Chapter 5

They came at seven-forty Friday morning.

Ora Dell wasn't there for it. Delbert called her at nine, and he was mad and embarrassed in equal measure - the county truck in his yard, Bryce Hollis with the catch pole, Deputy Marcus Pell standing by the truck with his arms crossed, saying it was a rabies quarantine, saying there was no use arguing with a quarantine.

"I told them he was yours," Delbert said. "Hollis said, 'Then where's her paper?' And I didn't have any paper, Miss Ora Dell. I'm sorry."

By noon the whole county had the story, and by noon the story had changed shape.

Ora Dell heard it first from Sissy Toler, who heard it from the woman who does the church bulletin. The version going around was that Miss Ora Dell had gotten confused, that she'd signed Duke over back in the spring because she couldn't handle him, that the county had been patient with her, and that now she was raising a fuss because she didn't remember.

Ruth Anne Bagley called her at two o'clock. The commissioner had a kind voice and a long list of things to do.

"Miss Ora Dell, I pulled the shelter file myself. It's clean as a whistle. Intake sheet, notice, the girl's statement." She paused. "Unless you've got something with the county's own seal on it, the commission's got no choice but to go with the record. That's just how it works."

"I've got the implant card from the vet."

"That's from Marlow. Different county." Another pause, softer. "I'm sorry. I truly am."

Ora Dell sat down at her kitchen table with the shoebox open in front of her and looked at the card again, and for the first time a small cold doubt got its hand in her.

Maybe she had gotten confused. She was seventy-one. She'd fallen off that bus step in 1998 and her hip had never been right and sometimes she lost a name for a minute. Maybe there was a paper somewhere with her name on it and she just couldn't find it.

She went through the whole box. Twice. Receipts, deeds, the seniority letter, Raymond's discharge papers, a birthday card from Travis with a five-dollar bill still inside.

No surrender paper. There had never been a surrender paper.

At six o'clock her son pulled into the drive in a rental car, having driven four hours from Nashville without telling her.

"Mama." Travis stood in the doorway with his keys in his hand. "I'll buy you another dog. A better one. Any dog you want."

"Get in here and shut the door. The flies."

"Just tell me you'll drop it."

"I'll put the coffee on."

He stayed until eight and went back to a motel in Marlow, and Ora Dell washed the cups and dried them and put them up, and the house got dark, and she didn't turn on a light.

At nine-forty somebody knocked on the kitchen door.

She opened it with the chain on. Lurlene Cade stood on the step in a denim shirt with her cardigan pulled around her, holding a casserole dish she clearly hadn't cooked anything in.

"Miss Ora Dell," she said, "can I come in? I can't stay long."