DAFS - Chapter 4

Clay met me at the road. “Medical Examiner’s here, and we think the body was transported and dumped from somewhere else. We’re making casts of some tire tracks now”. The turn-out was indeed a flurry of activity.

“So you’re sure one of the Lions club guys didn’t find and pick her up with the rest of the litter?” I asked sarcastically?

Clay gave me a disgusted look. “No, smart ass, but I do want to know how she ended up in one of those litter patrol bags.” “Did you look in the rest of them to see if you’re missing any more teen-agers?” I asked? “Just something that looked like it might be some of her school notes, doesn’t appear to be very relevant.”

“That trail over the hill we just followed showed signs of recent activity”, I told Clay. Might want to have a deputy check it out.” “Yeah, okay.” Clay wasn’t really paying much attention to me. “I’m pretty sure she was dumped from a car. Anyway, Nicole’s calling me having a cow about getting you guys over to the “Scallop” to help with breakfast. I’m going to have Irv here give you a lift.”

Great. Irv. I went to school with Irv and he’d looked like a rhinoceros then. Now he looked like a deputy rhino. Beady eyes, beaky nose, and a large square body with weird looking grey skin. He also stuttered. “H,h,h,hi N, n,n, n, Natalie. I I I I I’m sure gl glad you’re h, home.”

I’m pretty sure Dandy didn’t do anything unusual. He just walked up to rhino Irv to give him the requisite crotch sniff greeting, but Irv jumped he’d been hit in the balls with a round of buckshot.

“Wha, wha, what’s that”? Irv’s stutter edged on panic.

“It’s just a dog, Irv.” I explained, pulling Dandy back. I hadn’t really expected a sheriff’s deputy to be afraid of dogs. Especially smallish, skinny ones that look more like a house elf from Harry Potter than they do a vicious canine.

Irv turned to Clay in terror. “I can, can, can’t drive a d, d, d, dog back to town!” he exclaimed. N, N, N, Natalie, yes, but d, d, d, dog, NO!”

Clay looked disgusted. “Oh for Pete’s sake.” “Nat, can you drive a Charger?” he asked?

Sure, why not. It’s a car right?

“Irv, Nat will drive your car back to the Scallop with the dog in the back in the cage, and then you can drive back out here after you drop them off.”

“Nope.” Irv was emphatic. “I’m not sitting locked in no car with a dog in the cage behind me. He can fit his skinny little nose through the wire and he might lick me.” It appeared that the more scared Irv got, the less he stuttered.

Clay did the the trademark MacDuffy 360 eye roll. “Fine. Nat can drive, the dog rides shotgun, and Irv rides in the cage.” “Just GET GOING”.

While absurd, this situation appeared to appease all parties. I buckled myself and Dandy in to the front seats of Irv’s Charger, while Irv crawled in the back looking nervous. Perhaps it is fortunate that Clay hasn’t seen me for awhile, or I’m sure I would have received a stern lecture on safe driving and not using the law enforcement equipment. As it was, I squealed the tires out onto 101 and immediately hit the lights and siren for the brief trip into town. I ignored the radio, which immediately buzzed with Clay’s voice telling me to knock it off, and Irv’s pleading from the backseat. I mean really, how often does a fraud vegan chef get to drive a cop car and run the blue lights. Plus the Charger had some really good kick to it. Beat the heck out of my VW Bug with the dead flower in the bud vase back in Venice.

It was nearly 7am by the time I rolled up to the “Singing Scallop B&B”, lights still flashing and siren blaring. By the way, don’t blame Nicole for the name, she inherited the mess, remember. Ginny named the damn place purportedly after the scallop version of “Angels on Horseback” started singing “We All Live In a Yellow Submarine” to her the night of Nic and Jake’s wedding reception. We suspect the scallops actually carried on in usual silence, and the fifth of Tanqueray Ginny pre-functioned with did the singing.

“Uhh, s,s, something’s going on.” Irv was right about that. Spotted Owl enthusiasts milled in groups in front of the turn-of-the-century hotel with the faded “Singing Scallop” sign above the porch. Wild gesturing toward the building was punctuated by Fine bouncing from group to group dragging her leash and her “bomb sniffing” dog coat dragging beneath her since it was at least two sizes too big. There was no sign of North or Nicole, although my nephew Gauge and niece Shell were dashing amongst the throng in their p.j.’s trying to catch Fine.

Our arrival was greeted with something blended between relief and chaos. Except, as Irv and I got out of the car, Fine dashed up to first me, then Irv to greet the newcomers. To me, she asked what took us so long. Irv she merely greeted cheerfully by jumping into his arms, and then leaping back with surprise when he dropped her and crawled shaking back into the back of the car. The crowd then descended on me, the civilian rather than Irv, the deputy. Of course they did. I was wearing the deputies jacket, and I was driving. And I wasn’t hiding in the back of the car from the bomb-sniffing dogs. Clearly, I was in charge.

A tall thin man with thinning grey hair and a longish beard, Birkenstocks, and a Greenpeace t-shirt approached the car looking agitated. “There’s a wild animal loose in there!” “Someone needs to call animal control, it’s wreaking havoc, and we haven’t had breakfast yet!”