Bone Yard (Raine Stockton Dog Mystery)

by Donna Ball

  I called the office and talked to the night dispatcher. All the night duty deputies were tied up with a wreck on the highway, and she warned that, with this weather, it might be morning before anyone made it out to my place. That suited me fine. As long as there was a report in place, I had done my duty.

  “There,” I said to Miles as I hung up the phone. “Happy now?”

  He sat on a kitchen chair, his jeans covered with muddy pawprints, rubbing Cisco’s ears. “You people sure do take a light view of the role of law enforcement around here.”

  I frowned at him. “Feel free to bring your own security force when you start moving in all your rich and famous friends.”

  “You’d better believe it.”

  I said, “Cisco, off.” Cisco’s front paws hit the floor after only a moment’s hesitation, and I told Miles, “He’s not allow to put his paws on people. Look what he did to your clothes.”

  My own wool skirt was water splotched and beginning to smell a little like the sheep from which it had come, so I went upstairs to change into jeans and a sweater. It was on my way back down that I noticed something strange.

  The house was very quiet.

  I called, “Majesty!”

  No answering bark, no clicking of claws on the hardwood.

  “Is Majesty with you?” I called to Miles, who was keeping Cisco occupied in the kitchen.

  He returned a negative, and I started to panic. I went quickly to the kennel room, where the two Aussies, still aroused from the earlier barking, stood in their cages, eyeing me expectantly.Majesty’s princess bed was empty. I moved through the house, checking every room, calling, looking under furniture, in closets, behind closed doors. Miles went behind me, with Cisco trailing, checking areas I missed. I checked the front porch, and the back porch. Majesty was nowhere to be found.

  My dog was missing.

  ____________

  SIX

  There is nothing more terrifying, or heart wrenching, than a lost dog. First I cursed the invader who had caused all the excitement, then I blamed myself for letting her slip through the door, then I was back to cursing the construction crew who had thrown my entire routine into such upheaval for far too long, and who were unquestionably responsible for the breaches in my fencing system, and finally I was just scared and broken hearted. She was gone. My collie was out there in the cold and the rain—which she hated—lost and alone, and it was all my fault.

  “You’re not really going out there,” Miles said, incredulous, as I once again pulled on my galoshes and barn jacket.

  “She’s not in the house or the yard. She might have made it as far as the woods.”

  “Raine,” he explained as though to a child, “someone just tried to break into your house. Maybe the same someone who had no trouble putting a bullet through some guy’s head and burying him in your back yard. Maybe a serial killer. Have you lost your mind?”

  Cisco looked eagerly back and forth between us, sensing the excitement and ready for action.I grabbed his tracking lead from the hook by the door, and he danced over to me, whirling with excitement.

  “No,” I told Miles, “but you have if you think I’m going let that poor dog wander around lost in this weather. Maybe Cisco can pick up her trail.”

  The look he gave me made me shift my eyes away in embarrassment. You don’t have to be a tracking expert to know that trying to pick up a scent trail in the rain is an exercise in futility. That’s how so many dogs become lost in the first place: they wander away from home, and the rain destroys their own trail before they can find their way back again. Still, I had to do something. And I have always believed in the miracle of dogs. I snapped on Cisco’s tracking harness and lead.

  “I’m going with you,” Miles said, reaching for his coat again.

  “You’ll only be in the way,” I told him briskly, grabbing my flashlight . “If you want to help, get in your car and check the highway. Don’t forget the side roads and driveways. Dogs travel in circles, not straight lines. She’s got to be within a mile’s radius as the crow flies.”

  He said stubbornly, “I don’t want you out there in the woods by yourself.” And he took the flashlight from my hand.

  Another woman would have been touched by his concern, but I was merely impatient. “For God’s sake, Miles, this is what I do.” I grabbed the flashlight back from him. “Check the highway. I’ll be back in an hour.”

  Later it occurred to me that you have to give a guy credit for respecting you enough to ignore his own ego and do as he’s told. But right then the only thing I was thinking about was my dog.

  **********

  The rain had diminished to a cold, foggy mist, which gave me a little—and most likely misplaced—hope as Cisco and I set off across the back of the yard. I brushed the wet stubbly ground with my hand and commanded Cisco “Track!” and I felt like an idiot. He had no idea what he was supposed to be tracking, even if he could have picked up a scent. But he obligingly sniffed the ground and took off at a happy lope as I played out his tracking lead almost to the end.My theory was that the rain would have kept away the woodland creatures that usually prowled the countryside after dark, diminishing the chances that he would zero in on a rabbit or deer. Dogs prioritize members of their own species, most particularly members of their own pack, and even an untrained tracking dog will follow the scent of another dog if he can. If Majesty had gone this way, my best chance of finding her was Cisco.

  And Cisco was headed, just as I had feared, toward the woods.

  I swept my high-beam light across our path, calling for Majesty every few steps. I knew that she would try to get to me if she could hear me, but the problem with find a moving creature when you, yourself, are moving is that you can easily miss each other. That’s why the best rule of thumb if you are ever lost in the wilderness is to stay put until someone comes.

  Dogs, unfortunately, don’t know that.

  We trudged through the woods until my hands were like ice and my voice was hoarse. I was slapped by wet branches and snagged by brambles and I couldn’t feel my feet, they were so cold. It seemed as though we walked for hours, but we were really never out of shouting distance from my house. I paused every few steps to listen, but the only sound I heard was that of Cisco’s panting, and the occasional drip of water from the evergreens overhead. My breath fogged in front of my face, and so did Cisco’s.

  I thought about what Sonny had said, about Majesty’s having been looking for something. I thought about how she had escaped the house more times in one day than she ever had in her life. I thought about bones and mass graves and missing pieces of the puzzle and my majestic herding dog plunging out into the rain to look for something , and—yes, I was this desperate-- I wondered how they all might be connected.

  The strip of woodlands that surrounds my house is criss-crossed by logging roads, animal trails, and, since Miles had started tearing down the mountain behind my house, by access roads for the construction equipment. I wasn’t particularly surprised when Cisco led me toward a clearing that gave way to one of the hard-packed woodland roads that hunters and off-road enthusiasts had used for years. An animal, especially a spoiled collie dog, will always take a cleared path or road if he can find one, and for an excited moment I thought Cisco might really have picked up Majesty’s trail. I raced to keep up with him.

  I was astonished to see him excitedly sniff and paw the ground, then sit and happily bark an alert.

  Cisco is trained to sit and bark when he has found the object he was sent to track, whether it be an article of clothing, an object with which the focus of his search was associated , or an actual human.I hurried to Cisco and focused the beam of my flashlight on the scrap of fabric he had uncovered in the mud. Slowly I knelt, brushed the dirt and rain off with barely functioning fingers, and stared at it.

  Cisco, like all good tracking dogs, had been trained to prioritize human scent, and a human was exactly what he had tracked.

  “Good dog, Cisco,” I manage
d. “Good find.” My backpack was stuffed with emergency equipment, treats for Majesty, and Cisco’s special tug toy, which I quickly retrieved and tossed for him. I stuffed his find into my backpack while Cisco pranced and pounced upon his toy, utterly full of himself, as well he should be. I shone my flashlight around the road and saw fresh tire tracks. Damn.

  Good for the police. Not so good for me, who only wanted to find her lost dog.

  I called Cisco to heel and retrieved his toy. We started down the road, avoiding the tracks, carefully sweeping the flashlight from side to side through the woods, calling for Majesty. The rain was like a thick, frozen goo now, clinging to my eyelashes and dripping off my nose. If I had ever been more miserable in my life, I could not recall.

  I stopped when I heard the distant grind of an engine; froze solid when headlights came into view, bouncing on the rutted forest road. It would have been futile to try to hide. Cisco and I were sitting ducks for whoever was coming for us, and no matter where we ran we would have been easy prey for the spotlighter beams that were mounted atop the SUV and lit the surrounding landscape like the headlights of an alien spaceship. All I could do was move Cisco to the side of the road, shield my eyes against the glare, and hope the damn fool didn’t run over us.

  About a hundred feet in front of us, the vehicle stopped, a door slammed, and a figure materialized out of the glare. I stood absolutely still, my hand clenched around the .38 I had rescued from my glove compartment before starting out on this adventure, finger poised on the safety. I breathed, “You are one lucky S.O.B,” and returned the gun to my backpack as I recognized Miles.

  “I saw your flashlight,” he explained matter of factly as he approached. “I’ve searched every road and driveway between here and town. Come on, get in. Your lips are blue.”

  I followed him wordlessly to his SUV. Cisco bounded into the back seat, and I held my fingers before the heater vent all the way home.

  ****************

  It was after midnight, but I called Maude. She offered to come over and help search. I told her to wait until daylight. I woke all of my neighbors out of a sound sleep. I called the night D.J. of the local radio station. I called the police.

  Well, if it was your child who was missing, what would you do?

  I called Sonny. She pretended she had not been asleep, but it took her several moments to focus. I explained that Majesty was missing, and then said, urgently, “Remember this morning when you said Majesty was looking for something? What? Do you know what it was?”

  Once before, when both Cisco and her dog Mystery had been missing, her intuition had proven invaluable in finding not only them, but the lost child they were protecting. I am not superstitious. But I prayed her success had not been mere coincidence.

  She was silent for so long that I started to repeat the question, and then she said, slowly, “Raine… I know this doesn’t make sense, but what I get is that she’s looking for some one. Someone she associates with home. It’s not your home, I’m sorry. It’s someone else, someone who needs her . Some place she wants to be. I know that’s not very helpful.”

  “Why would she do this?” I cried. “Why would she leave me? What did I do wrong? ”

  Even as I spoke I knew how foolish the words sounded. Dogs don’t plot revenge. They don’t wake up one morning, decide they want to improve their lot in life, pack their bags and move on. Dogs are creatures of instinct—exquisitely developed instinct, it’s true, but instinct nonetheless. As long as their basic needs for food, shelter, companionship, affection and structure are met, they are generally content.

  Nonetheless, I was hurt and betrayed and I felt like a failure. My girl had left me, and it was my fault.

  Sonny said carefully, “Think about it Raine. Majesty is the only one of your dogs who doesn’t have a job. Maybe she just needs to feel important.”

  I wanted to argue with that, but Sonny was right. Majesty was ornamental, not functional. Her job was to be beautiful and sweet-tempered.“I should have taken her on more therapy visits,” I said, swiping at my wet eyes with the back of my hand. “She’s the one who should have had the herding lessons. Sonny, do you think…” I tried not to choke on the words. “Is she—okay?”

  And Sonny replied simply, “I don’t know. Do you want me to come over?”

  “No.” I swallowed hard. “No. Thanks, I have people helping.” I glanced at Miles, who handed me a cup of coffee. “In the morning, maybe. I’ll call you.”

  I hung up the phone and wrapped my hands around the coffee cup. Cisco pressed his damp body against my legs, sensing my distress, and I absently dropped a hand down to soothe him. “You should go home,” I told Miles. “It’s late.”

  He said, “Two words: serial killer, home invasion. I’m staying.”

  I managed a smile. “That’s six words.”

  “Nonetheless, I’m afraid to go home in the dark.” He touched my shoulder, gesturing me out of the kitchen. “Here’s another idea. You take a shower, I’ll build up the fire. You’re soaked to the bone.”

  I gave him a brief skeptical look. A shower sounded heavenly. “You don’t know how to build a fire.”

  “Cisco will help.”

  I set the coffee cup aside. “I’m going to check outside one more time.”

  I walked the perimeter of the house. I stood on the porch and called. I went to the back porch and called. Nothing.

  When I returned Miles had, in fact, managed to get the fire going again, and he was even making a half -hearted attempt to clean up the mess of spilled beer, pizza and over-turned furniture the earlier excitement had caused. I was too dispirited to even comment on his efforts. I went upstairs and stood under the shower until I was warm, then pulled on a pair of sweats and went back out on to the porch to call again.

  Miles sat with me on the sofa and we drank coffee and stoked the fire and talked in a desultory fashion while the night crept by. Cisco eased his way up onto the sofa and put his head in my lap and I did not reprimand him.I got up every half hour or so to call for Majesty, and came back disappointed. Miles kept dozing off, and despite the coffee, so did I.I awoke with a start, and went to check again.

  “Why don’t you go to bed?” he suggested, rubbing a hand over his face and trying to look awake. “I’ll keep an eye out.”

  I shook my head and sank down beside him. Cisco heaved a big sigh without opening his eyes, and I lifted his head onto my knee again. “I’d rather be here.”

  “I’m guessing that’s not because you’re enjoying my company so much.”

  “You guess right.” But I did not object when he drew my head down on his shoulder. I let my eyes drift closed.

  “You know,” he said after a time, “I grew up in a small town in South Carolina not even a hundred miles from here, and not all that much different from this place at all. I’m not as much of an outsider as you think.”

  I grunted sleepily, threading my fingers through Cisco’s fur. “Funny. That’s the second time tonight someone mentioned South Carolina to me.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Somebody at the funeral home,” I murmured, “talking about being cremated in South Carolina.”

  “You mean what happened at that funeral home in Petersonville? “

  I blinked my eyes open. “What happened?”

  “Don’t you listen to the news?” He covered a yawn with the back of his hand. “The crematorium broke down and they couldn’t afford to have it fixed, so this guy just dumped all the bodies that came in for cremation in a gully and covered them with lime.”

  I was awake now. “Wait a minute. I did hear about that. It was what—two, three years ago?”

  He nodded. “They found twenty or thirty bodies on the property, but this had been going on for twenty years. They may never find all the remains.”

  I sat up straight. Cisco shifted and stretched, then settled again. “Or maybe they will.”

  Comprehension slowly dawned on his face. “You don’t think….”r />
  “Maybe. I don’t know.” I chewed thoughtfully on a thumbnail. “It wouldn’t be that much of a stretch, would it? If he was running out of room, or just afraid of getting caught, or maybe he only started to dump the bodies on his own property when it became too dangerous to take them across the state line. How far away from Petersonville is Bullard, anyway?”

  “I don’t know, two or three hours. But come on, Raine, you don’t really think that has anything to do with what’s going on in your back yard, do you?”

  I sank back again against his shoulder, too tired to make sense of it all… yet in an odd way starting to see that it did make sense. “I don’t know,” I said thoughtfully.I kept turning it over in my mind, but I was too tired to think it through.

  “Miles,” I said after a moment, “didn’t you tell me once your father was an alcoholic?”

  “Ummhmmm.”

  “Was he ever violent to your mother?”

  He seemed surprised by the question, which was only natural. It was a little personal. But one of the things I like about Miles is that he’s honest. If you ask him something, he’ll tell you the truth. Coming out of a relationship in which the only vows that were kept were the ones that were convenient, you can see how that characteristic would carry of lot of weight with me.

  He answered , “No, he was more of a sloppy drunk. The kind who embarrassed you at Little League and passed out on your neighbor’s lawn in a pool of his own puke. Just because he wasn’t a mean drunk doesn’t mean that he didn’t manage to make both our lives miserable though.”

  I felt bad for him, and was sorry I had brought it up. “I shouldn’t have asked,” I said, glancing up at him apologetically. “I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories.”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “Not thinking about the past doesn’t change it. I grew up a pretty angry kid, but I got over it. Or rechanneled my energy. Of course, back then, if he had hit my mom, I don’t know what I would have done. Tried to kill him, probably. When you’re a kid in a situation like that your protective instincts are just about all you have.”