by Diane Kelly
The zoo provided an intriguing range of animal sounds and smells she’d never experienced anywhere else. Zebras. Rhinos. Lions. Of course if Brigit realized that a mere cat had been deemed king of the jungle she would have wholeheartedly protested, no matter how big the cat was. Dogs, of course, were the far superior species, paws down.
As they cruised past the zoo with the windows open, Brigit lifted her nose to the air. She smelled the popcorn they sold at stands throughout the grounds. She smelled the sweat of the workers as they hauled food and supplies around the habitats. And she smelled sex hormones. A bull elephant in the zoo was in musth, producing sixty times his normal level of testosterone. He reeked of lust.
Of course this wasn’t the first time today that she’d scented sex hormones. She’d smelled their faint scent lingering in the bushes at the house they’d just visited. Those hormones had not been from an elephant, though. Nope, those hormones had been from a human male. She should know. Her first owner was a twenty-something dipstick who was always on the prowl for women. He didn’t have much going for him, though, and was rarely successful. He might have had better luck if he’d brushed his teeth more than once a week.
When they’d passed the zoo, Brigit flopped down onto her cushion. After sniffing out the drugs in that car and taking down the man in the school, this dog had earned a catnap. But while her brain wanted to rest, her tummy had other plans. It gurgled and seized, no longer happy about the smorgasbord of chicken nuggets, hot dog bits, and French fries she’d gobbled down in the school cafeteria.
Hork.
Megan turned around in the front seat. “You okay, Brig?”
Brigit stood up and stretched out her neck when her stomach seized again. Hork.
“I’m pulling over!” Megan cried, making a quick turn onto the road that led into Forest Park. “Hang on!”
Hork! Hork!
Megan jumped out of her seat and yanked the door to Brigit’s enclosure open. “C’mon, girl!” she cried, motioning for Brigit to hop down to the asphalt. “Now!”
But there wasn’t time for Brigit to get out of the car before her stomach gave one final, powerful squeeze. Hooooork!
“Ewww!” Megan cried.
Brigit didn’t know what her partner was so upset about. As for herself, she felt much better now that her stomach was lighter. She grabbed her Frisbee in her teeth and looked up at Megan, wagging her tail. How about a game of catch in the park?
TEN
JUST IN CASE
Tom
Wednesday night he was out again. He had to be extra careful. The woman he’d targeted tonight was married. The last thing Tom needed was an angry husband coming after him.
He drove slowly up the street, turning off his headlights as he approached. He rolled to a quiet stop across the street under a live oak tree with sprawling, leafy branches that blocked the light from the street lamp. The flickering light in the bay window at the front of the house told him someone was in the room watching television. He lifted his binoculars to his eyes and aimed them at the window, which was covered only with sheers to take advantage of the natural light in daytime.
There was her husband, sitting on the couch in a pair of rumpled pajamas, a bottle of imported beer in his hand. His gaze was fixed on the television. Tom shifted his binoculars slightly to take a look at the screen. Sure enough, the guy was watching a dirty flick on Cinemax. On the screen, a young, busty woman in a tight red dress and rhinestone-covered stilettos grabbed the necktie of the businessman standing in front of her and pulled his face down to hers. As they kissed, the man ran a hand down her arm, stopping to cup her ass.
Titillating, sure. But not nearly as titillating as watching a real woman in a secret, unscripted scene she had no idea she was starring in.
Tom wondered if the wife knew what her husband was up to. Probably not. Women were easy to fool. More than likely the guy claimed he was staying up to watch sports highlights. Then again, sex was a sport of sorts. It took two opponents, each of whom was trying to score.
He lowered the binoculars and returned them to the glove compartment. With her husband distracted in the living room, the woman would likely be alone in her bedroom now. Perfect timing.
ELEVEN
BLUE PLATE SPECIAL
Megan
Starting on Wednesday, my beat schedule changed to the 4 P.M. to 1 A.M. shift. Working the swing shift stank. There wasn’t enough time to get much done before going to work, and it was difficult to stay awake past my usual bedtime. But a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do, even if she needs an extra-large coffee to keep her alert enough to do it.
Just after nine o’clock, dispatch came on the radio. “Officers needed in Frisco Heights. Victim reports a home invasion. Shots fired. Suspect appears to have left the scene.”
The Frisco Heights neighborhood sat just north of Texas Christian University, home of the fighting horned frogs. The neighborhood was in the throes of gentrification and redevelopment, many of the smaller, older homes being torn down to make way for larger models that came with modern conveniences, custom features, and hefty price tags. Some of the smaller single-family homes in the southern part of the neighborhood bordering the university were being torn down and replaced by apartment complexes and condominiums.
Before I could grab my mic, Officer Spalding took the call. “Officer Spalding responding.”
Dispatch gave him the address, which was on Sandage Avenue.
Brigit and I were only a few blocks away. I grabbed my radio from the dash. “Officers Luz and Brigit providing backup.”
Flipping on my lights, I admonished Brigit to “Hold on!” and sped to the scene, keeping an eye out for cars or pedestrians that appeared to be making a hasty getaway. Nothing unusual caught my eye.
Spalding’s cruiser was already parked at the curb as I turned onto Sandage. Spalding was in his early thirties, black and stocky, with the kind of muscles that said he spent most of his free time at the gym. He rushed up the front porch of the stately one-story home, gun at the ready in case the suspect wasn’t as gone as the victim believed him to be. Fueled by adrenaline, I leaped from my car, readied my gun, and joined Spalding on the porch, each of us taking a spot on alternate sides of the ornate double doors.
He raised a fist and pounded on the door. “Fort Worth Police!”
A moment later, a person appeared behind the door, the diamond-shaped glass panes in the door creating a kaleidoscope effect. The door swung open to reveal a fiftyish blond woman in a pink nightgown. A white elastic headband kept her hair off her face, which bore a coating of white cold cream. She hurled herself in my direction. “Thank God you’re here!”
I barely had time to lower my gun before she grabbed me in a bear hug so tight it’s a wonder my rib cage didn’t implode.
“He shot up my wall!” she cried in my ear at ten million decibels. “I thought he was going to kill me!”
When she burst into an all-out sob on my shoulder, I wrapped my left hand around her back and gave her a few pats. “It’s going to be okay, ma’am. You’re safe n-now.”
The woman released me, leaving my shoulder wet and gooey with cold cream, tears, and mucus. Job hazard. I pulled a small package of tissues from my pocket and handed one to the woman.
She took the tissue, dabbing at her eyes. “I just can’t believe it! I was in my bathroom taking off my makeup and a huge man in a ski mask walked right up behind me!”
“Are you hurt?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Just…” A fresh sob divided her words. “Scared.”
Spalding came closer. “Did he rob you?”
The woman turned her gaze on my coworker. “He made me give him my debit card and PIN number.” She gasped for air between sobs, her voice evolving into an all-out wail. “He said he was going to the bank and if the PIN number didn’t work he’d come back and kill me!”
Spalding and I exchanged glances. This situation fit Ralph Hurley’s MO to a T.
&n
bsp; The woman closed her eyes and shook her head, fighting to gain control of her emotions. When she’d calmed a little, she opened her eyes. “He snuck right into my house,” she said, her lip quivering and voice quavering. “I hadn’t set my alarm yet. It has a motion sensor so I don’t turn it on until I’m going to bed.”
Her behavior was typical, and likely explained why Hurley had struck in the late evening rather than in the wee hours of the night when home security systems would be armed.
The woman sniffled again. “On my way to get my purse I went for the panic button on my alarm system in the kitchen. He shot up the wall before I could get to it.” She burst into a fresh sob. “I thought he was going to shoot me next!”
I’d faced some scary situations on my job, including an armed gang who’d turned multiple guns on me at once, but at least I’d had a Kevlar vest, my own set of weapons, and extensive training. The defenseless woman must have been completely terrified. My heart went out to her.
“Did he touch anything in your house?” I asked, hoping the crime scene team might be able to lift a fingerprint and positively identify the robber.
“He grabbed my jar of face cream out of my hand and threw it to the floor. He touched the front doorknob when he left, too. But he was wearing gloves. Black ones.”
Darn! With the suspect wearing gloves, the odds of getting a print were slim.
Spalding looked up and down the street. “Did you see the vehicle the man was driving?”
“No,” the woman said. “As soon as he ran out the front door I locked it and went straight for my phone.”
Spalding squeezed his shoulder-mounted radio mic. “This is Officer Spalding. Suspect in the Frisco Heights home invasion demanded the victim’s debit card and PIN. It could be Ralph Hurley. Keep an eye on all banks and ATM locations in the vicinity. Victim did not see the suspect’s car, but he could be in an Isuzu Amigo.”
I hiked a thumb at my cruiser, where Brigit stood in the back, fogging up the window with her warm, moist breath. “I’ll get Brigit on the trail.”
While Spalding remained behind to question the woman, I rushed over to my car and released Brigit, who wagged her tail, eager to perform. Gotta love her work ethic, especially when she didn’t even get minimum wage. It was probably just as well. If she did get a paycheck, she’d probably spend it all on shoes, like many females. But unlike other females, she’d eat the shoes rather than wear them.
I directed my partner to the front door and ordered her to trail. While Brigit wasn’t trained like a bloodhound to search for a particular person, she was trained to follow after the source of a disturbance. Her body tensed in concentration as she snuffled around the porch. Snuffle, snuffle, snuffle. She found the scent, trotted down the steps, and set off.
“We’ll be in touch!” I called over my shoulder as I took off after her.
She made her way down the walk and into the street. While I kept a flashlight locked on her and kept an eye out for oncoming cars, she hooked a right onto West Cantey Street, continued past Merida Avenue, and slowed as she approached Lubbock. She veered into the middle of the street, then took a right down Lubbock Avenue. A hundred feet down she stopped and snuffled around in front of a house, coming back twice to the same spot. Snuffle-snuffle. On her third go-round, she stopped at the spot, sat down on her haunches, and looked up at me, wordlessly telling me that this was where the trail ended.
“Good job, partner!” I scratched that sweet spot behind her ear to show my appreciation and gave her a single liver treat, hoping she wouldn’t notice the pay cut. A good track usually earned her two treats, at least.
The intruder must have climbed into his car here. I glanced around. It was no wonder the thug chose to park in this spot. The surrounding houses were relatively dark, and a large tree blocked light from above, casting the road in shadow. It would be easy to overlook a car parked here.
I shined my flashlight on the house, looking for the number. When I found it, I jotted down the address in my notepad and radioed Spalding. “The trail ran cold on Lubbock.”
His voice came back a moment later. “Detective Bustamente and crime scene are on their way to Sandage Avenue. Keep things secure at Lubbock Avenue until the techs get there.”
“Will do.”
I moved back, out of the street, and ordered Brigit to sit by my side in the yard. Standing still so as not to disturb the scene, I shined my flashlight around on the ground, looking to see if the suspect might have left evidence behind. In their haste to escape, criminals sometimes left a clue or two. A footprint with an identifiable sole pattern. A cigarette butt with their fingerprints or DNA on it. Heck, more than one criminal had even unknowingly dropped their wallets. That blunder made things easy for the cops and prosecutors.
Unfortunately, the only thing I saw was a fresh oil stain on the asphalt. Maybe we’d get lucky and Hurley’s engine would quit on him, strand him high on a freeway overpass where he’d have no way to escape unless he wanted to go out like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Twenty minutes later, a crime scene tech arrived in a van and secured the area. Having worked with Detective Hector Bustamente before, I dialed his cell.
He answered with a chuckle. “I knew it was only a matter of time before you’d call, Officer Luz.”
The detective knew I aspired to follow in his footsteps one day, and had been gracious enough to let me shadow him in earlier investigations. It was nice to have a mentor.
“Can I come take a look inside the house?”
“Be my guest,” he said. “Just leave the dog in your car and be sure to put on a pair of booties before you come in.”
Brigit and I retraced our steps to the Sandage Avenue house. I loaded her back into her enclosure in the cruiser, and proceeded to the front porch, where an evidence tech handed me a pair of blue paper booties.
“Don’t touch anything,” he warned. “Eyes only.”
“I’ll be careful,” I promised. This wasn’t my first rodeo.
I found the detective in the kitchen. Having spent so much time at the dog park with Brigit, I’d become familiar with the different types of dogs, their looks and temperaments, and subconsciously begun to equate humans with dog breeds. Detective Bustamente was the human equivalent of a basset hound, with droopy eyes and stumpy legs and a portly build. He had thick lips, like Megan Ryan after the plastic surgery disaster, though his were naturally pouty. He wore a green knit golf shirt with the collar curling up on one side and a pair of khaki pants that were three inches too short, revealing the white socks he’d paired with his black loafers. But while the guy couldn’t be less impressive appearancewise, he couldn’t be more intelligent brainwise. What he lacked in fashion sense he more than made up for in crime-solving savvy. We’d worked the rodeo purse-snatcher case together, even pretended to be a married couple as part of the investigation. The guy could really think on his feet, a skill I hoped to develop.
Bustamente stared through a jagged, watermelon-sized hole that had been blasted through the Sheetrock adjacent to the alarm panel. If the homeowner was interested in adding a pass-through bar to her living room, the hole would be a good start. Severed wires curled inside the open space, while shards of drywall, white Sheetrock powder, and a spent shotgun shell lay on the Italian tile floor below.
I stepped up beside him. “What’re you thinking, Detective?”
He turned from the hole to me. “I’m thinking it’s a good time to pay a visit to Ralph Hurley’s sister. You up for it?”
Join in the investigation? Heck, yeah! “Yes, sir!”
My cruiser’s clock showed 10:02 as I followed Bustamente’s plain sedan into the parking lot of an older, no-frills apartment complex on east Seminary Drive. We took spaces side by side near the back of the lot. Though I feared bringing Brigit with me lest Ralph Hurley answer the door with guns blazing, I feared more that he’d drive into the lot, spot my cruiser, and open fire on the car while my partner was trapped inside, helpless. At
least with her by my side I had a chance of defending her.
The detective and I glanced around the lot, looking for an Isuzu Amigo. Though neither of us spotted Hurley’s car, my eyes landed on a shiny grease spot in a parking space partially obscured by a cockeyed garbage Dumpster.
“Fresh oil,” I said, pointing. “There was an oil spot on Lubbock Avenue, too. Right at the place where Brigit lost the scent.”
Bustamente grunted. “Looks like Hurley’s car may have sprung a leak.”
We made our way down the sidewalk, stopping when we found unit 103. Though the porch light was dark, soft light filtered through the slits in the vertical blinds, and the sound of the local news playing on TV came through the door. Could Hurley be sitting inside, watching to see if there was any news of his crime yet? Part of me hoped he was, that we’d catch the fugitive quickly and without incident. Another part of me hoped I’d never run into the guy. I’d seen what his shotgun could do to drywall and two-by-fours. It could do far worse to flesh and bone.
While Bustamente rapped lightly on the door so as not to disturb nearby residents who might be sleeping, I readied my gun. Forcing myself to breathe, I listened as intently as possible, trying to make out noise from inside the apartment against a backdrop of traffic noise from Seminary Drive and the ba-dum ba-dum of my throbbing heartbeat.
Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Click.
Holy crap! Was that a shotgun being cocked? BA-DUM-BA-DUM! As the door swung inward I realized the sound had been the dead bolt sliding free. Thank God.
The door opened a few inches, as much as the safety chain would allow, and a woman’s face looked out and down at us. Whoa. Hurley wasn’t the only giant in his family. His sister stood at least five eleven. With brown hair and eyes and otherwise ordinary features, she looked like her brother, too.