Horse of a Different Killer Page 11

  “Hey,” I answered as quickly as I could. “Everything okay?”

  The last time my uncle had called me I’d ended up in a disco-era gold lamé jumpsuit.

  Don’t ask.

  “Well, yes and no,” he answered. “Actually, I’m calling for a friend. She rescued a dog—well, not really a dog. She’s like Moss.”

  “A wolf hybrid?”

  “Yep. Though she’s more.” He paused. “Let’s just say she needs your help.”

  I heard a woman’s voice call out something in the background, followed by a loud crash.

  “Wiley?”

  “We’re fine. That was just a ficus plant. I’m not sure whether or not she’s trying to kill it or play with it—either way, it’s a goner now.”

  “Give me the address. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  I’ve met plenty of people claiming to own a wolf or wolf-dog hybrid when what they really had was a mixed breed dog or, in some cases, a purebred Siberian husky with agouti coat coloring, which to the untrained eye resembled a wolf.

  I’d even heard horror stories of purebred huskies and other northern breeds being seized and either euthanized or “returned to the wild.”

  Wolf-dog or not, my uncle wouldn’t have called me unless there was a serious problem.

  I found the address easily and was soon knocking on the door to the tidy little brick home. I glanced around the neighborhood while I waited. It was a quiet street; I didn’t hear any dogs barking or the squeal of preschool children. A lone, dark sedan rolled lazily by but no other traffic came or went.

  Wiley answered the door—a relieved smile lifted the ends of his handlebar mustache when he saw me. As always, he wore a beret. Cottony tufts of white hair sprouted from under it.

  “Thanks for coming, Gracie.”

  “Sure. What’s going on?”

  A slim woman with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair appeared as he ushered me into the brightly lit foyer.

  “This is my friend Janie,” Wiley said.

  I nodded a greeting and shook her hand. She was probably in her seventies but had the energy and quick, fluid movements of a much younger woman. Had her features not been pinched with lines of worry, I would have called her beautiful.

  “Wiley says you have a special gift with animals,” Janie said.

  “You have a rescue you need some help with?”

  “My late husband used to raise shepherds. He did Schutzhund training, so I’ve been around big dogs, but this . . .” She let out a troubled sigh.

  “How long have you had—” I waited for someone to fill in the dog’s name for me, and Janie quickly obliged.

  “Pretty Girl. You’ll understand why I call her that when you see her. I haven’t had her long.” She glanced at my uncle, suddenly uncertain.

  “It’s okay,” Wiley told her. “You can trust Grace.”

  “Every morning, I go on my walk,” Janie began. “The route I take goes through the neighborhood, then all the way around the park, about thirteen miles. Three times in the last month I saw a dog running loose in the street. I managed to catch her and found the owner, but he didn’t seem to care that she was getting out. A couple of weeks ago, I walked by his house and noticed she was on a chain in the backyard. I guess she was climbing the chain-link fence and his solution was to tie her to a tree.”

  I exchanged a look with my uncle but let Janie continue uninterrupted.

  “I walked by the next day and she was still tied up. The poor thing was panicking. Trying to get loose. I was afraid she’d hurt herself, so I knocked on the door to let her owner know what was going on.”

  She paused and pressed her lips into an angry, bloodless line.

  “Let me guess,” I said, trying to keep a hold of my own temper. “He didn’t care.”

  “No. He did not,” Her words were crisp and filled with contempt. “And when I told him I was going to report it as animal abuse, he—” Janie’s voice wavered and she broke off. Her hands balled into fists at her sides.

  Wiley stepped closer and patted her on the back. My uncle’s face had turned grim as he took up the story. “He told Janie if she reported him, he’d just shoot the dog and be done with it.”

  The anger I felt toward this anonymous owner threatened to bubble over into rage.

  I forced a calming breath. I’d be no use to anyone if I let myself get emotional.

  “What happened?”

  “I came home,” Janie said. “Got my bolt cutters, walked back to his house, into the backyard, and cut that damn chain.”

  I felt my brows raise in surprise and more than a little admiration.

  Janie squared her shoulders and set her jaw. Anticipating a rebuke perhaps.

  Ha! Not from me, sister.

  “I like her,” I said to Wiley. He smiled, light returning to sparkle in his eyes.

  I looked at Janie. “But . . . ?” There was always a “but” with these stories.

  Janie’s posture deflated slightly. “Things were okay for a couple of days. Then, she ate my couch.”

  I gave her a sympathetic nod.

  “The next day, she tore a hole in the back door—which is made out of solid wood panels.”

  “Impressive,” I said.

  “She got into the refrigerator, too.”

  I winced, imagining what that cleanup would’ve been like.

  “Have you been taking her with you on your walks?” I asked, trying not to sound accusatory.

  “I brought her with me once, but I was afraid that awful man might see us even though I don’t walk past his house anymore. I tried a different route, but her reactions to new things can be unpredictable. Sometimes she’s skittish, and she’s so big . . .”

  “It’s okay,” I said, beginning to suspect my uncle was right about Pretty Girl being a wolf hybrid. Not that it mattered much. Sure, it was good to know what you were dealing with but, in the end, the most important thing to consider was temperament and whether she’d be amenable to training.

  “Why don’t I meet Pretty Girl and I’ll see what I can do.”

  “That would be great.”

  As we walked through the house, the evidence of Pretty Girl’s destruction was evident. Not only was the couch noticeably absent from the living room, I spotted torn curtains and a table lamp without a shade. The back door had been chewed and clawed, quite literally, to shreds.

  “How is she around new people?” I asked Janie, though I had a feeling I knew the answer.

  “Pretty shy, actually. She was very hard to catch that first time. In fact, I’d given up and was walking away when I noticed she’d started following me. I stopped and sat on the curb for a few minutes. Eventually she walked right up to give me a sniff. Now, she practically knocks me over if she hasn’t seen me in a while.”

  “No vet visit, yet?”

  “I wanted to take her but I was afraid she’d panic.”

  “Maybe you can give her a quick check-up.” My uncle suggested.

  “I can try.”

  After a couple of slow, centering breaths, I opened the back door.

  Devastation reigned on the screened-in back porch. The ficus tree my uncle had mentioned during his phone call looked like it had been put through a mulcher. The large clay pot lay broken on its side, dark potting soil strewn all over the concrete floor.

  In two places the screen was torn. The lower portion of the door was missing altogether.

  I pushed through it into a backyard that had probably once been more . . . manicured. Now, holes were dug here and there, a couple of bushes had been vigorously gnawed on.

  The canine standing in the middle of the yard studied me with eyes the color of sunlit amber. Had her coat been white instead of black, I’d have said she was the spitting image of a two-year-old Moss.

  Pretty
? Check.

  Wolf-dog? Check.

  Temperament and trainability?

  “Let’s find out,” I said.

  Turning slightly so I wasn’t facing her, I knelt, and reached out to Pretty Girl with my mind. A quick, gentle assessment told me she was wary, but curious.

  I widened the mental conduit, showed her I meant no harm. I was a friend.

  While continuing to convey lots of positive stuff, I called her to me.

  Come.

  She stayed where she was.

  Stubborn. Just like Moss.

  Something strange happened as I thought of my dog. It was almost as if the idea of Moss, the distilled, beautiful, wild, loyal, brave essence of my dog, reached out and connected with Pretty Girl.

  So intrigued by the sudden Mossomeness I was projecting, Pretty Girl trotted to me with no further hesitation.

  Kindred? She sniffed around me looking for Moss.

  Uh . . . not exactly. But we’ll set up a playdate.

  We spent a few more minutes chatting. She relaxed more than I had expected, which was good.

  After another couple of minutes, the wolf-dog allowed me to do a rudimentary checkup. All was well on that front.

  With a farewell pat and promise to bring Moss for a visit, I stood and went inside to find Janie.

  From what I’d seen, the woman didn’t lack in the moxie department, but I still believed it would be best to be very clear about the amount of work required to keep Pretty Girl both mentally and physically fit.

  Janie promised to do her best, and I offered to bring Moss over to help. With a little luck and a lot of determination, we’d make the home a happy one—for everyone.

  My uncle walked me outside to Bluebell and thanked me again before saying, “I heard about Anthony Ortega.”

  “You did?” I asked surprised. My uncle didn’t own a TV and hadn’t had a newspaper delivered since the Reagan administration.

  “Janie likes to watch the news.”

  “Ah. So it’s like that, huh? You old fox, you.”

  “Old.” He grinned. “Not dead.”

  We shared a laugh over that then he said, “How’s Emma?”

  “She’s fine.” I didn’t want to worry him with details of her arrest or say anything about Boyle’s one-sidedness.

  He nodded but didn’t seem convinced.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Death, even the death of a despicable bastard like Ortega, can have an affect on the people who knew him. Keep an eye on your sister, okay?”

  “I will.”

  I let what my uncle had said ruminate as I drove toward the beach and realized I hadn’t actually asked my sister how she felt about Ortega’s murder.

  “Great sister-skills, Grace.”

  Just before I’d made it over the Intracoastal Waterway, traffic came to a complete halt. When I saw the flashing lights of a police car ahead, I eased Bluebell over toward the median to try and get a better look at what was causing the holdup.

  And couldn’t see squat.

  After what seemed like an eternity with no forward movement, I decided I had time to check my messages.

  I’d missed three texts while I’d been working with Pretty Girl. One was from a client asking to reschedule an upcoming appointment. The two others were from Wes and Kai, both asking me to call.

  I took care of my client first with a quick text message, then started to call Kai. Before I could pull up his number, my phone rang.

  “Miss Wilde? This is Hunter, um, from R-n-R. I heard you were offering a reward if anyone knows about that Friesian.”

  “The owner is, yes.”

  “There’s one thing, I don’t know if it’ll help, but I just talked to the driver who delivered him. She told me something happened that day.”

  I waited but he didn’t elaborate. “Hunter? What happened?”

  “She was followed.”

  “Followed? By who?”

  “Don’t know. Lily Earl, that’s the driver, she makes stops here pretty regular, so I asked if she’d hauled a Friesian lately. She told me she had and she remembered because she had been followed that day.”

  “Can I talk to Lily Earl? Is she there?”

  “No, ma’am, she’s left already. I would have called sooner but I had to . . . uh . . . get your card from Mr. Parnell.”

  “I’m sure he had put it somewhere special.”

  “Well, uh . . .” He drifted off, not sure what to say.

  “Do you have a number for Lily Earl?”

  “No, ma’am, but I know where she’ll be tomorrow.” He gave me directions to a place not far from R-n-R called The Oaks and predicted Lily Earl would be there by nine in the morning.

  “Hey,” I said before he hung up. “Any sign of Nelly?”

  “Not yet. I’m starting to feel kind of bad for Cappy, though. I think he misses her.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  After hanging up, I considered turning around and heading back to the woods near R-n-R to search for the little goat, but knew by the time I got there it would be nearing dark and any hope of finding her would be futile.

  Oh—and I was still stuck in traffic.

  The gridlock inspired me to call Jasmine to give her a quick update, minimal as it was.

  She answered with an anxious “Grace?”

  “Hey, Jasmine. I just called to let you know that I haven’t gotten positive ID on Heart, yet, but I’m going to talk to the woman who delivered the Friesian to R-n-R tomorrow morning. I’m hoping she’ll have some paperwork on him.”

  “Something to give the police?”

  “Right. I’m sure they’ll look more closely at his disappearance if I can prove Heart was the horse delivered to R-n-R.” Even Boyle couldn’t deny that. “I was wondering if you happen to have any other photos of Heart? Maybe something that shows more than just his head?”

  “They took a massive number of photos at the shoot, so there must be. I know the photographer—I’ll ask him.”

  “That would be great.” I wasn’t sure how much it would actually help, aside from giving me a better mental picture of what Heart looked like to compare with any information or images I might acquire.

  I thanked Jasmine, hung up, and called Wes.

  He answered by saying, “Amazing Grace, what are you doing?”

  “Sitting in traffic on Beach Boulevard.

  “Stimulating.”

  “Yep. I’m not going anywhere any time soon. What’s up?”

  “I wanted to let you know you missed a fabulous lunch,” he said. “Any progress on your search?”

  “Nope,” I said on a long breath. “There’s something I wanted to get your take on, though.” I told him about the last message Ortega had left me claiming he needed to talk about Emma.

  “Your sister mentioned it at lunch,” he said.

  “He was lying, right?” I asked Wes.

  “I think he was trying to manipulate you.”

  “That’s what Emma said.”

  “You think there’s more to it?”

  “It just seems weird, but I can’t put my finger on exactly why.”

  “Maybe it’s the irony. His last phone call ended up being to a woman who despised him.” There was a pause as Wes let out a musing, “Hmmm. Actually, allow me to recant that last statement. I’m sure there were plenty of women who despised him, so statistically . . .”

  I didn’t hear the rest of his words because my attention had been snagged by what was happening several car lengths ahead.

  “Wes, I’ve got to call you back.” I hung up and put Bluebell in park.

  A motorcycle cop had arrived on the scene and more than one motorist had gotten out of their vehicle to watch or use their cell phone to take photos and videos of what was going
on.

  Near the front of the line of cars, one man was waving his arms and clapping. Not at the police, but at something on the ground.

  “Great.” I pushed open Bluebell’s door and hopped out onto the street.

  As I got closer, I could hear the man shouting, “Ha! Go!” as he clapped.

  The first officer said, “Sir, return to your vehicle. Now.”

  “I am late for important business.” The man’s accent was foreign and thick. If I had to guess, I’d say Russian—but I’m only going with that because he sounded a lot like Chekov from Star Trek.

  I looked down and spotted the source of the problem.

  Stretched across the road was a very large, very agitated alligator.

  Just great.

  The motorcycle cop, a big dude who looked like he probably rode a Harley when not in uniform, turned his attention to me while his fellow deputy continued to order Chekov back into his car.

  “Ma’am, you need to return to your vehicle.”

  How best to handle this? I thought about claiming the gator was mine but that seemed unwise. I was pretty sure losing track of your pet ten-foot-long alligator would be frowned upon by the lawmen.

  I decided to go with my fallback strategy.

  “My name is Dr. Wilde, I’m a veterinarian specializing in herpetology.” I motioned to the gator and smiled. “Specifically, large reptiles.”

  The two deputies and Chekov stared at me.

  When you can’t dazzle them with brilliance . . .

  “I thought I could lend a hand,” I said. “Maybe get this guy out of the way?”

  Moto-cop looked at me intently. “You’re a herpetologist?”

  Uh-oh.

  “A vet,” I corrected, but the fact that he knew what herpetology was didn’t bode well for my little white lie.

  The first deputy seemed to be deferring to Moto-cop. Chekov looked at all of us and said, “You, little lady, git rid of lizard. Yes?”

  “It’s not a lizard,” Moto-cop said. “It’s a crocodilian.”

  He’d intended the comment for me. A test, or to prove he knew his reptiles? Was this to be a power struggle?