Dog Days (10 page)

So I was definitely in a quandary about leaving my business—not to mention my own dogs—in the care of two teenage girls and a first-day employee whose references I hadn’t even checked. But this was an emergency, and if I hurried I might still be back in time to check out the final boarders and close out the books for the day. I changed into a skirt and blouse that I thought would be suitable for a visit to the hospital, grabbed a pair of sandals, and ran down the stairs, pausing at the coat rack in the kitchen to snag my purse. At the back door I paused to put on my shoes, hopping a little for balance, and my bare foot came down on something piercingly sharp. I gave a yelp and grabbed the doorknob to keep from falling as I bent to see what I’d stepped on. It was a small gold pin in the shape of what looked to be a schnauzer, and the post of the pin had left a small drop of blood on the ball of my foot. The dog pin looked like something Melanie would collect; she must have dropped it the last time she was here.

Then I remembered the call from Melanie that I’d let go to voice mail. I had forgotten to call her back. Not to mention her father. I winced with regret and vowed to call them both the minute I got back. I dropped the pin into the zippered pocket of my bag for safekeeping, wiped the blood off my foot, and put on my sandals. Then I hurried across the drive to ask one more favor of Corny.

“You’re going to leave Cisco with
me
?” Corny pressed a hand to his chest as his eyes once again went big behind the white glasses. “Oh, Miss Stockton, I’m honored! I promise I won’t let him out of my sight! I’ll treat him like my own! I’ll—”

“Actually,” I interrupted, “if you’ll just put them all in the playroom like you did yesterday they’ll be fine. I’ll try to be back before five and …” I looked at him apologetically. “I know you came in early and now you’re staying late, and of course you’ll be paid for the extra hours but if you want time off tomorrow …”

He waved it away. “Don’t be sil! There’s no place I’d rather be. Anything I can do, anything at all, to make your job easier … Well, I mean, you saved a woman’s life today, you and Cisco!”

“And Cameo,” I added modestly, although it was nice to be appreciated.

We were in my office, with both Cameo and Cisco, now freshly brushed and sprayed with coat-shine, milling about my legs, no doubt looking for the treats I perpetually kept in my pockets. The skirt did not have pockets, and I had stopped keeping treats in my purse after the dogs had chewed holes in two of my favorite ones. I took a couple of dog biscuits from the bin on a high shelf, asked for a sit, and gave each golden retriever a well-earned biscuit. I spotted Cameo’s collar where I’d left it on my desk and put it on her, then dropped the little tracking button into my purse. Those things were not cheap, and I wanted to return it to her owner before I lost it.

I arrived at Middle Mercy hospital a little after three o’clock. I am not wild about hospitals, having been through too many crises there with too many people I loved, some of whom never left. I intended to make this visit as quick as possible, and when I caught a glimpse of a sheriff’s department uniform through the glass window of the ER waiting room, I didn’t bother to stop at the information desk, but went straight through the swinging door to where Jolene was talking to a haggard-looking man I vaguely recognized from the campground earlier. He looked to be in his fifties, though dark-circled eyes and sagging cheeks made him look older. He had a bald spot on his head and a scruff of grayish beard on his cheeks. He kept pulling at the whiskers as he talked, as though the beard bothered him.

There were only a couple of other people in the waiting room, and they cast furtive, curious glances at the man and the police officer, trying to overhear their conversation. But neither Jolene nor April’s husband noticed me as I approach. I heard him say, “I told you, I don’t know anything about that.” And I slowed my steps so as not to interrupt.

Jolene said, “Mr. Madison, it might have helped our search if we’d known your wife had gone out looking for her dog. Why didn’t you mention that?”

“What difference does it make?” He looked agitated, pulling again at his face. “If it hadn’t been for that stupid dog none of this would have happened.”

I definitely slowed my step then.

Jolene glanced at her notebook. “So you say the dog disappeared two days ago, right after you checked in. Did you report it to the park ranger?”

He looked annoyed and impatient. “What is all this about the dog? It’s my wife I’m worried about!”

“We’re just trying to determine what happened, Mr. Madison.”

He replied shortly, “No, I didn’t report it.”

“But you kept looking for the dog every day.”

“April did. She made us stay an extra day because of that mutt. We’re supposed to be in California by the twentieth. I told her we didn’t have time to waste. We have a schedule to keep.” His voice caught on a little break, and he rubbed his whiskers vigorously. “Had,” he corrected tightly. “Had a schedule to keep.”

Jolene paused respectfully for just a moment, then said, “Would you describe your wife as an athletic type? Someone who might go under a guardrail and try to climb down into a gorge?”

“For God’s sake, the woman is fifty-two years old and twenty pounds overweight.” His voice had an edge to it. “No, I would not describe her as athletic.”

I know it’s not smart to judge people by their most stressful moments, but I was starting not to like Mr. Madison. By this time I was standing behind Jolene, and I thought it might be a good time to speak up. “Not even if she saw her dog down in the gorge and thought she could reach her?” I said.

Jolene turned to scowl at me, and I moved around her, extending my hand to the man. “I’m Raine Stockton,” I said. “I’m the one who found your wife.”

“Tony Madison.” He shook my hand with a brief, dry grip. “Thank you,” he added, and shifted his gaze away.

I could see Jolene was about to say something to me, so I went on quickly, “Actually, it was your dog, Cameo, who found her. I just found Cameo. In fact, I found Cameo twice. The first time was yesterday morning, and then she got away from me. I think she knew your wife was hurt and she was trying to get back to her.” Tony Madison was staring at me as though I might well be a lunatic, and Jolene’s impatience was growing. I hurried on, “She has a microchip. Cameo, that is. We’ve been trying to reach the telephone numbers that are listed but of course no one answers at your home phone. Do you have a cell phone?”

He said, still staring at me, “What?”

And Jolene said, sounding annoyed, “Stockton, you’re interrupting.”

I ignored her. “Because I’m happy to keep Cameo until things are, you know, more stable for you, but I need your contact information. We tried calling the alternate contact number …” I searched my memory for the name. “A Mr. Sellers? But it’s been disconnected.”

Now I had his attention, and he did not look pleased. “Greg Sellers? That’s who she put down?”

I nodded. “Who is he?”

“April’s ex-husband.” He frowned uneasily. “She got the dog in the divorce.”

I nodded again. It’s not unusual for a new spouse to resent a pet from a former marriage, but I still didn’t think it was any excuse for calling Cameo a “stupid dog,” particularly when she was anything but. “I guess she didn’t get around to changing the contact number,” I suggested. But she had managed to change her last name on the contact information when she remarried. Interesting.

He said, “Look, Miss …”

“Stockton,” I supplied.

“Right.” He looked around distractedly. “Miss Stockton, I appreciate what you did, but this is not a good time.”

“I understand,” I assured him, and dug into my purse for my cell phone. “If you could just …”

Behind us a voice said, “Mr. Madison?” and he jumped to his feet. Jolene stood as well as the doctor approached.

The doctor said, “Mr. Madison, we’ve done all we can for your wife here, and we’re getting ready to air-lift her to Asheville. There’s a neurosurgeon standing by. His name is Dr. Richfield, one of the finest available. It’s possible they’ll take her into surgery tonight, or first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Can I see her?” Madison demanded.

“She’s unconscious,” the doctor replied, “but if you want to step in for a moment before they take her out, the nurse will show you the way.”

Tony Madison hurried toward the waiting nurse, and the doctor started to turn away. Jolene stopped him. “What’s the condition of the victim?” she said.

He shook his head grimly. “Not good. Frankly, I’m surprised she made it this far. There was considerable blood loss from the head injury, leg and arm fractures, broken ribs, severe dehydration and exposure. She must’ve been lying there two or three days …”

Both Jolene and I seized on that, but Jolene said it first. “Are you sure? The report we have says she went missing last night.”

He gave a dismissing shake of his head. “Then the report is wrong. The color of the contusions alone tell us they’re at least forty-eight hours old, and the muscles had already begun to contract around the broken tibia. She’s been in that gorge a lot more than twelve hours, Deputy. A lot more.”

When the doctor was gone I turned to Jolene in grim triumph. “Told you.”

“Go home, Stockton,” she said, pulling out her phone.

“There’s something else you should know,” I said, ignoring her. “My new employee was near the campground Tuesday night and he thinks he saw April and Cameo get into the car with Tony Madison.”

“He’s her husband. There’s no reason she shouldn’t.”

“Except that her husband said the dog had been missing since they checked in. And he only thought of that after you asked him about the dog, right? And if she did get into his car, it would explain how she got all the way over on the other side of the mountain.”

Jolene scowled at me. “What makes you think the person your so-called witness saw was April Madison?”

“The dog is pretty distinctive,” I told her. “White.”

“All right, I’ll talk to him. Now will you get out here?” She pushed a button on her phone.

“I didn’t get Mr. Madison’s phone number,” I objected, pivoting around to look for Tony Madison.

Jolene propped the phone between her shoulder and chin while she scribbled in her notepad. I heard her say, “Sheriff, I need permission to take a couple of men and do a more thorough search of the accident site at Hemlock Ridge.”

I could almost hear Buck say, “What’re you looking for?” And even imagining the sound of his voice made my shoulders tense.

“Signs of possible foul play,” was Jolene’s response, and I looked at her more intently. After another moment she said, “Yes sir, I do.” And “Thank you.”

She disconnected and tore a sheet of paper out of her notebook, thrusting it at me. “Madison’s cell number,” she said. “Now, go.”

She strode past me toward the exit, and I lost no time making my way to my own car.

CHAPTER EIGHT

M
y aunt’s house was on my way home, so it would have been foolish not to stop. If I didn’t linger, I could still make it back in time to check out the boarders at five. Before I left the hospital parking lot, though, I called Dog Daze, mostly just to make sure someone was actually answering the phone. Katie did.

She assured me everything was fine and then added, somewhat sotto voce, “The new guy is organizing all the cream rinses by coat color and making bows out of that paw print ribbon you keep in your office. I didn’t know if that was okay or not. He’s kind of funny, isn’t he?” she added in an even lower, somewhat uneasy tone.

I said, “It’s fine, Katie. And Corny is just eccentric, that’s all.” I tried to sound more confident about that than I felt. “He’s been a big help and I’m lucky to have him.”

“Well, in that case,” she said in her normal voice, which was perky with just a hint of wheedling, “it’s my grandma’s birthday tonight and the family is having a big get-together, so I was wondering if I could go ahead and leave? I have to, um, help with the cake.”

Translation: she had a big date and she needed to do her nails. I scowled at my watch as I turned the key in the ignition and rolled down the windows to let some of the heat escape while the air-conditioning kicked in. “It’s only three thirty.”

“Please? I promise I’ll make it up next week.”

I sighed. “Get Marilee to answer the phone and you can go.”

“Oh, she left at two, remember? You said she could last week. But the new guy said he didn’t mind taking care of the phone.”

I did not remember telling Marilee she could leave early, but the longer I argued about it the longer it would take me to finish my errands and get back to work. “All right,” I told her impatiently. “Tell Corny I’ll be back in forty-five minutes.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you!”

I disconnected the phone, looking forward to the time my part-time summer help returned to school.

~*~

I was surprised to see an unfamiliar bright red pickup truck in my aunt’s driveway, the extended cab kind that men around here drive when a car would have been more practical, just because real men drive pickups. I parked beside it and got out curiously. I had to blink when I saw Marshall Becker sitting with my Uncle Ro on the front porch, both of them drinking lemonade.

“Hi there, Rainbow.” Uncle Ro got up to give me a one-armed hug as I came up the steps. “Your Aunt Mart said you might be coming by. Do you know Marshall Becker?”

Becker, who had gotten to his feet when I approached, extended his hand. “We met yesterday. Good to see you again, Miss Stockton.”

I shook his hand and said suspiciously, “What are you doing here?”

“Marshall’s been helping me out from time to time with a case,” Uncle Ro explained. He had recently formed a cold case squad for the three adjoining mountain counties. “He’s still a consultant with the state police, you know. It’s good to have him back in town.” He looked at me more closely. “What’d you do to yourself, sweetheart? Been tangling with a bobcat?”

“Pine tree,” I explained. “Cisco and I were on the search for that missing woman this morning.” I didn’t have to explain much more than that; my uncle kept his police scanner going day and night, and there was very little that went on in this county he didn’t know about.

He nodded. “Should’ve figured. How’s she doing?”

“Not good. They’re life-flighting her to Asheville. I have her dog. Oh, no,” I muttered as I suddenly remembered. “I forgot to give this back to the husband.”

I unzipped the pocket of my purse and took out the little electronic button, showing it to my uncle. “It’s a GPS for dogs,” I explained. “Pretty fancy, huh? They had tried to sew it into her collar but the stitching came loose. Those things cost a couple of hundred dollars.”

My uncle examined the button with an appreciative grunt, and then passed it to Marshall. “Looks like the same kind of transmitter people use to bug offices.”

Marshall turned it over between his fingers, frowning as he held it up to look at the underside. “It is,” he said. “It’s exactly the kind of bug people use to listen in on conversations, only better. Look at that.”

He tried to show my uncle something on the underside of the button, but Uncle Ro shook his head. “My glasses are in the house. What does it say?”

“It’s a KD-620. We just got word on these things at the department last year. It not only tracks movement and transmits sound, it also records conversations in case you lose the transmission. The FBI used one of these to catch a kidnapper a couple of months back.”

I said skeptically, “Why would anybody want to put a listening device on a dog? It’s not as though she’d have a lot to say.”

Marshall Becker gave me an amused look, and my uncle supplied, “I imagine they were more interested in what the people around the dog had to say. Pretty clever, come to think of it,” he added with a thoughtful nod. “Nobody would ever suspect the dog. What do you suppose it was doing there?”

“I don’t guess it’s illegal for a private citizen to have one,” Marshall admitted. “A man suspects his wife of having an affair, a businessman suspects his partner of double-dealing … lots of reasons. And like you said, no one would look twice at the dog hanging around.”

“Wow,” I said, staring at him. “Cameo was a spy.”

Becker smiled. “Or it could be they were just using it as a GPS, like you said. You have to program it to activate the voice transmission and record feature. I have a friend at the department who’s an expert in this kind of high-tech stuff. Do you want me to ask him to take a look at it?”

“No,” I said, scowling as I held out my hand. “No, I don’t. It’s not mine. And unless it’s illegal, I have to give it back.”

He gave a small shrug and returned the button to me. “Suit yourself. But if I were you I’d go in the kitchen right now and get a piece of aluminum foil to wrap it in. You do realize somebody could be recording every word you say.”

I looked at him suspiciously, and sure enough, his eyes were twinkling. “I’ve got nothing to hide,” I replied, and dropped the thing back into my purse. “Aunt Mart’s waiting for me.”

I went immediately to the big country kitchen, which was redolent with the aroma of peanut butter cookies. Aunt Mart was just taking a tray out of the oven, and she smiled over her shoulder to me, her cheeks flushed with the heat. “I thought that was you I heard pull up, honey. Pour yourself a glass of lemonade while these cool.”

Majesty the collie, who watched regally from her plush bed in the corner, deigned to rise and come over to greet me. I dropped to my knees and gave her a hug, burying my face in her sweet smelling fur. Majesty had been my collie from the time I’d rescued her from poverty and neglect as an adolescent pup until I came to realize last year that my Aunt Mart needed her more than I did. I still thought of her as my dog, but, although Aunt Mart and I pretended to share custody, I think we both knew where Majesty’s heart was.

“Thanks, Aunt Mart,” I said, giving Majesty a final long stroke with my fingers as I stood. “But I can’t stay. I’ve got half a dozen dogs waiting to go home this afternoon so I have to hustle.” I opened a drawer and pulled out the aluminum foil.

“Well, it won’t hurt you to sit down for a minute. Gracious, what happened to your arm?”

So I explained the story of the rescue all over again while I wrapped the transmitter in foil. Better safe than sorry, I suppose.

Aunt Mart clicked her tongue and gave a small shake of her head as she lifted the cookies on to a cooling rack. “The work you do, child,” she said.

I wondered what kind of work Tony Madison did, to have access to a device like this—or to know someone who did. It was definitely worth looking into.

I went to the sink to wash my hands, knowing full well I wouldn’t be leaving this kitchen without eating something. “So when did Uncle Ro become such goods friends with the opposition?” I inquired, trying to sound casual. “I thought he was a Lawson man all the way.”

“Ro is a politician all the way,” she corrected. “He has friends in every camp.”

She offered me a warm, melty peanut butter cookie on a paper napkin, and I took it. Sheer heaven. I poured a glass of milk from the carton in the refrigerator and helped myself to another cookie from the cooling rack. “Are you entering anything in the county fair?”

“Oh, gracious no. Who has the time?”

We chatted a few minutes about the fair while I ate more cookies and Aunt Mart packed up a package for me that included leftover grilled chicken, key lime pie, a dozen cookies, and a basket of tomatoes. I love that woman.

“You chop up that chicken with some tomatoes and lettuce and make yourself a nice salad for supper,” she told me. “Do you have lettuce?”

I assured her that I did, though I wasn’t entirely sure, as I gathered up the goodies. “I hate to eat cookies and run, Aunt Mart, but I just hired a new guy to help run the kennel and I’ve already left him alone all day. I need to get back and see how he’s doing.”

“You did?” She beamed at me. “Well, good for you! Now maybe you can have weekends off every once in a while like a normal person. Anyone we know?”

“No, he’s from out of town. He seems great, though.” I hesitated. “Maybe a little too great,” I admitted. “As in, too good to be true.”

“Oh, honey,” she said, sighing. “I wish you could learn to trust people more. Sometimes the good Lord knows what he’s doing, don’t you know?”

Easy for her to say. She didn’t know anything about listening devices in dog’s collars and men who lied about their wife’s disappearance and … well, men who lied. And I couldn’t tell her that the last man I’d trusted had been a crazed bomber who’d almost killed us all.

I hugged her and kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks for all the food, Aunt Mart. I’ll make sure the quilt is in the booth before lunch tomorrow.”

She carried the quilt in its plastic dry-cleaning bag while I carried all the food she’d packed, and Marshall Becker immediately got to his feet as we came out onto the porch. “I’ll take that for you, Miss Mart,” he said, reaching for the quilt. “I was just about to leave.”

Aunt Mart pressed a container of cookies on Marshall Becker, who certainly didn’t try very hard to object, and we spent a few more minutes saying good-bye. Marshall walked me to my car, carrying the quilt. When we were out of earshot of the two on the porch he said, “I left a message for you.”

“I got it.”

“I wasn’t sure you’d want me to say anything in front of your uncle,” he went on, “but I kept an eye on that guy that was hanging around your car yesterday …”

I shot a surprised look at him.

“And when he got into his own car—which was two blocks away and didn’t look anything like yours, by the way—I ran his tag number, just out of curiosity.”

Now I stopped and stared at him. “Terrific,” I said. “As if this country didn’t have enough troubles, now we have to worry about bored ex-cops running our tags just for fun.”

He gave a small lift of his eyebrow. “I thought you might be interested in what I found out, particularly in light of …” He inclined his head back toward the house, referencing our last conversation. “Recent events. But if it offends your sensibilities …”

“Oh for Pete’s sake.” I opened the back of the SUV, put the groceries inside, and turned to take the quilt. “What?”

“The guy was not a reporter,” Marshall responded, “or a tourist. He was a private detective.”

I stopped stone still, staring at him. “A what?”

“I just thought you’d want to know, since even I have to admit his behavior was a little suspicious. Do you know anyone who might be investigating you?”

I felt my cheeks go cold, and then hot. There was only one person I knew who had the money and the means to do something like that. But I happened to know that Miles had run a pretty thorough background check on me months ago, before he ever introduced me to his daughter, and he’d been completely upfront about admitting it. I’d been furious at first, mostly because around here if we want to know everything there is to know about someone we ask a neighbor, not a PI, but after a while I’d realized he was only trying to be a good dad. So if it wasn’t Miles …

I hated myself for thinking it, tried to talk myself out of it, but … could it possibly be his ex-wife? And if so, was she, too, just trying to protect her daughter? Or was she sizing up the competition?

I could feel my teeth clenching with anger, and I made a conscious effort to loosen them. “Does he have a name?” I demanded. “A phone number?”

“I have that information at home,” he said. “I’ll call you.”

I took the quilt from him and laid it in the back of the SUV, pushing aside a dog-hair covered blanket and readjusting a crate to make room for it. I took my time, willing my cheeks—and my temper—to cool. Then something occurred to me and I straightened up, turning back to Marshall.

“This guy,” I said, “this PI. What kind of car was he driving?”

“A Honda Accord,” he replied without hesitation. “Dark blue.” He must have seen the change on my face because he added, “Why?”

“I thought someone was following me yesterday,” I said, frowning a little, “in a dark blue sedan. And last night I had a prowler. I’m pretty sure the car I saw was a dark blue sedan.”