BOFFO: By Robert C. Eccles
Saturday, April 17th, 2010
The sound of digging in the back yard woke Pete up. He looked at the alarm clock on his side table. Two-thirty a.m. Pete went to his bedroom window and looked out. His dog, Boffo, a big Rottweiler, was churning a hole in the grass with his front paws. There was something lying on the ground next to the dog, but Pete couldn’t see what it was. Pete threw up the window.
“Boffo, stop that!” Pete hissed. The dog ignored him. “Boffo! Bad dog!” The digging continued.
Pete put on his robe and slippers, grabbed a flashlight and went outside. In the bobbing beam of the flashlight Pete could see that whatever had been lying on the grass was now gone, and Boffo was busy kicking dirt with his hind legs, filling the hole back up. There was something poking out of the hole, and as Pete drew closer he saw that it was the tip of a fluffy black-and-white tail.
“Boffo! Get away from there!”
The dog growled at Pete, baring its teeth, and continued kicking dirt. Boffo had never growled at Pete before.
Boffo finished filling in the hole and trotted off to his doghouse. Pete waited a moment, then walked over to the mound of dirt. A tiny spot of white fur was still visible. After a glance toward the dog house Pete reached down and grabbed the tail. He lifted the animal out of the hole and shook off the dirt. It was his next-door-neighbor Mrs. Lavery’s cat, Princess. The way its head lolled it was clear its neck had been broken. Pete dropped the cat in disgust and turned to yell at Boffo.
“Bad…” the dog was right behind him. Boffo growled, and Pete moved away. The dog re-dug the hole, placed the cat’s body inside and covered it back up, then went back to his doghouse. Pete looked at the pile of dirt. Boffo had buried the cat completely this time. Pete decided it was better to let the dog have its prize. He went back inside and tried to go back to sleep. He was still awake when the alarm clock buzzed at six a.m.
***
The sound of digging woke Pete up again the next night.
“Now what?” Pete asked as he went out into the back yard, flashlight in hand. What Pete saw make bile rise in the back of his throat.
Next to the hole Boffo was digging lay the body of a toddler, probably no more than two years old. It was difficult to be sure with all the blood and dirt, but Pete thought he recognized the child as the Benchley’s daughter, Samantha from down the street. As Pete watched Boffo picked up the limp body in his muzzle and dropped it into the hole. He kicked dirt back into the hole covering all but one tiny foot before going back to his doghouse.
Pete ran his hands through his hair. What was he going to do? Should he call the police? Surely they’d be aware that he had done hard time for a killing that was pled down to involuntary manslaughter. How likely would they be to believe that his dog had killed the child? Not very, Pete figured. He knelt next to the fresh mound of dirt, shoved the foot down into the ground and patted it down. Pete looked over at Boffo’s doghouse. A growl rumbled in the dark opening and Pete hurried back inside.
***
Again, the digging woke Pete up. He was sure he didn’t want to know what Boffo was burying this time, but at the same time he was helpless to ignore the urge to go outside and find out.
This time the flashlight beam fell on the body of old Mrs. Perkins from across the street. The woman was in her nightgown, curlers in her hair. She couldn’t weigh more than ninety pounds, but it still took Boffo a long time to dig a hole big enough for Mrs. Perkins. Once it had been dug the dog rolled the lifeless body into the hole with his snout. The old woman’s dentures lay on the grass beside the hole. Pete picked them up.
A second flashlight beam pierced the darkness of the back yard, and Boffo scurried back to his doghouse. Pete stood up and turned toward the source of the light.
“Hold it right there!” came a voice from behind the flashlight. “Drop what you’re holding and put your hands above your head!”
Pete dropped the dentures, and they clattered to the lawn. He raised his hands. The cop with the flashlight yanked Pete’s hands down behind his back and cuffed him. The flashlight beam illuminated Mrs. Perkins’s body in the hole.
“You’re going away for a long time, pal,” the police officer said as he led Pete out of the yard.
***
Pete got a double life sentence for the murders of little Samantha Benchley and Mrs. Perkins. Boffo was adopted out to a family in a nearby town.
“The shelter said he should be fine with children and other pets,” Boffo’s new owner said as she led the dog into her home for the first time. “And they said he should be fine around dad, too.”
Boffo regarded the cat hiding under the couch, the little boy sitting in a high chair and the old man shuffling toward him behind a walker and growled deep in his throat.
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© 2010 Robert C. Eccles
