Part 2
Daniel stayed where he was.
“If he’s in your custody, you’ll have a record.”
“We handle animal services under contract.”
“Then show me the part that applies to him.”
Wade lowered the tablet slightly. He explained that a puppy had become separated from a group collected nearby. Animals had to enter the proper system, he said; people couldn’t simply keep them.
Daniel listened until he finished.
“I agree about the system. Give me a report number, or contact the county office and have someone verify it.”
“This would be easier if you cooperated.”
“I’m offering to. With the authorized office.”
There was no ownership document on the tablet that Wade was willing or able to show him. No specific custody report. Finally, Daniel asked him to leave his contact information.
Wade’s mouth tightened. He returned to the truck and drove off without another look at the doorway.
Daniel wrote down his name, the company, the vehicle, and the time. He disliked the visit, but disliking a man was no evidence of anything.
Inside, Benedict had fallen asleep with the toy against his nose.
By evening, Daniel had fed the flock, checked the coop’s cold-weather equipment, and tested the repaired board. Beatrice occupied her preferred box.
“Your guest has indoor accommodations now,” he told her. “Visitation will be supervised.”
She made a short, dismissive sound.
He found himself listening for puppy feet while he washed the bowls. The house still contained every photograph, every carefully preserved piece of Caroline’s life, but a little bed now interrupted the stretch of wall near the table. Water had splashed beside it. Daniel wiped the floor with his sock and reached for a cloth.
He would call Natalie tomorrow. She deserved to hear this before Sunday.
Near bedtime, Benedict seized the edge of a towel and began hauling it away from the bed. The work required several stops and one backward tumble. Daniel watched him finish beneath Caroline’s apron, where he turned around and collapsed with a satisfied grunt.
“You could’ve requested delivery.”
The puppy’s eyes closed.
Daniel bent to straighten the towel. Above him, warm air from the vent lifted the bottom corner of the pie recipe. He could see Caroline’s small addition in the margin: Don’t be timid with the cinnamon. Daniel will be inspecting.
He left the kitchen light on while he checked the doors.
A tug at his bootlace interrupted breakfast the next morning. Daniel looked beneath the table and found Benedict pulling steadily, braced on four oversized feet.
“No. That stays attached to me.”
He retrieved the lace. Benedict considered this development and reached for the other one.
Outside, Beatrice announced some new grievance. The puppy lifted his head immediately.
“Apparently we know who’s in command.”
Daniel called the veterinary clinic as soon as it opened.
Caroline had taken animals there for years, sometimes returning with more than she’d brought. A barn cat recovering from an injury, a bird that needed shelter, a creature described as temporary until it had occupied the laundry room for a month. Daniel knew the building’s faded roof and the stubborn catch on its front door.
Dr. Elise Brenner recognized him before he reached the counter.
“Daniel. Who have you got?”
“A tenant Beatrice approved without consulting me.”
Elise looked over the towel in his arms.
“The hen?”
“Found her keeping him warm in a nesting box.”
The veterinarian put down her pen, smiling.
“Caroline always thought that bird needed a larger job.”
She was forty-one, with pale hair tied at the nape of her neck and a manner that left room for frightened people to breathe. She didn’t make Daniel stand through another expression of sympathy. She held the examination-room door open.
Benedict disliked the metal table. Daniel placed a hand where the puppy could lean against it while Elise checked his heart, lungs, eyes, ears, and feet.
“He needs some groceries,” she said, feeling carefully along his ribs. “But he’s warmed up, and I’m not finding an immediate problem.”
Daniel’s hand relaxed.
She outlined feeding amounts, vaccinations, parasite prevention, and a weight check. Then she explained that Benedict and the chickens needed separation unless someone was watching.
“A game can become a disaster before a puppy understands what he’s done.”
“Beatrice may be more dangerous.”
“Then supervise both parties.”
The scanner found no microchip. Elise photographed the white patch at the puppy’s left ear and the interrupted band on his right foreleg. They might help identify him, she explained, although markings alone weren’t enough to settle a claim.
Daniel nodded. He had been preparing himself for that sentence since he’d picked the puppy up.
While she entered her notes, he described Wade’s visit.
Elise stopped typing.
“Did he give you anything in writing?”
“Nothing establishing custody.”
She turned her chair toward him.
“Three families have asked us for help this week. Their dogs disappeared from home, or very close to it. Some descriptions they’ve received from intake offices don’t fit the animals we know.”
“Bad paperwork?”
“That’s possible. I’d like the possibility checked, not assumed.”
She advised him to report the found puppy, retain the examination records, and save every message concerning him.
Daniel tucked the envelope into his jacket before leaving the room.
In the waiting area, an elderly woman moved her handbag from the chair beside her. A blue leash lay across her knees. Its clip rested against an empty seat.
“What a dear face,” she said, looking at Benedict.
Daniel sat when she invited him to. The puppy sniffed her fingers and settled against his arm.
“Mine looked at me like that when he wanted something,” she said. “Still does. Peanut butter chiefly.”
“Who’s yours?”
“Jasper. Twelve years old, though nobody’s persuaded him to behave his age.”
Her smile weakened. She introduced herself as Ruth Dempsey and explained that Jasper, a Labrador mix, had vanished while she was collecting a prescription. Different offices had given her different answers. One had no record; another told her to call again.
“I’m not trying to blame anybody,” she said. “I just don’t know which direction to go.”
She found a photograph in her bag. The old dog lay beside a rocking chair, his cream muzzle nearly white. A worn blue collar disappeared into the loose fur at his neck.
“Every morning, he puts his nose against my hand. Doesn’t make a sound. Just waits for me.”
Daniel studied the picture while her thumb smoothed the leash.
“Good face,” he said.
“He can make you surrender half a biscuit with that face.”
Benedict sighed in his sleep. Ruth glanced at him.
“People say, ‘Well, it’s a dog.’ As though that explains why I shouldn’t worry.”
Daniel handed back the photograph.
“They don’t have to live in your quiet house.”
Ruth blinked and looked down. He wrote his number on the back of a clinic card. If he learned anything useful through the offices he contacted, he would pass it along.
He did not tell her he would bring Jasper home.
Back at the farm, Benedict put both front feet in his water bowl, carried a slipper into the living room, and became fascinated by the sound a chair leg made against his teeth.
Daniel removed the slipper, offered a small training reward, and discovered that the puppy could sit when sufficiently interested. Coming when called was less certain. Waiting appeared to offend him.
They practiced in short bursts between naps. Daniel moved electrical cords, raised the ceramic magnet out of reach, and put small objects behind doors. By lunch, three towels were damp and the house no longer looked particularly orderly.
Pauline Abbott arrived with apples while he was negotiating the return of his second slipper.
She stood just inside the porch, silver curls escaping her cap, and began to laugh.
“Don’t encourage him,” Daniel said.
“I meant you.”
At sixty-six, Pauline remained one of the few people who entered his house without first giving him time to decide he was busy. She had been Caroline’s closest friend. He explained the henhouse while she put her basket down.
“Oh, that bird. Remember Caroline’s garden boot?”
“She occupied it for three days.”
“Waiting for it to hatch.”
“Waiting for somebody to apologize for moving it, more likely.”
Pauline wiped her eyes. Then she noticed the bed, the bowls, the stack of clean towels. She left the apples near the sink and asked whether he needed anything from town.
That evening, Natalie answered his call with alarm in her voice.
“It isn’t Sunday. What happened?”
“A hen made a personnel decision.”
By the time he finished, she was laughing so hard he had to repeat Benedict’s name.
“You can’t be serious.”
“He finds it respectable.”
“He’s eight weeks old.”
“All the more reason to set standards.”
Her laughter eased. “You sound good, Dad.”
Daniel looked at the sleeping puppy.
“He’s a lot of trouble.”
“Send pictures. Of his foster mother, too.”
The next afternoon, with Benedict secure in his puppy-proofed space, Daniel went for a replacement coop latch. A Velcora truck traveled ahead of him along the rural road. Wade paused by a farm entrance, checked his tablet, and drove on.
Daniel did not follow. Animal services had legitimate work to do. Instead, he stopped at the county office.
Deputy Thomas Greer listened without interrupting. He was forty-four, a broad man whose questions came slowly enough to be answered accurately.
“Velcora has a contract,” he explained. “That doesn’t give every employee authority to remove any animal he chooses. A loose dog on a road is one thing. Going onto enclosed private property requires a lawful basis.”
Daniel gave him the details of Wade’s visit and what Elise had said.
“Have you witnessed an improper removal?” Thomas asked.
“No.”
“Seen an original record you know was falsified?”
“No.”
“Then those aren’t claims we make. We verify the visit, the reports, and the company’s assigned duties.”
He gave Daniel the reporting and complaint procedures and asked him to preserve anything questionable.
At the supply store, Daniel bought the latch and another chew toy. An employee was smoothing a missing-dog notice onto the bulletin board as he passed.
He stopped because of the shepherd in the picture.
An adult dog stood in a yard with a litter clustered around her. The Serrano family was searching for Juniper and her puppies. Daniel leaned closer to the photograph. One puppy, half turned away from the others, had a pale little mark at its left ear.
He opened Elise’s envelope and compared the examination photograph with the flyer.
Then he took out his phone and copied the family’s number…
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