Nothing To Sniff At (Animal Instincts Book 5)

by Chloe Kendrick

  The phrase she used made me think. Perhaps he wouldn’t have trouble with the switch because an officer was in on the crimes. That served to confirm what I’d suspected. I nodded, but didn’t speak again. I really didn’t have much else to say. I wasn’t about to go through the last minutes of her boyfriend with her. I didn’t want to relive those moments for a long time. We sat in silence for a few minutes and then she got up to leave.

  “Have you gotten any large sums of money? Do you know how much your boyfriend was offered to do what he did?” I asked for no particular reason. I was just curious if the price had been substantial enough to risk his life.

  “No ideas at all. I’ve looked for the money around the house, but I haven’t found it. You don’t know anything about it, do you?” Her eyes held a sharp glint to them, and for a second, I wondered if that’s why she had come here. Just for the money.

  “I didn’t even know about the money until he told me this afternoon. I was more interested in the dog switch than the money. We only spoke a few seconds before he was shot.”

  This time she nodded, and she turned to leave. The fake Barkley went with her, and she left without a word.

  I kept the door open as she left, because I’d seen Sheila Green pull up in the driveway. She nodded at the woman as they passed and came up the walk to the door.

  “What the hell was she doing here? I thought you agreed to keep out of this?” Sheila didn’t waste time on a greeting or a kiss.

  “I did, but she came to see me unannounced. What was I supposed to do – leave her outside?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “That might be a better course of action. You don’t want the police to see her coming and going from your place. They’ll wonder how you two know each other.”

  She sat down in the same place that Troxel’s girlfriend had just vacated. I put the tissues back in their place, because I doubted that Sheila would need them. She’s the type who is more likely to make others cry.

  “What was that all about?” Sheila asked without preliminary.

  “I think she’s on drugs and I think that she wanted to know where the money was that Troxel got for switching the dogs. I told her that I didn’t know anything about the money, and she left. That’s it.”

  She nodded. “She smelled of cat pee.”

  I wasn’t sure what to make of that statement. It seemed so incredibly random. “I smell of dogs,” I offered in return.

  “No, meth production often smells like cat pee. So chances were that she’s been at or near a meth lab in the recent past. So yes, your thought about her being on drugs was probably correct.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling a bit foolish. I’d not been exposed much to the world of drugs and this small taste of it was enough to make me very glad of that naiveté. “I had a different question for you – about Susan.”

  Sheila had been looking tired, but at the mention of my sister, she sat up on the sofa and watched me carefully. “What about her?” she asked.

  “I found her,” I said simply. “She’s in Seattle. Still under her name. I got a phone number for her.”

  Sheila’s eyes went incredibly wide. “What? How is that even possible?”

  I explained to her the trail I’d followed from the phone number to the bus station to the social security number search on the Internet. I hadn’t told anyone that I knew where my sister was, not even my family. It felt odd that after a decade I could be telling someone that I could call my sister at any time I wanted.

  Sheila nodded as I went through the process. When I finished, she said, “Frankly, I never even thought to do that. I assumed that the police would have run one of these years ago. What are you going to do now?”

  I shrugged. “She left for a reason. I’m not sure that I want to intrude on her world after all this time.”

  She laughed. “You’ve got to call her. Intrude. Hell, what would you call what she did to you? Calling her is nothing in comparison to what she did to you.”

  I bit my lip. I still wasn’t sure if I should call her or not. The thought of dealing with the matter made my stomach do flips. I wasn’t sure that I was ready.

  Sheila pulled out her phone. “There is one person who needs to be called.” She started dialing digits, and I had no idea who she might be calling. It certainly wasn’t Susan since I hadn’t shared the contact information with anyone.

  “Sergeant Siever, this is Detective Green. I’m here with Griffin Fitzpatrick, and we have a few questions for you.”

  The man’s voice dripped with sarcasm as he laughed and ask, “What would this be about?”

  “Susan Fitzpatrick. Griff found her. I thought we’d let you know since we’ll be informing missing persons and the FBI tomorrow. I’m sure they’ll call the family too. Maybe they’ll invite you to the reunion, but I doubt it since they found her on the Internet.”

  “What? When was this?” The sarcasm had been replaced with what sounded like interest and maybe fear. “How did you find her?”

  “A pretty simple Google search to be honest,” Sheila said, which wasn’t honest at all. I wondered why she was lying to another member of the police, albeit a retired one. Did she not trust him?

  “Huh. So what are your questions? I doubt that this is a social call.”

  Sheila took a deep breath and said, “I just wanted to know when you found her and why you didn’t tell the family about it.”

  My eyes widened. I had assumed that Sergeant Siever had been incompetent, not covering up a truth that he’d known for a long time. However, it made more sense that he’d also uncovered the information and sat on it for whatever reason he had.

  He sputtered and said, “What makes you think that I knew?”

  “You and Mrs. Fitzpatrick didn’t want Griff to have a copy of the police report, which had on it, among other things the fact that her phone was still there, which indicated a premeditation, and her social security number, which could be used to trace her. Nothing to hide, nothing to object to.”

  “We were just shielding him from the facts of the case. He didn’t need to be looking for information after this many years. It was counterproductive and would only hurt his growth.” The words sounded so much like my mother that I suspected that he was reading from a script. It was patently obvious to me now that they were more than romantic partners at this point. They were also partners in crime. I balled my fists thinking of all the years I’d mourned a girl who was still alive and others knew that fact, but chose not to share it for their own warped reasons. What the hell was going on?

  Sheila laughed now. “That’s lovely, but as an officer of the law, you have a responsibility to close a case when you know that a crime was not committed. You’ve deliberately left a case open and not reunited a family for your own reasons. Not only that, there’s a good chance that you did this while still working on the case, because a civilian found this in a very short time. It’s embarrassing for the department.”

  There was a long pause on the other end. Sheila checked the time to see that the connection wasn’t broken. “I solved this case a few years ago. After I was out of the force, I ran a check on her social and came up with the same information. I called her and spoke with her. She was fine. She’d left of her own free will, and she had no desire to come home. She was very clear about that. So we left it.”

  “We?” I asked. I knew the answer to that question. My mother had been his co-conspirator in this matter. She’d been the one to keep the information from me. I wondered if my dad had still been alive at that time or if my brother had still been in Toledo? How many lives had been impacted because of her decision to withhold information?

  There was more to this story that I still wasn’t hearing. I knew that as sure as I knew my name. My mother apparently was only doling out information as she was caught withholding it. I was willing to bet that there was an explanation why Susan had left home, and that I wasn’t hearing it even now. I wondered about how people could keep this information to the
mselves when it affected so many people.

  “Your mother thought it best. If we officially closed the case, the media would be alerted and then they’d want to interview your sister. It would be a media free-for-all, and the 24-hour news stations love that kind of thing. There would be interviews and talk shows and everything that Susan didn’t want for herself. She just wanted to be left alone, and we decided to respect her wishes.” I could hear Sergeant Siever’s breath over the phone. He seemed to be winded from the conversation.

  Sheila gave me a look that told me to cut this conversation short. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I felt myself getting angry, so I opted to do what she asked. I couldn’t trust my own instincts in this matter.

  “Fine. Whatever. I have to go. Another call is coming in on Sheila’s phone.”

  She pressed the disconnect button before he could speak again. She looked at me for a second before speaking. “There are ways to change the status of a case in our computer systems without alerting the media. If the media would be interested, it’s because there’s something else to this story that we don’t know about.”

  “I was thinking the same thing, but I have no idea what that could be.” I tried to think of what event could have been so big as to make her leave.

  “I could run some stats and see if there were any crimes around that time. It’s possible that she was involved in a crime or something like that.”

  I looked at her. “Not possible. You don’t know Susan. She was the type who always worried what other people thought of her. She wouldn’t do something wrong because then people might judge her. It was almost an obsession with her.”

  Sheila watched me as I spoke. I was particularly fond of this. She reminded me of me when I was trying to read a pet, looking for clues and tics to help me read what was really going on inside of the pet. “What?”

  “I was just thinking about what you said. It gave me some thoughts.”

  I didn’t like what she said or the way she said it. The fact that she wasn’t sharing either of these things made me worry that she was on to something more about my family than I had been. I was about done with the rest of the world knowing more about the Fitzpatricks than I did.

  “Can we talk about something else for a change?” I asked, feeling rather raw at the moment. My family’s biggest mystery hadn’t been a mystery for years, and I was the last to know about it. I made a vow that I’d get to the bottom of this mystery if it took everything I had. Since I really didn’t have much, I thought that this was a pretty safe vow.

  However, the conversation had made up my mind on one point. I would be calling Susan and talking to her. I wouldn’t be getting my information second-hand from someone else anymore, especially someone who wasn’t even a part of the family.

  Sheila started dialing another number. “I thought that the last call went so well that I’d call another policeman.” She gave me a smile that I couldn’t read. I sometimes wondered if part of the attraction to her was that I couldn’t read her. So many people were so obvious with their expressions that I could nearly carry on a conversation knowing my part and theirs.

  “You thought that went well?” I asked.

  “Better than I hoped. He admitted that he knew Susan was alive and that your mother knew too. I count an admission as a success.”

  I nodded. I guess by that rubric she was right. “Who are we calling now?”

  “Adam McNabb of the Erie County police. His appearance at that particular drug bust seems a little too convenient. I want to know exactly how he got there.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “And you’re doing it with me here? Are you feeling okay?”

  She laughed softly. “Just fine. I was going to do this back at the station, but I thought that this would take your mind off your family for a bit. A phone call can happen anywhere.”

  I watched as she dialed the number and waited for him to answer. I thought it was going to voicemail when a man’s voice answered. “McNabb.”

  “McNabb, this is Detective Sheila Green of the Toledo Police Department. We’re looking into the murder of the owner of the dog that got switched out for Barkley. He was gunned down in a drive-by earlier today.”

  There was a long pause. That seemed to be the response of the day. “Okay, how does that involve me?” he asked.

  “I understand that you met the fake dog at one point. You were at a location where the dog was being used to uncover illegal drugs. Is that true?”

  He laughed. It sounded slightly like Barkley, a hoarse bark of a laugh. I shook my head, thinking that perhaps I’d had Beagles on the mind too frequently here. “He wasn’t being used to uncover anything. That fake totally missed the drugs. Good thing our dog was there, or they would have gone out into the area. We don’t need any more drugs here. Trust me.”

  She cleared her throat. “I’m well aware of that. Our problems are larger than yours, I’m sure.”

  “Probably, though I think that we have a higher percentage of users. If it just wasn’t so damned available and cheap, we’d be able to keep it under control.”

  “So I guess you’re talking about heroin?” Sheila asked. I liked seeing her in police mode. She was no nonsense and very good at her job. She was like a different person from the funny and sometimes supportive woman I knew.

  “Of course. It’s what’s selling these days.”

  “Can you tell me the story? In your own words?” she asked.

  He took a deep breath. “You know all of this in the report, right?”

  “I know that a report exists. I don’t know if everything is in it. For example, there’s no mention that the drug dog was a fake or that the fake Barkley didn’t catch the scent of anything. So excuse me if I’m calling you, but I want the whole truth here. It makes it easier for me to solve my case.”

  He sighed. “Yeah, okay. That’s what I get for being a nice guy.”

  “How so?” Her eyes went wide, and I watched as she took notes.

  “Not putting that in there about Port Clinton’s dog. I gave Brate a hard time about it. Told him our dog was superior. Suggested that Barkley needed a nose job. That sort of thing. So when it came time to write it up, I just made it sound like the dogs had found the drugs, not our dog alone. It’s not a big deal, just a word choice.”

  Sheila’s voice was steel when she talked again. “An oversight that is tied to a man being gunned down by an automatic weapon in the middle of a neighborhood. Words make a difference. So why did you think that the Port Clinton dog didn’t smell the drugs at the time? Now we know the story, but what did you think then?”

  “At the time, I just thought the dog was having an off day. He was kind of lethargic and uninterested in the whole process. He sniffed a few times and walked away like he couldn’t care less. Our dog was all over the stuff.”

  “So you didn’t think of a substitution at that time? Only later?”

  “Yeah, of course. Who thinks of dognapping as a first excuse for not finding drugs? You’d be amazed at what these people do to keep from being discovered. I mean, ruthless stuff, and we’re supposed to find it all. So when Barkley didn’t find it and our dog did, I just thought Barkley was having an off day. Nothing more.”

  “And how did you hear about this shipment of drugs? Were you invited in by the Port Clinton police or a CI or what?” Sheila had changed subjects and went for what she really wanted to know – what Brate had suggested on our first meeting.

  “Not a CI per se. I had an anonymous tip. Someone called me and told me that there would be a drug shipment coming in. They gave me the date and the time and the location.” His answer was to the point, and it made me wonder what he was hiding. Maybe it was my mood, but I felt like everyone was lying to me.

  Sheila must have felt the same because she asked for verification. “Do you mind if I dump your phone log from your police issued phone? I’d like to see the date and time of the call.”

  McNabb cleared his throat. “It wasn’t my police
phone. It was my personal cell.”

  “I’d still like to see the records. Would you be willing to give me access to your account?”

  “I’ll print them off right now and send them to you, if that works?”

  Her voice was still hard as steel. “I’d rather see it on the account. You can give me your logon and password and then you can change it as soon as I’m done. Would that work?”

  McNabb agreed and gave her the information. “Anything else?”

  Sheila laughed as she wrote down the information. She made a motion to me to get on the computer and look. “I’m not done by a long shot. Do you often get calls about police business on your personal cell?”

  “You’ll see when you sign on that I don’t. So no, this was a first for me.”

  “Didn’t you wonder why you were getting this?”

  “Yeah, but at the same time, I wasn’t going to pass it up just because it smelled fishy. It was a big bust. I’m glad I made the call I made,” McNabb said.

  “Who has your cell phone number? Family, friends, colleagues?”

  “Yes to all of those. I don’t know who got my number. Yes, it was odd, but given the way that it turned out, I was glad that they did report it. Can you imagine if that fake dog had been the only sniffer there? Those drugs would have hit the street and things would be worse than they already are. The anonymous call was not the issue here.”

  Sheila made a few more notes. I was busy printing off the pages of his cell phone bill. They showed his incoming and outgoing calls for the past two weeks. That would be enough to see any patterns or calls to numbers that Sheila might recognize. I handed her the pages as I stood up. I hadn’t taken the time to see if I recognized any numbers. I wanted her to have the sheets before she hung up.

  “It’s still a point that needs to be reviewed. I have a list of your phone calls, so go ahead and change your password now. I appreciate the cooperation.”