Gideon's Rescue

by Alan Russell

  Praise for the Author

  “He has a gift for dialogue.”—New York Times

  “Really special.”—Denver Post

  “A crime fiction rara avis.”—Los Angeles Times

  “One of the best writers in the mystery field today.”—Publishers Weekly (starred)

  “Ebullient and irresistible.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred)

  “Complex and genuinely suspenseful.”—Boston Globe

  “Credible and deeply touching. Russell has us in the palm of his hands.”—Chicago Tribune

  “He is enlightening as well as entertaining.”—Tampa Bay Times

  “Enormously enjoyable.”—Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

  “Russell is spectacular.”—San Diego Union-Tribune

  “This work by Russell has it all.”—Library Journal

  “Grade: A. Russell has written a story to satisfy even the most hardcore thrill junkie.”—Rocky Mountain News

  GIDEON’S RESCUE

  Books by Alan Russell

  Gideon and Sirius Novels

  Burning Man

  Guardians of the Night

  Lost Dog

  Gideon’s Rescue

  Hotel Detective Mysteries

  The Hotel Detective

  The Fat Innkeeper

  Detective Cheever Novels

  Multiple Wounds

  The Homecoming

  Stand-Alone Novels

  Shame

  Exposure

  Political Suicide

  St. Nick

  A Cold War

  Stuart Winter Mysteries

  No Sign of Murder

  The Forest Prime Evil

  GIDEON’S RESCUE

  A Gideon and Sirius Novel

  Alan Russell

  Copyright © 2018 by Alan Russell

  All rights reserved. Please comply with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of this book in any form (other than brief quotations embodied in critical reviews) without permission of the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover design by Jason Blackburn

  Three Tails Press, New York, New York

  For author contact and press inquiries, please visit alanrussell.net.

  I am lucky enough to have the greatest literary agent in the world, as well as the world’s greatest editor. Thank you, Cynthia Manson and Caitlin Alexander, for everything you do.

  Contents

  Praise for the Author

  Books by Alan Russell

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Hunting Season

  Holly, Colorado

  1,199 miles from Los Angeles

  November 14

  The Arctic air had brought bitter cold to the Colorado prairie. That was all right with Jim Grinnell. The birds would want to hunker down from the elements.

  At a little before seven, dawn was beginning to show itself. Grinnell had set up his blind hours earlier in the darkness. One of the things he liked about duck hunting on the out-of-the-way eastern plains was that the area wasn’t overrun with hunters, as it often was along the South Platte River. He liked the remoteness of the Holly State Wildlife Area. At the moment, he was the only hunter working this stretch of the Arkansas River.

  Grinnell heard quacking and looked out from his blind. An approaching flock was circling his decoys. He tried to call the ducks down with a five-note call. Less was more, he was convinced, when it came to duck calls. He was trying to establish a dialogue with the ducks, and it worked. Grinnell and the ducks called back and forth until the birds were in range. Taking even breaths, Grinnell pumped his Remington Model 870 shotgun, drew a bead, and fired. One of the mallards, a drake, dropped from the sky.

  “Yes!” he said, watching the bird hit the water.

  This year Grinnell was birding without a dog. His old chocolate Lab, Brady, had finally died, and he hadn’t yet replaced him. Part of that was laziness, but the bigger part was that he hadn’t come to terms with old Brady’s death. Over the years, he’d had better hunting dogs, but no better friend.

  Even though he was wearing waders, Grinnell liked to avoid going into the water when he could. In Brady’s absence he’d had to improvise, gathering in the downed birds with an old fishing pole equipped with treble hooks. So far this season, he had managed to snag every bird but one. The current had swept that duck away, but today the river was still; it was cold enough that the banks were icing up.

  Grinnell stepped out from his blind, which was camouflaged to look like dead grass marsh. Nearby, he’d also set up what looked like weed cover. He was wearing camouflage himself, what the Brits liked to call a “ghillie suit.” The bird wasn’t far from the shore, probably no more than thirty feet off. He made sure the treble hooks were extended and in no danger of snagging on any of his body parts, then he swung his pole and released his line. It was a good cast. He began reeling in the line, changing its course a few times by redirecting the tip of the pole, until the large hooks snared the bird.

  It was a big bird, at least three pounds. He took the mallard with him into the blind. Even though it was cold enough that he didn’t have to worry about spoilage, Grinnell preferred to field dress his birds immediately after they’d been shot.

  With practiced fingers, Grinnell reached to the middle of the duck’s chest. He pulled the feathers apart, exposing the breast, and then cut open the skin. After placing the duck on the ground, he put one foot on its head and the other on the tail, and tugged upwards. The breast came up and out of the body, and with it both wings. Preserving the wings was necessary in the event a game warden came along. The wings allowed the warden to identify the species of duck that was taken. Of course, Grinnell seriously doubted any game warden would be coming along. They usually patrolled the more popular spots. Where he was hunting was considered the boonies; the Kansas state line was only five or six miles away.

  Grinnell stored the breast in his ice chest. If a warden came along, that was fine by him. He had all his tags and licenses. And he wouldn’t mind the company. Most hunters weren’t solitary like Grinnell, but over the years he’d found solitude meant more ducks.

  He rubbed his hands with some liquid soap, and then rinsed them with water from his bottle before pouring himself a cup of steaming coffee. It was his tradition to hold off drinking his coffee until after bagging his first bird.

  The joe was piping hot, and he was
forced to take it in little sips. That’s when he heard the sounds.

  “Oh my God,” a woman moaned. “That’s it. Don’t stop. Yes, oh, yes.”

  Grinnell couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was twenty degrees outside and he was in the middle of nowhere. But damned if some woman wasn’t crying out in the throes of passion.

  He put down his coffee cup, unsure what to do. Where had the woman come from? And was she as close as she sounded, or were her acoustics being channeled from farther along the river?

  “Ohhhhhh,” she said. “Ohhhhhhh.”

  Grinnell decided he couldn’t just stand there listening. It made him feel like a voyeur. The couple must not have noticed his blind, and he needed to remedy that. He opened the flaps and walked outside. His appearance put an abrupt end to the sounds. Grinnell expected to see a couple in flagrante delicto; an apology was already on his lips. But it was never offered. He stared at the rifle pointed at him.

  Guns had always been a part of his life, but he’d never seen one from this angle, had never known how very ugly a rifle’s bore was when pointed directly at you. That was the last thought Jim Grinnell ever had. An instant later, the view grew even uglier when the rifle was fired.

  Chapter One

  Dog Fright

  Four and a half months later

  The two large dogs squared off. Teeth bared, spittle flying, they mirrored one another’s movements. They were about the same size but distinct breeds. Their growls increased, and then they were wrestling on the ground, one on top and then the other.

  A woman came running down the path, her eyes wide. She took a step forward to break up the dogs, then thought better of it. Peacemakers might be blessed, but that doesn’t prevent them from getting bitten. The ferocious snarling made her keep her distance.

  She challenged me with a look that said, Why don’t you do something?

  “It’s all right,” I told her. “They’re playing.”

  She didn’t quite roll her eyes, but it was apparent she didn’t believe me. She hadn’t seen the German shepherd initiate play with a little bow, or his preliminary tail wagging. The hound had happily accepted the invitation to play, and that had started the ruckus. The dogs had communicated with one another; each knew that no matter how loud their sound effects were or how realistic their pratfalls, it was all a game. The dogs were so good in their playacting that they should get a contract with the WWE. I probably should have told the woman that the shepherd was my partner, but I didn’t want to step on his Hulk Hogan swagger.

  Their grand finale looked choreographed; both dogs leapt, bumped chests, and then they hit the ground. They got up and shook themselves like dogs trying to dry themselves off. By mutual decree, they’d had enough.

  “And that’s a wrap,” I said.

  In Tinseltown you say things like that.

  The two posers came running over to me, wagging their tails. Both were panting and in need of a drink. I waved to the woman and smiled. She didn’t wave or smile back. And I imagine had she deigned to speak she would have said, “We are not amused.”

  I put a hand on Sirius’s head and told him, “You could have been a contender.” Then I accompanied Sirius and Angie to a nearby watering hole, where they slurped away.

  This was my second visit to Angie’s Rescues, a shelter that had been open for only ten days. The shelter had been Heather Moreland’s dream. Heather had gone through hell and had sold her story for a lot of money, proceeds that had built Angie’s Rescues.

  Angie is Heather’s rescue dog. Conversely, you could say Heather is Angie’s rescue human. Angie is mostly bloodhound, a breed often described as a nose with a dog attached. She had sniffed out our presence the moment we parked, and had run from inside the shelter to play with her friend Sirius.

  The dogs were finishing up their drinking when Heather appeared. “People were wondering if World War Three had broken out,” she said.

  Sirius and Angie ran up to Heather, and then the two of us shook hands. She was smiling and energized. Sometimes it’s hard for people to come back from the kind of trauma she experienced, but she looked great.

  “How are things?” I asked.

  “Crazy,” she said. “I never would have guessed how much work it takes to run an animal shelter, but every day I wake up with a smile on my face. This is what I was meant to do. I get goose bumps every time I see one of my animals leaving for their forever home.”

  I had heard that the day after Angie’s Rescues opened, it was completely full with dogs and cats. It was a no-kill shelter, something the animals seemed to sense. Roughly half the animals taken in by Los Angeles County shelters don’t make it out alive. In the city of Los Angeles the survival rate is better, but it’s still nothing to brag about.

  “How long have you and Sirius been together?” Heather asked.

  “Like most of our state’s citizenry,” I said, “my partner came to California as an immigrant. That was five years ago.”

  My wife, Jen, had immediately babied the new arrival, and insisted that we change his name from the German Serle to Sirius. The big, bad wolf was putty in Jennifer’s hands.

  “And was it love at first sight?” asked Heather.

  Sirius had loved at first sight, but it was my wife he’d fallen for. The two of us initially had a different kind of relationship. Work and training brought us closer and engendered trust. And then Jen died, and Sirius made sure I wasn’t consumed in darkness; all that occurred before the two of us went through a crucible of fire to capture a serial killer. Five years of partnering had put us through a lot together. Each of us had saved the other’s life.

  “What’s love got to do with it?” I said, quoting Tina Turner. “Sirius and I are cops. That means we’re immune to puppy dog eyes.”

  “Science would dispute that,” said Heather. “There have been several recent studies on oxytocin—the so-called love hormone—that show humans experience increased oxytocin levels whenever we gaze into the eyes of dogs. Canines also exhibit increased oxytocin levels.”

  “You need to be skeptical of all the junk science out there,” I said. “Or at least that’s what I heard at last week’s Flat Earth Society meeting.”

  “Did you wear your tinfoil hat to the meeting?”

  That got a laugh out of me and demonstrated just how much Heather had healed. She had gone from a somber, scared survivor to a happy and confident woman.

  “Ready to work?” she asked.

  “Lead the way,” I said.

  I had committed to volunteering at the shelter for four hours a week. Because of my work with Metropolitan K-9, Heather thought the best use of my time would be socializing with the dogs, taking them for walks, and working on basic obedience commands.

  Angie’s Rescues was a compound made up of several buildings. Cats and dogs were in detached buildings, with separate entrances for each. As we started up the dog path, we passed colorful cutouts of different dog breeds. There was also a familiar-looking object situated just off the walkway. At the grand opening party, I had presented Heather with a big box that contained a half-size bright-red fire hydrant.

  “Your present has proved quite popular with our male dogs,” Heather said.

  Sirius must have been listening, because he decided it was a good spot for him to relieve himself.

  “It was either the hydrant or a garden gnome,” I said. “Personally, I’d prefer taking aim at the gnome, but I figured your clientele would want the gold standard.”

  “I’m afraid I will never look at those poor gnomes the same way again,” she said.

  There were benches along our walk; we passed under trees with greenery on each side. It felt more like a park setting than anything else. Before Angie’s Rescues, I had never liked animal shelters, probably because they reminded me of prisons. Inmates describe their captivity as “killing time.” It’s an apt phrase—the passage of time is a slow killer. Whether it’s in a shelter or a prison, those who wait behind bars are th
e forsaken.

  When I was growing up, animal shelters were referred to as “the pound.” A visit to the pound meant encountering cold cement, steel bars, urine and feces littering small pens, and the hovering angel of death. I always imagined that was why the dogs housed there barked incessantly—they were trying to scare away death.

  Angie’s Rescues had a very different feel from the pounds of old. Statues of St. Francis of Assisi stood at the entrances to the dog and cat buildings. Each featured a different St. Francis quote. I read the dog quote as we passed it: All things of creation are children of the Father and thus brothers of man.

  If I ever return to the Catholic Church, I thought, it will probably be because of St. Francis of Assisi.

  Throughout the shelter were painted murals (probably more for the workers and helpers than the animals), lots of planters and plants, fountains, and walkways that led into corrals. We began encountering dogs and their barking, but the noise didn’t seem to travel far.

  “As you can see,” said Heather, “we’ve tried to offer dogs their own space by using planter dividers. We’ve also put in relatively high ceilings. Those, along with acoustic tiles, have cut down the noise.”

  I paused at an open space between the enclosures, took note of the sun and the sky, and said, “I’m used to seeing atriums in fancy hotels, not dog shelters.”

  “They bring in light and fresh air,” she said.

  As we walked, Heather greeted each dog we encountered. She knew the names of all her charges and offered me short histories on each.

  “Hi, Pepe,” she said, calling out to a Chihuahua mix.

  To me, she said, “Pepe is a casualty of divorce. His parents moved to apartments that didn’t allow animals.”

  We passed by Enrique, another Chihuahua. “Enrique was a stray found on the streets of East Los Angeles,” Heather said. “Unfortunately, we have to limit the number of Chihuahuas and pit bulls in our shelter, simply because the supply far exceeds the demand.”