Waiting by Frank M. Robinson Read Free Book Online Page A

last night to identify him. She didn’t and when we called this morning, she didn’t answer. We had the Oakland police check and she’d left, along with their two boys. Any idea where they went?”
    “None at all,” Artie said slowly. “You think she’s …” His voice dribbled off.
    Schuler shrugged. “The husband is dead and the wife has disappeared. It’s impossible not to think there’s a connection, but at the moment I don’t know what it could be.” He turned to McNeal. “Okay, bring ’em in, Mac.”
    Artie moved his arms slightly so his sweaty shirt wouldn’t stick to him. He wondered how he would react to seeing the murderers of a good friend. Dispassionate? Or filled with rage and a desire to commit murder himself?
    McNeal came back leading three dogs on leashes: two pit bulls and what looked like a collie-retriever mix. Artie stared. The three of them would be enough to take a man down, but it was still difficult to believe. They trotted behind McNeal, glancing curiously around the room and wagging their tails.
    “You serious?”
    Schuler lit his pipe and leaned back in his chair. “Ordinarily if dogs attack somebody, they’re destroyed almost immediately. These we’re saving for evidence until we locate the owners.” He looked disapproving. “People turn dogs loose in the city when they don’t want them anymore. Pit bulls are always bad news if they’ve been trained to fight and then are abandoned by their owners. Back in the good old days, we used to have dogcatchers who took care of them. The city doesn’t have that kind of money now, and neither does Animal Care and Control. So we wind up with packs of feral dogs on our hands. The small ones die, get run over, get killed by bigger dogs. Some of the larger ones acquire street smarts—they avoid busy streets, they learn to keep away from traps and poison. They attack people’s pets, sometimes young kids. This is the first instance we know of where they’ve attacked an adult male—and killed him.” He shook his head. “Dr. Shea was apparently hiding in the packing crate. He would have been on his hands and knees—an invitation for feral dogs.”
    Schuler glanced down at a report in front of him and read it aloud.
    “‘Officers called to the scene found three bloodstained dogs at 15 Olive Street’—they call it a street but it’s really an alley—‘nosing around a packing crate. They apparently attacked Dr. Shea in the crate and were responsible for his death.’” He looked up. “We still don’t have a clue as to what Dr. Shea was doing in the Tenderloin or why he was hiding in the crate.”
    Artie stared down at the dogs sniffing around his shoes and the leg of the table. He had a sudden desire to reach out and scratch the nearest one behind the ears.
    Then he noticed the matted hair and the rich dark stains around its muzzle.
     
    Outside, Artie had just flicked open his umbrella and stepped to the curb to hail a cab when somebody called, “Hey, Artie, over here!”
    The group was huddled under an overhang, and he hurried over. Schuler must have interviewed them one by one and afterward they had waited to see who had been next and to compare notes.
    Artie furled his umbrella and squeezed under the overhang with them. “What do we do, wait for Jenny and Lyle?”
    Mary Robards looked impatient. “I’m getting soaked. If we’re going to talk about it, let’s go someplace.”
    Charlie Allen turned and started to waddle down the street. “Coffee shop’s this way; spotted it driving over.”
    At the tiny restaurant with its faded beer signs and grease-stained walls, Artie ordered coffee, black, then hesitated and added a pastrami sandwich.
    He glanced around the table. Hail, hail, the Suicide Club was now in session. Mary Robards, one of the few original women members who had stayed in the Club, now thirty pounds heavier and abrasively cynical. Schuler must have been surprised. The last time he’d seen her, Mary was a