Paw of the Jungle

by Diane Kelly

  TWENTY-THREE

  ABLAZE IN A MANGER

  Megan

  I woke on Christmas morning hoping Santa would have filled my stocking with clear and convincing evidence as to who had taken the macaws and Sarki. Unfortunately, he hadn’t. In fact, he hadn’t put anything in it at all. Frankie had, though. She’d filled it with a bottle of jasmine-scented bubble bath, a bag of fancy dark roast coffee, and a pair of gel inserts for my tactical shoes.

  “That’s what you get for complaining about your feet hurting after traffic duty,” she teased.

  I gave her a hug. The gifts were perfect and thoughtful. “You’re the best roommate ever!”

  In Brigit’s stocking she’d put a fuzzy hedgehog squeaky toy, signing the attached tag from her cat Zoe. Brigit expressed her appreciation by taking the toy in her teeth and shaking it back and forth at warp speed, the hedgehog emitting a squeal with each shake. Squee-squee-squee!

  Frankie reached into her stocking and pulled out the pair of rainbow-striped skating socks I’d bought for her. I’d also bought her a new derby helmet, a shiny white one spanned by a glittery rainbow to match the socks. She’d cracked her previous helmet when taking a particularly precarious tumble in a recent bout. I’d worried the damaged helmet would fail and she’d end up with a concussion.

  She slid her feet into the socks and donned the helmet, turning to and fro in the living room to model them. “I’m so cute! But you know wearing a girlie helmet like this means everyone on the other teams will come after me, don’t you?”

  “Yep,” I said, “and you’ll love every second of it.”

  “Ah, you know me well.” She performed a graceful pirouette and curtsy, before throwing out her bent elbows left and right in a derby improvisation. Like my K-9 partner, my roommate could be both sweet and scary.

  Brigit had gotten Zoe a new fish-pole-style toy with a fuzzy, wiggly caterpillar dangling from the end. My stingy partner decided she wanted to keep it for herself and took the stick in her mouth. As Brigit trotted around the room with it, Zoe chased after the caterpillar dragging on the floor.

  Our gifts exchanged, Frankie and I shared a simple breakfast of cold cereal and hot coffee, enjoying my new dark roast.

  Brigit came over to the table and put a paw on my leg, politely offering to clean my bowl for me. I left a little bit of cereal in the bottom and set the bowl on the floor. “Here you go, girl.”

  After breakfast, Frankie headed off to the fire station and I headed over to my parents’ house so I could spend the early part of Christmas Day with my family. Seth was already on a twenty-four-hour shift at the station, so we planned to celebrate the following day.

  After forcing down as much as I could of the overcooked and overseasoned holiday meal my mother had prepared, we gathered in the family room to open our gifts. My mother loved the new backpack I’d bought for her, and the polka-dot sweater was a big hit with Gabby, who declared it “Adorbs!” I supposed I had the shoplifter in the pink coat to thank for helping me find the gift. Dad appreciated the case of his favorite imported beer that he rarely splurged on for himself. My three brothers were easy, too. They’d all received gift cards for shopping online. They’d use them for some tech gadget or another, maybe a video game.

  By that point, it was almost time for my shift to begin. After changing into my uniform in the bedroom I used to share with my sister Gabby, I headed out, giving each of my family members one last hug and a “Merry Christmas!” My mother’s three tabby cats received one head pat apiece, offering hisses in return. They’d never forgiven me for introducing the big hairy beast known as Brigit into the family.

  Shortly thereafter, Brigit and I were in our cruiser, winding our way at a leisurely pace up and down the streets of our beat. I’d spent the last several days driving out of the city to shady places calling themselves zoos, wildlife refuges, or animal parks. My search for Sarki and the birds had been fruitless, as had my pleas to the operators of these sites to contact me if they heard of anyone looking to sell a hyacinth macaw or colobus monkey. I’d interrogated a couple of men who’d been convicted of dog fighting in the past. Given their lack of respect for animal life, I thought it possible they could be involved in the zoo thefts. Neither offered me any useful information, though both offered me plenty of attitude.

  “What’s the big deal?” one of them said. “They’re just animals.”

  I’d been tempted to sic Brigit on the bastard and, after she chewed on him a bit, ask him, What’s the big deal? Humans are “just animals,” too, you know.

  But while I’d spent the last few days chasing down the potential leads, I’d exhausted them now. There was nothing more I could do but return to my usual duties.

  Brigit and I were only fifteen minutes into our shift when we fielded our first domestic call. Apparently Dad had the nerve to bring his “trampy new girlfriend” to his adult daughter’s home for the holiday, and his ex-wife and the woman had ended up in a catfight during which said tramp’s hair extensions were pulled from her head and the ex’s cheek was scratched by the tramp’s clawlike fingernails. Rather than complicate the women’s lives with an assault charge, I deescalated the situation by separating the warring parties, mediating a truce, and suggesting the daughter host separate celebrations for each parent next year.

  “Don’t worry,” she told me with a roll of her eyes. “I’m spending next Christmas with friends in Cancún.”

  Over the next few hours, Brigit and I dealt with three more domestic issues. Two brothers had ventured down memory lane, resurrected a decades-old dispute over a referee’s call in a football game, and ended up tackling each other in their living room. A woman and her mother ended up tossing wine in each other’s faces and engaging in a screaming match so loud it led to the next-door neighbors calling 911. Sheesh. Just send each other a card next year and call it a day. In the final call, a drunk phoned for assistance because his aunt had stolen his car keys and wouldn’t return them.

  “She did you a favor,” I told him as he stared at me with bloodshot eyes. “You get behind the wheel in your current condition and I’ll drag you down to the station for DUI. Now do as your aunt says and sleep it off in the guest room.”

  I was heading back to my cruiser when the radio on my shoulder again squawked to life, dispatch summoning officers to provide traffic control at a nearby church where a fire was under way. I pushed the button to activate my mic. “Officer Luz and Brigit responding.”

  In minutes, we pulled up to the church. The living Nativity scene was up in flames, burning as bright as the North Star in the dark evening. As firefighters doused the fire with a hose, a crowd of people formed a semicircle around the smoldering remains of the manger. Frankie circled the collapsed display, using a tool that looked like an oversized hoe to tamp out the embers and prevent further flare-ups.

  A few yards away stood a man in a long brown robe, presumably the congregant who’d been playing Joseph. He held on to ropes tied around the necks of a sheep, a goat, and a small, anxious donkey tramping the ground like a tap dancer marking his steps. The donkey’s ears were laid back, his eyes wild. But who could blame the poor beast? The fire would have been upsetting enough, but the sounds of the sirens and the water spraying and the wafting smoke were a lot to handle, even for a human being who understood what was happening.

  A fire truck and ambulance sat at the curb. Alex stood at the back of the open ambulance. On the tailgate sat a woman in a blue hooded robe, evidently the Virgin Mary. Alex knelt down to inspect the back of Mary’s legs. The singed hem of Mary’s robe told me the garment had caught fire. Looked like her legs might have been burned, too. Ouch. Too bad she only had a plastic doll serving as her supernatural son. If the real Jesus were here, he could heal her wounds lickety-split and she wouldn’t have to worry about medical bills. He performed his miracles gratis.

  I parked the cruiser in the church’s lot. Before exiting the car, I grabbed my neon-yellow gloves with the reflective glow
-in-the-dark strips, as well as the orange traffic-wand attachment for my flashlight. I left Brigit inside the car. Traffic duty was extremely dangerous. No way would I risk my partner’s safety by taking her into the street with me. Besides, this wasn’t a task for a K-9.

  The donkey wasn’t the only jackass here. Derek Mackey had beat me to the church. While he diverted traffic approaching from the west, I stepped up behind the fire truck and used my orange light to redirect oncoming eastern traffic, motioning for drivers to turn down a side street so they wouldn’t get in the way of the firefighters.

  It wasn’t long before Mary’s minor burns had been treated and the embers had been fully extinguished. The firemen packed up to go. Joseph stepped forward with his assortment of farm animals, probably to thank the firefighters who’d responded to his son’s birthday bash gone wrong. Unfortunately, the donkey wasn’t having it. He yanked back on his rope, pulled it out of the man’s hand, and took off running for the street.

  Joseph cried out, “Come back!”, but naturally the donkey ignored him.

  Seth had just removed his gloves. He dropped them to the ground, and he and I both took off running toward the donkey, hoping to head it off before it could run into the traffic that was flowing again.

  Seth got to the donkey first, grabbing the rope at the animal’s shoulder and pulling him to a stop. Terrified, the donkey brayed, turned, and bit into Seth’s hand. By that time, I’d reached them. So had Joseph.

  “You all right?” I asked.

  Seth muttered some curses under his breath while cupping his injured hand in the other. Red tooth marks formed an arc across his palm like a macabre dot-to-dot puzzle. “I’ll be fine.”

  He handed the donkey off to Joseph, who issued profuse apologies for the animal’s behavior. “He pulled out of my grip. I am so sorry!”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Seth replied graciously. “He was scared. I don’t blame him.” He turned to me, angling his head to indicate the ambulance. “I better get this looked at.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  As we approached the ambulance, Alex looked out from the bay where she crouched, returning supplies to a drawer. As she saw Seth approaching with blood running down his hand, her eyes went wide and she gasped, her hands reflexively covering her mouth. She scuttled to the tailgate. “Oh, my gosh! Are you okay?”

  He perched on the edge of the bay. “It’s only a little bite.”

  I stood back as Alex bent over to examine his hand. When she did, her uniform shirt gaped at the neck, providing a glimpse of the pink lace bra she wore underneath. Rookie. Didn’t she know that female first responders should always wear a sports bra? With as much running as our jobs could require, she’d sprain a boob in that flimsy lingerie.

  Alex gingerly turned Seth’s hand from one side to the other to get a good look at the wound. After flushing it out with a syringe, she applied hydrogen peroxide, cradling his hand in hers as she gently dabbed at the bite marks. “I’m not hurting you, am I?”

  Oh, please. Seth had defused bombs in Afghanistan, been bombarded with shrapnel, and bore the scars on his body to prove it. A little nip from a farm animal was nothing to him. Besides, he didn’t like to be babied.

  “Don’t worry. I’m man enough to handle a little antiseptic.” He gave Alex a small smile. Hmm. Maybe he liked being babied a little bit.

  As Alex continued to hold his hand, my mind harkened back to the singers at the mall, the crooner who’d gone down on one knee and taken the shopper’s hand. I’d thought the gesture was cute then. Now, not so much.

  Having noticed the commotion, Frankie slipped up beside me.

  I turned to her, tilted my head slightly to indicate Seth and Alex, and spoke softly. “Should I be concerned now?”

  She glanced at the two before turning back to me. “Nah. Like I said before, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Seth’s crazy about you.”

  She was probably right. But she could be wrong. I wasn’t normally a jealous, insecure person, but the domestic calls had left me realizing that relationships could be tenuous.

  Alex wrapped gauze around Seth’s hand, tying the ends in a bow as if he were a Christmas present. “There you go. All done.”

  He looked down at the bow and chuckled. “Thanks.”

  She went to stand, putting a hand on Seth’s strong shoulder for leverage rather than using the frame of the gurney. It was an obvious ploy, an opportunity to touch him.

  Seth, however, seemed oblivious to it. He stood, walked over to me, and showed me the bow on his wrapped hand. Leaning in, he whispered, “I can’t wait for you to unwrap me.”

  I wagged a finger at him. “Nuh-uh-uh. You don’t want to be the first name on Santa’s naughty list for next year.”

  He slid me a sly grin. “It would be worth it.”

  * * *

  The day after Christmas, Seth and I had lunch at an Italian restaurant before returning to my house for our own small, private celebration. We took seats on the couch, side by side, our dogs tussling on the rug.

  “You first.” He used his bandaged hand to slide a large, flat box in shiny silver wrap my way.

  Very few things came in boxes this size and shape. “Let me guess,” I said. “TV for my bedroom?”

  “Not even close.”

  What could it be? I ran a finger under the seam and pulled off the wrap. The cardboard box bore no label to give me a clue as to its contents. I pulled the heavy-duty tape from the end, opened the flap, and peered inside. All I could see was the edge of dark wooden frame. Had Seth bought me a piece of art? Maybe a print from the Kimbell Art Museum? Only one way to find out.

  I stood, gently turned the box on its side, and eased the frame out. When I realized what I was looking at, I gasped. “Oh, Seth! I love it!”

  Before me was a painted portrait of Brigit. The artist had captured the intelligence in her eyes, the proud way she held her head, the playful tilt of her tail, the nuances of color and texture in her thick, shiny coat.

  Seth smiled softly, clearly pleased by my reaction. “Remember the sketch artist from the abandoned-baby case?”

  Of course I did. Not long ago, an unknown man had come to the fire station and surrendered a newborn baby to Seth under the state’s safe drop law. When I’d later noticed a cry for help stitched into the baby’s blanket, we realized we needed to find the man. The detective leading the investigation hired a sketch artist who’d questioned Seth and come up with a remarkably accurate sketch of the suspect.

  “The sketch artist painted this? Wow. He’s as talented with oils as he is with a charcoal pencil.”

  I leaned toward Seth, wrapped my arms around his shoulders, and gave him a tight hug. I loved the painting, but what had also warmed my heart was the fact that Seth had put so much thought into this gift, had come up with something so uniquely suited for me. Serving with a furry, four-footed partner himself, Seth knew how much my Brigit meant to me. Now, she’d be forever immortalized in this work of art.

  I stood and glanced around the room, searching for the perfect spot to hang the portrait. My beautiful Brigit should be the focal point of the room. “Let’s hang it over the bookcase.”

  After I rounded up a hammer and nail from the garage, Seth and I hung the portrait. We engaged in a debate over whether the frame had a slight tilt to the left or right, and confirmed with a level that it had neither.

  My art properly installed, it was Seth’s turn to open my gift. He donned the goggles and the swimsuit, performing a series of knee bends and circling his arms in the center of my living room as he improvised his best stroke, the butterfly. “These fit great. I bet I can cut my time in these.”

  He was clearly eager to find out. I suggested we head over to the Y.

  A half hour later, I stood at the end of a swim lane, a timer in my hand. Seth raced toward me in the pool, his back arching in and out of the water, his legs sending up a splash with each kick. When his fingers grabbed the edge of the concrete, I presse
d the button to stop the timer. “Two minutes, sixteen seconds.”

  “I broke two-twenty?” It might not be an Olympic-caliber performance, but it was still incredibly fast and a personal best for him. He hooted and hollered and pumped his wet fists in the air. “Woot-woot!”

  After he climbed out, I draped a beach towel over his broad shoulders. While watching Seth swim shirtless had been a nice distraction from my work-related woes, the army eagle tattoo that spanned his shoulders reminded me of the missing birds from the zoo. Will we ever find the macaws and the monkey? I could only hope the new year would bring new evidence with it.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TOY TO THE WORLD

  Brigit

  The dog had no idea why Megan had given her so many special treats and toys yesterday, and why Megan had wrapped them in paper or hidden them in bags. She only knew it had been one of her best days ever!

  Today was turning out to be another one. Seth had come over and brought Blast with him. Their human partners were gone now, leaving the dogs to their mischief. Brigit and Blast were currently engaged in a game of tug-of-war with a thick, knotted rope she’d discovered in one of the bags. She was going easy on Blast for the moment, toying with him, letting the Labrador think he had a chance. She issued a soft, playful growl. He did the same in return.

  Nobody gets the better of me. She gave him an inch, then another, then another, teasing him along until … yank! She jerked the rope right out of his mouth. Head held high, she ran a victory lap around the living room. Ha!

  TWENTY-FIVE

  GIG ECONOMY

  The Poacher

  It was halfway between the Christmas and New Year’s Eve holidays when he sat in a coffee shop full of twenty-year-olds, feeling washed out at only a decade older. He used the cheap laptop he’d bought at a holiday sale and the shop’s Wi-Fi to look for jobs online. He wasn’t having much luck. He’d already applied for all of the skilled trade positions in his line of work, plus any others he was remotely qualified for. Retail sales. Fast-food service. Warehouse work. With everyone on vacation for the holidays, human resource departments hadn’t updated their listings. What am I going to do?