Robert Walker - Final Edge

"Used to go to the Gulf casinos down below Galveston, and he played the horses a lot, but I was thinking he'd gotten past all that since he got into so much financial quick-sand the last gambling binge. But now, however, now you mention it, I'm thinking maybe he fell back into his old ways…maybe."

"Meredyth had earlier held up the artist sketch of Mr. X, and while Jones had flinched, she'd denied it was him. "Dr. B, he can't be your Ripper man, no way."

"Why's that?" Meredyth had asked.

"He's got a mole, but it's not on his right cheek. It's on his left."

Meredyth now pointed this oversight in the sketch out to Lucas. "They've got the damn mole on the wrong side of the face."

"All the same, the general appearance, it's him, isn't it?" said Lucas.

When Jones simply glared at Lucas, refusing to answer, Meredyth softly asked, "MariLouise…can I call you MariLouise?"

"Ms. Jones will do just fine."

"Okay, Ms. Jones, what about the eyebrows? They look dark brown or black in the photo, and he has blond hair, right?"

"More like sandy brown than blond."

"And the eyebrows?"

"There's no way Dr. B's going to be a killer. He's just too gentle with the animals." She said this as if there could be no argument. "He couldn't've done no abduction and murdering. I know him too well. Nobody that knows the man will ever be convinced he coulda done what they- what you all're trying to tell me that Dr. B's done, never. And maybe you can send him to prison for it, or even to the death row, and the gas chamber, but I'll still know he's wrongfully accused."

"You don't think he'd kill, say, to pay off a bet, say thousands upon thousands lost to a mob loan shark?" asked Lucas somewhat facetiously.

"No…not even then could you convince me that this man kilt somebody. He's a gentle, caring man, Dr. B is."

"What about for his girlfriend, Ms. Jones? Do you think he would kill for her?"

She hesitated answering for a moment. "His girlfriend?" she asked. "He didn't have no girlfriend."

Meredyth flashed Lauralie's picture. "You ever see this young woman here at the office?"

"Yeah…yeah, but she wasn't his girlfriend."

"What was she to him then, if not his girl?"

"His student." Her tone and the bobbing and weaving head and rolling eyes left no doubt she thought Lucas and Meredyth a pair of simpleminded fools. "He said she had great promise…said he expected her to change the face of veterinary medicine someday. They laughed about it, but I swear I never saw anything going on between them, not like you're thinking. Course you being cops…but me, I don't own a nasty mind and don't particularly ever want to."

"How often did you see her here?"

'Twice, maybe three times."

"Ever leave at closing with the two of them still here?"

"Well…yes…once, maybe twice."

"But you never thought anything unusual was going on between Dr. Belkvin and Lauralie?"

"Never crossed my mind. He was old enough to be her father, and so far as I ever saw, Dr. B, he just never was interested in sex whatsoever."

"Let me get this straight if I can," Lucas said to her. "Lauralie shows up, hangs out here, does some interning with the doctor, no hanky-panky as you see it, but one morning after you leave them here together at night, you come in to find a whole damned operating table and a slew of cutting instruments gone-disappeared overnight-but you don't think anything unusual is going on between Belkvin and Blodgett, because you attribute his strange behavior to his old gambling habit. Is that right, about the gist of it?"

"That's how I see it still, and why not? Why would he lie to me?"

"He told you he had to sell the table and tools to pay old debts, Ms. Jones, and that was a lie."

"Please, Lucas." Meredyth backed him off, making a show of scolding him. She returned to MariLouise, apologizing for her partner's rudeness. 'Tell me, Ms. Jones, how soon after meeting Lauralie did Dr. Belkvin begin to exhibit this stress level you mentioned?"

Ms. MariLouise Jones gave this time to sink in. "I see…I see what you're driving at. You're right. He started this…this crackup behavior soon after he introduced me to Lauralie."

She thanked the young receptionist and retuned to Lucas. "Why get rid of the operating table unless it's to get rid of incriminating evidence, but with his access to various chemical baths and acid cleaners, he could just as well have left the table and thoroughly cleaned it. Ripping it out of here…I don't get the logic, unless…unless…"

"Unless he transported the table elsewhere-possibly her idea-to be used at another location, along with the tools."

"Like the house. We need to know what's happening there."

"This damned mystery screams for an answer."

Meredyth asked, "Ms. Jones, did you see who hauled off the operating table?"

"No, your partner's right 'bout that much. It disappeared overnight one night, 'bout two weeks ago."

"Two weeks ago? Are you sure, absolutely sure of the timing?" asked Lucas.

"Thursdays I get off early, every Thursday. I remember coming in on Friday and almost tripping out seeing that room all empty! The whole surgical table just gone! Dr. B swore he had to sell it off. Said he had plans of getting a new one with coaster wheels and an overhead hose and lights attached, you know."

A phone call came through for Lucas on his cell. He took it, responding to Jana North at the other end, his face showing his disappointment. "All right…all right, Jana. No, not a whole lot here either. Disappointing overall, but we'll find this guy. Only a matter of time now that we know both their names, and we know the type vehicle and a license plate thanks to your snooping there. Cars, plates, and people don't just disappear into thin air. Yes…yes, do that update on the APB-BOLO. I agree, go ahead and upgrade the search. No, already done… planes, trains, and buses. Dogs… three dogs? No, none this location, no."

Lucas hung up, exchanging a look with Meredyth, his shake of the head telling her nothing useful had come of the search of Belkvin's home. No tools, no table, no deadly workbench drenched in blood. "They're trying to locate his dogs at a nearby kennel, but no one there has seen the doctor or the dogs."

"Pongo?" asked Ms. Jones. "Pongo's with me. Dr. B asked me if I could take him for a while."

"When was this?"

"A couple weeks ago."

"That same Thursday night?"

"Right."

Lucas took a deep breath. Interrogating MariLouise might have been easier with a lawyer present, he thought, exasperated. "Other than his home and the school where he teaches, Ms. Jones, do you have any idea where he might have disappeared to and why he didn't take Pongo?"

"He took his other two dogs with him, Desperado Pete- Petie, and Lupe Fritz, his two old, retired greyhounds."

"Weird dog names," commented Meredyth.

"They were one-time racers, you know, on a track in Abilene, I think. They had names to bet on, you know, like racehorse names, Sea biscuit, Xtra Heet, What Up…all that."

"Two other dogs he took with him?" pressed Lucas.

"They were all three here at the kennel for a time. Said he was having his place fumigated. Next thing I know, he's asking if I could take Pongo for a week while he took the other two."

"But you have no idea where he was going?"

"I thought he was going home."

"But he disappeared instead…with two dogs in tow."

Meredyth asked, "Where do you think he is now, Ms. Jones? I mean if you wanted to find him, where would you start?"

She at first hesitated answering, considering, as if she thought it a trick question. Then MariLouise's eyes widened and she dropped her right shoulder, followed by her left. "I'd put in calls to the casinos in the Gulf…try the race tracks-horses and dogs."