The Marine's Last Defence

“There’s nothing there.” Sabrina stood and shook the tension from her arms but kept the mallet in her hands.

She rounded the corner, prepared to whack any intruder or at least throw the mallet at their head. Nothing. The pillows were out of place, the cushions were crooked and the glass top on the coffee table was shattered.

It might look like an accident had happened, but she knew Brenda Ellen. The woman had given her a five-minute lecture when she hadn’t vacuumed one morning.

She froze. Had that been wood creaking? Barely a sound from the carpeted stairs, but she recognized it. Being in the house alone with Dallas, she’d heard it many nights as the pup had gone downstairs to bark and howl. She swallowed hard, the simple silent sound reverberating in her head like a shout. She held her breath.

Was it the man from the clinic? The one who looked like he enjoyed killing? His horrible smile haunted her nightmares where she was endlessly being chased.

Whoever was behind her on the stairs knew she was in the house. She couldn’t make it across the room to the phone. She couldn’t unbolt the front door without her keys, which were in the pocket of her coat. Out the kitchen door was her only choice.

So she ran. She hated turning her back, afraid the crazy-smile guy would shoot her between the shoulders. Unlike her dreams, where she ran all night, just out of his reach.

He heard her. She could hear his heavy, fast-paced steps. The lamp from the sofa table toppled to the floor behind her as she skidded around the corner of the kitchen.

Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.

She slid to a stop, yanked the door open as far as her suitcase allowed and jumped the two steps to the driveway.

“Hi, Bree, looking for Dallas?”

It took a couple of seconds to shove her heart from her throat to her chest again. It was just a neighborhood kid she’d met plenty of times while walking the dogs. “Get out of here, Joey.”

“It’s okay. This cop found her at the lake. I guess she got out after Mrs. Richardson left.”

“Cop? Where?” She grabbed his bike handles and pulled. “Come on, Joey. I said to get going.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, dragging his feet through the drifting snow.

The door swung open. She caught a glimpse of a barrel, a man in a mask. “Get down!”

Sabrina jerked the handle bars sideways, knocking Joey to the ground and jumping on top of him. A beige blur pulled her sweater and shoved her facedown into the snow next to the street.

“Hold it,” a deep voice boomed from above her.

“He’s...he’s in the house with a gun,” she explained, spitting the snow from her mouth.

“You okay, kid?” the voice asked. Nothing like the voice from the clinic. The tones floating to her ears were deep and rich with a natural Texas twang she recognized.

Jake Craig.

She watched Joey’s head bob up and down and then an excited gleam dart into his eyes at the thought of danger. Give it up. It ain’t anything like you think it might be, kid.

“Stay here,” the voice commanded as he ran toward the door.

They’d do no such thing.

She was getting Joey as far away from the house as possible. “Get behind that car,” she told Joey, who seemed mesmerized.

“But he said—”

“I don’t care. Get up and move.”

Faster than she thought possible, they were sitting with their backs against the tires. She expected gunfire to explode around them at any moment. The more seconds that ticked by, the easier she breathed, and the more she realized she needed to sneak away before the cop returned.

Her feet were stinging from the cold. Could she get somewhere safe without any shoes?

Scratching against glass. She heard a familiar bark and whine. Dallas.

The pup was in good hands. The cop would take care of everything. She could leave without him ever really seeing her face. She shivered from the cold, wiping melting snow from her skin. She could get another used coat when she picked up a new suitcase.

Oh, no! The money!

Whether it was her exasperated cry of utter disappointment or her slow recovery from having been scared to death, Joey responded with an awkward pat on her shoulder.

“Was there really someone inside with a gun?” the teen asked, unable to hide the excitement in his voice. “Was she, like, being robbed or something?”

He started to stand and she tugged him back to her side.

“How did Dallas end up with a policeman? What’s going on?”

“See, we was, like, going down to do some stunts in the empty lot and instead there was a lot of cop cars. They hauled somebody off in, like, a real body bag and everything. Then we notice this guy and he had Dallas. So I went over and asked him why.”

During the explanation, her heart ventured into another part of her body again. “Do you know who died?”

Dallas barked, pawing at the door.

“You’re Mrs. Richardson?” the detective asked, coming around the end of his car. “Is this your dog?”

“Nope, this is Bree. She’s the dog sitter,” Joey answered.

Jake had a strange look on his face. He listened intently the entire time and never took his eyes off her. Sabrina knew he was tall. He’d towered over her at the diner, but from a sitting position on the ground, he was frighteningly tall. It didn’t help that his wary approach seemed ominous. She knew he was legit and not a part of the higher-ups, but she couldn’t stop shaking.

“Can I go now?” Joey asked, touching her hand.

She hadn’t known she still held the teen’s arm. She released him and the cop came closer. He didn’t slide around on the quickly defrosting ice. But his clothes looked like he’d already taken a couple of bad spills. She’d seen them in detail at the diner.

“Thanks for the directions, kid.”

“I gotta go tell everybody what happened,” Joey said. He was down the hill and nearly around the corner by the time she turned to face Jake.

Jake? Detective Craig! The same detective who does not need your phone number, she realized. Oh, my gosh. She was even rambling nervously in her thoughts.

“Hold on a minute, sweetheart.”

“What?”

He reached past her and stuck his arm inside the car, then swung the door open and Dallas leaped out. The pup joined her, crowding her face with a cold nose. She automatically began running her fingers across the pup’s sides. While her chin was being licked, Bree shifted her gaze from the ground, connecting with the detective’s curious observation.

The images of a gun, body bags, jail... They all circled her head, making it swim. Brenda Ellen would have been walking Dallas last night. She felt desperately ill and dropped her face into the black fur.

“You didn’t catch him?” she asked.

“I didn’t find anyone, no.”

“Is she...? Is that why you were bringing Dallas home?” Oh, my gosh, she’s dead. Sabrina could tell she was right by the detective’s sympathetic sigh and awkwardness.

“I need to ask you a few questions, Miss Bowman.” He extended his hand to help her stand.

Sabrina had no choice. Because of her, Brenda Ellen had died. Perhaps she should be arrested and leave the investigating to professionals. She placed her cold fingers within his warm grip and stood. She didn’t want to go to jail. “I’m Bree.”

“Yeah, I remember.”

He kept hold of her hand, steadying her. Gone was the shyness, the awkward bit of flirtation from the diner. They stood there for several seconds until Dallas whimpered and pawed at her legs.

“Maybe we should go inside?” he asked.

“Can we? After that guy was there? I mean, don’t you need fingerprints or something? He killed Brenda Ellen.”

“Did you actually see someone?” He shoved into her hand some silver material that he’d used for a leash, then tugged her to the sidewalk, protectively pushing her a couple of feet behind a giant sycamore. She winced as the snow covered her feet.

“He pointed a gun at Joey out the door. The kitchen’s a wreck and you said someone killed her.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Didn’t you?”

“No.”

“But you found a body and Dallas was at the lake. There’s eggs and grease and a mess.” She wasn’t making sense and, from his curious expression, could tell he was confused.

“Did you actually see someone in the house?”

“Yes. He chased me outside and was going to shoot us, but then you got here.”

“What makes you think that? What did he look like?”

“I don’t know. He had a mask and a gun. I saw the gun.” Her hands shook. She hadn’t been this frightened since stabbing Griffin with a scalpel. “She never, ever eats fried food.”

“Ma’am, I’m having a hard time following. You aren’t making much sense. I didn’t find anyone inside, but I can check it out if you want to wait in the car.”

* * *

“HE KILLED HER, didn’t he?”

Bree Bowman was losing it and sort of melted onto the sidewalk along with the snow from the night before. He didn’t believe she’d actually fainted but it was close. Jake did the only thing he knew how to do...

He grabbed the leash and lifted Bree. She was a tiny thing, fitting easily into his arms. She was crying hard, and was half-frozen from being outside without a coat or shoes. Her tiny feet were a bluish color, waving in the air. His only option was the house. Crime scene or not.

The door banged half open again. He took a second to look this time at what it hit. He recognized the suitcase from the diner—so she was a house sitter, not only a dog walker. The bottom of the case was still wet, so she hadn’t been there long. She clung to the dog leash and Dallas pulled them a couple of steps forward. Jake whacked his hip on a drawer.

“I’m so sorry. I needed the meat mallet in case someone attacked.”

“Drop the leash, Bree.”

“I can’t.” She locked her arms around his neck, pulling herself closer. “She’ll run through the house, maybe destroy evidence. She’s certain to get into things and someone was here. They chased me.”

“I’ve got it. You can let go.” She searched his eyes and then let go as instructed.

When he set her on her feet, he kept an arm around her waist to steady her. Dallas continued to tug and beg to be free.

“What makes you think your boss didn’t just have an overnight guest who didn’t clean up after himself and maybe thought you were the intruder?”

“Brenda Ellen was scheduled to leave for Seattle yesterday. Her flight was canceled and she was rescheduled for eleven o’clock this morning,” Bree whispered. “She wouldn’t have left anything out of place. She never does.”

Jake searched the kitchen. It was immaculate compared to his apartment. “Look, even if someone was here earlier, they’re gone now.”

“How do you know they aren’t hiding? Where’d they go? All the doors are still closed. What if someone was with the man with the gun?”

“I checked out the perimeter and backyard.” He needed to follow procedure and begin from the beginning. But instead, he broke protocol and placed his hands on Bree’s shoulders, trying to reassure her it would be okay.

Great, he hadn’t even called the location into his partner or captain yet. If someone had been there, they were long gone. He had little hope of a BOLO. Bree inhaled and opened her mouth to speak again. He covered her parted lips with a finger. Her warm breath escaped, but she didn’t utter a sound.

“I’m going to call for backup. You’re going to stay here with Dallas. Try to keep her quiet. Nod if you understand?”

She barely moved. He wanted to dab her wet lashes and give her a long hug. Why? Maybe it was the sympathy he felt for the dog spilling over to this petite, caring woman. Or the way she’d giggled at him in the diner. He didn’t know and squashed the urge.

“One thing first. What did Brenda Ellen Richardson look like?”

“Dark brown hair, about my length, slender, average height.”

“What color were her eyes?”

“Were? She’s...then she is who you found at the lake. They’re brown.”

She described his murder victim. With his luck, he’d be destroying more evidence by searching the house, but he needed to secure it. He pulled his cell from its belt holster. “Wait here.”

Jake called for backup and moved methodically through the rest of the house. Once he was in the front room, he saw a picture of his murder victim, laughing with an older couple. Most likely her parents. And then another of her with a golden retriever. He called his partner, giving him the name and address, and hung up before the old goat could gripe at him for being inside the house.

The furniture was nice, no dust on the shelves, a variety of books in the hallway case. From his point of view, barely anything was out of place. Breakfast dishes, a drop of blood from slicing cheese and a cracked coffee table that could have happened when the dog ran through the house. It didn’t look like there’d been an intruder.

But he entered each room as if an AK-47 was on the opposite side of the door. He couldn’t help it. Old habits were hard to break. His last partner had laughed a couple of times, but it had quickly become a routine for them. Better safe than sorry.

A dress was lying on the bedspread—could have been worn Friday or laid out for today, he couldn’t tell. Two nice suitcases sat in the corner by the master bath, giving credence to Bree’s story.

The house was clear. His backup should be here in a few minutes. Time to get some information from his witness and get himself back on this case. He headed downstairs and Dallas greeted him halfway up. “So you got loose. Overanxious?”

He hooked his hand in the leash and spent a couple of minutes coaxing the pup to go with him.

“I need to ask you a couple of questions now.” He entered the kitchen, but his witness was no longer there. Gone, along with the coat and suitcase.

He’d fallen for her act, hook, line and sinker.

Chapter Four

“Dark hair, amethyst eyes, about five-three or -four. Looks a lot like the victim from the back. Nothing like her up close. Probably about twenty-five.” If Jake went into detail about the heart shape of her face, the petite bone structure or how he’d noticed the way her nose curved at the tip and had five distinct freckles, his partner would think him nuts. Or might believe Jake had let her go deliberately.

As it was, the razing hadn’t ceased since Detective Elton Owens had shown up to continue the investigation. More precisely, the murder investigation that didn’t involve Jake. Owens stood there, checking his notes, treating Jake like a suspect. Or worse, like a naive rookie.

“You say you saw her at the diner this morning? And you didn’t think to mention this when you returned with coffee?”

“Come on, Owens. There was no way to know she was the victim’s house sitter. You’d still be waiting on Missing Persons or the chip information about the dog if I hadn’t followed the kids here.” And Animal Control, if it hadn’t been for the kids. He knew he was acting defensively and was just tired enough not to care.

Owens ignored him and asked the crime scene investigator some questions.

Jake knew he’d been a good police officer over the past year. He’d accepted being the low man on the totem pole in Homicide, accepting the grunt work, not caring how many hours he worked without pay. He didn’t have a life outside of the job and didn’t want one. Working over Christmas had kept him from a face-to-face meeting with his parents, siblings and other relatives.

Being around his family made him uncomfortable. Being grilled by his partner was almost as bad.

His family had never asked if the accusations his ex-wife had made were true, but they’d also never said the words were lies. Maybe they interpreted his embarrassment for being blind to his wife’s indiscretions, somehow making him the guilty party. After a while, it just didn’t matter. It was easier to let sleeping dogs lie and avoid confrontations about his disastrous marriage. He was moving past his first wife and the war.

Thing about it—he was past his ex. And that was the hardest part for his parents to understand. Sad, but whatever had been there in the beginning of his marriage had slipped away after spending months and thousands of miles apart over the past six years.

When the position opened in Dallas—three hours from his hometown in east Texas—he jumped at it. He needed a new start and it was easier that way. A year later and he was working in Homicide. Exactly where he wanted to be.

Now his partner assumed he’d made mistakes instead of decisions. He’d like someone—anyone—to trust his judgment. No one really had since he’d left the corps. Well, he couldn’t actually blame them. He’d let the witness escape. Bree had turned on the waterworks and he’d been suckered in, big-time.

Bamboozled. That’s right, Craig, teased the devil sitting on his shoulder.

Owens removed the picture from the frame. “Definitely our victim. Looks like we need to find her parents to notify. The dog sitter, this Bree woman, you say she seemed more frightened that someone was in the house than that Mrs. Richardson had been murdered.”

“I didn’t say that, Owens. She was visibly upset about both instances.” I think.

“When you get back to the station, you can spend the day looking through mug shots. We’ll be taking a hard look at Richardson’s finances, see if we can find payment to this mysterious dog sitter. Right now, she’s our only lead.” He closed the notebook, returning it to his jacket pocket. “You sure she was a dog sitter?”

“Joey knew her and seemed to trust her.”

“No last name on the kid or any of the other kids?” he asked, but barely paused. “I’ll get a sketch artist to the diner and an officer moving house to house. Shouldn’t be too hard to locate this chick. Oh, and the captain wants to see you when you return.”

“I figured.”

Owens left the house, laughing as he stood on the porch talking to the first responding officer—as luck would have it—the same guy who had told him to set a good example for the kids at the park.

“It’ll get easier, you know,” Shirley, the crime scene analyst, interrupted his self-deprecation.

He stopped himself from asking what she referred to by compressing his lips together. He knew the answer, just didn’t want to have the conversation.

“The ribbing goes away. This is how they treat all the new guys.”

“Find anything?” He’d rather hear about the case—even if he wasn’t officially a part of the investigation.

“It will all be in my report. I’d rather not take wild guesses.”

“Hey, this is Jake Craig, the detective who’s not officially on the case. Can’t you give me the unofficial version? It won’t go any further. Promise.” He flashed her a smile, hoping it did the trick. Blatant flirting never hurt.

“Okay. It looks like she was killed at the park. Only a drop of blood in the kitchen and no real struggle other than in the living room.”

“Any fingerprints? The dog sitter said the victim kept things clean and lived alone.”

“The table does appear to have been shattered today. Very few of the pieces were ground deeply into the carpet. The prints left around the house are fresh and easy to find. We’ll rule out the victim’s easily enough.”

“So it was wiped clean?”

“I don’t think so. I agree with the missing dog sitter. I believe the victim did like things clean and took care of it almost daily.” His confusion must have appeared on his face since Shirley continued. “Look around you. The owner of this house had a black dog and white carpet. Either the dog didn’t live inside, or someone was meticulous about cleaning.”

“Got it. What about the footprints in the backyard?” he asked as the analyst gathered her gear. “Anything there?”

Jake stuck his hands in his pockets. He caught a glimpse of his tattered appearance in the mirror and pushed his shoulders back, standing tall. His mother had taught him he looked defeated when he slouched. He wouldn’t let this situation defeat him.

The marines corrected the high school self-consciousness of being six inches taller than everyone else around him. But his first week out of uniform, faced with a divorce, living with his parents and not having a future had his mother badgering him to stand up straight on more than one occasion.

“With the layer of snow and ice, it’s impossible to gather anything. Let’s just say the little bit of evidence I’ve collected won’t be the strongest lead for solving this homicide.” She slipped into her coat.

“Did you catch what the medical examiner surmised was the cause of death?” Definitely strangulation in his opinion. He’d seen the same bloodred eyes on a marine killed by a local militant.

“This isn’t official, mind you, but the M.E. noted the subconjunctival hemorrhages before they moved the body.” With the last of her winter wear in place, she lifted her cases and flashed him a smile. “In layman terms, she was strangled.”

He followed her to the front door and held the outer one open, lowering his voice. “Sounds premeditated if they made it look like it happened while walking her dog and then came back here to cook themselves breakfast.”

“Came back is right. They estimated her TOD sometime between eight and eleven last night.”

Premeditated and yet the death wasn’t violent like a lovers’ quarrel. The guy had probably strangled her while she was walking the dog.

Heartless? Had they left the pup to freeze or not killed the dog because they liked animals? Premeditation bugged him. It didn’t fit. The murderer seemed to be waiting around for something—or somebody—after the murder. Had the dog sitter taken them by surprise or had they been lying in wait?

Exactly who had she been running from when he drove up and why had she run when he was upstairs?

“Shirley?” He caught up with her on the front walk. “I need a favor.” Jake handed her his business card. “Can you send the results from the fingerprint search to me? Specifically the one you lifted from the kitchen drawer. That’s my cell.”

“Sure, but I thought Owens said—”

“Yeah, the favor is you’re not going to tell him I know.”

“Oh, that won’t be a problem. So you think we’ll find a match.” Shirley stashed his card in her pocket.

“She was too scared for her knees to work. And there is the fact that she ran without putting on her shoes.” As indicated by two sets of bare footprints that led into the street.

“It would seem so.” Shirley smiled and picked up her case. “I meant to ask, what happened to the dog from this morning?”

“Animal Control showed up this time.” It helped when they were actually called—which he’d done personally. “A kid saw Dallas with me at the park and led me here.”

“That was lucky, then. I hope someone claims her. Big, black dogs don’t get adopted so easily, especially ones with a blind eye. See ya.” She waved and got into her car.

Jake sat in his car. “Blind eye? I couldn’t tell she was half-blind. Dallas is a good pup. Somebody will adopt her.”

The dog deserved someone with a huge yard. Or someone close to a park where she could be trained to catch flying disks or retrieve tennis balls. From the little he’d seen of her interaction with Bree, Dallas had a huge heart. And the loyalty she’d displayed staying with her owner and fighting not to leave her side after she’d been freed, sort of reminded him of his marine brothers.

Would a pup like that get adopted? Or was it amazing she’d been adopted the first time. He’d seen genuine relief on his mystery woman’s face when he’d walked up with Dallas. Call it a hunch or good detective work, but he’d bet his next paycheck that Bree wouldn’t let Dallas stay overnight in the city pound.

Owens and the rest of the responders were out front, walking toward their vehicles. If he was right about the dog sitter showing up to rescue Dallas, he’d obtain the answers to many of his questions. Official case or not, it wouldn’t stop him from finding the murderer.