Big Three-Thriller Bundle Box Collection (74 page)

Wichita, Kansa
s
, is a thriving oasis of commerce and technology located in the middle of the golden wheat fields and fertile plains of America’s breadbasket. More than 300,000 people of every nationality and origin call the city home and flourish there. Known affectionately as “River City” by its citizens, it is the “Air Capital” to the rest of the world. Many of the premier influences in aviation history began in this town: pioneers such as Cessna, Beech, Stearman and Lear. It still hosts Boeing, Raytheon, Cessna, and Bombardier-Learjet and leads the world in the production of private aircraft.

In contrast, Wichita is no less proud of its “Old West” reputation for being a hub for rugged cowboys and gunslingers and is especially proud of its Native American heritage.

On a Friday morning, late in August, this letter appeared in the editorial section of the
Wichita Post
newspaper:

Dear Editor,

I am amazed at the outcry of so many Wichita citizens concerned with the recent pit-bull attacks. Their ignorance is unimaginable. Pit bulls are not the problem in this city. It is those few pit-bull owners who have trained their dogs to be potential problems. Now, it seems that it is not only pit pulls that some groups are against but all dogs in general. It is my opinion, from experience, that few dogs are naturally bad or vicious. It takes abuse and unnecessary attack training to exacerbate a dog’s pre-domesticated, natural aggression and make the dog dangerous. It’s those people who teach these dogs to be harmful that should be put away, banned from our city.

For more than fifteen thousand years, man and dog have cohabited. Dogs have been trained to be our companions, our best friends, and they have done a very good job of it. They have helped to provide for our families, protected us, saved our lives, and some even have died defending us, their masters. Let’s not blame the dog for the evil that is in man.

Tony Parker, Animal Control Director Sedgwick County

CHAPTER 1

R
inging. . . .

The morning sunlight blasted through a big picture window, looking out onto a freshly cut, but browning, front yard. Inside, the living-room furniture was modern but not the least bit extravagant. Near the window, the blaring television was tuned to the usual
Tom and Jerry
show, and from another room, an infant screamed as loudly as its sixteen-month-old lungs would allow. A typical Friday morning.

Just as a bulldog bit Tom in the cartoon, the phone rang for the second time, and six-year-old Nicholas Parker raced into the room. He dropped to his knees and crawled behind a chair in a nearby corner. There he sat, motionless—waiting. Motionless except for his heaving chest and flaring nostrils, as he tried to quiet his oxygen-starved lungs. Grape juice from this morning’s breakfast stained his otherwise bright white T-shirt. His blue jeans, just bought t
he week before at the local Walmart, already showed torturous wear on the knees.

Ringing. . . .

With his bare feet tucked under his buttocks, he hunched over. A huge flurry of white and brown St. Bernard charged into the doorway and stopped and stood as a statue. The boy checked his breathing, and his lungs held tight to the last breath, capturing every molecule of oxygen. A drop of sweat rolled from underneath the boy’s blond hair, overhanging his forehead. It trickled down to his brow, paused there for a moment and then seeped into his wide-open left eye. It burned. The youngster winced and blinked to wash out the salt.

Ringing. . . .

The massive dog stomped farther into the room, its keen ears perked, ready to detect even the slightest disturbance. The Saint’s large paws jolted its frame with every lumbering step, and its hide shifted loosely on its body like a large furry parka several sizes too big. The huge animal stopped sideways to the chair, close enough for the boy to reach out and touch it. It lifted its large head and sniffed the air. Its sensitive nose seemed to tell it the human child had been there recently and probably was still. It moved its head around the room, sniffing, searching for any sign, any movement, any part of the boy.

The phone rang for the fifth time. Nicholas Parker’s eyes shifted around the temporary refuge. His lungs pleaded for air. He had to breathe, his body insisted on it. He knew when he did the predator would hear him, yet he had to. He released the air in his lungs slowly from his bottom lip. His hot breath warmed his upper lip but cooled the sweat-covered skin above it. No sound came out, yet the dog snapped its head with ear cocked in reaction. Perhaps it’d heard it. Perhaps it’d smelled the boy’s breath, saturated with grape juice.

“Raptor! Help, raptor attack!” the boy yelled frantically, gasping for air.

He shoved the chair out of the way with his forearm and scampered out from behind it, opposite the dog.

Running across the sofa, he leaped between the sofa back and a lamp on a stand beside it. The St. Bernard bolted across the room, barking in the excitement of the chase. It also bounded onto the sofa and brushed by the lamp, knocking it to the floor with a shattering crash.

*-*-*

“All right, you two, no more late night horror shows for you,” Tony Parker said sternly.

He walked through the living room doorway from the kitchen with a newspaper in his hand. After yanking the cord from the wall outlet, he picked the broken lamp up from the floor and wondered if there might still be enough Super Glue left in the kitchen drawer to fix the thing for a third time.

He set the lamp on a nearby chair then reached to the end table and picked up the phone. His wavy, dark-brown hair and tanned skin contrasted with the white T-shirt he also wore, minus the grape juice. His broad shoulders and muscular biceps stretched the tight knit fabric, and it hung loosely only at the waist, although, a bit of a paunch showed around his middle.

“Hello, hello—? I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. Can you hold on just a minute?”

Parker tucked the newspaper under his arm and cupped one hand over the phone.

“Honey, can you do something about all this noise? I’m on the phone!” he yelled out, hoping his wife Julie would come to his rescue.

With no answer, he quickly set the phone and paper down and took the matter into his own hands as the two primary offenders ran by. He snatched up his son and swung him gently to his knees. Grabbing the collar of the St. Bernard at full locomotion proved a much more difficult task, but he managed with a strained grunt.

“That’s enough, Nick! Settle down, I’m on the phone!”

Nicholas glanced up solemnly, head bowed. The dog mimicked him with a similar, but much sadder, look. Parker released the two culprits and scanned the room for the TV remote. As usual, it was nowhere in sight. He picked up the phone, put a finger in one ear and raised the receiver to the other.

“Come on, Yankee,” Nicholas yelled, escaping through the doorway with the dog close behind. “Now, you can be
Alien
!”

“I’m sorry, go ahead.” Parker shook his head.

“Yeah, Mr. Parker?”

“Hi Chin.” Parker recognized the voice
of Tommy Chin, a twenty-five-year-old Vietnamese immigrant and his second in command. “Excuse the noise. What’s up?”

“We just received a call from a woman out in Sand Creek. Skunk. I thought you might want to go since it’s closest to your end of town,” Chin said.

“Yeah sure, I’ll run out there first. I was just getting ready to hit the door. Got a name?”

“The caller is a Mrs. Bumfield, second house, south end of town.”

“Since there’re only about a dozen houses in that entire town, she shouldn’t be hard to find. I’ll take care of it and be in soon.” Parker hung up.

“Julie! Jooolee!” he called, looking up the stairs to the second floor bedrooms.

He turned to check the kitchen and bumped into her, the baby in her arms. Julie’s beauty showed through her lightly wrinkled face, distressed dishwater-blonde hair, and food-splattered blouse. Laugh lines accentuated her polished-brown eyes.

“Whoa, I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’ve got to go,” he said with his hands on her arms. “Hey, my letter to the editor made this morning’s paper.”

Julie’s eyes rolled. “Oh boy, are you ready for the flak?”

“I wouldn’t have sent it in if I wasn’t.”

“By the way,” Julie said in a reprimanding tone, “you left the seat up on the toilet again this morning.”

Parker chuckled. “Uh-oh, was the water cold? You didn’t get stuck, did you?”

Julie frowned. “It’s not funny, Tony Parker. I’ll get even someday.”

“Oooh, I’m shakin’.” He kissed little Audrey on her baby food-smeared face and then his unprepared wife on the lips with a smack. “Mmm, bananas, my favorite.”

Parker broke away and scooped up his truck keys along with a seldom-used pager from the kitchen counter. He hated pagers. To him, being tied down with telephones and radios was bad enough. After stepping into the adjoining laundry room, he picked a black name badge off a shelf over the dryer and then grabbed a freshly ironed, light blue uniform shirt from a hanger on a closet rod to the side. He put the shirt on quickly and pinned on the badge as he passed Julie and headed for the front door. The badge read
T. PARKER
in big white letters.

“You oughta be shaking,” Julie scolded as he walked by. She kicked him in the butt softly. “Now get out of here.”

“Tell Nick ‘bye for me, will you?” he said, walking by the stairs.

“
Graaa!
I’m going to eat you!” Nicholas yelled, jumping onto his father’s back, his arms wrapping around his neck.

“Why, you little booger.” Parker pulled his son around to his chest. “Where’d you come from?”

“I’m not a booger. I’m a
ill-a-jitmut alien
,” Nicholas exclaimed, “and I’m going to eat you!”

“Not if I eat you first!” Parker snarled back. He put his lips on his son’s neck and blew, making a loud, flatulent sound.

Nicholas erupted in ecstatic giggles.

“Besides, I think you mean an
illegal
alien, and they don’t eat people, you poor confused child.”

“Yeah, but
ill-a-jitmut
aliens do!”

“We’ll have to discuss this later. I’ve got to go, you vicious alien.” Parker flipped his son upside down and then set him gently on his feet. “I’ll finish eating you tonight.”

“Okay, Daddy,” Nicholas said cheerfully. “Then we can play a game. I know,
Dweebs, Geeks, and Weird-oooos!
”

“I can’t wait.” Tony looked at Julie with a reluctant smile.

Julie returned an understanding grin. “Have a good day—and be careful, darling. Oh, and remind everyone at work about our anniversary picnic on Sunday. Find out how many might show up.”

Tony gave her his most charming smile, pursed his lips and then ducked out the door. He hustled out to the white, four-wheel-drive GMC Jimmy truck with a big
Sedgwick County Animal Control
sign on the side, and he drove off.

*-*-*

Julie Parker carried Audrey up the stairs to the master bathroom. She set her daughter on a fluffy, sky-blue bath mat and began drawing water in the tub.

“Time for your bath, young lady.” She started pulling the little girl’s pajamas off. Audrey gurgled a happy reply.

Julie’s mind drifted back to the many trying times she and Tony had seen. Things would be better soon. They had to be. They’d been through so much. Now their luck would change. They finally had control of their lives, and they seemed headed in the right direction.

Tony and Julie had been sweethearts since high school, with a long, four-year intermission when he joined the Marines. They’d decided a commitment during that time wouldn’t be fair to either of them. When he came home, they realized they had been miserable the whole time, and they married two years later. Nicholas came along just after Tony finished college and was working for Sedgwick County as an animal control officer. Julie was teaching third grade at a local public school. When Nick was not quite a year old, Tony went back to school at Kansas State, a hundred and forty miles away, to get his doctor’s degree in veterinary medicine. It was a three-year, post-graduate program, and he could only come home on the weekends. It had been tough on both of them, but they hoped the sacrifice would be worthwhile someday.

Then, just two years ago, Julie found out she was pregnant, and there were complications. Tony quit school to be with the family and was fortunate enough to hook the Sedgwick County Animal Control Director’s job. He only had a year left of vet school, but they hoped he’d be able to go back within a couple of years.

They had spent many sleepless nights watching over little, three
-pound Audrey, struggling for life in the terrible contraption that confined her. Julie remembered the many tears they’d shed. A clear-plastic-covered incubator seemed an awful place for an innocent, fragile baby girl.

Having a
preemie
, teetering on the edge of life and death, had been a terrible, anxious time. Not having adequate insurance to cover the huge medical expenses only added to the stress. Now, at sixteen months, Audrey grew strong and healthy and had been out of the hospital for nearly a year, but her parents were still overly protective. A sniffle, a cough, a slight fever, and they rushed to the emergency room in a race for life.

Tony landing the Director’s job was the one lucky break they’d had for some time. Being the chief dogcatcher wasn’t a terribly dangerous job. He’d been bitten a couple of times: once, by an overexcited Chihuahua, and another time by a frightened Siamese cat. Nothing even close to life threatening had happened, but still, Julie worried.