Chapter 3

The Register came out on Thursdays, and Hattie Poe still ran a real public-notices page, the kind with small print and a rule drawn around it, on page six, between the church calendar and a listing for a lost beagle over in Cold Spring.

Ora Dell bought her copy at the Handy Mart at seven-forty in the morning and read it standing at the counter.

NOTICE is hereby given that the following animal, held at the Harlow County Animal Shelter and deemed unclaimed... The owner of record, Ora Dell Sizemore, of 1148 Turkey Foot Road, failed to reclaim said animal and failed to provide sanitary and adequate shelter... The animal will be disposed of in accordance with county policy...

She read it three times. Then she folded the paper, paid for it, and said good morning to the girl at the register, because that's what you do.

By Saturday the phone had gone quiet. Opal Shrewsbury's daughter called and canceled her mother's nine o'clock, said her mother had a church thing. At eleven, Verna Prichard called and canceled the two o'clock and didn't give a reason, and Ora Dell heard Verna's husband say something in the background that she wasn't meant to hear.

Sunday at First Methodist, Marlon Teague passed the plate down her row in his deacon's suit with the silver cross on his lapel, and he smiled at her the way you smile at somebody whose dog just died. Every pew in that building was polite to her, and nobody asked her a single question.

Monday morning she drove to the Register office, which was two rooms over the insurance agency.

Hattie Poe was seventy-nine and didn't care what anybody in the county thought of her, which was why the paper was any good at all.

"It came from the county," Hattie said. "Transmittal sheet's signed by Teague. And he attached a statement." She slid a copy across the desk. "Kennel worker. Dalton Fray."

The statement said Dalton Fray had observed the animal running loose and unowned on Turkey Foot Road Monday morning, that no owner had come forward, and that he had assisted with the intake.

"Dalton Fray," Ora Dell said, "was in Ridgely all day Monday, standing up at his sister's wedding."

"How do you know that?"

"Because his mother sat in that folding chair in my kitchen for a month talking about nothing else, and she had the pictures on her phone."

Hattie Poe looked at her over the top of her glasses for a while. Then she picked up a pen and wrote a date in the margin of her notebook. "Go on home," she said. "I'll call you."

Ora Dell got back to the house at noon. There was a plain white envelope under the screen door. No stamp, no name.

Inside was a photocopy of a county hauler's schedule. Across the top: UNCLAIMED KENNELS - CLEAR TUESDAY. Twelve lines. Twelve kennel numbers. A price per head at the bottom.

Kennel nine was on it.