7

It was nine hours later. On a night when the moon wasn’t home and dark rain clouds threatened to gobble up the few stray stars.

While Tanya carefully aligned her little red car beside the gutter in front of a house direct from a Hitchcock movie, I tugged the collar of my sheepskin coat up around my ears and slunk further down into the passenger seat.

Maybe the plan we’d come up with over warm chicken salad at the Café Aqua wasn’t such a good idea. Quite doable in the middle of the day while surrounded by chattering, laughing diners—but on a lonely road in the middle of the night—I was having second and even third thoughts.

On the condition Tanya would accept a dinner date with Policeman Paul, a condition which didn’t seem to displease her, in fact she’d been all smiley and gung ho when she’d imparted her new-found knowledge at the mall earlier today—Paul had infiltrated the Car Registry data base and come up with a name for the owner of the pus colored Holden:

Jack Aloysius Lantana.

And at this very moment we were camped outside his house.

I squinted at the shadowy property illuminated by a lone flashing street lamp. “Guess we’ll have to come back tomorrow. Lantana’s either asleep or gone out.”

Tanya, eyes fixed on the dark windows of the house, switched off the engine and pocketed her car keys. “I suppose we could hang a left here tomorrow and question the guy,” she drawled. “But, don’t you think this would be a good opportunity to case the joint?”

“Case the joint?” I laughed at my friend’s choice of words. “Where’d you pick up that terminology? Sounds like you’ve been reading murder mysteries instead of your usual happy-ever-after romance novels.”

Tanya rolled her eyes and muscled the car door open against the strengthening wind. “Where’s your investigative spirit, Kat?”

Good question. I shivered when a peppercorn tree looming overhead whipped and twisted—its low branches scraping warning fingers across the roof of the car. It was a wind similar to the night I trusted Peter Manning. The night I barely survived my last investigation. The night I almost ended up as ash on the floor of Manning’s Crematorium.

“My investigative spirit?” I repeated and sank further into the sanctuary of the warm sheepskin covered seat. “Probably hiding under a pile of discarded socks at the bottom of my closet.”

Insensitive to my concerns, Tanya ploughed onwards. “I thought you wanted to know why this piece-of-shit was stealing your dogs?”

I sighed. Grabbed a mental shovel and buried my fears in a shallow grave where I could quickly unearth them if necessary. “Of course I do, Tan. Here I am being weak-bellied and pathetic—a soggy pool of watery custard—while you’re ready to bust down doors to find the truth. You’re right. My dogs are at risk and I don’t know why. The creep who lives in this house does.” I flashed her a grin. “So, let’s say we go pound some answers out of Mr. Jack Aloysius Lantana.”

I joined Tanya on the footpath, flashlight at the ready. Yep. Time to bring my gum boots out of retirement, dust down my trench coat and slip into sleuthing mode—before this incompetent thief managed to actually steal the right dog.

However, Nancy Drew was short-lived. As though conspiring against us, the flashing street light in front of Lantana’s house gave a final flicker and kicked the bucket. Suddenly, I wanted to go home. Instead, I fumbled a flashlight from my coat pocket and let its beam spill across the ground in front of us. Over an acre of overgrown land and a graveyard of rusted car bodies which seemed to be keeping vigil on either side of a dirt baked pathway snaking up to Lantana’s front veranda.

With a firm shove Tanya opened the heavy wire-mesh front gate, undeterred by the scratchy squeal of unoiled hinges. “So, do we stick to our plan?”

“To the letter,” I told her. “If Jack Lantana’s home we ask questions, perhaps threaten him with the police. If he’s not home, we take a quick peep through the windows and then leave. No skulking around his garage or outbuildings. Okay? That’s called trespassing!” Plus poking around amongst rats and spiders and other creepy crawlies in the dark—discovering god knows what—wasn’t my idea of a fun night out.

Tanya didn’t answer. And that always made me nervous.

Half-way along the dirt path I could feel the glassless windows of the hunkering car bodies, like eyes, following our every step. Ahead, radiating menace, the sprawling farmhouse reared out of the darkness.

What the hell were we doing?

My Adidas sneakers slowed down and came to a faltering stop. “I don’t know about you, Tan,” I whispered, throat dry and uncooperative, “but my gut’s telling me to high-tail it out of here. Fast. In fact, it’s screaming at me to come back tomorrow…in the daylight.”

Tanya, who was so close she kept banging shoulders with me, slipped an arm through mine and continued walking. “Come on, Kat, we can’t chicken out now. It’s common knowledge that all successful detectives do their detecting in the hours of darkness.”

My snigger broke through the heavy silence. “Says who?”

“Well…” Tanya paused but didn’t stop walking. “Kinsey Millhone doesn’t investigate a suspect in the noon-day sun, does she? And look how successful she is.”

“She might be successful, but she’s also not real. Kinsey Millhone is a figment of Sue Grafton’s imagination—a character from a book.”

The nearer we drew to the house, the more I wanted to put on my brakes. Turn tail and skedaddle back to the car. Go home. The thought of sharing a family sized pizza with Tater and Lucky and our two canine guests, Stella and Stanley, all of us zoned out in front of the television, seemed a much more sensible alternative to what I was doing right now. I sighed. Where had my brain been hiding when I’d let my hormonal, gung-ho friend talk me into paying our geriatric dog-napper a visit in the middle of the night?

Unease, with all its shivery manifestations, continued to bite at my gut as we neared the four rickety steps leading up onto the overhanging front veranda. Who knew what lay beyond that front door? Jack Lantana, dressed in psychedelic orange and yellow pajamas, leering manically at us while sharpening his axe to a fine edge on wet sandstone?

Beside me, Tanya inhaled a deep breath. “You know what, Kat, I think—”

I never did get to hear what Tanya thought.

From the bowels of the closest wreck, a rusted-out car body that looked like it had been propped up on blocks for the last fifty odd years, slunk two dark creatures of the night.

Guard dogs…

Or to be more precise—large, slit-eyed, black and tan Rottweilers, their fierce growls indicating they were ready to tear out throats and swallow human tonsils.

A harsh panting noise pounded in my ears. I didn’t know if it came from Tanya, the dogs or me. A sour urine-like stench assailed my nostrils. Once again, I didn’t know if it came from Tanya, the dogs or me…

Then, like a well-oiled team, the two dogs slunk in behind us and posed; bodies’ rigid, snarls vowing menace.

Holy catfish!

I clutched at my throat which suddenly felt very exposed, very vulnerable. Retreat would now result in copious blood, a plethora of screams and definite hospitalization—or worse. Hand trembling, I shone the flashlight on our aggressors and my heart did a painful belly-flop. Every hair along the dogs’ backs stood on end. Their mean mouths drooled in anticipation. And the smell of hostility and old meat had my stomach heaving.

“Run!” yelled Tanya.

As if I needed any prodding…

All systems struggling to suck more blood and air and speed from my deeply traumatized body, I flew up the steps onto the veranda where Tanya was already hurling her shoulder against the front door.

“Is it lock–?” A sharp pain turned my words into a piercing scream. Almost brought me to my knees. The leading Rottweiler, the one with the white foam spewing like shaving cream from his mouth, had latched onto the seat of my jeans.

I was going to die. Ripped to shreds by a crazy demented canine. I must have done something horrendous in a previous life to deserve to die like this.

It was so unfair—I was a lover of dogs.

“Quick, Kat…in here!”

Before Cujo could spit out the jagged piece of denim and sink his fangs into exposed flesh, I fell through the open doorway into Tanya’s waiting arms.

Between us, we managed to slam and bolt the door from the inside, catching Rottweiler number one’s nose in the act. A chilling howl preceded by a crashing thump shook the door on its hinges and rattled crockery half a block away.

Tanya grabbed my arm and hung on like it was the last pair of Jimmy Choos on the sales counter. “You okay, Kat?”

With no breath left to do anything else, I nodded.

In the mad rush for the door I’d dropped my flashlight, probably glowing inside one of the Cujo’s stomachs by now, and in the stifling darkness I could barely see Tanya’s shadowy figure. It was bad enough we were trespassing in Jack Lantana’s house. It was bad enough we had no way of getting out without being eaten. But I was damn sure I wasn’t going to stand here shivering and gasping in the dark one moment longer. Chest wheezing, bum on fire, I pried Tanya’s claw-like fingers one by one from my arm and searched for the light switch.

Eyes huge in her pale face, Tanya stared back at me. “Shit!” she breathed, blinking in the sudden light. “That was close!”

Tanya Ashton: the master of understatement.

The tuna patties I’d eaten for dinner warred with nerves so tightly strained I wouldn’t be surprised if they unraveled and left me limper than a rag doll. Shaking, I burrowed my fingers into my back pocket and pulled out my mobile. “I’m going to ring Ben.”

“Not a good idea,” advised Tanya with a small shake of her head. “Ben thinks he’s indestructible. Tell him we’re in trouble and he’ll come galloping over here like a knight in shining armor instead of torn jeans and checked flannel shirt. And what do you reckon the guard dogs will do to him? Lick his face and play ball? I don’t think so.”

She was right. Cujo1 and Cujo2 would turn Ben into chopped liver and then spit out the bones. We needed plan B. I rammed my mobile into my pocket and tore at a hang nail with my teeth. “If we had some juicy lamb chops we could toss them through one of the back windows and escape while the dogs were eating.”

“Wouldn’t work. We’d need to empty a butcher shop to keep those two eating long enough for us to reach the front gate.”

“Well, do you have a better idea?”

“How about we shoot ’em?”

I blinked. Gave her a duh look. “Shoot them with what? A slingshot made out of knicker elastic and a bag of frozen peas as ammunition?”

“Sorry.” Clearly on edge, Tanya threw back her head and let out a pent up breath. “I’m nervous. I can’t think straight when I’m nervous.” She raked both hands through her hair which made it stand on end. “I need alcohol.”

“Alcohol? Tanya, this isn’t a hotel.”

“No worries, I’ll go check out Lantana’s fridge, see if he’s got any booze, and while I’m there, with any luck, I’ll find a couple of sheep for the dogs stashed in the meat container.”

Another crashing thump shook the front door. My heart, already stressed to the max gave a plaintive bleat and attempted to batter its way out of my chest.

Tanya, who hadn’t felt the deadly scrape of canine teeth on her backside, merely scowled at the door then picked up and brandished a big ugly statue of what looked like an overweight vampire with bloodshot eyes. When the door stopped shaking she placed her weapon back on the hall stand and shrugged. “At least we don’t have to worry about Jack Lantana popping out of his bedroom. He’s definitely not home. Only the dead could sleep through that noise.” She swiveled on one foot and set off down the passageway. “Which means we only have the dogs to worry about—unless, of course, Lantana shows up and finds us stuck in here.”

I set up a mental force field and refused to allow her last throwaway comment to filter into my already overtaxed brain.

While my PMT affected friend went hunting for booze and red meat, I decided to have a quick snoop around. Okay, I was no Kinsey Millhone and never would be, but who knows… I might be lucky enough to fall over a clue that explained why Lantana was so dead keen on stealing my dogs.

The first room I came to appeared to be set up as a study or an office. The desktop computer was turned on, and a colorful screensaver featuring a dancing naked woman with breasts the size of basketball hoops provided the entertainment. Newspapers, greyhound racing magazines and betting guides covered every available space on the desk and spilled over onto the floor. Desk drawers lay open and the contents scattered across the room. Books dragged from shelves littered the carpet.

What a mess! I didn’t have to be a detective, fictional or real, to realize either Lantana was the world’s worst housekeeper or he’d had a visit from an intruder. Even Linus from the Charlie Brown comics could work that one out. Questions crowded my mind. Why would an intruder break into Lantana’s house? And did they find what they’d been searching for? And the Million Dollar Question–how did the intruder manage to get past the dogs without losing at least one limb?

And then another big fat ugly thought hit me.

Tanya and I were inside the burgled house. If anything was missing, guess who’d get the blame? And unless Tanya found some munchies for the dogs pretty damn quick, we’d be sitting here twiddling our thumbs when the owner of the house arrived home and rang the police.

Caught between the desire to poke through papers on the floor and fear of being charged with break-and-entry, I hovered a few feet inside the doorway. It wouldn’t do to leave my fingerprints on anything. Especially as my fingerprints were now on the database down at the local police station.

I let out a sigh of frustration and shook my head. Yep, I’d be better off helping Tanya distract the dogs so we could get the hell out of here.

As I turned to leave, a glint of deep red on the desk beside the computer caught my eye. I took a step closer. No, it couldn’t be. Surely that wasn’t the bracelet from the set Dad gave my sister, Liz, for her fourteenth birthday? The ruby bracelet that matched the necklace Liz left behind for me when she ran away from home?

Fingering the familiar necklace at my throat, I glanced up and down the passageway, noted it was currently empty, so scurried across to the desk. And, hand hovering over the piece of jewelry, I paused to reconsider. Did I really want to know if the bracelet was Liz’s? If so—what would that imply? It couldn’t bear thinking of for it would mean Liz and Lantana knew each other. Which didn’t make sense. Mind swirling, I scooped the bracelet up and turned it over. Yep. There on the back next to the gold clasp were the same initials engraved on the underside of my necklace—E.J.M.

Elizabeth Jennifer McKinley.

A shiver, colder than a blast of wind blowing across the icy stretches of Antarctica set my teeth chattering. What was Liz’s bracelet doing on Jack Lantana’s desk? Had she been in this house for some reason and left her bracelet behind? Or was there something more sinister going on? Did it have anything to do with her moving on, disappearing, and leaving Scott, her boyfriend, behind?

Still shivering, I swallowed the lump in my throat, slipped the ruby bracelet onto my wrist in case the police found us here and leaned forward to get a closer look at a small block of yellow post-it notes lying beside the phone. The top sheet had indentations from the last reminder Jack had written to himself. A phone number? A helpful name? A clue linking Lantana with my sister, Liz? If I tore off the top page I’d leave my fingerprints behind. Not a good idea. Instead, I slipped the whole block of yellow post-its into my pocket and turned my attention to the flashing computer. Now, if only I could move that damn screensaver without leaving fingerprints and get a look at what Lantana had been working on…

Both hands clasped firmly behind my back so there’d be no chance of accidentally losing a print I nudged the mouse with my hip. Immediately, the dancing nude disappeared from the screen and in her place was a web page, downloaded from a greyhound breeding program. What dog was Lantana interested in? I bent forward to study the particulars and almost wet my pants when a blood-curdling scream sent my heart into free fall.

Something bad had happened to Tanya.

“Hang on, I’m coming!”

Another scream, even more terrified than the first, directed me to the back of the house where I found Tanya in a rundown kitchen that looked like it was set in a 1950s time warp, green laminated table top, old style kitchen hatch, worn linoleum floor covering.

“What is it, Tan? What’s happened?”

Tanya stared at me, her eyes wide and bulging. Then, one hand covering her mouth, she slowly lifted her other arm, and pointed at the open refrigerator. I followed her shaking finger and felt the room spin.

Tanya hadn’t found meat for the dogs. Or booze. Bathed by the inside door light of the refrigerator I could see all the wire shelves had been removed and Jack Lantana had been jammed in, knees scrunched under his chin, arms wrapped around his scrawny bare chicken legs. Not only had his purple pants been removed—he had died the way he’d been born. Completely naked. After gaping for what felt like a hundred years at his poor shriveled penis, my eyes shifted up over the soft paunch and the sunken chest to his head. A wrecked head. A head that had been beaten out of shape by something hard, blunt, and deadly.

And I knew, without going any closer, that Jack Lantana would never steal another dog.