The Love-Haight Case Files (39 page)

Inside, the contrast between the brightly lit arena, where two bloodied dogs licked their wounds at a wary distance from one another, and the surrounding bleachers made it difficult to see. But as his eyes adjusted, he saw this area was deserted¸ so he moved on to the middle section, where the dog pens were located. The sounds of the fight in the third section could be heard here, below the tumult of dozens of barking, howling, frantic dogs.

A few humans were leaving, but Thomas could see that a group of thugs was gathered near the door to the OT area, including the doorman from their reconnaissance mission earlier in the evening. Most of the toughs already held handguns or Mac 10s and were checking their ammo. One bald, muscle-bound tough in a tight-fitting black T-shirt and loose, camouflage pants handed out additional weaponry from a duffle gripped in one hammy fist. Thomas watched as the guy thrust a .38 Saturday Night Special toward a sweaty hick wearing jeans and a plaid, flannel shirt.

The hick held his hands up to either side, refusing to take the gun. “I ain’t fighting no gang wars. If someone’s moving in on your turf, that’s your problem. I just bring my dogs, that’s all. I’m here to take care of my dogs.”

Black Shirt thrust the gun toward the hick again. “Then take this and take care of your dogs.”

The hick paled. “You mean…?” He shook his head with a shiver. “I ain’t killing my dogs. I got an investment in them dogs.” Thomas watched as the hick looked around at the assembled group, most of whom were ignoring the minor melodrama and clearly laying plans to storm the next room. He gestured at the doorway to the other room. “That ain’t my problem. No way. No sir.”

Black Shirt snarled at the hick. “You are rapidly becoming my problem, buddy. Assuming anybody messing with us in the next room lives to see another day, I can’t have ’em taking your dogs for inventory. So, you either kill them bitches or bring ’em here to set loose on the gang raiding our set-up.” He motioned at the cages with his bald head. “You got less than two minutes before we go in.”

Thomas gasped, faded-out completely from view, and immediately started floating toward the wall between the warehouse sections at speed. He didn’t even slow as he passed through the wall.

While the scene back at the dog pens had been frightening and tense, the dim scene in the OT section was chaotic and violent beyond belief. Ambient light from the street seeped through the collapsed warehouse door and headlights from several vehicles shot beams of bright white light at haphazard angles into the recesses of the warehouse and its scores of filthy cages. Hazard lights from a pick-up truck which angled off to one side of the damaged bulk of Dagger’s Charger, Peggy, flicked on and off, flashing a sickly amber-yellow across the pale forms of the OTs who had been released. Fighting side-by-side the liberated OTs were their rescuers, scores of furred-out werewolves, their teeth flashing, their mouths bloody, their claws rending cages apart by brute animal force. A few guards were attempting to hold off the assault from the far corner of the warehouse, bursts of Mac 10 fire rat-a-tatting from their redoubt and echoing across the cavernous scene of carnage.

Thomas wished he could just tell Evelyn to call in SWAT, but he couldn’t put the pack, his
clients,
at even greater risk. He had to trust Dagger. So, instead of going to Peggy, he headed for the gunfire. Bullets couldn’t hurt him and he knew that Dagger would be on the front line of danger. He found him, crouched behind a container near the human’s last stand, drawing with his claws on the dirty floor, obviously explaining to three pack members the elements of a plan to take out the Mac 10s. Thomas materialized in front of Dagger, but behind his companions, in the open aisle.

“What?” barked Dagger.

“They’re planning on killing the dogs in the arena,” began Thomas, as Dagger’s companions turned to look at him.

“They’re already killing us in here,” Dagger stated, the “here” giving way to a low growl. “You’ll have to take care of it yourself. I’ll come when I can.”

“That won’t be soon enough. They want the owner to do it before they launch their counter-assault in about a minute.”

“Counter-assault? One minute?” Dagger’s eyes narrowed. “You’d think you might have led with that. Where?”

Thomas mentally kicked himself for focusing on his own problems when others were in danger. It was obvious he was a man of law, not a man of action. “Doorway to the adjoining room.”

Dagger stood on his hind legs to his full height for a moment and yelled out “Randy!” at full throttle. “Put your pick-up through the wall at the door in the middle. NOW!”

As Thomas spun, he saw a juvenile werewolf leap through the open window of the pick-up next to Peggy and jink it into gear. The noise of the engine fought for dominance with clangs and snaps as the four-wheel drive pick-up pushed aside or clambered over debris, picking up speed as it headed for the wall. In the last moment before the collision the lithe junior werewolf leaped out of the window, clear of the crash and ensuing wreckage.

For a brief moment, all the shooting and the snarling and the fighting in the OT warehouse halted as everyone looked at the destruction of the door and the hole in the warehouse wall, where the pick-up spewed radiator fluid over a bevy of arena workers and gangbangers trying to extricate themselves from the debris caused by the crash. In that brief moment of silence for the soon-to-be-departed, Dagger launched his assault on the redoubt of remaining humans.

Thomas tried his best to ignore the sounds of snarling and screams and breaking of bones as he floated back toward the dog pens. He still had to save the dogs!

The hick had avoided the tangle of concrete block, bodies, and guns at the doorway, but so had enough of the bad guys, including Black Shirt, that he was still shaking in fear as he pointed the .38 revolver at one of the caged dogs, point blank.

Thomas was in a panic. He couldn’t grab the gun. He couldn’t chase away the caged dog. He couldn’t
do
anything. Ghosts were useless in a fight. Ghosts were useless in most situations. Unless someone needed haunting. Somehow, Thomas didn’t think saying “boo” was going to turn the tide on this life and death situation.

And then it came to him.

He materialized in the narrow space between the dog and the hick, his translucent body encompassing the hick’s outstretched arm and lethal weapon.

“Your grandmother says ‘Don’t you dare hurt that dog.’”

The hick started, whether confused by Thomas’ appearance or words, Thomas couldn’t tell. He pressed on. “She doesn’t like you hurting dogs. She never liked how you treated your animals.”

“Nana?” asked the hick, his voice high-pitched, cracking as he spoke. “You can talk to Nana?”

Thomas did his best to put a hard edge to his voice, hovering a few inches above the floor to appear taller, and holding his arms slightly out from his body so to appear bigger, more menacing. “Of course I talk to Nana. I’m a ghost, ain’t I?” He grimaced at his own bad grammar, but the face he made apparently scared the hick even more.

Thomas heard the gun clatter to the concrete floor.

“Can I see Nana? Can I talk with her?”

Thomas hesitated, trying to figure out what to say. Sure, lawyers are quick-witted and articulate, but he hated the popular notion that members of the bar were quick to lie. Thomas didn’t lie, not really. He wasn’t good at it. But he’d gone down this path; he had to finish it off. He had played one of the three ghosts in
A Christmas Carol
in grade school. He called upon those memories, deepening his voice and adding a vibrato quaver to it.

“Nana will never talk to you, not as long as you live.” He floated just a tad higher and angled his body to loom over the cowering hick. “Your only hope to see her, even after you die, is to change your ways. Make amends. Train your dogs to be kind and happy and loving, the way they were meant to be.” Thomas ignored a growing amount of noise and commotion in the direction of the crashed pick-up and concentrated on his play-acting. “Then, only then, can you possibly meet up with Nana in—”

Black Shirt suddenly appeared behind the hick, his face contorted in rage, his muscled arm bringing up a Mac 10 to bear on the form of the caged pit bull. “Screw this bull—”

Then suddenly, the angry bald head above the black shirt disappeared and a spray of crimson flew over Thomas, the hick, and the dog, though it passed through Thomas.

Dagger stood behind the falling body, his sharp talons dripping blood, as his dark eyes tracked a bald, bloody head skittering across the concrete floor. His canine nose wrinkled, as if it had smelled something distasteful, foul. Finally, he looked down at the body still flooding blood awash the floor. “You want to watch animals die? How’d you like the show, animal?” Dagger licked at his canines, then shifted his gaze to Thomas.

“Rescue’s complete. Just cleaning up. You can let Evelyn know to send the coppers and Animal Control. We’ll be gone in five.” He turned and left without waiting for Thomas to respond.

Thomas left the hick quivering in fear on the floor of the warehouse and floated at a walking pace back to Peggy. She was dented and one headlight was broken, but they made cars solid back in the day. He knew that Dagger would have her shiny and new in no time. He quickly located the cell phone jammed into the crack of the passenger seat, the line still open. He heard the sound of sighs and crying on the other end.

“It’s all right, Evelyn. Everything’s all right. Tell Phillip to send the cops. Send Animal Control right behind.”

“Thomas, is that you? You can’t imagine the sounds I’ve been hearing. Crashes and shouts and gunfire and fighting and more crashing and howls. I was seconds away from dialing, no matter what Dagger said. What happened?”

“The good guys won. Evelyn. The good guys won.”

Chapter 4.11

Evelyn picked up the newspaper from Gretchen’s desk the next morning when she came into the office after her morning run. “GANG WAR IN TENDERLOIN” read the headline. She skimmed the story about how rival gangs had gone to war when one gang had staged a dogfight in another gang’s turf. The newspaper reported eight fatalities, three by crushing, blunt force trauma, three by gunfire, one by stab-wounds from a sharp-ended cylindrical object (perhaps a tire iron?), and one by beheading. Police were searching for the murder weapon for the last, presumably some type of machete.

Truth be told, she was uneasy about how things had gone. Oh sure, her part had gone like clockwork. The police and Animal Control showed up promptly when called. The animals were captured and she hoped most of them weren’t so wounded—physically or mentally—that they couldn’t be saved. But people had
died,
all because she hadn’t been able to persuade Judge Knott to appoint her as
guardian ad litem
for Barney and his breed. She hoped that the people who had died were bad guys—really, really, really bad guys. But she didn’t know that. And, somehow, she didn’t think the newspaper or anyone else was ever going to tell her one way or another for sure.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood up.

“Their deaths are not your fault,” she heard Thomas say, close enough behind her to whisper in her ear. “You acted in the best interests of your clients.” He floated around her, into view. “I acted in the best interests of my clients.”

She wanted to believe him, but it was hard.

“We don’t control the outcome,” he continued. “We don’t control the world. We don’t even control our clients. Sometimes things get out of anyone’s control. Sometimes bad things happen.”

“Is that what happened here?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper, afraid to say the words out loud. “Did someone innocent die?”

Thomas flinched. “Innocent people die all the time.”

God, how could she have asked him that? Thomas was innocent and he had died. Had innocent people died at the warehouse, too? Would she ever know? Would he tell her even if he knew? No, he would protect her. He would always protect her. Somehow, that had to be enough.

“What now?” she asked.

Thomas gave her a weary smile. “Now we finish up. Nothing’s ever over until the lawyers finish up. Deals don’t conclude on a handshake or even a closing. There’s always the post-closing items. Cases don’t finish on a judgment. There’s always an appeal or proceedings to seize assets and collect on that judgment. Even death isn’t the end.…” He grinned a bit more warmly. “Even if you don’t continue on after death, there’s an estate to settle, insurance to collect, final tax returns. Life ends, but paperwork is forever.”

Evelyn frowned. What was left? The dog-fighting ring was broken. The bad guys arrested or dead. The dogs and the OTs were freed. She had even gotten some volunteers from Bay Area Dog-lovers Responsible About Pitbulls (BAD RAP) involved to provide information about handling abused dogs.

Thomas tilted his head to one side. “What about your client?”

“Barney? Barney’s safe with Sad Sadie … Oh.”

“Until the new law goes into effect,” Thomas voiced her thoughts aloud. “We still need to save Barney by getting the law changed.”

Evelyn gave him a brief, lilting laugh. “This is California. They’ll always pass a new law, given half a chance.”

O O O

Evelyn sat quietly through the zoning session, the parks report, and an extended discussion of city employee pension matters. Finally, it was her turn. Mark Shu, the President of the eleven-member Board of Supervisors for the City and County of San Francisco, called the final item on the agenda: “Next up, public comment and consideration of a proposed amendment of Ordinance 4.8889, dealing with the prohibition of certain breeds of dogs in the environs of the city.” He looked up at Evelyn, who stood and approached the audience podium.

President Shu looked at his watch. “The hour grows late, Ms. Love. And from what I gather from my friend, Judge Knott, you are categorically opposed to Ordinance 4.8889, having gone so far as to argue before his court that it was unconstitutional. Pray tell, are you here to amend it so as to be so narrow as to be altogether ineffective?”

Evelyn reached the podium just as President Shu finished his question. “No, President Shu. Ordinance 4.8889 attempts to protect both the citizens of the City and County of San Francisco and a limited subset of canines by prohibiting such canine breeds within the confines of the City and County so as to prevent dog-fighting.”