U Is for Undertow

subordinate. You don’t play tug-of-war with him. He doesn’t sleep on your bed. You go through the door first and he eats when you say so and not a minute before. With Liam gone and me stepping in after the fact, there was no way the dog would accept me as dominant. I tried to treat him as Liam had, but he wasn’t impressed. He put up with me. Beyond that, he obeyed if he felt like it, and the rest was my problem.”
    “Must have been a strange relationship.”
    “I’m not sure he ever felt much for me, but I admired him and I was grateful for his tolerance. My biggest problem was finding a vet willing to treat him. A lot of vets won’t do it. There’s no approved rabies vaccine for the breed so if the dog bites someone, the county will insist on putting him down, no ifs, ands, or buts. In some states it’s illegal to own a wolfdog. I’m not sure what the California law was back then, but I remember Liam saying when you take a wolfdog to a new vet, to be on the safe side, you claim he’s a husky or half malamute.
    “That turned out to be a nonissue with Ulf. He developed what I thought was hip dysplasia, meaning the joint was unstable and started causing him pain. By the time he was four years old, the suffering was so acute he could barely get around. I’m not that good a liar so I made a lot of calls before I finally found a vet who’d see him. He suggested I drop him at the office so he could sedate the dog and take X-rays. Sedation’s a risky business with wolfdogs, but he said he understood and he’d be cautious about the dosage. Anyway, I drove him up to Santa Teresa.
    “While Ulf was still under, the doc called and told me it wasn’t hip dysplasia at all. We were looking at osteosarcoma, a malignant tumor in the bone. In a young dog like Ulf, the tumor is usually fast-spreading and survival time is short. Amputation was a possibility, but I couldn’t see it with a dog like him. The vet offered to show me X-rays if I needed to be convinced, but I believed him. He recommended euthanization and I agreed.”
    He lowered his head and then pinched the bridge of his nose and let the air out of his lungs. “Shit. I know I did the right thing. Own an animal and you’re responsible for his comfort and safety. You do what you have to do, even if it breaks your heart. But I should have been with him. Losing that dog was like losing Liam all over again. I couldn’t handle it. I should have driven back up there, even if he was already sedated and wasn’t aware of what was going on. Instead, I told the vet to get on with it. I told him to just take care of it and when I hung up the phone, I stood here and wept. It was cowardly. He was a noble animal. I should have held him while he died. I owed him that and Liam, too.”
    I was busy thinking about six other things, breathing through my mouth in hopes I could keep my shit together. Meanwhile, Woofer, the yellow mongrel, had roused himself and crossed to Flannagan’s side. He stood there with his chin on Flannagan’s thigh, looking up at him through the mop of hair that hung over his eyes. Flannagan smiled and rubbed behind his ears.
    I cleared my throat. “I’ve never owned a dog.”
    “Yeah, well, I swore I’d never own another one and here I am. This fellow’s fifteen years old and so far, so good. Maybe I’ll get lucky and go before he does. At any rate, that’s the story of Ulf. You caught me off guard. I never thought I’d hear another word about the dog.”
    “I appreciate the information.”
    “What about you? You haven’t explained how you ended up with his tag.”
    I gave him an abbreviated version of my meeting with Michael Sutton, his encounter with the two guys digging the hole, and his suspicions about Mary Claire Fitzhugh. Flannagan remembered the child’s disappearance. None of the other names I mentioned meant anything to him. He hadn’t known the Kirkendalls, the Suttons, or anyone on Alita Lane.
    With a shrug I said, “Maybe there’s no connection. Maybe Ulf being buried there was pure coincidence. It just seems odd. I don’t know anything about the protocol when a dog is put down. The vet might have buried him.”
    “I don’t know why he would. He only saw the dog once so it’s not like there was an emotional connection between the two. I know I didn’t bury him so how he ended up in Horton Ravine is anybody’s guess. What else do you want to know?”
    “I guess that’s about it. Do you remember the vet’s