Chapter 22
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Inside, Doreen wandered around Mike Howard’s house, looking to see just what these B&E guys were up to. It didn’t take long for them to get to the good part. As soon as Mack left the kitchen and headed for the garage and opened it up, he found it full of stuff. He glared at it all.
She asked, “Does any of this mean anything to you?”
“Yeah,” he grumbled, “absolutely it does. Look at all this stuff he’s got stockpiled. This isn’t a typical homeowner’s garage. This stuff is stolen property.”
“Now you know who’s been involved in a lot of that.”
He nodded. “And yet we didn’t even have this guy on our radar,” he admitted, staring at her.
“But now you do,” she stated encouragingly, “so you can move ahead on all those cases.”
“Great,” he muttered.
“What? Is that a problem too?” she asked, confused.
“No, not at all,” he replied, with a chuckle. “It’s great, but also leads us to other suspects in this one ring, which could lead us to related B&E rings in nearby cities. You just have no idea how much legwork and research is involved. Plus, the paperwork is never-ending.”
“But it’ll solve cases that have impacted a lot of citizens,” she pointed out, “and that will make you guys look good.”
“It will, indeed,” he agreed, with a chuckle.
“Besides,” she added, giving him a loving peck on the cheek, “you will put teams on the research and uniforms on the legwork and won’t have to do that paperwork yourself, will you?”
He immediately brightened. “No, I sure won’t.”
“So, it’s all good then,” she declared, chuckling in his direction.
They took a few cursory photos of the mass of items in the garage, and then he led the way back to the main part of the house.
Mugs immediately started sniffing around.
“What’s he after?” Mack asked in surprise.
“I think,” she suggested, frowning as she watched Mugs go crazy, “he may be sensing another animal.”
“You think so?”
And, sure enough, as they headed into the laundry room off the kitchen, they found a dog in a cage. Mack immediately let him out, opening the back door so he could go to the bathroom. Yet the dog hesitated, not sure if he was among friendly kinds or not, until Mugs immediately sniffed him over.
Doreen watched carefully to make sure all was okay between the two dogs, but all appeared to be fine.
She noted, “This Mike Howard guy can’t be all bad if he’s got an animal.
” When Mack frowned at her, she shrugged.
“I do tend to think that animal lovers are far superior to non-animal lovers.” He didn’t say anything to that. “You don’t agree?” she asked.
“I’m not getting into that one,” he noted, with a laugh. “A lot of people just can’t have pets because of allergies or their work schedule or no yard, stuff like that.”
“But I didn’t say animal owners, I said animal lovers.”
He thought about that and then nodded. “Okay, in that case, I agree.” She beamed at him, and he laughed. “It really doesn’t make any difference right now,” he stated. “We have to sort this out.”
She bent down and greeted the dog, a medium-size mixed-breed pup with black curly hair. “How does that work when a pet is involved? Do you make sure this little guy will get care while his person is in jail?”
“That can be a bit of a hole in our world sometimes. Mike can always phone a friend and get them to look after an animal while he’s in jail.”
Doreen grimaced. “Sure, if he’s a decent person, he probably will.”
Mack shrugged. “Well, if he has an animal, chances are he’ll make sure it’s looked after.”
“Maybe,” she muttered, “but he’s living a criminal lifestyle, so spending time in jail is something that could happen to him at any time.”
Mack didn’t say anything to that but started to go through the rooms, one by one, looking for anything of interest.
Doreen trailed behind him. “And, even if these guys are part of that B&E team or gang or whatever you want to call it,” she said, “that still doesn’t explain how they knew that Devon’s house was empty.”
“Maybe they watch the obits or the death notices in the news, so they knew about the young man who died. Maybe they knew about the old lady who came and went.”
“So what then? They drugged Birdie at Rosemoor just so they could go steal everything from her house that she shared with Devon?”
“Stranger things have happened,” Mack noted.
Doreen considered that, then nodded. “That would imply that not only did somebody know the family, but also somebody understood what Birdie was doing, spending some nights at Rosemoor and some at Devon’s place. That could mean somebody in her inner circle—or Devon’s.”
He smiled at her. “Most likely, yes, but we can’t prove that yet.”
“Right,” she muttered, “but things are getting exciting.” With that, she headed to the bedrooms. Mugs followed along with her. As she reached the first doorway, Mugs started to bark and bark.
Mack immediately showed up. “What’s going on with him?”
“I’m not sure,” she muttered, “but he doesn’t like this room one bit.”
Mack sniffed the air, frowned, did a cursory look around, and then nodded. “Quite a bit of drugs are in here, or recently were,” he pointed out.
“As in personal-use drugs or more?” she asked.
He frowned and sighed. “It’s a fair bit of smell here, so I would say there’s a good possibility that he may be dealing.”
“Which may or may not go along with the same B&E issue.”
He turned to her and asked, “What do you mean?”
She explained, “Just that we can’t assume everybody involved with breaking-and-entering is involved with drugs.”
“No, of course not,” he agreed, with a wave of his hand. “However, we also can’t dismiss it as not being important,” he added, “as we do have to sort that out too. I need to make some phone calls.” He stepped away to make those.
Meanwhile, she stepped out of that room. Mugs was definitely out of sorts. She looked down at him. “You’re never happy when drugs are around, are you?”
Nose down, he led her into what she assumed would be the spare bedroom. When she opened the door, she gasped and cried out for Mack. She immediately raced to the bed, where a young woman was stretched out there, wearing only underwear and secured to the bedposts.
The woman opened her eyes, saw Doreen, and the tears immediately welled up.
Phone in hand, Mack raced inside. Seeing the young woman, he swore, sending off texts, then put away his phone, and joined Doreen.
As soon as the woman was free, Doreen warned her, “Just move slowly at first. It’ll hurt to get the blood moving again.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. She looked over at Mack. “Please, … I need to go to the hospital.”
He nodded. “We’ve got everybody coming. I just called in the cavalry.”
When Doreen sat down on the bed beside her, Goliath jumped up and immediately rubbed his head against the woman. She cried soft tears as she hugged and petted him.
At that, Thaddeus snuck through the fall of Doreen’s hair, looked over at the woman, and whispered in a crooning tone, “Thaddeus is here. Thaddeus is here.”
“Oh my,” the woman whispered, more tears coming at the sight of him. “Thank you for bringing the animals. It’s just lovely to see them.”
Doreen smiled and asked, “How did you end up here?”
“I met him the other night,” she whispered. “I just thought we were going out for a few drinks and didn’t think anything of it. The next thing I knew, I woke up in here.”
“He drugged you?”
“I think so,” she whispered. At that, she turned to Mack, who nodded.
“That won’t do him any good either.”
“My dog, he was here with me,” the woman added.
“Oh, is that your dog downstairs?”
“I don’t know,” she muttered.
At a sound in the doorway, they turned, and there was the dog, his tail wagging like crazy when he saw her. The woman burst into tears as the dog jumped up on the bed beside her.
“Now there’s a good boy,” Doreen whispered. “What’s your dog’s name?”
“Scout.”
Mack interjected, “I don’t want you to move just yet. I’ve got an ambulance coming.” Mack watched her cuddle her dog. “But Scout can’t go in the ambulance with you. What’s your name?”
She nodded. “Annabel Gale. I need him to be safe though,” she whispered.
“That’s okay, Annabel,” Doreen replied. “We can look after him.” When Mack frowned at her, she shrugged. “We can’t leave him, and it will be chaos when everybody gets here,” she noted.
Mack shared, “Actually the local animal shelter has a volunteer who specifically likes to provide short-term foster care for people impacted by emergencies. The best thing for Scout is to go someplace where he’ll be safe, until Annabel’s released from the hospital.”
Doreen nodded. “In that case, that is a better solution, since my world can be a little … unpredictable at times.”
When Mack snorted at that, Doreen decided a change of subject was in order. She turned to Annabel. “I hate to ask, but do you know if you’re badly hurt?”
“I don’t think so,” she replied. “However, I don’t feel very good at all. I would at least like to get checked over.”
“Not a problem,” Mack said. “We’ll find out if he drugged you, so we’ll need some tests done.”
She just nodded and sagged back onto the bed. “I really don’t feel well,” she muttered.
“Did you know him beforehand?” Doreen asked.
“I’d seen him around, and he was always kind of friendly. Nice, I thought. Yet I won’t listen to friendly and nice in my head anymore.”
“No, I don’t imagine you would,” Doreen agreed. “Do you know why Mike did this?”
“No, he didn’t say anything. Just that I would be for later.”
“For later?” Doreen repeated.
“Yes,” she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes again. “I was trying so hard to stay positive, but then he didn’t come back. So, I was trying to figure out how to get out of here, but everything, … anything I thought up wasn’t really doable.”
Doreen nodded. “Sometimes it’s just impossible to get out of things like this. On the other hand, you are safe now, and he has been picked up. Well, if we’re talking about the same guy anyway, he’s down at the police station right now.”
She turned to Mack and asked, “Can you get a picture of him and show me?”