SLEEPING DOGS (Animal Instincts Book 6)

by Chloe Kendrick

  He pursed his lips for a second. “I don’t have a dog. Sorry. Though you should talk to my sister. She’s got four of them. Loves them to death and treats them like kids. Last year she brought them over to the house dressed for Halloween. It was scary.” He took out his phone and tapped a few times.

  He held out the phone which was on camera roll. I saw the photo that was up. Four little terriers had all been dressed in various costumes with a woman who was only slightly older than me. That must be the sister. Since he was talking about her coming over for Halloween, she must still live in the Toledo area. Looking at the photo, I vaguely remembered this girl. She’d been an acquaintance of Susan’s, either someone who had been to our house or who I’d seen on multiple occasions hang out with Susan at school. I wondered if anyone could say that about my own school photo. Would people think that I still looked like the kid from high school? I hoped not. That kid was frightened of his own shadow, afraid that he would be next – swiped from the street by an imaginary kidnapper who had only existed in my mind and the minds of the media. That villain had never existed, and I was going to find out why.

  “Would you mind giving me her number or email? I’m sure she’d like to have me talk to her dogs. My first consultation is free – plus it would be good to see her after all these years.” People are always more willing to share contact information if there has been a connection before. It seems less like stalking, even if it has been years since any meetings.

  He wrote down an email address on a scrap of paper and handed it to me. “Here. You can tell her that I gave you the information. She’ll appreciate it, I’m sure.” He looked at his watch again. “I’m going to be late to an appointment if I don’t get moving. It was nice to see you again, and good luck with the business.”

  I walked back to the car. Sheila had the seat reclined and her eyes were closed, but I knew that was just a ruse. It did reduce the chance of Gillespie seeing her from the road though. Comfort and a cover. “No pets, but he remembered Susan’s disappearance. I’m not sure what to make of that. He didn’t want to talk about the murder at all. He cut it short to go to a meeting,” I said as I sat down in the driver’s seat of the car.

  Her eyes remained closed, but she spoke. “Of course he didn’t. Let me give you one fact, and one thing that will soon be fact. A dog was in the upper window of the house. He’s not there now, but when you pulled up, I saw a dog in the window. So I thought you had an easy in. He lied to you. Secondly, I’m willing to put $20 down that says he doesn’t leave the house. Pull around this corner, and we’ll find out in a few minutes.”

  I did as she said, pulling around the corner, so that we could still see the house, but we weren’t immediately visible to anyone pulling out of the driveway. We waited. While I liked to be more active when I was looking into a case, Sheila had developed her skills the old-fashioned way of police work and waiting. I got comfortable in my seat for a wait.

  “So what did he say about the murder? Anything?” Sheila asked finally, breaking the silence.

  “He didn’t want to talk about it. He was fine with talking about my sister’s disappearance though. I thought that rather odd.”

  “So where to after we finish watching him not leave?” she asked. I was a bit surprised to hear this question. Normally, she was the one who was calling the shots, but after the attack, she was letting me take control. I wondered how soon the roles would revert back to her taking charge of the case and relegating me to the Watson role.

  “The sister’s house. She’s a huge dog lover, so I figured I could do my thing there and get her to talk to me. I got her email address from Adam, so I can send something now.” I took a minute and sent a quick note to her, explaining my business and the offer of a free consult.

  Sheila was busy typing away on her own device. She sat there quietly looking at the screen. She finally looked up. “Did he mention his parents at all? It’s only been about 14 years or so since the murder, but I’m not seeing any sign of them in the system. No deaths, no taxes, nothing. Seems very odd.”

  I shook my head. “He didn’t mention them at all. How do people drop off the map that way? Maybe I’ll have better luck with the sister,” I suggested.

  She took a deep breath. “So what’s after the sister? You’re pinning a lot of hopes to her. If she doesn’t come through, what’s the back-up?”

  I explained to her my theory that Frias could have been killed by one of her clients after she’d seen something that she wasn’t supposed to. She nodded, but stay silent until I was finished. “That’s a good second line of investigation, but we’ll have to look into that. I don’t know if any of those people were ever questioned about the killing. I’ll ask around. I’m still stuck on the dog not barking and the lack of information on the parents. It’s like they disappeared.”

  I winced, and then I shook my head. Even though I knew logically that Susan was alive and living in another city, my instinctual reaction after so many years was to feel the pain of her disappearance in my life. It was hard to think that this pain was a phantom, almost like the phantom pains that people with missing limbs had. In this case, my sister was actually alive and while I knew it, my entire being still felt the pain of those years of thinking she was dead. I knew that it would take time for those wounds to heal, but at the same time, I resented the emotions I was forced to feel because of a lie.

  I checked my email again, but there was no word from the Gillespie girl yet. I checked the house again, but there had been no activity outside that home since I’d left. Gillespie had lied twice to me in a matter of minutes. He was definitely on the list of people I wanted to look into further. Could it be that his questions about Susan had been a ploy to find out if she was still alive and where she lived? That could explain why she was still concerned about her safety after all this time.

  Sheila looked exhausted, so I took her back to her place and stayed long enough to ensure that she’d made it to bed. I made no comment about the fact that this was my first time here with her in the house. I didn’t want her to leave to start her own investigation as soon as I left, though that was exactly what I would have done. I didn’t want to rush home though. I suspected that I’d have a request from my mother when I returned, and I was in no mood to deal with her.

  However, when I managed to pull in the driveway thirty minutes later, I didn’t have a choice. She and Sergeant Siever were parked directly across the street from my home. I got out the car and had nearly made it to the door when they came up behind me.

  “We need to talk,” my mother said, sounding ominous.

  “I’ve wanted to talk for a long time, but all you do it yell and tell me to back off. I need some answers if we’re going to talk. I’m tired of asking questions and getting nothing in return. That’s not talking.” I pushed open the door and was greeted by the dogs. It’s hard to stay mad, especially when you have a face full of Corgis, but I was about done with the lies and the deceit that my mother had been spouting.

  Both Siever and my mother came into the house without prompting and sat down. I took note that my mother sat in the same place that Sheila had occupied earlier in the day. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. At this point in my life, I trusted Sheila more than my own family. I put it out of my head as I focused on them.

  “So what are you going to tell me?”

  “The Frias murder case is an open police investigation. You cannot be involved in this in any way, or you’re breaking the law. Keep this up, and I will notify the appropriate authorities about your activities.” Siever sounded official, but I knew now that he was dating my mother. So all bets were off on whether this was personal or professional.

  “So this isn’t your case?” I asked. If Siever had not been involved with the original Frias case, then he’d learned of the link up from someone in my family most likely.

  “No. I wasn’t on this case, other than to ask a few questions of a few neighbors. That has nothing to do with what I’m te
lling you now,” he replied. “You need to drop this or you’ve going to be in big trouble. More than you could possibly imagine.”

  “I’m not involved in any investigation. I’m drumming up new clients for my pet talking business. That’s all.” Technically, I was being truthful. I had asked multiple people on the street, and I hadn’t gotten any answers to my questions. So I hadn’t learned a thing from my actions so far.

  “Then why were you seen with the Gillespie son?” Siever shot back.

  “I told you, asking about pets and if they wanted to set up an appointment for my services. Look, I didn’t even know who that was until he recognized me. I couldn’t have picked him out of a line-up. He was several years older than me in school. Susan might have known him, but I didn’t.”

  My mother finally spoke. “Susan knew him and his sister too. It’s too coincidental for you to just show up at his house after all this time.”

  I looked at her. I wondered what was going through her head right now. Was she concerned for Susan’s safety, or was she merely interested in keeping all the secrets tamped down into place? I wasn’t sure. I’d learned that she was dating Siever from my brother. So it had been okay for him to know, but not me. I wasn’t sure how she could justify something like that.

  “I’ve lived here all my life. I’m sure I’m going to run into people I know from time to time. Have you been following me?”

  The question took my mother by surprise. She’d been on the offense so far, coming to my house to ask questions. I don’t suppose that she’d thought out what she would do if I started asking questions of her.

  There were really only two possible options. The first was that I was being followed. That meant I’d been tailed or tracked by technology once I’d called Susan. It seemed the more likely of the options, since they didn’t know what I was thinking or planning. The other option was that Adam Gillespie was being watched, and I’d shown up at his house. This was less likely, because they would have to trace it back from Gillespie to Frias to me. Thinking logically, I would have only contacted the Gillespies if I thought that one or more of them could tell me something about the Frias murder, which would be the only crime that they’d been involved with.

  As I ran through the options in my mind, I began to notice that neither of them had said anything. I knew that Sheila would have spotted a tail, even in her condition, so most likely I’d been tagged with a device to keep track of me. I made a mental note to search my car later.

  I could see that this discussion was getting me nowhere. They were refusing to answer questions, and I was sticking to my story that I’d been doing door-to-door sales for my business. In other words, a typical Fitzpatrick impasse.

  “So did Susan call you and tell you to stop me from looking into this?” I asked finally, already knowing the answer. I wanted to see at this point if they would admit to anything I asked. The questions were getting progressively simpler, and yet I and yet to get confirmation.

  “Of course she called,” my mother said. “She was very upset.”

  My heart leapt to my throat. My sister, who I hadn’t talked to in over a decade – who I thought was dead, talked to me on the phone, and she was upset that I’d called. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. Was the threat so great, or was I such a pariah in my own family that no one told me a thing that went on?

  “Why was she upset?” I asked through clenched teeth. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to hear the answer, but I asked anyway. This was the time to learn the truth.

  “She’s afraid that you’re going to bumble around in an investigation to learn more about her and that you’ll end up alerting everyone that she’s still alive. She doesn’t want the media storm that would come with being found.” My mother’s voice was clear and strong, and I didn’t doubt her words for a minute.

  “Then why wouldn’t she want to tell me the whole story herself? Then I wouldn’t look into anything, because I’d know the truth.” I was thoroughly annoyed with my family at the moment. I couldn’t believe that I was still being treated like a child.

  “It’s a risk that she didn’t want to take,” Siever replied.

  “There are pages missing from the police file. Did you know that? Did you take them?” I asked. Siever wasn’t going to be all official on me without realizing that I had my own cards to play here. If he wanted to report me, I could do the same to him.

  “I don’t know anything about missing pages,” he replied, but his manner was less self-assured. I had rattled him. “You shouldn’t have a copy of an open investigation.”

  “I don’t have all of it. Several pieces were missing. I wonder who could have taken them?”

  He resorted to the tactics he was familiar with. “This is an open police investigation, and you’re dating a member of the TPD. If you were to share it with Detective Green, then she’d have to do something about it. Close the case, or alert someone that the case should be closed. Then the questions would begin.”

  I drew a deep breath and let it out. “But I’ve only known her for about a year and dated her even less. What about all the years before that? Why not then?”

  My mother’s eyes grew wide. “Because it was settled and quiet. It was just best to leave it that way. Why wake sleeping dogs?”

  “How long have you known?” I asked.

  My mother looked at Siever and then spoke. “Since the beginning. Susan left me a note the night that she disappeared. She explained the whole matter to me in detail. She asked that I not tell anyone about it because of the nature of the matter. I respected her wishes.

  “So no one else knew about it?” I felt slightly mollified by that fact, knowing I wasn’t alone. However, the ramifications of that fact made my head spin. She’d let my father drink himself to death, knowing that she could have stopped it at any time. She’d let my brother move away, even though she could have prevented that. Mostly, she could have stopped me from retreating into my own fears, and she’d never lifted a finger to help. I couldn’t begin to fathom a reason why she would share the information with Siever and not with any member of my family.

  “I didn’t tell the police. I didn’t tell your father or your brother. No one,” she reiterated, still not admitting what she’d done to me or to my family.

  Siever cleared his throat. “Not for a long while. After I retired, I took a copy of the police file of your sister’s case with me. I started going back through my notes and the notes of the other detectives. A few things didn’t add up to a kidnapping, so I went to see your mother.”

  “Since he was retired, I told him everything. I thought he needed to know, so he would leave it alone.” My mother put her hand in his and squeezed. I rolled my eyes. The last thing I needed to see was a retelling of their romance. I wondered if she’d told him because he needed to know or because she wanted to enlist him in her efforts to hush up the matter. I thought of the missing autopsy reports and the missing interviews.

  “You mean like leaving the phone behind?” I asked, determine to show them that I could play the same games.

  “That was one item, yes,” Siever responded.

  I felt at a loss. I really wished that Sheila was here. She would have made some observations that would have led to more questions, but I just felt stymied.

  “So when did Ryan find out?” I asked.

  “Just before he left for college. He’d gotten a large sum of money from his graduation, and he’d hired a private detective to look into the matter. The man came back and told him that Susan was alive and living in Seattle. At that point, I thought that it was best to tell him everything.” My mother looked at me, and I wondered why she thought it okay to tell my brother everything, but not me.

  “So why not me?” The words slipped out without my mouth stopping them. I looked as surprised as they did by the question.

  “Griff, you wouldn’t have let it go. Ryan took the news in stride, and then made his plans based on what he’d learned. He opted to take a job out of to
wn, and he didn’t play cops and robbers to find the reasons why she’d left. He was able to take the news that she’d planned this herself and done it for her own reasons. You never would.”

  I thought about what she said, and I wasn’t sure that I agreed. I was doing this to find the truth, a truth that had not been made available to me. I hadn’t been able to make any plans based on the truth. I’d been led to believe that she’d been taken at force, and I’d made decisions based on that “truth.” Now I was going to have to reassess my thoughts and my life. The amount of effort and angst it would take to do this overwhelmed me.

  “Now your chance,” I said. “You can tell me.”

  My mother shook her head, and Siever squeezed her hand. I walked behind them and opened the door leading to the driveway. They turned and started to leave. On the way out, Siever said, “Remember this is still an open case. You could be prosecuted for interfering in the case.”

  I shook my head and smiled. “My defense would be that it’s not really open. I’d explain the work I’ve done and the print-outs I’ve made and then where would you be? You’d have to lie on the stand to keep this under wraps or you’d have to tell the truth. So go ahead and try it, because I frankly would love to hear the truth come out in court.”

  Siever turned and walked out. I wasn’t sure if I’d won that argument or not, but I was still frustrated with them. After they left, I went to my car and fished under the hood and the wheel wells until I found a GPS device. I stuck the device on my lawnmower, which wouldn’t be moving at all in this weather. Then I went back in and played with the dogs until dinner.

  Sheila called after dinner. “I feel like a person again,” she reported to me with a certain amount of glee. “I’m good to go back to work tomorrow.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.” I knew that she wouldn’t be down for long. Her personal work ethic involved working through everything short of decapitation. A concussion wouldn’t stand a chance against her.