Barking Dogs

by R. R. Irvine

  “How much?” Manwaring said.

  “Walking’s good for you.”

  30

  MANWARING PICKED up Holland at the motel, waited while he ate breakfast, and then walked to the Herald, intending to seek out taxi service no matter how expensive it might have become. The small building was like so many others in Ellsworth, bleak and uninviting, with a brick facade faded to the color of old slag.

  “Give me aluminum siding any day,” Holland said. “It’s a lot more cheerful.”

  “They built this place to last.”

  “Sure. Like a mausoleum.”

  Manwaring nodded. Ellsworth, with its ubiquitous rough-cut stone and squat architecture, made him slightly uneasy, though at first sight the town had seemed quaint, like a piece of history preserved in amber.

  He took a deep breath. The sun was shining. The air smelled of sage and pine. It was the kind of place big-city dwellers dreamed about.

  He turned his back on the Herald to stare at LaVonne’s Antique Shoppe across the street. The building was a mixture of rock and brick, its gloomy facade alleviated by a window display crammed with collectibles: a marble-top Victorian dresser, Staffordshire figurines, an ormolu clock set, and the ugliest toy dog he’d ever seen. The animal sat on rusty wheels, stood two feet high, and had fake fur that was molting badly enough to create bald spots.

  Next to LaVonne’s, a red and white pole spun outside Wyszynski’s Barber Shop.

  “Everywhere I look, dogs haunt me,” Manwaring said.

  Holland groaned and knocked on the newspaper’s front door. A moment later Blaine Larsen opened up to say, “I had a call for you a few minutes ago, Mr. Manwaring. Stacie Wagstaff. She wants you to call her back. You can go ahead and use my phone.”

  Fearing the worst, Manwaring dialed the number.

  “Good news,” she said immediately. “The dog’s wound wasn’t as bad as I first thought. He came through the operation very nicely. I’ve named him Kevin, after you, because he tried to bite me as soon as he came out of the anesthetic.”

  “His real name is Jess.”

  “If you adopt him, you can name him anything you want.”

  “Is he up and around?”

  “He will be in a little while.”

  “I’d like to come out and take a few pictures of him.”

  “For the news?” she asked suspiciously.

  “That’s part of it. Mostly, I don’t like the thought of someone getting away with shooting him.”

  Jess bared his fangs when Manwaring approached the cage, the only one of half a dozen that was occupied at the moment.

  “That’s no way to treat a friend,” he said softly.

  The dog growled.

  “Easy, boy.” Manwaring knelt beside the cage. Holland and Larsen kept well back. “You remember me, don’t you? I brought you back from the island.”

  Jess’s tail thumped halfheartedly.

  “He looks like a different dog,” Manwaring told Stacie, who was standing nearby. “She’s a miracle worker, isn’t she, Jess? She brought you back to life.”

  The tail thumped again. Manwaring placed the back of his hand against the heavy wire. Tentatively, Jess sniffed the offering.

  Slowly, Manwaring eased the tip of his forefinger through the wire. Jess licked it.

  “You see. He likes me,” Manwaring said.

  “He must know something I don’t,” Stacie said.

  “I have the same effect on women.”

  “Bring in your camera and let’s get this over with before I change my mind.”

  To keep the dog from being alarmed, Holland used natural light, rather than his sun gun, during the videotaping. The sound of the tape recorder engaging brought Jess’s ears to attention, much like the RCA Victor dog being attracted to his master’s voice.

  At a signal from Manwaring, Holland turned the camera on Stacie, who blushed but still managed to give a concise report on the dog’s condition.

  The moment the camera clicked off she said, “Grady O’Dell wanted the dog. Now I don’t know what to do with him.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Larsen said. “I sleep at the newspaper.”

  “You ought to have a watchdog for protection,” Manwaring told him.

  Larsen produced a revolver from under his coat. “Everybody else in town is doing it, so why not me?”

  Manwaring shook his head. “I’d better let my bureau chief know what we’ve got on tape.”

  “You can use the phone in my office.” Stacie pointed the way.

  “I’ll use my credit card.” Manwaring left the door open so she could check on him if she wanted.

  When Ross Eccles came on the line, he sounded annoyed. “I was on my way out to breakfast and then the airport.”

  Manwaring checked his watch. It was ten Idaho time, nine A.M. in Los Angeles. “You’ll be late for work.”

  “I’m entertaining network brass. We’ll be stopping for eye-openers and bloodletting along the way. This one is a real shark.”

  “Soft-soap him. Get him one of those hookers you keep on your Rolodex for visiting bigwigs.”

  “The only piece of ass he’s after is yours, Manwaring. Reisner sent him. His name is Sutton and he’s already talked to Vicki about you. God knows what she put in his ear.”

  “Is he after my job?”

  “He’s a network vice president, not a would-be field producer.”

  “So what do you want me to do, panic?”

  “It might do you good.”

  Manwaring started to put his feet up on the veterinarian’s desk, then thought better of it. “The next time my name comes up, tell him I’ve got a victim on tape, badly wounded, a .22 slug in the shoulder, but recovering.”

  “Sounds promising,” Eccles said.

  “His name is Jess,” Manwaring added. “He’s a border collie.”

  “For Christ’s sake. Get your ass back here on the double. I’ve got stories piling up. The Vice President is staying another day and the LAPD is beating up civilians in the ghetto again. The city is ready to explode.”

  Manwaring stood up to get a closer look at Stacie’s diploma. She had graduated from veterinary school seventeen years ago. Since medical degrees came after four years as an undergraduate, he figured her to be a little over forty.

  “I can’t leave now,” he said. “Not until I find out who shot the mutt.”

  “I’m giving you an order.”

  Manwaring took a deep breath. He had a great deal of respect for Ross Eccles. The man was a journalist at heart. At the same time he had a family to feed. My advice is to stay single, he’d said once during a moment of alcoholic comradery. Don’t accumulate debt. Don’t give them a way to get at you. If you do, they own you.

  “I haven’t taken a vacation in two years,” Manwaring said. “I’ve got four weeks coming to me. I’ll take one of them now.”

  “Put Lew Holland on the phone.”

  Manwaring called his cameraman in from the next room and handed him the phone.

  “Yes,” Holland said warily, holding the receiver so Manwaring could listen in.

  “I want you and your videotape back in Los Angeles tonight,” Eccles told him. “You’re scheduled for an eight A.M. shoot first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “What about Kevin?”

  “If you’re not here, I’ll fire your ass.”

  Holland looked at Manwaring, who nodded and said, “You’d better go, Lew. I’m taking a week’s vacation.”

  “The hell you are,” Eccles shouted. “I’ll give you three days. That’s as long as I can cover for you.”

  “I’ll take three days myself,” Holland said.

  “You’re my shooter tomorrow,” Eccles said. “Manwaring stays there on his own, or you’re both fired. Hell. There’s no guarantee that this guy Sutton won’t lop your heads off anyway. I hope you both understand that. I’m not sticking my neck out in a no-win situation.”

  “We wouldn’t ask you to,” Manwaring said.<
br />
  “Christ almighty, I hate it when you do this,” Eccles said and hung up.

  Manwaring tapped a fingernail against the glass covering Stacie’s diploma. “We’d better see if Larsen is willing to drive you into Idaho Falls.”

  “That’ll leave you on foot again.”

  Larsen declined to make the trip but said he’d find someone in town who’d do it for a fee.

  31

  MANWARING WAITED until Larsen and Holland had driven off before pleading his case with Stacie. “I need some way to get around,” he told her. “With Larsen gone into town and Abe Strong refusing to release your car to me, I’m on foot unless you take pity on me.”

  “So Abe told me on the phone just before you got here.”

  Stacie led the way into the treatment area and opened Jess’s cage. The dog got up gingerly and followed them into the living quarters at the back of the house. There, he settled on a rag rug in front of a chintz sofa. He still wore a bandage, held in place by wraps that went all the way around his body.

  “Shouldn’t he be confined?” Manwaring said.

  “Dogs recover a lot faster than people. Besides, he didn’t have to move. I’m sure he’s happier being here with us.”

  She sat on the sofa while Manwaring remained standing.

  “I didn’t hear any barking when we were coming up the road,” he said.

  “The outside dogs raised hell. You just didn’t hear them. The wind was probably blowing the wrong way.”

  “How far do you think a dog’s bark can carry?”

  She stared at him.

  “Grady O’Dell said he heard dogs barking on the night of the fire,” Manwaring explained. “Defiance dogs, he thought.”

  “If the wind’s just right, the sound can go for miles.”

  Manwaring sat cross-legged on the rug next to Jess and began scratching his ears. “If only you could talk, boy.”

  “What would you ask him?”

  “About O’Dell’s poem for one thing. He recited parts of it to me, but he never got around to writing it down. Even if he had, it wouldn’t prove anything.”

  “What was it about?”

  “What he heard that night,” Manwaring said.

  “People around here didn’t understand Grady. Though he lived here most of his life, he wasn’t born here so they always thought of him as an outsider.”

  “What was he like?”

  “If it hadn’t been for him, I might never have stuck it out in Ellsworth. I had my degree in veterinary medicine, but no business. Most people around here thought home remedies were better than a lady vet. Of course, I did get the emergencies, when an animal was run over or maimed, but no regular clientele, not until Grady started bringing in Gilly, his setter, and then spreading the word of his dog’s miraculous recovery at my hands.”

  She rubbed her eyes. “He neglected to mention that Gilly had been perfectly fine to begin with.”

  “I think O’Dell knew who started the fire,” Manwaring said, “or suspected anyway. What about you? Any ideas?”

  She bent down to scratch the dog. The movement opened her shirt enough so he could admire the swell of her breasts.

  “Jess here knows as much as I do,” she said.

  Jess yawned and stretched.

  “It’s time we all went outside and got some sunshine,” she said.

  Jess led the way to a patch of recently mown grass. Ignoring his bandages, he eased onto his back, exposing his stomach. Stacie and Manwaring sat beside him, scratching his belly.

  “I’ve always had dogs,” she said. “They’ve accompanied me through life. The first I can remember was Bismarck, a German shepherd who belonged to the neighbors but who spent most of his time with me. There’s one photograph of me riding him like a horse, though I don’t remember doing it. After Bismarck came Bosco, Jerry, and then George and Bertha. That was my childhood. Later there were Rollo, Katie, and Alfie.”

  “Mine was named Buttons.”

  “Isn’t that the name you picked out for Jess?”

  “He ought to keep his own name. It’s less confusing.”

  “Something in your voice tells me you’re not going to adopt him after all.”

  “I’m never home. Half the time I’m out of town. It wouldn’t be fair to him.”

  She tried to look grim but a smile broke through. “I guess that means I have another companion for a while.”

  “My boss is pressuring me to leave Ellsworth,” Manwaring said abruptly. “If I had a solid motive connecting O’Dell to the fire that would be another matter.”

  “Would you stay if I gave you a motive?”

  He stared at her, trying to read her meaning. “Do you want me to stay?”

  “It’s crossed my mind,” she said.

  “On a permanent basis?”

  “Judging from your tone, that’s out of the question.”

  He wondered what it would be like making love to her, kissing those lush breasts.

  She interrupted his reverie to say, “We’d better stick to the kind of motive you’re looking for.” She paused to study him intently. “I’m going to tell you some things that I wouldn’t mention if Grady were still alive. I want justice for him, and for Jess too. If it takes someone like you to do it, so be it.”

  “I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”

  “When Defiance was settled, Idaho was part of Brigham Young’s empire, his State of Deseret, taking up Utah, most of Nevada and Arizona, plus parts of Wyoming, Colorado, Oregon, and New Mexico. His plan was to extend his borders as far as possible to keep his enemies away from Salt Lake City. So outposts like Defiance would stay happy, he signed over all mineral and water rights to the settlers. Decreed rights, they’re called, and can’t be revoked. As a result, Lake Brigham and the Brigham River belonged to Defiance.

  “Ellsworth has only spring water, with barely enough flow to accommodate its present population. On top of that, Idaho is in the middle of a drought. Building moratoriums have been imposed throughout the state. The only way around the moratorium is to buy water rights. As a result, the town council went to Defiance on bended knee. „Just sell us enough for Bonneville Industries,’ we begged. Only Defiance wasn’t selling. They didn’t want an assembly plant. They didn’t want more people moving in here. They wanted the natural beauty kept intact.”

  Stacie sighed. “The trouble was, I found myself agreeing with them. Still, I knew Ellsworth needed jobs if it was going to survive in the long run.”

  “A man named Ellis Bowers told me he had an option on the land.”

  “All he wants is the grazing rights.”

  “Is he in on the deal, too, with the council?”

  She shook her head. “If you must know, the vote was four to one when it came to offering money to Defiance, with me dissenting. That’s why a lot of people around town aren’t bringing their animals to me at the moment, or talking to me either, for that matter. It’s also why I don’t want any more trouble. That’s why I can’t let you have my truck from now on.

  “You said you wanted revenge.”

  “For a while there Blaine at the Herald was on your side. But he got the same speech I did from the mayor. It amounts to a boycott if we keep helping you.”

  “Do I have to walk back to town?” he said.

  “I was driving in anyway. The mayor’s called an emergency meeting out at the airport at noon.”

  “I didn’t know Ellsworth had one.”

  “It’s just a landing strip.”

  “How do I get there?” Manwaring asked.

  “You don’t, not with me.”

  ******

  Stacie was about to drop Manwaring at the motel when Abe Strong waved at them from the service station across the street. She U-turned into the parking lot just as Strong struck a pose beside a dented Datsun coupe that was primed the color of old rust.

  “Keep an eye on your wallet,” she advised before driving away.

  As soon as the engine sound died, St
rong said, “She’s a beauty, isn’t she? A „72 classic.”

  “Are you offering it to me?”

  “What could I do? No one else in town wall drive you. That goes for Blaine, too. He stopped by to tell me. From now on, he says, he’d rather you stayed clear of him. He said it was a matter of keeping his advertisers happy.”

  “Won’t your customers be unhappy?”

  Strong shrugged. “I’m the only service station they’ve got.”

  “And the mayor?”

  “Get in the Japsun,” Strong said. “Take a test drive. Then we can talk terms.”

  “Does it run?”

  “That I guarantee.”

  “How much?”

  The man scratched a shaggy eyebrow. “Like I told you before, this is a collector’s item.”

  “Someday, maybe.”

  “I’ve put a lot of work into it.”

  “It doesn’t show.”

  Strong ran a hand along the hood. “It’s what’s inside that counts. I’d let it go for two thousand.”

  “For God’s sake,” Manwaring said. “How about leasing it to me?”

  “Five hundred a day, four-day minimum.”

  “If you’ll take a credit card I’ll buy it.”

  “Great, but I’ll have to add a three percent surcharge.”

  ******

  With two hours to go before the so-called emergency meeting at the airport, Manwaring drove to the Herald. He found its editor, Blaine Larsen, sitting in the chair at Wyszynski’s Barber Shop across the street. Two other customers, neither of whom Manwaring recognized, were waiting their turn.

  “I need to look at some back issues of your paper,” Manwaring told Larsen.

  The editor rolled his eyes, an obvious plea to keep quiet in the presence of witnesses.

  “Do you want me to wait across the street?”

  Larsen nodded so hard the barber nicked him.

  Less than a minute later, Larsen was ushering Manwaring inside the newspaper office.

  “I’m after everything you have on water rights,” Manwaring said.

  “Christ, that’ll take hours. We don’t have microfilm. Just tell me what you want to know.”

  “Let’s start with decreed rights, like the ones Brigham Young granted to the pioneers who settled Defiance.”