Sick as a Dog (eBook)

Tracy Carter (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
344 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
9798350999983 (ISBN)

Infos

Veronica and her devoted Chesapeake Bay Retriever, Leda, return in this third book in the Veronica Kildare K-9 Mystery Series. Ominous signs and unrelenting summer storms abound in a Colorado wilderness area as Veronica and Leda take on the mystery of odd fish and wildlife deaths affecting the region. The stakes are raised even higher when Leda discovers the body of a slain woman near the river in question. The race is on to learn the victim's identity and unmask the culprits who caused her death. Then a personal attack on a close friend necessitates valiant measures from Leda to save the day. Can Veronica and her team decipher the sources of the evil that have turned the Repentant River deadly in time to prevent further tragedy?

Tracy Carter graduated from the University of Glasgow, Scotland with a Master's degree in History. Her lengthy career as a legal assistant has included stints at international law firms and prosecutors' offices, followed by jobs as the Horse Identifier at two thoroughbred racetracks-all while training dogs in obedience and rally. Tracy's first book is the Gold Medal winner in the 2023 Readers' Favorite International Book Award Contest in the Fiction-Animals genre, and her second book is a 2024 BookFest First Place Award Winner in the Fiction-Detective-Women Sleuths genre. She lives near Cleveland, Ohio with her husband and Llewellin Setter, where she is an avid hiker and dedicated college football fan. You can learn more about the Veronica Kildare K-9 Mystery series and Tracy at her website www.tracycarterbooks.com.

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Echoes of a past tragedy haunt Veronica Kildare as she and her talented search and rescue and drug detection dog, Leda, are drawn into an investigation surrounding odd fish and wildlife deaths in the Colorado wilderness by her friend, Kimana, an award-winning freelance investigative reporter. The mystery surrounding this backcountry region only deepens when Leda discovers the body of a dead woman in the area under scrutiny and the district wildlife manager is targeted in a devious attack. While Veronica also trains a conservation canine and a 911 call center therapy dog who are desperately needed as service animals, and searches for lost hikers in peril, her entire team is soon involved in trying to uncover the identity of the murder victim and the reason for her violent death. Veronica and Leda tenaciously follow the trail of the criminals who have brutally disrupted the serenity of the Repentant River, and it eventually becomes clear that the ominous events originate from more than one source and the villains have far-reaching national and international connections. Can Veronica and her team decipher the sources of the evil that have turned the wilderness deadly in time to prevent further tragedy?

Textauszug

Chapter 14

Sgt. Tim Donovan arrives after an interminable-seeming wait with several officers from the sheriff’s department, the coroner’s investigation team, and the coroner himself. Kimana and I huddle on the log as the tiny clearing becomes a beehive of activity, each individual handling their assigned job skillfully. I’m relieved to see the cigarette butts efficiently picked up with tweezers and deposited in evidence bags, still looking intact and dry. Paper bags are secured on the hands of the deceased woman with wide rubber bands to prevent the loss of evidence or any contamination. The team members efficiently erect a large yellow tent to cover the area where the body is located and Kimana and I breathe sighs of relief that the escalating downpour has been thwarted in its efforts to erase valuable information from the body.

Tim takes a statement from Dad and he hands over the secure memory card from his digital camera to the coroner’s primary investigator. The rain intensifies and begins to sweep sideways through the forest. The temperature has been plummeting steadily downward since practically the moment Leda found the body. Tim and Dad confer for several fraught moments and then Dad’s shoulders stiffen as he stares at Tim in disbelief. Uh oh. I don’t like the look of this body language in the least.

They walk closer, still chatting earnestly, and suddenly Tim looms over us, water dripping off the edge of his hat as he shakes his head. “Leda wasn’t satisfied with just looking for missing hikers, I see. Now she’s freelancing,” he says with a sardonic look at Leda. My clever dog leans against my knee and stares back at Tim intently. For the record, Tim’s the first one to break eye contact.

“Well, it’s a lucky thing she found that young woman so quickly after her body was discarded. The coroner thinks she may have been killed elsewhere and dumped here due to the lack of blood evidence in the area, but time will tell. Who knows how long she would have laid out here, evidence deteriorating, especially with these summer thunderstorms that have plagued us this year.” Tim relents and bends down to scratch Leda behind the ears. She magnanimously decides to forgive him for his earlier sarcasm.

“Unfortunately, I have more bad news, ladies. I was just telling Bob about it. Deputy Hall—I mean, Detective Hall… I have to get used to saying that since he passed his exam and moved up in the department,” Tim says contritely. “Anyway, he informed me of a situation which occurred when we were headed to you. He got diverted by dispatch from joining me here due to another critical incident. Margo Streeter was seriously injured a few hours ago.”

“Oh no,” Kimana bursts out. “What happened to her?” Her face turns stark white and I put my arm behind her back fearing she’s about to faint.

“She was driving down Starshine Canyon Drive and turned onto State Highway 409 at that steep section with the cliffs and canyons. Her car blasted right through the guardrail and over the edge. The driver following behind her says he never even saw brake lights. The car flipped over multiple times on its way down to the base of a steep hill. However, the mountain rescue team were able to extricate Margo from the vehicle and airlift her to the trauma center. She’s in a coma and the docs told Charlie Hall that it’s touch and go whether she survives the accident. The Colorado State Highway Patrol sent an officer from their Vehicular Crimes Unit and she crawled across that whole slope and Margo’s car. She’s ninety-nine-percent positive that Margo’s brake lines were cut, but she’ll get the findings from the Traffic Crash Reconstruction report over to our office as quickly as possible.

“Unbelievably, I was calling Margo’s cell phone to get her out to this crime scene and Charlie Hall saw my number coming across her screen. He answered and gave me the details. Kimana, I’m going to need you to tell me whatever Margo mentioned about this game management unit and, since I know you’re personal friends, any enemies she’s expressed concern about to you. Bob just explained the issue with the poaching cousins, the Fergusons, but I need whatever extra details you might know about them or anyone else,” Tim requests.

Kimana gulps and nods her head vigorously. “She and I are very close. I want to help catch whoever hurt her. Do you know about her ex-husband?”

Tim shakes his head gravely and replies, “No, I don’t, but I’m guessing I need to know.”

“Well, to put it bluntly, he’s not a stand-up dude. In fact, I’ll just say it. Glen’s an asshole. Margo divorced him when his charming façade dissipated soon after their marriage. He refused to hold down a mechanic’s job, which is what he trained for—just played video games literally 24/7 while Margo worked her way through school and finally got her dream job with CPW. She loves being outside in nature. Glen doesn’t. She decided to cut bait after she had her fill of his nonsense.

“He belted her in the face when she told him to move out. Glen picked the wrong woman to batter. She picked herself off the floor, went out to the garage with him clinging to her back, still punching her, and got a golf club. Let’s just say he came off slightly the worse for wear. The Boulder County deputies arrested Glen and took him away that night. Margo had a black eye and a split lip. He tried to say that she assaulted him, but Margo, she’s clever. She had a feeling he might react violently when she told him she wanted a divorce and she had her cell phone recording video from the bookshelf the whole time.”

“What a peach of a guy,” Dad says sarcastically to Kimana.

“You’re not kidding. He got sixty days in jail and has a no-contact order with Margo. She told me the other day that she’s seen him lurking around downtown Lafayette, near where her CPW office is located now, from time to time. As far as I know, he hasn’t approached her, but I can’t swear to that. He definitely knows what her car looks like and how to sabotage it—based on his trade-school training. Margo doesn’t waste much time talking about him. Once she’s moved on, that’s it for her. I’m not so certain about him.”

“Has she actually expressed concern about the cousins she busted for poaching? It sounds like they were very hostile during and after the court case,” Tim inquires. By this point, we’re drenched and shivering. These rain ponchos are absolutely not going to get a stellar review from my dad. The only warm part of me is my shins, thanks to my personal canine furnace, who’s leaning into them. Unlike Leda, with her Chessie double coat made to repel water, Ripley looks extremely bedraggled with his golden fur plastered to his body. In typical fashion, since he’s spending time with Dad, he looks completely nonchalant about his drowned-rat look.

“She talked about them a little bit. Margo wasn’t afraid of them necessarily, but she was wary. And armed. She’s diligent about paying attention to her surroundings. In her mind, they tried to cheat on the hunting regs and got caught. Take your punishment and move on, guys. They perceived it as a personal affront that a state official was going to tell them when they could and could not hunt. Apparently, they’re special! Anyway, they’re definitely persons of interest, I would say, if her car was intentionally disabled,” Margo ventures. “And lastly, we’re in this spot because Margo asked us to explore whether we could find any evidence of fish and wildlife deaths and/or the dumping of harmful substances, based on recent reports she received from sportsmen and women. We never got to the second part of our brief, which was to check for any out-of-state box trucks we saw this evening on the roads around here.”

“Alright, thanks, Kimana. I figured this situation had to tie in with the text you sent Veronica yesterday. Can I ask you not to write about this discovery until we’ve caught the culprit? I highly doubt this young lady walked herself deep into the woods barefoot and topless to die here. Since this call didn’t come in over official channels, we have a chance to investigate without the guilty party knowing that she’s even been found. We’re going to put up a bunch of motion-activated game cameras to see if he comes back to the scene of the crime, or is engaged in other criminal activity in here.”

“I’ll agree to that, Tim. I promised Margo I would hold off on any story until we figure out what’s going on. I can extend that same promise to you, as long as I get an exclusive later,” Kimana reassures him.

“You got it. I appreciate that. With your information about Margo and this locale, now we’ve got leads for Detective Hall to investigate. We’ll probably work on both of these incidents together, since Margo is a common factor between the two. I’ll let you hike back to your vehicles and get out of this weather,” Tim says as Dad checks his compass and we start walking in a direct beeline to the spot where we left the cars. “I have everybody’s contact info if follow-up questions arise. Thank you for the excellent work you did to preserve the crime scene here.”

Tim turns back to talk to the coroner and the three of us, trailed by the dogs, move energetically to build up body warmth on the way out of the woods. A Steller’s jay sits on his perch in a lodgepole pine, his bright eye inquisitively surveying the unusual burst of commotion in his territory. His black head tapers down into the luscious blue color of his body. One...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 30.4.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror
• ISBN-13: 9798350999983 / 9798350999983