The Underdogs (27 page)

Only Celia and Patrick were treading on eggshells for now: that secret confrontation behind Court 5 had been about the things he'd written to Annabel, and Celia was still wary of him, but I knew they'd reconcile. They'd been close for too long to let this destroy them.

I'd lost a couple of pints of blood and my liver had been grazed by the bullet, but both parts of my body could regenerate, and so one day, out of nowhere, I came out of my coma. I'm wicked lucky, too—I only had a 50-50 prognosis of survival, according to my mom. Evie, of course, was there when I came to. As my blurry eyes began to focus, I saw her smiling at me and, even with a giant bandage wrapped around my midsection and dripping with tubes and IVs, I managed a few gentle half wags in greeting:
thwap, thwap, thwap
against the blanket.

Evie gently stroked my head and told me she loved me, and I wagged my tail some more. “What took you so long?” she asked, and if I could've shrugged, I would've. It takes as long as it takes, as my mom likes to say.

Vis-à-vis the whole murder mystery, it wasn't until later that I got the full story as my mom relayed it to Evie. It was pretty crazy stuff. For starters, Ashlock was a total hero. It turned out that during Nicky's gun-waving semi-confession, Ashlock had begun to suspect the boy might be ready to die—and take us with him. After I'd passed out, he'd baited Nicky with taunts about Annabel in order to trick him into aiming at the detective instead of Evie. Nicholas
had
shot at Ashlock—but the bullet only grazed his shoulder and then hit the fence, and that turned out to be Nicky's last bullet. Ashlock jumped him, saving pretty much everyone's life, including Evie's.

Evie also informed me the dog charm necklace had Nicky's fingerprints and DNA on it, along with blood they think got there when he cut himself ripping it from Annabel's neck. Ashlock had already started suspecting Nicholas, but had had to dig deeper. He found an old police report about the Harpers calling the cops ten years ago, when Nicholas had gone crazy and was holding his sister hostage in her room with his dad's shotgun. He was only seven at the time. The siege had gone on for hours, with their dad, Herbert, assuring police he could talk Nicky down, that nothing would happen to Annabel. In the end, their mom had coaxed Nicholas out. The cops had been persuaded to hush up the whole affair because they were only kids
. But why would Nicky do that?
Evie had wondered.
Those two were so close.

Exactly,
Ashlock had told her. We spent so much time wondering who hated Annabel when all along we should've looked at who loved her most. What he couldn't legally tell Evie and my mom about Nicky's mental health, they found out on their own through the St. Claire grapevine: Nicholas had gone straight into therapy and was diagnosed with an anger-related explosive disorder after that childhood siege. Basically, he'd get extremely mad sometimes, and when he did, he couldn't stop himself from losing it. I guess the therapy hadn't worked. Ashlock said Nicholas, at seventeen, was considered an adult in Massachusetts, and that he'd almost certainly sit in prison for many years for killing his sister, even if he ended up making a deal to avoid a trial. He was currently locked up while the lawyers sorted through the tragic case.

When Evie told me how everything had ended, I thought about Annabel and Nicholas, so beautiful and kind and happy, splashing around at the pool like they didn't have a care in the world, their whole lives ahead of them. Now I hoped Annabel, at least, was sunning herself in heaven.

 

After

With the mystery solved, there was only one more chapter to close. My favorite people came to see how it ended, and sat with my mom and me in front of the TV in the club's lobby on a crisp fall day.

My mom shushed everyone when we saw the big
5 Live
logo splash across the screen. She and Evie were sitting on the floor on either side of me, and Detective Ashlock was sitting to my right on the blue foam love seat Evie and I often occupied in the summers, a fittingly somber look on his face. The news guy introduced my story, which they'd told my mom would be a feature tied to today's big news. Beth hadn't given
5 Live
an interview, but she'd chimed in with some helpful facts and had given them a couple of photos of me. I thought the guy had a nice enough voice. And thank God for it, because it wasn't the easiest news in the world to deliver. I'll try to relay it exactly as it happened:

Meet Chelsea.
(A picture of me. Not my favorite photo, because you can see some food stuck in my whiskers if you look really close, but I'm smiling and lying on the pool lawn, so at least it's not the worst angle.)

Will there be justice for this heroic local rescue dog? We're live as a judge prepares to render his decision any minute in a Nashville court, where a Massachusetts man is due to be sentenced today in the horrific abuse of more than a dozen dogs
(footage of an old Southern courthouse with lots of random people milling about).

Who could forget the case that rocked the Boston area and the upscale suburb of St. Claire
(footage of the fanciest street in St. Claire, lined with mansions and majestic red elms)
three years ago, where this tragic canine was found emaciated, dehydrated, and stumbling as she picked through the garbage at the home of a local family?

Chelsea miraculously managed to escape her abusers and limped for miles through woods and streams
(cheesy reenactment of a hazy beige blob that was supposed to be an injured golden retriever–pit bull mix, I guess)
and found the neighbors' house.

Yep, that was pretty accurate. I'd waited day after day after day, week after week, month after month, for my owners to be so drunk they would forget each of the following steps: chain me up, lock the cage door,
and
secure the padlock to the musty, ramshackle shed where I was kept. Finally, one day, they were so drunk on bourbon that they forgot the first two steps, and sloppily screwed up the third. I'd nosed the cage door open, and then the shed door, and inhaled the fresh air. But freedom, too, was scary; I didn't know where I was or where I could go, and I didn't know at the time that their land backed up against one of St. Claire's largest expanses of conservation land. I could see the dark shapes of endless hills lit up only by the moon. So I'd hobbled along, rocks and twigs digging into my paws like a million little daggers. I caught the scent of barbecued chicken, and I followed the smoky aroma, only to find, after what seemed like hours of walking, that the barbecue had been the night before. There was no food and no people, just a cold grill coated with remnants of charred meat.

News guy:
Joan and Ralph Lee couldn't believe their eyes when they saw the desperate animal nosing through their garbage.

(Cue footage of Ralph and Joan's interview.)
The sound woke me up. I thought it was raccoons in the trash, so I had Ralph get the broom out to shoo them away. Then I saw this poor creature. It was horrific
(said Joan).
I gave her some cold cuts and water and called 911 right away.

Ralph:
I'm not even a dog person, and seeing her licking an old yogurt container, with her bloody ears and the fur under her eyes stained with tears, well, let me tell you—I cried a few tears myself. I'm not ashamed to admit it. She cowered so low when I came out with that broom, it broke my heart.

It's true, Ralph and Joan had both cried for me, but they couldn't cuddle me because it hurt too much and I yelped when they tried. But let me tell you, that bowl of chopped-up bologna, turkey, and rice they gave me was the best meal I'd ever had—to this day. I got a little sick after, but compared to what I'd been eating, it was a small price to pay. Then again, maybe it wasn't the cold cuts after all that made me so sick.

News guy:
Chelsea
(that photo of me again)
had broken teeth from gnawing at her restraints over two years, a flea infestation so brutal she'd lost her hair in large patches, and infections in both eyes. Worse still, vets had to pump her stomach after animal control realized she had an obstruction. They found paint chips, bits of carpeting, and splinters of wood, the only items she could find to stave off hunger during her captivity.

(News guy is back, in front of some woods.)
But where did Chelsea come from? When she was first found, she was officially labeled a stray. Publicly, police said the investigation remained open and that they had no solid leads—and no one would admit to owning her. This peaceful suburb is one of the safest in the state, and residents were horrified something like this could happen in their town. St. Claire detective Ted Ashlock began looking at the case again this summer
(everyone looked over at him, and I smiled and wagged, and he patted me on the head)
after hearing about the Nashville case and doing some digging based on what he calls “a gut feeling.”

Detective Ashlock, who joined the St. Claire force several months after Chelsea was found and wasn't involved in her initial investigation, recently spoke to
5 Live
.

(Cue Ashlock's voice over a scratchy telephone.)

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up when I saw the Nashville case. I went back to our archive and found the records—and learned police had searched a property in St. Claire when it happened, and were 99 percent sure they had their man. But they couldn't definitively tie Chelsea to the property or the abusers.

News guy:
Authorities now say she was held in a tiny cage too small for her to stand up in on a twenty-acre spread, where she was strung up, beaten, starved, and caged for two years by this man, former St. Claire resident Max Marbury
(footage of stocky, ruddy-faced Max Marbury walking toward the courthouse with a smirk on his face).

See, that was the kicker: Max Marbury, Joe Marbury's thirty-year-old son, did this. When my mom gathered the courage to read the report Ashlock had slipped her, we finally knew who did it—and I knew then why hot tub lover Joe Marbury had always provoked a feeling of doom in me that I could never entirely explain. I could smell Max on him; I could catch the scent of the son's DNA coming off the father.

News guy:
Marbury lived with his wife, Miranda, on a twenty-acre parcel of land owned by his father in St. Claire, before moving to Nashville two years ago. Sources tell
5 Live
that his powerful father, home-building mogul Joe Marbury, allegedly used his influence to quash the case, leaving Max Marbury to go unpunished—and to strike again. He won't be tried for anything he allegedly did to Chelsea, who was quickly adopted by St. Claire resident Beth Jestin
(photo of my mom, looking stunning)
.

Instead, Max Marbury will be sentenced today for his role in a dog-fighting ring in suburban Nashville. Marbury, thirty, pleaded guilty to twelve counts of animal cruelty, among other charges, to spare the state the cost of a trial and in return receive a reduced sentence.

(News guy is now live in front of the courthouse.)
So we await the final sentence, which could be as many as twenty years behind bars or as little as six months. Whatever the punishment is, it will have to be enough for this dog, who, as
5 Live
viewers will well remember, saved the life of twelve-year-old Evie Clement last month but will never get justice for her own trauma
. (Ah, finally, a beautiful photo. This one was taken after the Boston paper did a story on me and Evie, for which they sent a professional photographer. Evie is kneeling on the lawn in the pool area, hugging me as I sit on my haunches next to her, those spectacular summer flowers in the background. My eyes are closed as I shower Evie with kisses, my ears relaxed and flopping back on my head. Evie is grinning and hugging me, and the moment that photographer captured was as close to bliss as I can imagine.)

“Oh my God, shush,” my mom yelled to the already quiet crowd, taking a massive breath so as not to cry. Evie was already crying, but she was smiling, too, as she looked at me and stroked my fur. “The sentence is in.”

We now bring you breaking news. Max Marbury,
the announcer said, genuinely choking up,
will go to jail. And
(crinkles some paper, then his nose),
wow. I can reveal that Max and Miranda Marbury will each go to prison for fifteen years!

That was much more than we'd been expecting, and it was great news, because now they couldn't hurt anyone else for a long time. No one whooped, but somehow I thought we could all feel one another's inner whooping. Evie said to me, “No one will ever hurt you again, Chelsea. I promise.”

All I felt was love.

So there you have it—my whole story. As we say in my pack,
Dogspeed, my friend.

 

Epilogue

I wouldn't have survived that summer without Chelsea. She was like a furry angel who wouldn't let me give up on myself. Those days when Chelsea
had
left my side, I was too dumb to see what she was trying to tell me.

Every morning that summer she would hang outside the club's front door to wait for me. She'd sit on her haunches, alert, eyebrows scrunched together as she looked out for me. Everyone who walked in or out would speak to her or touch her; there wasn't a single person who didn't at least smile at the regal, seventy-five-pound ball of love. She'd give them a wag or a cuddle, but beyond that she couldn't be moved. She'd stay there until she caught sight of me walking from the back parking lot with Lucky. As soon as she saw me, she'd start jumping up and down and grinning, eyes shining and wide, her tongue flapping away, tail going ballistic. Some days near-hyperventilation would ensue.