“Yes,” was the only answer she received.
“I threw it away. Why would I keep a dog ingested sausage?” she asked incredulously.
“You had another recent case like this?”
Stoney. She knew this had something to do with Stoney. But what the hell could a dog swallowing a sausage link have to do with the police and Stoney?
“Yes. It was a week ago. A man came to the clinic late in the evening with his sick dog. I examined the dog, took radiographs, and saw a foreign object. He wanted me to do emergency surgery so I agreed.”
“Wasn’t it unusual to do surgery late at night, without your assistants?”
“Yes, but the dog was in a great deal of pain and the owner insisted that we help Sarge.”
“Sarge?” came a growl from near the door. “And who was the owner?”
Annie looked over sharply at Detective Dixon, who was stalking toward her, stopping only to place his fists on the table as he leaned it. “I didn’t know him. He said his name was Stoney. He didn’t tell me his last name.” I never knew his last name. I slept with a man wanted by the police and I never knew his name.
“So what did you do with that sausage?” Detective Dixon asked, interrupting her thoughts.
“I threw it away also.” Feeling closed in, she felt her fear slide away, replaced by anger. “Look, I don’t know why you are so interested in them, but I don’t keep objects that I pull out of dog intestines! I threw them away. If I could go get them to show you, I would, but I can’t. They went into the garbage and tossed in my dumpster. They are probably buried under a ton of garbage at the dump. I don’t know what this is about. You haven’t told me anything, but your attitude makes me think that maybe I do need a lawyer.”
At that, Detective Carter opened his file again, pulling out more photographs. Pushing them across the table to her, he lined them up.
Annie looked at them, first in confusion, then in horror. Radiographs of dogs with numerous packets inside of their stomachs and intestines. The sausage-like packets split open with white powder spilling out. Pictures of knives. Guns. Dogs lying in an open grave, their bodies hacked and stomachs slit. The bile rose in her throat as she looked at the devastation. Bringing her fingers to her lips, she tried to swallow down the nausea. “Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus,” she said, as the sting of tears filled her eyes.
Lifting her gaze up to the Detectives watching her closely, she shook her head. “What is this?” she whispered, visibly shaken. “What happened here?”
Watching her reaction, Detective Carter spoke. “Dr. Donavan, this is one of the ways that drugs are trafficked from one area to another. These aren’t sausages. At least not in the traditional sense. They are packets of cocaine, wrapped so that a dog can swallow them. The dogs are then shipped from one area to another and then the drugs are retrieved.”
“Retrieved?” she asked, her head shaking back and forth as her voice cracked.
“They are taken, their guts slit open, the drugs removed, and the dog carcasses dumped,” came the growl from Detective Dixon.
Detective Carter looked at him sharply, then swung his eyes back to Annie.
“H…How? How c…can someone do this?” she stammered, with her fingers still pressed to her lips. Lifting her eyes from the horrible pictures to their faces, her eyes went wide. “You think I did this? You think I knew about this?” her voice rising.
“No, Doctor. We don’t think you had anything to do with this. We have been watching you since we got a tip about that surgery a month ago. You have been on our radar and we’ve been including you in our investigation. We don’t think that you had any prior knowledge of what you were operating on and we have no evidence that you had any plans to sell the cocaine.”
“There was really cocaine in those dogs?” Stoney. Did Stoney know what was happening? Is this what he said he had to take care of? Oh my God – did the detective just say I’ve been watched?
Leaning back in the uncomfortable chair, she tried to stop her swirling thoughts. “Am I free to go now?”
“Yes, doctor, you are. You may be called as a witness when this goes to trial, and we would like you to stay in town in case we have more questions. But yes, you may go.”
Standing on shaky legs, she rose from the table. Nodding to both of them, she walked passed scary Detective Dixon on her way out into the hall.
“Doctor?”
She turned to look at Detective Carter as he approached her.
“I’ll drive you back to your clinic.”
Nodding numbly, she began to walk down the hall toward the front door of the station. Hearing noises coming from the doors ahead, she looked up to see a familiar figure walking through the doors, entering the station. Though his hair and beard were now close-cropped, she recognized his build. His tight black t-shirt that barely contained his muscles. The faded jeans that were worn in just the right places. The way he held his body. The way he walked as though he commanded all around him.