Widowmaker (Mike Bowditch #7)(87)

A fresh-faced deputy, whom I’d never met, took a look at my gloves and catch pole and said, “You on dog duty?”

“I will be if needed.”

The young guy had his shotgun already in his hands and wasn’t practicing particularly good muzzle control. His name tag said Cauoette. “Man, I am pumped. It’s like an adrenaline high.”

I had a hunch about him. “When did you graduate from the Academy?”

“I’m scheduled to go this spring. Is it as tough as they say? I’m hoping it is. What’s that term? Crucible of fire?”

If Cauoette didn’t wash out after the first week, I would be surprised. I stepped clear of the rookie and made a vow to myself that as we entered the building I would stay behind him, where he couldn’t mistakenly blow a hole in my back.

Clegg turned to face the assembled officers. I counted seven besides myself: two state troopers, four officers from the sheriff’s department, and a state police forensics technician who would not be part of the assault.

Then it hit me: Russo was missing. Where had he gone? I hadn’t noticed his SUV leaving, but I had been distracted with Shadow and thinking about Stacey. I would have thought a competitive shooter, currently employed as a glorified security guard, would have been eager to get in on a no-knock raid.

“Gather round, people!” said Clegg. “So here’s how we’re going to do this. We’re going in two teams.”

“Aren’t there three doors?” asked a trooper behind me.

“We’ll have a team posted outside the third one. But we have dogs to deal with inside and only two officers with bite sleeves.”

“Why can’t we just shoot them?” someone behind me whispered to himself.

Clegg must have had good hearing. “Those dogs are not to be killed unless an officer is at risk of dire injury. We’ve got television reporters lined up along Moose Alley in both directions. I don’t want to be the one who goes in front of the cameras and explains why we had to shoot two of this guy’s pets.”

The detective spent five minutes laying out his plan. One officer would breach the door with a sledgehammer and then step back, allowing two others to enter: one armed with an AR-15 carbine and one assigned to subdue the canines. I had never wrestled a dangerous dog before, but I had seen it done on occasion, in person and in videos, and hoped I could manage the jujitsu involved. We would move quickly to clear the house. Once it was secured, the forensics guy would assume responsibility for searching the premises.

“Everybody good?” Clegg asked after he had finished separating us into teams. “You understand your assignments?”

“Hoo ya,” said the overeager rookie, Caouette.

I followed a deputy holding a sledgehammer to the front door and took my place beside a trooper armed with a carbine. Given the tight quarters, I decided to leave my catch pole propped against the house.

I didn’t expect Clegg to give the signal as fast as he did, but the next thing I knew, the deputy was swinging the hammer and the door went flying inward off its hinges. A trooper with an AR-15 stepped quickly into the breach, and I followed just in time to see both hounds lunging for him. I threw myself between the man and the attacking dogs. I shoved my padded glove into the open mouth of one of the animals and kicked at the other, catching it in the haunch.

The dog began shaking its head viciously, and I felt tendons and ligaments straining to move in ways they were not supposed to move. The other hound went for my calf, but the trooper beside me knocked it on the head with the butt of his gun. It howled in pain and retreated out of my line of sight.

I was totally focused on my own attacker.

The Plott was incredibly strong for its size and weight. I tried manhandling it away from the door to give myself more room to maneuver, and nearly tripped over a coffee table. Flashlight beams crisscrossed the room in a geometrical pattern as I wrestled with the hound. I heard shouts and then an explosion.

Someone had fired a gun.

I lurched upright, pulling the dog free of the floor, and then thrust my arm forward, twisting my wrist. It landed on its back, its ribs and soft belly exposed, its four legs clawing at the air. I dropped my knee on its stomach and felt its fangs loosen as its lungs emptied of air. Immediately, I spun the hound back over and grabbed its collar, pulling and twisting. I straddled its back and pressed my knees tightly against its haunches. The dog shook its head and snapped, but I didn’t stop squeezing.

The overhead lights came on. I glanced around and saw a bathroom to my right. Using all my strength, I hurled the gasping dog through the open door and pulled it shut before it could catch its breath.

“Where’s the other one?” I shouted.

“It got out!” a female voice cried from the kitchen.

Another gunshot sounded. This one came from the backyard.

All around me cops were darting into rooms. I heard heavy footsteps racing upstairs, boards creaking on the second floor, then voices shouting.

“Clear!”

“Clear!”

“Clear!”

I turned to Clegg and pointed at the bathroom. “Don’t let anyone through that door!”

The snarls coming from inside as the angry animal tried to break free made the point for me.

I made my way through the living room, noticing heavy blankets covering the windows and the pervasive smell of mildew. I passed through a formal dining room that hadn’t been used in decades and entered the kitchen, where I found a female deputy sitting on the linoleum with her hands clutched to her thigh and blood oozing between her fingers. She had cast aside the bite sleeve she had been wearing to put pressure on the wound.