The Underdogs

by Sara Hammel

Nicky laughed again, an eerie, unnatural sound. “I saw Evie spying on you. I heard everything. And yes—I was there when she was telling Chelsea all about her necklace theory. So, yeah, I followed Evie to her hideaway behind Court 5 and from there, it was easy to check in on her to see how close she was getting.”

  I was getting woozier, and I didn’t know how Ashlock could stop Nicky on his own. If he tried to shoot Nicholas, Nicholas could shoot Evie first.

  “Let’s talk about this at the station,” Ashlock pleaded. “Let this be over.” My eyes were closed, but in the silence that followed I imagined the boy fighting with himself, wanting to do the right thing, not sure how. I felt a blissful sleepiness come over me, and I took one sharp breath.

  “Detective, I’m losing her. Please.” Evie’s voice was a cry. I let that breath out, and again everything went black.

  After

  Was I dreaming? I was in a bizarre world where my mom was suddenly with me, crying, begging me to stay with her, and I really wanted to. I was just so drowsy. I could hear everything crystal clear, but I didn’t have the energy to open my eyes.

  Lucky was there, too, pleading with Evie. “Thank God you’re okay! I’m so sorry, honey. We got a flat tire on the way back from the movie and my phone was dead, so I called the club a million times from Beth’s phone but it went straight to voice mail. We were stuck, and when I couldn’t reach you I called Detective Ashlock. He rushed over to check on you.”

  I, for one, believed him. It sounded like Evie did, too. “Margee,” she said sharply, realizing what had gone wrong. “She must’ve put Call Forward on before she even closed the club. It’s okay, Dad,” she said. Her theory made sense. Desk staff always put the phones on Forward at closing time, which meant calls went straight to voice mail without ringing. Margee clearly hadn’t wanted the phones to interrupt her secret tweeting in the locker room and had shut them down hours early. I had a feeling she’d be fired ASAP.

  Lucky, voice rising in a panic, asked, “Where’s the animal hospital ambulance?”

  I heard Evie again, soothing me, saying, “You’re such a good girl,” and “We love you, Chelsea.” I felt her gentle touch on my head, and someone else’s firm pressure on my belly. I tasted blood in my mouth.

  I heard a cacophony of tennis people’s voices and I weirdly remembered they’d gone to see Iron Fisted. Someone was yelling, “What happened? What happened?” The same thing Nicky had screamed on the day Annabel’s body was found. We’d come full circle, I thought. Lots of stuff was running through my mind, let me tell you.

  Now I heard a deep, accented voice above me. “You’re my good luck charm. You hang on, girl. You hear me?” It was Goran.

  I heard the distant wail of sirens, but they got louder mighty quick, until they were so close it was like they were in my ears. “There’s only one,” Lucky yelled. “No. Where’s the second ambulance? For the dog?”

  I heard doors slam and urgent footsteps.

  “Let’s have you sit down, sir,” one of the paramedics said.

  “It’s only a graze,” Ashlock’s fierce radio-announcer voice replied. “I’ll take myself to the hospital later. I’m waiting here for backup.”

  “I understand, Detective,” one of the guys said. “But you’ve been shot, and we really need to take you over and make sure you don’t go into shock. It’s procedure.”

  What the heck had happened? Evie seemed to be okay, Ashlock was still talking away, but he’d been shot? How? And where was Nicholas?

  “The boy is over there, cuffed to the fence,” Ashlock told the paramedics. “No ambulance needed. Take this dog straight to Margot Animal Hospital. Now.”

  “But, sir—”

  “It’s a scratch. Take the dog,” Ashlock ordered in a voice you’d have to be an utter moron to disobey.

  The guy must’ve gotten the message, because within seconds I felt new hands touching me. “What have we got?” the medic asked someone.

  Lucky explained crisply, “Female golden retriever–pit bull mix, about six years old. Gunshot to the abdomen. One bullet. We’ve been applying pressure now for several minutes … since it happened.” He lowered his voice. “She’s lost a lot of blood and it sounds like her lungs are filling up.”

  That sounded scary, and I started to get nervous again. My mom seemed panicky and said, “Just take her. Please. I’ll follow behind.”

  The paramedic asked sheepishly, “Who’s assuming the vet bills? Sorry, but they’re going to need to know this is covered. You know, what kind of measures to take.”

  “This dog’s bills are guaranteed for any amount,” Gene boomed. “They are to take all measures, do you understand? Tell them to do whatever they can to save her.” I think I smiled then, but I’m not sure if I did, or if I dreamed it.

  I felt four hands sneak underneath me, and the two lifesavers lifted me deftly onto a stretcher and strapped me in. That was the most scared I’d been this entire time. The straps. The strangers. I admit it, I began to whimper, and I cried a little. Evie gasped, “I’m going with her.”

  The paramedic guy balked again. “I’m afraid—”

  I wanted to laugh because it was hilarious hearing Ashlock at his wits’ end with these clowns. He said, “The girl is going with her dog. That’s the end of the discussion. Now move it.”

  “You heard the man. Move it!” That was my mom. Good old Mom. I hoped I’d see her again.

  This time, when I faded out, I felt like whatever happened was going to be okay, because even if I had to leave this world for good now, my people were okay, and that’s what mattered. If it was my time, then so be it. I felt a peace wash over me, and I let it take me.

  After

  Well, surprise—I made it. I was unconscious for days after the shooting, stuck in a coma that scared everyone. My mom told me Evie had stayed by my side at the hospital every day. I kind of knew she was there; she read to me and a part of me could hear it, because I had so many new images running through my head when I woke up. She got through Matilda, and then shared the gossip about the tennis camp, and how Justine was going to be back on the court when school started and was as healthy as anything, and how Patrick and Goran were back to their old antics, like nothing had ever happened.

  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 himse
lf 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 par
cel 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.”