Against the Paw

by Diane Kelly

  Alas, the night provided no answer, just the a soft breeze and the rhythmic chirp-chirp-chirp of crickets.

  EIGHTEEN

  NO WAY TO TREAT A DOG

  Brigit

  Megan had stopped their cruiser at the spot where the scent of the fleeing man had disappeared. Though Megan spoke, her words were soft and slow. Brigit had learned that when her partner talked that way she was talking not to Brigit but to herself. What a weird thing to do. You’d never catch a dog having a conversation with itself, though Brigit wasn’t above tossing a tennis ball in the air to play catch on her own.

  She stood at the mesh enclosure and let out a soft whine. The ear scratch had been nice, but a liver treat would be much better. Might as well give Megan a reminder that she’d forgotten to give her partner the treat she’d earned.

  But Brigit’s whine earned her no treat. In fact, Megan turned around in her seat and commanded Brigit to “hush!”

  Screw that.

  Brigit quieted and waited until Megan had turned to face forward and driven a dozen feet down the road. Then the dog put her mouth to the mesh directly behind Megan’s head and issued the loudest, sharpest, shrillest yip she could muster.

  YIP!

  Megan started in her seat, inadvertently jerking the wheel and narrowly missing a brick mailbox. “Brigit!”

  If Brigit were capable of laughing, she would have. Payback’s a bitch.

  NINETEEN

  DREAMGIRL

  Tom

  He crept into the place, just as he’d crept out of it an hour before. Not that the tiptoeing was necessary. Hell, as deep as that woman slept he could’ve ridden a Harley through the place and not risked waking her. Those three spoonsful of liquid sleep aid he’d slipped into her second glass of wine earlier had been genius. She hadn’t even noticed the taste.

  Now she was passed out on the bed, dead to the world, the television playing a sitcom rerun. Nevertheless, he tried to be as quiet as possible. No sense taking chances. If she realized he’d been out, she’d want to know where and why. It’s none of her damn business.

  He flopped down onto the couch, covering himself with a blanket. Though he was the only one under the covering, he was hardly alone. He’d brought Alyssa Lowry home with him, dark hair and all.

  Knowing it could be a while before he’d be able to spy on another woman, he figured he’d better make the most of the short memory he’d made tonight. He closed his eyes, letting his imagination take over.

  There she is, her firm thighs exposed, her long hair begging to be loosed, Tolstoy in the hands I long to be touched by. Oh, yeah. Alyssa Lowry can dog-ear my pages anytime …

  TWENTY

  MEET AND GREET

  Megan

  Thursday afternoon, as I pulled into the station, the crime scene tech called.

  “Any luck?” I asked.

  “None,” he said. “The only recent prints on the Lowrys’ window screen belonged to Chris Lowry. Apparently the prowler had made no attempt to remove the screen or, if he had, he’d worn gloves, maybe the glove you found.”

  “Did you figure out what kind of glove it was?”

  “Nothing definitive on that end, either, but I think you might have been right when you said it could be a liner. I found some online that looked similar.”

  He went on to tell me that people who worked in the medical field, clean rooms, industrial settings, or refrigerated spaces often wore gloves or glove liners under a heavier rubber or leather glove. The liners wicked away moisture and made the gloves more comfortable. People who handled certain types of fragile objects also wore gloves and glove liners.

  I mulled things over for a moment. “What do you make of the fact that the seam around the wrist was unfinished? Does that mean the glove or glove liner was meant to be disposable?” After all, gloves or liners intended for more than one-time use would likely be finished all around, wouldn’t they?

  “Yes,” he agreed. “In fact, we crime scene techs and the people who work in the evidence room use disposable gloves like this for handling certain types of evidence. X-rays, for instance. We have to make sure they’re free of lint and other things that might damage the film. Most brands of disposable plastic gloves are treated with powder so we can’t use those.”

  Unfortunately, none of this information really helped me narrow down the list of potential suspects, even assuming the glove had been dropped by the prowler, which might or might not be the case. I had little to go on. But I did have a couple of things I wanted to look into.

  Those things were Leonard Drake and Garrett Hawke.

  Something about Hawke didn’t sit quite right with me. I hoped I wasn’t letting my pride get the best of me. He’d been mildly insulting, but mostly he’d just been direct. Even so, he’d seemed to be attempting to steer me away from the glove I’d picked up in the street. Had that been intentional?

  On our way in the station door, Brigit and I met Summer coming out. She crouched down to put a hand under Brigit’s snout and lifted it for a noisy smooch.

  Brigit returned the sentiment, giving Summer a lick on the cheek. Unlike Lucy, who cried out for iodine and disinfectant when Snoopy kissed her, Summer simply used the back of her hand to dry her cheek.

  “You two working swing tonight?” she asked, standing.

  “Yeah,” I replied. “I hate the swing shift. Screws up all of my biorhythms.”

  Summer cringed in empathy. “Sucks to be you.”

  It dawned on me then that my fellow W1 officers might have some intel on Hawke. Maybe they could help me decide whether I was barking up the wrong tree by considering him a potential suspect in the prowler cases. “You ever meet the president of the Berkeley Place Neighborhood Watch?”

  “Big guy?” Summer asked, arcing a brow. “Kinda full of himself?”

  Yep, she’s met him. “That’s him. His name’s Garrett Hawke. He responded to a prowler call last night. Got there before me and looked around but didn’t see anyone.”

  “Typical,” she said.

  True, but … “You ever get a bad vibe from the guy?”

  “No,” she said, “but I’ve only spoken with him once or twice when I was working nights.”

  Looked like I was probably off base.

  Summer hiked a thumb to the bulletin board in the lobby, where a full-color photo of Ralph Hurley was tacked. “Hurley was spotted in Grand Prairie this afternoon. Someone called it in, but by the time their department could respond he was gone.”

  Grand Prairie sat east of Fort Worth. Was Hurley on his way out of town? Or was he merely meandering about the area, looking for his next victim?

  “Did he rob someone else?” I asked.

  “Not that I know of,” she said. “The person who reported it said he was buying a pair of running shoes at the outlets.”

  Hmm. Perhaps he was equipping himself in case he had to make a getaway on foot. Or maybe he had aspirations of running a marathon. Or maybe he just liked comfortable shoes. Heck, criminal or not, who could blame him for wanting comfy footwear? After a shift standing in the street directing traffic, my feet always hurt like heck. And who didn’t like the good bargains the outlets offered? Shopping there would make his stolen cash go further.

  With a final “See ya’,” Summer headed out to her car and Brigit and I headed down the hall to the officers’ administrative room. Given that we street cops took our laptops with us when we were out on patrol, our squad cars served as a type of mobile office. Occasionally, however, we needed a real desk to print reports, prepare paperwork, or meet with a witness. The shared administrative space served that purpose.

  There were only a couple of officers in the room. Both were male and both were typing on their laptops. I snagged a desk near the front of the room and sat down to do some research.

  The first thing I did was run a criminal background check on Leonard Drake, the creepy exterminator Alyssa Lowry had mentioned. I found one listing for a Leonard Roy Drake, age fifty-one. Last
fall, he’d pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor criminal trespass charge he’d racked up after a student reported him wandering the halls of a freshman girls’ dormitory at TCU, knocking on doors. He’d served no jail time, but paid a $500 penalty.

  To make sure he was the same Leonard Drake who worked for Cowtown Critter Control, I pulled up his photo. Sure enough, the guy had craggy, sun-weathered skin and thinning hair combed back over his head, exactly as Alyssa Lowry had described him.

  Could Drake be the prowler? It was possible. Maybe he’d been at the window to peep at Alyssa. And he might have been wandering the halls of that dorm, hoping to catch a glimpse of a scantily clad coed through an open door.

  Or worse …

  Ugh. I so didn’t want to go there. The mere thought was scary and sickening and upsetting.

  Drake’s current address showed him living in east Fort Worth, not far from the crappy apartment complex I’d lived in before moving in with Frankie, but miles from Berkeley Place. Nevertheless, if he had several exterminator clients in Berkeley Place, he might be familiar with the area. I made a mental note to follow up with Kirstin Rumford, see if she might also be a client of the extermination service.

  Having gone as far as I could with Drake for the moment, I switched my focus to Garrett Hawke. Alyssa Lowry had mentioned that Hawke had been instrumental in a few arrests, and I was curious about how things had played out, whether the reports that had been filed might give me more insight on the guy.

  I’d just typed his name into the search box when—rap, rap, rap—Captain Leone tapped a knuckle on the glass wall that separated the admin room from the hall.

  “Luz!” he called, his voice muffled through the glass. “Get your butt over here!”

  I stood and stepped over to the wall.

  He slapped a piece of paper up against the glass. Smack!

  I look at the document. It was the report I’d filed on the dine-and-dash at the pancake house.

  With his free hand, he pointed to the report. “What the hell is this?”

  “It’s iambic pentameter, sir.” Well, all but the last line. I’d flubbed and put an extra syllable there. But I suppose that’s precisely the type of thing allowed by poetic license, right?

  One of the captain’s crazy brows arched, as if preparing to break through the glass and come for me. I took an instinctive step back. If Captain Leone didn’t like that report, he certainly wouldn’t enjoy the automobile accident reports I’d written last week. My ode to the Oldsmobile. My sonnet for the Sonata. My limerick about the Lincoln.

  The captain just shook his head and said, “Check in with Detective Bustamente.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I exited the room and walked farther down the hall to the detective offices. Bustamente had seniority and thus had a corner office, complete with a view of the station’s parking lot and a half-dead Indian Hawthorn bush. Ah, the perks of public service.

  I found the detective engaged in a battle with his desk phone, the long cord having wound itself into a series of impossible knots, giving him an approximate and unworkable four-inch range. I rapped on the door frame. “Any luck on Lubbock Avenue? Anybody see Hurley’s car parked there?”

  “Nope,” he replied. “Nobody saw anything.”

  “Darn.”

  “Darn, indeed.” He waved me in.

  As I stepped into his office, my eyes landed on enlarged photographs spread across his desk. The photos depicted a fiftyish woman matted with blood from what appeared to be a bullet wound in the side of her head. My knees turned to noodles and I had to put out a hand to stop myself from wilting to the floor. My voice squeaked through my tight throat. “Is that the woman from San Antonio? The one who’s in intensive care?”

  “Yes, it is. San Antonio PD had copies overnighted to me. Sorry business, isn’t it?”

  The sorriest. My heart clenched in my chest. What a horrible tragedy for the woman and her grief-stricken family. I swallowed the lump of emotion in my throat. “Have they found any evidence definitively linking the shooting to Hurley?”

  “Not yet. The woman’s bedroom window was unlocked and the screen was missing. There was no sign of forced entry, no defensive wounds, and no signs of a sexual assault. Her debit card is missing and a large cash withdrawal was made from her bank account shortly after the gunshot was reported by a jogger on the next block. The ATM camera footage showed a large guy in a ski mask and gloves. The same goes for the woman on Lubbock Avenue who was robbed. Whoever hit her debit card also wore a ski mask and gloves when he made the withdrawal. It’s gotta be Hurley.” He turned weary yet determined eyes on me. “We need to find this guy, Officer Luz. ASAP.”

  No pressure, huh? My heart climbed into my throat now. “Captain Leone said you wanted to see me?” I managed to squeak out.

  “Yeah,” the detective replied. “Give me just a second here. This darn thing’s driving me nuts.” He stood, unclipped the phone cord, and raised the end of the cord into the air, letting the receiver dangle and spin until the knots undid themselves. He clipped the cord back into the phone and flopped into his chair, turning his gaze on me. “I heard you responded to a couple of prowler calls in Berkeley Place this week. The president of their watch group called today.”

  Why am I not surprised? “What did he say?”

  “The usual,” the detective said. “The police department’s not putting enough resources into catching whoever’s been sneaking around their neighborhood.”

  Enough resources? I was going above and beyond, putting in unpaid overtime on behalf of the people of W1, and I didn’t appreciate getting crap in return. I felt my temper begin to rise. “I got to the victim’s house in record time last night. I rounded up a potential piece of evidence—a glove—and I had a tech dust the window for prints. The only ones he could lift belonged to the homeowner.” I pointed at the wall, in the general direction of the administrative room. “I came in early today to research a couple of leads, and as soon as I finish I plan to head back over to Berkeley Place. Brigit tracked the prowler a couple streets over until the scent disappeared. I’m going to check in with the residents to see if anyone noticed a car parked there last night.”

  Bustamente dipped his head in acknowledgment. “I read your reports. You did your job, Officer Luz. Hell, you did my job, too. Nobody here thinks you’ve fallen short. But this Garrett Hawke’s getting everyone in Berkeley Place riled up. We need to nip this thing in the bud if we can. I’m going to attend their neighborhood watch meeting tonight, and I want you to come, too.”

  I wasn’t much in the mood to be insulted and challenged by Garrett Hawke again, but if there was anything I could do to protect the residents of W1 I’d do it. After all, I’d taken an oath to protect and serve, and there was no exception for situations involving difficult people. Besides, I was terrified for the women under my watch. If something happened to one of them, I knew I’d be forever second-guessing myself, wondering if I’d overlooked something, fallen short somehow.

  “I’ll be there,” I said.

  Bustamente gave me the time and place. “Got any ideas on leads we should look into? Assuming it wasn’t Hurley, that is.”

  “The Lowrys’ exterminator,” I replied, “and Garrett Hawke.”

  “Hawke?” His brows rose in question. “Why him?”

  “The guy looked a little damp last night. It could have been sweat—”

  “Or it could have been the Lowrys’ sprinklers,” he said, his brows returning to their normal position.

  “Right.”

  Bustamente cocked his head. “I’m assuming you’ve already done some snooping?”

  “I have. But I’d like to do some more if it’s okay with you.” He knew I had aspirations to become a detective one day. He also knew I was willing to do any grunt work he wanted to pawn off on me. He looked at it as lightening his load and I looked it as training and mentorship. It was a win-win situation. Win-win-win if you included the residents of W1 in the mix. They w
ere getting services above my pay grade.

  “You have my blessing,” the detective said. “Plus my undying gratitude.” He gestured meaningfully to the towering stack of files on the end of his desk. “Let me know what you find out.”

  “Will do.” I returned to my desk and completed my search.

  Per the information provided in the responding officers’ reports, none of which were nearly as eloquent as mine, Garrett Hawke had apprehended teenagers committing acts of vandalism on two occasions. On a third occasion, he had discovered a man in his early twenties using a tool to try to force the locks open on a Cadillac Escalade parked in a driveway. He’d restrained the suspect, going so far as to shackle his hands with a pair of zip ties until the police arrived. I supposed I shouldn’t have been surprised that Hawke had zip ties on him. After all, he’d carried pepper spray and a gun on his belt last night. Still, securing the suspect’s hands behind his back was going a bit overboard, wasn’t it? Surely Hawke must have manhandled the guy to get him secured like that. That type of behavior was risky, to both Hawke and the suspect, and could easily escalate.

  Ideally, a neighborhood watch should function like hall monitors in junior high, not like vigilantes or subcontractors for law enforcement. They should observe and report, not apprehend and restrain. Hawke could easily get out of hand. He seemed to want to be a hero. But there was a fine line between heroism and recklessness. I also had to wonder if he’d contacted the department with the intent to throw us off his scent, too.

  Armed with information, I returned to Detective Bustamente’s office.

  He looked up from his desk. “Find anything on those leads?”

  “Possibly.” I told him about Drake’s trespassing charge. “What do you think?”

  “I think the prowler is someone else,” he replied. “Different MO. Drake wasn’t hiding in the dorm. He was in plain sight. But that doesn’t mean we can rule him out. Let’s you and me pay him a visit after the meeting.”