Norton stood in the middle of the Gathering Area, glaring at Ezekiel. And at Ruth, who had climbed into Ezekiel’s lap and was doing her best to burrow into his chest. She didn’t look like a vicious cur. More like an animal that had been abused.
“I’ve been attacked!” Norton bellowed. “I want the cops! I want to report—”
“No need to shout.” Chief Burke appeared at the Gadfly’s side. “Meg, could you text Horace and your dad and tell them I could use their help?”
I nodded and pulled out my phone. The chief turned back to Norton.
“Now what seems to be the trouble?” he asked.
“That vicious dog bit me!” Norton pointed at Ezekiel and Ruth, taking a step toward them as he did. Ruth flinched away from him and buried her head deeper in Ezekiel’s chest.
“I see.” The chief had pulled out his notebook and pen. “Let me get some details on this. When did it happen?”
“Just a few minutes ago,” the Gadfly said. “I was passing through the lobby, minding my own business—”
“No he wasn’t!”
It was Josh speaking. We turned to see him, along with Jamie and Adam Burke, standing in a cluster at the other end of the Gathering Area.
“Let me finish taking Mr. Norton’s statement first,” the chief said, holding up an admonitory finger. Josh nodded and visibly tightened his mouth, as if keeping quiet was an effort. The Gadfly smirked as if he’d won some skirmish. Maybe he had, but I suspected the chief’s gesture to Josh didn’t say “wait your turn,” much less “shut up, kid.” More like “let’s give him the chance to hang himself first.”
“I was minding my own business, and when I happened to be passing by that savage dog, it lunged out and bit me!” Norton said. He had wrapped the bottom of his t-shirt around his right hand and was cradling it with the left. “I could get rabies.”
“Not from Ruth he can’t,” Ezekiel said, pointedly looking at the chief rather than Norton. “She’s up to date on all her shots, Chief—you’re welcome to look at her tags. And you don’t have to take my word for it. She had her checkup and booster shots a few weeks ago right here in Caerphilly, with Dr. Clarence Rutledge.”
“Well, at least I don’t have to worry about rabies,” the Gadfly said. “But you’re still not allowed to have a vicious dog running around loose in a hotel. I’m filing charges.”
“Mr. Blaine,” the chief said. “Can you shed any light on what happened?”
“No, sir,” Ezekiel said. “Except to say that I’ve never known Ruth to bite anyone. Ever.”
“Maybe if you kept her under control instead of running off and leaving her, you’d know what she gets up to behind your back,” the Gadfly said.
“I had to go to the restroom.” Ezekiel’s eyes were on the chief. “So I asked that young lady if I could leave Ruth with her, since she was sitting there at the registration table.” He pointed at Amber.
“And I said I was fine with it.” Amber swept a few loose tendrils of her long blond hair back as if preparing to leap into action. “She’s a perfectly sweet little thing. And he told her to stay, and she did just that, even though I could see she really wanted to follow Mr. Blaine. She was just lying quietly by my feet, watching the men’s room door, and the next thing I knew, she was cowering against me and that man was shouting that she’d bitten him, and I didn’t see what happened but I can’t imagine she’d do anything of the kind.”
“Well, she did,” the Gadfly said. “And my hand’s starting to swell up.”
“Josh,” the chief said. “I think you had something to contribute?”
“He was poking her with something,” Josh said. “And you could tell she was scared, and he kept poking her and poking her, and we were going to go over and stop him, but then Ruth snapped at him and cowered away.”
“But she only snapped at him,” Adam added. “She didn’t actually get anywhere near him.”
“And I think he was hurting her,” Jamie said.
“Are you going to take the word of a bunch of lying teenagers against mine?” the Gadfly snarled. “They’re just trying to—”
“I’ve known all three of those boys for their whole lives.” The chief’s tone was cold enough to freeze boiling water in an instant. “I’ve generally found them to be pretty truthful and reliable. You, on the other hand, I’ve only just met. I think—”
“Chief Burke!” Ekaterina rushed over to his side. “I have heard the distressing news. Do you wish me to retrieve the video footage of the incident from our security cameras?”
The Gadfly started at that.
“If you would be so kind,” the chief said. His lip quirked slightly, as if he was amused by the Gadfly’s reaction. And no one piped up to ask an inconvenient question, like since when did the Inn have security cameras in the Gathering Area.
“He was hurting Ruth,” Jamie repeated. “We should call Clarence and have him check her out.”
“Check who out?” Dad came trotting in from the main lobby, with his medical bag in hand and Horace trailing after him.
“Ruth,” Josh and Adam chorused. Jamie settled for pointing at the terrified dog.
“Thank you for coming so quickly, Dr. Langslow.” The chief pointed at the Gadfly. “Could you start by checking Mr. Norton’s hand? He’s reporting a dog bite.”
“Oh, dear,” Dad said. “Let me take a look at it.”
He took a few steps toward the Gadfly, who backed away.
“Thanks, but I’m fine now.” Norton was still cradling his right hand. Or maybe more like trying to hide it.
“Dog bites can be serious,” Dad said. “There’s quite a high risk of infection—almost as high as with a human bite. Were you able to identify the dog who bit you? We need to—”
“We have secured the dog,” the chief said. “And will be checking with Dr. Clarence Rutledge, our local veterinarian, to verify that she’s up to date with her rabies vaccinations.” This was obviously aimed at the Gadfly, since Dad knew perfectly well who his friend Clarence was. “But since Mr. Norton wants to file a complaint, I’d like you to examine his injury so we’ll know how serious it is.”
“It’s not that bad, actually.” Norton was looking more and more like a cornered rat. “I was just kind of shook up at first. I don’t need to file a complaint after all if—”
“You need to show Dr. Langslow your alleged dog bite.” The chief was using what I thought of as his inexorable tone—the boys called it the Morgan Freeman voice. “I need to know if you were really bitten.”
“But I just told you—” the Gadfly sputtered.
“And if you don’t show Dr. Langslow your hand, I’ll be putting you under arrest and taking you down to the station to see how many interesting things we can charge you with.” The chief smiled blandly at Norton.
“Falsely summoning or giving false reports to a law enforcement officer,” Horace suggested, in a bright, helpful tone.
“Pretty sure he’s already earned that,” the chief said. “But if he keeps refusing to show us this alleged dog bite of his we can probably think of a few other charges.”
“Interfering with a police investigation?” Horace sounded hopeful.
The chief gave a thoughtful, judicious sort of nod.
“A pity Vern isn’t here,” Horace said. “I bet he could think of others.” Yes, Vern—the chief’s senior deputy—had all but memorized the Code of Virginia, and often demoralized wrongdoers by quoting excerpts from it.
The Gadfly surrendered, pulling his right hand out and shoving it in Dad’s face—almost bopping him on the nose. Unruffled, Dad took the hand and examined it minutely. We all watched in tense silence.
“You’re sure this is the hand that was bitten?” Dad asked, after a minute or two. “It doesn’t seem to have broken the skin.”
“I was pretty shook up,” the Gadfly said. “I guess I overreacted.”
“He was poking her with something,” Amber said. “Look—it’s right down there.”
“Don’t touch it!” Horace exclaimed. He raced over to the registration table, stopped in front of it for a moment, looking as if he was considering the idea of leaping over it in a dramatic gesture. Then he steadied himself and walked around the end of the table, pulling a pair of gloves out of his pocket as he went. He squatted and peered down at the spot on the rug where Amber was pointing.
“It’s a fork,” he said. “A really tiny fork with only two tines.”
“An oyster fork, maybe?” Amber said.
“It is a fourchette à escargot,” Ekaterina said. “A snail fork.”
Dad had moved over to where Ruth was still cowering in Ezekiel’s lap and was kneeling beside them, examining her.
“Horace, you might want to bag that fork as evidence.” He was too focused on Ruth to see that Horace was already doing just that. “You know how she got these little wounds on her head and neck?” he asked, looking up at Ezekiel.
“Wounds?” Ezekiel repeated. “She didn’t have any wounds this morning.”
He and Dad both turned to stare at the Gadfly.
We all stared at him for a few moments—well, except for Horace, who had knelt down to take swabs from Ruth’s fur. Then Cordelia took a few steps forward until she was directly facing Norton.
“Mr. Niedernstatter,” she said. “You are no longer welcome at this conference.”
“Or in this hotel.” Ekaterina appeared at Cordelia’s side. “I must ask you to vacate your room immediately.”
“But—” the Gadfly began.
“I will be refunding your conference registration fee,” Cordelia said. “You can pick up the check at the front desk when you drop off your room key. Chief,” she added, turning to him. “Might we ask to have one of your officers escort Mr. Niedernstatter until he vacates the premises?”
“Of course,” the chief said. “Horace, why don’t you accompany the gentleman to his room and see that he starts packing. I’ll get another deputy out here to take over as soon as possible, so you can get back to the conference.”
“Right, Chief,” Horace said. He had deposited a last swab in a brown paper evidence bag and was writing something on the label. He held out a small handful of bags to the chief. “I’ll let you take charge of these.”
The chief nodded and took custody of the evidence bags.
Horace turned to the Gadfly. “Ready when you are, Mr.… Norton.”
Everyone watched in silence as Norton trudged to the door that led to the lobby, with Horace following a few paces behind him. I wasn’t the only one who let out a relieved breath when the door closed behind them. I wondered if anyone else felt a fleeting urge to applaud. The boys had gathered around Ezekiel and Ruth and were petting the still-trembling dog while Amber looked on approvingly.
I was starting to like Amber. Anyone who sticks up for animals was okay in my book.
I spotted Grandfather threading his way through the crowd, patting the many pockets of his khaki utility vest as he went.
“Can she have chicken jerky?” he asked when he reached Ezekiel and Ruth. “All natural—same thing I feed my wolves.”
“Thank you for asking,” Ezekiel said. “And I think she’d find a bit of chicken jerky mighty comforting at the moment.”
Grandfather produced the treat from one of his vest pockets, and while Ruth was enthusiastically chewing it up, he scratched her head while performing what I suspected was a quick but expert visual inspection of her little wounds.
“Chief,” he said. “If you want to check out that snail fork to confirm that it has Ruth’s blood on the tines and that jerk’s DNA on the handle, the Blake Foundation Laboratory will do the testing pro bono. Could support an animal cruelty charge.”
“I’ll take it over to the lab myself,” the chief said. “Soon as I’ve written up the blasted paperwork.”
Grandfather and the chief had long ago bonded over their fierce, shared conviction that Virginia needed to enact stiffer penalties for animal cruelty.
Meanwhile, the crowd that had gathered began drifting away—a process that was hastened when Cordelia made an announcement.
“Lunch in the Madison Ballroom in five minutes,” she called out.