Doggone Dead (2 page)

We pulled into the animal hospital ten minutes later. Springer Veterinary Clinic had once been a home near Main Street in Pecan Bayou. As the downtown spread out, the building became commercial, and the new owner took out the side yard and turned it into a parking lot. The light blue two-story frame house had a homey feel with its cheery white front porch. There were ferns hanging from the rails that led up to the door. Dr. Springer had thought to leave a small patch of grass on the other side. A little sign that featured a smiling beagle and the words “Be Our Guest” greeted the many canines who visited.

My nephew Danny had been working at the vet’s office as a part of his supported employment program through the Texas Department of Disability Services. Danny’s responsibilities included feeding, walking and playing with the dogs. Thanks to him, we found Butch. He had fallen in love with the puppy, and instead of Aunt Maggie taking him home, it was suggested that we take him for Zach’s birthday. I still felt guilty for putting off the whole puppy thing, but I also wondered if I had jumped too soon. We had only had a dog for a couple of days and were already headed for heartache.

“Betsy!” Danny walked over with a broom in one hand and gave me a big hug with the other. He was only around five-foot-one, and I stood a good five inches above him. He was starting to get a little pear-shaped, probably from too many lunches of cheesy dogs and fritos.

“Did you bring Butch?” he asked.

“Butch is missing,” Zach stated flatly, making me recall Joe Friday from Dragnet.

“What do you mean?” Danny backed up.

“I mean he ran off, and we need to find him,” Zach said, starting to show impatience with his cousin.

“Where did he go?”

“We don’t know, Danny,” I said. “We thought Dr. Springer could help us.”

Danny dropped the broom and started walking around the high counter to the back room. He leaned against one of the shelves filled with bags of dog food and waiting prescriptions. He yelled out, “Dr. Springer! Emergency!”

Zach and I stood there feeling the breeze of the air conditioning all around us, drying the sweat off the backs of our necks.  I heard Dr. Springer excuse herself and come out of a back room.

Dr. Springer stepped out of the back, drying off her hands with a small white terry cloth towel. Her round glasses were down her nose a bit, and her blonde hair touched with grey was pulled back in a businesslike ponytail. She stuck the towel in the pocket of her white coat and stepped forward to shake my hand.

“Hi, Betsy. What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry to bother you, but we were out walking Butch in the park by our house and he pulled out of his collar. He ran off, and now we can’t find him.”

“Oh dear.”

“I was wondering if possibly Butch had one of those chips put into him? Maybe we could track his movements that way.”

Dr. Springer frowned. “Sorry, Betsy, but putting a chip in is a pretty expensive thing for a rescue dog. That’s something that we encourage the new owners to do and to pay for.”

“Man,” sighed Zach as he sat down in a white plastic chair against the wall. He threw his hands up in exasperation slapping them down on his thighs.

“But,” Dr. Springer said,” we have Butch’s picture on file, and we’d be glad to make up a lost dog poster for you.”

“I’ll help put up the posters,” Danny volunteered.

“Not as good as a chip, but I guess that might work, too,” I said, looking back at Zach, who now sat with his chin propped up with his hands.

“Great. I’ll get Allison to print something out for you. Just take a seat and she’ll bring it right out.”

“Thank you,” I said, walking over to take my place by Zach.

“Miss Allison will make you a picture of Butch. You’ll find him. She’s real good at the computer,” Danny said, sitting down next to me.

“I’ll tell you my secret,” he said.

“What’s that?” I asked. His secret could be anything from that fact that he knew all the words to his favorite song to what he was having for lunch.

“I’m in love,” he said.

“You’re in love?” Zach rose from his slouch.

“Yes. I’m in love.”

“With whom?” I dared to ask.

“She has stolen my heart. It is Miss Allison,” he said.

“That’s sweet,” I told him, wondering just what this might do to him if she rejected him. Even though the whole world could see he had Down Syndrome, Danny really didn’t feel any different from anyone else. In our family he wasn’t any different. For him, falling in love with someone without a developmental disability could spell nothing but trouble and heartache. I knew I would have to share this with Aunt Maggie.

Allison Emory, Dr. Springer’s intern, came out from the back room and was pushing a piece of straight brown hair behind her ear. Allison was in her early twenties with low-rise jeans and a dog paw tattoo on her wrist. The tattoo was covered partially by a shimmering pink Hello Kitty wristwatch encircled with pink rhinestones.

“Mrs. Livingston, so sorry to hear about Butch,” she said as she handed me a stack of freshly run-off posters. “Dr. Springer said we could run off twenty-five posters for you. I hope this helps.”

I looked down to see a picture of Butch, sitting on a braided rug, looking up at me. He really was the cutest dog.

“Thank you, Allison. These are great. Can we put one up here?”

“Sure.” She took the top one off the stack.

“Thank you, Miss Allison,” Danny said.

“Danny, I think we’re all finished here for the day. If you would like to go home with your cousin, you can.”

“Okay. We have to look for Butch.”

“I know. Good luck, guys.”

Danny ran to the back and got his lunch bag while I called Aunt Maggie to tell her I was bringing him home. Allison put her hand on Zach’s head and ruffled his hair.

“I hope you find your puppy, bud.”

Zach sighed. “Me too.”

“You never know, life’s full of surprises.”

“Yeah, like your dog running away.”

“With these great posters, that puppy will be back in your arms in no time,” she said as she went back behind the counter to get the phone.

Danny re-entered holding his Batman lunch bag tightly against his chest. “She’s wonderful,” he said.

Five minutes later, as we descended the steps of Springer Veterinary Clinic, we had to step back for a man coming the other direction with a small beagle. The beagle seemed to suddenly become aware of his circumstances and planted his paws on the walkway.

“Excuse me,” he said, looking up at us while simultaneously trying to drag his dog up the stairs. “Sunshine. Let’s go,” he said under his breath, sounding embarrassed at his dog’s lack of cooperation.

“That’s Sunshine. She’s got the worms,” Danny announced to everyone in earshot.

“Ooh,” said Zach, backing away from the dog.

“It’s okay. It’s a dog thing. It won’t hurt you,” the man said, pulling on the green nylon leash. He tugged at the neck of  his shirt collar, sticking to him in the heat.

“You want me to help you get your dog up the stairs?” Zach asked as he got behind the dog’s posterior and gave a slight shove. Sunshine, not happy about the interference, scrambled up the white wooden stairs closer to her owner.

“Thanks,” the man said. “That did it.”

Zach grabbed a poster from my stack.

“Have you seen this dog? We lost our dog.”

The man looked at the poster and then shook his head.

“No, sorry, but if I see him I’ll let Dr. Springer know. Okay?”

“Okay,” Zach said as he plopped the paper into his hands.

“I see you have your number on here too. If I see …” he searched for the name printed on the poster, “… Butch, I’ll call this number right away.”

“Day or night,” Zach said.

“Day or night.” The man raised his eyebrows with a questioning gaze. “Do I know you from somewhere? I feel like we’ve met before. You look so familiar.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere. I don’t know, maybe I’m crazy or confusing you for somebody else. I haven’t lived in Pecan Bayou for very long. Would you know of a good kennel to board Sunshine? Sometimes I go out of town to visit my family in Denver and don’t really want to take her on a plane.”

“Dr. Springer will board her for a weekend. If you need a longer amount of time, we have Bayou Boarding located outside of town.”

“Great.”

“It’s not too far from Bonnet’s Farm.”

“Where’s that exactly?”

“It’s out County Road 18. Go about a mile past the ‘U Pick Em’ sign and you’ll see another sign with a golden retriever on it.”

“Okay, thanks. Have you and your husband ever boarded any dogs out there?”

“She doesn’t have a husband,” Danny said, placing his hand on the man’s sleeve as if breaking the news to him gently. “Her husband is in jail.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m divorced.” I said flatly, hoping to cut off the next series of questions. I had to get off these steps. I cleared my throat. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too. Good luck finding your dog. I’ll be sure to call if I see him.”

“Day or night,” Zach said again, just in case the instructions hadn’t been clear the first time.

“Day or night,” the beagle’s owner repeated.

Zach and I dropped Danny at the home he shared with my Aunt Maggie after putting up pictures of Butch on every telephone pole in town. We settled around the kitchen table, and Maggie started putting out plates for all four of us.

“Aunt Maggie, you don’t have to feed us,” I said.

“Yes, I do. You’ve been through a shock, losing little Butch. A little bit of my fried chicken couldn’t hurt.”

I suppose it couldn’t, and one of her giant fluffy biscuits accompanied by a glass of sweet tea might dull the pain, too.

“Yeah! No frozen dinners tonight!” Zach cheered.

“Zachary, please tell your great aunt that we don’t eat frozen dinners every night.”

“We do, Aunt Maggie. It’s just awful.”

“Zach!”

Aunt Maggie placed her hands gently on Zach’s shoulders as he sat in his place at the table. “I happen to know, young man, your mother knows how to cook – so save your arguments for the judge. Did you call down to the station? Judd can put an APB out on Butch.”

“No, not yet.”

“That must be some kind of record for you. Who’d have thought you could have a crisis without Lieutenant Judd Kelsey on the case?”

“Yeah, I know,” I said, “but he’s seemed a bit preoccupied with work lately. Missing puppies don’t seem all that important.”

“Mom!” Zach whined. “We need to get Grandpa to help. He can find anything.” I thought about the many years it took him to find my now ex-husband.

“Yes, he can, but maybe we can help him out by trying to find Butch ourselves.”

“That’s right,” said Danny between bites of crispy chicken. “We can find Butch. We just got to call him. He’ll come running.”

“We did call him,” Zach answered. “We called and called, and he didn’t come.”

I thought about the little bark in front of the Loper estate. Had it been Butch, or was it the neighbor’s dog? It seemed like the sound had been coming from the wrong direction. That creepy guy in the box was pretty unsettling, too.

“Aunt Maggie, what do you know about the people in Charlie Loper’s old house?”

Aunt Maggie placed a bowl of mashed potatoes on the white lace tablecloth. “Oh, that house. Is that where Butch disappeared?”

“Yep,” Zach said. “He wiggled right under the fence and then the man said he wasn’t there.”

“Really?” Maggie’s eyes widened. “What man?”

“The man in the black box,” Zach answered.

“Let me explain,” I said. “It was a remote speaker at the gate. Whoever it was speaking to us was inside the house. Oh, and get this – it was some British guy. Do you ever remember anybody with that kind of accent around here?” I asked, sinking my teeth into a biscuit.

“Can’t say that I have,” Maggie replied. “The lady who lives there must be quite old by now. She’s the daughter of old cowboy star Charlie Loper.”

“Is that the guy on the horse?” Zach asked, referring to the rider on the bucking horse fountain in the front of the house.

“Yes, that’s the one.” Aunt Maggie sighed. “Oh, he was quite the star in his day. The best shot in the West. That’s what they called him. His golden Colts are down at the Charlie Loper Dead Eye Museum. How long has it been since you’ve been in that old place?” Maggie’s eyes took on a sparkle as she began her version of Charlie Loper’s Texas drawl. “‘Let’s go get those bad guys, Ol’ Bess,’ he would say to his horse, and then he would jump up on it from the back end. It was a regular acrobatic miracle. I can remember going to the show every Saturday to see a double feature, and he was usually in one of the pictures. He had him a little guitar and always sang a song to the cowgirl. It was very romantic.”

“So whatever happened to him?”

“Oh, he died. He had property here and a house in Los Angeles. He spent more time in California than little ol’ Pecan Bayou, but who could blame him?”

“So his daughter is living in that house?”

“Probably. She was the apple of his eye. There used to be pictures of her on little white ponies all duded up in the movie magazines. What was her name?” Aunt Maggie tilted her head to one side as she tried to recall. “Libby! Little Miss Libby Loper! That’s what they’d put in the magazines. Little Miss Libby Loper.”

“Can we go see the white horse?” asked Danny.

“No, baby.  He's long gone by now.  I can’t think of anyone else in the family who would still be alive. Charlie Loper’s wife, Griselda, lived in the house in the ’70s until she died. Didn’t really see much of the daughter in those days. Strange.”

“So who’s the guy?”

“Don’t know.  If there’s any residual income from Charlie Loper’s films, it might be enough to support a person comfortably. I also heard he made a bundle off of some land in California. You know they did a remake of one of his movies about five years ago, and that would have brought in some big checks for her. With that kind of money coming in, he’s either a boyfriend or some sort of help she’s hired.”

“But how can you live in a town the size of Pecan Bayou and never be seen?”

“Makes you wonder,” Aunt Maggie said, “but it sounds like she’s perfected it. Chocolate cake anyone?”