A Dog's Life

by Myra Love

       Chapter IX 

“I don’t think Mattie will talk to me about the whole mess,” I mumbled into my mug of tea.  “She can be incredibly pigheaded.”

Anita shrugged.  “Nevertheless you need to try.  That’s the only way to make sense of what happened.”

“Now let me get this straight.  You think Mattie might not have realized that Clausen and Jim were arranging for her dog to be stolen when they hired Tad to look after him?  Isn’t that a bit far-fetched?”

Anita smiled.  “Andy, it’s your Aunt Mattie we’re talking about.”

“But when the dog disappeared, she must have put two and two together.”

“And gotten five,” Anita insisted.  “That’s why you need to talk to her.”

I ran my hand over my face.  “Come with me,” I demanded.

“Don’t be silly!  Mattie dislikes me.  I doubt that she’d even let me into her house.”

“We don’t have to talk to her at her house.  Besides she knows she owes you.  I told her you were the one who found her dog.”

Anita shook her head, but I could tell from her expression that she hadn’t made up her mind. “Where could we talk, if not at her house?” she asked after a few seconds.

“The police station?” I ventured.  “I could tell her what Tad said and threaten her with arrest if she didn’t come clean.”

“Oh for heaven’s sake, Andy!” Anita snapped.  “That’s ridiculous.”

“Why?  Tad’s story makes her seem guilty.”

“No, it makes her seem clueless, which she is, as you know very well.  Threats make you seem like a bully.  Do you want to alienate your aunt forever?”

“I don’t understand why you’re protecting her.  She never has anything good to say about you.”

“Andy, I’m not protecting her.  I’m protecting you.”  Anita sounded tired and exasperated.  “Maybe it’s time to go to the chief with what you’ve learned from Tad.  That way you won’t start a war with your family.”

I didn’t like the idea, but as was so often the case, I knew she was right.  I put my mug in the sink and headed for the door.

“Wait a minute, Andy,” Anita called after me.  “I’m coming too.”

When I walked into the chief’s office and told him about our interview with Jackson, he wasn’t happy at all.  Apparently unaware that Anita was with me, he grumbled, “I told you you’d blown the case, so why are you still wasting time on it?  Don’t you have anything else to do?”

“It’s nice to see you, chief,” Anita said, as if he had greeted her.

“Oh, hello, Anita,” the chief said.  “I didn’t see you.”

Anita just smirked.  “I think you ought to talk with Mattie Keeley.  She’ll take you more seriously than she does Andy.  It’s hard to get over having changed someone’s diaper and made him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I think.”

I wanted to protest.  Anita made me sound like a little kid. But she gave me a look that made me keep my mouth shut.

“Well, you may have a point there,” the chief said, looking pleased with himself.  “Okay.”  He stood up from behind his desk and smiled at her.  “Want to come along?”

She nodded.  “Lead the way!”

I started after them.  “I think you ought to stay here and catch up on the work you haven’t been doing, Andy,” the chief said.  It was an order, not a suggestion, no matter how it was phrased.  I waited for Anita to say something, but she didn’t, so I glared at her and seated myself at my desk. She ignored me and followed the chief out of the station.

Less than an hour later, the chief was back with Mattie, Jim, and Clausen in tow.  Jim was scowling, and Mattie looked shell-shocked.  Only Clausen seemed his normal, obnoxious self.  “You can’t hold me,” he announced, pointing his finger at the chief.  “You have no proof I was part of anything illegal.”

“That remains to be seen,” the chief replied calmly.  “For now though, just sit down and shut up while we wait for Tad Jackson.”

“Tad Jackson!” Clausen snorted, as he seated himself on the bench by the door.  “That boy is a couple of slices short of a loaf.  You can’t believe a word he says.”

The chief looked at Mattie, who was staring at the floor.  “Anything you want to say, Mattie?”

Mattie looked at me reproachfully and then shook her head.  I felt a rush of sadness mixed with a weird satisfaction.  I’d been right; she was involved. Anita was wrong this time.

“I have something to say,” Jim announced.  “I want to call my lawyer.”

The chief merely grinned.
“I’m not saying a word until my lawyer is here.”

“Did I ask you to say anything?” the chief responded in a surprisingly even tone.  “You just sit down next to Mr. Clausen.”

Jim complied, and I waited for the chief to order Mattie to sit, but he didn’t.  She stood in the middle of the room and just kept staring at the floor, shaking her head from time to time.  If she’d been a dog, I’d have thought she had a flea in her ear.

A quarter of an hour passed before Tad Jackson showed up.  He was in his work clothes with mud on his pants and under his fingernails.  He looked happy, but shrank into himself when he saw Clausen.  “What do you want from me?” he asked the chief.

“You don’t have to be afraid of him, Tad,” the chief said gently.  “He’s in big trouble.”

Clausen grumbled, “The hell I am!”  The chief glared at him, and he glared back.  “I don’t need to listen to this halfwit,” Clausen continued.  “If you aren’t going to arrest me, I’m going back to my business.  I have work to do.”  He started to stand up, but the chief, who has a good six inches on him, not to mention forty pounds, pushed him back down onto the bench.

“You’ll go when I say you can go.”

“This is harassment,” Clausen squawked.  “And you just committed assault in front of witnesses.”

The chief started to laugh.  “Right, and you are resisting arrest in front of witnesses.”

“But you haven’t arrested me,” Clausen piped up again.

“Just stay where you are,” the chief warned.  “I don’t know why you’re in a hurry to get arrested.  It’s gonna happen soon enough.”  He turned to Tad, who seemed happy again, enjoying Clausen’s discomfort, I guess.

“Tad, you can repeat what you told Officer Searle and Miss Carswell about taking Mrs. Keeley’s dog?”

Tad looked blank for a moment, and Clausen laughed.  “What a moron!  He can’t tell you his own name and address without prompting.”

Tad looked away from Clausen and over at me.  “Umm,” he started, “I can, sort of.”

“I can, sort of,” Clausen mimicked.

I wanted to slap Clausen up the side of the head and was surprised at the chief’s patience.

“Do I have to tell it in the same words?” Tad asked hesitantly.  He was still looking at me.

I gave him a warm smile.  “Tad, you can use any words you like.  You’re our star witness.”

The chief nodded, and before Clausen could get spew another insult, Tad started his story.

Tad was only a sentence into his account when my cell phone rang.  The chief signaled me to take it outside, so I did.  I missed Tad’s story and the immediate reactions to it.  When I came back inside, it was only to tell the chief that I had to leave.  Lisa’s dad was in the hospital and she needed me there with her.  He’d had chest pains and keeled over behind his barn.  Lisa’s mom had found him right away fortunately, so there was a chance he’d make it, but it was touch and go.

When I got to the hospital, Ralph Dunn was on life support, and Lisa was in the waiting room comforting her mother.  Donald had gone to the cafeteria to get coffee for the two of them, Lisa told me.  She seemed distant, but I understood that she was doing her best not to break down.  I stood around, feeling useless.

When Donald came back with the coffee he wanted to talk, so I walked him down the hall and listened to him tell me how bad he felt about the distance between his father and himself. In the same breath, however, he swore up and down that even if his father begged him on bended knee, he wouldn’t move back to the farm.  “I’ve got the makings of a good cop,” he said to me solemnly.  “I’ll never be a farmer.”

Donald and I were still talking when a man in a white coat came over to us.  “Are you Ralph Dunn’s son?” he asked me.

I shook my head and pointed to Donald, who winced and tried to look as if he weren’t scared to death.

“I’m Dr. Sharp,” the man in the white coat said.  He smiled vaguely.  “Your father has regained consciousness and is asking for you.”

Donald looked around for Lisa and his mom.

“Your mother and sister are already with him,” the doctor said, turning to leave.  Then he suddenly turned back.  “Oh yeah, I almost forgot.  Mr. Dunn is asking for someone named Andy.”  He stared at me accusingly.  “You Andy?”

I followed Donald past the nurses’ station.

Ralph Dunn had been moved from intensive care to a room in the cardiac unit.  He was propped up in bed with a tube up his nose and wires attached to his chest and his arm.  His face looked gray, but he smiled faintly when he saw Donald and me.  I reached to take Lisa’s hand, but she ignored me.

“Listen,” Mr. Dunn said in a voice so soft and raspy it was hard to make out his words, “they’ve got to do an operation to open up something inside my chest.  Then I’ll be fine.”  He coughed and winced.  “That’s what they say anyway.  But I’m not going be able to farm.”

Donald caught my eye.  With his jaw set and his eyes narrowed, he looked just the way Mr. Dunn had always looked when someone contradicted him.  He was ready for a fight.

“I know it’s time to sell,” Mr. Dunn continued, and Donald’s eyes popped open.  “But I won’t be able to handle the sale myself.”  He looked over at me.  “That’s why I asked for you, Andy.  You’re about to become family, so I’m asking you to bear part of the family burden and help me sell the farm.”  His gaze grew serious, almost stern.  “That okay with you, son?”

At first, I thought he was asking Donald’s permission, but since his eyes never left my face, I nodded.  He relaxed then and sank back into his pillows.  “Get out of here, all of you, except Andy.  We have things to talk about.”

“You’ve talked enough, Dad,” Lisa said firmly, taking my hand at last.  “Andy will be here with us.  You can talk to him again a little later.”

To my surprise, Mr. Dunn shrugged and emitted a wheezy laugh.  “Bossy!” he whispered.

Lisa grinned at him.  “Guess where I learned it!”  And she led us out of the room.

We got almost as far as the waiting area when Mrs. Dunn turned back.  “I have to be with him,” she said.  Her voice sounded almost as weak as his had.  “He needs me.”

Lisa let go of my hand and took her mother’s arm.  “He needs to rest, mom,” she said softly.  “And so do you.”

Mrs. Dunn shook her head and her eyes filled with tears.  “He could die in there and we wouldn’t even know.”

Lisa looked at her helplessly, so I chimed in.  “Mrs. Dunn, he’s hooked up to all kinds of monitors.  If his heart rate drops or there is any other problem, alarms will sound and nurses and doctors will race in to help him.”  I caught my breath, a little embarrassed that I’d interfered in what was, after all, a Dunn family matter.  But when I looked up, Lisa was smiling.

“See, mom,” she said.  “It’ll be fine.”

Her mother nodded.  “Well, if Andy says so, it’s probably true.”

I heard Donald suppress a snicker.

We sat down in the waiting area and Mrs. Dunn yawned.  “Oh my, you’re right, Lisa.  I don’t know why I’m so tired. I hardly did anything today.”

I spoke up.  “You just saved your husband’s life, Mrs. Dunn.  I’d say that’s doing a lot.”

Her head straightened and she looked at me.    “I guess I did, didn’t I?”  In all the excitement I really didn’t think about that.”  She looked pleased with herself.

“You certainly did, Mrs. Dunn,” I said.

Her face got slightly pink as she looked away.  “You know, Andy, you might try calling me Ruth.  I think we’ve known each other long enough.  And you are going to marry my daughter.”

I smiled at her.  “Thank you, Mrs.…Ruth.”

Lisa giggled softly, and I flashed her a smile.  Donald stood up and wandered over to the window.  “You know,” he said, “this might be a good time to make some plans.”  He turned to face me and raised his eyebrows.

“What are you thinking, Andy?  About the farm, I mean.”

I sat back in my chair.  “Well, I haven’t really had much time to think about it.  Seems to me the land should be pretty easy to sell.  A bunch of office parks is going up out there.”

Lisa caught her breath.  “My father would hate to have the land developed.”  She stared at me accusingly.  “You aren’t thinking of doing that, are you, Andy?”

I smiled at her.  “It’s not up to me.  Whoever buys the land from you will probably do just that.  The question is how directly your family wants to be involved in the process.  I’m sure we can find someone to buy the land at a decent price and then sell it for a big profit to developers.  Or we can sell it directly to the developers and get that profit for your family.  It’s your decision, Lisa, yours and your family’s. I’m sure your dad only asked me because he’s old-fashioned enough to believe a man is more suited to carrying out this kind of thing than a woman.”

Lisa shook her head.  “No, that’s not true.  He asked you because he trusts you and because he knows that realtors and developers are more likely to try to pull the wool over a woman’s eyes.  He’s trying to save my mother and me some grief, that’s all.”

I shrugged.  “Maybe so.  In any case, I’m more than willing to be your representative.  You can decide what you want me to do, and I’ll do my best to follow your directions.”

Ruth sniffed.   “That is most definitely not what Ralph wants, Andy.  If he’d meant to put Lisa or me in charge, that’s what he’d have done.”

Donald cleared his throat.  “There’s also the question of where you and dad will live,” he said to his mother.  “If his heart is bad, he won’t be able to do stairs, at least not for a while.”

“Oh, Donald!” Ruth said.  “I’m sure he’ll stay here until he’s strong enough to get around.” She turned to me, a worried look appearing on her face.  “Isn’t that right, Andy?”

I smiled reassuringly.  “Actually, he’ll probably spend some time at a rehab place.  But I don’t think he’ll be up to running around when he first gets home.  Donald is probably right about that.”

“I really hadn’t thought…” Ruth began.  Then she bit her lip.  “Oh dear!  What are we going to do?”

Lisa glared at her brother.  “First the farm has to be sold.  Then we can worry about where you and dad will move.”

“I have an idea.”  I heard the words come out of my mouth, but I didn’t have any sense that I was saying them.  “Maybe you and Ralph could go in on a house with Lisa and me.  It could be, you know, a duplex.  You’d have your apartment and we’d have ours.  It wouldn’t be like living together in one household, but we’d be close by in case you needed anything.  There are a few places up for sale just on the edge of town.”  I felt heat move from the top of my head down my face and all the way through my body.  What was I talking about?  I looked up at Lisa, and she looked shocked.  Then her expression changed to the kind she got when she was considering a new idea.  Then she nodded and grinned at me.

“We could get a much nicer, roomier place if we all went in together.  If the farm sells for a good price, mom and dad would have some money to set aside for later.  And we’d be able to help out with shopping when they’re too old to do it for themselves…”

Ruth interrupted Lisa’s musings.  “That is a lovely offer.  I’m truly touched.  But I don’t know.  Ralph values his independence so much.  He’d hate to be a burden.”

“The two of you couldn’t be a burden, Mrs.…Ruth,” I persisted, hoping Lisa would say something.  She didn’t.  She just watched her mother, who sighed and then said, “Well, we’ll have to see.  It’s really up to Ralph, you know.”

I smiled and let the subject drop.  Lisa stood up and came over to take my hand.  I gave hers a squeeze and held it.

When I started to talk about sharing a house with Ralph and Ruth, Donald had looked over at me with an expression that someone might get when witnessing a car wreck.  A sentence or two into my monologue though, a light seemed to go on in his head.  I felt I could see him slowly come to the realization that if his parents lived with Lisa and me, he’d be off the hook all together.  At that point, he started to smile and nod encouragingly at his mother, who pointedly ignored his reaction.

Once I’d finished talking, Donald chimed in.  “Mom, I think Andy’s idea is really worth considering seriously.  Frankly, I’m surprised you aren’t jumping for joy at the opportunity he’s offered you.”

I cringed and I felt Lisa’s hand tighten in mine as she sighed, “Uh-oh, he put his foot in it.”

Ruth didn’t speak for a moment.  She just stared at her son, her favorite, with undisguised contempt.  Then she started in.  “Jumping for joy?  Your father is lying in a hospital bed waiting for an operation on his heart after nearly dying. I don’t feel like jumping for joy today!  Let me tell you something else, young man.  If you were the kind of son I’d be glad of, you’d have been there to save your father’s life.  But no, you’re a worthless, drug-dealing liar with no more regard for us than for anyone else in your sorry life.  Don’t think I don’t see what you’re up to, trying to salve your conscience, if you have one, by foisting us off on Andy, who’s not even kin.”  She stopped to catch her breath, still glaring at Donald.

“But, Mom,” he interjected, “Lisa is your daughter.  It’s a daughter’s responsibility to take care of her aging parents, isn’t it?”

“Don’t ‘but Mom’ me,” Ruth started in again.

I stood up and pulled Lisa to her feet.  “We’ll go get some coffee while you two hash things out,” I said, trying to sound cheerful.

“Let me…” Donald said, but before he had a chance to move, Ruth was right in his face.  “You just stay where you are, sonny…”

Lisa and I were in the elevator before her voice became inaudible.  “I wonder how long it will take for a nurse or receptionist to tell her to quiet down,” she said softly.  Then she took a deep breath.  “Have I told you how much I love you, Andy Searle?”

“Not in the last twenty-four hours,” I replied, as the elevator door closed and the slow descent to the cafeteria began.

© 2015 Myra Love - All Rights Reserved