Dr. Harris clinched the dog’s identity.
“I had forgotten this when you called yesterday. Liz’s dog had a dewclaw missing on his right front leg. He had snagged it badly when they were hiking through some pretty tough underbrush. I had to remove it.”
The doctor knelt by the dog. He was too big for the steel table. She ran her hand along the back of his leg.
“Yup, no dewclaw, but I would have known him anyway. I know my patients. This is Cooper. Liz didn’t want him to have a chip installed, no matter how much I tried to convince her. He was pretty popular here. Some dogs just are. Other dogs get traumatized by a medical procedure and for the rest of their days coming to the vet is an ordeal for everyone. Cooper always acted like he knew we were doing the best that we could. The dewclaw was the worst we had to do to him, and it wasn’t that difficult.”
The doctor checked the shoulder area where he had been injured over a month ago.
“This is what you were talking about, right? Dogs heal so quickly. Once they begin to mend, you might never be able to tell they had surgery. But I can see he lost some muscle and he might keep the limp.” She explored the area with fingers that read his body like Braille. She stood up.
“So now what? You’ve identified the dog. What are you going to do with him?”
Rocky had hoped that bringing him here would clear something up, and it hadn’t. She had dragged Tess and the dog all the way to Orono for nothing.
“Liz’s parents are coming to the island tomorrow to get him. Right now he’s under my custody,” said Rocky. She was startled by her use of the word custody, as if this was a divorce case involving children, or as if Cooper was in prison. “Do you have any idea what Liz’s wishes would have been?” asked Rocky.
“She was a good pet owner, one of the best. She seemed like she might be sort of impulsive in other parts of her life. But not about taking care of Cooper. They were devoted to each other. Sometimes you see that with a dog like this; they become companions. So I guess she would want him to have a home where people cared about him. What about the boyfriend? The last time I saw her, which was back in May, she had a boyfriend living with her. I only know this because she said he tried to make Cooper sleep outside the bedroom, but the dog made such a fuss that even the boyfriend gave in.”
Rocky looked at Tess at the mention of a boyfriend and they both factored in one more person.
“Did he get along with the dog? I mean was he jealous?” asked Tess.
The doctor took the moment to check the dog’s ears. “No, Liz said he wanted the dog to like him more, but Cooper politely ignored him. Wouldn’t do one thing he asked him to do. Are we done here?”
Rocky remembered what she’d brought, what she had thrown in her pack at the last moment.
“I brought the arrow,” she said.
Both Tess and Dr. Harris looked at her.
“The arrow that was surgically removed, the one someone used to shoot him.” Rocky took her small black daypack off her shoulder. She put it on the examining table and unzipped it. She pulled out a manila envelope, straightened the two arms of the clasp and held it up so that the arrow slid out with a sharp clack from the point and a more stunted sound from the shaft. Only about four inches remained of the shaft. The doctor picked it up.
“Traditional bow hunter. I have to say that I admire this more than the other type. If you can be accurate with a traditional bow, you are part of an elite group. But you don’t have the power of a compound bow, which is what may have saved our friend here.” She nodded her head at Cooper, who had decided to sit on Rocky’s feet. “If you’re wondering if I knew anything about Liz’s archery, I don’t. When people come here, they only talk about their animals, or that part of their life that relates to their animals. She was a good, responsible pet owner.” Dr. Harris looked down at the dog. “He’s taken you on, hasn’t he?”
Rocky noticed the weight of his rump on her feet and how he kept her from floating away.
“Yeah, we seem to be operating hip to hip these days. But that’s one reason why I really want to find out if Liz would want him to go to her parents. Wasn’t she out of touch with her family?”
Dr. Harris put her hands in the pockets of her vest. “You’re an animal control officer? You’ve got a couple who want this dog and you drove three hours to make sure it was truly Liz’s dog. You are either the most dedicated dog warden I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some of the best, or something else is bothering you. What are you worried about?”
Tess and Dr. Harris faced Rocky. The dog, sensing a change in the atmosphere, tilted his head up and also looked at Rocky.
“I needed to hear you say that Liz wouldn’t have hurt him. I thought that would have been enough. But something is wrong here and we’re all missing what it is. You’re a scientist,” said Rocky, pointing her head at the vet. “There’s a certain order to things, A leads to B, causality of certain events, but something is out of order here.”
Ann Harris looked puzzled by Rocky.
Tess said, “She’s a dog warden now, recently vacated from her life as a psychologist. Some sort of career move.”
“Liz didn’t say anything about that to me. I wasn’t her confidante. Ask me anything about this dog’s health, and I can tell you that,” said Dr. Harris.
“Can you tell me where she lived?”
The vet paused for a minute. “Well, there’s no standard of confidentiality about to be breached. I guess there’s no reason not to,” she said. She opened up Cooper’s file on the counter. “Liz lived over in Old Town, near the college. It’s really still Orono, but they like to have their own name.”
Rocky wrote down the address and suddenly something shifted. She realized that she was in a veterinarian clinic, really in it, and her first thought, and second, and third had not been about Bob. But her reprieve was over. The smells thundered in on her, the oily scent of water dogs, the familiar disinfectant to cover up cat and dog accidents, even the lingering scent of a poodle’s anal glands that had been recently emptied out, all joined forces to drag her back to the empty well of Bob’s death.
Her heart began to pound and drum blood through her ears. Her breath turned shallow, as if she didn’t want anyone to hear her, and she could no longer hear the words that Dr. Harris was saying.
“I need some air…must have been the drive,” she said as she headed with determination for the door of the examining room. She heard Cooper’s claws scuttle to standing as she touched the doorknob.
“I’ll be outside,” she said in a small, dry voice. She walked past the receptionist and pushed open the front door. Cooper followed with his leash dragging on the floor. Outside, she leaned on Tess’s car and gulped in fistfuls of cold, biting air, filling herself back up. She knew how to handle this; she had taught countless people how to counteract anxiety attacks. Take even, steady breaths, and slow your breathing. Inhale for four, hold for four, breath out for eight. Slow and steady.
Tess joined her. “You don’t look so good. You are exactly the color of wet ash. I said our goodbyes in there. And here’s the arrow.” She handed the envelope back to Rocky.
“It’s just being in a vet clinic again. It took me by surprise, that’s all.”
“Smells. Happens to me all the time. The olfactory sense goes to a part of our brain that lights up memory. Being in a vet clinic must be like standing in your husband’s pajamas. Take a few deep breaths of fresh air,” said Tess.
Tess pulled a blue Polartec hat out of her coat pocket and pulled it on; her white hair jutted out beneath it. She extracted gloves and pulled them on. It was early afternoon and a storm front from the northwest was steadily approaching. “This would be a good time for us to head home. I don’t want to drive in a blizzard,” said Tess.
Rocky straightened up. “Not yet. We’ve got her address. I want to drive past her house. Look, I don’t exactly know why…”
The clinic door opened and the receptionist waved an arm at them. “Hey, wait up a second.” The young woman did a little jog to the car, and wrapped her arms tightly around her torso. She had on a T-shirt and a green lab coat over that. “Whatever you do, don’t let Peter talk you into giving the dog to him. Liz was done with him.”
Tess and Rocky exchanged glances. “I didn’t catch your name,” said Rocky.
“Sorry. I’m Shelly. I was a friend of Liz’s. Or we were just starting to be friends again. Nobody could be friends with her when Peter was around.”
“Was that her boyfriend?” asked Tess.
“He had been, unfortunately, for about six months. And then she spent the next three months trying to get rid of him. She never really understood the effect that she had on men. It was like a chemical reaction. They got addicted to her,” said Shelly.
“Was he an archer too?” asked Rocky.
“No. And he tried to get Liz to quit spending so much time with archery. He didn’t like that she competed with men. He didn’t even like that Cooper was so close to Liz. I told her that he was pure trouble. She told me later that she wished she had listened to me.” Shelly’s chin quivered and blood vessels swelled in her eyes as she tried not to cry. “I went to the memorial service. I can’t believe she’s gone. That asshole was there, he had the nerve to come to her memorial. He slithered in like the snake that he was. Didn’t speak to anyone.”
“I’m sorry you lost your friend,” Rocky said. She waited until Shelly could talk again. “Did Dr. Harris tell you how I found Cooper? Someone used a traditional bow and arrow to shoot him. Is that what Liz used?”
“That’s what I wanted to tell you. Liz would never, no matter how whacked out she could get with her bipolar disorder, hurt Cooper. Did you know she was bipolar?”
“I wondered,” said Rocky.
“Until she met Peter, she had her meds figured out and it was like she finally got it, how to manage meds with sleep and diet. She hadn’t had a manic episode for ages until he convinced her to go off her meds and let him take care of her. He was against all medication. And yeah, she was way into the traditional bow and arrow stuff. She got her equipment from some guy out in Nebraska who made everything by hand.”
Two cars pulled into the parking lot to the side of the clinic. An agitated Doberman wearing a plastic cone collar jumped out of one car accompanied by a woman with a wool plaid jacket. From the second car, a silver-haired man lifted an animal carrier from which the howls of one cat, possibly two, could be heard.
“Look, I’ve got to go. Just don’t let Peter have Cooper,” said Shelly. She turned to go back inside.
“Wait. What about Liz’s parents? They’re coming to Peak’s Island tomorrow to get him,” said Rocky.
Shelly stopped. “I don’t know them. Only heard her talk about them. But let me ask you. Would you want your dog to go to someone who hadn’t talked to you in almost two years? It wasn’t Liz who cut off the relationship. It was her mother. I’ve got to go.”
Tess, Rocky, and the dog got into the car. Rocky unfolded the map of Maine.
“We’re in the neighborhood. How long could it take?” asked Rocky.