No Kill Station: Murder at Rehoboth Beach

by Diane Meier

  After Henry and Matt left, Sharon made herself visible. “What a wonderful man, and Henry truly warms my heart. He is madly in love with every animal on earth.”

  “Mom, you need to stop selling Matt to me,” said Clara. “We’re just friends.”

  “Sure, sure. I’m just having some fun. He sure is a good looking guy. Tall and solid as a rock. And not too pretty. I hate that. I always think those guys are too busy admiring themselves to appreciate a woman.”

  “Do we have to go through this every time Matt comes over?”

  “I just wish you’d think about him a little differently, that’s all,” said Sharon. “I have to admit that when he first came to see the apartment, it crossed my mind that you might like him. Before you moved home, he was so kind to me. He and Henry came by every day to check on how I was doing.”

  “He’s a good person, Mom. But I’m asking you to stop pushing me about all that. Matt’s got a lot of baggage. Guys are a mess after divorce. His wife caused a lot of pain, not only for Matt, but also Henry. Addicts are the most selfish people in the world. So I don’t think Matt is ready for a relationship. I like him but just as a friend.”

  “Well, I’m sure that being married to an addict must take a toll,” said Sharon. “But he seems be handling all of that. Maybe it’s for Henry’s sake, but we all need some kind of reason for handling the shit that life throws at us. Henry is his reason.”

  “Mom, I don’t want to rehash this stuff. I’m going to bed,” sighed Clara. “I finished my big project today and I am just bone tired.”

  “Go get some rest, sweetie. I’m sorry to go on about him like that. I’ve got some work to do. I’ll put the dogs out later. I want to see all the stuff on Facebook about Randolph being killed” said Sharon as she headed for the computer.

  “You didn’t kill him, did you, Mom?” asked Clara.

  “Of course not,” said Sharon with a bit of irritation. “I’m not a killer. You know that. How could I write a no kill blog and then go around killing people?”

  “I’ll have to take your word for it,” said Clara, laughing and went off to bed.

  Despite her protests, Clara felt drawn like a magnet to Matt. She resisted the pull because Matt seemed to be focused on creating stability for Henry. The last thing Clara wanted to do was create any more chaos in Henry’s life. Matt hadn’t said much about his marriage except that Andrea was an addict and was now in prison. He hadn’t given any details and she would never want to pry. She knew that both Matt and Henry were recovering from the pain of losing Andrea to alcohol and drugs.

  Clara’s father had been totally immersed in the lives of his patients. His clinic served the families with service jobs in the beach hotels and restaurants. Few of the vacationers knew about the poverty that persisted throughout the county. When the season was over, many families struggled to make ends meet. Clara’s father was at his clinic day and night trying to ease the suffering of people with no health insurance and no money for doctors. He treated everything from sniffles to life-threatening diseases. Clara understood why her father was absent so much but it didn’t make it any easier when he couldn’t attend her concerts or listen to her stories about school.

  Clara’s mother was a lawyer who kept her practice limited to wills and home settlements so that she could be there for her daughter. Clara knew that her mother supported her father’s commitment to serving the community. He had a massive stroke at the age of 60 and died before the ambulance arrived. Clara knew he would have wanted to die quickly. Her mother threw herself into animals rescue work when Clara went off to college.

  Clara admired her parents’ devotion to saving people and animals, but that life was not for her. She was not a warrior. She was happiest at the beach when the crowds were gone and she could read or draw while the dogs chased the seagulls. She liked to pedal slowly on her bike along the path from Rehoboth to Lewes and watch the hawks circle in the sky. Clara was drawn to Matt’s quiet strength but she realized that he needed time. She would be there when he was ready.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Sharon had to admit that she was happy Randolph was dead. She would never have thought of killing him, although that would have been easy now that she was a ghost. She’d never want a murder on her conscience, of course. Also she couldn’t be sure that there was no hell, and if it existed, she’d like to avoid it. She liked thinking that Randolph the Grim Reaper was in hell.

  Sharon didn’t actually know whether some ghosts killed people like in the horror films. She hadn’t encountered any other ghosts. She hadn’t been out looking for them either. She was content to stay in the house and do her work for as long as she got to stay on earth.

  She was sickened by all the killing at the SPCA. She had been on the Board for about a year, but she gave up trying to change things from within. There was no point in just continuing to bang her head on the wall. The rest of the Board seemed to be unconditionally supportive of Randolph. They were rich elderly people who didn’t really care about SPCA operations. Sharon tried to talk about the SPCA problems at Board meetings, but they weren’t interested. They seemed to take criticism of Randolph personally. Even though she knew that they thought of themselves as animal lovers, they just let Randolph get away with the killing. So Sharon resigned and decided to try and make change in other ways.

  She was very pleased when Cassie Deaver took her seat on the Board. Sharon had known her in high school and had some hope that Cassie would push for change. Maybe Cassie hadn’t been able to change the SPCA so far, but she was hanging in there.

  Now that Randolph was dead, Sharon hoped things would change at the SPCA. As long as they didn’t promote Sasso who was as bad as Randolph. Sasso wouldn’t care enough to change things.

  Sharon powered up the computer. She spent almost all her time working on her blog, which she called No Kill Delaware. After the shelter law was passed by the legislature, many people hoped that the “first state” would become a no kill state. When she attended the No Kill Advocacy Center conference, she talked to many people from all over the country who were excited about Delaware’s accomplishment. They hoped for passage of similar laws in their own states.

  Sadly, Delaware did not enforce its new law, so the SPCA didn’t comply with the law’s requirements. The SPCA continued to be the killing station that it had always been. Sharon started to blog about the problems. Her blog had to be anonymous because Gary Randolph was such a vindictive person. She feared that he would come after her Pit Bulls and feral cats if he knew she was the blogger.

  Sharon checked out the no kill Facebook page she had set up for the community to voice their concerns. She knew there would be comments about Randolph’s murder. Many people posted about how angry they were about the abuses and killing at the SPCA when Randolph had been alive. Randolph had been such a vengeful, mean-spirited guy that some folks had been afraid to speak out against him. He abused his power with the objective of intimidating critics into silence. Randolph had his own Facebook page to attack individuals who criticized the SPCA. He would post things about people that they wanted to keep private in order to embarrass and shame them.

  Now Randolph was dead, there was a flood of stories. Some people reported that Randolph sent animal control officers if they complained about anything. One woman reported that after she criticized Randolph, animal control officers came to her home and demanded entry. They said that they had to check her dogs because there had been a cruelty complaint about her. Sharon knew that was a lie because the woman coddled her dogs. The woman was savvy enough to tell animal control officers that they could not enter without a search warrant. The complaint was bogus. The SPCA had no probable cause that would persuade any judge to approve a warrant.

  When folks had allowed animal control to enter their homes, the officers would always find something wrong, especially if the owner was an SPCA critic. The pets would be “rescued” from the supposed cruelty and taken to the SPCA where they were held as “evidence�
�� until the cruelty case came to court. If the owners ever did get their pets back, they received bills for boarding costs during the time that the animals were imprisoned at the SPCA. It was a nightmare.

  Most of all, it upset people that Randolph didn’t bother to investigate real animal cruelty cases, like dogs chained outside 24 hours a day without shelter. He just used the cruelty law to harass people.

  And then there was the SPCA campaign against feral cats. Cat colony caretakers were afraid of the SPCA coming to trap their cats and take them away to be killed. Even though the SPCA got no money from the counties or state for that, Randolph had been ordering his officers to trap cats for years. Randolph clearly hated feral cats.

  Sharon had a colony of ten cats that visited her yard. She had trapped and neutered all of them. She fed them twice every day. She had built little shelters with plastic bins according to instructions posted online by Alley Cat Allies, which was a national advocacy group for feral cats. Inside each bin, she put a styrofoam cooler for insulation and cut holes so that one or two cats could enter. The shelters were set on top of bricks in the meadow part of her yard outside of the fenced area for the dogs. Sharon put fresh hay inside for bedding. The cats were able to stay warm, dry and safe in the shelters.

  Matt was impressed by the cat shelters. He and Henry watched the cats from their deck. She wouldn’t have let Matt rent the apartment if he didn’t like cats and dogs. Matt had even told Clara that if any newcomer cats joined the colony, he would be happy to set up the traps and take the cats to the vet for spay/neuter and vaccinations. He even said that he would pay the vet bill. What’s not to like about a man like that?

  Sharon started reading the Facebook memorial page for Randolph posted by the Friends of the SPCA page. People on that page were gushing about how Randolph loved animals. What a crock of shit.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Tina Patterson was sobbing outside the double-wide trailer where she lived with her father. She hadn’t cried about Gary’s death at first. She just felt totally numb. Now she could let the tears flow while her father was watching his program. He would have been upset if he saw her so unhappy. After she calmed down, she went back inside and joined her Dad.

  She needed to do something so she’d stop all this crying. She created a Rest In Peace Memorial for Gary on Facebook. She watched as many people commented about the good that Gary had done in the community.

  Tina was dedicated to defending Gary and the SPCA online. Gary appreciated her efforts. Sometimes, he invited her to the shelter to work with him on his SPCA web site and Facebook page. He really enjoyed her online attacks on the no kill extremists. She was very good at ripping their irrational and emotional arguments to shreds.

  At a commercial break, Tina’s father asked, “What are you doing?”

  “I did a post about the SPCA on Facebook, Dad,” said Tina. She couldn’t bring herself to tell her father about Gary’s murder. “That’s nice,” said her father and turned back to the show. She clicked to the No Kill Advocacy Center page and made

  some hostile comments. She always felt better after doing that. They were constantly posting that shelters didn’t work hard enough to get animals adopted. They made the outrageous claim that at least 90% of all animals entering shelters could be adopted to good homes.

  Since about four million dogs and cats were killed annually, that was proof that nobody wanted them. People didn’t like adopting shelter animals. When they wanted new pets, they wanted to have purebred puppies and kittens. They sure didn’t want mutts and full grown cats that had been dumped at shelters because of illness, age, or behavior problems. The SPCA did all of the animal control for the state, so there was a constant stream of unadoptable dogs. It was impossible to find them all homes and a waste of time to try.

  When some Delaware blogger set up a website that spouted the no kill propaganda and ranted about the SPCA, Tina and Gary tried to figure out who was writing it. The Whois listing for the domain name was somebody in Minnesota, so the blogger had been clever enough to cover his tracks. They called the domain name owner, but he wouldn’t say who was writing the blog.

  Gary found a computer guy who volunteered to hack the blog, but the web host’s defenses were too good. If Tina was rich, she would have hired a real hacker who would have figured out the street address of the blogger. Gary didn’t believe Tina when she told him that could be done, despite all her efforts to persuade him.

  Tina’s Facebook page for the Friends of the SPCA refuted the blogger’s lies. She argued the case for traditional shelters. She posted about all the SPCA’s achievements, and she encouraged folks to post about pets that they had adopted from the SPCA.

  At a commercial break, her father asked. “Are those awful people in the no kill group attacking the SPCA today?”

  “I haven’t looked at what they have written on Facebook today. Dad, but I’m sure there’s something spiteful and nasty posted by those people. There always is.”

  “I just wish that the state had not passed that animal shelter law,” said her father. “I wrote our Senator about that and gave him a piece of my mind.”

  “Yes, Dad, that was such a good letter,” said Tina, smiling at how pleased he was with himself.

  “Did it help?” her father asked.

  “Well, they didn’t get rid of the law yet, but I still hope they will,” said Tina. “That law has made it very difficult for the SPCA to operate.”

  “What’s that nickname you have for it?”.

  “CAPA,” said Tina. “ It’s the acronym for Companion Animal Protection Act.”

  “Why in the world would Delaware pass such a law? Didn’t you say the only other state with the law is California? Delaware isn’t a bit like California,” declared her father.

  “You’re right, Dad. It’s a bad law in California, too. It was passed because of that 1960s radical Tom Hayden. People like that don’t love our country.”

  “Oh, those people were terrible, weren’t they!” said her father. “I remember when they all marched around and said that the Vietnam war was evil. And they were horrible to our soldiers returning from the war. I never understood why Nixon just pulled us out of Vietnam so suddenly. But he had lots of problems with the liberals.”

  “So true, Dad.”

  “I was so proud of you when you went into the service, Tina.” “Thanks, Dad. I was proud to serve our nation.”

  Tina was disabled, but she hadn’t been injured in the line of duty. She had served briefly in the Coast Guard but broke her ankle when she tripped on the dock. She made a point of mentioning as often as possible that she was a disabled veteran. She loved it when people thanked her for her service.

  Her father returned to watching his program and Tina focused on Facebook. She knew that she’d eventually have to look at the anti-SPCA stuff. It was so hard because she just knew there would be comments by people who were happy that Gary was dead. When she finally steeled herself to look, she was shocked that so many people were overjoyed. They were having a wonderful time speaking ill of the dead. Didn’t they know any better than that?

  Tina could see that Gary’s death had removed people’s caution about complaining. They wouldn’t have dared to write such vicious attacks if Gary was still alive. They would have suffered some consequences for such disrespect. Some guy even called Gary a criminal for not complying with the shelter law. The extremists refused to understand that the SPCA couldn’t comply with the law because there was not enough money. The counties didn’t pay much for dog control, and donations to the SPCA were down because of that blogger.

  It really infuriated Tina to read the comments by people about how they couldn’t afford to pay the SPCA fines before reclaiming their pets. That had always made Gary very angry, of course. Tina thought he was right to put down those animals. Why should irresponsible dog owners get their pets back for free? Did those people have money for their TVs and cell phones? Then they had money for the fees. They just wanted some
thing for nothing.

  She read a long complaint of how the SPCA lied about the statistics on the number of animals put down. The extremists always complained about that. The law made the SPCA publicize their statistics for intake and euthanasia. Of course, publishing the actual statistics would have decreased donations. That would have meant even more animals would be put down for lack of money to care for them. Tina fully supported Gary in his decision not to report the actual euthanasia numbers.

  Tina found a stupid comment about how the SPCA didn’t get vet care for a dog that had been hit by a car and had suffered a broken leg. It was the owner’s fault for letting the dog get loose. It was ridiculous for the law to require that every animal be seen by a vet and given vaccinations within the holding period. Was the SPCA supposed to fix that dog’s broken leg even if no owner showed up? What was the point of vet care and vaccinations for animals that were going to be euthanized? It was a waste of money. The SPCA would not have been reimbursed for fixing that dog’s broken leg. The law didn’t require that.

  Tina was furious to read complaints by some people about the SPCA killing animals after the 72 hour holding period was up. What idiot wouldn’t pick up the phone and call the SPCA about a lost dog within 72 hours?

  There was a complaint about somebody’s dog being put down before the holding period was up. That was perfectly legal if the dog was aggressive. An incredible number of dogs picked up by animal control were aggressive. Any fool can see that when walking through a shelter. The dogs barked wildly and some hurled themselves at the cage doors constantly. They were vicious. The SPCA had behavior tests like pulling a dog’s food bowl away. Any dog who failed the test was immediately euthanized.

  So many stray dogs in Delaware were Pit Bulls. They were so dangerous! The SPCA staff couldn’t be expected to care for those dogs. It was completely understandable that the dogs were euthanized immediately even before behavior testing. That was better for the dogs. Otherwise they might be adopted by dog fighters.