
“I kept the lights off, because I didn’t want whoever had fired the gun to see me. I was a bit scared to be honest.”
“Perry said that Della’s scared of loud noises, but your beagles aren’t. They’re used to it from hunting, right?”
“You bet. I’ve had them from pups, and I taught them how to hunt and to get over being gun-shy. My daddy had this beagle pup that couldn’t stand the sound of a shotgun. He used to go and hide from it.” The man continued on for a few minutes about his childhood before I could get him back on to the topic at hand.
“So you heard a gunshot and then nothing else?”
“Not a thing. I thought maybe I dreamed it. I tried to go back to sleep but I couldn’t. I just tossed and turned. About twenty minutes later, I heard a scratching at the door. I was a bit worried about it after all the commotion. I opened the door and found little Perry sitting there. He’d got a big gash on his leg. His collar was off, which meant that he needed to stay close to home or he’d get picked up by the SPCA. I didn’t want that to happen. I love my dogs too, and I wouldn’t have wanted someone to cart my puppies off to the pound. Ruby would have had a fit to think of Perry at the pound. The lights were on at the Jenkins house, but the door was open. I knew that wasn’t a good sign.”
“I’ve heard from others that she didn’t leave the house very often.”
“Never,” he said. “The only times she left were for doctor appointments and such, but even then she’d have someone come over and babysit the dogs. They are two spoiled little terriers, let me tell you that. They had constant attention.”
“So what happened after that?” I asked, though I knew the outlines of the story from the vet.
“I took the dog to an all-night animal hospital. The vet fixed up the dog. He needed a few stitches. He was going to keep him overnight and call me the next morning to pick him up. Cost me nearly five hundred dollars just for the visit. I can’t imagine what the rest of the charges would have been.”
I quoted him a number, though I knew he had no more obligation to pay the bill than I did.
He gave me a long whistle. “Well, I left some money there to pay his bills. Ruby always has a little cash lying around. I knew she’d pay to make sure Perry was safe and healthy.”
I knew that my client aka my mother would not be picking up the fee for that. She probably wouldn’t be paying me for the entire matter either.
“Yeah, so what happened after you dropped Perry off at the animal hospital?” I asked, wanting to end this. Even though I hadn’t asked outright yet, I knew that he was going to claim he had no knowledge of the actual crime here. He would only be recounting the aftermath of whatever had happened to Ruby.
“I came home. It was nearly light by then. I sat down in my recliner and dozed off. The next thing I knew there were police here, looking all around for Ruby.”
“Any thoughts on what happened to her? You didn’t see her leave?”
He shook his head. “I just think it has to be something bad since she’s been gone so long. Ruby would never have left her dogs alone, just like I wouldn’t leave my two.” One of the beagles came up to him, as if on cue and started nuzzling his hand.
“There had to be something that happened,” I stated firmly. “It’s not like a grown woman just up and leaves without any notice. She’d likely be taken by force, so wouldn’t there be some sort of struggle or shouting?”
“The only thing I can think of,” said the old man, “is that she might have been knocked out before she left. Hard enough to render her unconscious, but not hard enough to leave blood. That way, she could be moved easily without her screaming.”
“But what about the shotgun noise? Why would you shoot her and then knock her out? Seems like a bit of overkill. Dead bodies aren’t easy to move either. That’s a lot of dead weight to haul.”
The man stroked his chin as he looked at the beagle. “I’m not sure. I can only tell you what I heard.”
“Well, thanks. I appreciate it.”
I left him in the house and went back outside. The weather was actually cooperating, and the temperatures had finally decided to jump the freezing mark. Some bits of snow and ice had puddled around the sidewalk and street. I crossed the street without as much peril to life and limb as last time.
I knocked on the door of the house across the street and waited. There was only one question that I really wanted answered, one that needed an answer.
The same woman answered the door, wearing a blouse that showed off her ample cleavage. I wasn’t really interested in another woman especially now that Detective Green had been forward with me, but I pretended to flirt so that I could weasel some information out of her.
She invited me inside and I went, only because I was tired of being cold. The air inside the house was oppressive, overly warm with some cloying scent dancing in the air. I took off my coat, and she eyed my body with obvious intent.
I thought about flexing for her, just to see what she’d do, but I wasn’t up to peeling her off of me later. I was all about the question at hand.
“So what can I help you with?” she said with a smile.
“I just had a question for you, something that the man across the street said to me.”
She waved a hand. “I saw you over there with old man Lindauer. I can’t imagine why you’d spend all that time with him when you could be here with me instead.” She licked her lips with obvious intent.
“We were talking about the Ruby Jenkins disappearance,” I said. “She’s still missing.”
Her eyes widened. “I know. It makes me somewhat fearful to stay here alone. I could use some company if you know what I mean.” This time she gave me a wink.
I did, but I ignored the comment. “Anyway, Mr. Lindauer mentioned that he heard a gunshot in the middle of the night – the night that Ruby Jenkins disappeared. I was just wondering if you heard the same thing?”
She paused. I think she would have furrowed her brow had it not been for the fact that she didn’t want a wrinkle on her face while she was trying to impress me. “I didn’t hear a gunshot. I did hear a sound, but
I thought it sounded more like a backfire or another loud bang. My father had guns, and they didn’t sound like this at all.” In answering the question, she had forgotten her overt flirting. It was nice to get a straight answer for once.
“Mr. Lindauer said something about a scream as well? Did you hear anything like that?”
She gave me a small smile. “No wonder you were over there so long. No, I didn’t hear a scream either. Just that noise and then it was just so silent. Almost eerie. I didn’t turn on the lights or anything because I didn’t want to be considered the nosy neighbor.”
I nodded. Before she could say anything else, I had my coat back on and was heading out the door. I climbed into my car and started thinking. A loud noise had occurred sometime in the night. Lindauer had called it a shotgun; the woman had said it was not. He’d heard a scream, but she had not. I’d always heard that eyewitnesses were terribly unreliable, but now I was learning that for myself.
It didn’t help me much. It boiled down to the fact that there had been a loud noise of indeterminate origin and perhaps a scream at the same time. It meshed well with what I knew of Della, which is that she was frightened by loud noises. It moved me a step further, but not much more than that.
My next stop was the breeder Ruby had gotten the two dogs from. I’d called there in the morning to see if they would be home. The woman, Harriett, had laughed at the question. “Where else would I be with a house full of puppies?” she’d asked. I could hear yapping sounds in the background. She didn’t sound like the type who raised prize-winning dogs, but I was running out of options and people to question. I wanted to have the police away from my life and my business. I wanted to go back to anonymity.
Someone had wanted those dogs. It wasn’t because they were at the house, because an intruder had tried to take them from me as well. So it had to be something directly tied to the dogs themselves. I wondered if perhaps Ruby had fed them something that was valuable to someone. I nixed that theory because they’d been with me two days. Anything that Ruby could have fed them would be out the other end by now. I hadn’t noticed the Hope Diamond in their poo.
So I was stuck with the dogs themselves as the motive until I heard otherwise. I tried puzzling out an answer as I headed out of the county and onto some back roads. I had to admit that it crossed my mind that people who lived in the country might have easier access to firearms. I thought that perhaps the dogs weren’t really purebreds, yet were sold at purebred prices.
I wondered if that would have mattered to Ruby, who only kept the Scotties as pets and had ensured they were neutered and spayed. Every road that my mind went down came up at a dead end. The dogs had no intrinsic value to them that I could tell. They were just dogs like millions of others.
Fortunately, I’d come to the farm I was looking for at about this point in my mental travels. I stepped out of the car and looked around. I didn’t see anyone, though I could hear the sounds of dogs in the background.
I was allowed to stop running my mind in circles by the sight of twenty or more puppies running towards me at full tilt. I sat down on the ground, despite the cold, and waited for their cheerful attack. Within seconds, I had puppies all over me. Most of them were terriers that I could tell. I recognized the Scotties, and others I believed were Westies. I thought one might be a miniature Schnauzer, but I wasn’t positive on that identification.
For a few moments, I just let them jump and lick on me. I’ve found over my life of working with animals that nothing is more relaxing and enjoyable than spending time with puppies. They are a moment of pure fun that nothing else matches. They were like babies without diapers or 3am feedings.
After a few minutes, someone came outside. I heard the door shut, and several of the puppies stuck their heads out of the pile to look at who was approaching.
She was a broad woman with dark curls. This had to be Harriet. She wore jeans and a t-shirt that said “Terrier Owned.” Definitely someone I could work with, I thought. She understands dogs as well. She came to where I was sitting and stood there waiting for me to explain what I wanted.
I gently set the puppies down and stood up. “Hello, I love all these little guys. I wish I could take them all home.”
The woman laughed. “With enough patience and a big enough credit limit on your card, you can.” Several of the puppies scampered over to her, and she picked up three of them, which she cradled between her arm and her body. They appeared to be in bliss.
“Are you looking for a particular breed or gender? I can help you find what you need.” The puppies squirmed relentlessly now, and she put all three back on the driveway.
“I’m actually here to ask about two Scotties that you sold a few years ago. I don’t know how your records are, but I needed a little help for a problem.” I tried to appear open and honest about things. Even with the number of puppies around, I didn’t want to assume that she too had just been born.
Her eyes narrowed a bit and she watched me more carefully now. “What Scotties would those be?”
“If I understand correctly, you sold two Scotties to Ruby Jenkins. One about four years ago, and the other about two years ago.”
“Are they okay?” Harriet asked. A true dog lover always asks about the pets before the people. She was no exception to the rule here. Ruby could take care of herself, but dogs always needed human assistance.
“They’re fine. They’re staying with me. Ruby had to leave town in a hurry.” I had decided to be as honest as I could be without scaring her off. I left off the missing woman and the opened house. “Anyway, someone tried to steal the dogs. I can’t get in touch with Ruby – no cell service where she is, and I thought I’d ask you if you knew of any reason why someone might want to take them.”
She nodded slowly and then turned, motioning for me to follow her. We entered the house. I could hear barking in the background, but I didn’t see any dogs here – except in photographs. She led me into a room with a large oak desk that held a computer and printer along with wall-to-wall puppy pads. This had to be her office and playroom for the dogs.
Harriet sat down and motioned me into a wooden chair about three feet from the desk. She moved the mouse and the screen came to life. She typed in a few things and she printed off a page of paper.
“This is the sire and dam information on both dogs. I don’t know if this means much to you, but the dogs were both show quality. Not highest show quality. The dam had only won a few local awards. The sire fewer still. They would be beautiful pets, but not much more. You said that someone wanted to steal them?”
I gave her a few details on what had happened. I sounded much more brave in my retelling than I’d felt at the time. She listened carefully with her elbows propped on her knees. By the time I had finished, her eyes had grown wide, and her mouth had dropped open. “And they wanted those dogs?”
I nodded to her.
“Well, I’ll be damned if I know why,” she said finally. “They are adorable, but they aren’t going to win a show, and they aren’t going to produce any winners.” She chuckled at her own joke. “We sell Scottie puppies of this show level for about $750 a piece. They’re worth every penny, but they won’t go to Westminster. So I’m at a loss as to why someone would want to steal them. Unless they were wearing diamond collars.”
“No such luck. They were wearing standard collars one red and one blue. Nothing outstanding there either.” My mind started racing again from the fear from last night, and the desire to one up the police, but I was coming up with nothing.
She stood up. “Well, sorry that I wasn’t much help. I don’t know why anyone would want to take those cuties. Well, of course, because they’re adorable, but that’s the only reason. Are you sure I can’t interest you in one?”
I shook my head and went back to my car in silence. This had been one of my last possible solutions that I could think of. If it wasn’t the dogs and wasn’t Ruby, I couldn’t fathom what was going on at the Jenkins’ house. Why would anyo
ne take Ruby and then want the dogs too?
Before I could turn on the ignition, my phone rang. “Fitzpatrick,” I said, showing my frustration.
“Yeah, it’s Green,” said a female voice. It took me a minute to realize that this was the detective from the case. Her voice was all business, so I decided that now was not the time to make small talk.
“What is it?” I asked. I’ve found with my clients that sometimes it’s better to just ask a simple question and find the answer to it.
“We found Ruby Jenkins. I think you need to see this.”
“When you say found, do you mean dead?” I gulped a little. I’d seen death before, but death by omission, not blood and gore. I wasn’t sure how I would handle this situation.
“That’s what I mean.” She gave me an address and told me to get there as soon as I could. It was only a 15-minute drive to the neighborhood.
The police had cordoned off the house, and yellow police tape flapped in the wintery breeze. I pulled my secondhand coat around me as I approached the crime scene. An officer, who I didn’t know, waved me through. I wondered what type of description Green had given him about me. I allowed my mind to think about it, trying to keep it off the reality that I was going to see a dead body in a few minutes.
At the front door, another office let me into the house. He gave me a pair of paper shoe covers to put on, and then I entered the main area of the house.
I tried not to observe everything, but when I’m nervous, I tend to see everything around me in detail. Given that I’d never seen a dead body up close, I was sweating even though the temps were well below zero.
The house was obviously vacant, though from what I could see, it hadn’t been empty for too long. The majority of the furniture had been cleared out. I could see the impressions left on the carpet, and the floors had spots with only a fine layer of dust. The curtains had been removed and all the artwork on the walls had been taken as well, leaving those rectangular areas with a different shade of paint.
I walked slowly, still feeling concerned about what I was going to see. The officer with me apparently could tell my reluctance as he had a sneer on his face as he took me into what had been the kitchen.
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