Chapter 24: Exactly What It Cost

On Wednesday afternoon I carried a ten-million-dollar check with teeth marks into the county animal shelter.

I had come to audit it.

The shelter director met us at the front desk.

She was a gray-haired woman in a fleece vest.

She held a forty-one page budget for a new building.

Silvan stood behind me with Gerald, who was sniffing the carpet with a great deal of interest.

Truffle sat in my arms, looking at the other dogs through the glass.

He had been one of them, once.

"You said ten million," the director said. "Mr. Waverley's office said ten million."

"I said the exact cost," I said. "Sit down. Show me the numbers."

We sat at her desk for two hours.

I read all forty-one pages, with a pencil.

On page nineteen, the chairs for the waiting room appeared twice.

On page twenty-six, a line for coffee came to nine hundred and eighty-six dollars a month.

I made her explain it.

When we finished, the building cost $9,998,964.00, and I put the pencil down.

"That leaves one thousand and thirty-six dollars," the director said.

"Then it goes in a fund," I said.

"For the dogs that come in with something the building can't fix."

"What shall we call it?"

"The Truffle Whitfield Veterinary Fund."

"Why that name?"

"Because I'm told I'll be paying into it for the rest of my life."

I took the pen and turned over the check.

My hand was shaking, so I wrote slowly.

I wrote: Pay to the order of the County Animal Shelter. For deposit only.

Silvan said, quietly, "It's a lot of money to give away."

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