James Smith - The Flock

And that was why he had called her shortly before leaving for Dodd's new temporary abode on International Boulevard. Luck being still with him, she picked up on the first ring. No answering machine.

"Kate. This is Ron Riggs."

"Hello, Ron. I'm glad you got my message." She sounded tired. There was a breathless catch in her throat. Her husky voice excited him, though. Yet again he felt himself aroused by her, as he had not been aroused since he'd ended his romantic relationship with Mary.

"You sound pooped," he told her.

"I am. Hard time today. We've been all over Creation."

"Creation?"

"Well, the back country. I went with Vance and a crew out into the wilderness today. We had some work to do. Some population studies. We were gone most of the day."

"Well, that explains why I couldn't get a rise out of any of you today."

"What?"

"I went down to the Eyesore. To see you. But no one was there."

"You went down there today?"

"Yes." He could tell that she sounded annoyed, for some reason. "I figured I might be able to see you. I didn't have much to do in Salutations today, and we figured our job was over there, anyway. So I had some time to kill." Ron was nervous, now, and trying to hide it.

"You came down to the compound, though? And no one was there? How do you know no one was in?"

"Well, I thought someone would be at the gate. They weren't. I called out. Pretty loud. For Adam. For you. Even hollered for Vance Holcomb, which I guess he's probably not used to."

"You'd be surprised," she told him. He could hear a chuckle in her voice, which reassured him.

"And then I honked the horn a time or two. No one came out. I guess they were too busy. That is…if there was anyone there."

Kate said nothing to that. Neither denying nor confirming. Finally, she spoke. "Why'd you finish up early in Salutations? Catch any big pythons?"

"No. Not at all," he told her. There was no reason she shouldn't know what he and Mary had discovered. And maybe if he were frank with her, she'd warm up to him. She was playing a bit too hard to get, and he didn't really care for too difficult a chase where women were concerned. "Mary Niccols-a woman I work with sometimes-I took her with me to talk to a gentleman who lost a dog, and he showed us something he'd found."

"What was it?" Her voice sounded tense again.

"Well, it was kind of gruesome, really. But it was his dog's paw."

"Its paw?"

"Yes. Just the paw. And part of its leash," he added.

"Part of its leash?"

"Yeah. The really nasty thing was that the paw, and the leash, had been cut with some kind of tool."

"A tool? What do you mean? What kind of tool?" She sounded really very interested now, and Ron imagined her sitting on the edge of her chair, leaning into the receiver, hanging on his words.

"Yes. We took a close look, and the cut was too clean and too smooth to have been made by anything other than some kind of blade or clamp. Even the metal links in the leash had virtually no scoring on the chopped ends. Whatever the guy used, it went through bone and metal like cutting rubber with a razor blade."

"Good grief."

"Yeah. That's what we thought. In a way, I was kind of relieved. I don't like having to have animals trapped and euthanized, even if they do pose some vague threat to people. It was nice that it wasn't a snake."

"I know what you mean," Kate told him. "Did you find anything else?"

"No," Ron said. "We didn't really look around much, to tell you the truth. Not after that. We turned the evidence over to Bill Tatum, head of security out at Salutations. He didn't look too pleased to be handed a severed dog's paw, I can tell you. And I think he'd have been happy if it had been a snake. Dodd's Jurassic Park stories were starting to wind down, and they'd be easier to take than would some dog mutilator stalking his perfect little town. That kind of thing just isn't supposed to take place in a planned community, you know."

"You gave it to Tatum? Damn. I'd like to have examined it."

"What for? I told you something metal cut it. What interest do you guys have in a dognaper?" Ron was confused, a bit. Could the perpetrator be someone from the Eyesore? He thought of Levin carving at the tubful of buzzard guts.

"Ah, no reason," she said. "I'm always tinkering."

"Tinkering? With a dog paw?"

She utterly surprised him, then. By asking him out. "What are you doing tonight?"

"Well…when?"

He thought of her looking at a clock, to get the time. "How about eight o'clock? I could meet you somewhere. How about St. Cloud? I know a really good Cajun restaurant there."

"Damn."

"What? Don't like Cajun?"

"No. I mean, yes, I like Cajun food just fine. But, I have to meet someone in Orlando at seven. I'd have to drive from Orlando down to St. Cloud after that, and there's just no way I could make it by eight." He thought, trying to figure a way. "Can you meet me in Orlando?"

"God, no. I hate that place. Stay away from there as much as possible," she told him. "Who are you meeting, anyway? Another lady?"

That sounded almost like jealousy. That was a good sign. "No. Nothing like that. At all. I have to meet that reporter, Tim Dodd. Funny little guy."

"Dodd? I know who you're talking about. The one who wrote all of those funny stories in the Inquirer. Why meet him out there? Isn't he in Salutations?"

"No. He pulled out of there today. In a hurry, too."

"A hurry?"

"Yeah. He was really very upset. Said something strange had happened to him and he needed my input."

"Strange? In what way?"

"I couldn't say. He was all scratched and bruised. Said he'd gotten lost in the woods. Wanted to talk to me about something, and said he had to check out of the hotel and get a room in Orlando."

"Oooo. Sounds mysterious," she said.

"I don't know about that. But I'm to meet him at the Penta on International Boulevard. In fact, I'll have to be leaving soon if I'm going to make the meeting."

"Well, I'll let you go, then."

"I wish I hadn't promised to meet him out there," Ron admitted. "I'd rather spend some time with you. Get to know you better."

There was some uncomfortable silence from the other end. Ron even fidgeted. Finally, Kate spoke. "That's flattering, Ron. I enjoyed your company, too. We need to get together to talk at length."

"No problem to that," he said, blushing invisibly to her. "You're a unique woman."

"We can talk about it. Tomorrow? You call me tomorrow."

"I will," he said.

"Well. Bye."

"Goodbye."

He sat there for a while, thinking of Kate, wishing he hadn't promised Dodd to meet him. And then he remembered the way Dodd had passed the object to him as he'd left. As good as his word, Ron hadn't so much as looked at whatever it was. It was still in the pocket of the shirt he'd been wearing earlier. He had to get it.

Ron went to the clothes hamper and found the shirt lying on the very top. He dug into the left pocket, recalling that Dodd had been left-handed and the thing had ended up in the wrong pocket. He took it out and looked at it. Yes. It was as he'd thought. A computer disk. But not a CD, and not a 3.5" floppy. This was something else. It looked like one of those digital disks he'd seen at a technology demonstration at the office a few months before. In fact, he was fairly certain it was for a digital camera. Well, it wasn't Ron's business. He'd give it back to the guy as soon as he saw him.

He put it in the pocket of the short-sleeved shirt he was wearing and tried not think of it. For all he knew, it contained some incriminating evidence against some executive from Berg Brothers. Yes, best to give it back to Dodd as soon as possible.

Quickly, he had locked up the house, climbed into the little Toyota Corolla he owned, five years old and going to have to serve for five more before he bought another one: Fish amp; Wildlife did not pay as well as Ron had hoped. He headed toward Orlando.