The Dead Season (13 page)

Agent Brown said, “Why would anyone want to break into your tent, Miss Stockton?”

“That’s what I couldn’t figure out,” I said tiredly. “It’s not as though I had anything anyone would want to steal. And then, after I saw what someone had done to the toy, I thought maybe they wanted to hurt Cisco.”

“That would be a foolish thing to try.”

“Maybe not for a city kid who doesn’t know about dogs. Besides, golden retrievers are a lot more friendly and trusting than other breeds. It’s not as though he would have tried to defend himself. He would have defended me. But not himself.”

Agent Brown said, not unkindly, “And you would have done anything to protect him, wouldn’t you?”

I drew a breath to assert that of course I would, I would have protected my dog to the death, and that was when Mr. Willis said calmly, “Let’s try to remember that Miss Stockton is not on trial here, gentlemen.”

I was beginning to see why it was a good idea to have him here.

There was a moment of silence. I stared at the muddy depths of my coffee cup.

Detective Ritchie said, “So that stuffed toy you were talking about, how did it end up in the wrong hands? Is that what somebody was trying to break into your tent to get?”

I shook my head. “They never even got the flap open. I think Cisco probably dropped it at the camp fire, or somebody took it from him. I don’t remember him having it when we went to our tent.”

Agent Brown smiled a little. “So that might be what you could call an opportunistic crime, am I right?”

I knew he was trying to lighten the mood and put me at ease again. I refused to respond.

Detective Ritchie said, “You were the only one who packed your own pack, right?”

I nodded. “Except for Rachel and Paul, I guess.”

“What kind of weapon did you pack?”

I scowled sharply at him. “None. I didn’t pack any weapons.”

Agent Brown made a show of checking a page of his notes. “But you do have a carry permit, am I right?”

“Of course. But I don’t see what—”

“And on a dangerous excursion into the wilderness for almost a week, you didn’t bother to bring a firearm?”

My contempt for the FBI agent was mounting. Clearly, he wasn’t from around here. “Not with a bunch of kids along. And I didn’t think we’d be seeing too many rattlesnakes in the middle of January with the temperatures staying close to freezing.”

He simply nodded and made another note. “So you didn’t have anything in your pack that could qualify as a weapon.”

“I had a Swiss army knife,” I said. “I kept it zipped in my jacket with my phone and waterproof matches. It’s standard survival procedure.” Automatically I reached to pat my pockets, as I had done so many times the past few days, but of course they had taken my jacket at the desk. And they knew exactly what was inside the pockets.

Detective Ritchie sipped his coffee, watching me as he said, “What about a hatchet? Isn’t that what you’d call a standard piece of survival equipment?”

My throat clenched. “I thought you said you hadn’t found the murder weapon.”

Ritchie replied mildly, “We haven’t.”

My attorney spoke up. “Okay, I think it’s time for a break. My client is tired. We can pick this up—”

I said firmly, “No, I don’t want a break. I want to finish this.” I looked sternly at Detective Ritchie. “I didn’t have a hatchet. Hatchets are heavy and not worth their weight on a trip like this, at least to me. Paul was the only one who had a hatchet.”

Ritchie leaned back in his chair, his sweater-clad chest expanding with a breath. “Okay, then. Let’s get back to what happened that morning. This is day two, right? And you’re still in North Carolina?”

I nodded. “We’d cross into South Carolina before noon.”

Agent Brown made a note. “How do you know this?”

I gave him a dismissive glance. “I have GPS on my phone, remember?”

“Ah yes,” he said. “The phone.”

“Right.” I gazed into my coffee again, contemplated taking a sip, and thought better of it. “The phone.”

CHAPTER
TWELVE

I
w
asn’t the only one who was looking at my fellow campers with a suspicious eye that morning, and the tension around the cooking fire was palpable. Tiffanie was still pouting about her scratched face, and although Rachel had almost convinced her the fall had been an accident, I wasn’t so sure. I had not imagined the half-open zipper of my tent, nor the scrambling shadows when Cisco barked. Why anyone would want to break into my tent—or be foolish enough to try, with an eighty-pound golden retriever sleeping inside—I couldn’t begin to guess.

As for the stupid trick with Cisco’s rabbit, I thought I was probably being more sanguine about it than most of the kids. Cisco had already forgotten about the rabbit, as he had forgotten about every toy he’d ever had that had ended up being shredded by the Aussies or left in a muddy ditch to rot or had accidently disintegrated in the washing machine. It was the meanness of spirit behind the joke that creeped me out, and I suspect that was what had upset most of the kids, too. One thing they taught us in therapy dog training is that children often identify with dogs, which is why they will tell secrets to a dog that they would not share with a parent, teacher, friend or counselor. I wondered how many of them were remembering a time when they had been unfairly victimized, perhaps even threatened, just as Cisco had been. I wondered how many of them had a secret they would like to share with Cisco.

I packed up my tent and sleeping bag and scooped up some hot water from the communal pot that was simmering over the fire. I added a portion of the water to the dehydrated dog food in Cisco’s collapsible bowl, and the rest to the powdered eggs in my camp mug. A few of the kids were trying to choke down oatmeal—without sugar and without salt, which in my opinion was cruel and unusual punishment on a trip like this—and they kept offering Cisco their leftovers, with the best of intentions, I’m sure.

“Cisco is on a special diet,” I told them. “People food will make him sick.” It’s what I always say to people who try to feed my dog. The truth is that, while Cisco does have a few food allergies that have persuaded me to do more cooking for him than I do for myself, I have seen him wolf down pizza, ham sandwiches and coconut cake—to name only a few—with no ill effects.

“Lucky Cisco,” Tiffanie said glumly, gazing at the goo in her cup. “This crap is making me sick too.”

She watched with interest as I sprinkled chili powder from a foil package over my eggs, and added a full packet of ketchup. “It helps the flavor,” I explained, stirring the concoction together. “A lot.”

She grimaced. “Where’d you learn that?”

“My dad. He used to take me on overnight hunting trips when I was a kid, and this was our camp breakfast.”

Her eyes widened. “Hunting, no kidding? What did you hunt?”

“Deer mostly. Sometimes bear.”

At the tortured mixture of dismay and astonishment on her face, I had to grin. “Usually what we hunted them with was a camera. My dad wasn’t much of a shot.”

She stirred up a spoonful of oatmeal, and let it plop back into her cup. “At least he wanted you with him,” she said. “I don’t remember my dad ever wanting to take me anywhere.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I ate my ketchup-y breakfast in three quick bites, and said, “Listen, Tiffanie, while you were up last night, did you see—“

“Anybody messing around in the woods with that stuffed toy?” Already she was shaking her head. “I wish I had. That’s just mean. That’s like taking candy from a baby. Or something worse. That’s just stupid and mean. If I would’ve seen them, I would’ve let them have it, and don’t you think I couldn’t.”

I made up my mind right then and there I would never let it be known that the destruction of Cisco’s toy had meant more to them that it would ever mean to him. As far as the kids were concerned, this was a violation, a cause against which they could all unite. And since they appeared to uniting for me, instead of against me, far be it from me to argue with their logic.

I said, “Actually, I was wondering if maybe you noticed anything, you know, out of place. Tent flaps open, somebody moving around…”

She shook her head. “I just went to pee. If anybody’d been watching me, I would’ve noticed, you can bet your life on that. And then when I got back to camp, there was a lot of noise and confusion, you were there…”

“I was only there after you fell,” I reminded her. This is why eye-witness testimony in court is often useless.

She scowled. “Yeah. Right. Anyway, after that everything was a mess. And if you want to know what I think is crazy, did either one of
them
…”
She shifted her eyes meaningfully toward Rachel and Paul, who were giving crisp orders to the boys about how to fold up their tents. “…even ask you about what happened this morning? Did they even notice? They’re always talking about teachable moments, but, like, did they even care?”

Good point, and one that had not escaped my notice. I said, “You’re pretty smart.”

Sometimes, a few words of encouragement can change a child’s life. Other times it will earn you a fierce, derogatory look and a short, “I got a freakin’ 1600 on the SAT, you want to make something out of it?”

By this time Cisco had finished his breakfast, licked the bowl, and was sniffing the ground for remnants. I scraped the last bits of eggs and ketchup from the sides of my cup, swallowed them, and said, “See ya.”

She glared at the oatmeal in her cup. “What’re we supposed to do with this?”

I dug in my pocket and came up with an extra ketchup packet. “Eat it,” I suggested.

After another moment, she tore open the ketchup packet, emptied it over the oatmeal, and actually ate it.

~

I tried to get Heather alone all morning, but whether by accident or design she was always with a student or with Rachel or Paul. I’ve been around the block once or twice and I’ve seen the dark side of human nature more than I like to remember. Maybe it has something to do with spending most of my time with dogs, but I do like to imagine the best in people, and I really, really wished I didn’t have to think about Heather what I was thinking now.

But why had she lied about Max?

And how had she happened to arrive first at the scene of Tiffanie’s accident with her coat already on, when the rest of us—except for Rachel—had stumbled out half-dressed?

The morning was blustery and the sky was leaden, but the kids were in better spirits than I expected after a night of interrupted sleep and a morning of unsalted oatmeal. We made pretty good time up the winding wooded trail for the first couple of hours, and then I let myself fall behind the others and dialed home.

I knew Maude would just be finishing cleaning the kennels this time of day, so I let the office phone ring. She answered briskly on the fifth ring. After confirming that all was well on both our ends—I saw no reason to worry her with the unpleasantness I had encountered on the trail—I asked her to check my phone records for October. We keep a data base of everyone who calls about any of our services, because our monthly e-mail newsletter is our main form of advertising. You never know when someone who didn’t have time to bring his puppy to obedience class will turn out to be a regular grooming client, or vice versa. The only problem was that we had had a fire in mid-October with considerable damage to the office. Back then, I only backed up our files once a week, and I was hoping that Brian’s call hadn’t come in during that lost period of time.

My spirits sank as she said, “No… no, I don’t see anyone by that name on our contact list. Let me check the class schedule. CGC, did you say?”

“Yes, but he never actually showed up.”

“Nonetheless, he appears to have filled out a registration form via e-mail. Brian Maddox, mailing address is a Hansonville post office box, telephone area code 216… I don’t recognize it. Probably a cell phone.”

“Ohio.”

A pause while she tapped a few keys, then, “You’re right. How do you know that?”

“Lucky guess.”

“His dog’s name was Kelso. Two-year-old black lab.”