Home of the Brave (Raine Stockton Dog Mysteries Book 9)

by Donna Ball

  But Annabelle was on the phone and held up a finger for patience. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but I hoped it was about getting me out of there because patience was something that was in short supply for me at the moment.

  There followed three or four of the most unpleasant moments I have ever spent around a dog, and this from a woman who spends most of her day picking up dog poop. A couple of deputies peeked over the top of their cubicles and grinned. One of the courthouse clerks stopped by to leave an envelope at the desk, did a double take when he saw me, and said, “Hey, Raine.”

  I said “Hey” back, and he left without asking any questions. Not that there was anything unusual about seeing me in the waiting area of the sheriff’s department with a dog at my feet. I’m sure it was just the fact that I was soaking wet.

  Annabelle put down the phone and gave me a smile that tried very hard not to look nervous. I remembered she had never been that comfortable around big dogs. She said, “It’ll be just a few minutes.”

  I wasn’t sure what would be just a few minutes, but before I could ask, she added pleasantly, “Big weekend planned?”

  I decided to play along, mostly to demonstrate that I was completely unfazed by this absurd turn of events, but also because at the moment I couldn’t see that I had much choice. “I’m going to be teaching at Camp Bowser Wowser.” I kept my voice conversational, but loud enough so that Deputy Diligence, or whatever her name was, would have no trouble hearing just how unfazed I was. “It starts tomorrow, but the instructors are supposed to be there this afternoon, so …”

  Her pale eyebrows shot up into her sandy, straight-cut bangs. “Bowsie Wowsie? What’s that?”

  “Bowser Wowser,” I corrected. “It’s a really cool camp for nine- to twelve-year-olds and their dogs. Usually they hold it over in Tennessee, but this year it’s at the old Camp Bluebird, just off Highway 511.”

  “No kidding? I thought that place had shut down years ago. I was a counselor there as a kid.”

  “Me, too.” Most of the people who grew up in this county had worked there during the summer at one time or another. It was one of the few ways for a teenager to make spending money—legally, that is. “I guess they haven’t had any regular groups up there in a while, but it must still be in good enough shape to rent out for the weekend. The woman who runs the camp is pretty particular about the safety of the dogs. And kids, of course.”

  She smiled reminiscently. “Gosh, I had some good times there.”

  We chatted like that for another couple of minutes, each of us trying to ignore the fact that I was being held in custody by a guard dog that had been trained to kill. When the phone rang she snatched it up immediately, listened for a few minutes, and looked enormously relieved when she returned her attention to me.

  “Buck said you should wait in his office, Raine,” she said. “He’s on his way.”

  “Great.” I tilted my head toward my canine guard. “What about …?”

  “Oh. Umm …”

  But even as she looked around in some uneasiness, the dog’s handler reemerged from her cubicle. She did not look in the least perturbed, although she surely had been informed of her gaffe by now. She said, “Nike, here!” And the big dog glided to her side—in a perfect obedience heel position, I might add.

  Even though there was certainly no love lost on my part for his owner, anyone would have to be impressed by a dog who speaks two languages and executes positions so precise that he might have plotted them with a slide rule. It was easy to forget that very dog had held me hostage only moments ago, and with such dedicated intensity that I have no doubt that if I’d tried to move I’d now be on my way to the ER.

  The officer said, “This way, please.”

  I just stared at her. “Really?” I gave a short shake of my head that scattered droplets of water across my shoulders and turned to make my way down the hall. “Nice dog, though,” I added over my shoulder.

  She might have pulled a gun on me, or set her dog on me at the very least, if Lyle Reston, one of Buck’s deputies, hadn’t fallen in step beside me at that moment. I’d gone to school with his older brother. “I’m heading that way, Deputy Smith,” he said. “I’ve got this.”

  Well, at least she had a name, or part of one anyway. I didn’t even bother to wait until we were out of earshot to ask, “Who is that?”

  He smothered a grin. “Piece of work, isn’t she? That’s Deputy Sheriff Jolene Smith, and her partner Deputy Nike. A gift from Homeland Security. They just arrived Monday. The dog is fitting in just fine.” He frowned a little. “Weird name, though. Who names their dog after a running shoe?”

  I privately wondered the same thing, but was far more curious about the dog’s origins than his name. I said, “Homeland Security, huh? Wow.”

  “The sheriff wants us to make her feel at home.” His expression grew rueful as he paused outside the door to Buck’s office. “I guess some of the boys have their own ideas about how to do that. Sorry you got wet. Do you want me to bring you some paper towels from the men’s room?”

  I looked at him suspiciously. “No. What do you mean, the boys have their own ideas?”

  “Just don’t be too mad.” He opened the door to the office for me.

  “I’m already mad,” I told him, “and I’m running late. Who’s going to take me back to my car?”

  “I’ll tell the sheriff you’re waiting,” Lyle said, and he left quickly as I stepped into the room, closing the door behind him.

  The office hadn’t changed much since my uncle had occupied it. It was a small, cluttered, olive drab space that smelled like burned coffee and hard-working men. There was a map of the county with magnetic pins, a bulletin board cluttered with memos and sticky notes, an oak desk scattered with folders and stacks of papers. The one window was cloudy with grime, which was just as well because the only view was that of the back parking lot. No wonder Buck preferred to spend his time elsewhere. Come to think of it, so had Uncle Roe.

  My aunt and uncle were currently on vacation on the dog-friendly beaches of Topsail Island with their collie, Majesty (who was actually my collie, but they loved her so much I didn’t make a point of it) and my cousins. They had all rented a beach house together for the next two weeks, and had invited me to join them as a matter of routine. Now I almost wished I had. And I really would love to know what my Uncle Roe would make of these new developments in the sheriff’s department that he had run so efficiently for thirty years.

  I glanced at my watch, frowned in annoyance, and briefly thought about leaving Buck a note and just walking out. Then something caught my eye on his desk—a half-unwrapped stack of eight-by-ten posters that looked as though they had just come from the printer. Curiously, I walked to the desk and picked one up. The face of a handsome man with wavy hair and good, honest eyes looked back at me; the face of a man I once had loved enough to marry, and had called my best friend since I was eight years old; the face of the man who had betrayed me in a way only someone you trust implicitly can do. It was the face of Acting Sheriff Buck Lawson, and beneath the black and white image was printed in bold black letters: VOTE CECIL “BUCK” LAWSON FOR SHERIFF NOVEMBER 6. And in a slightly smaller, italic font, Justice … Integrity.

  I grunted softly with surprise and reexamined the poster. Buck had been appointed sheriff when my uncle retired unexpectedly last fall after a heart attack. I knew that if he wanted to keep the job he would have to be duly elected when the term of appointment expired, but no one had mentioned to me that he had actually decided to run. Of course, I had been a little busy keeping up with my own stuff, but still, you’d think someone would have mentioned it. Local election campaigns always started midsummer. I was beginning to feel a little out of touch.

  The door opened and Buck came in. He had a way of entering a room, all shoulders and long strides, that always turned heads. My head was no exception. He came behind the desk, took the poster out of my hand and thrust another official-looking form at me in
its place. He looked stern. “Fill out the application, pay your fee, and you’ll get your gun back.” He looked at me more closely and added, surprised, “You cut your hair.”

  I scowled first at him, and then at the paper. “It cost me eighty-five dollars.”

  “It would’ve been cheaper to get your permit renewed.”

  I turned the scowl back on him, more intensely. “That’s it? No apology?”

  “Speeding, resisting arrest, threatening an officer, carrying a concealed weapon … You’re lucky you’re not being strip-searched this minute.”

  My temper flared. “Come on, Buck! Are you freaking kidding me? Resisting arrest? How stupid do you think I am? She dragged me out of my car in the rain!”

  “You know damn well you’re supposed to inform an officer you’re carrying when you’re pulled over,” he returned, glaring at me. “You’re the daughter of a judge, for God’s sake!”

  I pushed on angrily, “And I never threatened anybody!” Of course, by then I did have a vague recollection of saying words like “I’m warning you” and “you’ll be sorry,” but I was in too deep to back off now. “I’ll tell you what this office needs, and that’s a training program on how to interact with the public! And if you want to know who’s lucky, it’s you that it was me she treated like that, because if it had been anybody else …” I was beginning to realize that I might not be making as much sense as I might have liked, so I concluded with a terse, “You know what I mean. What’s the story with that girl? Does she really work here? How’d you get a K-9 unit, anyway? And how dare she arrest me!”

  He blew out a breath and sat down in the sagging vinyl chair, pushing it back from the desk on squeaky wheels so that he could stretch out his long legs. He regarded me levelly across the sloppy stacks of file folders and unanswered phone message slips. “Her name is Jolene Smith and if you try calling her a ‘girl’ to her face she’ll probably punch your lights out. The county got a grant through some kind of Homeland Security program and she was assigned here. She was a K-9 handler in the military. Nike is a specialist in explosives detection.”

  I couldn’t hide my skepticism. “A bomb-sniffing dog? Here? Well, that explains why you put her on highway patrol.”

  “Come on, Raine, cut me some slack.” He looked mildly uncomfortable. “We’re figuring it out as we go, here. Besides, she’s got to learn the territory somehow.”

  “She wouldn’t even let me make a phone call! She never once told me her name or showed me her badge or read me my rights!”

  “That’s because you were never under arrest.”

  “I told her to call you! She didn’t even run my tag!”

  He pushed his fingers through his hair, lips tightening briefly. “Actually, she did,” he admitted. His expression grew rueful. “Look, Raine, you know how it is with a new man on the force. It looks like a couple of the boys thought Jo was due for a little hazing and you happened to be in the right place at the wrong time.”

  I couldn’t help noticing that he seemed to be wasting no time with formalities. She had only been here three days and already she was “Jo.”

  “It seems Deke and Mike spotted your car on Turnbull Road and called in a possible sighting of a stolen vehicle … You know Jessie Connor, right? He reported his car stolen yesterday morning, and he drives a green Explorer, like yours.”

  “Half the people in this county drive green Explorers!”

  He ignored me. “I guess they thought it would be a good joke on her if she pulled you over and accused you of driving a stolen vehicle.”

  “That’s stupid!”

  “Damn stupid is what it was,” he countered sharply with a frown. “If I didn’t need a full complement for the holiday weekend, I’d suspend them both without pay.”

  Monday was the Fourth of July, and the population of our little mountain paradise would easily double this weekend with tourists, hikers, boaters and vacation home owners. Restaurants and retail shops would prosper; so would traffic jams, pickpockets and bar fights. This was the beginning of the official high season in the Smokey Mountains, and from now until November everyone would be operating at full capacity, including the sheriff’s office.

  He let the frown go in a way that was typically Buck, and went on, “Anyway, Jo ran your tag when she pulled you over, and she also called the office for a background check …”

  I smothered another exclamation of outrage but he held up a hand for forbearance. “And I’m guessing that’s when she figured out she’d been set up.”

  “She’d been set up?”

  “But instead of taking a joke, she decided to play it straight. After all, you were speeding. The expired permit was just good luck.”

  I stared at him belligerently. “For whom?”

  He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “She wanted to make a point. Don’t worry, the guys have got one hell of a reaming-out coming. It won’t happen again.”

  I waited. “And her? Aren’t you going to talk to her?”

  “We’re lucky to have her, Raine. A little place like this with a $50,000 K-9 team? Not a boat I want to rock. And you should see that dog work.” His eyes sparked with admiration as he spoke. The love of dogs—or at least one dog—was still the one thing we had in common.

  I said shortly, “I have no problem with her dog.” Then I added seriously, “Buck, you might not be as lucky as you think. Most people are afraid of police dogs, and this is a small town. A lot of folks are going to think that $50,000 could have been spent in better ways.”

  He gave an impatient shake of his head. “It doesn’t work like that. We had to spend it on the K-9 team or lose it. That was the whole point.”

  “I’m just saying, it’s not like you need one to break up street gangs or sniff out bombs at the courthouse, especially since we only have court twice a month. And I don’t care what you say, your girl there is never going to win Miss Congeniality. If she goes around treating everybody like she did me today, your expensive K-9 team can end up being one giant liability.” I looked meaningfully at the stack of election posters on his desk. “I’d think about it, if I were you.”

  He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. “You might be right. We probably need some kind of public awareness campaign. Get a story in the paper, send her around to the schools …”

  “School is out,” I reminded him.

  “Say,” he said suddenly, “are you and Cisco going to that dog camp this weekend?”

  I was uneasy. “How did you know about that?”

  “They had to get their permit from me. I don’t suppose you could …”

  “In the first place, no,” I retorted, “and in the second place, are you crazy? The woman just tried to arrest me!”

  “I’ll bet those kids sure would like to see a real bomb-sniffing dog at work.”

  He had me there. I would like to see a real bomb sniffing dog at work.

  “The schedule’s already been set,” I said. “I don’t have anything to do with that. You’d have to talk to the camp director.”

  “I’ll get Annabelle right on it,” he said decisively. “Maybe somebody from the paper can come out and take pictures. Then we’ll get them to do a demo at the Fourth of July parade, more pictures, it’ll make a nice spread. Good PR for the department.”

  Cisco and I usually did the demo at the Fourth of July Parade. “Oh that’s a great idea.” I didn’t bother to disguise my sarcasm. “I happen to know she’s terrific at arresting innocent citizens, and maybe she could shake down a few little old ladies for an encore.”

  He grinned. “Come on, Raine, it’s not like you to hold a grudge.” He changed the subject. “Speaking of the parade, did you hear Jeb Wilson is going to be the grand master?”

  Jeb Wilson was our hometown boy made good, a former lieutenant governor, now running for a national congressional seat. I didn’t know him; he’d been off to college before I even started high school. But I thought I recalled that Buck had met him once or twice.

>   I said, “How could I miss it? It’s been plastered all over the paper the last couple of weeks. What’s he coming here for, anyway?”

  He shrugged. “To make speeches and shake hands, I guess. It’s election time.”

  I glanced back at the stack of posters on his desk. “Is he going to endorse you?”

  “I guess so. It’s a party thing.”

  I had known Buck all my life. We were best friends as kids, childhood sweethearts, married right out of college. I thought I knew everything about him, but I had never pictured him in this role. Running for office, making speeches, having his picture tacked up on telephone poles and posted on street corners. It felt odd, and yet somehow exactly right. I said, “I think you’re going to make a good politician.” I was not entirely sure that was a compliment.

  He gave a crooked, self-deprecating smile. “Oh yeah? Do me a favor then and tell that to your boyfriend, will you?”

  The person to whom he referred was Miles Young, Melanie’s father. Since we had just returned from a family vacation together—which was one reason I wasn’t entirely up to date on the happenings in town—there was no point in denying our relationship. I still wasn’t entirely comfortable discussing it with other people, however, particularly with my ex-husband. The fact that Buck had brought it up made me both confused and wary. Buck rarely even acknowledged that Miles existed, and had never referred to him as my boyfriend. “What does Miles have to do with anything?”

  “Aside from the fact that he’s backing the other guy, not a thing.”

  I stared at him. “Other guy? What other guy?”

  He chuckled softly, and stood. “You really do live in your own world, don’t you, Raine? Come on, I’ll drive you back to your car.” There was a flicker of something odd across his eyes as he added, “There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about anyway.”

  I really wanted to pursue the subject of Miles and the other guy he was backing, but I glanced at my watch and felt my annoyance returning. “Well, make it snappy. I’ve got people coming to pick up dogs in half an hour. This was not on my schedule.”