The dog. It was the damn dog.
The guy on top of me shifted his weight and latched his fingers around my wrist. He yanked on my arm and tried to get my hand behind my back, but he was going to have to work for it.
"Come on, kid," he grunted. "Give it up." He pulled harder, but it didn't do him any good. "Randy, put your weight into it."
"I am." Randy increased the pressure on my neck.
"Relax, kid," the guy on my back panted. "You're just making it harder on yourself." He changed his grip, jackknifed my arm around, and pinned my wrist between my shoulder blades.
He shifted, and I realized he was groping for something. A gun, a knife?
Fueled with desperation, I wrenched my arm free, grabbed Randy's ankle, and twisted at the same time. It threw him off balance. His boot scraped across my neck, and he landed heavily on the carpet. I rolled and twisted, trying to get to my feet, when I caught sight of the guy behind me and froze. He was squatting, bringing his arm down in a wide arc, and in his hand, he held a shiny black stick. It cracked into my arm, just below the shoulder. The blow shuddered through my body, and my arm went numb.
He pushed me back onto my stomach and clamped something on my wrist. The ratchetting sound was unmistakable, and I had probably just gotten myself into a whole lot of trouble. He pulled my left arm into position, slapped on the other cuff, and pushed to his feet. I twisted around.
They stared down at me, both of them out of breath, and sure enough, the glimpse I'd caught of a uniform hadn't been a mistake. He was a cop. A sheriff's deputy, at least from the waist up. From the looks of it, he had thrown on his jacket and gun belt in a hurry. Otherwise, he was wearing jeans and sneakers. I closed my eyes and groaned.
"Randy, call off your dog."
Randy motioned to his dog, and I looked toward my feet. The dog had his huge jaws clamped around my right ankle. His legs were braced, and he was pulling against me, his nails digging into the carpet. He turned his head to the side, struggled to open his mouth wider, and let go of my leg. He shook his head as if disgusted, then walked behind Randy and sat dutifully beside his master. I flexed my ankle. It burned, but I was pretty sure I had escaped any damage. His teeth had sunk into my boot, not my skin.
I moved to get up, and the cop put his foot between my shoulder blades and pushed me back down. "Don't move." He was still panting. "You're already in enough trouble." After a minute or two, he squatted beside me and checked my jacket pockets.
"What's your name?"
"Stephen Cline."
"Why'd you run, Steve?"
"I didn't think you were a cop."
He rolled me onto my side and began to empty my jeans pockets. "Who'd you think I was? Santa Claus?"
"Funny."
"You know you could of got yourself shot?" He checked my waistline, then felt between my legs.
I tensed.
"What? You never been frisked before?"
"No." I unclenched my teeth. "What in the hell are you checking for."
"Guns, knives, hand grenades… suspicious bulges." He chuckled at his stupid joke and rolled me back onto my stomach. "Ever been arrested?"
"No."
When he finished his search, he grunted to his feet, then snatched his hat off the carpet. He stood in a wide-legged stance, his gut protruding over his belt. It had been a long time since his police academy days. A long time since he'd done anything more vigorous than drive around in his cruiser. He brushed off the hat's brim and adjusted it on his balding head. That done, he hooked his hand under my arm and pulled me to my feet.
"Settle down, Steve. Gettin' angry ain't gonna help you any." He tugged on his belt. "Now, what were you doing on Mr. Drake's property?"
I told him. I told him about the horse theft and about being beaten up and abducted and about Detectives Linquist and Ralston. I told him about James Peters and everything else I could think of because I had to. By the time I ran out of things to say, Randy no longer looked pissed off, and Deputy Thompson had been on the phone several times, running a check on me and verifying my story.
Randy chuckled. "No wonder you looked so scared." He was leaning against the kitchen counter, chewing on a toothpick, and I was back in the chair I'd started out in.
Thompson shook his head as he fitted his key into one cuff, then the other. "You could of got yourself killed. What if you'd stumbled into the murderer. Next time, leave it to the professionals." He jerked his head at the farmer, and they walked over to the hallway. The deputy crossed his arms over his broad stomach and talked quietly to Randy, all the while keeping his gaze on me.
I rubbed my wrists and listened to their low, indistinct voices. The dog was back in his box, asleep this time. I glanced at my watch. Ten after ten.
Damn. Karen would be wondering where I was, and I hoped to God, Jet was all right. I looked up as Thompson strode across the worn floor and stopped in front of me.
"Mr. Drake isn't gonna press charges for trespassing, son. You'd better go on home."
Press charges? I wondered what charges I could get Mr. Drake in trouble with. "Mind if I look at the trailer on my way out?"
Thompson's eyebrows rose. "Don't see why not." He turned to Randy. "Got any objections?"
Randy shook his head. I made a quick call to Foxdale and told Karen to go home, then the three of us trudged outside.
At the corral gate, I paused and looked Randy in the eye. "You had no right to hold me at gun point."
His back tensed under his jacket. "I got signs posted up and down my fence line, and you kids just keep doing what you please."
"I've never been here before," I said, and even I could hear the anger in my voice.
"Now, son. It's over." Thompson stepped closer. "Go on home. Mr. Drake was just protecting his property."
Wordlessly, I turned away from them and walked around to the trailer's back bumper. I pushed a clump of tall weeds out of the way. The license plate had been issued in Pennsylvania, which explained why Drake hadn't been on Ralston's list. As I straightened, I noticed my cap lying in the grass. I picked it up and dusted off the brim.
Deputy Thompson stood with his arms crossed over his broad belly and his chin tucked against his neck, waiting for me to leave, while Randy dug around his teeth with his toothpick. By all accounts, he looked bored. And I didn't understand it. If I wasn't mistaken, I had just found the trailer; yet the owner was clueless.
"You have any repairs made to your trailer in the past two months?" I said.
Randy shook his head. "I hardly ever use it."
I jerked my head toward his house. "I got turned around in the woods. What road do you live on?"
"Mink Hollow."
I told him I was sorry I'd bothered him, then crossed the corral and vaulted the fence.
I found Jet where I'd left her and turned her for home. She didn't need any encouragement. It wasn't until I pulled her up between the barns that I realized what I felt was no longer anger, but confusion and an overwhelming feeling of futility.
After I untacked Jet and brushed her off, I checked the barns. I was on my way out when I paused at the bulletin board outside barn A's tack room. I tore down the class schedule from the past weekend and crumpled it into a ball. Underneath was a crinkled copy of the announcement I'd tacked up weeks before, the one that described the rig used in the horse theft.
The paper was discolored from being in the barn so long, and someone had scribbled across the lower right-hand corner in red ink. As the words registered, I felt as if I'd been drenched with ice water.
"A cat has nine lives. You don't" was scrawled across my name.
An image of Boris swinging from the rafters with his throat cut crowded my mind.
No one knew about him except the cops.