Delivering Death: A Novel (Riley Spartz) (6 page)

When they left the cafeteria and reached the hallway, Scarface signaled some cronies, who gathered around them, blocking any view. He snapped his fingers and pointed at an inmate with a crew cut and glasses.

The guy reached inside his pants, around to his backside,
grunted and twitched, soon handing over to his boss what looked like a shrink-wrapped cell phone. The new prisoner among them caught a bad whiff and flinched, realizing the device was inside a condom—and where it had been hidden.

“Dial away, Jack.” Scarface hit a series of buttons to unlock the cell before handing it to the latest addition to their gang. “No worries,” the leader continued, “it’s a burner. Good for maybe another couple weeks.”

After his last prison rules debacle, Inmate 16780-59 took no reassurance knowing the phone was prepaid and untraceable. He glanced around nervously. “But what if . . . ?”

“This is part of the protection you requested, Jack. Now tell your people to expect a call from my people.”

So he dialed a number he dared not call from the authorized prison telephone system.

I
stayed at the family farm that night. Because the southern part of the state had such a mild winter, it was an easy drive. With last year’s drought, snow would have been most welcome, but little had fallen. The dogs were on their nocturnal patrol of the homestead when I arrived late, but they stopped barking and started slobbering when they recognized me, especially Husky, my favorite. He was a meek mutt who had lived with me briefly until it became clear my work schedule was not a good fit for a dog owner.

My parents had already gone to sleep, so I quietly crept up a narrow staircase to my cluttered childhood bedroom. When I turned the lights out, with a lumpy pillow and my old mattress, I fought to rid my mind of high school, but couldn’t.

I turned on a lamp and skimmed through the reunion brochure I’d picked up. It had been stapled together by the organizers, with graduation pictures of the attendees, email addresses, and brief bios about what everybody was up to these days. I wasn’t listed, because I hadn’t RSVPed, but Phil McCarthy was. It said he lived about an hour north of the Twin Cities, even farther from our hometown than me. He served on the Minnesota House environmental and natural resources committee. When the legislature wasn’t in session, he ran a car-wash business.

He seemed a decent enough guy and I felt bad for being so
dismissive at the reunion. But being in the news media makes you keep people at a distance because you’re often not sure if they really want to be friends or just want to get their message on TV. I had no interest in finding out, but Phil making a move on me did make me feel a little better about myself.

My mind replayed my recent confrontation with Nick Garnett. Using my phone for Internet service was iffy because of the rural location, but standing next to a window I got enough cell juice to search the Mall of America website and found he was right about the security jargon. Along with a litany of warnings about visitors wearing shirts and shoes and not using skateboards, obscene gestures or posting graffiti, the mall rules included a line (in fine print) reading: “You may be subject to a security interview.”

It didn’t detail what types of behaviors triggered such attention, but seeing it in writing didn’t make me feel any less annoyed about my experience with Garnett.

I grew more flustered lying there, watching out the window as red lights flashed on the wind turbines. I ventured back downstairs and coaxed Husky into the house to curl up on my bed. “Good dog.” Soon he was snoring. The sound was like white noise. I felt safe, my loneliness banished, and slept better than I had in weeks.

That warm feeling lasted until morning, when I discovered him chewing one of my shoes. “Bad dog.” I took a cell-phone picture of him licking my face anyway before turning him loose to run with the others.

Over a breakfast of ham and eggs, my mother was delighted when I showed her the group photo of my classmates on my phone. “It’s amazing how much better the women look than the men. And you even combed your hair, Riley.”

She seemed to intend her remark to be a compliment, but I let it pass. My style was a layered bob I was trying to grow out after a recent haircut disaster. I’d posted the reunion photo online
late last night in case Bryce was checking up on me. Already viewers were “relating” to it with “likes” and “comments.”

“Regretfully, Mom, my job depends not just on what I report, but how I look when I report it.”

That was the sorry truth. TV was a young person’s game. Now in my midthirties, I’d probably have more to show for my life if I’d spent less time chasing the reality of news and more time chasing the romance of dreams.

“Any bachelor farmers in the crowd?” Mom asked.

“None that interested me.”

“Would it hurt you to go out with the next man who asked you?” she said.

“What if he ends up being a jerk?”

“Then you don’t have to go on a second date.”

My mom had given up trying to be subtle about her feelings concerning my single status. To hear her tell it, my broken engagement hurt her almost as much as it had me. Before she could ask whether I’d seen Nick Garnett recently, I steered the conversation from dates to dogs.

“Something weird did come up at the reunion,” I said. “Missing dogs.”

“That’s been the talk of the neighborhood the last month.” My dad shook his head sadly. “If they haven’t been found by now, they probably won’t be.”

“How come neither of you mentioned this before?”

My mother was always suggesting story ideas to try to get me home to visit. “Didn’t seem like much news value,” she said. “You’re always going on about needing news value.”

“I didn’t mean it as for a story. I was just curious.”

“We can run over to the neighbors and see if they’ve heard anything if you want,” Dad said.

Without any reason to rush back to the Cities, I grabbed a pair of old boots from the closet in case our journey turned cold. Husky enjoyed riding in motor vehicles, so when he saw
Dad with the keys, he scampered over to the pickup, and we all climbed in. Blackie, his Labrador pal, stood outside barking.

“I don’t think we have room for one more,” I said.

“He doesn’t want inside,” Dad said, “Blackie likes to ride in the bed of the truck,” Dad said.

“That sounds risky.”

“We’ll take the back roads and go slow. Otherwise, he’ll just chase after us. And that’s even more dangerous.”

•  •  •

At the neighbors’, we found no new information from what Maureen had shared the night before. The lost dogs had disappeared on different days, and were still gone. “A real shame,” Eugene Merten said. “My grandkids loved that animal. They won’t stop searching for her.”

Both families told the same story. Their pets had been fine, until they went missing. They couldn’t believe it was a coincidence, but didn’t want to believe it was a conspiracy.

“Sure our dog, Rocket, was getting old,” John Kloeckner said. “But I don’t for a minute think he went off alone to die.”

“What do you think happened?” I asked.

“Something bad. There’s always been talk of pets being stolen as bait for dog fighting rings or sold to research labs.” He reached down to scratch behind Husky’s ears. “Hold this guy close while you can.”

Husky would certainly be vulnerable to being dog-napped, I had to admit. He had the soul of a lop-eared bunny and would probably hop in the back of a unfamiliar van if lured with a treat.

Luckily, Blackie was more suspicious of strangers. If threatened, he’d rather fight than flee.

My cell phone rang, with Mom on the other end. “One of my red-hat lady friends called. She said the Mullenbachs’ dog is missing.”

P
erhaps this hometown tip would turn out to have a real news angle. If so, Bryce would be even more pleased about my reunion. Dad and I drove over to the Mullenbach farm, watching carefully along the ditches in case their pet showed up as roadkill. The family was searching the barn and other outbuildings for their collie when we arrived.

“Lady!” A little girl was calling, upset. “Come home.”

“Last time we saw her was late yesterday afternoon.” Dan Mullenbach was upset. He farmed dairy cattle and helped with the church collection basket. “This morning she was gone.”

Husky also seemed agitated by all the commotion, and was starting to whine. “Probably wondering where their dog is,” Dad said. “Hounds know who lives where.”

Blackie’s nose was close to the frozen ground. Because of the mellow winter, there was no snow, and thus no tracks. But the cold weather had eliminated clutter odors, and the dog seemed to be following some kind of trail. Labs have an excellent sense of smell.

“Probably just a raccoon,” my dad said. “Plenty of them around.”

“We don’t have any other leads,” I said. “Anybody want to come with me?”

One of the Mullenbach boys stepped forward. My dad had
bad knees so I told him to take the truck and try and keep us in sight from the road. The others would continue searching the homestead.

“Come on, Blackie,” I said. “Lead the way.”

The dog took off barking, being careful not to get too far ahead. Husky stayed near me, behind his canine buddy. We promised to call the family if we found anything, but I was afraid of what we might find.

We left the windbreak of trees for a farm field that had held tall corn the season before, but was now mostly plowed under stubble. I could see in all directions, but nothing immediately caught my interest. Running on the uneven terrain grew difficult. Blackie raced down a ditch and crossed over a gravel road about a mile from where we started. I was losing speed. The Mullenbach boy moved ahead of me without any effort, then turned back.

“You okay?” he asked.

I motioned for him to keep going while I caught my breath, but he waited with me.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Twelve.”

My dad drove up, and I leaned against the hood of the pickup to rest. He unrolled the window. “Any sign?”

I shook my head and leaned over to briefly lock fingers with him against the steering wheel. I climbed in on the seat beside him and we followed the trio for another quarter mile before they stopped.

I scrambled out in time to hear Blackie growl as he approached a frozen stream, and lost sight of him in overgrown brush. Husky darted after him. Seconds later, wild yelping came from that direction. A howl. Then silence.

The Mullenbach boy took off. It took me a minute to locate him, near a culvert dripping water, sprawled in the dirt, cradling something close. A few more steps and I recognized the
still body of a collie in his arms. The other two dogs huddled together quiet, keeping space between them and death.

Muffled sobs came from the kid. He was trying to talk, but I couldn’t understand his words. I knelt down on the cold earth to rub his shoulder, wishing I had thought to ask his name when we first ventured out together. If I knew what to call him, comforting him would be easier. But I didn’t, so I just told him how sorry I was.

“Let’s find your family.” I tried to pull him away from his dead pet.

He pushed me back, clinging to the furry corpse. “What is this thing?”

It wasn’t until he lifted his face to look at me that I saw the piece of metal clamped tight against Lady’s throat, and staked to the ground.

T
he Mullenbachs had called the county sheriff to report what had happened, and were redirected to call the state Department of Natural Resources. All they told them was to fill out a form.

I grabbed the line and identified myself as a reporter from Channel 3. “I’m covering the story of how this dog died and would like to get some information.”

I emailed a picture of the trap wrapped around Lady’s head to the DNR and soon an officer called back to tell us she had died in a body grip trap—designed to capture raccoons, coyotes, and other wildlife. Trapping season was still underway, so it was legal—and lethal.

“Shame about the dog,” the DNR officer said. “They sometimes get caught by mistake.”

Again, he instructed us to make an “incident report” so Lady could become part of their statistical base.

“Does this happen a lot?” I asked.

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” he replied. “But the good thing is these traps are quick kill, so she probably didn’t suffer much.”

“That’s not particularly reassuring.” In a matter of seconds she went from being a pet to being paperwork. I told him I’d be in touch for a story, and hung up.

The property belonged to Abe Hayne, an elderly farmer up the road. His own dog, a German shepherd, was chained in the yard when we pulled in with a parade of vehicles. Lady’s body was wrapped in a blanket in the back of the truck. The Hayne dog lunged and barked at our animals until a young man in a coonskin cap came outside.

“Abe around?” Dan Mullenbach asked.

“He’s inside,” the man said. “I’ll get him.”

The Davy Crocket look-alike was his son-in-law, Wayne. He and his wife had moved back to the farm last year to help Abe with the harvest, other heavy lifting, and ended up staying. The discussion about the dog trap didn’t go so well. Both men were defensive.

“I’ve had problems with crop damage,” Abe said. “Deer, raccoons, groundhogs. Nearly three grand from my pockets last year alone. We’re not going to take it anymore.”

Wayne pointed to his fur hat. “One less raccoon to eat our corn. You should be thanking me.”

“Thanking you? You killed my dog!” Dan looked ready to throw a punch, but his kid was watching and glaring.

“Technically,” Wayne said, “your dog was trespassing on private property.”

That did it. If Dad hadn’t grabbed Dan’s arm and stepped between them just then, things would have gotten physical fast.

“Don’t you think you should have told folks in the area you were setting these traps?” my dad asked.

Neither man seemed to have a good answer. “Sorry about the dog,” Abe said. “We’ll make it right.” He headed to a small shed and threw open the door. Rows of animal pelts were hanging to dry. Others were stacked on a table. “Take your pick.”