SLEEPING DOGS (Animal Instincts Book 6) (6 page)

“You mean like leaving the phone behind?” I asked, determine to show them that I could play the same games.

“That was one item, yes,” Siever responded.

I felt at a loss. I really wished that Sheila was here. She would have made some observations that would have led to more questions, but I just felt stymied.

“So when did Ryan find out?” I asked.

“Just before he left for college. He’d gotten a large sum of money from his graduation, and he’d hired a private detective to look into the matter. The man came back and told him that Susan was alive and living in Seattle. At that point, I thought that it was best to tell him everything.” My mother looked at me, and I wondered why she thought it okay to tell my brother everything, but not me.

“So why not me?” The words slipped out without my mouth stopping them. I looked as surprised as they did by the question.

“Griff, you wouldn’t have let it go. Ryan took the news in stride, and then made his plans based on what he’d learned. He opted to take a job out of town, and he didn’t play cops and robbers to find the reasons why she’d left. He was able to take the news that she’d planned this herself and done it for her own reasons. You never would.”

I thought about what she said, and I wasn’t sure that I agreed. I was doing this to find the truth, a truth that had not been made available to me. I hadn’t been able to make any plans based on the truth. I’d been led to believe that she’d been taken at force, and I’d made decisions based on that “truth.” Now I was going to have to reassess my thoughts and my life. The amount of effort and angst it would take to do this overwhelmed me.

“Now your chance,” I said. “You can tell me.”

My mother shook her head, and Siever squeezed her hand. I walked behind them and opened the door leading to the driveway. They turned and started to leave. On the way out, Siever said, “Remember this is still an open case. You could be prosecuted for interfering in the case.”

I shook my head and smiled. “My defense would be that it’s not really open. I’d explain the work I’ve done and the print-outs I’ve made and then where would you be? You’d have to lie on the stand to keep this under wraps or you’d have to tell the truth. So go ahead and try it, because I frankly would love to hear the truth come out in court.”

Siever turned and walked out. I wasn’t sure if I’d won that argument or not, but I was still frustrated with them. After they left, I went to my car and fished under the hood and the wheel wells until I found a GPS device. I stuck the device on my lawnmower, which wouldn’t be moving at all in this weather. Then I went back in and played with the dogs until dinner.

Sheila called after dinner. “I feel like a person again,” she reported to me with a certain amount of glee. “I’m good to go back to work tomorrow.”

“I’m glad to hear that.” I knew that she wouldn’t be down for long. Her personal work ethic involved working through everything short of decapitation. A concussion wouldn’t stand a chance against her.

“How goes the case?” she asked. “Any new leads?”

I told her the story of the tracking device and my mother’s visit along with Siever. She was impressed with the device and not happy with the results of that meeting. While she’d never expressed any opinion on my family, she’d always treated my mother as if she were a recalcitrant witness, which I guess in a way she was. “You always seem to give more than you get with them. You need to let them ask the questions, and then determine why they are asking those particular questions.” We went through the exact questions that I’d been asked. She suggested a few possible counter-questions that I could have asked to turn the tide on the conversation. When I finished with the final question, there was a long pause on the other end.

“It sounds like they’re very concerned about your involvement with the Gillespies. If this is not tied up with Susan, they would have no reason to be so involved and worried about your questioning. Neither of them were ever this concerned about you and any other investigation you barged into.”

She was right. Of course, my mother had asked me to look into a friend’s disappearance after she left her two Scotties alone. She’d been interested in the results, but not necessarily the methods I used to find the truth.

Sheila continued. “For some reason, they want you to stay away from that family. Notice that they didn’t talk about any of the clients or the parents. It’s just the kids they were interested in. Now you just need to determine why they were so concerned. Do they think that the kids killed Mrs. Frias, or was there another reason that we don’t know about?”

I thought about it, but Sheila was right. I was too upset about the way in which it was handled to contemplate what was not being said – and what was being asked. They’d hit me with accusations, which was worsened by knowing that they were dating, and the lies that were so obvious. I had seen red and not thought about what they wanted from the discussion. They seemed to be in collusion to stop things from coming out regarding the Frias murder, when at first glance, neither of them had any stake in the matter. It only fueled my opinion that the two matters were linked.

“So what’s next on the game plan?” she asked. “I don’t know how much time I’ll have to help. I’ve been off two days, which means that the pile on my desk will be threatening to fall over and kill everyone in the place.”

“I want to talk to the girl, the other Gillespie child. I also want to see if this was an isolated robbery or if other cases look similar to it.” If it was part of a bigger pattern, then it was less likely that it had involved my sister.

“I can tell you one thing. There might have been other robberies around that time, but none so gruesome. If you find another case, the house will have been empty, and there was no violence done. This was a particular bloody murder, and any others like it would have been immediate news. However, this has always been the Frias murder – and not part of a series. But you can look if you want.”

“Then it looks like I’ll be relying on one witness here.” I felt useless. The entire case had dwindled down to a single person who might talk to me, or might just never return my email. In most of the other matters I looked into, there were always multiple things to do and learn. I wondered if it was because the case was so old that my leads were scarce, or if this was what the police had encountered when they had investigated the crime.

“Oh yeah, I got the sister’s address and work place too. You’re going to love this one.” Sheila rattled off an address and work name so fast that I had to ask her twice to repeat it. The address was only down the street from her brother’s house. He had made them sound more distance, but I calculated that it couldn’t have been more than a mile or two at most.

The work place was another thing. Gwen Gillespie worked for my vet. It wasn’t a huge surprise, given that she loved dogs, and dog-related jobs are few and far between in Toledo, but it did make life easier. I could get an interview with her through the vet.

I was surprised that Sheila was so relaxed about the vet. My vet had helped with a previous murder case, and during the process of sorting paperwork had made a pass at me. I hadn’t reciprocated. To be honest, I am so far out of the loop that I wasn’t even sure what was going on. It wasn’t until Sheila brought the matter up that I realized she’d been flirting. Sheila had been angry, which had led to a long talk about our relationship and where it was going.

The short version was that we needed to set some boundaries, and one of those was to be exclusivity. It had been an easy conversation on my part, since Sheila was the only woman I’d dated since – well, forever. I wasn’t sure that I needed to spell that out to the vet, or if I could just imply it to her, but I thought I’d try to work mostly with the Gillespie girl and keep my distance from the doctor. Avoidance had always been my best tactic, and I wasn’t about to let go of it now.

“So what did you do with the tracker?” Sheila asked, abruptly changing the subject on me while I was still trying to navigate the ways of dating. I honestly felt that in some ways I’d been lucky not to date. It was difficult and thought-consuming at times.

“I put it on the lawnmower,” I answered, thinking of the device sitting out there waiting for the spring and some grass to actually appear.

“Nuh-huh, here’s what you need to do.” She outlined a rather devious plan that would keep them guessing for a few days. That would give me enough time to talk to more people, and hopefully find out what was going on.

After we hung up, I went for a long walk with the dogs. I didn’t worry about Sheila or Susan tonight. I had my hands full with two Corgis who wanted to pull me the entire way home. I flopped down on the couch after finding something to eat in the house, and fell asleep watching TV with two dogs and a cat for warmth.

The next morning, I called my vet’s office first thing. Rather than go for a personal contact and the need for an introduction, I called the vet, knowing that I would be a known entity there. Corgis are not all that common, and their personalities stand out anywhere. At the vet, both of them are at their most charming, and don’t stop until they have the adulation of everyone there. I was a known entity through my dogs. The Countess could not have cared less about the vet, and she let it be known, like most other cats. So I had to rely on the dogs for an introduction. It worked, because Gwen Gillespie answered the phone.

I explained who I was and what I wanted to talk about. This time, I didn’t put up a charade. I explained that I was looking into the Frias murder and had hoped to talk to her about what she remembered about the night of the murder, and anything else she knew. She didn’t speak for a minute, but I knew she was still on the other end of the line. I was learning that when I hit these people with distant memories, they tended to drift off there for a minute until I called them back to reality. I wasn’t sure if any of these people were enjoying the recollections or if they brought back pain and suffering.

Finally, she spoke. “Sure, if it gets this nightmare over once and for all, then why not? Everyone acts like it’s a huge secret. I get tired of playing along.” Without explaining her comments, she suggested a time and place for lunch, and I agreed to meet her there.

I was early to the restaurant, but she came in just after me. I waved at her. I was surprised that I’d recognized her. In my fear and misery after Susan’s disappearance, I had shut out most of the world. I didn’t remember many things about middle or high school at that age. In fact, I didn’t remember much about school through graduation. I kept my head low, which meant that I rarely looked at the people around me. I was too busy maintaining a low profile as not to be abducted as well. So the fact that I remembered this girl was a shock to me.

She sat down. We made small talk through ordering. When the menus had been collected, Gwen said to me, “What do you want to know?”

I was surprised by her frankness. Adam had been secretive and wary of what I wanted. Gwen was the opposite. Her disposition invited you to ask her anything.

“What can you tell me about the crime?” I started, wanting to hear what she had to say about what I’d read.

“There’s not much to tell. Belinda was our maid. We were all out of the house that day. She had a key, so she could come and go as she wished. She must have let someone in the house, and that person killed her. We came home afterward and found the body.” She shrugged like she’d disappointed me somehow.

“So you had no idea who could have done that? Man or woman, boyfriend,” I asked, leaving the question open for her to expound. When given the chance, most people liked to talk and talk a lot. In so many cases, they didn’t even know they were telling you what you needed to hear.

“She was married. No kids. Her husband is still around somewhere. I’m sure you could find him if you wanted. He was always into something – one of those dreamer types who try to invent the latest ‘As Seen on TV’ product. She worked so they would have a steady income. I doubt that she had a boyfriend. The husband didn’t have a full-time job, so she couldn’t have met someone anywhere. He drove her to work and picked her up. I wouldn’t have liked that.”

I cleared my throat. “One thing I noticed is that the neighbors didn’t mention that your dog barked or carried on?”

She broke into a broad grin. “Silver Blaze!”

I looked at her. “Sorry, what?”

“
Silver Blaze
is the Sherlock Holmes story where the dog does nothing, so Holmes deduces that the killer must be someone that the dog knows. Oh.” Her voice trailed off as she realized what exactly that clue would indicate.

“So about your dog?” I prompted.

“Yeah, Rusty could bark if provoked, but he was pretty relaxed with strangers. We socialized him so that he didn’t bark unless he thought a family member was in danger. I’m not sure that he’d consider Belinda family, but she’d worked there a long time, so he might have. I do find it hard to believe that he didn’t bark at all. He normally carried on like an idiot when we came home though. I still miss that old dog.”

“So he would have been okay with a stranger coming into the house?” I asked. If he was open to all strangers, then Sheila’s idea would be useless. I had hoped to be able to narrow it down to the family and work on their alibi, but that was looking less likely now. The dog’s friendliness made it possible for several people to have entered the house.