The Girl With The Dachshund Tattoo Part 3

"That's the least of our problems."

I had no idea how true those words were. But I was about to find out.

THE FIRST HEAT for the heavyweight category was scheduled to start in thirty minutes. I hadn't found anyone I was searching for. It was as if they'd disappeared into thin air.

I finally spotted Darby snapping photos of a trio of Doxies-a couple of long hairs, and one short hair. The pups were young, maybe ten or twelve months, full of energy and playfulness. Their handler, a gray-haired older gentleman with a wide grin, asked if the photos would be available to purchase.

Darby looked up and caught my eye. I waved her over.

"Have you seen Betty?" I asked.

"Not since her fight with Richard." She reached down and patted Missy on her head.

I looked at her questioningly. "You were there?"

She shook her head no. "Everyone's talking about it. Did she really pull out a gun and threaten to shoot Richard Eriksen and his dog?"

"She had a gun. She would never hurt Zippy." Notice I didn't mention Ricky-d.i.c.ky. I quickly filled in Darby on the situation and Betty's missing gun.

"Oh, no," she exclaimed, wide-eyed. "Where do you think the girl with the dachshund tattoo went?"

I shook my head. "Your guess is as good as mine. She has to be here somewhere."

"Would you like me to check out the racing area? If she's there I can text you."

"Please. If you see Betty, send her back to the booth."

Darby hung her camera around her neck and scurried off. Missy and I backtracked through the vendor area and made our way toward the spectator section next to the racetrack.

"Fifteen minutes until the heat number two. All compet.i.tors report to the starting gate," a garbled voice rumbled over the PA system.

Although she had offered to help find Betty, Darby was still the official photographer, and her first priority would be to photo doc.u.ment the race. I weaved my way through the group of yammering teenagers and made a beeline toward the track-a roped-off area with spray-painted white lines on the gra.s.s.

I could see the racers and their humans lined up at the starting gate, while their favorite person waited at the finish line. I imagined last minute instructions whispered into each racer's ears. Everyone was eager for the race to begin. I noticed Darby speaking to a group of judges huddled together watching the lineup. One judge checked her wrist.w.a.tch, then said something to the group.

"All compet.i.tors must report to the gate," the emcee announced again. "This is the last call." His tone held a strong sense of urgency.

Sounded like someone other than Betty was missing.

I joined Darby at the gra.s.sy edge. "Any sign of Betty?"

She shook her head, worried. "Mel." She took a breath. "Zippy's not at the gate. He's supposed to run in this heat."

I felt my face blanch. "What?"

"Apparently Gia has been looking for Richard and Zippy. She's frantic. No one has seen him since his argument with Betty."

I had a bad feeling. "We've got to find Betty."

BETTY WAS AWOL.

So were Richard and Zippy.

I rubbed my temples in an effort to ward off the throbbing pain behind my eyes. I had a feeling Betty was behind Zippy and Richard's disappearance. If she'd seen them, she wouldn't have been able to stop herself from confronting him again. And that concerned me. I didn't know what Richard was capable of if pushed too far. Judging by the show of temper he'd displayed earlier, it was possible he might try to intimidate Betty if she crossed the line.

Bless her heart-Betty hadn't met a line she didn't want to cross.

Darby agreed to keep Missy while I continued my search. I took a turn around the track again, checked out the vendor area, and did a quick scan in the spectator section, but didn't see Betty. Either my timing was terrible or she wasn't with Richard after all.

I stopped walking and concentrated. It was possible she'd taken off in her Mini Cooper. Where she might have gone, I didn't have a clue, but her car was one of the few places I hadn't looked yet. And I was out of options. I ignored the pit in my stomach.

The dog park had a tiny parking lot, with limited s.p.a.ce, so most of us took the trolley from downtown or we parked along the canyon road. Since Betty and I had arrived about the same time, I knew she had driven herself and left her car along the street.

As I exited the park, a slight breeze rustled my hair. Gooseb.u.mps rose on my arms. Directly across the street from the entrance stood the group of protesters waving their signs and marching in one continuous circle. I picked up the pace until I was practically jogging. I ran across the street. A car horn honked as my foot hit the sidewalk. The driver slowed to a crawl and flipped me off as he pa.s.sed by.

I'd run past a half-dozen vehicles when I saw a man leaning against a white sedan. Focused on finding Betty, I didn't think much about him, until his body slid off the car, and with a dull thump, landed on the road.

Bright red blood oozed down the car's snowy-white side panel where his body had been seconds ago. My first thought was that a car, probably the same person who'd honked at me minutes ago, had hit him. I ran toward him, yelling for help, digging my cell out of my back pocket to call 911.

"Sir! Sir, are you all right?"

Cars whizzed past us, oblivious to the man who lay face first on the ground. I dropped to my knees next to him. I rolled him over, praying he wasn't seriously injured.

I gasped; my cell slipped from my fingers.

It was Richard Eriksen. And he hadn't been hit by a car.

He'd been shot in his black heart.

Chapter Four.

BETTY FOUND ME. Right after I found Richard Eriksen's dead body. And if you're paying attention, you know who found the two of us next. Homicide Detective Judd Malone.

Betty and I waited on the sidewalk as Detective Malone moved in our direction with a heaviness that suggested the last place he wanted to be was here. With us. I felt the same way. I sighed in dread knowing what was about to happen.

Betty, on the other hand, gasped in wide-eyed excitement. "That's my kind of man."

She sprinted across the gravel parking lot straight for Malone as if reuniting with her lover after a long separation. He immediately held out his arms in warning. A warning Betty blithely ignored as she threw her pint-sized body against him. "You're here. I knew you'd come."

Of course he'd come. It was his job.

Malone unhooked Betty's arms from around his neck, and peeled her off his chest like a fruit roll-up. "Mrs. Foxx, don't do that again."

Yes, the three of us have a history. During our brief, but action-packed time together, Betty had developed a major schoolgirl crush on the good-looking detective.

"You're all dusty." As she brushed herself off, the bottom of her straw handbag repeatedly slapped Malone's arm. With a resigned sigh, he stepped to the side.

"I've been at the shooting range." He stared at me with reserved restraint. "It's my day off."

My stomach sank. Not good. I gathered my hair into a ponytail and lifted its weight off the back of my neck, unsure if I was sweaty from the heat of the sun or Malone's glare.

He motioned to where I stood on the sidewalk, separated from the crowd of gawkers. "Let's talk over here."

Because Malone possessed the perfect poker face, pinpointing the exact emotion he was feeling was difficult. Based on personal experience, I would wager happiness and excitement were not options for today. I was one of the last two people he'd want to see at a crime scene. The other person would be my cousin, Caro. The two of us seem to possess an internal dead-body-detector.

Speaking of Caro. Normally, she would also attend a local pet event. Instead, she was championing the Orange County Greyhound fostering program in L.A. I'd heard through the grapevine she was teaching a cla.s.s on how to read and understand a dog's body language to a new group of foster parents. Caro was sort of a big deal in the pet behaviorist world. Not that I'd ever admit it to her, but I was proud of what she'd accomplished. In my humble opinion, kicking her cheating husband to the curb was her greatest achievement.

Not surprisingly, Malone wore dark jeans and a T-shirt, sans the leather jacket, even on his day off. Traffic slowed to a crawl as they pa.s.sed us. Malone ordered a uniformed officer to direct the cars to move along.

"Melinda."

I shoved my hands inside the back pockets of my jeans, and rocked on the heels of my Stuart Weitzman motorcycle boots. "Detective."

"What happened?"

"I found him slumped against that white four-door sedan." I pointed toward the car surrounded by yellow police tape. "I thought he'd been hit by a car, but when I rolled him over to see if he was conscious, it was obvious he'd been shot." I kept my story free of whimsy and speculation, and full of facts. Malone wasn't always interested in entertaining my theories.

Typical Malone didn't bother to take notes; he listened intently. That sense of foreboding that I had thirty minutes earlier, while searching for Betty, exploded into heavy dread. Betty had waved a gun at the dead man. At some point Malone would find out. I mentally plotted a way to relate the facts in the least damaging way possible.

"Do you know anyone who'd want to hurt him?" Malone asked.

I shook my head. "It would be an a.s.sumption on my part to name anyone. I didn't know him."

He crossed his tanned arms. "Is that so?"

I waited for him to ask another question. I'd learned from experience his silence was a tactic to make me uncomfortable in hopes that I'd spill my guts. Well, believe it or not, I was perfectly comfortable waiting for him to make the next move.

The three of us stood together. Malone's eyes darted back and forth between Betty and me. Only the noise of light traffic filled the lull of his barrage of questions.

"Cookie, what about Lenny. Or Ricky-d.i.c.ky's bonkers wife, Gia?" Betty broke under the pressure.

I glared at my overly helpful a.s.sistant, warning her to keep her lips sealed. I knew how this worked. We'd point the finger at them. In return, they'd point a finger at her. And since she was the only one who'd publicly threatened the dead guy with a gun, she had the most to lose.

I swallowed hard, knowing it was time to spill the beans about Betty's Dirty Harry impersonation. "Earlier, Richard, Mr. Eriksen-"

Suddenly, a microphone whizzed past my shoulder and stopped a few inches from Malone's nose. "Detective, can you confirm Richard Eriksen has been murdered?" A deep male voice boomed in my ear.

Annoyance flickered across Malone's stone face for a second. "No comment."

What? Someone annoyed Detective Judd Malone as much as I did? I stepped aside and turned to face Callum MacAvoy, TV reporter for the local news. The newest pain-in-Malone's-backside easily met the Hollywood standard of s.e.xy scene-stealer. I wondered if the station's owner had brought the new reporter on board for his good looks or because of his reporting abilities.

Alert green eyes zeroed in on Malone. "Do you know what happened?"

"We're investigating."

The reporter turned in my direction and sized me up. He flashed a camera-ready smile; his white teeth gleamed against his sun-kissed skin. I bet he spent more on his facial moisturizer than I did.

He lowered his voice as if he were sharing a secret with me and asked, "Would you like to be on TV?"

I felt like a young girl who'd been offered candy by a stranger.

"I would, handsome." Betty raised her hand and bounced excitedly.

Good grief, that's all we needed. A loose-lipped chatterbox talking to the town's newest TV reporter, who was eager to make his mark in the community.

MacAvoy turned his body square with mine, blocking Malone and game-show-contestant Betty. "You wouldn't mind answering a few questions on camera, would you, Miss . . . ?"

Seriously? He'd sized me up and deduced I was a girlish doormat he could seduce with a practiced smile, intimate body language, and a c.o.c.ky promise of fifteen seconds on the twelve o'clock news? Mr. TV wasn't even primetime.

I stepped closer. I wet my lips and stared dreamily into his green eyes. Calling up the soft Texas accent that I'd worked so hard to drop over the past few years, I spoke into his microphone. "Anderson Cooper already called, sugar. We have an interview date at nine."

Malone coughed in an attempt to cover his laugh. I turned my head and winked at him.

"Nice one, Cookie," Betty cackled.

The reporter studied me intently. I'm sure he was rea.s.sessing his snap-judgment opinion, backtracking to the moment when he'd drawn the wrong conclusion. Better luck next time, buddy.

"Salinas." Malone waved over a uniformed officer. "Escort Mr. MacAvoy and his cameraman away from my crime scene. They can wait with the rest of the press."

Once MacAvoy was out of earshot, Malone offered a piece of advice. "Don't make an enemy out of the media."

"Obviously, you don't know my history as well as I thought you did," I said dryly. "I don't appreciate being underestimated because of how I look."

My entire life people have made a.s.sumptions about my aspirations and intelligence based on my appearance. That included my mother. I no longer tolerated that shortsightedness. And I wasn't about to apologize for it.

Malone nodded. "I won't ever make that mistake."

"You never have."

I sighed. It was time to confess about Betty's poor judgment. "Here's the deal. Betty and Richard got into a rather loud and public argument earlier this morning."

He shifted a questioning gaze toward Betty, who immediately clutched her chest dramatically. "He came after me. I was defending myself."

Malone rubbed his unshaved face. "What happened?"

"That stupid man mistreated Zippy, and I told him so. He burst into a rage and lunged at me. I didn't have time to use my self-defense moves. I thought he was going to kill me, so I pulled out my gun to protect myself. It's nice one too. A 9mm Beretta Nano. Fits perfectly in my hand. That's important, you know."

I squeezed my eyes shut for a second, replaying Betty's words. It sounded just as awful in my head as when she'd spoken the words out loud.

Malone was all business. "Do you have a license for your gun?"

"Of course. I'm a law-abiding citizen."