Ten Little Bloodhounds (23 page)

I gave him a warm smile and held out a pair of thin gloves for him. “Put these on, we don’t want your scent on the pad.

“Sheriff, would you please ask the men to leave the jury box and line up about three feet apart in front of the judge’s bench area?” I checked each door to see if they were closed. I was going to unhook Caesar’s leash and let him roam at will. At least, I was going to have Hank release him. I was afraid to lean over; I might not be able to straighten up again.

The reporter said his name was Tim. I gave him instructions on how to present the pad and pet Caesar, and had him place pieces of deer jerky in his mouth. I gave Caesar the okay to eat them, and Tim had an instant friend. Caesar kept his eyes glued on Tim’s hands.

I nudged Hank, and after he released Caesar I nod-
ded at my chair and made a small circle with my finger. He turned the chair around and I eased down into it, facing the onlookers instead of the lineup.

“Give Caesar the command,” I whispered. “Remember to sound excited, like it’s a game you’re playing.” Tim played his role to perfection, even adlibbing from time to time.

“Go get him, Caesar, get your man, get your man!”

He opened the plastic bag, and thrust the open bag under Caesar’s nose. “Go get him, boy, go get that sucker! You can do it, get him boy! Sic him! Sic him!”

Caesar took off down the aisle, stopping to smell each person who was sitting in the seats. Men were scrambling to pull their arms out of his way and leaning over seats to move out of his reach, which only spurred Caesar on.

He cornered each one and got a good sniff of his pants and shoes before he moved on to the next selected scent carrier. He circled back up the aisle and started with Sheriff Beaman, who seemed surprised to be a target. He gave Caesar a look that plainly showed he thought he should know the good guys from the bad guys. Even Hank got a nose to his gabardine uniform pants, as did Tim, the reporter who had put Caesar on the scent, and the lawyer. Caesar didn’t take anyone for granted. The bailiff who had escorted the teenagers was leaning against the wall with his arms folded and looked amused when Caesar gave him the onceover with his nose.

The tension had been building. Every eye in the room had been on Caesar’s merry romp through the unsuspected; now we were waiting for the finale. I
knew that it was just coincidence that Caesar had saved the suspects for last. He couldn’t have known; he was just eliminating everyone in the room and searching for a particular scent.

The black youths had slouched, laughed, jeered, and postured according to their temperaments throughout the procedure, but now they were subdued and apprehensive, and more than one set of eyes were showing fear. I had read an article once that discussed racial fears that were inherent and bred into their genes, but I couldn’t go along with the theory.

I believe that all people, white or black, have a latent fear of large animals, such as bloodhounds; but only to the extent of their knowledge learned from birth. Remember Little Eva on the ice? Who wouldn’t fear dogs when they knew they had been used to hunt down their ancestors? I challenge anyone who has ever glimpsed a group of crowd control canines being released on a rioting mob: Who hasn’t had some sort of visceral reaction and thought, what if it were me?

Caesar scampered toward them, ears flapping, tail high, his toenails clicking and sliding on the varnished floor. The fairly straight line of black boys broke and pandemonium reigned. The sudden eruption caught everyone off guard. Grunts, yells, and sudden flight brought fallen bodies and confusion; but one scream of fear overrode all the other voices.

“Get him off me! Call him off, I did it! I did it!”

I had jumped up like all the rest. My desire to reach Caesar and get him leashed was paramount. No telling what a panicked deputy with a gun on his hip or someone rushing in on the chaotic scene might do. I had for-
gotten my injury and the back of my leg struck the chair when I pushed back on rising. My vision blurred with dark spots and unshed tears of pain. I was completely helpless and could only watch the action unfold.

Caesar had found his target. He was standing over a youth on the floor, licking his face and pausing to lift his head in a joyous bay, then return for another lick. He was overcome with his victory, and wanted his praise for a job well done.

“Get him, help, I did it, I did it!”

“I object, I object!” screamed the young lawyer, who was still prudently behind the table.

“This ain’t a court of law, boy! What are you objecting to? Your client is guilty!” Sheriff Beaman pounded on the table in front of the lawyer, and roared.

“Quiet. Everybody be quiet!” No one was listening.

After an eternity I saw Hank pull Caesar back, clip on his leash, and start back toward me. Even with the confusion Hank remembered to bring Caesar back to my right side, so he wouldn’t bump my left one. He was a cool dude.

The noise was abating and the sheriff yelled at the bailiff who was trying to round up the runaways.

“Arrest that man!”

I glanced at the kid with his body contorted in a fetal position, sobbing, and felt a twinge of sympathy, then pushed it away. The three people he had held at gunpoint to rob had also feared for their lives.

“Well, the scent machine worked, and should clear up three robberies.”

“Yes, indeedy,” Hank agreed.

It took us another hour until we were able to leave. Hank took my crutches at his car door and helped me into the back seat.

“Sure you won’t sit up front with me?”

“Absolutely.”

When he climbed in front, he twisted to face me.

“You handled yourself well with Jeff in there, Sidden, I’m proud of you!”

“It made me want to puke,” I hissed in his ear. “You males have to be fed pap in every sentence, just to receive cooperation you would extend to any male without hesitation. We have to be the helpless second-class citizen and salve your damn superior-feeling ego just to do our jobs. Come the revolution, y’all will be our prime target!”

I sank back in pain and braced Caesar and myself for a fast getaway. I wasn’t disappointed.

I
leaned back in my desk chair and rubbed my eyes. I had read a sentence twice and it just wasn’t registering. For the past hour I had been poring over the mountain of information that had been sent by fax from Chet in New York. I’d been too pooped to even glance at it last night. I had hobbled to the kitchen, drunk two glasses of milk, brushed my teeth, and fallen into bed, all before nine.

The puppies were twelve days old. Wayne had proudly shown me their charts this morning when I had used my crutches at daybreak to visit them. He had left them in Judy’s care last night and had his first solid uninterrupted sleep since the birthing.

All was well in the nursery. Not so on the home front. Hank had dropped me at the door last night without returning my civil good night. Jasmine was conspicuous in her absence. She was leaving me to fend for myself. I
had met her briefly this morning in the grooming room while returning to the house. She discussed her proposed activities of the day, and when I agreed she had nodded and moved on quickly. Her schedule hadn’t included fixing my lunch, or doing any fetching on my behalf. I released a martyred sigh. So be it. I hate apologizing when I know I’m in the wrong. I’d just wait until she cooled down before I had to grovel at her feet. I took care of myself before I met her and could continue to do so.

There were glowing words of praise in this morning’s
Dunston County Daily News.
Our fast-acting sheriff and the intrepid dog handler were mentioned several times. I decided to call Susan. I needed to schmooze with someone.

“Browse and Bargain Books.”

“Did you see the paper this morning and read about your fearless friend’s exploits yesterday?”

“Who is this calling?”

“Jo Beth?” I feared the worst.

“No, no, you aren’t my friend Jo Beth! My friend Jo Beth is in the hospital and might be released yesterday or today. She promised she’d call me the minute she headed home so I could run over and settle her in comfort. If you’re that liar Jo Beth, whom I wasted a trip to the hospital on my lunch hour yesterday to visit, you can just hang up, because I’m not speaking to her!”

“Something happened,” I lamely began …

I listened to the dial tone a while before I hung up. Then I listened to the silence of the morning. It was something that I had lived with from the time that I was ten until two and a half years ago, when Jasmine had started working here. A silence I hadn’t missed or
mourned. I hadn’t realized until just this minute what a loner I was and always had been. I looked out my office window and knew with certainty that with three of my closest friends no longer interested in conversing with me, I had no one to converse with. I shrugged. I owned eight phones and had no one to call.

“It’s just you and me now,” I whispered aloud to my ego. I didn’t expect or receive an answer and presently went back to work.

What I was going to attempt to do in this murder investigation sounded amateurish and impractical at first blush. Simply stated, I was going to take all the information the operatives had found about the ten people who stood to inherit a good chunk of money from Miz Cancannon’s estate and look for a motive large enough to commit murder over.

I wasn’t going to depend on the old method of a detective going around looking up people, questioning them, and by brilliant deduction saying “Aha!” while pointing to the guilty party during the denouement in the library.

No, my idea sounded even sillier than that. I was going to put all my eggs in one basket and go with the premise that whoever murdered her was also the one who kidnapped Amelia, the cat. Think about it. The kidnapping was the catalyst that caused the murder. All ten were present on the island the night Miz Cancannon died. All had an equal opportunity to slip into her room and shoot her, and time to hide the weapon. Their alibis were the same. They were all asleep. If no one broke and they stuck to their tale, who could prove otherwise? Certainly not Sheriff Beaman, he was scratching his head in frustration. Certainly not me, with very little time to spare and a kennel to run.

I was truly going to attempt to be an armchair detective. To sit on my duff and focus on the twenty-four-hour window directly before and after Amelia was snatched. If the person who kidnapped Amelia and the killer were not one and the same, then my theory would go down in flames. I would like to be the hero who solved the murder, but even if I couldn’t, I still wanted to have generated enough paperwork to prove that I had honestly worked diligently to reach that goal. I didn’t want to fail and miss the chance of selecting one of my father’s paintings to be my own.

When I had formulated this plan, I had envisioned Jasmine and me spending cool nights in front of the fireplace, tossing different versions of what we thought back and forth, and arguing the merits of each one. This no longer looked possible, so I would have to try it alone.

I stopped at noon and made a peanut butter and banana sandwich on white bread slathered with mayonnaise, one of my favorites. The only nice thing about Jasmine’s abandonment being I could eat anything I damned well pleased, I decided to take advantage and pig out on what she declared was not good for me. After my sandwich was finished, I read until the phone rang at three.

“Hello.”

“Is this Jo Beth Sidden?”

“Yes, it is.” I didn’t recognize the voice.

“I hope you remember me from high school. I’m Alice Mae Petrie now, but I used to be—”

“Alice Mae Carter! Of course I remember you! Lord, how are you? I haven’t seen you in, ah … lo these many years!”

I had drawn a complete blank. How long had she been gone?

Alice Mae laughed. “I had to figure up when I moved back home last year. We moved the week after graduation, so we haven’t seen each other for fourteen years, as of last June!”

“God,” I groaned. “Where have the years gone? Are you still married, and who is Petrie?”

“Petrie is out of the picture; we were divorced about eighteen months ago. I’ve been living in Richmond, Virginia, for the last ten years.”

“Any children?”

“Nope, how about you?”

“Me neither,” I said. “I got rid of Bubba eight years ago.”

“Mother told me about him. I was so sorry to hear he attacked you when he was released from prison. I meant to call or write, but I just never did. I’m sorry I didn’t.”

“Don’t be. I was in the same boat. I would run into your mother from time to time and I’d always ask about you, but I should have asked for your address and written.”

“I should have called you sooner. Are you in the middle of something, should I call back another time?”

“This is the perfect time. I have a banged-up leg and can’t do anything but sit here and gossip.”

“How bad is the leg, or do you want to discuss it?”

“I can talk freely, but you’re gonna think I’m pulling yours when I tell you about mine. A gator swatted me with his tail.”

She giggled. “Same ol’ Jo Beth.”

“Scout’s honor, it’s true. I train bloodhounds for search and rescue in the Okefenokee. I guided in a pilot who had lost his plane—”

Her squeal of laughter disconcerted me until I remembered she only knew Jo Beth, the jokester in high school, not the grown-up one who tramped through the swamp for a living.

“It’s the truth,” I said softly.

“You weren’t kidding, were you? I’m sorry for laughing, but you used to always be pulling pranks on us.”

“Give me a break, I grew up.”

“Start again, and I promise I won’t laugh.”

“Anyway, this guy waded out in a shallow stream and a gator started toward us. I shot him but he flipped over at my feet and lashed out with his tail. This was last Tuesday and it’s feeling a lot better. The swelling is disappearing and the bruises are fading.”

“I had no idea that you led such an interesting life,” Alice Mae exclaimed.