The Rescue at Dead Dog Beach by Stephen McGarva

went through the motions of burying them, but my brain shut down until the last grain of sand filled the final grave. When it was done, I collapsed, two words running through my head: Now what?
    The body being buried could have just as easily been mine.

CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
    I tried the police one more time after the attack at the boathouse.
    â€œI tell you already. Don’t go there no more,” the cop said.
    â€œI’m burying two or three dogs a day, man. You’ve got to do something! Please!”
    â€œIt is illegal, what you are doing. You cannot bury any animal on the island without proper authorization. We could have you arrested.”
    They were going to arrest me ? What was wrong with this place?
    I felt like I was losing another piece of myself every time I buried another dog. If I didn’t do something drastic, nothing would ever change for them. In the meantime, Pam and I were fighting more and more the further down this spiral I traveled. She was watching the man she loved drown in a cause that was likely going to kill him.
    I also put her job at risk after a run-in with one of the security guards at her office one evening when I went to pick her up. They usually allowed me to drive inside the gates to spare her walking across the dark parking lot alone, but one night a new guard wouldn’t let me in and I lost it. The guard reported me to the company for threatening him, and Pam was called in to speak to HR and her boss.
    That night, she was furious. “It’s like you can’t control yourself anymore,” she said over dinner.
    â€œThe guy was an asshole, Pam. He’s lucky I didn’t kick his ass.”
    â€œThis is my job, Steve! You were out of line.”
    â€œAll you care about is that damn job!”
    â€œThat job is our bread and butter, Steve! What do you think pays for all that dog food? For our house?”
    She was completely right. The old me would have handled the situation differently.
    I hung my head. “I’m sorry, Pammie. I don’t know what’s happening to me. I’m losing it. I can feel myself slipping further and further away.”
    She reached across the table for my hand. Her eyes filled with tears. “Steve,” she said, her voice quiet now, “my biggest fear is that I’m going to get a call at my office one day telling me you’re dead.”
    While she had accepted years earlier that she’d likely lose me to a climbing or flying accident, she never imagined it could be a homicide instead.
    To save me, to save us, Pam decided to call in reinforcements. She still had contacts at a shelter in California where she’d volunteered years earlier, but they told her that they couldn’t take dogs from Puerto Rico because of local rabies laws. After a little Internet research, she found a group called Save a Sato in San Juan. Save a Sato was founded in the midnineties by two women who had basically done what I was doing now—fed strays on the streets of San Juan. They teamed up and started a small animal shelter that had partnerships with a network of no-kill shelters in the States. Pam sent them an e-mail asking for advice or help.
    She heard back from Betsy Freedman, Save a Sato’s outreach coordinator, who was based in Boston. “Talk to Isabel Ramirez,” she suggested. Isabel was a director at Save a Sato in San Juan. Pam and I felt hopeful for the first time in months.
    Sadly, that hope didn’t last long.
    â€œI’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do for you,” Isabel told Pam when they spoke on the phone. “We’ve got our hands full here.”
    Clearly we were on our own.
    Meanwhile, the situation was getting worse on the beach. A few times I saw what appeared to be locals, just regular guys hanging out with their families at the beach for the day, throwing food to the dogs. The dogs would grab the meat and run. Within minutes the dogs would be staggering like