“Are you listening to me?” Stacy asked. “He-llo.”
“Sorry. I’ve just got a big day ahead.” She picked up her to-go cup. “Bye, Dad, be good for Stacy today.”
“I’m always good.”
She smiled at the sane response from her father and left out the door.
Stacy was right on her heels. “I have to leave here at four p.m. sharp today to be with the kids.”
“Yes, I remember. I’ll be off duty at three-thirty. I’ll be home in time.”
“Okay. Just a gentle reminder.”
She stopped and gave Stacy a hug. “Thank you.”
The woman stood with her hands by her sides, then pulled them up and wrapped them around her.
“I appreciate it,” Piper said.
Stacy held her at arm’s length and shook her head. “You look just like your mother, do you know that?” She poked Piper’s stomach. “And you’re just as skinny. You need to put on some weight.”
“Yeah, yeah.” How easy she could do just that by skipping a couple weeks of yoga. “I’ll see you later.”
Piper slowed and parked her Jeep in the same spot as the last time she’d been to Hammes’s house.
She turned off the ignition and sat in her silent car, listening to the incessant click somewhere inside the dashboard until that, too, came to a stop.
It had been four hours since she’d left the house this morning. After a hearty lunch at the bakery in town and a bit of stalling, she was finally here.
Her eyes went to the open window and the road next to her. Two spots still darkened the ground where Hammes and his dog had fallen.
Surprisingly little emotion stirred inside. She had been stalling for nothing, she decided.
She got out, her feet scratching on the road as she approached the spot and bent down, putting her hand down but not touching.
A low rumble of thunder came from the far distance, just at the edge of being audible. Yesterday’s rains hadn’t scrubbed the road clean. Maybe today’s would do the trick. Maybe it would never go away, but soak its way deep in the ground, becoming part of the road, like the memory would with her.
The sky was gathering in the southwest, darkening behind the peaks where the Jackson Mine lay. The air was still. A crow cawed as it glided across the sky and dove into the trees.
She climbed back into the Jeep, fired the engine, and coasted down to Hammes’s house, parking out front of the chain link fence.
"Howdy, there!"
She started and turned to see the neighbor, Ned Larson, out in Hammes’s front yard.
“You caught me!” he said, holding his hands up. He picked up something off the ground near the front door and walked toward her and the fence.
“What are you doing in there?” Her heart was racing. The last thing she was expecting was a confrontation. She hung back on the other side of the Jeep, keeping her hand close to her weapon.
Ned held up a silver bowl that glinted in the afternoon sunlight. “I told you that demon took my bowl. I figured now that they’re in the hospital I’d come over and get my property back before he returns. Otherwise I’ll never get it.”
She relaxed a bit. “You scared me.”
Ned seemed oblivious to her. He reached the chain link and dropped the bowl over the other side with a clank, and then proceeded to climb the fence with the least amount of grace she’d ever seen.
“Do you need my help?” she asked, watching him quiver on top as he pulled his other leg over.
“I didn't feed Dex that steak,” Larson said, stumbling to his knees at her feet.
“Are you okay?”
Larson ignored her again and got up, brushing himself off. “He was yelling at me about that when he came home. I know what meat can do to him. I fed him only the specific blend of chow he gave me from the Tupperware. I never fed him anything else. Sure as hell not this.” He reached over and picked up his bowl, then something else off the ground.
He straightened, holding the steel bowl in one hand and a bone in the other. “I just found this. Must be what Rick was yelling about what gave Dex the shits. Like I have extra bone-in ribeyes lying around to feed a measly mutt who hates me anyway. Besides, I wouldn’t be so cruel. I knew damn well about his condition.”
She took the bone from his hand. “T-Bone.”
“Huh?”
“It’s a T-Bone steak bone.” It was her father’s favorite meal. “Where did you find this?”
“In there. It was lying in my bowl.”
“In the yard?”
“Yes ma’am.” Larson’s eyes flicked to her breasts and back.
“And what kind of condition did Dex have?” she asked.
“Some sort of red meat allergy or deficiency or something? I don’t know. Dog can’t eat meat or it gives him the shits. Can be life-threatening, I guess. Rick told me all about it before I left. I may be a bit blind but I ain’t deaf. I didn’t feed him no T-bone.”
She remembered back to that morning when they had come here the first time. The dog had gone to the bathroom twice while they were there. Now that she thought about it, it had seemed like it was not feeling well. She looked inside at an array of feces around the yard. She was no veterinarian, but they did not look healthy as far as dog poop went.
Ned was still going on about the steak.
“Sir,” she said.
“What?”
“What usually happens when you come up to this fence? I mean, when you come over to feed Dex, does he bark at you?”
“Yeah. Barks like a guy with his nuts—”
“—Okay, yeah. And what happens when you feed him the food?”
Ned shrugged. “He eats it.”
“And he stops barking?”
“Yeah. That’s the only way to stop him.”
“And what time did you hear Dex barking Monday night?”
“Shit, I don’t know. It was late. Like
