A Farewell to Legs: An Aaron Tucker Mystery - By Jeffrey Cohen Page 0,76
Stephanie? After all, she wasn’t the only one who used that stuff to clean stains—Friedman had known about it. It was just the swiftness with which she had wiped up Leah’s ketchup that had impressed me—that and being able to think on her feet so rapidly. That didn’t make her a murderer. Necessarily.
The big question, though, was where was the thirteen million, and who had taken it? Stephanie was living well, but not well enough for that. Legs was probably not using the money, what with being dead and all, and that left. . .
Branford T. Purell, killer, bon vivant, corpse. There was absolutely no explanation for a hair of his to be in Braxton’s apartment, and yet, there it was. Could it have ridden in on the killer’s pants or something? Was the killer carrying it around for seven years, waiting for the right moment to drop it and confound the living hell out of law enforcement officials and freelance reporters? Maybe the killer was the Texas state executioner, a man who never had his clothes cleaned. But now, I was just grasping at hairs.
Just then, the cell phone rang, and the number was not recognized by the caller ID service Verizon gives you whether you ask for it or not. So I picked up. And there was The Voice.
“Stop what you’re doing. It’s none of your business.”
“You know,” I said, “this is getting tiresome. Who are you, and what is it you want?” I thought I was starting to recognize The Voice, and I wanted to keep him talking.
“Stop,” said The Voice, and the phone went dead.
Driving up to pick up the dog I didn’t want, I thought: All in all, I wasn’t really getting much out of this day.
Chapter
Nineteen
The Hackettstown No-Kill Shelter (HNKS) turned out to be someone’s house, with a huge L-shaped wing built onto its side and extending back into the property for about a hundred yards. That, I assumed as I drove up, was where the animals were being kept. I looked at the digital clock in the van: it had taken me an hour and twenty-one minutes to drive this distance. Two minutes less than MapQuest had allowed. I must have been speeding.
The front door was locked, but there was a bell, which I pushed. A little window in the door opened. A pair of eyes filled it from the other side, and they had to look down to find me.
“Yeah?” the voice, of indeterminate gender, growled at me. It’s nice to deal with humanitarians.
“Swordfish,” I said, but there was no response as the eyes looked me up and down, which, alas, didn’t take long. “I’m here to see Warren,” I added. The door opened, and in I went.
Inside, there was the usual office with dog food, dog toys, dog accessories, and a huge donation box, which bore a sign that said, “Help us keep these animals alive!” But hey, no pressure.
The voice turned out to belong to a woman of about five-feet-and-eleven inches, which, with help from her Jersey hair, made her just a fraction shorter than Michael Jordan. She examined me again and said, “You the one who called about Warren before?”
“My wife,” I said in the deepest voice I could muster. I’m a manly man, dammit. I would have spat, but there was no receptacle in sight.
“He’s in the back, number thirty-six,” she said, handing me a key and pointing to a door. I used the key on the door, and miraculously, it worked. I walked into the animal shelter.
It was dark, and I hit a light switch on my left side. As soon as the lights came on, about two million dogs began barking their brains out all around me. The room was a long, long hallway, with what amounted to cells on either side going all the way back. From the look, the sound, and the smell of the place, it was full up.
Luckily, the stalls were numbered, and it didn’t take long to find thirty-six, on the right side and about halfway back. There, sitting and looking hopeful, was the only dog not barking to beat the band.
He was, as advertised, an attractive animal. Big, basset eyes, long basset ears, but otherwise beagle-like, Warren was the poster puppy for dogs. “Take me home,” his gaze, from a head tilted to one side, said. “I’m a good dog. See, I’m not barking like those other demented animals. I’ll be a fine companion for your children.”