“I’m not so sure about that.” Rachel lifted the woman’s limp hand and felt for her pulse. A regular rhythm, but weak and rapid.
“What are you doing?” Rayanne demanded.
Rachel ignored her and spoke to Ethan, who waited by the door. “Your mother needs to be in the hospital.”
“Who are you to decide?” Rayanne protested. “You’re an animal doctor!”
Hesitating, Ethan looked from Rachel to Rayanne to his mother. “She’s going in for dialysis in a little while.”
“That’s right,” Rayanne said. “A real doctor can check her out.”
“Good,” Rachel said. “I’m glad to hear that. But I wouldn’t delay it even by an hour. She needs to go right now.”
“She has her regular appointment time,” Rayanne said.
“She goes in three times a week at the same time,” Ethan said.
“What…” Mrs. Hall murmured. Her eyes remained closed. “What’s… wrong?”
“See, now you’ve upset her,” Rayanne said. “Ethan, I need to start getting her dressed.”
“Right, right,” he said. “Dr. Goddard, if that’s all—”
Rachel walked out because she had no choice, but she wasn’t going to let this drop. Something was going on here that had to be stopped.
In the hallway, she found Marcy with her back pressed against a wall, as if trying to make herself invisible. Rachel wanted to look confident and reassuring for the girl, but her expression felt more like a grimace on her face. “Your mom’s going to the hospital for her treatment. She’ll feel better afterward.”
Marcy, her head bowed, whispered something.
“I’m sorry, sweetie, I didn’t hear you.” Rachel leaned closer.
Marcy kept her head down, but this time Rachel heard what she said. “She doesn’t feel better afterward. She used to, but now she always feels worse.”
Ethan stared into space as if he’d totally detached himself from what was happening. Dear god, Rachel thought, this is a madhouse.
Shifting her bag from one hand to the other, Rachel surreptitiously drew one of her business cards from an outer pocket. The card had her cell phone number on it as well as the animal hospital number. She slipped it into Marcy’s hand at the same time she leaned close enough to speak without Ethan overhearing. “Remember what I said. You can call me anytime you need help.”
Rachel got out of the house as fast as she could, and when she was outside, in her car, she called Tom’s cell phone. Straight to voice mail. He must have turned it off. She left a message. then called the sheriff’s department and asked where Tom was. At the jail, she was told, talking to a prisoner. “Tell him to call me as quickly as he can,” Rachel said. “It’s important.”
Chapter Thirty-three
A few hours behind bars had done wonders for Pete Rasey’s attitude. No more backtalk. No more profanity. Resentment simmered in the boy’s eyes, but he didn’t give voice to it. He waited silently, his gaze skittering between his father and Tom while the jailer opened the cell door.
“You’re not being released,” Tom said. “We’re just going back over to headquarters to talk some more. Hold out your hands.”
Pete looked as if he might burst into tears, but he stuck out his hands and let Tom snap the cuffs onto his wrists. Head down, he shuffled between Tom and Beck along the passageway between the jail and the Sheriff’s Department. At one point, Beck reached out to pat his son’s back, a gesture that made Tom hopeful for a good outcome.
He ushered Pete and Beck into the conference room. “I’ll let you two talk,” he said. “I’ll be back shortly.”
He closed the door on them, then joined Dennis and Brandon at the intercom in the sheriff’s office next door.
For a while, Tom couldn’t make out anything they said to each other. Tom pictured them with their heads together, Beck talking in a low, urgent tone. A couple of times Pete broke in with, “But, Dad—” and Beck silenced him with an order to be quiet and listen.
Tom waited half an hour, the time he and Beck had agreed on. He rapped on the door before entering. Pete slumped forward, his cuffed hands resting on the table. Beck, sitting next to his son, told Tom, “I think I’ve managed to talk some sense into him. Pete? Tell the captain what he wants to know.”
When Pete raised his head, he looked like a terrified child. “They’ll kill me,” he said. “I’m not kidding. They’ll kill me.”
Tom pulled out a chair and sat down across from Pete and Beck. He placed a small tape recorder, already running, on the table. “Who’s they?”
Pete stared at the recorder, then threw a pleading look at his father.
“You gotta tell him,” Beck said. “Think about yourself now.”
“I am thinking about myself. I told you, they’ll kill me if I talk.”
“Sounds like real nice people you’re mixed up with,” Tom said. “How long have you been working for them?”
Dropping his chin, Pete mumbled, “All summer.”
“Doing what, exactly?”
“Different stuff. Finding dogs.”
“Finding dogs?” Tom asked. “What do you mean?”
“Tell him,” Beck ordered.
Pete hesitated, but at last he said, without meeting Tom’s eyes, “Dogs for training. You know, to teach the fighting dogs.”
“Bait, you mean,” Tom said.
Pete nodded.
“Where did you get these bait dogs?”
Pete mumbled something, his chin so low it almost touched his chest.
“What was that?” Tom asked. “I didn’t hear you.”
Pete drew in a deep breath, let it out, and spoke clearly. “Out of people’s yards.”
“You stole people’s pet dogs out of their yards?”
Pete nodded.
“I need to hear you say it,” Tom told him.
Clearing his throat, Pete spoke directly at the recorder. “I stole dogs out of people’s yards.”
“Did you get paid?”
Pete nodded. “Yeah. Fifty bucks for every one I brought in.”
The price of a conscience, Tom thought, was depressingly low these days. He bit back the things he wanted to say, the shaming lecture about breaking the hearts of kids and older people whose only company was a pet, the cruelty of throwing a pampered pet into a situation where it would be torn apart. He wasn’t sure this boy was capable of shame in any conventional sense. He cared what his parents thought, though, and Tom had to rely on that. He probably cared what Beth Hall thought too.
“Who did you turn the dogs over to?” Tom asked.
The question made Pete squirm in his chair. He shifted around, leaned forward, slumped back again. “You’re gonna get me killed,” he protested, but weakly, knowing his argument was already lost.
Beck slapped him on the shoulder. “You want to stay out of prison, you’d better tell him.”
“All right, all right,” Pete said. Tears welled in his eyes. “I stole dogs for Leo Riggs.”
Finally, Tom thought, they were getting somewhere. “What did Leo Riggs tell you the dogs would be used for?”
“I told you already—” He winced when Beck whacked him on the back of the head. “All right, all right. Leo told me they used the dogs I stole to train fighters.”
“Did you go to the dogfights?” Tom asked.
Pete nodded.
“Out loud,” Tom said.
“Yeah, I went.”
“Did you do any work at the fights?”
“Sometimes. Handling dogs.”
“Did you see Leo Riggs at the fights?” Tom asked.
“Yeah. He was in charge. He took the bets. Handled the money.”
“Who else worked for him?”
Pete named Ellis, the guy who’d lately been acting as a guard at the Hall house, and a couple of others Tom knew by sight.
“When’s the next fight? And where?”
“Tonight.” Pete gave Tom directions to the spot. “That’s why Leo wanted th
at dog out of the pound. He wanted to use it in the fight.”
“So Leo asked you to get the black dog out of the pound?”
Nodding, Pete said, “Yeah, that’s his dog. It got loose a while ago. That’s his toughest fighter, and he wanted it back.”
“Does Leo have any dogs trained to attack people?”
Screwing up his face, blinking back tears, Pete appealed to his father. “Dad, he’s gonna come after me, he’ll kill me for this.”
Beck leaned closer and spoke into his son’s face. “And if you don’t tell the captain everything you know, you won’t have to worry about Leo, ’cause I’ll kill you myself.”
In that moment, when Pete realized how alone he was, what a corner he’d backed himself into, Tom almost felt sorry for him. Almost. He repeated, “Does Leo have a dog that’s trained to attack people?”
“Yeah. I think it’s a brother to the one in the pound. I never saw it, though. I just heard about it.”
“What do you know about Dr. Hall’s death, Pete?”
“Nothing,” he said, his eyes beseeching. “I swear I don’t know a thing. I didn’t have anything to do with it, I swear.”
Tom sat back, watching the boy and tapping his fingers on the table as he thought. There was one more piece of information he wanted. Sitting forward again, he asked, “Where does Leo keep the dogs?”
Pete shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m not lying, I really don’t. When I turned over dogs to him, I just met him along the road wherever he told me to. I never got to see the place where he keeps the fighters.”
***
Rachel was saying goodbye to a client and her pissed off Siamese cat when the front desk receptionist, Shannon, caught her eye. Holding up the telephone receiver, Shannon mouthed, “Captain Bridger.”
Cutting short her parting exchange with the client, Rachel ran around the corner from the front desk to her office. She snatched up her desk telephone and punched the blinking button. “Tom?”
“What’s up?”
“I went out to the Hall house this morning to see Thor, and I was shocked at Mrs. Hall’s condition. She’s barely alive, she ought to be in the hospital—”
“She has dialysis at the hospital. If the nurses thought she needed to be admitted—”
“I know, I know.” Was Tom going to brush off her concerns again? “But I feel like something awful’s about to happen. And those kids are caught in the middle of it. Can’t you intervene somehow? At least talk to Mrs. Hall’s doctor?”
“I’m on my way over to the Hall house now,” Tom said. “I’ve got some new information that might give us a break in the case. I’ll fill you in later. But I’ll see what I can do for Vicky Hall.”
Rachel wanted to know what he’d found out—from who? Pete Rasey?—but right now she couldn’t delay him for a second. “Okay, go. I’ll talk to you later.”
She hung up, enormously relieved that Tom was looking into the situation at the Hall house, and that he’d scored some kind of breakthrough in the investigation. But she couldn’t shake loose the dread that had taken root inside her, a sick fear that the killing wasn’t over yet.
Chapter Thirty-four
When Tom entered Soo Jin’s room she was sitting up in bed, looking like hell but wide awake and breathing without a respirator.
“Hey,” he said, stopping at the foot of her bed. “How are you doing?”
Her swollen lips twisted in a wry lopsided grin. Her voice came out low and hoarse. “I can feel all my toes and fingers. I guess I’ll live.”
“I won’t make you talk a lot,” Tom said. “I know your throat’s sore from the tube. I just wanted to ask if you remember the accident.”
“No,” she rasped. “All I know is that I wanted to find out where Ethan was going.”
“Do you remember that part? Where he went?”
“To see Leo Riggs.”
Tom nodded. He started to ask another question, but she interrupted.
“Listen. I have to tell you—” A wracking cough cut off her words.
Tom went to the bedside table, poured a glass of water, and held it while she sipped. “Don’t try to talk if it hurts,” he said, putting the glass down.
She grabbed his arm, her grip surprisingly strong. “I have to tell you,” she said again. “I believe that woman is trying to kill my mother.”
For a second Tom was too startled to speak. Suddenly a lot of things made sense. He was sure he knew the answer, but he asked anyway because he wanted to hear Soo Jin say it aloud. “What woman?”
In her dark eyes, circled by bruises, he saw rage mingled with desperate fear. “Rayanne,” she said. “I think Rayanne is poisoning my mother.”
***
Ellis was there again, standing guard with his shotgun at the bottom of the Halls’ driveway. This time Tom saw the guy not as a nuisance but as a sinister presence hovering around a family that was imploding, like a hunter waiting for the weak and wounded to become easy prey.
Ellis worked for Leo Riggs. Like Rayanne, he was in a position to keep Leo informed about what was going on in the Hall household.
After their previous clashes, Tom doubted Ellis would expect a friendly greeting. Tom nodded indifferently as he passed the man. He’d have Ellis and his boss Leo in jail tonight if Pete’s information could be trusted. He wanted to catch Leo at a dogfight, and in the meantime he didn’t want to say or do anything to tip Leo off that the cops were on to him.
At the door, Tom pushed past Ethan into the house without waiting to be invited. “I need to see your mother.”
“Why is everybody so determined to bother my mother today?” Ethan said. “Rayanne’s getting her dressed to go in for dialysis. Leave her alone.”
“I’ll wait here until she comes down.” Tom stood at the bottom of the stairs and folded his arms.
Ethan wiped the back of his hand across his upper lip. “What do you need to talk to her about? Can I help you?”
“No.” Tom couldn’t risk asking Ethan about Gordon Hall’s recent contacts with Leo, or whether Hall knew about the dogfights. Ethan couldn’t be trusted to keep his mouth shut about this turn in the investigation.
“All right,” Ethan said, “if you want to wait, then go ahead and wait.” He drew a breath, released it in a sigh. Dark circles under his eyes spoke of sleepless nights. He’d missed a spot on his left cheek with his razor, leaving a little patch of day-old whiskers near his jaw line.
“Have you decided when you’ll have the services for your father?” Tom asked.
“Thursday.”
“Are you leaving after that? Going back to work?”
“I don’t know.” Ethan poked his fists into his pants pockets and stared at the floor. “I don’t think I can leave Mom for a while. I’m not sure she can cope with—with everything. A lot of decisions have to be made.”
“That’s true,” Tom said. “Is she—”
He broke off when he heard voices from above. Rayanne stood at the top of the stairs, holding Vicky Hall by one arm. Beth had both her arms around her mother. “She can’t get down the stairs,” Beth protested. “She’ll fall. Are you trying to kill her or something?”
Her face ashen, Vicky sagged against Beth.
“I know how to take care of her,” Rayanne said. “It’s my job. Now she needs to go to dialysis. Let go of her and get out of the way.”
“Hold it,” Tom said. “Ethan, come on.” Tom took the stairs two at a time, Ethan behind him.
“We’ll do just fine if everybody’ll stay out of the way,” Rayanne said. “We need to get goin’ now.”
When Tom reached Vicky Hall he was shocked by her appearance. She looked barely conscious, and he was sure she would collapse if Rayanne and Beth weren’t holding her up.
“She needs an ambulance,” Tom said. “I’m calling 911.”
“We don’t need an ambulance!” Rayanne exclaimed. “I’ll take her in the car like I always do.”
“You’re not taking her
anywhere.” Tom reached into his shirt pocket for his cell phone.
“I’ll call,” Ethan said. He pulled his phone from his pants pocket and punched in the number. He issued quick, clear instructions to the emergency dispatcher.
“Let’s get her back on the bed,” Tom said. “Ethan, help me.” He nudged Rayanne to make her step aside, but she remained planted where she was. He gave her a little shove. “Move. Now.”
Rayanne stomped down the stairs and disappeared.
Vicky was so out of it that she couldn’t take a single step on her own. Tom lifted her and carried her back to her bedroom. She weighed no more than a child.
As he laid her on the bed, her eyelids fluttered and she mumbled, “Gordie? Is that you?”
Looking down at her gaunt, colorless face, Tom wondered how everyone around her could have watched her deteriorate so quickly without becoming alarmed. He was as guilty as the rest, blaming her condition on her husband’s death until Rachel forced him to give the situation a fresh look. He would insist that Vicky’s blood be tested before dialysis removed any toxins.
Beth dropped to her knees beside the bed and clasped her mother’s hand. “Mommy? I’m here, Mommy. Please, please…” She buried her face in the rumpled comforter.
Ethan stood at the foot of the bed, watching his mother with a stunned expression. “I didn’t realize how bad she was. I swear I didn’t.”
Tom grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the door. “I want to talk to you before the ambulance gets here.”
In the hallway they encountered David and Marcy. The boy’s usual belligerence was firmly in place, but his wide, moist eyes betrayed fear and confusion. Marcy pressed a fist to her mouth as tears ran silently down her cheeks.
“Kids,” Tom said, “why don’t you wait downstairs? An ambulance is coming to take your mother to the hospital.”
“Is she going to die?” Marcy asked, her voice a faint whimper.
“I hope not,” Tom said. “Wait downstairs, okay?”
They set off down the steps, and Tom motioned for Ethan to move farther away from his mother’s open bedroom door. Although Ethan looked as if he wanted to argue or resist, after a brief hesitation he walked a few feet down the hall, Tom following.
Under the Dog Star: A Rachel Goddard Mystery #4 (Rachel Goddard Mysteries) Page 24