Fife got in and turned a rugged-looking laptop toward him. “Give me a minute to file a preliminary report,” he said, taking his notepad and phone out. He propped the pad on the dash and plugged his phone into the laptop, and then began pushing keys and typing.
“Is Major a Belgian shepherd?” I asked, deciding the dog was too small to be a German shepherd.
“Collectively, there are four breeds of Belgian shepherd dogs,” Fife explained, as he pushed the laptop away and put the cruiser in gear. “Major’s a Belgian Malinois, which literally means made in Mechelen, Belgium in French. They’re not as big as German shepherds, but every bit as smart and maybe a little faster, due to their more compact size. They’re definitely more agile.”
“How long have you been working with him?”
“Since K-9 school when he was six months old,” Fife replied. “He’s almost nine now and will be retiring soon.”
“What happens then?”
Fife glanced in the rearview mirror, which I noticed was angled down, so he could see the dog. “Hopefully, I’ll move to a desk job about then and Major will just retire to my home. But if I’m assigned a new dog, Major will be put out for adoption. They usually get adopted by someone within the department, which is good. But a handler with a working dog isn’t permitted to adopt another.”
“That would make sense,” I said. “At least you could see him sometimes.”
“To be honest, Mr. Mc—Jesse, if I don’t get the desk job when he retires, I’ve been thinking of leaving the department so he can stay with me.”
I knew that police dogs, like most working dogs, were extremely loyal to their handlers. Apparently, it went both ways.
Once off the bridge, it was a short ride to the hospital—less than two miles. The new hospital wasn’t complete yet and the doctors and nurses were still using the modular ER facility erected in the parking lot adjacent to the new building. The original hospital had been damaged so badly during Irma, more than three years ago, that it had to be closed.
“Any word on when the new hospital will open?” I asked as we got out of the cruiser.
“They say they’re still on track for a fall opening,” he replied, then leaned in to tell the dog, “Bleibe.”
I grinned. “We use German commands for our Rottweiler, too. Since he’s Belgian, why don’t you use French?”
“We have several breeds and use German commands for all of them,” he said. “My first dog was a German shepherd. He died in the line of duty.”
I’d heard about a police dog being killed by a knife-wielding man strung out on meth, about eight years ago.
“Was he the one who rescued the little girl from the meth monster?”
Fife nodded as he pulled the door open. “You heard about it?”
“Everyone in the Keys did,” I replied. “I was at his funeral with my dog, Finn.”
“A Rottweiler named Finn?” he asked, following me in.
“No. Finn’s our yellow Lab. Woden’s our Rottweiler.”
“Cool names.”
Savannah rose from a chair and came toward me. I held her in my arms for a moment before asking if there was any news about the little boy.
“Nothing yet,” she replied.
“We think his name might be Alberto,” I said.
“I’ll go to the desk and get them to relay that to the doctors,” Fife said. “Maybe it’ll jog the boy’s memory.”
Savannah was still wrapped in the blanket from the ambulance and her clothes were damp. Having been outside in the sun, my clothes were almost dry.
A man in scrubs came through the restricted door and looked around. Seeing Fife talking to the admitting nurse, he went over to him.
Savannah and I followed.
“Are you the policeman who found the boy?” the man asked.
“Deputy Fife,” he replied, then nodded to me and Savannah. “They were the ones who found and rescued him. The boy’s name might be Alberto. Any idea what happened to him?”
The man turned toward me, and I could see his nametag. “I’m Jesse McDermitt and this is my wife, Savannah. How is the boy, Doctor Reynolds?”
“He’s alive,” the doctor replied. “But he wouldn’t have survived another day. He’s severely dehydrated and seems to have been malnourished for quite some time. But that’s not what worries me. We’re treating him for that.”
“What else?” Savannah asked.
“Maybe three days ago, this boy received a beating. He has two fractured ribs. He’s awake but doesn’t know who he is or where he comes from.”
“So, you both jumped off the Seven Mile into skinny water?” Rusty asked. “You coulda broke your necks.”
There’d been school buses on Little Duck Key to bring the runners back, but Rusty had driven to the other side of the Seven Mile Bridge before the race to see the finish and bring me and Savannah back. When we didn’t arrive, he started asking some of the runners he knew, and someone told him what had happened.
“It seemed like the thing to do at the time,” Savannah said.
We’d walked from the hospital to the Anchor, hoping that Rusty would be back soon, because we’d left a change of clothes in his truck. Now that he’d returned, we were in dry clothes, but since we hadn’t anticipated losing our shoes, our feet were bare.
Savannah was the barefoot type anyway.
Rusty just looked at her a moment. “Seemed like the thing to do, huh? You coulda just called 911 and let the water cops handle it.”
Savannah shook her head. “That little boy needed help, Rusty. So, we helped.”
He looked across the bar at me and shook his head. “I can understand you doing something dumb like that. You’re just a grunt. But why’d you make her jump, too?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but Savannah beat me to it.
“He doesn’t make me do anything,” she said.
“That’s true,” I agreed, turning toward her. “In fact, I was a bit pissed that she did. But as it turned out, I needed her there.”
“Is the boy gonna be
