By Dog Alone: A Kelton Jager Adventure Book 2

by Charles Wendt

  “He’s cute, can we pet him?” squealed Kate as she came rushing forward.

  Azrael omitted a warning growl, and Kelton stepped in front to block the teen.

  “Give him a moment, if you would please. It’s a lot to take in for him.”

  Kate withdrew her hand and slowly stood more upright with a bummed look on her face. Abriella came through the door behind him and he sized up two other girls. One was a blond, dressed in black with heavy eye makeup named Vicky. The other had long wavy dark hair and was taller and curvier. Her name was Elizabeth, and explained that a friend of hers on the field hockey team had noted their math teacher coming in early while getting in a morning run.

  “So we’ve got just shy of an hour, right? Is this everyone?” asked Kelton.

  “Almost. Holly lives here too, but had to do remedial laps after practice this morning instead of study hall since she skipped yesterday afternoon’s. When summer is over they’re be like eight of us living here. The bedrooms are tiny,” explained Kate.

  Vicky pushed them forward to action, “I’ve put some of Abriella’s flipchart paper over here on the table for you so everyone can see. I want to film it too so we can use it to study for finals.”

  They gathered about the table as he picked up a marker and began showing the structure of the proof for the first problem. It had been years since he had taken geometry, but he had worked hard at it once upon a time. His mother had seen to it. So had the retired policeman who lived next door when his mom had been at work. In his academy years, the math’s foundation had been built upon as he earned his engineering degree. Kelton very much had the knowledge to teach.

  Kelton also proved to be a good trainer. Part of that was the army culture where older cadets constantly trained younger ones, or troops later when they as cadets became officers. Some of that was his work as a trainer of military working dogs. And a lot of it was working with some smart and highly engaged students, who just needed to hear the material a slightly different way, a plain language soldier’s way, to have the lightbulb come one.

  Elizabeth noted the time, “Okay, Girls. Five minutes to get over there. We got this. Right?”

  He wished them well as they joined the procession of other girls filtering from the houses to the school building. The field had cleared out toward the dorm showers the half hour before. In no time at all, he and Azrael were alone in the house and the energetic voices outside faded and then fell quiet.

  Kelton felt it was best to be on his way. He was feeling better, and there was nothing to keep him here. The little roadside market they’d passed was probably a good place to start with a real meal and stocking up on provisions. Then he thought he’d turn west on Route 715 to head back out to more rural Virginia. To the north was Maryland and eastward meant D.C. Both places lived under draconian gun control laws. Kelton had just come up from the south, so heading west was the only other way to go.

  He peered through the house’s front windows out of curiosity and smiled at the comforters and pillows out on the porch furniture. The athletic field was lovingly maintained, and someone was starting on it with a mower now that the girls were in class.

  Kelton looked at his dog, “Time to move on, Azrael?”

  His dog looked up with questioning face, and clearly ready to go do some work after playing comfort dog the last couple of days. The Belgian Malinois is not a “lay around” breed and requires a truly incredible amount of exercise and mental stimulation.

  He carefully looked out the backdoor windowpanes, and seeing no one, cracked the door for a better look. The coast was clear. Azrael followed as he returned to Abriella’s car and he grasped the door handle. It was locked.

  “God dammit,” he swore. “That was stupid. Now what the hell do I do?”

  He hastily looked around to make sure he hadn’t been noticed. Rapidly he tried the other doors but the result was the same. She’d locked up the car just like he’d asked her too, and then ran off to class with the keys. He very briefly considered if he could just move on and re-equip on the road. Four years of combat pay and no way to spend it left him with plenty of money for his modest needs. But he couldn’t abandon his weapon to a teenager nor readily replace it without a permanent address. There was no choice but to hang out until she returned which would likely be several hours, or break her window.

  He didn’t want to break her window. Kelton knew it would be below any insurance deductible and he didn’t have the cash on hand to leave behind for its repair. Sure, she had a horse and attended a prestigious school. But the retired police cruiser sat in stark contrast to the other cars along the row. Her parents worked very hard. The Harper’s were clearly not “money was no object” rich. He decided he would just kill time until she returned.

  So he headed to the woods just north of the perimeter road. He could hide in the house but he didn’t know if some maid would come clean a common area or staff member inspect when the girls were in class. And Azrael badly needed some exercise. Even without his pack, at least he had a Kong toy in his utility pocket.

  They moved quickly through the woods so they were no longer obviously out of place on the campus. Kelton knew that eventually the woods would give way to some sort of clearing. He found a trail first, instead. It was wide for a path, almost a road although only the smallest of pickups could manage it. It had been scraped with heavy equipment once upon a time. The surface was dirt and small bits of gravel, and there wasn’t anything in the way of tree roots or larger rocks.

  He looked at the tracks more for curiosity. They were predominately equine, the horse shoe prints of many sizes in both directions. Azrael sniffed at a pile of horse droppings. There was also a pair of tire tracks, but much too narrow to be a car or truck. Given the thickness of the summer vines and branches, Kelton opted to follow the trail. He felt he’d gotten enough separation from the school center to pose as just a man walking his dog.

  The trail opened up into a large clearing, but he didn’t expect an old parking lot. A gravel lane went westward, perhaps connecting with Full Cry Road. Nature had reclaimed the parking lot’s thin concrete, which was now broken up into shards with dirt mixing in from wet seasons. Occasional bald spots were here and there, but fresh material had been added in the worst of the low spots. More horse droppings, tiny stray pieces instead of piles, some fresh and some months old, were scattered about. And it was picked up. He only noted a plastic cap from a water bottle, and a few stray cigarette butts. Baying hounds were clearly audible.

  Across the makeshift parking lot on the left looked to be an old school building from maybe the twenties. Its bricks were power washed clean, woodwork freshly painted, and flowers bloomed in the front landscaping. There was a sign with a fox leaping toward a star, and overtop this logo, “Westburg Hunt Clubhouse”. Below the logo it said the hunt was established in 1870. Beyond the old school was a cinderblock building surrounded in six-foot chain-link fence. It also had a sign of the same logo but this one was labeled “Kennels” and listed an emergency phone number. Overhead powerlines supplied both and the hum of an air-conditioning unit could barely be heard with all the barking. On the side of the kennels was an F-150 with the tailgate down. Kelton recognized stacks of feedbags.

  Beyond the buildings and through a gap in an old wooden wigwam fence was a green expanse of grassland rising into a substantial hill and ridgeline. Occasional scattered lots of trees and the odd herd of grazing cows separated by hedge lines filled in the landscape.

  The large lawn in front of both buildings was a great fetch ground for the Kong toy so Kelton started a game. Sure, his old trainer, Mister Bacharach, would insist that some work predicate the play. But Azrael was fully trained and had been cooped up. He threw the Kong, and then walked forward pausing only enough to again throw after Azrael completed the retrieve.

  As he walked forward he noted the cemetery. It was on the opposite side of the large lawn from the buildings, carved out in a niche of woods. There was a red brick
archway, where a stone fox jumped the brick columns to make the arch. Spanning from it were twelve foot sections of wrought iron, six-foot-tall, anchored into other brick columns. Beyond were many stone markers, some small, and others elaborate with various ornamentation of dogs and horses scattered about larger and mossy old growth trees not cleared away with the underbrush.

  But as he looked closer, he noted the front wall was more symbolic. The sixty feet or so gave way to trees and brush for the sides and back of the garden’s perimeter. It looked as if some new space in a back corner had recently been carved out from the woods. Tiny stumps and large overhead branches glowed with the paleness of being freshly cut. In other places, vines encroached the monuments threatening to reclaim space for the forest. He felt it a beautiful and sacred space, balancing a celebration of domestic and wildness.

  His head turned toward the rumble of a small engine, and he noted a green all-terrain vehicle with yellow stripes leading the dust cloud from its own tires. Two men sat inside. The passenger seemed to note him and with a point of the hand the driver changed course right for him. Kelton called Azrael to him and then pocketed the Kong.

  “Fuss!” he commanded and Azrael sat in the heel position just on his left side with panting tongue and alert eyes.

  The little vehicle quickly rolled to a halt when the young Hispanic driver cut the engine. An elderly figure spryly leaped out of the passenger side although he walked forward with a slight limp. The driver started to follow, but then frantically reached inside as the vehicle started to roll and grabbed the hand brake.

  “I’m Helmut,” said the gray haired one with the scarred face. “The head horse trainer at Fox Ridge School. We’re looking for a loose horse. A bay. Have you seen him?”

  “I’m Jose,” the driver said with a big friendly smile once he joined the two of them. He had broad shoulders, but was a little heavy in the middle. “He got away from me as I was leading them in from the paddock. I always have trouble getting a halter on him, so sometimes I just let him follow his mates inside. This morning he took off.”

  “Let that be a lesson for you,” Helmut scolded.

  Jose cringed to include spreading hands and arms in a surrendering gesture, but winked at Kelton with the eye away from his boss.

  “I haven’t seen him. Are you sure he came up this way?”

  Jose nodded enthusiastically, “Yeah, I followed him up the bridle trail. He just never let me catch up to him.”

  Helmut shook his head, “Chased him away would be a better way to describe it.”

  “Do you have his halter? I mean his unique one?” asked Kelton.

  The two men nodded.

  “I can try and track him with my dog if that would help.”

  Both men nodded again, and Jose ran to the back of the vehicle to grab the halter and lead rope.

  CHAPTER—5

  Johann Grunfeld stared between the dustless venetian blind slits from his upstairs office in the bank down to Main Street below. He was annoyed to see his next appointment, builder Larry Turner, not making haste over the tired concrete. Ultimately he decided if one was willing to overlook the disrespect, and Johann typically was not, starting on time didn’t matter near as much as the meeting ending on time. Holly would be calling and things were at a delicate stage. That was much more important to him than making more money, and temporarily the pursuit of power. So Johann took a breath to calm a rising temper and focus. He needed Larry to pull off his other plans.

  He wanted her back again in the downstairs apartment across the street. When she did call, he must answer. In these early conversations at least, Holly’s inhibitions may keep her from trying a second time. He could lose her if he didn’t answer when she called. Not on the first ring of course, but the call couldn’t be missed. And he must be alone to talk freely without worrying about being overheard. To be able to say and promise anything necessary to bring her back to meet a second time so he could get more leverage over her. Then things wouldn’t be so demanding and he could proceed more on his own whims.

  Johann wasn’t greedy. He didn’t have time to be. He never tried to run multiple girls unless one’s leaving the school was imminent and there was an opportunity to groom another. Certainly, he needed reliable relief on his terms which his sickly wheelchair bound and overweight cow of a recluse wife wouldn’t give him. He would have dumped her years ago if her family wasn’t so connected to the bank’s board members; maybe Johann could revisit that when he ruled the council.

  Those opportunities to contact girls were the hard part; they didn’t happen often. Attending joint functions between the Westburg Hunt and Fox Ridge School gave him his best chances. Therefor he purchased a social hunt membership every year to attend formal functions. At these he’d approach shy loaners and wallflowers, give them lots of social attention, and hand over a stack of business cards. Sometimes they called back, and sometimes it was someone who’d his card had been passed on to. In any case, once this interaction started the girl, isolated from parents with unmet needs, could usually be guided into his clutches. Yet, as things were, his stable was currently empty. And that meant relief of his needs was wanting, and distracting from other important plans.

  There was a knock on the office door. Johann walked slowly to the leather desk chair, smoothed his vest, and sat down. A moment later his door opened unbidden, and Larry stuck his head in.

  “We meeting or not?” called Larry.

  “Yes, yes. Come on in,” he waved with his hand without bothering to get up.

  Larry wore a polo shirt and khaki’s, both showing obvious stains which came with too much time at various construction sites. At least his loafers looked reasonably clean, even in contrast to his immaculate floor, although they could do with a little polish. There would be a city council meeting Monday night to discuss the proposal. Johann knew Larry would show up there in a suit and tie, so it disgusted him not to receive the same curtesy as some lowly politicians. And he’d probably show up there on time, too.

  Under Larry’s arm was a large roll of crinkled paper. As the developer approached, Johann could see the site plan also had tattered edges and was smeared here and there with red clay. Larry placed it on the center of Johann’s green leather topped desk, making the banker inhale sharply through clinched teeth. Larry never broke his stride, unrolling the large sheet of paper while Johann’s eyes tracked stray particles of dirt marring the woodwork.

  Larry gestured with a hairy finger, “As you remember, this is the town down here. And this is the northern land track just to the west of the Fox Ridge preserve. The roll of the land is the challenging part. The best golf course option uses this gentle u-shaped trough in the land here. A couple of old farmhouses there will be converted into maintenance offices like we talked about to reduce the capital investment of the new construction so we can do up the clubhouse. The architect thinks we will do well to move that down the slope of this hill in the northeast corner so the summit can be used for the helicopter pad. There will still be a nice view from the dining area.”

  Johann knew the site plan well. After all, he’d been the one to put together the concept. Larry was completely ignorant of that. The town was stagnant and needed some energy. Johann knew, for he had squeezed what blood he could from the stone for his personal coffers. But what he needed, more than money, was power. It wasn’t lack of capital getting in his way of building a real estate empire, but rather the favors of local bureaucrats. Favors he often relied upon his wife’s family connections to remove to realize his investments. But when he controlled the council, he could be rid of her and fill his stable to bursting.

  “Landing Fees seem to be as big of a revenue driver in your business case as Green Fees,” pointed out Johann. This was just to keep Larry off balance. Call it a “dress rehearsal” for the city council meeting. It would likely prove a fierce point of contention but was essential for the right type of customers.

  Larry scrambled to defend the financial analysis
of the project, having no idea Johann had also crunched the numbers, “That’s true. But D.C. is a huge market, with plenty of big commercial and political entities trying to entertain lucrative clients. Clients with more money than time, and no other venue of this caliber as an option. They can helo-shuttle over in twenty minutes, and be putting a ball on the tee within half an hour of leaving the office. With a five-star clubhouse for steak and lobster, and some luxury suites if they wish to stay over and visit their little darlings at the school, I’m confident we will draw patrons on the targeted end of the economic spectrum.”

  “Which means the city council must approve the helicopter pad or your business case falls apart,” pointed out Johann coldly. Make him sweat, just for the hell of it. It was fun to manipulate them when they had no idea who they were working for.

  Larry shrugged, “It will be good for everybody. There will be a lot of construction jobs of course, as there is with any big project. Those are well paying jobs. Then there are the resort operations when the construction is over. Golf course and landscaping maintenance. Servers, chef’s and maids. Staff in the fitness center. Even a bar. And we’ll be happy to stock wine from any local vineyards to ensure our guests can experience Westburg flavor if they desire. Councilman Harper has always been a champion of the working man.

  And consider the synergy with Fox Ridge School. With it easier for parents to visit and have a nice place to stay, enrollment will see a boost. That drives more shopping downtown. I don’t know if you have your eyes open as you drive home, but a lot of shops up and down Main Street could use a lift. It may even revitalize some old multi-family properties like those dilapidated apartments across the street.”

  “The bank is not swayed by your benevolence to the local community, Mr. Turner. I must secure the bank’s investment and that is tied to the council’s policy decisions. How those decisions come to be is of no concern to us.”

  Larry sat back and spread his hands, “If you don’t want the deal, there are plenty of big banks in the district always looking for such an opportunity.”