Cadaver Dog by Doug Goodman Read Free Book Online Page B

Welcome, Father Michael Carligi and former CIA operative Avery Rueben.”
    Charles Blight had the crisp, trained cadence of a long-time newscaster. Angie filled up the bowls and tuned out Charles Blight’s unaccented speaking while she fed the dogs. Murder she fed first. He lay in his kennel as low to the ground as possible, with little rolls of fat pancaked on either side of him and his muzzle and ears flattened on the ground.
    “Hey, boy,” she said as high-pitched and sing-songy as her raspy voice let her. “I got you some food.”
    Murder didn’t move. He stared at the bowl of chow and whined.
    With her good arm, she smoothed the hairs on his head. “I know you miss your toy, but we will get you a new one. In fact, look what I got,” she said as she pulled out a rope that was knotted on one end. She dangled it in front of Murder to try to entice him. Nothing doing, though. The dog didn’t move.
    Angie left the rope with Murder, then closed his kennel and went back to get bowls to feed the other dogs. When all the dogs were fed, she opened an old foot locker full of leftover toys. While she looked, the debate raged on over the airwaves.
    “Look, Father Mike, I don’t mean to belittle your point,” the ex-CIA agent was saying. “But it’s kind of an excuse. I went to Bible school and all that, and so I get creationism. But I’m telling you, this is not something God made. This is something that was built in a lab. Either by the Chinese or the Americans or maybe even the Russians.”
    “But even you have to admit,” Charles Blight interjected, “The lack of evidence to support that the government built a biological weapon so dangerous and yet so ineffective. Surely there has to be a better way to topple governments than usurping their dead. What purpose do these creatures serve except to terrorize? They don’t turn other people into zombies like in the movies.”
    “All I’m saying is that the US government doesn’t torture its prisoners, until Abu Ghraib happens and then the truth is out. The NSA doesn’t keep track of your phone calls, until some contractor comes out and tells the papers that that’s exactly what they do. And the US wouldn’t develop a monster like this giant crimson wasp, until somebody calls them on it and they are forced to admit it.”
    Angie shook her head and turned off the dial. Did it really matter how they came to me? Maybe to NPR, and maybe to people like Dr. Saracen, but to her? All that mattered was finding them.
    Like the Santa Claus of dogs, she cradled a dozen toys in her arms. She propped open Murder’s kennel with her one hand, then dumped the pile of toys into Murder’s pen.
    “You find one you like, you let me know, buddy,” she told the disconsolate dog, who still had yet to touch his food.
     
    Angie tried everything. She ordered a new rubber stork with goofy eyeballs online, but when she presented it to Murder, he just kind of looked at it like it was day-old sushi. So she commanded him to sit, opened his mouth and shoved the stork in his mouth like it was a pill. Murder sat there not knowing what to do.
    Angie took him outside. The familiar box lay in the middle of the field. But when Angie commanded Murder to “Find buzz” her dog dropped the stork, turned tail, and ran back to the pen.
    Again and again she tried. Neither stuffed flamingos from Colorado City toy stores nor stuffed giraffes, which were at least yellow, worked with Murder.
    “Well, damnit, what is going to work?” she yelled in frustration. “You are the most stubborn cuss I have ever worked with!”
    Murder just stared at her helplessly.
    “I know!” Then, “Shut up!”
    Finally, she called in help. When Dr. Saracen picked up the phone, Angie said, “I can’t get Murder to work anymore, Henry. I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried Kongs, I’ve tried treats, I’ve tried rubber chickens, I’ve even tried a stuffed flamingo from Colorado City. Nothing works!”
    “I don’t