Dog Days (12 page)

She seemed to debate for a moment whether the best use of her time was to follow protocol and drive all the way out in the country to collect the evidence from me, or to bend the rules a little and allow me to bring it in to her. Then she said, “Half an hour.” She disconnected.

~*~

I don’t usually take the dogs with me on rides this time of year, but after losing Cameo once I was not at all comfortable leaving her at home alone. It went without saying that I couldn’t take Cameo anywhere without also taking Cisco, so I crated Pepper, Mischief, and Magic, loaded up Cisco and Cameo in the backseat of the SUV, and started for town.

To me, there is nothing prettier than a lighted Ferris wheel at dusk, and the sight of it turning so gracefully against the blue-gray sky as we approached the fairgrounds was enough to soothe my jangled nerves. Tonight was opening night of the county fair, and even though the contest judging and entertainment events wouldn’t officially begin until tomorrow, the parking lot was almost full when I pulled in. I showed my pass and drove around the dirt path to the lot that was reserved for staff and volunteers. It was located behind the carnival attractions, on the edge of a wide weedy field that was surrounded by woods.. There were a some equipment trailers and supply trucks parked at the far end of the field, where they would remain until the fair closed down next weekend.  I parked in the shade behind the carousel, rolling down all the windows halfway before I got out. The sound of calliope music and the smell of popcorn floated in through the open windows and suddenly I was hungry again. Suddenly I missed Miles, and Melanie, so intensely that it hurt.

I had no time to feel sorry for myself, however. The temperature had dropped to the seventies, which felt cool after the scorching day, but I knew the dogs would not be comfortable in the car for very long, and Jolene was waiting for me. I shook off the emptiness with a single deep breath and got out.

“Five minutes, guys,” I promised, and I hurried around the car to get the quilt out of the back.

As I closed the door and punched “lock” on my key fob—which was a little silly, since anyone could just reach inside and unlock the doors—I remembered the evidence in my glove box. It was locked, of course, but with the windows open it didn’t feel secure to me. So I went back, removed the little button from the car, and tucked it securely into the zippered pocket inside my purse. “Five minutes,” I repeated to the dogs, relocked the car, and left at a trot.

It could not have taken me more than five minutes to find the church booth, admire the display of crafts the Women’s Auxiliary was selling, and help Mrs. Whitaker hang the quilt with clothespins from the rope that had been strung across the back of the booth. She thanked me all the while and assured me I didn’t have to make a special trip, that tomorrow would have been soon enough, and I assured her it was no trouble at all and I was happy to help. I made my escape with a wave and a promise to stop back by tomorrow to buy something.

I paused to wave at Sonny, who was working the Humane Society booth with Hero, and called, “Can’t stop! Dogs in the car!” She waved back, sending me on my way, and I walked quickly back toward the car.

There was a crowd at the carousel and I edged my way through, holding on to the strap of my shoulder bag. Shrill-voiced children bounced up and down, pointing toward the horse they wanted to ride while moms and dads jostled for their places and tried to keep their cool. There was a guy in a red-striped hat hawking bags of peanuts, and one of the Rotary Club men, dressed in a tuxedo, moved through the crowd doing magic tricks with coins and cards. I saw the clown, but I paid him very little notice. I saw a lot of things.

I had mostly made my way through the press and was headed toward the dirt path that led toward the back gate when someone bumped me hard. I started to turn and then someone grabbed my purse. I yelled, “Hey!” and grabbed back, whirling. I had a brief, startled glimpse of fuzzy red hair, a polka-dot bow-tie, a clown mask, and then my legs were kicked out from under me and I went down hard in the gravel.

When I looked up the clown, and my purse, were gone.

CHAPTER TEN

“I
already told you,” I said to Mike, the deputy who was interviewing me. I winced as the paramedic dabbed at my bloody knee with an alcohol-soaked pad. “He was wearing jeans and a tee shirt of some kind. A polka-dot bow tie that looked like it was part of the clown face. And it wasn’t a regular painted-on clown face. It was a mask, like …”

“Like this one?” Deke, one of Buck’s top deputies, pushed into the small first-aid tent with a latex mask in his hand, complete with attached fuzzy red wig and a sewn-on yellow polka-dot tie.

“That’s it!” I brushed away the ministrations of the paramedic and got to my feet excitedly, barely restraining myself from reaching for the evidence. “Where’d you find it?”

“They sell them at a booth right near the entrance.” Deke ignored me and spoke to Mike. “We found this one in the trash can next to the corn-dog stand.”

“See if anybody saw the man who threw it away,” Mike said.

“Maybe the owner of the booth remembers who bought it,” I suggested, and Mike gave me a barely tolerant look. Most of the guys at the department liked me okay, but none of them appreciated it when I tried to help them do their jobs. Besides, this was a purse snatching, not a homicide, and I guessed they wouldn’t spend a whole lot of time trying to solve it. There would probably be a half dozen more before the fair was over.

The paramedic who was in charge of the first-aid tent said, “Do you want me to wrap that for you?”

I could only guess it had been a slow night for him. “I’m not six,” I replied impatiently. “It’s fine.” And then I added, because I knew I sounded rude, “Thanks.” The truth was, I had had ACL surgery on that knee last year and it really hurt. I limped a little as I moved toward the front of the tent. I saw someone approaching who made me very unhappy, and I looked at Mike.

“You radioed this in?” I said accusingly. “You couldn’t wait until your shift ended and write a report like a normal person?”

Now he was starting to look annoyed. “It’s procedure.”

The paramedic said, “You should get a tetanus shot.”

I waved him off distractedly. “I’m up to date.” In my line of work I got a tetanus shot every year whether I needed it or not.

Jolene drew up before me, hands on her utility belt, glowering. “I might’ve known.” She looked me up and down, then turned to Mike. “What happened?”

Mike looked uneasy, as he often did in the presence of Jolene. “Looks like a simple purse snatching to me. Deke’s out talking to witnesses, but we don’t have much. I didn’t know they were going to call in the K-9.”

But even as he spoke Jolene swiveled her head back to me, her nostrils flaring, her gaze boring a hole through me. She said lowly, “Don’t tell me.”

“Well, what I was supposed to do?” I shot back. “I was on my way to bring it to you! How did I know someone was going to steal my purse?”

She turned sharply back to Mike. “This is a priority. I want that thief. More importantly, I want the purse.”

Mike hesitated. He and Deke were assigned to the fair and had caught the case; she wasn’t his boss. He made the mistake of sounding a little too condescending as he said, “We’re doing what we can, Deputy, but you know as well as I do the chances are pretty slim. Most of the time it’s just a random thing, some kid …”

She muttered, “Oh, for God’s sake.”

Jolene swung away to say something into her radio, and Mike gave me a small shrug. He was getting no sympathy from me, though. This might be a routine matter to him, but it was
my
purse that had been stolen.

My spirits rose considerably when I stepped out of the tent and saw Sonny approaching on her motorized scooter. She was dressed in an ankle-length, flowered gauze skirt and wore her silvery hair in a long braid over one shoulder, with amethyst chandelier earrings that brushed her shoulders. She looked as regal as a gypsy queen, riding sidesaddle on the scooter, and people moved aside when she passed. Hero, in his red service dog vest, trotted along beside her, and on the other side were two gorgeous golden retrievers. There weren’t many dogs who would have walked so calmly through the crowd beside a motorized vehicle, and I was proud of the goldens for showing such good manners.

Still, I didn’t want to take a chance of causing an accident, so I waited until she brought the scooter to a stop before I hurried forward to take their leashes. “What good dogs!” I exclaimed. I bent to hug them, because kneeling was impossible. “Great dogs!”

“They were fine,” Sonny said. “I gave them some water, but they were in the shade and didn’t seem the least overheated.”

Sonny had been one of the first to arrive after bystanders pulled me to my feet and called 911. It was she who had insisted I go to the first-aid tent, instead of trying to chase down the thief as I had originally intended. I’d agreed only on the condition that she check on my dogs. Besides, even I knew that by then the thief was long gone, along with all my credit cards and cash.

“Thanks, Sonny.” I smiled at her gratefully as I straightened up, mostly because she understood that, after what had just happened, I wasn’t so much worried about the dogs’ comfort as I was just worried about them.

She said, concerned, “Are you okay, Raine? You look like you were mauled by a bear.”

I shrugged. “I’ll live.” And then my expression sobered as I glanced down at Cameo. “Her owner, the woman I found this morning in the gorge, didn’t make it.”

“Oh, how awful.” Her voice, and her expression, were filled with sympathy. Her gaze traveled to Cameo as well. “What’s going to happen to that beautiful dog?”

“I’ll try to call her dad again when I get home,” I said, “although I hate to bother him at a time like this. I guess she’ll go home with him … if Jolene doesn’t arrest him first.”

She shot me a surprised look. “Really? Do the police think he was involved?”

I was about to answer when Cisco, who had been happily sniffing the ground with Cameo for dropped popcorn and other goodies, suddenly looked up, ears arcing and eyes alighting with excitement. I gave him a quick correction with the leash in anticipation of what I knew was about to happen, because as I always tell my students, the time to intervene is before your dog makes a mistake, not after. He all but ignored me, and, even more remarkable, ignored Cameo, who looked up from her sniffing to regard him curiously. There was only one person who could make Cisco act that way; only one person he loved as much as, if not more than, me. Sheriff Buck Lawson.

I wound an extra loop of leash around my hand and Cisco whimpered with joy, panting and grinning, as Buck approached. I heard Buck say to Jolene, “That won’t be necessary, Deputy.” He held up something to her, and I saw he had my purse in his hand.

Buck glanced at me, and I could see the blue mark that my hand had left across the top of his cheek bone. Cisco rose up on his back legs, pawing at the air, and Buck, noticing him, almost smiled. I stiffened my shoulders and set my jaw as he started toward me. Jolene followed a few steps behind.

Buck nodded at Sonny, “How’re you doing, Sonny?”

She replied pleasantly, “I’m fine, Buck. Surprised to see so many men working on a purse-snatching, though.”

“We don’t like to see this kind of thing get a handhold, first night of the fair and all.”

That was what he said. I think he came because he’d heard my name on the radio. He always came when he heard my name—not because of any particular tenderness, but because of some stupid machismo sense of responsibility that, over the years, had become a habit. Once Mike had told me that they had standing orders to notify the sheriff whenever a call came in from me, because I was family. That might’ve been true when my uncle was in charge, but it was clear Buck needed to make some changes. Especially now that he was married.

Buck handed my purse to me. “We found it in the Dumpster behind the ticket stand. Everything looks like it’s there—phone, driver’s license, credit cards, forty-two dollars in cash?”

I passed the dogs’ leashes to Sonny and grabbed my purse. Buck bent to rub Cisco’s ears, and I thrust my fingers into the zippered pocket inside. It was empty.

I looked at Jolene and she read my face. “Great,” she muttered.

Buck straightened up and looked at her. “What?”

Jolene said, “Sir, Stockton found what she thought might be a micro-transmitter in the collar of the dog belonging to the Madison woman. I asked her to bring it in for examination, and apparently it was stolen.”

Buck scowled. “A micro-transmitter? In a dog’s collar?” He looked at me. “What made you think that’s what it was?”

“I didn’t,” I replied coolly. “Uncle Ro and his friend Marshall Becker did. Marshall said he’d seen something like it used by the FBI.”

I have to say, it gave me a certain amount of pleasure to toss Becker’s name around so casually. And I enjoyed the way Buck’s eyes darkened with questions he was not permitted to ask when I did.

Buck turned on Jolene. “Let me get this straight. You discovered a piece of sophisticated surveillance equipment on a dog belonging to a dead woman and you didn’t think that might be pertinent to our investigation?”

Jolene said stiffly, “Yes sir, I did think it was pertinent. That’s why I wanted to take it into evidence.”

“But you can’t, can you?” His tone was sharp. “Because now it’s been stolen. Why didn’t you go and collect the evidence yourself, Deputy?”

She tightened her lips and raised her chin in the instinctive manner of a soldier accepting discipline, and I knew she wouldn’t defend herself. I said, “Because I volunteered to bring it in. If you ask me …”

Buck shot me a glance. “I’m not asking you.” He demanded curtly, “Check your purse again. Is anything else missing besides the transmitter?”

I checked again. I’m not one to carry around a lot of stuff—my wallet, cell phone, some dog pickup bags, an extra clicker. It was all there. “No. Nothing but the transmitter.”

His frown deepened. “The guy knew what he was looking for then.”

“Sir,” Jolene volunteered, “there’s no reason to think the device wasn’t still active. If it was, the thief may have tracked her here.”

“Good heavens,” said Sonny uneasily.

I had to agree. Creepy.

Buck turned back to Jolene. “Finding this thief is your top priority. I want all the witness reports on my desk by end of shift.” He cast a last, scowling glance at me and added, “Get someone to escort Miss Stockton back to her car.”

“Yes, sir.”

But he was already striding away.

I took the dogs’ leashes from Sonny. “I don’t know about you,” I said, “but I think I’ve had enough fun for one day.”

She nodded agreement and looped Hero’s leash around the handlebar of the scooter. “I’m parked next to you,” she said. “I’ll go with you. You need to go home and take care of that knee.”

We started toward the midway and Jolene fell into step beside us. I said, “I don’t need a police escort.”

“I have my orders,” she replied, and I tried not to roll my eyes.

“Anyway,” I said, trying to be gracious, “I’m sorry you got in trouble. He only yelled at you because he couldn’t yell at me.”

I sensed her sharp intake of breath and thought she was going to make a typical retort. But the words that came out were a rather grudging, “I’m always in trouble with him.”

I murmured, “I know the feeling.”

We moved onto the midway, where the crowd had grown even more now that the sun had fully set. The air was filled with the ping of carnival games and the squeal of children as they sailed by on the tilt-a-whirl; the call of barkers hawking hot dogs, peanuts, and cotton candy; the pervasive, nostalgic sound of calliope music. People smiled and pointed when they saw the parade of dogs, and a little girl almost lost her cotton candy when she lingered too close to Cisco. She was close to Melanie’s age, and I smiled at her even as I spoke sharply to Cisco and pulled him close.

Then, unexpectedly I got a lump in my throat. I missed Melanie. I missed Miles. I missed them so much I couldn’t even think about them, so I blinked away the hot blur in my eyes and started to say something meaningless to Sonny. That was when one of the goldens at my side leapt to the end of the leash with an outburst of excited barking that was interspersed with hopeful, high-pitched whines. It sounded just like Cisco when he anticipates a really tasty treat and loses control … or when he sees Buck. In fact, I was so sure that the culprit was Cisco that I automatically scolded, “Cisco, quiet!” while I reeled in the leash. Cisco, who was already at my side, gave me a puzzled look. The barking and whining was coming from Cameo, and she was as animated as I had ever seen her.

I pulled her back to my side and she swiveled her head around, still barking, although it was beginning to sound a little forlorn now. I turned to follow her gaze, searching the crowd for whatever it was that had set her off. Another dog? A stray cat? I couldn’t think of anything else that would get her so excited and, as hard as I tried, I couldn’t see anything, either.

Cisco gave a couple of supportive barks, but it was clear he didn’t know what he was barking at, and when I told him to sit, he did. So did Cameo, who had apparently lost track of whatever had set her off. She was still panting with excitement though, and her eyes were bright, as though for the first time she was expecting good things in her future.