To Sketch a Thief (4 page)

Chapter 3

A
heavyset woman in her forties, with pepper-and-salt hair as short as a man’s and a deep shelf of a bosom, stood frozen in the kitchen entryway. She’d run out of voice, but her mouth was still wide open. She clamped her plump hands over it as if she were afraid of what else might jump out.

Rory saw the color drain out of her cheeks as she started to rock back on the heels of her flip-flops. For a woman of her girth, she had surprisingly slender legs and delicate ankles. Rory noted this as she was rushing toward her. She grabbed hold of the woman’s substantial forearm before she could rock backward again and overbalance. It was like playing tug-of-war with the law of gravity, and for a few hectic moments it seemed that gravity might win.

Fortunately the pressure of Rory’s hand seemed to focus the woman, bringing her around like someone being awakened from a trance. Once she was in control of her faculties, she was able to help keep herself upright. Rory waited a few moments to make sure that her charge was no longer in danger of keeling over, before she maneuvered her out of the doorway and down the hall toward the front door. The woman rocked from side to side as she walked, as if she were trying to navigate the deck of a ship in heavy seas.

“What happened to Brenda?” she asked breathlessly. “Where are you taking me?”

“This is a crime scene, ma’am,” Rory said, “so we’re going to have to leave the premises and wait outside for the police.”

The woman nodded, her double chin waggling, the leather tote on her arm swinging back and forth with each step like the pendulum on a grandfather clock.

When they were outside, Rory helped steady her as she sat down on the top step.

“Can I get you some water?” she asked, remembering the unopened bottle in her car.

The question didn’t seem to register with the woman, who was busy riding her own train of thought.

Rory repeated the question.

“No—yes—I mean . . . oh dear,” she said, struggling to regroup from the grisly scene in the kitchen. “No, no water. I don’t need water.”

Rory had yet to meet anyone in this situation who actually needed water. Some of them would say yes to the offer, but after an initial sip would just hold on to the glass or bottle until someone else relieved them of it.

“What happened to Brenda?” the woman asked, her cheeks beginning to pink up. “Is she . . . dead?” She whispered the word “dead” as if saying it aloud would give it too much power, make it more irrevocable than it already was.

“Yes, I’m afraid she was gone when I got here,” Rory said. “I’m so sorry.”

“Right.” The woman bobbed her head, then looked up at Rory as if she were seeing her for the first time. “Who are you?”

“Rory McCain.” She held out her hand and the woman grasped it more as a lifeline than a handshake. Rory could feel her trembling, vibrating as if her whole body were a tuning fork. “How did you know Brenda, Mrs. . . . ?”

“Sugarman . . . Marti Sugarman. Brenda’s one of my closest friends . . . oh dear.” Her hand went to her mouth again. “I guess I should have said
was.
For more than ten years. In fact she called me just this morning and asked me to come over. Were you a friend of hers too?”

“No, I never actually met her,” Rory said, gently withdrawing her hand since it was becoming awkward to stand there, leaning over and holding hands with Marti. “I found Hobo wandering around near my house. When I saw the address on his ID tag I figured I’d bring him back.”

“That was very nice of you,” Marti said, social conditioning kicking in on autopilot. “Hobo can be a handful, but . . . wait a minute, where’s Tootsie?”

“Who’s Tootsie?”

“Brenda’s Maltese.” Marti looked around the small front yard as if perhaps Tootsie might have been there all along and just escaped her notice.

“I haven’t seen another dog since I’ve been here,” Rory said, flashing back to the photos on the mantel. So the little white dog with Hobo was a Maltese who presumably answered to the name of Tootsie.

Marti’s eyes were filled with a new horror. “Do you think this was a dog abduction gone wrong?”

“I think Tootsie probably just ran off like Hobo when the intruder left the door open,” Rory said. Why look for zebras when there were perfectly good horses around?

Marti didn’t seem convinced; worry worked at the lines between her eyebrows. “I have a bad feeling about all this,” she murmured as the first police car turned onto the street, followed closely by an unmarked unit, both with sirens wailing.

Rory wondered how it would have been possible to have a
good
feeling about her friend’s violent death, let alone her missing dog, but she chalked the remark up to shock. Surely Marti hadn’t meant it the way it sounded.

The police cruiser pulled up to the curb and two uniformed cops jumped out, one of them holding a reel of yellow crime scene tape. The unmarked car swung into the driveway, coming to an abrupt stop inches from Rory’s Volvo, the rear half sticking out into the street. Two detectives emerged and conferred briefly with the patrolmen, who then began to set up a perimeter to protect the crime scene and keep the curious away.

Rory met the detectives halfway down the walk. The older one was in the lead. Rory pegged him for maybe fifty, a hard fifty. He was tall and reedy, with hollowed cheeks that looked like he’d sucked a few too many lemons dry.

“McCain?” he said, coming to a stop in front of her.

“Rory McCain.” She nodded. “Detective Cirello?”

“Can you show me some ID?” he asked, ignoring her question.

Given the circumstances, Rory decided to let the snub go. After all, without ID she could claim to be anyone. For all he knew, she could be the killer. It wouldn’t be the first time that kind of thing had happened. And if the proverbial shoe were on the other foot, she might be just as wary.

“I’m afraid I left it home,” she said, adding the short version of why she was at the crime scene.

“Harvey, she’s the one headquarters vouched for,” the younger detective said. He had a thatch of red hair and the fullness of youth about his face. “She was with Homicide till a few months ago.”

“Yeah, now I remember hearing about you on the news.” Harvey scowled at her. “Gave the department a bit of a black eye closing those cases by your lonesome.”

“I just got lucky.” Rory shrugged, wondering what expression they’d wear if she told them she hadn’t done it alone, that she’d had help from a certain U.S. marshal who’d been dead for a century or so. “Besides, I was on the job at the time. My win was a win for all of us.”

Harvey refused to be jollied. He turned his attention to Marti, who actually seemed to shrink under his scrutiny. “Who are
you
?”

Marti heaved herself up and tottered down the steps to stand beside Rory. “I’m Martha Sugarman,” she said respectfully. “I was a friend of Brenda’s.”

“Did Brenda have a last name?”

“Well, yes; yes, of course she did,” Marti said, flustered by his sarcasm.

“And what would that be?”

“Hartley. Brenda Hartley.”

“She was the single owner of the residence,” the young detective said. “I checked it out.”

“Don’t know what I’d do without Danny Boy the computer geek,” Harvey said dryly.

To Rory there was nothing good-natured in the ribbing. She’d had enough. She was about to tell Harvey what she thought of his social skills, but Danny caught her eye and, with the barest of head movements, made it clear that he didn’t want her to say anything.

“Where’s the deceased?” Harvey went on, oblivious to the undercurrent swirling around him.

“In the kitchen,” Rory said tightly, “exactly as I found her.” She’d be damned if she was going to be pleasant to this boor. She took less than a minute to tell him where she and Marti had been in the house and that she’d secured Hobo in the backyard.

Harvey wagged his head as if he were tired of suffering the fools of the world and made his way up to the front door. “Hang around,” he threw over his shoulder as he walked inside. “Homicide’s gonna be here soon.”

“Thanks for your help, ladies,” Danny murmured before following his partner into the house. He said it with the easy grace of one who’s had a lot of practice smoothing ruffled feathers.

“I have to wait here for some other detectives?” A peevish tone had crept into Marti’s voice, and she was starting to sound more put out than saddened by her friend’s death.

Rory nodded. “The detectives from Homicide will need to speak to us. If you have another appointment, you should cancel it A murder investigation takes precedence over pretty much everything else, short of a stroke or a heart attack.”

Marti made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a sigh and went back to her seat on the front stoop. Too restless to sit down, Rory walked around the side of the house to check on Hobo. He met her at the gate, tail wagging, butt wiggling with pleasure at seeing her. She was surprised by the enthusiasm of his greeting, until she realized that on this sad day she was the most familiar face around. Well, Marti was there of course, but either his nose hadn’t told him she was nearby or she wasn’t on his list of favorite humans.

She hung out with him there, the chain-link fence between them making her feel like she was visiting a prisoner at a work camp. Ten minutes later she saw Leah’s unmarked car arrive, her partner Jeff riding shotgun. In spite of how much Rory enjoyed being self-employed, she sorely missed her closest friend. When she’d left the police department, they’d vowed to see each other regularly. But life had a habit of getting in the way, especially for Leah, who had a husband and three kids. So they did their best to enjoy whatever time they spent together, even if it was during the course of work.

Leah walked across the lawn to Rory. She was wearing her business face, her wild curls pulled back in a sturdy clip. Off duty, Leah left her hair unfettered so that it framed her face and softened her angular features. She’d recently complained to Rory that the few gray hairs she’d had at thirty were well on their way to claiming dominion over the brown hair of her youth. Any day now she’d be joining the ranks of the dye dependent.

The two women hugged and Rory provided her with what little information she had. By the time they’d walked back to the stoop, Jeff was done questioning Marti. He handed her his card in case she thought of anything else that might be helpful.

“Why don’t you go on inside?” Leah said to him. “I’ll be right there.”

“So that’s it?” Marti asked, glancing longingly at her green Highlander parked across the street.

“Wait a minute,” Rory said. “What about Hobo? Do you think you could take him home for the night?”

“Hobo?” she repeated, as if it were the strangest request she’d ever heard. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. No, no, that’s not a good idea at all.”

“But he knows you and it doesn’t have to be a permanent thing. Just to get him over this rough spot. I’d hate to have to turn him over to Animal Control after what he’s been through today.”

“He doesn’t get along with my dog,” Marti said, her mouth setting in a stubborn line.

“But surely you could manage for one night, considering the circumstances and all. I’m sure it’s what Brenda would have wanted,” Rory added, playing what she thought was her trump card.

Marti wasn’t budging. “I’m afraid it’s out of the question,” she said, her words snapping like a flag in a high wind. “Am I allowed to go now?”

Leah looked at Rory, who just shrugged. They couldn’t very well detain her until she broke down and agreed to take Hobo, even if the idea was somewhat appealing.

“Yeah, you can go,” Leah told her.

“Wouldn’t your dog like a playmate?” Rory asked her as they watched Marti toddle off in her flip-flops.

“Not a chance, my friend. You had a better shot with Marti.”

The CSI van arrived as Marti was pulling out. Other cars crawled by, the drivers trying to figure out what was going on in their neighborhood. A crowd of people had gathered on the lawn across the street, courtesy of the local gossip mill. Dinner and homework were forgotten. Kids threw Frisbees they could barely see in the waning light or ran after the last lightning bugs of the season. TV crews and reporters were suddenly swarming everywhere, like cicadas that had sprung straight from the ground. The police called in reinforcements. Brenda’s death had become an event.

Cirello and his partner emerged from the house and headed back to their car.

“I’d better get in there,” Leah said. “Why don’t you take the dog, Rory? He’d be good company for you.”

Good idea, Rory wanted to say, except I live with a ghost who’s got dog issues.

Cirello paused beside her. “Did you call the pound to come for the mutt?” He said it in much the same way he might have said, “Did you take out the trash?”

“Don’t worry,” Rory said tightly, “I’m on it.”

Danny heard the disgust in her voice and lagged back long enough to commiserate. “I sure wish I could take him. He looks like a great dog. But my wife’s allergic.”

Everyone seemed to have an excuse, but since Rory couldn’t bring herself to abandon poor Hobo at the pound on the night that he was orphaned, she found herself driving home with him once again in the backseat of her car, along with a leash and a twenty-pound bag of kibble.

Chapter 4

R
ory pulled into her driveway, turned off the engine and sat there trying to figure out the best way to introduce Zeke to their new boarder. Fifteen minutes passed without a single epiphany. Hobo whimpered and snuffled the back of her neck, confused as to why they were still sitting in a car that wasn’t moving. Rory reached up and scratched his head to comfort him, wishing someone would do the same for her. She was tired and in no mood to do battle with an irascible ghost.

To make matters worse, the house looked far from inviting. She hadn’t left any lights on, since she’d expected to be back in twenty minutes. So much for expectations. The closest street lamp cast only a dim puddle of light that barely reached her property line. In front of her, the house loomed dark and somehow larger than it should have been, as if it had lost its familiar contours and was merging with the night.

“Stop it! Just stop it!” she scolded herself out loud, causing Hobo to immediately stop nuzzling her neck.

“Oh, not you, you silly boy,” she said, her voice dropping into the soft, cooing tone she generally reserved for babies. “Not you.”

What was happening to her? She’d never been one of the delicate, faint-of-heart types. This was her house and it was dark simply because it was nighttime. There was nothing sinister or otherworldly about it. Well, except for Zeke of course. And she had no intentions of letting him wield this much power over her. If she wanted to have a dog, she was damn well going to have a dog!

She stepped out of the car as if she were setting foot on Omaha Beach. There would be no withdrawing in disgrace. She opened the rear door and Hobo jumped out. She grabbed hold of his leash as he started up the walkway ahead of her. No ambivalence there.

When they reached the front door, Hobo stopped suddenly and Rory rammed full tilt into him. As she was trying to keep herself from flying headfirst into the door, she wondered what had caused the dog’s sudden loss of initiative. Had he smelled, heard or intuited in his canine bones that all was not as it should be in this house? That someone who had shuffled off his mortal coil still somehow resided here? At that moment, while she was still partially draped over Hobo’s back, the house lit up like an elaborate birthday cake. Every light inside went on simultaneously, as if someone had hit a master switch. Or a certain ghost was trying to make a point. Hobo yelped and danced backward several feet, dislodging Rory in the process. She picked herself up and snagged a handful of his fur before he could flee any farther. On any other night she might have enjoyed the light show, but given the current circumstances a less dramatic homecoming would have suited her just fine.

It took all of her strength to drag the trembling Hobo indoors, and once there he stuck to her side as if he’d been sewn on to it, his tail tucked securely between his legs. Zeke was standing near the staircase, arms folded, glowering at them.

“I thought you were taking the dog back where it belonged.”

“So did I,” Rory said, “but as you might have learned some years back, and in this very house, things don’t always work out the way you’d like them to.” With Hobo matching her step for step, she gave Zeke a wide berth, dropped her jacket and keys on the bench beside the stairs and headed for the kitchen. She unhooked Hobo’s leash and filled a bowl with water for him. He wasn’t interested. His food was still in the car, but she doubted that he was any more hungry than he was thirsty. He was locked into full survival mode, which for the moment seemed to mean cowering under her protection. There was a pretty good chance that the marshal was his first ghost. She could empathize completely.

Zeke appeared beside the center island, causing Hobo to give a high-pitched yelp of surprise and ratchet his shaking up to something measurable on the Richter scale.

“I assume there’s more to the story,” Zeke said, his tone reminding Rory of an unpleasant trip to the principal’s office in junior high. “Seein’ as how you were gone for hours.”

“Only if you consider murder worth mentioning,” she said tightly. “And I’d drop the attitude if I were you.” She pulled a half-full bottle of pinot noir out of the refrigerator and poured herself a glass. She needed a drink even if Hobo didn’t.

She could tell by the way Zeke’s eyebrows had inched upward that she’d piqued his curiosity. But his jaw was still set hard. He wasn’t going to be bought out of his anger all that easily.

Fine with her. If he was determined to be in a black mood, she had no obligation to coax him out of it. She took her glass to the table and sank into one of the chairs, her back to him. Now that she had a lap, Hobo wanted to be in it. She tried a variety of commands to dissuade him, before succeeding with “off.” Even then it took a firm voice and a lot of pushing to keep him on the floor. Denied that comfort, he burrowed his way under her legs like a self-guided hassock.

Zeke was silent. Either he was still standing where she’d left him or he’d gone back to whatever dimension he inhabited when he wasn’t co-opting her life. She didn’t even bother turning around to check. She was finally starting to relax from the tensions of the last few hours, a sweet lassitude hitching a ride on the wine that was spilling through her body. She could almost have convinced herself that she lived in an ordinary house where the paranormal was trapped safely within the pages of books by Dean Koontz and Stephen King.

A moment later Zeke popped into the seat across the table from her, shattering the lovely fantasy and causing Hobo to renew his campaign to launch himself into her lap. It took her another five minutes to calm the dog from panicked to merely frightened again.

She thought of asking the marshal to confine his movements to the more traditional kind for poor Hobo’s sake, but he was probably trying to prove that he could make her life miserable too. Of course, in the end she and Zeke both knew that she held the wild card in their little game. That card was the house, Mac’s house, with its precious cache of memories tucked away in every corner. It would be almost like losing him again if she had to sell it, but she would, if living there with Zeke became untenable. Mac would understand. And as hard as it would be for her, it would be even harder for Zeke. He’d once again be subjected to a parade of owners who would pack up and run at the first hint of ghostly goings-on. How long might it take before he found another sympathetic, open-minded buyer who would not only hang around and put up with his antics, but also try to help him solve the mystery of who had murdered him? Rory doubted there was a matchmaking website for lonely ghosts.

“I’m guessin’ the deceased was the mutt’s owner,” Zeke said casually, as if they’d been having a polite conversation all along.

In the name of tranquility, Rory decided to accept the scrawny olive branch he was extending. “Brenda Hartley,” she said, between sips of wine. “And the dog’s name is Hobo.”

“Hobo, right. So, for some strange reason you’re feelin’ obligated to give Hobo here a home?”

“I haven’t decided yet. For now I’m just boarding him overnight.”

“Don’t I get a vote?”

“It wouldn’t matter, since I have veto power,” she said, realizing a moment too late that she probably could have chosen a more diplomatic way to put it. Still, the truth was the truth no matter how you disguised it.

Zeke’s face clamped down again. “So do I,” he growled under his breath.

So much for détente. Rory was quickly running out of patience and the virtue that came with it. She tried another tactic. “Do you want to hear about the case or not?”

Zeke took a moment to assess the playing field. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, “I surely do.”

Rory swore she heard a note of mockery in his voice, but she let it go. She had no interest in spending the rest of the night in a pitched battle with him. Instead, she gave him a quick recap of what had happened at the Hartley home. Having already briefed Cirello and Leah she had the story pared down to its essentials.

“Any valuables missin’?” Zeke asked, following her lead into neutral territory. “Place torn up at all?”

“Nothing looked out of order, but I never went upstairs.”

“It’s a damn shame I don’t know how to get outta this place when I want. I could’ve scouted out the rest of that house for you and no one would ever have been the wiser.”

Rory almost groaned out loud. With all that had happened, she’d forgotten about his attempt to materialize in Brenda’s house. The last thing she wanted to do at that moment was dig up another bone of contention for them to argue over. Unfortunately the subject needed to be addressed and there was no point in postponing it now that he had brought it up.

“I’m sure that’ll be a help one day,” she said wearily, “but not until you’ve gotten it down pat and we’ve worked out a way to be sure no one else is around to catch your little ‘beam me up, Scotty’ routine.”

Zeke’s brows bunched together over his eyes. “I’m not sure I get your drift. Sometimes you make less sense than a hat without a brim.”

“Sorry, it’s an expression from an old TV series. Just about anyone alive today would understand the reference.”

“Right there’s your first problem,” he said, doing a slow fade out then in again to underscore his point.

“There’s a second?”

“Folks these days spend entirely too much time starin’ at one kind of screen or another.”

Rory could hardly argue with that nugget of wisdom, nor did she want to. All she really wanted at that moment was to eat the leftover slice of pizza that was waiting on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator and crawl into bed. But she had to make sure that she and Zeke were on the same page with regard to his future travel plans.

“Remember the media frenzy after Conti said he was caught by Wyatt Earp? That’ll seem like a flea circus once a few well-respected detectives and solid citizens witness one of your entrances or exits.”

“I suppose as how that might be so,” he conceded in the reluctant tone of one who’s been outflanked by the truth.

“Okay then, we’re agreed that you won’t try to follow me anywhere unless I’ve determined that you won’t have an audience?”

Zeke ran his long, calloused fingers through his hair as he contemplated her request. “Just so long as it’s not an emergency,” he said solemnly, holding out his hand as if to shake on it.

Rory’s heart danced a little bebop up into her throat. She was about to find out what ghosts were made of or risk offending the marshal. She pasted a smile on her mouth and put out her hand, determined to keep it steady. She was inches away from touching him when he pulled his hand back.

“That’s okay, darlin’,” he said, laughing, “I’ll consider the effort done for the deed.”

Rory shrugged as if it didn’t matter to her one way or the other, but relief surged through her as her heart settled back into place. She’d let him enjoy this little triumph at her expense. She was satisfied that she’d won the other rounds of the bout.

“You have yourself a good night there with Hobo the lionhearted,” Zeke said and he was gone while his words still hung in the air.

Hobo waited a minute, snuffled the air and decided that it was safe enough to leave his hidey-hole beneath Rory’s legs. But he wouldn’t venture far from her side. Together they took the slice of pizza out of the refrigerator and heated it back to crispness in a pan on the stove—a little trick she’d learned from a chef on TV. While it cooked, Hobo rediscovered his appetite and was rewarded with a good portion of the crust.

After dinner, Rory brought in the bag of kibble and scooped some into a bowl that she left beside his water dish. If she was going to keep Hobo she’d have to buy him proper dog bowls as well as some toys and maybe a bed of his own. But that wasn’t a decision she wanted to make until she’d had a good night’s sleep.