by Marta Acosta
He was so narrow-minded. “Let’s look at the positive effects of my actions. Zeus, the Dutch Shepard I rescued from an abusive situation, is a very expensive, highly trained dog. All you have to do is seize him as property, and you have a top-level SAR dog at no cost to the department.”
“Word is the dog’s vicious.”
“That’s pure speculation. He has a clean record with the Country Shelter. Come to my rehabilitation center and see for yourself what he can do.” I reached down to align his metal file tray with the edge of the desk. “He’s a beautiful animal, and you should see him course a field! He’s powerful, though, and needs a strong leader, and I think you...you’re going to love him.”
“Love? It’s a goddamn dog!”
“The more you know a dog, the more you become attached. You don’t need words to communicate, and you’re happy just to be together. You come to appreciate all their good qualities and understand problem behavior in a non-judgmental way. Just like Claire and me. Like the way we were, not are. Like we were." My words stumbled over my jumbled thoughts. "Love for a dog is different than being ‘in love’ with a person because a dog never falls out of love with you, and you’ll love your dog even more as years pass. The tenderness and affection grows. The bond deepens.”
“Whitney?”
“Yes?”
“The next time you want to go on talking to clarify something, you should just shut the fuck up.” Oliver rocked back in his chair with a squeak. Like Claire, his legs were long and his shoulders were strong. His hair was more golden-brown with only a few strands of Claire’s beautiful coppery-red. “You will have one chance to prove this dog is worth my time. One chance.”
“That’s all I need! He’s at Coyote Run Vet now, and if you call Dr. Meadows and tell him you seized Zeus as property and give your permission to neuter him and update shots, we’ll be good to go. When do you have three hours for handler training?”
“Next Saturday, which is my day off, like today is. Until then I want you to stay off the radar and that includes not getting into bar brawls, B&Es, D&Ds, or anything starting or ending with any letter of the alphabet. Also, don’t stalk my sister. Otherwise the deal is off. Am I clear?”
“As the spring sky, Olly.”
“I’m only Olly to my friends, so you don’t get to call me that.”
“Seriously? Why do you have to be that way? Because I was about to tell you how I met Sherry Rae Castleman once. Twice. Once when she was alive.”
His features shifted, the way Bertie’s did when he noticed a bug and considered whether he’d like to eat it. “Go on.”
I told him about running into her at the bar. “After Abel Myklebust failed in his effort to drug me, he started giving Sherry Rae the hairy eyeball.”
“You have no evidence about the first accusation, and it sounds like she was making a joke about being poisoned.”
“Why else would he try to take my drink?”
“For the reason he said: to buy you another.”
“I don’t think so. He was writing in his journal with the tacky Coyote Run Recorder tooled leather cover. You should confiscate it.”
“I’m not violating his privacy because of your feud.”
“This is unrelated to any feud, which I don’t have. It’s an instinct.”
“Like your psychic instincts? Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.”
“I think you’re unnecessarily concerned about my ass, Sherriff,” I said, slamming his office door as I left.
I’D FINISHED MUCKING the stalls and was in my office watching YouTube videos on SAR training when Ben called. “Everything went fine. I’d put Zeus’s age at about three, so you should be able to knock out bad behavior without too much difficulty. Can you hold a second? I’ve got another call coming in.”
“Sure.” While I waited, I took off my shirt, shook it out, and then plucked strands of hay from my damp skin.
He came back on the line and said, “That was Ava giving me the camping update.”
“Are your kids having fun?”
“They love it. They’d live in a tree house if they could,” he said. “Maddie, I scanned Zeus for a chip, but there was none, which is odd for trained, purebred animal.”
“If he was imported—” I began.
“It’s standard for reputable breeders to chip puppies. There’s a gray market, though, with breeders selling to people who don’t want anything that can be traced back to them.”
“No microchip means that no one can claim him. That’s good news as far as I’m concerned.”
“If you like, I can bring Zeus by after I finish up here.”
“If you’re busy...”
“It’s no problem. I’m not doing anything anyway.”
I’d been planning on going to the Country Squire and hooking up with a nameless out-of-towner. “If you’re free, I can thaw steaks and we can grill them.”
WHEN I HEARD A TRUCK’S engine, I went outside to see Jaison parking by the center’s entrance. The dogs barked in greeting and I waited for him by the gate. He got out, carrying a canvas bag, wearing a blue polo shirt and clean jeans, with a small-brimmed hat perched on his head.
“Hey, Jai. What are you doing back?”
“I was passing by the tennis courts and one of the pros gave me a sack of balls for the dogs. Thing One and Two keep losing them.” He handed me the bag. “People are talking about what happened at the Brewhouse last night.”
He stood there, giving me the chance to speak or not, and I said, “I was shook up, but that slimeball was just trying to scare me into paying for Zeus. It was chickenshit going after me alone in an alley. I’d like to see him come here and face the pack.”
“You can call me anytime you need backup, Boss.” Heidi waggled up to Jaison, leaning her huge head against his leg and he scratched her back.
“I’m not bothering you on your free time, Jai. Ben and Georgie were there. The good news is that Zeus’s officially the property of the sheriff’s department and has been neutered. Ben is dropping him off later.”
“I’m glad someone will be here to keep you company. If that’s why he’s coming by.”
“We’re friends.”
“You sure? Even my girl turns her head.”
“I refuse to believe that when you’re so goddamn mesmerizing. Anyway, I introduced him to Battlestar Galactica.”
“Maybe he can get into your geekery, because I could not.” Jaison opened the door to his truck and leaned out the window. “I’ll be back in the morning. Call if you need anything and keep the dogs close by.”
I STUDIED KENZIE’S food list on the fridge. It was a waste of time trying to guess what Ben liked. I took two ribeyes from the freezer and set them in a bowl of cold water to defrost. Bertie sprawled in a spot of sunlight by the doorway and I took out a third steak.
I checked all the locks on the doors and windows and stationed Bertie outside the bathroom while I showered. Ben had already seen my beat-up legs, so I pulled on my favorite cut-offs and my softest shirt, which was only a little stained from the time Claire and I picked blackberries down by the river. The ripe berries had almost fallen apart in our fingers, the juices running down our hands. When she’d cupped my left breast, she left fingerprints on the shirt, red where my heart was.
Maybe by the time the berries ripened this year, we’d be together again.
I was dumping briquettes into our old half-drum grill when the dogs began barking, and Ben’s car rolled in. He parked under a big oak and watched me put a match to the newspaper under the briquettes.
“I brought back the patient and he’s doing fine.”
“What do you think about introducing him to Bertie now?”
“Terrible idea. I strongly recommend against it.”
“I thought you’d say that, but I’d like to have a trial walk while he’s still lethargic.”
Ben unloaded Zeus, who looked wary, but wagged his tail when he saw me. He wavered momentar
ily, and I grabbed his lead and said, “Let me go ahead.” I didn’t wait for Ben’s answer because Zeus’s tail went straight up and he was staring at Bertie. I snapped the lead and commanded the dogs to heel, one on either side, and then I walked toward the pond.
When Zeus turned his head and curled his lip at Bertie, I was already using my heel to apply a correction with a sharp, “Pfui!”
Halfway across the field, he settled down and I said to Ben, “He’s accepted the inevitable like I’ve accepted dealing with a new vet.”
“I didn’t even have to kick you,” he said. “It’s been a big change for me, too. I heard the clinic was for sale and Ava and I decided we should go for it and figure things out later.”
I slowed down now and Ben strolled up to walk with us. “Things like what?”
“A house with a barn. We want horses. Things like school and activities.”
We arrived at the pond. A toad jumped from the muddy bank into the water, setting off circular ripples. The air smelled green and fresh here.
Ben gazed around, his eyes settling on me. “It’s so calm here.”
“The pond is at its best now, full with the winter rains, but Abel Myklebust, the son-of-a-bitch who owns the property upstream, diverts the creek into his fucking reservoir so our creek will be dry and our pond will be a mud pit in a month. He’s got the rights grandfathered in so there’s not a damn thing we can do. You’ll meet him. He’s supposedly the publisher slash reporter for the local penny rag and he has a flock of gorgeous Old Norwegian sheep whose sole purpose is to decorate his hillsides.”
“Well, it was calm.”
He stepped a little closer to me and I didn’t know if it was a casual movement, or calculated. “Ben, does your wife know you’re here?”
“Yes, I tell her everything. She knows I don’t stray.”
“But you are flirty with women who are safe.”
“Selectively flirty with interesting women, because you’re definitely interesting, but no one would call you safe. Don’t take me seriously, except about animal medicine. I’m always serious about that.” The grasses around us rustled and waved. In the distance a dog barked and we all listened. Finally, Ben said, “Thanks for inviting me. I feel off my routine, missing being home, and Doc Pete’s cottage has a strange smell.”
“He went through a taxidermy stage,” I said. “He never really stuck to anything but fishing, booze and strippers, and no one can fault him for that.”
Ben didn’t seem to be fussy about food, and we had the type of meal I liked, easy. He sliced tomatoes and I microwaved potatoes. Kenzie told me I should show more interest in others by asking questions, so I asked about his training and he said he’d gone through UC Davis’s School of Veterinary Medicine and spent a year in their Clinical Endocrinology Lab.
“Why vet school instead of med school?”
He shrugged, and on him a shrug looked easy. “I like animals more than I like most people.”
“Me, too.” The setting sun shone in my eyes and I squinted, reducing Ben to a blur both dark and radiant. “Want to meet the horses? I’d like to see how Zeus reacts to them.”
As we went to the barn, Ben asked, “What’s the story with ‘Dr. Whitney’?”
“I earned a PhD in criminology. My professional career barely lasted nine months. I was a crappy desk jockey and worse in the field.”
“Why criminology?”
“I was running through the course catalog alphabetically and thought analysis would get me through, but good criminologists have great perceptions about human character,” I said. “Now, I could have been a great dog criminologist. I’d solve mysteries like, ‘Who pooped on the priceless antique rug in the library?’ and ‘Who splashed toilet water all over the bathroom floor?’ Dog crimes tend toward the scatological, don’t they?”
Ben grinned. “But you finished the doctorate program.”
“I was killing time waiting for Kenzie to finish college so we could move back here together. My mother dragged us to Glendale when I was 14. I was a senior and Kenzie was a frosh at Arizona State when my mom remarried and took off to Tucson.”
“Where’s your father?”
“Biological or technical?”
“Either. Both.”
“Kenzie and our brother have the identical coloring—eyes, hair, skin—and I look so different that I have a problem believing that I’m from the same gene pool. My legal father took off a long time ago. I don’t really care where he is. I think my biological father was a very tall Mexican anthropologist who came through Coyote Run to do a study on the primitive peoples here. However, there’s no actual evidence of any Mexican academics coming into town and impregnating the locals.”
“Evidence is overrated. Do you have a name for this imaginary man?”
“Yes, El Professor Caliente Pantalones. So my true name would be Magdalena Margarita Caliente Pantalones.”
We were both laughing as we moved to the first stall and Ben scratched a big roan who hung his head over the door. “DNA tests are easy enough.”
“If I had any actual evidence that my biological father was extremely wealthy, I might care.”
A chicken wandered into the barn and Zeus lunged toward it, practically taking me off my feet. I recovered and snapped back the lead with a sharp click of my tongue, and he began barking so furiously all the horses neighed and jolted. The leather lead was painfully tight in my hand as I pulled the collar high on his neck.
Ben said, “Do you need—” and I said, “No,” and I turned Zeus toward the barn entrance, winding around bales and equipment to force him to pay attention to me, as we went into the field.
When Ben and Bertie joined us, I made Zeus sit. “Thanks for not interfering. At least he was fine with the horses. Do you know the country method of dealing with chicken-killers?”
“Tell me.”
“You tie the dead chicken around the dog’s neck. It works, but it’s smelly, especially by the second week.” I flashed on Shirley Rae’s body; it was if we were tethered together, her rotting corpse connected to me.
After returning Zeus to his kennel, we finished off the cabernet and I brought out a bottle of pinot noir. “This is a gift from Beryl Jensen. Kenzie thinks it’s wasted on me because, according to her, I don’t appreciate good wine.”
“I haven’t met Beryl in person yet.”
“She’s okay, I guess. She’s fluttery and makes my nerves...” I brought up my shoulders, and then moved them back and forth a few times. “I can’t read her at all and tell if she’s being genuinely friendly or phony and condescending. What’s your take on her?”
“Friendly on the phone, but I got the feeling that she wants people to do what she wants them to do.”
“I’m the same way, except for the friendly part.”
I opened the wine and poured two glasses. It tasted fine but I would have liked a cold beer more. We hadn’t turned on the lights, and the windows showed the early evening sky. It was Saturday night and if Ben left early, I could still go to the Country Squire and hook up.
Over the years, I’d picked up cowboy businessmen and pretty sales reps. I’d hooked up with graduate students who’d visited the local hot springs and sexy chicks who thought they were seducing me. We’d spend a night in their hotel room and in the morning, I’d eat a big Continental breakfast and leave with yoghurt containers and single-serving boxes of cereal in the tote bag I bought especially for hotel treats. I had a collection of grape jelly and mixed fruit jam packets.
“What’s making you smile, Maddie?”
“The thought of stealing Fruit Loops.”
“I would have been a terrible criminologist, too, because I would never have guessed your answer.”
He tipped his glass up and I watched the muscles move in his throat as he swallowed. He licked a drop of wine off his lip and made me throb with want even though he was Not Claire.
His phone buzzed and glanced at the screen and said, “Ava.” I began cl
earing away the dishes and heard him say, “Hey, hon, what’s going on?” A moment later he added, “No, I’m having dinner with a gorgeous lesbian. Yes, the one who rehabilitates dogs. Are you jealous?” He glanced up at me and grinned. “Let them tell me themselves tomorrow. Make sure Ryan wears a hat and sunscreen so it doesn’t get worse. When will you be back?”
He listened while eating the last brownie crumbs on a plate and then said, “Then I’ll be there on Monday after work. Give the kids kisses for me. Love you.” He slid the phone in his pocket and kept his gaze down for a while. “They’re only kids for a little while. I hate missing any of it. Thanks for dinner. I better get going because I’ve got to check on the critters in recovery.”
“I’m glad you came. Thanks for bringing back Zeus, and for the wine and brownies.”
“We’ll do it again. Feel free to continue watching Battlestar without me.”
“If I do, I can recap episodes for you. It will be no problem.”
He grinned and gave me a firm hug and I hugged back, feeling the bulk and size of him, smelling smoke from the barbecue, like the pressure of his hands on my back. I held on too long and then let go too quickly.
“Night, Ben.”
“Night, Maddie.”
As I closed the door behind him, I shrugged releasing tautness of my spine and shoulders. I changed into clothes Kenzie had bought for me, ran my fingers through my hair, and put on mascara and lip balm. I smiled in the mirror, knowing I’d look good in the dim lights of a bar.
I promised Kenzie I’d be careful, so I put my grandfather’s hunting knife in my handbag, left Bertie in the house, and drove to the Country Squire. I tried not to wonder if Sherry Rae had gone off to have a good time on the day or night that she’d been murdered.
THE COUNTRY SQUIRE’S bar and restaurant were on the ground level of a small hotel set a few blocks off the highway. Most locals never went there because the food was pricey and the entrance too obvious for secret liaisons. You got a better bang for your buck at the Lakeview Cabins Motel which offered king-sized beds, Jacuzzi tubs, and room service provided by Burger Hut.