Lost Dog (A Gideon and Sirius Novel Book 3) (5 page)

Speaking in a calm, happy tone, I said to Seth, “You can see by her pads they’re almost worn away. There’s a lot of cracking and bleeding on them. She’s traveled a long way and gotten a few wounds along the way. I’m not sure if those coyotes took a few bites out of her, or whether it was dog versus car, with the car winning.

“She’s not wearing a collar. My idea is to drape the blanket over her body. If I can get her comfortable, I’ll try and lift her into the wagon. I’m going to take it slow, reading her body language every step of the way.”

“What do you want me to do?” Seth asked.

“As wobbly as she is, she still might think about making a run for it. I want you standing between her and the open road. I also want you monitoring her and looking for the same things that I am. I’ll be listening to the seriousness of her growling and watching for any sign of her hackles rising. You see how she’s looking at me? That’s a good thing. If she begins averting her gaze, that could signal trouble. One of the big telltale signs in a spooked dog is whale eyes. That’s where you see the whites of a dog’s eyes in the corners and rims. Dogs bite when they feel threatened. Of course I’m going to do my best to present my padded arm as the only potential target.”

“Is your Last Will and Testament in order?”

“I’m more worried about the possibility of needing to order my own set of neuticles.”

“You’re lucky dogs pick up on tone and vibes more than what’s being said,” said Seth, referring to how we’d been doing all of our talking in overly polite tones. “You sound as slick as a used-car salesman.”

“Thanks so much for that comparison,” I said.

“Unctuous becomes you.”

“Fuck you very much,” I said, sounding like I was offering him the greatest of compliments.

I offered another treat to Sirius and his friend. As they were eating, I gently spread the blanket over her body.

“So far so good. Now’s the tough part.”

I talked to the dog all the while I repositioned myself: “That’s a good girl. You’re a very good girl. Does that blanket feel nice?”

When I squatted down next to her, Sirius came over to my side. Most of the time when I get down low, he thinks we’re playing a game. He wagged his tail while I worked my hands through his mane. His friend was watching us. I felt emboldened enough to reach a tentative hand out to her. She sniffed my hand for a few seconds and seemed to be reassured by whatever she smelled.

“That’s a good girl,” I said, gently stroking her.

I wanted her to get used to my touch. At first she didn’t feel or look relaxed, but she didn’t growl, raise her hackles, or offer up whale eyes.

“That’s right,” I said. “You’re doing so well. You’re a good girl.”

I continued with the platitudes, and the petting, until her posture grew less rigid. Sirius helped the effort by doing his version of a licking massage.

“It’s showtime,” I said to Seth. “I’m going to lift her now.”

I put a padded glove on my hand and then draped my arm with the bite sleeve around her midsection. She growled, and I said in my most soothing voice, “It’s all right.”

Her growls grew increasingly louder as I lifted her up. The cart was only two steps away. Over her growls, Sirius and I both spoke; he offered encouraging sounds while I said, “That’s a good girl.” I think she was more swayed by Sirius’s reassurances than mine. With great care I deposited her into the wagon. I took a step back and let out half a minute’s worth of pent-up air.

“I think you’ve earned yourself a drink,” said Seth.

“Just so long as it’s not the hair of the dog that bit me.”

CHAPTER 5

LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE

After converting the laundry room into what felt like a miniature M*A*S*H unit, we began working on the patient. Sirius played the role of mother hen. It quickly became apparent I wasn’t the best Florence Nightingale. My shaman friend proved a much better nurse, and he was the one who applied the Betadine solution to the dog’s wounds, as well as the Neosporin to her paw pads.

“Dogs sweat from their paw pads,” I said, offering up a tidbit of information learned during my time with Metropolitan K-9, but really just pretending to be useful while Seth did his careful work. “I’m thinking we should leave the pads exposed.”

“Normally I’d opt for booties to stop her from licking at the Neosporin,” he said, “but I think she’s at her limit now, and I don’t want to push her any further than we already have.”

He stepped back from his work and gestured to his patient. “What do you think?”

The question wasn’t directed to me, but to Sirius, who’d been at his side assisting the entire time. Sirius began sniffing at the shaman’s handiwork.

“Maybe it’s the patient you should be asking,” I said. “What kind of job did he do, Little Orphan Annie?”

The dog surprised me by turning her head toward me. She was responding to some cue, some familiar word. I thought about what I might have said and ventured a guess.

“Does that feel better,
Annie
?” I asked, emphasizing the name.

If I hadn’t been looking, I wouldn’t have seen the small movement of her tail.

“I think our patient’s name is
Annie
,” I told Seth.

Once more there was an almost imperceptible movement of her tail.

“Good girl,
Annie
,” said Seth.

Annie wasn’t the only one exhibiting approval. Sirius finished with his examination of Seth’s work and began wagging his tail.

“You approve, Dr. Sirius?” asked Seth.

“Wasn’t it you who lectured me about the perils of giving Sirius human titles?”

“It’s not like I’m claiming Sirius is a board-certified surgeon. His doctorate is honorary.”

“What in?”

“Canine Studies, with a minor in Interspecies Relationships with Difficult Humans.”

“Really?”

“The important word is ‘honorary.’”

“His degree should be in Thinkology.”

“What is Thinkology?”

“That’s what was written on the diploma Ray Bolger received in
The Wizard of Oz
.”

“Fine, Sirius’s
honorary
degree is in Thinkology.”

“On second thought, I don’t think his degree should be in Thinkology.”

“Why not?”

“Because after the Scarecrow was given his diploma, he immediately demonstrated flawed thinking by citing the Pythagorean Theorem and stating, ‘The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side.’”

“And what’s wrong with that?”

“Pythagoras really said that the square of the hypotenuse, which is the side opposite the right angle, is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.”

“I am impressed by your knowledge of mathematics.”

“Don’t be. I memorized the facts in order to support the movie trivia.”

While the two of us had been discussing Dr. Sirius’s credentials, the good doctor had taken it upon himself to sidle in next to Annie. She seemed a lot more comforted by his contact than she had been by our doctoring.

Both dogs settled into the blankets that had been laid down on the floor. I filled up a water bowl, and next to it placed a bowl of kibble. The dogs already looked as if they were asleep.

“I think his honorary degree should be in comforting,” said Seth.

I nodded. “A few years ago I saw this video on YouTube where this dog went to try and help another dog that had been hit by a car. It was a busy highway with lots of traffic. But that didn’t stop our four-legged hero. He managed to get to the dog that had been hit and began dragging him to the side of the road. You can’t teach that kind of behavior. I know it’s what Sirius would have done, and I’m pretty sure I’m not being anthropomorphic. He always wants to help those in need. It’s part of him.”

“What happened to the dog hit by the car?”

I shook my head. “He was already dead. All those cars kept speeding by his body.”

“What about the rescue dog?”

“It was believed to be homeless. Lots of people wanted to adopt that brave dog, but it couldn’t be found.”

I turned out the laundry-room light, but not before saying, “Good night, Sirius, good night, Annie.”

Seth and I settled in the living room, where I played host. We both decided on the need for caffeine, and I made each of us a Kahlúa and coffee.

“To being up with the owls,” was Seth’s toast.

We clicked coffee mugs. “Owl you need is love,” I added.

Midswallow, Seth’s expression soured. “That answers that question.”

“What question was that?”

“Whether you make bad puns while you sleep.”

I wasn’t quite asleep, but I was comfortable. The coffee and alcohol and sugar and late hour somehow combined for a calming effect, and both of us sipped contentedly.

“So what are you going to do with Annie?” he asked.

“I’ll see if anyone is looking for their lost dog, even if I’m not hopeful of finding the owner. I always think it’s a bad sign when I see a dog not wearing a collar. At best it speaks to an irresponsible owner.”

“It’s possible she just lost her collar. That could have happened during her journey. It’s clear she’s traveled a long way. Something was pushing her to keep going.”

“Male dogs, especially unneutered male dogs, have the reputation of wandering much more than females.”

“So what was driving our Little Orphan Annie?”

I did a Winston Churchill bulldog face and said, “She’s a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”

“I thought you were supposed to be the dog whisperer,” said Seth.

“Tomorrow morning I’m taking her to the real dog whisperer, which is Sirius’s vet. I’ll see what she can tell me about Annie. Afterward I’ll do my Sherlock Bones thing and see if I can track down her owners. I hope to hell she wasn’t abandoned. On the asshole scale, people who abandon their dogs are right up there near the top.”

“One day I should write a paper on Michael Gideon’s Asshole Scale and determine if there is a correlation with Dante’s Circles of Hell.”

“The world could only benefit from such a study. But of course Dante had it much easier than I did. Back when he was writing, there were a relatively small number of people in hell. While he was dealing with millions, I’m working with billions.”

“But not everyone is an asshole, correct?”

“That’s true. Maybe we need to explore a formula that you could expand upon in your paper, something like AH equals some constant percentage of the population.”

“I’d need more specific parameters for your AH scale. For example, I’ve heard you refer to some individuals as major-league assholes, whereas others have been categorized as buttholes, anuses, anal orifices, dinguses, and the like.”

“It’s a sliding scale,” I admitted, “but at the top are pedophiles and those who physically abuse, as well as those who abandon their animals. Those would be the major-league assholes.”

It was a ridiculous conversation, of course, but it was the middle of the night and the two of us were both punch drunk. We were good friends making silly conversation, as only good friends can do.

“Can I get you a refill?”

Seth contemplated his empty glass and said, “How about half a drink?”

“That sounds about right to me.”

I went and poured us half a drink each. When I handed Seth his libation, he raised his mug and said, “To Aristotle, who said the antidote to fifty enemies was one friend.”

It was the middle of the night, and we were toasting a philosopher who’d been dead for more than two thousand years. Somehow it all made sense.

CHAPTER 6

ALONE IN THE DARKNESS

Heather awakened with a splitting headache. Her mouth felt gummy and dry, and her throat was sore. She was dehydrated, and in her fog she found herself reaching over to where she expected to find her water glass. Every night she placed it on the nightstand next to her bed. It wasn’t there, though. That was strange. She always kept her water glass handy. And what were those clanking sounds accompanying the movements of her arm?

She opened her eyes. Even though it was dark, she could see that she wasn’t in her room. She could also see the reason for the clanking noises. Her arms and legs were chained to the wall.

Her sharp intake of breath gave her the moment’s reprieve needed to not start screaming. As she fought off panic, she tried to remember what had happened to her. She recalled how Angie had alerted her to the presence of an intruder, and how she’d barely gotten Angie out the window when her door crashed open. The home invasion had occurred on the heels of Emilio’s threat to make her “pay.”

Heather remembered thrashing around on the floor. One moment she’d been in her bed, and the next she was convulsing. She’d been on the wrong end of a Taser, or stun gun, or something that made her flop around out of control. The attack had left her helpless and incapacitated; she hadn’t even been able to scream. She had some slight recollection of a foul-smelling rag being forced up against her nose and mouth. Probably chloroform or ether—wasn’t that what kidnappers always used? Whatever it was, she’d blacked out without even being able to say a word.

How long had she been out of it? The memory of nightmares kept intruding into her thoughts. Or were they nightmares? She had this bad feeling about what had gone on, even if specifics eluded her. She seemed to remember having awakened a few times, but only for a matter of seconds. Her grogginess, and her thirst, made her suspect she’d been drugged multiple times during her captivity.

She took stock of her surroundings. The chains weren’t the only things holding her. She was confined to the inside of a small jail cell. The cell had been built into a square room with thick concrete walls. It looked like a bunker of some kind, with ceilings that appeared to have been lined with acoustical soundproofing panels.

She tested out the soundproofing of the room by screaming, “Help! Help!”

Her plea was swallowed up. Heather took in as much air as she could so as to give it her all: “Help!”

She tried to shake the walls and did her best to make her voice a trumpet, but the soundproofing and the concrete muted her cries. The room gave up only the slightest echo; it was as if the cavern had absorbed her scream and spat back a disdainful whisper.

Heather began shaking her chains. Forgotten was her promise not to panic. She fought her iron bonds with all her strength, but succeeded only in slicing her skin. Her screams started up again, but there was a difference this time. She wasn’t testing the acoustics. She was voicing her terror.