The Man Who Followed Women by Bert Hitchens

Author:Bert Hitchens
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

He phoned Pete at the office, and Pete promised to get in touch at once with the police in Bishop and find out what he could about Margie DeWitt, whether there was any connection up there between her and Jennings and Pethro, and if any of the three had a record with the Bishop police. Kernehan also asked Pete to call Dyart in Vermillion and see if Dyart had any suggestions about where he should start tomorrow, any junk yards or used-auto supply dealers who seemed to be on the shady side.

Kernehan told Pete he would call back later and check.

“I thought you’d be home asleep,” Pete said. “Wait a minute. You know, about those dead dogs in New Canyon Yards? They’ve got another one, and I’ve heard from L.A.P.D., somebody you talked to there. A woman in Altadena has reported her poodle stolen. Wasn’t one of the dead mutts a poodle?”

Kernehan had almost forgotten about the dead dogs, the indignant old car-knocker who had buried two of them, all of this which had led him into the original stake-out and latching onto Howery. “I’ll call L.A.P.D. and see what they’ve got. Thanks, Pete.”

But brief investigation revealed that the woman in Altadena had missed her dog only early this morning, when she had let him out to go to the bathroom—as she had put it, according to the L.A.P.D. man—and he hadn’t come back to his breakfast.

“The poodle we found was dead last week. Thanks anyway. Let me know if you get anything more.” Kernehan left the phone booth, got back in his car in the parking lot of the Bonnie Brae, and headed for New Canyon Yards. The car-knocker, Lizt, was sitting in his shanty taking a break, drinking coffee from a vacuum bottle and eating a doughnut. He finished the doughnut and coffee quickly, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, wiped the back of his hand on the thigh of the overalls, slapped his cap on his head, and took Kernehan off over toward the gate to the main-line tracks.

“I ain’t going to clean it up. I buried them others, I called the pound to come get the last one. This one’ll take a broom, and then a bucket and mop.”

They went in through the gate. The remains of the dismembered dog were ground into, and strewn on, about twenty feet of track. The head lay intact, tossed into a greasy patch of grass; it had been a big black and white dog with long ears. Part hound, Kernehan thought.

Lizt sniffled, rubbed a finger under his nose. “I’ll bet it was What they was trying to do all the time. That first one, that white poodle, I found him before the train hit him. The other two, they brought them in and didn’t get all the way, and something scared them off.”

It was exactly what Kernehan had been thinking.

“You think it might be some of them juveniles?” Lizt asked.

“Probably.”

“What for they want a train to run over a dead dog?”

“Damned if I know.

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