A Reckoning in the Back Country

by Terry Shames

  A couple of big, frisky dogs of indeterminate breed greet me when I get out of squad car, and they seem to sense that Dusty is in the car. They stick their heads in after I get out, sniffing with great interest.

  “They’re friendly,” Lundsford says, as he ambles across the yard.

  “You think they’ll be all right with my pup?”

  “They’re gentle as lambs. They have to be, around the poultry.”

  I take Dusty out and set him on the ground so the dogs can sniff him. Their tails whip back and forth and they dance around him.

  “He’s a nice little pup,” Lundsford says. “I like a dog. That’s why I was so put out when I caught two boys trying to lure Tippy and King into their truck. See, it’s parked over there by the side of the barn.”

  I look over and recognize the pickup with the faded flames that John Hershel described as being driven by the men he caught trying to steal his dog. This makes it twice these men have been caught. Not exactly brilliant criminals.

  “How did you catch them?”

  “They thought they’d sneak up in the night, but my boy, Jimmy, has ears like a bat. He come running into the bedroom and says, ‘Daddy, somebody’s outside creeping around.’” Sure enough, I go out with my shotgun and catch them dead to rights. They had some meat and were trying to lure my dogs into their car.”

  “Harley, that’s more words than I’ve heard you string together at once in all the time I’ve known you.”

  He has a fierce gleam in his eyes, and I have a feeling I know just what he’s going to say. Sure enough he says, “I’m riled up. Now people won’t be so quick to think I’m nuts for keeping guns for protection.”

  “Nobody thinks you’re nuts,” I say, although that isn’t entirely true. It’s not that he keeps guns that bothers people, but that he seems to be obsessed with them.

  “Come on out to the barn and take these thieves off my hands.”

  The barn is a fine, sturdy structure. The dogs follow us, with Dusty struggling to keep up.

  As soon as Lundsford opens the door, someone yells, “Let us out of here!”

  “I’m going to close the bottom part of the door so the dogs stay out,” Lundsford says. He does so, and then he motions to a door at the back of the barn and we walk over. He picks up the shotgun that he has leaned against a wall before he unlocks a door. “They ain’t going anywhere, but I like to be careful,” he says.

  Inside, he has two men in their twenties tied up with barely enough play in the rope so they can reach a bucket that he has positioned for them to relieve themselves in.

  “Who are you?” one of them says. He’s a burly youngster with firered hair, small eyes, and a bristle of red beard.

  “I’m Samuel Craddock, chief of police in Jarrett Creek. I don’t believe I know you boys.”

  “You gotta let us go,” he says. “We didn’t do anything. This man’s crazy. Him and his retard son.” He jerks his chin in Lundsford’s direction.

  Lundsford flinches and tightens his grip on his shotgun.

  “Can I get your names?”

  “I’m Cal,” the red-haired one says, “and my pal is Pete.”

  “What were you doing out here?” I ask.

  “We were lost,” Cal says. Pete, a dark-haired, dark-eyed man with a furious look in his eyes, hasn’t said anything.

  “You was lost and you thought maybe you’d use my dogs to lead you out of here?” Lundsford says.

  I hear somebody come in, and turn my head to see his son, a stocky man with a moon face standing behind us. I nod to him. “Hi, Jimmy.”

  “They’re bad men,” he says. “They were trying to steal Tippy and King.”

  “What would we want with two mutts like that?” Cal says.

  “They ain’t mutts,” Jimmy says, with a hitch in his voice. “They’re good dogs.”

  “I’m going to take you boys back to the station and have a chat with you. Lundsford, you can come down to the station, and I’ll take your statement whenever you want to.”

  “Goddammit!” Pete snarls. “You can’t run us in. We told you we haven’t done nothing.”

  “We have connections,” Cal chimes in. “We can have your job.”

  “And welcome to it. We’ll sort all that out when I get you down to the station,” I say. “Unless you want me to leave you here so Mr. Lundsford can figure out what he wants to do with you.”

  They decide they’d prefer to go with me.

  I untie Cal and put cuffs on him and take him to the squad car. Lundsford waits for me to come get Pete. When they’re locked inside the car, Lundsford says, “I’m going to follow you to the station. Jimmy, can you take care of things while I’m gone for a while?”

  “I sure can.”

  “Remember your mama is here, if you run into trouble, but I know you’ll do fine.” With that interaction I see Lundsford in a different light than I’ve seen him before. The boy is full of pride that his daddy trusts him to take over in his absence.

  “I want you to know, I’ve been looking for these two,” I say. “I don’t know what they’re up to, but they’ve stolen more than one dog, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”

  Back at the station, I give Maria their driver’s licenses to check if they have any open charges against them, and then I lead them into the back room to lock them into a cell.

  “You’ve got a female cop working here?” Cal says, as soon as Maria goes back into the office.

  “You got a problem with that?”

  “I guess not.” His sneer tells me that he does.

  When Lundsford arrives a few minutes later, I poke my head into the office and ask Maria to take his statement while I talk with the criminals.

  As soon as I walk back to the cell, they start up. “We ought to be fed,” Cal says. “That man kept us tied up and didn’t feed us anything.”

  “I’ll get you a sandwich in a little bit. First I need some answers.” I settle myself in a chair outside the cell. “Talk to me,” I say.

  “About what?” Cal says.

  “What were you two doing out there?”

  “Told you, we were lost.”

  I wave my hands back and forth. “No, no, that doesn’t fly. Lundsford found you trying to lure his dogs into your pickup. Now we’ve had several cases of dogs disappearing around here, and I want to know what you’re up to. I’m having your truck towed in, and I’m going to go through it with a fine-tooth comb. If I find evidence that one of those dogs that have gone missing has been in your truck, you’re going to jail.”

  Pretty much nothing of what I said is true. For one thing, what would I charge them with? At most, a misdemeanor for stealing a dog. I can’t prove they hurt the dogs, even if they did steal them. And I’m probably not going to waste a lot of time examining their vehicle. The question is, will they take the bluff?

  “You can’t haul my truck in!” Pete says.

  So this is Pete’s vehicle. “Sure I can. But I might be inclined to back off if you tell me what you did with the dogs.”

  Cal looks sidelong at his buddy, and I know I’ve nailed them.

  I wait, while Cal gives his chin a good scratching and Pete tries to kill me with a laser stare. Finally Cal says, “We’re going to sell them.”

  “You need to be a little more specific. Sell them to who?”

  “A guy told us he’ll give us good money for them.”

  “What guy?”

  “I never met him. He called me and told me there was money if I picked up a few dogs.”

  “How much money?”

  “Fifty dollars per dog.”

  “Pretty generous.”

  “It would have been if we wasn’t sitting in this cell.”

  “Any dogs in particular?”

  “No, he just said random dogs.”

  “Has he paid you?”

  “Not yet. He said we’d get paid when we round up a dozen dogs. We only have eight. You’d be surprised how hard it is to find dogs to s
teal. People keep their dogs pretty close.”

  “It must be tough on you. Where are the dogs now?”

  “In a shed out in the woods on the road to Burton.”

  “And you leave the dogs there? Is there somebody there to take care of them?”

  “No, we’re not mean. We leave water for them. And we feed them. It’s not cheap. Dogs eat a lot. I don’t know if it’s going to be worth it in the end.”

  Does he actually think I’m going to sympathize? “But the dogs are okay?”

  “Yeah. They’re a little stir-crazy from being penned up, but they seem okay. I don’t want to hurt a dog. I kind of admire them. They’re all shitting in one corner, kind of like they got together and figured out that’s where the potty is.” He snickers and nudges Pete, who doesn’t join in the laughter.

  It’s a relief that the dogs are okay, if in fact he’s telling the truth. “When was the last time you took a dog over there?”

  “A couple of days ago. We was supposed to take another one, but the guy caught us and we gave it up for the day.”

  “How will you get paid when you have enough dogs?”

  “The man gave me a phone number to call.”

  “I’m going to need that phone number.”

  “I’ve got it here,” Cal says. He takes out his wallet, fishes around in it, and through the bars of the cell hands me a filthy piece of paper with a number scratched on it.

  “And you don’t know what he was going to do with the dogs? You didn’t ask what he wanted them for?”

  “No sir.” Cal shrugs.

  “It never occurred to you that the dogs might be used in ways that they may suffer, and that you’re causing suffering to the people you stole pets from as well?”

  Pete has continued to fume silently. “They can get another damn dog,” he says. “What’s the big deal?”

  “If causing suffering isn’t a big deal to you, maybe it will be a bigger deal that you’ve been stealing someone’s property and you’re going to jail if anything has happened to any of the dogs.”

  “I swear they were fine the last time saw them,” Cal says. Pete may be immune to threats, but Cal is nervous.

  “All right, I want you to show me where the dogs are, and if they’re okay, then we’ll call it quits. Were any of the dogs you picked up a pregnant bitch?”

  They look at each other. “I don’t think so. If she was, not far enough along so you’d notice.”

  “One more thing. Did you steal a couple of cane corsos?”

  The two look at each other. “Cane what?” Cal asks.

  “Big dogs. Vicious.”

  Cal shakes his head. “I’m not exactly afraid of dogs, but I won’t have anything to do with a vicious dog. I don’t want to get bit.”

  Maria has checked to see if either of the boys has a criminal record. Calvin Madigan has a couple of misdemeanor driving offenses, but neither of them has any outstanding charges.

  I tell Maria I’m going over to get some sandwiches for the two guys and ask if she wants anything, but she says it’s too early for lunch. When I get back, I hand the criminals their sandwiches and tell them they can eat in the car. I want to get out to where the dogs are being kept.

  I hate to do it, but when we leave I lock Dusty up in the empty cell again. He’ll probably sleep the whole time we’re gone, and I don’t want to get in a situation with him where there are a bunch of dogs around that I don’t know anything about.

  CHAPTER 23

  As soon as Cal gives me directions, I suspect I know where the dogs are being kept. We travel south of town and onto the road out to Burton. Maria is with me, and to be on the safe side we have handcuffed the two men in case they have some kind of nefarious ideas. But they seem almost cheerful now that we’re getting close to where they left the dogs.

  Sure enough, Cal guides me straight to the area where Wilkins’s SUV was found. I remember hearing dogs barking when I was leaving the scene the night I first examined the SUV. If I had investigated then, it would have saved the poor dogs some time being locked up and their owners some distress. It might also have brought me closer to figuring out what the dogs have to do with this case.

  We park and I hear the dogs in the distance.

  “They make a racket,” Cal says. “I imagine they’re tired of being cooped up.”

  “Do they fight each other?”

  “Not that I saw. These are pet dogs.” Again I think of what fate might have awaited them if they had been turned over to use as bait dogs.

  “It’s off that way,” Cal says. “Over to the right.” He points to the path I took before I decided to turn back because it was dark.

  Maria and I leave the two men in the car and head off on foot in the direction of the barking. The vegetation is overgrown with weeds, and droopy vines hang off the trees.

  Pretty soon we come to the big shed. It’s much bigger than the shed where we found the two dogs shot. The racket is fierce. The shed isn’t locked, and we pull open the door. The stench is terrible, and we both cough. There’s fencing across the door so the dogs can’t get out. They leap up, tails wagging and barking like crazy. But I have to admit, they don’t look abused. Like Cal said, there are eight dogs. Over by the wall there are several bowls lined up and a big washtub with water in it.

  “I wonder whose property this is,” I say, “and whether they knew what this shed was being used for. Surely they could hear this commotion.”

  “What are we going to do with these dogs?” Maria says. “We can’t leave them here. Suppose whoever paid those guys to steal them comes to take them away?”

  “One of us needs to stay here and guard the place. I hate to ask you, but I think you should stay so I can come back with my pickup. That way we can get all the dogs out of here at one time.”

  She looks around nervously. Maria is not one to be afraid, but the place doesn’t have a good atmosphere. “You’re right. I’ll stay.”

  “I’ll tell you what. I’ll leave you the shotgun.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  We hate to close the dogs back up, but there’s nothing more to be done until I come back with my pickup. I go back and bring the shotgun to her, and we scout out a place for her to keep an eye on the shed without being out in the open.

  On the way back I drive a lot faster than I did on the way over. I tell the two boys that when I return with the dogs, I’ll take them out to Lundsford’s place to pick up their truck, but until then they’ll have to hang out in town. “As long as you can behave yourselves.”

  “We’re not criminals,” Cal says. “We needed some cash.”

  “You’re still criminals in my book,” I say. “You’re lucky I don’t have the time to fool with petty criminals at the moment.”

  As soon as they’re on their way, I jump into my pickup and floor it back out to where I left Maria. I didn’t like leaving her out there alone, not knowing who might be lurking around the shed. She’s fine, though, except for the dogs driving her crazy with their barking.

  To move the dogs to the pickup, we use rope for leashes, and then lash them to the bars inside the pickup so they won’t jump out. Bringing out two dogs at a time, it takes two trips, thirty minutes total. The dogs are wild with excitement.

  When we show up at Doc England’s with eight dogs, he comes out to take a look and starts laughing. “I have to say I’m laughing partly out of relief. I hate to see a family dog disappear, and there are going to be some happy people. I recognize at least three of them right off the bat. We’ll get them sorted out. I have a pen I can put them in around back, and Chelsea will make phone calls to the owners and to other vets in the area to see if they have any reports of missing dogs.”

  I tell him to be sure and call Bobtail, because my friend in the police department there said they had had reports of missing dogs.

  “How did you find them?” he asks.

  I tell him that Harley Lundsford is responsible for capturing the boys. “The boys had
a phone number for somebody they were supposed to call to sell the dogs to. I’ll try the number as soon as I have some time.” I have my doubts that it’s going to be useful. I suspect whoever has this scam going will have security in place so he doesn’t get caught.

  “After we get the dogs settled, I have something else to tell you,” he says.

  We get the dogs penned up with some food and water, and then I go in to talk to England.

  “I heard back about the dead dogs we found. They were registered, but the registration address wasn’t up to date. The folks at the registration office said people sell dogs sometimes, and the new owners often don’t bother to change the registration.”

  “Did you get the original owner’s information?”

  He hands me a sheet of paper with a name, address, and phone number.

  I tell him the story the boys told me. “They said they were getting paid fifty bucks per dog.”

  He grunts. “Well, you can tell them they were being short-changed. If these dogs are going to medical labs, they’re paying well over five hundred dollars a dog.”

  “Why didn’t I know that?”

  “It’s an awful business, and every few years you’ll get an article written about it and everybody gets stirred up, but then it goes back to normal. It’s hard to police that kind of thing.” It makes me think of what Schoppe told me about dogfighting not being high on the list of priorities for law enforcement. Dogs going to medical labs or to dogfighting. Both do a brisk business and the dogs suffer either way.

  By the time I get Cal and Pete out to Lundsford’s to retrieve their pickup, leaving them with a warning not to show their faces around here any time soon, it’s past lunchtime.

  “I’m going to treat you to a fancy lunch,” I say to Maria when I arrive back at headquarters.

  She gives me her eye roll.

  “I’m even going to let you choose the place.”

  “Let me think. Town Café or the Mexican restaurant? Hard to decide.”

  “You forget there’s also the DQ.”

  She perks up. “We could get hamburgers there.” Her favorite food.