Somewhere Out There (22 page)

“Come on,” Randy said, standing up from his desk and heading out of his office. “I brought in your first pup this morning. She’s a sweetie, but she’s had a rough time of things. You’re exactly what she needs.”

I followed him as he walked toward the kennel, and Mendez followed me. From the linoleum-lined hallway, I could hear the echoes of the dogs barking, excited as the other vet techs took them out of their pens for their midmorning play sessions in the fenced yard. When we entered the room that housed the animals, Mendez, as he always did, sat down in the chair next to the door, and Randy went directly to the last pen on the right-hand side of the first row. I went with him.

“Here she is,” he said, and I crouched down and looked through the chain-link gate.

The dog was curled up in the far corner, her fluffy, tan tail wrapped around the front of her body like a blanket. She looked to be about forty pounds, and her nose was tucked beneath her hind leg. She was shaking. “Hey, sweetie,” I said, glancing at the tag on the gate to see if she had been given a name, but the space was blank. I made a kissing sound, and she looked up at me, the fear she felt obvious in her big, brown eyes. “It’s okay, baby,” I murmured. “It’s all right, sweet girl.”

“The people at the shelter called her Wendy,” Randy said, “but I thought you might come up with something better. She’s about nine months old.” He handed me the key to the kennel. “I’ve got other clients to see, so why don’t you spend the day with her? Get to know each other a bit. Chandi has everything you need to take with you tonight at the front desk. Food, a bowl, et cetera.”

“You don’t need me to do anything else today?” I asked, straightening back up to look at him face-to-face. “I wanted to check on Winston.” Randy’s face fell, and my stomach heaved.

“He didn’t make it through the night,” Randy said. “I’m sorry, but the infection damaged his heart. He went in his sleep.”

I bit my lower lip as a few tears rolled down my cheeks. Losing animals, bearing witness to their deaths, was part of this job, and yet every time I went through the process, the sorrow I’d worked so hard to push down came rushing back. It never got any easier.

Randy set a comforting hand on my shoulder, gave it a squeeze, and then a moment later, was gone. I put the key in the lock on the gate, and slowly opened it. Again, the dog lifted her head, gazing at me with a worried intensity. Her tail lifted once, twice, wagging a nervous warning. That was something I’d learned early on working with dogs, that when they wagged their tails, it could mean any number of things: fear, excitement, or hesitance. It could also mean they were about to attack.

“Hey there, puppy,” I said in a low, soothing voice. How you spoke to a dog was just as important as what you said. She needed to know I wasn’t a threat, so after I locked the gate behind me, I got down on my hands and knees, to be at her level. “It’s okay,” I said. “It’s all right, sweet girl.”

She tensed, and tucked her tail between her back legs, eyeing me. I was just a couple of feet away, so I lifted one arm, holding my hand out, fingers curled under so she could sniff me. In six years, I’d never been bitten, and I didn’t want to start now. Randy wouldn’t have given me a vicious animal, nor would Myer have approved it.

The dog lifted her head and stood up, tail still tucked between her legs as she took one hesitant step, then two, toward me. “That’s it,” I said, in a singsong tone. “Good girl. That’s a good girl. Come here, you sweet thing.” I kept completely still, allowing her to make the decision to come to me.

Finally, she stretched out her neck and sniffed my hand. She took another step, moving her wet nose to my arm, allowing my fingers access to her neck. When I scratched her, she startled but didn’t pull away, allowing me to move my hand up and over her head, down her back and side to her belly. There wasn’t a dog I’d met who didn’t succumb to a good belly rub, and this girl was no exception. As my hand touched her there, her body softened, and she rolled to the ground, over onto her back to give me better access.

“Good girl,” I said again, looking her over as I loved her up. She was tan with black markings, likely some kind of shepherd mix. Her fur lay flat against her body, and though her tail was full, it had a wiry texture that reminded me of a Labrador retriever.

“What should I name you?” I asked her as I ran my fingers through her fur, giving her a full-body massage. She grunted and wiggled on her back, encouraging me to continue. “Wendy doesn’t work, does it?” I paused, thinking. “What about Jazz? Or Trixie?”

Her ears perked at the sound of the second name, so that’s what I decided to call her. With the long “e” sound at the end, it was similar enough to the name she’d been given by the shelter that she would still respond to it, but Trixie had more personality. More pizzazz.

I smiled until my fingers hit something raised and rough along her rib cage. “What’s this?” I said, using two hands to move her fur out of the way so I could see what I had only felt, and my eyes landed on several thick red scars that ran the length of her left side. My bottom lip quivered, and then I leaned down to rest my face on her warm body. Someone had beaten this poor pup, with something big and hard enough to break her skin.

“It’s okay,” I crooned as I righted myself and looked her straight in the eye. “I’ll take care of you now. No one will hurt you again.”

She looked at me like she’d understood exactly what I’d said, as though she knew that promise was as important for me to make as it was for her to hear. Then she climbed into my lap, sitting on the tops of my thighs while resting her head on my chest. She let loose a low, contented groan, melting her body against mine. I wrapped my arms around her, continuing to pet her, hoping she knew that whatever had happened to her in the past was over, and from this moment on, a new kind of life had begun.

•  •  •

Within two months of my having Trixie with me twenty-four hours a day, she had lost all signs of quivering shyness and blossomed into a confident, sweet animal who curled up in my bunk with me each night. She took to obedience training as though she’d been waiting for it all of her life. She was a quick study, picking up on the basic training I provided, and even showed signs of having the qualities of a good service animal candidate, something I planned to discuss with Randy later that week.

It was a Tuesday evening in early July, and I was walking with Trixie down the long hall toward my bunk when a voice I didn’t recognize called out to me. “Hey!”

I kept walking, keeping a firm grip on Trixie’s leash. “Heel,” I said in a low tone when she started to trot past me. I gave her collar a quick, gentle tug to the right, and she responded by bringing her pace back in sync with mine.

“Hey!” the woman said again, and I glanced over my shoulder, seeing her lumber toward me. I only knew this woman by reputation—she was serving time for being the getaway driver when her boyfriend robbed a corner store. Since she’d entered the prison a few weeks ago, she’d gotten into two fistfights in the cafeteria and threatened to beat up anyone who came near her in the showers. I’d done my best to stay out of her way, but there I was with her in a side hallway, having just returned from my shift at the clinic with Mendez. There was no one else around.

“I’m talking to you, bitch!”

My heart began to pound, and I took a deep breath in an attempt to calm it. Though my instinct was to run, I stopped, knowing it would be stupid to try to get away from her. Better to try to be friendly—maybe even get on her good side using my connections in the kitchen. If I’d learned anything during my time in a correctional facility, it was to keep my head down and avoid making enemies. O’Brien and I were still friends, and the threat of her wrath kept most of the harder, more violent criminals in our midst away from me, but this woman was new to the prison. She had no idea who O’Brien was or my relationship with her. Even if she did, she likely wouldn’t care.

“Sit,” I instructed Trixie as the woman approached us. “Wait.” Trixie did as I asked, and posed silently by my side, awaiting my further instruction.

“What the fuck is that animal doing in here?” the woman asked, huffing and puffing a bit. She was at least ten years older than me, almost as round as she was tall, likely outweighing me by a good sixty pounds. She had dirty blond, short hair and a mouthful of yellow, uneven teeth. Her blue scrubs were flat against her large breasts and stretched at the seams; blurry, black tattoos traveled up the skin of her thick neck.

“It’s part of my work-release program,” I said with a smile, trying not to display the anxiety I felt. “I train her and do other work with animals at a vet clinic in town.”

“Is that so?” the woman said, crossing her arms over her chest. She stared at me with tiny, round blue eyes, then looked at Trixie.

“It is,” I said, keeping my voice as steady as possible. I glanced around the hallway to see if anyone I knew might step in and discourage this woman from harassing me, but we were alone.
Where’s a guard when I need one?
“What’s your name?”

“Blake,” she said. She lifted her eyes back to mine, scowling.

“I’m Walker,” I said, keeping my eyes locked on hers. I’d never found myself in this kind of confrontation, but I’d witnessed many of them, and as with dogs, in prison, only the weaker animal looked away.

“Yeah,” she said, and she took a step toward me, putting her face only inches from mine. “You must be pretty special to get this kind of gig.” Her breath was rotten, full of decay; I tried not to flinch. “Tell me. How am I going to get me a gig like that? Leave this shithole a few days a week, just like you?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and I couldn’t keep the tremor from the words. My entire body tensed, and picking up on this, Trixie bared her teeth and growled, a low and deep, gurgling, threatening sound.

Blake’s leg shot out from her body and connected with Trixie before I knew what was happening. The dog yelped, and I screamed, “No!” and then I pushed at Blake’s chest as hard as I could. Trixie strained at the end of her leash, snarling at the woman who had just kicked her.

Blake stumbled backward, and then something dark flashed in her eyes. “Now you’re fucked, little girl,” she said, and she came at me again, her thick fists clenched, and the last thing I remember was Trixie barking and the bright sparkle of pain exploding inside my skull as Blake jumped on top of me, grabbed me by the ears, and banged my head against the floor.

“Your destination is on the right,” Natalie’s GPS announced as she turned off the main road and onto a side street. It was an older neighborhood, one she’d driven through but never stopped in before, filled with rows of small houses with overgrown lawns. Zora’s house looked as though it had once been painted blue but now, after years of the sun bleaching the siding, it was more of a washed-out shade of gray. The roof was carpeted in thick green moss and sagged in the middle; the square window next to the front door had a large crack running diagonally across it. All the shades were drawn, so Natalie worried that the woman she’d come to speak to wasn’t there—probably at work for the day. But then, she saw one of the dingy yellow shades lift up at its corner, and a child’s face peeked out at her, only to quickly disappear again.

Natalie grabbed her purse and got out of her car, heading toward Zora’s porch, which was actually just a couple of crumbling cement steps. The yard, like the ones around hers, was overgrown with weeds and littered with brightly colored but heavily weathered children’s toys. Three full garbage bins sat along the edge of the fence, and one of them had tipped over, littering the grass with paper and other bits of trash. Natalie raised a hand to knock, but the door opened before she could. She looked down to see a dark-haired little boy who looked to be about three years old standing in front of her, wearing only a baggy black T-shirt that hung on his skinny frame like a dress, its hem reaching just above his knobby knees. He had smears of jelly on his cheek, and he looked as though he hadn’t bathed in days.

“Hi,” she said to the boy. “Is your mommy home?” The boy nodded, staying silent but opening the door wide enough for Natalie to step inside. She hesitated, leaning her head in but not crossing the threshold. “Hello?” she called out. “Is anyone here?” She looked to her left, into a tiny living room where a television was playing loudly, set on the Cartoon Network. She saw a rail-thin woman sitting on one end of the couch, her head lolled back, eyes closed, and mouth open.

Worried that Zora was unconscious, Natalie disregarded her uncertainty about entering uninvited and stepped inside. The air held a ripened, moldy scent, like fruit left too long in a warm place, and the coffee table and floor were littered with plates that still had bits of food on them—an apple core, pizza crusts, and half-eaten pieces of toast with jelly. When she saw a clear plastic baggie with a few white capsules in it peeking out from under a tattered trashy magazine, a sinking feeling pulled at Natalie’s stomach.

“Hey!” she said, reaching out to shake Zora’s shoulder.

“What!” Zora said. Her eyes snapped open, and she looked at Natalie, blinking rapidly. “Who the fuck are you?” she mumbled, shoving off Natalie’s touch. “What the hell are you doing in my house?”

Natalie straightened and took a couple of steps back, away from Zora’s rancid breath. “I’m sorry, but your son opened the door and it looked like you were unconscious. I was just making sure you were okay.”

“I was sleeping, for Christ’s sake!” Zora said. She stood up, and Natalie took in her appearance. Zora wore black leggings and a tight, thin-strapped purple tank top without a bra. Not that she needed one; her chest was nonexistent, and her clavicle looked like a sharp piece of jewelry at the base of her neck. Her dark brown hair was a stringy mess around her pockmarked face, and she reached up to push it back.

“I’m sorry,” Natalie said again. After seeing the baggie full of pills, she was pretty sure that in Zora’s world, “sleeping” was another way to say “passing out after taking some kind of narcotic.” The little boy had climbed up on the couch and grabbed a blanket that had what looked to be coffee stains on it, and then glued his eyes to the cartoons on the television screen. “You are Zora Herzog . . . right?”