He looked around, seeming paranoid. While he did that, his gun arm fell down and the barrel pointed at the floor.
Seizing the moment, I rushed him and knocked him to the floor, then grappled for his gun. He rolled, trying to shake me off, but even with a hurt shoulder I wasn’t going to let go. I planned to sell my life as dearly as possible.
He headbutted me in the nose and my vision flashed with stars. I punched him in the face. He shook it off easy.
The sirens were getting louder.
He dropped his gun. He got my neck in a chokehold. I couldn’t shake loose. My windpipe was being crushed. I tried to hit him as hard as I could. He didn’t move. My sight started to get covered in black speckles that got bigger and bigger. I knew I was about to lose consciousness.
All of a sudden, he let me go and I heard his feet pounding into the sand. The sirens got louder. An engine roared to life. I was dimly aware the perp was getting away.
My vision cleared. Two cop cars had slowed. One stopped and the other went off in pursuit of the van. Mike crouched beside me.
“You okay, buddy?”
I groaned. “He hit me in the shoulder.”
“You need a hospital. C’mon, I’ll drive you.”
I groaned again as Mike helped me stand. I was pretty sore from fighting that guy.
“For the record, I hate waiting at the ER,” I complained.
“Maybe you should remember that next time you go all gung ho and try to take down an armed criminal by yourself,” Mike remarked with a twinkle in his eye. He was right, of course.
Avery
It was the day after Rick had been shot. Bob, Rick, Mike and I sat around the Sheriff’s big desk putting together all the information about the dog thefts.
“The air conditioners were broken in every house. The thieves targeted the air con from outside, jamming the fans. The homeowners called in Mr. Freeze, who put a camera and a special device inside the air conditioning unit. The device emits a sound which only dogs can hear,” Rick explained.
“That made the dogs want to go outside, to get away from the noise,” I added.
“But why did they need that to steal a dog?” Mike asked.
“Think about it. With the touch of a button, the thieves can get the dogs outside at the exact moment they are ready to steal them,” I explained. “The camera tells them when the dog is near the sound device.”
“We’ve got eight missing dogs now, all in a two-mile radius. And Mr. Freeze got away. We still don’t know his true identity because there are no businesses registered in this state under that name.” Bob glared darkly at his laptop. “Apparently, it’s real easy to get added to the Online Map listings as a business, you don’t have to prove you’re genuine.”
“So we’ve no leads?” Mike asked.
“I guess we’re looking for a house with a lot of barking coming from it?” I suggested. Everyone chuckled a little.
“Actually, Avery makes a good point,” Sean said. “He has to be keeping the dogs someplace, and since they keep returning to Snake Eye, they can’t be located more than a couple hours from here.”
Bob, Rick and Mike all nodded thoughtfully.
“Good thinking, Sean. Get a map and mark two hours in every direction. See what there is,” Bob said.
“That covers all of Phoenix, Mesa... maybe parts of Yuma or Tucson,” Mike said. “That won’t narrow it down much.”
“What geography did they teach you at school, boy?” Bob asked, and we all laughed at his tone. “I asked for a map. We’ll debate whether it’s revealed anything about our dog thief after Sean’s drawn it. Also, with that many dogs, it seems to me our air conditioning guy couldn’t take care of the sales and the doggy day care and the thefts by himself.”
“You’re thinking an accomplice, Sheriff?” Mike asked.
“That I am, Mikey. That has all sorts of implications for the case, but chiefly, the van might not lead us to the dogs right away. We need to bear that in mind, for example not getting a search warrant for the wrong address. That would tip off our guys and they could move the dogs before we get a whiff of where they were hiding them. Rick, you got half of the license plate when you chased the van, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir.” I still couldn’t believe he was back at work so soon after being shot. Nothing stopped him.
“Great. Check all the cameras in town. See if you can get the rest of that plate, then we’ll look for a registered address.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Avery?” He looked me dead in the eye and I perked up, hoping he was about to give me an interesting assignment to do with this case.
“Yes?” I asked.
“Be sure Rick can open doors and keep him supplied with coffee.”
I deflated, but tried not to show it. After all, this was still a steady job, even if I wasn’t getting to do any of the real detecting.
“Yes, sir.” I nodded and looked back down at the table.
“Well, I think that’s everything. We’ll reconvene tomorrow and see what we have.” Bob got up and it was obvious the meeting was over. Good. I wanted to do some digging on the Vanderhosen case before Rick and I were due to start our shift this evening.
“Need me to hold the door for you?” I asked him sweetly, but my undertone was clearly sarcastic.
“Don’t take that tone with me, young lady. I can’t swat your ass right now but don’t think you’re getting away with a thing,” he retorted. I giggled and stepped through the doorway.
Honestly? I was just relieved he was okay. I’d almost died when I heard he’d been shot.
“You should be at home,” I told him. “Drinking soup.”
“Soup? There’s nothing wrong with my teeth,” he replied with a snort of laughter. “Anyways, the house feels weird without Duke. I thought you and I were going to go to Why Not to talk to Shawna Robinson about your cold case.”
I looked at my watch. It was three fifteen. We could drive over with time to spare.
“Fine. But I’m driving.”
“You bet you are.” He handed me the keys and we headed out.
Avery
The nursing home was one of those old, single-story buildings with big windows. It had seen better days. The parking lot out front was overgrown but a couple of old cars were parked there. I pulled into a space and we went into the unknown.
“Shawna? There’s someone here to see you.” The nurse seemed disinterested as she led us to Mrs. Robinson’s room. A tiny, frail, white-haired old lady with paper-thin skin looked us over with beady brown eyes.
“I don’t know you,” she pronounced.
“Ma’am, we’re from the Snake Eye police department and I have some questions for you,” Rick said. “It’s about the day Mr. Vanderhosen got killed.”
“Oh, I remember that like it was a bad dream. That was when Judy was still alive, you know.”
Judy had died? That would explain why I couldn’t find her current address.
“You saw the killer, right?” Rick asked. “Where were you at the time?”
“I was at the gas station when this man appeared. He took Dwight Reginald’s car and drove off. My daughter and I clean couldn’t believe it. At first, we thought it was Derek Vanderhosen, until we heard he had passed.”
“So the killer looked like the victim?” Rick asked.
“That’s what I said, didn’t I? They could have been twins.”
A wobbly feeling in the pit of my stomach told me we needed to get out of there.
Back in the car, as I pulled out of the lot, I shared my thoughts with Rick.
“Dwight said Derek Vanderhosen was an only child. I think we need to look into his family tree.”
“How do you propose we do that?” Rick asked. It was one of those questions where I was pretty sure he only asked me to get me to think about what I was trying to do.
“We need to visit Mrs. Vanderhosen.”
He nodded. “Let’s go right away.”
&nbs
p; Avery
Sitting in Mrs. Vanderhosen’s living room was awkward. I still felt terrible for how rude I’d been.
“Go ahead, officer, why are you both here?” she asked.
“Ma’am, we’ve been looking into your husband’s death,” Rick began. “Avery here wanted to make amends for the way she spoke to you before.”
“By solving a fifty-year-old murder? That’s some apology, young lady. Go on.”
I felt the tension in my chest ease off as Mrs. Vanderhosen warmed to me a little.
“I spoke to two of the witnesses, ma’am. They described the killer as looking a lot like your husband. I wondered if you could tell us about his family?” I got out my notebook and a pen and prepared to make notes.
The old lady poured some tea and spent a long time putting sugar in her cup and stirring it. When she was done, she finally began to talk.
“Derek was an only child. He was a year older than me. High school sweethearts. When we got married, we lived on his family farm, which he inherited from his parents. They had died in a barn fire the year before. Terrible tragedy. We were young but unafraid of the hard work it would take to make the farm keep going. Here, I have a box of papers that were his.” She shuffled off to a shelf and pulled down a little cardboard box decorated with pink polka-dots. In meticulous writing, the word “Derek” was written in ink on the front.
She placed the box on the table and opened it.
“It’s everything to do with his family. I kept it all. It’s...” she trailed off and I didn’t want to look at her because I was pretty sure she was crying. She pushed the box toward me and I looked inside, with Rick leaning over my shoulder to get a better look.
There were baby photos, love letters from when Derek’s father was drafted to Vietnam, and pictures of Derek’s high school graduation and prom. There was also a birth certificate.
“May I take a picture of this?” I asked her.
“Take all of it, if it will help,” she said.
I hesitated. “I’d feel bad, separating you from all these important things.”
“I’ve got everything I need to remember about Derek up here.” She tapped her head. I smiled. It might have been forty-eight years since she lost him, but she seemed to still be in love with him. My heart ached with the unfairness that she’d never had her future with him.
“We’ll take good care of these at the precinct while we follow up any lines of inquiry,” Rick said. He always knew the proper way to explain things to people. I just nodded as if I’d thought of anything helpful to say.
Avery
I was putting gas in Rick’s car at the Snake Eye gas station when I saw someone across the street who looked just like my dad. I stared for several seconds and realized it was him. Had he come to find me? Was he going to apologize for the way he’d treated me? I doubted it. But, why else could he be here? I finished filling the car and drove closer to the guy.
“Dad?”
He looked up at me, his eyes only half-focused. He’d been drinking. God, I hoped he hadn’t done that before driving here. If he’d any sense, he’d have taken the bus.
“Avery?” He seemed confused. “Why didn’t you come home?” His tone seemed hurt. It was difficult to know how to explain to him that his behavior had driven me away. I knew he couldn’t help himself. That it was a disease. That he wasn’t his addiction. But he had hurt me, over and over, and I couldn’t let it go anymore.
“I needed a fresh start,” I told him. “I got a job and a place to live. Somewhere calm. With no yelling.”
“There wouldn’t be any yelling if you did as you were told,” he countered. “I never yelled at you. You don’t know what yelling is.”
I did what I always did when he got like that. I backed down.
“Sure, dad. So... uh... how are things?”
“I’m broke. Listen, you got a job, right? I’m in some trouble with some guys. Could you spot me five hundred bucks?”
“That’s what you came to find me for?” I demanded. “You wanted money? Ugh. I’m so stupid! I thought you were here because you missed me. I don’t have anything.”
“You can’t spare five hundred for your own father? I raised you and kept a roof over your head all those years.”
“I never asked you to,” I snapped. “And it wasn’t much of a roof. It leaked. Would have been a lot better if you hadn’t been drunk all the time, besides.”
Not wanting to stay any longer, I turned to drive off but he’d grabbed my arm and was squeezing it tight.
“You’re hurting me,” I told him, trying to pull loose.
“Good. Get me that money. Or I’ll find out where you work and I’ll show up and embarrass you in front of all your fancy new coworkers. You think anyone would keep you around if I pissed in front of their cash register?”
“I don’t work in a store,” I retorted.
“Wherever you work, I bet none of them would want to know you if they heard you used to shoplift.”
The blood drained from my face.
“You wouldn’t. It was years ago.”
“I would. Find me five hundred bucks. Steal it from someone. You’re good at that. I’ll be around.” He let go of my arm. I hit the gas and drove away, but inside, I felt sick and dizzy. If he told Bob about my criminal behavior, surely I’d lose my job. And what if Rick found out?
I had to tell him before my dad did. Finding out from me would be better than hearing some embellished version from my dad.
I parked Rick’s car in the driveway and went indoors with a heavy heart.
“Hey, what’s the matter?” Immediately, he noticed I wasn’t okay. He was so attentive and so in tune with how I felt. When he heard what I did, and ended things, it was going to be really hard to get over all this.
“I saw my dad in town,” I mumbled. I didn’t want to tell him the rest. It was too hard.
“Make yourself a coffee then tell me what happened. I’d make it for you but I’m a one-armed cop at the moment.” He nodded in the direction of the gunshot wound in his shoulder. “I’m armless.”
His bad pun made the corners of my mouth turn up in spite of how miserable I felt right then. Once I’d gotten us both a cup of coffee, I sat down with him in the living room and tried to figure out where to start. Luckily, Rick was good at asking questions to get to the heart of things.
“He came here to find you?”
I shrugged noncommittally.
“Guess so.”
“He must have been pretty worried about you to come all this way.”
I snorted with doubt. I was pretty sure my dad didn’t care about anything except drinking. “I don’t think so. He just wanted money.”
“He asked you for it?”
“Yeah. I told him I had a job and a place to stay. I guess it was dumb. I just wanted him to say, “great job” but instead he said, “give me five-hundred dollars.” And when I told him I didn’t have it, he turned nasty.”
“Did he hit you?” Anger flashed across Rick’s eyes as he looked me over, checking for any visible signs that my dad had hurt me.
“Not this time. He threatened to... to... uh...” I trailed off, not knowing how to tell Rick something that was going to make him so disappointed in me.
“What was it?”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Hay fever threatened my eyes and made them sting.
“When I was younger, I did something. I’m not proud of it. And it was a bit... uh... illegal. And he threatened to find out where I work and tell them what I did. He seems to think I work in a store somewhere.”
“You committed a crime?” Rick’s voice didn’t hold the surprise I’d expected. I didn’t know why that bothered me.
“Yeah.” I couldn’t look at him so I stared at the living room’s fluffy carpet instead. “I shoplifted.”
That was it. I’d laid it out, now. Bared myself. He knew what I’d done. This was where everything ended, and I wished there was something I cou
ld say or do to stop it. But there wasn’t. I’d broken the law. He was a police officer. There was no way we got a happily ever after. That wasn’t how these things went.
“What did you take?” he asked.
Why wasn’t he yelling at me? Why wasn’t he throwing me out of his house or arresting me? I was out of my depth. I didn’t understand his reaction at all.
“Does it matter?” I asked. “The law is the law. No exceptions.” My eyes were watering so bad that it spilled down my cheeks. How had I thought I’d be able to become a police officer? It had been such a stupid dream.
“Answer me.” His tone wasn’t harsh. Why not? Why was he asking anything instead of making me leave?
“Candy. I took candy. Every day for weeks.”
“Why?”
I glared at the floor. “I don’t need your pity. I broke the law. Now arrest me or throw me out and fire me or whatever. I don’t care. It was a stupid dream anyway.”
“For God’s sake, Avery, stop torturing yourself! Any rookie cop could see you’re only telling me half of the story. The worst half. Now tell me why.”
“The law doesn’t make room for why, does it? So why does it matter?” I didn’t want to tell him. I didn’t want to remember. I didn’t want to be a victim anymore. Yet, somehow, despite everything I’d tried to do since then, it had come back to haunt me.
Would the past ever let me go?
My hay fever had picked a fine day to be so troublesome.
“I’m not moving on from this until you tell me. An hour. A day. A week. I will wait.”
I risked a glance at his face and immediately looked back down at the carpet. His eyes had been caring but determined. He really wasn’t going to let this go.
“I was hungry. And candy is easier to steal than proper food. They practically make it pocket-sized.”
There. He knew. I was pathetic. Weak. I’d been unable to handle feeling hungry. Something billions of people around the world felt every day. Somehow, I’d cracked and taken things.
“How old were you?” he asked gently.
“Eleven.” Old enough to know better, as my dad had said at the time. I was dangerously close to remembering what he’d done when he’d found the empty candy wrappers in the trash. I wouldn’t think about it. I couldn’t.
Stay All Night: Arizona Law 2 (Arizona Heat Book 6) Page 11