The Dog That Saved Stewart Coolidge by Jim Kraus Page A

came this close to getting him into a 2009 Mazda hatchback with low miles and new tires.
    It’s working. People are stopping in for no reason other than to ask about the mutt.
    After the first blush of interest and calls and condolences, Bargain Bill had returned to the Insta-Print store and had Sam make a huge version of his original WANTED poster, and this time he had him print it on canvas, nearly six feet high and over four feet wide. He tied one end to the telephone pole outside his office and the other side he fastened to a faded red Ram pickup truck that had been on the lot for more than three months. The sign luffed in the breeze, flapping in and out, like it was alive and breathing.
    That’ll get people to slow down.
    He stood back and waved at a car that honked as it went by.
    And maybe it’ll help get this truck sold.
    Bargain Bill sauntered back to his office, full of high spirits and great expectations, knowing that this day would obviously be “a super-duper” day.
    The good feeling almost made him wish that the dog really belonged to him.

    Ralph Arden hiked up his work-grade khaki trousers with the built-in, absolutely permanent crease, and continued down Maple Street. The breeze was stout this morning, but warm. Strands of black hair were loosened from his carefully combed hair, hiding the bald spot that everyone could see, regardless of his mastery of comb and spray.
    Regardless, Ralph felt almost pleasant this morning. Three cars slowed as they passed, the drivers shouting out to him questions about the dog and whether he had any leads and what the reward was up to today.
    Well, there was that car filled with young hoodlum types who shouted out “Hey, Mr. Wiggins! Cujo goin’ to get you, Mr. Wiggins!” as they passed, but they were, of course, hoodlums, or hooligans, who deserved to be ignored, which he did, with mature, adult condescension.
    And who is Mr. Wiggins?
    But even a packet of ruffians could not disrupt his mood this day.
    Ralph Arden, of Meadville, originally, had been store manager of the Tops Market in Wellsboro for over six years now, and he’d never once felt as if he were considered a part of the proper Wellsboro society. He was not sure if there really was much to proper Wellsboro society—but whatever there was, he felt estranged from it.
    They must have parties and dinners and go on picnics,but I’m never invited. It’s like a tight clique that keeps out outsiders, like me. I know I’m just the manager of the second biggest grocery store in Tioga County, and I suppose that doesn’t mean anything to the locals here—but it should. I’m all but invisible to the movers and shakers in town.
    But now, and for the last few weeks, he felt visible—very and completely visible. People stopped by his table as he had dinner at the Wellsboro Diner, and that had never once happened before—never, ever in six years.
    Like the people in the cars this morning, they asked about the dog and wouldn’t it be prudent to station a guard by the dog food aisle (too expensive) or perhaps move the rawhide bones to a higher shelf (goes counter to corporate’s approved shelf plan-o-gram).
    And no one—not even that snobby Wilson Demerrit who was picked to manage the new store in Erie—could get away with making changes in the plan-o-gram without corporate approval, and no one gets corporate approval.
    His new friends stopped and chatted and commiserated and smiled and shook his hand and introduced their wives and/or children to him. It was like—being accepted.
    And Ralph really liked the feeling.
    Part of him, the part he would never reveal to corporate, ever, that hidden part of him, sort of almost hoped that the dog would not get caught, but he could never, never, ever tell a soul. The longer the dog was on the loose, the longer Mr. Ralph Arden would be accepted.
    No, he had to be a good employee of the Tops chain and make sure that shoplifting and thievery were punished to the full extent