Killing Trail: A Timber Creek K-9 Mystery Read online

  He’d already passed a tube into her stomach to inject about a half gallon of mineral oil, and he’d inserted an IV into the mare’s jugular vein. Now he was pushing fluids through the IV, trying to rehydrate the colicky horse.

  Feeling as if he was moving in slow motion, Cole put on his stethoscope and leaned forward to place it over the mare’s heart. He rested against the side of the stocks, the metal rail cold against his face, while he listened to the rapid thump in her chest. He counted the beats. Around seventy per minute, indicating severe pain . . . but still, improvement over a half hour ago.

  Tess Murphy, his assistant, stuck her head through the doorway to his clinic. She’d arrived at work that morning with some kind of goo in her red hair, making it stick out every which way. Just another of the experiments she always seemed to have going on with her hair.

  “Sheriff’s office called,” she said. “They’re sending in a dog with a gunshot wound.”

  Cole sighed. Would this day never end? “When?”

  “Not sure, but within the next half hour.”

  “Get the clippers, and set up for surgery.”

  “Already done. But I have to leave now.”

  “So soon?”

  “Remember, I told you this morning. I have to pick up my boys early. The sitter has a doctor’s appointment.”

  “Oh, yes.” Cole couldn’t remember anything about it, but he’d be the first to admit he’d been preoccupied all day. “Forward the office phone to my cell then.”

  Tess turned to go back inside.

  Cole stopped her. “What time is it?”

  “Almost four.”

  “Would you do me a favor on your way out?”

  “Sure.”

  “Leave a note at the house for my sister. She’s bringing the girls home today, and I doubt I’ll finish before they get there. Tell her to come here to the clinic when they get in.”

  “Sure, I’ll tape the note to the front door.”

  After Tess left, Cole used the stethoscope to listen to the mare’s belly. Quiet. He’d hoped to hear some bowel sounds, a gurgle indicating the mare’s gut had started moving again, but there was nothing. Resting one hand on the mare’s warm back, Cole leaned against the stocks and let his eyes close for a minute. A dull ache throbbed behind his eye sockets. Needing a distraction, he walked over to the counter that ran down one side of the room and turned on the radio, already set on his favorite country and western station. Kenny Rogers crooned a song about his wife Lucille leaving him.

  Cole switched it off.

  Turning over a bucket, he sat down on it so he could keep an eye on the mare while he waited for the wounded dog. The gray appeared comfortable at the moment, her eyes closed, her lips hanging loose from the analgesic.

  Should he tell his daughters about the divorce being final when they got home? He supposed there would be no reason to get into it tonight, but he knew he’d have to tell them sometime.

  It had been hard on the kids all summer. It seemed like their mother was divorcing them, too, since she didn’t want to see any of them. Liv had checked out of their lives the end of May and hadn’t checked back in once. Cole snorted a short derisive sound. Try explaining that to two daughters who love their mom.

  And since his plan to bring Liv back to them had failed, what would he do with them now? Who would keep track of them while he worked? And now that school was about to start, he couldn’t keep shipping them off to Denver to stay with his sister. He supposed Angela could take care of herself at fifteen, but Sophie was only eight, too young to be left alone all day. And when it came right down to it, he wasn’t sure he wanted Angela left to her own means all day, either. School started next week, but that only took care of part of the day. It wasn’t unusual for Cole to start work well before eight in the morning and finish up well after eight at night.

  Hearing gravel crunch in front of the clinic, Cole hauled himself off the bucket and walked over to the window. He saw his sister’s car parked out front, so he went back to the mare to make sure her lead rope was tied securely to the front of the metal stanchion. She was still under the effect of the drugs and wouldn’t be going anywhere soon. Satisfied that all was safe for the moment, he hastened through the clinic’s back door and toward the lobby.

  Jessie had been a lifesaver, keeping the girls with her most of the summer. But he missed them when they were gone. He missed Liv. Hell, he missed everything about his old life.

  “Dad-dy!” Sophie’s girlish voice lilted. She came running into the lobby, colliding with Cole’s legs as he braced himself. Sophie was built like a small halfback, short and stout.

  Cole bent down and picked her up, hugging her solid body against his chest. “Sophie! You’ve grown a foot,” he said, leaning back to look down into her face.

  Sophie’s amber eyes danced, a grin bunching her freckled cheeks. Her dark curls were gathered back and held with a silky red scarf, no doubt a souvenir from Jessie’s wardrobe.

  “Aunt Jessie said maybe we could go eat at Clucken House. Can we, Dad? Can we?” Sophie paused for a breath.

  “Hold on a minute, squirt. Let me give your Aunt Jessie and your sister a hug.” Cole met Jessie’s hazel eyes over Sophie’s shoulder. It never failed to amaze him how well his kid sister had turned out, her hair styled and highlighted and her designer clothes immaculate. Letting Sophie slide to the ground, he continued to hold her with one arm while he reached to give his sister a quick hug. “How was your trip?”

  “Just fine. The girls were eager to get home.” Jessie slipped an arm around Angela’s waist, drawing her forward from where she’d been hanging back.

  Cole swept an observant gaze over his oldest. Fifteen-year-old Angela wore her typical aloof expression, but when he smiled at her, she returned it. With her pale-blond, shoulder-length hair; smooth white skin; and eyes the color of cornflowers, Angela was the image of her mother. The resemblance struck Cole harder than usual, leaving him with an empty feeling around his solar plexus.

  “Hey, Angel,” Cole said, using the childhood nickname he’d given Angela years ago. “Can I have a hug?”

  “Hi, Dad.” She stepped forward without hesitation, reaching up to encircle Cole’s neck with her arms. She even gave his cheek a quick kiss, showing that she must be in a good mood. When she’d left a week ago, she hadn’t been nearly so friendly. In fact, she’d been moody all summer. Not surprising, but certainly a challenge to deal with.

  Cole drew a deep breath and gazed around the group. “To answer your question, Sophie, yes, you can go to Clucken House for dinner tonight.”

  “Yay!” Sophie jumped in excitement. Then she sobered. “Did Mom call while we were gone?”

  “No, Sophie-bug. I haven’t heard from her.”

  Sophie’s eyes filled, and her face worked to keep from crying. “Oh, okay.”

  Her resignation hurt Cole as much, if not more, than her tears could.

  Damn it, Liv, didn’t you think about your children before you decided to leave?

  “I tell you what,” he said. “I have to wait for a hurt dog to come into the clinic, but why don’t you guys go ahead and eat?” He reached for his wallet. “Here, Angela, you take some money with you to treat your Aunt Jessie. I’ll come there when I can. I just don’t know how long I’ll have to wait for this dog.”

  Angela leveled her cool, blue gaze at him, and Jessie gave him a frown. He realized he’d said something wrong.

  “We just got here, Dad,” Angela said.

  “I’m not trying to get rid of you, Angel. I just thought you must be hungry.” He turned to Sophie and drew a red bandanna from his pocket to wipe the tears that had trickled down her cheeks.

  “Come on, squirt, don’t be sad. If you’re not too hungry, could you stay here and visit with me for a little while?”

  Sophie sniffed. “Yes.”

  Cole sat down in one of the lobby chairs, taking Sophie onto his lap. “What did you girls do this week?”

  “I t
ook them into the office a couple times to rearrange files,” Jessie said. “I needed to move the old ones out to storage. Angela took over and completely restructured my system.”

  Cole met his daughter’s eyes. “Way to go, Ange.”

  A smile of satisfaction softened her face. “It was Aunt Jessie’s idea.”

  Jessie said, “But you carried it out. I could’ve never done all that by myself.”

  “Did I help?” Sophie said, the plaintive tone coming back into her voice.

  “You sure did,” Jessie said.

  “Yeah, right,” Angela countered, spoiling everything.

  “That’s not nice,” Sophie whined.

  “The truth hurts.”

  A muscle tensed in Cole’s jaw, leaving a sore spot.

  “I’m starved,” Jessie chimed in. “I could eat a whole steer, but I’ll settle for a Clucken burger.”

  Cole threw her a grateful look.

  Angela rolled her eyes. “You and Dad always eat hamburgers at Clucken House. How can you go there without eating chicken?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Jessie said. “We were raised on beef, I guess.”

  “Beef. It’s what’s for dinner,” Cole said, wiggling his eyebrows at his daughters.

  Angela didn’t miss a beat. “Beef. It’s what clogs your arteries.”

  Cole clapped a hand over his heart. “Angel . . . say it ain’t so.”

  Smiling now, Sophie bounced off his lap and headed toward the door. “I’m having a hamburger, too. Just like Aunt Jessie and Daddy.”

  Cole walked them out to the car, opening doors on the passenger side for his daughters, getting Angela settled in front and Sophie in back. When he finished, Jessie signaled to meet her by the trunk. In a hushed voice, she said, “Cole, you look like hell. What’s going on?”

  It was easy to tell that Jessie made her living as an attorney; it had taken her very little time to pin him down.

  Cole spoke in the same low tone. “We’ll have to talk later, after the girls have gone to bed. Do you think you could stay here tonight instead of going out to Mom’s?”

  Jessie gave him a probing look. “All right. I’ll call and tell her something.”

  He watched Jessie and the kids drive away before going back to check on the horse. She looked about the same. He listened to her heartbeat, noting the rate had increased. Removing the stethoscope’s earpieces, he straightened and observed her for a moment.

  She wasn’t out of the woods yet.

  The mare stood as she had before, gray head resting against the front bar of the stocks, eyelids lowered, lips slack. When he pressed and released the pink membrane of her gums, it blanched and stayed white for too long, indicating poor capillary infusion. The mare was going into shock.

  Apparently, his treatment had supported her for a short time, restored her fluids and diminished her pain, but it hadn’t solved the problem. He’d known this was more than a simple colic and now he suspected a torsion.

  He reached for the bottle of analgesic, inserted the needle, and pulled ten cc’s into the syringe. Grasping the buffalo cap at the end of the IV tubing, he jabbed the needle through it to deliver the pain medication into the mare’s bloodstream. He hoped he could make her more comfortable.

  After rolling open the double door at the back of the room, Cole released the stocks and untied the mare. He made a clicking sound with his tongue, and she backed out, her shod hooves scraping against the concrete floor. He decided to put her in one of the runs under the shed, so that if she died, he’d be able to get a tractor in to move her body out for the knacker man to come haul away.

  He needed to take a moment to call the mare’s owner and give him a progress report. If he waited any longer, there might not be anything positive to say. And now that he thought about it, there weren’t a whole lot of positive things he could say about his own life right now either.

  Chapter 4

  After calling the mare’s owner, Cole began to clean up the equine treatment room. Soon he heard a car pull up in front of the clinic. Glancing out the window, he saw a silver-and-blue patrol car marked Timber Creek County Sheriff parked out front, parallel to the building, offering him full view of the driver’s side.

  He watched as a female deputy opened her door and stepped out, a grimace crossing her face as she straightened. When she moved to close the door, Cole could see that she must have injured her right leg. Her khaki trousers were torn and bloody at the knee, and she was walking with a limp. In general, she looked a bit worse for wear, brown hair tossed, face scratched, clothing smeared with dirt.

  A black-and-tan German shepherd, mouth hanging open in a pant, rode in the back part of the vehicle. At first, Cole thought this was his patient. But the woman went around to the passenger side to open the front door, and when she came back around front, Cole could see that she was leading a Bernese mountain dog.

  The deputy and the Bernese both limped toward the clinic’s front door. Cole went inside to meet them.

  After passing through the exam room, Cole found the deputy waiting in the lobby with the dog sitting quietly at her feet, a stoic expression on its face. The woman was bent forward, scratching the dog behind its ears.

  Cole recognized the Bernese immediately. “What have we got here?”

  The deputy looked up, showing Cole a set of intense brown eyes framed by dark lashes. “I’m Deputy Mattie Cobb and this is Belle. She’s been shot.”

  “Belle belongs to my daughter’s friend. I know her very well.”

  A strange mix of surprise followed by relief crossed the deputy’s face. “I noticed your clinic name on her rabies tag. I was hoping you could tell us who her owner is.”

  “I can do that. It’s Grace Hartman. She rarely goes anywhere without this dog.” Cole extended his hand. “Pleased to meet you, by the way.”

  The woman’s handshake was as firm as her jaw.

  “Let’s bring her into the exam room,” he said, holding the door open.

  Cole offered his hand to Belle for a sniff and then placed it on her head. He leaned down to take a look at her hip, matted with blood and dirt. “How in the world did you get yourself shot, Belle? What have you been up to?”

  “Grace is how old?”

  “Just turned sixteen this summer.”

  “And what does she look like?”

  “Dark hair that’s usually in a ponytail.” Cole brushed the bridge of his nose. “Little ski-jump nose with a sprinkling of freckles.”

  The deputy wore a grim expression. “Who are Grace’s parents?”

  “Garrett and Leslie Hartman. They live on a ranch out west of town.” Cole had a thought. “Wait a minute. Is Grace in some kind of trouble?”

  “No, nothing like that. Excuse me for a minute. I need to go outside to make a phone call.” She started for the door.

  Cole spoke, making her pause. “My assistant had to leave, so I’ll need your help holding Belle.”

  “I’ll be right back.” She removed her cell phone from her pocket as she went through the door.

  Cole plugged the hair clippers into the wall socket and reached for a muzzle made from nylon straps. While he waited for the deputy to return, he stroked Belle lightly on the head. She looked up at him with woebegone eyes. “Who shot you, girl?”

  He didn’t have to wait long. The deputy was as good as her word and returned within a few minutes.

  “I’ll have to clean her up before I can tell what we’ve got,” Cole told her.

  He slipped the muzzle in place over the dog’s nose and secured it while the deputy held her by the collar. Belle offered no resistance whatsoever, and he leaned down to pick her up. “Let’s get you up on the table where I can take a look at you.”

  The deputy assisted by clasping Belle under the stomach and lifting her hips. Belle struggled for a moment, and her nails screeched against the stainless steel tabletop until she settled, her huge paws gripping the slick metal. Cobb pulled Belle in close to her chest.

>   Shaving away the matted hair, Cole spoke above the noise of the clipper. “Has anyone notified the Hartmans that Belle’s been shot?”

  Deputy Cobb looked up from the dog and stared at him with eyes that Cole thought probably didn’t miss much. “The sheriff is taking care of that now.”

  Cole bent over Belle’s furry rump and the clipper whirred as he guided it over her skin, leaving a clear path of closely cropped hair in its wake. Soon, he found the bullet’s entry, a small hole where blood had coagulated, located in the meaty part of her leg between her hip and stifle. He shaved carefully around its edges and then turned off the clipper.

  Gently, he examined Belle’s leg, raising it to check the inner part of the thigh. Belle whimpered, and Deputy Cobb murmured something in a soothing way, rubbing the brown patch of fur at Belle’s cheek.

  “I can’t find an exit wound,” Cole said. “The bullet’s still in her leg. I’ll have to take an x-ray to find out where it is. She’s going to need surgery. Do you know if she’s had anything to eat or drink today?”

  There was a furrow of worry on Deputy Cobb’s forehead. “I gave her some water before I brought her in. I don’t know about food.”

  Cole smoothed the fur on the dog’s back and placed his stethoscope to listen to her heart sounds. He was reassured by the steady thump. “I’ll keep her overnight and take out the bullet in the morning. I have to run some blood work to make sure she’s healthy enough to handle the anesthesia, but I expect she’ll do fine.”

  “Someone from the police department needs to be here when you take out that bullet. We’ll need it for evidence.”

  Cole gave her a skeptical smile. “You plan to prosecute someone for shooting a dog in Timber Creek County? It’s a pretty common offense around here.”

  “It shouldn’t be. And yes, I plan to.”

  Cole admired her determination. “Can I call you in the morning and set up a time? I’ll have to arrange for my assistant to come in, and she doesn’t usually work on Saturdays.”

  “Yes. I’ll give you my cell number before I leave. Call the station if you can’t reach me. I also need to talk to you sometime about taking care of Robo, our new police dog. We just got back from training a couple weeks ago, and his vet care’s up to date, so I hadn’t gotten around to it yet. I have his records at home.”