Nothing To Sniff At (Animal Instincts Book 5) (6 page)

All of these thoughts of identities made me wonder about the man in the trunk of the car. None of the new sources had identified him. I knew that most media waited until the family had been notified so that the people closest to the victim wouldn’t hear it on the news, but enough time had gone by now that his family should be aware of what had happened. Apparently no one had come forward to identify him. The next phase would be to wait for DNA results and see if he matched anyone’s DNA. It was getting to be a long shot.

I hadn’t checked the pockets of the dead man, but I was going on the assumption that he hadn’t had any identification on him. So not only had the killer wanted time to hide the crime, he or she had also wanted time before the victim’s identity could be discovered.

Living this close to Lake Erie, the police always had to take into account that the victim might be from Canada, which was just on the other side of Erie. I wondered if he could have been Canadian, but without a close examination of the clothes and the body, I wouldn’t be able to tell much at all. Given that I’d nearly been sick the first time, I doubted that I would willingly go for another view.

I opted to call Sheila instead. She usually had the word from other precincts and areas. I let the dogs off their leashes as I opened the front door. I picked up my phone and dialed her number.

“You must be feeling relieved,” she said by way of a greeting.

“How so? You mean because I couldn’t have been involved?” My mind was still whirling from the discoveries regarding Susan. I wasn’t really up for talking about that yet and had hoped to keep the conversation short.

“They arrested Brate this morning for the murder,” she said. “It’s been on the news all morning. I thought you would have heard. They’ve accused him of switching dogs so that he could get a cut of the drug money and then killing this guy when he threatened to expose Brate. Turn on your TV.”

“That’s partly while I was calling. I wanted to know who the dead man was. Have you heard?”

She sighed. “Please don’t go getting involved in this. You don’t need any more trouble in your life. Let it go. The Port Clinton police are satisfied. You should be too. You’re clear.”

This was another one of those situations where I wouldn’t be listening to her. I doubted that Brate had told them the whole story. He’d been worried about the station finding out that he’d lost Barkley. I knew that they could pick up on the tells that he wasn’t being honest. From there it was a short path to uncovering more information about him that would make him appear guilty.

“You’re not going to listen to me on this, are you?” she asked quietly.

“I have a story to tell the Port Clinton police. After that, I think I’ll be done with that case. Since I’m in the clear that should be okay, right?”

She sighed. “Please be careful. You have no idea of the politics you’re dealing with here. You don’t want to take the rap for something you didn’t do, and despite your many flaws, you’re not a killer.”

“Was that a compliment?” I asked, hoping to deflect the conversation from any discussion of my sister. Sheila usually asked what I’d done about that, and most days the answer was nothing. I was hoping that she’d let it drop for the moment.

“Don’t get a big head, please.” She laughed, and we said a quick goodbye.

I turned on the news to see what was happening. The early papers had not mentioned anything about Brate’s arrest, so it had to be a recent development. I sat down in front of the TV to see what had happened.

Sure enough, it was the lead story of the noon news. Brate had been arrested that morning for the death of the unknown man. The body still had not been identified, but it didn’t seem to make a difference to the police. They had assigned him a role in the case, if  not a name. However, from the gist of the story, Brate’s fingerprints had been found inside the trunk of the Corolla, which made him the prime suspect.

The story had a video of Brate trying to cover his face while leaving the courthouse. Nothing was said about motives for the crime or the disappearance of their K-9 unit, but perhaps the news hadn’t thought those details worthy of publication. I knew that motive wasn’t a required element for a crime, but district attorneys were always happy to have one to bolster the case.

So I had two things to work on, the identity of the person in the trunk and the motive. Honestly, as I sat there, I wasn’t sure how far I could get with either of those aspects. I’d seen the face of the dead man, but between the stench and the decomposition, I wasn’t sure that I could describe him in enough detail to get a match. I highly suspected that the motive would stem from the identity of the dead man. They were interrelated and I had no idea of how to identify a dead body without a degree in forensics.

Instead, I opted to go with the one area that I knew best – the dog. Someone had bought a dog for the express purpose of swapping dogs with Barkley. I could continue to follow those clues, which technically were not associated with an active police case.

Feeling more confident, I headed back to the breeder’s house to ask some questions.

The old man was at the door this time when I got out of my car. “Well?” Johnson asked, expecting a full story from that one word.

I explained that I’d found Barkley at the second house on the list, and he’d been returned to the police. I also told him that the house had been cleared out and that there were no signs of either the buyer or the dog now. I wanted to learn why he’d switched dogs so that I could make sure that Barkley stayed safe.

He made a noise and motioned for me to follow him. I walked down the hall of the main level of the house. I still had yet to see or hear a Beagle, despite his status as a breeder. We entered the same room we entered during my last visit. He pulled up the keyboard and started typing.

In a few seconds, he’d pulled up a record. I was looking at a lot of data and a copy of an Ohio’s driver’s license. I had been so sure that the buyer would have used a fake name that I’d geared myself up for a massive hunt for his real name and location. Yet here it was.

“I always keep records on my buyers, especially those I haven’t done business with before. Most of the time they’re hunters, but the requirement of making them give me a valid driver’s license keeps them from using the dogs for fighting. Beagles aren’t good fighters, but anything can fight if they’re hungry and mistreated. Ain’t happening to one of mine.”

He hit the print button and pages whirred out of the machine. I picked them up and began to read. Jackson Troxel had purchased the dog six months ago. He’d paid in cash, but this was his first purchase so Mr. Johnson had required a driver’s license.

“Why did you have a dog of that age here? I thought you sold most of them as puppies,” I asked, realizing that this dog had to have been about three years old when he was sold.

“He was sold as a pup, but he got sent back. The poor little guy was gun-shy. That’s not a lot of help to men who buy a Beagle for hunting. The pup ran and hid every time a gun went off. So I gave him a refund, and he bought another one of my Beagles instead.”

“You’d never met Troxel before?”

“Nope, never heard from him before or since. I asked where he heard of me, but he just mentioned he’d heard my name from some hunter friends. All the more reason for me to get an ID.” He stood up and waited for me to take the hint. I had enough information to start with, and I thanked him on the way out.

Since Troxel had left the house so abruptly, I figured that he’d been renting and was not the owner of the home. That meant it was time for me to visit the neighbors of the house in Onyx. I had found over the course of several cases that nothing was more helpful to an investigation than asking the neighbors.

I drove back to Onyx and parked on the street. Two doors down from the Troxel house a curtain moved aside and then fell back into place. I had my starting point. I looked around the Troxel house and then checked the mailbox which was empty. If things looked too bleak for Officer Brate, I could always suggest a forwarding address check for Troxel.

After looking around, I made a pretense of walking up and down the street. I stopped at the house two doors down and knocked on the door. An older woman answered the door almost immediately. She was dressed properly in a dress and hat, like she was going somewhere fancy. I wondered what places in Toledo still wanted a woman to wear a hat. I doubted that many of them did. Hats were mostly for Easter and summer days at the beach.

“Hi, I’m looking for some –“ I started.

I didn’t get to finish. “You’re looking for the Troxels. They moved two days ago. In a hurry.”

I could see that this woman was going to be a wealth of information. “How did you know?” I asked, hoping to stroke her ego.

“I saw you down at their place yesterday and today. I knew you had to be looking for them. They probably owe you money. It would certainly be in line with them.” She smiled as she said the last sentence, a little bit of malice showing in the glint on her teeth. She was enjoying this way too much.

“You’re amazing. They do owe me money.” I decided to play along with her. Her story was much better than the one I’d concocted.

“Just like them. I gave that man a dollar one day to buy an ice cream from the truck, and he never did pay me back. I couldn’t believe it.” The notion that a dollar was worth remembering fit the same era as the hat.

“You don’t know where they’ve gone, do you?” I tried to look desperate for cash, which wasn’t a stretch. I had no intention of telling her the real reasons I wanted to talk to this family. I wouldn’t trust her to keep a secret, which was currently working in my favor.

“No, they packed up two trucks two nights ago and left. Didn’t tell a soul they were going.”

I frowned, pretending to be upset about the money. “Do you know who the landlord is? I wonder if they left a forwarding address.”

She had a pad of paper by the door, and she scribbled something down. She tore it off and handed the paper to me. “This is the address and phone number of the landlord. Tell them that Delores gave you the number.”

I nodded and thanked her. The November wind was blowing, and I shivered as I got in the car. Now that I had a buzz-cut, I could feel the cold weather against my scalp, which I wasn’t used to.

I looked at the paper, which had the name Steven Weinberg who lived in Ottawa Hills. I sighed and started the trip there. I had expected a rash of cold calls like this to find Barkley, but now it was apparent that I’d be doing the heavy lifting for finding the fake dog instead. It just went to show that I didn’t know everything about investigation. Not by a long shot.

I didn’t bother to call the home in advance. I didn’t want the polite brush-off that came with technology. People had a harder time saying no to someone in person than they did via email or phone. Face to face interactions nearly always got me what I wanted. I drove out to the suburb, which was relatively well-off with homes much nicer than mine.

Pulling up in front of the house, I opted to tell a story to see if I could find Troxel. I knew that the truth would likely not get me far at all. Desperate times called for extreme measures.

I knocked on the door and waited. A much younger man than I expected answered the door. He was probably in his late teens or early twenties with dark curls and a lithe body that had not started to experience the decrease in metabolism that comes with life. He carried the air that he was incredibly uninterested in whatever I had to say. “Yeah?”

“I was looking for Steven Weinberg?”

He snorted. “That’s my dad. He’s not here right now. What’s this about? No offense, but you don’t look like the type of person he normally works with.”

I felt a flush run through my cheeks, even in the cold air of the day. I immediately chided myself, thinking that I’d gone years without worrying what people thought of me. However, now that I was disavowed of the idea that staying low-key kept people safe, I was suddenly aware of being judged by this boy and coming up lacking. It was not a feeling that I enjoyed. Part of me wished for the old Griff’s attitude in dealing with this kid.

“It’s about a matter with one of his tenants, Jackson Troxel. He’s left the house he was renting, and he’s got my dog.” My story seemed to be fair, since Troxel had apparently engaged in dognapping. Being tracked down for the same offense seemed to please my sense of karma.

“The house in Onyx, right?” The boy made a motion with his hand to enter the house, and I followed him into the house. He walked down the hall. It was amazing that it was such a similar action to what I’d done at the breeder’s home, yet with such a different feel to it. The breeder’s home had been smaller, but with a feeling of being lived in and comfortable in its design. This home, while much larger, felt sterile. The photos on the walls were in new frames. The decorations all appeared to have been placed on the wall by a decorator or by using a magazine picture as a stencil. While I knew money had gone into its design, I was left unimpressed.

We went into a room with filing cabinets, but even these had been upscaled. The cabinets were a dark wood, and the drawers moved effortlessly without the standard squeaks and groans of metal on metal. The young man pulled a file out of one of the drawers and handed it over. “Forwarding address. My dad was pretty sure it was real, because he’s going to get a refund on his security deposit.  People are always more honest when there’s something in it for them.” He rolled his eyes, though I wasn’t sure if it was at man’s greed or his father’s aphorisms.