No Kill Station: Murder at Rehoboth Beach

by Diane Meier

  “It sounds like you do know who writes the blog now,” Matt said quietly.

  “No, I don’t. I’m just speaking hypothetically.”

  “This is important, Clara. It’s not a game. Somebody committed murder. Are you the blogger?”

  “What the hell? Are you saying that you suspect me of murder?” Clara asked, her voice rising. Clara knew that she had no right to be angry since she was indeed lying. Having Matt accuse her this way infuriated her anyway. She slammed the door in his face.

  Matt stood there in shock. What the hell had he just done? He did feel that she was not telling him the truth, but was that worth alienating her? He didn’t believe that she was the murderer. And why was the damn case so important that he would hurt Clara? Maybe he had just been afraid of caring about her. Maybe Andrea had destroyed his ability to trust anyone in a relationship.

  He trudged back up to the apartment.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Clara stood staring at the door she had just slammed. She knew Matt wasn’t actually accusing her of murder. Her anger was about something else. But what was it? She wasn’t sure. She just knew she was furious. She had to figure out why. Was she afraid of the powerful feelings that she had for Matt? She had never loved anybody before.

  All of her relationships with men had been casual. She was the one to break up with them. She always had a reason of some kind. The guy was boring or he was too possessive. Maybe he had an irritating habit like being late or throwing towels on the floor. Maybe the sex was bad. Perhaps he was too ambitious and overly conscious of social status. It was easy to find things that were unacceptable.

  She didn’t judge people harshly in the rest of her life. She realized that she was making up excuses for ending relationships. She just didn’t want to be tied down and didn’t feel a need for a serious relationship with a man. She had plenty of friends and simply did not want to be part of a couple.

  With Matt it was different. Part of it was chemistry. But it was also that she felt connected with him. Clara hated the term soulmate. It seemed sentimental and silly. Nevertheless that was how she felt about Matt. It was a totally new and scary feeling.

  When she first realized that she was attracted to Matt, she had decided to wait until he seemed ready. She understood that he was trying to get over a failed marriage and he wanted to protect Henry from any more disruptions. She was satisfied just to see him when he came by to pick up his son. Matt was the most attentive father she had ever seen. It made her so happy to see them interacting.

  Matt’s concern about her mother during her illness was very touching. Some people have difficulty being around a person who is dying, whether family or friend. Matt came by every day with Henry. Her mother was always so happy to see them even when she felt her worst. Matt’s presence was a comfort in itself. That was a rare quality.

  Clara believed that he loved animals as much as she did. That was very important to her. She could never fall for a man who didn’t care about dogs and cats. She could tell how much he appreciated the feral cats. She heard him explain to Henry that they must enjoy the cats from a distance and not scare them by coming too close.

  She understood that Matt was initially concerned about Smokey and Snowflake because of what the media conveyed about Pit Bulls. It was okay that he wanted to be sure that Henry was safe. Once Matt knew how well behaved the dogs were, he was happy to allow Henry to fall in love with them.

  When Matt asked her to dinner, she was surprised. She had thought it might take longer for him to be ready for a new relationship. She was a bit concerned because she didn’t want him to start dating her and then realize that he wasn’t up to it yet.

  Their evening in Lewes was so lovely. The way he walked the labyrinth made her happy. She knew that it didn’t mean much in itself to him. He just wanted to share her experience. He didn’t make any jokes or say anything irritating. She liked that.

  Clara wouldn’t use the word sex to describe what happened with Matt. The feelings she had experienced with him were so powerful that words seemed to be inadequate. She believed that it was the same for him.

  So what was going on? Why did she get so angry at Matt? He was just doing his job.

  It slowly dawned on her that she was upset by that in itself. He was so consumed by his job that he hadn’t understood the effect it was having on her. Even if he didn’t know the reason for her reluctance to answer his question about the blogger’s identity, he shouldn’t have pushed her like that. He put the job above her feelings. That was what made her angry. It was too much like her father.

  Practicing medicine was her father’s obsession. His family always came second. Maybe her mother had no problem with her father’s dedication to helping people but Clara’s feelings had been hurt too many times. Although it might be selfish and childish, she wished that her father had put her first sometimes. She refused to live that way again. She could not be with Matt if the job came before her.

  She knew that Matt had put Henry first by leaving the Baltimore police force and coming to Rehoboth. She loved that about Matt. She would never expect him to choose her over Henry. She could never be like the evil stepmother in fairy tales and push aside Henry. Clara cared deeply about Henry and she truly did want him to be first in his father’s heart. What she could not tolerate was for police work to be Matt’s second priority in life.

  Clara believed that families must always take precedence over jobs. The old saying was true. Nobody on his deathbed ever wished that he had spent more time with his job. The love for one’s family should be at the center of life.

  If that could not be the case for Matt, then Clara was done with him. This was not a casual relationship for her. It was either the real thing or it was nothing.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Tina walked into the Beach Herald office. She asked the first person she saw if she could look through their archives for the past year. She now knew the blogger was dead. Checking the obituaries might tell her the identity of the blogger.

  The Beach Herald still kept their archives as boxes full of old newspapers. Tina started at the last issue of the weekly and worked backwards to look at obituaries of local women and men who had died in the past year. A lot of them were over 80 so she quickly skimmed their obituaries. She want to find someone who had done animal rescue work.

  She wasn’t getting anywhere and was about to give up when she saw the obituary for Sharon Butler. It described Sharon’s rescue work and her advocacy for Pit Bulls. The second clue was that Sharon was survived by her brother in Minnesota. Tina sat back with a smile on her face. Sharon must have been the blogger!

  Finally she knew who had been harassing the SPCA and Gary. The blogger was a rich bitch who had nothing better to do than make trouble. Tina read that Sharon Butler had been on the SPCA Board three years ago. Tina kicked herself for not figuring all this out before.

  The photo showed Sharon with two Pit Bulls. The blog was always attacking Gary for killing Pit Bulls. Sharon was obviously one of those people who didn’t care about public safety. Owning a Pit Bull was like having a bomb in the community and inevitably the bomb would explode. Stupid bitch.

  Gary would have been so impressed at how she put the pieces of the puzzle together. It would have been so wonderful to work with him and plot revenge.

  Tina had a thought. She found Janice, the reporter who had written the story about Gary’s murder. “I’m Tina Patterson. I was a good friend of Gary Randolph. I was wondering if you had heard anything about the investigation of his murder. I can’t get anything out of the state trooper.”

  “I can’t get much either, so I assume that they are having some trouble finding the killer.”

  “I was just over at the SPCA talking with Doug Sasso, who is acting SPCA director now. He said the detectives had been looking into people who have criticized the SPCA in the past.”

  Wheels were turning in Janice’s brain. Maybe she could squeeze out a story about that. She could
interview some of the critics to find out who really hated Randolph. That would be a different angle on Randolph’s murder. Her first story had only quotes from people who felt that Randolph had been a wonderful director for the SPCA. Actually Janice didn’t think that he had done a good job. She had gotten calls over the years from people who told her of their pets being killed at the SPCA. Unfortunately her editor wouldn’t let her use anonymous sources and everybody who came to her was afraid to give their names for fear of retaliation from Randolph.

  “Did you find out anything in particular?” Janice asked.

  “Yes, the detectives called the man who owns the blog’s domain name. He lives in Minnesota. The person who wrote the blog originally has died. I had called the guy myself a couple years ago but he wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  “So the original blogger is dead. Why are you telling me all this?”

  “I think that whoever is writing the blog now must have killed Gary. I’ve been going through the Beach Herald obituaries looking for rescue people who died last year. I think I figured it out who was writing the blog.”

  “Who do you think it was?” asked Janice. She was impressed that Tina had thought to do that.

  “I think it was Sharon Butler. Here’s the obituary,” said Tina, handing Janice the paper. “She did rescue work and her surviving brother lives in Minnesota!”

  Janice read through it. “Well, I never would have thought Sharon would be such a rabble rouser. Just goes to show that you can never really figure people out. She’s pretty highly regarded around here. I wouldn’t think she’d be the kind of person who’d dig up dirt about the SPCA.”

  “I know. It really took me by surprise.”

  Although Janice was intrigued, she was having trouble figuring out an angle for a story. Then she had an idea. “Maybe I could interview the daughter Clara. She’s listed as one of the survivors.”

  “Who knows? Maybe the daughter is still writing the blog. She probably really hates Gary. Maybe she’s even the killer.”

  “Hey, I just remembered. I met Clara Butler the other night.”

  “Really? How?”

  “She was walking around Lewes with Matt Thomas. He’s a Rehoboth police officer working with a state trooper on the investigation.”

  “If he’s dating Clara Butler, he may not be looking into whether she’s a suspect,” said Tina.

  Janice would consider all of this later. She had a deadline. “I need to get back to work, Tina.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  When Tina got home, she logged onto the county’s online tax records. She had never used this system before. She entered Sharon Butler and got the address. It amazed her that this information was available to the public. She was so excited that she decided to drive over there. She wanted to see the home of the bitch who had driven Gary and her crazy for so long with that blog and Facebook page.

  When she got to Butler’s house, Tina was surprised to see that it hadn’t been renovated to have fancy features like most Rehoboth houses. Maybe Sharon wasn’t so rich after all. Her husband was a doctor and would have had connections to the Lewes Hospital crowd. There was lots of money there. So even if Sharon and her husband weren’t rich themselves, they had contacts that the SPCA could use.

  She parked a few houses down from Butler’s house in front of a millionaire’s summer home that looked like something out of a magazine. Tina watched Sharon’s house for a while. A bunch of cats zipped into the backyard of Butler’s house. Tina was at an angle where she could see beyond Sharon’s fenced yard into a meadow where there were a bunch of plastic boxes. Tina wondered why Butler hadn’t cleaned up that junk. Then it suddenly struck her. Those were shelters for feral cats.

  She’d seen photos of cat shelters on the Alley Cat Allies web site with the instructions for making them. Even though the cat freaks ranted about how the cats are wild, they built these little homes for them. They would say that since the cats used to live in barns they were used to some kind of shelter.

  The extremists argued for sterilizing the cats and then releasing them. They wanted to care for the colonies while the feral cat population decreased. Cat groups all over the state were committed to what they called Trap-Neuter-Return but it was taking too long to reduce the numbers of cats. It was much cheaper and easier to round up the cats and kill them. It was the merciful thing to do because the cats were often killed by cars and predators. Cats should be in houses not running around outside.

  No wonder Sharon was always ranting on the blog about feral cats. She was a caretaker of a feral cat colony. No complaints had been made to the SPCA so the neighbor must not mind the cats. Those big hydrangea bushes were a visual buffer so the boxes weren’t visible from the neighbor’s yard.

  It wasn’t easy for the SPCA to find feral cat colonies unless neighbors were complaining. Whenever somebody did complain Gary had the animal control officers set up traps. He was really trying to clean all the feral cats out of Delaware. It was a waste of money to spay and neuter them. The only solution to feral cats was catch and kill.

  Tina realized that she could enjoy a little revenge on Sharon Butler for spreading all those lies about the SPCA. Sasso would still be at work, so she called him.

  “Doug Sasso here.”

  “Doug, this is Tina. I’m positive that I found out who was writing the blog. I looked through the obituaries at the Beach Herald and figured out that it was Sharon Butler. Isn’t she the woman on the SPCA Board who quit a while back? She was always bitching about things, wasn’t she?”

  “Sharon Butler. I’ll be damned. I bet you’re right.” “She has a cat colony behind her house. Her daughter Clara was mentioned in the obit. She must be feeding them now.”

  “So that’s why Sharon Butler bitched about us rounding up feral cats,” said Sasso excitedly.

  He had been worrying about how to get some bait animals for Jack Mahoney. That meddling Rehoboth cop had scared the owner of the New Castle kennel where the dogs were taken by animal control. Now the kennel owner wanted nothing to do with the bait deals. Jack Mahoney was going to be pissed if Sasso didn’t make the next delivery date. He remembered that Mahoney had accepted cats in the past.

  “What’s the address?”

  Tina gave it to him. “It’ll be easy because the yard backs up to a natural area filled with trees so you can put the traps in there without the daughter seeing them. How about if I meet your guys at the bike trail entrance over on Marigold Street. I can show them where to put the traps.”

  “Thanks, Tina, that would be a big help,” said Sasso. He had always thought she was an arrogant bitch. She fawned all over Gary but never bothered to talk to him. This was changing his opinion of Tina. Her call was going to save his ass.

  Maybe he should ask for her help at the SPCA after all. She could be useful to him. He didn’t like fooling with the Facebook crap. Once the Board made him officially the Director, he’d need help on that. Nobody on the staff knew how to do social media and he couldn’t squeeze a position out of the budget.

  Sasso was curious about whether someone was continuing to write that blog. He clicked to the web page and started to read. There were entries since Gary’s death. The bitching didn’t stop even though he was dead.

  But what the hell was this? The latest blog included a bunch of reasons that he shouldn’t be promoted to Director. The blog said that he was unfit to take over because he didn’t care about animals. That was outrageous. How could anybody say that?

  He’d figure out some way to deal with that. Meanwhile, he needed to take care of business.

  Sasso called Mahoney.

  “Sasso, it’s about time you called. You owe me some dogs.”

  “Yes, sir. I wanted to let you know that we can deliver animals to you. Things are a little hot right now with the dogs. We had a cop nosing around because of Gary Randolph’s murder and it has become a problem.”

  “Sasso, what the hell is wrong with you? Figure it out or I’m g
oing to send somebody to talk with you about it.”

  “That won’t be necessary, sir,” sputtered Sasso. The idea of one of those mobsters paying him a visit was terrifying. “I’m going to bring you some cats. You liked cats before, remember?”

  “Cats,” Mahoney grunted. “Okay. Cats will work. I want them immediately. Got that, Sasso?”

  “Yes, sir. You know we always try …..”

  Mahoney had hung up.

  Sasso called his Sussex County animal control officers.

  “I have a job for you tonight. Feral cat trapping. Put out 15 traps. And use tuna fish, not canned cat food. I need these cats by tomorrow morning. It won’t take long. Be careful that the property owner doesn’t see you.”

  “Overtime pay?” asked Donald Block.

  “Yes, yes,” said Sasso, disgusted with the money grubbing by these animal control officers.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Tina plopped down in her chair. She was exhausted after helping the guys get the traps set in the natural area behind Butler’s house. She had helped carry the traps from their truck into the woods and put tuna inside the traps.

  “You look tired,” said Tina’s father. “What have you been doing all day?”

  “Dad, I found out who writes that anti-SPCA blog,” said Tina proudly.

  “That’s wonderful! Maybe you can put a stop to that nonsense. How did you find out?”

  Tina smiled. Her Dad was always so supportive. She explained to him how she had solved the mystery. She left out the part about visiting Butler’s house and getting revenge by trapping her cats. He didn’t need to know about that.

  “Good for you, Tina! You are so smart. I’ve always said so.”

  Tina patted his shoulder and went out to the kitchen to cook him some dinner. After they ate, they sat down to watch the news. “Can I get you anything?” asked Tina but he was asleep.

  She couldn’t stop thinking about Sharon Butler. She and Gary had been so frustrated that they couldn’t find out who was writing it. It was a shame that Gary didn’t know how she had found the blogger. He would have really appreciated it.