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A Dog's Life VII
The welcome return of Anita Carswell
from the fountain pen of Myra Love
previous chapter Chapter Index Next Chapter

 

A Dog's Life

by Myra Love

 

       Chapter VII 

 

“I’d really rather be driving,” I grumbled at Anita.  She made eye contact with me in the rearview mirror and grinned so broadly I thought her face would crack.

“What’s the matter, Andy?  Is Dr. Phil giving you a hard time?”

The dog was on my lap, licking contentedly at my knee.  My pants were soaked through with dog slobber, and he showed no sign of stopping.  It could have been worse, I suppose.  He could have been jumping up and trying to lick my face again.  Or he could be heaving himself toward Anita and the steering wheel.

It had taken a good half-hour to persuade Tad Jackson to hand over the leashed dog to us.  He insisted that we had no right to it.  I told him finally that I’d arrest him for possession of a stolen animal if he didn’t back off.

“What do you mean by that?” he demanded.  “This dog isn’t stolen.”

“Yes, it is,” I replied.  “Mattie and Jim Keeley reported it stolen a few days ago.  If you don’t want to get hauled in for theft or for receiving stolen goods, you’d better hand over the dog.”

“But they asked Mr. Clausen to take care of the dog, and he asked me,” he protested.

“That’s not their story,” I replied, adding in a sharper tone of voice, “So what’s it gonna be?  Do you want to go to jail?”

He shook his head violently and held out the leash.  “Here!  Dog’s nothing but trouble anyway.”  He slunk off, and I heard his truck start. His tires kicked up a small cloud of dust as he drove away.

Anita then sent me into the hut to pick up the radio transceiver.  When we’d gotten to her car, she grumbled, “We forgot to get Dr. Phil’s crate from Tad.  You’ll have to sit in the back and hold him, Andy.  I can’t have him up jumping over the seat back and getting in my way.”

I sighed and climbed into the back seat with the dog.  He struggled to get up front for a few minutes, but I grabbed him and firmly pulled him back onto the seat next to me.  I got a lot of drool on my hands and shirt for my trouble.  As if to apologize for fighting with me, the dog then climbed up onto my lap and started licking.  I pushed him off, but he got back on and went back to work.  “So now what?” I complained at Anita.  “You messed up my chances of getting Clausen with the dog in his possession.  How do we prove he was in on the scam?”

She sniffed disdainfully.  “We don’t.  We let your aunt and uncle have their dog back and see what happens.”

“But…” I started to protest.

“Clausen isn’t as important as Jim and Mattie, Andy,” she said in the patient tone I’ve heard her use with people she thinks are a bit slow.

“Okay,” I agreed grudgingly, “we’ll do it your way, but the chief is going to be really upset with me.”

I could see her smirk in the rearview mirror, but she said no more, so I concentrated on keeping the dog’s nose out of my crotch and held my peace.

When we got to Mattie’s place, Dr. Phil started to pant rapidly.  I couldn’t tell if his reaction was excitement or anxiety.  I grabbed hold of the leash and slowly opened the door.  He was in no hurry to get out.  In fact, he slid over to the other side of the back seat and I had to coax and pull him to get him onto the street.

“Interesting.  He doesn’t seem at all thrilled to be home.”  Anita tugged at the leash and said, “Come on, boy,” in a firm voice.  The dog let out a short yelp before yielding to the inevitable and following her up the walk to the front door.  I raced after them and caught up just as Anita turned to look for me.  “You ring, Andy.  If Mattie sees me, she’ll slam the door in my face.”

I stepped past Anita and Dr. Phil, who was trying to take a bite out of my leg as if he hadn’t spent most of the car ride licking my knee.  Anita tried hard not to laugh and almost succeeded.  Before I had a chance to ring, the door opened and Mattie emerged, looking very annoyed.  “I thought I told you not to come around without calling first, Andy Searle.  I’ve got half a mind to call our lawyer and sue the police for harassment.”  She took a deep breath.

I didn’t want to give her time to start in again, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to say.  I didn’t have to say anything because Dr. Phil did.  At the sound of Mattie’s voice, he yelped loudly and pulled his leash out of Anita’s hand.  In less time than it took me to yell, “look out,” Dr. Phil had launched himself onto Mattie.  I watched her face and was relieved by what I saw when she caught the flying dog in her arms: pure, unadulterated joy. I glanced over at Anita for a second, and her face registered satisfaction, perhaps even pleasure. I realized that she wanted Mattie to be happy. Considering how rude Mattie was both to her and about her, it amazed me,

“Oh Andy!  You found him.”  Mattie’s voice called me back into the present.  “I can’t thank you enough.”  The rest of her words were muffled by the slobbering of dog kisses.  I was about to tell her that Anita was really the one who’d figured out how to get the dog back when Jim came to the door.

“Hey, what’s all the racket?” he growled before he saw Dr. Phil in Mattie’s arms.  He did a double-take then and tried to control his facial expression.  It was too late though.  Both Anita and I saw the look of disgust when he realized his wife was holding the supposedly kidnapped pup.  That look turned sly, and he smiled broadly at me.  “Well congratulations, Andy!  Looks like you solved the mystery.  Did you arrest the culprit?”

“CC Clausen’s custodian Tad had the dog.  He claimed that you and Mattie asked CC to find someone to take care of it.”  I put my hands on my hips and waited.

“Why, that’s just not true,” Mattie snapped.  “I’d willingly never let this little boy out of my sight, would I?”  It was astonishing how her voice changed to a soft croon as she petted the dog.  He wagged his stub of a tail and whined delightedly.

Jim frowned, then grinned at me sourly.  “Well, we all know that I owe Clausen money.  I guess he decided to use the dog as a way to pressure me.”

“So that’s your story?” I asked, allowing my skepticism to show in my voice.  “You weren’t in on a plot to scam money out of townspeople by reporting the dog missing and trying to get contributions towards his ransom?”

Jim’s face mimed a surprised expression, but it wasn’t all that convincing.  “Why, Andy!  How could you think such of a thing of your aunt and uncle?” he said, sounding hurt.  “You can see how much Mattie loves that dog.”

“I didn’t say Mattie was in on the scam,” I said and waited.

He just smiled back at me.  “I’d never do anything to hurt or upset Mattie,” he replied, his voice sounding oily.  “You know that.”
I knew no such thing, but the happy look that appeared on my aunt’s face when he made the claim silenced me.  I turned on my heel and started to leave.

“Andy,” Mattie called out after me, “come to dinner sometime soon, okay?  And bring what’s her name, Lena, if you like.”

“Lisa, her name is Lisa.”  I was halfway to the station before I realized that Anita was no longer with me.

“Well, at least you found their dog,” the chief said.  He wasn’t pleased though.

“And he stopped Mr. Keeley from carrying out the scam he’d planned,” Donald added.

“Yeah, but Jim Keeley, CC Clausen, and anyone else who was involved got away scot-free, and there’s nothing to stop them from dreaming up something else.”

I felt like a failure.  I wasn’t even the one who’d found the dog.  A wave of irritation rose up in me, mostly annoyance with Anita, who’d insisted on returning the dog to Jim and Mattie instead of letting Tad Jackson take it back to Clausen.  I was sure that was what he’d have done.  Why, I asked myself, do I always listen to Anita Carswell?

I knew the answer, of course.  Anita had saved me from myself time and again.  She was also my friend.  Nevertheless, I enjoyed my annoyance.  It felt better than self-pity.

“So now what?” Donald chimed in again, looking from the chief to me and back to the chief again.

“Now nothing,” the chief grunted in reply.

“No,” I said, pulling myself together.  “Now I go confront Clausen and Tad Jackson with Mattie and Jim in tow.”

The chief shrugged.  “Do what you have to do,” he said.  “But I’m not going to hold my breath waiting for anything good to come of it.”

“At least they’ll know we’re on to them,” I insisted, as I headed out the door.  I heard the chief snort, but that was the extent of his response.

“Absolutely not!” Mattie spat the words out.  “I will not go to see Mr. Clausen.  He is a bad man.”  She hugged Dr. Phil to her chest.  “I don’t understand why you haven’t arrested him.”

I resisted the impulse to roll my eyes.  “We’d like to arrest him and everyone else involved,” I replied.  “But we need evidence.  We were hoping that putting you and Jim and Tad together in a room with him might help us get that.”

She frowned at me.  “You’re out to get Jim, aren’t you?  He warned me about that, but I didn’t believe him.  He’s right though.”  Her frown deepened and she gently let Dr. Phil down and put her hands on her hips.

“We’re not out to get anyone.  We just want to get to the bottom of things.”

“You keep saying ‘we’, Andy Searle, but I don’t see anyone else here but you.”

She had me and she knew it.  “Okay, the chief has given up,” I admitted.  “But don’t you want to know what happened?  Don’t you want to be sure it doesn’t happen again?”

She smiled and patted my arm.  “To tell you the truth, Andy, I don’t care.  I’ve got Dr. Phil back safely.”  She bent down to pat the dog stretched out at her feet.  “And Jim has promised to stop gambling.  He says he never had any idea that his gambling would lead to an attack on my baby doggie.  So I have everything I need.  Thanks again, Andy, for finding Dr. Phil.”

I sighed, defeated.  “It wasn’t me that found him.  It was Anita Carswell.”

Mattie’s smiled knowingly.  “I thought as much when I saw her come up the path when you brought him back.”  She patted the dog again.  He whined and squirmed upwards to lick her face.  “Well, I guess I owe her, though I still wouldn’t invite her into my house if you paid me in diamonds.”  She pushed Dr. Phil’s snout aside and scratched the top of his head.  He wriggled in pleasure and let out a short bark that sounded like a grunt.  “Do you think I should send her a thank you note?”

“I don’t think that’s necessary.  Of course, if you want to…”

Mattie shook her head.  “No, I don’t want to.  I’d only do it to be polite.”

Anita was resaccing an oversize striated green Sheaffer Balance when I walked into the kitchen.  She looked up from it only long enough to invite me to sit down.  “Water is on for tea,” she mumbled and then reached for the talc.

I sat and watched her work.  It always amazed me that she was able to see well enough to fix pens at her age.   She’d laughed at me the first time I’d said that.  She’d just turned seventy-five then. “My distance vision isn’t what it used to be, but I can see fine up close.”   That didn’t stop me from repeating myself every couple of years.  She pointed that out each time, but I could tell she didn’t really mind.

She carefully fitted the section to the barrel and set the pen aside.  “You look disgruntled, Andy.”

Disgruntled hardly did justice to how I felt.  I had to take a deep breath.  Otherwise I’d have told her just how bad I felt and how very much it was her fault for not letting me set up Clausen by following Tad Jackson back to his lot when Tad still had the dog.

“Still stewing about not nailing Jim and CC Clausen?” she asked gently.
I nodded.

“Well, it’s not too late,” she said, reaching for another smaller, flattop pen.

That did it.  “If you’d let me follow Jackson back to Clausen’s place when Tad still had that darned dog, this would all be over by now,” I grumbled.

She smiled faintly and shook her head.  “Andy, you’re a grown man and a police officer.  If you’d really wanted to follow Tad to Clausen, there is no way I could have stopped you.”

I grunted and started to chew on my thumbnail.  She wasn’t being fair, but I didn’t know what to say to prove that to her.

She put down the pen she was holding.  The color was marbled red and cream, very easy on the eye; I had to restrain myself from asking about it. The last thing I wanted was to listen to a lecture about the history of a certain brand or model of fountain pen.

“You can still use Tad to get to Clausen, you know,” she said in a deceptively neutral tone of voice.  “CC fired him for messing up with Mattie’s dog, and he’s an angry young man at the moment.  I’m sure he’d make a credible witness and you would be able to arrest Clausen and make the charge stick.  But that won’t really solve your problem, will it?”

“It would be a start,” I protested, but I knew deep down that she was right.  Jim was my problem.  I just knew he’d been in on the scam and I didn’t believe he would stop gambling.  Yet I didn’t want him to inflict any further hurt on Mattie, so there didn’t seem to be any way to stop him.  I looked up at Anita, expecting her to have picked up the pen and started working on it again, but she was looking at me with a very soft expression.  I smiled.  “You’re right, of course,” I admitted.  “There’s still the issue of Jim’s gambling, even though Mattie told me he’d sworn off.”

Anita pursed her lips.  “He’ll swear off gambling the day I grow long ears and a tail.”

I laughed at the image; I couldn’t help it.  “You’d look great with a tail, but I’m not sure about the ears.”

She chuckled.  “I’m worried about your aunt, Andy.  I’m not just afraid that Jim will hurt her but that he’ll get her involved in something questionable, if not downright illegal.  That attempt to get the townsfolk to contribute to the dog’s ransom was a near miss, and she was right in the middle of it.”

I sighed.  “I’ll admit that I’d wondered if she were in on the plot from the beginning.  She’s very protective of Jim and I’ve noticed she does what he tells her to do.”

Anita, much to my relief, shook her head.  “She’s even more protective of her dogs,” she said crisply.  “She’d never put them at risk.”

I wished I could be as sure as she was.  As I watched, she put the pen together, first spreading a thin line of shellac on the parts she was joining.  “There,” she said in a satisfied voice, “now that can go back to its owner.”

“Whose pen is it?” I asked.

She looked pleased with herself.  “Do you remember Tim Coolidge?”

I shook my head.  “Can’t say that I do.”

“No, I don’t suppose you do.  He’s not all that memorable.”  She seemed barely able to contain her glee.  “Tim’s grandfather gave him this pen.  He heard from someone that I could repair it.  All it needed was a sac.”

I nodded, wondering why she was so pleased.  I’d seen her do much more complicated repairs.

“He used to work for CC Clausen,” she added, trying to make it sound like an afterthought.  “And Tad Jackson is his nephew.”

My head jerked upwards.  “Don’t tell me: he got Tad the job with Clausen.”

Anita grinned broadly.  “That’s right.  And he’s not happy at all about what Clausen had his nephew doing to earn his pay.”

“You filled him in on the details?”

She shook her head.  “I didn’t have to.  Tad did.”

“But I thought Tad was convinced Mattie and Jim had asked Clausen to have the dog looked after?”

“Yes, but Tad is a very gullible young man with certain mental limitations that we’re all aware of.  Tim Coolidge is anything but gullible.  From the little bit of information he got from Tad, he figured out the real story.   He doesn’t like having his nephew misused in the commission of a crime.”

“So what do we do?” I asked.

“We don’t do anything.  I, however, have to return this pen to Mr. Coolidge.  If you promise to keep your mouth closed, you can come along for the ride.” 

 

 


 

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