Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 130, No. 1. Whole No. 791, July 2007
Dead as a Dog
by Doug Allyn
Doug Allyn returns to EQMM this month with a strong new protagonist and a tale that is characteristically atmospheric, suspenseful, and moving. The Michigan author never sets out to create series characters, but he’s so good at getting inside his fictional creations that they live in readers’ minds and demand a callback. It’s those unforgettable characters that have earned the Michigan author eight first-place finishes in the EQMM Readers Award voting.
“A girl asked me about killing Hitler today,” I said.
Janie gave me a taut smile but it was all she could manage. The hospice aide who was massaging Janie’s calves glanced up at me with arched eyebrows.
“I teach Political Science at Hancock State,” I explained. “We’re covering assassinations this week. Martin Luther King, JFK, Sadat. How destructive to society their deaths were. But if a student asks me about killing Hitler or Stalin, I know it’s going to be a good class.”
“So you teach ’em what? That whacking some folks ain’t such a bad idea?” the aide asked drily. She was an older black woman with a soft Afro, liquid eyes, strong hands. Her nametag read Norma. I wondered how she could work every day in a place where most patients were dying. Like Janie. My wife. My life.
“I try to impart a given number of facts,” I said. “And beyond that, I hope they learn to think for themselves.”
“Wish I’d had your class,” Norma smiled. “If I’d thought a little harder, would've skipped nursing school, found me a rich man to marry instead.”
“And miss all this excitement?” Janie murmured.
And we laughed. Partly because it was funny, mostly because it’s amazing that a woman in her condition can joke at all.
My wife is dying. A glioblastoma, a cancerous tumor, is wrapped around her spinal cord. Inoperable. Terminal. And very aggressive. It’s early October now. They tell me she won’t see Christmas.
So I laughed, though it wasn’t much of a joke. There aren’t many smiles in my life these days.
After my morning hospice visit, I headed home for lunch. I wasn’t hungry but Sparky would be.
Our suburban house is larger than we need. We’d planned to fill it with more children, so it sits on a large, five-acre lot, bordering a forest. When we first looked the place over, I think the land was more important than the house to Janie.
She loved the outdoors, a four-season girl. Skier, cross-country runner, backpacker. Anything to be out in the wind. I do those things too, but only to be with her. The flame of Janie’s vitality could melt a snowman’s heart. But it’s burning low now. And I’m not sure I can go on without her. Or want to.
But I don’t have a choice. We have twins, Seth and Josh, seven and a half years old. Fraternal twins, not identical. Seth is more like me, dark and slender. Josh, more like his mother, blond, square-faced, a blocky little body bursting with energy.
The boys are staying with my in-laws for the duration. A blessing, though I miss them terribly. With Janie’s illness and the teaching schedule that maintains our health insurance, I have all I can handle.
Silence greeted me as I walked into the foyer. Usually Sparky, Janie’s bull terrier, charges the door when I come home, barking, a barrel-chested black and white pirate of a pup. The noisy greeting lasts until he sees I’m alone. Then he gives me a dutiful tail-wag and goes on about his business.
Not today. Tossing my jacket on an easy chair, I walked through the house. “Sparky?”
Nothing. Probably outside. He has his own dog-door exit into our fenced backyard. I walked through to the den and scanned the yard through the picture window. Still no Sparky. The yard was empty... Damn! The back gate was open.
Double damn. I’d noticed him jumping at it the other day, meant to tie it shut... Grabbing my binoculars off the window ledge, I quickly scanned the field beyond the fence. And felt a flood of relief as I spotted the little terrier lounging in the grass just outside the gate.
I opened the back door. “Sparky! Lunch!”
He raised his head, then laid it back down. “Sparky! Come on!” This time he didn’t move at all.
Odd. Concerned now, I started across the lawn toward the gate. But halfway there I broke into a run. Even at that distance I could see the blood.
“Arnie?”
I glanced up. Dr. David Westbrook, our veterinarian, rested a hand on my shoulder. And I could read the bad news in his face. “How is he?”
“I’m sorry, Arnie. He’s gone. Too much blood loss.”
“What happened to him?”
“I was hoping you could tell me,” he said, glancing around his busy waiting room. “Could you step back here, please?”
I followed him into the sterile operating room. Sparky was laid out on a stainless-steel table. The wound in his guts had been cleaned up a bit, but it was still a vile, savage hole.
“My God, Dave, what would cause something like that?” I whispered.
“A hunting arrow, I think. Where did you find him?”
“In the field behind our house. He got loose, may have been running in the woods—”
“And deer season opened three days ago,” he finished for me.
“It’s not open season on family dogs, and we own that land. You think a hunter shot him?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve seen arrow wounds before, but never one quite like this. Some high-tech broadheads pop open like switchblades when they strike. This one apparently blew clean through, more like a rifle.”
“Then why do you think it was an arrow?”
“See these blue smudges around the wound? It’s chalk dust from a tracking string.”
“Chalk dust? I don’t understand.”
“Some bow-hunters attach a string to their arrows, dusted with chalk. When the arrow strikes and the animal bolts, the string drags on the ground, leaving a trail they can follow. But I’ve never seen blue dust before. Most hunters use Day-Glo orange chalk, easier to spot.”
“My God. Day-Glo dust? Switchblade arrows? I thought hunting was supposed to get you back to nature.”
“I know, it seems cruel. But the truth is, once the animal’s been hit, anything that kills them quicker is more humane in the end. Not that there’s anything humane about the sonofabitch who did this. We have a crematorium here. If you like, I can take care of the remains for you.”
I just stared at him.
“The remains,” he repeated, not unkindly. “If you—never mind. I know a thing like this is a helluva shock, Arnie. Go home, take a break. You can call me if you decide to—”
“Thanks, David, but I’ll take him home with me.”
“Are you sure?”
“No. Right now I’m not sure about anything.” But as I drove back to town, I had a small parcel in the trunk of my car. The final remains of our beloved dog. Which left me with two impossible questions.
One, how could anyone do a thing like that? Kill a harmless pet?
And two, what on earth was I going to tell Janie?
The second problem had an easier answer than the first. I lied, flat-out. Perhaps the first time I’ve ever lied to my wife about anything serious.
A risky thing to do. Ordinarily, Janie can read me like a neon billboard. And her first question is always, “How are the boys? And Sparky?”
“He misses you,” I said. And she missed the fib. Perhaps because her eyes were closed. She was in a lot of pain. Some days it takes all of her concentration to keep it at bay.