Part 2
Evan climbed the platform steps before Pelham could turn the page.
The auctioneer moved the microphone away from him. Evan didn’t reach for it. He stood close enough to see the damp mark left by Pelham’s thumb on the top sheet.
“You’ll send them where?”
“The receiving facility will handle that.”
“And their handlers can’t come for them. Their medical histories disappear. Now there’s a truck tonight.” Evan held out his hand. “Give me the order.”
Pelham pulled the clipboard against his chest.
“You’re interrupting an authorized sale.”
Down in the yard, Boone rose with his paws against the kennel door. Otis barked once, then again. Flint kept his face near the opening where Evan had held his paw.
Evan glanced toward them and lowered his voice.
“Those dogs have earned more than a lot number. You know what that last condition means.”
For an instant, Pelham’s eyes moved away from him toward the kennels. Then he looked out over the bidders.
“If you won’t cooperate, I’ll have you escorted out.”
“Answer first.”
Deputy Voss approached the bottom step. He and Evan had worked neighboring patrol areas for years. Voss had once driven forty miles after midnight to bring him a spare tire; Evan knew the small favors and quiet competence that usually made the man dependable.
Now Voss stood with one hand on the railing and would not quite meet his eyes.
“Come down here a minute, Evan.”
Evan descended one step. “You heard him.”
“I did. But you’re making this worse.”
“Worse for whom?”
Voss pressed his lips together.
Evan pointed toward the kennels. “Otis worked the school threat when nobody could clear the building. Boone went after the man who had two deputies pinned down. Flint stayed beside Daniel when the rest of us had to take cover.”
A rancher shifted his hat from one hand to the other. Near the gate, a child moved behind her mother’s leg.
“Don’t ask me to walk away from this,” Evan said.
Pelham struck the edge of the lectern with his clipboard.
“They belong to the county. We have a procedure.”
“Cruelty isn’t procedure.”
The words left Evan’s mouth before he could make them quieter. A dog struck a kennel panel behind him, and he felt anger at himself join the anger already there. He was feeding their fear with every raised word.
He went down the remaining steps and stood where the dogs could see him.
Pelham leaned toward the microphone. “This decision wasn’t made here. You can’t overturn it because you’re upset.”
“Then tell me where it was made.”
“I’m not authorized to discuss classified instructions.”
Evan looked up at him.
“You’re invoking secrecy over kennel paperwork?”
Pelham shuffled the forms. The sound was small, almost lost beneath Otis’s panting.
“Who needs these dogs gone?” Evan asked. “And why can’t anybody see what happened to them?”
Flint howled again. This time Keel answered with a strained, rising cry, and the other dogs took it up in scattered barks and whines. Voss turned his head toward the row.
Evan waited until the sound eased.
“Look at them, Pelham. Don’t look at your sheet.”
The auctioneer did look. His gaze stopped briefly on Keel’s shortened stride, then slid past Flint’s wet face.
He picked up the mallet from beside the lectern.
“We’re starting.”
The blow landed hard enough to jar the microphone stand.
Evan’s hands closed before he could stop them.
For a moment, he could smell wet concrete.
Three years earlier, rain had come through Belloran in the evening and left the loading apron of an abandoned packing warehouse slick beneath the team’s boots. Evan had knelt near a bay door, checking the fastening at Boone’s chest while water dripped from a broken gutter behind him.
Otis waited with his handler a few feet away. The report included a possible explosive device, and nobody was going through the inner section until the dog had worked the approach.
Daniel Mercer stood on Evan’s other side, Flint close against his knee. Daniel had rubbed a thumb over a burr caught in the shepherd’s neck fur, carefully pulling it free.
“Can’t take you anywhere respectable,” he told the dog.
Flint’s tail touched Evan’s calf once.
Keel and the rear team held near the loading entrance. Evan could hear a quiet exchange over the radio and the small click of a lead being clipped to a harness.
They had been sent to locate armed traffickers using the empty building for storage. From outside, the place appeared deserted. Inside, the air held the sweet, stale odor of ruined produce and damp insulation.
Boone went ahead with the entry officers. Otis cleared the near passage with his nose low, then paused at a doorway while his handler watched for an indication. Daniel kept Flint at his side as they moved between stripped conveyor frames.
Evan remembered a strip of loose plastic hanging from the ceiling. It touched his cheek as he passed. He brushed it away and saw Daniel raise a hand for the team to hold.
Somewhere beyond the partition, metal struck the floor.
The dogs changed first. Boone stopped with a forefoot lifted. Otis turned toward the inner room. Flint’s shoulders tightened beneath his harness.
Then shots broke through the partition.
Daniel stumbled backward into a support post. Evan saw his hand slip from Flint’s lead and reached him as he went down.
Flint moved between Daniel and the room where the shots had come from. His chest covered part of Daniel’s body; his head stayed up, teeth exposed, guarding the man on the floor. Evan had to put a hand against the harness and say his name twice before the shepherd allowed him close enough to help.
Ahead of them, Boone and the entry officers drove the attackers away from the opening. Otis’s handler pulled the detection dog behind cover, then moved with him when the route cleared. The pressure gave the backup team room to come through the loading entrance.
Keel reached a wounded officer near the rear passage. Evan caught one brief glimpse of him gripping the man’s heavy sleeve while the rear team pulled him to safety.
Afterward, everything seemed crowded into a few square feet: medical bags opening, somebody calling for space, Daniel’s fingers catching Evan’s wrist.
Evan leaned close because Daniel’s voice would not carry.
“Look after the dogs.”
“I will.”
Daniel tried to turn his head. Flint was there at once, nosing his cheek, whining with his mouth nearly closed. Evan remembered how gently the dog moved, though moments earlier he had been fighting to keep everybody away.
Daniel’s hand slipped from Evan’s wrist.
The medics took him out through the loading door. Flint strained after the stretcher until Evan took his lead, then walked beside Evan with his head angled toward the man they were carrying.
Daniel died before the ambulance reached the hospital.
For months, Evan had worked with the dogs one at a time. There had been injuries to treat, sounds they could no longer tolerate, familiar exercises that suddenly made them stop. Flint refused food if Evan left the treatment room. Boone would not approach a window frame. Keel shook at the slam of a metal door.
They had improved. Evan had watched them improve.
Assignments changed after that. Dogs went to other handlers, other kennels, other schedules. Evan returned to patrol and kept the little canine badge Daniel had handed him before that final shift on a chain under his shirt.
In the auction yard, the chain had pulled tight against his neck. He had caught it in his fist without noticing.
Pelham was calling for the first dog’s number.
Flint stood at the front of his kennel with one paw braced above the latch. The pale crescent in his ear was the same one Evan had touched while waiting outside the hospital that night.
Evan let the chain fall beneath his collar.
He looked for Voss and found him beside the perimeter fence, alone now, rubbing at a spot on his sleeve. Evan walked straight to him.
“I was told Flint had a home,” he said. “I was told the others had reached the end of their working lives. Tell me which part was true.”
Voss looked toward the platform.
“Please don’t put me in this position.”
“You’re already in it.”
Two bidders passed behind them, discussing whether the county would accept a check. Evan waited until they were out of earshot.
“Were the dogs failing? Is that why the files are gone?”
Voss wiped his palm down the side seam of his trousers.
Evan stepped back a little. He had crowded the man against the fence, and he knew it.
“I need the truth, not somebody else’s instruction.”
Voss looked at the kennels. Flint had followed Evan’s movement and was standing at the far corner of his enclosure, trying to keep him in sight.
The deputy swallowed.
“Their service evaluations weren’t failures, Evan. Every dog in this yard passed…”
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