Paw Enforcement 02 - Paw and Order (15 page)

As we finished up and headed out the door, Dwayne came trotting up the steps, a smug expression on his face. “Didn't find anything, did ya?”

“Only because you took the drugs with you when you left.” Given that my partner had alerted on the door, there had definitely been drugs in the apartment not long before. She must have caught a residual whiff.

Dwayne emitted a sour, beer-scented chuckle. “Prove it.”

I couldn't, of course, and he knew it. “Who was the girl?” I asked.

“What girl?”

“You going to play dumb?”

“I don't have to play at that,” Dwayne spat. A look of confusion crossed his face a moment later when he realized his blunder.

Seth shook his head and gave me a look that said
Really? This is what you deal with every day?

“You know exactly who I'm talking about,” I said to Dwayne. “The pretty blonde in the yellow car.”

“Maybe she's my girlfriend,” the thug said, his lip curling up in a stained-teeth grin. “Maybe we spent all morning making sweet, sweet love.”

The mere thought had my coffee and cinnamon roll battling to see which would be first to make its way back up my esophagus.

“No way,” I said. “She's out of your league.” After all, she looked like she'd showered in the last week and had no visible herpes scab on her lip. I couldn't fault the guy for being an ugly SOB. His DNA was to blame for that. But his personal hygiene failures? Those were all on him.

Dwayne's smug look turned indignant and he crossed his arms over his chest.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You sold her something, didn't you?”

A nasty grin spread across his lips. “I can honestly say no to that.”

Funny thing was, I was pretty sure he was telling me the truth just then.

“I'll be watching you,” I told him.

He gave me another nasty grin. “I'll be watching you right back.”

*   *   *

I spent my day off on Monday cleaning my apartment and training with Brigit at the K-9 facility. It was important to keep our skills sharp. Though we spent forty hours a week on duty, the vast majority of our time was spent simply cruising in the car or walking around on foot patrol. Regular training was critical to maintain our edge, to make sure that, when the time came that our special skills were needed, we'd be ready.

Monday evening, I decided that merely watching Dwayne wouldn't satisfy me. If he was pushing meth again, I wanted to bust his sorry ass. The drug had ruined too many lives already.

I plopped down on the couch with my FWPD laptop, logged in to the DMV records, and searched for a yellow Honda Fit with a license plate starting with the letter
T
. There was one in the area. It was registered to a Myrna Belvedere who, according to the driver's license records, was eighty-two years old. Definitely not the woman I'd seen driving away from my complex. I searched for Nissan Versas next. There wasn't a single yellow Versa listed in Tarrant County.

I logged on to a Chevy Web site next, trying to figure out what model the girl might have been driving.
Could it have been a Spark?
Possibly. The Spark had a similar boxy design and came in a yellow color.

Brigit hopped onto the couch next to me, draping her head over my thigh and looking up at me with big brown eyes.

“Hey, girl.” I ran a hand over her neck and continued to type, hunting and pecking with the fingers of my free hand. Not an efficient process, obviously, but how could I deny my partner some attention when she worked so hard?

I found three yellow Sparks registered to women in Tarrant County.

The first belonged to a thirty-year-old woman named Erica Ryan Spencer. I looked up Erica's driver's license photo. Though she was blond, she looked a little too old to be the woman I'd seen driving by. Then again, the woman in the car had been without makeup. Maybe if Erica's face were bare she'd look younger.

I squinted at the photo, trying to picture the woman without eyeliner, blush, and lipstick.
Hmm
 … I supposed it was possible the woman had been her.

The second Chevy Spark belonged to a twenty-one-year-old named Amber Lynn Hood. Amber Lynn's driver's license photo showed a pretty young woman with brown hair.
Hmm.
The woman who'd been interacting with Dwayne had been blond. Of course it wasn't that hard to change your hair color. All a person had to do was make a trip to Walgreens for a bottle of Clairol.

I leaned in to take a closer look at the woman in the photo.
Inconclusive.
I hadn't gotten a really good look at her face when she'd driven by, only an impression.

The third yellow Spark belonged to a Gigi Redding, who was in her early fifties. Gigi was definitely too old to be the woman I'd seen, though I supposed it was possible that she or Myrna had loaned their car to a daughter or granddaughter or neighbor or something.

What to do next?

The criminal records database might be able to tell me more. I typed Amber Lynn's name into the system and waited while it churned through the data. Five seconds later, the screen told me that no record was found in her name. Evidently she wasn't the person I'd seen on Sunday or the woman I'd seen didn't have a record. If this Amber Lynn had committed any crimes, she'd gotten away with them so far. But things had a way of catching up with people. Sooner or later, if she was up to no good, somebody would catch her. Heck, maybe it would even be me.

I ran Erica's name next.

Bingo.

Bango.

Erica Ryan had a conviction for possession of marijuana. Evidently she'd been caught with only a small amount, and the conviction was seven years prior, before she'd married. But that didn't mean she'd changed her ways. She'd probably just learned to be more careful. Though Dwayne's convictions were for methamphetamine distribution, that didn't mean he hadn't decided to dabble in other drugs. Or maybe Erica had developed a new drug of choice. Marijuana was a gateway drug, after all.

I glanced at Erica's address. She lived in Kennedale, a small town southeast of Fort Worth and technically outside my jurisdiction. That didn't mean I couldn't pay her a visit, though, ask a few questions. As a courtesy, though, I'd need to run things by the Kennedale PD before dropping in on her.

As long as I was logged on to my computer, I decided to run a search and see if I might be able to identify the person who'd snagged Catherine Quimby's purse. Given that I didn't have a name to run through the criminal records database, I figured I'd have better luck searching the police reports for key words. I typed in
bathroom, purse, drugs,
and
theft
.

The system churned for a few seconds before informing me that 3,784 records included those key words. Looked like I'd have to narrow it down.

I added
female suspect
and hit enter to activate the search function again. The additional words narrowed things down considerably, but still left me with 692 reports to read.

I typed
painkillers,
which cut the list down to twenty-seven reports.

I spent the next couple of hours skimming the reports. In most cases, the word
bathroom
came into play because stolen purses containing painkillers had been found discarded in restroom trash cans. Several of the thefts had occurred in area hospitals or medical clinics. I found only two instances in which women had reported being robbed of their purses and prescription painkillers in a restroom. In one instance, the victim had passed out in the bathroom of a bar and woken to find her purse and Percocet missing. No suspects had ever been arrested. The other report was the one I'd entered after interviewing Catherine Quimby.

Darn.
Looked like I'd have to track down this purse snatcher the old-fashioned way.

*   *   *

Tuesday morning, I swung by the station early to pick up my cruiser. I wasn't officially on duty for a few more hours, but I wanted to get down to Kennedale and talk to Erica before too much time passed. No one would ever call me a procrastinator.

I stopped at the Kennedale PD headquarters first, letting Brigit take a quick tinkle in their bushes before going inside.

“Hi,” I told the receptionist. “I'm Officer Megan Luz with Fort Worth PD. There's a resident I'd like to speak to in connection with a possible drug offense in Fort Worth. Just wanted to clear it with you all first.”

“Just a moment.” She pushed a button on an intercom, waited a moment, then explained my situation to someone on the other end. “Okeydoke.” She hung up her phone. “Officer Munsen can accompany you. He'll meet you out front.”

Brigit and I returned to our cruiser, waiting outside in the crisp air. A moment later a gray-haired officer pulled up in a white cruiser with a large letter
K
and two green stripes down the side.

I stepped up to his car and gave him the address, which was only a mile or so east of the station.

“After you,” he said, gesturing with an open palm.

I loaded Brigit into the back of my patrol car and climbed into the front. In less than three minutes, we were at Erica's door. Her house, which was relatively new, sat in a nice, well-maintained subdivision. Not what I'd envisioned exactly, though I knew drugs crossed all socioeconomic lines.

I pushed the doorbell. It played a tone that sounded like a grandfather clock.
Ding-dong ding-dong, ding-ding-ding-dong.

Twenty seconds later, the door opened. Erica stood there in a green bathrobe that hung open to reveal wrinkled pink pajamas. Though she was definitely the same woman I'd seen in her driver's license photo, today her nose was pink and crusty, her eyes swollen, and her pallor pale and green.

“Miss Ryan?” I said.

She wiped her nose with a tissue and replied in a stuffed-sinus voice, “It's Spencer now.”

“Oh. Right. I have some questions I'd like to ask you.”

“About what?”

“About Dwayne Donaldson.”

Her crusty pink nose scrunched. “Who?”

She seemed genuinely unfamiliar with the name, but I knew she could be acting. Or, perhaps, she didn't know the name of the guy she'd bought drugs from.

“Dwayne Donaldson. He's a convicted methamphetamine dealer.”

Her head tilted to the side. “I don't know him.”

“Are you sure?”

She wiped her nose again. “Look, I need to sit down. Me and the kids have got the flu. Why don't y'all come in?”

I exchanged a glance with Officer Munsen. Being invited in by a suspect was highly unusual.

Erica led us into her kitchen, where a towheaded toddler sat in a high chair. Several Froot Loops lay on the tray in front of the little girl, while several others were stuck to her cheeks.

Erica took a seat at the kitchen table. I sat next to her, ordering Brigit to lie at my feet. Munsen, evidently fearing he'd catch the flu virus if he came too close, remained standing in the doorway.

“Donaldson lives in the Eastside Arms apartment complex in Fort Worth,” I said. “I saw him step away from your car on Saturday before you sped off in it.”

Sure, I was overstating the case a bit. After all, I only thought I'd seen her and her car. But I'd learned that suspects were much more likely to admit their bad behavior if they thought law enforcement had definitive evidence.

She shook her head, wincing at the movement. “It wasn't me,” she insisted.

The toddler leaned sideways in her high chair to get a better look at Brigit. A Froot Loop fell from the baby's cheek to the floor, where Brigit promptly snatched it up with a loud crunch.

“You have an alibi?” I asked Erica.

The baby picked up a piece of cereal from her tray. She tried to drop it to Brigit but it stuck to her hand. She flung her hand three times but the cereal hung on as if glued to her skin.

Before Erica could answer me, a child's wail came from down the hall. “Mommy! I threw up again! On the floor this time!”

“I'll be right there!” Erica put a hand to her forehead and looked at me with her one exposed eye. “Any chance you could just shoot me? Put me out of my misery?”

“Your alibi?” I reminded her.

She removed her hand. “My car's been in the shop since last Thursday. Some idiot ran a red light and broadsided me. Luckily none of the kids were in the car.”

Brigit pushed herself up on her front legs and licked the sticky Froot Loop from the toddler's fingers.
Crunch.
The baby giggled.

“No!” I admonished the dog. Brigit gave me a dirty look and settled back down on the floor. “Sorry,” I told Erica.

She blew her nose into the tissue. “A few dog germs are the least of my worries right now.”

I told her about the criminal record I'd found. “Do you continue to use marijuana?”

“I didn't even use it then,” she said. “I went out with a group of friends one night, and one of them brought some new girl along, someone they didn't know very well, and she had a joint. She smoked it in my car and left the butt in the ashtray. She offered some to the rest of us but we weren't into that kind of thing. I got a flat tire on my way home later that night and a cop pulled over to help me. He saw the end of the joint in the ashtray and busted me for it.”

Her story sounded plausible. “Why didn't you fight the conviction?”

“Because the DA said if I'd agree not to fight the charge, all I'd get was probation. It seemed like a quick solution. I was a flight attendant at the time and traveling a lot. Going to court and meeting with attorneys would have been a huge hassle.” She blew her nose again. “In hindsight, I should've lawyered up and fought the charge. It's dogged me ever since.”

“Mommy!” screamed the child from down the hall.

“Are we done here?” she asked. “If I don't get things cleaned up soon I'll never get the smell out of the carpet.”