Roger saw the leash and knew it was time to go out. He felt happy to be doing so, the last couple of days cooped up inside made him tired of being indoors. He wondered if Lana was coming along. Then he saw that that Mandy only had one leash. So Lana was not coming along, but perhaps Mandy was planning something with her in the future. Roger spoke to Lana.
“It looks like Mandy is getting ready to take me out. I'm still hoping she's going to take you.”
“Oh Roger, I'm so jealous. You get to go out with your owner, I never get to do anything with mine. The only time they take me out is to leave me at that stupid spa.”
“I really wish you were coming, but Mandy seems to only have one leash.”
“Oh, she can take me, I'll be good, I won't run away.” Lana said desperately trying to get a trip to the park with Roger too.
“Well, running is part of the fun. You'll have to run at the park. You won't be able to help yourself.”
“She's picked you up and carrying you out. I guess maybe she'll take me in the future. I'll try to do something while you're gone. I'll miss our little chats.” Lana said.
“Sorry to see she's not taking you. Well, I'll be thinking of you at the park. I'm sure sometime in the future, Mandy will take you too.”
“I can only hope.” Lana said.
Chapter Twenty Two
Mandy put Roger in the back seat, got in her car and drove to a favorite park that she and Roger visited often. As soon as Roger jumped out of the car, he ran this way and that. Mandy let him loose, and he started to chase birds and generally enjoy himself. It made Mandy happy to see him running so happily. Mandy thought if he missed Lana, he sure didn't show any signs of it.
After twenty minutes of playing at the park, something suddenly dawned on Mandy. Today was the day she had promised Vance his “playdate” with Roger. With the distractions of being followed and the disappearance of Cynthia, she had totally forgotten. She didn't think this was the optimal time to engage in this activity, not being exactly in the mood to do this right now, but she figured, the sooner she got it out of the way, the sooner she can get back to her regular schedule.
She called Vance to apprise him of her arrival. The phone rang, and he didn't pick up. She left a message “Hi Vance, I'm heading over for the play date we had discussed earlier.” Short and sweet, she'd go by his house, which was nearby. If he wasn't home, this exercise could be done on another day. It could definitely wait, much more important issues happening right now. Mandy reminded herself that this was very important to Vance as well. It's all relative she thought.
She drove from the park to Vance's house. She looked in her rear view mirror from time to time to check if the black car continued to follow her. She swore she saw a black car a couple of cars behind her, but she didn't know if it was the same black car. She figured that she'd been at the park for twenty minutes and nobody approached her, so whoever appeared to be following her didn't seem to be interested in personal confrontations. Then Mandy reminded herself she didn't look forward to personal confrontations with the person in the black car.
While speculating on this she finally arrived at Vance's house, an older small house, with an immense yard. The yard resembled a small park around the house. Roger could go to town in that space. This is going to work out just fine after all.
She parked her car and got out. Roger kept fidgeting and moving that she decided to carry him out, without the leash. No sooner did she get to the grass in the surroundings of the house, that Roger leapt out of her arms, chasing a bird.
“Roger, come back, this is no time to be running around, we'll be doing that shortly.” Mandy said. But Roger kept running away, playing in the grass and chasing birds, squirrels, and other things that got too close. After fifteen minutes of trying to get him, she finally gave up and said “Alright, I'll go get Vance and you can continue running around.” She figured if Vance wasn't home, this would make a good substitute park. Roger made the most of enjoying himself.
She got to the house and knocked on the door. The door appeared to be open, so she walked in. A semi lit living room greeted her. The room was stuck design-wise in the 70s or early 80s. The walls consisted of fake wood paneling, an old sofa, shelves filled with various knick knacks. Mandy thought either Vance inherited this house from older people or he hid his age well. She called out his name “Vance? Vance, are you home?” No answer.
She continued looking around and thinking how some places were stuck in another time when her eyes hit on something that she hoped wasn't what it seemed. On the table in front of the sofa, sat a woman's bag, which resembled Cynthia's bag. She moved towards the table to pick it up and inspect it closer. As she rummaged through it and looked through its content, a voice from behind her said “Oh Mandy, I wish you hadn't seen that, now I can't let you go either.”
Mandy turned around and there, looking very disheveled and with a maniacal look on his face was Vance. He apparently hadn't taken his meds.
“Vance, is Cynthia here? Are you holding her against her will? Vance, what you're doing is wrong. If Cynthia is here, I want you to show her to me. Where is she?”
“Mandy, you're soon going to be joining her. I really loved Roger and you're such a nice person, I hate to hurt you, but now you've discovered my wrongdoing.” Vance said, sounding totally out of his mind.
“Vance you don't have to hurt anybody, there's no reason to hurt people, nobody is hurting you.” Mandy said trying to reason with him and exploring her possibilities for escape.
“Oh how wrong you are Mandy. Karen and Cynthia hurt me very much.” Vance said in an angry voice.
“Vance, I want to see Cynthia right now. There's still time Vance, don't do anything that you'll regret later.” Mandy continued to try to break the madness that seemed to take over him.
“You want to see her? I'll show her to you.” Vance grabbed Mandy by the arm and brought her to the kitchen. There, sitting on a wooden chair, was Cynthia, tied up, looking as though Vance had hit her, and with tape over her mouth.
“Cynthia, are you ok?? What am I saying, of course you're not ok. Vance untie her right now and take that tape off her mouth. This is torture, what are you doing to her?” Mandy yelled at Vance.
“I'm not going to do anything.” Vance yelled.
“Fine, I'm going to start by taking the tape of her mouth and don't you dare stop me.” Mandy yelled.
She moved quickly to Cynthia and pulled the tape off and much without hurting her, but it was stuck on tight. She managed it though.
“Leave her alone, she needs to suffer for what she did.” Vance yelled.
“Vance I have to give her some water, she's dehydrated.” Mandy said firmly.
Vance glared at Mandy as Mandy took a glass, filled it with water fed it to Cynthia so she could drink. In the middle of this, Vance took a knife out of one of the drawers and walked towards Mandy.
“Sit in that chair, now!” He screamed.
Mandy, not seeing any escape route, sat on the chair and Vance got a rope from the counter. He tied her arms to the arms of the chair.
“Mandy, I didn't want to hurt you, but now you learned too much. Cynthia is going to pay just like Karen paid for her crime.” Vance sounded crazier by the minute.
“But what did they do that you felt you had to kill Karen and now you're planning on killing Cynthia?”
“They laughed at my Twinkles. Karen suggested the veterinarian who killed my Twinkles. He said because of his disease, he suffered from great pain even though he didn't show it. Being an old sick cat, he said the best thing to do is to put him down so he wouldn't suffer anymore. He killed my cat, my beautiful Twinkles.” Vance gazed into empty space as though he continued to relive that episode in his life.
“Vance, this is a common thing, many pets are put down who are suffering because they have diseases that attack them in their old age, and they're leading horrible lives. The vet told you the truth. If Karen suggested you take the cat to the vet, sh
e did this in order to help you, not hurt you. It's a kinder thing to put an animal down than to have it living in extreme pain every day.” Mandy said.
Mandy didn't know if Vance heard her or not. He was lost in his own world seemingly struggling with his inner demons.
“And then last week, Karen and Cynthia were discussing Twinkles, and they laughed and kept laughing about Twinkles, they thought it was so funny. Well she doesn't think it's funny now.” And he walked over to her and slapped her.
“Vance, stop it.” Mandy yelled.
Cynthia in her weak state said “Vance, we weren't laughing at your Twinkles, we'd never do such a thing. We felt terrible that you lost your beautiful cat. We were laughing at Mrs. Baumgarten, who has a toy poodle named Twinkles too. She's always coming in acting real snooty saying 'My Twinkles needs special treatment, keep him away from other animals, I don't want him to get their germs' and other things. We just mimicked her and acted silly making fun of Mrs. Baumgarten. We would never make fun of your Twinkles, Vance. Why would we do that? We've been your friend now for years.”
The realization of the truth hit Vance. He killed Karen over nothing. Nothing more than a giant misunderstanding on his part. He started sputtering in a monotone voice:
“I did a bad thing. I did a very bad thing. I didn't do my job. My secret cannot be known, my secret cannot be known.”
Mandy said. “Vance, you don't need to hurt anyone else. We'll try to help you. Killing is not the answer, you already killed Karen, no one else needs to die.” She pleaded with him while trying to reach his common sense.
“I'm sorry Mandy, I have to kill you too. Both of you know my secret. I'll be in trouble if others find out.” Vance continued babbling to himself. He took a large knife he had set on the counter and started to head towards Cynthia. He was under a trance, his eyes glazed and wide open. He appeared to be having some kind of nervous breakdown but felt compelled to kill as though killing would make everything right and solve all his problems. While Vance was focused on killing his captives, something jumped on Vance's head. The blow was so strong that he fell forward from the force. Roger had attacked Vance.
Roger clawed and bit Vance, mostly in the head and face. Vance tried to get him off his head and while he screamed because one of Roger's nail had struck Vance's eye. A lot of blood splattered the kitchen floor, but Roger continued to attack Vance, not giving in an inch. Roger had become a wild animal intent on protecting his kin.
While this was going on, Mandy tried to get herself free. Cynthia still suffered from the abuse of the last twelve hours and didn't have the strength to break free since Vance had tied her strongly to the chair. As the fight between Roger and Vance continued, every time Vance tried to grab one of Roger's paws, Roger struck back and scratched him harder.
Amidst all this chaos, out of nowhere, a voice boomed out “Don't move, I have a gun pointed at you. Stay very still with your hands where I can see them.” The man in the dark blue suit Mandy had seen earlier stood there pointing a gun at Vance.
Mandy yelled out to Roger “Roger stop, that's enough honey. Get off him.”
Roger turned around and sensed that danger still lurked, but he didn't need to attack Vance anymore. He looked at the new stranger warily as though he may still have to attack.
Mandy continued to talk to Roger “Come here baby, get away from there.”
Mandy didn't know what this was about. As the man with the gun approached Vance lying face down on the floor, he said to Roger “Good job buddy, you took him down.” Then he picked up the knife and started to move in Mandy's direction. Great, Mandy thought, I've just traded one killer for another.
“I've been following you.” The man said, coming at her with the knife.
“And who the hell are you!?” Mandy yelled, scared and angry at the same time.
Chapter Twenty Three
He continued to advance on Mandy. Mandy was frozen with fear as to what he was going to do. When he was right next to her, he cut the ropes that held Mandy and said “It's ok Ms. Cummings, you have nothing to fear, I'm special agent Brady Johnson of the FBI. I've followed you now for a couple of days on account of the fact that you have a crucial piece of evidence in our investigation into the pet spa money laundering criminal activities.
“I've been waiting for a warrant to retrieve the notebook from you and followed you in case the criminal association engaged in money laundering figured out you had the notebook and tried to take it from you by force. As you are aware, they ransacked Karen's apartment looking for it and are frantic trying to find it, since they know that notebook is all the evidence we need to convict them.
“So, inasmuch as before we had no idea where the notebook was either, we're very glad that it was you that found it.”
As he spoke to Mandy, he set Cynthia free as well from the chair she was tied to. Mandy rushed over to help Cynthia get up. He gave her another glass of water, she hadn't drunk anything since last night.
Mandy turned to the FBI agent and asked “But how did you figure out that I had the notebook?”
“Lana told us.” Brady Johnson said with a smile on his face.
“Lana told you!?” Mandy and Cynthia asked in unison, as though they were a singing duo. Mandy continued “Since when do cats talk?”
“Well, she didn't actually speak to us. You see, Lana is working with the FBI. My partner, Agent Erin Brookdale kept bringing her over to the spa for investigative purposes. Lana has a special microphone in her collar. We left her at the spa for weeks to see if we could pick up any incriminating evidence. That's why Agent Brookdale was always out of town.”
Cynthia spoke “And here I thought that she was a bad pet owner.”
“Did this notebook belong to Karen?” Mandy asked.
“Ms. Whitford was cooperating with us in exchange for exoneration for her involvement in the money laundering business. Although she didn't actually benefit from money laundering directly, she kept a second set of books for the group, and received compensation for keeping the books. We approached her and made her an offer to help us expose the crime syndicate, who peddled heroin, and for her help, she'd be exonerated and put into a witness protection program. It's a shame she had to die.”
Mandy said “Well, he killed her” as she pointed at Vance who laid on the floor in a fetal position with his hands cuffed to his back, muttering softly to himself.
“Yes, I was just going to ask, what is this all about?” Brady Johnson asked.
Mandy and Cynthia told him everything as to why he had killed Karen and how he almost killed Cynthia and Mandy.
After their story, Agent Johnson just shook his head in disbelief and said “He killed her over his cat. Incredible. All the time we thought she had been killed in revenge for trying to help us. We thought Ms. Whitford's cooperation with us had been discovered and they killed her for it. Which is why we were worried about you Ms. Cummings. Luckily, no one but us knew you were in possession of the notebook.”
“What happens now?” Mandy asked sheepishly.
“Well, this can be handled in a variety of ways. I'm a big believer in common sense and simplicity. Since I'm sure it would create quite a bit of social awkwardness in trying to explain to Captain Stone why you withheld what could have been an important clue in a murder investigation, I suggest we do the following. I'll call Agent Brookdale and she can pick up the notebook from your friend Jill. I believe she was recently inspecting it, according to the update we received from our tech audio team regarding the status of the book.”
“Yes Jill was looking at it this morning, for a theory she had.” Mandy said, a little embarrassed.
“It's alright, we'll make believe you were taking care of the notebook for us, keeping it safe. Not only that, Agent Brookdale gets to see Lana. Although we originally got Lana from a shelter for this investigation, Agent Brookdale has become fond of Lana. Lana is not just working for the FBI. Her owner loves her too.” Brady said smiling.
�
�Thank you very much Agent Johnson. Yes, Fred would be very mad at me if he found out about the notebook.” Mandy said. “But what do we do with Vance?”
“Well, that's where you redeem yourself. You can call Captain Stone and tell him that you caught Karen's murderer and found Cynthia alive. I'll stick around and explain to him that we followed you because we are currently investigating the criminal organization behind this, and we worried for your life, in light of what we knew. Also, one of the members of the money laundering group was following you.
“As a side benefit, while scouting the neighborhood to make sure no one followed you on foot, I followed my instinct that something was wrong upon hearing your cat Roger and this individual screaming like banshees. I came into the house where the noises were coming from, subdued the miscreant, thus saving you and Ms. Donofrio from any further attacks from this maniac.
“We'll ensure that Jeffrey and others are arrested. Apparently leadership at the syndicate that ensnared guys like Jeffrey is falling apart, and with the notebook we'll be able to prove that they peddled heroin and money laundered their profits.”
“I'll call Fred right now and after that Jill.” Mandy took out her cell phone and dialed up Fred.
“Hi Mandy, are you alright?” Fred asked.
“Fred, you're not going to believe this. I found Cynthia, and captured Karen's killer. It was Vance, the security guard.”
“The security guard? Are you in danger? Get out of there right away!” Fred said.
“Fred, it's ok, the FBI is right here. Agent Johnson subdued him. You better talk to him.”
Mandy handed the phone to Brady Johnson, and he explained everything to the Fred.
“Thank you Agent Johnson. I'll come right now to pick up the perpetrator.” Fred said.
Agent Johnson gave the phone back to Mandy.
“Let me give Jill a call.”
The phone rang a couple of times and finally Jill answered.
“Oh, hi Mandy, how's it going at the park today?”
Murder at the Pet Spa Page 14