Concealed Attractions (Cedar Island Tales) (57 page)

“
No.
Danni
saw Mrs.
Learman. She weighed
Schotzie
,
and apologized that Ben wasn’t here.
Mrs. Learman
left in a snit. Maybe
he
could call her
later
.”

“I’ll mention it to him.
I’ve got to put this report together. We’r
e likely to get a call from
Brad
Olson’s lawyer in the next couple of days.”

“Oh?”

“The guy who
T
-boned the trailer
—they lost
three of their
quarter h
orse
s. I don’
t want to guess at their worth. One
was a
b
rood
mare and the other a yearling they were probably schooling for eventual sale.
A
gelding, too.
”

“How did
Cassie
take it? S
he
dote
s
on
those horses.”

“About what you’d expect. Ben had to put down the gelding. I
took
care of the mare.
It
wasn’
t pretty.”

Joel
used his foot to close his office
door
.

When
Ben
drove
Danni
home, he
said little except to tell her that three of the four horses had died. He went to bed
early and tossed restlessly most of the night
, seeing the
animal
s in his sleep.

Bronnie opened the door into the treatment area.
“
Chief
Mathiesen
is on the phone,
Joe
l
. He wants to talk to Ben.”

“Tell him he’s out.
I sent him to
Olson’s to check on that
filly
.
I’ll take the call.”

Joe
l
motioned for
Dannilynn
to take
a
cat back to his cage, went into his office
,
and picked up the phone. “Hi,
J
ohn
. What can I do for you?”

“Remember that big Doberman your
young vet
brought me?”

“Sure do.”

“I need another dog.”

“Didn’t Happy work out for you?”
He
looked
out the office window and watched as two customers
approache
d the front door of the clinic. I
t was turning out to be another busy day
.

“
Happy does great finding drugs, and we need him to concentrate on that. We’ve had an increase in
that drug
work, and we
’ve
decided
another dog would help
.  Have you got another one
like him
?”

Joe
l
sat back in his chair. “
Not
at the moment, but I’ll keep it in
mind
.
You kne
w my vet
assistant
did
a lot
of the
basic
training for Happy, did
n’t you?”

Chief
Mathiesen
chuckled. “Oh, yeah.
Ben
made that pretty clear. Maybe she
c
ould help us train the new dog,
if you can find me the right
one
.”

“She would probably
love
to do it
.”

T
he
chief of police
called the clinic
again
that evening
. “
Joe
l
, you still there
this time of night
?”

“Who else would be here after hours?”
T
he veterinarian
rubbed
his eyes
before grabbing his glasses
.
“I g
o
home
when the work’s done. What do you need?”

“We just
broke
up a dog fighting ring
—the first I’ve seen on the island
. I’ve got three animals that are so messed up they
may
need to be put down.  Some of the others
look
like they might be salvageable, but
I
could use your help
.  I know I’m
asking a lot
, but
we
’ve got
to collect the evidence while it’s still fresh.
”

Joel
looked
at his watch
—
already late for dinner at Angela’s
, and she’d been getting testy about
his tardiness
lately
.

“Let me make a couple of phone calls. Give me the address. How many cages do we need?”

“Bring at least four big ones and a cou
ple of small ones. Some of the
dogs are pups.
I guess we could put the little ones in a cage together.”

Joe
l
called Ben and filled him
in on the problem. They drove The Thing
and
another pickup
to the old farmhouse.
The
c
hief
and two of his deputies were
already
there, taking pictures and trying to catch the dogs that were in a large pen.

“Where are the owners?”
Joe
l
pulled out the snares.

“We hauled them off already—the ones we caught. Two got away. If we had
another
dog, we’d go after them.
But
Happy’s on
pat
rol at the border
showing off what he
can do
.”

Joel and Ben
approached two
snarling dogs in one small pe
n
. Both
animal
s had what
looked
like
festering
wounds.
Ben used
a
snare t
o catch the smaller of the two pit b
ulls and dragged him out. With the help of one
of
the deputies, they pushed him into a cage
and lifted it into the pickup.
The other dog cowered at the approach of the two men and was easily subdued. He, too, had wounds about the face.

“
Look
s like he may have a
broke
n leg or a joint problem in
his
hind legs,”
Joe
l
observed.

T
o the side of the main shed
, Ben
spotted
the bodies of four other dogs. One was a
small cocker-like mixed breed.
“What was he doing fighting these bigger, stronger dogs?”

Chief
Mathiesen
looked
over at Ben. “T
hey probably used him as bait when training the other dogs to fight.
We found
the carcass
es
of a couple of cats over here that were probably used the
sam
e way. This
kind
of thing makes me sick. We’d like you to t
ell us what their injuries were. As evidence,
if you can
. After
you get pictures and x-rays or whatever yo
u need to tell us how they died,
you
can dispose of them.”

Joe
l
nodded. He and Ben placed the dead
animal
s on a sheet in the back of The Thing
for
later
examination and
necropsy. 

“What
’s
over
t
here?” Ben pointed to a
tumbledown
shed.

“Take a
look
.
”
Chief
Mathiesen
followed him.
Ben went in
to the shed and found a female pit b
ull
suckling four pups. She backed away and snarled at
the two men
when
they
approached
her
pen. She and the pups were covered in filth. She had no water
and no food dish was in sight.
When
Ben
kne
eled
down next to the pen and
spoke
quietly to her, she stopped her growling but continued to watch him warily.
He went
back
to the pick
up and pulled out a small bag of dog treats. He returned and pushed one into the pen. She immediately snatched it from the ground and ate it. When he offered another, she inched her way toward him, stretching her neck to reach the treat while
positioning herself
between him and the pups.

“You’ll be
okay
, girl. We just have to get you out of there and into a place where you can keep yourself and your babies clean.”

Ben
called for
Joe
l
’s assistance. It
took
three men to snare her and pull her from the filthy pen. They placed her in the larger of the crates, and then picked up the puppies and placed them together in a small carrier.

Two
other
adult dogs were captured and crated.
The
emaciated
female
barely put up a fight.  The other dog
, a mixed breed,
appeared to be younger than the others and, though wary of the men, he did not growl
or
snap
as
h
e
tried to
back away, his tail between his
quiver
ing
legs.

When they
returned
to the clinic, it was past
ten o’clock.
 

“Ben, call
Danni
,” Joel ordered
.
“
We could use her help.”

Danni
was waiting when
Ben
picked her up. As they drove back to the office, he
told
her what they had found.
Joe
l
put her to work cleaning up the pups. When she had done so and placed them in a clean run, the three of them worked on the mother, now muzzled. She continued to growl under her breath as they worked on her, clipping her over-long nails, and cleansing minor scratches. 

“
You’
re
a pretty dog,”
Danni
s
poke to her
.
  “
Look
at
your
beautiful
eyes. I’m going to call
you
Lady
.” 

When
Danni
p
laced
her in the run with her
pup
s, s
he went to them
and
immediately
lay down. T
he pups began suckling as soon as she
roll
ed onto her side.

“
Now that they’re done, l
et’s take the other
dog
s out and see what needs to be done
for them
.
Danni
! Don’t go near them!”
Joe
l
yelle
d, when she approached the pick
up and was met by growling and snarling. 

She jumped back and approached the old cab
again
. When s
he saw the carcasses of the dead animals,
she
gasped. In the other carrier was the emaciated female.  She was lying down and
looked
up at
Danni
, but did not respond when
talked to.