All creatures dark and dangerous by Allyn Douglas

Author:Allyn, Douglas [Allyn, Douglas]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Detective and mystery stories, American, Veterinarians -- Fiction, Cats -- Fiction, Cats, Veterinarians, Michigan -- Fiction, Michigan
ISBN: 1885941323
Publisher: Norfolk, Va. : Crippen & Landru Publishers
Published: 1999-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Puppyland / 113

have any doubts, you tell me about ’em, okay?”

“I hope to God there won’t be a next time,” David said. “At least not like this one.”

“It came down pretty hard. I’ll admit,” Stan said, pausing in the doorway. “But at least one good thing came out of it. Your friend was in a lot of pain, and now it’s over.”

David nodded without answering. But he knew it wasn’t true. It wasn’t over. Not yet.

^ ^ ^

Four days after Inga’s funeral. Hector died. At the end, David eased his passing with an injection. The pup wouldn’t accept food from anyone but Inga and he was wasting away. David decided against trying to anesthetize Hector in order to force feed him. It would only have prolonged the inevitable, and he couldn’t find it in his heart to compel Hector to abide in this world when he so clearly wanted to be gone.

Later that afternoon, David placed the pup’s small body in the Crawford furnace behind his office and cremated it. His ashes barely filled an envelope. Dusk was falling and a hint of rain was in the air as David drove his Jeep through the gates of Holy Cross Cemetery. He parked near the entrance, then followed the tiled walkway to Inga’s grave. Her resting place seemed more final somehow than it had the day of her funeral. The flowers were gone now and fresh strips of green sod had been neatly laid down over the mound of raw earth.

He knelt in the grass beside her grave for a moment. He didn’t pray. He’d never been a religious man and it would have seemed hypocritical. After a few moments, he glanced around to be sure he wasn’t being observed. No one was near. The cemetery stretched away to the foothills beyond. The only other mourner in view was an elderly woman in a dark raincoat and she was far off and lost in her own thoughts.

David carefully raised the corner of a sod strip and slid the small envelope of ashes into the soil beneath, then gently patted the grass back into place. He wasn’t sure if what he was doing made any sense, even to himself But he hoped that it might mean something to Inga.

He lingered awhile as the shadows lengthened, waiting in silence for . . . something. Anything, really. A sign, perhaps. Some

indication that he’d done the right thing. But nothing happened, nothing changed. He’d thought that burying Hector’s ashes here might give him a sense of closure. It didn’t. It felt like an empty, futile gesture. Maybe the cynics are right. Maybe the grave is truly the end of things after all.

Eventually he tired of waiting, and rose on stiffened knees. But he hesitated. Something in the distance caught his eye. A movement. Probably just the wind in the trees. The Algoma hills rolled away into the dusky distance like shadowy waves, bathed in the blaze of the lowering sun. And in the dying light,

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