The Dog Thief

by Marta Acosta

  “Ms. Jensen told me she was feral.”

  I lifted my gaze to the doc’s brown-hazel eyes, counting to three like my sister told me I should. He looked back at me, but I couldn’t read his expression. My unease tangled with attraction. “My guess is she’s someone’s pet gone wild. When I brought her inside, she wasn’t accustomed to walking on the linoleum, so she was an outside dog. She adjusted to the leash right away, though, and she has no problems with my male.”

  Dr. Meadows looked at Bertie, who was lying down on the cool floor, resting yet alert. “Gorgeous animal. You don’t often see Belgian Malinois that big.”

  “Bertie was the pick of the litter.” Unlike me. “I think you should put the puppies in with the mama while she’s recovering because she’s having a challenging day. When can I collect her? Because I have to get my truck.”

  “No need to come back. Ms. Jensen asked me to take them all to the County shelter. The puppies will go fast. The female’s not likely to be adopted in her condition.”

  The skin prickled on my arms. “Excuse my language, but what the fuck? I assumed Beryl was going to keep them, or I wouldn’t have caught them for her. She has more than enough space because that ranch is nothing but a party house for her rich spoiled ass.”

  “You can take that up with her.” The vet came close to the exam table, and I moved away even though I was reluctant to let go of Ghost. The dog growled and he paused. “Would you muzzle her?”

  After I’d buckled the muzzle around Ghost’s head, Dr. Meadows said, “Hold her still.”

  The dog quivered so I braced her, but when the vet’s hand grazed mine, I jerked away and Ghost snarled at him. Bertie’s shift of position was almost imperceptible, and I knew he was poised for a signal.

  New Doc waited until I took hold of Ghost again. When he peered into her ears, the gold ring on his left hand shone under the fluorescent tubes overhead. He said, “I wouldn’t put her at more than two years old. Part Wheaton, I’d say. Ms. Jensen told Doug she couldn’t find the owner.”

  “No surprise there. Is this your first time working in the country? We’ve got hoarders, scumbag backyard breeders, and people who drive all the way out here to dump pets and then go wine tasting and sightseeing on the way home.”

  “Yes, it’s the first time my city boy ass—poor city boy ass—is in the country.”

  He was looking down at Ghost, so I couldn’t tell if he was making a joke or already irritated with me. While he examined the dog, I examined him. He had a strong nose with a bump, as if it had been broken, and I wondered if his beard would feel scratchy or not. I missed sex since Claire had kicked me to the curb. I missed sex and I missed Claire and I especially missed sex with Claire. But he was Not Claire.

  New Doc glanced up. “I’ll take care of it from here, Maddie. Thanks for bringing her in.”

  I kept hold of Ghost and gazed into her golden eyes as I thought of the overcrowded county shelter where they euthanized after a three-day holding period. I shifted from one foot to the other and my wet boots squeaked again and the drying blood on my leg pasted the denim to my skin. “I’ll come back and collect her and the pups. I can place the little ones easy and I’ll train Ghost until she has better manners than a goddamn duchess and people are begging for her.”

  New Doc smiled without showing his teeth, making his cheeks move under the beard. “The procedure takes about 30 minutes, but I’d like to keep her under observation until the end of the day. I’ll bring them all out to your place later.”

  “Doug can give you directions.”

  “No need. You’re at the animal therapy ranch, right? I’ve been wanting to stop by and meet the pet psychic.”

  Asshole. “I’m sure you think it’s hilarious and assume I’m holding séances about pets’ past lives. Put your paw on the crystal ball, Fido, and woo-woo-woo.” The wet boots squeezed against the blisters rising on my feet. “For the record, I have never claimed to be a goddamn pet psychic but some people enjoy treating me like the village idiot. ‘Mad Maddie, the animal mind-reader.’”

  He squinted. “Actually, I wanted to see the parcel of land that came with the purchase of this property. I need to go through your ranch to get to access it.”

  I flushed, making my sunburnt face hotter. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you were joking. You want to see the stud lot? Sure.”

  “Is six okay?”

  “Six is fine.” I scrubbed my fingers through Ghost’s gritty coat. “See you soon, girl.”

  I CLEANED MY WOUND in the clinic bathroom before heading to Gaskell’s Feed Store to add puppy kibble to my standing order.

  Zoe Gaskell, the owners’ teenager, tossed a rawhide chew to Bertie and said, “I saw you coming from Doc Ben’s. My mom’s crushing on him. It’s totally awkward for me to be in the same house with her fantasizing about a strange man.”

  I glanced around, making sure Travis Gaskell was busy on the other side of the store. “Aren’t mothers allowed to get crushes? New Doc seems competent enough.”

  “You think? Maybe he can figure out why all them animals been dying. Doc Pete couldn’t.” Zoe blew out a long breath just like she had when she was so small she had to stand on a stool to work the register. She had a stars-and-stripes bandana tying back her long wavy sandy-blond hair and her face was off in ways that made it interesting; her lips crooked to one side and a scar bisected her right eyebrow. Her cheeks were plump and pink like a toddler’s.

  I tugged the end of her bandana, and she grinned and pulled away to straighten it. “Zoe, are you talking about the ewe they found last week? Because Doc Pete never liked to commit. He wouldn’t have made a judgement on that corpse even if it had a cleaver through its noggin and a note saying ‘I killed this now-dead ewe and would do it all over again cuz that’s how I roll, sincerely, Zoe Gaskell.’”

  She giggled. “I know Doc Pete was all apathetic, but I was talking about the ewe and the other sheep that died before. There was a dead coyote, too, and Miz Watkins’s ostrich, which I don’t mind because it was mean. It all seemed to happen around the same time like some evil spirit—that’s what my mom says but I think she just says it because it’s less scary than worrying about a virus or contaminated feed. Anyway, you know how sheep are like completely idiotic. I hate their freaky sideways eyes, and I don’t know any other animal that’ll die of fright.”

  “Your friend is right about coincidences. Sheep aren’t completely idiotic. They’re vulnerable, which is different. All living creatures have vulnerabilities. For example, on New Year’s Eve a few years back, over five-thousand blackbirds died and fell on Beebe, Arkansas, after fireworks went off. When birds–when any animals–are traumatized, they’ll act irrationally. Technically, fright doesn’t kill them. Their deaths are the result of panicked reactions.”

  Zoe pursed her lips as she considered this. “You always know the obscure animal stuff. Obscure is one of my vocabulary words. Isn’t it cool?”

  “It’s explicitly cool.” My peripheral vision caught her father coming my way. “Obscure animal stuff is my thing. See you, sweetie,” I said and hurried to the exit. As I was pushing open the door, Travis Gaskell called, “Maddie! Got a sec to go over your account?”

  “Next time! I’m running late.”

  I had a long walk back to my truck so I detoured into the Versailles Sandwich Bistro and took a bottle of orange juice from the glass-fronted refrigerator. Claire was at the counter. After she finished making a tuna melt for the only customer, she came over to me.

  My nerves were singing. Tall and rawboned, she wore her reddish gold hair in a loose braid and her complexion was smooth and pale. She had golden-green eyes, a long nose, and a wide mouth with well-shaped lips. She had a tattoo of a Celtic design on her right shoulder and a new gold star at the base of her slim throat. She had other tattoos and piercings hidden like secrets, and she had the prettiest freckles scattered everywhere like a constellation of stars.

  For almost two years, my world was Cl
aire and for the last eight months it was Not Claire, her absence as real as her presence had been.

  Bertie, who’d come inside with me, wagged his tail, and Claire said, “Hey, Bertram. You’re looking awful fine. Why’s your lady covered in muck and crap?” Her voice was like honey and sand, sweetness and grit in balance, a voice that made me want to listen closely.

  “I was at the vet’s. We’ve got a new doc.”

  She sighed. “I suppose that’s an answer. How are you doing, Madeleine Margaret?”

  “I’m sunburnt and these stupid boots are giving me blisters, and I got bit by a gone-feral dog, and I really miss you.”

  “Ah, babe, you missed me even when I was lying right beside you. I wish you wouldn’t keep cutting own your hair. You never get it even.” She reached over the counter and stroked my head firmly. She knew the way I liked to be touched, and I shifted from foot to foot in anticipation. Then she drew back her hand, stained with ink and flecked with orange paint.

  “It was itching my neck.” There were 17 bottles of Italian syrup on the mirrored shelves behind her, and some imbecile had arranged them by color so the vanilla could be mistaken for peppermint and the caramel might be used instead of hazelnut. “I’ve got to pick up dogs from the clinic this afternoon and my truck is at Beryl Jensen’s. I was wondering if I could hang here—I could organize your stock—and you can give me a ride, and then, you know...”

  “Yes, I know, and, no, Maddie, we’re done, over, finito, kaput, put a fork in it. Add any iteration that suits your fancy. If you want to get laid, do what you always did—show up at the Inn round closing time wearing booty shorts.”

  “You make it sound like someone has to be drunk to have sex with me.”

  “Sorry, because I intended to make it sound like you’re unwilling to have an actual human connection before hooking up.”

  “You know I’m no good at shallow chit-chat with strangers.”

  “Casual conversation is a social nicety, and you manage to have conversations with strange animals all the time.”

  “No, I don’t. I’m thinking out loud, but people don’t think I’m insane if I pretend to be talking to an animal.”

  “People don’t think you’re insane. They think you’re opinionated and arrogant and full of ridiculous rationalizations for your self-serving behavior.”

  “New people think that. Old timers are committed to the Crazy-Bitch theme,” I said. “So, I just got another dog and her name is Ghost, terrible name, and she has two puppies, cute as the dickens. You can have one or both and I’ll help you train them. ”

  “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m leaving this lame-ass town as soon as the gas money rolls in.”

  “Gas money won’t ever roll in. The rock structure here isn’t anything like the Monterey Shale, and there’s still debate over actual oil deposits there. If anyone tries for geothermal energy by drilling closer to the mountain, it could generate quakes. Even a cursory review of the tectonic structural maps makes it clear hydraulic fracturing isn’t environmentally viable or economically sound.” I smiled hopefully and said, “I still have a rock pick and hand lens from a geology course. We could go on a field trip together.”

  “So brainy and yet so clueless,” she said. “Too bad you never understood the importance of coming to my birthday party.”

  “I told you I got sprayed by a skunk that night. I didn’t want to give your friends yet another reason to reject me.”

  “You managed to make it to Doc Pete’s retirement party the next day.”

  “Only after marinating in a gallon of Skunk-Off. Besides birthdays are only arbitrary dates. Okay, I have the most excellent proposal for you. We can train these puppies to be actors. I know someone who lives large on her Scotty’s commercials, and her dog can’t do much more than bark and tilt his head.”

  “Your idea is terrible because I’m not staying here and we are not together and I don’t want a dog,” she said. “As for fracking, you may have valid points, but you’re only using them to cover up your actual agenda, which is to cling to the old and familiar.” She let out a laugh. “I guess that’s me, old and familiar. I plan to sell my property rights to the first fast-talking corporate douchebag who shows up with a slick line and a wad of cash.”

  “But you’ve always lived here, Claire, and you’re not old.”

  She ran a hand over her head, her thin fingers smoothing the coppery tendrils. “I’m on the wrong side of 35, and I want to move someplace where the beer is cheap and the girls are free. Or vice versa. Ideally, both. As you may recall, I’m extremely flexible.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “As serious as a twenty-car pileup in tulle fog. I’m sick of making sandwiches to pay for house repairs. I’m sick of never having enough time to paint. Last week, a pipe burst and the kitchen flooded. Luckily, Olly was around to help, because I had to rip up the linoleum and replace the floorboards. I’m hustling for extra hours to pay for that disaster before the next one strikes.”

  She picked up a rag and I watched as she wiped down the counters before I said, “Putting aside all, I could still use a ride to my truck.”

  “Get back the same way you got here.” When she turned to put the rag by the sink, her braid swung around, too.

  “I’ll try harder this time, Claire.”

  “Aw, Mad, that’s the problem. You’re always trying too hard.”

  “Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “No. I wanted you to stop trying, to go with the flow, instead of spending so much energy resisting anything that conflicts with your constricted little world. A birthday may be ‘arbitrary’ to you, but it was important to me. It was the one thing I asked you to do, to celebrate with my family and friends.”

  “I’ve learned my lesson, Claire. I’ll be at the next one.”

  “Don’t wait for an invitation. You can’t keep coming here to pester me. Move on.” The bell above the door rang as a customer came in. “Enjoy your new pups, Mad Girl.”

  I went outside and stood under the striped awning, where I could drink my juice and watch Claire through the window as she refilled plastic containers with brown packets of raw sugar and blue packets of artificial sweetener. She glanced up and flicked her hand to shoo me off, so I tossed my bottle in the recycling bin and headed back to Beryl Jensen’s place for my truck.

  The shortest route back was a riding path through the Carozzo Organic Herbs & Products property. While most of the horse trails had public easement, the Carozzos locked their gates after teenagers ripped up a lavender field. I got along with Phineas and Tess fine, though, so I clambered over the fence and watched Bertie slightly crouch before he scaled it.

  We kept to a narrow path between rows prepared for a new crop, and the field set me to wondering what the hell Benjamin Meadows thought he could do with the quarter-acre Stud Lot, surrounded on all sides by our property. “Bertie, Doc Pete probably squeezed another few dollars by throwing that pile of weeds into the bargain. Buyer beware.”

  Bertie didn’t wag his tail in response. He stopped in place. His nostrils flared, his ears swiveled forward, and his entire body went rigid. I made a sight line from the angle of his head to a thick cluster of pine trees.

  A woodpecker tapped away in the distance. I sniffed and smelled warm soil, rich horse manure, dusty pollen, and green grass. Tap, tap, tap, I counted it 47 times before I finally caught a whiff of something else, something sweet and putrid. Bertie would have gone to investigate if he’d smelled an animal carcass, but he hadn’t...because Bertie knew things. I counted 50 more taps while I tried to suppress my fear. Bertie was reading into my tension so I signaled for him to stay.

  And then I walked forward slowly to find the body that I knew must be hidden among the trees.

  I PICKED UP A BROKEN branch thick enough to pack a wallop. When I entered the stand, the soaring pines tented me in shade and I heard a hum. In a moment, I identified the source—thousands of flies swarming over a mound at the base of
a tree.

  I stopped where I was and memorized everything. Small and medium animal tracks. A brown leather hiking boot by a rock. Coins scattered on the ground, glinting in the few rays of light that pierced the gloom. A scrap of yellow-and-green gingham fabric approximately 3 x 7”. Drag marks by the newly dug soil of the mound and all those horrible horrible horrible flies. A blue and gray scrub jay perched on a decomposed hand protruding from the mound and pulled at a shred of skin.

  I gripped the branch so hard my nails dug into the bark.

  Yellow-and-green gingham fabric approximately 3 x 7”. Animal tracks. At least 12 coins, including new pennies and two quarters. A brown boot with a black lace. I recited the details because they were important. The drag marks, the animal tracks, the flies, the shallow grave, all these were important.

  I hurled the stick toward the mound and the flies rose like a dark curtain on a nightmare stage, revealing the white, white bone of a skull, rotting flesh, and a hunk of black and blond hair. Then the flies swarmed down again.

  Tessa Carozzo had blond hair. I turned and concentrated on retracing my steps precisely.

  Chapter 2

  THE SUN WAS LOW ON the horizon when I reached Bertie, and we rushed back the way we’d come. I put my hand to his fur and kept looking around to make sure no one was watching me.

  We reached the road, every step chafing my blistered feet. I shouldn’t have worn these new boots today. I shouldn’t have walked away from Beryl Jensen in her snug jeans. I shouldn’t have left the veterinary clinic. I shouldn’t have given up trying to convince Claire to give me a ride.

  My thoughts spun together, strands twisting into a rope, and the rope winding into a noose, pulling tighter, the pressure on my neck making it hard to swallow. My legs shook and I was about to drop to the ground when I saw the tricked-out truck tearing down the road. It slowed down and the young hardware store clerk leaned out, a grin on his face as he started to shout, “Crazy—”