It wasn’t the presence of the tractor trailer that caused John Paxos to take notice.
He was in a rest area off the Garden State Parkway near Paterson, New Jersey, and he figured that truck drivers needed to rest and use the bathroom like anyone else. There were truck stops nearby, but maybe this guy just couldn’t wait.
The weird way it was parked, at an angle, struck Paxos as strange, but maybe the guy had to go really bad. There was no particular reason for him to park carefully; there was plenty of room. In fact, there were no other cars until Paxos arrived.
But a couple of other factors bothered him. When Paxos used the restroom, he didn’t see anyone else in there. Maybe the driver was female? When he came out, he could hear that the engine in the truck was still running. That made no sense at all; he could just drive off with the truck if he wanted to. Fortunately for the careless driver, Paxos was a pharmacist, not a thief. And his passion was collecting vintage cars; the tractor trailer didn’t quite fit the collection.
There was certainly the chance that the driver was in the back of the truck, maybe readjusting whatever it was he was hauling. Of course, that was it. Paxos was about to accept that and walk away, get back on the road, but something stopped him from doing so.
It was just a feeling, but it was a feeling that made him call out “Hello?” a few times, each time a bit louder than the time before it. But there was no response from the driver.
And that’s when he heard the barking.
It wasn’t just one dog; that much was certain. It seemed like there must have been an army of dogs in that truck; Paxos would later estimate the number at thirty and would be very low at that. What kind of a tractor trailer hauled dogs as cargo?
So he called out again, though against the sound of the barking, there was no way anyone could have heard him. But if the dogs had heard his earlier call, and the fact that it started the barking indicated they had, then a person in the truck should have heard it as well. Yet no one had responded.
Paxos couldn’t just leave the rest stop, not with the dogs on the truck. It could be hot back there; at the very least he knew he had to call someone. Maybe local animal control or the police.
He decided on animal control, so he got them on the phone and told them what he knew, which wasn’t much. He promised to wait for them; they said it would take ten minutes to get there.
But Paxos didn’t want to tell them when they arrived that he hadn’t even checked out the dogs on the truck, and he wanted to know what he was dealing with. So after a few minutes of thinking about it, he cautiously stepped up on to the truck and looked toward the sound of the barking.
And that’s when he saw the blood.
“Andy, it’s Ralph.”
Caller ID had said “Private Caller,” and I don’t recognize the voice on the line. The only “Ralph” that comes to mind is Kramden, but I doubt that’s who’s calling me.
“Did you say Ralph?” I ask.
“Ralph … Brandenberger. Andy, you have to get over here.”
That clears it up. Ralph Brandenberger is the director of the Passaic County Animal Shelter. My friend Willie Miller and I run the Tara Foundation, a dog rescue organization named after my golden retriever, who is the greatest dog in the history of the universe. We often help Ralph out when his shelter is overcrowded by taking dogs and finding homes for them.
I don’t know that I’ve ever talked to Ralph on the phone, which might be why his voice seems unfamiliar. But it’s more than that; he sounds out of breath, and maybe even scared.
“You want me to come down to the shelter?” I ask.
“No, I’m at the rest stop on the Garden State, near Exit 156. Andy, it’s awful … please hurry.”
“What’s wrong?”
I hear some people talking in the background, and Ralph says, “I can’t talk now. They’re telling me to move back. Please, Andy.”
Click.
I’m left with a sense of dread. If Ralph is calling me and needs my help about something “awful,” it must involve dogs being hurt, or injured, or abused. And if there is anything I hate in this world, it’s animals being hurt, or injured, or abused.
My wife, Laurie, is out shopping with our son, Ricky, so I can’t ask her to go with me. Instead I call Willie Miller, which comes with its own level of risk. Willie can be volatile, and when that volatility is combined with his expertise in karate, he can be extremely dangerous.
If there is a human identified with abusing a dog, and if Willie is within proximity of that human, it can get very ugly, very quickly. Willie is a bigger dog lunatic than I am, and that is saying something.
But I call him, and I tell him I’ll pick him up at the foundation, since it’s on the way. He’s waiting outside when I pull up, and he spends the next ten minutes asking me questions that I can’t answer. I look over and see that his fist is clenched into a ball; I’m sure he’s painted a mental picture of a scene that includes an abused animal and an abuser that is within his reach.
“Take it easy, Willie,” I say, a suggestion that has zero chance of having any impact whatsoever.
“I got this one,” he says.
I don’t know what he means by that, but I don’t have time to ponder it. We get to the rest stop but can’t pull in, because the entrance is blocked by police tape. The police tape, as it usually is, is guarded by police officers.
We park along the road and walk toward the tape, and an officer I don’t recognize says, “You can’t come in here.”
“My name is Andy Carpenter. This is Willie Miller.”
“That supposed to mean something?” He doesn’t seem to be aware of my fame; from now on, I probably should carry my press clippings with me.
I see Ralph about twenty yards behind him; he has spotted us and is running toward us. “It’s okay,” he says to the officer. “They’re with me.”
The officer is less than impressed by this declaration. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m the one who called you guys here.”
It’s a fascinating conversation, but my attention is drawn to another police officer I see. It’s Pete Stanton, my closest and only friend in the Paterson Police Department.
Pete is a captain in charge of the homicide division, which makes this situation a whole lot more confusing and ominous. The homicides he investigates are of the human variety, so any incident that involves both Ralph and Pete indicates a puzzling mixture of species.
Copyright © 2018 by Tara Productions, Inc.
