by Mary Deal
Sara stared at her phone and finally checked her messages. Three came from Esmerelda. The last one ended with her saying, “I know the dogs are in good hands. I'll talk to you in the morning.” So why hadn't Sara heard her phone ring all those times?
In minutes, gravel crunched. Sara forced herself to stand so the deputy could see her in the window. The woman officer, wearing an authoritative dark blue uniform, pulled flimsy latex gloves from her pocket and put them on as she sprinted up the side steps two at a time. Sara groped her way and unlocked and opened the outer door as a blast of cool air greeted her. The deputy followed her back inside.
“Deputy Conroy,” she said, not offering her hand. “Johanna Conroy.” She glanced around like an animal keen to prey, her attention directed toward the darker portions of the house. “Where's Pierce?”
Sara pointed toward the kitchen.
More gravel crunched. Another dark blue uniform arrived. Somewhere from the back of her mind, Sara remembered that the deputies that attended her parent's drowning wore olive green trousers and light green shirts. She felt confused.
The other deputy, whose name tag said Isidoro, also pulled on gloves and took Sara's arm and helped her walk and to sit at the kitchen table. She doubled over and hugged herself. She needed to go to the bathroom but wouldn't be able to make it there by herself.
Pierce lay sprawled on his back in front of the door to the rear porch.
Johanna pressed two fingers against the side of his throat. “Ambulance will be here any second.”
Isidoro went to his car and returned with a camera and began taking photos.
“Don't touch anything,” Johanna said. She was a husky, strong woman who looked and acted more like a man and had a deep yet gentle voice. She kept glancing in all directions. “Sorry we gotta do this.” She pointed at what she wanted Isidoro to photograph.
Isidoro glared at her. “Just let me do my job, okay?”
Johanna ignored him and twice cocked her head and listened as if she had heard noises elsewhere in the house.
“Can you excuse me?” Sara asked, trying to stand. “I've got to go the bathroom.”
“No, don't do that,” Johanna said quickly.
“I have to.”
“Wait. If you've been drugged, proof is right there in your bladder.” She pointed to Sara's lower torso. “Sorry, you can't go yet.”
A siren wailed, drawing closer. More gravel crunched. The ambulance arrived and killed its sirens and lights as it edged down off the levee.
“A stretcher won't make it through that pantry,” Johanna said. She opened the porch door between Pierce's legs
The EMTs rushed in and dropped trauma kits and bent over Pierce. One looked closely at his face. “Hey, we know this guy,” he said.
One felt Pierce's limbs, probably for breaks, since he evidently fell. The medic attached a neck brace. The other found Pierce's medical alert bracelet, and then sought medical advice on his radio. They started an IV. When they could move him, they brought the stretcher into the kitchen. Isidoro helped the EMTs lift tall Pierce.
“I'm sorry,” Sara said, struggling to leave the room. “I have to go.”
“Can't you hold until you get to the hospital?” Johanna asked.
Sara was about to burst and struggled to stand. “Sorry… sorry….”
The medics retrieved a sterile cup from their trauma kit and handed it to her.
“In this?” Sara asked, feeling ashamed.
“I'll have to go with you,” Johanna said.
“Into the bathroom?” Sara nearly screeched.
“I'm the only person who can vouch that that's your urine,” Johanna said. “And that you didn't tamper with it in there.” She waited for a response but Sara didn't know what to say. Was she being considered a suspect? “Or one of them can go with you.” Johanna nodded toward the medics.
They were both men. Sara waved them off and groped her way along the wall. Johanna helped her walk but Sara's legs gave out in the hallway.
“Easy, there,” Johanna said, grabbing her arm and breaking her fall. Sara sat on the hardwood floor, stunned, trying not to wet herself. Johanna stooped down and waited. “This doesn't look like food poisoning to me.”
Johanna helped her into the bathroom and seemed more understanding, even a little embarrassed. She stood at the doorway looking out and cocked her head every time she heard a noise.
Once outside in the thick morning drizzle, the medics shoved Pierce into the ambulance. Johanna handed over Sara's urine cup. They placed it into the brown paper bag and left.
After the ambulance pulled out of the driveway and sped north toward Sacramento, Buck arrived in his old pickup. “Heard about this on my scanner,” he said.
“This isn't something a Fire Chief responds to,” Johanna said.
“Hi, Jo,” Buck said. “Sara's my cousin.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and she fell against him.
“No kidding,” Joanna said, distracted. She glanced in all directions again, and then came real close and said in a quiet voice, “You may have to leave.” She kept looking around. She stopped talking every time she thought she heard a sound.
“Leave?” Buck asked.
“Take her into your truck,” Johanna said. “Turn it toward the levee and keep the engine running.” She unsnapped the cover of her holster. “If someone's still in this big old house, Isidoro and I are gonna flush him. If someone other than us comes out the door, you two get the hell outa' here.”
Isidoro popped the snap on his holster and he and Johanna talked in hand signals as they re-entered the house.
Chapter 26
Buck pounded a fist on the button to lock all the doors. They sat in the truck with the motor idling. Occasionally, Buck turned on the wipers to clear the windshield of morning drizzle so they could see out. At least they were warm inside the cab and Sara was beginning to get her bearings. Surely, if she and Pierce had contracted food poisoning, she would have vomited long ago, but she had not felt nauseous.
Someone hit the breaker box and all the lights in the house came on. That should have motivated anyone hiding to flee. Lights in several rooms flickered or went out, a sign of old wiring or bulbs. Flashlight beams shone in every alcove in the attic. Then they scoured the second floor nooks and closets and came down to the first. Soon, Johanna exited the house while Isidoro must have entered the basement via the interior kitchen staircase. He came out through the side basement door. Johanna walked the back yard and around to the north side of the house, soon appearing beside the front porch flashing her light beam toward the levee. Returning to the entry side of the house, she flashed the light at the side door lock and looked at it closely. After that, she walked back to the kitchen door and flashed her light at that knob and, again, bent down and inspected it.
Isidoro signaled that they could exit the truck and went back inside to turn the lights off. Out in the night air, Sara's headache began easing.
“Your locks have been picked,” Johanna said. “Some fresh, deep scratches.” She holstered her pistol and snapped the holster cover closed and peeled off the gloves.
“The locksmith probably did that,” Sara said. “I had all the locks re-keyed before I moved in.” She thought a moment. Maybe now was the time to mention it. “You know, I might have heard someone walking around the house during the night.”
“Last night?” Johanna asked. Her eyes had a way of coming to attention.
“No, from the first night I spent here. I looked for footprints around the property but found nothing. And there are concrete walkways all around anyway.”
“How often?” Isidoro asked, stepping closer. He removed his gloves and threw both his and Johanna's onto the floor inside his car.
“Half a dozen times maybe.”
“And you're just getting around to reporting it?” Johanna asked.
“I thought it was my imagination.”
“And you still stay in this big place by yourself?” Isi
doro turned and looked the house over.
Almost certainly now, someone had walked around the house. She really did hear footsteps. She knew the sounds. When she lived in Ryde as a teenager, oftentimes transients would walk between the shanties on their way to the levee. But why would that be happening at Talbot House? A transient would have no reason to climb down off the levee and traipse around the house, only to return to the levee to continue on. Goosebumps ran down her arms. She hugged herself.
Johanna went to use her car radio and Sara caught the end of the conversation. Johanna reported that this might be a case of someone having drugged both her and Pierce. She climbed out of the patrol car again. “Detectives are coming to take a look.”
“The dogs,” Sara said as she began to think more clearly. “Where are the dogs?”
Xavier looked at her suspiciously.
Johanna turned on her heel. “What dogs?”
“I almost forgot,” Sara said, massaging the throbbing at the top of her head. “The dogs are missing.”
“What dogs?” Johanna asked again. “How big?”
“About six months.”
Sara's phone rang. Johanna and Xavier listened and took occasional notes while Sara explained the situation yet another time to the person on the phone.
Johanna's expression softened after hearing Sara tell the story again.
Finally, Sara was able to hang up. “That was the woman who owns the dogs.”
“Maybe they just got loose,” Johanna said.
“Sure,” Xavier said, seeming to disbelieve. “Through a locked door?” Clearly, he harbored some dislike of Johanna.
Johanna ignored him. She shoved the notebook into her shirt pocket and stuck the pen over her ear and looked about. “Let's see if we can find those pups.”
Chapter 27
“Let's make sure they didn't get killed on the levee,” Sara said. She still had difficulty walking, but the dogs were more important at that moment.
All four went to the wide front yard. Isidoro flashed his light underneath the wrap-around porch. He stood and looked out past the garage before joining them heading toward the embankment.
The old rope on the flagpole made slapping sounds as the wind rapped it against the pole. Sara meant to remove the rope. It was yet another thing that would be replaced when renovations began.
Buck went to tie down the rope. He directed his flashlight beam upward. “Whoa!” he said, jumping back a couple of feet. “That can't be.” He walked away shaking his head and motioned for them to stay away. “You won't believe this.”
Johanna had already walked to the pole. “What is it?” She flashed her light upward.
Sara went, too, and looked up.
High at the top of the flagpole near the tree branches, the shape of a dog strung up by its neck swung heavily back and forth.
“Damn,” Johanna said, stepping away.
It was still a bit dark. Sara tried to focus. “Wait,” she said. She took Johanna's light and stepped right under the swinging animal and studied it. “That's not a dog.”
“Like hell it ain't,” Buck said.
“Not one of my dogs. Wrong color.”
Buck fumbled with the rope until he got it free and began to lower the dog. By the time it was halfway down, they realized it was only a stuffed animal.
“Someone's definitely giving you a warning, Sara,” Isidoro said as he approached.
“Gotta be a real sicko loose around here,” Sara said, grimacing. “So where are the pups?”
Isidoro pulled another pair of gloves from inside his jacket, put them on, and took the rope from Buck. “Let me handle this. It could be evidence.” He gently brought it down. “So much for doubting there's a prowler.” He secured the rope taut so the toy wouldn't move much. “This could have hairs on it. Prints somewhere. Forensics, you know.” Droplets of moisture glistened on the fur. The weight of the stuffed animal soaked with dew sagged and pulled against the noose around its neck. He went to get his camera again.
Johanna hurried to her car and returned gloved and with a brown paper evidence bag.
“Pierce and I stood up there yesterday evening and watched the sunset,” Sara said, directing their attention to the upstairs window. “We'd have noticed this.”
“Then sometime after you two were knocked out,” Isidoro said. “Someone strung this up.”
“He's toying with the wrong person!” Sara felt some strength returning, if only from anger. She headed toward the steps that went up to the levee between the trees.
Buck followed her. “I didn't see anything on the road when I got here.” The morning brightened. He went completely over the levee to search along the riverbank. Buck's voice floated from the other side of the levee. He returned dragging a scruffy old man by the neck of his jacket. He carried a shovel in the other hand.
“What the hell…?” Johanna asked.
Buck dragged the man down the stone steps and into the yard. “Found Crazy Ike sitting down the embankment.”
“I ain't done nothin',” he said, whining. His eyes were wide with fright. “Just on my way home and stopped to rest.”
“Damned if he doesn't always show up at night,” Johanna said.
“And with his shovel?” Isidoro asked. “What are you doing this far down the river this time of night?”
“I'm lookin' for my new dog. My new dog done run away.”
“Ran away?” Isidoro asked. “Or you buried him some place?”
Crazy Ike tipped his head to the side and looked confused. “I ain't buried my new dog yet.”
Then Sara remembered and told the deputies about the shovel marks in the concrete and the pried windows. Isidoro took hold of Crazy Ike's frail arm and dragged him along as they hurried to the north side of the house.
Johanna placed Ike's shovel edge on top of each mark left in the concrete. The marks were from a full-sized shovel with a wider arc. Ike's shovel was much smaller and angular and just about all a frail man like him could handle.
Johanna looked at Isidoro, shrugged, and said under her breath, “Ike's nuttier than a squirrel's breakfast, but he didn't do this.” Her frustration reflected the feelings of everyone in the Delta. They needed to put an end to the mayhem created by the psychopath and this was one more opportunity that slipped away.
“We know where to find him.” Isidoro said.
They gave Ike back his shovel and sent him on his way. He used his shovel like a crutch to help him climb the rough-hewn steps back up to the levee. Evidently, the deputies didn't see him as being connected with much of anything except his mysterious diggings.
“A person can act loony to hide what really goes on,” Buck said.
The deputies merely looked at one another and then headed back to the other side of the house.
A sleek pale green sedan crunched gravel and parked behind Buck's truck. Fredrik drove. Esmerelda, dressed rugged in denims, boots, sweater and a jacket, was half out of the Jaguar by the time it stopped.
They renewed acquaintances and briefly brought Esmerelda up to date as she hugged Buck and then shook hands with the deputies. Deltans pretty much knew each other.
“If the dogs are around,” Esmerelda said, “Mimie will find them.”
“Is she friendly?” Isidoro asked.
“Leashes,” Sara said. “We need the leashes from the kitchen.”
Buck started toward the door. Johanna grabbed his arm. “Sorry. The house is off limits for now.”
“We'd better have the leashes with these dogs,” Sara said, not knowing how they might react if frightened.
“Why?” Isidoro asked. “What kind of dogs are these?”
“Pit bulls.”
“I'll get the leashes,” he said, turning on his heel.
“Behind the kitchen door,” she said, calling after him.
Mimie whined pathetically and lifted her feet up and down as if ready to go. Esmerelda grabbed Mimie's collar and held it taut to keep her at attention. “Better g
et Mimie's leash, too, if we're going far,” she said as she pointed into the back seat. Fredrik leaned in to retrieve it.
Isidoro came out of the house. “No leashes in there.”
“On hooks, behind the kitchen door,” Sara said. “Inside the porch.”
“No leashes in the kitchen or on the porch.”
Sara remembered hanging the leases when she took them off the pups. Whoever drugged her and Pierce must have taken the leashes with the dogs. It sickened her to think what might have happened to lovable Choco and Latte.
Fredrik spoke after having remained quiet all along. “I guess Pierce got the worst of it.”
His stare made Sara feel uneasy. “How do you know that?”
“His life's an open book. He wrote about it,” Fredrik said. “With all the medications he has to take, anything unusual could cause an adverse reaction. Wouldn't take much to do him in.”
Sara needed to get away from Fredrik's curious glare. His eyes weren't as friendly as when she first saw him. “Let's walk the field,” she said to the others. “We need to find the dogs.”
Buck took Mimie's leash. Mimie strained hard against it, pulling Buck forward with her.
Most of the land in the Delta was composed of rich peat dirt, filled with settled organic matter from flooding. This rock-strewn area along the levee for half a mile or so couldn't be farmed. The cattle Orson raised didn't mind and packed the earth while laying down trails.
They spread out to cross the field, careful not to trip on rocks hidden by tall weeds. The rising sun elongated shadows and made dew glisten.
“Well, there's no footprints out here,” Johanna yelled to Isidoro. “Not since the dew laid down anyway.”
Fredrik accompanied Esmerelda, who insisted she had to help. For her age, she maneuvered the rough ground as if used to working in the fields.
Sara listened. If the dogs were around, they might yap. She heard nothing.