I didn’t bother to call the home in advance. I didn’t want the polite brush-off that came with technology. People had a harder time saying no to someone in person than they did via email or phone. Face to face interactions nearly always got me what I wanted. I drove out to the suburb, which was relatively well-off with homes much nicer than mine.
Pulling up in front of the house, I opted to tell a story to see if I could find Troxel. I knew that the truth would likely not get me far at all. Desperate times called for extreme measures.
I knocked on the door and waited. A much younger man than I expected answered the door. He was probably in his late teens or early twenties with dark curls and a lithe body that had not started to experience the decrease in metabolism that comes with life. He carried the air that he was incredibly uninterested in whatever I had to say. “Yeah?”
“I was looking for Steven Weinberg?”
He snorted. “That’s my dad. He’s not here right now. What’s this about? No offense, but you don’t look like the type of person he normally works with.”
I felt a flush run through my cheeks, even in the cold air of the day. I immediately chided myself, thinking that I’d gone years without worrying what people thought of me. However, now that I was disavowed of the idea that staying low-key kept people safe, I was suddenly aware of being judged by this boy and coming up lacking. It was not a feeling that I enjoyed. Part of me wished for the old Griff’s attitude in dealing with this kid.
“It’s about a matter with one of his tenants, Jackson Troxel. He’s left the house he was renting, and he’s got my dog.” My story seemed to be fair, since Troxel had apparently engaged in dognapping. Being tracked down for the same offense seemed to please my sense of karma.
“The house in Onyx, right?” The boy made a motion with his hand to enter the house, and I followed him into the house. He walked down the hall. It was amazing that it was such a similar action to what I’d done at the breeder’s home, yet with such a different feel to it. The breeder’s home had been smaller, but with a feeling of being lived in and comfortable in its design. This home, while much larger, felt sterile. The photos on the walls were in new frames. The decorations all appeared to have been placed on the wall by a decorator or by using a magazine picture as a stencil. While I knew money had gone into its design, I was left unimpressed.
We went into a room with filing cabinets, but even these had been upscaled. The cabinets were a dark wood, and the drawers moved effortlessly without the standard squeaks and groans of metal on metal. The young man pulled a file out of one of the drawers and handed it over. “Forwarding address. My dad was pretty sure it was real, because he’s going to get a refund on his security deposit. People are always more honest when there’s something in it for them.” He rolled his eyes, though I wasn’t sure if it was at man’s greed or his father’s aphorisms.
I had to agree with his words. I wrote down the address and thanked the young man for his help. He’d not been what I expected, but he’d been helpful.
This last address was back in Onyx, not far from where he’d lived before. It was amazing to me that in today’s society just a move a few streets from where you used to live made you a stranger in town. Troxel was less than a mile from his old rental house, and yet Delores, whose business it was to know everything, had not known where he lived. Granted, I knew nothing of my neighbors. Even though I got out regularly, unlike my mother, I had little to do with the people living around me. They saw me on walks with the dogs, but that was the extent of our interactions.
My thoughts went to Susan, who lived two thousand miles from where she had lived with us. She’d gone to drastic measures to get away from home. I hadn’t thought to ask about traveling companions on her bus trip, but I wasn’t sure that they would have provided me with that information. What had been so bad that she’d had to go away?
I tried to bring my thoughts back to the case and the fact that an innocent police officer was falsely accused of murder. I didn’t want to think about my family at the moment. I’d end up having to do something about my family, and I wasn’t sure what that would be yet.
I drove back to Onyx and found the new address. Sure enough, there was the fake Barkley in the yard, howling at anything that moved. I walked up to the dog and let him sniff my hand. “Hey boy, remember me?” I asked as he sniffed at me.
He put his paws on the chain link fence and began to bark at me, which I took for a yes. I patted him a few times on the head and then decided to walk around to the front door. I knocked twice before someone answered. If my old look had been one of wanting not to draw attention to me, he had gone to extremes with that look. His hair shot out in all directions. He obviously was just getting out of bed, even though it was four o’clock in the afternoon. He was wearing a pair of brown cargo shorts and a black t-shirt.
“What do you want?” he asked, not even bothering to look up at me.
“I want to talk about Barkley, the drug dog that you swapped for the guy outside.” I hadn’t had a plan coming here, but from his wardrobe and attitude, I felt a certain kinship. So I decided to shoot straight with this guy, much as I would want someone to do with me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His tone was flat. A novice would think that he was telling the truth, but the absolute lack of inflection made me believe that he wasn’t telling the truth. He was putting too much effort into trying to stay uninterested.
“I was at your last place in Onyx a few days ago, and I saw Barkley there. I petted him and called him by name. So I know you had him then. Care to explain?”
His eyes rose to meet mine, and I could see some sort of passion in them. Whether it was hatred for me at that moment or anger at getting involved in a police matter I couldn’t be sure. However, I recognized strong feelings in him. For a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to answer at all, but finally he spoke. “You don’t have any proof of that.”
“I took photos of him in your yard and emailed them to myself and the police. So yeah, I do have some proof.” While I wanted to shoot straight with him, at the same time, I wanted information, and I wanted it now. I was still standing on the front porch, the wind whipping around me, while he stood in the doorway of a heated home. I wasn’t going to play games until I froze.
Again there was silence for a minute. “What if I did take the dog? I brought him back just fine. Nothing wrong with him.” He shrugged as if people did this every day.
“The police are grateful for that, but they want to know why. This isn’t the prank of a group of teenagers. You bought a dog and swapped it for a police dog for a few days. Why?” I stomped my feet on the porch to keep my circulation in my toes flowing, but he didn’t take a hint. I still stood in the doorway.
He gave me a crooked grin of unaligned teeth. “Easiest reason in the world. Someone paid me to do it. They gave me the money to buy the dog. They told me where the dog would be at a particular time. All I had to do was switch the dogs for five days. I got information on how to switch them back. Then I could keep the Beagle or sell him. Who knew that these dogs barked so much? It’s constant.” He rolled his eyes as the dog barked again as to prove his point. Obviously he knew nothing about Beagles.
Everyone knows that Beagles bark, I thought, but I kept that to myself. “Who is the ‘they’ you’re talking about? I need a name.”
I heard a squeal at the corner. I turned to look as a car came speeding down the road. The passenger window was down. My mind registered that it had to be freezing in the car, before I knew why they had the window down. A weapon protruded out of the window and aimed at us. As soon as the thought hit me, I shouted, “Down!” I grabbed at Troxel’s sleeve and pulled, but he didn’t budge. I hit the porch hard, and the landing forced the air from my lungs. I wheezed on the ground as shots whirred over my head. A few made a splintering noise as they hit the doorframe, but others did not. The gun had to be automatic, as the sounds came as quickly as drum beats over my h
ead.
The car kept moving down the street, and the scene was over – except for the consequences. Jackson Troxel hit the ground next to me, but not because his reflexes were slow. He was dead.
Chapter 6
The next two hours were a blur. I’d called Sheila from my cell phone as I continued to lay on the porch floor. I was scared that the vehicle would come around again to see if I had been taken care of as well. I had a decent description for the car. It was an older model Buick LeSabre, painted black. My grandparents had owned a similar car, though in a less ominous color. I hadn’t really seen the driver, but I had the first two digits of the license plate AK, which seemed appropriate for a car with an automatic weapon.
Multiple police cars arrived all at once. The first responders were there and began to work over Jackson Troxel. I could have told them that it was a waste of time. He hadn’t moved since he’d hit the floor. I’d only shifted enough on the porch so that I wouldn’t be in the way of the steady stream of blood that was coming out of him.
The use of a drive-by as a MO struck me as something that might be used by a drug dealer. If the people who hired Troxel had wanted Barkley gone for his drug sniffing skills, then this might fit in well with that same theory. Troxel had admitted that someone had paid him to take the dog, which meant both sufficient funds to manage this and a big reason to avoid detection. Drugs fit the bill on all counts.
The uniforms were there at the same time. They took my statement. Looking at the outside wall, the doorframe and the victim, they could tell that I’d been in the line of fire rather than a person of interest. I gave them the information about the car and why I was visiting Troxel. Even though this would mean that I wouldn’t be able to investigate the dognapping anymore, I didn’t care. I wasn’t about to lose my life over this case. Nor was I willing to cover for Officer Brate. Losing a dog for a few days seemed like nothing compared to a double homicide.
The uniforms told me to go sit in my car, and I gladly obeyed, happy to be away from the corpse and the blood. I started the car and turned the heat on full blast. The hot air warmed me as I sat and tried not to think about what had just happened.
I nearly screamed when Detective Sheila Green knocked on the window of my car. I hadn’t seen her pull up to the house. She was wearing a beige pant-suit, and she didn’t look happy. I couldn’t really blame her; I had just significantly added to her workload, and she had the questionable privilege of having me as a sidekick on this investigation.
She opened the door and sat down on the seat next to me in the car. “You or him?” she asked. A sure sign of her perturbedness with me was always her use of as few words as possible. She sat and watched me with those silver eyes and I wondered what she was thinking. She was always a hard read for me; I wasn’t sure if that was because I was interested in her or because she had practiced giving no expression when she interviewed people.
“Him?” I said, unsure of myself. “They knew where he was. No one knew where I was going to be.”
“They could have followed you and stopped around the corner to prepare for the drive-by. Why would anyone want to kill him anyway?”
“He knew who had hired him to swap dogs with Barkley. So he would be a danger to them and their operation.”
Her eyes widened. “Operation? What exactly do you think you’re talking about here? You think this is a drug case?”
“I had assumed that since they swiped Barkley that they wanted him out of the way, so they wouldn’t be caught with the drugs. It seemed like a safe assumption.” At that point, I broke down and told her the whole story from start to finish. I left out nothing. She waited until I was done to speak again.
“Who else knows this?” she asked. She’d taken some notes during my explanation, but now she was staring at me as I spoke.
“Brate, me and now you – plus I guess, the person who arranged for the dognapping, and Troxel.” I ran over the list of people I’d talked to, but none of them had received the full story from me. I doubted that Brate had told a soul, since he was worried about his job. However, after seeing a man shot down, I wasn’t particularly concerned about his job. He could look for a new job well into my old age, for all I cared.
“So the person who had stolen the dog would be the only one who could have done this today. So either he or the person hired by him was responsible for this. It will likely clear Brate of the death of the person in the trunk of the car. That’s a good thing.”
“Yeah, but what about the problem of Barkley?” I asked, wondering who would want to hire someone who couldn’t hold onto a dog. People managed to keep their dogs for years without issue.
“It would depend. If it could be shown the perps wanted to take the dog, they might go easier on him. It is police property, but it’s not an expected thing. They’re more concerned when someone takes your weapon or your car.”
I nodded. I knew that it was frowned upon to lose your weapon. I wondered how they would feel about a Beagle.
“So what next?” I asked. “What’s going to happen?”
She looked at me with a solemn expression. “Nothing is going on. You are going home and not getting involved in this matter. If nothing else, you should have seen today that this is a dangerous matter. This is the second body on this case, plus the theft of police property. These guys are bold and brazen and you don’t need to be going up against them. You need to go back to your house and stay put.”
“But what about?”
“What about nothing. It’s too dangerous. You’re not trained. You can’t just take your snake oil show around and pretend to be an investigator. It doesn’t work that way. People get killed that way.” She looked upset. I wondered again if this was the personal side of this case or the professional side of this case.
“Okay, message received. No more investigation. I’ll go home and stay there.”
“Thank you.” She patted my hand, which on the job was a major concession of feelings for her. It was practically a proposal.
I had to answer a number of questions for the police, but most of my answers were either “I don’t know” or a repeat of what I’d told Detective Green. They nodded and took notes. They said that they would be talking to the Port Clinton police as well, and perhaps they would work together on this case since it seemed to be related to both the dognapping and the corpse in the trunk.
I decided to go home and wait it out. Sheila was right. I was over my head here. I had no lines of inquiry that didn’t involve me stepping on the toes of the police or getting myself shot.
I watched the news that night, which told the story of Jackson Troxel in much more exciting terms than I had experienced. They went on about the witnesses to the crime nearly being mowed down by bullets and I pulled a blanket around me, thinking that I had indeed been lucky to escape with my life.
The doorbell rang, and I assumed that it was Sheila Green, but it wasn’t. I didn’t recognize the woman, but I definitely recognized the dog that was with her. It was the fake Barkley from the yard today. I shivered involuntarily, remembering what had happened.
“Can I help you with something?” I asked, not opening the door completely so they could enter. The Beagle was busy sniffing my leg, remembering me from today and smelling my own two Corgis on my leg.
“You were with my boyfriend today, when he was killed?” she asked, sniffing at the end. Her eyes were red, and the tip of her nose was chapped. I doubted that it was from standing out in the cold.
I cleared my throat, not sure where to begin. Part of me wanted to hear what she had to say, but that part battled with Sheila’s warnings to stay away from this investigation and the sound of bullets whizzing past my head earlier today. My mind was made up for me when the Beagle ran between my legs and started barking at my dogs. They stood their ground, growling and barking in return. The noise sent The Countess scampering out of the room, and the two humans were left to handle the battle of the canines.
It took a couple of
minutes to get things settled down. Bess was still inclined to chase after the Beagle, despite the size difference, and the Beagle wanted to sniff both of my dogs who wanted nothing to do with him.
By the time that we got the dogs settled, she was already well inside the house and had loosened her jacket. She wasn’t carrying a weapon, though I hadn’t looked through her purse for a gun.
She sat down on the sofa without being asked. She reminded me of Sheila in that way, but the similarities ended there. She was tall and thin, with long dishwater blonde hair. Her teeth were discolored, and I remembered reading somewhere that meth would ruin your teeth. I wondered if this was a clue that she had been on drugs. It would explain Troxel’s involvement with the men who wanted the dogs switched.
I sat down opposite her and studied her closely. The eyes were so reddened from crying that I couldn’t tell if she was high or not. She was grief-stricken, and from what I could tell, she only wanted answers and not revenge. So I decided to answer her questions.
“I was there. I’d wanted to ask him about the dog you had – the Beagle. It had been swapped for another Beagle, a police dog, and I wanted to find out why.”
Her breath caught, and she nearly sobbed as she spoke. “I don’t know anything about that. He told me that he’d found a way to make a lot of money fast. I didn’t like it, so he told me that he wouldn’t tell me a thing about it. So he didn’t. He could be stubborn that way.”
“So you don’t have any idea who gave him the money?” I asked, feeling the worth of this interview tank quickly. If she didn’t know who, then she had little to offer me.
“Not a clue. He told me that it was legit, and that the police wouldn’t be bothering him about this. So I wasn’t too worried. Guess I should have been.” She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, and I moved a box of tissues from the end table so that she could use more.
Nothing To Sniff At (Animal Instincts Book 5) Page 6