Three Dog Day (10 page)

At the desk, Mae cleared her throat loudly. The girl looked up with a start, quickly pulling out her earbuds. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn't hear you come in. Can I help you?”

“
I'm Mae December,” Mae said. “I told Mr. Gunderson that I'd take three of the pit bull puppies to foster. He said to come this afternoon to pick them up.”

The girl frowned. “Is Mae December like, your real name?”

Mae gave her a bright, insincere smile. She had been asked this question far too often in her life. “Sure is. This is my mother, Suzanne. What's your name?”

“
I'm Francie.”

“
All right, Francie, I need you to check and make sure those three pups are ready to go, and help me get them into my vehicle. If there's any paperwork I need to fill out, I'll start on that while you check on those puppies.”

Francie sighed and rose to her feet. She rustled around in a file cabinet behind her desk, finally pulling some papers out that she stuck in a clipboard and handed to Mae.

“
I don't have a pen. Just fill those out.”

“
I have a pen in my purse,” Suzanne informed the sullen girl.

And that is more than enough of your teenage 'tude.
“Could you let Mr. Gunderson know that I'm here?” Mae asked.

Francie opened her mouth to give her a tart reply then must have thought better of it. Instead she nodded and went through the glass doors behind her desk. Mae hoped she'd return with someone who would be a little more helpful. She made brief eye contact with her mother, who shook her head. Sitting in one of the old waiting room chairs, Mae took the pen that Mama had fished out of her purse and began to fill out the required paperwork. It was her first time fostering and she was worried she might fall in love with the puppies before they went to new ‘forever' homes. She shook her head and reminded herself sternly of the four dogs she already owned.

Several minutes later, Francie returned, carrying a white short-haired puppy with a black eye patch and another one that was pure white. A stocky gray-haired man with a square jawline walked behind her with the third puppy, a black and tan. He nodded at Mae and Suzanne.

“
I'm Larry Gunderson, Miss December, Ma'am.” He smiled at Mae's mother. “If you've finished filling out the forms we can get these rascals loaded up.”

“
How old do you estimate they are?” Mae asked.

“
My guess is about eleven weeks. Did you leave your car running? I wouldn't want these little guys to get sick on you.”

“
I'll go start the car and let it warm up a little,” Suzanne told him. “Their coats are so short, I don't want them to freeze.”

“
They're so cute.” Francie smiled down at the puppies she held.

I guess she's sweeter to animals than people.
Suzanne hurried out to the parking lot then came running back inside. “Brrr, I'm already chilled. I cranked the heat up, Mae.”

“
Thanks, Mama.”

“
Do you want me to carry one of them?” Mae asked Francie. The girl gave a slight nod and handed one of the puppies to Mae. A female, she was tiny and lightweight, with a dark spot covering one ear that masked one of her eyes.

“
She's my favorite,” the girl said.

The puppy looked from Francie back up at Mae.

Mae smiled. “The other little female is so shiny she looks like a pearl. Maybe that's what I'll call her. I need to figure out names for the other two.”

Francie and Mr. Gunderson followed Mae out to her Explorer. Suzanne opened the hatch and they put all three pups into the nest of blankets in a crate in the back. Snuggled together, they were adorable.

Mr. Gunderson told her the type of food the puppies were used to and Mae said they'd pick some up on her way home. She shook hands with Mr. Gunderson and thanked him for the good work he was doing in the community. Mae climbed into the passenger seat. Her mother closed the hatch, got into the driver's seat, and pulled out of the parking lot. Francie gave them a little wave.

On the way back to her house, Mae thought about names for the baby pit bulls. The male, she decided, would be called Guinness, since he was black and tan and Guinness was a dark beer with tan foam. She would call the puppy with the eye patch “True”, since she so fully embodied the breed standard for pit bulls.

T
he date Dory was scheduled to take the deputy test—January tenth—dawned cold and windy. She had offered to delay it because of the murder case, but Ben told her to go ahead. It had been three days since Mae found the body, but until they got an ID on their John Doe, the staff was focused on that task. Deputies George Phelps and Cam Gomez would be tied to the office checking missing person's reports, hospitals, and the information from nearby police posts in an attempt to pin down their victim's identity. Detective Rob Fuller was busy tracking down the copper pipe leads that Jacko, Detective Wayne Nichols' confidential informant, had provided, freeing Dory to take the test.

The ground was still patched with melting snow and the skies were an intense, vibrant blue. Dory took a shower, blew her hair dry, and put on a long-sleeved flannel shirt and jeans. She tied the laces of her low boots tightly. In the mirror, she saw a woman who looked very different from the fashion plate she usually styled herself to be. No jewelry and no makeup. But she was pleased with her appearance. She looked like a serious ‘don't mess with me' black woman. She smiled a tiny cat smile at herself in the mirror.

She drove to the local community college and made her way to a large auditorium. In the back of the building were three tables manned by officers. Dory gave her name and received a name tag.

“
Do you need my driver's license?” she asked, figuring if she was going to be tossed out, it might as well be now. Miss Dory was just a tad over the age limit for a woman to become a deputy in Tennessee. Her friend Evangeline, who was an attorney, had assured her that the difference in cut-off age between men and women to qualify was inherently discriminatory.

“
If you pass the test, they can't legally disqualify you based on age alone,” Evangeline had told her. “You've worked really hard with that fine looking young trainer of yours. You need to at least try to pass.”

“
What's your name?” an absurdly young man asked her.

“
Eudora Clarkson,” she said, reaching to pull her identification from her purse.

“
Already got it,” the young man said, looking at the computer. “You preregistered. Just let me take a quick look. Okay, I see it here. If you have trouble hearing the instructions, you can sit toward the front.”

Dory gave him a look that would have felled a tree. “I can hear just fine, young man.” A sense of relief filled her. She was in.

Walking up to the front of the stage, the registration clerk made an announcement.

“
Everyone, I need to do a roll call. This is a two-hour timed test with no breaks. If you need to use the facilities, do it now. I'll give you five minutes. We lock the auditorium while the test is proctored.”

Dory quickly visited the ladies' room, heaving a sigh of relief that the person at the check-in desk hadn't asked for her driver's license.

Back in the auditorium, she waited impatiently while all the candidates' names were called and everyone was seated. As the proctor passed out test booklets, Dory took a deep breath.
What were you thinking, Dory Clarkson? This stuff is hard and you're no spring chicken.
She took a deep breath and lowered her shoulders, confidence coming back.

“
Old, hell. They got no idea what I
'
m capable of,” she whispered. The man seated next to her gave her a grin.

“
I can believe it,” he whispered back, chuckling.

At the end of the two-hour examination, Dory turned in her booklet and was told that she would receive her scores online. A young girl gave her a business card with a private URL, a user name, and a password on it. The information would be confidential.

“
Just put this in your browser and your name and score will come up. It'll take about a week. If you're ready to take the physical challenge, I can take you out back to the track.”

As the seven men and Dory walked on the remnants of snow behind the school, she reviewed her responses to the questions on the content test in her head. She was pretty confident she had done well.
Hell, if George can do it, I certainly can
, she told herself, although she was slightly daunted by remembering that George had passed the tests while in his twenties.
But I'm smarter than George even on a bad day.

They reached an oval track. At the base of the bleachers stood a guy in a track suit, who started calling out names. Looking at the young men who were stretching and warming up, Dory felt ancient. The man called the candidates up one by one. When he called out, “Eudora Clarkson,” she thought she was going to faint. She managed to walk across the field and was given a list of exercises to perform.

“
This test requires a broad jump, sit-ups, push-ups, chin-ups, a dummy drag and a one mile run.” His voice boomed out. “We're going to do the tests in reverse order. Each of you will do the one mile run first. We're going to time you, but it's not about how much time it takes, it's about your heart rate and blood pressure when you're done. Ready? I'll shoot the gun to start.”

Dory heard a cap gun pop, and all seven applicants started running around the oval track. Heart pounding and breathing hard, she finished dead last. A student nurse took her blood pressure, placed Dory's finger in a little pouch to measure her oxygen level, and listened to her heart.

“
You're on the border,” she whispered. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“
I've got a job waiting for me if I pass,” Dory said, her eyes pleading with the young woman.

“
This one passes,” she called out and Dory gave the girl a quick squeeze on the arm, feeling a surge of pleasure.

“
Okay, everybody, now we do the dummy drag. We do this because often you have to be able to carry or drag a wounded person to an ambulance. The dummy weighs seventy-five pounds. You're going to drag it the length of the football field.”

Everyone grabbed their dummy and lined up. Dory remembered the night her ex-husband, Elmer, had suffered a minor heart attack. She had practically carried him to the ambulance, praying he was going to make it. She finished last, but the men were starting to nudge each other, smiling. One even cheered her on.

The next test was sit-ups, followed by push-ups. Dory had worked for months on these with her trainer and it paid off. She was breathing hard when she finished, but she passed.

“
Almost done,” the student nurse told her kindly. “Just the chin-ups now and you'll be qualified.”

The chin-ups looked daunting. The bars were quite high in the air and Dory couldn't quite reach them. The others quickly finished their chin-ups and left the field, slapping each other on the back, swaggering. She watched them go with an envious heart. The instructor looked at his watch.

“
I'll get you a step stool,” the nurse said, but the military style instructor shook his head.

“
Ms. Clarkson, you've got to reach the bar on your own and do the ten chin-ups.”

After jumping in the air repeatedly for what seemed like a hundred times, Dory gave up. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't reach the stupid bar; it was a good two and a half feet above her head.

“
I thought the purpose of this test was to find out if the candidate was strong enough to do chin-ups. I can do it. This isn't supposed to be a test of how high a person can jump.”

“
Sorry, ma'am. You can retake in three months.” He was already turning away.

“
Damn it,” Dory called after him. “There were no height restrictions for the test. You're discriminating against me because of my height!”

“
Try to imagine how little I care,” the man called back over his shoulder. Tears came into Dory's eyes. Her stomach hurt and her pride was black and blue.

On her way home, Dory texted Wayne. “Passed content test and all but chin-ups on physical. Bar too high. Couldn't reach it.”

Wayne texted back, “I'll go with you next time.”

Then she called her boss and gave him the news.

“
Don't worry about it,” Ben said, after a brief pause. “You can be an investigator until you pass the deputy test, Dory.”

“
Thank you, Sheriff. That means a lot.”

After getting home, changing clothes and indulging in a hot bath, Dory got tired of wallowing in self-pity and called her friend Evangeline.

“
Hey, what are you doing for dinner?” she asked.

“
Girl, I have comfort food. Lots. Come on over. My husband's playing poker with his buddies.”

Over cheesy scalloped potatoes and ham, green beans and warm rolls, enhanced by several glasses of Pinot Grigio, Dory began to feel better.