by Donna Ball
I pushed the Talk button. “On my way.”
Cisco and I took our time, stopping by my cabin to drop off the duffle bag and to let Magic out of her crate. Mischief was working as demo dog with Lee in the flying disc class, and I’d agreed to pick her up at the rec hall after lunch. Since there wasn’t a lot of damage Magic could do in such a small space before I got back, I left her loose in the cabin with a few chew toys and a bowl of water—first making sure all edibles were behind lock and key. Cisco and I sauntered back up the hill toward the main lodge, where I could see Jolene waiting impatiently beside the black K-9 unit SUV. Margie was with her, trying to look pleasant while keeping the children who wanted a sneak peek at a real police dog moving toward the dining hall. I felt a little sorry for her, and picked up the pace. Margie definitely looked relieved as she saw me approach.
“Well now, there she is,” she said, a little too brightly. “Deputy Smith, I’ll let Raine take over. You know each other, right? Raine, the deputy has to get back to work, so we’re going to switch things around a little. We’ll start the demos at the lake right after lunch, then move back up to the lodge for arts and crafts. That should work out, don’t you think?” Without giving me a chance to reply, she added, “I’ll make the announcement at lunch. It was a pleasure to meet you, Deputy, and thank you again for coming out.”
She hurried away, but not before giving me a meaningful look that included a “Good Luck” eye roll toward the straight-shouldered deputy.
I said, “We weren’t expecting you until two.”
She looked annoyed at having to explain herself. “We had to make some changes.”
“Good thing we’re flexible.”
Cisco, who had never met a stranger, wiggled and wagged his way over to her in greeting. She glanced down at him but made no overture, just let him stand there wagging his tail and grinning up at her. That annoyed me even more than her refusal to respond to my comment.
I said, “Cisco, with me.” Disappointed, he came back over to me, sniffed my fanny pack for a possible treat, then wandered around to the end of the leash, exploring the gravel drive, occasionally looking up with his winning smile at the sound of a child’s voice, just in case someone wanted to pet him.
I said, with all the false pleasantness I could muster, “Usually when Buck gives these assignments they come with the rest of the day off. You probably have plans you’re in a hurry to get to.”
She said coolly, “It’s a holiday weekend, Miss Stockton. No one gets a day off. Now if you’ll show me where I should set up …”
I turned at the sound of the ATV engine and lifted my arm to Willie, waving him over. He didn’t respond, so when he pulled in front of the lodge and cut the engine, I cupped my hands around my mouth and called, “Willie, over here! We need your help!”
I turned back to Jolene. “We’re going to do the police dog demo and the tracking demo down at the lake. Willie will take the equipment down in the ATV. Of course,” I added with only the smallest smirk, “we’ll have to do the tracking demo first, or the trail will be wrecked.”
She frowned. “Can’t you do that somewhere else?”
Before I could answer, Melanie jogged up, her face flushed from running and her eyes bright with excitement. “Hey, Raine,” she said, “are you getting ready to show the police dog around? I can help you set up. Pepper’s all exercised and in her crate.”
As she spoke she gave Jolene the once-over and announced, “I’m going to train drug dogs for the FBI when I grow up.”
Jolene glanced at her briefly. “Good for you.”
“Are there a lot of dogs working for the FBI?” Melanie persisted. “Are their handlers men or women?”
“I wouldn’t know,” replied Jolene, and her attitude immediately aroused my protective instinct.
I said, “Melanie, you should go to lunch. We can’t start the demos until everyone finishes.”
“I can skip lunch,” Melanie assured me. “They always have snacks for later. And I’d rather help you set up.”
I said, “When I was at camp, I always used to hate the girl who got all the special attention. That’s why I promised your dad you wouldn’t get any. Go to lunch.”
She turned back to Jolene. “Is Nike in the car? Raine said that was her name. Why don’t you let her out? The other dogs won’t bother her. They have to be in their crates at lunch.”
Jolene looked meaningfully at Cisco, and that just made me side with Melanie. “It’ll take half an hour to set up,” I pointed out. “You shouldn’t leave her in the car while we’re gone.”
She slid another one of those mildly contemptuous looks my way. “K-9s always stay with the unit,” she responded. “It’s their job.”
“With all these curious children around?” I lifted a skeptical eyebrow. “We might have liability issues.”
This was clearly a subject upon which she had not been fully briefed, and for the first time a shadow of uncertainty crossed her eyes. She said shortly, “Control your dog.” She went around the vehicle to open the door.
I replied, “Cisco is always under control.” But just to make sure, I added in a slightly lower tone to Cisco, “Cisco, down.” He looked up to make sure I was serious, then stretched out at my feet. To Melanie I added, sotto voce, “Whatever you do, don’t pet her dog.”
She gave me a small eye roll. “I know that.”
I glanced around and saw all but a few stragglers had already gone into lunch. “You get to look at her, that’s all. No more questions. Or,” I added over the objection I could see forming, “I’ll find someone else to be the lost person in Cisco’s demo.”
I could see her debating, and for a moment I actually thought I might lose. Then, reluctantly, she nodded assent. “Okay.”
Willie came up beside me. “What do you need?”
He looked tired and sweaty and a little out of sorts, which made me reluctant to ask him for a favor until I remembered that was what he was here for. “Hi, Willie. Looks like you had a busy morning.”
He took off his straw hat and wiped his shiny forehead with the back of his arm. “That’s right.”
“Well, I hate to ask, but we’ve had to move the police dog demo up to first thing after lunch. The deputy has some equipment she needs you to take down to the lake, and we’ll also need the tunnel and the A-frame from the agility field.”
He frowned. “I’ll have to make two trips. Get the pickup for the big stuff.”
“I’m sorry.”
Cisco made a soft greeting sound in his throat—not quite a whine and certainly not a bark, but he was definitely anxious to be released from his down. I tightened my hand on the leash and returned a warning, “Ank!” to him. He licked his lips and stopped whining, but his ears perked and his eyes shone alertly as he gazed in the direction of the K-9 unit. I looked up just as Jolene came around the vehicle with Nike on a heavy leather leash which I knew from experience she did not need.
I said to Jolene, “If you’ll show Willie what you need for the demo, he can start loading it into the ATV.”
Nike started sniffing the ground and Cisco grew agitated as she drew closer. I wound another loop of his leash around my hand and said soothingly, “Easy …”
It was at that moment that Nike positioned herself in front of me, sat and barked.
I knew an alert when I saw it; that was precisely what Cisco had been trained to do when he made a find. But why was she alerting on me?
Jolene frowned sharply at me. “Is this some kind of joke?”
Given the animosity between us, I could see why she might think that. Now that Nike was practically stepping on my toes, Cisco was panting so hard with excitement that he was almost wheezing, and I resisted the urge to move away from both the angry woman in uniform and the determined dog who, if I recalled, was not only trained to detect munitions but drugs. As far as I knew I was carrying neither, but …
“Holy cow!” Melanie exclaimed with sudden, delighted enlightenment. �
�She is good!” She looked at me excitedly. “Your fanny pack, Raine! Remember you put the bullets there?”
Jolene’s gaze darkened with suspicion. “What’s she talking about?”
“Reward your dog,” I said, disguising my relief as I unzipped my pouch. “She’s right.”
Jolene reached for the knotted rope on her utility belt and tossed it to Nike, who jumped up in the air and snatched it like a puppy. Cisco almost lost his cool then, and I couldn’t blame him. Nonetheless, I gave him a brief “Ank!” as a reminder and dug out the shell casing from the bottom of my pack.
“We found a bunch of these yesterday,” I said, showing it to Jolene. “I saved one to try to find out what kind it was.” Then I frowned. “Can she really smell a spent shell that’s been lying around on the ground for weeks?”
Jolene took the shell from me. “It’s an AR-15 round,” she said.
Melanie’s eyes grew big. “Like a machine gun?”
“Assault rifle,” I corrected her. And then I thought, Assault rifle? Here? As anyone with television, radio or newspaper access knows, it’s possible to legally purchase certain kinds of assault weapons in many states, North Carolina being one of them. You do occasionally see them at firing ranges, although what their owners were expecting to need them for was anybody’s guess. Attack of the killer deer? Assault by deadly jackrabbit? Besides, the nearest rifle range was a good fifteen miles from here.
Jolene must’ve been thinking much the same thing because her frown deepened and her voice was tight as her hand closed around the shell. “Where did you find this?”
“We can show you,” Melanie volunteered quickly.
But I gave her a stern look. “I can show her,” I corrected. I could see a stormy argument forming in her eyes so I passed her Cisco’s leash. “Do me a favor, take Cisco to the doggie dorm and put him in one of the spare crates, will you?” It wasn’t that I didn’t trust my guy around Nike, but he was awfully interested in her, and Jolene didn’t seem to have a sense of humor about things like that. Besides, everything always went a lot faster without Cisco along, and the sooner we got this over with, the sooner I could get my lunch.
“But he hates being crated!” Melanie protested, pouting.
“Then put him in an ex-pen. I’ll only be a few minutes. You can put Pepper in with him if you want.”
That seemed to sweeten the deal somewhat, and I could see her relenting. I decided to push my luck. “And save me a sandwich from lunch.”
She brightened. “I’ll bring it to you at the lake! Come on, Cisco.” And before I could correct that notion, she trotted off with Cisco in tow. Not that it mattered. We’d be back before she finished lunch anyway.
I said to Jolene, “You don’t really want to see the place, do you? It’s not illegal to target-shoot, and I already threw all the casings I could find into the weeds.”
Willie put in, “If you want me to carry stuff down to the lake, I need to start loading it up.” He looked as anxious to get to lunch as I was.
But Jolene ignored him and repeated, “Where did you find them?”
I sighed. “It’s way over the hill in the old soccer field that we’re using for agility.” I glanced over my shoulder at Willie. “Come on, Willie, I’ll show you which pieces of agility equipment we need.”
But he looked annoyed and disgruntled as he stomped off in the other direction, muttering, “Gotta get the truck.” I noticed he pulled out his cell phone as he stalked away, probably to complain to Margie.
I turned back to Jolene and, with a grand sweep of my arm, indicated the direction in which we should go. She was clearly accustomed to taking the lead, so I let her, falling into step beside her after a few strides.
The sun beat down upon my newly shorn head and I wished I had worn a cap. Of course, I had expected to be on my way to the nice cool dining hall by now, not tramping up a dirt road in the heat of the noonday sun. Nonetheless, I decided to try to make the best of it. “So how long have you and Nike been together?”
“Eight months.”
Somehow I had thought it would have been longer than that. “Where did you work before this? Is this your first civilian job?”
“What difference does it make?”
I shrugged. “Just trying to be friendly, that’s all.” We walked a little farther, the hot trail crunching under our feet, and I said, “So how did you end up here?”
“God,” she muttered under her breath, “do you ever shut up?”
I tried to count to ten, but only made it to five. “Look,” I said tightly, “if you don’t mind some advice …”
Rather predictably, she replied, “I do.”
Also predictably, I ignored her. “This is a kid’s camp. They ask questions. A lot of questions. That’s what they do. You’re here to answer them—politely and intelligently. That attitude of yours is going to get you nowhere fast.”
“I’m here,” she replied shortly, “because I was ordered to be. And I don’t need a lecture on attitude from some smart-ass white bitch.”
I stopped and stared at her. I couldn’t believe she’d said that. And, judging by the quick look that flickered over her face, she couldn’t either. The hard mask was back in an instant and she returned my gaze like a street fighter daring his opponent to make the first move. But this was not a fight in which I wanted to be involved. And though she didn’t know it yet, neither did she.
I said in a voice that was almost normal, “In case you haven’t noticed, we have all kinds of kids here—Asian, African American, Hispanic—so I think everyone would appreciate it if you would lose the racial slurs. And watch your language. You’re not in the army now.” I made a terse gesture toward the white ring gating that could be seen just beyond the rise. “Over there.”
For the first time I saw something that might have been embarrassment cross her face. She looked as though she wanted to say something, but whatever it was, her lips tightened against it and she looked away. We resumed walking. Nike panted between us, the sun gleaming off her coat.
In a moment, she said, “Look, I know you’re used to being the boss’s little princess—”
I interrupted with a short bark of laughter. I’d been called a lot of things, including what she’d just called me two minutes earlier, but “princess” was a new one.
“But the last thing I’m interested in is your hokey small-town relations, where Billy-Bubba the mayor hires his brother Billy-Bob as police chief and both of them look the other way while Billy-Joe sells crack on the schoolyard because they’re damn brothers. And yeah, you can tell your ex I said it. He’d’ve already fired me if he could anyhow.”
I was of course intrigued by that, but felt compelled to defend my heritage first. “In the first place, I don’t know a single person in this whole county named Billy-Bubba. And in the second place, if anybody even thought about selling crack on a schoolyard around here every man in the sheriff’s department would be on him like a flock of ducks on a June bug and if you don’t already know that you deserve to be fired and if Buck can’t figure out a way to do it I’ll be glad to help him!” My nostrils were flared and my breath was coming hard, and it was from more than the climb or the heat. “This is a small town, and yes, everybody knows each other, and yes, we do things a little differently than you’re used to in the big city, but we get them done. Like it or not, you’re part of that small town now—worse, you represent it!—so you’d better get with the program. And smile at the damn kids every now and then, will you?”
I pushed aside a length of ring gating and gestured angrily. “Here,” I said. “Knock yourself out. I’m going to lunch.”
She unclipped Nike’s leash as I turned away, and I couldn’t resist a lingering peek at Nike’s technique. It spoiled my dramatic exit, I know, but, my goodness, that dog was magnificent at work. I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she crisscrossed the scent path, moving like liquid across the small fenced area and, when Jolene removed a far gate for her, straight int
o the weeds toward the hay bale target, and beyond, probably scenting where I’d tossed the shells. She could really track scent objects that old? And that scattered? Despite myself, I was intrigued. I followed at a distance, and was glad that Jolene didn’t even notice.
The terrain of the land was such that the high fescue grass and brambles gave way to scrub pine and tangled boulders after a couple hundred yards. Beyond that was a sharp rocky incline that led up to the bridle path and the forest beyond. You could easily reach the path if you were a mountain goat. If you weren’t, you would come to a dead stop at the bottom of the cliff, where the rocky boulders had fallen when the road was cut above. That’s precisely what Nike did. She stopped. She sat and she barked.
There was no way any of the spent shell casings I had thrown had made it this far. I increased my pace until I was jogging.
When I reached Jolene, she was shining a flashlight into a small crevice she had created by digging away some of the loose rock around the boulder pile. Nike chewed her rope toy and looked pleased with herself. Jolene said, without looking back at me, “I thought you were going to lunch.”
I said, following the beam of her flashlight, “It looks like something is buried under there.”
She didn’t answer, just started pulling aside more of the loose rocks. I helped her, and in a matter of minutes we’d uncovered a flap of dusty green fabric. We moved a few more rocks, widening the hole to about two feet across, and Jolene pulled out what proved to be a green canvas bag, half filled with something that rattled as it was dragged across the stones and set on the ground. Nike moved close as Jolene unzipped the bag.
“Holy cow,” I said, staring. “Are those …”
“M67s.” Jolene sat back on her heels, her expression grim. “Fragmentation grenades.”