Рита Браун - Hounded To Death

Before he could answer a familiar voice replied, “I did.”

She whirled. With their grunting and with the rain she hadn’t heard Barry Baker come in. Dumbfounded, she could only stare at him.

“Unlock me. I swear I won’t bring charges,” Mitch pleaded.

Barry walked over and backhanded him so hard his head snapped back. “I’d rather see you starve, just like you starved hundreds of dogs in your research.”

“Barry, please don’t.” Sister had no weapon but the nine-volt flashlight.

Giorgio called again. “Where are you?”

“Come to me,” she called.

“That will be a good hound.” Barry smiled.

“Please let Mitch go,” she asked, unsure if he had a gun or a knife and not knowing what to do.

“No.”

“Did you kill Mo and Grant?”

“I did. With help from Fonz.”

“Hope?”

“No. I didn’t kill Hope. She had uncovered the illegal use of Grant’s slaughterhouses—horses still being slipped in—but I didn’t kill her. Grant must have done it when their affair blew up. I can’t prove it but I think under Grant’s genial exterior there beat a selfish heart. He deserved just what he got.”

“I think I know why you killed them.” Sister, voice calm, noticed blood running from Mitch’s mouth, a tooth on the floor.

“If anyone would understand, you would.” Barry seemed relieved. “The brutality these people have shown toward animals offends me far worse than brutality to people. At least people know why they’re hurt whether they deserve it or not. I’m not long for this life, Janie. I want to leave having performed some justice. God knows, I couldn’t do that from the bench.”

Mitch trembled but had the good sense to shut up.

Barry removed Sister’s jacket from his shoulders.

“Let him have it.”

“No. Let him suffer.” Barry noticed Mitch’s genitals. “No balls. People who hurt animals have no balls.”

Sister, hoping to divert him, smiled. “Parts shrink in the cold. I’m curious. Why was Mo barefoot?”

“Made him run barefoot until he was near dead. It’s what he did to horses and hounds.” A triumphant note crept into Barry’s voice.

Just then Giorgio burst into the cave. “Mother!”

She knelt down to hug the youngster. “Good boy.”

Barry patted Giorgio’s head. “How could anyone hurt a hound, a cat, a horse? They’re more useful than most of the humans that muck up the earth.”

“Barry,” Sister said gently, “they ask that we love them, not kill for them.”

He looked into her eyes. “Do you hate me?”

“No. But let him go.”

“There’s no way I can do that. He’ll squeal to Ben Sidell the minute he pulls his pants on.”

“How do you know I won’t?”

“I don’t think you will. You know Mo and Grant deserved to die. So does Mitch.”

“What Mo and Grant did was wanton cruelty,” said Sister. “Mitch’s animal research eventually would have helped others. I don’t like it. I think it was wrong—believe me, I do—but the circumstances were different.”

“The results were the same for the dogs.” Barry’s jaw set hard, then loosened. “Here.” He handed her the keys. “I want you to know that every minute I’ve spent with you has been a delight. You and Ray were old friends.” He pulled out a .38 from the inside of his jacket. Sister froze. Was he going to shoot her? Shoot Mitch?

“Are you going to kill me?” Her voice was calm.

“I hope not.” He grinned. “Would you shoot someone you’d slept with?”

Forcing herself to remain relaxed, she smiled. “Barry, that’s the only man I’d shoot.”

He laughed. “Janie, you’re one of a kind.”

A gust of wind sent rain into the cave. Giorgio jumped up, startled by the sound of the wind in the cave, and knocked Sister into Barry.

Barry kept his hand on the gun but stumbled backward, just far enough that Mitch could swing the chain between his hands over Barry’s head.

“Mitch, no!” Sister yelled.

But Mitch, eyes glazed, his powers of reason having fled, gave one final terrible twist and Barry was dead.

Relaxing his grip, Mitch watched Barry’s body slump. He started shaking again.

Strangely, Barry never dropped the gun. It seemed frozen in his right hand.

Giorgio, shocked, pressed his whole body next to Sister. The reverberations in the cave from the wind and the men’s struggle made him tremble harder.

She placed her hand on the beautiful crown. “It’s all right.”

Mitch began to think again. He looked at the fresh corpse, looked at his hands, looked at Sister.

Sister took a deep shuddering breath.

Giorgio started for Barry.

“Leave him,” Sister said quietly, and the youngster, terribly upset, did.

She unlocked Mitch and held him, for he shook violently. “You did what you had to do.”

He could only mumble through his smashed mouth—it surely must have hurt when the air touched those broken teeth—“Thank you.”

CHAPTER 26

Later that day, when Ben and his crew scoured the caves, they found a tiny little tombstone with painted letters, faded but protected from the elements so the words were legible:

MICHAEL ALDRIDGE

FEBRUARY 12, 1973

Last winter, two women had died at Wheeler’s Mill, Cabel Harper and her fanatically dutiful friend, Ilona Merriman. Aldridge had been Ilona’s maiden name. She would have been in college in 1973.

Funny how mysteries are finally solved but the profound emotions they generate have a way of living on for generations. The foxhunters at Wheeler’s Mill would never forget the dramatic events that had transpired there, just as those who hunted Skidby would not forget what had happened today.

Ben added Jake Ingram to Barry’s list of victims and put out a call for Fonz, back in Arkansas, to be brought in for questioning.

Sister, home with Gray, was deeply shaken by Barry’s disintegration. Now that it was out in the open, it made sense. She knew the murders had had something to do with the abuse of animals, but she certainly didn’t think her old friend capable of such violence. While he had considered an animal’s life to be as valuable as that of a human—she believed it herself—she hadn’t thought these feelings would lead him to murder.

Betty, on being called by Sister, turned around. She’d just finished the barn chores and was driving home in the Volvo. She walked into the kitchen to find Sister and Gray sitting at the table. Shaker came up, too.

No sooner had they begun talking than the phone rang.

Sister answered. “Hello?”

“Sister”—Felicity’s voice was loud—“the baby’s coming!”

The two women jumped into Sister’s Forester, arriving at the old Demetrios place just as the ambulance came. Sister had had the presence of mind to call for it—and to call Howie. Then, at the hospital, with Sister and Betty by her side, Felicity delivered a healthy seven-pound-two-ounce baby boy in record time, as his daddy was driving as fast as he could from Orange County.

Betty, euphoric as many people are in these circumstances, laughed. “Felicity, you’re fast. I was so long delivering my second child I thought I’d be the only woman to give birth and go into menopause at the same time!”

Holding her little guy in her arms, Felicity, plain worn out, couldn’t stop smiling and crying.

Sister sat by the bed. “What a glorious day!”

“We’ll stay until Howard gets here. Gives us more time to admire the best-looking little boy in the world.” Betty loved babies. “What are you going to name him?”

Felicity reached for Sister’s hand and put it under those tiny red fingers. “We’re naming him Raymond, in honor of Sister.”