Chapter 96

The next morning, Digby and Agarwal took a drive up South Mountain, stopping to take at look at any properties listed in provincial records to the surname Missions.
Before long, they found themselves pinned down, at the side of a secluded Greenfield shack belonging to Willard Missions Senior, Pussylips’ father.
Three wild, South Mountain dogs were circling them, stalking them slowly from the treeline.
The nearest neighbour was a half-kilometre away.
Willard Senior lived at the end of a dirt road in the heart of a huge tract of mixed hardwood, owned by either the Crown or forestry companies, interspersed with former apple orchards that were allowed to run wild when the market fell in the 1930’s.
Neighbours had described Willard Senior as a good-natured, paranoid man, who at one time worked in construction with LaFarge in Kentville. He now lived on social assistance and tended a growing flock of North American ruby-throated hummingbirds, full time.
In the past decade, Willard Senior had hung approximately 200 small hummingbird feeders in the acreage sprawling behind his shingle-paper shack. They hung from tree branches everywhere she looked, like see-through ornaments.
The feeders were all empty and there were no hummingbirds around, but Digby guessed they had all flown south for the winter.
Mr. Missions’ home looked to be in even worse condition than his son’s dump on nearby Melanson Road.
Digby debated breaking in, certainly no one would complain, but she doubted there would be a point in doing so. It was sure to be another garbage-filled squat like the home of Pussylips.
Instead, she and Agarwal circled the home and looked in all the dirty yellow windows. Then the dogs came, lumbering through the apple trees, barking and growling at them, pacing the treeline on the other side of the driveway, circling around the side of the woodshed and back, scampering periodically through the trees.
Digby knew runaway wild dogs were common on South Mountain, but it didn’t make her any less apprehensive. She kept one hand on her Smith & Wesson Compact.
In the back yard, there was a woodshed, another outbuilding, a homemade greenhouse and a cedar-shake outhouse, handmade with a carved hummingbird-shaped view hole in the door, surrounded by three or four pruned dwarf apple trees with gnarly black branches.
A great deal of mail, mostly junk mail was piled up in Willard Senior’s tin mailbox. Digby perused the letters, while Agarwal kept his eye on the circling dogs.
One letter was a sheaf of photo prints, all close-ups of hummingbirds, that were being sent to, or returned from, a greeting card company out of California.
There was also a Christmas letter from the family of Charles and Bea Greeno. A form letter, that detailed the various yearly doings of the Greeno family of South Mountain. There were a couple of Missions’ names mentioned, including Willard Senior, who apparently was having his hummingbird photos published in a calendar in the spring. “The Missions family must be married to the Greeno’s at some point,” Digby said.
The Greeno family was a mostly respectable South Mountain clan, but there were a couple of well-known exceptions. Two cousins, St. Clair Greeno and Cranswick Greeno were both known to police, somewhat notoriously.
St. Clair had a record for sexual interference with a minor, after he was caught with his hands down the pants of a three-year old girl, his daughter. Cranswick had countless convictions for trespassing, break, enter and theft and mischief. Cranswick was known to steal soiled infant diapers from day cares and hospitals, up and down the Valley, and use them to masturbate with.
Digby read the whole Christmas letter, all the way through, looking up periodically to keep an eye on Agarwal and the dogs. “If the Missions family is related to the Greeno family, maybe we can find a Greeno who knows what’s going on.”
She showed the letter to Agarwal. “We should look up St. Clair and Cranswick, and ask them if they know anything.”
“Cranswick,” Agarwal said. “Isn’t that the Diaper-man?”
“I’m afraid so. We should pick him up. Search his place maybe.”
“I thought he moved away?”
“I think he lives in Montreal, or Toronto now.”
A car was approaching fast on the gravel road. It came into view, just past the tree line. The wild dogs started giving chase to it, barking their heads off.
It was a white Chrysler. It blew by the driveway, then stopped at a dead end 20 metres up the road and circled back, with the three wild dogs leaping beside the front windows and slobbering on the glass.
Digby and Agarwal both took their guns out, in case the hard-looking Mountain dogs attacked somebody. All three brutes were large, matted, hungry looking. One was a huge Rottweiler mix with a mane of long beige hair, from collie blood, which made him look just like a lion. The other two were labs, one with red, shiny fur like a Duck Toller, and the other a black lab.
The Chrysler pulled into the gravel driveway.
Agarwal stepped forward from their hiding place at the side of the house.
“Hey!” he yelled at the car. The driver’s door was opening.
Det. Sgt. Smith stepped out into the driveway, completely fearless or blind to the slobbering dogs. He had dark shades on, and his big black RCMP coat and a Russian hat.
The dogs encircled him, immediately, growling and barking horribly, bearing their teeth. The Lion barked the loudest of all, almost a roar.
The other two jumped around, moaning, but Smith ignored them and waved hello to Digby and Agarwal.
Digby’s feet were frozen to the ground.
Smith reached out his right hand, slowly, to pet the dogs, but they backed off, barking and snapping at it. He lowered his arm and began to walk toward Digby and Agarwal at the edge of the shack house.
Smith walked toward them, but always kept his body facing the dogs, turning himself sideways and then backwards as he walked, to keep his pelvis and face always facing their jaws.
“Don’t worry. They’re fine,” he called out, sensing Digby and Agarwal’s fear. “Just don’t turn your backs on them. Don’t turn your body, even slightly, away from them. Keep them face on and don’t show fear. Don’t feel fear. Ain’t that right, you cunts?” He said in a doggy voice. “I wish I’d brought some food with me. They look hungry.”
Digby was impressed.
“You are the food, Bob,” Agarwal yelled, putting his gun away.
She watched with wide-eyes as Smith strolled calmly, even jauntily across the dirt driveway, backing the dogs up and to the left, herding them, keeping them away from the area where Digby and Agarwal were standing.
Several times, she was sure they were going to spring at him and bite, but they never did.
“Hi guys,” Smith said. He stood right next to Agarwal, still keeping his front facing the dogs. The big lion dog growled low, on and off, turning his cow-like head side to side and swinging his mane up and down.
“He’s got ear mites,” Smith said. “Poor fella. I should take them all home with me.”
“What are you doin’ up here?” Digby asked, feeling comfortable enough to put away her own sidearm. She loved dogs too and felt bad for these guys, now that she didn’t feel scared anymore.
“Digby. I need to talk to you,” Smith said. “Talking to you helps me think.”