Cormac: The Tale of a Dog Gone Missing (14 page)

The dog they’d seen was a healthy young male. He was treated to a round of appropriate shots, neutered on the 21st and released on the 23rd to “authorized individuals” who processed him to the next step. Easy for you to say, I thought, but where’d they get their authority? I thanked the receptionist.

I punched in the number for Golden Love and got a recording.

“Thank you for calling Golden Love, an adoption agency for Golden Retrievers, and Golden Retriever-mixed dogs. Please leave a message, or call back to arrange an appointment to visit with one of our adoptable Goldens. We will return your call right away. You may drop in at our office at any time, of course, but our special dogs are not on the premises. They are in the loving care and keeping of temporary foster families while they wait to find their forever homes. Thank you and have a golden day.”

The knot in my stomach did not digest well the syrupy sweet message on the phone. I chose not to leave a message and would call again in half an hour. I put away my cell phone and went to the front of the bookstore. Pierre was with a customer, showing an album page of baseball cards at the counter. I put my hand up as I walked past. He excused himself to the customer, and asked, “No luck?” He could read the answer on my face, but I still said no.

“I’ll be back in a bit to catch up with Lou, see what happened on his second trip to the pound,” I said. “If he’s got the collar, that’ll end the speculation about whether or not Cormac’s in Connecticut.”

I had promised Belle I’d let her know as soon as I found Cormac or got news of him. I decided to go to her clinic and talk to her. I sat in her waiting room, visiting with a big Old English Sheepdog, whose owner introduced him as Newton. After a few minutes, Belle stuck her head around the corner and invited me back. When I’d told her the whole story, all that I knew so far, I asked her a question. “What’s with shipping the dog to Connecticut?” I told her Grossett had used the phrase put through, to describe his handling of the dog he picked up.

“That’s the problem, Sonny,” she said, and went on to tell me she didn’t think there were bad guys in this, no dog Nazis, she said. “I think you’re dealing with people overcome with zeal to rescue a certain breed. When they keep a dog from dying at a pound, that’s good, of course. But, there should be a matching effort to return dogs to their owners.” She told me the expense and effort to “process” dogs could also include trying to reunite lost dogs with owners.

“I mean, look at this dog they ‘put through.’ He was sporting a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar collar,” Belle said. “Does that sound like an abandoned animal? But the rescue outfits never call me at the clinic. Not once has the likes of this Grossett fellow phoned us hoping to put a dog back with its owner. It really tees me off.” I’d never seen Belle so upset.

“And why Connecticut?” I asked. “That’s a long ride for a dog from Alabama.”

She told me she could only guess. “If they’ve got expensive fines for having pets that aren’t neutered or spayed, and, on the other hand, a breeder’s license is also expensive, then one consequence of those laws could be a shortage of some breeds. Maybe Golden Retrievers are a scarcity in Connecticut.”

She told me I could research the internet for other ideas, but I told Belle I didn’t want to write a paper. “I just want my dog back.”

I knelt to pet one of the office cats wandering around, a big Calico female. I looked up at Belle. “You know,” I said, “the woman on my road who thought she saw Cormac in the back of a red pickup also said she’d heard of people who will take a dog from its own yard and turn it over to a rescue network. Pierre has the idea that the driver of the red truck might be someone who collects dogs and turns them over to the pound.”

“A person who would do that has some pretty serious problems,” Belle suggested. “Did you try to find out who was the owner of the red truck?”

“No,” I said. “Not yet. But, I’ve seen a million red trucks this morning. I wouldn’t know where to start. Pierre said he and Lou will find her before they drop the case.”

Belle smiled and held out her hand as I stood. She called my attention to the bulletin board behind me. Push-pinned there were more than a half-dozen flyers for missing dogs, even another Golden Retriever, last seen two months earlier. She told me she didn’t hold out a lot of hope for good results from flyers. Belle patted my shoulder. “You just stay on the trail of your dog,” she said. “That’s the best use of your time now.”

I told her I thought she was right, and I had one more question. “The vet in Mobile doesn’t believe they had Cormac. They said the dog they saw had teeth too clean and white for a four-year old.”

“Oh, poppycock,” she said. I’d never heard anyone say that except in movies. “Cormac had beautiful teeth because you fed him a proper diet and kept him supplied with chew toys. A dog’s teeth,” Belle said, “are a good tool for estimating age. Same with horses. But that’s all. This fellow with the shiny white teeth could still be Cormac.”

Then she asked me if I was going to fly to Connecticut to identify the pooch.

“I don’t know,” I said. “If I have to I will. I’ll ask for some digital images, have them emailed to me tomorrow from this Golden Love agency. But I’m afraid I wouldn’t be any more certain it’s Cormac by looking at a picture than the vet can be certain of his age from looking at his teeth.”

Belle agreed. Then she became more the doctor. “When you get him back—and I think you will, even if this isn’t him—you’ll bring him to the clinic and let me put a chip in him.” It wasn’t a question. She was giving me instructions. I told her I would without hesitation. She didn’t lecture me about having asked me once before to get Cormac chipped. Belle was gracious like that, probably knew this was on the list that added up to the load of remorse I felt.

“Oh,” I said, getting up to go, “you know what name they used for the Golden they put through?” She shook her head. “Cognac,” I said. “Doesn’t that sound suspiciously like Cormac? What really bothers me, Belle, is the possibility that the collar Tiffany Hale mentioned still had his ID tag on it. If someone read Cormac there, called him that and it was heard as Cognac, that would explain where they got the name. Right?”

“Sounds like a fair call,” she said. “But who would have removed Cormac’s tag from the collar? And, why?”

“Why I don’t know. Who could be anyone, even Tiffany at the pound. I don’t want to make accusations, but it bothers me, naturally, that someone could have also read my name and phone number on the other side of that tag and Cormac could have been spared all this.”

“That would bother me, too,” she said.

“Maybe even make you really angry?” I asked. Belle nodded. “And so am I. But, I’ll get over it when I get Cormac back with me.”

I THINK ABOUT CORMAC carted off by strangers. I think about those words on the cover of the book from Mr. Bennett: I will take care of you. I think of those words fading beneath some sorcerer’s wicked grin, his bony hand waving over the book. And if by magic I could know what was in Cormac’s head, it might go like this:

There is pain, but there is not room inside this box to turn. I cannot lick the wound, but the pain is less each day, and so it will go soon. There are others like me, in other boxes like mine. It is dark inside here, and the box moves and shakes as we go. The one who feeds me and walks with me and calls out to me, the one to whom I run, he does not put me in a box. I could see him beside me when I rode before and I could see trees and the world and I could smell a thousand smells in one breath. When I rode before we would go and come back to my bed and bowl and the hand that put the food touched my head and his voice called in the morning. The hands and voices and the smells are not the same now. My muscles tremble and I wait.

LOU MET ME back at the bookstore. He was empty-handed, no collar. But he said he was satisfied there was nothing weird going on between the dog pound and Grossett.

“Tara told me she calls Grossett when they get a Golden Retriever, and at the end of a ten-day stay, he’s allowed to come and take them. She said it’s one less dog she has to put down.” Lou told me she had no apology for stonewalling me. “She’s a hard woman who doesn’t really like her job. And who would?” he asked.

I quizzed Lou again about the collar.

“Tara said she couldn’t find it,” Lou said, “and I believe her when she says she doesn’t know what happened to it.” I told Lou about the name Cognac for the Golden they had processed northward.

“The papers listed his name as Cognac, which sounds a lot like Cormac,” I said. “But, you know, there are a thousand more questions, most of which I’d ask the woman who delivered the dog to the pound. But I can’t stop every woman I see driving a red truck.”

“Right now, let’s find out if the dog in Connecticut is Cormac,” Lou said. “All our detective work comes to rest about twelve hundred miles north of where we’re standing.”

“You should just go,” Pierre chimed in.

“Is that your plan?” Lou asked.

“That’s Plan B,” I said. “Plan A is to talk to the people at Golden Love Agency in Connecticut. I’m sure they have photos they can email to me. There are some questions I can ask that might convince me it’s Cormac.”

“We aren’t getting any younger, Sonny. Let’s be asking the questions,” Lou said.

I agreed and both men followed me outside where I sat at the small marble-top café table on the sidewalk beside the front door. The March sun was warm in the light breeze that played down the street. Lou ducked his head beneath the Over the Transom sign and took the other chair, a good solid cast aluminum chair in the style of wrought iron filigree that could bear up under his weight. Pierre stood, his shoulder propped against the doorjamb. He had his eye on a pretty woman strolling along the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street.

I pushed redial on my cell, and the phone began ringing at Golden Love. “Good morning, Golden Love,” a young woman’s voice said. I looked at my watch. They had a half hour of morning left in Connecticut.

“Good morning. My name is Sonny Brewer. I’m in Fairhope, Alabama.”

“Oh, Mr. Brewer, we’ve been expecting your call. Let me get my supervisor. Hold the line for me please.” I waited for thirty seconds, each tick-tock deep in the workings of my wristwatch stretching into untold time.

“Hello, Mr. Brewer. My name is Fenton Jones. I’m the director of Golden Love Rescue Agency. How may I help you, sir?” My first thought was he already knew what I wanted if he had expected my call. Grossett had surely alerted them.

“I lost my Golden Retriever a couple of weeks ago. I believe he may have been processed into your agency,” I said, using their own jargon. “A dog matching the description of mine was pushed through from Mobile, Alabama, released from Boulevard Animal Clinic on the 23rd. His name is Cormac, but the name on his paperwork might be Cognac.”

“Yes, it’s Cognac. And let me say right away, sir,” said Fenton Jones, “that if Cognac is Cormac, then we want to get him back to you as soon as possible. We’ll discuss those details if that is in order, Mr. Brewer. Our foster family has agreed to speak to you. Mrs. Erma Blessing is waiting for your call now.” The director slowly recited her phone number to me. My hand shook as I took down the information. Pierre had stopped watching the woman stroll down the street, and Lou leaned toward me, his giant arms bent, his elbows resting on his knees.

“Thank you. I’ll call you back very soon.” I flipped my cell phone closed. I released my breath. I looked from Pierre to Lou, and gave them a thumbs-up. “Finally, I’m talking to a dog-lover. I can just tell. Now, let’s see what Erma Blessing can tell me about her foster doggins.”

As soon as she answered, Erma Blessing said, “Mr. Brewer, the word’s gone around that you are a very angry man. I don’t blame you. But do not talk mean to me, or I will hang up and I will not answer your call back.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“I open my home to the dogs that need a temporary good home,” Mrs. Blessing said. “I am paid for their food. That is all. I do this because I love dogs. I have six of my own.” She paused, and I could hear her take a breath. “Now,” she went on, “what can I tell you about this good-looking fellow at my feet?”

“Ah—” I could not think of a thing to say. I could not think of a question to ask. “Ah, let me see.” I smiled. “Okay. What does he look like? Is he dark red?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Is he about, say 75 pounds?”

“He’s kind of skinny. I don’t think so. But this fellow has been on quite an adventure, I’m told.”

“Ah—let’s see.” I shook my head. “Oh I know, does he put one back leg underneath the other when he’s lying on his side, so that his other leg is kind of cocked up in the air?”

She laughed. “I haven’t noticed that,” she said. “Now, Mr. Brewer, I can send you some photos. My husband would have to take them when he gets home from the office.”

“He loves to take things in his mouth and, well, make these noises as though he’s trying to speak,” I said. Pierre and Lou liked that one.

“That’s a match!” Erma Blessing said. “This fellow will make his sounds around the tiniest thing he picks up. A plastic straw this morning he found on the ground outside was quite sufficient.” I turned loose of the hope I’d held in check and let it spill the way I’d spilled raw anger earlier.

“That’s it! I’ve got it,” I said in a rush. “Can I talk to him?”

Erma Blessing laughed. “We do that, too,” she said. “My husband and I talk to our dogs. It drives my son crazy, and he wants to hide if we do it in public. Yes, Mr. Brewer, here I’ll hold the phone for him. He’s here in the kitchen with me.”

I called Cormac by name, going high and falsetto, down low, growly, calling him Mickins, Cormac, Mick. “Are you my doggins?” Pierre and Lou looked away from me with their eyebrows cocked high. They slipped a glance at each other and sniggered.

Erma Blessing, on the other hand, came back on the phone, sobbing. “Mr. Brewer, this is surely your dog. This must be Cormac! He is on the floor with eyes like the moon, his face between his paws. Forgive the allusion to advertising nostalgia, but I do believe he’s heard his master’s voice.”