The Mad and the Macabre

- 12 -

"Dammit!" exclaimed Charlie as the warm liquid splashed into his face. He wiped the soapy water out of his eyes. "Quit shaking!"

Kutter tried to jump out of the tub, but Charlie blocked his escape and pushed down on his back. "This isn't hurting you," he said. "You want to be all nice and clean so that people know I'm taking good care of you, don't you?"

The dog obviously had other priorities, such as getting out of the tub as soon as possible. The slippery, soapy animal slid out from underneath Charlie's hands and leapt out of the tub. Charlie grabbed for him and missed. Kutter ran out of the bathroom.

"Not on the couch!" Charlie shouted.

Kutter jumped up onto the couch and shook again, spraying suds all over. This was better than vomit, Charlie supposed. He picked Kutter up, hugged him to his chest, and carried the struggling dog back into the bathroom. He pushed the door closed--which he should have done in the first place--with his foot and then set Kutter back into the tub.

"Don't you want to smell nice?" he asked. "Not to be rude, but you don't always smell so good. This is expensive shampoo just for dogs. Not every dog gets this kind of treatment, so you should be counting your blessings instead of being a pain in the neck."

He scrubbed Kutter some more, then pulled out the plug and let the water drain out of the tub. "Almost done," he said. He turned on the warm water and filled a plastic bowl, then gently poured it over Kutter. After a few bowls of water, the soap was rinsed out of Kutter's fur and Charlie dried him off with his fluffiest towel.

When Charlie let Kutter out of the bathroom, he ran happily into the living room, then rolled around on the floor. Charlie was glad he'd vacuumed.

* * *

Somebody called in the middle of the night from a blocked number, but didn't say anything. They hung up after about ten seconds. If Charlie'd had a whistle handy, he would have blown out the caller's eardrums.

* * *

Kutter stood at the door and let out one sharp bark, indicating that he was ready to be taken for a walk.

"Why aren't you a cat?" Charlie asked. "If you were a cat, you could just use a litter box and you'd never have to go outside."

Technically, he never had to let Kutter outside anyway, but the cleanup would be unpleasant and the dog would be miserable. He wasn't going to let those cretins ruin his relationship with his pet. He put on his jacket, and put the gun in his inside pocket.

Charlie had been altering his route every time these past couple of days, figuring that the men probably weren't watching his home from an unmarked van, and so if he kept his path unpredictable he wouldn't run into them. He hated having to do this. He almost hoped that he'd run into them tonight, put a bullet in each of their throats, and end the problem.

Almost. Not quite.

It was a nice, long walk, and both Charlie and Kutter had a great time. Then, as he dug his keys out of his pocket and unlocked his door, the two men and their dogs ran onto his front porch. They must have been hiding by the side of the house.

He threw open the door and quickly stepped inside. Before he could pull the door shut again, the man with the goatee stuck his foot in the gap and blocked it. Charlie yanked harder on the door, hoping to break the man's foot or even pop it off, but he wasn't strong enough and the man easily forced the door all the way open.

"Can we come in?" the man asked.

"I have a gun," said Charlie.

"We're not going to hurt you. We just want to talk."

Charlie and Kutter cautiously backed into the center of the living room as the men and their dogs came inside. The man who hadn't said anything yet closed the front door. The rottweiler and the pit bull (or whatever it was) growled and strained against their leashes, which looked like they might snap at any instant. Charlie wondered if these were the kind of dogs that fought each other while people bet on them.

"Were you worried?" the first man asked.

"What?"

"All this time. Were you worried?"

"About what?"

The man laughed. "Let's make a rule that during this encounter, we'll all respect each other's intelligence, okay? I'm talking about the way we entered your lives. Were you worried?"

Charlie shook his head.

"Bullshit. Do you know when I was worried?"

"No."

"When my sister didn't come home." The man reached into his pocket and took out a piece of folded white paper. He unfolded it and held it up for Charlie to see. "Recognize her?"

Charlie did. He'd been crying over her eight months ago, when she died on his table too soon. "No."

"Sure you do. Think back."

"I've never seen her."

"Never? You're saying that you recall everybody you've ever seen in your entire life? People in line at the grocery store? That's a pretty impressive talent. But you know her. She made a lot of bad decisions, and she got herself hooked on all kinds of shit, but she was the only thing I had. I kicked her out of my place so she'd get clean. You took that chance away from her."

"You have the wrong person."

"I do not have the wrong person. I made damn sure I had the right person. The cops may not care about a homeless junkie, but she was my goddamn sister and you murdered her!"

At this point, Charlie didn't think that lies were going to do him any good. He also didn't think that the man would accept an apology. So he said nothing.

"What do you care about?" the man asked. "Just that dog, right?"

"I have a girlfriend."

"Yeah, but that's nothing. You've got no emotional investment there. I don't even have to hear what you're saying to each other to know that. She'll dump you as soon as she gets a better offer, and you'll mope for a week and move on. You don't care about her."

"Okay."

"That dog, though. Man's best friend."

Charlie shoved his hand into his inside jacket pocket.

"You packin'? What are you going to do, shoot both of us and our dogs? You think you can do that before we get you?"

Charlie fumbled with the gun inside his pocket for a moment before he managed to pull it out and point it at the man who did all the talking. The man did look a bit worried, but not worried enough.

"Put the gun down," the man said. "You prey on the helpless, like the sorry piece of crap that you are. Even with a gun you're not going to stop big strong guys like us. You're pathetic."

"I'm not pathetic."

"Yeah, I think you are."

Charlie wanted to put a bullet right between the man's eyes. Unfortunately, even at this close range he wasn't sure he could hit his target, and the man was absolutely right--two men and two huge dogs were more than he could handle.

"Do you want money?" Charlie asked.

"Money? Are you kidding me? This isn't about blackmail. At this very moment it's about your life, so why don't you put the gun away so we can take it out of that area?"

Charlie had no idea what to do. A bloody shootout wasn't going to end well for anybody. If these men really meant to kill him, they would've done it sooner instead of stalking him. He wasn't good at talking his way out of situations, yet this might be one time that he had to.

He put the gun back in his inside jacket pocket, then held up his hands to show that they were empty except for the handle of Kutter's leash.

The man let out a loud whistle that hurt Charlie's ears. "Kill!"

Both men released their dogs.

The dogs moved like a blur, and as the dogs struck him Kutter let out a high-pitched yelp that was like a shriek of pain and terror. The yelp didn't stop as Charlie reached into the snarling mass of dogs, drops of blood spraying into the air, screaming and trying to rescue his pet.

Jaws clamped down on his arm, but he couldn't feel them.

Charlie kicked at the rottweiler as hard as he could. He was off balance and panicked and the kick bounced harmlessly off the dog's side. The rottweiler shook its head back and forth rapidly, ripping away Kutter's skin and fur.

His second kick connected with the rottweiler's snout and the dog let out a yelp of its own. The other dog pulled its jaws away from Charlie's arm and bit down onto Kutter's ear.

With a burst of adrenaline that he'd never felt in his life, Charlie yanked the bloody mess of Kutter out of the fray. Both dogs pounced on him, and at any other time Charlie knew that they would've knocked him to the floor and probably mauled him to death within minutes. But he held his footing. He had to protect his best friend.

With Kutter clutched to his chest with both arms, Charlie ran for the hallway, the dogs right behind him. He raced down the hallway into the bathroom, spun around, and kicked the rottweiler once again. This time he got it good, giving him enough time to slam the bathroom door closed.

"Kutter...oh, God, Kutter..."

Tears streamed down Charlie's face as he looked down at his pet. Kutter had been savaged--most of his left ear was gone, and much of his fur was so soaked with blood that Charlie couldn't immediately tell how deep the lacerations were. More blood was flowing freely from several places.

There was no way Charlie could tend to these injuries the way he had the wounds when he first found the dog.

He needed his hands free, so he set Kutter on the floor. Kutter let out a whimper as his fur made contact with the tile. Outside, the dogs barked and growled and clawed at the bathroom door.

Charlie pulled out the gun that he never should have put away. Stupid. A terrible decision. He couldn't wait out the men and their dogs, not with Kutter dying on the floor, so he flicked off the safety and fired a shot through the door so they'd know he was serious.

He heard the men calling off the dogs, and the scraping stopped. Charlie almost fired another shot, then decided that he needed to conserve his bullets in case he didn't successfully scare the men off. He opened the door, then scooped up Kutter in his left arm and stepped out into the hallway.

The men were exiting through the front door. Charlie shot at them and the bullet didn't even come close, putting a hole in his wall instead. By the time he got outside, the men were sprinting down the sidewalk with their murderous dogs.

Charlie bolted to his car and opened the passenger side door. "I'm so sorry," he told Kutter as he set the dog on the seat.

Towels. He needed towels. Not to protect his car seat--he didn't care about that--but to wrap around Kutter and hopefully slow the bleeding enough that he wouldn't die before Charlie could get help. And he needed the car keys.

"I'll be right back," he promised Kutter as he ran back inside. He grabbed a stack of towels, got the car keys from where they rested on the kitchen table, and hurried back outside. He wrapped Kutter tightly. Blood immediately soaked through the first white towel, and he wrapped him in another.

He slammed the door and got in the driver's side. "Don't die, don't die, please don't die," he whispered as he started the car's engine and pulled out of his driveway.

Charlie realized that his arm really hurt where the dog had bitten it, but he had much more important things to worry about. As long as he didn't pass out from loss of blood before he could get help for Kutter, he'd be fine.

Kutter whimpered softly as Charlie sped down the road.

"You're going to be okay," Charlie promised. "They'll fix you up. They'll make you stop bleeding and they'll sew you up and we'll play Frisbee."

He wiped the tears from his eyes since they were blurring his vision, and then scratched Kutter's chin. The dog licked his fingers with a bloody tongue and whimpered again.

Charlie thought about his emergency cabin. If he started driving to it right now, he might gain enough of a lead on the police that they wouldn't know where he'd gone, wouldn't be able to find him. He'd live in relative discomfort, but it would be a hell of a lot better than prison or lethal injection.

The men would tell the police that he'd murdered the girl, and they'd connect him to the murders of twenty-one other girls. Even if they never found out about the others, even if they only got him for the one, he was screwed.

If he drove to the cabin, Kutter would die.

If he didn't, he was going to prison.

If he left him somewhere, even someplace that could fix him up, he'd never know if his dog lived or died.

There was only one possible choice here.

"Just a few more minutes," he assured Kutter. "Just a few and then I'll make everything okay."

* * *

Charlie burst into the hospital emergency room with Kutter in his arms. "I need help!" he cried out. "He's dying!"

Several people turned to stare at him, but Charlie didn't care. He rushed over to the receptionist's window and tapped on the glass. "Please, you need to save him."

The receptionist, a plump woman with too much eye makeup, slid open the window. "Sir, you're at the wrong--"

"I don't know any twenty-four hour veterinarians," said Charlie. "Saving a dog is easier than saving a person, right? Please."

"Sir, your arm--"

"I don't care about my arm. I care about my dog."

A man in blue scrubs pushed through a pair of swinging doors and looked startled as he saw Charlie and Kutter. "What's going on here?" he asked, walking over to them.

"Please save him," Charlie begged. "His name is Kutter and he loves Frisbee and this wasn't his fault."

The man in the scrubs looked at Kutter, then at Charlie, and nodded. "Give him here."

* * *

Charlie sat in the waiting room with his arm bandaged up. It had required eight stitches, but he wouldn't bleed to death.

Two cops sat next to him, one on each side. Charlie had promised to go peacefully if they let him wait until he knew what had happened to Kutter.

* * *

"Not my usual patient," the doctor said with a smile, as Kutter licked Charlie's palm. Kutter's entire torso was covered in bandages, as was what remained of his left ear, but his tail wagged happily. Charlie wished that there was more unbandaged fur available to pet, and settled for petting Kutter's legs.

"You're a good boy," Charlie said. "You're the best dog ever." He wiped some tears from his eyes--much happier ones than before--and turned to the doctor. "Thank you."

"Not a problem. It'll be a good story for parties."

"He'll be okay, right?"

"Yeah, he'll be fine. The vet should be here to pick him up any minute now. Don't worry about him."

Charlie spent a few more minutes with his dog, until the police told him it was time to leave.

* * *

"I could ease into this, or I could just get straight to the point," said the detective, leaning back in his chair in the interrogation room. "As you'll soon discover, Charlie, I'm a get-to-the-point kind of guy. Where are the bodies?"

"I can't tell you yet."

"The more you hold out on me, the worse things are going to be for you. I recommend that you come clean right now."

"I'm really stupid sometimes," said Charlie, "but I know enough to know that things can't get worse for me. I want to bargain."

"You have nothing to bargain with."

"I can save you a lot of time. I'll tell you everything you want to know."

The detective raised an eyebrow and took a sip from his cup of coffee. "What do you want?"

"I have a dog. He's hurt, but he's going to be okay."

"Yeah, I know about your dog."

"Kutter."

"Kutter, right."

"I want you to make sure he gets taken care of. His original owner is a good guy, he'll take him back, but I want to make sure that Kutter gets everything he wants. I've got some savings. I don't want to pay for a lawyer--I want that money to go to Kutter. I want him to have steaks and bacon treats and a nice dog bed and I don't want him going back to being named Duke and I want him to come visit me sometimes." Charlie wiped his eyes. "That's all I want."

The detective scratched his chin. "Hmmmm."

Charlie wondered what Alicia and his other co-workers were saying about him. They were probably totally freaked out. Liz was definitely freaking out. She'd had sex with a serial killer. He didn't think she'd ever come see him in prison, except maybe to yell at him, but he didn't care as long as they brought Kutter in every once in a while.

"I want it in writing," said Charlie.

The detective took another sip of his coffee. He set the mug down and smiled. "You've got yourself a deal, Charlie. If the original owner doesn't want him back, my daughter has been wanting a dog. He'll get a good home. I promise you."

"Thank you."

Charlie took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and then told the detective everything he wanted to know.