Mortality Rate by Carolina Mac

Author:Carolina Mac [Mac, Carolina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-06-29T23:00:00+00:00

Old West Austin.

Slade Ramsay lived in a big old white frame house chopped into four student apartments. His space was at the rear of the main level. Blaine and Casey strode around behind the house, stood on the back porch, and knocked.

Blaine could see through the glass portion of the door into the kitchen and the room looked like it had been hit by Hurricane Hazel. Stuff was everywhere and empty liquor bottles, dirty dishes, cans, and take-out containers covered every available surface.

They knocked. Nothing. Rang the bell and Slade wasn’t answering. “Think he’s at the U?” asked Casey.

“I’m not sure what I think at this point,” said Blaine. “He gave me creepy vibes.”

“Shall we take a look inside?” asked Casey. “Slade might be in distress.”

“Yeah, right. We’re here. Might as well do something useful. Blaine pulled his pick set out of his pocket and opened the sleazy lock on the back door. They stepped inside and fought back the urge to gag.

“What the hell stinks so bad?” asked Casey.

“It ain’t decomp,” said Blaine. “Smells more like shit.”

As they stepped into the next room a little terrier barked at them, then ran and hid behind the sofa. Several piles of dog shit were deposited around the room.

“Six piles of dog shit is enough to cover off this dog from last Friday,” said Casey.

Blaine chuckled. “We can’t use piles of dog shit as evidence.”

“Timeline,” said Casey. “The dog shit is our timeline.”

“No, that doesn’t work,” said Blaine. “If Slade took Amy last Friday, where was she when I saw him at the bar last night? That was five days later.”

“She had to be here,” said Casey. “Or she was tied up in his car. She wasn’t with him at the bar.”

“If you say so.” Blaine had his hand over his face. “I don’t think Slade Ramsay has been here since last Friday.”

“The dog must be fuckin starving,” said Casey, “if nobody fed it since last Friday.”

“Call the animal rescue people,” said Blaine. “We’ll have to wait until they come for the dog.”

“While we’re waiting we can have a good look around.”

“See if you see any brochures for Mexico.”

“If he left for Mexico, he just left today. You saw him last night.”

Blaine checked the bedroom and noticed a couple of dresser drawers were open. Hangers were pushed to one side and some of the clothes in the closet seemed to be gone too. No sign of where a suitcase had been sitting in the closet, but Slade Ramsay might not have owned a suitcase. He could have shoved his clothes into plastic grocery bags or a black garbage bag.

It took the animal rescue people almost an hour to come get the little starving dog and Blaine felt sorry for him.

“We think his owner might have been gone since last Friday,” said Blaine. “Feed the dog as soon as y’all can. I think the poor thing is fuckin starving.”

“Will do, Ranger Blackmore. Thanks for the call.”

The uniformed rescue guy picked up the scared dog and cuddled it.

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