by Kevin Hearne
I began to circle, the English setters baying behind me, and saw Atticus toss the phone to Earnest so he could return it to Tracie. Already her approach was sending Starbuck into new fits of anger.
“Sorry about that,” Atticus called to her. “Hope you’re all right. Your phone still works, apart from being a bit slobbery. Your call ended though.”
She didn’t reply, just scowled, snatched the phone from Earnest’s hand and then glared in my direction. I halted, the English setters barked and wanted a tussle, but Tracie called them away, and they responded. She had their food, after all. Once they were out of range, I pawed at Algy a little bit to preserve the fiction that I was just a rambunctious hound without any crime-solving agenda, and he was happy to box with me. She could try to pick a fight, but Atticus would be all smooth and apologetic if she did. And besides, she clearly had other things on her mind, places to go, weapons to hide or destroy.
As she stalked away with her English setters, I trotted back to my Druid and Starbuck.
We’re not going to. We’re going to sic the police on her while we go get the hounds in Arkansas. But I’m probably going to need to think ahead of how to handle all this without creating more timeline issues they can’t ignore. Let me get Starbuck settled and say goodbye to Earnest, and then we’ll get a move on.
Handling Earnest was done easily enough: Atticus told him he just thought of something that might lead him to Jack. “But I was wondering if you’d be willing to hire me for a dollar? Just so I can say you’re my client, and I’m working on your behalf?”
Earnest blinked. “Sure. I mean, if you find Jack and bring him back, I’ll pay you a thousand more.”
“Great. We’ll talk soon. And say, is Jack microchipped so that any vet could make a positive ID of him and who he belongs to?”
“Of course. That’s standard practice now.”
“Excellent.”
I barked a farewell at Algy as Atticus, Starbuck, and I jogged to the rental car. He called Detective Ibarra in Portland as we pulled out of the parking lot.
“Hello, Detective! As promised, I’ve taken care of things. I’m now working for Earnest in earnest to find his poodle, and my investigation has unearthed some facts. I’m positive that Tracie Chasseur in Eugene is the one who killed Verity Boone-Sutcliffe,” he said. “But she might be going home to try to hide or destroy the murder weapon even now. If you call Detective Callaghan and get him over there right away you might even catch her at it.”
“What proof do you have?”
“I overheard her making a phone call to someone named Mary just now in the dog park.” Of course he didn’t overhear that—I did—and that might be a point of contention in any court case later, but he had to tell her something she would believe. He relayed that conversation, including Tracie’s surprise at the news of Verity’s death, which spurred her phone call, and pointed out that she was a member of the regional trainers’ forum. She’d have access to any number of veterinarians who would give her tranquilizers as a trainer. He added that he’d be working on finding out who and where Mary was to recover the abducted hounds, even though he already knew that information.
“If I do find out where the hounds are, you might get a call from an associate of mine,” he said, “or maybe an officer in that local jurisdiction. He’ll drop my name. That way you can charge her for all those related crimes if you can’t nail her with Verity’s killing.”
He had to repeat himself and spell the name of Chasseur, the eighteenth-century French Huguenot, and now that I knew she kidnapped hounds, I didn’t think my full name should include any French bits anymore. And then I wondered why Algernon hadn’t barked at her the way Starbuck had if she had been the one to kidnap Jack.
Avoiding that must have been why she decided to use a tranquilizer gun. Bring snacks to toss over the backyard fence and the dogs will be snuffling around and catch a whiff of whoever dropped them. Knock them out from a distance and they won’t get a chance, and that would have been important to her if she knew that she’d see Algy at the dog park later while she was playing the sympathetic friend. And then I guess it worked so well—much faster than working through a digestive system—that she decided to use it on Starbuck. Except that caper didn’t go as planned.
When Atticus ended his call I asked,
“It will be me on yet another phone using an assumed identity. Because if these hounds are in Arkansas and we shift there, Detective Ibarra is going to have her timeline issues again. So we’ll go ahead and shift and find the hounds, then call the local authorities under a different name to get them taken care of and prove Chasseur’s involvement in the crime.”
“She just made a verifiable call to this person who has the hounds and told her to get rid of them.”
Atticus took us to a drugstore first to buy another phone, but most importantly to buy me and the Boston a big bag of beef jerky. He was going to feed that to us for lunch while he looked up a few quick things before we set out to save Jack and Ulysses and Queen Victoria Who Put Her Prince Albert in a Can.
Chapter 7:
Never Scoff
at a
Bad Omen
Atticus made himself a peanut butter and fluff sandwich for lunch while charging up the new phone, then spent some time looking up phone numbers he might need where we were going—the local police, humane society, veterinarians, and steak houses. He carefully removed the batteries from all his phones before we shifted near the address he’d memorized from Tracie’s contacts. I noticed right away that it was hotter and more humid than Oregon. I could tell we’d be panting pretty soon, which would make it harder to sneak up on people if we had any sneaking ahead of us.
My Druid didn’t set off immediately; instead, he crouched down next to me while his hand lingered on the bound tree. He looked up at it with an expression I recognized, while Starbuck snuffled around the base. Atticus gets sentimental about trees sometimes. He says they have their own kind of intelligence and are precious because they’re bound to Gaia even more intimately than he is, the first and best expression of any elemental you care to name. Whenever he gets like this I’ve found that it’s best to let him talk about it a bit.
“It’s a post oak,” he replied, his voice soft. Still, it carried in the silent woods. We were up high, I could see, on a ridge somewhere. Clear blue sky above, with the tops of trees spread beneath us in an unbroken canopy and I couldn’t see any human buildings at all. We must have a pretty good run ahead of us.
“I haven’t been here in a long time,” Atticus said, almost whispering, his voice tinged with regret. “This tree is almost done with its life but it was a mere sapling when I bound it. All the others near here that I bound have died, their tethers broken, nothing renewed by the Fae rangers. I’ll have to bind a different one to Tír na nÓg if we want to revisit the area.”
“Black Fork Mountain Wilderness in the state of Arkansas, near the Oklahoma border. We’re on Black Fork Mountain right now. There are big cats around here, Oberon, and black bears too, so keep an ear and eye out.”
“For real. This is the closest I could get to where we’re going. About six or seven miles down the mountain, there’s a town called Mena. The house we’re looking for is on the outskirts, kind of all by itself.”
“It’s private, remote. And they can advertise their stud se
rvices to four different states from here. They can reach Hot Springs or Little Rock in a few hours, or go west to Tulsa and Oklahoma City, and even reach Dallas and Shreveport without too much trouble. That part of the conversation you heard where you said Clive wouldn’t be back with Jack until tonight? They might have already taken him somewhere for stud service.”
“No, no, nothing like that.”
Except I could tell it was something like that by the way he paused before answering.
Atticus sighed. “It’s just a name, Oberon. You have to promise not to freak out.”
“It’s called Big Bear Road.”
“It’s just a coincidence. They didn’t buy property there with the intention to warn off hound detectives and their Druids.”
“Would it make you feel better if I contacted the elemental here and asked where the bears are?”
He snorted and shook his head like he does when he thinks I’m being silly. “I’ll find out what I can.” While he was doing that I sampled the air and smelled nothing particularly bearish. A gentle breeze was all oak wood and leaves and the slightly bitter whiff of a saucy squirrel. Starbuck padded around and managed to wake up that squirrel, and once the squirrel chattered in outrage, the Boston barked back. When he learned enough words, I would have to remember to teach him Ezekiel 25:17 so we could do The Full Jules together someday.
Starbuck stopped barking abruptly and gave a little whimper instead, looking at my Druid. Atticus must have told him to be quiet.
“There’s a bear nearby,” he whispered. “He was asleep. Now he’s not.”
“Or maybe Starbuck’s.”
“It’ll be fine. Or it should be. He’s behind us. Let’s just head straight down the mountain. No bears ahead. And both of you try to stay quiet and leave the squirrels alone.”
We weren’t running downhill but we weren’t walking either. Starbuck and I took very quick breaks at some trees and picked up the scent of that bear. We peed on them because it was our joyful duty.
Atticus said it was the middle of the afternoon. Our drive into Eugene and assorted shenanigans had taken up most of the morning, and Arkansas was in a time zone ahead of Portland so we weren’t terribly far away from sundown. Starbuck and I were panting halfway down because it was pretty hot, and Atticus had some sweat beading up on his face.
Once we got down to the bottom of the mountain the terrain was more of the rolling hilly sort populated by collections of leafy trees with human roads slashing through them.
Atticus stopped us at the edge of a green pasture while we were still shaded by trees ringing the edge of it. Off in the distance, I could see a low-slung house and some other human stuff, none of it looking particularly prosperous. Kind of junky, really. You could tell whoever lived there probably subsisted on cheap frozen burritos and cheesy pasta out of a box. Atticus said such humans were always in danger of getting scurvy because they never got enough fresh fruit and vegetables.
With such a nice pasture, you’d think they’d have a cow on it or maybe a goat or some sheep, but we didn’t see so much as a chicken on it.
“Okay, that’s it straight ahead. Still an hour before sundown. How are you guys doing?”
Atticus paused before answering, but then said, “He seems to be okay too. All right, I need you both to stay here.” Atticus began taking off his clothes. “Guard my stuff again. I’m going to go scout things out. If the hounds are there and you’re with me you might set them off to barking and I don’t want that yet. I’ll let you know what I’m up to through our mental link. Just lie down and rest up and we’ll decide what to do soon.”
He folded up his clothes and took out all of his phones and batteries. Two of them he left underneath his shirt, but he put the battery in the newest one and turned it on. Then he shape-shifted into a Great Horned Owl, which freaked out Starbuck a little bit since he wasn’t in camouflage this time, and he flew off with his functional phone in his talons.
This was a good plan, because Atticus was silent when he flew as an owl, and it was unlikely that the hounds would sense him nearby right away. He’s very smart for a human.
He circled the house a couple of times and then landed on the roof where we could see him from our spot at the edge of the pasture.
his voice said into my head, but it sounded a little bit different since he was in animal form now.
Atticus shape-shifted back to his human form on top of the roof and scooped up his phone before it tumbled off. Naked guys on rooftops would normally inspire comment but we were in an isolated area surrounded by trees and mountains and no one saw him but us. He tapped in some numbers and talked for a while, and the sun kept sinking toward the horizon and the air began to cool down a little bit. Starbuck dozed off, but I was too interested in saving the hounds to do that. There were sirloins at stake here.
Atticus dropped the phone from his ear and his human voice said in my head, All right. Police are informed and checking with Detective Ibarra and will be here eventually. In the meantime, I’ll check out the house. I’m going in under camouflage. Circle around closer here, near the road, but stay under cover. If anyone drives up, let me know.
We crept along the edge of the pasture toward the poorly named Big Bear Road, trying to be as quiet as possible. You could say we were catlike, maybe, except without the tendency to meow and try to cover up our anal bombs in sand.
Atticus disappeared from the rooftop, no doubt in camouflage, and before we made it to the road he was giving me updates.
I’m inside now. There’s a woman here, most likely Mary. Older tha
n Tracie. Hasn’t had a good life. Looks like she’s having a rougher time of it than the hounds outside. Strong indications that Clive might be an abusive douchelord.
Pretty sure, yeah.
If we do that then we become the focus of the investigation. We just have to wait for the police to arrive and confirm these hounds all belong to someone else, which puts the blame on Clive and Mary and Tracie.
Then we will definitely do something.
Then there’s nothing we can do about that. Our best option right now is to wait.
I’m seeing some photos around the house, Atticus said. A younger Mary with a younger Tracie. Looks like they’re cousins, at least, but more likely sisters.
Stud fees, Oberon. Let’s use the proper term.
She might have been thinking something along those lines, sure, Atticus said.
We settled down next to some oak trees and watched the road. Soon Atticus emerged from the house, dropped his camouflage, and shifted his form into a hound. This made both me and Starbuck very happy. We were just three hounds chilling out in the shade as the sun set, ready to protect the kidnapped hounds not far away. They were under a roof, which Atticus said was basically a large back porch.
