Terrier Transgressions

Chapter Four

I watched helplessly as Charles raked both hands through his hair in distress.

“I just don’t know what to do anymore,” he admitted with a deep, guttural groan. “I thought for sure when I saw what you could do that it was fate, that you were meant to help me defend this case.”

I leaned forward in my chair and placed a consoling hand on his knee. It was the only part of him I could reach, but still, the minor contact sent a little thrill racing from my fingertips straight to my chest. “Maybe I can find another way to help. There’s still one thing really doesn’t make much sense to me, though.”

He raised his head to look at me. A series of wrinkles lined his brow as he waited for what I had to say.

I cleared my throat before asking, “If you’re so sure your client didn’t do it, then how come you don’t have a defense for him outside of talking to the victims’ dog?”

He slumped back on his chair and ran a hand through his hair again, releasing the scents of soap and pine into the air. “Because everyone’s already decided he’s guilty.”

“Except you,” I said flatly.

Charles sighed. “Seems that way.”

“Okay, so walk me through this, then. Can you tell me more about what happened and why everyone’s so convinced your client is guilty? Also, I’d love to know how you ended up with this dog.”

Octo-Cat settled in on the chair beside me. “Actually, I’d love to know that, too.”

We both waited while Charles composed himself enough to tell us the story.

“If he starts this thing with ‘it was a dark and stormy night,’ I’m going to puke,” Octo-Cat remarked with an exaggerated yawn.

“Hush up, you,” I said to the impatient tabby at my side before offering Charles an apologetic glance. “Sorry. Go on.”

He cocked his head and studied the pair of us for a moment. “What did he say?”

“You don’t want to know,” I muttered, stroking Octo-Cat with more force than he generally liked as my way of sending him a silent warning.

Charles let his gaze linger on Octo-Cat as he launched into his description of the murder. “It happened in the morning. The victims—their names were Bill and Ruth Hayes—had just put their house on the market. Apparently they’d already had an offer accepted on a new place and needed their old place to move fast, so a big open house was planned for that day. I guess property in their subdivision rarely goes up for sale, so there was a lot of interest. At least a dozen couples arrived to check the place out, and one of them discovered the victims’ bodies shoved into the master bedroom closet upstairs.”

I took this all in before asking, “Okay, so lots of people means lots of potential suspects. Why did the blame get pegged on your client?”

“The crime scene guys said they’d been dead for close to ten hours before they were discovered the next morning, and it was my client’s hammer that was used as the murder weapon. Besides his sister, he was one of the only people who had access to their home and knew the code to disarm the security system.” Charles’s face was grim as he recounted the details. The more he told me, the more familiar the events started to feel. I hadn’t been brought in to research this case for the firm, but I had heard all these details before from another source…

“Wait, is this the Brock Calhoun case? I’ve seen that all over the news.” I wasn’t sure whether Charles knew that my mom was the anchor for our local station or that she was part of the reason everyone assumed his client’s guilt. I decided not to mention that part. Otherwise, he’d never let me help him, and clearly he needed as much help as he could get right now.

Charles nodded. “He and his sister Breanne were the ones responsible for selling the place. Someone used Brock’s hammer to bludgeon the two homeowners to death.”

“Ouch. Yeah. It doesn’t look good for your client.” I sucked air in through my teeth and glanced toward Yo-Yo, who was now snoozing on the floor by Charles’s feet. Thank goodness he couldn’t understand what we were saying now. No one wants to picture their loved ones meeting such a violent end, and this particular Yorkie seemed less equipped than most to deal with such a harrowing mental picture.

Charles also looked down at Yo-Yo before meeting my eyes again. “Like I said, everyone’s already decided he’s guilty, and now the community’s pressing for a quick conviction and harsh sentencing.”

I tried to keep my expression neutral as I asked, “What makes you believe he’s innocent?”

“Part of it is the fact that the evidence is largely circumstantial. Another reason is that people seem to have decided he was guilty based on the fact that he wasn’t the nicest person during his high school years, and also…” He seemed to debate whether he actually wanted to tell me this next part.

“You can tell me,” I said with what I hoped amounted to a reassuring smile.

He shrugged. “Well, it’s just a feeling I get when I talk to him. I know he’s telling me the truth when he says he didn’t do it.”

I nudged his knee again and made a funny face. “Is intuition one-oh-one something they’re teaching in law school these days?”

My joke didn’t even get him to crack a smile.

Octo-Cat, however, sighed and said, “Was that supposed to be funny? We really need to get you a joke book or something.”

Charles hung his head and continued to frown. “I know I’m new to town, but it just seems ridiculous that stupid teenage behavior from nearly ten years ago could cost this guy everything. So what if he bullied some classmates? I mean, it’s not great, but it’s also not murder.”

I nodded. Brock had been a year ahead of me in school and—yeah—he’d been a jerk, but just like Charles, I also had a hard time picturing him as a killer.

“You said the Hayeses were bludgeoned to death with a hammer, right? That seems an awful lot like a crime of passion to me. What possible reason could Brock have had to kill them, especially so brutally and at close range?”

Charles perked up at this. “That’s the crux of my defense so far—that he had zero motive even if he had the means and opportunity.”

“And the police aren’t helping?” I thought back to my encounter with Officer Bouchard and his partner a few months ago. They’d saved my life without even a moment’s hesitation. Could the same force really be turning their back on Brock in his hour of need?

Charles laughed bitterly. “If only. Once they made their arrest, they just kind of clocked out. That’s really the worst part of all of this. How can the justice system do its job properly if the police don’t do theirs?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Octo-Cat complained with an emphatic flick of his tail. “He’s still leaving out the most important part. How did he wind up with that doggie menace in the first place?”

“Where does Yo-Yo fit into all of this?” I translated for Charles as I placed a stilling hand on the tabby beside me.

“That’s the weirdest part. He was missing on the morning of the open house. Everyone assumed he’d just run away, but when I was driving through the Hayes’s neighborhood last week, desperate for any clue or lead I could uncover, I found him waiting on the porch asking to be let in.”

Okay, that was weird, but it still didn’t explain why Charles had kept him all this time. “And you decided the best thing to do would be to steal him?”

He rushed to defend himself, but I wasn’t buying it. “No, no, of course not.”

“Then why do you still have him?”

“It was already pretty late that night, so I was going to take him to Animal Control the next morning. Only Thompson called me in early to go over the case, and I really needed his input. So then I decided I would take Yo-Yo in after work.”

I couldn’t argue with this. After all, Thompson was my boss, too, and I knew how demanding he could be. “Let me guess, it was too late again?”

Charles nodded emphatically. “Exactly, and the longer I hung on to him, the more the little guy began to grow on me. Also, the harder it became to just dump him off at Animal Control, or to confess that I was the one who had him all this time.”

“Well, not all this time,” I pointed out. Charles had hung on to Yo-Yo for less than a week, so where was he all that time before? How did he just disappear and then show up again as if no time had passed at all?

“A terrible reason to keep a dog,” Octo-Cat said with a sneer. “I guess your hots for this guy have to be extinguished now. You can’t end up with a dog person, Angela. That just won’t do.”

Heat pooled in my cheeks from morbid embarrassment, but then I remembered that Charles couldn’t understand Octo-Cat—and seriously, thank goodness for that!

“Everything okay?” Charles asked, glancing from me to my cat and back again.

This was the exact moment Yo-Yo chose to wake up from his nap. Upon spotting the cat sitting just a few feet away, he resumed his hyper chain of barks almost as if he’d never stopped in the first place.

“Well, isn’t this pleasant?” Octo-Cat growled as he hopped to the top of my chair and took cover, using me as a human shield. “I don’t like this dog, and I don’t like your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I corrected without thinking.

Now Charles was the one blushing. Oh, great.

“Will you please just stop embarrassing me in front of Charles?” I whisper-yelled at the cat.

Octo-Cat laughed but refused to back down or even apologize.

“Anyway,” Charles said as he scooped up the noisy terrier. “Do you think you could help with—?” He continued talking, but it was impossible to hear him over Octo-Cat, who decided now was the perfect time to start in on one of his annoying diatribes.

“Charles is far too classy a name for this oaf,” he mused. “It sounds more like the name of a cat person, and a cat person would never have tormented me with Dum-Dum the way this guy did.”

“Keep your commentary to yourself, please,” I begged, trying to focus my attention back on Charles.

“I’m going to give him a new name, one that fits him better.”

“Great, tell me about it later,” I mumbled to the cat. “Charles, I’m sorry. Would you mind starting over?”

“Sure, I was hoping you could help me with—”

“What might some good nicknames for Charles be? Charlie, Chuck... Huh. More like Upchuck, because being around him and his dog make me want to barf up my breakfast.”

I had almost managed to drown out Octo-Cat’s voice when he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Yes, Upchuck! It’s the perfect name for him. Upchuck, Upchuck, Upchuck,” he sang in absolute merriment and at the fullest possible volume his tiny kitty lungs could produce.

And he didn’t stop after saying it a few times. He’d already repeated this cruel new moniker at least fifty times when Charles asked, “What do all these meows mean? I’ve never heard a cat talk so much in all my life.”

“Um, he’s just wondering if you have a nickname we could call you by,” I hedged. What? My explanation was mostly true. While I wasn’t big on bending the truth, I was even less a fan of hurting others’ feelings when it was in no way warranted.

Charles broke into a smile at last. “Sure,” he said, his eyes lingering on mine. “My grandfather was Charles. My dad was Charlie… And since I’m the third, they call me Chuck. You can, too, when we’re not in the office. I mean, if you like that better.”

Of course his nickname would be Chuck. Of course it would.

Octo-Cat just about died laughing.