The Blue Garou (Detective 'Cadillac' Holland Series Book 1)

by H Hiller

  I heard and saw handguns splash into the water and bushes as hands flew skyward in the clearing below me. A weapon in the possession of any of these dog handlers would have added years to any sentence and a change from State to Federal jurisdiction. I roped down from my over-watch nest and took off my bulky camouflage outfit. I slung the rifle over my left shoulder and pulled my handgun from its shoulder holster to join the officers in rounding up the suspects. My personal focus was on finding Cisco.

  An SPCA officer found him hiding in the puddle of radiator fluid under his truck, wearing mud smeared jeans and a polo shirt embroidered with the Omega Dog emblem, as though this were something to be proud of. He was not wearing what I thought of as his trademark hat and glasses, but they may have just been affectations for Alpha Dog Kennel’s middle class clientele. He wore a Tag Hauer watch that was massive on his thin left wrist. The pat down turned up only an empty holster for what had probably been a medium sized semi-automatic pistol, and five grand in cash.

  “How's it going Cisco?” The dog trainer was cuffed and leaned across the front of the truck’s shot up engine hood. He looked at me across the hood of the truck.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  I pulled my badge out from under my sweaty black T-shirt and dropped it on my chest. “I needed to be sure you were taken alive. I’m your new best friend.”

  “Ain’t no cop gonna be a friend to me.”

  “I already have been. I could have shot you myself.”

  I grabbed his shoulders to spin him around and look him in the face. “Now you just need to decide if you want to do time in Angola convicted of dog fighting or murder.”

  “Murder? What the hell are you talking about, man?”

  “Biggie Charles. Surely you remember that a dog you trained killed him.”

  I did not know if it was his idea to use a dog to kill the music mogul. I did know that he almost certainly had to have been the one to have switched the dogs and the look on his face right then told me I had struck a nerve. Whatever else Cisco knew, he understood that facing any charges about this evening were going to be nothing compared to getting slapped with a very high-profile first degree murder charge. Biggie Charles dead from a dog attack was justice to anyone who knew him, but being the one to murder Biggie Charles with a dog was going to be front page news. I was also pretty certain that some of Biggie’s pals were still wrapping up their own sentences in Angola and would have their own welcome ready.

  I did not give Cisco a chance to speak to me about anything right then. I wanted him to spend the rest of the weekend wondering what I did or did not know. I tucked one of my State Patrol business cards into his hip pocket, handed him off to a uniformed officer and walked away to assist the LA/SPCA and other state officers in getting the dogs into the nearest cage. The flashing red lights coming across the levee announced the arrival of Candice Martin and the local authorities.

  Candice had a huge grin on her face and gave me a friendly hug for helping her shut this operation down. This had to be a lot better result than she was used to. One of her agents approached us with one of the video cameras and she gave me a thumbs-up as they played back the digital recording. The agent also handed me an evidence bag containing the CD from Cisco’s truck as I had requested.

  I hitched a ride back to the staging area with one of the State Troopers not being used to transport the prisoners or dogs. He was one of the patrolmen I had worked with in New Orleans and we exchanged a few stories and thoughts on the city’s troubled recovery and FEMA’s red-tape hurdles. The trooper dropped me off at the rally point and I set the bag with my Gilly suit on the front floorboards of my car, next to my messenger bag. I set the locked case with my rifle in the trunk of the convertible, next to the overnight bag from which I had pulled a clean shirt and a towel.

  I wiped the sweat and grime from my torso before I put on the clean shirt. I sat with my car’s air conditioning on its highest setting for a moment before I reached for the CD from Biggie’s radio, still in its evidence bag. I reluctantly placed it into my vehicle’s CD player. It took barely a minute of the first song for me to start skipping forward in search of the fight song I heard this evening. It was the sixth song on the disc but then I had to time exactly how long the CD played until it reached this specific track. I listened to the song twice before replacing the CD in its evidence bag, but could not make out a distinction between it and any other song. I honestly had less trouble sitting in the tree for six hours than I did listening to twenty five minutes and forty seconds of what was on the disc, but now I had one new possible trigger for the attack, and a time frame to work in.

  My new theory was that Biggie had played the CD and then become concerned about the noises the dog in the cage began to make when the fight song began. Biggie might have assumed his time working with Taz would let him calm the dog down if he could just open the cage and pet the dog. Perhaps he opened the wrapped cage door and only realized the switch at the last minute. More likely the dog charging him was his only clue something was wrong. I would discuss this theory with Roger tomorrow morning, and enjoyed a smug satisfaction of imagining what was going to keep Cisco wide awake for the next couple of days.

  I made two calls before going to bed. The first was to wake Avery up from a sound sleep to tell him I would be arranging to have the search warrant executed to impound Cisco's computer and address book on Monday. The second call was to have Candice arrange for a canine officer to meet me at the boat house at nine o'clock the next morning with his bulky padded suit in tow. I was hoping I had enough of the pieces in place to stage a repeat of the dog attack on a better prepared subject. Getting Taz to attack was going to give me a lot more to go on in narrowing my list of suspects, in case Cisco unwisely chose not to hand me the person who had paid for his part in all of this. I was confident that Tyshika or Bumper would be in custody by noon on Monday, but knew to remain open to all possibilities. I was just happy that things were continuing to point away from Amanda's involvement, and sad that it was way too late in the evening to pay her a visit.

  TWENTY FOUR

  I wanted to have a few minutes with Roger and Taz before the canine officer arrived the next morning so I headed east on Chef Menteur Highway from Downman Road just after eight o’clock. This route to my mother’s house would take me through the neighborhoods and commercial strips which had been among the last to rebound from Katrina. This had been the least insured property and had been occupied by Hispanic and Vietnamese immigrants who had arrived in town since I was born. The clusters of houses were almost all built on slab foundations and had been filled with brackish floodwater. The businesses which had occupied the buildings along this road had operated on either thin margins or had skirted the edge of environmental laws when the storm came and, while some had returned, most were replaced with occupants in similar situations.

  Traffic was sparse so it took me only a moment to spot the dark blue Navigator in my rear view mirror. I sighed and continued driving east until I had passed the NASA facility at Michoud. The divided roadway merged there into just two lanes of old highway headed towards Mississippi’s sandy beaches and casinos. My unwelcome tail was finding it harder and harder to find other vehicles to hide behind as the traffic thinned out, and the driver was too unaware of the route we were taking to know that I had very few places to leave the highway until we reached the Mississippi state line. I could have simply left him in a cloud of dust as my XLR was literally a rocket compared to the bulky Lincoln, but I needed to stop the tailing once and for all.

  This old highway running past my mother’s house had once been lined with clusters of weekend camps. They were the sort of clapboard weekend shacks with cute names like “The Hideout.” Hurricane Katrina put a wall of water through the neighborhood, the force of which had left refrigerators lodged in tree branches fifteen feet above ground level and scoured the generations-old collection of camps into kindling piles in the swamplands on either side of t
he roadway. Like so many other neighborhoods in the storm’s multi-state path, the storm surge took away not only the buildings but destroyed an entire way of life.

  The powerful waves had ripped out the power lines, and the utility companies now expected the landowners to pay for replacing them if they rebuilt their camps. This added thousands of dollars to the cost of a re-building process most had not even been insured against. A cluster of new camps were being built just beyond my mother’s place. All of these sat atop very high pilings and incorporated construction lessons the storm had taught the homeowners. What these neighbors thought of my mother’s prideful decision to rebuild a house with a slab foundation was anyone’s guess. Most of these homeowners either knew of or had worked with my father, so their opinions of her were formed long before she moved here. It was paramount to me that Arnold and his gun-toting pals not know the address of my mother’s house, or even of its existence. I had to not just stop them from following me today, but needed to discourage any further interest in their ever doing so again.

  I swerved into the parking lot of an empty commercial lot as my pursuers missed the turn I made and raced on past. The parking lot was only fifty yards deep, with the far end ending at a deep navigation canal. I had the rifle from the night before in the trunk of my coupe and I jumped out to retrieve it before the Navigator could back up and come charging towards me.

  It took me less twenty seconds to access the weapon and close the trunk. I was already in my defensive position when the Navigator turned around. I was standing on the far side of my car, leaning my left hand on the front windshield as the foursome exited their vehicle with their weapons drawn. They may or may not have thought to wonder what was in my hand they couldn’t see when they lined up in front of their SUV. I made no shift in my apparently passive stance. They had me out-numbered but seemed to lack a plan of attack now that we were in this position. Arnold and his brother had handguns, but their companions in the backseat came out of the Navigator holding AK-47s. I recognized the back seat passengers as the ones I had encountered at Wal-Mart when I interviewed Biggie’s grandmother. I cursed them under my breath because, frankly, I have been shot by all of the angry young men with AK-47s I care to be for one lifetime.

  “Well, come on, let’s do this. I have a busy schedule today.”

  They all walked forward at the same time, not raising their weapons but still holding them in front of their bodies. I knew it was unlikely any of these novice shooters would hit me at the distance between us, but I kept an eye on their hands rather than their faces. They approached to within twenty feet, probably where they felt best shooting from, but also now well within my range. I made a mental calculation of the order in which to shoot them, which would have been to take out the boy with the best cover first and Arnold last. Normally I would shoot the first one to move, as they usually have a plan or some experience to draw upon.

  “I distinctly remember telling you to stop following me, Arnold. Yet here you are. And I see you brought some friends.”

  “What you found out ‘bout Biggie? We ain’t seen nothing in the paper ‘bout nothing.”

  “Then you should have assumed I haven’t solved the case.”

  “Why ain’t you?”

  “Because I’m not on some TV cop show. This is going to take a bit longer than an hour to solve, kiddo.”

  “Don’t call me kiddo. My name’s Shooter!”

  “Nah, today your name is Stupid and the rest of you can call me Detective Holland.” “I ain’t stupid.” I honestly thought Arnold was going to cry.

  “Yeah, I hate to say so but you are.”

  “Who are you calling stupid? There’s four of us and just one of you, and we’re the ones with the guns.” The boy standing behind Arnold came to his defense but was just dumb enough to start to raise his weapon. My other hand come up before he got very far. The beam of brilliant green light from my weapon’s laser sight lined up with the center of his chest as I steadied the formidable weapon against my shoulder. The steadiness of the laser light was immediately unnerving, and he saw my trigger finger was just as steady. It was also apparent to them that I was far more prepared to open fire than they had expected.

  “True. But do any of you have one of these?”

  “Whoa, whoa,” Arnold’s big brother said and tossed his gun to the ground. Arnold hesitated, and dropped his only when the green dot moved to his forehead. The other two dropped their weapons when Arnold surrendered his weapon.

  “Toss me the car keys.” Arnold’s brother tossed his keys, but they fell just short of my car. “Okay, get back in your vehicle.”

  I waited until they had all taken their seats before reaching to the ground for the key ring. I walked towards their SUV and tossed their firearms into the brackish canal behind me before I got back into my vehicle and started the engine. I had kept the laser sight aimed on the driver’s window as I moved about. I was afraid one of them might have a second gun and think they could fire faster than I could react. There was paperwork to fill out just for having pulled my weapon. The report I would need to fill out for actually firing a weapon took too long to justify even a warning shot, but I wasn’t intending to report this incident at all if I could avoid it.

  I pulled alongside the Navigator and rolled my window down. The driver had to open his door to hear me because he couldn’t use his power window without the keys I was waving at him.

  “I’m going to drop these on the shoulder three miles up the road. When you find them, drive back to town and leave me the hell alone. Are we clear?”

  He just nodded and closed his car door.

  I actually drove barely a mile up the road before I pulled over and set the keys on the narrow shoulder of the road. I really wanted to believe that the boys would do as instructed and I would never have to deal with any of them again.

  TWENTY FIVE

  “Good morning, Mother.” She was standing with Roger as he exercised Taz near the old boat slip. The two of them were nearly touching as I approached but took a step apart after I announced my presence. They seemed to have been in the middle of a conversation that had my mother smiling, which was something I found to be quite uncharacteristic.

  “What brings you out of your beloved city?” My mother managed to welcome me and still fit in a bit of reproach about how seldom I make the drive.

  “I can’t just stop by and say hi?” She gave me a disbelieving look and Roger didn’t even try to hide his smirk.

  “Do you have some new idea you want to try out?” Roger wondered.

  “Yes. There’s a canine officer coming in a while.”

  “I’ll let you boys play with your doggie. Roger, you can bring Taz to the house for brunch when you’re through, if you wish.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Holland.”

  “I told you to call me Camille.” I was fairly certain that he was already calling her Camille. My mother was trying to make some point that I didn’t want to pick up on.

  I looked at Roger and he said nothing but shrugged a bit uncomfortably. I hugged my mother as she passed and then I shook hands with my increasingly expensive dog sitter.

  “My friends don’t even get to call her that. So I guess you two are getting along.”

  “You might say we have reached a certain détente. She professes to hate Taz but mostly she apologizes because she thinks you have abandoned me here. I don’t mind being paid to live like this so don’t rush your investigation for my sake,” Roger grinned.

  “I think she can use the company. Her friends don’t come out here much and, however little she thought she had in common with her old neighbors, the new ones likely think she is some sort of idiot for living in this house.”

  “That’s true.” Roger laughed as though he knew more about the situation than I did. We crossed the wide slate-tiled patio between the house and the breakwater as I explained to him what I had seen at the dog fight the previous night. He thought the use of some sort of sonic or aural cue might
be the best solution to our mystery.

  Roger and I had barely reached the boathouse before a white SUV with the State Patrol emblem turned off the highway and came towards us. The trooper introduced himself as Kevin Barnes. He had a sergeant’s stripes but looked like he was still in his early to mid-twenties, tall and stocky, with short blonde hair. Barnes was assigned to the State Patrol's K-9 Unit, which probably made him an ideal animal handler for Candice when the need arose.

  “So you know what we're up to then?” I figured Candice would have explained why he was expected to drive so far on a Sunday morning.

  “No, not really.” He shrugged and took another sip of his filling station cappuccino.

  I did not want the reason I had asked him here to be a total surprise. “We want to see if we can duplicate an animal attack. You've heard about the pit bull attack on Biggie Charles, the rap music guy, right? We have been trying to figure out what set the dog off and have come up with a couple of theories to try out.”

  “That’s the dog that killed Lynley? What is it you want me to do with it?”

  “To stand in for Biggie. You brought the big suit, right?”

  “Yeah, but I don't know if it will be enough.” Kevin seemed just a bit afraid for his personal safety doing what Roger and I were asking. He was looking at Taz as Roger led the dog towards us on its heavy lead.

  “Maybe we should muzzle Taz. I don't think the muzzle would be much of a deterrent if you're right about the music.” Kevin immediately suggested.

  “Well then, suit up and let’s get started.” I said and followed Roger towards the officer’s vehicle while Kevin struggled into his canine training suit. My mother was on her patio, watching with interest from what she considered to be a safe distance.

  Roger and I loaded Taz into the large dog kennel. He had no objection to the cage or to being muzzled. If anything, it seemed to make him more alert to what was happening around him. The trooper’s Chevy Suburban would have to stand in for the Land Rover, and we had a little difficulty loading the kennel into the rear of the vehicle. Neither of us was very good with wrapping paper so Roger satisfied the requirement for covering the cage by using a pair of blankets. I had wondered if there might be an element of claustrophobia involved, but this was not the case in the first few minutes the dog sat in the dark.