Bulldogs & Bullets: A Dog Town USA Cozy Mystery

by Meg Muldoon

  But for me, this Sunday meant none of those things.

  Because this Sunday was about finding Mindy.

  Once and for all.

  I pulled up into the newspaper parking lot, looking for the black Kia out of habit.

  When I determined that it wasn’t there, I got out of the car and stepped into the quiet, misty morning. The fog from the night before still had its grip on Dog Mountain, but I held out hope that this afternoon, the sun might finally come out and burn it all away.

  I walked quickly across the parking lot, entering the locked building with my key card. I started peeling off my scarf and jacket as I headed upstairs, walking down the deserted hallways. I made it to the newsroom, and picked up a copy of the day’s paper, the way I normally did every morning I came into work.

  The building was a ghost town – which was just the way I wanted. No distractions. No interruptions. No Kobritz hovering over my shoulder, wondering what I was working on. Just me and my computer and a long list of newspaper archives related to High Construction, Inc. to sift through.

  I sat down at my desk, turned the old computer on, and waited while it slowly revved up. I took a sip of my pumpkin cinnamon coffee, and stared out the window a long moment, watching as the remaining fire-colored leaves of an aspen dropped out of sight.

  I hadn’t heard yet from Sam about how Taylor High’s questioning had gone the night before – which I took as a sign that either there were no fresh leads that came out of the interview, or none that Sam was willing to share with me yet. In the meantime, I figured the best thing I could do was to continue working on my own side of the investigation.

  Which meant going through the newspaper archives and taking note of every contracting bid that Taylor High’s construction company was awarded in the last ten years. Once I got the locations of each construction site, I planned to spend the rest of the day in my trusty Hyundai, visiting the locations, looking for any sign of Mindy or her car.

  I prayed that luck was on my side today and that Mindy would be at one of the construction sites. Because if I struck out on this, then it meant that Taylor hadn’t done it and we were back at square one. Or that he had, and had taken her to some other secret location. And if that was the case… then maybe we would never find her.

  I swallowed hard, pushing down the thick lump in my throat, trying not to let that thought linger too long in my mind.

  I needed to hold onto that small flicker of hope. I needed to focus and stay as far away from those dark thoughts as possible. I needed to—

  I suddenly noticed the headline of the day’s newspaper sitting on my desk.

  My stomach dropped the length of the Empire State Building.

  I gasped, rapidly unfolded the creased, inky paper, and flattened it out on my desk.

  “Son of a…”

  I let the phrase remain unfinished.

  My nails dug into the soft flesh of the newsprint as my eyes scanned the photograph on the front page over and over again.

  Then the headline:

  “Mystery Man in Photo May Hold Key to Teacher’s Disappearance.”

  The byline belonged to Erik Royce.

  But the photo… the photo on the front page of The Dog Mountain Chronicle this morning had belonged in the locked bottom drawer of my desk.

  I felt my throat grow thick with emotion as I gazed at the blurry picture of the angry man with the sharp eyes on the front page of the newspaper.

  The same image Sam had let me have on the condition that it remained between us.

  The same image that Erik Royce must have broken into my desk to get.

  The same image that was going to ruin everything.

  Chapter 49

  “Freddie, I can’t talk about this now.”

  The words cracked over the phone, cutting me more than if I had just walked through a bank of razor grass in sandals.

  “I’m so sorry, Sam,” I said again, pressing the phone up against my ear. “But I swear to you: I didn’t give Erik those photos. And I sure as hell didn’t give him any of what ended up in that story. I wouldn’t ever do something like that. You have to believe—”

  “How did he get any of it, then?” Sam said, his voice sounding distant, yet vulnerable at the same time. “Nobody else outside of the department knew that. Nobody else had copies of those photos, Freddie. Only you did.”

  I took in a deep breath.

  Sam had every right to be upset about this.

  But knowing that didn’t make it sting any less.

  “I know,” I said softly. “I know. I think that Erik must have broken into my desk and found them. He must have been listening to our conversations somehow, too.”

  I bit my lip as the silence on the other side of the line became deafening.

  “Sam?” I said. “Are you still there?”

  “I know that ultimately, this is all my fault,” he said “I shouldn’t have given you those copies in the first place. And I shouldn’t have been sharing any of the investigation with you. It’s my fault. But…”

  He trailed off, and I gulped hard, afraid of how that sentence was about to finish.

  “I trusted you, Freddie,” he finally said, the speaker cracking as he let out a sharp breath.

  “Sam, I—”

  “I’ve got to go,” he said.

  A moment later, the phone went dead.

  Chapter 50

  “He’s not here, reporter lady. That’s the long and the short of it. But like I said: I can take a message down for him. Or you could try his cell phone. ‘Course, I can’t give you the number if you don’t already have it. Against departmental policy, you see.”

  Officer Anson Donnally’s mouth curled up into a smug, self-satisfied smile, as if it pleased him to see me in a state of distress.

  “I need to see him in person.”

  He shrugged nonchalantly.

  “Hey, it ain’t my problem if you and your boyfriend are going through a spat, sweetie pie.”

  I bit my lip hard to keep from completely flying off the handle.

  Nobody called me sweetie pie and got away with it.

  “Can’t you just call him on his radio?” I said, my voice shaking with anger.

  “Nope, ‘fraid not,” he said, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers across his ample gut. “Against departmental protocol. You oughta know something about that. You and Lt. Lover Man break it all the time.”

  I let it slide, trying not to let the nosy, needling cop sidetrack me from my main objective.

  “It’s really important that I speak to him,” I said.

  I’d already tried calling his cell several times. When all I’d gotten was a voice mailbox, I’d stopped by his house and knocked on the door. There’d been some barking from the dogs in the backyard, but no answer.

  After seeing the front page of today’s newspaper and quickly skimming the story – much of which Erik Royce had lifted from the story I’d been working on about Mindy and the dog code violations before she disappeared – I’d done my best to regain my cool and develop a course of action. My plans to search for Mindy would have to be delayed slightly. Because first, I needed to find Sam and explain to him what had happened in person. And then… then I would have to find that weasel Erik Royce and confront him about what he had done.

  But thus far, I wasn’t making much progress on the first to-do item on my list.

  I stared hard at Anson Donnally, who had gone back to ignoring me and hitting the screen of his phone furiously, as if he was in the middle of something important.

  I would have bet that that “important” thing was nothing more than a game of Angry Birds.

  I was desperate.

  I let out a deep sigh and then dug around in my purse, pulling out a crisp 20 dollar bill. I leaned over and slapped the money down on the desk in front of him.

  Bribing a police officer was a prosecutable offense. But I had a gut feeling that Anson Donnally wasn’t going to tell anybody.
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br />   Anson eyed the bill suspiciously, and for a second, I worried that maybe I had misread the cop. But a moment later, his pudgy hand slowly reached across the table and grabbed the money, pocketing the green like he was used to such transactions.

  “The Lieutenant is checking out a few sites around town in relation to a case,” he said, vaguely. “I believe he’s currently en route to…”

  He paused, glancing at his computer screen.

  “1777 Burnside Drive,” he said.

  I nodded.

  Anson Donnally smiled, leaning back again in his chair.

  “You Chronicle folks are making me a rich man,” he said with a chuckle.

  He went back to pounding away at his phone, as if he was dismissing me from his presence.

  But I wasn’t done with Anson Donnally.

  “I want to know if you’ve officially arrested Taylor High in connection to Mindy Monahan’s disappearance too,” I said in a stern tone.

  “And I want to know what the October Sports Illustrated cover girl looks like with no clothes on,” he said, not looking up from his phone. “But chances are I’m not going to find that out anytime soon, am I?”

  I’d had just about enough out of Anson Donnally.

  “Say, Anson,” I said, leaning forward again. “What do you think would happen if I told Lt. Sakai that you’re taking bribes from reporters?”

  He pulled his eyes from the screen and puckered his lips at me.

  “If you ask me, he ain’t one to talk,” he sneered. “Not after the way he’s been carrying on with you—”

  “Taking bribes is grounds for expulsion from the department. Maybe even prosecution,” I said. “Which I know would be a real disappointment to your mother. I know just how much she depends on you, Anson.”

  It was a well-known fact around town that Anson Donnally lived with his mother. He always tried to make it seem as though he was supporting her, but many, including myself, had doubts about that. Mrs. Donnally was a mean, middle-aged woman who seemed perfectly capable of caring for herself.

  Anson’s eyes grew wide at the mention of his mother.

  “Hey—” he said, sticking a finger at me. “You don’t bring her into this. My ma’s a—”

  “Was Taylor High arrested or not?” I said.

  Anson Donnally gave me a hard look, and I returned every bit of it back.

  I saw the fight in his eyes. But then, after he realized that I had him in no uncertain terms, I saw him break.

  “No,” he finally said. “Taylor High wasn’t arrested. At least, not that I’m aware of.”

  I rubbed my face, deep in thought for a long moment.

  “What’d he say during questioning?” I said.

  Anson scoffed.

  “Ask your boyfriend.”

  “I’m asking you,” I said.

  I stared him down, watching him squirm.

  He flashed his weasel eyes from side to side.

  Then he spilled.

  “High denied doing anything to the teacher lady,” Anson grumbled. “Like anybody might if they were accused of kidnapping one. He admitted owning the gun in question, but said it went missing a few days earlier from his home office. Also admitted to having a grudge against the teacher. Admitted that he was the fella in the photo. Said the teacher lady was harassing him and that she was going to expose him at the board meeting for not picking up after his dog. Admitted to, uh, trying to persuade her from that by, uh, by dumping a sizeable amount of doggy doo-doo on her front lawn.”

  I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth in disbelief.

  It had been him in the photo.

  I’d been right.

  “Is he still your main suspect?”

  Anson scoffed.

  “Ask your boyfriend,” he said, again.

  This time, I knew he said it not so much because he didn’t want to answer as it was because he didn’t know the answer.

  “Now if that’s all, I’ve got work to do,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “And I expect you to keep your word, reporter lady. If I hear anything from Lt. Sakai about bribery of any sort, or read anything in the paper about any of this, than believe me, I’m gonna make you—”

  “Make me what?” I said in a stern tone.

  Anson shut up right fast. A moment later, he was back to tapping his phone screen again, returning to his raging game of Angry Birds. Ignoring me.

  “That’s what I thought,” I muttered under my breath, walking away.

  Chapter 51

  I parked on Burnside Drive, sidling up behind Sam’s police cruiser and bringing the Hyundai to a standstill on the cracked, pothole-ridden asphalt.

  I gazed at the isolated and run-down blocky building through the gaps of a tall chain link fence.

  The faded, weathered sign out front said it all:

  No Trespassing.

  Not exactly something a prospective buyer of the property would want to see.

  But then again, there hadn’t been any prospective buyers for this property since the school district put it up for sale two years earlier.

  Though I hadn’t immediately recognized the address when Anson Donnally had told me, I did now, sitting out in front of the ugly beige building on the south side of town.

  It was the Burnside property. The one that was a dud on the market.

  The one that had once been the home of the school district’s failed Afterschool Pups Program.

  I stared at the building, realizing that my hands were trembling as they continued to grip the steering wheel.

  The police cruiser was empty. Meaning that Sam had already gone inside.

  I sucked in a deep breath, trying to gather my courage.

  Then, my phone rang.

  I used it as an excuse to linger a moment longer.

  It was an unfamiliar number with an unfamiliar area code.

  I answered anyway.

  “This is Freddie Wolf,” I said, keeping my eyes on the building.

  “Hello, Ms. Wolf,” said the voice on the other side of the line. “My name is Elaine Meriwether. I’m calling from International Pathways to Success?”

  The woman had a thick northern English accent that caught me off guard a little bit with its unusual inflection.

  “Yes,” I choked out. “Yes, thank you so much for getting back to me.”

  I’d called the teaching abroad company the night before after getting back home from the walk with Mugs. I’d left a message, but hadn’t expected them to get back to me so quickly.

  “I’m returning your call from yesterday. You said in your message that you wanted to contact one of our teachers for an article you’re writing? A Diane Parker?”

  “Yes, that’s correct,” I said. “I’m writing a profile article about her husband, and I was hoping to talk to her about—”

  “Yes, I understand,” the woman said. “But I’m afraid you must have the wrong recruitment agency. Because I’ve checked through our records, and there’s no Diane Parker teaching through our agency in China this year.”

  All the oxygen in the car vanished.

  “Nor has there ever been,” the woman added.

  I stared out at the old building, not responding to her statement.

  It was starting to rain. Big, chubby drops breaking across the windshield.

  “Ma’am? Are you still there?”

  “Sorry about that,” I said, numbly. “My mistake.”

  “It’s not a problem,” she said.

  The line went dead a few moments later.

  But it hadn’t been my mistake, I realized.

  It’d been his.

  Chapter 52

  The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up on end, as if a bolt of lightning was about to descend and electrify everything within a mile radius.

  But as I looked around, I found nothing to account for that feeling.

  The hallway I found myself in was old and musty. But it was how you would expect the hallway of an abandoned school d
istrict building to be. There were a few ancient desks that had been the victims of graffiti, and the floor was thick with dust. But other than that, there wasn’t much to be spooked about.

  I shook off the strange feeling, and chose a direction to go in. I walked quickly, wondering where Sam was. I was about to call out his name, but something deep down told me not to.

  You don’t know what you’re walking into, it said.

  I followed directions and kept quiet. I continued down the hallway without making as much as a squeak.

  I had all the pieces. Everything I needed to figure it out was there. I knew it in my gut.

  But I just had to make it all fit somehow.

  I’d discovered a big piece of the puzzle the night before. The dog – the beast howling in the night that Mugs and I had encountered. I’d known that dog.

  His name was Arthur.

  The voice that called him back to the house was familiar, too.

  I didn’t realize until last night that he lived right by Tabor Elementary – just a stone’s throw away from the play field.

  Another massive part of that puzzle came into focus just a few minutes earlier during that phone call with the teaching abroad program organizer.

  His wife wasn’t in China, like he’d said.

  Which meant…Which meant…

  It was all there. I just needed to take a moment and think. I just needed to—

  I suddenly stopped dead in my tracks as I heard a familiar voice echoing down the hall.

  Followed by another familiar one.

  My story meter lit up like a firecracker.

  The pictures.

  The pictures.

  It all had to do with those photos Mindy had taken during her stakeouts.

  But it wasn’t what was in the foreground that had been important.

  It was what was in the background.

  The walls were spinning.

  I’d been wrong about Taylor High. All wrong.

  He wasn’t the one who’d abducted Mindy.

  Someone else had been worried about what Mindy had captured with her camera. Someone who—