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

by Donna Ball

  I glanced over at Willie. “I used to work here summers,” I said, trying to be friendly. “It hasn’t changed much. I remember the lake used to have ducks, though. ”

  “Still does, winter time. No so much this time of year.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, “I guess not. You should see the flocks of green mallards in the autumn, Melanie. It’s like a wildlife movie. These weeds produce seed pods they like to eat, and the cattails give them cover from predators.” I glanced again at Willie. “Bet you have a hard time keeping the poachers off in duck season.”

  He grunted in reply, and stopped abruptly, staring down at the ground. He bent to pick up a faded green and red weed eater, and the weathered lines of his face smoothed as he straightened up. I followed his gaze toward the wood line, where a figure emerged, carrying a red plastic gas can.

  I glanced at Melanie, but her face was impassive as she watched the man approach. He was a thin man with short pale hair in grass-stained khakis and a smudged tee shirt. Cisco lifted his head and barked, and the man lifted a hand in reply.

  “It’s just Reggie,” Willie told me. “He’s supposed to keep the grass down. I can’t hardly keep up with it no more, what with my back and all.”

  He hadn’t been doing a very good job. The weeds were up so high in places that I worried about snakes, and I kept an eye on Cisco as he sniffed around and pawed the ground experimentally, testing to see if there was anything worth digging up. The man with the gas can was of far less interest to him than the dozens of little creatures that had left their marks on the six-foot square piece of ground his leash allowed him to explore.

  Melanie watched warily as the man approached.

  “Ran out of gas,” he explained unnecessarily when he was within voice distance. He glanced at us curiously. “Thought I had a full can in the jeep but ended up having to go down to the filling station.”

  I remembered that a service road encircled the property—we used to go trail riding around it when the camp kept horses—which was probably why we hadn’t seen his truck. It would be closer to the lake to park on the service road than at the lodge.

  “You gave the little lady here quite a scare,” Willie said, and Reggie looked confused.

  Melanie said, “It wasn’t him.”

  “She thought your weed-whacker here was a gun,” Willie said, handing it back to him. His tone was both relieved and amused. “I reckon it might look like one, from a distance.”

  Melanie repeated firmly, “It wasn’t him. And it wasn’t that kind of gun.”

  Willie looked annoyed, and I could tell Melanie was starting to get frustrated, so I spoke up. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen anybody else out here this afternoon, have you?”

  He shook his head, eyes narrowed against the sun. “Nah. ’Course, I only got here an hour ago, then I had to go for gas.”

  “This man had a hat,” Melanie said. “And camo pants.”

  I noticed there was a baseball cap in Reggie’s back pocket, and it could be hard to tell the difference between khaki and desert camo from a distance. “We’re with the camp,” I explained. “We’ve got a lot of kids and dogs running around here this weekend so we just want to make sure everything is safe.”

  Reggie glanced at Willie. “I thought that didn’t start ’til tomorrow.”

  Cisco pranced up to me with a charred stick in his mouth, tail wagging proudly. I took it from him and he turned his attention to the newcomer, edging over for a pet. “We’re with the early arrivals,” I said.

  Reggie grinned. “Well, don’t you worry, I’ll have this place all fixed up for you real nice before morning.” He bent down to ruffle Cisco’s ears. “Hey there, fella. I got a couple like you at home. Great duck dogs.”

  I tossed the burned stick into the grass while Cisco wasn’t looking, and wiped my hand on my shorts. Willie said, “You better get on back to work then.” And to me he said, “I told you it wasn’t nothing.”

  Melanie looked from him to Reggie and then back to me. “But this isn’t the man I saw,” she said, though she sounded a little less sure of herself now. “We should look around some more.”

  Willie was starting to look really annoyed now, so I said, “Maybe we’ll walk back up to camp. I need to exercise Cisco.”

  “Suit yourself.” Willie strode back to the truck and in a moment we heard the engine start, the chassis squeaking and creaking as the truck backed up, turned around and started up the hill.

  The sharp tang of gas fumes tinged the air as Reggie filled the tank on the weed trimmer, and Cisco wandered to the end of his leash to explore in the other direction. I said, “It’s nice of you to help Willie out. He’s getting up in years.”

  Reggie said, “I don’t mind. Besides, we have a …”

  “Deal?” I suggested. “Like maybe a duck season deal?”

  Reggie just grinned and turned his attention back to the trimmer.

  I said, “Nice talking to you, Reggie. Come on, Mel.”

  I gave Cisco’s leash a little tug and he trotted back to me with another burned stick in his mouth. Charcoal, when chewed, makes an unholy mess on freshly laundered golden retriever fur, so I took it from him. I started to throw it away and then hesitated. I walked the few steps back to where Cisco had found the stick, and saw a cleared spot in the weeds. I kicked around the dirt until I uncovered a few more charcoal chunks. Willie had said there hadn’t been a group at camp for at least a year, but the remains of this campfire were only days old.

  Melanie stuffed her hands into her pockets, shoulders slumped. “I guess you think it was a weed eater I saw, too.”

  As she spoke, the weed eater sputtered to life and Cisco barked at it. I called him to my side and we started up the path toward the lodge. I dropped a companionable hand on her shoulder. “This is what I think. I think if we looked in Reggie Burke’s pickup truck right now, we’d find a shotgun on the rack.”

  She looked at me in surprise.

  “The way I figure it,” I said, “Willie is getting too old to keep up with this big place by himself. But he can’t afford to give up the caretaker’s salary.”

  “So he hired Reggie to help him with the grass and stuff,” supplied Melanie.

  “In exchange for turning a blind eye if Reggie wants to hunt on posted land, which this whole camp is.”

  “He has duck dogs,” Melanie remembered, her eyes lighting as she put it together.

  “Right. And I’m guessing he took Willie’s permission to hunt to mean he could hunt anything, any time. He thought the camp wasn’t opening until tomorrow, so it must’ve scared him pretty bad when he saw you standing there watching him. So he went to put the shotgun back in the truck, picked up the gas can while he was there, and took off his baseball cap so you wouldn’t recognize him.”

  “Yeah.” Melanie nodded thoughtfully. “Nobody works out in the hot sun without a hat. My dad had his on all morning while he was on the ladder painting, and our yard men in Atlanta always wear these big straw ones.”

  “Right. That was the first clue. I wondered why he’d take his hat off if he was cutting grass in the afternoon sun. Also, you don’t make things up.”

  She grinned at me and I gave her shoulder a squeeze just before I dropped my hand. “You know what else I think?”

  She looked at me inquiringly.

  “Maybe the less said about this to your dad, the better.”

  She raised her palm and I slapped it. “Mystery solved,” she declared.

  “Yep,” I agreed. I winked at her. “Race you back to the lodge.”

  Cisco and I let her win, of course.

  Chapter Nine

  One thing I have to say for Margie: she knows how to run a camp. Despite the little hiccup, we were back on track and greeting early arrivals before five o’clock. Campers were welcomed; orientation packets, paw print cookies, maps and gift bags were handed out. Dogs yapped and barked. Children laughed and shouted. The afternoon air was scented with the smell of sunshine, pine nee
dles and charcoal smoke, and it practically made me giddy with delight. Already, I was sinking back into the glory days of my girlhood and the unpleasant events of the hours before were so far away they might never have happened at all.

  I found my cabin, which was rustic but clean, nestled in a little cove down a short dirt path within the sound of a bubbling stream. There were four other private cabins on the path where the other instructors would stay, all right next to each other but shielded by trees and shrubs from view. There was a set of bunk beds, a private bathroom, and plenty of room for crates. I got my guys settled in and distributed the homemade, organic dog treats that were included in my welcome packet while Melanie and Pepper sized up their dorm mates. Later Melanie would report to me that they were all nice enough, but seemed a little dumb for their age. I assumed she meant the dogs.

  I checked out the doggie dorm, which was actually the rec hall, and helped Melanie snag a prime spot for Pepper’s crate underneath one of the ceiling fans. The place was huge, with twenty-foot timbered ceilings and screened transom windows all around the roofline for ventilation. The dogs should be comfortable there at night, but honestly, I did not envy the counselors who would be rotating turns sleeping there. As a kennel owner, I knew from experience that all it took was one dog who imagined he heard one squirrel, or one lonely puppy crying himself to sleep, to turn a relatively peaceful night into utter chaos. But the counselors were young; they could handle it. And that was what they were getting paid for.

  There was a lot of the first-night confusion about getting dogs fed, walked and crated, but eventually we all made it to the open-air pavilion for charbroiled burgers and crispy-skinned hot dogs on paper plates with piles of chips; surely one of the best meals I’ve ever had. The sun was behind the trees by the time we finished, and Margie reminded everyone to walk their dogs in the designated exercise areas before bedtime, and to be sure to dispose of their waste bags in the metal containers specially marked for that purpose.

  Melanie went back to the dorm to call her dad, and I took Cisco, Mischief and Magic on a last long walk before bedtime. Mischief and Magic were under excellent voice control, so they trotted by my side like two blue merle bookends, only occasionally veering off to explore a bunny path or the scent of a squirrel. Cisco, on the other hand, still had a thing or two to learn about impulse control, so he remained on a sixteen-foot retractable leash, sniffing the trail, crisscrossing his own path, snatching up sticks and pinecones and shaking them like prey, then bounding onward in search of some new adventure. There is absolutely nothing like watching a dog in his element, and I laughed out loud with the sheer pleasure of being in their company.

  It occurred to me that I hadn’t heard the sound of the weed eater in a while, and I turned toward the lake. So what if it meant sleeping in a cabin that smelled like wet dog all night? This was their vacation.

  I called to Mischief and Magic and they galloped to my side, but Cisco, who was on the trail of something interesting, only paused and looked at me with ears raised in inquiry. I said, “Swim?” which was one of his favorite words, and he bounded toward me, grinning broadly.

  We started down the path to the lake, a gorgeous cerulean and pink sunset starting to form above the tree line. In the background I could hear the occasional bark of a dog or voice of a child; otherwise, there was nothing but the crunch of my footsteps and the panting of my dogs. We had just crested the rise that overlooked the lake when my phone rang. I glanced at the ID and said, “Sorry, guys.”

  I answered, “Hey.”

  “My daughter tells me I owe you an apology,” Miles said.

  “Your daughter is pretty smart.”

  “Yeah, she tells me that too. I’m sorry I said I didn’t like your hair.”

  That sounded a little less than sincere, so I responded in kind. “That’s okay.” Also less than sincere.

  I noticed that the grass and weeds around the lake had indeed been cut, and the evening shadows that spread out along the wide carpet of green were deep and inviting. The dogs must have thought so too, because they started to trot ahead to explore. I let Cisco go a dozen feet or so, but warned him with a tug on the brake before he reached the end of the leash. He looked back at me reproachfully and I let him go again.

  “Mel seems to be having a good time,” Miles said.

  “It’s great here,” I told him. “Ten degrees cooler than at home, easily. We’ll need our sleeping bags tonight.”

  Small talk, careful conversation. I could tell by his silence that he had not called to talk about the weather. I watched the Aussies bound down the path ahead of me with Cisco, at the end of his leash, in the lead. I planted my weight on the back of my heels to keep from skidding as the trail descended sharply, picking up my pace a little.

  Miles said, “So. I’ve been talking to Melanie’s mother.”

  Never a good thing. I slowed my pace, tugging on Cisco’s lead to get his attention, and said cautiously, “Oh?”

  “She wants Mel to come to Brazil to visit in a couple of weeks.”

  “That sounds like fun.” Again, I spoke cautiously, trying to figure out why his voice sounded so tight.

  “The court says she gets her for two weeks every summer. Only … it seems she’s not that happy with the court decision anymore. The whole custody agreement, in fact.”

  I felt my stomach go hollow and I stopped walking. I reached into my pocket and rattled the treat bag—I never take the dogs out without it—and three heads swiveled in my direction.

  “Okay,” I said, and my voice was tight now, “but she can’t do anything, right? I mean, she can’t really take back custody, right?” The thought of Melanie moving to Brazil left me feeling oddly wounded, preemptively bereft.

  “Not as long as she stays in Brazil,” he assured me. “But she can cause a lot of trouble. And since South American courts aren’t known for upholding American custody agreements, I’m going with Melanie when she visits. I’m not,” he added grimly, “going to let her out of my sight.”

  “That’s a good idea.” I dug the treat bag out of my pocket and Cisco galloped back to me, stopping in a perfect front sit, followed closely by the two Aussies. I rewarded them all with bits of desiccated liver and they looked at me lovingly. I held up my hand in the signal for “stay.”

  “So if I was short with you this afternoon,” he said, “that’s why. I’ve been a little distracted. And pissed off.”

  “That’s okay.” I meant it this time. I sank down on the ground beside the dogs, signaled them to lie down, and they stretched out their legs until their bellies were on the ground, still watching me. I gave them more liver. The convenience of having obedience-trained dogs cannot be overstated. “What does Melanie think about the trip?”

  “She’s excited, and she should be. She’s never been to South America before, and it’s been a long time since she’s seen her mom.”

  Now that we were friends again, the conversation was easy, and we talked for a while about Brazil and Melanie and the problems of being a single dad. Eventually I covered the phone with my hand and told the dogs, “Release.” Cisco was quick to go exploring within the radius of his retractable leash, but Mischief and Magic, who can be real clowns, just rolled over and presented their bellies for me to rub. I was glad they seemed to have forgotten about the lake, which was still a hundred yards or so away.

  I watched the sun turn the clouds to gold-tipped pink marshmallows while I told Miles about my adventures with the police dog Nike and her less-than-charming handler, and he found a way to make me laugh about it, as I knew he would.

  “I’ll be sure to take the long way to town from now on,” he said. “I can tell already that is one team I definitely don’t want to run afoul of.”

  “Yeah, well, if you do happen to run into her, be sure not to drop my name unless you want to end up in jail. I have a feeling I’m way down on her list of favorite people right now.”

  “What?” he feigned shock. “With your cha
rm and tact? I can’t imagine you alienating anybody.”

  That’s what made me laugh. And now that we were friends again, I asked casually, “So who is the other candidate for sheriff, anyway? And why didn’t I know about him?”

  “You’ve been a little over your head since we got back from the beach, sugar,” he replied. “You told me yourself you haven’t read the paper in three weeks. And given the size of this county’s paper, that’s just plain pathetic.”

  He was right, of course. I’d been out of town at dog shows two weekends in a row, and it always takes three days to catch up after a show. Trying to run the kennel by myself had left me too exhausted to do anything but fall into bed after supper, and I’d barely had time for more than a cursory phone call to my aunt or my friends. When we talked, it was not about politics.

  “His name is Marshall Becker,” Miles went on, answering my question. “He worked for the sheriff’s department here for five years, then moved to Nashville, where he was on the police force for twelve years. I like him. He’s got some progressive ideas. You’re not really mad at me for supporting him, are you?”

  Marshall Becker. The name sounded familiar. I’d have to get the details from Uncle Roe. “No, I’m not mad. But I thought you liked Buck.”

  “I’ve got nothing against him. Except for the way he treated my girl, of course.”

  It took a minute to realize he was talking about me. “Oh, come on, Miles, you wouldn’t really …”

  “Of course not. I don’t make political decisions for personal reasons. The guy asked me for a campaign donation and I obliged, that’s all.”

  “So if Buck asked for a donation, you’d give it to him, too?”

  His silence was telling, and I was surprised. Miles was the kind of man who knew the value of hedging his bets, and it wasn’t like him to take sides in a fight in which he had nothing to gain. My attention quickened.