Zeller looks at a glowering Max and chuckles.
“No point, anyway,” Ed adds. “He wouldn’t catch a young buck like that.”
Zeller’s eyes snap back to Ed. “Did you get a good look at the shooter? Enough to put it on the air?”
Max nods. “Let’s see. The back fence is six feet tall, so let’s call the guy around six foot?” he asks Ed, who studies the fence and gate and then nods.
“Kinda stocky,” Max adds. Ed nods again.
“Definitely a man?” Zeller asks.
“Yeah,” Ed replies. “That was my first impression. The build. How he moved. Probably young, too. Pretty agile.”
Max nods. “Absolutely.”
A cop pushes the back gate open. “There’s a little blood on the gate and a few drops leading away. Is it from anyone in there?”
Max’s eyes light up. “I got the fucker!”
“The blood’s not from anyone in here,” Zeller shouts back. He turns back to Max and Ed. “Anything else you can tell me about the shooter?”
“Black pants,” Ed says.
“Dark hoodie, too,” Max adds.
“Anything else? Hair? Skin?”
Ed shakes his head. “Balaclava.”
“Fucking gloves, too,” Max mutters. “No idea what color the fucker’s skin is.”
“It’s a start,” Zeller says before turning away and calling in what they have. He ends on a hopeful note. “Possible gunshot wound, as well.”
“I hope they find the fucker bleeding out somewhere,” Max mutters before he turns and stalks toward the back door. “What kind of cocksucker hurts a fucking dog?”
Don’t forget that he shot your partner, too, Ed thinks with a painful chuckle. The laugh dies on his lips when his eyes settle on the limp lump of fur at the feet of the distraught policewoman standing by the back gate.
Chapter Seven
It’s a little after nine o’clock the next morning when I pull into our driveway after a night at the animal hospital. Brittany, her eyes puffy and red from crying most of the time we spent sitting beside a comatose Deano after the vet finished examining and treating him, insisted on remaining at the dog’s bedside while I came home.
Papa’s frantic call after the shooting had cut short our lunch with Ben Larose, sending Pat and me racing home as fast as my Porsche could take us. After being assured by the paramedics hovering over Ed that he was okay—other than having been shot—we’d hopped back in the car and chased the police cruiser taking Deano to the nearest animal hospital.
As near as the vet can guess, the shooter pistol-whipped Deano once across the face and had also landed one or more vicious kicks to the dog’s midsection with a heavy boot. Bad, yeah, but I’m grateful the bastard didn’t simply put a bullet into our mutt. Assuming there’s no underlying organ damage that has yet to reveal itself, Deano should recover in anywhere from a few weeks to a month or two. The vet suspects he’s got a doggy concussion, as well. I doubt any of it will curb his appetite.
I take a deep breath after I shut off the car and work my stiff neck around to produce a satisfying crack. Then I hustle through the rain to the front porch and take refuge with a pair of Ed Stankowski’s fellow fossils.
“How’s the pooch?” the white-haired one asks. I’ll be damned if I can remember the names of these guys. Hell, they’re all white haired or well on their way to being so… if they have any hair at all.
I tell them what I know, prompting a few caustic remarks leveled at the kind of scum who hurts animals. I’m mildly amused when neither castigates the guy for shooting Ed.
“How is Deano?” Papa asks anxiously as soon as I step inside. He looks haunted, not unlike the near catatonic state he’d lapsed into during the days after the shooting last year. He’s once again overcome with guilt. For Ed? Deano? Both?
I rest a hand on his shoulder and squeeze. “Stop blaming yourself, Papa. This isn’t your fault.” When his eyes meet mine, I realize that nothing I can say will convince him of that. “Deano’s doing as well as can be expected.”
“I will pray,” Papa announces solemnly when I finish.
What the hell? Papa hasn’t prayed since my sister, Amy, died during a covert US Army operation in Colombia sixteen years ago.
“Plummer and Ed are here,” Papa tells me before he heads toward the back of the house.
“Ed?” I ask in surprise as I follow. I knew Jake Plummer was coming by; he’d called last night to tell me that we need to talk.
Papa nods. “Plummer, he say Ed stupid to come.”
“He might be right.”
Papa’s nostrils flare. “You no make Ed joke!”
“Just kidding around,” I assure him as I walk through the kitchen and open the back door. “Come on, Papa. Let’s hear what they have to say.”
We find Plummer and Ed lounging on a pair of pastel Adirondack chairs tucked under the extended retractable awning. Ed’s bandaged arm is in a sling, and he looks a little pale. To my surprise, his partner from yesterday, Max, is also here, standing off to one side. I met Max for the first time in our yard after the shooting. He seems to be a formidable old bugger.
“How’s Deano?” Ed asks immediately. “He gonna pull through?”
“Looks like he should.”
Ed sighs in relief. “Who woulda thought the lazy old mutt had a mean streak?”
I smile tightly and turn to Plummer. “Did they catch the bastard yet?”
He looks decidedly unhappy when he shakes his head no.
“Any leads?”
He shakes his head again and mutters, “Not yet.”
Shit. I don’t like the idea of staying here while somebody is targeting Papa. At least I had Brittany spend last night at Pat’s house. She’s at school today, and this morning I told her to go to Pat’s after school. I don’t understand my father’s insistence on staying here. There’s the fatalistic streak in him that revealed itself last year during his trial
