“I’ll go,” Manny offered. Wordlessly Jeannine handed him the box with its load of large plastic bags.
During the next half hour, Joanna watched as Manny carted one heavily laden bag after another to the door, where he passed the burden along to Jeannine, who then hauled it out
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to the waiting trucks. It offended the dog lover in Joanna to see all those dead animals carted off like so much unwanted garbage. Mentally keeping track of the number of trips, Joanna was doubly conscious of the tiny heart of the contentedly sleeping puppy beating a feather-light tattoo against her lower ribs.
Which one of those black bags holds Lucky’s mother? she wondered. And how come he’s still alive when all the other dogs are dead?
Jeannine Phillips was a strapping young woman who had once, as a junior in high school, gone out for boys’ football. Bis-bee High School’s football coach had let her try out for the Pumas’ JV team, but a broken leg during a pre-season workout session had put an end to her football-playing ambitions. It had also left her with a slight but permanent limp. After only a year or so of junior college, she had started working Animal Control on a part-time basis and had never left. Now the situation was reversed, however. She worked full-time for Animal Control and was a part-time student at the University of Arizona’s satellite campus in Sierra Vista, where she was within twenty or so units of completing her bachelor’s degree.
Clearly the situation that afternoon offended Jeannine Phillips every bit as much as it did Joanna Brady.
“This never should have happened,” Jeannine grumbled as she returned to collect yet another bag. “If we weren’t so damn shorthanded, maybe one of us could have gotten back out here earlier to check on things. Maybe all these dogs wouldn’t be dead now.”
On her best days, Jeannine Phillips was a naturally taciturn loner. On occasion she was downright surly. This time, as far as Joanna was concerned, the woman’s complaint and attitude
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were both entirely understandable, and although Joanna tried not to take the criticism personally, she knew some of it was justified. With all the other demands on her time, Sheriff Brady was too busy to give Animal Control the kind of attention it deserved. It was hardly surprising that they viewed themselves as unwelcome stepchildren inside Joanna’s department.
As for Jeannine Phillips, she had more grounds for dissatisfaction on that score than all of her compatriots put together. When the previous head of Animal Control had resigned the position, Jeannine should have been the logical choice for promotion.
After all, she had worked in the unit longer than anyone else. She knew the procedures and understood how things were supposed to work. Now, with Joanna’s time and attention often focused elsewhere, Jeannine had been forced to assume the unenviable position of unofficial acting manager. As such, she supervised the unit’s day-to-day activities without the added credibility of an official title or any additional pay to compensate her for the extra work.
“I was under the impression it was handled properly,” Joanna offered. “Manny told me when he came here earlier today, it was at the end of Carol Mossman’s two-week compliance period.”
“Right,” Jeannine muttered. “But if we’d been doing the job we should have been doing, we would have known about this woman a long time ago. Maybe we could have done something to correct the situation long before she had a chance to work herself all the way up to eighteen dogs.”
There was no arguing with that. Just then, Manny emerged carrying one last bag. He paused next to Joanna. “This is it, Sheriff Brady,” he said. “If you want to go in, it’s clear now.”
Manny trudged away toward his truck, still wearing his crime scene booties. Steeling her heart for whatever gruesome sight
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awaited her inside the overheated mobile home, Joanne went looking for a pair of booties of her own. Before she could put them on, however, a cab drove down the gravel driveway and stopped in front of the gate in the chain-link fence. Moments later, the driver hopped out of the cab, opened the back door, and reached in to help his passenger exit.
While Joanna watched, a pint-size white-haired woman, moving with the aid of a walker, emerged from the backseat. Impatiently shaking off the cab driver’s helping hand, she headed straight for Manny Ruiz, who had just finished loading the final bag into his truck.
“You can’t take Carol’s dogs away!” she shrieked at the Animal Control officer. Her walker got hung up briefly on a clump of dried grass. For a moment Joanna feared the woman would pitch forward over the handlebars and land on her head. Instead, she righted herself and resumed her tirade.
“Do you hear me, young man? You can’t.” A moment later she had closed the distance between them. Parking her walker directly in front of the startled Manuel Ruiz, she glared up at him and shook a tiny fist in his face.
“You let those dogs out of that truck right this minute!” she ordered. “Whatever the fine is, I’ll pay it. I have my checkbook right here.” Leaning on the walker with one hand, she seized a purse out of the basket on the handlebars and flailed that at him as well. Fortunately for all concerned, Manny dodged out of the way before the purse connected with his chin.
Joanna hurried over to the melee. “Please, ma’am,” she said. “Officer Ruiz is just doing his job.”
The woman abandoned her attack on Manny Ruiz and rounded on Joanna instead. “His job?” she demanded. “Just
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because Carol doesn’t make enough money to pay expensive vet bills is no reason to come take her pets away. What a heartless, mean-spirited thing to do. She loves those dogs, you see. Loves them and needs them.”
“You know Carol Mossman, then?” Joanna asked.
“Know her!” the woman snorted. “Of course I know her! Why wouldn’t I? She’s my granddaughter, isn’t she?” The old lady glowered at Joanna through narrowed eyes. “And who are you?”
