Chapter 4

Harlow Feed & Seed sat on the bypass a quarter mile from the shelter, and at one o'clock Trent Mabry was loading forty-pound bags of layer pellets into the back of a pickup with the mill's name on the door.

He straightened up when he saw her, and he didn't look surprised.

"You're the lady from the counter."

"I'm the lady whose dog you bought."

He wiped his hands on his jeans and looked off toward the shelter, and then he told her the whole thing, standing in the shade of the loading dock. He'd come in Tuesday around eleven-thirty because his brother-in-law's coonhound had died in June and the house was too quiet. Marlon had walked him back to the kennels personally, which he thought was odd. He picked the brown hound because the brown hound came to the gate. Seventy-five dollars, cash, off the counter. No receipt - "he said the machine was down and he'd write me one when I picked him up."

"He didn't scan him," Trent said. "I asked. I said, don't you check for a chip? He said the scanner's battery was dead and the dog was already cleared."

"And you came back Wednesday."

"Dog wouldn't eat. Wouldn't take nothing, wouldn't hardly drink. Sat at the door and shook." He looked at her. "I went back to get my money. That's the only reason I was standing there."

"Mr. Mabry, they're going to haul twelve dogs out of that shelter Tuesday morning, and your dog is number nine, because there's no sale on the book."

His jaw worked. "I know it."

"You could say what you just told me. Monday night. Six o'clock, at the annex."

He was quiet a long time. "My dispatcher is Danny Teague," he said finally. "Marlon's brother-in-law. I've got two kids and a house note, and I'm not a brave man." He shook his head. "I'll think on it."

She didn't beg him. She'd learned a long time ago that begging makes people feel like they've already given you something.

The commission clerk's office was one door down from the annex. Inez Ratliff had worked there since Ora Dell was driving a bus, and she knew exactly what the form was for.

"Appeal of disposition," Ora Dell said. "I want it heard Monday night, and I want the shelter's own scanner run in that room."

Inez read it twice. "Nobody's ever filed one of these."

"Then I'll be the first."

Inez stamped it, dated it, made two copies, and handed one across the counter.

Marlon was in the hallway when Ora Dell came out, holding the annex door with one hand.

"Monday night," he said. "Six o'clock. Bring whoever you want." Then, as she went down the steps: "I remember your husband. He came into my office with that dog and a checkbook once, asking me questions about the Angel Fund."

Ora Dell stopped on the second step and did not turn around.

"He was a good man," Marlon said. "Sorry for your loss."