Eileen squeezed the first trigger. Boooom! The butt punched into her shoulder. An ounce of lead shot exploded bone fragments and brain tissue out from Spirit's head in a crimson aureole. The impact flipped him over backward. The second, and superfluous, charge bounced his body off the ground.
The Freeman and WCVS came out swinging. Harry Wilson attacked dogs, crucified their owners, and screamed for the passage of his proposals.
Media in neighboring communities were only slightly less vivid. The National Enquirer bannered WILD KILLER DOGS BIGGEST THREAT IN U.S. across its front page and ran a picture of Homer McPhee being lifted bloodied and stunned from a state police car onto a stretcher, and another of the mutilated calf. AP and UPI carried the story on their wire services. Covington polarized, and dogs and their supporters got the nastiest end. A woman from the Purebred Dog Association was shouted down and spit upon at a public meeting. Police rounded up strays and unconfined pets and issued in excess of a hundred summonses. A few dozen dogs were put to death at the humane shelter-including a fair number brought in by owners who said they didn't want them anymore-and an attendant was beaten by two men who thought their missing pets were locked up there. Mayor Thomas Josephson appointed an emergency committee to investigate and make recommendations.
Dr. Chaim Mandelberg set down his morning copy of the New York Times.
He braced his elbow on the desktop and rested his chin lightly upon the tip of his raised index finger. He tapped the eraser of a pencil on the story, two small, vertical furrows appearing in the center space between his eyebrows.
He signaled his secretary on the intercom.
"Yes, Dr. Mandelberg."
"Sheila, how far is Covington from here, do you know?"
"Oh… about a hundred, a hundred and twenty miles. Should I check for an exact figure?"
"No, no, that's all right, thanks. Ring Bill Hazlett's extension for me, will you please."
Ursula reported the attack on Jeff, and Bauer was called to give an account. He arrived at the County Office Building late in the afternoon.
Four people waited ahead of him. The workday had ended and most of the offices were vacated by the time he was ushered in.
The committee comprised a Covington police sergeant, a woman from the mayor's office, a conservation department representative, Elizabeth Collier and Harry Wilson. A man named Bill Hazlett, from a downstate scientific organization that worked with dogs, was also present, as an observer. Wilson wore a checked sport jacket over a white turtleneck sweater. He took notes with a silver plated pen.
Bauer told his story in a few minutes. "That's all there was to it," he ended. "My son will need plastic surgery, but he's recovering well."
Councilman Thomas, who was chairing the proceedings, looked embarrassed, as if he'd inadvertently stumbled into a private and personal matter. "Thank you, Mr. Bauer. I'm glad to hear the boy wasn't more seriously injured." He looked to see if any of the others had questions.
Only Harry Wilson did. "You haven't seen the dog at all since that day?"
"No.
"Did you read the description of the animal that led the attack on the McPhee farm?"
"Yes, I did."
"Do you think they're one and the same?"
"The description could fit Orphan."
"But do you think it was him?" Wilson pressed.
"The report could fit any of fifteen or twenty German shepherds I've seen at my office," Elizabeth Collier said, "and at least thirty or forty more in the general area. I'd also like to state, for the record, that people inexperienced with the breed are prone to call any dog remotely resembling the shepherd conformation-and that's a classic canine conformation-a German shepherd. I think you want to be careful to avoid setting off a pogrom here."
"The point is well taken," Thomas said.
"But what do you think?" Wilson said to Bauer. "He was your dog. Did he ever display unusual aggression toward people before, do you think he is the one?"
Bauer hesitated, hoping he wouldn't have to answer. But even Thomas was interested now, as if identification would somehow represent a step toward solution.
"He might have been hit by a car," Bauer said. "Someone else might have taken him into their home, he might he living in the woods by himself, or, yes, he might be leading that pack. I don't see how we can even speculate, and I don't know what good it would do anyway-it's not like a criminal case where you learn the man's name and go to his house and arrest him. Whether it's Orph or Spot or Rover or some dog born and raised in the wild, he's still out there somewhere and knowing his name isn't going to help anyone find him."
Elizabeth Collier nodded agreement.
Thomas was disappointed. "Unfortunately I suppose that's true."
"Yes," said Hazlett, "it is." He looked around somewhat apologetically. "I know I have no official part in these proceedings, but if I could add something?"
"Certainly," Thomas said.
"It's a long shot, but if you could identify the animal, it might be a little easier to extrapolate its actions and movements. Was there anything distinctive about your dog, anything at all, Mr. Bauer, that would help single it out?"
Bauer shook his head. "I'd know him, but he was mine. I don't think anyone else could tell him apart." He paused. "Orph had a little nick out of his ear. The right one, near the base, but you probably wouldn't notice it unless you were patting his head. Other than that, nothing."
Thomas adjourned the meeting. Wilson put his note pad in an attache case and snapped it shut. He stopped behind Elizabeth's chair and laid a hand casually on her shoulder. "You free?" he asked.
She turned her head up and smiled. "Completely. And I intend to stay that way." She shrugged off his hand, stood and turned away.
The County Office Building was three stories, stainless steel and black glass. They rode down from the top in a silent elevator and signed out, since it was after hours, in the security guard's book. They dispersed their separate ways on the street. Elizabeth was parked down the street in the same lot with Bauer.
She fell into step with him. "You handled Wilson well," she said. "I enjoyed that. I'm sorry about your dog and your son."
"Thanks," Bauer said. "You don't seem to have any trouble with Wilson yourself."
"I've had experience. He's an ass." She rubbed the back of her neck.
"Hard day?"
"Depressing."
"Could you use a drink?"
She hesitated. "Sure, that would be nice."
They went past the parking lot and across the street to the Jury Box.
There were simulated beams of styrofoam, wood grained Formica tables, and chairs with vinyl cushions that were supposed to look like leather.
Ersatz junk, but the place was clean and quiet and friendly.
They took a table. Elizabeth tied her hair back with a scarf. She wore a beige skirt and sweater, a thin gold chain around her neck. Her coloring was that of patinaed ivory, her eyes light brown. She had slim, strong hands.
The waitress brought their drinks. Bauer looked at his a moment before he took a swallow and set it down. "I think," he said, "that it is Orph leading that pack." Why?"
"We lived pretty close together. I got to know him well not know him probably-but I developed a kind of emotional familiarity with him. He couldn't really be known, that was one of the things I realized in retrospect." He told her about Orph, with some sadness in his voice.
"So it's mostly intuition.
Still, I'm nearly certain it's Orph."
"I thought you felt that way. You were trying to protect him." She reflected. "It could be him."
"It is," he said soberly.
"Maybe, maybe not. At this point, no one can know what's out there. I wasn't lying when I said there were three or four dozen animals in the area who fit the description."