The Vet from Snowy River by Stella Quinn

CHAPTER

14

By the end of the week, Jane Doe had taught Josh that her day wasn’t done until he’d taken her out for a late afternoon stroll about the park. Saturday was no exception. When he reckoned the old girl had sniffed enough trees and park benches and rhododendrons, he headed back to the clinic and found Hannah sitting on the bottom step of the inner stairwell.

‘Hey, it’s the weekend and I’m the sucker on call,’ he said. ‘What are you doing spending your time off sitting here in the dark?’

She leaned back and crossed her arms. Even in the dim light spilling down from the landing upstairs he could see she had her cranky face on.

‘If this is about the orange juice from your fridge,’ he said, ‘I’ll replace it next time I go to the supermarket. Pinky promise.’

He held out his little finger but she batted it away.

‘I thought you’d solved the city council problem, Josh.’

‘What, that silly chicken complaint? I went down there, didn’t I? I even booked an appointment with—’ Oh, crap. The appointment had been for Monday morning up at the council office on Quarry Street, and with the excitement of having Poppy home, he’d totally forgotten about it.

‘Barry O’Malley?’ said his sister.

‘Yep. I should have gone to see him the other day. Shoot.’

‘That might explain the letter that I just got from Barry. Hand delivered, in person.’

‘Our local member came here?’

‘He asked to see you, but you were out with your girlfriend here, piddling on trees in the park, so he gave me the lowdown.’

‘The lowdown on what?’

‘Read it and see,’ she said, shoving the letter in his hand.

He flicked on the overhead light, then took a seat next to his sister on the bottom step. Jane Doe flopped to the floor with a grunt.

To Hannah Cody and Joshua Cody

Cody and Cody Vet Clinic

Yeah, he knew what their names were and what their business was called. He scanned down until he reached the meat of the letter.

… failed to address the complaint received by council from a member of the public regarding chickens … council is obliged to deal with all complaints … subsequently received a second complaint, details of which are attached.

Josh lifted the letter to reveal the second page.

A complaint has been received by council that indicates subsection 12(1) of theCompanion Animals Act 1998 has been broken by owners and staff of the Cody and Cody Vet Clinic as a result of their continued practice of exercising dogs in the area outside clinic grounds without ensuring said dogs are wearing collars identifying the dogs’ names and the owners’ addresses or phone numbers.

‘What the fruit?’ said Josh. ‘This is about the dumbest thing I’ve ever read.’

‘Yeah,’ said Hannah. ‘Pity you weren’t here to say that to Barry.’

He turned back to the cover letter.

… where complaints are not addressed, council reserves the right to deny renewal of, or suspend for a period of 90 days, constituent privilege. In this instance, that privilege would be the veterinary practice business licence on issue to Hannah Celine Cody and Joshua Preston Cody of 36 Salt Creek Flats Road, Hanrahan.

‘What was Barry O’Malley’s take on all this?’

‘He said it sounded like a crock of shit, but he’s obliged to respond to all complaints that aren’t anonymous.’

‘Someone put their name to this bullshit? Who?’

‘He wouldn’t tell me.’

‘Well, hell. It must have been someone pretty close by if they can work out there’s no phone number on Jane Doe’s collar.’

‘It’s just so … mean-spirited. Who would do this?’

He let out a breath. ‘No idea. Wait, you don’t think …’

‘What? Who?’

‘Remember Kelly Fox? She brought her kid’s guinea pig in the day Poppy came to town, and it didn’t go so well.’

‘I don’t know, Josh. Kelly’s a gossip, but she’s not evil. Besides, we’d already received the chicken complaint before you ran her out of here.’

‘Well, someone’s messing with us. I don’t like it.’

‘Neither do I,’ Hannah said. ‘What will we do?’

‘I’ll go see this Barry O’Malley guy first thing Monday morning and resolve the chicken problem. Maybe we get a bulk order of collars made so when you or me or the vet nurses are toddling a dog around the park for a post-operative walk, we don’t get another of these idiotic complaints. I’ll give him a copy of our collar order, take up our records so he can see we haven’t got some bizarre secret income stream from harbouring chickens onsite.’

‘Good idea,’ she said. ‘Better print everything up and take copies. We should probably start a file if we’re going to tackle this like adults.’

He groaned. ‘I hate paperwork.’

‘Well, sure, we can find out who’s trying to bully us by throwing eggs at everyone who comes too close to the dogs in the park, but is that really going to work?’

‘Okay, point taken. I can be an adult. I’ll print and file everything.’

‘Okay then.’

‘Okay,’ he said.

His sister didn’t budge from her position on the bottom step.

‘You got something else you want to talk about?’ he said.

She sighed. ‘Not really.’

‘Nothing about … Tom Krauss, for instance?’

She stood up abruptly. ‘Definitely nothing about him. On that note, I’m going for a bath. Don’t forget you’re on call tonight.’

He held up his mobile phone. ‘The devil’s instrument is glued to my hand. You going to be here in the building in case I’m gone during the night? I don’t want Poppy to be alone.’

‘Of course I’ll be here. It’s not like I ever go out.’

He yelled after her as she walked up two flights of stairs to her flat. ‘The world wouldn’t stop spinning if you did!’

He looked at his phone and decided it was way too early to be hoping Poppy would have finished her shift at the café. He headed into the office to find an online shop that might fulfil bulk orders of dog collars.

He was ten collars richer and a hundred bucks poorer when he had a brainstorm. If he was heading into council offices on Monday anyway, that would be the perfect time to check on his development application for the heritage work he intended to do on the outside of the building. Splicing new timber into the unsound verandah posts, repair work to the masonry window trims and the big one—the roof—was going to take some careful thought. The most important part for the renovation, however, would be restoring the downstairs entry to its original state, rather than keeping the cheap but functional shopfront his grandparents must have had built before opening the haberdashery store.

Expensive, time-intensive, and tricky work … but he’d enjoy doing it.

He printed off a copy of his application, so he’d have it handy for his Monday visit, and was just losing himself in some online research into tuckpointing mortar, when the phone out in the reception room rang.

His mobile finally caught the call diversion and trilled in his pocket. Please god it wasn’t some farmer from down on the flats needing help with a difficult calving.

‘Josh Cody,’ he said by way of greeting.

‘Mister? My mum’s seen your lost dog notice down at the Cooma Markets and she says you’ve got my dog.’

It took a second for the message to sink in. ‘Your dog … do you mean the brown labrador?’ He looked down at the fat animal currently sprawled over his boot.

‘Yes, sir. My Rosie’s been missing a couple months or more, and my brother told me the drop bears done her in and ate her for snacks.’

Josh closed his eyes. ‘How old are you, mate?’

‘Seven.’

‘Uh-huh. You reckon your mum can bring you into the clinic here in Hanrahan so we can see if our lost dog is your Rosie?’

‘I can ask her.’ The boy’s voice didn’t sound overly hopeful.

He tried again. ‘Maybe your mum can come to the phone and I can have a chat with her now?’

‘Oh, she’s not here now. She works nights on the new freeway with one of them Stop Go signs.’

‘Okay. Well, maybe when she gets home you can ask her to drive you here. Or call me.’

‘I guess.’

He wondered if he ought to mention the eight puppies snoozing away in their pen. ‘When did your dog go missing?’

‘When I was six.’

He grinned. This was like pulling teeth. ‘What’s your name, kid?’

‘Parker.’

‘Parker, when you were six, was that just a little while ago?’

‘I had a cake, even, from the bakery. Seven candles, so that makes me seven now.’

‘It sure does. Listen, you know anything special about your dog? Maybe she can do a trick, or has a scar, and I can check to see if this lost dog I’ve got here has the same one? Then we’ll know if this really is your Rosie.’

‘Well, she loves tuna out of a can with an egg cracked over it.’

Yeah, like that would narrow it down. What labrador didn’t love food? ‘Anything else?’

‘She drools when I eat vegemite on toast. Oh, and I know, she used to love swimming and running, but then she got some grey around her snout because she’s old and she just sleeps all the time instead of playing footie with me in the backyard.’

A soft snore rumbled out of the dog sleeping on his foot. Grey hair did sprinkle Jane Doe’s snout, just as the boy described. ‘Get your mum to give me a call, Parker. And if this is Rosie we’ve got here, don’t you worry, because we’re looking after her, okay?’

‘Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr Cody.’

He slipped the phone back into his pocket. Parker sounded pretty adorable, but still. Jane Doe had grown on him. He looked at his watch. He could go upstairs and put another coat of paint on the bathroom ceiling while he waited for Poppy to finish her shift, or he could go and have one beer at the café. Chat with his daughter and get his eyes on the new owner again, just to see if that spark she’d lit in him last week was the real deal.

He eased his boot out from under the snoring dog and headed for the back door. A beer it was.