Saddle Up for Murder

by Leigh Hearon

  “Hey, Tony!” she yelled. Instead of answering, Tony glared at her and put a finger to his lips. Puzzled, she jogged over to his car. The passenger window was rolled down by the time she arrived and Tony was bent over, hovering low in the seat.

  “Go away,” he whispered. “I’m on surveillance.”

  Oh. Annie stepped back, then leaned forward. “Who are you surveilling?” she whispered back.

  Again, Tony looked daggers at her. “Who do you think? Our only viable suspect.”

  “Pete? You poor thing. Can I bring you some doughnuts?”

  Tony sighed and pushed the passenger door handle. “If you insist on blowing my cover, you might as well come inside,” he whispered. “But for just a minute.”

  Annie promptly stepped into the car and rolled up the window. She looked at Tony, curious.

  “Does Pete work here? I thought he sold dope for a living.”

  Tony offered Annie his jumbo-size bag of potato chips, and Annie gratefully grabbed a handful.

  “Nope. But we got wind that he makes a pilgrimage to the dump every Monday. He allegedly doesn’t go through the line, just hands off a trash bag or two to an attendant. Without paying.”

  “Aha.” Citizens who brought their rubbish to the dump went through a specific process. They drove their cars onto a weighing station, attendants removed their garbage from the vehicles, and their cars were weighed again. Customers then paid for the privilege of transferring their trash to the dump heap. The cost was calculated by the displaced weight.

  Tony plunged his hand into the bag and began tossing potato chips, one by one, into his mouth. “If we catch him actually passing along drugs or materials used in the manufacture of drugs, we’ll have enough to arrest him. So here I am.”

  “Sounds exciting.”

  “Believe me, it’s not. At least, not until something happens.”

  “So what kind of car are you looking for?”

  “A Dodge Ram, turbocharged, silver with red trim. Should be easy to spot, since our boy has it jacked about ten feet off the ground.”

  “And what’s the plan?”

  “Catch him on camera making the drop, retrieve the bags with this handy subpoena I’ve got in my pocket, and bring it back to the shop to analyze.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?”

  “What?”

  “Filming him.”

  “Hell, no. This is a public space, and I’m not using audio.”

  “Oh.”

  They munched in quiet.

  “I probably should get back to my truck,” Annie said a few minutes later. She was getting sleepy from inactivity, and she wasn’t sure her windows were rolled down sufficiently for the dogs to get much fresh air.

  “Good idea. Go home and ride a horse. It’s a lot more fun than what I’m doing.”

  “So true,” she said carelessly, stepping out of the car. At that moment, the sound of loud and raucous rap music filled the air, and a Dodge Ram roared into the parking lot.

  “Go! Now!” hissed Tony, and Annie obediently trotted back to her car, where, to her relief, her dogs had plenty of fresh air. But now she had no intention of doing anything except watching the show.

  The tattoo that scaled up the driver’s arm easily identified Pete as the driver, but the tinted windows in the cab made it difficult to see if he had any passengers with him. Annie watched Pete put the truck in park, open his door, and jump down, leaving the engine running, the door wide open, and the rap music at its mega volume. Now she could see more clearly who was inside. A petite female was hunched in the middle, next to a large male in the passenger seat. She glanced over at the Fairlane; Tony seemed to have disappeared from view, although she was sure he was recording the scene unfolding before them. She looked back at the truck. Pete was hauling two large, black garbage bags out of the truck bed. They appeared to be heavy; Pete was having difficulty wrestling them to the ground, and his male passenger either wasn’t up to offering his help or had been advised not to do so. Once both bags were out of the truck, Pete whistled, and the passenger door opened.

  The man who emerged was twice the size of Pete and looked older. He had a scraggly black beard and a potbelly that Annie was sure would cause him back problems in the future. Each man took a bag and dragged it over to the pocket-size office next to the receiving center. Annie watched the bags disappear inside the office, and then a young man with a long ponytail came out. Everyone certainly seemed friendly; the three men casually chatted with one another for a minute or two and then high-fived each other before Pete and his friend headed back to the Dodge Ram. Annie was surprised that what had been described as an illegal transaction was conducted so openly and seemingly without fear of being caught.

  Pete’s exit was as spectacular as his entrance; he revved the engine, backed up twenty feet at twenty miles an hour, and peeled out of the parking lot toward the highway that led to Port Chester.

  Tony, Annie knew, would be delivering the subpoena and yanking the bags in the next nanosecond. She wondered if the man on the receiving end would be arrested at the same time. Probably not, she thought, until Tony was sure of the bags’ contents. Would Mr. Ponytail alert Pete and his friends about Tony’s interception after the fact? Annie’s guess was that he would. Which meant someone should be tailing Pete to see whether he was tipped off.

  Annie looked at her dogs. “Up for a little adventure?” she asked. Without waiting for the answer, she turned the key in her ignition and rocketed toward the exit.

  CHAPTER 18

  MONDAY AFTERNOON, MAY 16

  When she emerged on the highway, the Dodge Ram was nowhere in sight, and for one heart-stopping moment Annie thought her high-speed exit from the county dump had all been for naught. The two-lane road had a double yellow line down the middle, so passing any vehicle was strictly illegal. Traffic was seldom heavy on the five-mile stretch between here and the outer limits of Port Chester, but it was constant, and no one was in a hurry. Then, finishing the turn on a wide corner, she saw Pete’s truck. There were perhaps eight cars separating her truck from his, but with the Ram’s elevated undercarriage and the now relatively straight road ahead of them, it wasn’t difficult to keep the truck in her sights.

  Except that Pete obviously was on the move with places to go. He tore around an old orange farm truck that was hindering his journey and roared ahead, once more passing out of her vision.

  “Hell’s bells!” she muttered. Behind her, both Wolf and Sasha were barking with excitement. They’d never seen their mistress drive so fast before and thought it terribly exciting.

  Annie, who had never tailed anyone in her life, simply prayed she knew what she was doing.

  She came to the first stoplight in town and glanced around her. No Dodge Ram. Her heart sank. She was now on the main drag, which had offshoot streets everywhere that led into myriad small neighborhoods. If Pete had turned onto any of them, she’d never be able to find him. The light turned green and she inched forward, unsure of what to do. Then she felt the pulsating beat of rap music and the muffled sound of angry lyrics being spit out between each thump, and looked to her left. There was Pete, in the takeout line of the local McDonald’s. Apparently even drug dealers on the go had to eat. Annie discretely made a U-turn after she’d passed the golden arches. She entered the parking lot on the opposite side of the takeout line and pulled into an empty parking space, leaving her engine running. Her heart was beating like a jackhammer. The dogs had stopped barking, but their breath was coming fast. Their hot, quick pants tickled the nape of her neck. She looked around her environs and in her rearview mirror. From where she sat, she should be able to easily pull in behind Pete as he exited the drive-thru lane. What worried her was whether she would be noticed as she did so. The exit from McDonald’s gave drivers four options of where to turn. If he chose the main drag in either direction, her truck would be relatively anonymous. If he chose either of the other two routes, her truck would stick out like a sore thumb. She waited,
and tried not to think about her own growling stomach. A double cheeseburger would taste great right now, but there was no time. Now she knew why Tony kept junk food in his surveillance car.

  Pete chose the main drag, and Annie sighed with relief as she carefully pulled out behind him. He was now at a stop sign and had to turn either right or left, but predictably his turn signal failed to provide a clue.

  Cursing inconsiderate drivers, Annie waited impatiently to see where he would go. He turned right, but Annie was unable to pull in behind him after making her own full, complete stop. Perhaps traffic laws should be suspended while on surveillance, she thought, as she watched three cars zoom by before she was able to fall into the line of traffic. Fortunately, the height of the Ram truck gave her a distinct advantage. After going through two roundabouts—which forced Pete to slow down to an almost legal speed—he turned right again, onto a long country road that Annie knew led to several housing developments. Now no cars separated them, but this was a well-used thoroughfare, and Annie didn’t think her presence would be considered terribly unusual. She was fairly certain that Pete had no clue he was being followed, but what did she know? This was her maiden voyage, and she’d forgotten to read the manual on how to tail vehicles without being spotted.

  She was several car lengths behind him, but slowed down even more when Pete came to another stop sign. Chugging along at a snail’s pace, she waited until she saw the direction in which he was now headed. Pete was definitely not stopping in any of Port Chester’s suburban neighborhoods, where one could expect to see manicured lawns, tidy flower beds, and community parks where children played. No, Pete was headed to the outback, where dilapidated homes jumbled together. In this area, Annie knew, the lots were tiny, the sidewalks nonexistent, and weeds more prevalent than grass in the postage-stamp lawns. Annie could imagine a meth lab in any one of the homes. Judging by the number of chimneys spewing smoke in mid-May, she assumed that many homeowners used wood as their primary source of heat.

  Even Pete was slowing down now, and Annie fleetingly contemplated parking her car and going on foot; there was no question that a late-model F-250 with an extended rear cab would be a distinct anomaly in this neighborhood. Pete had rolled down his window, and she could see him looking out, peering at the house numbers going by him. He stopped his truck for a moment, and Annie, now one block behind him, slammed on her brakes and then quickly pulled over, as if she was parking. Pete didn’t seem to take any notice of her antics behind him. A moment later, he gunned his engine, turned right, and disappeared.

  “Damn!” Annie hissed from the confines of her truck. But then the pulsating rap music started again, and she knew that Pete could not be far away. She turned to her dogs and dug out treats from her jacket pocket. Opening their crates, she told them to be good for just a little while longer, and then slunk down on her seat to wait for Pete to emerge.

  * * *

  A half hour later, Pete had yet to make an appearance, although the rap music continued as loud as ever. Maybe he wasn’t in one of the homes, Annie thought with a trace of panic. Maybe the sound came from just another rap music lover who’d decided to crank up a boom box while Pete was passing by. If she’d lost him now, she’d be in a fine fury. But what could she do?

  Behind her, Sasha gave a small whimper. Annie recognized the sound; it meant Sasha had to pee, and she couldn’t blame the pup, as she’d been cooped up in the truck for nearly three hours. She would have to indulge her Belgian’s needs. Then it occurred to Annie that taking Sasha for a walk might be an excellent way to scout out the neighborhood and figure out if Pete and friends truly were in the vicinity.

  She grabbed Sasha’s leash and rooted in her glove compartment for a small pair of binoculars, which she knew would be there. Attaching the leash snap to Sasha’s collar, she told Wolf sadly, “Sorry, boy. You have to stay here and guard the truck. We’ll be back soon—promise.” Taking both dogs out, she decided, would be just a bit too conspicuous. Besides, Wolf’s control over his bladder was far better.

  After Sasha’s call of nature was met, Annie strolled up the shabby street with the Tervuren, taking in the drawn drapes, closed doors, and general closed-off look of her surroundings. No children played in the streets; there was not a single dog being walked except the one on her leash. She turned left at the corner before the one where Pete had turned, and walked up a small slope. Aha—there was an alley running behind the homes facing the street, and yes, there was Pete’s truck, parked at an angle behind the home squarely in the middle of the block. The music was still blaring from inside the truck, but she was certain that there were no occupants in it. Annie couldn’t see any activity from where she stood, and wondered if she dared walk by the truck to try to glimpse inside. Walking past the front of the house was useless; like every other home on the street, everything was buttoned down so no one could get a glimpse into what must have been the living room. Unless someone walked out the front door, she was out of luck.

  The back door bounced open, and Annie jumped. She quietly told Sasha to “heel” and continued her walk up the street, this time with a sense of purpose, averting her eyes from where she’d just been staring. She could hear voices, however, and whoever was out there was not in a good mood.

  “All right, all right!” The man who was talking obviously felt put out. The rap music abruptly stopped and a truck door slammed. “Happy now?”

  “I can’t stand your music. I don’t see why you play it.” This was from a woman with a high, whiny voice.

  “Well, I don’t like yours, either. All that country twang. Makes me sick.”

  The screen door slammed and the voices faded back into the house. Annie felt herself relax. That had been close—although how out of place it would have been for the couple to see a woman walking her dog, she didn’t know.

  But she did know that she had to find a better viewing place, because any conversations she might overhear or people she might see probably would be in the alley. She reached the top of the rise and looked around. The house and Pete’s truck stood thirty yards downhill from her, easily visible from this height. But where could she and Sasha perch? She could hardly stand in the backyard of one of the houses on the next block. Or could she? None of the neighbors in this area seemed to take pruning or weeding too seriously, and Annie espied a thicket of blackberry bushes in the corner of the nearest home. Could she crouch in front of them and remain unseen? There was only one way to find out.

  Annie was glad she’d worn her parka, because it helped protect her, to some extent, from the incipient thorns that were in full force, even if the berries were just beginning to emerge from the bushes. She’d picked up Sasha and put as much of the squirming puppy as she could inside her jacket to keep the puppy’s exposure to thorns as minimal as possible. When she was sure that they could not be seen by anyone but the most eagle-eyed homeowner, she set Sasha down, gave her a treat, and pulled out her binoculars.

  She could barely see inside the house but was aware of activity within. If she’d had to guess, she would have said that people had congregated in the kitchen. At this point, there was really nothing to do but wait. She noticed that every home had one or two aluminum trash cans out in back; the alley must be the route that the city garbage trucks used, she thought. She wondered if Tony would be interested in the contents of these cans, as well.

  Ten minutes later, a blue Toyota pickup turned in from the street Annie had taken earlier. The truck looked dwarfish compared to the Ram. It stopped when it was practically head to head with the Ram, and a man got out. Annie trained her binoculars on him, but he was inside the house before she could identify any of his features. The slope of the hill was just high enough so she couldn’t make out the license plate. To do that, she’d have to stand at the same level, and she wasn’t sure she was up to the task—not when Sasha was with her, at any rate. The last thing she needed was for Sasha to make a run for it while she was jotting down a license plate. After a few seconds of
indecision, she decided to risk standing up. Standing on her toes and peering through her binoculars, she concentrated on the plate and thought she could make out an “A” and a “J.”

  Annie heard laughter now coming from the back of the house. She quickly hunkered down again and set her binoculars resolutely on the back door while pulling the coil of leash closer to her. “Good dog,” she murmured absently to Sasha, who, in fact, was being a very good dog and had lain still even as she had moved about.

  The back door burst open once more, and this time several people spilled out at once. Annie cursed herself for refusing to buy a smartphone; taking a photo would have been handy right now. She concentrated on memorizing what lay before her—two women and three men gathered in a circle, lighting up what Annie first assumed were cigarettes, and belatedly realized was some kind of drug. It looked as if a pipe was being passed among them. Annie could see each recipient take a drag and then throw back his or her head, presumably sucking as much of it in as possible.

  “Where’s my beer?” The voice belonged to the woman whom Annie recognized as having sat between Pete and the other man in the Dodge Ram. Her words were slurred, and her neck and shoulders twitched and jerked for no particular reason at all. Annie thought the woman was behaving most oddly.

  “Hey, Melissa!” Pete bellowed. “Bring us a six-pack.”

  “Get it yourself!” A woman’s voice came from inside the house. The quality of her voice suggested years of smoking and double shots at neighborhood bars.

  Pete cursed back but stomped into the house, returning a minute later with a six-pack in his hand. He set the beer on the stairs and opened one. By now, the woman who’d made the request seemed to have forgotten all about it. To Annie, she seemed to be in a world of her own.

  Pete was talking to the group. Annie couldn’t understand his words; she only saw the rest of the crowd move toward him as if they wanted to listen very closely to what he was telling them.