Puppy Mills, Puppy Kills (Animal Instincts Book 3)

by Chloe Kendrick

  “So you want the papers?” the man said. He set the cans back by the side of the road and looked at me. “And you said that they’d save you some money?” he asked, sporting a small smile on his lips now.

  I slid a hand to my back pocket. This was going to hurt, given that my upfront fee had barely paid for the grooming of “Number 32.” Any bribes would be coming directly from my own accounts. I’d just have to add this to the bill under some other title, since I didn’t want clients to know I picked through trash to find out the things that the dogs were supposed to be telling me.

  The garbage man didn’t waste any words. He just held out his hand. I put $20 in, but the hand didn’t move. We repeated this three more times before he finally removed his hand. “For another twenty, I’ll help you,” he said with a smile.

  I handed him a twenty and he opened up the back of the truck. It wasn’t one of the more modern trucks that compact the trash as it goes. This was an old-fashioned truck that just accumulated trash and then dumped it somewhere. He pointed to one corner and gave me a hand up to get in the truck.

  It didn’t take long to find out where the Zook trash was. There were two enormous stacks of file folders in the corner along with some AKC and CKC certificates. Those forms were blank and presumably could be used to fill in the puppy mill pup’s name and pedigree. I had to wonder how someone could treat these full-blood animals in such a fashion. It still confused me. They were worth good money as they were, but to Zook, they were just a means to an end. And he treated them that way.

  The garbage man even helped me load the car for the cool hundred I’d just given him. The papers took up most of the backseat, but with the weather, I had no intention of rolling down the windows. So all was safe here. I was satisfied that I would find enough answers in these papers to produce some good chat between me and the little Corgi girl I’d found.

  I knew too that I had to give her a name soon. I thought about it on the way home, trying to come up with the name for her. Eventually, I wondered if I could track her pedigree from these files. I didn’t know that her being a true Corgi was even a possibility, but it seemed like it might be based on what Zook had said. He sold premium dogs so that his operation wouldn’t be found out.

  When I arrived home, there were two more calls from my mother, both demanding that I give her that file immediately. I took a deep breath and wondered what to do with that as well.

  I brought in the files and sat cross-legged while I tried to decide how to make sense of this mess. The certificates and other forms were put aside, since they were blank. They would tell me nothing. I put them in a file folder and put them in the filing cabinet in my office. The rest of the papers were more manageable.

  I stared at the police report folder, which I’d pulled while putting away the certificates and other forms. I wasn’t sure what to do. On the one hand, my mother was the only relative I spoke to; however, the demands for the file had thrown me. This normally placid woman had called me more today than she had in a month. She’d cursed, yelled and cried, all unusual for her. I knew that if I ever wanted to learn more about Susan’s disappearance that she’d be of no help to me in this regard. She’d drag her feet and mine until I gave up in frustration. Was this her personality or was there something more to it?

  If someone had told me a month ago that I’d be suspecting my mother of hiding information about the disappearance I would have laughed at them. Now I was seriously considering it myself.

  I decided to split the difference. Without reading everything, I pulled the pages from the police record of the disappearance and made copies of every one, front and back. I made a new folder for my new copy of the file, and I packaged up the old copy to mail to her tomorrow. She would be satisfied that I had done what she asked. I doubted that she would think of having a home copier or think that I would use one.

  The pages whirred through the machine, and I watched as the file ran through. I caught a word or two from the pages, but it appeared to mostly be speculation on whether or notSusan had run away or been abducted. I turned my attention again to the paperwork after the folder was safely secured in an envelope and readied for mailing.

  The first batch of folders from Zook’s farm appeared to be by dog breed. I started with the Corgis. I thought that an easy choice, since I had a little one bouncing across the papers on a regular basis and trying to pull out particular folders with her teeth, which were still tiny and razor sharp. She left punctures in a few of the files, but most of them were grimy and filthy, so I didn’t think that one more mark would be considered damage.

  For the manner in which he’d kept the dogs, the files were not difficult to decipher. He’d filed the information on all animals in that breed. He had documentation on the dam and sire, and then recorded the litters on a chart, including the gender of each puppy and weight at birth. He only kept one dam and sire until they either died or hit the age of six. Then they were typically replaced with a dog purchased from the Internet. I was curious to determine how a man who claimed to be Amish could point and click with the rest of us.

  Separate records were included that referenced payments, invoice numbers and such.

  I found the invoices in a file marked with the year. He had a separate folder for each year dating back eleven years now. Skimming back over the years, it became very obvious that the lady with the Afghan Hound had been on the low side with her estimates. Fred Zook was easily pulling down $100,000 a year, and he had been for some years.

  Given that both his parents had died at the same time, I wondered if the police would investigate that in a new light, now that Fred was under suspicion for murder. Maybe I was overly suspicious, considering my own background, but any potential crime was possible evidence when a new crime occurs.

  That’s one reason why the domestic disputes bothered me regarding my sister’s police file. The same maxim held true. I didn’t think that the disputes and the disappearance could be completely unique events that happened to the same family. I wasn’t a proponent of lightening being able to strike twice. To me, I thought it struck once, and we just didn’t notice the extent of the damage for a while.

  Using the files and the codes, I was able to locate the records, or what there were of them, on the little Corgi girl. She’d been born just nine weeks ago, making her barely able to be removed from her mother’s care. She’d been part of a litter of eight, all of whom had been sold except her. I wondered why she was the only one left. There didn’t seem to be any particular issues with her health or behavior, so I wondered if the market was just weak. In going back over the past year, it appeared Zook had sold nearly 30 Corgis in the past decade, though it appeared as though he’d only started with this particular breed four years ago. Perhaps he’d just oversaturated the market.

  I split the files into two stacks. The first were the files with the years on them. Those contained the financial information about the puppy mill’s finances. The income had been pretty consistent and sufficient for him to keep the farm and have plenty left over. I wondered where that money might have gone to. It certainly wasn’t on the care and feeding of the dogs. From what I’d seen of the farm, it wasn’t on home improvements either. So the cash had to go somewhere. I wondered if Green could help me with that, either by looking it up herself or asking the local police.

  The other stack listed breeds on them. I alphabetized them, just to have something to do. I wasn’t sure what to do with this information. There were hundreds of dogs, which meant hundreds of buyers. I didn’t have the manpower or the energy to look up all these owners to see if any of them were missing.

  What surprised me though were the variety of rather unique breeds. These were not all Labs and Retrievers. The files read like an AKC guide book. There were Corgis, Chinese Crested, Poms, Afghan Hounds, Sealyhams, and others. They were all over the place.

  It had been impossible for me to tell which was which at the barn. They’d been dirty and matted. Breeds had been the las
t thing on my mind.

  Thinking of the Afghan Hounds, I wondered if the lady from Green Springs had purchased hers from Zook. Most likely she had, since they were an uncommon breed.

  I’d finished putting the files in order and was looking at them again when the doorbell rang. I wasn’t expecting anyone, so I peeked out the window in the front door. It was Sheila Green with a pizza. I opened the door gratefully, since I hadn’t even started to make anything for dinner.

  “Wow, what brings you over with food?” I asked. My mouth was practically salivating at the thought of pizza. She waved it under my nose as she pushed her way past me and into the kitchen. She scrounged through drawers until I showed her where the pizza cutter and plates were. We went back into the living room, where the file folders looked like some sort of art project gone wrong.

  “What’s all this?” she asked, poking the folders with a toe. “Some light reading?”

  I shrugged. “Not exactly. I was going through the files of the Zook farm. He threw everything out in the trash, and I picked it up. I’m trying to make sense of it all now.”

  “Following the paper trail? You’re actually like trying to be a real detective with this case, aren’t you?” She smiled and then took a big bite from her piece of pizza. She petted the Corgi absent-mindedly, but didn’t give her all the attention that the little girl demanded. The Corgi ran around and tried to jump up on Green. When that failed, she nipped at Green’s jeans until she shook her leg and the Corgi decided to play elsewhere.

  “Trying to is right. I’m not getting very far. There are hundreds of people who bought these dogs. The missing person could be any one of them. It’s nearly impossible to tell.”

  She took another bite, chewed and looked at the mess across the floor. “I’d hoped to just have a quiet evening with you, but apparently I’m going to have to give you a quick lesson in Detection 101. So have some pizza and listen.”

  I grabbed a thick slice and stuffed some in my mouth. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until I started chewing.

  “So the first thing we already went over. Who knew that there was a puppy mill in the barn? That wasn’t an accident that he or she was killed there and buried there. Someone knew about the operation and decided to use that location to bury the person because no one was going to be able to find a body in a sludge pit in a barn unless they knew what to look for.”

  “Okay,” I said, feeling a little rivulet of grease run down my chin. I wasn’t putting on my best manners for this evening, even if it was only a lesson on detecting. “Two is who called and reported the crime?”

  “Right. We went over that as well. Someone else knew about the mill and knew about the murder. The murderer springs to mind, but I can’t come up with a good reason for the murderer to call. They’d gotten away with it. No one knew about the body and then suddenly the killer wants to alert the police about it. Why?”

  “Someone who hates Fred or wants him to go to prison, maybe.” I thought of Fred. He was easy to dislike, and I’d thought more than once that he should have been the victim in this story. All sorts of people didn’t like him and what he did.

  “So what does Fred know, and why can’t he tell it?” Green asked. “He has to have a clue as to what is going on there. No way he’s that dumb.”

  “He put all of his records out to the trash for someone to pick up,” I reminded her around a piece of pepperoni. “He’s not the brightest. So what should I be looking for with all these records?”

  “Two things come to mind. First, is anyone in these files missing? Granted there are a ton of people here, but someone has to be gone for there to be a body in the barn. Who is it, and have they been reported missing yet? If not, why not?”

  I nodded. I almost felt like I should pull out paper and pen to take notes on this. I was seeing a different side to Green tonight, an efficient officer who really knew what she was doing.

  I explained to her my thoughts on who had hired me. It made no sense to hire a consultant, even with my more than modest fees, when the most likely suspect was at the scene of the crime.

  “You’ll need to find out why Zook was released. It can’t be an alibi, because they can’t possibly know the time of death on that body. It was decomposed too far for that. At best, they’re going to be able to give you a month of death. There won’t be any alibis in this case.”

  “I know. I keep hearing it’s not like television.”

  She laughed. “What is like television? Nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s going to be a real chore to even figure out who it is. This state doesn’t have the resources to do a full body reconstruction or one of those fancy fingerprint things where you put your own fingers inside the skin and roll them out. So it’s old-fashioned paperwork.”

  I pointed to the stack of papers. “So what you’re saying is I need to get back to reading those files.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, but I can tell you a few things to look for. First, keep an eye out for any name that you recognize. That’s a clue right there. If you’ve run across the name before and they’re in the files, then it’s a possible match. Also look for any patterns. If you see something odd show up in the files, then definitely look into that as well.”

  “What’s odd?”

  She grinned. “You really must trust me to offer me a straight line like that. Besides you, anything out of the ordinary. A particular client who switches breeds, a month without income, or a month with too much income. Giveaway dogs, anything that doesn’t make sense to you. That’s what I’d be doing now.”

  I nodded. “Okay, then that’s what I’ll be doing too.”

  She stood up and looked around. The pizza was long gone. She picked up the box and carried it into the kitchen. She returned with some paper towels that she used as napkins to wipe up the little puddles of grease on the table.

  “So what have you done about the other papers I gave you?” She looked at me like she was ready to be disappointed. She was almost steeling herself for the wrong answer.

  I stood up straight and looked her in the eye. I thought this might be another fight for us. “I thought you didn’t want me to read them. After all, you told my mother about them, and her reaction was overthetop.”

  “What?” She stopped cleaning up and stood there, watching me with her mouth hanging open. I had to say that I’d never seen her like this in the months we’d known each other. She always had an answer or a smart comeback. Now she was just speechless.

  “She found out about the file. She called and demanded that I give it to her.”

  Her face fell, and I knew she saw this for an important moment between us. Would I betray her act of kindness or whatever it was, or would I keep my spine and refuse? I wished I’d known what she was expecting. It would have made life easier. Instead, I was going to have to settle for the truth.

  “And did you?”

  I nodded. “I gave her the original file, yes.”

  Her eyes squinted as if she’d seen my third path. “But you made another copy of the file for yourself, right? That’s what you meant when you said ‘original.’”

  I nodded again. “That’s right. If she’s making that much of a stink about this, then there’s something there I’m not supposed to see.”

  She rolled her eyes. Apparently the silence was well and fully broken now. “No shit. That’s why I gave you the files, which you have sat on for months. It took a lot of work to make a copy of that file.”

  I took a deep breath. This was probably as much as I’d talked about my sister’s disappearance since it had happened. No one in my family directly referenced it, and therefore, it was not talked about.

  Occasionally, a well-meaning person will ask about it, but I give them a well-practiced pat answerabout the matter, and it drops. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d talked seriously about the matter to anyone. Years, maybe.

  “Look, it’s easy for you to tell me to read the files, but this has been a big part of my life for a long t
ime now. I grew up with this, and I live with the aftershocks of it. So it’s hard to just dive into a police file of the whole business and read it all in one sitting. The fact that I’ve made it this far is impressive to me.”

  She looked annoyed. “I gave you that file for a couple of reasons. First, I hate to say this to you, but you’re a decent investigator. I know you have to be in order to pull off your talk-to-the-animals scam, but in reality, you see, you hear, and you process it all to make sense of it.”

  I batted my eyes at her. “Was that a compliment, Detective Green? And it’s not a scam. These little creatures depend on me to give them a voice.” I tried to add more but I’d broken out into a wide grin.

  She ignored me. “Secondly, your world view is not quite right. You’ve got a lot of baggage from this, and I’m not sure you’re doing the right things to deal with this. That’s why I wanted you to read the files. There’s a lot in there that you don’t know.”

  I nodded. I’d figured that out a long time ago, though she’d never actually said so until now. She’d gone through the work of copying all those pages, because there was something in the file that I needed to see. I wasn’t sure what, and I hadn’t come across it yet, but there was something that would catch my eye and make me rethink what I knew about Susan and my past.

  Part of me would like to be done with the chains I’ve put on myself, but the rest of me has grown comfortable in my own bubble. The thought ofhaving the bubble burst was hard to handle. The mere idea that I’d be without my defenses was scary, even if Green thought I should just go ahead and read the whole thing.

  I took another deep breath. “Fine. I’ll read it this week. When I’m done with the list of buyers, I’ll read the file, and we can talk about it. How’s that? You’ve gotten your way. Are you happy about that?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Not yet, because now there’s one more thing that you need to do for me.”

  “Dogs or Susan?” I asked, resignedly. This was going to be the most expensive pizza of my life. Not financially, but emotionally.