Taking On Lucinda

by Frank Martorana

  “Nope. You know, Kent? It kind of surprises me that a guy who’s always been one of us, loyal to the town and all, would take up with someone like her. An outsider, I mean, and working against what you do, for Pete’s sake. You a vet, and her against people having animals.”

  “I’m not taking up with anybody. I’m just trying to figure out who’s responsible for all those dead animals at Copithorn. That’s my job.”

  A wry smile tipped Tammy’s mouth. “Doesn’t have anything to do with you being divorced—and lonely—for a long time, and now suddenly you’re the middleman between two hot single women?”

  “When’d you get your psychology degree?”

  “Night school. Behind a bar.”

  When Kent was back in his truck, he said to Lucinda, “So Tammy isn’t talking—if she knows anything, that is. No use me even thinking of talking to May-May. He’s been in enough scrapes with the law to know to keep his mouth shut. Why would he do it, though? May-May is no animal rights activist, that’s for sure, and he wouldn’t do it unless there was something in it for him.” Kent grabbed his dog’s soft dewlap and massaged it gently in his fingers. “Lots of questions. Huh, girl?”

  Lucinda gave his hand a reassuring nuzzle.

  He drove away, wondering if he really did feel some subconscious pleasure in being the middleman between Stef and Aubrey.

  Lucinda eased her head down into his lap, thumped her tail once, and was instantly asleep.

  Sally’s usual verve was returning. Finally. She had plodded around the clinic in a deep funk ever since receiving the anonymous letter. But today, she stood at her usual place against the wall of the operating room reading aloud from the newspaper as Kent worked to remove a grotesque cancer from along the shoulder blades of an ancient boxer.

  An informed source said that the remains of a locally owned dog were found in the debris. Though badly burned, the pet was identified as a Maltese named Bear, belonging to Maureen Philips of Jefferson. Ms. Philips said Bear had been missing for several days.

  Except for an occasional disapproving cluck of his tongue, Kent listened in silence as Sally read the reporter’s account of Copithorn’s fire. She folded the paper in half and continued:

  Does this mean there is truth to the rumors that Copithorn uses pets for experiments? Does the company support dognapping? When Philips was asked what recourse she would take, she stated only that she was too distraught by the loss of her beloved pet to consider any action at this time.

  Kent rested the heels of his glove-clad hands on the draped patient and stared at Sally.

  “What?” she said.

  “There has to be some kind of an informer. Where would that reporter have gotten his information? The only ones who knew about Bear were Stef, Merrill, and me. I talked to Aubrey Fairbanks right after the fire, but I didn’t mention the pet connection. The police officer who transported Bear to the diagnostic lab didn’t even know what was in the bag. Stef promised me she wouldn’t tell a soul, and I believe her. I was thinking, Why did Merrill tell the reporters about it? It just struck me. He didn’t. He wouldn’t. Somebody else did.”

  Sally slowly lowered the paper. “You mean this is true? The article is correct? I thought you were going to say the whole thing was made up. Why didn’t you tell me about Bear?”

  “Merrill and I agreed not to tell anyone at all. And look what happened. Somehow the press got hold of it. So who would tell them?”

  “I wouldn’t even guess.”

  Kent made small circles in the air with his scalpel, like a teacher coaxing an answer out of a reluctant pupil.

  “The person who put the dog there in the first place, of course.”

  “Someone planted Bear at Copithorn?”

  “That’s what I’m beginning to think.”

  “Why?”

  “They—he, she, whoever—wanted him to be discovered.” Kent spoke confidently now, as if saying it made it true.

  “Why?”

  “To discredit Copithorn.”

  “Someone set up Stef?”

  “It looks like it. That’s why they left Bear in such an obvious spot. I couldn’t figure that out. In a lab situation, to leave a specimen out on a counter overnight? No plastic bag, no refrigeration? It didn’t fit. And, that’s why he had a name tag on his collar. I ask you, if you stole a dog, would you leave the rightful owner’s ID on it?”

  “Only if I wanted his identity discovered,” Sally said, as she began to catch on.

  “Exactly! Whoever is trying to embarrass Copithorn would want Bear’s identity discovered. And when they thought it hadn’t worked, that no one had noticed there was a pet inside, they called the newspaper themselves to get things rolling.”

  “Wow. So who is ‘they’?”

  “Good question.” Kent went back to his surgery as he pondered the possibilities.

  A few minutes later, he was finished and drying his hands. “Could be FOAM if Aubrey is lying, or it could be May-May if she’s telling the truth.”

  “Which would mean, from what you’ve already told me, that Tammy is lying,” Sally said.

  “Right.”

  Before Sally could continue she was distracted by the sound of someone opening the front door. She peered around and saw Merrill slowly, cautiously creeping into the clinic, as if avoiding some imaginary pathogen.

  “Well, look who’s here. A rare visitor indeed.” She made no attempt to hide her sarcasm.

  “Hello, Sally,” Merrill said.

  “Watch out for the dog piles,” she said and laughed as Merrill went up on his tiptoes.

  Tentatively, he proceeded into where Kent was operating.

  “Hey. You can’t go in there. You’re not sterile. Then again, maybe you are.”

  “Hi, Merrill. Nice of you to stop by.” Kent’s tone communicated his boredom with their cat-dog act. He noticed the newspaper under his brother’s arm. “I bet I know why you’re here.”

  “I bet you do.” Merrill extended the paper toward Kent while keeping a close eye on the boxer whose incision loomed before him. “I thought we had an agreement.”

  “What was that?”

  “That you’d keep me informed.”

  “I agreed to that?”

  “Yes you did. And so what’s this?” Merrill tapped the paper.

  “That’s what I’d like to know.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “I did not say one word to anyone.”

  “Then who did?”

  “Not you?”

  “Of course not me,” Merrill said. “I wouldn’t give a reporter the time of day.”

  “Must be some informed source.”

  “And who might that be?”

  Kent shrugged but didn’t answer.

  Merrill twisted around in place, eyes searching. “Where’s your phone?”

  Sally pointed toward her desk then helped Kent finish the boxer and return him to his kennel.

  A few minutes later, Merrill slammed the receiver down. He radiated a policeman’s contempt for reporters.

  “He wouldn’t tell me anything. Confidentiality bullshit, you know. But he hemmed and hawed enough that I’m sure he didn’t verify his source. He just went with it. He wanted the scoop. So we’re back to square one.”

  “Not really. We can at least figure Bear was a plant.”

  “Did I miss something? A plant? As in framing somebody, not a green growing thing, I assume.”

  “Yeah. Sally and I figured it out. Bear wasn’t on the lab counter because Copithorn had dognapped him. That’s just what they wanted us to believe.”

  Merrill was lost, and it made him uncomfortable.

  “Who’s they?” he asked.

  “They is whomever it is that wants to embarrass Copithorn by making it appear the company snatches dogs off the s
treet for research. They planted Bear. That’s why they left him where he would be found. But when there was no report of a pet found in the fire, they figured we missed the setup. So they tipped off the newspaper to be sure the word got out.”

  Merrill returned the confused look of a youngster watching magic tricks.

  “I’d say Copithorn Research is off the hook as far as dognapping is concerned,” Kent said.

  Merrill stuck both thumbs into his thick leather uniform belt and stared through his brother. “It works. I guess. Now what we need to do is figure out who they is.”

  “And why they planted Bear,” Kent added as he scrubbed blood off a hemostat. “If it turns out to be FOAM, the obvious explanation is to discredit Copithorn and prove to the world that they were right, cosmetic companies use pets for research. However, if it is someone other than FOAM, what motive would they have?”

  Merrill was suffering from information overload. “I thought you were going to let me in on anything you found.”

  “I would have. Eventually. The question is, did FOAM do it, or is Aubrey telling the truth and someone else did it?”

  “Yeah, well I have my bias on that one,” Merrill said.

  Sally waggled a finger at Merrill. “Cops are not supposed to be biased.”

  “Cops are human.”

  “Some more than others.”

  “I’m going to call the diagnostic lab to get the postmortem results on Bear.” Kent looked from Merrill to Sally. In a parental tone he said, “Do I need to stick you two in separate cages while I’m in the next room?”

  “We’ll be all right. Make your call,” Sally assured him.

  A few minutes later Kent reentered the room where Sally and Merrill maintained an uneasy truce. “Head trauma. Blunt object to the frontal bones.” He tapped the center of his forehead theatrically. “They guess something like a ball-peen hammer.”

  “Right between the eyes,” Merrill said, impressed by the thought.

  Sally shuddered. “Gruesome.”

  “For sure,” Kent said. “And, since we know they’re not doing any head trauma studies at Copithorn, we can be pretty sure someone killed Bear and put him there to be found.”

  Sally shook her head in disbelief. “That person is sick.”

  “Doesn’t it strike you as unlikely that animal rights people would use such a disgusting method?” Kent asked.

  Merrill held two palms up. “So that leaves us with the mystery person Fairbanks told you about. The one who’s probably our dear old brother, Maylon Mays.”

  “Half brother.”

  Merrill headed for the door. “I think I’ll pay him a visit. Middle of the day…good chance I’ll catch him at home.”

  “The hard part will be waking him up.”

  “Right. You got a cattle prod around this place?”

  After Merrill left, Kent and Sally worked their way through a session of appointments. Kent treated ear infections, skin problems, and a lame German shepherd that he was pretty sure he’d be seeing again when the owners worked through their denial of a torn knee ligament. The hit of the day was a litter of four teacup Chihuahuas getting their first vaccinations. Sally could hold all four in one hand. Only difference was today Kent did not spend as much time as usual chatting about grandchildren, Florida trips, and the client’s own health issues.

  At one point, when there was a break in the action, she glanced over at a large wall calendar. “Today’s your mom’s birthday. Did you remember?”

  “Of course,” Kent lied. A spasm of guilt rose from his stomach and settled around his heart.

  Sally sounded worried. “Did you get her something?”

  “Some perfume,” he lied again.

  “Good for you. Don’t forget a card. That’s the most important part.”

  “I’ve got it covered.”

  Before Sally could say more, the front door opened, and a tall, stick-thin African American man who was not scheduled for an appointment stepped in.

  “You got any penicillin I can buy?” he inquired as if he was apologizing for the intrusion. His voice was soft and very deep.

  Sally studied the visitor from his engineer’s-capped head to his worn Big-K sneakers. There was not an ounce of fat on him. He had a ragged gray scar running along the hairline at his right temple, a poorly healed wound from long ago. His prominent Adam’s apple quivered nervously in his throat. It rose and fell like a barometer of his mood.

  He seemed so harmless that Sally couldn’t help but smile. “You must be new around here. I know all of our clients.”

  “I moved here from the other side of Syracuse. Took a farm job. My name is Bo Davis.”

  Sally tried not to stare. There were very few African Americans in Jefferson.

  She extended her hand. “Pleased to meet you, Bo. I’m Sally. What was it you wanted?”

  Bo’s big hand engulfed Sally’s in a gentle greeting. “Penicillin. One bottle will do. And a couple of syringes. And I’d like some suturing thread.”

  “Suturing thread?”

  “Yeah. What vets use to sew up cuts.”

  “What are you, some kind of do-it-yourselfer?”

  He laughed. “Not really. I’m taking my dogs bear hunting in Canada. Sometimes they get hurt, and there’s no vet anywhere close.”

  “Yeah. That could be a problem. We have penicillin and suture material. I’ll get you some.”

  As she stepped toward the medicine closet, the front door opened again. The person who filled it this time made Sally forget Bo Davis entirely. Her surprise was a hundredfold greater than when Merrill had lowered himself to his surprise visit earlier.

  “G-good af-afternoon, Ms. Copithorn,” she stammered.

  The charismatic exec’s face drew into a soft scowl. “Come on, Sally. It’s Stef. Remember? I went to school with you and your sister.”

  “Right. Sorry. You surprised me.” Sally shuffled the clutter on her desk into some semblance of order as she spoke.

  Stef accepted the apology with a smile. “Is Kent in?”

  “I’ll get him.” Shock prevented Sally from saying more.

  Kent nearly knocked Sally down trying to smooth his crumpled smock while rounding the corner from the exam room. In his eagerness to welcome Stef, he never even noticed Bo Davis, who shrank behind a dog food display almost out of sight.

  “They’ve taken Armani,” Stef said. Her voice was matter-of-fact, but there was an undertone of alarm.

  Kent gave her a confused look. “Armani?”

  “My cat, Giorgio Armani.”

  “I didn’t even know you had a cat.”

  “He’s always been healthy and never leaves my house, so I never brought him to see you. He’s a Himalayan. Mostly white with orange tips on his ears and feet.”

  “A flame point. Who took him?”

  Stef shook her head. She spoke with deep motherly concern. “I don’t know. More harassment from FOAM, I guess. Mostly he stays inside, but every morning I let him out on the patio for a few minutes on a cord. Today when I went to bring him in, the cord was cut right near the snap, and Armani was gone.”

  “You didn’t see or hear anything?”

  “Nothing.” Stef dug through her purse, found a tissue, and dabbed her eyes. “He’s a friendly cat. He’d go with a stranger without a fight. He loves everyone.”

  “And you’re sure the cord was cut? It didn’t just break?”

  She balled the tissue, replaced it in her purse, and took a deep breath. “Cut clean. I checked it carefully.”

  “What type of collar did he have on? Any tags?”

  “A red leather harness, no tags. If I find the person who took him, I’ll press every charge in the book.”

  “Yeah, well, let’s get him back first. Did you call the shelter, or dog warden, or Merrill?”


  “Not yet.” Stef’s expression became quizzical. “You can’t call the police for a missing cat. Can you?”

  “You can call. I’m not sure how much good it’d do.”

  Bo Davis, who had been listening quietly, seemed distracted and oddly disappointed when Sally handed him the medicine and suture material. Slowly, he withdrew his wallet, took out some cash, and paid. Moving like someone returning to an assembly line after a cigarette break, he departed, keeping his back to Kent and Stef.

  Sally turned back to her boss and Copithorn’s CEO. “Maybe it is time to get the police involved, Kent,” she said. “This isn’t an ordinary missing pet. It could be tied in with the fire and whole FOAM thing.”

  Stef clicked her tongue. “Could be? It’s got to be!”

  “Besides,” Sally said, “this brings us back to all the missing pets we’ve noticed around Jefferson lately. What’s going on with that? The police might be able to help.”

  Kent pulled the stethoscope from around his neck and placed it on its designated wall hook. “Merrill did say he wanted to know if we came up with anything. I’ll give him a call. Sally, you contact the shelter and post a notice on our board too. We’ll see if we can make something happen.”

  After his last appointment, Kent sat at his desk pondering the significance of Armani’s disappearance. A hazy picture of the thin, dark stranger lingering in the waiting room crept into his mind.

  “Sally, weren’t you waiting on someone while I was talking to Stef?”

  Sally was making entries into the daily ledger, she did not look up. “Yep. Never saw him before. Said his name was Bo something.”

  “What did he want?”

  “Just some medicine.”

  Kent let the image of the man roll in his head until finally it focused. The connection jolted him. “Are you kidding me?”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I think that was the guy who was getting pups at the dog shelter and spying at Copithorn!”

  “Spying at Copithorn?”

  “Yes. I saw someone, and I’d swear that was the guy, studying the Copithorn fire scene the morning after the fire. He took off before I could talk to him.”

  Sally turned him a helpless look. “He paid cash too. There’s no receipt to trace.”