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The sound of barking awakens me. Not just ordinary “there might be something out there” barking, but “something is seriously wrong” barking. I sit up and lift my ears toward the barn, listening. And then I smell it. Smoke!
I let forth a series of full-volume barks, adding my warning to those of the dogs in the barn.
Molly sits up in bed rubbing her eyes. “Doodle—what's—”
“Doodle, hush!” the boss's sleepy voice comes from the living room.
But I can't hush because they need to know. I bark even louder.
“Doodle!” the boss says, his voice now more angry than sleepy.
Molly sits up in bed and reaches for the lamp. It clicks, but the room stays dark. “Power's out,” she calls. She turns to the window. “What's that?” She yanks on a cord and pulls them up. A tiny light flickers at the roof on the far corner of the barn. Molly leans in close to the window, staring outside.
“Fire!” she yells, so loudly that I jump. She flings open the door to her bedroom. “Fire! Fire!”
The boss jumps off the couch even as Miguel stumbles from the bedroom, a dark form shrugging into a jacket as he hurtles into the kitchen. “The dogs!” he says, swearing under his breath. He's across the kitchen and out the back door in no time, leaving it open as he races in his uneven gait toward the barn. A sharp blast of cold air rushes in, thick with the stench of smoke.
The boss runs to the door, stares after him for a second. Then, he pulls out his phone. “Get your shoes and coat on,” he yells at Molly, jabbing at the keys. “It might not be safe to stay in here if the fire spreads. And get the leash.” And then into his phone, “I need to report a fire. Miguel de Castillo's kennel. The address is—”
Molly runs from the room, then stops. “My camera!” She darts back into the bedroom, returning with her phone in one hand and her camera in the other, shoving each into her jacket pockets just as the boss finishes his call. She snaps the leash onto my collar.
“Come on.” The boss leads the way through the still-open back door. The night sky is bright with stars and a half-moon just rising over the trees. Except by the barn, where the smoke forms a haze that a sharp breeze blows towards us. And, even as we watch, a tongue of flame darts up from the barn roof. The boss hesitates, staring at it.
“The dogs,” Molly whispers in an anguished moan, as we come up beside him. She starts for the barn.
The boss grabs her arm and pulls her back. “No!” he thunders.
“But the dogs! I can help.”
“Too dangerous.”
“I'll be careful.”
“Don't think it's safe to be in the van,” the boss says, as if he didn’t hear. “No time to move it.”
“I can help—”
“Miguel's mailbox. Go wait there. It's far enough away to be safe.” The boss is talking so fast, his words all run together. He thrusts a finger in the direction of the mailbox, down the dark street, which for some reason is not lit by the streetlight as it was earlier. “Take Doodle over there and wait.”
“But—”
“Just do it. I can't help Miguel if I'm worrying about you. And I need you to keep Doodle safe.”
“Okay.” Molly's voice turns quiet, frightened.
“Stay back off the road—fire trucks should be coming.”
“Be careful, Dad.”
He gives a quick nod, then turns toward the barn, only to whirl back. “Got your phone?” he asks in an urgent voice.
“Yeah.”
“Call Annie. We'll need help with the dogs. Tell her . . .” He looks back at the column of smoke gray against the black of the night. She’ll know what to do.”
Molly takes off at a run. By the time we reach the mailbox, she's almost panting, her quick breaths mixed with short ragged coughs, although the air here is not nearly as smoky. She whips her phone from her pocket and taps the screen.
Annie answers in a groggy voice. “Hello?”
“It's Molly.”
“Molly!” she says with surprise. Then more alert. “What's—”
“There's a fire at Miguel's. In the kennel.”
“What?”
“A fire. Here at Miguel's. We’re all okay. But Dad asked me to call. They're trying to get the dogs—” Molly's voice breaks. She gives a little sob and then swallows “—get the dogs out.”
“Oh. Oh. Oh—” This comes out as a wail, so sad it makes me feel like howling. Then, after a short pause, Annie says in a firmer voice. “I'm on my way. I'll grab as many crates and leashes—whatever I can find. Be there as soon as I can.”
Molly shoves the phone into the pocket of her coat and stares anxiously at the barn, twisting her hair. “What if they can't get them out?” For a moment, I'm afraid she's going to start crying, but then she takes a deep breath and pulls her camera from the pocket of her windbreaker. “I could at least record it. In case Miguel needs it.”
She pushes a switch and then stares at the camera. “So dark,” she says.
Really? It doesn't seem that dark to me, because of the moon and now, the flickering light of flames rising above the barn.
She leans against the mailbox, bracing the camera against it. “Long exposures,” she says. “Will be blurry, but I'll have them.” No idea what she means, but that's always the case when she's talking camera stuff.
“Wait. I’ll do video,” she says.
I see the dark forms of dogs, first a couple and then a whole group, stream from the garage, then a man following after them. The boss, I realize, when I hear him calling the dogs.
“Are those the dogs?” Molly asks. She looks up from her camera and stares at the barn. “They got them out! Doodle, they got them out!” She bends over and throws her arms around my neck.
And then comes the wail of a siren, in the distance. After a bit, Molly hears it, too, and straightens up. “The fire trucks,” she says with relief. She raises her camera and holds it for a long time as the trucks with their glaring flashing lights roar screaming into the driveway. We watch the men jump out and grab hoses that shoot long sprays of water onto the flames that are now reaching high about the barn roof. Molly keeps her camera on it most of the time, stopping once to change the battery.
Soon a police car, lights flashing, speeds down the road and wheels into the driveway. Between the pulses of light, I see Miguel and the cop standing together, while the boss catches dogs and puts them inside Miguel's house.
A pair of headlights approaches us from down the road. A van. It pulls in beside the cop’s car.
“That's Annie!” Molly says. We watch a dark form hurry from the van to the house.
But I'm looking elsewhere, in the black night beyond the mailbox. Was that a gleam of eyes? I turn to try to catch the scent. And then I hear a whimper.
Why, it's one of the beagles, crouched half behind a bush. I pull to the end of the leash to see more clearly. The beagle's panting, tail between his legs. Clearly scared. I give a friendly woof. He freezes, his head low in a wary stance.
Molly comes up beside me. “What do you see?” It takes her a minute, humans not being able to see as well in the dark. Then, “One of the dogs!”
She moves closer, me at her side. “Here, boy. Come here.”
The beagle looks over its shoulder. I follow the gaze. Is there another dog there? I can't see one, and with the smoke I certainly can't tell by scent.
Molly digs into her jacket. “No treats,” she says under her breath. Then, in that high happy voice people use for dogs, she calls, “Come! We won't hurt you. Here boy, come!”
The beagle, still panting, watches without moving as Molly slowly steps forward. “Come! We'll keep you safe. Come on now.”
Still the beagle doesn't move.
Molly glances down at me. “Maybe he's scared of you.” She thinks for a moment, then says in a low but firm voice, “Doodle! Down!”
I drop to the ground as I've been trained to do. “Stay!” She bends down and unclicks my leash. “Stay!” she repeats and then moves away from me toward the beagle, once again calling in a cheerful voice, “Here boy! Here!”
This time the beagle takes a couple of steps toward her, then stops, whining softly.
She draws nearer. The beagle suddenly jumps up and runs to her.
“Good dog. Good dog,” she says looping my leash around the dog's neck.
I stay down as commanded, my nose in the air sniffing, but then—is that another pair of eyes I see, a little ways behind Molly and the beagle? Can't tell by scent. I give a low growl, watching. Definitely eyes. Maybe a dog, but maybe an intruder. I jump up and rush past the bush to check it out.
“Doodle!” Molly cries out in alarm. “Doodle, come.”
I will, I will. Just need . . . to see . . . I trot toward the eyes. As soon as I'm closer, I realize it's a dog, and then at last I see him. Gunther! I run up to him, but he’s staring into the bushes ahead, his tail low. I work my nose some more and catch the scent. The man who left the cigarette package! And not too far away. I rush forward, barking at full voice. Molly will want to know he’s here! Gunther gives me a frightened look and takes off in another direction.
“Doodle! Doodle, come!” Molly sounds upset, but now I’m honed in on the scent. I push through a tangle of laurels and up a short hill, and then I see him, a dark shape running away, but slowing often to twist his head back in my direction.
I’m almost up to him when he trips and sprawls forward on the ground. He jumps up, swearing and yelling at me in Spanish. I don’t need to understand the words to recognize the threat in his voice. He thrusts an arm toward me, and I see by the glint of the moonlight that he’s holding a knife. I stay out of range, barking my own warning. Hey! I see another glint, this one of the ground. I dip my nose toward it. It looks like a phone. Smells like the man, of course.
And, in the silence while I’m sniffing, I hear Molly’s footsteps coming toward us. “Doodle! Doodle, come! Her voice sounds so anguished, almost panicked, that I turn and take a few steps toward her. When I do, the man scuttles off.
I start to follow, but Molly calls again. “Doodle!” It comes out as a scream. She's crying now, I can tell by the catch in her voice. I grab the phone and run back to her, shoving my nose into her chest.
She practically falls over me in her eagerness to grip my collar. And then she throws her arms around my neck. “If I’d lost you. Oh, Doodle. Doodle.” She holds onto me, crying softly against my fur.
She straightens up, wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her coat, and then stops, staring at me. “What do you have? Drop it.”
I drop the phone at her feet. She bends down and starts to take it. “Oh,” she says, studying it. She reaches into her coat pocket and takes out a tissue that she uses to pick it up. She shoves it in her pocket.
“Good boy. Good dog,” she says in a low voice. “We have to get this to the cops.”
She takes off at a fast walk, her hand tight around my collar. When we get to the beagle, tied to a thin tree, Molly unwinds the leash and sets off at a half-run, clutching my collar in one hand and the leash in the other. As we get to the driveway, she calls out, “We got something! We got something!”
The boss breaks away from a group of firemen and hurries over to her. “Molly! I was just going to call you. They say it’s safe to be in the house.”
“I think Doodle found the guy who set the fire,” Molly says, the words tumbling from her as if she can’t get them out quickly enough. “And he found a cell phone. Doodle was barking like crazy.” She points back to where we came from. “The guy might still be there.”
The boss calls over one of the cops to hear Molly’s story. Pretty soon, he and another cop, both carrying bright flashlights, set off into the woods. A fireman takes the phone and drops it into a bag, with a nod toward Molly. “Good work!”
“Doodle did it,” Molly says. Suddenly she’s trembling, whether from the cold or fear I can’t tell.
“We need to get you into the house,” the boss says. He finally notices the beagle, now lying on the ground beside Molly.
“I found one of the beagles,” Molly says. “Had to use Doodle's leash.”
“You two have been busy.” The boss grabs my collar and we all go up the steps to the front door.
I'm eager to go in, out of the smoke and ash-filled air that stings my nose and makes me sneeze, but the smoke seems as strong inside as it was out. The boss releases me as soon as the door shuts behind us.
And, whoa. Dogs milling about everywhere. And even a few on the couch! I can't believe it. And—what's that scent? Dog pee! In Miguel's living room!
I think I've mentioned that I've only been inside Miguel's house a few times with Molly, as his dogs all stay in the kennel, but I know that Miguel likes everything neat and put away. Everything scrubbed clean, freshly painted. So it's hard to believe he approves of this. I'd bet a bowlful of treats that Miguel isn't here. He'd never allow a dog on the furniture. And we won't even talk about the pee. But maybe he doesn't know. I lift my nose and sniff for Miguel, trying to sort through all the ash and grit, human and dog scent filling my nostrils. I don't see or smell him, although there's too much going on scent-wise to be sure if he's here or not. Beside the dogs, the room is crowded with several uniformed policemen and a bunch of people I've never met.
Molly and I weave our way into the kitchen where Annie, her phone to her ear, stands over at the far end of the oval table. She waves, her face lighting up as she sees us. “Okay,” she says into the phone. She sounds exhausted, and there's a big smear of soot that runs down one side of her face. “Just wanted to let you know.” She listens a second. I can't hear who she's talking to over the din of barking dogs and people talking. “I'll send out an email when there's news.” More listening. “Okay. Bye.”
She drops her phone on the table. “Letting everyone know not to come to the practice tomorrow,” she says. Then she sees the beagle beside Molly. “You found Fletcher! What a relief. I was so worried! It's been. . . We still haven't found Gunther or Livvy—she's a black Lab.” She shakes her head, looking near tears.
Hey! The boss pulls her into a hug. I've only seen him do this a time or two, when Molly wasn't around. “It's okay,” he says in a low voice.
After a moment, she steps back. “Sorry,” she says her voice thick. “No time for this. We need to figure out a plan.”
“The paramedics are cleaning up Miguel,” the boss says. “And treating him for smoke inhalation. You should have seen him getting those dogs. Never knew he could move so quickly. And he got the last two out just before the flames—” He notices Molly staring at him, wide-eyed. “But he's fine,” he says in a distinctly happier voice. “And all the dogs are safe. Well,” he frowns, “at least none of them ended up in the fire. And—” he shakes his head a little “—Molly and Doodle might have found one of the men.”
Annie listens attentively as Molly and the boss tell about the cell phone and my barking. “Cops are out there now,” the boss says, adding in a grim voice, “Let’s hope they get who did this.” He sighs. “Meanwhile, what can we do?”
“Help find the missing dogs,” Annie says.
She and the boss discuss the best places to search, and decide that the boss and Molly will take the van and drive around all the side roads within a mile of the house. “We'll take Doodle,” the boss says. “It'll be one less dog to worry about here.” He gestures at all the dogs milling around.
“That’d be great. I need to keep an eye on things until Miguel gets done outside,” Annie says. “And get foster homes for the dogs.”
So we take off. On the way out, I give a hard stare at the two dogs on Miguel's couch and growl softly. They give me a wary eye in return. I would have had them back on the carpet in no time except Molly tugs the leash and I have to leave.
Once we're on the road, the boss drives slowly, the windows open even though the air's quite cold. Molly leans her head out and calls, “Here Livvy. Here Gunther,” until her voice starts to get hoarse. I watch, too, until I get tired. Then I lie down for a nap. Don't know how long I sleep, but the sun's glowing on the horizon when Molly's voice wakes me up.
“What that? Over there?” She points out the windshield.
I sit up and stare. Takes me a bit to see it. A black Labrador retriever is trotting down the side of the road. I bark.
“Hush,” the boss says automatically.
Molly rolls down the window as the boss slows beside the dog, who shows no sign of stopping. “Livvy!” Molly calls. “Wait!”
“I'll get a little ahead of her,” the boss says. He speeds up and then brakes to a stop a little ways down the road. Molly hops out of the van.
“Here, girl! Here Livvy.” Livvy, panting hard, runs up to her, wagging her whole body at Molly, who quickly snaps on the leash. “Got her!” She leads her to the van. She's too big to fit in my crate with me, so they leave her loose, next to my crate and soon we're all headed back to Miguel's.
The boss pulls out his phone. “We got Livvy,” he says happily, after Annie answers.
“Wonderful!”
“Did the cops catch anyone?” the boss asks.
“Not yet,” Annie says. “But they will. They have the guys on video. Miguel set up a couple of cameras—like game cameras, battery run— that took some great pictures of the men. And they have the phone. So it’s just a matter of time.” A pause. “No sign of Gunther?”
“No.” The boss's voice flattens.
Gunther? Last time I saw him he was headed in the opposite direction.
Only a couple of fire trucks remain in the driveway when we get back to Miguel's. And when we come into the living room, Miguel's standing there, gray bandages on parts of his face and neck and hands, contrasting with black smears of ash.
Just as I suspected, now that Miguel's back, there are no dogs on the couch. In fact, most of the dogs are gone, and all the people as well, except for Annie. Livvy lunges forward toward a golden Lab who's curled on the floor by Miguel's TV stand, dragging Molly forward. “No pull,” she says, but Livvy doesn't listen. She and the Lab exchange sniffs and then Livvy sinks to the ground beside her. Molly unclips the leash.
Annie's sitting at the kitchen, her hands cupped around a mug of coffee, her eyes drooping like they could close any second. “There's coffee,” she says to the boss. She tilts her head toward the kitchen counter. “Molly, there's juice and milk in the fridge.”
Molly gets a glass of orange juice and the boss fills a cup with coffee—neither of them good drinks as far as I'm concerned—and they settle down at the table next to Annie just as Miguel comes in, fills a mug and sinks into a chair.
Molly's phone startles us all with a burst of sound. She jumps, then frowns at the display, then scrapes her chair back and hurries into the living room, everyone staring at her as she goes. I follow, of course.
“Grady?” she asks, her voice low and full of surprise. She eases open the front door and slips out. I squeeze through just as she's closing it out into the bright morning sunshine. She frowns at me, goes back inside and grabs a leash, and comes back out to snap it on my collar.
“Hey, Molly.” Grady's voice is agitated. In the background, music is playing. “Just heard about the fire at the kennel. My mom picked it up from the police scanners. Do you know if Snippet is okay?”
Molly flicks a glance toward the house, where Snippet has been peacefully lying in her crate. “She's fine. Miguel got all the dogs out okay.” Molly glances at the boss. “Miguel and my dad. We're trying to find places for all the dogs because the barn's—” Here, suddenly, Molly's voice breaks. She swallows. “The barn's a wreck.”
“So you were there? For the fire?”
“Yeah.” Molly's voice cracks again. She takes a deep breath. “But we have to go home in a while—so we'll be ready for tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“We’re going to my Uncle Matt’s for an early Christmas dinner because they’re going to the mountains for Christmas.”
“Oh. But you’re still there now? At the kennel?”
“Yeah, for a while.”
Grady clears his throat. “Hey, we're, um, actually on our way out there now.”
“Here?” Molly's eyes widen in surprise. “Your mom's coming here?”
“Yeah. She wants to see the place and get some footage of the fire.”
“I don't think . . . after her blog and all . . . I don't think my dad or Miguel—”
“Oh, that won't bother her.” He adds in a voice so quiet and muffled that it's hard to hear, “She says she has skin thick as a gator's. She does it all the time.”
“Oh,” Molly says.
The air still stinks of smoke and ash, but I sniff deeply to see if there's anything else of interest. Over toward the side of the house perhaps. I stretch to the end of the leash, nose in the air.
“Doodle! Come.”
I take a few last deep sniffs, then obey the command. When I'm back at her side, she says, “Down! Stay.”
I sink to the ground even though my nose clearly tells me—smoke or no smoke—that her pockets don't have any treats.
“Sorry,” Molly says in the phone. “I just don't think anyone here will be happy to see your mom, you know?”
“I know.” Grady's voice is still low and bitter. “But could I see Snippet when we're here? Just for a second? You could just bring her out like for a walk.”
“I'm not sure,” Molly's face skews with worry.
“Try, please? We're almost there.”
With that, the phone goes silent.
“What are we going to do now?” Molly asks me in dismay.
No idea, but I follow her back into the house. In the kitchen, Miguel, Annie, and the boss all lift their heads when Molly sits back down at the table.
“Who was that?” the boss asks.
Molly sucks in her lower lip. “Grady.”
“Seriously?” the boss shakes his head as if he can't believe it.
“Grady?” Miguel asks in a hoarse voice.
“Madison Greene's son,” Annie tells him.
Miguel's eyes narrow. “What'd he want?” He coughs and clears his throat.
But right then I hear a car pull into the driveway. I run to the door and bark, doing my job.
Miguel limps to the door, everyone else behind him. Through the living room window we can see Madison's big blue van. Miguel swears softly, then limps down the gravel driveway to the car.
I can't hear what he says, and can't get closer because Molly has a grip on my collar, but pretty soon the van backs out of the driveway, only to park on the opposite side of the road, down a ways. The doors open and Madison gets out followed by Grady, who climbs out from the back. Soon Madison has a camera up to her face.
“Some nerve,” Miguel mutters as he comes back in through the door, shutting it harder than necessary.
Grady, staying on the opposite side of the road, walks down it until he's even with the house.
“Can I go talk to Grady just a second?” Molly asks the boss.
“I don't think it's a good idea,” the boss says.
“He's not like his mom,” Molly says. “He hates what she does. And he's really worried about Snippet.”
“Why?” Miguel asks in a fierce voice. “Why does he worry about one of our dogs?”
Whoa. Miguel hardly ever gets angry, but he clearly is now.
Molly flinches at his tone and Annie touches her arm sympathetically. She explains how Grady and Snippet met at the interview and how Snippet seemed taken with him.
“He . . . he was hoping he might get to see Snippet,” Molly says.
The boss exhales angrily. “So it can be all over the news, somehow making Miguel responsible for the fire and the poor dog's plight? Unbelievable.”
“No,” Miguel says. “He can’t see the dog. At least—” he gestures to Annie. “That’s what I think.” His face is lined with exhaustion. He turns and goes into his bedroom, shutting the door behind him.
Annie gives Molly a sympathetic glance but says, “I have to agree with Miguel. Not now. Not worth the risk.”
“Can I at least go tell him?” Molly asks. “He's waiting out there for me.”
The boss shakes his head vehemently. “Not with that woman and her camera in sight.”
Molly sighs and pulls out her phone and starts thumbing the keys. Through the window, I see Grady pull out his phone, stare at it a second, and then, head down and shoulders slumped, walk slowly back to the SUV.