Dog Days (Raine Stockton Dog Mystery Book 10)

by Donna Ball

  He must have seen me tense because a shadow of compassion came over his eyes as he added, “And then of course with all the publicity about what happened there last month, well …” The shadow was gone and the excitement was back. “You and Cisco are practically national heroes! How could I not be a fan? And when I saw on your website that you were looking for help …”

  He rushed forward and sank into the chair that was pushed up against the wall near my desk, his hands clasped before him in supplication. “Oh, Miss Stockton! Working for you would be a dream come true!”

  Over the top? Without a doubt. Unbelievable—as in seriously, unbelievable? You bet. But as I sat there considering the way my day had been going so far, Cornelius Lancaster the Third was the least bizarre thing that had happened to me.

  I glanced down at his resume. “You’re from Chapel Hill?”

  He nodded happily. “Very near.”

  “Degree in Animal Behavioral Science from Duke?” I raised an eyebrow, impressed.

  “Working on it,” he assured me.

  I said, “Look, Corny, I really can’t afford to pay that much …”

  “Don’t worry about it.” He gave a blithe wave of his hand. “I have a trust fund.”

  I stared at him for another moment, then glanced back down at the resume. The usual pet store jobs, references from professors and past employers … but a trust fund kid? Really?

  He said quickly, “I’ve been grooming dogs since I was eight years old. I can clip to standard any breed in the AKC. I won my first championship with a King Charles Cavalier when I was twelve and I’ve been showing dogs ever since. I also took two semesters of business and I majored in computer science for about six months, so I can be a real asset to you in the office. I don’t mind cleaning kennels. It would be an honor to clean kennels for you. I can—”

  “I know, you’re very qualified, and I’m sure you’d do a good job,” I was compelled to interrupt. “It’s just that—”

  “Miss Stockton,” he said earnestly, pressing his hands together between his knees. “My dream is to open a rehabilitation facility for abused and neglected dogs and train them to perform specialized tasks for disabled servicemen. If I could apprentice under you, get hands-on training in a genuine operating facility like Dog Daze, that would put me light years closer to what I was put on this earth to do. Let me prove myself to you. Give me a chance.”

  I looked at him for another moment. Even I couldn’t believe the words that came out of my mouth next. “All right,” I said. “We’ll give it a shot. Twelve dollars an hour for the first two weeks and if it works out, fifteen dollars an hour after that. Ten to three six days a week.”

  His face lit up like Christmas morning. “Do you mean it? I have the job?”

  “Well, there’s paperwork. I have to check your references, I need you to fill out a W-4 …”

  “Thank you!’ He jumped to his feet and grabbed my hand, pumping it enthusiastically. “Thank you! You won’t regret it, I swear! I won’t let you down!”

  Taking everything into consideration, there was no way he could.

  ~*~

  With Corny’s bouncing-ball energy and hamster-like speed, the kennels were cleaned, the boarders were exercised, and the day care clients were brushed, treated, and ready to go home by four thirty. Mrs. Sullivan loved Peaches’s puppy cut and gushed over the peach nail polish. She tipped ten dollars and I gave it to Corny. He protested, but I am always fair with my employees. He volunteered to stay until all the kennel dogs were fed and tucked away for the night, but I sent him home as soon as the last day care dog was picked up. He strapped on his paw print helmet and pedaled off happily on his bicycle, promising to be back bright and early the next morning.

  I was thinking how a helmet like that would make a nice birthday present for Melanie when I realized I had forgotten to call Miles back. I promised myself I’d do it as soon as I closed up the kennel for the day, but I think I knew even then I wouldn’t. I just didn’t have the strength to deal with one more man today.

  At five o’clock I let Mischief, Magic, Pepper, and Cisco out for one last romp, then took them up to the house to introduce them to the new dog. The best way to introduce two unfamiliar dogs is on leash, one at a time, and in neutral territory. Cisco and the Aussies are so accustomed to meeting strange dogs that they are practically disinterested, but I wasn’t so sure about Pepper. She was not even a year old and still full of puppy golden retriever exuberance, so I took her out to meet Cameo first while the other dogs waited in the house.

  I had no sooner opened the gate to the rescue run than I heard the clack of claws against the kitchen window, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Cisco standing on his back legs, scratching at the window and grinning at us. As soon as Cameo trotted into view, he started barking and clawing at the window again; clearly, he felt he was entitled by virtue of rank to be the first to meet the new dog. Of course, once Pepper heard her idol bark she lost all but the most cursory interest in Cameo and started lunging happily toward Cisco. We had to have a few obedience reminders before I took Pepper back inside. Mischief was next, then Magic. After the routine sniffing and circling, Cameo seemed to dismiss the Aussies as beneath her regal notice, and my girls, as I’d expected, were far more interested in exploring the smells of the rescue run, where they rarely got to visit, than in yet another golden retriever.

  Cisco was an entirely different story.

  I put the other dogs inside while I prepared what I intended to be a brief on-leash introduction, but I had barely opened the door to escort Mischief inside when Cisco, his patience apparently at an end, dashed past me and out into the yard. Cisco’s door manners are not entirely flawless, but he definitely knows better than that, and I’ll admit he took me by surprise. I cried, “Cisco!” and spun around to chase him, but I needn’t have worried. He ran straight to the rescue run and flung his paws up on the gate, his tongue lolling with excitement as he tossed a glance over his shoulder at me. I unclipped Mischief’s leash and closed the door firmly behind me as I hurried to Cisco.

  By the time I got there, the two goldens were sniffing each other through the chain link. I snapped the leash onto Cisco’s collar before allowing him inside. Cisco’s exuberance can be a little overwhelming under the best of circumstances, and I didn’t want him trying her patience. But the minute I opened the gate Cisco practically dragged me through it, and a series of blur spins and play bows convinced me the safest thing I could do for all concerned was to let Cisco off his leash and allow the two dogs to romp.

  I laughed out loud as Cisco ran up to Cameo, bumped her shoulder, and took off in the opposite direction. She gave chase, and it was good to see her run like a normal, happy dog. Cisco found a stick and they played tug for a while. Cisco won the game of tug and ran away with the stick. Cameo pretended disinterest until Cisco circled back around and dropped the stick at her feet. In a flash, Cameo snatched it up and took off around the fence perimeter with Cisco in hot pursuit. I swear, the sheer innocent delight of dogs at play can heal the rawest wound, and I could have stood there all day watching them.

  But once again I heard the clack of claws at the kitchen window and when I looked around it was Pepper, scratching on the glass and emitting her high-pitched puppy bark. She hated to be left out, and it was time for her dinner. I called Cisco to me and both dogs galloped up, pink tongues waving happily. I ruffled their fur and tugged their ears.

  “I’m glad you made a friend,” I told Cameo. And I added to Cisco as I snapped on his leash, “But don’t you get too attached. She’s got a home. She’s only visiting.”

  Feeding five dogs in one kitchen is a bit much, even for me, especially when two of those dogs are new to the pack. So I prepared Cameo’s dinner and took it to her in the rescue run, then put Pepper in her crate with her own bowl—a bright red ceramic one, I might add, embossed in silver with Pepper’s name and silver paw prints that Melanie had custom-ordered from a jewelry store in New York. She
does tend to spoil that puppy, and her dad isn’t much better.

  My three dogs waited in a patient, expectant sit while I doled out their meals into plain old stainless steel bowls. I was just putting the last bowl on the floor when my landline rang. I released the dogs with a hand signal and watched them dive into their meals as I answered it. It was my Aunt Mart.

  “Hey, Raine,” she said. “Ro and I were just sitting here talking about throwing some chicken kebabs on the grill and we wondered if you wouldn’t like to come over for supper. I’m making apple slaw and a nice key lime pie for dessert. You know, that heart-healthy diet the doctors have got your uncle on isn’t half bad once you get used to it. And I’ve already lost ten pounds! Of course, that’s without the pie.”

  I knew, of course, that she had not called just to invite me to supper. And as tempting as the menu sounded, I really wasn’t up to spending an evening with my aunt and uncle tiptoeing around Buck’s big news. I said, as cheerily as I could manage, “Thanks, Aunt Mart, it sounds great! But I just put a casserole in the oven.” The casserole in question was not exactly in my oven and would probably come in a cardboard box proclaiming it to be the healthiest frozen dinner on the market. And the sad thing was, it probably also would be the healthiest thing in my freezer, if not the only thing.

  “Oh, honey, a casserole in this heat? How can you stand it?”

  “Besides, I’ve really got my hands full here,” I went on. “You know how crazy it gets this time of year, and I just took in a new rescue dog. Say …” I plunged right into the subject to save her the awkwardness of trying to figure out how to bring it up herself. “Did you hear about Buck and Wyn?”

  “Yes, I did.” There was a slight hesitance in her voice, but also a hint of relief. “That was awfully sudden, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” It was something of a struggle to keep my tone casual, and I hoped Aunt Mart didn’t notice. “I think they’ve been planning it for a while.”

  “I suppose.” She sounded concerned, which meant I probably wasn’t doing as good a job about disguising my feelings as I’d hoped. “I just don’t understand why he didn’t tell anybody. I feel sorry for the girl, in a way, not having a proper ceremony and all.”

  I felt sorry for her too, but not for that reason. “Well, I guess they didn’t want a fuss.”

  She sighed. “I hate change. He’s been part of the family for so long. It’s going to feel strange thinking about him with someone else.”

  I soldiered on. “Well, the more things change …”

  I lost my thought and trailed off, and her silence was sympathetic. “Raine, honey …”

  I said quickly, “Look, Aunt Mart, I’ve got to run. Five dogs in the house and all that.”

  “Well, you take care of yourself in this heat. Lord, I don’t know what we’re going to do if we don’t get some rain. My garden’s as dry as a boneyard. I picked you a basket of tomatoes this morning but they go bad awfully fast this time of year, so if you don’t get over here in the next day or two, I’ll have Ro leave them on your porch.”

  “Thanks, Aunt Mart,” I said, although the last thing I wanted to see was another tomato. That was something else everyone was tired of by now—which was why everybody I knew kept bringing their tomatoes to me. “I’ll try to run by some time tomorrow.”

  “Don’t you work too hard, you hear?”

  “Yes, ma’am. And Aunt Mart?” I added just before I hung up. “Save me a piece of that pie, will you?”

  She chuckled and promised she would, and I hoped she was a little less worried about me than she had been when she’d first called.

  The next phone call was from Sonny, and it came just as I was putting away the dog dishes. I had already let the house dogs out into the exercise yard and was thinking about allowing Cameo to join them when the phone rang.

  “Hi, Raine,” Sonny said. “I just thought I’d call and check on—”

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” I interrupted. My frustration at having had to be so polite about the whole thing with my aunt came out sounding like impatience as I went on, “I’m not the one people should be worried about. Wyn is. You know the only reason he married her is because of the election, and that’s just creepy. I mean, they’ve been living together right under everybody’s noses, not to mention working together, all summer, and you heard she’s pregnant, right? How’s that going to look on election day? Of course they had to hurry up and get married before the newspaper picked a candidate, or she started showing, whichever came first. The whole thing is just so sneaky. So political.”

  There was a brief silence, and then Sonny said, “Actually, I just called to check on the dog Rick brought in this morning. But, oh my. It sounds like you’ve had an interesting day.”

  I crinkled up my face in a grimace that barely reflected my mortification, and I was glad she couldn’t see. I had no choice then but to tell her the whole sordid story, beginning with how I’d unwittingly walked in on a wedding reception to which I had not been invited, and ending with how I’d tried to punch Buck out on my front walk. “I don’t know if they’re telling anybody about the baby yet,” I added, somewhat reluctantly. “So you probably shouldn’t spread it around.” Although why I was protecting them I didn’t know.

  Sonny said thoughtfully, “I haven’t known either you or Buck all that long, but this seems so bizarre to me. I could have sworn he was still carrying a torch for you.”

  I didn’t like to say so, but there had been more than one incident over the past few months that made me think the same thing. Perhaps what I was really upset about was that I had allowed myself to be so misled.

  “Of course,” Sonny went on, “you divorced him for a reason, remember? I do like Buck, but he was not a good husband to you and, even though this must be painful—endings always are—maybe you could look at it as a good thing.”

  “I do,” I assured her quickly, albeit in a voice that was still tense with the bitter taste of emotions I’d sooner forget. “I’m relieved, really. I’m glad he’s moved on. It’s just the way he did it was so …”

  “Cowardly,” she supplied for me, and I sighed.

  “Exactly.”

  She sighed too. “Men,” she said. “They live by their own rules, don’t they?”

  I took the phone out onto the back porch and sat down on the steps so that I could watch the dogs. Cisco ran the length of the exercise yard closest to the rescue pen, occasionally emitting a bark that would cause Cameo to look up from munching grass. Pepper chased him, nipping at his tail feathers, and he ignored her. He had eyes for no dog but Cameo. Mischief and Magic were always happiest in each others’ company, and took turns playing tag-team relay with a dog-proof soccer ball with a handle on it.

  “Anyway,” I added, “I didn’t mean to go off like that. Thanks for calling about the dog. It turns out she was perfectly healthy, with a microchip, and we’ve got phone numbers. So maybe it won’t be too long before we find her folks.”

  “Didn’t you say there was blood on her coat?”

  “Doc couldn’t figure out where it came from any more than I could. Sometimes if a dog has been on the run for a while it’ll be hungry enough to eat a squirrel or a rabbit, or she might have come across something already dead.” But even as I said it I was uneasy. Those explanations had never sounded right to me, and they were no more convincing now.

  “Raine …” Sonny’s voice sounded thoughtful, maybe even worried. “Something happened to that dog. I haven’t been able to put my finger on it, but she was awfully stressed out this morning.”

  “Well,” I admitted, “any lost dog is going to be stressed. Especially a pampered house pet lost in the woods. She had one of those designer collars with rhinestones on it, definitely not a dog used to roughing it.”

  “No, it was more than that,” Sonny insisted. “She was traumatized. She had been through something, was worried about something. She felt guilty.”

  “Oh,” I said, tryin
g not to roll my eyes. “Your superpower.”

  Although an otherwise rational person, Sonny occasionally got “impressions” from animals that even less rational people might call communication. I myself am extremely rational, and while I absolutely believe in talking to dogs, I have a problem when the dogs start talking back.

  “Raine.” There was mild admonishment in her tone. “You have to admit I’m right more often than not.”

  She had me there. I refuse to call her a pet psychic, but the things she had purportedly learned from dogs had proven to be unerringly accurate, if often hard to interpret. So even though I pretended to be skeptical, I always listened.

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” I said. “What was she guilty about?”

  “I’m not sure,” Sonny answered. “You know how dogs are. They so often feel responsible for things that have nothing to do with them.”

  “Well, she seems fine now,” I said, watching as Cameo came over to the fence and made eye contact with Cisco, wagging her tail. Cisco immediately spun with excitement and flung his paws up on the fence. I suppressed a chuckle. “Cisco is wild about her. They played like old pals in the rescue run this afternoon.”

  “Oh, that’s good,” Sonny said. “The poor thing needs a friend now.”

  “By the way,” I said, “I took your advice and hired an assistant today.”

  “My goodness, you have had a busy day! Good for you. Who is it?”

  “No one you know. Just some stalker from the Internet. He’ll probably turn out to be a serial killer. He’s great with the dogs, though.”