The Dog Town Collection

by Sandy Rideout

  For Karin…

  Cousin and Partner in Crime.

  Chapter 1

  In Dorset Hills, there were five official seasons: spring, summer, fall, winter and Christmas. The fifth and most popular season began at the stroke of midnight on Thanksgiving. From that moment on, it was considered good etiquette to offer Christmas greetings to family, friends, acquaintances and strangers. Not that anyone stayed a stranger for long in Dorset Hills, especially if they owned a dog. The town’s main claim to fame was being the destination for dog-lovers in North America. But “Dog Town” took great pride in delivering a spectacular Christmas experience as well.

  Decorations went up before the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers disappeared, and Dorset Hills City Council made it a mission to deck the halls in style. The official website offered downloadable guidelines under the guise of energy-saving suggestions, but really to avoid some of the tacky displays seen elsewhere. In fact, the guidelines had gone up after someone’s inflatable nativity scene was vandalized. It was one thing to deflate Santa and his reindeer, and quite another to puncture Jesus in his manger. Most families stuck to the sanctioned strings of white lights, pine boughs and simple red accessories. Once in a while a rogue angel appeared on someone’s lawn but soon vanished, presumably shamed into flight by the neighbors.

  The result was that the town—actually a small city that persisted in calling itself a town—was oddly uniform at that time of year, though undeniably pretty. A sprinkle of snow made it even prettier.

  On Tuesday December 17th, everyone breathed a frosty sigh of relief as the first fat flakes of snow began to fall around noon. A green Christmas was cause for consternation in Dorset Hills, particularly for City Council. Green was bad for business. The town attracted tourists by the busload to witness its classic and tasteful observance of the season. The tree-lighting ceremony for a massive fir took place on the first Friday in December in Bellington Square, outside old city hall. Every night afterwards, there was a seasonal performance great or small, from school bands to a world-class soprano to a scene from the Nutcracker performed by very cold ballet students.

  By the time Mim Gardiner finished her shift at the hospital, the snow was well in hand. She took the long route home, although it was one of the rare nights she didn’t have an evening call. In addition to her full-time job on the oncology ward, she worked as a community nurse making home visits. For years, she’d needed the extra money; now she continued because her regulars depended on her. It was a constant juggling act that wore her out.

  Driving along the plowed and salted roads, she admired the houses sparkling in the darkness. Most had Christmas trees displayed in the front window, which also featured simple, elegant decorations. She wondered if any of the homes she passed had a secret tree hidden away that was covered in a riot of colorful decorations. The “real” tree, as it were. Hers was in the family room, hung with battered ornaments from her own childhood, along with a series of whimsical hand-carved dogs with antlers. It was a Dog Town irony that quirky dog ornaments sold like hotcakes in the gift shops on Main Street, yet weren’t sanctioned for residents’ homes.

  The only house on Mim’s street that wasn’t already lit up at six thirty p.m. was her own. Pulling into the driveway, she sighed. A slash of light at the side of the house confirmed that Kyle was holed up in his room. He never remembered to turn on the porch light, let alone the Christmas lights. While Mim thought Dorset Hills took the holiday season way too seriously, she liked to keep up appearances. She’d learned long ago that it was better to blend in than stand out.

  The front door was unlocked but she had to shove it open. As usual, Kyle had dropped his backpack and coat just inside the door when he got home from school. She turned her ankle on one of his shoes and cursed quietly. It seemed like he placed them in different positions every night so that she couldn’t figure out a pattern.

  “Kyle,” she called. “Could you pick up your things?”

  She didn’t get an answer—didn’t expect one.

  On the way to his room she hit every light switch, pausing to shake her head over the wrappers in the hall. He’d left a trail of crumbs to find his way back to a kitchen left in ruins. A half-stripped chicken was sitting on the counter courting salmonella.

  The KEEP OUT sign on his closed bedroom door was directed at her, of course. She knocked, waited a couple of beats, then opened the door. Kyle was sitting at his desk, his dark, tousled head bent over his laptop. The noise-cancelling headphones he’d bought with his birthday money set up another barrier between them. Undeterred, she shouted until he finally acknowledged her with a grunt. Without lifting his headphones he asked, “When’s dinner?”

  Mim took a deep breath. The room smelled of boy: sweaty hockey gear mixed with rotting food, and god knows what else. She would put up a BIOHAZARD sign if there were any hope of making him laugh. Kyle’s sense of humor had more or less disappeared a few months earlier.

  She assumed this was a phase all 15-year-old boys went through and that it would pass. Still, it was hard. They’d been an inseparable team for years after Andrew, her ex-husband, had left, and only recently had her son drifted away. She reminded herself that it was not only normal but essential that Kyle become more independent. But she missed him, and the house would have been very lonely if not for sweet, loving George, her perpetual puppy.

  George.

  Where was George?

  Usually the dog was on Kyle’s bed, ready to activate. The second she opened the door, George would hurl himself at Mim with a joy that never diminished. He only had three gears: sleeping, waiting and frenzied.

  George was what Dorset Hills dog snobs sneeringly called a “designer mutt.” His heritage was a secret known only to his breeder, but seemed to include a dose of golden retriever and a good helping of poodle. The only thing Mim knew for sure was that George’s dad was a fox-red Australian labradoodle, which in itself was a hybrid.

  All of these carefully crossed lines came together in an adorable 30-pound package of allergy-friendly good cheer. To Mim, George had the best traits of a big dog and small dog combined. He had a serious bark when it was needed yet liked nothing better than curling up in her lap in the evening.

  Well, there was one thing he liked better, and that was following Kyle around, hoping for crumbs of food and attention. The latter had been in short supply lately, and the little guy didn’t understand Kyle’s mood change. George had once been the light of her son’s life. Now the dog had become mostly invisible and even an annoyance. Yet he was constantly at Kyle’s feet, waiting for his boy to come back and love him.

  Mim admired George’s loyalty, as much as it frustrated her. She’d always been the one to feed, walk and brush him, the one to clean up his messes, including the dead frog he’d disgorged on the family room carpet. Kyle had nonetheless always come first in the dog’s eyes, although George had plenty of love left over for her too.

  Normally, that is. Tonight he was nowhere to be seen. The “pocket rocket,” as they called him, had failed to launch, and his spot near the pillow was empty.

  “Where’s George?” Mim asked.

  “What?” Kyle looked confused, as if the name didn’t quite ring a bell.

  “The dog.” Mim raised her voice. “Where’s the dog?”

  Kyle looked at the bed. “I don’t know. The family room?”

  Turning toward the open bedroom door, she bellowed, “George!”

  There was no answering bark. No clattering of claws over the hardwood floor. Just an odd silence. Was he trapped in the basement or something?

  Mim made a gesture for Kyle to take off his headphones. “Kyle. George is always with you. Retrace your steps.”

  His hazel eyes darted around the room, as if searching for a sign of the dog in the piles of clothes, electronics and sports equipment. Finally he said, “He wanted to go out to play in the snow.”

  “How long ago? It’s cold, Kyle.”

  “Duh.” Self-co
rrecting, he added, “Sorry. I don’t know. Not that long ago.”

  He glanced at the clock radio on his bedside table.

  Then he jumped to his feet.

  Mim turned at the same time. They jostled each other in the doorway and bumped shoulders all the way down the hall as they hurried into the kitchen. Even in the midst of her worry, Mim was surprised that Kyle was five inches taller than she was, although probably only a few pounds heavier. Their grocery budget had doubled, yet he was still scrawny.

  Reaching the door to the backyard first, Mim yanked it open and stepped outside. Kyle flipped on the porch light before pushing past her and walking out onto the snow-covered deck.

  The yard was not large, and aside from a trio of elegant birches and a row of squat evergreen shrubs along the fence, there was little to see and nothing even a small dog could hide behind.

  “Under the porch,” Mim said. “I’ll get the flashlight.”

  Inside, her snow-dusted socks slipped across the tiles and she nearly fell as she yanked a drawer open.

  Kyle was on his knees when she came back. He called “George” into the darkness under the porch.

  Mim tossed him the flashlight and he shone the beam into every corner.

  Finally, he looked up at her, and it seemed like months since he’d really met her eyes. “He’s gone, Mom. George is gone.”

  Chapter 2

  “He can’t be gone.” Mim came to the top of the stairs. She was startled by the crunch of snow under her socks, but it took a few moments before the cold started to penetrate. “There’s no way out of the yard. Unless the gate is open.” She crossed the porch to look. “Closed.”

  Kyle was on his back now, half under the porch. The flashlight’s beam gleamed through the boards, making bright lines in the snow. “Definitely not here.”

  “Let’s stay calm,” Mim said, fighting the rising tide of panic. “This doesn’t make sense, Kyle. Are you sure you didn’t let him back in?”

  He sat up and shone the flashlight around the yard. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

  Mim held her breath as she followed the light, praying that it wouldn’t fall on a snow-covered lump. “How long was he really outside, Kyle? Think.”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t.”

  His eyes were bouncing around instead of meeting hers. He was afraid to tell her. “It’s okay, Kyle. Just be honest.”

  He still wouldn’t meet her eyes, but he said, “Half an hour?”

  “Half an hour! In a snow storm? Are you crazy?”

  “You said to be honest. And you said to stay calm.” Kyle brushed the snow off his T-shirt and jeans. He pointed to the solitary string of paw prints heading down the steps beside his own footprints. “There’s a trail.”

  She joined Kyle and they followed the paw prints. Her toes began to ache in her socks. “Go inside and put on your boots,” she said.

  Ignoring her, Kyle headed directly to the birch trees, George’s usual first stop. Sure enough, there was a yellow sprinkle on the snow beside a tree. Then he aimed the light at the shrubs along the fence, proving he was as aware of George’s patterns as she was.

  Between the birches and the shrubs, there should have been 20 yards of nearly unblemished snow. Instead, it was thoroughly trampled.

  “What the f---?” Kyle muttered.

  “Language,” Mim said, on autopilot. She was staring at the crushed snow, confused.

  It was bright in the backyard even without a flashlight. The neighbor in the house directly behind them had installed a floodlight over his back door when he moved in six months ago. It shone into Mim’s bedroom all night. A friendly discussion over the fence hadn’t helped. A less friendly discussion a few weeks later had led Mim to hire a contractor to extend the fence by a foot-and-a-half. She should have gone higher. Even with blackout curtains the light seeped through.

  Tonight, she was actually grateful for the extra light as they tried to decipher exactly what had happened in the yard. There were paw prints aplenty, but human footprints as well.

  “Someone was back here,” Kyle said. He tried to follow the boot prints around but ended up turning in circles. “Maybe a kid came in to play with George.”

  “The boots are too big,” Mim said.

  The mixture of prints ranged around the yard, suggesting there’d been a chase. Then there was a single set of boot prints heading toward the gate. A swoosh in the snow, like a single angel’s wing, marked where the gate had swung open. One footprint stood out clearly there. It was large, obviously belonging to a man, not a child. Staring down at it, Mim felt a chill run down her back that wasn’t from the cold.

  “Mom?” Kyle sounded young, although his voice had dropped a year ago. “Someone stole George.”

  Mim looked at her son, who stood with his arms folded over his narrow chest, shivering. He even looked like a child again, and while she wanted very much to hug him, she sensed it would only make things worse.

  “I’m sure there’s a logical explanation,” she said. “Dogs don’t get stolen in Dorset Hills.”

  Chapter 3

  “I know, officer,” Mim said, clutching the phone with numb fingers. “Dogs don’t get stolen in Dorset Hills. That’s exactly what I just told my son. But the fact remains that our dog is missing from a closed backyard and there are boot prints all over the place.”

  She snapped her fingers at Kyle and pointed to her coat, which was hanging over the back of a chair at the kitchen table. She loved that old oak table, but it was hardly ever used now. Kyle wanted to eat in his room while he did homework. Or so he said. She’d given up fighting. As a parent, you had to save your energy for the big battles. Holding the phone with her left hand, she tried to use her right to drape the coat around her shoulders. Finally she put the phone on speaker.

  “How long had the dog been outside?” the officer asked.

  “About half an hour.”

  There was a pause. “It’s a cold night, ma’am.”

  Cue the judgement. Mim’s hackles started to rise. “I am aware of the temperature, sir.” She glanced at Kyle and found him brushing crumbs off the counter and dropping them into the sink. “George has a good coat of fur. Loves a run in the snow.”

  “Is it possible a neighbor saw the dog out there and came to rescue him?”

  “Rescue him? Of course not! They know us. If they were worried about George, they’d have knocked on the door.” Her face grew hotter by the second. “Could you please send someone to check this out?”

  Another pause. “It’s a busy time of year, ma’am.”

  “I understand that it’s a busy time of year, but—”

  “When a dog runs away, we always suggest that the owner organize a neighborhood search.”

  “But George didn’t run away. Officer.” Her voice had a distinct edge, and Kyle stopped picking up crumbs to watch her.

  “Well, escaped then, ma’am. It happens all the time.”

  She counted to five before answering. “George didn’t escape, either. Well, not unless he became bipedal and got himself some big-ass boots.”

  Kyle managed to cut off about half of his yelp of laughter with a hand over his mouth. The officer, meanwhile, was silent.

  After a long pause, Mim added, “I’m sorry, Officer. I do believe that George was stolen, and I’m frustrated that you’re not taking this seriously.”

  There was a long sigh. “Ms. Gardiner. If you knew how many missing dog calls we field, you’d understand. In the vast majority of cases, the dogs turn up soon enough. If that doesn’t happen after your search, give us a call back.”

  “But this is different, sir. If a strange man was tromping around in your backyard and your dog was missing, wouldn’t you be worried? I have a child, you know.” Kyle rolled his eyes, but his lip twitched, too.

  “Ma’am, I know you’re upset about your dog, but—”

  “I am. But what if it’s my child that disappears next, officer?”

  Kyle made a slashing
sign at his throat to tell her to cool it. Mim’s temper got away on her sometimes. She blamed that on the fact that she could never lose it at work with patients. If you swallow anger long enough, it’s bound to bubble up somewhere.

  “I suggest you calm down, Ms. Gardiner. Missing dogs almost always show up. I can tell you that.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Fine. I’ll call you back in the morning then.”

  Pressing the OFF button, she said, “Sometimes, I really miss being able to slam a phone down.”

  “It’s okay,” Kyle said. “I think he knew you were pissed.”

  The front door opened as she set the phone on the counter. Arianna Torrance walked in with Hugo, the big, handsome red dog who’d sired George and dozens of other pups. Hugo went nearly everywhere with Ari, even though it raised some hackles here and there. Neutered dogs weren’t always comfortable around such a magnificent specimen. Hugo was so well trained that Ari usually got away with it.

  “Thanks for coming,” Mim said.

  “He’s my dog, too,” she said, beckoning as Mim and Kyle scrambled to find hats and gloves. “Come on, you guys. Do you have any idea how much ground a dog can cover in an hour?”

  She was wearing a pink parka, topped by a white cashmere hat and scarf. Her smooth, blonde ponytail hung over one shoulder and her makeup was flawless. Mim wondered how Ari had managed to pull off the perfect snow-bunny look in under five minutes. It was a half-hour drive from her place even in good weather. Ari was a dog groomer and breeder. At the moment she had two litters in her dining room, as well as dogs coming and going all day for grooming. It was controlled mayhem, yet she was always well groomed herself. Most days, it was all Mim could do to run a brush through her dark hair, let alone apply eyeliner. She told herself that patients preferred a natural look.

  Ari tugged at Kyle’s arm and he stared at her, dazed. Most men did, whether they were 15 or 50. “Come on,” she repeated. “This is my baby too.”