Loose the Dogs

by P. D. Workman

  “I don’t know,” Brenda said carefully. “I just found it in the back yard today. I don’t know how it got there or what happened to it.”

  “It was attacked by an animal.”

  “That’s what it looked like. But… it could be a coyote… They do find their way into the city. We’re close to the greenway. Maybe it was a coyote. Or a cougar.”

  “Or maybe it was the animal that was supposed to be in the yard. You didn’t notice anything unusual? Didn’t hear a fight or the dog barking?”

  “No… dogs bark all the time. Or chase birds or squirrels because they’re bored. It doesn’t mean anything. I never heard him fighting with the cat.”

  “But you’ve heard him barking or growling in the back yard. So he could have.”

  “Yes, of course, he could have. But why would he? Most dogs will just chase a cat back over the fence. They think it’s fun. It’s a game.”

  “For this dog, it wasn’t a game, though, was it? Does your husband take him hunting?”

  “No. No, my husband doesn’t hunt.”

  “And you’ve never noticed any… stalking behavior? Toward animals, or children, or anyone?”

  “No! He’s—he’s a good dog,” Brenda insisted.

  The cop’s eyes searching her face intently. Brenda looked away, sure he could detect her small fib.

  “Mrs. Brooks, you need to be honest with me,” he advised. “It is important.”

  Brenda nodded. “Yes.”

  “I don’t think you’re telling the truth. Has he stalked one of the children before? And maybe you just thought it was cute behavior? A game?”

  “No. No, he never acted threatening toward the children.”

  “What about toward other animals? You ever see him chase a cat? Hunt a duck? What?”

  Brenda felt sick. “A squirrel,” she admitted. “He… stalked it… crept up on it and then killed it.”

  “So you do know he’s capable of intentionally killing another animal. You don’t think he did the same to the cat? Just because most dogs will chase a cat over the fence willy-nilly, that doesn’t mean they can’t sneak up on it, take it by surprise, just like he did the squirrel.”

  Brenda put her face in her hands, shaking her head. “Yes, I suppose he could have. Of course, he could have. But that doesn’t mean he did. There’s no proof he killed the cat. It could have been a wild animal that got into the yard.”

  “Well, it’s certainly more likely the cat got into the yard and was killed by your dog than a cat and a wild animal both got into the yard at the same time.”

  Brenda shrugged helplessly. “Okay, yes. It was probably him. It was more likely him. But that doesn’t explain why he would go after Erin. She was sleeping in her crib. She’s not a wild animal. She’s not in his territory. Why would he go after her for no reason?”

  Carter shrugged. “I’m no expert in animal psychology. But it seems to me if he stalked and killed a squirrel, and stalked and killed a cat, he’s not just defending his territory, he’s hunting. And the baby was a small, helpless prey.”

  “But they weren’t even in the same room!”

  “That didn’t stop him. He knew she was in the house. He could hear or smell her. He knew from experience where she slept, and she was helpless to run away or defend herself. All he needed was the opportunity. You gave him free run of the house, with the baby unguarded. He just needed the opportunity, and you provided it.”

  “You make it sound like it’s my fault!” Brenda objected. “I would never have left him in the house if I thought he was a danger to my family!”

  “Perhaps you should have thought about it. Perhaps three warnings should have been enough to make you more careful.”

  Brenda’s mouth hung open and she tried to think of what to say. She shook her head. “What are you saying? You’re saying it is my fault?”

  The officer looked at her, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “I’m putting you under arrest for manslaughter.”

  “What?”

  “I’m putting—”

  “You think I killed my baby?” Brenda demanded. “The dog killed her! It was unprovoked! I didn’t kill my own baby! Just look at me!” She held out her bandaged arms toward him. “I did everything I could to protect her! I tried!”

  “You were negligent in allowing a dangerous animal access to her. You left her unsupervised. You left the dog free to roam the house. You knew he had snapped at the children and had hunted other animals. You should have been more careful.”

  He came up to her and put a handcuff over one bandaged arm. He turned her around and put the other handcuff over her other arm.

  Brenda let him, overwhelmed and confused. How could it be happening? It was all some horrible mistake. How could they do this? She had to talk to Darren. Darren would sort it out, would make sense of it and make the police behave in a reasonable way.

  She couldn’t be arrested and sent to jail.

  Brenda was relieved when finally Darren came by to see her. She had been through hell being arrested, booked, questioned, and jailed. It felt like it would never end.

  “Darren!”

  She reached out to hug him, but he stepped back, rebuffing her. He brushed her arms aside.

  “I can’t believe you did this,” Darren accused.

  Brenda was floored. “I did this? I did what? What are you talking about?”

  Darren looked at her shaking his head. “What am I talking about? My baby is dead, Brenda. How could you leave the dog alone in the house with her? How could you let him be around the kids like that?”

  “You know Jake. He wasn’t a vicious dog. He wasn’t dangerous. I didn’t have any idea he would go after Erin. How could I know that?”

  “The cop told me about the squirrel and the cat and about him snapping at Bubba. You should have known.”

  “How could I know? I never saw any indication he was going to hurt Erin. He never acted that way toward any of the kids.”

  “He tried to bite Bubba.”

  “He just snapped. It wasn’t anything. Bubba wasn’t in any danger.”

  “Bubba was scared.”

  Brenda looked for an argument. “He was startled…”

  “Both kids were crying, Brenda.”

  “You knew that, and you never said we should keep Jake away from them. Nobody ever thought he was dangerous.”

  “Getting a dog was your idea,” Darren snapped.

  “You said it was okay. You were on board with it. You helped me pick him out!”

  “It was your decision. I couldn’t care less which dog you picked out. But I thought you would pick a safe dog. You said you were going to pick a good family dog. A good dog that could grow up with the kids. You said he’d be good with them.”

  “I tried, Darren,” Brenda said, her eyes burning, and a hot lump rising in her throat. “I tried to pick a good dog, a good family dog. I thought Jake would be good for the kids.”

  “You were wrong,” Darren snapped. “It’s your fault.”

  “No, it’s not my fault! I didn’t know! The guy at the pound said he’d be good with kids. He said he’d never had any problems. He said he’d be a good family dog. You can’t blame me. Darren, please.”

  “It’s over, Brenda. My baby’s gone. You’re dead to me. Now it’s just me, and Bubba, and Cassy. Now I’m a single dad and have to figure out how to raise them all by myself. Is that fair to them? You destroyed the family. Completely ripped it apart. So stupid and careless. How could you ruin our family over a dog?”

  “I didn’t know! I just found the cat today. I didn’t know it was Jake. I didn’t know he’d go after the baby. If I ever thought he’d go after the baby, I wouldn’t have left them in the house together. I promise you. I wouldn’t risk my kids for a dog.”

  “Well, you did. And you were wrong.”

  “Don’t leave me, Darren. Don’t abandon me. You promised ‘for better or worse.’ Please don’t leave me here to fend for myself. I n
eed help. I need someone on my side. I’m going to need a lawyer, and money, and… I don’t even know. I can’t do it on my own, Darren. Please. Just say you’ll think about it. You don’t have to say yes or no. Just think about it.”

  Darren shook his head. “It’s over, Brenda. It’s all over. When I said for better or worse, I never envisioned anything like this. This is impossible. No one could have imagined anything like this. There’s no way I could stay with you. There’s no way I could stand for this, say I still loved you and supported you and wanted to stand by you. How could I do that, when you killed my baby?”

  Brenda buried her face in her hands. “No, Darren. Don’t take everything away from me.”

  “You just took everything away from me.”

  He turned around and went to the door. He signaled to the policeman standing on the other side. The cop opened the door and let Darren out.

  Chapter Seven

  FRANK WAS HEADED FOR his favorite cafe for lunch after signing himself out on his radio. He stopped on the sidewalk outside the cafe as a man with a dog stopped right in front of him, waiting for his pooch to do his business. Frank was disgusted—in the middle of the city sidewalk! Did people have no sense of shame? It was a big dog, and the pile of crap it deposited in front of Frank stank to high heaven. Frank frowned fiercely, trying to keep the memories at bay. But he smelled again the inside of the trailer, the feces and urine and the smell of decomposing bodies. It made him want to vomit right there.

  The owner of the dog started to move on.

  “Pick up after your dog,” Frank growled at him, angry at his disregard for others. He was angrier at the flashback, the memory of the bloody muzzles of the crazed dogs, all coming toward him.

  The man turned around with a sneer on his face, but when he saw Frank’s uniform, his expression quickly turned to one of subservience.

  “Of course, officer. Of course, I will,” he agreed. He didn’t want to get a fine. He dug around in his pockets to find a plastic bag, obviously used to simply walking away from his dog’s deposits whenever there wasn’t a cop around. He picked up the mess the best he could, shrugging at Frank nervously about the smear left on the sidewalk, his eyes a little afraid.

  “Curb him next time,” Frank said. “Don’t let him do his business in the middle of the sidewalk.”

  The dog started to bark at Frank, not liking his angry tone. The man pulled him back and tried to shut him up.

  “Of course,” he agreed. “I’ll make sure next time.”

  He turned tail and left, tugging the barking dog behind him.

  Frank leaned on the wall of the building next to him, taking deep breaths, trying to wipe out the smell of the dog crap and the crazy barking echoing in his head. How was he ever going to hear another dog bark again without seeing and hearing those murderous brutes straining at him, their faces dark with blood? He breathed, and swallowed, and eventually managed to peel himself away from the wall and enter the cafe.

  A nice bowl of soup and a few minutes to rest and compose his thoughts, and he would be fine.

  The soup of the day was a butternut squash. Not very macho, but Frank loved it anyway. It made him think of Halloween and Elsie trick-or-treating in her latest costume—a princess, or a ballerina, usually something girlie and frilly. But there had been a few years of witches or punk rockers, too. A nice hot soup on a cold night, the bright stars in the chilly, dark sky. It soothed his soul, settled him back down again. The anxiety created by the incident with the dog out front seeped away, and he started to feel like himself again.

  Frank watched the news on the TV above the counter. All political and boring, nothing of any real interest. Weather reports, cold fronts moving in and out. Some community events coming up. A slow news day. But then they switched to national news, and Frank watched footage of officers escorting a young mother into a police station. She was clean cut, good looking, not a junkie or hooker. What had she gotten herself into? A zoom-in showed white bandages wrapped around her arms, and a red, tear-swollen face. Frank frowned, watching carefully. The sound was turned down, but closed captioning was on, and Frank tried to watch the words and the picture at the same time.

  “Twenty-seven-year-old Brenda Brooks was arrested this afternoon for manslaughter, after leaving her infant daughter alone with the family dog. She was doing yard work outside, and when she returned to the house to check on her daughter, she was shocked to find it had been savagely killed by the dog.”

  The soup was suddenly a solid lump in Frank’s stomach and he felt dangerously sick. The spoon clattered from his hand. It was a coincidence. There were dog bites and dog killings every year. There was no relationship to the Johnsons. This incident was halfway across the country.

  “Police say the dog was known to be vicious,” the reporter added. “The accused has two other young children.”

  It’s not related, Frank scolded himself. It was not one of the Johnson dogs. She might look responsible and put together, but despite her looks, she was a careless mother. A mother who cared less about the safety of her children than her own comfort. Who had for some unfathomable reason, kept a vicious dog in the house, unsupervised, putting her child at risk.

  Maybe she was a drug dealer and the dog was there to guard her stash. It was a good thing they got her off the streets. And the dog would be destroyed. Unlike the Johnson’s dogs, which nobody believed would offend again, after killing an infant this dog would be put down and would never be a danger to anyone again.

  This case was different. They knew what the dog had done. It had attacked and killed a child. There was no question. And the dog would be put down, so it could never harm anyone again.

  That night, Frank sat back from the table, pushing his plate away slightly and giving Janice a satisfied smile.

  “I’m stuffed. That was great, honey. You know I’m going to have to go for a long run to work it off now…”

  Janice smiled back. “It’s not like you have been gaining weight lately. If anything, you’ve lost weight. You need a chance just to relax and do something for yourself.”

  “I’ve just been stressed,” he sighed. “It’s hard not to be… I don’t want to keep obsessing, but it just gets into my head, worms its way in and I can’t get it out.” He rubbed his temples.

  “It’s all over now. Why don’t you work on your trains? You need something to distract yourself. So you’re not depressed about it all the time.”

  Frank nodded. “I know,” he agreed. “It’s just so hard to focus, even on the trains. Did you see the news?” he asked. “About the dog that killed a baby down south?”

  Janice shook her head. “How awful,” she exclaimed. She started to clear the dishes. “Do you want to get some ice cream out for dessert?”

  “No, I’ve had too much to eat already. It was just a baby, Janice. Mom apparently left it alone with the dog. So tragic.”

  “Do you know if the electrical bill got paid last month?” Janice asked, desperately trying to derail his train of thought. “There was a balance forward on the bill.”

  “I’m sure it got paid. Maybe it was just a day late.” Frank got up from the table and headed straight for the TV. “News should be on in a minute. We’ll see if they say anything else about the baby.”

  “You don’t want to watch it, Frank. It will just keep you up all night. Let’s play Scrabble.”

  “I’ll just watch for a minute. It might not even be on. There are dog bites and killings all the time; they don’t usually make it to the news. It probably won’t be on again.”

  “But…”

  It was too late. Frank had decided he was going to watch the news and there was no dissuading him. Janice could only pray the story wouldn’t be on. Let there be some disaster on the other side of the world.

  She perched on the arm of the couch beside him, as if she could maybe just jump up and turn it off if the story came on. She knew she couldn’t, but she couldn’t sit down and pretend to be happy about watc
hing it.

  The baby was the second story. Frank shook his head as the footage he had seen earlier was repeated. Then there was more at the end.

  “When asked about the dog’s history, the police reported the dog was adopted a few weeks ago from the local SPCA. It was a transfer from another state, and they don’t have a detailed history of the dog. But they say he was previously owned by a retired couple and was received after the death of his owners.”

  Janice looked at Frank in horror. She didn’t believe for a minute it was one of the Johnsons’ dogs, but she knew he would. It was too much of a coincidence. He was already worried about those dogs attacking other people, and now here was something to prove his case.

  “No,” Frank said softly. He swore under his breath.

  “It is not one of those dogs,” Janice said firmly, absolutely certain.

  “It could be,” he countered.

  A picture was displayed. Frank stared at it, his face chalk white.

  “That’s not one of the Johnsons’ dogs,” Janice told him.

  “It is. I remember that dog. He’s one of them. He’s one of them and he’s killed again, just like I told them he would. How could they be so stupid? Of course he’s going to kill again. Once they get a taste of human flesh, they never stop, do they? They identify humans as prey now. Not their owners. Not the alpha dog. Food. Prey. And now it killed a baby!”

  Janice got up and turned the TV off. He didn’t stop her or complain about it.

  “We don’t know that. It could be a completely different dog,” Janice soothed. “It’s halfway across the country.”

  “They said it came from out of state. You heard them.”

  “Yes, from out of state, but probably just across the state line. Why would anyone ship a dog all the way across the country to be adopted? There’s no way it could have come from here.”

  Frank put his face in his hands, trying to contain his emotions. “How can this be happening? All they had to do was destroy the dogs. Then they would have been safe. How could they not destroy them? So what if people would have complained? People would have been up in arms about innocent dogs being killed, but then at least innocent babies wouldn’t be killed! It’s all politics! No one was thinking about the risks, the consequences of their stupidity. Just how people would perceive them.”