To Catch a Treat (21 page)

Could I? I didn't know.

“You realize, of course, that those dogs' lives may depend on you,” Garvy emphasized. “If he's really shaken, he might kill them all and flee.”

Damn. Garvy could be right. He might not be, but was I willing to take that chance?

“All right,” I said. “I'll do it. But please come as fast as you can.” I didn't bother telling him about my call to the cops since that was undoubtedly useless.

“I will. I promise.”

We hung up. I checked the charge on my phone and it had a fair percentage of power, so I couldn't give myself the excuse that I needed to stay here charging it in case I had to make some calls.

Besides, dogs' lives could be in the balance. I wasn't sure I'd be able to save them if Tim really did intend to harm them—but I wasn't sure I couldn't, either.

I would stay cautious, of course. I couldn't help dogs if I was hurt.

Carefully, I undid my seat belt and opened my car door. Barely thinking about it, I picked up the bag of dog treats. I wasn't sure when I'd get close enough to pass them out, but there certainly were a lot of canines here who might be hungry and whom I could treat.

The dog barks ramped up in noise, and those who were outside threw themselves toward the fence. They appeared all to be purebreds or designer dogs: Irish setters and goldens and a springer spaniel and a cockapoo. Even a couple of Chihuahuas and a Papillon and a German shepherd. And that schnauzer—was it the dog Tim had called Waldo when he'd brought the two injured dogs to the clinic? I wasn't close enough to see if the dog had any wounds.

How many were there?
More than a dozen
, I thought.

“Hi, guys,” I said in a low voice. With their acute hearing, they'd be able to hear me talking even if the guy inside couldn't over their barks. “Let's get you home soon, okay?”

But if I'd had any thought of sneaking away without Tim's knowing that someone was present, that opportunity was gone. The dogs' barks had outed me.

The fence drooped around a path up to a door into the cabin, and that's where I headed, dogs following me from inside. When I reached the door, I debated knocking, then decided against it. No, even after my discussion with Garvy, I should go back and wait in my car till he got here. Unless, of course, I had reason to believe a dog was being hurt.

Tim would know someone was here anyway. As far as I could tell, he hadn't looked outside to see who, but if I knocked to announce I'd reached his entry, that might be worse than simply peeking in first.

Although … if he'd killed Ada, even though it was by drowning, he could be standing inside there aiming a gun at the door, or who knew what?

Okay. I'd decided. I was going to ignore what Garvy had said, get back in the car, and wait—after calling 911.

Before I moved, though, the door opened. I gasped and felt my heart start racing even more. Was Tim going to come outside and grab me?

“Please come in, Ms. Kennersly,” called a voice. Male? Female? I really couldn't tell over the noise.

Definitely too late to run. Instead, I decided to obey and hopefully be able to talk Tim—he was rational, wasn't he?—into not harming the dogs … or me.

“Okay,” I called, and started forward.

And stopped right away. Yes, there was a human inside aiming a gun at me.

But no, it wasn't Tim Smith.

It was Delma Corning.

thirty-one

This had to be
some kind of mistake. Delma was Janelle's friend, and I was trying to help Janelle.

But what was she doing here with a gun? And, more important, why was she aiming it at me and not at Tim?

Where was Tim?

“Hi, Delma,” I said. “So glad you're here, too.” I tried to sound relieved and happy, although the opposite was true thanks to the gun. “You found this place, too. I'm really happy you're here to help save the dogs. And maybe also Janelle.”

“Yeah, well, part of that's true. But what trumps it all is saving myself—and getting some more money out of the damn situation.”

She waved the gun at me, her hand long-fingered and steady. The snub nose on her round, forty-something face no longer looked cutish, but that could also be because of the angry dip of her black brows and the grim set to her mouth. Neal had mentioned seeing her short temper. I'd noticed it before, too, but not as bad as this.

“Come on in and sit down. We'll talk,” she said.

I couldn't exactly tell her no. Nor did it make sense to duck and run. I'd never get away without being shot, if that was her intent. And judging by the way she kept that gun pointed at me, I couldn't assume otherwise.

What was really going on?

Yes, I'd considered her a suspect, but not very seriously.

Not till now.

“Sure.” I took a few steps forward. There had to be a door open into the yard since I was suddenly surrounded by dogs, and they appeared to be the same ones I'd seen outside. No Boston terrier, though, so Delma's dog Shobie wasn't here. Was he back at the hotel with Janelle and Go?

One of the Irish setters bulldozed his way through the rest and came up to me, nuzzling my hand as if demanding to be petted. Of course I complied. I even bent and started hugging and caressing all of the dogs I could reach, for my comfort as well as theirs.

Poor things. They had to have been the ones who'd been dognapped, most likely all from loving homes. Now, they probably weren't receiving much individual attention, if any.

I realized I was still carrying the treats I'd brought, in a plastic bag dangling from my arm. I carefully tucked it under my arm so it wouldn't open. The aroma must be attracting the dogs. When I eventually parceled out the biscuits, I would make sure they each got some, not just the dogs who considered themselves alphas and got closest to me.

Assuming I would be able to feed them at all.

I realized then how absurd this was. Though I didn't understand why, my life was in danger, and yet I felt in some ways more worried about how to give out treats fairly. I must be in some kind of shock.

I gave a few more pats to doggy heads in black fur and red and brown and white, then straightened up.

Nothing had changed. Delma still pointed the gun at me.

I wished, instead of the treats, that I'd brought Neal's hiking staff with me. But it might only have given me a false sense of security. Against a gun?

I shook my head in confusion and disgust. “Do you care to explain what's going on? How did you find this place? And where's Tim?”

“I've got you to thank for finding this place. I followed you.”

Really? How? I hadn't noticed anyone else. But maybe she'd done as I had and stayed back—and been smarter, turning onto this narrow road into the woods.

And if so, why had she been following me in the first place? Had she been at the shelter, too, hoping to help some of the stolen dogs?

I started to ask her, but she gestured with the gun. “I'll show you where Tim is,” she said. I wouldn't have objected anyway, but now I definitely started walking in the direction she designated.

The cabin was every bit as dilapidated inside as it appeared from the outside. If there ever had been any plaster or other covering lining the walls, it wasn't there any longer. All that showed was wood that appeared to be rotting, especially around the windows, just like on the outside. I saw no furniture except for a mattress on the floor beneath one of those windows, with dirty, crumpled sheets on it.

The place, not unexpectedly, smelled like dogs and their excrement, which also was visible here and there on the equally decrepit wooden floor.

If this had once been someone's beloved getaway cabin, it sure hadn't been maintained. Maybe it was a good place to hide stolen dogs, but it probably wasn't usable for much else.

Delma gestured for me to go through one of two doors in the only wall I saw on the inside, also made of disintegrating wood. In moments, I stood on a half-disappeared linoleum floor—and across what must once have been a kitchen I saw Tim lying on his back. He looked unconscious, but was it worse?

Was he dead?

I hurried over to him and looked down. I saw a little bit of motion as his chest rose and fell. I noticed no blood, so maybe Delma hadn't shot him.

“Good, you found him,” I said, rising again to look at her. Dogs had also followed us in here, and that gun was still trained on me. “Let's call the police so they can pick him up and question him. Since he's got to be the one who killed Ada, they'll stop harassing Janelle.”

I knew things weren't that simple, though. Sure enough, Delma just laughed, a gritty, almost evil sound.

“No, if they come, they might start questioning me. Sure, they'd leave Janelle alone then—since they'd have that bitch's real killer in custody.”

I'd kind of suspected that, from the moment I'd first seen Delma plus gun. What I didn't know was why.

“I see,” I said, not really seeing at all. “What happened, Delma? Did Ada attack you first?”

Another laugh. “No, she just refused to answer my question.”

I continued staring at her with an expression I hoped looked both quizzical and sympathetic, as if I might think she was a victim in this situation, too.

For all I knew, maybe she was.

“I … I'm sorry,” I said, hoping to encourage her to continue.

“Well, you will be.” When I just continued to look at Delma, she shook her head. “I might as well tell you about it, since it's kind of the reason you're about to die.”

I tried unsuccessfully not to flinch. Was there no way to save myself?

At least I had help on the way, but would Garvy get here in time? The cops surely wouldn't, if they even decided to pay attention to what I'd told them.

I wished there was someplace to sit down besides the decaying floor. My knees were weak, and I didn't want to fall.

“Yes, please tell me,” I said hoarsely.

“It's like this. Shobie and I went with Janelle a lot to those dog parks, including when dogs went missing. We talked about it a lot, too: who was stealing the animals? There were other people who did like we did and visited a number of dog parks at different times, and we started keeping track of who was where when, of those we saw multiple times. That included Ada Arnist and her friend Tim Smith.”

I nodded encouragingly. “That's what I understood from Janelle.”

“The dog thefts started, then went on for a while. There were dozens of people who hit all those parks, so figuring out who was stealing wasn't going to be easy. But one thing I noticed was that none of the people whose dogs were taken received any ransom demands.”

“But—” I began.

“Yeah, yeah, that's not what got into the news or what Janelle said. I know that. But it wasn't the dognappers who started doing that.” Her smile grew big and appeared proud. “It was
moi
.”

“What do you mean?” I demanded, then took a deep breath. It did no good to come down hard on her verbally for this, even though it had to have made the human victims feel even worse.

“All the dogs being stolen were purebreds or designer dogs. Since none of their owners were being contacted to pay up to get their dogs back, I assumed they were selling them instead to other people at premium prices. Pedigrees? I don't know what they did about that, but I assume they'd figured out some way to counterfeit them. That gave me a really welcome opportunity, since I've been having some money issues, thanks to the paltry pay I get as a teacher.”

I saw where this was heading. “So you demanded ransoms despite not being able to deliver the stolen dogs if people paid up.”

“You got it. And I got it—a fair amount of money. But—well, my conscience started nagging at me, especially when Janelle's Go disappeared. We talked a lot, and Janelle settled on Ada as the most likely thief because of how often she and Tim showed up at some of the parks where dogs were disappearing. Ada had talked a lot about her family home in the mountains, and then just stopped showing up at the parks. So after Go disappeared, Janelle decided to come here to check out the place, and I joined her. We pressed Ada for an answer, and she denied everything. But lo and behold, Go showed up at that shelter. I wanted the other dogs, too. I would still demand ransom, yes, but then I'd do a good deed by actually delivering the missing dogs this time, saying I found them and getting rewards as well.”

“I take it that didn't work out.” The longer I kept her talking, the longer I'd stay alive—maybe. I still hoped that help would arrive in the form of Garvy, but I couldn't count on it. My mind frantically sought a way to stop Delma.

“No. Ada wouldn't answer my questions about where she'd put the dogs, of course. Even when we found out where her family lived, we didn't find the dogs there. By that time, Janelle and I had figured that Tim was doing some of the stealing, but Ada was doing most of it and bringing the dogs to town a few at a time. Tim was in charge of hiding them till they could sell them. So the night of Janelle's celebration … well, I went back to our hotel and pretended to feel really sick, told Janelle I'd go down to the lobby restroom for a while to throw up. Instead, I went back to the resort, saw that Ada was still there, and followed her when she left. I was really glad when she walked farther down the beach, where it was dark. I grabbed her then, threw her into the water, and planned to hold her head mostly underwater till she told me where the dogs were. She was strong, but not stronger than me, so it was working—but then she stopped breathing altogether. I couldn't bring her back, so I left her. I didn't think the cops would assume it was anything but an accidental drowning, even though I knew I might have left bruises on her. She could have gotten bruised just by falling into the lake or trying to get out.”

Bruised around the neck and head? I'd heard about the bruising there on Ada, but I wasn't going to mention it now.

“Anyway,” Delma continued, “the cops did look at it as a murder after all. And unfortunately, since Janelle and she had argued that night, it was logical to accuse Janelle.”

“You were going to let your friend take the blame for murder?” I was incensed but kept my voice level.

“I liked the idea of blaming it on Tim,” Delma countered defensively. “So did you, and I encouraged that. But the whole situation made me truly feel ill—for a while.”

I'd wondered about sharing my thoughts—and I was sorry now that I'd said anything. Delma's eyes had been drifting away from me a little as she spoke, but now they centered on me again, almost accusingly.

“Yes. It made sense,” I said, not looking at the still-unconscious body of Tim lying on the floor near us.

But Delma glanced at him. “So here's how things are going to go now. You accused Tim, and he's going to prove his guilt by shooting you. Then he'll drive his car into the lake and die, too, out of remorse. There's another small road near here where that can happen, and I've got gloves and all so it'll all work out fine.”

I saw a lot of potential flaws in her idea, including her current grip on the gun, but I didn't want to point them out to her. She probably already had some ideas on how to wipe the gun clean and wrap Tim's hand around it and whatever else might be necessary to make her imaginary scenario come true.

So what was I going to do?

By then, all the dogs had lain down on what passed for a floor in this place. They weren't going to be particularly helpful.

Then—

A noise. Had I really heard something? It seemed to come from beyond the door leading into this non-kitchen.

I glanced again at Delma. Had she heard it? She didn't look concerned, so maybe not.

Suddenly, a form stepped through that doorway. Garvy!

“Look out, she's got a gun!” I shouted to him.

I expected him to lift a weapon of his own from a holster or pocket or whatever. After all, I'd called to tell him where I was, where he could find the dogs he'd been hired by a bunch of people down the hill to find. He worked in a form of law enforcement, even if it was private.

He would save me.

But he just looked at me, nodded, and then smiled at Delma.

“Good work,” he told her.