Chapter 5
When I woke up, I was alone in the house. Late afternoon had come. The shadows of the trees had crept over me while I’d been unconscious. I rubbed the back of my head. There was no blood there, but I did have a nasty bump.
I walked through the house but I couldn’t see any sign of Zook. His car was gone, and whoever had hit me was gone as well. I thought of calling the police, but apparently they had taken my phone, because it was no longer in my back pocket. My keys were gone as well.
Stranded there, I decided to see if Zook had just played a nasty trick on me. My car was there, which meant he hadn’t used my keys. My phone would give us information on his location via my GPS apps, so I doubted that he would have taken that with him either.
That meant he’d likely hidden them here. On my second pass through the house, I found the keys and phone. He’d slid them between the canisters on the kitchen counter. I dialed the local sheriff and told him what had happened. He cursed, and then told me to wait for a car to come out.
He was there in about fifteen minutes. He slammed the car to a stop and looked at me across the yard. “What happened here?”
I explained the visit, finding Zook packing and being assaulted so they could leave.
“That’s just great. I’ve got an election in two months. I had the killer here, let him out for lack of evidence, and now he skips out. This is going to make a hell of an ad.”
While he continued on about his upcoming unemployment, one of his deputies called in the report of Zook leaving town. He gave information on the car and my information about heading to Cleveland. The dispatcher took down the information and presumably started making the announcements. I wondered if too much time had passed for the police to catch him.
“Damn it,” the sheriff said again. “I can see the ads now about me letting a murderer go free.”
“I don’t know about that,” I replied. “Think about it. I was questioning Zook about his time away in March. He was vague with the answers that he gave. What I think happened is that he figured out what happened. I asked about who was here in his absence, and he started to say something. Then he stopped and refused to answer any questions.”
“Why exactly were you here?” the sheriff asked.
“I was talking to one of the dogs from here, and she told me that Zook took vacations and someone else cared for the puppies while he was gone. I didn’t get much of a description, but I wanted to ask him about the trips and who took care of the dogs.” I’d neatly left out the trash picking and Wayne altogether. A neat bit of storytelling.
The sheriff humphed, but I thought that I’d made the first real steps to collecting that paycheck from the police here.
“Did the dog say anything else?” the sheriff asked after an awkward silence. The deputy snickered, but was hushed by the stare he received from the sheriff.
“That was it for now. Dogs just don’t know people names, so it’s hard to identify them some times. She did know it was a woman.”
“So a woman was taking care of the place while Zook was gone. Interesting. Think that may be our body?”
I shrugged. The motion made my head hurt, and I decided not to do that again. “It’s something to ask, but that’s when Zook hit me.”
The sheriff shook his head with no indication that it hurt him at all. “From what you said, that’s not possible. He was facing you. You heard a noise and started to turn when you got hit. You didn’t say that you turned around. That likely means someone else was here. Someone you didn’t get to see before you went down.”
I closed my eyes. He was right from what I could remember. “I was so close.”
The sheriff looked at me. “You should be glad that you didn’t see them, or you’d likely be the second person in the pit right now. Someone has gone to a lot of trouble not to be identified.”
The radio from the police car squawked, and the deputy went over to check on it. He came back looking stunned. He said in a monotone, “They’ve found Zook. His car was in the ditch up on Route 97.”
“Did they catch him?” I asked, wanting a bit of retribution for my head.
The deputy took a deep breath. “They didn’t have to. He’s dead.”
The sheriff wouldn’t let me go out to the crime scene this time. His reasoning was that no animals had witnessed the crime, so my particular set of skills would be useless to them this time around. I still hadn’t determined why he’d hired me, when he wasn’t that keen to have me help him.
With my head still hurting, I decided to go back to Toledo and call it a day. I drove home slowly, awkwardly turning my head as I needed to look right or left. The pain wasn’t bad, but it just ached.
I made it home and went straight to bed. I knew I didn’t have a concussion, but I just needed some time to process all the information that I’d learned today. I’d come so close to finding out who was working with Zook, but as the sheriff pointed out, I was perhaps lucky to have not learned those answers alone at the farm.
Now I’d need to learn them from my own home, using what I knew. The little Corgi girl whined to be up on the bed, and I lifted her up. Bruno used the stairs to maintain a certain level of independence, but they each sought out my attention as they sat one on each side of me.
I took the police file from my sister’s disappearance and started reading again. Perhaps being knocked on the head would help me to see something I’d missed in the past. I read a few more witness statements and then found the inventory of my sister’s room.
The photos of the room were not all that different from the way it was now. My mother had kept our house after my father’s death, and Susan’s room was maintained as something of a shrine to her. The majority of items were still in the same place as they’d been the night she’d gone to the movie and never come back.
I read through the list twice. There were a series of school books, and I remembered how Susan had struggled in math that year. It had been a tough time for her. My father was a CPA and my mother had worked in the actuary field before she disappeared. So both of them were incredibly savvy in math. They were disappointed to hear that their only daughter struggled with math before Algebra.
I continued to read the list of books. Some of the classes I remembered. Others had no meaning for me. I couldn’t remember why she was reading Anne Frank, but it was listed among the schoolbooks found in the room.
They’d catalogued the items on her desk as well. She’d left behind stacks of mail, the credit card my parents had given each of us, her phone, and her keys. She’d left photos of the family that she’d recently scanned and put into the computer that was on her desk. The list went on and on. If this was police work, I didn’t want any part of that drudgery.
The doorbell rang, and my dogs astutely decided to alert me to this by barking as loud as they could. The alarm went on until I opened the door and saw Detective Green standing there with a bag of subs. “Thought you might need something to eat after the day you’ve had.”
I smiled and lightly touched the back of my head again. The swelling was still there, but the pain level had decreased. “Thanks. This is becoming a habit, I guess?”
“You finding bodies or me bringing you food?”
“Both I guess, but technically I didn’t find a body. I was the last person to see Fred Zook alive.”
“I wouldn’t go saying that too loud,” Green said, pushing past me and setting the bag on the counter. “Lots of police decide that the guilty party is the last known person to see someone alive. You just became a murder suspect.”
“I don’t have a motive,” I said in my defense.
“Zook could have known that you’re a fraud and was going to announce to the public that you really can’t talk to animals. How’s that for one?” She opened the papers and handed a sub overflowing with roast beef and ham to me.
I looked at her. “I’m not a fraud, and how would he know anyway?”
“He wouldn’t, but I’m just telling
you that they may try to make a case against you, especially if you push too hard – like you’re known to do.”
I took a bite of the sub to give myself time to think. I hadn’t thought of me as a suspect. I had nothing to gain here. I got no money, and I didn’t know these people.
“So I see that you’re still alive. That’s a good thing. Now you know why the police always have a back-up. You don’t get clocked on the head that way.” She opened one end of her sub and bit off a piece. Her way was much neater, but the dogs much preferred my method. The Countess was having none of this and had moved to an upper shelf in the living room bookcase.
“Yeah, now you tell me.”
“I’ll tell you something else. Even though the Sheriff doesn’t believe it, he’s listening to your comment about a woman being involved. He’s asking around town if anyone knew who Zook was seeing. How did you know about that?”
I told her that the little Corgi girl had informed me, and that I’d later confirmed the details with Anthony Wayne who had given me dates and details. She rolled her eyes, but didn’t correct me.
“I’m only going to tell you one thing tonight about the case, and then we’ll talk about something else. You need to check your list and just look at the women who knew about the puppy mill. That should only be half the size or less of the original list, and you’ll have some people to follow up with.”
I nodded and thought I’d do that tomorrow when I felt more like a person.
True to her word, we didn’t discuss the case again that evening. We chatted about national events, her family and the pets she’d had growing up. Bruno and the little Corgi girl sniffed around and managed to eat some of the leftovers before we put it away.
Chapter 6
The following morning I went back to work on my list of names, now only concentrating on the women on the list. Some of the names were difficult to tell in the age of “Taylor,” “Chris,” and “Connor.” However, for the most part, it was simple to split the list and narrow down the list of names.
My first pass had only managed to get the buyers who had purchased a large number of dogs. This list required me to dig deeper and look carefully at each name, and I found something that triggered a memory.
Zook had mentioned that an activist had come to the farm in June. There in June of this year was Allison Graybill’s name, the same Allison who had taken 15 of the dogs from the farm. The same Allison who told me she’d never been to the farm before. The same Allison who had some explaining to do.
I made copies of the invoice and the record of sale. Just as I had with my mother, I wanted to keep the originals for myself.
I decided to visit Saved by the Bell in person, instead of a phone call. I wanted to see her reaction when I showed her copies of the papers.
The building was bustling with activity when I arrived. Allison was answering the phone while two other volunteers were collecting some of the donations that were being brought into the building. Nobody paid much attention to me, so I decided to check out the dogs that had been brought in. Just like with little “Number 32” these dogs had been groomed and presumably taken to the veterinarian.
By my count, I saw two Pekingese, presumably the two that Wayne wanted. I also saw a Sealyham, and two Chinese Crested. All of them were paired except for the Sealyham, who was all alone.
Allison hung up the phone and looked at me. “What do you want?” she asked, showing none of the charm she had on the phone.
“I wanted to talk to you about the Zook farm,” I said plainly. I wanted to let her think I knew everything. While I knew some, there were still holes in the story that needed to be filled in.
“Just let it drop. I was there once, and that’s all there was.”
I took the invoice out of my pocket and unfolded it. “That’s not what the records say.”
She snatched it from my hand and looked at it. “Where did you get this?”
“I have all the documentation from the farm. All the invoices, all the sales, all the breeding records. You’re very plainly listed as buying a dog from him.”
The thought struck me. She’d bought a Sealyham from Zook. Had it been the mate to the lonely heart in the cage here? Was she planning on keeping the two dogs together after this was sorted out or had she decided to let it go rather than announce that she’d purchased the other dog?
She looked at the paper again and crumpled it up. “What do you think this means? Do you think I killed people and stuff them in a sludge pit for some reason?”
“Why not? You didn’t want people to know you’d been there.”
She took a deep breath. “Look, if you must know, the dog I bought was for my mother. She’s always wanted a Sealyham, and I’d never been able to find her one. She’s getting older, and so when I heard about the Zook farm, I went to ask him about buying one.”
“Even though it was the antithesis of everything you work for here?”
“I tried not to look at it that way. I looked at it as though I was liberating one of those dogs from misery. I had planned on going back and getting the other one when I had the money.”
“How much did he want for it?” I asked, more out of curiosity than a hope to garner another clue to the case.
“Seven grand,” she said stone-faced.
I let out a low whistle that probably provoked some of the barking that broke out in the building. That was a lot of money for a dog, and even more money for someone who volunteered her time at a rescue shelter. I wasn’t sure that I could have put that much money together for a dog.
“So now you understand why I didn’t buy both dogs at once. It was a little above my pay scale.”
“Cash?” I asked, remembering what Wayne and others had said about it being a cash only business.
“Yeah. The bank looked at me funny when I went in and asked for seven thousand dollars in hundreds and fifties. You’d have thought I was getting ready to pay a ransom or buy a kilo of drugs. They were concerned about my safety, carrying that much around.”
“Weren’t you?”
She shrugged. “No one knew about the money except Zook, and he would have had to kill me after he got the money from me, because I could have reported his operation to the police or the media. Each side had something to lose.”
I nodded. “So why didn’t you report him after you got the dog? You could have adopted the second Sealyham here.”
She raised an eyebrow. “It was pure luck that we were even asked to rescue some of the dogs. They could just as easily have contacted three or four other rescue organizations, and then I wouldn’t be able to get the dog.”
“Why not?”
She laughed. “I can’t see the people here appreciating it if I went to another rescue group to get a dog to adopt. They might have something to say about it.”
I started to say something and then stopped. I thought for a moment and said, “I’m sure they would have had something to say about you not reporting a puppy mill too.”
She cleared her throat and looked around. “I like working here, but this is strictly volunteer. I don’t get paid. I could just as easily walk down the street and volunteer someplace else. I wasn’t exactly worried about losing my position here. They need the help.”
“Not enough volunteers?” I asked. I didn’t know how these organizations recruited people to help.
“The girl who manned the phones before me. She just stopped coming in one day about five months ago and stopped taking their calls. There’s no two-week notice and there’s no expectation of showing up for a shift. The worst they can do is ask you to not come back, but since they’re not paying, that’s not exactly a huge threat to people.”
I nodded. “So are you going to adopt the Sealyham who’s here?”
“Yeah, I already filled out the paperwork. I hope that’s okay with the Pekingese that you talked to.” She scoffed as she said the last words.
“When will you get to take her home?” I asked.
“Next week. We should have all the evaluations done by then. I think that we’re going to allow Mr. Wayne to have four sets of the dogs. He has a lot of land, and despite your recommendation, we’re still conducting interviews with him to make sure that he’s everything that he says he is.”
I stood around for a moment, thinking that I’d missed something important. A vague notion kept dancing around the outside of my mind, but I couldn’t grasp it. I pushed it aside for the moment, knowing it would come back to me later.
Chapter 7
I got home and looked at the yard. Some recent rains had revived the grass which was now needing a trim, even by my standards. As I pushed the mower around the yard, I thought that if I had $7000, I’d hire this done among other chores that I couldn’t stand. My house didn’t look like much, but even so, it held its value in the market even with my lack of exterior care. I thought of the dogs that Zook had owned. Expensive animals whose value was hidden by the dirt and grime.
I stopped where I was, and the mower sputtered out. Maybe I’d been looking at the farm’s finances from the wrong angle. I’d been interested in the income Zook made by selling dogs, but I’d never asked where the money went. I hurried through a few more rows of grass and left the mower outside. I went back to my spreadsheet and started calculating income for the years. Zook had kindly included the costs for the dogs and their care.
I didn’t have exact figures for the farm, but not much had gone into its upkeep. The home was maintained at a minimum level. Nothing had been done to the barn or other outbuildings that I could see. Even after adding in a hefty guess factor, Zook had about one million dollars unaccounted for.
He was unlikely to have kept it in a bank. First, the amounts of money would have brought immediate attention to him in that small town. Someone had asked me who I was when I first came into town. In my experience, small town residents knew each other’s business. Secondly, if he’d had that type of money lying around, the police would have found it and very likely Detective Green would have heard the stories about a missing million.
Puppy Mills, Puppy Kills (Animal Instincts Book 3) Page 7