Shepherd's Crook (23 page)

sixty-five

Several people waved as
I made my way through the training building, and I overheard a snatch of conversation about the murder behind Blackford's Farm and Garden. That had to be a topic of conversation, since probably a third of the Dog Dayz crowd bought their dog and cat and other animal foods there. Giselle met me with a hug and whispered, “I meant to call you last night but I had class and got, um, busy afterward. I'm glad it wasn't too bad at the police station.” She stepped back and looked at me. “It wasn't too bad, was it?” I assured her it wasn't too bad and asked whether Hutch was around.

“Not tonight. He had to go buy his mom a birthday present.” She studied my face. “Do you need me to call him?”

“No, no, it's fine.” She looked doubtful, but I smiled and repeated myself until we were both convinced.

I tried to ignore Tom as he worked with Winnie in one of the rings, but I couldn't help admire, as always, his easy way of getting the best from his dog. He had staked out a space along the wall across from the rings, near the front door, for his two crates. He had brought the big folding canvas one for Drake, but didn't trust Winnie to fabric and zipper at her young age, so she had a
medium-size
plastic airline crate with a heavy wire door for training nights.
Oh, sure,
now
you use a crate, when there are plenty of puppy monitors around.
He liked to keep puppy sessions short, and he wrapped this one up and put her in her crate, made sure the latch was secure—not that I was watching—and let Drake out.

Next to Drake's crate was a slightly smaller one with the name “Lilly” embroidered into the mesh front. Four more crates continued the lineup. Two of them were empty, one housed a sleeping Golden Retriever, another a Corgi who sat and watched. One of the empties was
super-sized
, and I saw by the nametag that it was for Eiger, Jim Smith's Saint Bernard. Flanking the row of bigger crates was a tiny one I recognized as Giselle's. I noticed that the nameplate had been changed. No more pink “Precious” on the little guy's travel home. “Spike” was official.

I found a chair on the other side of the room, as far from Tom's stuff as possible, and put my jacket and tote bag on it. “Okay, Bubby,” I said to Jay, “let's do a little work, shall we?” His whole rear end wagged an affirmative and we stepped into the center ring, where group heeling practice was already underway. I waved to Jean, who was on the other side of the ring with lovely Lilly. Giselle and Spike were in the “slow lane” toward the center, and Sylvia Eckhorn and her Cocker Spaniel, Tippy, were farther down on my side of the ring. Jay and I slipped into the line at the first opening, just before Marietta Santini hollered “about turn” in her
drill-sergeant
voice.

A few minutes later Marietta lined us up for recalls, and Jean led Lilly back to her crate and zipped her in. A young woman I'd never seen before was sitting in one of the folding chairs along the front wall a few feet from Tom's crates. She was wore dark leggings, a dark sweater, a dark beret, and a dark scowl. She hadn't been there when
I arrived, and I figured she must be someone's angsty teenager dragged along to Mom's
dog-training
class. Jean stopped and spoke to Winnie, petting her through the bars of her crate, and then headed toward the back of the building. I decided I could use a bathroom break, too, when Jean returned.

As I pivoted back into line I noticed another new face. A young man, also dressed in dark clothing, sat outside the
front-most
ring where Tom was working Drake. He was in the chair closest to the outside wall, right next to another set of crates. Two were clearly empty, their front
door-flaps
unzipped and folded back across their roofs. The other one was occupied, but I couldn't see the dog and didn't recognize the crate.

Giselle came up beside me. “Oh, man, I have such a headache. I'm going to get some aspirin from my car.” Without waiting for an answer she went to her crate, deposited Spike, and walked toward the back door, massaging her temples as she went.

I moved up behind the person ahead of us in line and looked over my shoulder toward the front of the room. Something didn't feel right. One sulky teenager in black watching a training session made sense. I'd seen them here before. But two?
You're just overwrought.
That thought raised the twin specters of two men dead at violent hands, and a slow shudder ran up my spine as I forced myself to focus on the training task at hand.

And so it was that I had my back to the front entrance when I heard
pop-pop
-pop
, and the screaming started.

sixty-six

Voices rose, shrill and
loud. Everyone spun toward the sound. Several people dressed in black had burst into the building. They were chanting something, but at first all I could make out was “cruel.” Two of them held hand-lettered signs that read “Domestication = Slavery” and “Liberate All Animals.” As the group fanned out across the room, I was able to count them. Five. I knew I had been right about the two watchers in black. The figure in the lead seemed familiar somehow, but people—my people—were screaming, and dogs were barking and yelping, some lunging at the intruders, others pulling away from them.

Jay stepped in front of me, teeth bared. I made out more voices, some of which I knew. Sylvia Eckhorn yelled, “Oh my God!” There was another loud
pop
, and then
pop-pop
-pop.
Sylvia's sweatshirt exploded in red.
Are they shooting?
Sylvia screamed and Tippy leaped to the end of her leash, yelping. I took a step toward Sylvia and saw her look down and touch a finger to the glistening crimson spatter across her chest. She rubbed her finger and thumb together and a veil of fury unfurled across her face. She must have read my fear when our eyes connected, because she yelled, “Paint balls!” She pressed her open palm against her breastbone and added, “Jeez, that hurts,” and turned her attention to calming her dog.

One of the
black-clad
figures ran toward Marietta and swung what looked like a plastic squeeze bottle in circles in front of her. The center of Marietta's sweatshirt blossomed in bright blue squiggles. She looked down and ran her fingers across the mess. Then someone else screeched, “They're spraying something on us!” and Marietta shouted, “Paint! It's paint!” People and dogs were running every which way, some leashed to one another, others on their own. My view of the ring where Tom has been working with Drake was blocked. So was my view of Winnie's crate and the others near it.

I reached for Jay's collar and started to guide him toward the back door, a hazy plan forming to lock him in the van and come back to help. As I turned, I heard a
pop
, close and loud. Something hit my head at the hairline and warm liquid ran down my forehead and cheek. I swiped wildly at my eye and watched something thick and red drop onto the back of Jay's neck.

At first there was no pain, but I knew that the adrenaline rush could mask it. Everything had happened in a matter of seconds. Maybe the pain just hadn't hit yet.

Voices were frantic around me. People were yelling their dogs' names, yelling slogans, yelling yelling yelling. And then someone yelled above the cacophony, “They're letting the dogs loose! They're letting them out the door!”
Oh, God! Winnie!
Not until that instant did I realize how much I loved that puppy already.

The pain where I'd been hit kicked in just as a hand reached for Jay's leash. He pulled away, eyes wide and ears back as if startled. I tried to look toward the front of the building, toward Tom, but a body shoved up against me and a woman's voice hissed, “Give him to me! Set him free!” I tripped, and my knee hit the floor and sent a bolt of pain howling through my leg in both directions. I closed my eyes against the liquid still dripping from my hairline and tried to wipe my eye against my sleeve. I could smell it now, like fish soaked in dish soap. Jay's leash slipped from my hand, and as I grabbed for it, the blurred image of my attacker came into view. She was leaning toward my dog, reaching for him. I swung at her and connected. The impact against her cheekbone sent a scream of pain racing from my wrist to my elbow. Another scream erupted, and her voice—a voice I now recognized—yelled “Get him off me! Get him off me!” I swiped my eyes clear with my clean sleeve and saw that Jay had a firm, unfriendly grip on Councilman Martin's sweetheart.

“Jay, leave it,” I said. He hesitated, rolling his eyes to look at me, but he let go.

She pulled her sleeve up and I could see that he had not broken the skin, although she'd probably have a good bruise. She was going to have a shiner, too, judging by her cheekbone where I'd clocked her.

“I'll sue you!” Chelsea was still screeching. “I'll have your vicious dog impounded!” She took a step backward. Her foot slid forward in a puddle of her own paint and her arms went into windmill mode in an effort to keep her balance.

“Let me help,” I said, and pushed my palms against her chest just enough to finish the job the slippery spot started. She went down with a loud
oof
. “Roll over,” I said, staring at her. When she didn't move, I said, “I'm not talking to the dog. Roll onto your stomach.” She stared at me, then shifted her gaze to my hand, and I realized it was clenched into a fist. I squeezed it tighter and she slowly rolled over. I signaled Jay to straddle her, front feet on one side and back on the other. “Down,” I said, and he dropped his body onto her midsection. “Stay!” To her I added, “If you try to get up, he'll go for the back of your neck.”

I ran toward the chaos at the front of the room in time to see two of the invaders run out the door. The sulky young man I had seen sitting near Winnie's crate earlier was backed up against a wall, whimpering under the unflinching stare of Mel Able's
protection-trained
Dutch Shepherd, Hans. The dog didn't appear to have touched the guy, but there was no question he would if Mel gave the word.

So that was two of the terrorists out the door, Chelsea caught under Jay, and this guy. I was sure there had been five. Where was the fifth? I kept moving toward Winnie's crate, dodging people and dogs. Tom was nowhere to be seen, and a crowd had gathered in front of the row of crates where Winnie and Lilly and Spike and the others should be. My feet seemed to be caught in
swamp-goo
but I finally pushed my way to the front of the crowd just as Jim Smith shoved the fifth invader into Eiger's giant crate and latched it. “You can wait there for the police,” Jim said, snapping a padlock onto the door for good measure. Eiger snuffled at the side of his crate and growled.

The rest of the crates were empty.

sixty-seven

I spun around and
scanned the room. No sign of Winnie or Lilly or Spike. No sign of Tom. Jean had gotten to her crate just ahead of me, and I saw her run out the front door. I raced back toward Jay and Chelsea. I needed Jay to find little lost Winnie. I figured the police could locate Chelsea easily enough if she escaped, but I pointed her out to Jim Smith and he hurried toward her, a man on a mission. “Jay, come!” I called. I was grabbing for the end of his leash when Giselle came through the back door, took in the crowd near Spike's crate, and started to run.

“Giselle, he's not there. He's loose. I'm on my way out to look. Win—” I felt as if a choke chain were yanked across my throat, but I found my voice and said, “Winnie's missing too, and Lilly. You need to go out and call Spike!”

“Ohmygod, ohmygod.” she said, each repetition pitched an octave higher. She pulled her cell phone out as she ran beside me to the front of the building. “Did anyone call the po— Hutch! Something terrible's happened!”

We heard at least two sirens in the distance, coming closer, filling the night. Someone had already called. I left Giselle and ran through the parking lot, hoping the loose dogs would head for familiar parts of the property—the exercise area, the agility field, the trees and shrubs that edged the parking area.
Please don't let them run to the road. Not in the dark. Not ever.

I saw Tom walking the tree line, a dark shadow in front of him that had to be Drake, and I ran to him. Tom had a flashlight, and he was calling in a voice honed by many years of training dogs to remain upbeat in the worst of times. “Winnie, come! Puppy puppy puppy!”

“Should I get Jay's tracking harness?”

Tom turned toward me and the distress written into the muscles of his face stirred a strange cocktail of pain and fury and love in my heart. “We'll find her,” I said. “Jay and I will check the agility course while you do this.”

Then I'll go back inside and Chelsea and her friends better hope the police already have them in protective custody.

“Spike!” Giselle's voice came from behind me. “Precious Spike! Come! Cookies!”

There were other voices, too, and then Marietta's. “Folks, too many people out here in the dark will scare some of the dogs. If your dog is not missing, please stay in or near the building and let the owners call their dogs!”

Paranoia must have had me in its grip, because when I started for my van, I thought I saw someone standing by the passenger door.
Heavy-set
, dressed in dark clothing. I broke stride and squinted into the shadow, but by the time I opened the back of my van, whatever it was had disappeared, and Jay didn't show any interest in anything other than getting his tracking harness and longline on. I had him sit and looked into his eyes to be sure he was listening. “Find Winnie. Find the puppy.” I had no idea where to start him looking for her scent, but I had a hunch she might follow the big dogs, and they would, I was pretty sure, head for the outdoor agility field. It was where they had a lot of fun.

Marietta had turned the lights on around the field, so visibility was decent. Jorge had gotten the equipment out of winter storage a couple of weeks earlier, and had brought out the portable bleachers as well. I let Jay's longline play out to about thirty feet and just followed and watched. Working a dog on a track is pure mystery. We have no idea what they experience, what they smell, how they find one scent among all the others. But we'd been tracking regularly for more than two years, and I had some sense of when Jay was following a solid track. His body language suggested he was still looking for Winnie's scent. I crossed my fingers and whispered a prayer to the universe.

Jay took off at a run and nearly yanked me off my feet. I held the line tight and followed, trying to slow him down to a safer speed. Safer for me. My peripheral vision picked up motion on both sides. Tom and Drake were coming up on my right. Tom must have seen Jay lean into his harness, a sure sign he was on a scent. I just hoped it was Winnie's. I glanced left. Someone was there, outside the agility field, almost beyond the reach of the lights, moving in and out of the shadow. I tried to get a better look, but Jay sped up again and I had to look where I was going. He seemed to be aiming for the
A-frame
at the far end of the field. It would be a good place for a frightened puppy to hole up.

Giselle's voice was still behind me. “Spike, come!” Her tone was turning desperate when suddenly it changed. “Spike! Oh, Spike!” A white speedball shot out from under the
A-frame
and ran straight past me. I turned in time to see Giselle scoop him into her arms and bury her face in his fur.

Jay whined and started to pull again, and I turned to follow. Tom and Drake were beside me now. “Maybe she's under there too?” Tom inflected the words as a question, and I knew that was the sound of hope.

But Jay stopped for no more than two seconds to sniff under the obstacle, and then turned toward the bleachers. I tried to shorten the length of line between me and him, knowing he could easily get tangled if he climbed the risers, but he was moving too fast. The line burned through my fingers and I let go. Then I heard a sharp yip. A puppy yip.

“It's her!” Tom had no sooner said the words than Drake yanked the leash out of his hands and rushed forward with Jay. Tom and I sprinted to catch up, but they were way ahead of us and
light-years
faster. They had almost rounded the bleachers when Winnie appeared, her leash pulled taut behind her as if she were out for a walk. For a moment, I wondered if she was caught on the structure, and then I saw that she had been in good hands. Or paws. Lilly stepped into view, her lovely muzzle clamped tight to the puppy's leash.