Cici was openly laughing as she handed me a wad of paper napkins across the table to use in Kelly cleanup. Tears poured out my eyes, and my nose joined in as if in a contest with my tear ducts. To top it off, the heat in the wings sparked a round of violent hiccups so I had the fun of convulsing in public as well. Charming.

  “Do we need to call an ambulance, boss? Maybe the fire department? Raise your right hand if you want us to call in a rescue,” inquired little Miss Helpful in a merry voice. I was too busy mopping up to do more than shoot her a filthy glance. It was a downright undignified episode for a retired schoolteacher old enough to be the mother of the other three people at the table.

  Well, what the hell. A good laugh is always a good ice breaker, and even Finn had joined in. He had a mischievous grin that combined with his red hair and blue eyes to make his face suddenly attractive, in an off-beat way.

  The four of us were at a table in the Watering Hole, which wasn’t exactly across the street from the store-front meeting room, but was within an easy walking distance, even for amputee types navigating the now deep snow. More white stuff spilled out of lowering, gray clouds as we walked; the prediction was for an additional six inches overnight, meaning the trusty blue Subaru wasn’t going to be pointed back to Helena until well after noon tomorrow, in order to give the snowplows and early morning commuters time to finish up and get out of our way. Thursday afternoon was soon enough to return to Helena.

  Aimee had wanted to accompany us to the bar, but Jacob had fobbed her off with a “not this time, love” delivered in an affected plummy British accent and accompanied by a rakish wink. The desire to giggle in coquettish agreement with handsome Jacob trumped her craving to listen with round-eyed, gleeful, ghoulishness to further details about murder.

  Sometimes hormone-induced behavior is a good thing.

  By the time we had polished off a couple pitchers of beer, and been entertained by the self-immolating Kelly, a feeling of camaraderie had jelled between the four of us. The boys had heard the back story of Brianna and were up to speed on our respective roles in present time; but we hadn’t shared any details about our recent discoveries in Missoula. We didn’t want to influence their recollections by introducing potential red herrings to the conversation. Any new information from Jacob and Finn should come to light without Cici or I prompting our witnesses.

  We learned that both Jacob and Finn had known Brianna through their TrapNoMore work, mainly through the liquid seminars that were held ad-hoc after the organization’s formal meetings. They deeply admired Brianna for her ability to drink most of the members of their loose group under the table.

  “So you all would get together and get blotto,” Cici interjected. “Sounds pretty normal for a bunch college age kids, but was there anything out of the ordinary that you ever saw? Brianna liked to fight, she ever get into it with anyone?”

  Jacob’s eyes suddenly gleamed with merriment and he pointed at Finn.

  “Du . . . .uuuude!”

  Finn, his face also shining with suppressed laughter pointed back at him.

  “Dawg!”

  And the two boys burst into full-fledged, knee pounding laughter that threatened to topple over our beer glasses on the table. When they had laughed themselves out, Jacob leaned back, tipping his chair onto its two back legs. I struggled to not act the teacher and tell him to put the chair back down, pronto.

  Jacob and Finn, both grinning from ear to ear, continued to bounce the story back and forth between them like a tennis ball.

  “Brianna emasculated that guy!” shouted Finn.

  “Tore his balls right off, dude!” agreed Jacob.

  “My pair crawled up inside and hid! For days!” Finn snorted.

  “He just sat there and took it though, the weirdo.” Jacob shook his head.

  “Like a puppy dog!” Finn made a disgusted face.

  Jacob leaned forward, popping the chair back down on all four legs with a bang. “Dude wasn’t wrong, though, I mean his idea was evil and sick, but it would work, it totally would.”

  I raised my hands toward Jacob and Finn, palms up and said, “Spill it, boys, tell Cici and me what you’re talking about.”

  “You tell it Jacob,” prompted Finn, still grinning wickedly as he raised his beer glass to Jacob before taking a long pull of its contents.

  Jacob took an equally long drink from his, set the glass down, and wiped a little beer mustache off his face before beginning.

  “Okay, okay, let’s see. This was back in early August, school had just started for those of us going to UM. We had a kick-off meeting for TrapNoMore at the Student Union, and had gone over to one of the bars afterwards. Brianna was there, and so was this guy who had started coming to stuff over the summer.”

  “What a dickhead!” interjected Finn. “That guy always had to make himself out to be better than anyone else!”

  Jacob cocked an eyebrow at Finn and gave him a joking stink-eye. Finn raised his hands in capitulation and quieted down to let Jacob continue.

  “This guy sucked, man,” Jacob added in agreement. “He wanted to be called ‘Dawg’ like he was some honcho homeboy, and he always one-upped whatever anyone said, even it was really obvious he was lying. Painful and pathetic to see.”

  “If you caught a twelve-inch brown on a nymph, then he had caught a twenty incher, with his bare hands,” Finn told us. “If you had gone on a five-day backpack trip, well, Dawg had just come back from a ten-day trip. Not only that, but on his trip, he didn’t take any food at all, just lived off the land. My god.” Finn shook his head.

  Jacob cleared his throat and stink-eyed Finn again.

  “My bad; go on, bro.”

  “Anyway, this guy was always trying to get the group fired up to do hands-on activist stuff. He wanted to be arrested in the worst way, kept saying we should join up with the Eco-Liberation Front. On Emasculation Night, he came up with this idea that to be really effective in shutting down trapping in Montana, we should register with the Fish and Wildlife as bona fide trappers and then take advantage of the lax rules about where you can set traps to go out and deliberately, but ‘accidently’ kill as many dogs as possible. Then angry dog owners would rise up and unite to shut down trapping.”

  Cici and I goggled at Jacob. This was a heinous idea; it made me want to throw up just thinking about it. But deep inside, I had to agree that it was an idea of evil genius, if you happen to believe that the end justified the means. Sacrificing hundreds of dogs would, I felt, cause trapping to be taken off the list of allowed activities, even in Montana, with its long history as a trapping state.

  “That’s when Brianna jumped in. She didn’t physically lay a hand on the guy, but oh my god, did she ever rake him over the coals. By the time she was done, he had a couple of new assholes, and the ‘nads? Oh, those were ripped off, chewed up and spat out on the floor. It was uggggly!”

  “What a goddamn dipshit,” this from Cici, our fount of eloquence. “What did the idiot do? Just sit there and lap it up with a smile?”

  “Practically,” agreed Finn. “Basically had his tail between his legs, wagging away, rolling his eyes and smiling at her like it was all just a big joke.”

  Finn pointed at Cici and me, his face suddenly deadpan. “Your friend, Brianna, she could be harsh with people in general, not just with this guy. She was, well, fascinating to hang out with, for a guy, anyway, but she treated lots of people like dirt. I think she got her kicks out of having people crawl back after she put them down. Could be someone, maybe this guy, Dawg, maybe someone else, got tired of it.”

  “Yeah, I hear you,” Cici replied, her voice tinged with sadness and regret. “She was the same in the army. Everyone wanted to be near her, and she shredded them, for fun. She didn’t have too many actual friends, go figure.”

  I signaled the waitress to bring us a fresh pitcher of beer. Jesus, how long had it been since I had been sat at a table with even a single pitcher of beer? It brought back fond memories of being a college student, but as the designated driver as well as the old lady at the table, I felt the need to cut myself off for the night, and wistfully filled my glass with plain water.

  “The big mystery, guys, is how Brianna and Rett, and whomever,” I said as I waved my hand in an encompassing circle. “How did they wind up down in the Crazies? Nobody would drive all the way down there just to shoot someone; there are millions of places around here to lure someone into the woods and dispose of them.”

  I took a drink from my glass before continuing. “We think Brianna had been told there were wolverines down there, and someone was taking her to look for them. And, I don’t know, something went awfully wrong and she got shot along with Rett.

  “Does this line up with anything you know?”

  Finn and Jacob looked at each other for a minute, and then Finn said slowly, “There was a rumor going around about wolverines, a while ago. People were up in arms that trappers were targeting them in areas where they really weren’t known to be, so Fish Wildlife and Parks hadn’t closed those spots to trapping. If evidence showed the animals were there, though . . . then advocate groups could force FWP to act.”

  “Was Brianna part of the talk? Was this Dawg guy?” Cici asked.

  Jacob rubbed his upper lip in thought, kicking his chair back onto two legs again. “Man, it’s been a while, I don’t really know. But I do know, if that girl had expressed an interest in looking for wolverines, that suck-ass braggart would have been right there, spinning a tale that he knew exactly how to find them.” Jacob pointed again at Finn, “Am I right?”

  “Would she have believed him though? Would she spend a whole day or more with him on a wolverine mission? I mean, it sounds like she really disliked him,” I asked.

  Jacob spoke up, “He was dirt to her, but that wouldn’t stop her from using him to get something she wanted. She’d use people and then drop them like a dirty Kleenex, that’s what we’re telling you. ‘Dawg’ had a thing for her, even after she shredded him; he’d have literally licked her boots if she’d asked him to.”

  Across the table, Finn nodded in agreement.

  “What does ‘Dawg’ look like, anyway?” Cici asked. “You never said.”

  The boys did their tennis ball thing again, complete with finger pointing to show when the ball went to the other’s court. At the end, they had given us a description of a shorter, slightly built man in his later twenties who had long, greasy, blondie-brown hair, usually worn in a ponytail, and a goatee that was wispy enough to be embarrassing.

  Cici and I connected our eyes with an electric shock. This was an almost identical description of the Shalimar Stalker, as provided by Adrian!

  Unfortunately, the boys didn’t know much else about ‘Dawg’, they had never seen him anywhere else around town, didn’t know his real name, or where he worked, or if he was a student at the university. The one other piece of intel that Jacob and Finn had to share was the fact that ‘Dawg’ claimed not to have a car.

  “What a poser! He was all over letting us know that cars were so bad for the environment he wouldn’t even have an electric one. Didn’t stop him from trying to cadge rides from the rest of us, though,” said Jacob. “Joke was always on him, we were always too blasted to drive anywhere!”

  Finn poured the last of the current pitcher into his glass and swallowed half his drink in a single go. A belch that he hid behind his hand earned him a whack across the back of the head from Jacob.

  “Jeez, get some manners, Finn! No wonder you never have a girlfriend!” admonished Jacob.

  Finn flipped him a double bird and started to give a witty Finn reply, but was interrupted by Cici.

  “Hey, focus a minute more and we’ll buy you another pitcher before we go.” Obediently, two sets of slightly buzzed eyes looked her way.

  “If this ‘Dawg’ didn’t have a car, then if Brianna did go to the Crazies with him, she would’ve driven her own, is that what you’re telling us? And then he would’ve driven hers away when he left her there?”

  “Shit,” Cici now said to me. “The douche bag could’ve gone anywhere! Why would he come back here to Missoula? No wonder no one’s found her car.”

  “Um, he would’ve at least come back for his stuff, I bet,” interjected Jacob. “The guy had some nice things, like his computer.” Jacob pointed at Finn.

  “His fancy Italian shoes!” Finn pointed back.

  “Real leather jacket, from WWII!” Jacob spouted. “Old enough it was okay that it was made from little animal friends!” The boys dissolved into spasms of hilarity that were out of sync with the actual humor of their statements. Recognizing that they had gone beyond the point of inebriation where reliable conversation could be had, Cici and I decided to say our goodbyes and go on our way.

  We signaled the barmaid to bring the boys another pitcher, settled up the tab, and left them to their merriment in the warm, dark bar. I was glad we left when we did. As it was, we had to battle our way back through the wind-whipped snow to where the trusty blue Subaru sat buried under an accumulation of snow and ice that had to be removed before we could retreat to the Airbnb for the night.

  The man who called himself Dawg, currently hiding in a dimly lit back booth of the Watering Hole hissed about time, to himself. At last, the group of pansy asses from TrapNoMore seemed to be breaking up, and he would be able to leave soon without being spotted. It had been a near thing earlier; he had been close to walking out of the bar when the group with the damn dog approached the front door. The man had spun on his heel and gone back to the men’s room to get out of sight before they pulled the front door open. Of course they had to sit at a table that was right next to the door, blocking him from an escape.

  He had slid into an available, isolated booth, and sat hidden from their view. He cursed the fact that he wasn’t close enough to overhear their conversation, but the presence of Brianna’s damn dog with his damn nose, meant he had to stay far away if he wanted to remain undetected. He heard the names, ‘Kelly’ and ‘Cici’, when one of them had come to grief over the unnaturally spicy chicken wings. He wished they had choked.

  He also heard “Brianna” and “Dawg” accompanied by laughter, and his muddy brown eyes burned in outrage as he realized the TrapNoMore boys were recounting the story of his humiliation by Brianna.

  Dawg shook his head in disbelief that this mess had washed up on the shores of his life. The damn bitch was dead! How could she and her dog still be showing up to haunt him?

  Twenty-Seven

  It was Saturday, October 15th and Cici had decamped from RogerDogs yesterday for Missoula and her new job at ZooTown Zoo. The place seemed so empty without her, it was hard to believe it was only two weeks since she had first rolled into our parking lot. After lunch, feeling out of sorts with my day, I took a short break from my desk work to wander the kennels and play with the dogs a little. All work and no play makes for a crabby Kelly. I felt that I deserved a little of the magic rush of endorphins that comes from petting puppies, even if said ‘puppies’ were senior citizen animals.

  I made my way slowly around the kennel areas, greeting newcomers and renewing older friendships as I went. It coulda shoulda been a Hallmark Moment, but instead I found myself being mowed over, raked with claws, and assaulted with jumpy-mouthy dogs exhibiting classic signs of kennel stress.

  Being absent since last Monday, for almost five days in all, made me see residents in a new light, especially the ones who had been with RogerDogs for more than a few months. How long, exactly, had Spruce, Walleye and Kanga been at RogerDogs? Frowning slightly at the frenetic faces and wagging tails, I tried to bring to mind their intake dates, but the noisy din from the dogs made it hard to think. Giving up until I got back to my trusty computer, I gave myself over to handing out treats and sharing some happiness, while keeping myself safe from further over-anxious overtures.

  Over six months! That’s what I found from our computerized records. Spruce, had come to RogerDogs way last spring, and had been adopted out once for four days, but was brought back after ‘playing too roughly’ with the adopter’s elderly Chihuahua. I narrowed my eyes and snorted to myself at that. He’s a Lab! Of course he’s bouncy! Spruce had lived at RogerDogs for a grand total of nine months and thirteen days.

  Walleye, a Pyrenees mix; and the Visla, Kanga, had been at the shelter for six-to eight months.

  Time to shake things up, I thought to myself, it’s time for an Adoption Event at PetSmart! I spun my office chair around like a mini-carousel while imagined trumpets sounded in my ears. Betty Mills was going to shit a brick; she hated putting on Adoption Events. Laughing to myself, I picked up the phone to call PetSmart and see when we could arrange a two-day time slot at the Helena store.

  Twenty-Eight

  “Red Alert! Red Alert! Puppy breakout on Aisle Three!” Grace Oberlander’s voice rang out from the depths of the store. It was the second day of the October 18th and 19th RogerDog Rescue Adoption Event at the Helena PetSmart; and things had apparently gone to hell in a handbasket over in Aisle Three.

  I was manning the office table, which meant I was in charge of the casework files for the dogs, and the ‘cash register’ which any other day of the week was one of Randy Mills’ toolboxes. As much as I wanted to sprint to Aisle Three and see what in god’s name was going on, I was trapped at the office table by the need to watch over the goods.

  “Grace, what’s happening? How many are out and which dogs are they?” I bellowed.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23