21

Fifteen minutes later, Ben drove through the township of Port Augusta and out onto the main highway back to Adelaide. Smiling, I relaxed into the passenger seat. No doubt about it, Benjamin Taylor was handy to have around in a tight fix. Even when we were just good mates, in the days before Ben recognized my womanly assets, he’d always been there for me. Now, however, there was an added dimension to his protectiveness.

Could it possibly be love?

Okay, when my urban cowboy came bursting through the doorway to my rescue, he didn’t actually toss me over the pommel of his saddle and gallop off into the sunset—neither did he leave the bad guy flat on his back, battered and bruised and with his butt well and truly kicked—but his timely entrance certainly changed the dynamics in the room. Immediately Bob Germaine’s ugly threats dissolved into cowardly whines. He didn’t even protest when Ben expressed his opinion that a man who felt the need to become physical and threaten a woman was either insecure—or had been inflicted with a puny underdeveloped penis that he couldn’t get up.

It was a long drive home. With a trailer load of dogs hooked on behind the car we probably had three hours driving ahead of us. What’s worse—it had started to rain again. I shivered under my jacket and peered through the car window. This was serious rain. Large bloated drops that sent our windscreen wipers into a frenzy of activity. Overhead, the sky hung like a thick dark curtain and although the middle of the day, Ben switched on the car’s headlights. Leaning forward, I bumped the heater up a notch then settled back in my seat to mull things over in my head.

Okay, what had I really learned from questioning Bob Germaine? Not much. Perhaps I was wrong about him. Perhaps the man’s temper tantrum was more to do with me poking my nose into his computer’s hard drive and discovering his less-than-moral taste in downloads than any involvement in the slow dog scam or my sister’s disappearance.

Ben shifted in the seat beside me. “You do realize you need to work on your interview techniques, don’t you?”

Huh? Mouth open, I stared at him. Was my boyfriend psychic? Did he just read my mind?

I narrowed my eyes in his direction and gave a warning sniff. Nah. He was having a go at me. “What do you mean, Benjamin?”

Dark eyes dancing wickedly, Ben shot me a quick grin. “Hey…don’t bite my head off, babe. I’m only basing my opinion on the color of Bob Germaine’s face when I interrupted your interview back there.” He cocked his head to one side, frowned and pretended to deliberate the issue. “And of course your victim’s parting words to me—‘control your girlfriend—keep her on a leash—she’s a menace to society’.”

“Bob Germaine is not a victim—he’s a suspect.”

“Riiight.”

“And his face was red from temper.”

“So your interviewing technique didn’t have anything to do with making him spit the dummy?”

I wriggled in my seat. “Yeah, but—”

“Remember Katrina, I was also with you the day you grilled Big Mick, our dodgy bookmaker friend, at his house. Mick’s face then was exactly the same shade of puce as Bob’s today.”

I scowled at the passing scenery. Other than spinifex grass, prickle bushes and the occasional stunted tree, the never-ending land stretched flat and brown and wet on both sides of the bitumen roadway.

“Excuse me for breathing,” I growled, “but all I did was what any other concerned citizen would do in the same situation.”

“Which is?”

“I asked Bob Germaine if he had anything to do with Liz’s disappearance or the slow dog scam.”

A smile twitched at the corners of Ben’s lips. “Right. And I suppose you were subtle, delicate, restrained, and the ultimate professional in your approach? In other words you didn’t blast him with these questions straight out? Didn’t indicate in any way shape or form that you thought he was up to his eyeballs in skullduggery?”

“Well…”

“I rest my case.”

Damn. Maybe I did need to brush up on my PI techniques. Maybe I should watch more CSI on TV, read more mysteries and study how Jessica Fletcher, Kinsey Millhone and Nancy Drew approached the art of interrogation. I blew out a sigh of frustration. Subtle? Okay, but whenever I attempted subtle, I didn’t get a direct answer—more like an eye roll.

I blew out another sigh and relaxed my muscles, one by one. Strung out as I was from questioning Scott at the hospital and then the ill-tempered Bob Germaine, I was surprised to find my eye lids growing heavy. The regular drone of the rain on the roof of the car and the swish of wheels on wet bitumen acted like a lullaby and next I knew Ben was shaking my shoulder.

“Come on Sleeping Beauty, wake up. We’re home.”

“Whaaat?” I said and blinked owl-like at the familiar surroundings outside the car window. My graveled driveway—my chocolate box, two-storied house—the sound of excited barking not only from behind my welcoming front door but from the kennel house at the end of the path.

Ben helped me undo my seatbelt and then stood back and watched as I scrambled out of the car and stretched. “Next time we travel together,” he said, straight-faced, “remind me to store a few clothes pegs in the glove box. You snored like an express train all the way home.”

Dodging my hook to the kidneys, he laughed and dropped a quick kiss on my forehead. “See you tonight, gorgeous. Can’t stop, ’cos I gotta get my dogs home. They’ll be itching to get out of the trailer and stretch their legs.”

“After that clothes peg quip, you’d better bring chocolates if you want to see me tonight, Benjamin. And only the biggest, most expensive box in the shop will do.”

The strident ring of the phone greeted me as I pushed past my two bouncing dogs and stumbled into the lounge room. Geez. Anyone would think I’d been away for a year instead of a day. While dishing out pats and cuddles and exchanging kisses with my welcoming committee, I lifted the hands free from its base and pressed TALK.

“Kat McKinley.”

“Hey, Kat.” It was Dr. Terry Chapman, the vet. “Any luck locating Stanley?”

“No…nothing yet.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll find him.” Terry’s voice, as always, brimmed with confidence. “I’ve contacted the animal rescue services and left the dog’s description at every vet surgery in South Australia. Someone, somewhere, will find your dog and when they do they’ll bring him in.” There was a short pause. “Talking about Stanley, there was something else I wanted to discuss with you.”

I plopped down onto the lounge, lifted the wriggling Tater into my lap and tossed Lucky’s favorite squeaky purple dragon across the room for her to fetch. “Go on. I’m all ears.”

“Due to the confusion at the surgery on Friday, I didn’t get around to explaining what I discovered when I examined Stanley prior to neutering.”

“Confusion? Geez more like World War Three erupting,” I said scratching the special spot behind Tater’s ear. As usual, it made him purr like a cat. “Come to think of it I do remember you mentioning something about Stanley’s ear brands—but that’s around the time the poor squashed cat and the legless bird were brought into the surgery and I discovered Stanley was missing.”

“Well, when I checked Stanley, I noticed the ear brand on one ear was difficult to read. Of course this happens often which is why micro-chipping is gradually taking the place of ear branding. Anyway, after studying the ear more closely under a microscope I wrote the numbers down. Got a pen handy?”

I yanked at the front drawer of the coffee table and rummaged around until I found a small notebook and a biro. “Yep. Go ahead.”

“His right ear brand is S418. Okay? Now, it might pay to check this against Stanley’s racing papers because what’s suspicious is the fact that the last number has been changed from a 6 to an 8.”

Perplexed, I stared at the numbers I’d scribbled on the first page of the notebook. Who would change the dog’s ear brand? And why? Was Purple Pants, the man we’d found in the refrigerator, responsible for this? Or was it his killer?

“Another thing,” went on Terry—as if this wasn’t enough to comprehend already. “Did you know Stanley has a white sock on his left front leg?”

“No.”

“You can’t see it because someone has covered the sock with a dark colored dye.”

I stared at the phone. As Alice remarked when confronted by the weird goings on in Wonderland—this was getting curiouser and curiouser.

“Plus,” continued Terry, “the white toenails on the same foot have also been dyed.” He paused again and I imagined him running his fingers through his thick hair which is what Terry always did when overexcited. “So…it looks like our dearly beloved GAP dog is actually part of the mystery.”

I frowned. “So it wasn’t Lofty they were after at all?”

“Nope.”

“It was Stanley all the time—and now they have him.”

“Unfortunately.”

“Guess I’ll have to start calling you Sherlock.”

Terry let out a chuckle. “Nah. That Sherlock guy was a wimpy drama queen—left all the work to his side-kick, Dr. Watson. Me—I’d rather be Perry Mason. You know, a day in court to demonstrate the brilliance of my mind, followed by cocktails in a nightclub at five.”

I stood up and began to pace—much to the disgust of Tater who slid off my lap onto the lounge with a disgruntled growl. “Okay, Perry Mason, after all that, I think it’s time we bumped up the search for Stanley. I have a shaky feeling he’s in more trouble than we bargained for.”

“You’re right. I have to attend to my next patient right now, but after that I’ll get onto my contacts, see if they’ve heard anything. There’s something strange going on here.”

I placed the handset back on the base and scooped Tater up in my arms. There was something strange going on alright and I had a feeling Terry’s discovery was a major clue to the secret of the slow dog saga.

Were faster litter mates being used as ring-ins and entered in races under the name of their slower relatives?