Strange Outfit: An Avery Barks Dog Mystery (Avery Barks Dog Mysteries Book 2) (2 page)

Chevy was napping peacefully, so I left him alone and sat back down at the fire pit.  A lone Sheriff’s deputy pulled in, and I pointed him up the hill with directions to find the guys and the body.  I hoped his back-up would come quickly, it would be dark soon. 

As I watched the officer saunter up the hill, the empty chair sitting next to me moved back. A thin old man appeared and sat down. His face was weathered with time and his long whispery grey hair flowed into a lengthy beard, but he had the most amazing deep brown eyes. 

He held a small mixed breed dog, cradled in his arms like a little baby.  She held her little head up in the air like she was a queen.  Maybe because that is how he treated her, like she was royalty.

“What is her name?” I was curious.

“Princess,” he said in a smooth friendly voice.  “She knows she’s a princess too.”

I laughed and already felt comfortable with him.  “She sure is cute!”

The way his face glowed with joy made me sure that he fully agreed.

“Do you want to meet my dog, Chevy?”  I asked.  “He is just a regular guy but I love him just the same.”

We laughed together this time.

I got up and let Chevy out of the truck.  His soft golden fur bounced in the wind as he immediately ran over to meet his new friends.  Most everyone was a friend in Chevy’s eyes.

The man patted Chevy on the head and said “He sure is friendly. “

“He likes you a lot!”  I wanted to make the old man feel good.

The man slowly bent over and put his little Princess on the ground to let the dogs meet.  Chevy was instantly captivated with her.  Love at first sight.  If this was a cartoon they would have drawn hearts coming out of Chevy’s eyes.  He wouldn’t take his eyes off of her and followed her every move.

“Princess, I think Chevy is smitten with you,” I said.  She gave her approval and licked his ears.

My dog wore his heart on his sleeve and Princess played hard to get. Chevy followed two feet behind her wherever she went.  Ben and I had fun as we watched the big golden retriever react in awe of the twenty-five pound mix.  Princess acted like Chevy was graced to even be in her presence.

The old man had a huge grin on his face. “I think Princess just met someone who loves her as much as I do!”

“I think you’re right.”  There was no question about it.  “Where did you get her beautiful collar?”  The gems reflected what sunlight was left in the sky.

“I had the jewelry guy make it for her.  I couldn’t help myself.  She’s my best friend, so I got her the best necklace.”

“You’re a good Dad.  What’s your name?” I asked my new friend.

“Ben.”

“I’m Avery.”

“I know. I read about you and Chevy in the paper, and told Rocky to bring you over here.”  Ben pulled a newspaper article out of his back pocket.  It was the story that the local paper did when Chevy helped to solve a crime about a week before.

“Well, it sure is nice to meet you and Princess, too.”

So this must be who got me this new job.

Ben asked if I wanted to hold Princess. I knew that should be seen as an absolute honor, and I lifted her up in my arms.  She started licking my face with those cute mini dog licks. Chevy sat on the ground next to me, staring up at her like a love struck teenager.

“Princess never kisses anybody but me!” Ben was ecstatic.  “I knew it!”

“My heart is with the animals and I think they know that.” I told him the truth.

“Then we have the same heart.”  Ben suddenly blurted out, “If anything were to happen to me, would you take care of Princess and Bullfrog?”

Strange. 

“Bullfrog?”

“My other dog,” Ben pointed toward the mobile home.   “He’s an old guy and doesn’t do much anymore.  Eats, sleeps and poops.  He’s a good watch dog though.”

“I’d be honored to take care of them,” I promised.  I knew how it felt to want a back-up plan for pets.

“How did you find this beautiful place, Ben?”

“I traveled all over the southeast states for years and lived in my camper. One day last fall, I took a small plane ride over this area taking photographs and saw this property.  I decided right then and there, that this was the place for me. I bought this piece of land and set up home with my dogs.  I’m going to sift through my box of photos one day and frame those pictures.”

Ben looked up and saw Don and Rocky walking down the hill towards us.  He grabbed my hand and stared at me intently.

“Hear every single thing that I say, but never say the things that you hear.” 

“Okay.” I was getting confused.

Ben squeezed my hand tight and leaned in so close that I thought he might fall out of his chair, “My biggest treasure holds the key to my treasure.” 

He let my hand go, picked up little Princess and cuddled her once again in his arms. Don and Rocky arrived back at the chairs and Princess’ hackles went up.  Ben softly laid his hand over the raised hairs on her back and gave me a quick look, then turned his attention to the guys.

“Is this the little lady and hero dog I read about in the paper?”

Rocky said, “Yes sir it is.  What do you think?”

“I think they’ll do just fine.”  Ben gave me a wink. 

Rocky said, “You’re both hired.  We don’t have a lot of funds yet, but hope you will help out on a part time basis until we get things going.”

“Glad to.”  Any kind of job was welcome at this point.

I said my good-byes to Ben and Princess and headed back toward the truck.  Rocky caught up with me as I walked.  A shock of brown hair fell over his hand as he rubbed his forehead.  “I hope Ben didn’t scare you.  Did he say anything crazy?”

“No, we mostly just played with the dogs.”  I tried not to stare at his ruggedly handsome face or the way his muscular arms were tanned from working outdoors. I turned away and got Chevy and Ace into the back of the truck. 

“Good.  Ben is a little bit out there, but he’s harmless.  Just don’t pay attention to any wild stuff he says.” Rocky gave me a little smile as Don and I jumped into the truck and waved good-bye to Ben.

As we drove out the dirt driveway, Don started chuckling. “You have a crush.”

“No way.” My focus was on training dogs, not on chasing guys.

“I’m a deputy, I know these things.  You have a crush.”  Don stated, as if it was a fact.

Maybe I stared a little too long.

I drove to my new job at the future animal sanctuary early the next day.  I smiled as I watched the morning sun burn off the thin fog as it hovered above the pastures.  Rocky hadn’t arrived yet, so I took the opportunity to look around on my own.  Specifically, I was curious as to what had happened up at the tree stand yesterday.

I hiked with a quick pace back up the hill with Chevy, to let him stretch his legs.  He ran back and forth and smelled everything he could get his nose on.  I did my best to follow the same route we did the previous morning and found the site within about fifteen minutes. 

Nothing looked out of place, so I climbed up the makeshift ladder into the tree stand.  I took a look around and it looked more like a kid’s tree house than a hunting stand.  There was a comfortable chair and a broken footstool.  Scattered across the floor were some flashlights, water bottles, bags of trail mix snacks, a small notebook, and a magazine about bird watching. 

Chevy whined and paced at the bottom of the tree.  I wondered if he was afraid I would fall or if he was jealous that he couldn’t climb into the tree stand with me.  Probably both.

I looked over the edge of the floor.  “It’s Okay, Chevy.”

He pawed at the tree.

I sat back in the chair and looked around.  This tree stand was a bit higher up the tree than the typical hunting stand.  From that height on the top of the hill, I saw a great view of the land below.  I looked down on Ben’s property and two other neighboring properties. 

I chuckled as I watched one of his neighbors from afar.  A big guy gave a tiny lady a piggy back ride across their yard to his big black truck.  After a couple kisses, they climbed in and took off down the road.  I took another minute to take in the beauty of this land and enjoy the cool breeze and the sounds of birds chirping.

Maybe the guy that fell was a bird watcher after all.

I reached for the small notebook and flipped through the pages.  There were some terrible drawings of a few birds.  At least it looked like birds.  It wasn’t the best art I’d ever seen, that’s for sure.  The inside of the front cover was filled with scribbly notes.  It looked like some kind of a poem, but it was tough to read. The handwriting was as bad as the artwork.

“Wwwwwee Wwweee,” Chevy’s whining went into full effect. 

“Okay Chevy, I’m coming down.”

I shoved the notebook in my back pocket and climbed back down the wooden ladder.  When I reached the bottom rung, Chevy acted like I had been gone for two years.  He jumped on me as I sat on the ground beside him. I gave him a big hug and got lots of wet dog kisses in return. I always loved that about Chevy, he was always so happy to see me.

Now that I had climbed back down from the tree and out of harm’s way, Chevy returned to exploration.  I sat and took in the scene, when I realized my dog had disappeared out of sight.  I followed the jingle of his dog tags and found him upside down digging a hole behind some brush, about thirty yards from the tree stand. 

“Chevy, they’ve got enough holes around here, I don’t think they need you to dig them more.”

Chevy kept on with doggy determination.  He dug about eight inches when I heard his toenails scratching on wood.   I brushed aside some of the dirt and revealed the top of a homemade box. I opened the lid, leaving the rest of the box in the hole.  To my surprise, Chevy had dug up somebody’s food cache! 

Just like Chevy to find food.

It was pretty cool. I had never seen a buried food cache before.  This technically would have to be classified as a ‘wanna-be’ cache though, since my dog was able to find it and dig it up.  I knelt down and looked into this little treasure chest.  Most everything was in stored in waterproof containers placed inside the four foot square box.  The construction was solid, made with 2x4’s and treated ply wood.

The bottom of the cache was packed tightly with water containers and dehydrated meals.  There were some folded blue tarps and shelter making materials too. Lying on top were newspapers bunched up in a ball, a pair of powerful binoculars, jerky, a bunch of trail mix, energy drinks and a camera.  I picked up the wad of newspaper and a wallet fell out and onto my lap. 

The picture on the I.D. inside the wallet looked a lot like the fellow who fell out of the tree the day before.  The driver’s license listed his name as Ivan Monitor from the state of Rhode Island. I put the I.D. in my pocket and packed everything back into the cache.  At least the authorities would know who had died.  I closed the lid as best I could and pushed the dirt back on top.

“Chevy, what a good boy you are for breaking into someone’s food stash!  I think you just found the survival food cache of the dead man.”  I gave him a dog cookie as a reward and he munched on it with delight.  Chevy loved praise, no matter the reason.  If I was happy, then he was happy.

As we returned to the bottom of the hill, Ben had his two dogs outside for their morning potty break.  Chevy ran straight up to his new girlfriend, Princess, and licked her on the head.  A big tan and white dog with shaggy hair sat on the grass and quietly watched Chevy’s lovesick antics.

Ben walked over to the old dog and said, “This is Bullfrog, king of the couch.”

I laughed.  Old Ben really had a good sense of humor.

“How old is he?”

“Don’t know for sure, but I’ve had him for thirteen years now, so he’s older than that.”

I sat down on Ben’s front door steps and Bullfrog waddled up slowly to sniff me. 

I held up a dog cookie I pulled from my jeans pocket and asked Ben, “Can I give him a treat?”

“Sure, just don’t give him any soft treats, they make him fart!”

Bullfrog looked up as we laughed.

“I think the treat won him over,” I grinned as he tried to climb on my lap.

Ben marveled, “You are a dog magnet!  How does it feel to have a slobbery sixty-five pounder trying to sit on your lap?”

I remembered how the wallet from the hidden box fell into my lap, “Hey Ben, I found a food cache up on the hill.” 

I figured that by now he knew about the body found up there yesterday.  He frowned and stepped up the stairs past me into the mobile home.

A couple minutes later, Ben emerged with one of those stealth cameras that strap onto a tree trunk.  They are motion sensitive and sometimes hunters set them out to take pictures of animals as they walk by an area, day or night.  But I knew Ben wasn’t the hunting type. He asked me to hang the motion camera and aim it toward the food cache. 

“What time is it?” Ben asked.

“About eight o’clock.”