Three Dog Day

by Lia Farrell

  “Why is that?” Ben asked. A wintry mix of sleet and rain had begun to fall, and sheets of it skidded nearly horizontally across the road in front of him. It was taking Rob a while to get to the point, but Ben forced himself to be patient. Rob was new to this detective business.

  “This all happened right around Christmas time. The thefts happen just after the auctions and before the keys are handed over the next day. Cliff would purchase a house at auction, but he wouldn’t get the keys until the following day. When he got inside the house, he often found a lot of copper pipe and antique fireplace surrounds that were visible in the photographs of the interiors, had gone missing. Replacing the plumbing was expensive and added to the total cost of the renovation. That ate into the profits for the flippers. So Cliff decided to get permission from the auction firms to put video cameras in the houses. When the cameras detect motion, they’re wired to call the Mont Blanc cops. I went over to Captain John Granger’s shop and looked at the footage. It’s two guys. They always run like hell as soon as they hear the sirens, and nobody’s been caught so far.”

  “Good work, Rob. So nothing has happened since then? No thefts since the first of the year? We got the first call from Logan Yancey on January fifth, but he didn’t know how long his materials, including the pipes, had been missing.”

  “Right, which makes me think it could be Jerrod Clifton who’s doing this.”

  “It’s strong circumstantial evidence, for sure. I’ve been looking into how copper pipe is fenced,” Ben told him. “It’s usually sold for drug money, cocaine or meth. The drug dealers who buy the copper pipe sell it to exporters. Ultimately the pipe ends up in India or China, where they’re doing an enormous amount of building.”

  “What would you think about a stakeout?” Rob asked. “There’s a historic home auction coming up.”

  “Good idea. I’m wondering if Jerrod Clifton is involved in the pipe theft, because Mae found copper pipes in his garage. Whether he’s involved or not, we’ve got to crack this case. I’ll talk to John Granger over at Mont Blanc, see if he’s willing to let you take the lead on this. If I can get John’s agreement, who would you like to do the stakeout with you, George or Cam?”

  “What do you think I’d like better, Sheriff?” Rob laughed. “A stakeout in the company of the divine Miss Gomez or the farting George Phelps?”

  “Okay, but watch yourself, man. No putting the moves on Deputy Gomez. Remember the no-fraternizing rule? I’ll get the necessary permissions going.”

  Ben called Captain Granger. After summarizing Detective Rob Fuller’s information to date, Ben asked about a stakeout using his people.

  “Normally, I’d tell you to butt out, Ben,” John Granger said. “However, since Rob Fuller is now a detective, he actually works for both of us, just as Wayne Nichols does.” He was referring to the practice of sharing detectives in the case of serious crimes. “I can assign him this stakeout without pissing off any of my other officers.”

  “Thanks, John.”

  “No problem. How are you coming on that floater your girlfriend found in the Little Harpeth River?”

  Ben sighed heavily. “We finally got a probable on a first name. Mike Clifton thinks his name is Web, but we’re still looking for a last name. We found the body near Jerrod Clifton’s place. We think Jerrod did it, but we haven’t found him yet. We’re sort of at a standstill.”

  They said goodbye, and Ben drove the rest of the way to the office, deep in thought. The murder had to be connected to the puppy mill. I hope Wayne makes it in this morning. We could sure use his help.

  Chapter Nineteen

  January 14th

  Detective Wayne Nichols

  Detective Wayne Nichols sat in his car for a moment before going into the office. He had arrived back home from Michigan late on the evening before. Lights were on in the reception area of the sheriff’s office, but the staff offices were still dark. He felt anxiety rise in his gut as he thought about the questions he was going to face. He twisted his neck and tapped a curled knuckle against his mouth. His immediate reaction was to clamp down on giving the staff any information, but on the drive he had made a decision to be more open about his life with people he cared about. He got out of the car and walked up to the office door, stomach churning.

  Cam Gomez, the good-looking young Hispanic woman Ben had recently hired as his new deputy, was sitting at the desk. She looked up alertly as he came in.

  “Good morning,” Wayne smiled at her. “Anyone else around?”

  “Not yet, sir, but Sheriff Bradley will be in soon and so will Detective Fuller.”

  “Right, it’s Detective Fuller now.” He would have to negotiate a new relationship with Rob now that there were two detectives in the office.

  “Yes, sir. Sheriff Bradley left some papers for you on your desk. Could I get you some coffee? Just put on a fresh pot.”

  Such solicitude. He was more accustomed to Dory’s steel hand in a velvet glove approach. “Thank you, Deputy Gomez.”

  “Just Cam is fine, sir.” She gave him a bright smile. “How do you take your coffee?”

  “Black. Thanks.”

  Wayne took the coffee she handed him and walked down the hallway to his office. Quite a stack of papers awaited him in his in-basket. He opened the window a crack and felt a welcome cold breeze. Sitting down at his desk, he sipped his surprisingly excellent coffee and started to go through the backlog.

  Detective Rob Fuller had collared Jacko in a seedy bar and poured coffee into him until he sobered up. Jacko thought some of the copper pipes might be stored in a barn in Rose County. He wouldn’t say anything more without money. It was common practice to pay snitches. Usually it was only a couple of twenties, but this time Jacko held out for five hundred dollars, which Rob had negotiated down to two-fifty. Wayne frowned. It didn’t seem like Jacko had given Rob enough information to justify such a big payment. Some things never changed in the criminal world. Snitches always wanted more for their info than it was really worth.

  Then he picked up Ben’s report, labeled “John Doe.” Their new murder case. Ben had called him several times about Mae’s finding the body and the lack of an ID. His blood quickened. It would be the perfect thing to move the focus of the staff away from him and onto the job at hand. He felt a quick jab of shame that he had no pity for the dead man, only considered him a puzzle to solve and a way to divert attention from his own story.

  He settled down to a careful perusal of Dr. Estes’ report on the victim. He noticed, as Ben had mentioned earlier, that the window in which the murder could have occurred was fairly large. The ME had listed the time of death as somewhere between January first and January sixth. That was going to make it more difficult to solve this murder, although finding the body dumped near the Clifton property, combined with Jerrod Clifton being in the wind, made it look like a slam dunk. He assumed Ben had asked Dr. Estes for further studies that might pin the date down tighter. He saw that the BOLO hadn’t turned anything up. He wondered whether they had gotten a search warrant for the Clifton house.

  After nine, Wayne heard the noises of people entering the office—Ben’s voice, Dory’s throaty, amused contralto, and George’s sulky tone. He heard Rob say, “So the great investigator, Eudora Clarkson, is actually sitting at her desk this morning.” He didn’t hear Dory’s response, but Wayne could tell from the sound of her voice that she was not pleased. He heard Ben say that the staff meeting would start in fifteen minutes.

  “Hey, Wayne.” Ben stood in the doorway of Wayne’s office a few minutes later. “Cam just told me you were back.” His boss was pale, with dark circles under his eyes.

  “Are you all right, Ben? You look a little peaked this morning.”

  Sheriff Bradley ran a hand through his curly, light brown hair. “Yeah, I’m okay. It was kind of a rough morning. Thoreau—that sweet old Rottweiler of Mae’s—died last night while we were over at her parents’ for dinner. We found him on the kitchen floor when we got home, and
I buried him in her backyard before I came in this morning.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Thanks. Glad you made it back from Michigan in one piece. How’d it go?”

  “I’ll tell you in the meeting. I’d rather say it once than tell everyone separately.”

  Ben gave him a half-smile. “Sure, I understand. Did you read the reports I put on your desk yet?”

  Wayne nodded. “I did. I’m ready for the staff meeting.”

  Ben led the way to the conference room and he and Wayne took their usual places. When everyone else was seated and the donut box had been passed, Ben turned to Wayne. “Do you want to lead off this morning, tell us what happened on your trip to the Huron Valley Prison?”

  Taking a deep breath, Wayne looked around the table at the faces of his work family. “I’m not sure everyone knew why I went there,” he began, trying to find the words. “I was in the foster care system as a kid.” Wayne paused and Cam Gomez leaned forward, concern etched on her sweet features.

  “My foster mother murdered my foster father after years of abuse. I located her in Huron Valley Prison in Michigan, serving life for his murder,” Wayne looked around at everyone’s unblinking attention. It was pin-drop quiet. He cleared his throat. “I started looking for her after we closed the Tom Ferris case at the end of last summer, but it took me a while to find her since she was serving time under her Native American name. Anyway, once I located her, I went to see her. She’s elderly now and very sick. Since the murder was committed in self-defense, there’s a possibility she could get her sentence commuted by the governor. An attorney at the capitol in Lansing is working on it.”

  “That’s it?” Dory asked, frowning. “No more to that story? Sounds like there must be. Were you living with her when she killed her husband?”

  Wayne raised his hands, feeling ripped open like a gutted fish. “No. I ran away when I was seventeen. I went back to my foster family’s house when I was twenty, shortly after she killed him. I tried to get my foster mother to turn herself in. She wouldn’t go to the authorities that night, but later on she did.”

  “So,” Rob’s voice was quiet and intent, “didn’t that make you an accomplice to murder?” His intensity was unsettling. “Abetting a murderer, obstruction of justice?”

  “Yeah. Mr. Big Detective here wants a con … fess … ion,” Dory drawled out the word. “Not likely,” she added, and Rob glowered.

  The sheriff intervened. “How about we let Detective Nichols off the hook for the moment, Detective Fuller? We have a copper pipe case and a murder to solve. And it just occurred to me that Wayne Nichols is now truly chief detective, since your promotion.” Wayne had always been referred to as “chief detective,” due to his years of seniority.

  Wayne gave Ben a grateful look. “Before we start on the murder, I have a question. Miss Dory, what’s going on with you? Have you lost your appetite for blueberry donuts?” He had noticed her surreptitiously pushing the box away.

  “Mr. Pretentious, our uppity new detective, is just trying to make me fat,” Dory said. “I have been suggesting celery sticks, peeled carrots, and granola bars for staff meetings. So far, despite George’s pudginess, I have no takers.” The rest of the staff avoided her eyes.

  “I’ll take you up on it, Dory,” Wayne told her. “I’m trying to lose a few more pounds.”

  “Okay, people.” Ben redirected once more. “Besides Mike Clifton saying he might have seen the victim at his brother’s place, what else has anyone found on our floater?”

  “Not much, boss,” Rob said. “He’s not in the system, as you know. George and Cam haven’t come across any missing persons reports, and the hospitals haven’t treated anyone with stab wounds within the time frame.”

  Ben sighed. “I’m going to call Dr. Estes later and reiterate my request to narrow down the window on when this guy died. Did you turn up anything, George?”

  “I did,” George said, looking rather pleased with himself. “At Meeker’s—the hunting and fishing supply store closest to where the body was dumped—I found out that Jerrod Clifton purchased a new deer rifle and hunting knife last fall. They don’t keep legal records on knives, but he bought the knife the same day. Both items were on the receipt. The knife was the same model we were looking for, the six-inch ceramic blade Boker.”

  “George, that’s just excellent.” Ben shook his head. “Exceptional work. You’ve linked the murder weapon to Jerrod Clifton. Now, if we could just find him, we could wrap this one up.”

  “Nice going, George,” Dory said. Rob patted George on the shoulder and Cam shook his hand.

  “Okay, turning to our other big case …. Rob and I talked this over on my way in. He and I have agreed that we’ll do a stakeout at a big historic house that’s about to go to auction. The copper pipe thieves have been very active in removing copper pipe from foreclosures and auctioned properties as well as new builds.”

  “Since we talked earlier, Sheriff, I spoke with Captain Paula at the East Nashville post. They’ve had half a dozen reports and already have two detectives on it. She’d like us to butt out of the case and turn our reports over to her men. They’re putting security cameras on a dozen different warehouses in the city where they think the pipes might be stored. I told her I’d check with you.”

  “Wayne, what do you think?” Ben asked.

  “Hell, no,” Wayne said. “The Yancey theft occurred in Rose County. That’s our jurisdiction. If they’d found a cache in any of the Nashville warehouses, they would have said so. They don’t have a primary location yet. It could even be in Rose County. I’d go ahead with the stakeout.”

  “Right. I’ll call Captain Paula and tell her we’re proceeding to follow the leads here in Rose County.”

  Ben turned to Deputy Gomez. “Cam, how are you coming on that search warrant for the Clifton property? Did I tell you that Mae found some copper pipes in the garage at the Clifton place? It was also the site of the puppy mill where Dory found the knife. I’d like a look inside that house. The side door to the garage was open when Dory and Mae were out there so we can do a careful search now, including fingerprints. As soon as we get the search warrant, we can go through the house. Our cases might just be coming together.”

  “When the search warrant comes through, who do you want to take the lead on that?” Rob asked.

  “You and George can go out there and have a look as soon as we get a warrant. Let’s try to find any paperwork about who buys his pit bull puppies and for what purposes. I’m thinking Clifton must have had a regular buyer, and it wasn’t an individual looking for a pet. He had too many pups there to rely on the pet trade. You could also start checking with local veterinarians.”

  “I agree with the sheriff,” Wayne said. “We need to pursue the puppy angle. There had to be a reason our victim was on the property. It probably has to do with the dogs. Find out if the local veterinarian practices know anything.”

  “Wayne, do you want to start checking out those leads?”

  “No. I think I’ll just stay here today. I have a conference call with the attorney for my foster mother this morning. I want to work this case with you guys, but I still have things left to do.”

  “Anything on the BOLO we have out for Jerrod Clifton?” Ben asked.

  “Nada, boss,” Dory said.

  “Let’s get an APB out on him, too. And Dory, can you get Ray Fenton and his mother to come into the office? I’d like him to look at some mug shots. Cam, pull anybody who’s been convicted of animal trafficking in the last few years for the kid to see. Dory, tell the others about your feeling about the kid who turned in the puppy mill.”

  “Okay. The day of the ASPCA raid, when the rag and knife turned up, Ray wouldn’t look at the material. It might have just been squeamishness, but I got a funny feeling. Ray Fenton had been going over there every day to feed the dogs. He might have seen something.”

  “Okay, let’s bring him in. What turned up on the house to house, George?�
�� Ben asked.

  “No luck, Sheriff. It’s all big farms in that area. Everyone’s all spread out. We left a second citation on the front door for Jerrod. Want me to go back out there and see if anyone’s turned up yet?”

  “Okay,” Ben said. “In fact, I’ll go with you. I’ll get Hadley from the lab to go with us to do prints from the garage. Just hang on a minute.” Ben left the room with Wayne and followed the big man to his office.

  “What’s up with not wanting to investigate? That conference call sounded like an excuse,” Ben said as soon as they were alone.

  “It’s not over yet, Ben.” Wayne’s voice was bleak. His shoulders were hunched and he rubbed his nose. He tried to control his voice by clearing his throat. “The problem is that the attorney for the Abused Women’s Commutation Project says that lifers aren’t usually eligible for parole. The parole board takes no action on their applications, even when there is a case for compassionate release. There’s something else. My little brother Kurt was murdered by my foster father. As it stands, his death is listed as murder by ‘person or persons unknown.’ I have the evidence that Aarne killed him, but if I turn it over, I’ll have to serve time.”

  Ben didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he rubbed his forehead and said, “God, Wayne, you can’t serve time. Gen pop would be a nightmare with you being in law enforcement.” Wayne didn’t respond. “Plus, your career would be over.”

  There was a long awkward silence before Sheriff Bradley said, “As your boss, I have no say in it, but if you’d like to talk to me about that evidence, I’m here as a friend.”

  The men stared at each other in silence. Wayne looked away, cleared his throat, and then glanced back. Taking a shaky breath, he said, “I appreciate that, Ben. I’ve always known that there are no clear victories in law enforcement, just battles. But having a friend”—he hesitated—“a friend who has your back in this battle we keep waging … it’s the only victory there is in our business.”